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2018 in Review
Travis S McClain
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
Overall, I think 2018 was a pretty good year for Timelines, which is nice because 2018 was not a nice year for just about anything else. Here are some of my highlights:
Collections
These brought some much-needed organizational focus and direction to the collecting aspect, and with some decent loot to show for 'em. They do highlight some trait assignment issues, but on the whole I think they've been well constructed.
Event Replay Legendary Crew
Maybe it's a chance to add another star to a partially-fused 5* I already have; likelier, it's because I fell shy of the top 1000 the first time. Either way, I'm keener on replays now than first-run events, to be honest!
Skirmishes
"Expeditions, but with ships" is a decent selling point, but "Expeditions, but with ships that drop a bunch of bonus chronitons and Honor" is an even better one. Love 'em!
Voyage Crew Repeat Drops
Lifting the exclusivity of one-time-only drops for Voyage crew has made them more appealing. And kudos to DB for proactively thinking to refund all the Honor we'd spent to FF any Voyage crew we'd cited beforehand. That was probably the most thoughtful decision DB made all year, and I mean that without any snark or shade.
Player Survey
Being given the chance to vote for a series and a faction to be represented in a Mega-Event was nice. So too was being asked which crew members to feature in a time-limited pack. I liked this even more since I got most of my wishes, with a half-DS9 mega and Chancellor Gorkon to show for it!
Favorites
Event
"The Galactic Series"
This event's Featured Crew was exclusively DS9 (Martian Quark, Niners Rom, Nurse Faith Garland) and its story was about baseball. Of COURSE I loved it!
Mega-Event
"Ghosts of the Past"
Half-Disco/Half-Andoria. The balance was well-struck, and I especially appreciated that the Andorians came from TOS, TAS(!), and ENT. I'm still using Ambassador Shras regularly for shuttles, and even though Commander Thelin is presently on ice, I love knowing that "Yesteryear" has been represented in Timelines. And of this year's mega-5*'s, Prisoner Katrina Cornwell is my fave. Surak is more useful because of his stats, but I don't really care much for the guy, whereas Cornwell is one of my favorite characters on Discovery.
New Crew (by Series)
TOS Commander Keras
TAS Commander Thelin
TNG Etana Jol
DS9 Senator Vreenak
VOY The Caretaker
ENT Professor Sato
DSC Prisoner Katrina Cornwell
Movie Chancellor Gorkon
Ship
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A
Getting to build this ship and put Captain Spock on it felt really, really good.
Collections
These brought some much-needed organizational focus and direction to the collecting aspect, and with some decent loot to show for 'em. They do highlight some trait assignment issues, but on the whole I think they've been well constructed.
Event Replay Legendary Crew
Maybe it's a chance to add another star to a partially-fused 5* I already have; likelier, it's because I fell shy of the top 1000 the first time. Either way, I'm keener on replays now than first-run events, to be honest!
Skirmishes
"Expeditions, but with ships" is a decent selling point, but "Expeditions, but with ships that drop a bunch of bonus chronitons and Honor" is an even better one. Love 'em!
Voyage Crew Repeat Drops
Lifting the exclusivity of one-time-only drops for Voyage crew has made them more appealing. And kudos to DB for proactively thinking to refund all the Honor we'd spent to FF any Voyage crew we'd cited beforehand. That was probably the most thoughtful decision DB made all year, and I mean that without any snark or shade.
Player Survey
Being given the chance to vote for a series and a faction to be represented in a Mega-Event was nice. So too was being asked which crew members to feature in a time-limited pack. I liked this even more since I got most of my wishes, with a half-DS9 mega and Chancellor Gorkon to show for it!
Favorites
Event
"The Galactic Series"
This event's Featured Crew was exclusively DS9 (Martian Quark, Niners Rom, Nurse Faith Garland) and its story was about baseball. Of COURSE I loved it!
Mega-Event
"Ghosts of the Past"
Half-Disco/Half-Andoria. The balance was well-struck, and I especially appreciated that the Andorians came from TOS, TAS(!), and ENT. I'm still using Ambassador Shras regularly for shuttles, and even though Commander Thelin is presently on ice, I love knowing that "Yesteryear" has been represented in Timelines. And of this year's mega-5*'s, Prisoner Katrina Cornwell is my fave. Surak is more useful because of his stats, but I don't really care much for the guy, whereas Cornwell is one of my favorite characters on Discovery.
