Reward Structure, looking back
Prime Lorca
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
My fleet family has been taking in some newer players. They have brought back memories of when I was new and trying to catch up. The one thing that has come to the fore is Galaxy events. So many established players would stop at the threshold of 130k VP because they already had the existing SR crew. It was reasonable as a new player to push past that in order to FF an additional SR crew. With the additional tiers of rewards, experienced players are using more chronitons to get those rewards. It appears harder for new players to catch up that way.
I've been playing 10 months and feel established enough to be competitive when I choose. But I also feel like the ladder was pulled up behind me and new players have to climb that rope in gym class instead of using the same ladder.
This community has been fairly welcoming and helpful. I would like to disuse some things we could do to help newer players join the game and not become discouraged. (Without cutting into DB cashflow, of course.)
One thought that I have is to revise the chapter rewards. Make the reward each time a main cast SR. Something helpful for events as bonus crew. Nothing particularly game breaking, but a boost toward being competitive.
I would love to see some constructive thoughts from new and experienced players. I really enjoy the community and would love to see it grow.
I've been playing 10 months and feel established enough to be competitive when I choose. But I also feel like the ladder was pulled up behind me and new players have to climb that rope in gym class instead of using the same ladder.
This community has been fairly welcoming and helpful. I would like to disuse some things we could do to help newer players join the game and not become discouraged. (Without cutting into DB cashflow, of course.)
One thought that I have is to revise the chapter rewards. Make the reward each time a main cast SR. Something helpful for events as bonus crew. Nothing particularly game breaking, but a boost toward being competitive.
I would love to see some constructive thoughts from new and experienced players. I really enjoy the community and would love to see it grow.
Farewell 🖖
2
Comments
Now we're getting very high stat crew again in the last couple months, so more of us will have higher % success on shuttles and galaxy component builds so VP is rising faster. I know many of us can hit thresholds very rapidly in galaxy now, especially with lots of us past 8 hours voyages consistently all week hoarding chrons.
New players have a huge pile of options that did not exist before, including just playing galaxy events and getting free 4* if they don't rank at all. I realize ranking for a 4* requires more VP than before, but some of those free 4* they're getting are a lot more powerful than the ones I got when I started.
Looks like DB listened to you at least for the newest episode 9: choice of Seven of Nine or Picard.
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
That's pretty much where I got the idea. I just think it would be better to go one step further.
I definitely see what you are saying. It just appears to be a daunting task for someone who is barely making 2- or 4-hour voyages. And then needing chronitons to level crew. It just seemed a lot easier 4 months ago to get in the top 2k to finish that second SR crew for the week. Faction events are automatically out for anyone but a moderate or higher spender.
But... maybe you're right. Maybe that one SR (complete with star creep) is enough to get a new player up to speed with a little patience and effort.
But you want to know what helped me the most? The God's honest truth: Expeditions. I used them as a barometer of my progress. I had been playing for three months when the first of those ran. I was strictly F2P/VIP 0. I ranked at #3569. A month later, though, I was #2150. A month after that, #1240. Then #1070. So close! Finally, in November, they replayed the first Expedition, "The Game's Afoot". I had my first ever top 1000 finish at #723--in the event that I'd originally ended at #3569. The Professor was the first 5* I ever earned from an event, and for that, he'll always be special.
You can see progress with other event formats, too, of course, but I didn't find it nearly as clear to track. For one thing, I was VIP 0, so I only had two shuttles. My rank wasn't advancing exponentially with just that pair even as my crew grew. I was struggling to equip crew, so stockpiling chronitons for a Galaxy Event just seemed like a rich person problem. Expeditions eliminated both of those constraints. Seeing that my crew could clear higher thresholds this month than they could a month ago, and that I was ranking considerably higher each time...that did it for me.
I am not sure what if anything is the answer to this, but I do think it is part of the equation. I had managed to build up a sizable nest egg of chrons before voyages got nerfed and have been carefully expanding it ever since, but starting from scratch right now I'm not sure the path we took is available anymore.
