It's odd how some people seem to work so hard to play less. 🤔
Or they have ships and captains that are better suited to random TFOs than a brand new captain with none of the bells and whistles but all of the need for said random marks...
Your veteran captains/toons had to start somewhere. Your new captains/toons have to start in the same place. Working as intended. If you're not wanting to put in the "work" (read: play), then why are you creating alt toons?
It's odd how some people seem to work so hard to play less. 🤔
Or they have ships and captains that are better suited to random TFOs than a brand new captain with none of the bells and whistles but all of the need for said random marks...
This.
Sometimes it can be fun to fly a 'simpler' toon, but if you need to get something (or a lot of somethings) done, it's no fun having to do it on a toon that dies all the time and has to shoot for an eternity at a single enemy.
Looking at your profile, you've been around awhile: created any toons during Recruitment events? If so, claim the Marks reward boxes from completing the Recruitment events on your new toons in the Reputations you're wanting/needing and you've already got a leg up.
I wouldn't complain if they did this because of the convenience factor of it. However I don't think it's needed. If anything is needed it's making cstore ships unlock their traits account wide but that's a different can of worms.
I don't buy the new captain argument in this instance for a number of reasons. First off, you can play the missions through on normal and get complete mk xii very rare builds for space and ground which are more than enough to get you through any normal or advanced content in the game, and for that matter even a good chunk of the elites. If you've already maxed a toon out and gotten to the point you no longer need marks on that toon, then you've played long enough you should already know where to get mission reward items to get a new toon started without issue. If you're blowing up constantly on normal and advanced, you've got bigger problems to worry about than a mark box not being account bound. If folks have issues with blowing up, there are folks willing to help them out. If folks don't want to play the game to get free gear from missions, they can buy some cheap blue quality gear from the exchange and slap it on their ship and get rolling. I've completed normal and advanced queues with all white quality vendor gear before so it's entirely possible to do if you're an experienced player.
And before someone says "but Dark what about the new players, not everyone is an experienced player", we're not talking about new players here. We're talking about people who have spent enough time to get at least one toon up to snuff and no longer need marks. I could see a newer player not knowing about the old Breen and Dominion missions in the Available tab, but you can preview the rewards of missions before you do them so you know what you're getting and can find out where to get it. You can also craft basic gear in this game, earn it through fleets, and similar. While I would like to see more done with the crafting system than what we have now, it doesn't change the fact there are multiple ways for people to get gear so they're not dying all the time and multiple people who are willing to help them out. Lastly on this point, if you're blowing up constantly in certain TFOs, then turn the difficulty down if you're above normal as you're not yet ready to go above normal. If you're still blowing up on normal, you've got bigger problems to worry about. Like my cohort above said, I don't understand why people are so bent on playing less and less if they truly enjoy the game. Removing tedium and unnecessary grind is one thing, but it seems to me quite often alot of folks go out of their way to avoid playing a game they supposedly enjoy. If those new toons are that big of a hassle, why make them to start with?
Starship traits, rep traits and equipment, R&D passives. Should I continue? There are thousand things that a veteran captain will have that makes a new captain a *joke* by comparison. Hence the comment you're failing miserably to refute -- why would you run a pissant captain through dozens of random TFOs for marks when you've got well-established ones who can do *FAR* better? You wouldn't...unless you're forced to.
My question is: why do you run a veteran captain/toon through a random TFO if the captain/toon doesn't need the rewards? So, why would you run a new captain/toon through a random TFO? Because they need the rewards. And FYI: no one's forcing you to do anything.
So your solution is to spend hours gathering up all this stuff just to *STILL* be a pissant captain, and then do the TFOs, when running random TFOs on an established captain can do all of that immediately, faster, on a higher difficulty, ...because why? And apparently you can't see how laughable your position is either.
It's not so much a solution as it is working as intended . Seriously. It's a game. You're supposed to play it. If you don't enjoy playing it, then why are you here? Apparently, you can't see how laughable your position is - "Please, devs, help me play the game less." 🙄
Mark packages from the recruitment events certainly help, yes.
There are a lot of reputations to run though, and if you need advanced marks for gear, you'll need quite a large number of marks.
Also, not all reputations are included in all the recruitment bonus packs (which is something that, imo, should be addressed as well, but a slightly different topic).
So your solution is to spend hours gathering up all this stuff just to *STILL* be a pissant captain, and then do the TFOs, when running random TFOs on an established captain can do all of that immediately, faster, on a higher difficulty, ...because why? And apparently you can't see how laughable your position is either.
My "solution" is for you to play the game because heaven forbid you actually have to play the game to get rewards from it. The bits I highlighted in bold tell me quite a bit about why you're pushing this as hard as you are. You want the new toon to benefit from the higher tier rewards without having to put in the work to get those higher tier rewards.
Your profile tells me you've been here since 2020 meaning you've been around to see a full re-run of all the recruitment events, Delta, Temporal, Gamma, Klingon. Even just one of those recruits grants very large amounts of rewards to all of your other toons by putting in just a little bit of work on those toons. If you have all 4 recruits and have unlocked all the account rewards, any new toon you create will start off having well over 700 marks of every reputation type, not to mention a sizeable amount of dilithium vouchers for fleet and reputation items, as well as nearly 3k fleet marks. This includes several traits, gadgets like Temporal Negotiator, ground equipment, and now even a t6 ship. This is on top of whatever you may have earned from events through the year and have in cstore unlocks. If you're playing for multiple hours at a time and you have just one of those recruitment toons, let alone all 4 of them, how is your toon still a "pissant captain" if you're really doing what you say you are, especially as a veteran player? To be perfectly blunt, if you're really putting in all that work as a veteran player and still can't come out with a basic cohesive build that can get through normal and advanced, that tells me one of several things is going on if not multiple.
1: You're lying about how much you're actually doing
2: You're trying to get into content you're not yet ready for and need to spend more time in lower tiers of difficulty
3: You don't know as much as you think you do about the game and need to do a bit more research into various aspects of the game.
You ever hear the old saying "work smarter not harder"? If you're a veteran player with an already established toon who is able to craft higher level items since you mentioned having R&D passives, why are you not crafting your new captain a basic set of gear to get started with? Why are you not then taking that starting gear into normal mode story missions to get even better gear to further augment your ship and get into higher tier content? As a veteran player you should be able to steamroll any story mission on normal mode. So why are you not taking advantage of the ability to do so and getting the free set items from those missions instead of slamming your head against a wall repeatedly trying to jump straight into content the toon isn't ready for? To be perfectly blunt, if you're a veteran player and doing the work you claim you are only to still have a "pissant captain" at the end of it all, it's your own fault because you missed something somewhere.
One: You are not the authority of 'working as intended.'
Two: It's only 'this way' because it's 'this way' not because it's good or right or best.
Three: The whole point of *ASKING* for changes is because not everyone agrees with how they are.
Four: Because MAYBE the people developing the game agree with the changes which leads back to
Five: You aren't the authority of 'working as intended.'
In short, climb off your high horse.
I'm going to echo some of the words of my cohort above.
-1: You are not the authority on what is working as intended either. No one in here has claimed to be an authority on what is working as intended. Cryptic has made clear several times over the years how they intend the rep system to work and certain items. My observations come from past experience and what I have observed Cryptic to say and do over the years.
-2: You are not the authority on what is good, right or best for the game. Yet judging by several statements you've made here, you seem to think that you are some kind of authority or your ideas should be given more credibility purely because they're yours.
-3: You're free to ask for changes because you don't agree with something, just as I am free to say they should leave it alone because I agree with how things are, or I just don't see an issue like you do.
-4: Or maybe they don't agree with you and it's why things are the way they are now as to them it's working as intended. Based on past observations of Cryptic behavior and previous statements they've made, it seems very much so this is working as they intended.
-5: see point one
The problem isn't that players defending (/proposing) this change aren't willing to play their new toons.
The issue is that it's far more enjoyable to play content on a better geared and equipped captain than on a toon that has very little in terms of - indeed - reputation, starship, R&D traits and so on.
At some point it just becomes very annoying to endlessly play missions to get the gear you need or want to be able to play those missions well...
To the person asking why you'd care about creating new toons at all then: to fit a certain theme or play a new species (say, an Andorian imperial guard officer), try out a new, not-so-meta build (like energy torpedoes) or just because you want to create a crew that's derived from another character (for example, the first officer/Boff of another toon who gets his own command).
