I'd really like to see a universal currency exchange, similar to the dilex but where any resource can be traded with other players for any other resource. Itr would all be player driven and would essentially be a UI where you list your resource (say flarks) and the items you want in return, the price is dependent on demand and what sellers are setting.
This way you could swap your massive pile of unneeded flarks for omega rep marks if you need those, or swap EC for elite rep marks etc.
Basically it opens up a whole world of player driven economics that are currently only possible with some really "pain in the ****" work arounds.
If the marks were exchangable, there'd be no point having multiple types of mark in the first place.
How do you figure?
Someone would have to grind the whatever-marks in order for you to exchange them.
True, but then that doesn't mean much in this age of choice marks.
Nor is marks trading thematically appropriate. The marks are a symbolic representation of your good standing, your reputation if you will, with the groups in question. Favors they owe you for fighting for them (or raising funny animals for them, as the case may be). It makes no sense to be able to trade them as if they were actual currency.
The elite marks could maybe be tradeable, though.
I think at this stage where you can literally fight Borg or Tholians all day in RA's for any type of marks it really maters not one iota that there are distinct marks.
They may not have introduced a universal mark yet, but they have introduced a universal means to acquire them, only one step away really.
I'd really like to see a universal currency exchange, similar to the dilex but where any resource can be traded with other players for any other resource. Itr would all be player driven and would essentially be a UI where you list your resource (say flarks) and the items you want in return, the price is dependent on demand and what sellers are setting.
This way you could swap your massive pile of unneeded flarks for omega rep marks if you need those, or swap EC for elite rep marks etc.
Basically it opens up a whole world of player driven economics that are currently only possible with some really "pain in the ****" work arounds.
If the marks were exchangable, there'd be no point having multiple types of mark in the first place.
How do you figure?
Someone would have to grind the whatever-marks in order for you to exchange them.
True, but then that doesn't mean much in this age of choice marks.
Nor is marks trading thematically appropriate. The marks are a symbolic representation of your good standing, your reputation if you will, with the groups in question. Favors they owe you for fighting for them (or raising funny animals for them, as the case may be). It makes no sense to be able to trade them as if they were actual currency.
The elite marks could maybe be tradeable, though.
I think at this stage where you can literally fight Borg or Tholians all day in RA's for any type of marks it really maters not one iota that there are distinct marks.
They may not have introduced a universal mark yet, but they have introduced a universal means to acquire them, only one step away really.
Yes. And that homogenization of rewards is largely responsible for the sorry state of multiplayer PvE in the game.
I'd really like to see a universal currency exchange, similar to the dilex but where any resource can be traded with other players for any other resource. Itr would all be player driven and would essentially be a UI where you list your resource (say flarks) and the items you want in return, the price is dependent on demand and what sellers are setting.
This way you could swap your massive pile of unneeded flarks for omega rep marks if you need those, or swap EC for elite rep marks etc.
Basically it opens up a whole world of player driven economics that are currently only possible with some really "pain in the ****" work arounds.
If the marks were exchangable, there'd be no point having multiple types of mark in the first place.
How do you figure?
Someone would have to grind the whatever-marks in order for you to exchange them.
True, but then that doesn't mean much in this age of choice marks.
Nor is marks trading thematically appropriate. The marks are a symbolic representation of your good standing, your reputation if you will, with the groups in question. Favors they owe you for fighting for them (or raising funny animals for them, as the case may be). It makes no sense to be able to trade them as if they were actual currency.
The elite marks could maybe be tradeable, though.
I think at this stage where you can literally fight Borg or Tholians all day in RA's for any type of marks it really maters not one iota that there are distinct marks.
They may not have introduced a universal mark yet, but they have introduced a universal means to acquire them, only one step away really.
Yes. And that homogenization of rewards is largely responsible for the sorry state of multiplayer PvE in the game.
Yeah that's true i'll admit. But were you able to trade those queues you could then play whatever you wanted and swap the rewards for something else. Or run a supply vs demand thing and run whatever is selling like hotcakes at the time.
Sure some people will always go for the easymode option and run ISA endlessly until the heat-death of the universe, but create an open market and players can decide what they want to do, some people will take that opportunity to their own advantage.
It sullies, blackens, tarnishes, taints, and dishonors the game. It is a pox upon it.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'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.'
