skirmishes/expeditions are a bit of an equalizer where time/effort put into it can let you do better than people who usually light their money on fire on events such as shuttle events. We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them. different events for different play styles. some people like the grind.
Expedition is only event that takes a modicum of thought. You have to decide which crew to use, you have to search for the crew, you have to think about the exhaustion of the crew. The full bonus isn't automatic, you have to hit the right nodes with the right crew.
I think that's why DB doesn't like it. They prefer mindless events that lend themselves toward automation and throwing money at chrons, why wouldn't they? $$$.
I love expeditions. I want more of them. Full events, not just part of a hybrid. Make more event types like the expedition. You could even make the skirmish more like the expedition. Make the battles increase in challenge. Run as many ship battles as possible on a timed ticket system, like the expedition, but your ships don't recover during that ticket time, neither do your crew. If your ship explodes, then you don't get to use that crew for the rest of the timed ticket. Do something, anything, to make it require more thought and time. Let the bonuses stack, for Q's sake. Give us something worthwhile.
I enjoy Expeditions, too. It's nice to have to put some thought into them. Having more regular Expeditions would make me happy - not every month, but 4-6 a year, perhaps. They make a lovely change.
For Skirmishes, I'm not sure about more timed tickets. Keep those in Expeditions, IMO. But I agree that Skirmishes could be improved. Before their release, I was imagining some sort of strategic overmap, where you fight your way through your own path, with correlating risks/rewards. It didn't have to be terribly complex. Just something a bit like the navigation in F.T.L., perhaps, or fighting to build up a "fleet" as you go from battle to battle, maybe a bit like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (which itself owed a lot to Risk).
Not just battle-prize-battle-prize-battle-prize-battle-prize-battle-NOPRIZE!
I only use the timed ticket idea here because that's just a simple example of a wide range of options that could be used to improve the events. Completely unnecessary though. I like your idea too. There's so many ways they could go about it to improve things and make macros much more difficult to use.
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Too bad DB gave up on trying to make expeditions profitable. In it's original format, when critting nodes was not guaranteed, there was some thought that went into If you miss the first node, do you try again, or save your crew for the second-hardest mission? Which crew member should you use? It was frustrating when RNG went against you, but it kept things from bring boring.
Expedition is only event that takes a modicum of thought. You have to decide which crew to use, you have to search for the crew, you have to think about the exhaustion of the crew. The full bonus isn't automatic, you have to hit the right nodes with the right crew.
I think that's why DB doesn't like it. They prefer mindless events that lend themselves toward automation and throwing money at chrons, why wouldn't they? $$$.
I love expeditions. I want more of them. Full events, not just part of a hybrid. Make more event types like the expedition. You could even make the skirmish more like the expedition. Make the battles increase in challenge. Run as many ship battles as possible on a timed ticket system, like the expedition, but your ships don't recover during that ticket time, neither do your crew. If your ship explodes, then you don't get to use that crew for the rest of the timed ticket. Do something, anything, to make it require more thought and time. Let the bonuses stack, for Q's sake. Give us something worthwhile.
Expeditions are hard to monetize and require more development effort than any other event, even if they reuse the mission layout from previous expeditions...that’s why they are only released on special occasions.
I will admit that it is challenging and fun to figure out how you use your crew to complete an Expedition on all difficulty levels. The problem for me is that they become monotonous after you’ve figured out the ideal crew usage pattern for maximum VP. It becomes a grind, but one that has dire consequences if you make an error - Galaxy events are hard to screw up on and Skirmish events offer repair opportunities when you take damage.
Too bad DB gave up on trying to make expeditions profitable. In it's original format, when critting nodes was not guaranteed, there was some thought that went into If you miss the first node, do you try again, or save your crew for the second-hardest mission? Which crew member should you use? It was frustrating when RNG went against you, but it kept things from bring boring.
Really don't agree, I found old system was both boring and frustrating. Even if I didn't think they were boring though, I'd rather be bored than frustrated. The new expedition system is much better than the old system. What it really needs is to have a way to sort event crew to the top regardless of the number of times they've been used. It will allow each pass through the event to run faster.
All that being said, I still like skirmishes better than expedition. You have to play a lot, but each pass through only takes a few minutes plus the rewards are worth the trouble.
