The time requirement per day went from 5 min to 25-30 min on average.
This really isn't a valid compression because this isn't a seasonal event, nor have they even treated it like such.
This is more like any of the other TFO based events, which are usually timed to take 12-15 minutes.
Your attempt at validation isn't necessarily valid. People's RL time constraints and grind tolerance will vary as individuals so you'll get different opinions from different people that are just that... opinions and perceptions. It can be difficult to counter the way people feel just by citing numbers.
On the positive side for me: being able to use different toons.
Not so positive: more time per day (in combination with other factors lost versus the old system) tested my own tolerance or at least my perception of being 'under pressure' to complete it.
I hope they back off a bit for the next one and quit testing my own tolerance or it may very well come down to 'pick and choose' with respect to what events I participate in. Event fatigue is definitely an issue for me as are RL commitments. Also hope the next 'hybrid' event isn't any time soon. But that's just me...
Overall though I thought the Mushroom TFO's design and repeatably was pretty good and similar to the previous ground FTFO on Pahvo found it refreshing to go for a jog through the forest while being attacked by aliens. This is some something I can't do in real life aside from the jog in the forest part.
I did complete the event on both my main and cel ship accounts.
The time requirement per day went from 5 min to 25-30 min on average.
This really isn't a valid compression because this isn't a seasonal event, nor have they even treated it like such.
This is more like any of the other TFO based events, which are usually timed to take 12-15 minutes.
Your attempt at validation isn't necessarily valid. People's RL time constraints and grind tolerance will vary as individuals so you'll get different opinions from different people that are just that... opinions and perceptions. It can be difficult to counter the way people feel just by citing numbers.
On the positive side for me: being able to use different toons.
Not so positive: more time per day (in combination with other factors lost versus the old system) tested my own tolerance or at least my perception of being 'under pressure' to complete it.
I hope they back off a bit for the next one and quit testing my own tolerance or it may very well come down to 'pick and choose' with respect to what events I participate in. Event fatigue is definitely an issue for me as are RL commitments. Also hope the next 'hybrid' event isn't any time soon. But that's just me...
Overall though I thought the Mushroom TFO's design and repeatably was pretty good and similar to the previous ground FTFO on Pahvo found it refreshing to go for a jog through the forest while being attacked by aliens. This is some something I can't do in real life aside from the jog in the forest part.
I did complete the event on both my main and cel ship accounts.
Agreed.
Rather you compare it to a seasonal event or a queued event, the per day requirement was significantly higher for this event in exchange for a reduction of total days. I am curious how many people did they buy out just to skip the daily grind. I hope not many, because if it was a lot then that just serves to make this type of daily requirement more standard.
Overall, I like the new system, it has many good points to it and is overall superior to the previous event system. If they just made the 'per day' requirement more in line with events as we have come to expect them it would be a home run. I'm hoping next time we see an event like this that the requirements will be decreased. In my opinion, if they were half of what this event was, it would be perfect. One run of a queue or two patrols.. that would have gone a long way toward making this feel like less of a grind.
I will give them credit where it's due though, the reward was a good one. The ship is nice and the inclusion of the weapons and upgrade kits did help mitigate the sour opinion I had of the overall daily process. That was appreciated.
The system is close.. it just needs a slight tweak and it would be really really good.
Given that Cryptic is on record for saying they don't want people buying out and would rather players actually play the event, your fears there are unfounded. A higher percentage of buyouts would actually most likely cause them to consider changing the model to something less taxing on the player's time. It's not always about money, @seaofsorrows
My opinion: while the event does take more daily time than seasonal ship events or past TFO events, I find that doesn't matter much. In the past, I would do an event task, then go on to play some other content to accomplish some other in-game goals. This event allowed me to combine those activities, accomplishing both simultaneously, thereby optimizing my in-game play time.
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My opinion: while the event does take more daily time than seasonal ship events or past TFO events, I find that doesn't matter much. In the past, I would do an event task, then go on to play some other content to accomplish some other in-game goals. This event allowed me to combine those activities, accomplishing both simultaneously, thereby optimizing my in-game play time.
That's great.. unfortunately, it didn't quite work that way for me. In my experience, the time requirement for the event was taken out of the time I usually use for other tasks. There were times when they overlapped, for example if I had a space damage Endeavor, I could take care of it in a patrol or something of that nature.
I think the problem with me was that after 20 days, I was so sick of the Queue and the Patrols that once they were over, I just wanted to log out and not look at STO anymore that day. If you did the queue alone for example, you would run it 40 times over the course of 20 days.. that's just pure burnout for me.
Again though, I like the system.. it's good. Had the daily requirement been something like one run of the queue or two patrols.. I think it would have been just fine.
1 TFO, maybe 3 patrols (because 2 seems a little too short) or 1 episode, and make the episode's rewards not something you can reasonably only use one of or a direct copy of a reward from an earlier mission...and a lame reward at that
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I feel your pain, @seaofsorrows . During past events, by Day 10 I'd be ready for it to be over. This event I didn't seem to get that feeling until about Day 15.
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
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I feel your pain, @seaofsorrows . During past events, by Day 10 I'd be ready for it to be over. This event I didn't seem to get that feeling until about Day 15.
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
I think they're on the right track, if they use the feedback given it should end up a huge upgrade once the system is refined a bit. The system overall is no doubt superior to the old method.