I'm curious - what's the point of being wealthy in a MMO community where everyone left due to the attrition and instability which ruined the whole experience? Cause' that's what's gonna happen when something like this becomes a fleet custom.
Or remain in the game and refuse to buy/pay anything that's not coming directly from the C-Store. And trading Zen to Dil as the feregies remaining brag on the wealth in a chat zone consisting in 3 new players that will leave shortly and 4 wealthy ferengis who are gonna die out of boredom in mounds of ec. Sounds like fun! Gives the feeling of achievement in a virtual space due to lack of achievement feeling in real life. Instead of being a source of fun in a virtual space and an achievement-environment in real life.
Any dps-related build doesn't require anything that could be bought from "wealthy people". It's all C store and Mission Rewards.
Fleets are free to offer whatever compensation they want for these provisions if they so choose.
I'm considering paying people for their time and efforts gathering these provisions if the holding advancement becomes a real slog.
Mind you, I'll have to compete with fleets that have bigger budgets. And more buying power. But that's no different then in the real world where corporations battle each other over wages/personnel and such.
Those with bigger purses/wallets/holdings have an outright advantage.
It's up to each fleet leader to find creative ways to get things done amongst the competition.
As in days past, the premiere fleets will find a way to get their holding done ASAP (buying fleet Marks/Dil contributions ect).
It's up to the smaller fleets leadership to inspire and incentivize their troops and find creative ways to compete with the big boys.
This is not the time for smaller fleets to hold the moral high ground, and plant their head in the sand and whine about other "rich" fleets outbidding them.
It's time to get creative, and start preparing for the future. Start making an action plan for the upcoming quarter. It will be every fleet for themselves when this holding goes live.. (in its current state)
Those fleet leaders who choose not to act, or prepare, will see their fleets fall into stagnation and cannibalized by the wealthier fleets.
Anyway, IMO there's way too many unneeded fleets out there as it is, and I do believe a little thinning of the herd would be good for the game at this point.
We've got hundreds and hundreds of fleets out there that don't deserve to exist imho. And their roster of players may not even realize what is being missed since most players tend to stick it out with their first fleet, *out of loyalty*.
Even when there is no hope in hell that they will ever max out all their holdings.
In one sense I feel like some of the smaller, less developed fleets are holding their players hostage to an unattainable dream.
It's cruel imho.
Keeping people around, when there's no chance that max tiered holdings will ever be achieved.
It's about time some of the bigger, fully maxed fleets, started to liberate some of these poor "Loyal" souls from the plethora of Dead End Fleets.
These Dead End Fleets can offer the player nothing in such situations, except to drain that players resources into a bottomless pitt of unattainable goals, hopes and dreams.
One thing I hate to see are good active players "stuck" in such a situation. Really makes me shake my head to see them being taken advantage of.
Don't get me wrong, I love loyal people. But if someone is loyal to you, you should have their best interests at heart. And that doesn't involve keeping players around and filling them with false hope while taking all their resources.. It's cruel and selfish, and needs to end.
I hope 1/3 (or more) of all fleets get cannibalized by the larger, more established Fleets. So we never again have to see these hard working players being taken advantage of again by serving in their Dead End Fleets in hopelessness. Suffering in silent ignorance.
I hope many of these players will be liberated from their shackles of servitude within Hopeless Fleets. May they one day finally see what they've been missing all this time.
Space poverty exists because players are not saving their currency. Stop spending your hard earned currency on things that give you no value, and save as much as you can. Be frugal with your currency, select a ship that gives you the maximum DPS for the least amount of currency, and utilize every possibility to earn more currency, whether it be EC, Dilithium, GPL, etc.
This is why I started my own fleet, with just me in it. No fuss, no muss, no drama. I currently have a T1 dil mine and starbase. Leveling a fleet is not hard to do solo. You just have to know how to work the system and not overextend your resources. Other than this, it just having the patients to do it. Which is where most small fleets fall apart. They don't have the patients it takes to get there.
This work s for me though. As it's my fleet, and I'm not in an armada. I don't have to worry over such trivial nonsense. Yay! A new fleet holding... err I mean.. YAY! More powercreep. The only truly useful thing that fleets offer, is the dilithium store reduction. Outside of this, all they offer is powercreep. Once you realize this, fleets become a idle project to give you something to do, and serve no real importance to the game at all.