Skirmishes are amazing. No opinion on expeditions, but skirmishes are the event structure I look forward to the most.
I like both expedition and skirmish events (galaxy is actually the only one I don't like, so pointless in my opinion) and, like you, skirmishes are the events I look forward to the most as well.
I used to play another game where many players used macros and very few were kicked because the people using those macros were also spending lots of money.
So we all know that people were complaining about Expedition events being boring , I myself among them. But honestly Skirmishes are much much much worse. In order to do well (talking top 1000 here) you have to play 4 days ,most of those days, just to be able to spend the crono & intel you get. Never mind that two of said days are work days.
I am not surprised people resulted to automating this mind numbingly boring task, i mean it's only a game it's not like it's supposed to be fun right ? I know the pay out of a skirmish event is massive for people who pre farm for galaxy and so on.
But in all honesty this should have never been the case. The balance of it all is skewed to say the least. I know the game it's self is not the most balanced in most of it's cases, but this one in all honesty takes the cake.
Skirmishes managed to the following:
-Make people use outside help to play in form of macros, this in turn resulted in:
- People whining about it. (Not saying it's not well founded)
- Split the community more then the expedition issue ever could.
- Made DB invest into methods of monitoring boting, hours that could have been used to improve the
game content and bug(s) wise.
- Will most likely result in a ban wave that will contain many if not mostly paying players (i'm not sure
DB can afford to lose more revenue)
Fix the damned skirmishes before its to late, instead of trying the stick bring out the carrot. Make people not wanting to bother boting. Try to make skirmished more interesting and less repetitive. One easy way would be to increase the cost of each run, and the rewards of said run. And as always : PLAY YOUR OWN DAMNED GAME!
it is kind of crazy cause I completely agree with this post, but at the same time still love/hate skirmishes.
I think way too much time and resources have been wasted on macro drama, especially now that DB has finally stated its position on them, I think its really time to move on.
I also agree, that skirmishes unbalance the game, as it is very easy to build up stock on galaxy items with very little chron expenditure. However with that logic, you could also say that Voyages unbalance the game, as they provide a ton of chrons with little effort.
Unfortunately, I think if you don't like repetition in games, then this game is probably not for you, cause I really don't see them doing a complete overhaul in order to change things that drastically, and pretty much all the events have repetitive aspects.
So to make a long story, longer? I think all of the events have their pros and chons, and that DB has done its best to try to balance the game, by giving everyone the same tools during those events.
I don't normally worry too much about placing but am experimenting. I only saved chrons for ten days, a lot of grinding but still after starting three hours late am in 21st place. Early I know, but shows with a good ship, halfway decent crew you can do ok on this.
Expedition is only event that takes a modicum of thought. You have to decide which crew to use, you have to search for the crew, you have to think about the exhaustion of the crew. The full bonus isn't automatic, you have to hit the right nodes with the right crew.
I think that's why DB doesn't like it. They prefer mindless events that lend themselves toward automation and throwing money at chrons, why wouldn't they? $$$.
I love expeditions. I want more of them. Full events, not just part of a hybrid. Make more event types like the expedition. You could even make the skirmish more like the expedition. Make the battles increase in challenge. Run as many ship battles as possible on a timed ticket system, like the expedition, but your ships don't recover during that ticket time, neither do your crew. If your ship explodes, then you don't get to use that crew for the rest of the timed ticket. Do something, anything, to make it require more thought and time. Let the bonuses stack, for Q's sake. Give us something worthwhile.
Expeditions are hard to monetize and require more development effort than any other event, even if they reuse the mission layout from previous expeditions...that’s why they are only released on special occasions.
I will admit that it is challenging and fun to figure out how you use your crew to complete an Expedition on all difficulty levels. The problem for me is that they become monotonous after you’ve figured out the ideal crew usage pattern for maximum VP. It becomes a grind, but one that has dire consequences if you make an error - Galaxy events are hard to screw up on and Skirmish events offer repair opportunities when you take damage.
So then the question becomes. What can DB do to monetize Expeditions, without totally messing up the aspects that I like so much. The thought that goes into it, etc. should be maintained. And really, all events (outside of faction) are kind of grindy by nature. I don't mind grinding... insert (ha i said insert) inappropriate grinding joke here... that's part of gaming in general, at least lately it seems to be the trend in game development.