There are plenty of reasons to create and play a new character. To keep it enjoyable, it'd be nice if they could get a little help from other toons who have tons of resources laying around and who don't need them anyway.
Keep in mind, this is not just about making it easier for new toons to collect marks. It's also about efficiency and a more optimal allocation of already existing resources. Why force players to keep hundreds or thousands of marks on a toon that has no use for them? And if your concern is that people would be creating characters they're not willing to play: what incentive is there to keep playing veteran toons that don't need the marks if they cannot help other ones with them?
I agree that separating the dilithium and bonus marks from R-TFO packs is a good idea, thus making the marks transferable but the dilithium not.
Besides that, I just realised something. New toons cannot even turn marks into dilithium anymore, not until they're at least T5 in the associated reputation.
Even if it remains a concern, why not set a limit to the amount of R-TFO mark packs transferred each day? Either limit the number of toons (I doubt many people are levelling/gearing more than one or two toons at the same time) that can receive those packs each day - or limit the number of packs.
Not that I personally believe these things are necessary, but would this take away the dilithium inflation concerns?
-1: You are not the authority on what is working as intended either. No one in here has claimed to be an authority on what is working as intended. Cryptic has made clear several times over the years how they intend the rep system to work and certain items. My observations come from past experience and what I have observed Cryptic to say and do over the years.
-2: You are not the authority on what is good, right or best for the game. Yet judging by several statements you've made here, you seem to think that you are some kind of authority or your ideas should be given more credibility purely because they're yours.
-3: You're free to ask for changes because you don't agree with something, just as I am free to say they should leave it alone because I agree with how things are, or I just don't see an issue like you do.
-4: Or maybe they don't agree with you and it's why things are the way they are now as to them it's working as intended. Based on past observations of Cryptic behavior and previous statements they've made, it seems very much so this is working as they intended.
-5: see point one
Counterpoint: Endeavor Boxes and the mark boxes they can award. All your reasons are just as applicable to them, and yet they *AREN'T* character bound. Guess the order of their addition and which one is indicative of the most recent design philosophy, because *newsflash* that isn't static.
Otherwise we'd all be flying T5 ships, there'd be no specializations or T5Us, or any of that. Design philosophies CHANGE.
OR, the design philosophy for Endeavors and their rewards differs from TFOs for a reason, and therefore both are working as intended. Prevarication continues. 😏
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
It's odd how some people seem to work so hard to play less. 🤔
Or they have ships and captains that are better suited to random TFOs than a brand new captain with none of the bells and whistles but all of the need for said random marks...
Your veteran captains/toons had to start somewhere. Your new captains/toons have to start in the same place. Working as intended. If you're not wanting to put in the "work" (read: play), then why are you creating alt toons?
It's odd how some people seem to work so hard to play less. 🤔
Or they have ships and captains that are better suited to random TFOs than a brand new captain with none of the bells and whistles but all of the need for said random marks...
This.
Sometimes it can be fun to fly a 'simpler' toon, but if you need to get something (or a lot of somethings) done, it's no fun having to do it on a toon that dies all the time and has to shoot for an eternity at a single enemy.
Looking at your profile, you've been around awhile: created any toons during Recruitment events? If so, claim the Marks reward boxes from completing the Recruitment events on your new toons in the Reputations you're wanting/needing and you've already got a leg up.
I wouldn't complain if they did this because of the convenience factor of it. However I don't think it's needed. If anything is needed it's making cstore ships unlock their traits account wide but that's a different can of worms.
I don't buy the new captain argument in this instance for a number of reasons. First off, you can play the missions through on normal and get complete mk xii very rare builds for space and ground which are more than enough to get you through any normal or advanced content in the game, and for that matter even a good chunk of the elites. If you've already maxed a toon out and gotten to the point you no longer need marks on that toon, then you've played long enough you should already know where to get mission reward items to get a new toon started without issue. If you're blowing up constantly on normal and advanced, you've got bigger problems to worry about than a mark box not being account bound. If folks have issues with blowing up, there are folks willing to help them out. If folks don't want to play the game to get free gear from missions, they can buy some cheap blue quality gear from the exchange and slap it on their ship and get rolling. I've completed normal and advanced queues with all white quality vendor gear before so it's entirely possible to do if you're an experienced player.
And before someone says "but Dark what about the new players, not everyone is an experienced player", we're not talking about new players here. We're talking about people who have spent enough time to get at least one toon up to snuff and no longer need marks. I could see a newer player not knowing about the old Breen and Dominion missions in the Available tab, but you can preview the rewards of missions before you do them so you know what you're getting and can find out where to get it. You can also craft basic gear in this game, earn it through fleets, and similar. While I would like to see more done with the crafting system than what we have now, it doesn't change the fact there are multiple ways for people to get gear so they're not dying all the time and multiple people who are willing to help them out. Lastly on this point, if you're blowing up constantly in certain TFOs, then turn the difficulty down if you're above normal as you're not yet ready to go above normal. If you're still blowing up on normal, you've got bigger problems to worry about. Like my cohort above said, I don't understand why people are so bent on playing less and less if they truly enjoy the game. Removing tedium and unnecessary grind is one thing, but it seems to me quite often alot of folks go out of their way to avoid playing a game they supposedly enjoy. If those new toons are that big of a hassle, why make them to start with?
Starship traits, rep traits and equipment, R&D passives. Should I continue? There are thousand things that a veteran captain will have that makes a new captain a *joke* by comparison. Hence the comment you're failing miserably to refute -- why would you run a pissant captain through dozens of random TFOs for marks when you've got well-established ones who can do *FAR* better? You wouldn't...unless you're forced to.
My question is: why do you run a veteran captain/toon through a random TFO if the captain/toon doesn't need the rewards? So, why would you run a new captain/toon through a random TFO? Because they need the rewards. And FYI: no one's forcing you to do anything.
So your solution is to spend hours gathering up all this stuff just to *STILL* be a pissant captain, and then do the TFOs, when running random TFOs on an established captain can do all of that immediately, faster, on a higher difficulty, ...because why? And apparently you can't see how laughable your position is either.
It's not so much a solution as it is working as intended . Seriously. It's a game. You're supposed to play it. If you don't enjoy playing it, then why are you here? Apparently, you can't see how laughable your position is - "Please, devs, help me play the game less." 🙄
Mark packages from the recruitment events certainly help, yes.
There are a lot of reputations to run though, and if you need advanced marks for gear, you'll need quite a large number of marks.
Also, not all reputations are included in all the recruitment bonus packs (which is something that, imo, should be addressed as well, but a slightly different topic).
True, but those bonus Reputation marks from Recruitment were never meant for players to bypass playing content entirely either. If one were to chose a single Reputation to concentrate on, one could make significant in roads into advancing one's captain/toon.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
To the person asking why you'd care about creating new toons at all then: to fit a certain theme or play a new species (say, an Andorian imperial guard officer), try out a new, not-so-meta build (like energy torpedoes) or just because you want to create a crew that's derived from another character (for example, the first officer/Boff of another toon who gets his own command).
There are plenty of reasons to create and play a new character. To keep it enjoyable, it'd be nice if they could get a little help from other toons who have tons of resources laying around and who don't need them anyway.
Keep in mind, this is not just about making it easier for new toons to collect marks. It's also about efficiency and a more optimal allocation of already existing resources. Why force players to keep hundreds or thousands of marks on a toon that has no use for them? And if your concern is that people would be creating characters they're not willing to play: what incentive is there to keep playing veteran toons that don't need the marks if they cannot help other ones with them?
I assume this was addressed to me since I believe I was the one who asked why are you creating alts.
First, the question was asked almost rhetorically, because I would've thought that a player would create more toons because they enjoy playing the game and would like to try something new/different on another toon. I myself do this and have, at last count, 52 toons on my account. Each one is of a different Faction, species, gender, class, and/or theme. I do this, because I enjoy playing the game. The user to whom I addressed the question, though, doesn't seem to enjoy playing the game, because they're essentially asking to play less. That or they have ulterior motives not yet revealed.
Second, if one has done the Recruitment events, then one is already receiving "a little help" from other toons. If one has toons with lots of unneeded Marks, they can be used and converted to Reputation sponsorship or Dilithium. New toons could certainly benefit from that.
