So, I have been having a near impossible time with grinding for the marks/probe cores i need for the Iconian space set. There are only a handful of queued events. Not only that, but often times, even when the server is full of people, my happy multicharactered backside sits alone in those queues for hours at a time. That is if i even complete a run at all.
I was thinking that what would be a big help, since the battlezones seem to be so popular right now would be to make it so that every mark can be earned from a reasonably appropriate battlezone. For example, i know that the badlands zone, even though that fight is entirely against the terrans, awards temporal as the terrans fought in that temporal war against the Enterprise-J and also the fact that these particular terran vessels are probably enhanced with temporal technology from Noye and his friends.
My point here is that when it comes to certain marks, the only way to get them is from queues that no one seems to play anymore.
Another possibility would be system patrols that work just like the ones for new romulus rep. You get 65 once a day and 10 for every one after that, but these are fights against the Iconians or whoever that can be done by either a single ship, or a captain and his away team.
Sure the battlezones are a good way and all but that depends on there being at least 5 or so players working a very close concert with each other for THAT to go well.
In any case, I have sets that I have been trying to grind for on some of my alts, plus my main. I cannot grind for those becuase the only means of doing so requires 4 other like minded individuals. And doing the entirety of the grinding is inefficient using just the red alerts as those take 5 minutes to do and have a 1 hour cooldown time.
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I do agree that Iconian and Competitive Marks are some of the more annoying ones to try to grind on alts though.
As it is, all you can do is red alerts for marks like everyone else. The iconian probe trinkets are available on the kobali homeworld or you can do the marks exchange. Queues are dead.
Yes, I've gotten a lot of alts to Tier 5 <whatever> via bird eggs (and winter event pvp races).
Another option is the Borg Red Alert queue. Or any of the other queues that reward "Choice of Marks"
And a current option, if you've already gathered the 1000 anniversary tokens for the anniversary ships... you should be able to trade in extra sets of 40 tokens a day for 40 marks. At least that's how the events have worked in the past.
edit: oh, and don't forget to grab some Reputation Mark boosts if you can. The extra 20% helps.
I also ran into a problem trying to get people to do iconian queued missions. No luck there. There isn't much in the way of incentive to go and join someone to get things that either one already has or that they have no need for. Mainly becuase most are grinding for Temporal, mirror or Lukari gear as they are the three newest aside from competitive. ALso, that being said, temporal and mirror are the easiest to get as with a large group working in concert you can get 100 of both marks and 4 temporal beacons/terran grav inducers every time the battlezone cycles. That's after you also use up your daily bonus marks.
But back to my earlier idea about an iconian specific battle area, I got the perfect idea for the story behind such a battle zone. If you all will recall from the end of the Iconian arc. L'Miren was grateful for everything you and your crew have done for the Iconians with helping them escape from their homeworld and they realized that the ones that they really should have taken revenge on was Sela, as the races alive at the time had died off, and she did go on an Iconian killing spree at the end there. However, not all of them were of the same mind. T'Ket swears that all non-iconian life should be exterminated. We know that the Iconians have multiple dyson spheres. Possibly T'ket siezed control of one. Maybe this would give an opportunity for both combat on the ground while ships fight over head. Perhaps at the end of either zones run through on the ground T'ket herself makes an appearance as a boss who bugs out at the end only to make an appearance with her dreadnought in the areial battle.
Kobali is the place to go as mentioned. Things add up pretty fast when you're getting both Delta and Iconian daily marks plus a reputation thingy for each for about a half hour of your time. I didn't realize this could be repeated from joining someone else's (think it's just the additional rep thingies and about 10 marks) but have it happen so thanks for the heads up. You shouldn't need anybody else present to do it yourself with 2 well equipped away team members. Most of my toons that run the iconian space set earned it on Kobali. Bonus: it's ground
Also the Tze Alert queue is easy, pops quickly and awards a choice of any 100 marks (daily bonus included) plus 5 fleet marks upon successful completion.
Edit: corrected number of Tze Alert marks awarded.
I was going to suggest this as well. It has a 20 hour cooldown. It's how I obtain them since it's much easier for me to get marks than it is to get the elite marks.
As for the Kobali ground zone: obviously tastes differ. I find it way more enjoyable than Solanae or Defera. (And I repeatedly was able to do a whole run without help. The very last mission may sometimes be a little longish if the respawns are too quick for you to do the interactions, but sooner or later you'll get along)
If they took the getting hit nonsense out it'd be a solid addition/subtraction to the game.
No long waits for a game to start grants EVERY type of mark. Once a day convert the required number of marks to one core... Plus the revamped pve tells you exactly what type mark each queque grants .
need more then what the red alerts grant? Join a fleet that is member friendly and create private pve's for the missions that grant the marks you need. Most fleets are very kind in doing that for newer members. DO all the special events like the current anniversary once you finish the stuff to get the ship you get 40 event marks that when turned in reward you with I think it's a 150 marks of your choice.
> On the contrary, there should be LESS options. The reason the queues are empty is because nobody has to play them for anything.
>
> As it is, all you can do is red alerts for marks like everyone else. The iconian probe trinkets are available on the kobali homeworld or you can do the marks exchange. Queues are dead.
Fewer. #stannisbaratheon
Yeah this is the truth. All the 14 day "any marks" events and red alerts need to end. Winter epohs and summer birds too.
Only 40 marks for 40 event vouchers, a 1:1 trade. Still, you get 400 for the FE, so that's a great deal. Probably not worth it to do the particle hunt just for the marks if you're not interested in the particles themselves.
While I tend to agree in theory, this would have the problem of newer players arguably still not finding queues in an adequate time, since many (at least I and I like to think of my opinion as "many") tend to have all the marks they need from most if not all reputations and thus will just play whatever they like for dil or marks-to-dil, but not Undine or Voth queues. So I'd say some ways should stay accessible, but it can be toned down, like with "all marks events" for two weeks twice a year or similar. The Borg RA giving out everything really hurts here, I don't think the event vouchers do as much.
On the other hand, there should definitely be total revamp of content rewards to properly incentivize all content. Ditching the choice marks would just be a small first step in the right direction.
Even on Advanced, completing “Breaking the Wall” and “With Our Last Breath” should be relatively easy to do solo.
A battlezone is not going to solve that problem - likely make it even worse, as additional fragmentation of the player base would merely put fewer people into several game areas. Also, if the Kobali areas are too difficult to solo, I can't imagine a battlezone would be much easier to do with fewer people.
And its by far the best rewarding and close to non possible to lose queue *still the orion part is tricky*
First one is basic killing up to the towers, for those it helps to place boffs as a buffer while you handle the towers themselves.
For the second mission same applies for the first bit, second can be cheesed by nipping around the back and ignoring the enemy (make sure to be out of combat and boffs won't go apeshit), third head to the far points first and work back as thats where the boss spawns.
Boss can be tricky but the delta rep set has that aoe ability which nukes his drones, if not babysit the boffs to target those when they get spawned in. Other than that make sure you get the aggro and keep yourself on the opposite side from boffs so they don't get wasted in an artillery shot.
They really missed a trick with the iconians not having a red alert, strange given that they were hostile invaders hellbent on galactic domination.