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Expedition is only event that takes a modicum of thought. You have to decide which crew to use, you have to search for the crew, you have to think about the exhaustion of the crew. The full bonus isn't automatic, you have to hit the right nodes with the right crew.
I think that's why DB doesn't like it. They prefer mindless events that lend themselves toward automation and throwing money at chrons, why wouldn't they? $$$.
I love expeditions. I want more of them. Full events, not just part of a hybrid. Make more event types like the expedition. You could even make the skirmish more like the expedition. Make the battles increase in challenge. Run as many ship battles as possible on a timed ticket system, like the expedition, but your ships don't recover during that ticket time, neither do your crew. If your ship explodes, then you don't get to use that crew for the rest of the timed ticket. Do something, anything, to make it require more thought and time. Let the bonuses stack, for Q's sake. Give us something worthwhile.
Expeditions are hard to monetize and require more development effort than any other event, even if they reuse the mission layout from previous expeditions...that’s why they are only released on special occasions.
I will admit that it is challenging and fun to figure out how you use your crew to complete an Expedition on all difficulty levels. The problem for me is that they become monotonous after you’ve figured out the ideal crew usage pattern for maximum VP. It becomes a grind, but one that has dire consequences if you make an error - Galaxy events are hard to screw up on and Skirmish events offer repair opportunities when you take damage.
So then the question becomes. What can DB do to monetize Expeditions, without totally messing up the aspects that I like so much. The thought that goes into it, etc. should be maintained. And really, all events (outside of faction) are kind of grindy by nature. I don't mind grinding... insert (ha i said insert) inappropriate grinding joke here... that's part of gaming in general, at least lately it seems to be the trend in game development.
Monetization is a very poor excuse, not every aspect of a game has to be monetized. AFAIK the battlefield games don't sell you bullets. Event packs are a good enough way to monetize the game, making events fun to play should be the main focus.
Such negativity from the OP :-(
Yes, Skirmishes can be a grind, but only if you want to finish high up. Getting through the thresholds is 2 hours work, at most. And after that it's only a grind because so many other people play a lot.
I enjoy skirmishes, but I always feel a choice to stop playing, to pass up a 1/5 gold card and just do other stuff.
I thoroughly enjoyed Expedition events, before they were flamed into the ground :-(
Expedition is only event that takes a modicum of thought. You have to decide which crew to use, you have to search for the crew, you have to think about the exhaustion of the crew. The full bonus isn't automatic, you have to hit the right nodes with the right crew.
I think that's why DB doesn't like it. They prefer mindless events that lend themselves toward automation and throwing money at chrons, why wouldn't they? $$$.
I love expeditions. I want more of them. Full events, not just part of a hybrid. Make more event types like the expedition. You could even make the skirmish more like the expedition. Make the battles increase in challenge. Run as many ship battles as possible on a timed ticket system, like the expedition, but your ships don't recover during that ticket time, neither do your crew. If your ship explodes, then you don't get to use that crew for the rest of the timed ticket. Do something, anything, to make it require more thought and time. Let the bonuses stack, for Q's sake. Give us something worthwhile.
Expeditions are hard to monetize and require more development effort than any other event, even if they reuse the mission layout from previous expeditions...that’s why they are only released on special occasions.
I will admit that it is challenging and fun to figure out how you use your crew to complete an Expedition on all difficulty levels. The problem for me is that they become monotonous after you’ve figured out the ideal crew usage pattern for maximum VP. It becomes a grind, but one that has dire consequences if you make an error - Galaxy events are hard to screw up on and Skirmish events offer repair opportunities when you take damage.
So then the question becomes. What can DB do to monetize Expeditions, without totally messing up the aspects that I like so much. The thought that goes into it, etc. should be maintained. And really, all events (outside of faction) are kind of grindy by nature. I don't mind grinding... insert (ha i said insert) inappropriate grinding joke here... that's part of gaming in general, at least lately it seems to be the trend in game development.
Monetization is a very poor excuse, not every aspect of a game has to be monetized. AFAIK the battlefield games don't sell you bullets. Event packs are a good enough way to monetize the game, making events fun to play should be the main focus.
