What everyone is saying is that the game is getting progressively harder as more players and more big spenders continue to join without any concessions being made in the reward structure to balance the effect. Perhaps in a couple of months you will no longer make the cut into top 1k anymore. I suspect then you will be singing a different tune. The F2P players obviously are the most effected by this. I feel bad for them.
It's a competition. If you can't compete, you don't get the rewards.
That's not to say that some tweaking isn't warranted - and Erin acknowledged in the Q&A that they are looking at doing so. But no one should expect that they won't get overtaken in rankings if they don't keep up with the progress of others.
I think around Saturday afternoon I realized that even though I only failed a couple of 4000 vp shuttles I was losing position. I was having my best points event in a while but was in danger of missing the top 1000. So I doubled up my shuttles for the rest of the event. Still only finished top 600. Usually when I do that I can finish in the top 200.
It has nothing to do with Squad leaders. Squad leaders have been around almost a year. It has more to do with the knowledge of shuttles techniques has spread throughout the player base plus bonus crew expansion as more crew is added to the game. In the past if an event feature Dax that was less crew than it is today.
I generally like more bonus crew since it makes vaulting crew more worthwhile but there is such a thing as too much.
i used 4 *** time boosts because that was all i got from last week's cadet missions. I made an effort to keep up with shuttle timers but i definitely flaked out a few times. I easily scored inside 700, comfortably able to get the 5 star this time around. Recent changes have made it a little more difficult to get the 5 star event reward, because now i only get it sometimes.
In my opinion automatically and easily winning the 5 star from every faction event was making it less exciting and also filling up available space too quickly.
This time i was actually mildly enthused because i got the 5 star, and i think this was largely because i have missed it a few times in the recent events.
Thanks DB for not making the game so that every player can easily get all rewards. Everyone having all rewards further devalues the thrill of earning those rewards.
Im happy to hear that some of you tried really hard and failed to get the reward. Mine feels more special now.
i used 4 *** time boosts because that was all i got from last week's cadet missions. I made an effort to keep up with shuttle timers but i definitely flaked out a few times. I easily scored inside 700, comfortably able to get the 5 star this time around. Recent changes have made it a little more difficult to get the 5 star event reward, because now i only get it sometimes.
In my opinion automatically and easily winning the 5 star from every faction event was making it less exciting and also filling up available space too quickly.
This time i was actually mildly enthused because i got the 5 star, and i think this was largely because i have missed it a few times in the recent events.
Thanks DB for not making the game so that every player can easily get all rewards. Everyone having all rewards further devalues the thrill of earning those rewards.
Im happy to hear that some of you tried really hard and failed to get the reward. Mine feels more special now.
thanks for sharing your crying here, keep it up.
Seems a little cynical albeit accurate, however if you are nonchalantly placing in the top 1k without much effort then you are clearly in an elite class of players. There are boat loads of other players with good bonus crew that try very hard to do the same thing and fail constantly.
i used 4 *** time boosts because that was all i got from last week's cadet missions. I made an effort to keep up with shuttle timers but i definitely flaked out a few times. I easily scored inside 700, comfortably able to get the 5 star this time around. Recent changes have made it a little more difficult to get the 5 star event reward, because now i only get it sometimes.
In my opinion automatically and easily winning the 5 star from every faction event was making it less exciting and also filling up available space too quickly.
This time i was actually mildly enthused because i got the 5 star, and i think this was largely because i have missed it a few times in the recent events.
Thanks DB for not making the game so that every player can easily get all rewards. Everyone having all rewards further devalues the thrill of earning those rewards.
Im happy to hear that some of you tried really hard and failed to get the reward. Mine feels more special now.
thanks for sharing your crying here, keep it up.
I'm so glad you "didn't care" and still placed "comfortable"... It has never been "automatic" or "easy" to place in the Top 1000. I did used to stop playing 3/4 of the way through so as to not get a 5* that back in the day I would have to airlock (no cryo and NO slots). I now, however, do everything possible to keep shuttles going non-stop. I'm assuming you've spent $$$ on the game to be easy for you, because there really is no other way at this point. Events are weekly and there is no time to "save up" boosters. I don't spend dil on Thursday Cadet missions because I have so many 9hr boosts I don't use, I just seem to get so many of them and I'm not going to waste the limited dil I have.
I guess we need to compare crew... I not only used the kickstart 10 *** time boosts, but also had 8 more *** time boosts and 4 **** time boosts. I added these to my 4k shuttles that had 90% or better chance. I also used about 50-60 *** skill boosts to up the %. I know how to get the most % for the crew. I don't take the "default" choice at will that the game says is the "best". I test to see which slot the bonus crew give the best %, match up as many skills to the skill boost to get that extra jump (sometimes from 58% base to 75% with boost). Most of my missions were over 70%, with first shuttle of the group always over 90%. I don't think I failed as many as it always feels like. I don't buy the time remaining to return quicker. I time my shuttles so the last ones end 2-3 minutes before event end. Every returned shuttle brought me into the 900's, and 10 min later, I'm back in the 1,000's. No matter what, I couldn't stay under 1,000 for any amount of time. I just wasn't spending dil to send out and bring back shuttles. Those that are saying "should have tried harder", f off, because the only possible ways was "should have spent $$$".
i used 4 *** time boosts because that was all i got from last week's cadet missions. I made an effort to keep up with shuttle timers but i definitely flaked out a few times. I easily scored inside 700, comfortably able to get the 5 star this time around. Recent changes have made it a little more difficult to get the 5 star event reward, because now i only get it sometimes.
