Well looks like Season 14 is introducing a new Red Alert (Tzenkethi Alert) so that will probably deal yet another hit to the already empty queues.
At this point, I think Cryptic has given up on queues and has put their effort into things that people can do instead.
Yea it’s almost as if they only gat a “players still have trouble getting their stuff at end game” message and react by designing content with easier access to the said stuff as result. Problem is just that we already reached auto win conditions.
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I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
I have a thought on that..
I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
I have a thought on that..
I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
I have a thought on that..
I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
You're probably right, but it still just further highlights how awful this new UI really is. The idea of pulling in the next available player is an obviously better approach then just dropping the entire team. I'm just baffled by this.. I really am, I just don't get what Cryptic was thinking.
Why spend time and effort on development of a system that is archaic and antiquated in comparison to the system it's replacing? I swear man.. it's just maddening sometimes.
The Crystal's wave damage is based off incoming energy damage during it's absorption phase. It's weak now since a lot of players that run there either have torpedo builds, sci builds or weak energy weapon ships. I've seen parses there where 7-8/10 players are below 5k so that wave gets much weaker.
Right, right. That makes sense.
My Tac uses energy weapons loadout. Coalition D's. And Naus Energy Torp. And I'm too lazy to switch over to Kin/Exo.
So I guess I'm my own worse enemy lol, arbiter of my own demise - One shotting myself into oblivion.
Keeps things interesting though.
And can usually still pull 2nd or 3rd place with a death.
Those Tholians tho... there torps can hit rather hard though, especially when you've aggro'd a bunch. 10-15k damage per High Yield..
And there's like 10 coming at once..
I've noticed them being more of nuisance, at least since s13... maybe longer.
I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
I have a thought on that..
I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
You're probably right, but it still just further highlights how awful this new UI really is. The idea of pulling in the next available player is an obviously better approach then just dropping the entire team. I'm just baffled by this.. I really am, I just don't get what Cryptic was thinking.
Why spend time and effort on development of a system that is archaic and antiquated in comparison to the system it's replacing? I swear man.. it's just maddening sometimes.
Not to argue with you, because I agree with ya, but they usually do a good job on these system updates (see boff update/Kits etc)
So it's kind of surprising they dropped the ball on the Queue UI... these types of revamps are usually their bread and butter.
But even pre Queue UI revamp, I had quite a few player decline's.
Granted, that would happen mostly on queues which took a long time to pop generally. I just figured someone in queue fell asleep at the keyboard or was afk.
Can't blame them, it's really annoying to wait 30-40 mins (or much longer) for some obscure queue to pop.
Post DR when the PvP queues were really dying off, I had that Player Decline happen very often. Could take up to an hour (or even longer) for the regular 10 man queue to pop. You get all excited to get the Accept dialog box, only to be disappointed 3 seconds later, when Player Declined message would pop up. "Great" just wasted an hour waiting around for PvP."
But yeah. It seems to happen a lot more frequently since the new UI was introduced.
So again, I'm not fond of the new system either.
If only for the fact it's a lot more annoying to get a private match setup... Like.. typing everyone's name into the invite section is brutally annoying.
I preferred the previous method of left clicking on a players name "invite to private match queue" (or however that was worded).
Heck.. I've noticed a lot of people in the DPS channels either don't want the hassle of setting up a match themselves now days(because its annoying AF typing in everyone's name) or they don't know how.
Recently for Suicide Sompek runs.. everyone just threw up a "SS" in DPS channel chat and hoped for the best..
There'd often be 10-20 ppl just waiting around for someone else to set up the match.
By then end of it, I started setting up matches because waiting around for someone else to do it was taking way too long.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
Yes. Another thing is loss of flexible start conditions. CCA for example, could previously start with 7 players, so if there was a decline or two it could just start anyway. Now all the queues must be full to start which is the exact wrong direction to take things.
Not to argue with you, because I agree with ya, but they usually do a good job on these system updates (see boff update/Kits etc)
So it's kind of surprising they dropped the ball on the Queue UI... these types of revamps are usually their bread and butter.
I wasn't surprised at all. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was absolutely nothing mechanically wrong about the old queue system, so all they could possibly manage to do with the "revamp" was to break anything they touched.
As far as I'm concerned, there were two useful improvements: the category filters and the ability to join more than 3 queues at once. Everything else has been a disaster and despite several refinements they haven't even been able to restore the system to previous level of functionality.
Can't help but wonder how many of those 'declines' were actually players who got bored of waiting and timed-out. Does the new system have a 'did not respond' message or does it just treat those as declines too.
Eitherway - I know I have, on occasion, gotten bored of waiting for a queue to pop and switched to the Forums or Youtube instead.
Ah ok. I was always under the impression that a decline can also originate from players queueing up for multiple matches simultaneously and then missing out for the others in case one of their instances has started.
I also thought the system to be good enough that in case of a pool of more peeps than needed for specific maps that single decliners get filtered out automatically and others get inserted.
Either the system is much worse than it already appears to be or it simply can’t work properly in total absence of participants.
In any case fascinating how topics like “players are only queuing up for ISA and CCA” from a few months ago feel like luxury problems today.
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Can't help but wonder how many of those 'declines' were actually players who got bored of waiting and timed-out. Does the new system have a 'did not respond' message or does it just treat those as declines too.
Eitherway - I know I have, on occasion, gotten bored of waiting for a queue to pop and switched to the Forums or Youtube instead.
Ah ok. I was always under the impression that a decline can also originate from players queueing up for multiple matches simultaneously and then missing out for the others in case one of their instances has started.
When a queue mission starts, it removes the player from all other queues. I wouldn't expect the system to be stupid enough to offer a start prompt to some members of a group if other members are not eligible to get one (because they've already accepted and waiting to start a different queue) either, but who knows.
I also thought the system to be good enough that in case of a pool of more peeps than needed for specific maps that single decliners get filtered out automatically and others get inserted.
It used to be. Now it isn't. If there are declines, everyone gets booted out, regrouped and asked to accept again (if there are enough players left in the queue to do that). Every time.
And I've noticed behavior that looks like trolls exploiting this to annoy people by declining and rejoining a queue repeatedly.
Either the system is much worse than it already appears to be or it simply can’t work properly in total absence of participants.