I don’t think it is a poor excuse...in fact, I don’t think it’s an excuse at all. If DB is going to expend programming, writing, and art resources on an event they are going to want to see a return on that investment.
Skirmishes are the hardest event to "buy" victory. I am sure there is a way to get an edge with $$$, but faction and galaxy can be heavily influenced with boosts and dil-for-rush. Skirmish you have to fight the battles even if you buy the chrons to get the Intel. Galaxy I get super frustrated once my reserves are gone repeatedly tapping for databases and getting enough alcohol to open a distillery instead. It is deflating. I hate that about Galaxy events.
Plus in skirmishes you get Intel or Credits or Chrons or the rare portal as you go.
Plus you make huge progress building your deck because warp 10 on an 18 chron mission just builds your Intel faster. It takes the sting out of the chron cost.
I read nothing in this thread except the title. I totally agree. Skirmishes are the very type of event that encourages bots due to how repetitive it is. Also, I find it nearly impossible to spend all my intel to rank high. I literally played 7 hours straight the Saturday of the last skirmish and still had over 30,000 intel due to using my chrons for more ship missions before I finally gave up. Not to mention, that still didn't have me cracking the top 3000. Skirmishes are just horrible.
I read nothing in this thread except the title. I totally agree. Skirmishes are the very type of event that encourages bots due to how repetitive it is. Also, I find it nearly impossible to spend all my intel to rank high. I literally played 7 hours straight the Saturday of the last skirmish and still had over 30,000 intel due to using my chrons for more ship missions before I finally gave up. Not to mention, that still didn't have me cracking the top 3000. Skirmishes are just horrible.
Ok. They can get tedious. But I think it is possible the tedium impacted your recollection. If you spent 30 hours and did not crack the top 3k you are doing something very seriously wrong. You get 6k+ per round if you have a 1* event crew in one slot and do the top tier battle (the prize in some battles is extra VP which is how you sometimes get more than 6k) A round takes 3 minutes max. Even if you only did 10 rounds an hour that translates to over 1.5 million VP in 30 hours. That would be top 250 easy. I would wager top 3000 generally in skirmish is under 250k VP. 250k requires 43 "rounds" max if you always win. You are recalling basically 1 battle set every 45 minutes if that took a 30 hour investment of time. It probably only seemed like 30 hours.
Honestly i hate galaxy, it stops gearing crew. So I play only to get threshold rewards in the morning after chrons have built up overnight.
1. Shuttles - easiest to rank in and can continue gearing crew.
2. Skirmishes - play whenever you want and earn merits, honor, chron and intel to keep playing, doesn’t interfere with shuttles and voyages keep gearing crew with the extra chrons.
3. Expedition - uses tickets which you can get extra in rewards, but can get tiring trying to play them all.
4. Galaxy - interrupts gearing crew, shuttles and voyages. Only play to get rewards which can be done by second day.
Expedition and galaxy need to spend dilithium to rank in top 5k. That is hard when you only buy the monthly card to keep getting crew slots. There are many who don’t even buy the monthly card which makes ranking even harder. Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
For this skirmish i played 4 hours yesterday, cleared the threshold and now i will probably try to spend the rest of the intel monday. Repetitive and boring but perhaps with a different reward structure i might play more like add something past 130000 VP.
I read nothing in this thread except the title. I totally agree. Skirmishes are the very type of event that encourages bots due to how repetitive it is. Also, I find it nearly impossible to spend all my intel to rank high. I literally played 7 hours straight the Saturday of the last skirmish and still had over 30,000 intel due to using my chrons for more ship missions before I finally gave up. Not to mention, that still didn't have me cracking the top 3000. Skirmishes are just horrible.
Ok. They can get tedious. But I think it is possible the tedium impacted your recollection. If you spent 30 hours and did not crack the top 3k you are doing something very seriously wrong. You get 6k+ per round if you have a 1* event crew in one slot and do the top tier battle (the prize in some battles is extra VP which is how you sometimes get more than 6k) A round takes 3 minutes max. Even if you only did 10 rounds an hour that translates to over 1.5 million VP in 30 hours. That would be top 250 easy. I would wager top 3000 generally in skirmish is under 250k VP. 250k requires 43 "rounds" max if you always win. You are recalling basically 1 battle set every 45 minutes if that took a 30 hour investment of time. It probably only seemed like 30 hours.