I feel your pain, @seaofsorrows . During past events, by Day 10 I'd be ready for it to be over. This event I didn't seem to get that feeling until about Day 15.
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
The reverse for me. Normally I play the event right till the last day long after I have unlocked the reward. As expected for the first time in 9+ years I have stopped running the event and skipped the extra days. That's 10 days of meta data they have lost from me and I heard a fair few other people are doing the same skipping those extra days that they used to play.
The current lag problems didn't help matters. My last few days of running before I stopped, took twice as long as normal due to rubberbanding lag semi breaking patrols
The time requirement per day went from 5 min to 25-30 min on average.
This really isn't a valid compression because this isn't a seasonal event, nor have they even treated it like such.
This is more like any of the other TFO based events, which are usually timed to take 12-15 minutes.
I have to agree with this, that the event is not a seasonal event and should not be looked at in that light. The issue I have with the event (not the post) is this part, "usually takes 12-15 minutes". For a lot of players, this event takes double that time, or more. For me and a lot of the others complaining about this event, it's the daily time spent we're taking issue with, not the system itself.
The new system seems decent enough. In the past I have knocked the system, but I was judging it not only on the mechanics but the requirements as well, and that was wrong. The mechanics are fine, it seems like a good system. And having options to fulfill the daily requirement is a nice touch. It's the requirements themselves that have tainted the system for me. The daily requirements are simply too high.
The new content taken as a whole is mediocre at best, though individual parts (the episode and the queue) are decent. Okay, I simply detest the Discovery patrols since they don't seem to like me. I get in, I get to certain points and they never progress. Broken since day one, reported, and apparently it's on "my end" where the problem lies. I've force verified, I've even attempted them on a different PC, same result. Due to that, the Disco patrols were not an option for me in completing the daily. Which meant that I was running the queue 2x a day. Not fun.
Now that I have completed the event and got the rewards, I never intend to run the queue or patrols ever again. Even if by some miracle the patrols are fixed for me, I won't know that as I will never even attempt them again. The other patrols, yes, but not the Disco ones. I will not be playing the event to collect the extra Dilithium either. I finished on Monday, and I haven't even logged into the game since. I need a break, so I am taking one. I will not leave the game over this, that would be stupid on my part, but a break is definitely warranted.
I do hope the Devs read the feedback and adjust future events to not be so time intensive. I don't mind running 1 mission or 1 queue to make the max daily progress. Multiple tasks however will mean that my participation level will likely drop, depending on what the multiple tasks are, of course. In some cases I may not even bother if I feel I won't be able to get the reward for an event without burning myself out. And if it starts happening that I'm missing too many of these event rewards, I may just stop playing altogether since at that point, I actually may not be enjoying the game any longer.
For now though, I do intend to keep playing, just with more breaks than I usually take, which used to be maybe 1 a year. This will be my 2nd in about 4 months and 3rd overall this year. And in my mind, that's not a good sign.
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
The established 'norm' up to this point for Event ships has been a small, trivial task. Something like Fastest Game on Ice or Flying High. The most extensive one is the Anniversary Event and even that is just to travel to 3 locations a day and spend 1 min in each one. The 'norm' on these is also 30 days.
I like that they cut the total time down to 20 days, but the massive increase in daily time required was not a good trade off. The time requirement per day went from 5 min to 25-30 min on average.
A far too trivial task if you ask me. These tasks were designed when the events were per-character, to be something peeps could do on every character. Making the events account-wide left them with basically nothing to actually do but pick up a 5-minute login bonus and come back tomorrow.
Incidentally, the anniverasary mission is the worst of them all. I would much rather be playing queues/patrols/episodes than running laps around the galaxy for Q's amusement, looking at loading screen after loading screen just to AFK the same meaningless minigame in multiple locations. And trolling the mission list for free transwarps actually makes it worse because it's just further highlighting how utterly meaningless the whole exercise is.
I think 25-30 minutes is good, given that it's real gameplay not running laps around the event map/the entire effing game. Perhaps even still a bit on the short side for a permanently-unlocked ship on all characters. It's certainly far less time than I used to spend on ship events back when they were 1,000 tokens per toon.
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
There certainly are a few things they could improve with this event format.
The biggest I think is that there were no localized incentives to play any of the specific content, which lead to many people spamming the same thing every time (and then complaining it's repetitive). The episode has that elachi boff, and I did originally plan on picking it up with every toon, but it just turned out to be not good enough. The queue certainly could've at least used an Advanced version to pick up P. Stachios for the disco rep on the side. The Mokai patrols giving no ship XP I presume is a bug.
And I do have to say the way they implemented the improved patrol rewards further encouraged using character-switch to repeat the same one, since now it would also give bonus reward that keeping to the cooldown and playing another one on the same toon wouldn't.
I did eventually settle into a pattern of "TFO, then Ninth Rule on two separate toons" myself, though I won't personally complain that was repetitive since I chose it for myself. But I do wish the game had given me reason to play all of them.
I feel your pain, @seaofsorrows . During past events, by Day 10 I'd be ready for it to be over. This event I didn't seem to get that feeling until about Day 15.
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
In my case, I was using the event to grind for Disco marks. Yeah, some of my characters are nearly done... but none actually has all of the marks they need to finish.
Other FTFO events deal with items like ground weapons, or ship consoles, not entire ships+bonuses. It makes sense it would take more effort then a normal FTFO to get the reward.
It makes sense to you. Both more time required and less total days. Imho they should have picked one or the other.
