I'm in the same boat as a returning player. Although I did manage to get into top 1000 it was far more harder than it used to be months ago. Extra shuttle tokens and new boosts doubling VP is a clear leap towards P2W model. I guess recent cadet tickets bug added to the problem even more. As I understand for about 24 hours players aware of this bug could accumulate insane number of boosts by doing cadet challenges every 30 min.
I'm the same. I intentionally built up good crew, got good bases, and could consistently finish top 1000 in faction events. Which when the new character was ranked, made faction events my favorites.
Now faction events are my least favorite. They're just not worth it any more. They're just not worth the time and effort. Unless you're going to spend dil to insta-return shuttles, they require at a good 24ish hours of strict 90 minute adherence to DBs dictated time lines, plus very close adherence to every 180 minutes shuttle launches. And without loads of 5/5 crew, very real dollar expensive, very susceptible to RNGeesus vindictiveness.
To add insult to injury, the difference between 750 and 1250 is at most 2 successful shuttles, making RNGeesus even more painful.
Basically, all DB has done for me is give me AMPLE reasons to no longer play another event type.
FWIW, I am primarily a threshold and out player. For factions and hybrids I would work hard the first 2 days and relax the last 2. My best ever finish was 1200+ trying for Vreenak. The increased thresholds have forced me to play ALOT harder to clear them all. Doing the bare minimum to make it to 350k VP takes diligence all 4 days, but it looks like there is a dedicated group of 2000-2500 of us putting the time in to get there. I would not be surprised at all to learn that the floor for getting to a top 2500 is higher than it used to be. As for top 1K? I'm not sure I'll ever devote that much time and resources outside of a Skirmish event.
To add insult to injury, the difference between 750 and 1250 is at most 2 successful shuttles, making RNGeesus even more painful.
Last event, rank 1122 was 450,000 VP; rank 775 was rank 490K. (40,000 VP or 10 shuttles over 350 slots). I'd like to get me some of your 20,000 VP-value shuttles Tight, but not 1 or 2 shuttles, and hence not completely enslaved to success rates.
And without loads of 5/5 crew, very real dollar expensive, very susceptible to RNGeesus vindictiveness.
I don't believe this is true. What you need are a good bench of bonused SRs and a handful of bonused 1/5s, enough to fill seat holes so scores don't get dragged down, AND the featured event crew (the legendary of which is now available to us a week in advance, "for free" [ha], alongside being purchaseable). This probably requires real dollar investment in crew slots. The SRs and 1/5s will get you seat success rate values in the 70-80% range; how you bring those up by assigning featured crew to seats is up to you. See data @ end of post. 70-80% isn't enslavement to RNG - over 4 days, 1 in 4 of your shuttles will fail; there are enough cycles that you would really have to draw the blue moon hex for RNG to kill you. Build it into your boost strategy early, if you have the stamina.
They're just not worth the time and effort. Unless you're going to spend dil to insta-return shuttles, they require at a good 24ish hours of strict 90 minute adherence to DBs dictated time lines, plus very close adherence to every 180 minutes shuttle launches.
No way I can argue with these here. I used to like the marathon analogy but it's become more like a triathalon with a sprint in the front, 1000-yard dash on Friday (is that a thing? I don't do sports) and marathon at the end. That only sounds like fun to a very niche personality type to me (which isn't me). I just chalk it up to this is what it takes to get $50 in (overpriced) market value stuff for free. Sometimes the reward isn't enough to motivate me to play - I'm not missing Tucker on the Ropes (still, HUH?) one bit.
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Here are the single-seat success rates for the upcoming faction phase, for all possible bonus crew, in their best AND slots at 1/5 for golds, 4/4 for purples,, single-skill will of course be a bit less. Assumes near-max crew/fleet bonuses. Including your squad leader's share, you need about 12-14 of these (half) to populate the seats with all bonused crew. If you don't have those, yes, a 5/5 high base non-bonus would come in at max around 70% - it won't get you to 80-90%. I wouldn't recommend immortalizing random high base legendaries as a win strategy for Factions, it's fallback insurance at best.
During last week's event, the balance was tilted, and the full house of SRs mattered more than the non-featured legendary bonus crew.
75% success rate will require a good deal of time doubling and stamina, I do not dispute that. Anything you have or can do that increases that buys you back real world time/misery. 80-90% lets you go on autopilot by sometime Friday, and can be achieved by using featured crew wisely if they are available to you. I don't think it's possible to avoid the first ~24 hours sprint no matter how good your crew.