In my opinion automatically and easily winning the 5 star from every faction event was making it less exciting and also filling up available space too quickly.
This time i was actually mildly enthused because i got the 5 star, and i think this was largely because i have missed it a few times in the recent events.
Thanks DB for not making the game so that every player can easily get all rewards. Everyone having all rewards further devalues the thrill of earning those rewards.
Im happy to hear that some of you tried really hard and failed to get the reward. Mine feels more special now.
thanks for sharing your crying here, keep it up.
I'm so glad you "didn't care" and still placed "comfortable"... It has never been "automatic" or "easy" to place in the Top 1000. I did used to stop playing 3/4 of the way through so as to not get a 5* that back in the day I would have to airlock (no cryo and NO slots). I now, however, do everything possible to keep shuttles going non-stop. I'm assuming you've spent $$$ on the game to be easy for you, because there really is no other way at this point. Events are weekly and there is no time to "save up" boosters. I don't spend dil on Thursday Cadet missions because I have so many 9hr boosts I don't use, I just seem to get so many of them and I'm not going to waste the limited dil I have.
I guess we need to compare crew... I not only used the kickstart 10 *** time boosts, but also had 8 more *** time boosts and 4 **** time boosts. I added these to my 4k shuttles that had 90% or better chance. I also used about 50-60 *** skill boosts to up the %. I know how to get the most % for the crew. I don't take the "default" choice at will that the game says is the "best". I test to see which slot the bonus crew give the best %, match up as many skills to the skill boost to get that extra jump (sometimes from 58% base to 75% with boost). Most of my missions were over 70%, with first shuttle of the group always over 90%. I don't think I failed as many as it always feels like. I don't buy the time remaining to return quicker. I time my shuttles so the last ones end 2-3 minutes before event end. Every returned shuttle brought me into the 900's, and 10 min later, I'm back in the 1,000's. No matter what, I couldn't stay under 1,000 for any amount of time. I just wasn't spending dil to send out and bring back shuttles. Those that are saying "should have tried harder", f off, because the only possible ways was "should have spent $$$".
When we go on galaxy events in a row, there are times to build up boosts. And other than the quick start I don't use very many on Hybrids. Frankly with Stamets and Saru and a ton of Dax, I didn't have a single shuttle under 85% at the 4k level once i picked out my ideal shuttles. Usually I do three seaters in two factions, but I found 4 Fed Missions that I was able to Dax to death and Saru/Stamets to death. I did spend some money, but that was just to get another star on T'Kumsuh, in the previous event to try to get Tilly. (Hate Disc, need Eng). Having played for a long time i had a LOT of Sci and Med skill boosts, which didn't get used much in previous events. Waitress Ezri was a lil godsend I could use Med skill boosts for, and there was Sci all over the place.
The end of a mega is always pretty intense as well, as all the folks who picked up crew all along the other events making the bonus pool that even newer folks had wider.
That being said, this one was more competitive than other recent faction events. Some folks have shown some numbers that it seems that more folks were playing, which is going to make it even harder.
I'm not going to go off like has been said by some and say that everyone can do well with whatever crew they have or even just some good bonus crew. I am going to say that sometimes it's making the decisions earlier in the game to level and have the right crew for the right event to go nutball with. I can't tell you how many folks have called me a fool in prior fleets, etc when I kept Waitress Ezri and leveled her up. Having the shuttles line up is a luck of the draw but a big factor as well. My heart really goes out to folks who sunk all their chrons into Tilly and then couldn't find a single ENG shuttle. I think some folks may have been a lil more Sec/Cmd/Dip heavy in their bonus crew than may have been optimal for some shuttles due to the nature of the other Discovery crew.
Actually with Tilly and T'Kuvma you should start seeing modest gains--- You've entered the realm of having 5* crew. It takes time to build crew, but as I don't think we've seen the last of Discovery in game, I think you'll see Tilly used again as event crew giving you some advantages there.
I bought a 10 for 10 (because finally I didn't have starry skies) and I had a couple of sweet beholds in it. Next stop gold Med...
Actually with Tilly and T'Kuvma you should start seeing modest gains--- You've entered the realm of having 5* crew. It takes time to build crew, but as I don't think we've seen the last of Discovery in game, I think you'll see Tilly used again as event crew giving you some advantages there.
I bought a 10 for 10 (because finally I didn't have starry skies) and I had a couple of sweet beholds in it. Next stop gold Med...