After co-leading Pride of the Federation and Pride of the Empire from zero to max level, I decided to take a step back and retire.
I am still active in my old Fed fleet, but I now have my own fleet that is level two and am now concentrating on the smaller holdings.
There is zero drama and I will take my time, as I have no rush.
This won't last long. When the complaining starts, things will change. Especially considering, turning in fleet holding provisions doesn't reward fleet credits. So they are already mini-games that have no reward to them, or a marginal one at best.
This also means, they'll have more people farming these provisions, than doing anything else in the game. Which makes the whole setup, counterproductive. The only way I can see this being balanced out, is to have X amount you can get from the mini-games and X amount you can buy with fleet credits.
The feedback has already started, the question is rather or not Cryptic will listen.
To be clear though, this isn't just fleets being complainers, the requirements for these grinded provisions are absolutely outlandish. If you can get 20 people at a time working on nothing but generating these provisions it would still take you a couple years to max the holding. And that's for a very large fleet which no longer exists in STO.
These provisions will be in high demand because Fleets simply won't be able to expand by doing things the way they're supposed to. The amount of needed provisions is beyond ludicrous which will make a huge market for them as Druk pointed out. In the end, fleets that can afford to pay players will flourish and fleets that can't will be stagnant as their members give all their provisions to other fleets that pay better.
Just as S13 was the end of general PVE play, S14 will be the end of fleets. At the rate Cryptic is going, there won't be a S15.
We both know that Cryptic has a really bad reputation for acting on player feedback, so I very much doubt they'll listen.
As for whether big Fleets still exist, the once active and full armada that I am in is a ghost town since that last few left after season 13...
As many of you already know, Cryptic is set to release a new fleet holding in the near future. Much to the consternation of the community, they have apparently latched on to the idea of locking advancement behind new time-sinks such as minigames and scavenger hunts.
...
Every workingman needs to realize: You hold the winning hand, don't let yourself be cheated!
You donate them to another Fleet's Projects and they pay you whatever you've agreed upon.
Post edited by ltminns on
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'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.'
Are there more than a handful of active fleets left in the game? Does not seem that way. Of course nop channel is still going strong, and there are still lots of invites to get gear, I just wonder how active fleets are.
My main FED fleet (which has unlocked nearly every fleet holding) is made up of more than 100 players who contribute almost nothing after they reach the minimum contribution level to open fleet store access. If you look at the fleet roster and check the overall contributions you'll find that only TWO players are responsible for nearly 85-90 percent of total contributions ... and I'm one of them.
Players who stay in a single fleet and don't contribute regularly to that fleet while playing are scumbags.
Players who don't put their time and effort into their own fleet force other fleet members to work that much harder to make up for the dead weight. Any player who "sells" their fleet contributions to other fleets has no right to rejoin the fleet they've just screwed over.
If this becomes a common thing with the new fleet holding I hope the devs change the fleet membership settings so that if you leave a fleet you are locked out and cannot rejoin that same fleet for a minimum of 12 months.
In the immortal words of Captain Sisko: "It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong."
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
If this becomes a common thing with the new fleet holding I hope the devs change the fleet membership settings so that if you leave a fleet you are locked out and cannot rejoin that same fleet for a minimum of 12 months.
Wow that is a terrible idea.
Why would you, with your handle, give pwe even more terrible ideas.
So I leave and rejoin fleets on a frequent basis (when I can be bothered to log in these days). Not because of fleet projects, but it's easier to transfer stuff from my character into my own fleet bank by leaving/rejoining than mailing or using the account bank with it's low number of slots. Ease of use.
I've already informed a fleet I'm co-leader of that I won't mind if they leave to dump their provisions for ec in another fleet, like we used to do back when other fleets were crying out for fleet marks. Its better in the long run for a fleet if their fleet members were richer in ec and happy, than so completely filled with apathy towards the game that they stop logging in entirely.
Let's face it, making enough ec to get the lockbox/lobi shop you always wanted is a better incentive to keep playing than the tedious grind of a fleet holding in this depopulated game.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'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.'
My main FED fleet (which has unlocked nearly every fleet holding) is made up of more than 100 players who contribute almost nothing after they reach the minimum contribution level to open fleet store access. If you look at the fleet roster and check the overall contributions you'll find that only TWO players are responsible for nearly 85-90 percent of total contributions ...