It is so much worse. As for the absense of participants, Cryptic only knows, since the new UI doesn't display players waiting in the queues accurately or players playing the missions at all.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
Yes. Another thing is loss of flexible start conditions. CCA for example, could previously start with 7 players, so if there was a decline or two it could just start anyway. Now all the queues must be full to start which is the exact wrong direction to take things.
Not to argue with you, because I agree with ya, but they usually do a good job on these system updates (see boff update/Kits etc)
So it's kind of surprising they dropped the ball on the Queue UI... these types of revamps are usually their bread and butter.
I wasn't surprised at all. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was absolutely nothing mechanically wrong about the old queue system, so all they could possibly manage to do with the "revamp" was to break anything they touched.
As far as I'm concerned, there were two useful improvements: the category filters and the ability to join more than 3 queues at once. Everything else has been a disaster and despite several refinements they haven't even been able to restore the system to previous level of functionality.
Suppose so, but to be fair, boff UI and Kit UI was not broken either, but they managed to improve/streamline those.
So it was not out of the question to believe the new queue UI would be an improvement.
Unfortunalty that is not the case in it's current state.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
Yes. Another thing is loss of flexible start conditions. CCA for example, could previously start with 7 players, so if there was a decline or two it could just start anyway. Now all the queues must be full to start which is the exact wrong direction to take things.
Not to argue with you, because I agree with ya, but they usually do a good job on these system updates (see boff update/Kits etc)
So it's kind of surprising they dropped the ball on the Queue UI... these types of revamps are usually their bread and butter.
I wasn't surprised at all. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was absolutely nothing mechanically wrong about the old queue system, so all they could possibly manage to do with the "revamp" was to break anything they touched.
As far as I'm concerned, there were two useful improvements: the category filters and the ability to join more than 3 queues at once. Everything else has been a disaster and despite several refinements they haven't even been able to restore the system to previous level of functionality.
Suppose so, but to be fair, boff UI and Kit UI was not broken either, but they managed to improve/streamline those.
So it was not out of the question to believe the new queue UI would be an improvement.
Unfortunalty that is not the case in it's current state.
But the boff and kit revamps added new functionality that needed a new UI to operate it. The queue UI is better compared to the doff UI revamp, which was far more controversial and in fact was also left with missing functionality never restored, such as sorting of the assignment lists.
And of course, the underlying mechanical changes to the boff and kit systems worked properly and were actually better than the previous versions, which in the case of the new queue system clearly isn't the case.
Wow...reading about all this is making me upset....even if I am a player that never really joined in queues (except when Events were running).
You bet. I know the feeling from the „PvP is dead in STO” crowds. I never did it myself much so it was more a sympathy thingy.
Looks like I belong to the “PvE is dead in STO” crowds now. Feels really bad because with PvE gone the game is kinda gone for me.
Admiralty is good no doubt but it’s just not good enough to make a whole game out of it…
How is PVE gone when the problem is unequal distribution, which predates admiralty? Adding the alerts has been the recent kicker because that's given an omni-queue that satisfies any rep in a short-run format (which has proven to be more popular in practically any case.)
The issue, besides system defeating permanent Omni-marks, (and this has been the case for a while) is that long, elaborated queues don't get played often outside of a recent season release, event, or endeavor. How does that change? Not sure if it can, against prediction there really hasn't been any shift towards the long queues. Admiralty, in addition to other changes and additions throughout the game, removed the pressure to hyper-grind short PVE's exclusively for resources. And yet the long queues not being treated as a viable home for long missions (not in the way that mission content or the Foundry is.) They offer more but people still play the short queues regardless of where their need may be (watch what isn't happening now with players hitting their 50k Sompek payouts.)
I think it's a data point to work with. If you know people prefer short queues you can start working with PVE design to appeal to that preference but also encourage more varied queue selection. Namely: new short queues. This isn't a radical idea, it's just something we haven't seen in a long while. Cryptic's been catering (in gameplay design) to the long PVE audience almost exclusively through all modern reps. The Na'Kuhl red alert and Elachi event are pretty much the exceptions and they weren't added as permanent options. That leaves people only with a few classics (CCA, ISA, Alerts) to work with in exercising their general preference.
So, start doing something about that. Set aside one queue in a season as a competitor to the simple staples. The other new queues will inevitably run through the same lifecycle as every other modern queue but the new alert, let's say, may stick around. If it does, then what's viable to play over the long term has increased by one. Cryptic can then continue building on this, adding more short queues to diversify the core of what remains playable season after season (while still developing new long queues too to maintain their aspect of a big update.) This won't help dead queues, but probably nothing short of necromancy (or large-scale queue retirements) will and I don't think we want to go that route.
And as it happens Season 14 has a new alert (see. blog), plus two standard queues (see. STLV announcement). We'll see how this goes.
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The issue, besides system defeating permanent Omni-marks, (and this has been the case for a while) is that long, elaborated queues don't get played often outside of a recent season release, event, or endeavor. How does that change? Not sure if it can, against prediction there really hasn't been any shift towards the long queues. Admiralty, in addition to other changes and additions throughout the game, removed the pressure to hyper-grind short PVE's exclusively for resources. And yet the long queues not being treated as a viable home for long missions (not in the way that mission content or the Foundry is.) They offer more but people still play the short queues regardless of where their need may be (watch what isn't happening now with players hitting their 50k Sompek payouts.)
Thing is, the long queues don't offer more. They offer almost exactly the same rewards (with a bit of variance one way or the other in the mark numbers) as the short ones. Leaving players with the question of "are you going to choose a 1 minute or a 20 minute mission for the same reward?" The answer is obvious.
I think it's a data point to work with. If you know people prefer short queues you can start working with PVE design to appeal to that preference but also encourage more varied queue selection. Namely: new short queues. This isn't a radical idea, it's just something we haven't seen in a long while. Cryptic's been catering (in gameplay design) to the long PVE audience almost exclusively through all modern reps. The Na'Kuhl red alert and Elachi event are pretty much the exceptions and they weren't added as permanent options. That leaves people only with a few classics (CCA, ISA, Alerts) to work with in exercising their general preference.
Cryptic has never catered for the "long PvE audience." They have been making lots of time-gated long queues, but those are all completely worthless for their reward/time.
So, start doing something about that. Set aside one queue in a season as a competitor to the simple staples. The other new queues will inevitably run through the same lifecycle as every other modern queue but the new alert, let's say, may stick around. If it does, then what's viable to play over the long term has increased by one. Cryptic can then continue building on this, adding more short queues to diversify the core of what remains playable season after season (while still developing new long queues too to maintain their aspect of a big update.) This won't help dead queues, but probably nothing short of necromancy (or large-scale queue retirements) will and I don't think we want to go that route.