One idea I just had (literally just popped into my head as I was typing, so I have not had time to think it through, but why not post it?!) is that perhaps going forward, give players with less than X months playing (in my mind X is 6, but that is arbitrary) a specialized monthly card offer, say $5.99 for 200 dilithium per day. One of the ways I started to get competitive was saving up my monthly cards ALL WEEK and then buying a single 10 event pack to at least give myself a chance, so perhaps giving new players access to slightly better dilithium offers will allow them to catch up. That also addresses the chroniton nerfing as dilithium can be used to acquire chronitons while keeping DB with a steady stream of cash flowing in.
That said, I never understood why there wasn't a crew reward at the end of every episode chapter. You have to make a choice that "changes the fate of the galaxy" or whatever the dialog was/is. But other than slapping an icon on your galaxy map, it made no real difference. And yet, we used to have entire threads dedicated to discussing the merits of picking Mirror Garak vs Colonel Karr. We need more discussions like that.
Um, I chose Weyoun 4 for that Chapter. Did they change it from Mirror Garak at some point?
Another route is when DB make the new Legendaries kinda naff. Lots of people skip those weeks. They haven’t done that in a while though. My first top 1k finishes we’re the likes of Ilia Probe and Trader Worf.
There was a game that I played before this that gave bonus rewards for the first purchase at various dollar amounts. One for the monthly pack, $5, $10, and so on. That's similar to your idea, so that probably means it's a good one.
So... I'm just going to blame this on typing after midnight on a Sat night with a less-than-pure drink or two in my system.
I remember using the wiki to look up stats on the crew offered but I ended up going with my preferred factions anyway. So Commander Spock, Persis, Klingon Dukat, Dr. Reyga (I didn't care for either faction so went by stats), Defiant Class schematics, Commander Tomalak, Weyoun Clone 4 (Again didn't care about the factions so went with Weyoun because of the upcoming Dominion Mega), and Drone Seven of Nine.
To me it seems like the game is basically saying to starting players, “dump a huge pile of money up front, or you won’t have a chance at being competitively viable in events or getting crew you care about for months.” Feels way more like a money pit scam than any semblance of reasonable gameplay structure.
I don’t really believe that weighting event rewards so heavily on ranked rewards is healthy for the playerbase. It’s basically just an excuse to try and farm money from players via designing aspects of the game around Pay to Win mechanics. It’s frustrating at best, and it’s further compounded by things like:
1) Size of the ranked reward categories has never scaled with the playerbase.
2) There is no meaningful reward scaling between placing 1000th until you get into top 25th.
3) Event scoring and the new extended threshold rewards are very dubiously calibrated, and frankly moronic for supporting new players.
I agree with all of these points.
But regarding the general theme that that events are tilted toward established and/or P2W players... as far as I can tell, it's always been that way. Just one player's experience, but here it is - -
I started in Oct 2016. It took me 16 events before cracking the top-3000, and 19 events to earn my first 5* (Grand Nagus Rom, whose relatively low power probably had something to do with my winning him). I earned my second 5* in my 27th event (Cap La Forge, a re-run of Quadrilateral, which likely reduced the competition). It wasn't until roughly my 40th event that I had developed my crew enough to become a consistent threat to crack the top-1000. This was my pace as a relatively light spender - mostly just monthly card. It's just a gut feeling, but I think a new player today could do it faster than I did - "free" resources are more plentiful than they were in the early days.
The first few months of the game are necessarily spent acquiring and leveling the 1-3* crew and completing the episode missions. And getting a few random 4* cards from community rewards. Ranking high in events requires a developed crew, and development takes time (or money). This game is a marathon, not a sprint. Set intermediate goals and enjoy the ride.
Last 10 events I have won 6 legendaries, of the four I didn't win 2 events I knew I wouldn't have the resources, 1 I ran out of resources and the other one I got shuttle sniped last few seconds on the EMA event.
I think the problem has always been spacing out the event types full galaxy and full faction in particular are the most resource draining.
Skirmish is the one event that is a positive because if you take advantage of it, it is the one event you can really catch up on. Ergo a similar reward structure needs to be added for Galaxy or faction
Perhaps Credits, Honor, Cronitons, in a faction event based on successes.
and perhaps Credits, Honor, Kit Boosts, in a galaxy event on SR successes. Or something along those lines.