Consider also that the proposed "efficiency" could potentially be abused, and it's that potential abuse that must be guarded against. Again, I would say that no one is "forcing" anyone to do anything, so I don't understand this way of thinking.
Let me answer your last question with another question: what sense is there of playing a "new" toon that's been maxed out developmentally and geared by another veteran toon's Marks, since the "new" toon would then have no need of the Marks rewards either?
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
-1: You are not the authority on what is working as intended either. No one in here has claimed to be an authority on what is working as intended. Cryptic has made clear several times over the years how they intend the rep system to work and certain items. My observations come from past experience and what I have observed Cryptic to say and do over the years.
-2: You are not the authority on what is good, right or best for the game. Yet judging by several statements you've made here, you seem to think that you are some kind of authority or your ideas should be given more credibility purely because they're yours.
-3: You're free to ask for changes because you don't agree with something, just as I am free to say they should leave it alone because I agree with how things are, or I just don't see an issue like you do.
-4: Or maybe they don't agree with you and it's why things are the way they are now as to them it's working as intended. Based on past observations of Cryptic behavior and previous statements they've made, it seems very much so this is working as they intended.
-5: see point one
Counterpoint: Endeavor Boxes and the mark boxes they can award. All your reasons are just as applicable to them, and yet they *AREN'T* character bound. Guess the order of their addition and which one is indicative of the most recent design philosophy, because *newsflash* that isn't static.
Otherwise we'd all be flying T5 ships, there'd be no specializations or T5Us, or any of that. Design philosophies CHANGE.
However with only 3 Endeavors + 1 Universal Endeavor every 3 days available - the amount of account bound marks is limited.
The fact is, they want you to play the game. If you like playing the toons you've spent time gearing, that's great. But they also hope you'll gear other toons (and there are plenty of ways to get marks for those toons without playing them assuming you both do the Endeavors and have made and played/leveled a Delta/Temporal/...et. recruit AND leveled the character you want these marks on to at least lvl 20 <--- with more rewards unlocked as you level them higher.
But yeah, it appears the Devs DON'T want to open the floodgates for one well geared toon passing Marks to 'Mule'/'Farming' toons beyond Endeavors (where rewards are random and you won't always get a Mark box).
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,667Community Moderator
Ok guys... everyone please calm down. While I normally don't go mod mode if I was directly involved at some point myself, I am officially asking everyone to please take a moment. Things are getting a bit heated.
Now... as for the whole argument... I think what is going on here is that we're all seeing different pros and cons, and I hate to say it, some people are only focusing on certain elements without considering other viewpoints. None of this is really negating what anyone is saying. Yes there would be benefits, BUT it also can be abused. That's it.
As the current system stands... its too easy to abuse because you cannot guarantee they will be used "as intended" for helping less geared characters.
Again, yes this CAN help gear up said characters, but it can ALSO be used to generate much more Dilithium by trading those marks for Dilithium. And yes while the dilithium trade in is gated behind I believe having T5 reps, with sponsorships that doesn't exactly take a long time. Maybe a month tops.
All we're doing is pointing out the potential for abuse here.
You'd have to do something about that, be it limit how many you can transfer around, or inhibit the Mark trading for DL. But I don't think you can divorce the mark trading because marks are a currency, not a "physical" item, and you can't say "well these were traded from another character so they can't be used for dilithium". Too much of a risk of breaking that for EVERYONE, including the character that got them, and then we end up with the same situation we have with Gold Pressed Latinum. Millions of currency, and nothing to spend it on.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
They are repeating the X Recruitment events yearly now, so everyone can have a recruit of each type and unlock enough marks boxes for a new character to get most or all of the reputations to at least level 5 and/or get full sets of rep gear.
It doesn't seem necessary to add sharing TFO boxes to that, and I'd rather the devs do something else with their time, but I'm not sure "farming" is a reason against it.
If a dil farmer has an old character with piles of boxes they don't need they can still convert them to dil on the old character by using the continuing rep mark projects and the marks-to-dil conversion while they spend their time doing other dil farming activities on the new characters.
It just makes it 10x easier is all. There are a lot of people with plenty of toons that don't actually "farm". If you know what I mean cause frankly its a lot of work. Sure there are easy things like doing contraband that is click click... and lots of people do that and nothing else on their old toons they don't play much. Yes there are some people that do multiple things on lots of toons and farm 8k a day for 20+ toons. But most people might log in once and grab 2-3k per toon cause its quick and they don't want to spend an hour or two clicking. This would give them a way to play as they have been anyway... but instead of having 1000s of unused mark boxes, and lots of unrefined dill on the toon they actually use to play STO, and 2k per day on the rest. They get a way to continue as they have been and get 8k per toon.
That is my opinion anyway... it just lowers the barrier of annoyance farming 20+ toons imo anyway.
As others have said Cryptic has already made life on ALTs pretty darn easy. Even if you only have 1-2 of the recruit event toons... you can pretty much level reps on a new toon to 5 without even playing as it is. If we are talking about an actual new player with none of those things, they aren't really worried about sending boxes to alts anyway. As I see it the only people this change would help would be people looking to farm dill... I mean why else are you "playing" a toon you never intended to gear up. Getting decent gear to do advanced ques isn't exactly hard... things like Weapons are account bound, zen ships can be reclaimed to unlock traits.
The expensive lockbox type traits or one off gamble ship consoles ect... well ya Cryptic wants people to have to buy multiple copies. Its part of the business model. I don't see them changing things so people can earn their 8k a day on alts without having to spend any resources on them ever. I think the OP is clearly looking to improve his farm... not his ALTs playability.
I agree that separating the dilithium and bonus marks from R-TFO packs is a good idea, thus making the marks transferable but the dilithium not.
Besides that, I just realised something. New toons cannot even turn marks into dilithium anymore, not until they're at least T5 in the associated reputation.
Even if it remains a concern, why not set a limit to the amount of R-TFO mark packs transferred each day? Either limit the number of toons (I doubt many people are levelling/gearing more than one or two toons at the same time) that can receive those packs each day - or limit the number of packs.
Not that I personally believe these things are necessary, but would this take away the dilithium inflation concerns?
Yes they made the instant mark>dil conversion a T5 lock for the same reason they won't make mark boxes account bound. It allowed people to roll new Jem toons, and cash in delete toon repeat.
This change even if it is only marks... and the dill is awarded directly. Will still be abused. Most people with farms have leveled their farm alts to T5 rep its easy to do for any long time player as has been pointed out. I can roll a new toon spend 1-2 hours power leveling to 10.... then run a handful of lockbox doff jobs and be at level 65 in a day after 2 min of clicking. I can then claim enough marks to log in once a day and earn 4420 dill, and after a month or whatever it is they are tier 5, heck with all the recruit stuff done I can hit tier 6 another month after that or whatever it works out too... then any marks I get that toon can be converted hourly. Your change would be great for my farm... 4420 an hour per alt I feed marks.
That is why your proposed change will be a no go. It will be abused, like the full level jems where.
Having said that they have made life so easy for alts now, I think you should reexamine just how easy they have made it. Perhaps the question you should be asking... is what is a good HIGH DPS build with low/free cost. I have 20 or so toons in almost the exact same sci setup... that can pull 100k+ DPS in infected, granted I have some nice Universal console unlocks ect. Still with just a couple zen store ships I am pretty sure the DPS would still be 75k+ for free. Game has some decent sets, if you aren't looking to top to the DPS charts but still wipe the advanced content solo if need be.
The problem isn't that players defending (/proposing) this change aren't willing to play their new toons.
The issue is that it's far more enjoyable to play content on a better geared and equipped captain than on a toon that has very little in terms of - indeed - reputation, starship, R&D traits and so on.
At some point it just becomes very annoying to endlessly play missions to get the gear you need or want to be able to play those missions well...
Keep in mind, this is not just about making it easier for new toons to collect marks. It's also about efficiency and a more optimal allocation of already existing resources. Why force players to keep hundreds or thousands of marks on a toon that has no use for them? And if your concern is that people would be creating characters they're not willing to play: what incentive is there to keep playing veteran toons that don't need the marks if they cannot help other ones with them?
They're asking for the mark boxes to be made account bound so they can grind the boxes on their more advanced toons and then ship them over to their new toons. So in my book that's every bit finding an excuse not to play their new toons. The relevant bits in bold I find to be rather telling.