Only one can be the shortest, and I unless they start giving rewards in the loading screen, beating CCA's 30-60 seconds is a very tall order.
In any case the topic was how to get people to play the queues that exist and starting some kind of arms race of unbalanced instant gratification queues is pretty much the opposite of an answer.
The correct answer being rewards balancing and unique queue-specific rewards.
I was talking about gameplay, not your intense fixation. Personally, I don't consider it to be the critical factor, only one actor in a more complex system, so consider my posts with that in mind.
Cryptic has never catered for the "long PvE audience." They have been making lots of time-gated long queues, but those are all completely worthless for their reward/time.
This is a gross misinterpretation, correcting which isn't something I particularly enjoy doing (I think the meaning is quite evident from content and context, it might help if you read posts rather than reacting at them.)
List out every PVE in modern STO history. With the exception special event queues they are all long. That's what I mean by catering to the long PVE audience, Cryptic has been developing permanent PVE queues that cater almost exclusively to people who prefer long queues. New short queues have been very few and far between.
What they haven't done is one very specific thing: directly tweak base dil rewards (in CCA, never mind this happening with the STF's.) But as we've talked about that point isn't the sole that should be considered because with everything else that's happened to the game the significance of those base rewards has proportionally decreased. They don't matter as much as they used to, and yet we still see intense queue imbalances. You don't seem to care about those facts (they disagree with your isolated theory) so let's put this one aside (as I did, to try to let a more balanced discussion take the place of this one) and look at how to work with the PVE system as it is and make suggestions for rational and viable improvements.
An equal queue distribution can't happen, STO doesn't have the numbers to fill all queues across all difficulties reliably. I could cite contemporary examples from the industry and how they've managed their PVE/PVP queues but because those are facts your theory doesn't care about it'll likely be wasted effort. So let's just move on to the point: there will be dead queues in STO unless Cryptic starts retiring them for eventual inclusion into events like the Elachi Alert or Breach (just consider this as one step further from a PVE endeavor). That is how you render a total fix with a high degree of certainty (gut the system, restructure it according to demonstrated principles) but a fix that drastic isn't going to be palatable to most here. So, we're looking at smaller accommodations (treatment rather than invasive surgery.) One of which: add new short queues to add to the pool of stable queues. That will at least give more diversity to PVE offerings over the long term (mitigating the core problem).
If you don't want to consider treaments, fine but it's questionable then why you're arguing against my point on these grounds this when your suggestions also fit into this category (and more innocuously; I'm taking about talking PVE gameplay design, not just simple rewards math.)
Only one can be the shortest, and I unless they start giving rewards in the loading screen, beating CCA's 30-60 seconds is a very tall order.
And CCA isn't reliably the most played queue (currently that appears to be the Borg alert). Nor is the top queue the only one played, it's one of a subset which we've been freely discussing up until now.
In any case the topic was how to get people to play the queues that exist and starting some kind of arms race of unbalanced instant gratification queues is pretty much the opposite of an answer.
The correct answer being rewards balancing and unique queue-specific rewards.
Correct answer? How do you arrive at that? Your examples are bent by some fairly outrageous exaggerations (see. above). Even if I agreed with you on some parts the whole must be taken as "a poor argument." I point and you shout more wildly. So where's this really going to go? Are you going to participate in an exchange of ideas, where two people consider what the other has presented (I've tried to give you the best shot possible, and unlike how I suspect you'll reply to this I actually mean it), or are you just looking for an ego bashing test of endurance?
Honestly, I could go all day but that would derail the thread (in a very unamusing way) with something that wasn't ultimately about STO. The common problem with the queue system is that content is being made that isn't played for long. New/long queues have viable populations for the first part of a season and then they drift off as people complete their reputations (ie. their set of unique rewards). You can presume that's solely a matter of dilithium but with demonstrated inconsistently in that theory (as the exclusive factor, the fact you disagree vehemently with this neutral point is a pretty good indicator of where you are in this discussion) other approaches should probably considered as well.
That's it, it's an open point of discussion that gives room to new ideas. You may not think we need them, but what does that matter to a forum? Throwing ideas around is rather the point.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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About que's i guess you lot are talking about adv/elites so i cant say anything (only adv i do is crystalline at it start usually in 1 minute), in normal those i do start kinda decently (but true so far i didnt even tried all of them), mostly i do counterpoint, borg:disconnected, undine assault (STO moba hehe), the cure found and gateway of idontrecallrightnowofwhat other than ofc the usual Borg and Tholian RA that start always instant.
ABout que's tbh i find annoying too that canceling spree that sometimes happen (record so far is 7 canceled que's in about 2 minutes), tbh sometimes i got the impression someone is doing on purpose seen anyway in STO you get no penalty at all for that (in Forsaken world for example if you cancel a que cant reapply for 5 mins).
Oh, am talking about FED ofc, got a Gorn too and gotta say on klingon side nothing but RA's ever start indeed.
But about Admiralty needing a nerf i totally disagree, in about 2 months i am playing got r10 in just 1 of the factions and completed that "too easy tour" (that i guess are the 10 golden mission) just once in 1 char for 1 faction.
Add to this i csed the Alita, the Jupiter, the 31° temporal ships pack and the Vesta bundle, that gave me 8 decent ships for Admiralty (+ the Tanius from phoenix, Pastek for a mission and lately got also the Rhode island, or w/e is called hehe).
Even with those "extra ships" alts get nowhere near enough to cap the daily dil, actually sometimes i get a whole 0 dil in a day depending on which mission it give me.
Not everyone got hundreds ships for Admiralty , so maybe the prob isnt Admiralty himself but ppls ammassing too many "cards", if you wanna reduce prizes at point so the "100 ships dudes" dont get enough dil from it then you will also make Admiralty totally worthless for many others (especially new players).
Even with those "extra ships" alts get nowhere near enough to cap the daily dil, actually sometimes i get a whole 0 dil in a day depending on which mission it give me.
Not everyone got hundreds ships for Admiralty , so maybe the prob isnt Admiralty himself but ppls ammassing too many "cards", if you wanna reduce prizes at point so the "100 ships dudes" dont get enough dil from it then you will also make Admiralty totally worthless for many others (especially new players).