Legendary @ 1/5
Five of Twelve - 95%
Assimilated Hawk - 84%
Assimilated Janeway - 79%
Borg Queen - 78%
Durango Troi - 78%
Agent Janeway - 76%
Goddess of Empathy Troi - 76%
One - 74%
Assimilated La Forge - 74%
The One, Lore - 74%
Covert Operative Leland - 73%
Assimilated Torres - 72%
Commander Troi - 72%
Mirror Inquisitor Troi - 71%
EV Suit Seven - 69%
Mademoiselle de Neuf - 68%
Locutus - 67%
Seven of Nine - 65%
FWIW, I am primarily a threshold and out player. For factions and hybrids I would work hard the first 2 days and relax the last 2. My best ever finish was 1200+ trying for Vreenak. The increased thresholds have forced me to play ALOT harder to clear them all. Doing the bare minimum to make it to 350k VP takes diligence all 4 days, but it looks like there is a dedicated group of 2000-2500 of us putting the time in to get there. I would not be surprised at all to learn that the floor for getting to a top 2500 is higher than it used to be. As for top 1K? I'm not sure I'll ever devote that much time and resources outside of a Skirmish event.
But of those 2500, there were probably ~1000 of you who were threshold and out in general. The increased threshold rewards has made you all work harder which means the 1500 competing for 1k rank before now need to work harder to keep up with the threshold and out players.
Comments
Now faction events are my least favorite. They're just not worth it any more. They're just not worth the time and effort. Unless you're going to spend dil to insta-return shuttles, they require at a good 24ish hours of strict 90 minute adherence to DBs dictated time lines, plus very close adherence to every 180 minutes shuttle launches. And without loads of 5/5 crew, very real dollar expensive, very susceptible to RNGeesus vindictiveness.
To add insult to injury, the difference between 750 and 1250 is at most 2 successful shuttles, making RNGeesus even more painful.
Basically, all DB has done for me is give me AMPLE reasons to no longer play another event type.
Last event, rank 1122 was 450,000 VP; rank 775 was rank 490K. (40,000 VP or 10 shuttles over 350 slots). I'd like to get me some of your 20,000 VP-value shuttles
I don't believe this is true. What you need are a good bench of bonused SRs and a handful of bonused 1/5s, enough to fill seat holes so scores don't get dragged down, AND the featured event crew (the legendary of which is now available to us a week in advance, "for free" [ha], alongside being purchaseable). This probably requires real dollar investment in crew slots. The SRs and 1/5s will get you seat success rate values in the 70-80% range; how you bring those up by assigning featured crew to seats is up to you. See data @ end of post. 70-80% isn't enslavement to RNG - over 4 days, 1 in 4 of your shuttles will fail; there are enough cycles that you would really have to draw the blue moon hex for RNG to kill you. Build it into your boost strategy early, if you have the stamina.
No way I can argue with these here. I used to like the marathon analogy but it's become more like a triathalon with a sprint in the front, 1000-yard dash on Friday (is that a thing? I don't do sports) and marathon at the end. That only sounds like fun to a very niche personality type to me (which isn't me). I just chalk it up to this is what it takes to get $50 in (overpriced) market value stuff for free. Sometimes the reward isn't enough to motivate me to play - I'm not missing Tucker on the Ropes (still, HUH?) one bit.
---
Here are the single-seat success rates for the upcoming faction phase, for all possible bonus crew, in their best AND slots at 1/5 for golds, 4/4 for purples,, single-skill will of course be a bit less. Assumes near-max crew/fleet bonuses. Including your squad leader's share, you need about 12-14 of these (half) to populate the seats with all bonused crew. If you don't have those, yes, a 5/5 high base non-bonus would come in at max around 70% - it won't get you to 80-90%. I wouldn't recommend immortalizing random high base legendaries as a win strategy for Factions, it's fallback insurance at best.
During last week's event, the balance was tilted, and the full house of SRs mattered more than the non-featured legendary bonus crew.
75% success rate will require a good deal of time doubling and stamina, I do not dispute that. Anything you have or can do that increases that buys you back real world time/misery. 80-90% lets you go on autopilot by sometime Friday, and can be achieved by using featured crew wisely if they are available to you. I don't think it's possible to avoid the first ~24 hours sprint no matter how good your crew.
Legendary @ 1/5
Five of Twelve - 95%
Assimilated Hawk - 84%
Assimilated Janeway - 79%
Borg Queen - 78%
Durango Troi - 78%
Agent Janeway - 76%
Goddess of Empathy Troi - 76%
One - 74%
Assimilated La Forge - 74%
The One, Lore - 74%
Covert Operative Leland - 73%
Assimilated Torres - 72%
Commander Troi - 72%
Mirror Inquisitor Troi - 71%
EV Suit Seven - 69%
Mademoiselle de Neuf - 68%
Locutus - 67%
Seven of Nine - 65%
Super Rare @ 4/4
Assimilated Troi - 94%
Drone Seven of Nine - 85%
Tsunkatse Seven - 82%
Assimilated Tuvok - 76%
Icheb - 73%
Temporal Agent Seven - 71%
Bridge Officer Troi - 71%
Riley Frazier - 69%
Luther Sloan - 69%
Rakal Troi - 64%
Agent Harris - 62%
But of those 2500, there were probably ~1000 of you who were threshold and out in general. The increased threshold rewards has made you all work harder which means the 1500 competing for 1k rank before now need to work harder to keep up with the threshold and out players.