That Yar is a great pull for ENG. Very cool. Maybe we'll have a Yar event soon!
Having played for a long time i had a LOT of Sci and Med skill boosts, which didn't get used much in previous events. Waitress Ezri was a lil godsend I could use Med skill boosts for, and there was Sci all over the place.
...
I am going to say that sometimes it's making the decisions earlier in the game to level and have the right crew for the right event to go nutball with. I can't tell you how many folks have called me a fool in prior fleets, etc when I kept Waitress Ezri and leveled her up.
Waitress Ezri had good traits to get her to 45% in Gauntlet with the decent mid-range stats. I pulled her out of Cryo for this event as well as my extra 1701 Dax. Here was my Bonus crew (All FE):
4/5 T'Kuvma
4/4 First Officer Saru
4/4 Lt. Ash Tyler
4/4 Reinforcements Stamets
4/4 Sarek (Built as the event went along, had FF/FE by 120k VP)
4/4 Ambassador Sarek
2/5 Lt Commander Jadzia Dax
4/4 Princess Jadzia
Two 4/4 1701 Jadzia Dax
4/4 Waitress Ezri
2/4 Mirror Ezri Tigan
These were supplemental if called upon:
3/3 Sniper Ezri Dax
2/2 Lieutenant Commander Saru
2/2 Festive Jadzia Dax
And now after the event finished, I have a 4/4 Blood Oath Jadzia Dax (what sucky graphics). I didn't have her at all, so I did get something from the event. Seems I just didn't even have a chance, no matter how much I pushed, to get Georgiou, Burnham, Lorca, Tilly, or Mudd. (Tilly I had 500k VP - no dice; Mudd I had 333k VP - hence this thread).
Compete harder or spend more, maybe both. There certainly are more players and the best only get better. This event seemed more competitive than usual so either step up or fall short.
I’m a squad leader. I only got an extra 6.5k VP. Makes up for 1.5 faileds huttles, but it really doesn’t help much.
In better squads it is much much more. I live with my squad leader and know she gets around 40,000+ VP. The top 200 is probably well over 50,000 free points.
Look, I don't want to get involved in big arguments on this as I have before. I get that most people on the forum are squad leaders and like the policy. I also get that it's possible to sometimes beat a squad leader if you have extreme amounts of event crew and do the full to 4000 start.
I'd rather just say the heck with it and have DB open up the prizes a little. With the vastly increased numbers of active participants 2000 or a percentage seems fair. Do their numbers show more spending by keeping it to 1000? We'll see. The outcry on this issue is only a couple months old.
Might I suggest something very spirit of cooperation (Star Trek). You rotate who is the leader. That is what we do in my squad. We can all finish in the top 1000 without the leader points. So we rotate. Everyone gets a chance. I was not leader this time and finished top 1000.
Yes, I have a strong crew but that should be expected. Also I agree with you that the jumpstart is sn exploit that should be fixed. It sells boost so I doubt it will be fixed.
But seriously you seem to have some resentment towards your squad leader and instead of addressing it with her you are taking it out here.
Havent seen anywhere in this thread yet about cherrypicking missions.
Thus the plan was.
Kickstart (used ten 3* time boosts)
Lucky and Got a Young Sarek from first event pack bought.
Used 3* time boosts the first 10 hours until I got the 4th Young Sarek at 130,000.
Switched over to using the 2x Overnights and regular crew skill boosts.
I don't use dil to speed up return times.
I ran KCA the whole way, and did the same 4 missions every time.
This required 16 crew.
5/5 T'Kuvma
2/5 Mudd (got one via event pack using dil saved from monthly card, did buy 2nd copy)
1/5 Desert P.Georgia
4/4 Saru, Statements,Ash Tyler, Princess Dax, Bride Dax, 1701 Dax (twice) A. Sarek, Y. Sarek
5/5 Borg Queen, Kortar
a 900skill dip and 900 skill CMD
So 12 of these 16 got event crew bonus and I had to assemble Young Sarek as I went.
Starbase is a lvl16 and I don't think squadron bonus added up to much (squad posted ranks of 25098,22688,15416,11539)
I wrote out in shorthand as I did the kickstart each mission requirement, and went back and found the best.
By identifying the best 4 missions, I had these 12 event crew applying the largest number I could get.
All I can say to the people that missed top 1000 is that you need better crew and you can't miss shuttles. I used 10 time boosts and never missed a set of shuttles, which got me comfortably into the top 1000 (~700th). My bonus crew were a shared immortal T'Kuvma and all of the 4* bonus crew FE, more or less, plus 1/5 Bride Jadzia and 4/5 T'Kuvma.
5* crew are desirable so you need a combination of skill, effort, and good crew. I'm sorry that some of you weren't good enough. Keep at it and try harder next time instead of complaining that others are better than you.
I like that the crew are difficult to get. I worked hard for Mudd so giving him away like candy would bother me. Maybe gauntlet won't be so flooded with the same old characters eventually.