If this event wasn't running, what would you be doing? Let me think, you would be running the same story missions, TFOs, Battlezones, and Argala, that you have been running over and over again for years.
Most likely doing more of things that have nothing to do with STO whatsoever. Some peeps wouldn't mind a break every so often. I'm one of those peeps. The new system is designed to prevent and interfere with that.
MMOs in general are all about logging in every day
After playing regularily for darn near a decade I wanted more flexibility not less.
If basic events cause you to burnout then I don't really see how you can enjoy MMOs at all.
This wasn't a basic event. You mentioned that above.
burnout in the new system is to intentionally play the same thing every time, despite the fact you have more options to chose from, and that is no one's fault but your own.
lol now it's the players fault for doing it wrong.
As I recall, Cryptic has talked about possibly changing the way seasonal event work in the new event system to allow you to just do any number of the various activities on the seasonal event maps to progress to getting the ship. I would suspect that when the winter event comes up this year, instead of just doing the race to earn progress toward the ship, it will be more like "do 4-5 of the 7 map activities a day"
If those 4-5 things end up taking more time than just "the race" or just doing "flying high" then I'll be skipping those events altogether. I'd be more inclined to spend time playing in the dark of winter than in the summer. A portion of a sunny summer day lost to staring at a computer screen is lost forever. You can never get it back... it's gone forever.
Incidentally, the anniverasary mission is the worst of them all. I would much rather be playing queues/patrols/episodes than running laps around the galaxy for Q's amusement, looking at loading screen after loading screen just to AFK the same meaningless minigame in multiple locations. And trolling the mission list for free transwarps actually makes it worse because it's just further highlighting how utterly meaningless the whole exercise is.
Agreed. Turning the sound off helps. I think it's the harvesting that is the focus for many here. At least it's relatively quick though.
It makes sense to you. Both more time required and less total days. Imho they should have picked one or the other.
Most likely doing more of things that have nothing to do with STO whatsoever. Some peeps wouldn't mind a break every so often. I'm one of those peeps. The new system is designed to prevent and interfere with that.
After playing regularily for darn near a decade I wanted more flexibility not less.
This wasn't a basic event. You mentioned that above.
lol now it's the players fault for doing it wrong.
If those 4-5 things end up taking more time than just "the race" or just doing "flying high" then I'll be skipping those events altogether. I'd be more inclined to spend time playing in the dark of winter than in the summer. A portion of a sunny summer day lost to staring at a computer screen is lost forever. You can never get it back... it's gone forever.
Why should a ship+upgrades+weapons, which is worth significantly more then a single ship console or ground item, be averaged out to the same time/effort scaling as said single ship console or ground item? That makes no sense.
You can take a break any time you want. You aren't required to play these events to keep your STO account, nor are the items/ships necessary to keep playing the game. You also have the chance to get them later via the Phoenix Box, so you can't even use the argument of losing access to them forever. The only person not giving you a break is yourself. Full stop. This new system does nothing more or less to mess with that then the old one did.
It is more flexible. You can now play any combination of the content provided instead of just the singular option, and you get the same relative amount of skip days as the old event, AND the event buyout is now scaled with progress, so the buyout is a much better deal now.
I meant a basic event for MMOs in general, not just STO.
Its the players fault for choosing to take actions that make something that is inherently not as repetitious as the old event system into something that is, thus causing burnout that normally isn't there. Yes. Personal responsibility for one's actions is a thing.
You can just play it after the sun goes down...
You know that's not true in a lot of ways the new systems does a lot less then the old system. Some of us lost of lot of what we see as high value features from the old system and gained very little to nothing of value in the new system.
I disagree with that due to the way its setup I found it far more repetitious and the burnout is not the player fault its due to the poorly designed event. As for flexibility in the ways that matter for me its far less flexible with no worth while advantages over the old event system. You might be able to play any combination but as you have to play more then 1 a day and if talking space patrols 4 a day you end up doing more repetitions and the repetitions I found far worse then older events. 95% of the time I ended up repeating the same 4 patrols due to the problems with the 5th. Swapping in the TFO was hardly an improvement that's just the same map where you repeating the same section 3 times. Even with the TFO and 2 patrols that's 3 repetitions a day. No matter what combination I did the repetition was far worse hence why for the first time in 9 years I skipped 10days of an event.
lol now it's the players fault for doing it wrong.
Well, he's certainly not going to knock Cryptic for anything.. only one target left.
Interaction with him is a waste of time, we all know his one sided agenda and it's best to just not take anything he posts seriously. He hasn't made a valid point yet with the exception of 'Cryptic good, players bad.'
In my case, I was using the event to grind for Disco marks. Yeah, some of my characters are nearly done... but none actually has all of the marks they need to finish.
I was grinding for Fleet Marks mostly for my Fleet Projects. I know there are more efficient ways with bigger payouts, but the point was killing two birds with one stone.
If this event wasn't running, what would you be doing? Let me think, you would be running the same story missions, TFOs, Battlezones, and Argala, that you have been running over and over again for years. So, running the same new content for a reward = burnout, but doing the same thing, without the reward, and on older content, isn't burnout?
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
A far too trivial task if you ask me. These tasks were designed when the events were per-character, to be something peeps could do on every character. Making the events account-wide left them with basically nothing to actually do but pick up a 5-minute login bonus and come back tomorrow.