For the first bit in bold, that tells me it's not purely about efficiency but folks worrying about topping damage charts and wanting advanced/elite level performance without putting in the advanced/elite level work to get there. They want their new toon to start out at the same level their maxed out toon is at without having to do the work they did for their maxed out toon. Or as the saying goes, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone has to start somewhere, new toons are no exception to the rule. It boggles my mind that folks complain about having to run a few missions to get gear to improve themselves, but are willing to run hordes of TFOs farming thousands of marks to get gear to improve themselves, ignoring the fact that it's the same process with only the medium having changed. For veteran players that have maxed out a toon in terms of gear, by that time you will generally have access to a couple cstore ships for traits among other account bound rewards. You can reclaim them on your newer toon to give them a leg up. If you've been around for at least a year you'll generally have at least one recruitment character that you've unlocked some account wide rewards on to give you a leg up. So this idea that new toons are completely helpless is just foolish. People in this game of STO 99% of the time are only as helpless as they choose to be. If folks can't be bothered to do a few story episodes on normal mode to get FREE gear to better themselves, they cannot logically justify farming TFOs to do the same thing.
Once more on this bit, folks WANT the fancy starship, personal, R&D traits, and similar gear, they don't NEED those items. Too many in this game have confused wants for needs. Folks don't need those things, folks want those things. Today there are so many account wide rewards that one can pick up that veteran players have no excuse for not being able to hit the ground running with their new toons and be able to fend for themselves. The account wide rewards such as cstore unlocks, event unlocks and similar are meant to give you a leg up, not automatically propel you to the top. You still have to put in a little work for it and actually play the game.
For the second bit in bold, again who is holding a phaser to their heads telling them they simply must run TFOs and farm marks on toons that don't need them? If folks are generating hundreds and even thousands of marks on toons that don't need them, that was a choice they made, no one forced them to do it. If I don't need certain rewards on one of my toons, I don't play that toon, it's simple as that. If I want to just cause a little mindless mayhem or I'm helping a fleetmate/friend, then I may bust out my maxed out toon. All about priorities dude. If folks can spend 20 minutes doing a TFO on advanced, they can spend 20 minutes doing a normal mode story mission, they just don't want to.
Counterpoint: Endeavor Boxes and the mark boxes they can award. All your reasons are just as applicable to them, and yet they *AREN'T* character bound. Guess the order of their addition and which one is indicative of the most recent design philosophy, because *newsflash* that isn't static.
Otherwise we'd all be flying T5 ships, there'd be no specializations or T5Us, or any of that. Design philosophies CHANGE.
Endeavor points and rewards were designed to be account wide from the start due to the nature of what endeavors are. Reputations and random TFO rewards were designed to be single character things unless specified otherwise due to what they are. Reputation and random TFO rewards are single character unlocks because it's something meant for that specific toon as a reward for helping out said reputation faction and completing a mission. Design philosophies can indeed change, but reputations and random TFO rewards haven't been one of them to change and so far are working as intended.
Now as to another reason why many of the rewards are the way they are is due to previous incidents of abuse such as the classic Romulan and Jem'hadar death camps, and how account wide rewards have been abused in the past. Since you weren't here for the death camp exploits and they have long been fixed, I will explain to you why some of the reward structures are the way they are today. Years ago it was possible to claim recruitment rewards at level 10. On an XP weekend you could cheese a Romulan toon to 10 straight out of the tutorial. Folks would do this, claim the recruitment rewards, delete the toon and start over, repeating this cycle infinitely. This is why the rewards were changed to be claimable at level 20 instead of level 10. After this came the Jem'hadar death camps which was basically a repeat of the same thing using Jem'hadar. To further put the nail in the coffin of these exploits, it was changed so that folks could no longer trade in marks for dilithium before reaching at least tier 5 in a reputation. In asking for the random TFO boxes to be made account bound, you're basically asking them to remove a protection against previous exploits.
Would it be a convenience, sure it would. However it's not needed with everything else we have to give us a leg up today. No one is forcing you to run on toons that are already maxed out and don't need rewards. That's a choice you made for yourself. I know you don't want to hear that but it is what it is. I would rather be blunt about why I don't see this happening and why they probably won't do it or it's not needed and ruffle some feathers than to sugarcoat it.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Not that I necessarily disagree, however the argument that the player is not playing or putting in the effort does not hold much water here. The player is putting in the effort to get the required marks, just not on the character they would like to transfer items to. It is still the player regardless. So yes, they are playing the game.
Players can already buy maxed out elite gear and send it to alts, so doing the same for reputation marks is not that big of a deal from my perspective. Having said that, I do not see the necessity of it, especially given we already have rep discounts and bonuses from recruitment events etc. that already give newer characters a large leg up.
The problem in this instance is that the so called effort is spent in the wrong place. Playing on Toon A to farm the marks and being mad you can't move them to Toon B is like practicing Guitar and being angry you're not improving at Piano. If the person wants to improve at Piano they need to practice Piano. As to how it further relates to the game, again why are you playing on a toon that doesn't need rewards? It's basically asking that Toon B be allowed to shoot straight to the top by skipping the work they would ordinarily have to do. So the argument is valid.
As for the bits of gear you can buy on the exchange, those are items that were made to be crafted and either utilized by the person that crafted them, or traded/sold to other players straight from the get go. Box gear was designed to be utilized by the person dropping the items or traded/sold to other players from the get go as well. Reputation marks and items were NOT designed to be utilized by anyone other than the person/toon generating said marks. If Toon A is the one running the TFO, then it's intended for Toon A to be the one using the marks, not Toon B.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Not that I necessarily disagree, however the argument that the player is not playing or putting in the effort does not hold much water here. The player is putting in the effort to get the required marks, just not on the character they would like to transfer items to. It is still the player regardless. So yes, they are playing the game.
Players can already buy maxed out elite gear and send it to alts, so doing the same for reputation marks is not that big of a deal from my perspective. Having said that, I do not see the necessity of it, especially given we already have rep discounts and bonuses from recruitment events etc. that already give newer characters a large leg up.
The problem in this instance is that the so called effort is spent in the wrong place. Playing on Toon A to farm the marks and being mad you can't move them to Toon B is like practicing Guitar and being angry you're not improving at Piano. If the person wants to improve at Piano they need to practice Piano. As to how it further relates to the game, again why are you playing on a toon that doesn't need rewards? It's basically asking that Toon B be allowed to shoot straight to the top by skipping the work they would ordinarily have to do. So the argument is valid.
As for the bits of gear you can buy on the exchange, those are items that were made to be crafted and either utilized by the person that crafted them, or traded/sold to other players straight from the get go. Box gear was designed to be utilized by the person dropping the items or traded/sold to other players from the get go as well. Reputation marks and items were NOT designed to be utilized by anyone other than the person/toon generating said marks. If Toon A is the one running the TFO, then it's intended for Toon A to be the one using the marks, not Toon B.
That would be applicable if there was truly notable differences between captains. And there aren't. The only thing being skipped is the artificial grind between a new captain and an established one. Nothing is 'learned' 'gained' or 'improved' by forcing players to keep playing a handicapped new captain over one that's already established. The player *ALREADY* did that by getting said captain established in the first place.
Well there are multiple ways to play a toon. I know most of us have been here for years and played all the things.
Still if a new player rolls a different class/faction ect of course there is new ways to play that toon. If all they are doing is rolling fed tacs well that might be a development problem for sure. Still in general in most games you roll alts to play differently or else what is the point... well ok in STO its possible a toon flying the USS farmville.
I don't really see the need to make TFO rewards account bound. Cryptic has already made it easier to play alts then any other MMO I can think off. They boost reputation earned, they offer an insane amount of recruit event rewards, pretty much every ship weapon not counting lobi and rep gear is account bound. Zen store ships are account unlocks... and for players with money or a ton of grind time in Mudd packs offer gamble ship account unlocks.
I can't think of a MMO that has made rolling alts as easy as STO. Heck you can play till 10... buy 10-20 million EC in lockbox missions and power level to 65. Then you can reclaim recruit rewards and level reputation to T5 without ever even having to put your toon in a ship past that free 0-10 ship. At that point you can bank a set of account bound gold weapons... and possibly if you have some Reputation left over even put rep gear on the ship still without even playing one single map. Then to make things crazier Cryptic gives away a metric ton of free ultimate upgrades, and phoenix boxes. Its very possible to grab rep engines shields... and gold them with free upgrades. In what other MMO has anyone played where you could gear a new toon like that....