These provisions are going to be valuable, giving value to the time people spend grinding them. Value that you have no right to grow fat on.
I urge everyone to read pweis's post and remember, you, the workers, have the winning hand here, do not let yourself be cheated by people who are contemptuous of you. Don't feel any guilt for demanding what is rightfully yours: fair pay for fair work.
If someone like pweis tells you that you owe him free provisions, report him in NoP Public Service so that we can get the word out. People need to be made aware of exploitative fleets.
Here we go with the "exploitative fleets" thing again. As an added plus apparently your fleet feels contempt towards you and wants to cheat you. Good repetitive rhetoric Druk. All very dramatic, and nothing people haven't heard from you many times before.
When 10% of the people are doing 80% of the work it's usually over generous fleet leaders and a small circle of other players that are picking up the slack and paying for the rest. Now we're supposed to pay fleet members and others for provisions as well? Just how is it I'm growing fat running my fleets? Ever heard of a cooperative effort, doing things together for fun and out of pride to move things forward?
I guess when you're a Ferengi it's all about profit...
You do make an excellent Ferengi though and have a keen eye for looking at things from different and often well thought out and interesting entertaining angles. It's also nice to see you answering questions from new players on ESD on a wide variety of things. You give excellent advice which helps these players a lot. Cheers and thank you for that. It's just your angle on fleets in the forums at least make it sound like it's slave labour which it is not.
I think it's going to be the people that play mini-games for hours each day for profit that will be the slaves regardless of what sort of light you shine upon it and that falls upon Cryptic for introducing this laughable new fleet mechanic.
Keep up the good work, things wouldn't be the same without ya
Comments
I think at this stage where you can literally fight Borg or Tholians all day in RA's for any type of marks it really maters not one iota that there are distinct marks.
They may not have introduced a universal mark yet, but they have introduced a universal means to acquire them, only one step away really.
Yeah that's true i'll admit. But were you able to trade those queues you could then play whatever you wanted and swap the rewards for something else. Or run a supply vs demand thing and run whatever is selling like hotcakes at the time.
Sure some people will always go for the easymode option and run ISA endlessly until the heat-death of the universe, but create an open market and players can decide what they want to do, some people will take that opportunity to their own advantage.
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.'
Or remain in the game and refuse to buy/pay anything that's not coming directly from the C-Store. And trading Zen to Dil as the feregies remaining brag on the wealth in a chat zone consisting in 3 new players that will leave shortly and 4 wealthy ferengis who are gonna die out of boredom in mounds of ec. Sounds like fun! Gives the feeling of achievement in a virtual space due to lack of achievement feeling in real life. Instead of being a source of fun in a virtual space and an achievement-environment in real life.
Any dps-related build doesn't require anything that could be bought from "wealthy people". It's all C store and Mission Rewards.
Fleets are free to offer whatever compensation they want for these provisions if they so choose.
I'm considering paying people for their time and efforts gathering these provisions if the holding advancement becomes a real slog.
Mind you, I'll have to compete with fleets that have bigger budgets. And more buying power. But that's no different then in the real world where corporations battle each other over wages/personnel and such.
Those with bigger purses/wallets/holdings have an outright advantage.
It's up to each fleet leader to find creative ways to get things done amongst the competition.
As in days past, the premiere fleets will find a way to get their holding done ASAP (buying fleet Marks/Dil contributions ect).
It's up to the smaller fleets leadership to inspire and incentivize their troops and find creative ways to compete with the big boys.
This is not the time for smaller fleets to hold the moral high ground, and plant their head in the sand and whine about other "rich" fleets outbidding them.
It's time to get creative, and start preparing for the future. Start making an action plan for the upcoming quarter. It will be every fleet for themselves when this holding goes live.. (in its current state)
Those fleet leaders who choose not to act, or prepare, will see their fleets fall into stagnation and cannibalized by the wealthier fleets.
Anyway, IMO there's way too many unneeded fleets out there as it is, and I do believe a little thinning of the herd would be good for the game at this point.
We've got hundreds and hundreds of fleets out there that don't deserve to exist imho. And their roster of players may not even realize what is being missed since most players tend to stick it out with their first fleet, *out of loyalty*.