Agreed. I do think people are forgetting that the original 2-5 minute events were designed and started back when the rewards were per character earned with no account unlocks. Unfortunately, it seems some players have been spoiled by that situation carrying on longer than it should have.
As I recall, Cryptic has talked about possibly changing the way seasonal events work to allow you to just do any number of the various activities on the seasonal event maps to earn progress. I would suspect that when the winter event comes up this year, instead of just doing the race to earn progress, it will be more like "do 4-5 of the 7 map activities a day"
The devs have already said this year's Winter Event would not use the new system. I imagine next year's will, though. The next event most likely to use the new system will probably be the Anniversary Event.
I think 25-30 minutes is good, given that it's real gameplay not running laps around the event map/the entire effing game. Perhaps even still a bit on the short side for a permanently-unlocked ship on all characters. It's certainly far less time than I used to spend on ship events back when they were 1,000 tokens per toon.
Agreed. Previous TFO events were good, because they gave you something to really play. Seasonal events were trivial, though, yet they gave away the biggest prizes in form of ships. Never really made sense.
The biggest I think is that there were no localized incentives to play any of the specific content, which lead to many people spamming the same thing every time (and then complaining it's repetitive).
Perhaps, if they instituted a daily bonus for running a specific piece of qualifying content during the event. Maybe the bonuses could be built into the event itself, or the could coordinate at least one of the daily Endeavors to correspond with one of the qualifying content each day to be the bonus. Use the Endeavor system to entice players to run specific things each day to earn extra rewards while still getting their event progress. Seems I only saw this happen twice myself. Also, offering up some bonus progress points days wouldn't hurt either.
Most likely doing more of things that have nothing to do with STO whatsoever. Some peeps wouldn't mind a break every so often. I'm one of those peeps. The new system is designed to prevent and interfere with that.
This makes no sense, though. How does it interfere with you taking a break?
After playing regularily for darn near a decade I wanted more flexibility not less.
Again, makes no sense. You literally have more than one possible thing you can do to earn progress. Perhaps, your definition of "flexibility" is different than mine.
If those 4-5 things end up taking more time than just "the race" or just doing "flying high" then I'll be skipping those events altogether.
So, if you were to play "Winter Invasion" or "Tides of Ice" or "Snowball Fight" anyway after running "Fastest Game on Ice," and all of those events awarded event progress, you would just skip the event altogether? You people really are hellbent on spiting yourselves.
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Forced to do 2/3/4 runs for the daily points limit = WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!
Implementation of system = Very BAD..Why..Because an event was used to launch this new system..
Grind = Way too much so much so I got into calling it GRIND TREK ONLINE..
Burnout & Boredom = Occured within 5-6 days cause of the massive repetitiveness of the new event system..
OH..
And now Suicidal Maru is right round the corner..The ship that has nearly everything dead onborad charges butt first into weapons fire to get its TRIBBLE handed to it..
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
I think the point is that normally, what people are doing during their 'STO Time' is basically.. whatever they feel like. If a player finds it fun to do the same thing every day, rather it's battle zones or whatever.. who cares? Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. Personally, I am never bored in STO.. I can always find something to do and during events like this where I have 2-3 choices, those choices get old fast. Especially if I have to run them 40 times in 20 days.
Your viewpoint here is confusing because just a few posts ago you took the opposite point of view on this issue.
Again, makes no sense. You literally have more than one possible thing you can do to earn progress. Perhaps, your definition of "flexibility" is different than mine.
It definitely is different. I don't consider doing 40 queues in 20 days or 80 patrols to be the definition of variety. Frankly, these options got old after day 3. Yes, previously there was no variety at all since only one single thing qualified you for the event, but at least you had to do far less of that one thing.
In my opinion, the time to complete soon became a secondary issue to the fact that I was just sick to death of the content. I can safely say that now that I am done with the event, I will never run that mission or one of those patrols again. I might do the queue if they come out with an Elite version but by the time the 20 days was up I was so sick of these 'choices' that I just wanted to throw up.
Again, the idea was good.. the implementation needs a tweak.
“So, if you were to play "Winter Invasion" or "Tides of Ice" or "Snowball Fight" anyway after running "Fastest Game on Ice," and all of those events awarded event progress, you would just skip the event altogether? You people really are hellbent on spiting yourselves.”
The difference is I might only play Winter Invasion" or "Tides of Ice" or "Snowball Fight once or twice over the entire event when its fun to do so. Having to do 2 or 4 of them every single day to complete the event would be a nightmare that would stop me doing the event. Changes like that would strip away the fun of the winter event and turn it into an event to avoid. The winter event is meant to be about silliness and fun not grinding and boredom. Now if they put the Winter event into the new system and let us pick just 1 of the queues per day. That would be an improvement I could get behind as it would be increasing fun. But please devs don't run the Winter event like this current event as that would ruin The winterland.
We are not spiting ourselves. We don’t want to see the winter event run as badly as this event was designed. Its clear the earn event rewards quicker so far has been a lie as its massively slower with massively more grind, massively more time required and massively more repetitions all which lead to far more player burn out and less fun which is the entire point of playing. Why would we want to see the Winter Invasion run like this event?
If the devs do that and keep doing that it’s not us players who are spiting ourselves it will be the devs who are spiting themselves by hurting player retention.
salvation4 post is pretty spot on. Its not the idea behind the system we have a problem with as the idea is relly good. It’s the poor implementation leading to grind, burnout and boredom that is the problem.
