Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!)

Discussion in 'Trek Gaming' started by daedalus5, Sep 3, 2011.

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  1. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
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    I guess that's what's happening. I just never noticed it until now because I usually don't take note of the exact amount of dilithium on my characters.
     
  2. Aeolusdallas

    Aeolusdallas Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2008
    We are getting an Andorian Battlecrusier in January and looks like an Ambassador for the anniversary

    1 Season 7 Update! More Changes Inbound! Posted Nov 20, 2012
    Today, 07:01 PM

    Time for a STO Season 7 Update

    Greetings!

    First off, Happy Holidays from the STO Team! It has been pretty hectic around here and we can't believe it has already been a week since the launch of Season 7! Before we go into the Holiday Weekend, the team and I would like to give you a status update.

    Season 7 is doing great. Lots of new players are logging in. Plenty of returning players are coming back to check out the new update. Concurrency is up across the board and generally speaking the team is very proud of the work that went into this Season and we are thrilled by all of the wonderful comments about New Romulus and the new Events. You can expect more large zones like this in future Seasons.

    Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. As we mentioned in previous posts, we continue to monitor the Dilithium economy reaction to the changes in Season 7 and as previously stated, we will be making some additional adjustments which we feel will address issues that have been discussed. Some of those changes are going to happen in an update tomorrow (Wednesday Nov 21) and some of them are going to happen in the following week's update on Nov 29. If we feel more changes are necessary after that, we will certainly make them because our goal is to keep the game balanced while ensuring that players are having fun. Even though we've managed to get more Dilithium into more players hands, we agree that STF runs and Dilithium have been a challenging change that needs to be addressed and we are going to continue to do so.

    First up, we expect to turn Foundry play back on with tomorrow's update. This is great news for Foundry fans and anyone looking to run the Foundry Dilithium Daily mission. We expect to have Foundry editing online in the following week after we've finalized all of our mission regression testing. So far everything looks good and we are in much better shape than we were after Season 6.

    Private Queues are going to remain off for another week so that we can get the cool down timers for the missions to be in synch with the cool down timers in the public queues. Once that is confirmed, we'll turn the private queues back on.

    The Reputation System, including the STFs are getting some major changes over the next two weeks. Here is a rundown of what is going to happen over the next several Holodeck updates.

    Omega Conversion Crates can be opened immediately. You will no longer need to achieve T3 in Omega Fleet to open these.
    Reputation XP Project timers are dropping from 40 hours to 20 hours across all Tiers. If you have a project in progress, it will not change, but any new projects after the update will be adjusted. We are also looking into adding the ability to drop a project.
    All XP Reputation Projects (projects that reward progress towards your next Tier) will now grant 240 Dilithium (on average) upon completion. If you complete 4 XP Rep Projects a day, you should earn about 960 Dilithium per day from it. These are in addition to the Marks to Dilithium conversion Projects. Once you've completed a Reputation System, these XP Projects will go away, but the Marks to Dilithium conversion projects will remain.
    Reputation Projects that convert Marks to Dilithium are being moved from unlocking at T5 to being available immediately. This allows you to convert Omega Marks and Romulan Marks to Dilithium similar to how you could trade STF items for Dilithium previously.
    Loot drops are getting added to STF mobs as well as to bosses.
    End of STF Loot Rolls are returning. There will once again be a chance to earn special rewards at the end of STFs or Romulan Mark events. These special rewards will be Bonus marks, Borg Neural Processors, or other items needed for Reputation rewards.
    Reputation Advancement Projects (the ones that unlock each tier) are having their timers reduced from 1 hour to 15 mins. and we are removing Dilithium inputs from these Tier Up projects.
    The amount of commodities needed for Romulan Reputation projects is being reduced due to the lack of drops on New Romulus. We will be adding more drops to New Romulus in the future either through enemy kills or daily missions.
    All Reputation Projects are being changed so that you need to claim the reward upon completion. This puts it in line with how Duty Officer assignments work so you can see the rewards you are getting from each project.

    We expect all of the above changes to be live before December. A few will be live by tomorrow, with the rest live around Nov 29th.

    Thank you for your patience. We realize that players have been asking for many of these changes since Season 7 first started appearing on Tribble. We feel much better about making these changes now that we have a week's worth of data on a full Shard (there were only a hundred or so players on Tribble) and are able to see how a full server load of players are interacting with the new Reputation system. We're confident that the above approach will still achieve our balance goals, while putting more of the fun back in the economy. Our end goal has always been to put more Dilithium into the hands of the average player. The above changes should help get us there and put more Dilithium back into STFs.

    Season 7 is just getting started and we hope that you'll enjoy all the updates that will come with this Season. Tomorrow we are releasing the next Duty Officer pack which has been specifically tuned to help with Starbase and Embassy construction. Shortly after the Winter Event will begin around December 6th. Last year's Winter Wonderland has been updated to include new missions, a new track, new rewards, a new ship, and plenty of fun that will run through the new year.

    We will also be running a full month of Feature Episode Replay where all the limited time rewards from all four series will be available all month long. So if you've got some new characters that need these special items, December is going to be your chance to catch up.