Even when there is no hope in hell that they will ever max out all their holdings.
In one sense I feel like some of the smaller, less developed fleets are holding their players hostage to an unattainable dream.
It's cruel imho.
Keeping people around, when there's no chance that max tiered holdings will ever be achieved.
It's about time some of the bigger, fully maxed fleets, started to liberate some of these poor "Loyal" souls from the plethora of Dead End Fleets.
These Dead End Fleets can offer the player nothing in such situations, except to drain that players resources into a bottomless pitt of unattainable goals, hopes and dreams.
One thing I hate to see are good active players "stuck" in such a situation. Really makes me shake my head to see them being taken advantage of.
Don't get me wrong, I love loyal people. But if someone is loyal to you, you should have their best interests at heart. And that doesn't involve keeping players around and filling them with false hope while taking all their resources.. It's cruel and selfish, and needs to end.
I hope 1/3 (or more) of all fleets get cannibalized by the larger, more established Fleets. So we never again have to see these hard working players being taken advantage of again by serving in their Dead End Fleets in hopelessness. Suffering in silent ignorance.
I hope many of these players will be liberated from their shackles of servitude within Hopeless Fleets. May they one day finally see what they've been missing all this time.
I have a dream.
After co-leading Pride of the Federation and Pride of the Empire from zero to max level, I decided to take a step back and retire.
I am still active in my old Fed fleet, but I now have my own fleet that is level two and am now concentrating on the smaller holdings.
There is zero drama and I will take my time, as I have no rush.
I have zero interest in this new holding, though.
We both know that Cryptic has a really bad reputation for acting on player feedback, so I very much doubt they'll listen.
As for whether big Fleets still exist, the once active and full armada that I am in is a ghost town since that last few left after season 13...
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.'
Nor does it need wage slaves. Spinning this abortion of content as a positive isn't helping anyone.
Kudos!
Players who stay in a single fleet and don't contribute regularly to that fleet while playing are scumbags.
Players who don't put their time and effort into their own fleet force other fleet members to work that much harder to make up for the dead weight. Any player who "sells" their fleet contributions to other fleets has no right to rejoin the fleet they've just screwed over.
If this becomes a common thing with the new fleet holding I hope the devs change the fleet membership settings so that if you leave a fleet you are locked out and cannot rejoin that same fleet for a minimum of 12 months.
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
Wow that is a terrible idea.
Why would you, with your handle, give pwe even more terrible ideas.
So I leave and rejoin fleets on a frequent basis (when I can be bothered to log in these days). Not because of fleet projects, but it's easier to transfer stuff from my character into my own fleet bank by leaving/rejoining than mailing or using the account bank with it's low number of slots. Ease of use.
I've already informed a fleet I'm co-leader of that I won't mind if they leave to dump their provisions for ec in another fleet, like we used to do back when other fleets were crying out for fleet marks. Its better in the long run for a fleet if their fleet members were richer in ec and happy, than so completely filled with apathy towards the game that they stop logging in entirely.
Let's face it, making enough ec to get the lockbox/lobi shop you always wanted is a better incentive to keep playing than the tedious grind of a fleet holding in this depopulated game.
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.'
Here we go with the "exploitative fleets" thing again. As an added plus apparently your fleet feels contempt towards you and wants to cheat you. Good repetitive rhetoric Druk. All very dramatic, and nothing people haven't heard from you many times before.
When 10% of the people are doing 80% of the work it's usually over generous fleet leaders and a small circle of other players that are picking up the slack and paying for the rest. Now we're supposed to pay fleet members and others for provisions as well? Just how is it I'm growing fat running my fleets? Ever heard of a cooperative effort, doing things together for fun and out of pride to move things forward?
I guess when you're a Ferengi it's all about profit...
You do make an excellent Ferengi though and have a keen eye for looking at things from different and often well thought out and interesting entertaining angles. It's also nice to see you answering questions from new players on ESD on a wide variety of things. You give excellent advice which helps these players a lot. Cheers and thank you for that. It's just your angle on fleets in the forums at least make it sound like it's slave labour which it is not.
I think it's going to be the people that play mini-games for hours each day for profit that will be the slaves regardless of what sort of light you shine upon it and that falls upon Cryptic for introducing this laughable new fleet mechanic.
Keep up the good work, things wouldn't be the same without ya