Why should a ship+upgrades+weapons, which is worth significantly more then a single ship console or ground item, be averaged out to the same time/effort scaling as said single ship console or ground item? That makes no sense.
I agree. But when I said more effort less time pick one not both it was an attempt to imply that perhaps an optimal balance has yet to be found.
You can take a break any time you want. You aren't required to play these events to keep your STO account, nor are the items/ships necessary to keep playing the game. You also have the chance to get them later via the Phoenix Box, so you can't even use the argument of losing access to them forever. The only person not giving you a break is yourself. Full stop. This new system does nothing more or less to mess with that then the old one did.
Phoenix boxes are not a reliable way to keep a multi-character account up to date so your claim should perhaps add the words 'in theory'. Full credit given to the current second chance system though. I don't think we can comment too much on the old system as it's gone and not coming back. You not wrong about the only person not giving yourself a break is yourself. I skipped the summer event this year. This could quite possibly become a slippery slope. I'd rather that not happen. Giving honest feedback is my way of ensuring I'm heard by the folks that plan and make these events.
It is more flexible. You can now play any combination of the content provided instead of just the singular option, and you get the same relative amount of skip days as the old event, AND the event buyout is now scaled with progress, so the buyout is a much better deal now.
The buyout scaling is good. Having a variety of content to play for event completion is good. As to overall flexibility as compared to the old system... promised I wouldn't go there as it's gone. Something about playing more when you can and less when you can't might have been part of that. That was important for me at least. Allow me to deal with this loss please.
I meant a basic event for MMOs in general, not just STO.
Understood.
Its the players fault for choosing to take actions that make something that is inherently not as repetitious as the old event system into something that is, thus causing burnout that normally isn't there. Yes. Personal responsibility for one's actions is a thing.
I did a few patrols as they were new. See my comment in another thread giving one of them a glowing review. Mainly I relied upon the TFO and also have given it a good review for replay ability and design for an event. Is it really the player's fault if some don't find current event content agreeable?
You can just play it after the sun goes down...
This one went right over your head. You may not get it until a) you get older or b) your life RNG gets called and you go through a serious health challenge or similar... something with the potential to put a finite number on the amount of sunny days available to you very quickly.
It seems we're not in complete disagreement. Perhaps my own concern is the frequency the game uses time limited exclusive events. We currently have 2 seasonal, 1 anniversary, 1 experimental T6 ship coupon, 1 unique ship + weapons, plus however many single item events related to FTFO's. I've enjoyed many of them as a collector of various item but really wonder if the number of events and time between them is heading in a direction that is optimal for me*
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
I think the point is that normally, what people are doing during their 'STO Time' is basically.. whatever they feel like. If a player finds it fun to do the same thing every day, rather it's battle zones or whatever.. who cares? Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. Personally, I am never bored in STO.. I can always find something to do and during events like this where I have 2-3 choices, those choices get old fast. Especially if I have to run them 40 times in 20 days.
You don't have to run them at all. If you don't think an event is fun, and don't think the reward is worth it, not playing it is also your choice to make.
But other people did like it.
I don't know if they'll go back to doing 2 minute events next time, but at least we've now had something for those of us who like more involved events for a change.
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
I think the point is that normally, what people are doing during their 'STO Time' is basically.. whatever they feel like. If a player finds it fun to do the same thing every day, rather it's battle zones or whatever.. who cares? Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. Personally, I am never bored in STO.. I can always find something to do and during events like this where I have 2-3 choices, those choices get old fast. Especially if I have to run them 40 times in 20 days.
You don't have to run them at all. If you don't think an event is fun, and don't think the reward is worth it, not playing it is also your choice to make.
But other people did like it.
I don't know if they'll go back to doing 2 minute events next time, but at least we've now had something for those of us who like more involved events for a change.
Its not just about 2 min events. I like evolved events when they are well designed which this event was not.
I see some more good feedback here along with some clarifications of positions that give me a better understanding. I want to address those later when I have a bit more time.
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It makes sense to you. Both more time required and less total days. Imho they should have picked one or the other.
Most likely doing more of things that have nothing to do with STO whatsoever. Some peeps wouldn't mind a break every so often. I'm one of those peeps. The new system is designed to prevent and interfere with that.
After playing regularily for darn near a decade I wanted more flexibility not less.
This wasn't a basic event. You mentioned that above.
lol now it's the players fault for doing it wrong.
If those 4-5 things end up taking more time than just "the race" or just doing "flying high" then I'll be skipping those events altogether. I'd be more inclined to spend time playing in the dark of winter than in the summer. A portion of a sunny summer day lost to staring at a computer screen is lost forever. You can never get it back... it's gone forever.
Why should a ship+upgrades+weapons, which is worth significantly more then a single ship console or ground item, be averaged out to the same time/effort scaling as said single ship console or ground item? That makes no sense.
You can take a break any time you want. You aren't required to play these events to keep your STO account, nor are the items/ships necessary to keep playing the game. You also have the chance to get them later via the Phoenix Box, so you can't even use the argument of losing access to them forever. The only person not giving you a break is yourself. Full stop. This new system does nothing more or less to mess with that then the old one did.
It is more flexible. You can now play any combination of the content provided instead of just the singular option, and you get the same relative amount of skip days as the old event, AND the event buyout is now scaled with progress, so the buyout is a much better deal now.
I meant a basic event for MMOs in general, not just STO.