Long-time players definitely get the most out of it, but as one of them I think there's sufficient limit through available slots and cooldown timers (it can still be easy to run through high-value ships). My characters tend 50+ ships thanks to the C-store and consistent participation events. However, if you want to get a little more what you can do is pick up "cheap" (couple million EC) tier 5 ships from the exchange. These included mirror variants and (since Delta Rising) a few miscellaneous aliens (ex. Nyhydron, Malon, Kazon, APU) and accompanying frigates to lock box highlights (ex. Tholian Widow, Sphere Builder Arebhes Destroyer). You can also pick up an additional shuttle or two from the shipyard contact.
Otherwise, it's just something to keep in mind as you continue building your character(s). Ships come with additional resource benefits through admiralty, which helps take the pressure off grinding.
To add to this great list of supplementary ships for admiralty, one can also buy the "level up" ships for dil, to increase ship roster.
I was talking about gameplay, not your intense fixation. Personally, I don't consider it to be the critical factor, only one actor in a more complex system, so consider my posts with that in mind.
Cryptic has never catered for the "long PvE audience." They have been making lots of time-gated long queues, but those are all completely worthless for their reward/time.
This is a gross misinterpretation, correcting which isn't something I particularly enjoy doing (I think the meaning is quite evident from content and context, it might help if you read posts rather than reacting at them.)
List out every PVE in modern STO history. With the exception special event queues they are all long. That's what I mean by catering to the long PVE audience, Cryptic has been developing permanent PVE queues that cater almost exclusively to people who prefer long queues. New short queues have been very few and far between.
What they haven't done is one very specific thing: directly tweak base dil rewards (in CCA, never mind this happening with the STF's.) But as we've talked about that point isn't the sole that should be considered because with everything else that's happened to the game the significance of those base rewards has proportionally decreased. They don't matter as much as they used to, and yet we still see intense queue imbalances. You don't seem to care about those facts (they disagree with your isolated theory) so let's put this one aside (as I did, to try to let a more balanced discussion take the place of this one) and look at how to work with the PVE system as it is and make suggestions for rational and viable improvements.
An equal queue distribution can't happen, STO doesn't have the numbers to fill all queues across all difficulties reliably. I could cite contemporary examples from the industry and how they've managed their PVE/PVP queues but because those are facts your theory doesn't care about it'll likely be wasted effort. So let's just move on to the point: there will be dead queues in STO unless Cryptic starts retiring them for eventual inclusion into events like the Elachi Alert or Breach (just consider this as one step further from a PVE endeavor). That is how you render a total fix with a high degree of certainty (gut the system, restructure it according to demonstrated principles) but a fix that drastic isn't going to be palatable to most here. So, we're looking at smaller accommodations (treatment rather than invasive surgery.) One of which: add new short queues to add to the pool of stable queues. That will at least give more diversity to PVE offerings over the long term (mitigating the core problem).
If you don't want to consider treaments, fine but it's questionable then why you're arguing against my point on these grounds this when your suggestions also fit into this category (and more innocuously; I'm taking about talking PVE gameplay design, not just simple rewards math.)
Only one can be the shortest, and I unless they start giving rewards in the loading screen, beating CCA's 30-60 seconds is a very tall order.
And CCA isn't reliably the most played queue (currently that appears to be the Borg alert). Nor is the top queue the only one played, it's one of a subset which we've been freely discussing up until now.
In any case the topic was how to get people to play the queues that exist and starting some kind of arms race of unbalanced instant gratification queues is pretty much the opposite of an answer.
The correct answer being rewards balancing and unique queue-specific rewards.
Correct answer? How do you arrive at that? Your examples are bent by some fairly outrageous exaggerations (see. above). Even if I agreed with you on some parts the whole must be taken as "a poor argument." I point and you shout more wildly. So where's this really going to go? Are you going to participate in an exchange of ideas, where two people consider what the other has presented (I've tried to give you the best shot possible, and unlike how I suspect you'll reply to this I actually mean it), or are you just looking for an ego bashing test of endurance?
Honestly, I could go all day but that would derail the thread (in a very unamusing way) with something that wasn't ultimately about STO. The common problem with the queue system is that content is being made that isn't played for long. New/long queues have viable populations for the first part of a season and then they drift off as people complete their reputations (ie. their set of unique rewards). You can presume that's solely a matter of dilithium but with demonstrated inconsistently in that theory (as the exclusive factor, the fact you disagree vehemently with this neutral point is a pretty good indicator of where you are in this discussion) other approaches should probably considered as well.
That's it, it's an open point of discussion that gives room to new ideas. You may not think we need them, but what does that matter to a forum? Throwing ideas around is rather the point.
Your assertion that everybody just likes short queues and it isn't about rewards isn't particularly plausible, though. One needs only look at Sompek and the number of players who wanted to play the long game even in the face of teammates trying to "5 and die" to see that "everyone just wants things short" isn't remotely true.
On the other hand, nobody can reasonably contest that people like money, real or virtual. That the content that pays the most for time spent is popular is a foregone conclusion. Especially as we're not talking about any small differences here.
Rewards may not be the only factor in queue popularity, but with the extreme gap between them, it certainly is the most significant factor. And since queues have minimum player limits, it creates a negative feedback loop where a less-played queue becomes even less interesting because it takes forever to pop. There's the second factor. Everyone who likes any of the longer queues has been in the situation where you want to play but can't because it's empty.
Of course personal preference comes in at some point, too, but only between content that accomplish the same goal. Nobody plays ISA to get Delta marks or CCA to get the House Martok set. They play the content that rewards those things instead.
That's where the incentivizing happens. Historically, players would do new content while they needed the relevant marks then went back to the highest dil payout when they were done (or an event came that filled up the marks for them). Consider the lukari queues. They were never as popular as new queues usually are, because lukari marks were available from day 1 in the alerts and everyone could get what they wanted easier from there. Without differentiation, all people are left with are the numbers. And the numbers overwhelmingly favor the short queues.
And as the topic still is, getting players into the existing queues, I don't see your idea of abandoning the those queues and just making new ones hoping people will play them is particularly helpful for that purpose. For that matter, if you don't think STO has the numbers to fill the existing amount of queues, why suggest adding new ones at all? If you really think everyone just loves their current grinding spots so much, why not keep doing the same?