I think you’re missing the point here, Grant. Yes it is true a player like you with likely very strong bonus crew and near perfect strategy and effort can place in the top seven 700. What everyone is saying is that the game is getting progressively harder as more players and more big spenders continue to join without any concessions being made in the reward structure to balance the effect. Perhaps in a couple of months you will no longer make the cut into top 1k anymore. I suspect then you will be singing a different tune. The F2P players obviously are the most effected by this. I feel bad for them.
I am pretty much F2P other than a pair of monthly cards that I bought with free credits. All of the bonus crew have been available in events since I joined just under a year ago.
If I eventually fail to obtain and level bonus crew and others beat me then so be it. I don't expect it to happen though, as I have improved my rankings as I progress through the game.
Having played for a long time i had a LOT of Sci and Med skill boosts, which didn't get used much in previous events. Waitress Ezri was a lil godsend I could use Med skill boosts for, and there was Sci all over the place.
...
I am going to say that sometimes it's making the decisions earlier in the game to level and have the right crew for the right event to go nutball with. I can't tell you how many folks have called me a fool in prior fleets, etc when I kept Waitress Ezri and leveled her up.
Waitress Ezri had good traits to get her to 45% in Gauntlet with the decent mid-range stats. I pulled her out of Cryo for this event as well as my extra 1701 Dax. Here was my Bonus crew (All FE):
4/5 T'Kuvma
4/4 First Officer Saru
4/4 Lt. Ash Tyler
4/4 Reinforcements Stamets
4/4 Sarek (Built as the event went along, had FF/FE by 120k VP)
4/4 Ambassador Sarek
2/5 Lt Commander Jadzia Dax
4/4 Princess Jadzia
Two 4/4 1701 Jadzia Dax
4/4 Waitress Ezri
2/4 Mirror Ezri Tigan
These were supplemental if called upon:
3/3 Sniper Ezri Dax
2/2 Lieutenant Commander Saru
2/2 Festive Jadzia Dax
And now after the event finished, I have a 4/4 Blood Oath Jadzia Dax (what sucky graphics). I didn't have her at all, so I did get something from the event. Seems I just didn't even have a chance, no matter how much I pushed, to get Georgiou, Burnham, Lorca, Tilly, or Mudd. (Tilly I had 500k VP - no dice; Mudd I had 333k VP - hence this thread).
Here's what I have
5/5 T'Kuvma
4/4 First Officer Saru
4/4 Reinforcements Stamets
4/4 Sarek (I did the same as you but I had him FE very early. (thank you voyages!)
4/4 Ambassador Sarek
3/5 Lt Commander Jadzia Dax
5/5 Klingon Bride Jadzia Dax (Thank god for honor and citations!)
4/4 Princess Jadzia
4/4 Blood Oath Jadzia Dax (finished her 10 minutes before event start!)
4/4 1701 Dax
4/4 Mirror Ezri Tigan
4/4 Waitress Ezri
3/3 Sniper Ezri
2/2 Saru
Strangely enough the 2/2 Saru was in every round of shuttles. One of the three seaters I did I put T'Kuvma, 2* Saru and Ambassador Sarek which made it a 90+% success rate. (I could have put Young Sarek in, but I spread the love out a bit). When other buffs were low I hit that one with a sci bonus. I may have failed that shuttle once or twice the entire event. Initially I tried Fed and KCA and then Fed and Klingon 3 seaters, but had aweful luck the first times at 4k so changed things up the first night to the config I ended with
Can't remember the exact shuttle makeups on the other three I ran (and the event is not in the wiki) other than it was another three seater and 2 four seaters, and I was in the Fed faction for all.
Blood Oath with a sec boost was invaluable, Mirror Ezri batted cleaup in sec, and Waitress Ezri hit the MED node that seemed to be oddly placed. Rest were had at least some SCI/DIP/CMD which let Stamets, Saru, Klingon Bride and the other Daxes bring it home.
I used speed ups on the jump start and two or three other shuttles runs, otherwise I used skill boosts. As I only sleep about 6 hours a night I didn't do any 9 hour shuttles. My SCI and MED boost inventory really took a hit (Well I still have over 100 3* MEDs, but thats due to lack of use over the past year) Even if another boost would give more, I tried to use MEDs on Ezri every time (I blew through 5 star MED boosts). I usually had 4/4 success, though there were some 3/4 and 2/4 runs.
I wish I had recorded the VP that I had, but I was well within the 1000 range. For most of the event I was under 300 but fell some in the last morning into the 400s.
Missed one set and ran a little late on 2. I placed 920. Made it by the skin on my teeth. That is some damn good crew for a close call like that.
You were either incredibly unlucky or missed more shuttles than you let on because I had slightly worse bonus crew (no Lorca/Georgiou) and placed around 700 with normal pass/fail rates.
Had you passed 90% of shuttles and only missed one set, there's no doubt in my mind that you would be close to top 500. That's 124 shuttles by your count, ~112 would pass for roughly 450,000 VP.
Me and RNG never seem to see eye to eye, but that really shouldn’t have mattered. With crew that good it should not be such a feat to get the rank.