Its the players fault for choosing to take actions that make something that is inherently not as repetitious as the old event system into something that is, thus causing burnout that normally isn't there. Yes. Personal responsibility for one's actions is a thing.
You can just play it after the sun goes down...
You know that's not true in a lot of ways the new systems does a lot less then the old system. Some of us lost of lot of what we see as high value features from the old system and gained very little to nothing of value in the new system.
I disagree with that due to the way its setup I found it far more repetitious and the burnout is not the player fault its due to the poorly designed event. As for flexibility in the ways that matter for me its far less flexible with no worth while advantages over the old event system. You might be able to play any combination but as you have to play more then 1 a day and if talking space patrols 4 a day you end up doing more repetitions and the repetitions I found far worse then older events. 95% of the time I ended up repeating the same 4 patrols due to the problems with the 5th. Swapping in the TFO was hardly an improvement that's just the same map where you repeating the same section 3 times. Even with the TFO and 2 patrols that's 3 repetitions a day. No matter what combination I did the repetition was far worse hence why for the first time in 9 years I skipped 10days of an event.
Agreed, not only for the first time I skipped 10 days of an event, but I hadn't logged in since then, not even to master the ship. Other ingame activities should be at one's discretion, not forced ones to achieve daily requirements. Running a daily event grind fast lets me focus in other activities of "my" choice that I enjoy more and still be online, that should be a player's decision. In this case though, I just finished it as soon as possible and logged off due to burnout.
I agree with salvation4 as well, and qoutinq you " Its not the idea behind the system we have a problem with as the idea is really good. It’s the poor implementation leading to grind, burnout and boredom that is the problem."
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
I think the point is that normally, what people are doing during their 'STO Time' is basically.. whatever they feel like. If a player finds it fun to do the same thing every day, rather it's battle zones or whatever.. who cares? Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. Personally, I am never bored in STO.. I can always find something to do and during events like this where I have 2-3 choices, those choices get old fast. Especially if I have to run them 40 times in 20 days.
Your viewpoint here is confusing because just a few posts ago you took the opposite point of view on this issue.
Again, makes no sense. You literally have more than one possible thing you can do to earn progress. Perhaps, your definition of "flexibility" is different than mine.
It definitely is different. I don't consider doing 40 queues in 20 days or 80 patrols to be the definition of variety. Frankly, these options got old after day 3. Yes, previously there was no variety at all since only one single thing qualified you for the event, but at least you had to do far less of that one thing.
In my opinion, the time to complete soon became a secondary issue to the fact that I was just sick to death of the content. I can safely say that now that I am done with the event, I will never run that mission or one of those patrols again. I might do the queue if they come out with an Elite version but by the time the 20 days was up I was so sick of these 'choices' that I just wanted to throw up.
Again, the idea was good.. the implementation needs a tweak.
Comments
On the positive side for me: being able to use different toons.
Not so positive: more time per day (in combination with other factors lost versus the old system) tested my own tolerance or at least my perception of being 'under pressure' to complete it.
I hope they back off a bit for the next one and quit testing my own tolerance or it may very well come down to 'pick and choose' with respect to what events I participate in. Event fatigue is definitely an issue for me as are RL commitments. Also hope the next 'hybrid' event isn't any time soon. But that's just me...
Overall though I thought the Mushroom TFO's design and repeatably was pretty good and similar to the previous ground FTFO on Pahvo found it refreshing to go for a jog through the forest while being attacked by aliens. This is some something I can't do in real life aside from the jog in the forest part.
I did complete the event on both my main and cel ship accounts.
Agreed.
Rather you compare it to a seasonal event or a queued event, the per day requirement was significantly higher for this event in exchange for a reduction of total days. I am curious how many people did they buy out just to skip the daily grind. I hope not many, because if it was a lot then that just serves to make this type of daily requirement more standard.
Overall, I like the new system, it has many good points to it and is overall superior to the previous event system. If they just made the 'per day' requirement more in line with events as we have come to expect them it would be a home run. I'm hoping next time we see an event like this that the requirements will be decreased. In my opinion, if they were half of what this event was, it would be perfect. One run of a queue or two patrols.. that would have gone a long way toward making this feel like less of a grind.
I will give them credit where it's due though, the reward was a good one. The ship is nice and the inclusion of the weapons and upgrade kits did help mitigate the sour opinion I had of the overall daily process. That was appreciated.
The system is close.. it just needs a slight tweak and it would be really really good.
My opinion: while the event does take more daily time than seasonal ship events or past TFO events, I find that doesn't matter much. In the past, I would do an event task, then go on to play some other content to accomplish some other in-game goals. This event allowed me to combine those activities, accomplishing both simultaneously, thereby optimizing my in-game play time.
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That's great.. unfortunately, it didn't quite work that way for me. In my experience, the time requirement for the event was taken out of the time I usually use for other tasks. There were times when they overlapped, for example if I had a space damage Endeavor, I could take care of it in a patrol or something of that nature.
I think the problem with me was that after 20 days, I was so sick of the Queue and the Patrols that once they were over, I just wanted to log out and not look at STO anymore that day. If you did the queue alone for example, you would run it 40 times over the course of 20 days.. that's just pure burnout for me.
Again though, I like the system.. it's good. Had the daily requirement been something like one run of the queue or two patrols.. I think it would have been just fine.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I hope that the data they get from this event combined with the feedback (positive and negative) allows them to craft future events with an improved experience.
