Why would you play more than once if you are grinding out ONE rep?
I don't know, but many people did it.
Maybe they weren't grinding out marks than. And play for other reasons...like FUN. Or quick dil. Or some exp.
whenever I played red alerts extensively, I did it to complete masteries while getting all the daily bonusses... and maybe finish the reps I didn't like the queues for.
Why would you play more than once if you are grinding out ONE rep?
I don't know, but many people did it.
Maybe they weren't grinding out marks than. And play for other reasons...like FUN. Or quick dil. Or some exp.
whenever I played red alerts extensively, I did it to complete masteries while getting all the daily bonusses... and maybe finish the reps I didn't like the queues for.
That is a decent use, my favorite is accolade hunting, since there ARE accolades specific to it.
Yikes, if that's not a bug then it IS a major nerf to be forced to do 2 red alerts a day to get the marks you used to get from the first red alert of the day.
How is it a nerf when you make significantly more over time? It is literally an INCREASE.
Lets do the math here
Old system
-First RA would give 65 marks
-Each one after that is 10 marks
After doing 10 of them you will have 155 marks
New system
-All RAs give out 35 marks, period
After doing 10 of them you will have 350 marks.
This is so much spin... my 1st RA gives me 65 for rep 1
2nd RA gives me 65 for rep 2
3rd RA gives me 65 for rep 3
etc etc...
THIS is how my RAs go... or did go.
new system... 10 RAs 350 marks. Old system 10 RA for 650 marks. Fleet, Borg all the way to Compet.
The maps are, AFAIK, all team based instances, so hanging around won't work, as you'll get auto-booted out of that instance, and into a new one, generated when a new team is formed. (It "might" work for pre-mades, but I doubt Cryptic put that much thought or effort into it)
If it did/does work for pre-mades, it kinda destroys any semblance of "immersion" as it would essentially be a continuous "horde mode", with absolutely no other purpose than grinding out marks or Dil, and would therefore be little better than the much maligned (by purists) "farming" foundry missions.
leaving out that under that old system that required a 30 minute wait between each red alert and the new system doesn't you can start the next one immediately Upon finishing the first one. On top of that and I'll admit I haven't tested this yet but I suspect that you could even cue for the next Red Alert without leaving the map for the one you just finished which Cuts your loading screens in half.
Not like I was sitting around doing nothing in between waiting for timer to expire... frankly grinding 10 RAs back to back each day would kill any enjoyment from this game... cause then it'd be a job or a grind and not entertainment. Clusters, DOFF, Admarity, Advanced Ques for you know Elite Marks. Ground or Space Battle Zones for other Elite Marks... to me this is a nerf. Daily bonus was for playing the game/que and you get it once a day for each rep. They could of just removed the choice selection and did not need push RAs to Special Events. 650 Marks of your choice each day every day vs 350 marks ONLY during Special RA Events.
I just did the Elachi alert and we got the 2.5x multiplier but I still only got 35 marks. Why bother having optionals if you only get 35 marks period. I can see this set amount for Borg and Tholian but Tzenkethi and Elachi RAs both have optional objectives. Unless they add optionals to the Borg (Which I support, it could be a timegate or destorying the Tactical Cube, or simply an increase in groups to destory from say 4 to 6 or 8.) and Tholian there's no point in playing Tzenketh and Elachi.
Well the Elachi has been a special Weekend Event type of Queue so it had mechanics to boost rewards. Now that it is in the rotation of regular Blue Moon Red Alerts that wouldn't be applicable as they want every Red Alert to award homogenized rewards. Cryptic, however, did not update the Queue to remove any of that 'Optional' junk.
We'll probably have the same problem with the Temporal Maurauders Red Alert when that gets into the rotation.
'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.'
Well to paraphrase the same excuse given when they removed Marks and Elite Marks to Dilitium conversions from being eligible for bonus awards during Dilitium Weekends -
'This will make that valuable throughout the year.' Understand that cryptic reasoning? Well no one did and we never will.
