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[PC] Red Alert Special Events!

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  • fruitvendor12fruitvendor12 Member Posts: 615 Arc User
    This is how RAs used to work. It wasn't popular. So it was changed. And now it has been changed back.

    Hmm.

    Must have been a vigorous debate... "but why did we change it in the first place?" "Be quiet you!" ;)
  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    Argala is better than the alerts for ship levelling... I do RA for the marks as well but mostly cause its one of the few 'pop in game and pew pew' options. Especially if argala is on cooldown.

    And I am so not doing random TFO bull until they separate ground and space
  • anyajenkinsanyajenkins Member Posts: 56 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    It smell more and more like Marvel Heroes here, What are you doing Cryptic ?
    Since this summer is bad news over bad news, Discovery based x-pack, Random queue, story mode butchered, Starbase24 useless, new race starting lvl 50, No more RA... what's the next move? no more dilithium-zen conversion ?

    When you run a mmo you NEED to listen to your community and ask them before make huge change to the game, it's not the 90's anymore, devs are not allmighty gods anymore, people are vocal and they speak with their wallet. Angry and disappointed F2P players will not spend money on a game.

    Like i said on the first line it smell like Marvel Heroes, a fantastic game who took care of his playerbase, dead and gone in a big walk of shame less than a year after big unwanted changes..
    coffee the finest organic suspension ever devised - Janeway
  • iamynaughtiamynaught Member Posts: 1,285 Arc User
    Heads up on this: While Competitive Queues aren't part of the Random system. However, they are part of the rewards for playing Random TFOs. So you can get them, and Gamma marks, that way.

    So, use random queues to get rep marks or don't do a certain rep that is difficult to get marks for. Guess I won't be doing Competitive Rep anymore.

    Honestly though, how is this such a huge change from what we have currently?

    Current system - Queue up for a Borg RA, complete it and get a choice of marks.

    New system coming Tuesday - Queue up for a random queue and pray it's one you like, or at the very least one that a random PUG can actually finish and get a choice of marks *IF* you do.

    I wish I could say I won't be using the Random Queue system you are giving us, but I will be. Just not in the intended way. I will queue up for what I want to play and get randoms to fill it out. I will not press the random button and have my time wasted playing something I don't want to play or that a PUG (seemingly) can't complete. *looking at you Assault on Terok Nor*
    Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.

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  • steven74205steven74205 Member Posts: 56 Arc User
    Well, many people seem to be putting in comments, so I thought I’d put in some feedback.

    When new queues come out, they’re usually filled quickly because people want to play the new content. However, certain queues (and I don’t mind calling them queues) quickly fall into obscurity. So, the question should be: “Why?”

    For example, Gateway to Grethor. I played it twice, and due to the content being badly timed, it became virtually impossible to complete, because people would get bored during the mission and leave. If people abandon a PVE mission due to boredom, forcing players into this on the new TFO system will not make it suddenly interesting and playable again. I believe you will find the number of abandoned queues will shoot up.

    The Red Alerts, primarily Borg and Nukara, gave players the option to queue up to perform the grind for reputation marks in a quick and easy way. No 15-20 minute waits to see if the queue pops up, and no 60-minute grind on a PVE event you hate just to get marks.

    I’ve been playing STO for six years now, and I do not consider this fair or reasonable to your players. I don’t agree with the: “you’ve killed the game” comments received, but I do agree with the moderate comments that forcing people into content they’ve voluntarily avoided will not make them happy to play it again.

    Also, the number of weekend events is far too low to make this viable for mark grinding. Yes, I agree that removing the cooldown will be a good thing, but doing a Borg Red Alert 20-30 times in a day will prompt people to explore other gaming options.

    Making a very unpopular change to a game, when facing tough competition such as the new Spider-Man game, the new Assassin’s Creed game and the new Fallout 76, all either out now or coming soon, will be driving people from the PCs to the consoles, and they won’t be loading up STO.

    I would ask you to take into account the wishes of the players (and those of us who are lifetime members and have paid into the game) when making changes to the content. Instead of attempting to resurrect dead queues by giving us no choice, why not rewrite the event into something the fans want to play? Remove the dead weight and give us something fun, quick and straightforward to play, and I believe you will have far happier fans.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    I strongly dislike this change.