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I think they're on the right track, if they use the feedback given it should end up a huge upgrade once the system is refined a bit. The system overall is no doubt superior to the old method.
The current lag problems didn't help matters. My last few days of running before I stopped, took twice as long as normal due to rubberbanding lag semi breaking patrols
I have to agree with this, that the event is not a seasonal event and should not be looked at in that light. The issue I have with the event (not the post) is this part, "usually takes 12-15 minutes". For a lot of players, this event takes double that time, or more. For me and a lot of the others complaining about this event, it's the daily time spent we're taking issue with, not the system itself.
The new system seems decent enough. In the past I have knocked the system, but I was judging it not only on the mechanics but the requirements as well, and that was wrong. The mechanics are fine, it seems like a good system. And having options to fulfill the daily requirement is a nice touch. It's the requirements themselves that have tainted the system for me. The daily requirements are simply too high.
The new content taken as a whole is mediocre at best, though individual parts (the episode and the queue) are decent. Okay, I simply detest the Discovery patrols since they don't seem to like me. I get in, I get to certain points and they never progress. Broken since day one, reported, and apparently it's on "my end" where the problem lies. I've force verified, I've even attempted them on a different PC, same result. Due to that, the Disco patrols were not an option for me in completing the daily. Which meant that I was running the queue 2x a day. Not fun.
Now that I have completed the event and got the rewards, I never intend to run the queue or patrols ever again. Even if by some miracle the patrols are fixed for me, I won't know that as I will never even attempt them again. The other patrols, yes, but not the Disco ones. I will not be playing the event to collect the extra Dilithium either. I finished on Monday, and I haven't even logged into the game since. I need a break, so I am taking one. I will not leave the game over this, that would be stupid on my part, but a break is definitely warranted.
I do hope the Devs read the feedback and adjust future events to not be so time intensive. I don't mind running 1 mission or 1 queue to make the max daily progress. Multiple tasks however will mean that my participation level will likely drop, depending on what the multiple tasks are, of course. In some cases I may not even bother if I feel I won't be able to get the reward for an event without burning myself out. And if it starts happening that I'm missing too many of these event rewards, I may just stop playing altogether since at that point, I actually may not be enjoying the game any longer.
For now though, I do intend to keep playing, just with more breaks than I usually take, which used to be maybe 1 a year. This will be my 2nd in about 4 months and 3rd overall this year. And in my mind, that's not a good sign.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Incidentally, the anniverasary mission is the worst of them all. I would much rather be playing queues/patrols/episodes than running laps around the galaxy for Q's amusement, looking at loading screen after loading screen just to AFK the same meaningless minigame in multiple locations. And trolling the mission list for free transwarps actually makes it worse because it's just further highlighting how utterly meaningless the whole exercise is.
I think 25-30 minutes is good, given that it's real gameplay not running laps around the event map/the entire effing game. Perhaps even still a bit on the short side for a permanently-unlocked ship on all characters. It's certainly far less time than I used to spend on ship events back when they were 1,000 tokens per toon.
There certainly are a few things they could improve with this event format.
The biggest I think is that there were no localized incentives to play any of the specific content, which lead to many people spamming the same thing every time (and then complaining it's repetitive). The episode has that elachi boff, and I did originally plan on picking it up with every toon, but it just turned out to be not good enough. The queue certainly could've at least used an Advanced version to pick up P. Stachios for the disco rep on the side. The Mokai patrols giving no ship XP I presume is a bug.
And I do have to say the way they implemented the improved patrol rewards further encouraged using character-switch to repeat the same one, since now it would also give bonus reward that keeping to the cooldown and playing another one on the same toon wouldn't.
I did eventually settle into a pattern of "TFO, then Ninth Rule on two separate toons" myself, though I won't personally complain that was repetitive since I chose it for myself. But I do wish the game had given me reason to play all of them.
My character Tsin'xing
I disagree with that due to the way its setup I found it far more repetitious and the burnout is not the player fault its due to the poorly designed event. As for flexibility in the ways that matter for me its far less flexible with no worth while advantages over the old event system. You might be able to play any combination but as you have to play more then 1 a day and if talking space patrols 4 a day you end up doing more repetitions and the repetitions I found far worse then older events. 95% of the time I ended up repeating the same 4 patrols due to the problems with the 5th. Swapping in the TFO was hardly an improvement that's just the same map where you repeating the same section 3 times. Even with the TFO and 2 patrols that's 3 repetitions a day. No matter what combination I did the repetition was far worse hence why for the first time in 9 years I skipped 10days of an event.
Well, he's certainly not going to knock Cryptic for anything.. only one target left.
Interaction with him is a waste of time, we all know his one sided agenda and it's best to just not take anything he posts seriously. He hasn't made a valid point yet with the exception of 'Cryptic good, players bad.'
Ignore him.
I was grinding for Fleet Marks mostly for my Fleet Projects. I know there are more efficient ways with bigger payouts, but the point was killing two birds with one stone.
I really have to agree with this. Some players seem ok with running in circles repeatedly for days on end, granted it only takes 2 minutes, but it's still the same old circle, every day for a month. Some players complained about having to do "AFK" TFOs where it didn't matter whether they did anything in order to finish it. Cryptic answered both those issues by providing a choice of content to run, and making them more involved and no "auto-win," and still people aren't happy. What? If it can't be done in 2 minutes, it's not worth doing?