'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.'
Sadly without the bonus I won't play the red alerts anymore at all. The Tholian red alert is my second favorite content left in the game. Despite the fact that I need nothing whatsoever in the way of currencies, the idea of getting nothing worthwhile for playing something somehow simply insults me. So I suppose I will do the romulan patrols if I want to pew pew for a minute. the only problem with that is the travel time.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If you were happy with 65 marks/day for a rep, you could do _1_ red alert and be done for the day. Moving on to playing story missions or whatever.
A daily project takes 30 marks, the RAs give you 35 marks, enough for a daily project.
Yes, enough for a day. Which means when the RA weekend is over, you may no longer have a viable source for marks for some reps. I haven't had any luck getting Binary Circuit or Twin Tribulations started in over a year. I'm sure if I sat in the queue for an entire day I might get lucky and get a run in on one of them. But I have other things I'd rather do than sit in a queue for hours upon end in the hopes of one starting.
And the new queue system we'll get with AoD will not help Competitive rep in the least. Also, no idea if the new Starbase 1 queue will actually be enjoyable enough to run more than once. I hope it is, as that may become the only non-event source for Comp marks.
How is it a nerf when you make significantly more over time? It is literally an INCREASE.
Over time. Perhaps a person only has time to do 1 run on a given day. And during the week, not on a weekend. Making these weekend events that may not be available every single weekend limits who may be able to take part. Some folks only have time to play on their days off, not everyone gets weekends off, so those folks are out of luck. They could have done the old style RA's during the week and made at least some progress, now they miss the RA's entirely by working weekends.
I won't pretend that I speak for anyone besides myself, but I'd rather have 65 marks from one run of a piece of content than 70 marks from 2 runs of the same content. That leads to burnout.
That's interesting. So when I was running the Breach event, or the Crystalline event, or the Mirror Invasion event and was getting the daily bonus for those, was that a bug? Nope, WAI.
(And not sure if you're serious or being sarcastic, so I just wanted to put this in that I'm not trying to be harsh or single you out, just pointing out how things have worked in the past.)
Yikes, if that's not a bug then it IS a major nerf to be forced to do 2 red alerts a day to get the marks you used to get from the first red alert of the day.
How is it a nerf when you make significantly more over time? It is literally an INCREASE.
Lets do the math here
Old system
-First RA would give 65 marks
-Each one after that is 10 marks
After doing 10 of them you will have 155 marks
New system
-All RAs give out 35 marks, period
After doing 10 of them you will have 350 marks.
First RA gives 65. The next 9 gives 65 in a different rep. So that is 650 marks over 10 runs...not 155...unless you are a moron. Are we assuming we are morons now? As for the cooldown...easy swap toons. I could run 10 runs just as fast as you can now over all my toons. And I would get nearly double the marks. Not that I even remotely care about those suckers that I have millions of really.
Let's not forget the actual nerf to marks for the Tzenkethi RA. I used to get 45 marks per run, if all optionals were competed, 35 if the optionals failed, and of course zero when someone didn't bother catching all the torpedoes. And this was before the daily bonus, so it would be 90-100 marks per run as long as I picked a different rep. Now it seems it's down to 35 regardless of what happens with the optionals. I made 3 attempts at it yesterday and with these changes, the Tzen RA is not worth the trouble anymore. I didn't manage a single completion due to folks not getting the torpedoes. Someone who had completed it mentioned that the rewards were dropped down and you only get 35 marks for a completion, regardless of if the optionals are completed or not.
And gotta agree, anyone who is FARMING marks would alt to a different character to continue getting the daily bonus while one alt is on cooldown.
