I think you're missing my central premise, Bylo. I play this game for fun and escape. Call me lazy, but I'm not going to put in the work to shift my thinking on a game just to try to keep it fun. It shouldn't be incumbent upon me to force the enjoyment out of a game. I'm going to find something that's more fun. Probably by accident, to be honest. Something else will just grab my attention and keep me instead. That's not to say anyone else has to follow that path or even agree with me, but it does seem from above that others feel similarly.
I'm glad you said that, because it does help me understand.
But I need you to understand that this thread (at least my interpretation of it, I have been wrong many times before!) seemed to be about players who used to enjoy the game not finding it fun anymore more, and as somebody who has found a formula to keep it fun and entertaining, I'm just trying to help.
Let us use a house as a metaphor for the STT experience. We all have a different house, they all have slightly different features, are different sizes, colors, etc, based on our experience and priorities. I took this thread to be, "Guys, I'm starting to get bored with my house and would like help to find my house exciting again."
It feels to me that this was done with the idea that all it would take to make the house fun again was something cosmetic like changing the wallpaper, possibly installing a new countertop in the kitchen, or replacing the carpet with hardwood floors, and I've been saying that the way to accomplish the goal is to rip the house down, redo the foundation, and then building it back one room at a time.
To compare STT to another game, I feel it has a LOT in common with Minecraft. People who have played a lot of games centered around the idea of doing quests and progressing through a story often find Minecraft incredibly boring because there really is no goal; it is is entirely self-guided. I feel STT is like that too, there really is no central goal or point to any of this, it is up to us as players to assign values to what we want our experience to be like, and then using the tools at our disposal to make steady progress in those areas.
To that end, it was hard to miss the main theme of this thread as it was written in the title that people are getting frustrated with having a seemingly endless swarm of 1/5 crew clogging up their crew slots with no hope of ever improving them and I have been trying to get people to realize that this is a symptom, not a disease.
You say you "play this game for fun and escape" and that is absolutely understandable and I am glad you know your personal motivations, but there is way for you to do exactly that and avoid this pitfall of the 1/5 trap, and I have been trying to get you and others to see that. Play the events for "fun and escape" but do not feel obligated or burdened with the 5* crew you win, give yourself permission to airlock 5* crew you do not enjoy and use that Honor to work on crew you DO enjoy. That one simple change will I admit is a very hard leap to make, but that is the key to this entire problem.
I'm with @ByloBand and Marie Kondo. If the crew member doesn't spark joy, 86 'em. You'd be surprised when you make yourself really get honest how much joy isn't being sparked by a given crew member just because they're a 5* or have a rare skill combo or whatever. It doesn't feel good having to get rid of a 5* crew member. It does, however, feel kinda nice to choose to get rid of one.
I'm with @ByloBand and Marie Kondo. If the crew member doesn't spark joy, 86 'em. You'd be surprised when you make yourself really get honest how much joy isn't being sparked by a given crew member just because they're a 5* or have a rare skill combo or whatever. It doesn't feel good having to get rid of a 5* crew member. It does, however, feel kinda nice to choose to get rid of one.
I haven’t airlocked a 5* yet, but that day doth approach. In fact, I might make Tora Ziyal (from the Seven-in-Purple pack) the first recipient of that dubious Honor. 🖖
P.S.: Marie Kondo’s t-shirt folding method is weird, but it does work (for me, anyway).
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
I'm with @ByloBand and Marie Kondo. If the crew member doesn't spark joy, 86 'em. You'd be surprised when you make yourself really get honest how much joy isn't being sparked by a given crew member just because they're a 5* or have a rare skill combo or whatever. It doesn't feel good having to get rid of a 5* crew member. It does, however, feel kinda nice to choose to get rid of one.
I haven’t airlocked a 5* yet, but that day doth approach. In fact, I might make Tora Ziyal (from the Seven-in-Purple pack) the first recipient of that dubious Honor. 🖖
P.S. Marie Kondo’s t-shirt folding method is weird, but it does work (for me, anyway).
I just airlocked a Tora Ziyal 20 minutes ago! Felt awesome!
I am the one who likes to dismiss legendary crews. I got more than 100 legendary crews and airlock more than 20 usually because poor base or poor artwork or I didn't like that role. But by the way, collecting honor is still a big challenging to me.