Agreed. I do think people are forgetting that the original 2-5 minute events were designed and started back when the rewards were per character earned with no account unlocks. Unfortunately, it seems some players have been spoiled by that situation carrying on longer than it should have.
The devs have already said this year's Winter Event would not use the new system. I imagine next year's will, though. The next event most likely to use the new system will probably be the Anniversary Event.
Agreed. Previous TFO events were good, because they gave you something to really play. Seasonal events were trivial, though, yet they gave away the biggest prizes in form of ships. Never really made sense.
Perhaps, if they instituted a daily bonus for running a specific piece of qualifying content during the event. Maybe the bonuses could be built into the event itself, or the could coordinate at least one of the daily Endeavors to correspond with one of the qualifying content each day to be the bonus. Use the Endeavor system to entice players to run specific things each day to earn extra rewards while still getting their event progress. Seems I only saw this happen twice myself. Also, offering up some bonus progress points days wouldn't hurt either.
It makes sense to more than just him.
This makes no sense, though. How does it interfere with you taking a break?
Again, makes no sense. You literally have more than one possible thing you can do to earn progress. Perhaps, your definition of "flexibility" is different than mine.
There's no wrong way to do it, but he's not wrong in that the player chooses their pain.
So, if you were to play "Winter Invasion" or "Tides of Ice" or "Snowball Fight" anyway after running "Fastest Game on Ice," and all of those events awarded event progress, you would just skip the event altogether? You people really are hellbent on spiting yourselves.
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New system = Good..
Variety in new system = Good..
Forced to do 2/3/4 runs for the daily points limit = WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!
Implementation of system = Very BAD..Why..Because an event was used to launch this new system..
Grind = Way too much so much so I got into calling it GRIND TREK ONLINE..
Burnout & Boredom = Occured within 5-6 days cause of the massive repetitiveness of the new event system..
OH..
And now Suicidal Maru is right round the corner..The ship that has nearly everything dead onborad charges butt first into weapons fire to get its TRIBBLE handed to it..
Adu-Uss Firefox NCC-93425-F (LVL 65 FED AoY ENG) UR/VR MKXV Fleet Intel Assault Cruiser (July 2016)
Jean-Uss Seratoga Ravenna (LVL 60 FED Delta ENG) UC/R MKVI Bajoran Escort (April 2018)
Dubsa-RRW Mnaudh (LVL 50 FED allied ROM Delta ENG) Warbird (May 2018)
Marop-IKS Orunthi (LVL 50 KNG Delta ENG) BoP (May 2018)
Kanak'lan-TRIBBLE (LVL 65 DOM Gamma ENG) TRIBBLE (June 2018)
I think the point is that normally, what people are doing during their 'STO Time' is basically.. whatever they feel like. If a player finds it fun to do the same thing every day, rather it's battle zones or whatever.. who cares? Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. Personally, I am never bored in STO.. I can always find something to do and during events like this where I have 2-3 choices, those choices get old fast. Especially if I have to run them 40 times in 20 days.
Your viewpoint here is confusing because just a few posts ago you took the opposite point of view on this issue.
It definitely is different. I don't consider doing 40 queues in 20 days or 80 patrols to be the definition of variety. Frankly, these options got old after day 3. Yes, previously there was no variety at all since only one single thing qualified you for the event, but at least you had to do far less of that one thing.
In my opinion, the time to complete soon became a secondary issue to the fact that I was just sick to death of the content. I can safely say that now that I am done with the event, I will never run that mission or one of those patrols again. I might do the queue if they come out with an Elite version but by the time the 20 days was up I was so sick of these 'choices' that I just wanted to throw up.
Again, the idea was good.. the implementation needs a tweak.
We are not spiting ourselves. We don’t want to see the winter event run as badly as this event was designed. Its clear the earn event rewards quicker so far has been a lie as its massively slower with massively more grind, massively more time required and massively more repetitions all which lead to far more player burn out and less fun which is the entire point of playing. Why would we want to see the Winter Invasion run like this event?
If the devs do that and keep doing that it’s not us players who are spiting ourselves it will be the devs who are spiting themselves by hurting player retention.
salvation4 post is pretty spot on. Its not the idea behind the system we have a problem with as the idea is relly good. It’s the poor implementation leading to grind, burnout and boredom that is the problem.
It seems we're not in complete disagreement. Perhaps my own concern is the frequency the game uses time limited exclusive events. We currently have 2 seasonal, 1 anniversary, 1 experimental T6 ship coupon, 1 unique ship + weapons, plus however many single item events related to FTFO's. I've enjoyed many of them as a collector of various item but really wonder if the number of events and time between them is heading in a direction that is optimal for me*
*not you, or that other guy, or that gal.
But other people did like it.
I don't know if they'll go back to doing 2 minute events next time, but at least we've now had something for those of us who like more involved events for a change.
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Agreed, not only for the first time I skipped 10 days of an event, but I hadn't logged in since then, not even to master the ship. Other ingame activities should be at one's discretion, not forced ones to achieve daily requirements. Running a daily event grind fast lets me focus in other activities of "my" choice that I enjoy more and still be online, that should be a player's decision. In this case though, I just finished it as soon as possible and logged off due to burnout.
I agree with salvation4 as well, and qoutinq you " Its not the idea behind the system we have a problem with as the idea is really good. It’s the poor implementation leading to grind, burnout and boredom that is the problem."
+1