Perhaps not, but it won't be like that in future events. This was an example of some bad luck on your part and extremely high levels of participation. Maybe we should revisit this topic in a few weeks when people have calmed down.
I finished 260th. No fast start, 12 90 min time boosts to make up for no fast start, 18k points for being squad leader because the rest of the squad weren't really up for this event. No mission cherry-picking. 4 “extra” rounds of shuttles due to 2 month old baby meaning got to play 24/7.
A year ago you could set the timer and send 4000pt shuttles and easily get a 5*. Now it's just a joke. 4 days of sending 4000pt shuttles and I finished in the low 2000's. DB's got it setup the way they want it now. If you're not buying speedups, you're not getting a 5* character.
A year ago, i couldn't even gt to 4000. By the off chance sometimes 3600 by the end of the event.
But during this mega event it's he first time i really played at 4000.
Personally i didn't use any dilithium, but i did send out 2 shuttles in the last 30 min of the event using a golden time boost. Boosts have to be played carefully as well, don't just spend them al if there's still a big chance to fail. It's a waste of more powerfull boosts.
True that i was squad leader for the last shuttle event and got me an additional 35000vp.
But some fellow squad men got top 1200 as well. They played just right and are happy with the ff 4*
Which is mostly more usefull than a 1/5*.
I also feel that it pays to be squad leader during FULL shuttle events, but during hybrids it doesn't matter that much.
At event start, my break at work started, so I opened 10 missions for each faction and ran at 1 min each, rotating through them all. It still took a bit longer than my break...dont tell my boss. Wont be able to do this once DST ends in US.
Used time boosts to get to lunch and afternoon breaks. Afterwards used skill boosts and set alarms for every three hours through the night. When I hit 4K shuttles I opened extra tranmissions in case I dropped down, turns out luck was on my side and I averaged 3/4 successes. Quasi-cherry-picked from extra transmissions; I did not stick to the same four or allow any of them to expire, but put event crew on AND nodes and had leftovers on 5-crew missions with one-skill and OR nodes.
Event crew were immortal Amb Sarek, 1701 Dax, Princess Dax, 1/4 Blood Oath (who got final stars after event), 2/4 waitress Ezri, immortal mirror ezri (last star dropped from voyages early in the event), 4/4 Stamets, 4/4 Ash, 4/5 100 T'Kuvma, 3/4 sarek who made it to 70 at end of event, Festive Jadzia who was immortalized mid-way and immortal sniper Ezri.
I was also a squad leader and used up most of my collected DIP SCI & COM boosts. Finished in top 500, my best for a faction event to date. Now that I'm good at faction I wont be going all out like that again unless I really really want the 5*. For example, this week I'm only interested in finishing Lore.
I am still not entirely convinced that the explanations as to why the scores seemed out of proportion to how it generally goes.
From my perspective, something happened between Saturday night and Sunday morning when my rank dropped rapidly from around 500 down to 900 and I could never again get much above that and then it dipped below 1000 to to 1094 in the final moments of the event.
Now if it was just me, I would simply think I just got out played this time.
However, my feet-mate and squadron leader who is like a lev 73, spends 100's of $$ a week on this game also thinks something odd was going on with the scores even though he scored in the top 50. He said this morning that he was not at all satisfied with the response he got to his ticket (though he did not elaborate to what that response was)
I don't know if there was a glitch in the scoring, or if we simply got out spent. I likely will never know... I am just stuck scratching my head and wondering.......
I am still not entirely convinced that the explanations as to why the scores seemed out of proportion to how it generally goes.
From my perspective, something happened between Saturday night and Sunday morning when my rank dropped rapidly from around 500 down to 900 and I could never again get much above that and then it dipped below 1000 to to 1094 in the final moments of the event.
Now if it was just me, I would simply think I just got out played this time.
However, my feet-mate and squadron leader who is like a lev 73, spends 100's of $$ a week on this game also thinks something odd was going on with the scores even though he scored in the top 50. He said this morning that he was not at all satisfied with the response he got to his ticket (though he did not elaborate to what that response was)
I don't know if there was a glitch in the scoring, or if we simply got out spent. I likely will never know... I am just stuck scratching my head and wondering.......
I also experienced a rank drop. Granted, I did not have enough time boosts to continue sustaining where I was, but the amount I dropped in that time span was insane and even using time boosts Sunday into Monday, I kept on dropping. I was at 4k VP with four shuttles running constantly. I placed worse than I did when I only had three shuttles running with hardly any bonus crew. On average, I had success percentages 75% to 85% without boosts at 4k VP, with the shuttle where I was utilizing my Squad leader's immortalized Mudd over 90% easy. It was the first pure shuttle event where I managed to far surpass the last threshold reward, yet I still ranked in the 1300's.
There are three ways to do something; the right way, the wrong way, and the Janeway.
I remember a rapid rank drop too, but I didn't really flag it as unusual because I've never competed that well before. I had a run of bad shuttles overnight so this may have been directly after that. I almost gave up at that point but I'm a bit stubborn. So I went and looked at all my screenshots and wrote down the scores.