I've always queued for more than the RA's, I just ended up playing the RA's more since it was the only way to get marks for some reps. I have only so much time and I don't like simply waiting around doing nothing except waiting for a queue to start. I literally sat in the queue system yesterday for over an hour waiting for one of the Borg queues to start, or Counterpoint, or even Borg Disconnected. Azure Nebula popped thanks to the Endeavor before this stretch so I did make some headway. Eventually though a Borg Disconnected did pop. But between the time I queued up and it finally popped, I'd made a run through the Undine BZ and one through the Terran BZ, including doing some DOff'ing in between.
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
If you were happy with 65 marks/day for a rep, you could do _1_ red alert and be done for the day. Moving on to playing story missions or whatever.
A daily project takes 30 marks, the RAs give you 35 marks, enough for a daily project.
Yes, enough for a day. Which means when the RA weekend is over, you may no longer have a viable source for marks for some reps. I haven't had any luck getting Binary Circuit or Twin Tribulations started in over a year.
The idea is that when the RA weekend is over, you would have more luck getting those queues started, if other people also want those marks. The competitive queues were very busy before they put the marks in the allboxes.
Of course, in practice there are so many other sources of allmarks, and more coming with AoD, that any effect of limiting RA's may end up being minimal.
Yes, enough for a day. Which means when the RA weekend is over, you may no longer have a viable source for marks for some reps. I haven't had any luck getting Binary Circuit or Twin Tribulations started in over a year. I'm sure if I sat in the queue for an entire day I might get lucky and get a run in on one of them. But I have other things I'd rather do than sit in a queue for hours upon end in the hopes of one starting.
The only rep whose marks can't be obtained in a battlezone are the Cooperative ones
-Borg Marks = Defera
-Tholian Marks = Nukara
-Romulan Marks = New Romulus
-Voth and Undine Marks = Dyson Sphere
-Delta Quadrant and Iconian Marks = Kobali Prime
-Terran and Temporal Marks = Badlands
-Lukari Marks = Gon'Cra
-Gamma marks = GQ
SO DIFFICULT!
And the Lukari marks are virtually unattainable due to bugs in Gon'Cra
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Yes, enough for a day. Which means when the RA weekend is over, you may no longer have a viable source for marks for some reps. I haven't had any luck getting Binary Circuit or Twin Tribulations started in over a year. I'm sure if I sat in the queue for an entire day I might get lucky and get a run in on one of them. But I have other things I'd rather do than sit in a queue for hours upon end in the hopes of one starting.
The only rep whose marks can't be obtained in a battlezone are the Cooperative ones
-Borg Marks = Defera
-Tholian Marks = Nukara
-Romulan Marks = New Romulus
-Voth and Undine Marks = Dyson Sphere
-Delta Quadrant and Iconian Marks = Kobali Prime
-Terran and Temporal Marks = Badlands
-Lukari Marks = Gon'Cra
-Gamma marks = GQ
SO DIFFICULT!
Yes, it is for some of us. Physical limitations are a real thing. My reflexes aren't so great and they won't be getting better.
I tried Defera, too much of a pain, never bothered again.
Nukara, was alright, but not something I've bothered with in years. Not opposed to giving it another shot though.
Romulan, easier to do a patrol but the ground stuff is simple enough.
Voth, the ground BZ is something I've never been able to complete. I followed fleetmates through it a couple of times and couldn't do much. Horrible zone for me.
Undine marks are indeed easy enough to get from the space BZ.
Delta and Iconian marks, yes, simple on Kobali Prime.
Terran and Temporal, again, doable, but somewhat painful for me. The Badlands give me a headache but manageable if I don't stay too long.
Lukari marks, I've never been able to succeed in that BZ, not so much as even capturing an area, so marks from there may as well not exist. Perhaps once some changes hopefully happen, since Kael was asking for input as to what is wrong with the zone, it'll be easier.
And then there's the time factor. Running around to the different BZ's takes time and capturing an area or whatever is needed for marks to be awarded takes time. More time than an RA and for no greater a payout than was available prior to them becoming a weekend event.