I will be glad if DB open more access to those very old legendary crews.
Even though +350% 5/5s sounds great it is basically only due to the fact that I only had 2 when I counted first. Overall I find this development very problematic as the 2/5s are as useless as the 1/5s are.
And I would like to add that I have 146 x/4s wich are not FE, 37 of them are 4/4 but I lack the resources to FE them right away as I do for 19 of the 1/5s.
Real estate is an everlasting problem here.
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
Fleet held a "game" where we had to calculate our honour debt counting missing stars on all 5* crew. I'm at 3.7M. With a 1300 daily honour income I need 2846 days to repay it, assuming I airlock legendaries from now on. That's about 7.7 years of faithful daily play with no breaks.
Weighing in for the data, i can keep up .. and still have plenty to work on and consider upgrading
I got monthly card, buy the campaign card, and occasionally DYC a good card or event card i worked hard on ... I try not to spend much DIl and save it up for Slot discounts ( at 400 now )
I'm probably not an average player , but i can keep up .
I Pick my event for where i push, galaxy & faction i find boring ... Skirmish i love currently, they provide a much needed option to power up cards and spend as much time on as you are willing to ... whereas Galaxy i find annoying grindy .
I guess i dont have the luxury problem of getting a bucket of new gold cards every month i have no time to level or dump....
4stars
1 2 WIP / 2 FE
2 0 WIP / 0 FE
3 3 WIP / 3 FE
4 6 WIP / 268 FE
Total 284
5stars
1 19 WIP / 65 FE
2 2 WIP / 31 FE
3 0 WIP / 12 FE
4 0 WIP / 4 FE
5 0 WIP / 28 FE
Total 161
Reading this thread has caused me to actually do some counting. That's not the way I'd been evaluating myself previously, but it's an interesting approach. Here are my legendary crew numbers:
5/5: 27
4/5: 8
3/5: 11
2/5: 28
1/5: 87
Note: This does include a few duplicates from gauntlet or from the campaigns. For example, I have a 5/5 Mirror Picard (from his mega event) and a 4/5 Mirror Picard (from the campaign).
It’s been a while since I really looked at this...
5/5*: 48 (Tenavik is technically on a shuttle at 4/5* with his fifth star just sitting around because I am dumb, despite being counted here)
4/5*: 14 (campaign Spider Barclay is unleveled)
3/5*: 23 (Mugato is unleveled)
2/5*: 38 (11 of which are unleveled)
1/5*: 74 (27 of which are unleveled and one currently in process)
Despite not really changing my spending habits, the number of immortal crew I’ve been able to put together this year is astounding - I still have a separate worksheet with the last data dump I got out of IAP and there only 22 immortals, 3 4/5*s, 5 3/5*s, 21 2/5*s, and 54 1/5*s at the start of the year. I chalk a lot of it up to having saved so very many premium 10-packs, but campaigns and being more competitive in events have contributed as well. And the gauntlet should get a mention as well - I only have four duplicate 5* crew and Armus is one of them, thanks to the eight drops I’ve gotten.
So, I have Legendary cards in 150/250 crew slots, plus Kang & Smiley, which leaves 98 active Super Rares that I need to take a long, hard look at, come Monday after Mudd Amuck concludes. I am not overly concerned with FF'ing every card, though. YMMV
Fleet held a "game" where we had to calculate our honour debt counting missing stars on all 5* crew. I'm at 3.7M. With a 1300 daily honour income I need 2846 days to repay it, assuming I airlock legendaries from now on. That's about 7.7 years of faithful daily play with no breaks.
Mine is about 2.8 million pending the upcoming campaign cites, but that is ONLY for collections plus the last few that i want to star up because i actually like the crew...in some ways it's been more challenging to shoot for 1501-2000 than top 1500 in the last few events!
Fleet held a "game" where we had to calculate our honour debt counting missing stars on all 5* crew. I'm at 3.7M. With a 1300 daily honour income I need 2846 days to repay it, assuming I airlock legendaries from now on. That's about 7.7 years of faithful daily play with no breaks.
Mine is about 2.8 million pending the upcoming campaign cites, but that is ONLY for collections plus the last few that i want to star up because i actually like the crew...in some ways it's been more challenging to shoot for 1501-2000 than top 1500 in the last few events!