That's an overnight I think (9hrs) where all my shuttles failed. The rank drop rate was between 400 and 500 every set of shuttles missed or failed. Those shuttles were my first at 3,500. A disaster like that is enough to drop you out of contention.
Comments
It's a competition. If you can't compete, you don't get the rewards.
That's not to say that some tweaking isn't warranted - and Erin acknowledged in the Q&A that they are looking at doing so. But no one should expect that they won't get overtaken in rankings if they don't keep up with the progress of others.
Fair enough. It doesn't change anything though. If other people spend more, they will rank higher.
It has nothing to do with Squad leaders. Squad leaders have been around almost a year. It has more to do with the knowledge of shuttles techniques has spread throughout the player base plus bonus crew expansion as more crew is added to the game. In the past if an event feature Dax that was less crew than it is today.
I generally like more bonus crew since it makes vaulting crew more worthwhile but there is such a thing as too much.
In my opinion automatically and easily winning the 5 star from every faction event was making it less exciting and also filling up available space too quickly.
This time i was actually mildly enthused because i got the 5 star, and i think this was largely because i have missed it a few times in the recent events.
Thanks DB for not making the game so that every player can easily get all rewards. Everyone having all rewards further devalues the thrill of earning those rewards.
Im happy to hear that some of you tried really hard and failed to get the reward. Mine feels more special now.
thanks for sharing your crying here, keep it up.
Seems a little cynical albeit accurate, however if you are nonchalantly placing in the top 1k without much effort then you are clearly in an elite class of players. There are boat loads of other players with good bonus crew that try very hard to do the same thing and fail constantly.
I'm so glad you "didn't care" and still placed "comfortable"... It has never been "automatic" or "easy" to place in the Top 1000. I did used to stop playing 3/4 of the way through so as to not get a 5* that back in the day I would have to airlock (no cryo and NO slots). I now, however, do everything possible to keep shuttles going non-stop. I'm assuming you've spent $$$ on the game to be easy for you, because there really is no other way at this point. Events are weekly and there is no time to "save up" boosters. I don't spend dil on Thursday Cadet missions because I have so many 9hr boosts I don't use, I just seem to get so many of them and I'm not going to waste the limited dil I have.
I guess we need to compare crew... I not only used the kickstart 10 *** time boosts, but also had 8 more *** time boosts and 4 **** time boosts. I added these to my 4k shuttles that had 90% or better chance. I also used about 50-60 *** skill boosts to up the %. I know how to get the most % for the crew. I don't take the "default" choice at will that the game says is the "best". I test to see which slot the bonus crew give the best %, match up as many skills to the skill boost to get that extra jump (sometimes from 58% base to 75% with boost). Most of my missions were over 70%, with first shuttle of the group always over 90%. I don't think I failed as many as it always feels like. I don't buy the time remaining to return quicker. I time my shuttles so the last ones end 2-3 minutes before event end. Every returned shuttle brought me into the 900's, and 10 min later, I'm back in the 1,000's. No matter what, I couldn't stay under 1,000 for any amount of time. I just wasn't spending dil to send out and bring back shuttles. Those that are saying "should have tried harder", f off, because the only possible ways was "should have spent $$$".
When we go on galaxy events in a row, there are times to build up boosts. And other than the quick start I don't use very many on Hybrids. Frankly with Stamets and Saru and a ton of Dax, I didn't have a single shuttle under 85% at the 4k level once i picked out my ideal shuttles. Usually I do three seaters in two factions, but I found 4 Fed Missions that I was able to Dax to death and Saru/Stamets to death. I did spend some money, but that was just to get another star on T'Kumsuh, in the previous event to try to get Tilly. (Hate Disc, need Eng). Having played for a long time i had a LOT of Sci and Med skill boosts, which didn't get used much in previous events. Waitress Ezri was a lil godsend I could use Med skill boosts for, and there was Sci all over the place.
The end of a mega is always pretty intense as well, as all the folks who picked up crew all along the other events making the bonus pool that even newer folks had wider.
That being said, this one was more competitive than other recent faction events. Some folks have shown some numbers that it seems that more folks were playing, which is going to make it even harder.
I'm not going to go off like has been said by some and say that everyone can do well with whatever crew they have or even just some good bonus crew. I am going to say that sometimes it's making the decisions earlier in the game to level and have the right crew for the right event to go nutball with. I can't tell you how many folks have called me a fool in prior fleets, etc when I kept Waitress Ezri and leveled her up. Having the shuttles line up is a luck of the draw but a big factor as well. My heart really goes out to folks who sunk all their chrons into Tilly and then couldn't find a single ENG shuttle. I think some folks may have been a lil more Sec/Cmd/Dip heavy in their bonus crew than may have been optimal for some shuttles due to the nature of the other Discovery crew.
I bought a 10 for 10 (because finally I didn't have starry skies) and I had a couple of sweet beholds in it. Next stop gold Med...