That would be applicable if there was truly notable differences between captains. And there aren't. The only thing being skipped is the artificial grind between a new captain and an established one. Nothing is 'learned' 'gained' or 'improved' by forcing players to keep playing a handicapped new captain over one that's already established. The player *ALREADY* did that by getting said captain established in the first place.
And once again we come back to the bit in bold. You want the performance of an advanced captain without putting in advanced captain work to get there. I'm going to repeat the question you have still avoided answering several times now. If you feel it's a grind to create new captains and gear them up, why are you creating new captains if it's that much of a hassle? With that said there are tons of ways you can "skip the artificial grind" right now. cstore items, lobi items, crafting starting gear and sending it to your new toon, buying gear from the exchange, saving up some zen and buying out the critical reps you want for your toon, pick up recruitment rewards, among many other things. This idea that your new toons are completely helpless is hogwash as they're only as helpless as you choose to make them.
There is also a very big elephant in the room I've been waiting to see if you would address, but I see that's not likely to happen at this point so I will address it. We're assuming our hypothetical captain that's already maxed out no longer needs the rewards. If that's the case, why would you not get a basic set of starting gear together on the new captain then run the TFOs on the new captain? Thus you get the base payout for the TFO itself PLUS the additional rewards for it being a random TFO. Let's suppose you get into an Undine Assault Advanced and complete the optional objectives and get the max score. That's around 250-300 marks right there, plus if you get a good box from the random TFO rewards, potentially another 100 marks on top of that. So one run nets you potentially 400 marks. If this is all about efficiency and such, why would you intentionally leave 300 marks on a captain that doesn't need it vs biting the bullet and just doing the run on the newer captain and get all 400 marks on him? Leaving 3/4 of the marks behind on a toon that doesn't need it isn't efficient, it's asinine. Yet you're arguing to do exactly that, leave 3/4 of your marks behind on a toon that doesn't need them. If you have an advanced captain already, what is preventing you from putting together a set of starting gear for your new captain and running on the new captain so you're not starting off completely from scratch? Grind smarter not harder.
As for the differences between captains, aside from baseline abilities, they're only as different as you choose to make them. If you choose to create new captains but keep playing them the exact same way each time, you're going to get the same results each time. If you create 2 captains, one tactical and one engineer and play them the exact same way, all you're doing is changing out the baseline abilities of the captains. If you do something like that, the captains are going to be practically the same because YOU chose to make them that way, not the game.
In my case I will take 3 of my tac captains. My main toon is a tactical captain tank that can put out heals rivaling those of the engineers in my fleet if not outright exceeding them in many cases. He uses fair amounts of burst healing as well as healing over time. He also uses mainly the bigger beefier ships to tank with such as cruisers and dreadnoughts. My second tactical captain is also a tank, but tends to stick to the lighter ships such as battlecruisers and escorts. His tanking style relies more on the healing over time effects, temporary HP, with one or two burst heals for emergencies. They're both tanks but completely different styles and approaches to it. My third tactical captain is a dps type captain with a little bit of healing thrown in. 3 tac captains, 3 different styles of play because I made them to be that way. Then there is a 4th captain that I'm working on. She's a sci captain that's a hybrid of sci dps and tank that's working for me.
Again I'm going to be perfectly blunt here. What I see is you not properly prioritizing your time in game and are wasting time and resources you don't need to waste based on your own unwillingness to grind smarter instead of harder. Building up a new captain is like renovating a house. It's the equivalent of telling the contractor to focus on the bathrooms first then getting angry that the kitchen isn't done.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Not that I necessarily disagree, however the argument that the player is not playing or putting in the effort does not hold much water here. The player is putting in the effort to get the required marks, just not on the character they would like to transfer items to. It is still the player regardless. So yes, they are playing the game.
Players can already buy maxed out elite gear and send it to alts, so doing the same for reputation marks is not that big of a deal from my perspective. Having said that, I do not see the necessity of it, especially given we already have rep discounts and bonuses from recruitment events etc. that already give newer characters a large leg up.
The problem in this instance is that the so called effort is spent in the wrong place. Playing on Toon A to farm the marks and being mad you can't move them to Toon B is like practicing Guitar and being angry you're not improving at Piano. If the person wants to improve at Piano they need to practice Piano. As to how it further relates to the game, again why are you playing on a toon that doesn't need rewards? It's basically asking that Toon B be allowed to shoot straight to the top by skipping the work they would ordinarily have to do. So the argument is valid.
As for the bits of gear you can buy on the exchange, those are items that were made to be crafted and either utilized by the person that crafted them, or traded/sold to other players straight from the get go. Box gear was designed to be utilized by the person dropping the items or traded/sold to other players from the get go as well. Reputation marks and items were NOT designed to be utilized by anyone other than the person/toon generating said marks. If Toon A is the one running the TFO, then it's intended for Toon A to be the one using the marks, not Toon B.
That would be applicable if there was truly notable differences between captains. And there aren't. The only thing being skipped is the artificial grind between a new captain and an established one. Nothing is 'learned' 'gained' or 'improved' by forcing players to keep playing a handicapped new captain over one that's already established. The player *ALREADY* did that by getting said captain established in the first place.
Again, who's forcing you to create alts? If, for you, there is no notable difference between captains, then why make an alt to begin with? If you're so determined to only run TFOs on a maxed out, geared up toon, then just run them on your main and be done with it. You apparently have no use for alts anyway.
That would be applicable if there was truly notable differences between captains. And there aren't. The only thing being skipped is the artificial grind between a new captain and an established one. Nothing is 'learned' 'gained' or 'improved' by forcing players to keep playing a handicapped new captain over one that's already established. The player *ALREADY* did that by getting said captain established in the first place.
And once again we come back to the bit in bold. You want the performance of an advanced captain without putting in advanced captain work to get there. I'm going to repeat the question you have still avoided answering several times now. If you feel it's a grind to create new captains and gear them up, why are you creating new captains if it's that much of a hassle? With that said there are tons of ways you can "skip the artificial grind" right now. cstore items, lobi items, crafting starting gear and sending it to your new toon, buying gear from the exchange, saving up some zen and buying out the critical reps you want for your toon, pick up recruitment rewards, among many other things. This idea that your new toons are completely helpless is hogwash as they're only as helpless as you choose to make them.
Right back at you, because I, in fact, ALREADY DID THAT. That's how *EVERYONE* got an established captain. Doing it over again is nothing but an artificial obstacle. It adds *NOTHING* to the game.
No one is arguing that you didn't already do that on your veteran captain. But you haven't done it on the new captain(s) that you're creating. And that's the work (read:play) that you're, apparently, unwilling to do. If you're going to start referring to actually playing the game as an "obstacle," then I would suggest you find another hobby, because gaming doesn't seem to be for you.
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Cryptic has went out of their way to make rolling alts a NEW way to play... not a complete replay.
We got Romulans which turned out to be just Fed or KDF toons... but that low level experience was brand new.
We got options to PAY to level with out playing with lockbox doff missions right around the same time as the Romulans launched.
We got reputation sponsorships... and later that system went from tokens to just automagicly applying to improve QOL.
We got account binding most items that didn't come from rep or lobi.
We got recruits with new recruit content... and even the replay reruns get new objectives designed to get people to play parts of the game perhaps they didn't the first time.
We got wallet to 65 directly Jem toons. (with Jem faction ships that account unlocked before cross faction zen ships was a thing)
We got end game ships that could be used at low levels.
New zen store ships now are almost all legendary ones that account unlock traits. (not that running a couple patrols is a big deal anyway)
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff... but I'm trying to make two points I think...
1) its the ask here isn't insane considering how far Cryptic has bent over in the past to make playing alts zero hassle.
2) its probably a bridge too far considering all the nerfs they have made to things like reclaims on super low level toons or brand new jems... limits they put in on instant converting marks to min T5. I'm probably forgetting 20 other little things they have done over the years to limit the ease of farming Dill.
So yes not crazy to ask... still probably pretty unlikely considering the way this can be "abused" requires no imagination at all. Its not like previous easy dill tricks that where not super obvious to everyone, or Cryptic themselves which required corrections.