New Crew (by Series)
TOS Commander Keras
TAS Commander Thelin
TNG Etana Jol
DS9 Senator Vreenak
VOY The Caretaker
ENT Professor Sato
DSC Prisoner Katrina Cornwell
Movie Chancellor Gorkon
Ship
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A
Getting to build this ship and put Captain Spock on it felt really, really good.
Fleet Recruitment - 20 vacancies as of 17 July 2022 | My Timelines Wish List | Editable STT Trait Audit Spreadsheet
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Comments
Basic things like the Portal Bug and 1000 item limit that have been present since game began have still not been fixed.
So I'm not the only Cornwell fan!
To stay on topic, I agree with you, especially on collections and skirmish events. There were a lot of good things this year. However, I'm one of those who found the changes to events that happened over the last few months mostly disappointing.
Yes, DB have made some serious CS missteps, but hopefully we are seeing evidence that they've learned from their mistakes. Only time will tell.
I do think that the pace of development is way too slow. Voyages was the last major addition to the game and was a spectacular success. Why are we still waiting for the next major system? Or the Gauntlet revamp? No one seems to think Gauntlet is as good as it could be. Even DB have admitted it's a stale system.
Older characters in particular are in need of a system that makes them useful. Especially those 3 2 stat wonders you get in begolds from time to time. Collections don't help much because you'd need to immortalise them to get the benefit. I'd love to see a system that required weaker characters or only used the 2 best stats on a character or something like that to allow mediocre 2 stat characters to shine from time to time.
Honestly, I think events are the most useful mechanism for those mediocre 2-stat crew. For those four days, they get to be mediocre with a multiplier. Then on Monday, they go back into the freezer to make room for a handful of different mediocre crew to be used in the following event. Overall, I'm good with this system, though the merit cost structure could stand to be revised.
That's fine for some bridge crew maybe, but there are plenty of 2 stat legendary crew who are crew slot poison. And even as event crew many of these characters are terrible.
Event - Catching Fire: Our very first skirmish featuring a very angrily pointing Sisko. I had a lot of fun with this one.
Mega Event - All We Become (Vulcan/Romulan): I really liked the art for quite a few of the crew in this one (Kohlinar Spock, Romulan Picard, Vreenak etc) and we also got the voyage/gauntlet boss Surak.
TOS: Captain Spock
TAS: Commander Thelin
TNG: Musketeer Picard
DS9: Bell Riots Jadzia Dax
VOY: Virtuoso Doctor
ENT: Professor Sato
DSC: Away Team Saru
You missed the Data compensation fiasco but at least that time they tried to provide good customer service just screwed up the implementation
I was a fan but all it has done is make the grind worse. When they have completed the rewards and maybe increase the number of legends handed out it will be better.
CS is one tiny step forward and then two Olympic record long jumps back in my experience.
They did add the skirmish event (and then change the rules twice in a usual CS blind spot)
Gauntlet is awful and the legendary cards should not be entirely down to the RNGods.
A system like super rates in galaxy events would be much fairer (your chance of getting it increase over time)
Even DB have admitted it's a stale system.
They need to do a spring clean on old cards and bring them back into usefulness but it will never happen
Which why it's nice to see threads like this.
The likes of collections have been great. Megas are getting stale though, they've become routine rather than a big event to get everyone salivating at a new 4/5 Legendary. Who would think we'd get blasé about that? Billy Bob Thornton's comparison of Angelina Jolie and a couch springs to mind.
Skirmishes have been a boon, albeit a tediously grindy one.
We got Gary Seven - who still eludes me - and plenty more DS9 which, given TOS and DS9 are my favourite series', pleases me.
And much as I deride ENT, it's nice to have seen more Archer for those who do enjoy it.
I'm hoping 2019 will see DB/TP take stock of the game, maybe revisit the code and workings, and definitely sort out CS, the source of so many pitchfork parties.
A lack of forward planning is one of the core issues with the game, and one that is only going to get worse over time. Question is whether they'll deal with it, or just keep moving forward until it's time to pull the plug.
Be nice to be able 'retire' 5* cards once FE - not freeze them, but pack them off to Sunny Glades Home for Now Useless Cards with no capacity to re-adding them to the crew roster. You can still add stars to FF them, but that's all.
They can spend the rest of their time on your account playing cards, swapping tales, taking meds from Nurse Mildred RatchedWinn Adami and counting down to the day they get FF and have a brief moment of glory as they help you towards the next Collection prize.