That Yar is a great pull for ENG. Very cool. Maybe we'll have a Yar event soon!
Waitress Ezri had good traits to get her to 45% in Gauntlet with the decent mid-range stats. I pulled her out of Cryo for this event as well as my extra 1701 Dax. Here was my Bonus crew (All FE):
4/5 T'Kuvma
4/4 First Officer Saru
4/4 Lt. Ash Tyler
4/4 Reinforcements Stamets
4/4 Sarek (Built as the event went along, had FF/FE by 120k VP)
4/4 Ambassador Sarek
2/5 Lt Commander Jadzia Dax
4/4 Princess Jadzia
Two 4/4 1701 Jadzia Dax
4/4 Waitress Ezri
2/4 Mirror Ezri Tigan
These were supplemental if called upon:
3/3 Sniper Ezri Dax
2/2 Lieutenant Commander Saru
2/2 Festive Jadzia Dax
And now after the event finished, I have a 4/4 Blood Oath Jadzia Dax (what sucky graphics). I didn't have her at all, so I did get something from the event. Seems I just didn't even have a chance, no matter how much I pushed, to get Georgiou, Burnham, Lorca, Tilly, or Mudd. (Tilly I had 500k VP - no dice; Mudd I had 333k VP - hence this thread).
Might I suggest something very spirit of cooperation (Star Trek). You rotate who is the leader. That is what we do in my squad. We can all finish in the top 1000 without the leader points. So we rotate. Everyone gets a chance. I was not leader this time and finished top 1000.
Yes, I have a strong crew but that should be expected. Also I agree with you that the jumpstart is sn exploit that should be fixed. It sells boost so I doubt it will be fixed.
But seriously you seem to have some resentment towards your squad leader and instead of addressing it with her you are taking it out here.
Thus the plan was.
Kickstart (used ten 3* time boosts)
Lucky and Got a Young Sarek from first event pack bought.
Used 3* time boosts the first 10 hours until I got the 4th Young Sarek at 130,000.
Switched over to using the 2x Overnights and regular crew skill boosts.
I don't use dil to speed up return times.
I ran KCA the whole way, and did the same 4 missions every time.
This required 16 crew.
5/5 T'Kuvma
2/5 Mudd (got one via event pack using dil saved from monthly card, did buy 2nd copy)
1/5 Desert P.Georgia
4/4 Saru, Statements,Ash Tyler, Princess Dax, Bride Dax, 1701 Dax (twice) A. Sarek, Y. Sarek
5/5 Borg Queen, Kortar
a 900skill dip and 900 skill CMD
So 12 of these 16 got event crew bonus and I had to assemble Young Sarek as I went.
Starbase is a lvl16 and I don't think squadron bonus added up to much (squad posted ranks of 25098,22688,15416,11539)
I wrote out in shorthand as I did the kickstart each mission requirement, and went back and found the best.
By identifying the best 4 missions, I had these 12 event crew applying the largest number I could get.
Finished 364
I am pretty much F2P other than a pair of monthly cards that I bought with free credits. All of the bonus crew have been available in events since I joined just under a year ago.
If I eventually fail to obtain and level bonus crew and others beat me then so be it. I don't expect it to happen though, as I have improved my rankings as I progress through the game.
Here's what I have
5/5 T'Kuvma
4/4 First Officer Saru
4/4 Reinforcements Stamets
4/4 Sarek (I did the same as you but I had him FE very early. (thank you voyages!)
4/4 Ambassador Sarek
3/5 Lt Commander Jadzia Dax
5/5 Klingon Bride Jadzia Dax (Thank god for honor and citations!)
4/4 Princess Jadzia
4/4 Blood Oath Jadzia Dax (finished her 10 minutes before event start!)
4/4 1701 Dax
4/4 Mirror Ezri Tigan
4/4 Waitress Ezri
3/3 Sniper Ezri
2/2 Saru
Strangely enough the 2/2 Saru was in every round of shuttles. One of the three seaters I did I put T'Kuvma, 2* Saru and Ambassador Sarek which made it a 90+% success rate. (I could have put Young Sarek in, but I spread the love out a bit). When other buffs were low I hit that one with a sci bonus. I may have failed that shuttle once or twice the entire event. Initially I tried Fed and KCA and then Fed and Klingon 3 seaters, but had aweful luck the first times at 4k so changed things up the first night to the config I ended with
Can't remember the exact shuttle makeups on the other three I ran (and the event is not in the wiki) other than it was another three seater and 2 four seaters, and I was in the Fed faction for all.
Blood Oath with a sec boost was invaluable, Mirror Ezri batted cleaup in sec, and Waitress Ezri hit the MED node that seemed to be oddly placed. Rest were had at least some SCI/DIP/CMD which let Stamets, Saru, Klingon Bride and the other Daxes bring it home.