No one is arguing that you didn't already do that on your veteran captain. But you haven't done it on the new captain(s) that you're creating. And that's the work (read:play) that you're, apparently, unwilling to do. If you're going to start referring to actually playing the game as an "obstacle," then I would suggest you find another hobby, because gaming doesn't seem to be for you.
And, again, that would be a valid argument if there was any real difference between captains. There. Isn't. If you've done it once, you've done all there is to it. You don't learn, gain, or improve *ANYTHING* through repeating.
Once again the differences are what you make them. If you do the same thing over and over again you will get the same results. Which again begs the question you refuse to answer for some reason. Why make alts if it's that big of a hassle and as you said there's no difference between the toons?
Right back at you, because I, in fact, ALREADY DID THAT. That's how *EVERYONE* got an established captain. Doing it over again is nothing but an artificial obstacle. It adds *NOTHING* to the game.
If you really believed that you wouldn't be creating alts in the first place and wasting your time. Clearly you believe there is some value in it and that it does add something or you wouldn't be so determined that Cryptic simply must cave to your demands and make TFO boxes account bound. So why don't we drop the charade and you tell us why you really want it to be account wide. If you think folks should be able to just copy paste their toons then just say it instead of playing these word and definition games.
If you think that playing the game is an obstacle I'm going to agree with my cohort above, perhaps gaming isn't the right hobby for you. You're basically arguing that you should be able to create a brand new toon and that toon should be at the same level of your already existing toon without putting the work it takes the second toon to get there. You're basically saying "well I did it once so I should automatically be able to start all my toons out at the top" and that's not how this game works or has ever worked. It's like practicing Guitar and getting angry that you can't immediately start out playing Beethoven on Piano when you've done none of the work to get to that musical level on Piano all while saying "I already practiced guitar so I should automatically be able to play piano".
though it boggles my mind that you say you want to be more efficient, yet you want to leave 3/4 of your marks on a toon that doesn't need them and only send 1/4 to your new toon vs just running on the new toon start with. You say you want to skip some grind or have your new captain not be hamstrung, yet seemingly are against buying some starting gear on the exchange or elsewhere and sending it to said captain so he's not hamstrung. You say having to actually play on that new toon to get them up to snuff adds nothing to the game and is just an artificial obstacle, yet you choose to create alts and take on that artificial obstacle anyways. But somehow I'm wrong because I don't see a need for the TFO boxes to be account bound. yeah...
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
No one is arguing that you didn't already do that on your veteran captain. But you haven't done it on the new captain(s) that you're creating. And that's the work (read:play) that you're, apparently, unwilling to do. If you're going to start referring to actually playing the game as an "obstacle," then I would suggest you find another hobby, because gaming doesn't seem to be for you.
And, again, that would be a valid argument if there was any real difference between captains. There. Isn't. If you've done it once, you've done all there is to it. You don't learn, gain, or improve *ANYTHING* through repeating.
You quoted this part of my post and ignored the rest. So, I'll state it again since it, once again, addresses your statements:
Again, who's forcing you to create alts? If, for you, there is no notable difference between captains, then why make an alt to begin with? If you're so determined to only run TFOs on a maxed out, geared up toon, then just run them on your main and be done with it. You apparently have no use for alts anyway.
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I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
It's odd how some people seem to work so hard to play less. 🤔
Actually it be the the other way around for me. Since I do lots of TFO's to convert marks to dillithium. But I actually switch toons all the time. That would allow me to play one toon all day and use another the day after. I would save some time and play more by not switching chars. I don't see any downside to this proposal because as you already said its pretty convenient.
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
Comments
Mark packages from the recruitment events certainly help, yes.
There are a lot of reputations to run though, and if you need advanced marks for gear, you'll need quite a large number of marks.
Also, not all reputations are included in all the recruitment bonus packs (which is something that, imo, should be addressed as well, but a slightly different topic).
The problem isn't that players defending (/proposing) this change aren't willing to play their new toons.
The issue is that it's far more enjoyable to play content on a better geared and equipped captain than on a toon that has very little in terms of - indeed - reputation, starship, R&D traits and so on.
At some point it just becomes very annoying to endlessly play missions to get the gear you need or want to be able to play those missions well...
To the person asking why you'd care about creating new toons at all then: to fit a certain theme or play a new species (say, an Andorian imperial guard officer), try out a new, not-so-meta build (like energy torpedoes) or just because you want to create a crew that's derived from another character (for example, the first officer/Boff of another toon who gets his own command).
There are plenty of reasons to create and play a new character. To keep it enjoyable, it'd be nice if they could get a little help from other toons who have tons of resources laying around and who don't need them anyway.
Keep in mind, this is not just about making it easier for new toons to collect marks. It's also about efficiency and a more optimal allocation of already existing resources. Why force players to keep hundreds or thousands of marks on a toon that has no use for them? And if your concern is that people would be creating characters they're not willing to play: what incentive is there to keep playing veteran toons that don't need the marks if they cannot help other ones with them?
I agree that separating the dilithium and bonus marks from R-TFO packs is a good idea, thus making the marks transferable but the dilithium not.
Besides that, I just realised something. New toons cannot even turn marks into dilithium anymore, not until they're at least T5 in the associated reputation.
Even if it remains a concern, why not set a limit to the amount of R-TFO mark packs transferred each day? Either limit the number of toons (I doubt many people are levelling/gearing more than one or two toons at the same time) that can receive those packs each day - or limit the number of packs.
Not that I personally believe these things are necessary, but would this take away the dilithium inflation concerns?
OR, the design philosophy for Endeavors and their rewards differs from TFOs for a reason, and therefore both are working as intended. Prevarication continues. 😏
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True, but those bonus Reputation marks from Recruitment were never meant for players to bypass playing content entirely either. If one were to chose a single Reputation to concentrate on, one could make significant in roads into advancing one's captain/toon.
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I assume this was addressed to me since I believe I was the one who asked why are you creating alts.
First, the question was asked almost rhetorically, because I would've thought that a player would create more toons because they enjoy playing the game and would like to try something new/different on another toon. I myself do this and have, at last count, 52 toons on my account. Each one is of a different Faction, species, gender, class, and/or theme. I do this, because I enjoy playing the game. The user to whom I addressed the question, though, doesn't seem to enjoy playing the game, because they're essentially asking to play less. That or they have ulterior motives not yet revealed.
Second, if one has done the Recruitment events, then one is already receiving "a little help" from other toons. If one has toons with lots of unneeded Marks, they can be used and converted to Reputation sponsorship or Dilithium. New toons could certainly benefit from that.
Consider also that the proposed "efficiency" could potentially be abused, and it's that potential abuse that must be guarded against. Again, I would say that no one is "forcing" anyone to do anything, so I don't understand this way of thinking.
Let me answer your last question with another question: what sense is there of playing a "new" toon that's been maxed out developmentally and geared by another veteran toon's Marks, since the "new" toon would then have no need of the Marks rewards either?
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However with only 3 Endeavors + 1 Universal Endeavor every 3 days available - the amount of account bound marks is limited.
The fact is, they want you to play the game. If you like playing the toons you've spent time gearing, that's great. But they also hope you'll gear other toons (and there are plenty of ways to get marks for those toons without playing them assuming you both do the Endeavors and have made and played/leveled a Delta/Temporal/...et. recruit AND leveled the character you want these marks on to at least lvl 20 <--- with more rewards unlocked as you level them higher.
But yeah, it appears the Devs DON'T want to open the floodgates for one well geared toon passing Marks to 'Mule'/'Farming' toons beyond Endeavors (where rewards are random and you won't always get a Mark box).
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Now... as for the whole argument... I think what is going on here is that we're all seeing different pros and cons, and I hate to say it, some people are only focusing on certain elements without considering other viewpoints. None of this is really negating what anyone is saying. Yes there would be benefits, BUT it also can be abused. That's it.
As the current system stands... its too easy to abuse because you cannot guarantee they will be used "as intended" for helping less geared characters.
Again, yes this CAN help gear up said characters, but it can ALSO be used to generate much more Dilithium by trading those marks for Dilithium. And yes while the dilithium trade in is gated behind I believe having T5 reps, with sponsorships that doesn't exactly take a long time. Maybe a month tops.
All we're doing is pointing out the potential for abuse here.