    In January we'll be releasing an Andorian Ship on the Federation side to be quickly followed by the STO 3 Year Anniversary Event. This special celebration will be released with a new one-off Feature Episode. If you were at the Star Trek convention in San Francisco this last weekend, Denise Crosby would have you believe that this episode is going to be all about Tasha Yar and Sela. We'll see... anything can happen.

    The anniversary event will also offer a new special free ship for both Fed and Kdf players much like we gave away the Odyssey during last year's event.

    Moving into February and March we expect to have some more events to talk about and we will begin to start teasing the next Season.

    So there is plenty to look forward to in Season 7 and we thank you for continuing to share your feedback and comments with us. Thank you for the both the kudos and the criticism (although some of you need to learn some manners). We get better with every season and we have you to thank for that. We do listen, and while we don't always immediately react, we do deliberate and make changes based on ideas and feedback you submit. The QA team is still crunching through all of your bug reports and we expect to have major issues ironed out soon.

    MMOs are wonderful because everything can change and there is almost always a way to improve things. We will continue to grow and evolve.

    Keep an eye on the patch notes for when the above changes will hit Holodeck and thank you for making STO awesome.

    See you online and Happy Holidays!

    Daniel Stahl
    Executive Producer
    Star Trek Online
     
  3. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2006
    Location:
    Star Trekkin Across the universe.
    Well the reputation system changes get a big yay from me.
     
  4. Scout101

    Scout101 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2003
    Location:
    Rhode Island, USA
    Yeah, all needed changes, not seeing a lot of downside in them.

    It's remarkable how tone-deaf they've become that they didn't see any of this coming. Even with the fixes, still feels like there's a growing disconnect between the staff and the players. Too controlling and 'you should play like this'. And the trust is long since gone, yet they remain shocked when we dare to question them. Even Dan's response, while admitting they screwed up, didn't couch it in those terms, and was a bit snarky.
     
  5. Rocketeer

    Rocketeer Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2011
    Location:
    Edge of Chaos (Wash DC)
    Looking forward to playing the new and old Featured Episodes in December and checking out the new ships in January.
    .
     
  6. Avon

    Avon Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 7, 2010
    Location:
    Avon
    anyone know what happened to the foundry?
     
  7. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2006
    Location:
    Germany, Earth, the Solar System
  8. Avon

    Avon Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 7, 2010
    Location:
    Avon
    it doesn't seem to exist. or is it just me?
     
  9. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2006
    Location:
    Germany, Earth, the Solar System
    They turned Foundry Play on with the last patch after the season update. You can play missions again.

    The Editor is still disabled for maintenance reasons.
     
  10. sbk1234

    sbk1234 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 24, 2006
    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Have I heard correctly that they're planning to reallow those nice little short missions for the daily? Or am I just nuts? The two, I know, are not mutually exclusive.
     
  11. matthunter

    matthunter Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Location:
    Great Britain
    There's a pretty major bug since the update which either prevents NPCs from spawning or despawns them if you move too far away. I've tried a number of Foundry missions now only to be unable to complete them due to a missing NPC contact. Beaming out and resuming sometimes works, but not always. This can also happen quite some time into the mission, which is frustrating.
     
  12. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2006
    Location:
    Star Trekkin Across the universe.
    something tells me the devs are probably screaming at the foundry right now seeing as the whole point of taking it down was to prevent stuff like this.
     
  13. matthunter

    matthunter Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Location:
    Great Britain
    Two Borg Red Alerts today. I think I'm getting the hang of them - not a word spoken in chat, but I didn't die once and we finished the V'Ger knockoffs in under a minute. I don't like varying my build for a given situation, so I half-expect folk to yell at me for not healing, but my Grav Well seems good at keeping the Regeneration Probes tied up while escorts blow them to pieces. Debuffing is my game.

    Also hit T2 Romulan rep. This time a bit unclear on where to trigger the cutscene - unlike "Hidden Camera", this one is inside the new daily you unlock instead of being needed to unlock it. Not as interesting as the previous one, but they seem to be going somewhere with it, anyway. Kinda wish Omega Force had a similar backstory element, just seems like th Borg are being Borg rather than having an actual plan... WHY did they assimilate Donatra? And why leave her in her old ship (albeit with Borg upgrades) when a Tac Cube or Unimatrix ship would be more potent? How come they haven't figured out where the Preserver Archive is and are still mucking about on Defera?
     
  14. Xhiandra

    Xhiandra Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 29, 2012
    True.
    I came back to the game a few days ago.
    What made me come back? New stuff to do.
    What greeted me? A completely new system to learn (got the gist of it now), new stuff to buy and new stuff to wait on.
    Wait 20 hours, to be precise.

    Cryptic is really lucky this game is riding on a popular franchise, had it been an original MMO, they'd have lost huge chunks of the playerbase long ago and closed shop before season 6. Maybe before season 5.
    They're lucky most of the playerbase consists of trekkies for whom this is their first MMO; they don't know any better.


    Instead of the reputation system, Season 7 should just have introduced new endgame events, be they new STFs or a completely different system.
    Make them hard, so players will be challenged and won't get bored with it even when they win a few times.
    Don't make existing gear harder to obtain (doubleslap in the face of the playerbase - Omega/MACO/KHG/Borg now require a lot more time investment to obtain and the conversion rates screwed everyone!), introduce new gear sets instead!
    Make the new sets better than Omega/MACO/KHG/Borg, to reward the high difficulty and create a gear progression.

    That would've been a lot easier to do than the reputation system+New Romulus and it would've been better for all players, new and old.


    Oh, and not only have they killed Dilithium farming, they also killed my old EC farming avenues: STFs and Starbase 24.

    - STFs: I didn't hoard the drops when I no longer needed them on a char, I sold them:
    1 EDC=20k EC (NPCing Borg pieces: 5 EDCs=1 piece-> 100k resale value)
    1 Rare Salvage=45k EC (IIRC - NPCing the Mk X equipment)
    1 Proto Salvage=50k EC (IIRC - NPCing the Mk XII equipment)
    1 Rare Deflector/Engine/Shields=50k EC (NPCing Mk XI MACO/OMEGA/KHG)
    1 Proto Deflector/Engine/Shields=55k EC (NPCing Mk XII MACO/OMEGA/KHG)
    Add the random drops to NPC and the exceedingly rare occurence of a good drop (Mk XII purple weapons) during the run and you had a decent moneymaker.

    - Starbase 24: pre-S7, it didn't give dilithium, but it didn't have a timer either.
    I could run 4-5 back-to-back if I wanted, often taking first place -> if the reward was a console, good EC on the exchange. If it was a Deflector/Engine/Shields, weak EC at a NPC but you can try again; if it was a Weapon, it depended.


    Now, it seems the best way to generate EC is to take advantage of people: buy Major Regens/Hypos/Shield Charges/various Provisions at a NPC, sell for 10x the cost or more on the Exchange.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2012
  15. TheRoyalFamily

    TheRoyalFamily Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2005
    People still buy that stuff? I could see that happening in the first few days, but you'd think people would learn which NPC's to buy that crap from pretty quick. I know some folks get out of the habit of talking to NPC's, and before there was absolutely no reason to buy anything from them, but that's just ridiculous.

    In S6 you could make loads of EC selling doffs on the exchange, but the prices imploded at S7. On the one hand there was a lot less need for certain doffs for fleet projects, but on the other hand Cryptic made it a lot harder to get them (for cheap, at least). Plus, the large amounts of identically-priced doffs on the exchange makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of manipulation going on there...
     
  16. syberghost

    syberghost Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2010
    Location:
    STO official forums community moderator emeritus
    There is, but it's by players. They brag about it on the forums.
     
  17. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2006
    Location:
    Star Trekkin Across the universe.
    At least you can invest time into it now instead of relying on luck to get a piece of gear.

    And before someone tries the increase drop rate argument, it's ONE item that only ONE person in a FIVE person group can get, so unless there is one or more drops I doubt it would work.

    This has be debunked. Your getting dilithium for all the dilithium dailies, the STFs, and the Fleet actions, not to mention doff assignments, exchanging neural processors, and at some point reputation xp assignments, and exchanging marks.

    And lets be honest unless your grinding for zen (which of course they expect you to pay for since they have to make money off this thing) its mostly going towards gear thats somewhat better than what you can get for ECs, I mean hell I just sold some master keys I got with my 500 zen a month and just flat out bought Mk XI purple gear on the exchange.
     
  18. Ayelbourne

    Ayelbourne Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2005
    It did. There's a new ground STF and a new space STF. Also, there is a new ground fleet action and some new events.
     
  19. Scout101

    Scout101 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2003
    Location:
    Rhode Island, USA
    Think they meant a whole new series, with new gear, etc. Not just a single mission, dropped into a yet-again revamped attempt to make us forget we've been playing them for 2 years now.

    Wish they'd thought it out enough to not kill the current ones, at least, while not giving us a new set. Literally can't get a team together for a ground mission since they tossed us the lastest cock-up. No benefit to doing them, they take longer, no unique rewards, etc. So it's just ISE once an hour and move on...
     
  20. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Location:
    Singapore
    It's pretty clear that Cryptic really dropped the ball this time and delivered the rush job that is called Season 7. There are so many obvious bugs, a significant portion of them could have been caught if they've been put it up for testing on Tribble. The worst is the addition of the new personal reputation system and reward changes without careful thought on the impact to the playerbase, in-game economy, nor adequate data mining when deciding project costs.

    I know this is not how Cryptic view it, but from my perspective the end result is that the entire end-game is now segmented into 4 largely separate activity groups, forcing players to divide their time advancing 4 different aspects of their character.

    STFs - For collecting Omega Marks and advancing Omega Force Reputation
    Tau Dewa & S7 Fleet Actions - For collecting Romulan Marks and advancing New Romulus Reputation
    S6 Fleet Actions - For Fleet Marks and advancing Fleet Starbase & Embassy
    Old Fleet Actions, Dailies, Kerrat - For gathering sufficient dilithium and energy credits to fund Omega Force, New Romulus & Fleet Reputation Projects.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2012
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