On the other hand, turning the queues into some kind of rotating events isn't at all a bad idea in itself (and I'd consider trying to make any idea "palatable" to the forum audience a royal waste of time). But without rewards balancing, wouldn't that just reduce to people waiting for the same popular ones to be in turn? Like the old times when the hourly events were on, and it would just get everyone to wait for the bonus hour to start before playing the same things they'd always play.
But balancing the numeric rewards (dil/marks) enables people to play the content they want without concern for reward/time. After that, add new queues (of whatever description), rotating events, whatever. Without the extreme rewards imbalance everything would just work out smoother. Maybe people would still grind the same things all day...but it would be because they really want to, not just because they pay the best.
And yes, unique rewards would be a good way to give people a reason to want to play different content. Something queues in general need these days, since dilithium is available from so many alternate sources.
OMHO there are 3 things they can do to help with dead queues.
1. Rotate them as weekend events with bonus rewards. There are enough STFs to do 2-3 per weekend.
2. Pull the red alerts out of the queue ui and kill the choice of marks. This is the single biggest killer right now not associated with bug filled ui. Likewise with horn minefield and the big dig. These were great for ship mastery/px now they might as well kill them because they don't get used at all.
3. Fix the ui. It looks good but needs a ton of work to be dependable.
Your assertion that everybody just likes short queues and it isn't about rewards isn't particularly plausible, though. One needs only look at Sompek and the number of players who wanted to play the long game even in the face of teammates trying to "5 and die" to see that "everyone just wants things short" isn't remotely true.
Let's consider Sompek again (because I think it might lead us to an understood consensus): players have made a long queue short with the 5th round being the selected cut off (it's the minimum). Now think, how does this mean that players don't also prefer short queues? A gameplay preference would compliment the desire to end the round quickly. It doesn't act in opposition.
Rewards and (on-average) PVE gameplay preferences probably act in some way together to produce the popular "5 and die." Rewards specify "5" and the preference waves it on (it's getting what it wants too). This is my point. I'm not saying that it isn't about the rewards (see. why Endeavors work), only that they don't explain everything about queue population distribution over time (ex. it's long intensity in spite of broad changes to the dilithium economy progressively weakening the value of base rewards). So, changing the rewards structure isn't likely to fix the PVE system totally. It may help adjust the distribution but it may only go so far to reviving old queues because it doesn't touch the other factors that go into deciding "what do I play now?" (ie. gameplay)
What's probably advisable then is a mult-faceted dev strategy, with rewards tweaks and new approaches to PVE design and maintenance. Such as:
But balancing the numeric rewards (dil/marks) enables people to play the content they want without concern for reward/time. After that, add new queues (of whatever description), rotating events, whatever. Without the extreme rewards imbalance everything would just work out smoother.
Although I still have to disagree with this:
And yes, unique rewards would be a good way to give people a reason to want to play different content. Something queues in general need these days, since dilithium is available from so many alternate sources.
Reputations offered unique rewards (up until the Borg/Tholian alerts established a permanent work around) and they didn't maintain dead queues over the long term. What's probably advisable here is to clean up the free choice of marks (to reinstate this layer of incentive) rather than developing a whole new set of PVE gear (with the dev cost and content trade offs that invokes.)
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Reputations offered unique rewards (up until the Borg/Tholian alerts established a permanent work around) and they didn't maintain dead queues over the long term. What's probably advisable here is to clean up the free choice of marks (to reinstate this layer of incentive) rather than developing a whole new set of PVE gear (with the dev cost and content trade offs that invokes.)
Yes, removing the choice marks would help. The reason marks alone can't maintain long-term interest is sooner or later there comes a point at which a player doesn't want any more rep stuff and then the marks are just traded for more dilithium. Marks also aren't unique, but rather given by several different content (even before choice marks), so the degree of differentiation is lower. This is particularly noticeable in reps with large variety of content, like omega.
All incentive schemes require development cost. Some more than others. But seeing as they make full gear sets for every episode mission these days, for no more gain than getting players to repeat said episode 3-4 times, creating items doesn't appear to be prohibitively expensive.
I can see a method of dealing with what happens when a players gets the unique drop from a specific que, or rather when based on the metrics enough of the player-base has obtained the drop. You could than have periodic updates to the stf specific drop lists, which could maybe even having this happen for the different stfs in a staggered manner. Though you would need other things like a rotation of available stfs, missions that have you needing to run specific stfs much like the endeavor system, as well as other such methods of creating an appeal an draw to play the other stfs.
If they did abit of a rework to the upgrading system, and put afew drops in the stfs that can be used on rep-gear that would alter the gear in someways, which could be changing it into a different weapon in the same type (like turning a rep dual cannon into a single or dual-heavy version), or even taking an existing rep item an thru the item have it change into a different version of the item with stats that might be more appealing to other builds/careers could also be a nice incentive. This could be done even thru the rep-store as a project, much like having rep-projects for gear/items that take unique-items that are from specific stfs.
THe issue with a static reward system is that it becomes outdated, and the appeal of the reward slowly loses it's appeal an incentive as you run the stf till you get the item. Yet if you have a reward system that you add additional rewards to over time, it both retains it's value of appeal/incentive to play the stfs, but also adds the fact that a new batch of items being added might appeal to players that the last batch might have not appealed to.
All incentive schemes require development cost. Some more than others. But seeing as they make full gear sets for every episode mission these days, for no more gain than getting players to repeat said episode 3-4 times, creating items doesn't appear to be prohibitively expensive.
But it's going to be a trade-off though with some other area of the game (ex. missions, which need their own enticements too) and the specificity of a new reward drop won't necessarily be a benefit. With marks there's a little flexibility in what you play (assuming an intact rep system) and what you're specifically playing for. So, while one equipment piece may not be relevant there is a chance that something else will. There's options.
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I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
Totally agree upon this.
I've queued up several times this past few days and had accept pop up, click it, wait and wait and then find instead of players declined i've actually been removed from the queue without notification despite accepting the invite to join.
I've lost count how many times i've queued for missions for the players declined notification. More often than not it can take 3/4 attempts at accepting the mission before the UI will eventually allow you to enter the map.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
Based upon the situation with the 'Killing Tholian Captain' (close requested by someone not the OP). I am requesting that this Thread be closed. @baddmoonrizin
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
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'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
Actually, I closed that thread based on ambassadorkael's post that the problem was fixed.