You'd have to do something about that, be it limit how many you can transfer around, or inhibit the Mark trading for DL. But I don't think you can divorce the mark trading because marks are a currency, not a "physical" item, and you can't say "well these were traded from another character so they can't be used for dilithium". Too much of a risk of breaking that for EVERYONE, including the character that got them, and then we end up with the same situation we have with Gold Pressed Latinum. Millions of currency, and nothing to spend it on.
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It just makes it 10x easier is all. There are a lot of people with plenty of toons that don't actually "farm". If you know what I mean cause frankly its a lot of work. Sure there are easy things like doing contraband that is click click... and lots of people do that and nothing else on their old toons they don't play much. Yes there are some people that do multiple things on lots of toons and farm 8k a day for 20+ toons. But most people might log in once and grab 2-3k per toon cause its quick and they don't want to spend an hour or two clicking. This would give them a way to play as they have been anyway... but instead of having 1000s of unused mark boxes, and lots of unrefined dill on the toon they actually use to play STO, and 2k per day on the rest. They get a way to continue as they have been and get 8k per toon.
That is my opinion anyway... it just lowers the barrier of annoyance farming 20+ toons imo anyway.
As others have said Cryptic has already made life on ALTs pretty darn easy. Even if you only have 1-2 of the recruit event toons... you can pretty much level reps on a new toon to 5 without even playing as it is. If we are talking about an actual new player with none of those things, they aren't really worried about sending boxes to alts anyway. As I see it the only people this change would help would be people looking to farm dill... I mean why else are you "playing" a toon you never intended to gear up. Getting decent gear to do advanced ques isn't exactly hard... things like Weapons are account bound, zen ships can be reclaimed to unlock traits.
The expensive lockbox type traits or one off gamble ship consoles ect... well ya Cryptic wants people to have to buy multiple copies. Its part of the business model. I don't see them changing things so people can earn their 8k a day on alts without having to spend any resources on them ever. I think the OP is clearly looking to improve his farm... not his ALTs playability.
Yes they made the instant mark>dil conversion a T5 lock for the same reason they won't make mark boxes account bound. It allowed people to roll new Jem toons, and cash in delete toon repeat.
This change even if it is only marks... and the dill is awarded directly. Will still be abused. Most people with farms have leveled their farm alts to T5 rep its easy to do for any long time player as has been pointed out. I can roll a new toon spend 1-2 hours power leveling to 10.... then run a handful of lockbox doff jobs and be at level 65 in a day after 2 min of clicking. I can then claim enough marks to log in once a day and earn 4420 dill, and after a month or whatever it is they are tier 5, heck with all the recruit stuff done I can hit tier 6 another month after that or whatever it works out too... then any marks I get that toon can be converted hourly. Your change would be great for my farm... 4420 an hour per alt I feed marks.
That is why your proposed change will be a no go. It will be abused, like the full level jems where.
Having said that they have made life so easy for alts now, I think you should reexamine just how easy they have made it. Perhaps the question you should be asking... is what is a good HIGH DPS build with low/free cost. I have 20 or so toons in almost the exact same sci setup... that can pull 100k+ DPS in infected, granted I have some nice Universal console unlocks ect. Still with just a couple zen store ships I am pretty sure the DPS would still be 75k+ for free. Game has some decent sets, if you aren't looking to top to the DPS charts but still wipe the advanced content solo if need be.
They're asking for the mark boxes to be made account bound so they can grind the boxes on their more advanced toons and then ship them over to their new toons. So in my book that's every bit finding an excuse not to play their new toons. The relevant bits in bold I find to be rather telling.
For the first bit in bold, that tells me it's not purely about efficiency but folks worrying about topping damage charts and wanting advanced/elite level performance without putting in the advanced/elite level work to get there. They want their new toon to start out at the same level their maxed out toon is at without having to do the work they did for their maxed out toon. Or as the saying goes, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone has to start somewhere, new toons are no exception to the rule. It boggles my mind that folks complain about having to run a few missions to get gear to improve themselves, but are willing to run hordes of TFOs farming thousands of marks to get gear to improve themselves, ignoring the fact that it's the same process with only the medium having changed. For veteran players that have maxed out a toon in terms of gear, by that time you will generally have access to a couple cstore ships for traits among other account bound rewards. You can reclaim them on your newer toon to give them a leg up. If you've been around for at least a year you'll generally have at least one recruitment character that you've unlocked some account wide rewards on to give you a leg up. So this idea that new toons are completely helpless is just foolish. People in this game of STO 99% of the time are only as helpless as they choose to be. If folks can't be bothered to do a few story episodes on normal mode to get FREE gear to better themselves, they cannot logically justify farming TFOs to do the same thing.
Once more on this bit, folks WANT the fancy starship, personal, R&D traits, and similar gear, they don't NEED those items. Too many in this game have confused wants for needs. Folks don't need those things, folks want those things. Today there are so many account wide rewards that one can pick up that veteran players have no excuse for not being able to hit the ground running with their new toons and be able to fend for themselves. The account wide rewards such as cstore unlocks, event unlocks and similar are meant to give you a leg up, not automatically propel you to the top. You still have to put in a little work for it and actually play the game.
For the second bit in bold, again who is holding a phaser to their heads telling them they simply must run TFOs and farm marks on toons that don't need them? If folks are generating hundreds and even thousands of marks on toons that don't need them, that was a choice they made, no one forced them to do it. If I don't need certain rewards on one of my toons, I don't play that toon, it's simple as that. If I want to just cause a little mindless mayhem or I'm helping a fleetmate/friend, then I may bust out my maxed out toon. All about priorities dude. If folks can spend 20 minutes doing a TFO on advanced, they can spend 20 minutes doing a normal mode story mission, they just don't want to.
Endeavor points and rewards were designed to be account wide from the start due to the nature of what endeavors are. Reputations and random TFO rewards were designed to be single character things unless specified otherwise due to what they are. Reputation and random TFO rewards are single character unlocks because it's something meant for that specific toon as a reward for helping out said reputation faction and completing a mission. Design philosophies can indeed change, but reputations and random TFO rewards haven't been one of them to change and so far are working as intended.
Now as to another reason why many of the rewards are the way they are is due to previous incidents of abuse such as the classic Romulan and Jem'hadar death camps, and how account wide rewards have been abused in the past. Since you weren't here for the death camp exploits and they have long been fixed, I will explain to you why some of the reward structures are the way they are today. Years ago it was possible to claim recruitment rewards at level 10. On an XP weekend you could cheese a Romulan toon to 10 straight out of the tutorial. Folks would do this, claim the recruitment rewards, delete the toon and start over, repeating this cycle infinitely. This is why the rewards were changed to be claimable at level 20 instead of level 10. After this came the Jem'hadar death camps which was basically a repeat of the same thing using Jem'hadar. To further put the nail in the coffin of these exploits, it was changed so that folks could no longer trade in marks for dilithium before reaching at least tier 5 in a reputation. In asking for the random TFO boxes to be made account bound, you're basically asking them to remove a protection against previous exploits.
Would it be a convenience, sure it would. However it's not needed with everything else we have to give us a leg up today. No one is forcing you to run on toons that are already maxed out and don't need rewards. That's a choice you made for yourself. I know you don't want to hear that but it is what it is. I would rather be blunt about why I don't see this happening and why they probably won't do it or it's not needed and ruffle some feathers than to sugarcoat it.
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The problem in this instance is that the so called effort is spent in the wrong place. Playing on Toon A to farm the marks and being mad you can't move them to Toon B is like practicing Guitar and being angry you're not improving at Piano. If the person wants to improve at Piano they need to practice Piano. As to how it further relates to the game, again why are you playing on a toon that doesn't need rewards? It's basically asking that Toon B be allowed to shoot straight to the top by skipping the work they would ordinarily have to do. So the argument is valid.
As for the bits of gear you can buy on the exchange, those are items that were made to be crafted and either utilized by the person that crafted them, or traded/sold to other players straight from the get go. Box gear was designed to be utilized by the person dropping the items or traded/sold to other players from the get go as well. Reputation marks and items were NOT designed to be utilized by anyone other than the person/toon generating said marks. If Toon A is the one running the TFO, then it's intended for Toon A to be the one using the marks, not Toon B.
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Well there are multiple ways to play a toon. I know most of us have been here for years and played all the things.
Still if a new player rolls a different class/faction ect of course there is new ways to play that toon. If all they are doing is rolling fed tacs well that might be a development problem for sure. Still in general in most games you roll alts to play differently or else what is the point... well ok in STO its possible a toon flying the USS farmville.