I don't think you read the post correctly. I simply talked about 1 day, making your 30 hour calculation impossible. And I'm not remembering incorrectly, because I was doing a test on the event to see what it takes to rank. These events have seemed like they have been getting gamed since they were released, so I was determining if it's worth the time investment to get top 1000 as I do in other events or if I should just clear the rewards table and stop.
Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
They aren't going to stop allowing dilithium use in events because you can still use it to buy chroniton boosts, shuttle boosts, voyage revives, etc, to get you there indirectly. Not to mention you can buy chronitons wholesale during many events.
I also agree about not needing dilithium for these events. I've never used dilithium directly in an event. I saved up chronitons for three weeks and ranked in the 30s last Galaxy, and saved from my last two voyage and in the 300s this skirmiah.
My 8-Point STT Strategy:
1. Voyage.
2. Have fun. If something isn't fun, don't do it.
3. Only pursue characters I care about.
4. Contribute to the fleet.
5. No more spending beyond monthly cards.
6. Have fun.
7. Voyage.
8. Have fun!
Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
They aren't going to stop allowing dilithium use in events because you can still use it to buy chroniton boosts, shuttle boosts, voyage revives, etc, to get you there indirectly. Not to mention you can buy chronitons wholesale during many events.
I also agree about not needing dilithium for these events. I've never used dilithium directly in an event. I saved up chronitons for three weeks and ranked in the 30s last Galaxy, and saved from my last two voyage and in the 300s this skirmiah.
heads up, lots of us have not started playing yet. I had 6k chrons saved and just levelled crew last night to burn through the chrons. Have lots of intel to catch up to you.
Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
They aren't going to stop allowing dilithium use in events because you can still use it to buy chroniton boosts, shuttle boosts, voyage revives, etc, to get you there indirectly. Not to mention you can buy chronitons wholesale during many events.
I also agree about not needing dilithium for these events. I've never used dilithium directly in an event. I saved up chronitons for three weeks and ranked in the 30s last Galaxy, and saved from my last two voyage and in the 300s this skirmiah.
heads up, lots of us have not started playing yet. I had 6k chrons saved and just levelled crew last night to burn through the chrons. Have lots of intel to catch up to you.
Well, have fun with that, friend. I'm only aiming for sub 1k and as much intermediate reward honor I can grab anyway. Skirmishes don't hold my interest enough to be really competitive and my days off going after rank achievements have passed. My only point was that you can do well for free.
My 8-Point STT Strategy:
1. Voyage.
2. Have fun. If something isn't fun, don't do it.
3. Only pursue characters I care about.
4. Contribute to the fleet.
5. No more spending beyond monthly cards.
6. Have fun.
7. Voyage.
8. Have fun!
Skirmishes are the hardest event to "buy" victory. I am sure there is a way to get an edge with $$$, but faction and galaxy can be heavily influenced with boosts and dil-for-rush. Skirmish you have to fight the battles even if you buy the chrons to get the Intel. Galaxy I get super frustrated once my reserves are gone repeatedly tapping for databases and getting enough alcohol to open a distillery instead. It is deflating. I hate that about Galaxy events.
Plus in skirmishes you get Intel or Credits or Chrons or the rare portal as you go.
Plus you make huge progress building your deck because warp 10 on an 18 chron mission just builds your Intel faster. It takes the sting out of the chron cost.
They are my favorite event type after Expedition.
With Skirmishes you don't "buy" victory, you buy reward bonuses! The bonuses of skirmishes are incredible and I absolutely love that you can spend dilithium to get more of them!
Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
They aren't going to stop allowing dilithium use in events because you can still use it to buy chroniton boosts, shuttle boosts, voyage revives, etc, to get you there indirectly. Not to mention you can buy chronitons wholesale during many events.
I also agree about not needing dilithium for these events. I've never used dilithium directly in an event. I saved up chronitons for three weeks and ranked in the 30s last Galaxy, and saved from my last two voyage and in the 300s this skirmiah.
heads up, lots of us have not started playing yet. I had 6k chrons saved and just levelled crew last night to burn through the chrons. Have lots of intel to catch up to you.