Look, I get what you're saying, and actually do agree somewhat. I'm just pointing out that not everyone plays the same, or even in some cases CAN play the same. I'd much rather run a non-RA queue than BZ hop. I like a lot of the queues and I hope the new system works and it's actually easier to get the ones I like started. Miner Instabilities was a fun queue way back when, I wouldn't mind playing it again sometimes. The Vault: Ensnared was another I used to like running.
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
And the Lukari marks are virtually unattainable due to bugs in Gon'Cra
No they aren't. The bugs in Gon'Cra only prevent the final phase from starting since zones get recaptured too fast. You still earn marks per zone, and, due to how fast they get recaptured, it actually makes it easier to farm them.
It seems you are either the only one or one of the few who thinks so. I have tried that horrible place half a dozen times or so and it was usually abandoned.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I'm not sure why everyone cares if they have the daily reward anyway. In a week they will only be an option 3 days of the week anyway.
RA are not what Cryptic wants you to play anymore. Be thankful they don't alter the deal further. The next step is to just delete them.
Or they could do the unthinkable and restore Red Alerts to what they were originally made to be... Souped up DSEs with little in the way of rewards which were more useful for accolade hunting and ship mastery grinding than anything else..
The Voth BZ is the easiest BZ in the game. I solo cap points there all the time. Not using anything fancy either.
Defera is the oldest BZ, and if Voth wasn't such a free money cakewalk it would be the easiest. Grab a TR off the exchange or the Shotgun from the Phoenix and have a ball.
Comments
whenever I played red alerts extensively, I did it to complete masteries while getting all the daily bonusses... and maybe finish the reps I didn't like the queues for.
My character Tsin'xing
This is so much spin... my 1st RA gives me 65 for rep 1
2nd RA gives me 65 for rep 2
3rd RA gives me 65 for rep 3
etc etc...
THIS is how my RAs go... or did go.
new system... 10 RAs 350 marks. Old system 10 RA for 650 marks. Fleet, Borg all the way to Compet.
If it did/does work for pre-mades, it kinda destroys any semblance of "immersion" as it would essentially be a continuous "horde mode", with absolutely no other purpose than grinding out marks or Dil, and would therefore be little better than the much maligned (by purists) "farming" foundry missions.
Not like I was sitting around doing nothing in between waiting for timer to expire... frankly grinding 10 RAs back to back each day would kill any enjoyment from this game... cause then it'd be a job or a grind and not entertainment. Clusters, DOFF, Admarity, Advanced Ques for you know Elite Marks. Ground or Space Battle Zones for other Elite Marks... to me this is a nerf. Daily bonus was for playing the game/que and you get it once a day for each rep. They could of just removed the choice selection and did not need push RAs to Special Events. 650 Marks of your choice each day every day vs 350 marks ONLY during Special RA Events.
We'll probably have the same problem with the Temporal Maurauders Red Alert when that gets into the rotation.
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.'
RA are not what Cryptic wants you to play anymore. Be thankful they don't alter the deal further. The next step is to just delete them.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
'This will make that valuable throughout the year.' Understand that cryptic reasoning? Well no one did and we never will.
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.'
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Yes, enough for a day. Which means when the RA weekend is over, you may no longer have a viable source for marks for some reps. I haven't had any luck getting Binary Circuit or Twin Tribulations started in over a year. I'm sure if I sat in the queue for an entire day I might get lucky and get a run in on one of them. But I have other things I'd rather do than sit in a queue for hours upon end in the hopes of one starting.
And the new queue system we'll get with AoD will not help Competitive rep in the least. Also, no idea if the new Starbase 1 queue will actually be enjoyable enough to run more than once. I hope it is, as that may become the only non-event source for Comp marks.