I don't really see the need to make TFO rewards account bound. Cryptic has already made it easier to play alts then any other MMO I can think off. They boost reputation earned, they offer an insane amount of recruit event rewards, pretty much every ship weapon not counting lobi and rep gear is account bound. Zen store ships are account unlocks... and for players with money or a ton of grind time in Mudd packs offer gamble ship account unlocks.
I can't think of a MMO that has made rolling alts as easy as STO. Heck you can play till 10... buy 10-20 million EC in lockbox missions and power level to 65. Then you can reclaim recruit rewards and level reputation to T5 without ever even having to put your toon in a ship past that free 0-10 ship. At that point you can bank a set of account bound gold weapons... and possibly if you have some Reputation left over even put rep gear on the ship still without even playing one single map. Then to make things crazier Cryptic gives away a metric ton of free ultimate upgrades, and phoenix boxes. Its very possible to grab rep engines shields... and gold them with free upgrades. In what other MMO has anyone played where you could gear a new toon like that....
There is also a very big elephant in the room I've been waiting to see if you would address, but I see that's not likely to happen at this point so I will address it. We're assuming our hypothetical captain that's already maxed out no longer needs the rewards. If that's the case, why would you not get a basic set of starting gear together on the new captain then run the TFOs on the new captain? Thus you get the base payout for the TFO itself PLUS the additional rewards for it being a random TFO. Let's suppose you get into an Undine Assault Advanced and complete the optional objectives and get the max score. That's around 250-300 marks right there, plus if you get a good box from the random TFO rewards, potentially another 100 marks on top of that. So one run nets you potentially 400 marks. If this is all about efficiency and such, why would you intentionally leave 300 marks on a captain that doesn't need it vs biting the bullet and just doing the run on the newer captain and get all 400 marks on him? Leaving 3/4 of the marks behind on a toon that doesn't need it isn't efficient, it's asinine. Yet you're arguing to do exactly that, leave 3/4 of your marks behind on a toon that doesn't need them. If you have an advanced captain already, what is preventing you from putting together a set of starting gear for your new captain and running on the new captain so you're not starting off completely from scratch? Grind smarter not harder.
As for the differences between captains, aside from baseline abilities, they're only as different as you choose to make them. If you choose to create new captains but keep playing them the exact same way each time, you're going to get the same results each time. If you create 2 captains, one tactical and one engineer and play them the exact same way, all you're doing is changing out the baseline abilities of the captains. If you do something like that, the captains are going to be practically the same because YOU chose to make them that way, not the game.
In my case I will take 3 of my tac captains. My main toon is a tactical captain tank that can put out heals rivaling those of the engineers in my fleet if not outright exceeding them in many cases. He uses fair amounts of burst healing as well as healing over time. He also uses mainly the bigger beefier ships to tank with such as cruisers and dreadnoughts. My second tactical captain is also a tank, but tends to stick to the lighter ships such as battlecruisers and escorts. His tanking style relies more on the healing over time effects, temporary HP, with one or two burst heals for emergencies. They're both tanks but completely different styles and approaches to it. My third tactical captain is a dps type captain with a little bit of healing thrown in. 3 tac captains, 3 different styles of play because I made them to be that way. Then there is a 4th captain that I'm working on. She's a sci captain that's a hybrid of sci dps and tank that's working for me.
Again I'm going to be perfectly blunt here. What I see is you not properly prioritizing your time in game and are wasting time and resources you don't need to waste based on your own unwillingness to grind smarter instead of harder. Building up a new captain is like renovating a house. It's the equivalent of telling the contractor to focus on the bathrooms first then getting angry that the kitchen isn't done.
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I also think it has no chance. Let's be glad there's no account limit like in Neverwinter or Magic: Legends, and it makes sense to make alt toons.
Again, who's forcing you to create alts? If, for you, there is no notable difference between captains, then why make an alt to begin with? If you're so determined to only run TFOs on a maxed out, geared up toon, then just run them on your main and be done with it. You apparently have no use for alts anyway.
No one is arguing that you didn't already do that on your veteran captain. But you haven't done it on the new captain(s) that you're creating. And that's the work (read:play) that you're, apparently, unwilling to do. If you're going to start referring to actually playing the game as an "obstacle," then I would suggest you find another hobby, because gaming doesn't seem to be for you.
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We got Romulans which turned out to be just Fed or KDF toons... but that low level experience was brand new.
We got options to PAY to level with out playing with lockbox doff missions right around the same time as the Romulans launched.
We got reputation sponsorships... and later that system went from tokens to just automagicly applying to improve QOL.
We got account binding most items that didn't come from rep or lobi.
We got recruits with new recruit content... and even the replay reruns get new objectives designed to get people to play parts of the game perhaps they didn't the first time.
We got wallet to 65 directly Jem toons. (with Jem faction ships that account unlocked before cross faction zen ships was a thing)
We got end game ships that could be used at low levels.
New zen store ships now are almost all legendary ones that account unlock traits. (not that running a couple patrols is a big deal anyway)
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff... but I'm trying to make two points I think...
1) its the ask here isn't insane considering how far Cryptic has bent over in the past to make playing alts zero hassle.
2) its probably a bridge too far considering all the nerfs they have made to things like reclaims on super low level toons or brand new jems... limits they put in on instant converting marks to min T5. I'm probably forgetting 20 other little things they have done over the years to limit the ease of farming Dill.
So yes not crazy to ask... still probably pretty unlikely considering the way this can be "abused" requires no imagination at all. Its not like previous easy dill tricks that where not super obvious to everyone, or Cryptic themselves which required corrections.
Yeah, I think there's quite enough hot menuing action in game already.
Once again the differences are what you make them. If you do the same thing over and over again you will get the same results. Which again begs the question you refuse to answer for some reason. Why make alts if it's that big of a hassle and as you said there's no difference between the toons?
If you really believed that you wouldn't be creating alts in the first place and wasting your time. Clearly you believe there is some value in it and that it does add something or you wouldn't be so determined that Cryptic simply must cave to your demands and make TFO boxes account bound. So why don't we drop the charade and you tell us why you really want it to be account wide. If you think folks should be able to just copy paste their toons then just say it instead of playing these word and definition games.
If you think that playing the game is an obstacle I'm going to agree with my cohort above, perhaps gaming isn't the right hobby for you. You're basically arguing that you should be able to create a brand new toon and that toon should be at the same level of your already existing toon without putting the work it takes the second toon to get there. You're basically saying "well I did it once so I should automatically be able to start all my toons out at the top" and that's not how this game works or has ever worked. It's like practicing Guitar and getting angry that you can't immediately start out playing Beethoven on Piano when you've done none of the work to get to that musical level on Piano all while saying "I already practiced guitar so I should automatically be able to play piano".
though it boggles my mind that you say you want to be more efficient, yet you want to leave 3/4 of your marks on a toon that doesn't need them and only send 1/4 to your new toon vs just running on the new toon start with. You say you want to skip some grind or have your new captain not be hamstrung, yet seemingly are against buying some starting gear on the exchange or elsewhere and sending it to said captain so he's not hamstrung. You say having to actually play on that new toon to get them up to snuff adds nothing to the game and is just an artificial obstacle, yet you choose to create alts and take on that artificial obstacle anyways. But somehow I'm wrong because I don't see a need for the TFO boxes to be account bound. yeah...
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You quoted this part of my post and ignored the rest. So, I'll state it again since it, once again, addresses your statements:
Again, who's forcing you to create alts? If, for you, there is no notable difference between captains, then why make an alt to begin with? If you're so determined to only run TFOs on a maxed out, geared up toon, then just run them on your main and be done with it. You apparently have no use for alts anyway.
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Alts are easy to roll... easy to level... easy to gear decently... expensive to uber gear for instant STF completion.
Instant STF completion = high DPH (Dill per hour). Only one pesky little problem with that... its all on one toon
FleetCap might have had an honest request.... but I think it should be clear how such a change would be used.
It would be used to build more pylons. Last thing the game needs right now is more DPH.
Actually it be the the other way around for me. Since I do lots of TFO's to convert marks to dillithium. But I actually switch toons all the time. That would allow me to play one toon all day and use another the day after. I would save some time and play more by not switching chars. I don't see any downside to this proposal because as you already said its pretty convenient.