I have only done 1 round. I'll do it tomorrow. I've been leveling up crew with ship missions. I have just over 59k ready for mass play.
Skirmishes are far better than expedition. Skirmishes gives you honor, credits, chrons, and allows you to lvl up crew and get starbase components. What do expeditions give you? Nothing.
Skirmishes are great. Lots of free loot, your crew can do other stuff the entire time, and you can reach top threshold with minimal effort relative to any other event type. DB almost broke it with the proposed bonus crew change, but to their credit, didn’t follow through after receiving feedback from the community. These are easily among my favorite events; the only thing that would make it better is if there were also community rewards, heh.
First Officer - Task Force April
Squadron Leader - [TFA] Bateson’s Bulldogs
Skirmishes are the best events, periods. To be the perfect one they just need to add a community reward at phase 2.
Is the less pay to win of them all, is not that hard, you can get good extra rewards while playing the missions, tons of honor, chrons and a perfect excuse to farm holos. So, no, they are great.
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I only use the timed ticket idea here because that's just a simple example of a wide range of options that could be used to improve the events. Completely unnecessary though. I like your idea too. There's so many ways they could go about it to improve things and make macros much more difficult to use.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
Expeditions are hard to monetize and require more development effort than any other event, even if they reuse the mission layout from previous expeditions...that’s why they are only released on special occasions.
I will admit that it is challenging and fun to figure out how you use your crew to complete an Expedition on all difficulty levels. The problem for me is that they become monotonous after you’ve figured out the ideal crew usage pattern for maximum VP. It becomes a grind, but one that has dire consequences if you make an error - Galaxy events are hard to screw up on and Skirmish events offer repair opportunities when you take damage.
Really don't agree, I found old system was both boring and frustrating. Even if I didn't think they were boring though, I'd rather be bored than frustrated. The new expedition system is much better than the old system. What it really needs is to have a way to sort event crew to the top regardless of the number of times they've been used. It will allow each pass through the event to run faster.
All that being said, I still like skirmishes better than expedition. You have to play a lot, but each pass through only takes a few minutes plus the rewards are worth the trouble.
I like both expedition and skirmish events (galaxy is actually the only one I don't like, so pointless in my opinion) and, like you, skirmishes are the events I look forward to the most as well.
it is kind of crazy cause I completely agree with this post, but at the same time still love/hate skirmishes.
I think way too much time and resources have been wasted on macro drama, especially now that DB has finally stated its position on them, I think its really time to move on.
I also agree, that skirmishes unbalance the game, as it is very easy to build up stock on galaxy items with very little chron expenditure. However with that logic, you could also say that Voyages unbalance the game, as they provide a ton of chrons with little effort.
Unfortunately, I think if you don't like repetition in games, then this game is probably not for you, cause I really don't see them doing a complete overhaul in order to change things that drastically, and pretty much all the events have repetitive aspects.
So to make a long story, longer? I think all of the events have their pros and chons, and that DB has done its best to try to balance the game, by giving everyone the same tools during those events.
So then the question becomes. What can DB do to monetize Expeditions, without totally messing up the aspects that I like so much. The thought that goes into it, etc. should be maintained. And really, all events (outside of faction) are kind of grindy by nature. I don't mind grinding... insert (ha i said insert) inappropriate grinding joke here... that's part of gaming in general, at least lately it seems to be the trend in game development.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
Monetization is a very poor excuse, not every aspect of a game has to be monetized. AFAIK the battlefield games don't sell you bullets. Event packs are a good enough way to monetize the game, making events fun to play should be the main focus.
Yes, Skirmishes can be a grind, but only if you want to finish high up. Getting through the thresholds is 2 hours work, at most. And after that it's only a grind because so many other people play a lot.
I enjoy skirmishes, but I always feel a choice to stop playing, to pass up a 1/5 gold card and just do other stuff.
I thoroughly enjoyed Expedition events, before they were flamed into the ground :-(
I don’t think it is a poor excuse...in fact, I don’t think it’s an excuse at all. If DB is going to expend programming, writing, and art resources on an event they are going to want to see a return on that investment.