Over time. Perhaps a person only has time to do 1 run on a given day. And during the week, not on a weekend. Making these weekend events that may not be available every single weekend limits who may be able to take part. Some folks only have time to play on their days off, not everyone gets weekends off, so those folks are out of luck. They could have done the old style RA's during the week and made at least some progress, now they miss the RA's entirely by working weekends.
I won't pretend that I speak for anyone besides myself, but I'd rather have 65 marks from one run of a piece of content than 70 marks from 2 runs of the same content. That leads to burnout.
That's interesting. So when I was running the Breach event, or the Crystalline event, or the Mirror Invasion event and was getting the daily bonus for those, was that a bug? Nope, WAI.
(And not sure if you're serious or being sarcastic, so I just wanted to put this in that I'm not trying to be harsh or single you out, just pointing out how things have worked in the past.)
Let's not forget the actual nerf to marks for the Tzenkethi RA. I used to get 45 marks per run, if all optionals were competed, 35 if the optionals failed, and of course zero when someone didn't bother catching all the torpedoes. And this was before the daily bonus, so it would be 90-100 marks per run as long as I picked a different rep. Now it seems it's down to 35 regardless of what happens with the optionals. I made 3 attempts at it yesterday and with these changes, the Tzen RA is not worth the trouble anymore. I didn't manage a single completion due to folks not getting the torpedoes. Someone who had completed it mentioned that the rewards were dropped down and you only get 35 marks for a completion, regardless of if the optionals are completed or not.
And gotta agree, anyone who is FARMING marks would alt to a different character to continue getting the daily bonus while one alt is on cooldown.
I've always queued for more than the RA's, I just ended up playing the RA's more since it was the only way to get marks for some reps. I have only so much time and I don't like simply waiting around doing nothing except waiting for a queue to start. I literally sat in the queue system yesterday for over an hour waiting for one of the Borg queues to start, or Counterpoint, or even Borg Disconnected. Azure Nebula popped thanks to the Endeavor before this stretch so I did make some headway. Eventually though a Borg Disconnected did pop. But between the time I queued up and it finally popped, I'd made a run through the Undine BZ and one through the Terran BZ, including doing some DOff'ing in between.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Of course, in practice there are so many other sources of allmarks, and more coming with AoD, that any effect of limiting RA's may end up being minimal.
And the Lukari marks are virtually unattainable due to bugs in Gon'Cra
Yes, it is for some of us. Physical limitations are a real thing. My reflexes aren't so great and they won't be getting better.
I tried Defera, too much of a pain, never bothered again.
Nukara, was alright, but not something I've bothered with in years. Not opposed to giving it another shot though.
Romulan, easier to do a patrol but the ground stuff is simple enough.
Voth, the ground BZ is something I've never been able to complete. I followed fleetmates through it a couple of times and couldn't do much. Horrible zone for me.
Undine marks are indeed easy enough to get from the space BZ.
Delta and Iconian marks, yes, simple on Kobali Prime.
Terran and Temporal, again, doable, but somewhat painful for me. The Badlands give me a headache but manageable if I don't stay too long.
Lukari marks, I've never been able to succeed in that BZ, not so much as even capturing an area, so marks from there may as well not exist. Perhaps once some changes hopefully happen, since Kael was asking for input as to what is wrong with the zone, it'll be easier.
And then there's the time factor. Running around to the different BZ's takes time and capturing an area or whatever is needed for marks to be awarded takes time. More time than an RA and for no greater a payout than was available prior to them becoming a weekend event.
Look, I get what you're saying, and actually do agree somewhat. I'm just pointing out that not everyone plays the same, or even in some cases CAN play the same. I'd much rather run a non-RA queue than BZ hop. I like a lot of the queues and I hope the new system works and it's actually easier to get the ones I like started. Miner Instabilities was a fun queue way back when, I wouldn't mind playing it again sometimes. The Vault: Ensnared was another I used to like running.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
It seems you are either the only one or one of the few who thinks so. I have tried that horrible place half a dozen times or so and it was usually abandoned.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing