I don't understand this. I'm able to plan menus complete with ingredient sourcing, pricing, presentation, and marketing in time to market these *weekly* events and train my cooks... weeks in advance. Idk if it's time management or what, but if I treated my job the way y'all treat yours I'd be unemployed. I can understand issues with this mega-event, you guys weren't fully in control of the information. That doesn't mean we need to pretend that's the case going forward.
Given all the problems you've had with events, would it not make sense to have them ready and testing a week ahead of time rather than finalizing the event the day before it's supposed to start? Sounds like you guys aren't taking this very seriously... do you really not expect any problems because you've pushed back your deadline to the last possible second?
Everything was fine before this mega event... idk what you guys are getting out of this, but it's BS and I call shennanigans. You've found some perceived advantage in the schedule CBS forced you into for this event and you're leveraging it to the detriment of your players.
Maybe the irony is that we play because we’re Star Trek fans, those hopeful idealists that like to think things will get better when we raise valid concerns about fairness and balance, etc and we forget that DB’s greed openly mocks the values espoused by the franchise they have a license for.
-Lord Wizzlestix I
Or they realized that after they fired half their staff they're even more behind and can't keep up. But instead of slowing down the pace of events to what they can handle, they'll scale back the information, make things up as they go, and count on players to catch all their bugs once the events go live.
I don't understand this. I'm able to plan menus complete with ingredient sourcing, pricing, presentation, and marketing in time to market these *weekly* events and train my cooks... weeks in advance. Idk if it's time management or what, but if I treated my job the way y'all treat yours I'd be unemployed. I can understand issues with this mega-event, you guys weren't fully in control of the information. That doesn't mean we need to pretend that's the case going forward.
This.
Lol. I worked for a woman once who never used to tell her crew what was happening one day to another. She would leave an A4 piece of paper on the desk with a brief list of who was to go to which site with instructions as vague as 'build a trellis - hardware' and a location. You had 10 minutes to gather tools, another 10 if you had to grab the necessary items from the landscaping store next door, and 10 to 20 minutes to get to the site depending on where it was. She'd often be there waiting, timing your arrival, and expect you to start work immediately. It was madness. Fine if it was general garden maintenance but often you'd need to scout the site or look at garden design plans and start digging within minutes. All for under minimum wage. It was ridiculously stressful and unproductive and as soon as I found another job I got her back by just walking out one morning and going into my new job at the Botanical Gardens and then took her best designer a few months later.
But seriously, planning a job well in advance is a must for any person willing to do a good job and it would be nice if both DB could do that and allow us to do the same for our events.
I am very disappointed in this new development. Giving me less time to plan makes the game much less fun for me and since i will be getting less enjoyment i will be spending less monsy on the game.
I don't understand this. I'm able to plan menus complete with ingredient sourcing, pricing, presentation, and marketing in time to market these *weekly* events and train my cooks... weeks in advance. Idk if it's time management or what, but if I treated my job the way y'all treat yours I'd be unemployed. I can understand issues with this mega-event, you guys weren't fully in control of the information. That doesn't mean we need to pretend that's the case going forward.
I'm afraid I agree with this assessment. When it was revealed, elsewhere on the internet, that DB had let a number of their staff go, some of us wondered if that restructuring had been a factor in the slow roll out and numerous problems which bedevilled the Discovery mega event. We were given the impression that it was not, and that the problems were all down to CBS scheduling issues.
This latest announcement makes me think that my earlier assessment was correct. I am sorry to say it, but at the moment I have no confidence that the continued development of Star Trek Timelines is a priority for DB. I worry that it will now have a 'skeleton crew', and that whilst we'll still have events and new characters to encourage us to continue spending, the long term problems of the game, such as changes which needs making to the UI and numerous bugs which needs to be fixed, are unlikely to receive the attention they merit.
When the staffing changes were discussed in another thread I posted this:
If I were in DB's shoes I would think it prudent, in the light of recent news, to give reassurance to the players. I wasn't encouraged to see that the relevant discussion thread had been opened and closed before I'd even had a chance to wake up and contribute to it.
I do try to err on the side of positivity despite having numerous concerns about the game, but I'm afraid that if anything yesterday's news has made me less, not more inclined, to continue spending money . Even if we forget about new content and events there are still a number of bugs and basic UI issues which need to be addressed. If presumably there are now less staff working on the game, why should we be any more confident that these longstanding issues will be addressed? What is the long term future of this game? What is the plan? Until these issues are addressed substantively and through official channels I wouldn't blame player for being reluctant to continue spending their own money.
Unfortunately, I still don't believe I've seen a post like this. Hopefully something like it will come up when the results of the Q&A are published soon, and renew my confidence, but right now I can't help but feel pessimistic about where the game is going.
I have many issues with the announcement and how it amounts to "Well, so there's this thing we're not very good at, and so we're just gonna keep not being very good at it, which means making this change," when it should have sounded more like "Well, so we admit there's this thing we've not been doing well this past month, but we're gonna do everything we can to do better at it."
But eleventy billion people have already posted along those lines.
So allow me to make a very simple, hopefully constructive, observation: if DB is truly as upset by this development as we are, but are intent on making this change last for anything more than a week or two, there simply must be a change to the way the cryo vault operates. At least 2 free uses per day, with at least 3 more uses at significantly reduced merit costs (say, 25/50/100), before getting to DIL. Solves a significant quality of life issue for players, while costing DB virtually nothing.
Now, I admit this does nothing to solve the issue with giving enough advance time to level up event crew from zero, but at the very least, it fixes the problem of getting all pre-immortalized crew unfrozen before Thursday afternoon. I don't think "the absolute bare minimum" is too much of an ask, is it?
sounds to me like db needs more staff, to make things happen properly. but i recall u let a bumch go, oh well, i do like the idea of running past events event other week and a new event in between, that gives you two whole weeks to prepare instead of one. also the events need some prize adjustments, the newer population increase is just makeing those rewards more rare to the point of a .ooooooo1 percent distribution. and while we are it. if u shaved a day off the events it wouldnt hurt either, more than half the week is occupied by event duties. we can use a day more down time to prepare, you for the next event and us, to have a breather to upgrade other crew. anyhow thats my two cents for what its worth.
for the whole point of having monday night thru thursday morning as non-event days was to use that time to prepare for the next coming event. thats three days of downtime for preparing. and four days for participating. but we didnt get notified of bonus crew until wednesday morning (even tho you said tuesday) leaving me 2 days of nothing and one day to prepare.
providing us with the details early grants us two things.,
1) time to pull crew out of cryostasis and,
2) time to level up crew for the upcoming event.
item one you can compensate by making it a free day for unfreezing crew as compensation every thursday, but item two you cant compensate for. two of my three days that i was useing for leveling event crew. have just dissapeared.
now one has to wonder what do you think folks are gonna do when they have two days of nothing to do?
some might look for other games to occupy these two days.
some might just level random crewmembers.
but i think most are gonna be here throwing messages at db complaining about lack of staff to get the job done right and on time.
ive seen games go downhill and flop before. and it always starts with the little stuff. stuff you didnt think would be a problem, until something else occurs, and then something else. but thats usually after four five or six good years of support and customer service. but what worries me most? this game isnt even two years old, and im already getting that sinking ship feeling all over again..
its one thing if were to say this is a tempory thing til we can catch up on our backlog. but your saying its gonna be a permanent solution.
thats not improvement, thats decay.
enuff rant from me, ive gotta figure out what to do with those two free days now. since apparently im only allowed 24 hours preparation time for an event anymore.
I don’t care for this new protocol. At the time it was announced “all androids and holograms”, I had thirteen of those vaulted. I obviously can not unvault them all by the start of the event using only merits, and whilst I normally have no problems with spending money on this game, I don’t feel I should have to spend dilithium to be able to unvault and use crew which I’ve already bought and paid for, simply due to incompetence on the part of the company. I see no logical reason that this information could not have been provided sooner.
However, if this is going to be the protocol from now on, please do increase the amount of crew that can be unvaulted for merits.
I think most of us would prefer an earlier information with the chance of it being not 100% precise rather than not getting any information until Friday evening (Europe time) and Wednesday morning (European time, cause afternoon for you is midnight for us).
Anyway, we have to live with this and have to adapt our play style to the new "standard" which was "very unusual" some weeks ago. I'm sad that the quality keeps getting lower and lower week by week.
"Everything about the Jem'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris (ST-DS9 Episode 2x26 "The Jem'Hadar")
I had a good start to this current event, however am now stuck as I can't make even 60% most times for shuttle missions. It is frustrating as I didn't have enough time to level up existing crew to take part in the event. If this is going to continue, then events are going to be very annoying and not enjoyable.
I'm going to add my own voice to the request for as much information as possible in advance. It can make a huge difference to how well we do in events. I also recommend an in-game mail for all those who don't access the forums regularly so the information is sent to everyone immediately and creates a more level playing field. I don't think this is an unreasonable request and I think that it will generate more excitement for new players, give them something to work towards and plan for during general gameplay. It is in everyone's best interest to have an active, thriving, growing community of active and engaged players.
This is disppointing to hear, but everybody is still on equal footing, so it should have little effect on potential event rankings for the majority of players in the game... right?
Perhaps not. I have never used the cryostasis vault. I have 170 crew slots and am only using 127. I don’t know how it works but it sounds like some people are saying it requires a certain amount of time to pull people from the vault? This decision could put me at an advantage because all my crew are all on my access now roster. I could be wrong as I don’t know how the vault works.
I'm actually kind of surprised so many people (apparently) need to regularly unvault crew for events. I think I've only had to do that once or twice, and as I recall, I could've gotten by easily without doing so. Although I guess as my crew grows and I'm vaulting more and more super-rares, that could change.
Currently, my own experience is more like: find out who event + bonus crew are, start leveling the ones that aren't FE yet, and maybe buy an event pack ahead of time (if I like the new crew) so I can make use of them during the weekend. All that of course would be harder to do with so much less advance notice, but everybody would be in the same boat (as far as having the same limited amount of time to level up event + bonus crew).
Here's my experience, just to give you some perspective on what people mean:
Roster (95):
5*: 33 (mostly 1/5)
4*: 50 (13 immortal, 5 of which out for this event only)
3*: 6 (4 permanent, working on 2 for vault)
2*: 6
Vault (172):
4*: 74
3*: 38
2*: 33
1*: 27
So in a nutshell, I basically keep out around 8 elite immortal 4* for gauntlet, elite stats, and/or arena (Barak, Robin Hood, K'ehleyr, Borg Tuvok, Lal, Princess and 1701 Jadzia, M. Phlox). The rest of them get vaulted and only come out during events.
For this one I pulled out Anastasia Komananov, Prospero Data, Admiral Picard, Warship Chakotay, and Holonovel Doctor. I have several more if crew slot limits had not stopped me, but the extremely late announcements would have prevented me from doing so either way.
I hate to be negative, but I have to agree with other comments here that this is a disappointing and somewhat confusing change. I totally understand why this was the case for the Discovery mega event, but for regular events? Surely you have all the fine details set in stone earlier than 24 hours before event launch?
Echoing earlier comments, this now puts more pressure on squad leaders and F2P players that still want to be as competitive in events as possible. One thing I have always admired about DB and felt made you stand apart from other app game designers was how inclusive you were of F2P players, making them feel valued and not like lower class players.
I truly hope this isn't a sign of DB stepping towards becoming one of the money hungry developers.
This is a sign of DB passing their own failures on to their players. Like if Gordon Ramsay had a problem with one cook screwing up beef wellington, but instead of freaking out and teaching the guy who keeps screwing them up he just pulls it off the menu because it's apparently too difficult to execute properly.
Maybe the irony is that we play because we’re Star Trek fans, those hopeful idealists that like to think things will get better when we raise valid concerns about fairness and balance, etc and we forget that DB’s greed openly mocks the values espoused by the franchise they have a license for.
-Lord Wizzlestix I
Do the Tuesday detail notes not tell us which 4* is threshold and which is rank? That's every bit as important to me as knowing which crew members are eligible for event bonuses. More important than that for me in Galaxy events, really.
Do the Tuesday detail notes not tell us which 4* is threshold and which is rank? That's every bit as important to me as knowing which crew members are eligible for event bonuses. More important than that for me in Galaxy events, really.
They always tell us that one day before the event on wednesday
Do the Tuesday detail notes not tell us which 4* is threshold and which is rank? That's every bit as important to me as knowing which crew members are eligible for event bonuses. More important than that for me in Galaxy events, really.
Comments
Given all the problems you've had with events, would it not make sense to have them ready and testing a week ahead of time rather than finalizing the event the day before it's supposed to start? Sounds like you guys aren't taking this very seriously... do you really not expect any problems because you've pushed back your deadline to the last possible second?
Everything was fine before this mega event... idk what you guys are getting out of this, but it's BS and I call shennanigans. You've found some perceived advantage in the schedule CBS forced you into for this event and you're leveraging it to the detriment of your players.
-Lord Wizzlestix I
This.
Lol. I worked for a woman once who never used to tell her crew what was happening one day to another. She would leave an A4 piece of paper on the desk with a brief list of who was to go to which site with instructions as vague as 'build a trellis - hardware' and a location. You had 10 minutes to gather tools, another 10 if you had to grab the necessary items from the landscaping store next door, and 10 to 20 minutes to get to the site depending on where it was. She'd often be there waiting, timing your arrival, and expect you to start work immediately. It was madness. Fine if it was general garden maintenance but often you'd need to scout the site or look at garden design plans and start digging within minutes. All for under minimum wage. It was ridiculously stressful and unproductive and as soon as I found another job I got her back by just walking out one morning and going into my new job at the Botanical Gardens and then took her best designer a few months later.
But seriously, planning a job well in advance is a must for any person willing to do a good job and it would be nice if both DB could do that and allow us to do the same for our events.
I'm afraid I agree with this assessment. When it was revealed, elsewhere on the internet, that DB had let a number of their staff go, some of us wondered if that restructuring had been a factor in the slow roll out and numerous problems which bedevilled the Discovery mega event. We were given the impression that it was not, and that the problems were all down to CBS scheduling issues.
This latest announcement makes me think that my earlier assessment was correct. I am sorry to say it, but at the moment I have no confidence that the continued development of Star Trek Timelines is a priority for DB. I worry that it will now have a 'skeleton crew', and that whilst we'll still have events and new characters to encourage us to continue spending, the long term problems of the game, such as changes which needs making to the UI and numerous bugs which needs to be fixed, are unlikely to receive the attention they merit.
When the staffing changes were discussed in another thread I posted this:
Unfortunately, I still don't believe I've seen a post like this. Hopefully something like it will come up when the results of the Q&A are published soon, and renew my confidence, but right now I can't help but feel pessimistic about where the game is going.
Can you at least stick to your proposed schedule please?
Cardassian wishlist:
Tora Ziyal - Thanks!
Natima Lang
Empok Nor Garak
Tekeny Ghemor
Mira
Makbar
Dejar
Ulani Belor
But eleventy billion people have already posted along those lines.
So allow me to make a very simple, hopefully constructive, observation: if DB is truly as upset by this development as we are, but are intent on making this change last for anything more than a week or two, there simply must be a change to the way the cryo vault operates. At least 2 free uses per day, with at least 3 more uses at significantly reduced merit costs (say, 25/50/100), before getting to DIL. Solves a significant quality of life issue for players, while costing DB virtually nothing.
Now, I admit this does nothing to solve the issue with giving enough advance time to level up event crew from zero, but at the very least, it fixes the problem of getting all pre-immortalized crew unfrozen before Thursday afternoon. I don't think "the absolute bare minimum" is too much of an ask, is it?
My sentiments exactly +1
providing us with the details early grants us two things.,
1) time to pull crew out of cryostasis and,
2) time to level up crew for the upcoming event.
item one you can compensate by making it a free day for unfreezing crew as compensation every thursday, but item two you cant compensate for. two of my three days that i was useing for leveling event crew. have just dissapeared.
now one has to wonder what do you think folks are gonna do when they have two days of nothing to do?
some might look for other games to occupy these two days.
some might just level random crewmembers.
but i think most are gonna be here throwing messages at db complaining about lack of staff to get the job done right and on time.
ive seen games go downhill and flop before. and it always starts with the little stuff. stuff you didnt think would be a problem, until something else occurs, and then something else. but thats usually after four five or six good years of support and customer service. but what worries me most? this game isnt even two years old, and im already getting that sinking ship feeling all over again..
its one thing if were to say this is a tempory thing til we can catch up on our backlog. but your saying its gonna be a permanent solution.
thats not improvement, thats decay.
enuff rant from me, ive gotta figure out what to do with those two free days now. since apparently im only allowed 24 hours preparation time for an event anymore.
However, if this is going to be the protocol from now on, please do increase the amount of crew that can be unvaulted for merits.
Anyway, we have to live with this and have to adapt our play style to the new "standard" which was "very unusual" some weeks ago. I'm sad that the quality keeps getting lower and lower week by week.
Here's my experience, just to give you some perspective on what people mean:
Roster (95):
5*: 33 (mostly 1/5)
4*: 50 (13 immortal, 5 of which out for this event only)
3*: 6 (4 permanent, working on 2 for vault)
2*: 6
Vault (172):
4*: 74
3*: 38
2*: 33
1*: 27
So in a nutshell, I basically keep out around 8 elite immortal 4* for gauntlet, elite stats, and/or arena (Barak, Robin Hood, K'ehleyr, Borg Tuvok, Lal, Princess and 1701 Jadzia, M. Phlox). The rest of them get vaulted and only come out during events.
For this one I pulled out Anastasia Komananov, Prospero Data, Admiral Picard, Warship Chakotay, and Holonovel Doctor. I have several more if crew slot limits had not stopped me, but the extremely late announcements would have prevented me from doing so either way.
Echoing earlier comments, this now puts more pressure on squad leaders and F2P players that still want to be as competitive in events as possible. One thing I have always admired about DB and felt made you stand apart from other app game designers was how inclusive you were of F2P players, making them feel valued and not like lower class players.
I truly hope this isn't a sign of DB stepping towards becoming one of the money hungry developers.
Malone Out
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-Lord Wizzlestix I
They always tell us that one day before the event on wednesday
We've never gotten that info until Wednesdays.