I don't think it's useful to calculate "honor debt". Rather, it's useful to think about how to utilize the limited honor/citations you have to maximum benefit. I'm fully resolved to the fact that at some point, probably in the next couple months, I'm going to have to airlock some mostly useless 1/5s. They served their function for the event in which I used them, and now they can go, just like a guest star on the show.
We need a more balanced honor system. More for airlocks or less for purchases.
Decrepit legendaries in voyages
Increase VIP levels. Coming up on 4 years now. The longer you have played, the more $ spent and/or more crew earned/bought/won.
Also to mention “loyalty rewards”.
An increase in VIP tiers or a new achievement reward for length of account. Instead of just getting an Avatar on your anniversary of playing.
For increased VIP tiers /or new achievement i suggest some combo of the following. Either by VIP tier or every 6 mo of active account.
More crew slots. 5 per tier or 3 every 6 mo.
Combination of all citations
Voyage tokens
To be mixed or applied however DB decides is fair.
Retro-active (of course) to all players once in place.
Unfused 5* immortalized since original post - 2 (Was 15, plus 2 new 5/5* from 2 megas, now 19, +27%)
Since those 2 that got fused up to 5/5* and the 2 new mega 5*s are still currently out of the freezer, that's a total of increase of 31 5* on the roster over the course of 3 months. Of course, this time includes the Portal Update, which resulted in a number of additional 5*s for me due to saved up packs.
it has been my experience that NOT ALL 1/5* are useless as most of you claim! I have a lot of them, yes, but I have also chosen ones in begolds that will serve to freeze a like (similar skills and/or traits) purple and even at that 1/5, with similar stats to that purple, the proficiency is usually higher than a 4/4. over 80% of my purples are on ice now, and a scant few dozen remain from the last few months because the power creep has kept them useful to a minor extent.
Several of my 1/5s and 2/5s repeatedly end up on Voyages and Faction missions long before a purple goes in that respective slot.
Just sayin', do a little homework before you automatically dismiss a Gold to add to your 1/5 collection.
Just putting my numbers here as well:
5/5 - 22
4/5 - 4
3/5 - 2
2/5 - 18
1/5 - 73
Am also seating on 150k honors right now waiting for discounted mega pack.
Which brings me to my point: I think DB has been trying to help with this issue subtly.
1. The discounted mega packs. Can help adding stars to legendaries just earned and therefore not in time portal packs for a year or more.
2. Adding old legendaries at the 400k threshold for event returns. Another way to help.
3. Campaign: a great way to immortalize an existing 1/5 and getting an extra citation.
As these five pages of thread attest, a lot more should be done, but these above 3 tweaks are in the right direction.
As my active 4* crew keeps declining (only 12 4* crew are not yet immortalized), I've been thinking this situation will eventually become my reality too, since new crew are added much faster than crew slots. I also think crew slots are insanely overpriced, even when there is a sale, so I refuse to buy them on principle.
1/5: 65
2/5: 33
3/5: 13
4/5: 14
Total non-FF 5*: 125
Fun to look at how the last 3 months have changed the stats. I only wish I had included 5/5 back in July, as that number has definitely increased thanks to mega events and campaigns.
1/5: 65
2/5: 35 (+2)
3/5: 13
4/5: 17 (+3)
I also have several 1/5 crew waiting in my inbox (Mambo Picard, Survival Kirk, Cochrane), as well as an unclaimed 1/5 Davenport Janeway.
I am missing a total of 424 stars, which equates to 21.2 million honor!
I really need to be more decisive with my citations... I have nearly 650k honor saved up and 2 citations! I could cut my honor-debt down to just 410 stars or 20.5 million honor... lol
Should DB sell "old" packs at say 250 dilithium with increased odds for a gold? Lets say first year Legendaries @ a 25% drop? Maybe be an automatic drop for the 10 hour dilemma?
Comments
I’m a completist. I can not stand untied loose ends
I know this is off-topic, but I wish DB would make this so for the next Galaxy Map addition:
https://stt.wiki/wiki/Completionist's_Code
🖖
So are all whales just completists or are all completists whales? (insert philosoraptor emoji)
I'm glad you said that, because it does help me understand.
But I need you to understand that this thread (at least my interpretation of it, I have been wrong many times before!) seemed to be about players who used to enjoy the game not finding it fun anymore more, and as somebody who has found a formula to keep it fun and entertaining, I'm just trying to help.
Let us use a house as a metaphor for the STT experience. We all have a different house, they all have slightly different features, are different sizes, colors, etc, based on our experience and priorities. I took this thread to be, "Guys, I'm starting to get bored with my house and would like help to find my house exciting again."
It feels to me that this was done with the idea that all it would take to make the house fun again was something cosmetic like changing the wallpaper, possibly installing a new countertop in the kitchen, or replacing the carpet with hardwood floors, and I've been saying that the way to accomplish the goal is to rip the house down, redo the foundation, and then building it back one room at a time.
To compare STT to another game, I feel it has a LOT in common with Minecraft. People who have played a lot of games centered around the idea of doing quests and progressing through a story often find Minecraft incredibly boring because there really is no goal; it is is entirely self-guided. I feel STT is like that too, there really is no central goal or point to any of this, it is up to us as players to assign values to what we want our experience to be like, and then using the tools at our disposal to make steady progress in those areas.
To that end, it was hard to miss the main theme of this thread as it was written in the title that people are getting frustrated with having a seemingly endless swarm of 1/5 crew clogging up their crew slots with no hope of ever improving them and I have been trying to get people to realize that this is a symptom, not a disease.
You say you "play this game for fun and escape" and that is absolutely understandable and I am glad you know your personal motivations, but there is way for you to do exactly that and avoid this pitfall of the 1/5 trap, and I have been trying to get you and others to see that. Play the events for "fun and escape" but do not feel obligated or burdened with the 5* crew you win, give yourself permission to airlock 5* crew you do not enjoy and use that Honor to work on crew you DO enjoy. That one simple change will I admit is a very hard leap to make, but that is the key to this entire problem.
I haven’t airlocked a 5* yet, but that day doth approach. In fact, I might make Tora Ziyal (from the Seven-in-Purple pack) the first recipient of that dubious Honor. 🖖
P.S.: Marie Kondo’s t-shirt folding method is weird, but it does work (for me, anyway).
I just airlocked a Tora Ziyal 20 minutes ago! Felt awesome!
I will be glad if DB open more access to those very old legendary crews.
After I while I think it might be interesting to update our figures to see a direction where this is leading. Per today I have:
1/5 - 56 --> +70%
2/5 - 11 --> +120%
3/5 - 5 --> -17%
4/5 - 8 --> +100%
5/5 - 9 --> +350%
Overall 5* character count: +75%
Even though +350% 5/5s sounds great it is basically only due to the fact that I only had 2 when I counted first. Overall I find this development very problematic as the 2/5s are as useless as the 1/5s are.
And I would like to add that I have 146 x/4s wich are not FE, 37 of them are 4/4 but I lack the resources to FE them right away as I do for 19 of the 1/5s.
Real estate is an everlasting problem here.
I got monthly card, buy the campaign card, and occasionally DYC a good card or event card i worked hard on ... I try not to spend much DIl and save it up for Slot discounts ( at 400 now )
I'm probably not an average player , but i can keep up .
I Pick my event for where i push, galaxy & faction i find boring ... Skirmish i love currently, they provide a much needed option to power up cards and spend as much time on as you are willing to ... whereas Galaxy i find annoying grindy .
I guess i dont have the luxury problem of getting a bucket of new gold cards every month i have no time to level or dump....
4stars
1 2 WIP / 2 FE
2 0 WIP / 0 FE
3 3 WIP / 3 FE
4 6 WIP / 268 FE
Total 284
5stars
1 19 WIP / 65 FE
2 2 WIP / 31 FE
3 0 WIP / 12 FE
4 0 WIP / 4 FE
5 0 WIP / 28 FE
Total 161
1/5*: 78
2/5*: 16
3/5*: 2
4/5*: 10
5/5*: 15
5/5: 27
4/5: 8
3/5: 11
2/5: 28
1/5: 87
Note: This does include a few duplicates from gauntlet or from the campaigns. For example, I have a 5/5 Mirror Picard (from his mega event) and a 4/5 Mirror Picard (from the campaign).