    I play Red Alerts a LOT because they're easy to get into, and last only a few minutes. I can play one over my lunch break, or when I just want to blow off steam for a few minutes. This change likely means I won't play STO at all on weekdays anymore, I'll just cycle my fleet missions and log out.
    Fun fact: Borg and Tholian Red Alerts had choice mark boxes added after they were made into queues.
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  • tomquinn123tomquinn123 Member Posts: 11 Arc User
    Riiight....Red Alerts are being removed from normal gameplay. Terrible idea. I like to play these pretty regularly inbetween other cooldowns.
  • sinn74sinn74 Member Posts: 1,149 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    (Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
    Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
  • commanderblack#7812 commanderblack Member Posts: 47 Arc User
    There are so many other ques that never get played.
    May the force be with you!!! Qapla!!
  • lordhavelocklordhavelock Member Posts: 2,248 Arc User
    saekiith wrote: »
    Nope... sorry, that's a bad change...
    I would definitely end up with less marks and will be stopped dead in my tracks for any reputation because I will NOT spend 5-6 Hours on a Saturday and/or Sunday grinding something.

    The Red Alerts were the perfect opportunity to just jump into the game for 20-30 Minutes a day and still feel like you accomplished something, feel like you still progressed.
    With this? Yeah... let me guess, there will be buyable Mark Packages in the Store soon?
    /QFT


    You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
  • nickarcher404nickarcher404 Member Posts: 40 Arc User
    > @dracounguis said:
    > tasshena wrote: »
    >
    > So we'll only be able to do these during a 'Red Alert Weekend', instead of anytime now?
    >
    > This an attempt to force people into the queues for a mark type to get their marks? As someone noted to me once, they're only in for the elite mark, for regular marks 'just do a borg alert'. :p​​
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Yeah, sounds like this is a 'nobody plays other queues' move to remove RAs from normal access.
    > It's what you do when you DON'T have a good idea to improve things.
    > So SOP for Cryptic.... "How do we make other TFO compete with RAs? We remove RAs!" :D
    > #gTFO...of RAs!
    > I can't wait to see what the next 'too good' queue is that Cryptic will remove after RAs are gone! :sleepy:
    >
    > Glad I gave up on my alts, cause I used to run the Borg RA for my daily bonus of X marks for reps on each one. Took awhile to do on multiple toons, but now they'd want me to run a normal (aka 'long') queue to do it. Nope.
    >
    > A 20hr CD would have been a better first step. Most players probably only hop in once a day per toon for some easy marks and mastery.

    Man, I love you dracounguis. I literally read forum just for your posts of logic, clarity and sense. If Cryptic legitimately hired you on the Dev team, I think they would actually make money, not crush cannon and produce playable content again.

    I for one am done with all this. If Kael reads Reddit anymore, his post has 100+ comments on his confirmation that RAs are not available 24/7, and the majority express how done we are. If the devs could explain why, I would love to sit down with some popcorn tonight during the Ten Forward and watch the fireworks because I think this will be more infamous than the T6 Vor'Cha comments he has gotten #Vortas4RAs
  • asadir#3274 asadir Member Posts: 19 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    The game isn't doing well as it is , a lot of unpopular changes lately culminating with this.Do you really think that forcing people into long queue times is going to ..increase your sales somehow ? That they just gonna go , ''oh well i was gonna just buy a ship with dilithium/zen , but since that is so hard now im just gonna open my wallet''.People who still play this game , are already open their wallets but not because you force them to ,because they want to.What the few people that still play this game dont want to is to wait 20-30 mins for a queue . Or maybe they want you to fix the lag and rubberbanding issues.But no , let's gimp the game further ,maybe we can squeeze a bit more coin.
  • zolgearzolgear Member Posts: 12 Arc User
    Its kinda funny
    >Go on forums
    >Reaction is "SKY IS FALLING!"
    >Go in-game
    >Reaction is "I only sometimes did Borg RAs for leveling, but got all my marks from Battlegrounds, or other queues"
    Funny to see how different the reaction is.

    That's probably because the people who jump in for a half hour or so each day to do some alerts and log off aren't in-game to react to it.
  • saedeithsaedeith Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    This seems like a really bad idea. I only RA because they are quick to pop and quick to plow through. Removing these from weekdays isn't going to boost random TFOs. There is a reason why a lot of queues are not played and why Red Alerts are so popular. You seriously might want to rethink this Cryptic.
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    I am not really a fan.

    The Borg and THolian Red Alerts are a nice little queue that you could do any time you wanted, even if you had very little time to play.
    And unlike Patrols, you actually get to fight NPC Dreadnoughts and large NPC groups in them, so you can try out new builds against more difficult foes and see how you fare, all without any time gates and without needing really much time.

    Very few other queues can deliver this. Most are far too focused, so you can't try to solo some Dreadnought or NPC, because the Dreadnought or NPC group is the target of all players in that queue (Task Force).