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Yea it’s almost as if they only gat a “players still have trouble getting their stuff at end game” message and react by designing content with easier access to the said stuff as result. Problem is just that we already reached auto win conditions.
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I lined up me and 3 others for CCA yesterday. We had 3 time-outs due to player declines demonstrating that the system has trouble to find even ten players for this highly rewarding and easy map. After 10 minutes of waiting (during EU primetime) the map finally popped.
I could imagine that the players who bravely did Sompek S half a dozen time a day the past two weeks are done by now, grabbed the reward and now take their well-deserved break from active gameplay. Perhaps even from game, for which I cant't even blame them.
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I have a thought on that..
I noticed with the new Queue UI that I get that a lot, where the map doesn't start because of player declines. Thing is, I don't think players are actually declining, I think it's just another fault of the horrendous Queue UI. I can't tell you how many times I have had the box pop up, clicked "Accept" and immediately been removed from the Queue. The horrible interface is removing players and then telling everyone that they declined.
Before this queue UI went live, I never had queues fail because players queued up and then decided to decline. I can't find any logical reason to believe that everyone just suddenly started declining queues that they queued up to play.
This UI is one of the worst things that's ever happened to Star Trek Online.
I think it's all because of the introduction of the "queue group".
Right now, a queue will slot you into a "queue group" and when the number of people in that group reaches the required number to start the run, the run will start. If for any reason someone in your queue group declines, the entire group gets booted out.
Prior to the new UI, queues are just done in a first-come first-serve basis. If a player declines, the system just takes in the next guy, then the next guy and so on. That's why we never really felt the issue of players declining as much before.
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You're probably right, but it still just further highlights how awful this new UI really is. The idea of pulling in the next available player is an obviously better approach then just dropping the entire team. I'm just baffled by this.. I really am, I just don't get what Cryptic was thinking.
Why spend time and effort on development of a system that is archaic and antiquated in comparison to the system it's replacing? I swear man.. it's just maddening sometimes.
Right, right. That makes sense.
My Tac uses energy weapons loadout. Coalition D's. And Naus Energy Torp. And I'm too lazy to switch over to Kin/Exo.
So I guess I'm my own worse enemy lol, arbiter of my own demise - One shotting myself into oblivion.
Keeps things interesting though.
And can usually still pull 2nd or 3rd place with a death.
Those Tholians tho... there torps can hit rather hard though, especially when you've aggro'd a bunch. 10-15k damage per High Yield..
And there's like 10 coming at once..
I've noticed them being more of nuisance, at least since s13... maybe longer.
Not to argue with you, because I agree with ya, but they usually do a good job on these system updates (see boff update/Kits etc)
So it's kind of surprising they dropped the ball on the Queue UI... these types of revamps are usually their bread and butter.
But even pre Queue UI revamp, I had quite a few player decline's.
Granted, that would happen mostly on queues which took a long time to pop generally. I just figured someone in queue fell asleep at the keyboard or was afk.
Can't blame them, it's really annoying to wait 30-40 mins (or much longer) for some obscure queue to pop.
Post DR when the PvP queues were really dying off, I had that Player Decline happen very often. Could take up to an hour (or even longer) for the regular 10 man queue to pop. You get all excited to get the Accept dialog box, only to be disappointed 3 seconds later, when Player Declined message would pop up. "Great" just wasted an hour waiting around for PvP."
But yeah. It seems to happen a lot more frequently since the new UI was introduced.
So again, I'm not fond of the new system either.
If only for the fact it's a lot more annoying to get a private match setup... Like.. typing everyone's name into the invite section is brutally annoying.
I preferred the previous method of left clicking on a players name "invite to private match queue" (or however that was worded).
Heck.. I've noticed a lot of people in the DPS channels either don't want the hassle of setting up a match themselves now days(because its annoying AF typing in everyone's name) or they don't know how.
Recently for Suicide Sompek runs.. everyone just threw up a "SS" in DPS channel chat and hoped for the best..
There'd often be 10-20 ppl just waiting around for someone else to set up the match.
By then end of it, I started setting up matches because waiting around for someone else to do it was taking way too long.
I wasn't surprised at all. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was absolutely nothing mechanically wrong about the old queue system, so all they could possibly manage to do with the "revamp" was to break anything they touched.
As far as I'm concerned, there were two useful improvements: the category filters and the ability to join more than 3 queues at once. Everything else has been a disaster and despite several refinements they haven't even been able to restore the system to previous level of functionality.
Ah ok. I was always under the impression that a decline can also originate from players queueing up for multiple matches simultaneously and then missing out for the others in case one of their instances has started.
I also thought the system to be good enough that in case of a pool of more peeps than needed for specific maps that single decliners get filtered out automatically and others get inserted.
Either the system is much worse than it already appears to be or it simply can’t work properly in total absence of participants.
In any case fascinating how topics like “players are only queuing up for ISA and CCA” from a few months ago feel like luxury problems today.
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It used to be. Now it isn't. If there are declines, everyone gets booted out, regrouped and asked to accept again (if there are enough players left in the queue to do that). Every time.
And I've noticed behavior that looks like trolls exploiting this to annoy people by declining and rejoining a queue repeatedly.
It is so much worse. As for the absense of participants, Cryptic only knows, since the new UI doesn't display players waiting in the queues accurately or players playing the missions at all.
You bet. I know the feeling from the „PvP is dead in STO” crowds. I never did it myself much so it was more a sympathy thingy.
Looks like I belong to the “PvE is dead in STO” crowds now. Feels really bad because with PvE gone the game is kinda gone for me.
Admiralty is good no doubt but it’s just not good enough to make a whole game out of it…
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Suppose so, but to be fair, boff UI and Kit UI was not broken either, but they managed to improve/streamline those.
So it was not out of the question to believe the new queue UI would be an improvement.
Unfortunalty that is not the case in it's current state.
And of course, the underlying mechanical changes to the boff and kit systems worked properly and were actually better than the previous versions, which in the case of the new queue system clearly isn't the case.
How is PVE gone when the problem is unequal distribution, which predates admiralty? Adding the alerts has been the recent kicker because that's given an omni-queue that satisfies any rep in a short-run format (which has proven to be more popular in practically any case.)