I used speed ups on the jump start and two or three other shuttles runs, otherwise I used skill boosts. As I only sleep about 6 hours a night I didn't do any 9 hour shuttles. My SCI and MED boost inventory really took a hit (Well I still have over 100 3* MEDs, but thats due to lack of use over the past year) Even if another boost would give more, I tried to use MEDs on Ezri every time (I blew through 5 star MED boosts). I usually had 4/4 success, though there were some 3/4 and 2/4 runs.
I wish I had recorded the VP that I had, but I was well within the 1000 range. For most of the event I was under 300 but fell some in the last morning into the 400s.
All were FE
1/5 Lorca
1/5 Klingon bride
1/5 lieutenant cmd Dax
2/5 Georgiou
5/5 Mudd
4/4 princess Dax
4/4 1701 dax
4/4 saru
4/4 stamets
3/4 sarek
4/4 A sarek
4/4 A tyler
4/5 Tk’uvmamatata
1/4 Blood Oath Dax
I’m probably forgetting someone.
Missed one set and ran a little late on 2. I placed 920. Made it by the skin on my teeth. That is some damn good crew for a close call like that.
You were either incredibly unlucky or missed more shuttles than you let on because I had slightly worse bonus crew (no Lorca/Georgiou) and placed around 700 with normal pass/fail rates.
Had you passed 90% of shuttles and only missed one set, there's no doubt in my mind that you would be close to top 500. That's 124 shuttles by your count, ~112 would pass for roughly 450,000 VP.
Perhaps not, but it won't be like that in future events. This was an example of some bad luck on your part and extremely high levels of participation. Maybe we should revisit this topic in a few weeks when people have calmed down.
A year ago, i couldn't even gt to 4000. By the off chance sometimes 3600 by the end of the event.
But during this mega event it's he first time i really played at 4000.
Personally i didn't use any dilithium, but i did send out 2 shuttles in the last 30 min of the event using a golden time boost. Boosts have to be played carefully as well, don't just spend them al if there's still a big chance to fail. It's a waste of more powerfull boosts.
True that i was squad leader for the last shuttle event and got me an additional 35000vp.
But some fellow squad men got top 1200 as well. They played just right and are happy with the ff 4*
Which is mostly more usefull than a 1/5*.
I also feel that it pays to be squad leader during FULL shuttle events, but during hybrids it doesn't matter that much.
And what is this jump start tactic?
At event start, my break at work started, so I opened 10 missions for each faction and ran at 1 min each, rotating through them all. It still took a bit longer than my break...dont tell my boss. Wont be able to do this once DST ends in US.
Used time boosts to get to lunch and afternoon breaks. Afterwards used skill boosts and set alarms for every three hours through the night. When I hit 4K shuttles I opened extra tranmissions in case I dropped down, turns out luck was on my side and I averaged 3/4 successes. Quasi-cherry-picked from extra transmissions; I did not stick to the same four or allow any of them to expire, but put event crew on AND nodes and had leftovers on 5-crew missions with one-skill and OR nodes.
Event crew were immortal Amb Sarek, 1701 Dax, Princess Dax, 1/4 Blood Oath (who got final stars after event), 2/4 waitress Ezri, immortal mirror ezri (last star dropped from voyages early in the event), 4/4 Stamets, 4/4 Ash, 4/5 100 T'Kuvma, 3/4 sarek who made it to 70 at end of event, Festive Jadzia who was immortalized mid-way and immortal sniper Ezri.
I was also a squad leader and used up most of my collected DIP SCI & COM boosts. Finished in top 500, my best for a faction event to date. Now that I'm good at faction I wont be going all out like that again unless I really really want the 5*. For example, this week I'm only interested in finishing Lore.
From my perspective, something happened between Saturday night and Sunday morning when my rank dropped rapidly from around 500 down to 900 and I could never again get much above that and then it dipped below 1000 to to 1094 in the final moments of the event.
Now if it was just me, I would simply think I just got out played this time.
However, my feet-mate and squadron leader who is like a lev 73, spends 100's of $$ a week on this game also thinks something odd was going on with the scores even though he scored in the top 50. He said this morning that he was not at all satisfied with the response he got to his ticket (though he did not elaborate to what that response was)
I don't know if there was a glitch in the scoring, or if we simply got out spent. I likely will never know... I am just stuck scratching my head and wondering.......
I also experienced a rank drop. Granted, I did not have enough time boosts to continue sustaining where I was, but the amount I dropped in that time span was insane and even using time boosts Sunday into Monday, I kept on dropping. I was at 4k VP with four shuttles running constantly. I placed worse than I did when I only had three shuttles running with hardly any bonus crew. On average, I had success percentages 75% to 85% without boosts at 4k VP, with the shuttle where I was utilizing my Squad leader's immortalized Mudd over 90% easy. It was the first pure shuttle event where I managed to far surpass the last threshold reward, yet I still ranked in the 1300's.
DB: Do Better.
Member of Starship Trista.
That's an overnight I think (9hrs) where all my shuttles failed. The rank drop rate was between 400 and 500 every set of shuttles missed or failed. Those shuttles were my first at 3,500. A disaster like that is enough to drop you out of contention.