    They were a great mix of casual while still containing some optional challenging content (like beating that Borg Dreadnought and its probe companions solo, or taking out 2 Borg Cubes or a Borg Cube and a bunch of SPhers and Probes solo)

    This isn't the first time content like that becomes unavailable or more limited. The old Deep Space Encounters had similar features - they were even open instances, so no queue times at all, but you could still have many people in it, and there were plenty of enemies around to deal with. You could fly with a group and work together, or you could try to see how long you'd last solo. I loved that.
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  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    Oh - question, are we keeping the current random space encounters? They're actually reasonably fun if a big enough group is in them at one time.
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  • cptbambamcptbambam Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    I hope it works out for you with the new system, i will just be playing CCA and dropping reputation gear for fleet gear i think. But if the dps players start making more tours i will maybe join in more then i do now, but i am not pugging due too this change.
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    Well, Kael seemed to indicate that you're going to be able to get Gamma Marks from these new Blue Moon Red Alerts. We shall see. I'm still thinking not until after the Tier 6 Reputation code is in place Tuesday with AoD.

    If Gamma is implemented in these Blue Moon Red Alerts then they were holding out to introduce them into Mark Choice Boxes as late as they could before AoD.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
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  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,951 Arc User
    ...This isn't the first time content like that becomes unavailable or more limited. The old Deep Space Encounters had similar features - they were even open instances, so no queue times at all, but you could still have many people in it, and there were plenty of enemies around to deal with. You could fly with a group and work together, or you could try to see how long you'd last solo. I loved that.
    I think a lot of people have forgotten about these or never got a chance to even see them. With cloaker bosses, boss battle groups, etc they were a lot of fun and a great way to practice. Seeing how long you'd last solo was great as sooner or later you'd come out victorious and be a better player for it.

  • mousemaster1mousemaster1 Member Posts: 10 Arc User
    This is a horrible idea, in my opinion.

    First off, doing this so quickly WITHOUT allowing any time to receive feedback from the player base, not the best move.

    Second, the red alerts are part of a group of a few queues that run with any regularity, will be reducing that choice for the players that want to play specific mission and not the Random TFOs.

    Third, why not do the weekend events, but also keep the old queue missions intact, similar to the Breach and Crystalline events versus the normal queues.

    Fourth, what is the fate of the Tholian and Tzenkethi Red Alerts?

    I am still not sold on Random TFOs mainly because so many queues need good team players, dps and an understanding of how to do the mission, especially the advanced queues. I also HATE time gates with a passion, and typically refuse to play any queues that use time gates.

    ....Mirror Invasion is HORRIBLE, much prefer the original one that was on the hourly event cycle.
  • phoenix841phoenix841 Member Posts: 486 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    kalex71 wrote: »
    I guess I won't be doing RA anymore. I rarely get to play on weekends because I am working on those days and only get any real play time during the week. Not everyone has the "standard" work week schedule.

    So, what am I supposed to do when I need some quick marks to finish a rep in the middle of the week, and I don't have 30 minutes to spend in a queue, not including queue time, and other things I have to do?

    RAs are the best way to get a quick daily mark bonus for any rep I need. Especially the borg ones that take like 5 minutes. I don't care if they have like a 10h cooldown or something. I just need 60 marks here and there sometimes, and RAs are great for that.

    Not every can play on weekends. I can a lot, but not every weekend. However I do load up the game every day for a few minutes to do reps, and I can pop into an RA if I need to at the same time, without spending too much extra time.

    Star Grind Online is what this has become. The no-cooldown events now prove that.

    Also, are the new RA queues still eligible for daily rewards?
    LTS Since Beta (Jan 2010).
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    This is a horrible idea, in my opinion.
    First off, doing this so quickly WITHOUT allowing any time to receive feedback from the player base, not the best move.

    This is how alerts are structured on consoles and we've been providing feedback to Cryptic for quite some time that the rewards structure with the alerts (making them reward all mark types, barring the most recent) upset the balance of the PVE system (contributing to dead queues.)

    That may not have been your feedback, but this has been an active discussion point and the devs have decided to go a certain direction on it.

    phoenix841 wrote: »

    So, what am I supposed to do when I need some quick marks to finish a rep in the middle of the week, and I don't have 30 minutes to spend in a queue, not including queue time, and other things I have to do?

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  • giantconch#4219 giantconch Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    Interesting... well, this won't convince me to touch other queues, so I guess absolutely all mark farming is now a weekend only thing *shrugs*
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    leemwatson wrote: »
    Red Alerts are becoming special weekend events, which reward 35 marks with no cooldown!

    https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11006513

    About time!

    And if folks are wondering how to fast level their ships....Undine Assault is your friend.
    Argala is a much easier friend to deal with. I also wholly agree that it's time to ditch the RA's. Players have become too lazy and don't want to put in ANY effort. This is not a single player game people. Step up your game.
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This discussion has been closed.