The issue, besides system defeating permanent Omni-marks, (and this has been the case for a while) is that long, elaborated queues don't get played often outside of a recent season release, event, or endeavor. How does that change? Not sure if it can, against prediction there really hasn't been any shift towards the long queues. Admiralty, in addition to other changes and additions throughout the game, removed the pressure to hyper-grind short PVE's exclusively for resources. And yet the long queues not being treated as a viable home for long missions (not in the way that mission content or the Foundry is.) They offer more but people still play the short queues regardless of where their need may be (watch what isn't happening now with players hitting their 50k Sompek payouts.)
I think it's a data point to work with. If you know people prefer short queues you can start working with PVE design to appeal to that preference but also encourage more varied queue selection. Namely: new short queues. This isn't a radical idea, it's just something we haven't seen in a long while. Cryptic's been catering (in gameplay design) to the long PVE audience almost exclusively through all modern reps. The Na'Kuhl red alert and Elachi event are pretty much the exceptions and they weren't added as permanent options. That leaves people only with a few classics (CCA, ISA, Alerts) to work with in exercising their general preference.
So, start doing something about that. Set aside one queue in a season as a competitor to the simple staples. The other new queues will inevitably run through the same lifecycle as every other modern queue but the new alert, let's say, may stick around. If it does, then what's viable to play over the long term has increased by one. Cryptic can then continue building on this, adding more short queues to diversify the core of what remains playable season after season (while still developing new long queues too to maintain their aspect of a big update.) This won't help dead queues, but probably nothing short of necromancy (or large-scale queue retirements) will and I don't think we want to go that route.
And as it happens Season 14 has a new alert (see. blog), plus two standard queues (see. STLV announcement). We'll see how this goes.
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Cryptic has never catered for the "long PvE audience." They have been making lots of time-gated long queues, but those are all completely worthless for their reward/time.
Only one can be the shortest, and I unless they start giving rewards in the loading screen, beating CCA's 30-60 seconds is a very tall order.
In any case the topic was how to get people to play the queues that exist and starting some kind of arms race of unbalanced instant gratification queues is pretty much the opposite of an answer.
The correct answer being rewards balancing and unique queue-specific rewards.
I was talking about gameplay, not your intense fixation. Personally, I don't consider it to be the critical factor, only one actor in a more complex system, so consider my posts with that in mind.
This is a gross misinterpretation, correcting which isn't something I particularly enjoy doing (I think the meaning is quite evident from content and context, it might help if you read posts rather than reacting at them.)
List out every PVE in modern STO history. With the exception special event queues they are all long. That's what I mean by catering to the long PVE audience, Cryptic has been developing permanent PVE queues that cater almost exclusively to people who prefer long queues. New short queues have been very few and far between.
What they haven't done is one very specific thing: directly tweak base dil rewards (in CCA, never mind this happening with the STF's.) But as we've talked about that point isn't the sole that should be considered because with everything else that's happened to the game the significance of those base rewards has proportionally decreased. They don't matter as much as they used to, and yet we still see intense queue imbalances. You don't seem to care about those facts (they disagree with your isolated theory) so let's put this one aside (as I did, to try to let a more balanced discussion take the place of this one) and look at how to work with the PVE system as it is and make suggestions for rational and viable improvements.
An equal queue distribution can't happen, STO doesn't have the numbers to fill all queues across all difficulties reliably. I could cite contemporary examples from the industry and how they've managed their PVE/PVP queues but because those are facts your theory doesn't care about it'll likely be wasted effort. So let's just move on to the point: there will be dead queues in STO unless Cryptic starts retiring them for eventual inclusion into events like the Elachi Alert or Breach (just consider this as one step further from a PVE endeavor). That is how you render a total fix with a high degree of certainty (gut the system, restructure it according to demonstrated principles) but a fix that drastic isn't going to be palatable to most here. So, we're looking at smaller accommodations (treatment rather than invasive surgery.) One of which: add new short queues to add to the pool of stable queues. That will at least give more diversity to PVE offerings over the long term (mitigating the core problem).
If you don't want to consider treaments, fine but it's questionable then why you're arguing against my point on these grounds this when your suggestions also fit into this category (and more innocuously; I'm taking about talking PVE gameplay design, not just simple rewards math.)
And CCA isn't reliably the most played queue (currently that appears to be the Borg alert). Nor is the top queue the only one played, it's one of a subset which we've been freely discussing up until now.
Correct answer? How do you arrive at that? Your examples are bent by some fairly outrageous exaggerations (see. above). Even if I agreed with you on some parts the whole must be taken as "a poor argument." I point and you shout more wildly. So where's this really going to go? Are you going to participate in an exchange of ideas, where two people consider what the other has presented (I've tried to give you the best shot possible, and unlike how I suspect you'll reply to this I actually mean it), or are you just looking for an ego bashing test of endurance?
Honestly, I could go all day but that would derail the thread (in a very unamusing way) with something that wasn't ultimately about STO. The common problem with the queue system is that content is being made that isn't played for long. New/long queues have viable populations for the first part of a season and then they drift off as people complete their reputations (ie. their set of unique rewards). You can presume that's solely a matter of dilithium but with demonstrated inconsistently in that theory (as the exclusive factor, the fact you disagree vehemently with this neutral point is a pretty good indicator of where you are in this discussion) other approaches should probably considered as well.
That's it, it's an open point of discussion that gives room to new ideas. You may not think we need them, but what does that matter to a forum? Throwing ideas around is rather the point.
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About que's i guess you lot are talking about adv/elites so i cant say anything (only adv i do is crystalline at it start usually in 1 minute), in normal those i do start kinda decently (but true so far i didnt even tried all of them), mostly i do counterpoint, borg:disconnected, undine assault (STO moba hehe), the cure found and gateway of idontrecallrightnowofwhat other than ofc the usual Borg and Tholian RA that start always instant.
ABout que's tbh i find annoying too that canceling spree that sometimes happen (record so far is 7 canceled que's in about 2 minutes), tbh sometimes i got the impression someone is doing on purpose seen anyway in STO you get no penalty at all for that (in Forsaken world for example if you cancel a que cant reapply for 5 mins).
Oh, am talking about FED ofc, got a Gorn too and gotta say on klingon side nothing but RA's ever start indeed.
But about Admiralty needing a nerf i totally disagree, in about 2 months i am playing got r10 in just 1 of the factions and completed that "too easy tour" (that i guess are the 10 golden mission) just once in 1 char for 1 faction.
Add to this i csed the Alita, the Jupiter, the 31° temporal ships pack and the Vesta bundle, that gave me 8 decent ships for Admiralty (+ the Tanius from phoenix, Pastek for a mission and lately got also the Rhode island, or w/e is called hehe).