Plus in skirmishes you get Intel or Credits or Chrons or the rare portal as you go.
Plus you make huge progress building your deck because warp 10 on an 18 chron mission just builds your Intel faster. It takes the sting out of the chron cost.
They are my favorite event type after Expedition.
Ok. They can get tedious. But I think it is possible the tedium impacted your recollection. If you spent 30 hours and did not crack the top 3k you are doing something very seriously wrong. You get 6k+ per round if you have a 1* event crew in one slot and do the top tier battle (the prize in some battles is extra VP which is how you sometimes get more than 6k) A round takes 3 minutes max. Even if you only did 10 rounds an hour that translates to over 1.5 million VP in 30 hours. That would be top 250 easy. I would wager top 3000 generally in skirmish is under 250k VP. 250k requires 43 "rounds" max if you always win. You are recalling basically 1 battle set every 45 minutes if that took a 30 hour investment of time. It probably only seemed like 30 hours.
1. Shuttles - easiest to rank in and can continue gearing crew.
2. Skirmishes - play whenever you want and earn merits, honor, chron and intel to keep playing, doesn’t interfere with shuttles and voyages keep gearing crew with the extra chrons.
3. Expedition - uses tickets which you can get extra in rewards, but can get tiring trying to play them all.
4. Galaxy - interrupts gearing crew, shuttles and voyages. Only play to get rewards which can be done by second day.
Expedition and galaxy need to spend dilithium to rank in top 5k. That is hard when you only buy the monthly card to keep getting crew slots. There are many who don’t even buy the monthly card which makes ranking even harder. Stop allowing dilithium to be used in events would even the odds for everyone.
Just my personal opinion.
I hate galaxy events as well, but if they stopped allowing dilithium to be used in events, they might as well shut the game down. The revenue is what keeps the game going. They aren't going to shut off a significant portion of their revenue.
Also, you don't need to spend dilithium to be in the top 5k for a galaxy. There are players who spent no dilithium at all and ranked #1 in a galaxy event. You just have to save up your chronitons for quite a while and then once you have enough saved up, use them in a galaxy event.
I don't think you read the post correctly. I simply talked about 1 day, making your 30 hour calculation impossible. And I'm not remembering incorrectly, because I was doing a test on the event to see what it takes to rank. These events have seemed like they have been getting gamed since they were released, so I was determining if it's worth the time investment to get top 1000 as I do in other events or if I should just clear the rewards table and stop.
They aren't going to stop allowing dilithium use in events because you can still use it to buy chroniton boosts, shuttle boosts, voyage revives, etc, to get you there indirectly. Not to mention you can buy chronitons wholesale during many events.
I also agree about not needing dilithium for these events. I've never used dilithium directly in an event. I saved up chronitons for three weeks and ranked in the 30s last Galaxy, and saved from my last two voyage and in the 300s this skirmiah.
1. Voyage.
2. Have fun. If something isn't fun, don't do it.
3. Only pursue characters I care about.
4. Contribute to the fleet.
5. No more spending beyond monthly cards.
6. Have fun.
7. Voyage.
8. Have fun!
heads up, lots of us have not started playing yet. I had 6k chrons saved and just levelled crew last night to burn through the chrons. Have lots of intel to catch up to you.
Well, have fun with that, friend. I'm only aiming for sub 1k and as much intermediate reward honor I can grab anyway. Skirmishes don't hold my interest enough to be really competitive and my days off going after rank achievements have passed. My only point was that you can do well for free.
1. Voyage.
2. Have fun. If something isn't fun, don't do it.
3. Only pursue characters I care about.
4. Contribute to the fleet.
5. No more spending beyond monthly cards.
6. Have fun.
7. Voyage.
8. Have fun!
With Skirmishes you don't "buy" victory, you buy reward bonuses! The bonuses of skirmishes are incredible and I absolutely love that you can spend dilithium to get more of them!
I have only done 1 round. I'll do it tomorrow. I've been leveling up crew with ship missions. I have just over 59k ready for mass play.
Squadron Leader - [TFA] Bateson’s Bulldogs
Is the less pay to win of them all, is not that hard, you can get good extra rewards while playing the missions, tons of honor, chrons and a perfect excuse to farm holos. So, no, they are great.