Even with those "extra ships" alts get nowhere near enough to cap the daily dil, actually sometimes i get a whole 0 dil in a day depending on which mission it give me.
Not everyone got hundreds ships for Admiralty , so maybe the prob isnt Admiralty himself but ppls ammassing too many "cards", if you wanna reduce prizes at point so the "100 ships dudes" dont get enough dil from it then you will also make Admiralty totally worthless for many others (especially new players).
To add to this great list of supplementary ships for admiralty, one can also buy the "level up" ships for dil, to increase ship roster.
On the other hand, nobody can reasonably contest that people like money, real or virtual. That the content that pays the most for time spent is popular is a foregone conclusion. Especially as we're not talking about any small differences here.
Rewards may not be the only factor in queue popularity, but with the extreme gap between them, it certainly is the most significant factor. And since queues have minimum player limits, it creates a negative feedback loop where a less-played queue becomes even less interesting because it takes forever to pop. There's the second factor. Everyone who likes any of the longer queues has been in the situation where you want to play but can't because it's empty.
Of course personal preference comes in at some point, too, but only between content that accomplish the same goal. Nobody plays ISA to get Delta marks or CCA to get the House Martok set. They play the content that rewards those things instead.
That's where the incentivizing happens. Historically, players would do new content while they needed the relevant marks then went back to the highest dil payout when they were done (or an event came that filled up the marks for them). Consider the lukari queues. They were never as popular as new queues usually are, because lukari marks were available from day 1 in the alerts and everyone could get what they wanted easier from there. Without differentiation, all people are left with are the numbers. And the numbers overwhelmingly favor the short queues.
And as the topic still is, getting players into the existing queues, I don't see your idea of abandoning the those queues and just making new ones hoping people will play them is particularly helpful for that purpose. For that matter, if you don't think STO has the numbers to fill the existing amount of queues, why suggest adding new ones at all? If you really think everyone just loves their current grinding spots so much, why not keep doing the same?
On the other hand, turning the queues into some kind of rotating events isn't at all a bad idea in itself (and I'd consider trying to make any idea "palatable" to the forum audience a royal waste of time). But without rewards balancing, wouldn't that just reduce to people waiting for the same popular ones to be in turn? Like the old times when the hourly events were on, and it would just get everyone to wait for the bonus hour to start before playing the same things they'd always play.
But balancing the numeric rewards (dil/marks) enables people to play the content they want without concern for reward/time. After that, add new queues (of whatever description), rotating events, whatever. Without the extreme rewards imbalance everything would just work out smoother. Maybe people would still grind the same things all day...but it would be because they really want to, not just because they pay the best.
And yes, unique rewards would be a good way to give people a reason to want to play different content. Something queues in general need these days, since dilithium is available from so many alternate sources.
1. Rotate them as weekend events with bonus rewards. There are enough STFs to do 2-3 per weekend.
2. Pull the red alerts out of the queue ui and kill the choice of marks. This is the single biggest killer right now not associated with bug filled ui. Likewise with horn minefield and the big dig. These were great for ship mastery/px now they might as well kill them because they don't get used at all.
3. Fix the ui. It looks good but needs a ton of work to be dependable.
Let's consider Sompek again (because I think it might lead us to an understood consensus): players have made a long queue short with the 5th round being the selected cut off (it's the minimum). Now think, how does this mean that players don't also prefer short queues? A gameplay preference would compliment the desire to end the round quickly. It doesn't act in opposition.
Rewards and (on-average) PVE gameplay preferences probably act in some way together to produce the popular "5 and die." Rewards specify "5" and the preference waves it on (it's getting what it wants too). This is my point. I'm not saying that it isn't about the rewards (see. why Endeavors work), only that they don't explain everything about queue population distribution over time (ex. it's long intensity in spite of broad changes to the dilithium economy progressively weakening the value of base rewards). So, changing the rewards structure isn't likely to fix the PVE system totally. It may help adjust the distribution but it may only go so far to reviving old queues because it doesn't touch the other factors that go into deciding "what do I play now?" (ie. gameplay)
What's probably advisable then is a mult-faceted dev strategy, with rewards tweaks and new approaches to PVE design and maintenance. Such as:
Although I still have to disagree with this:
Reputations offered unique rewards (up until the Borg/Tholian alerts established a permanent work around) and they didn't maintain dead queues over the long term. What's probably advisable here is to clean up the free choice of marks (to reinstate this layer of incentive) rather than developing a whole new set of PVE gear (with the dev cost and content trade offs that invokes.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
All incentive schemes require development cost. Some more than others. But seeing as they make full gear sets for every episode mission these days, for no more gain than getting players to repeat said episode 3-4 times, creating items doesn't appear to be prohibitively expensive.
If they did abit of a rework to the upgrading system, and put afew drops in the stfs that can be used on rep-gear that would alter the gear in someways, which could be changing it into a different weapon in the same type (like turning a rep dual cannon into a single or dual-heavy version), or even taking an existing rep item an thru the item have it change into a different version of the item with stats that might be more appealing to other builds/careers could also be a nice incentive. This could be done even thru the rep-store as a project, much like having rep-projects for gear/items that take unique-items that are from specific stfs.
THe issue with a static reward system is that it becomes outdated, and the appeal of the reward slowly loses it's appeal an incentive as you run the stf till you get the item. Yet if you have a reward system that you add additional rewards to over time, it both retains it's value of appeal/incentive to play the stfs, but also adds the fact that a new batch of items being added might appeal to players that the last batch might have not appealed to.
But it's going to be a trade-off though with some other area of the game (ex. missions, which need their own enticements too) and the specificity of a new reward drop won't necessarily be a benefit. With marks there's a little flexibility in what you play (assuming an intact rep system) and what you're specifically playing for. So, while one equipment piece may not be relevant there is a chance that something else will. There's options.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Totally agree upon this.
I've queued up several times this past few days and had accept pop up, click it, wait and wait and then find instead of players declined i've actually been removed from the queue without notification despite accepting the invite to join.
I've lost count how many times i've queued for missions for the players declined notification. More often than not it can take 3/4 attempts at accepting the mission before the UI will eventually allow you to enter the map.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
Based upon the situation with the 'Killing Tholian Captain' (close requested by someone not the OP). I am requesting that this Thread be closed. @baddmoonrizin
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.'
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