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
5/5*: 48 (Tenavik is technically on a shuttle at 4/5* with his fifth star just sitting around because I am dumb, despite being counted here)
4/5*: 14 (campaign Spider Barclay is unleveled)
3/5*: 23 (Mugato is unleveled)
2/5*: 38 (11 of which are unleveled)
1/5*: 74 (27 of which are unleveled and one currently in process)
Despite not really changing my spending habits, the number of immortal crew I’ve been able to put together this year is astounding - I still have a separate worksheet with the last data dump I got out of IAP and there only 22 immortals, 3 4/5*s, 5 3/5*s, 21 2/5*s, and 54 1/5*s at the start of the year. I chalk a lot of it up to having saved so very many premium 10-packs, but campaigns and being more competitive in events have contributed as well. And the gauntlet should get a mention as well - I only have four duplicate 5* crew and Armus is one of them, thanks to the eight drops I’ve gotten.
4/5: 06
3/5: 15
2/5: 34
1/5: 65
So, I have Legendary cards in 150/250 crew slots, plus Kang & Smiley, which leaves 98 active Super Rares that I need to take a long, hard look at, come Monday after Mudd Amuck concludes. I am not overly concerned with FF'ing every card, though. YMMV
EDIT: From the new Datacore analysis sheet, breaking news ...
Estimated Completion
42 years 15 months 285 days
... whatever, y’all. 🖖
Mine is about 2.8 million pending the upcoming campaign cites, but that is ONLY for collections plus the last few that i want to star up because i actually like the crew...in some ways it's been more challenging to shoot for 1501-2000 than top 1500 in the last few events!
I don't think it's useful to calculate "honor debt". Rather, it's useful to think about how to utilize the limited honor/citations you have to maximum benefit. I'm fully resolved to the fact that at some point, probably in the next couple months, I'm going to have to airlock some mostly useless 1/5s. They served their function for the event in which I used them, and now they can go, just like a guest star on the show.
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
We need a more balanced honor system. More for airlocks or less for purchases.
Decrepit legendaries in voyages
Increase VIP levels. Coming up on 4 years now. The longer you have played, the more $ spent and/or more crew earned/bought/won.
Also to mention “loyalty rewards”.
An increase in VIP tiers or a new achievement reward for length of account. Instead of just getting an Avatar on your anniversary of playing.
For increased VIP tiers /or new achievement i suggest some combo of the following. Either by VIP tier or every 6 mo of active account.
More crew slots. 5 per tier or 3 every 6 mo.
Combination of all citations
Voyage tokens
To be mixed or applied however DB decides is fair.
Retro-active (of course) to all players once in place.
My numbers when I started this thread: 1/5* - 116 (+16, +16%)
2/5* - 33 (+6, +22%)
3/5* - 16 (+4, +33%)
4/5* - 5 (+1, +25%)
Total unfused 5* - 170 (+27, +19%)
Unfused 5* immortalized since original post - 2 (Was 15, plus 2 new 5/5* from 2 megas, now 19, +27%)
Since those 2 that got fused up to 5/5* and the 2 new mega 5*s are still currently out of the freezer, that's a total of increase of 31 5* on the roster over the course of 3 months. Of course, this time includes the Portal Update, which resulted in a number of additional 5*s for me due to saved up packs.
Airlocking Gold crew for honor is just not a fair trade.
Or increase the honor amount for airlocking from 500 to 5000.
it has been my experience that NOT ALL 1/5* are useless as most of you claim! I have a lot of them, yes, but I have also chosen ones in begolds that will serve to freeze a like (similar skills and/or traits) purple and even at that 1/5, with similar stats to that purple, the proficiency is usually higher than a 4/4. over 80% of my purples are on ice now, and a scant few dozen remain from the last few months because the power creep has kept them useful to a minor extent.
Several of my 1/5s and 2/5s repeatedly end up on Voyages and Faction missions long before a purple goes in that respective slot.
Just sayin', do a little homework before you automatically dismiss a Gold to add to your 1/5 collection.
5/5 - 22
4/5 - 4
3/5 - 2
2/5 - 18
1/5 - 73
Am also seating on 150k honors right now waiting for discounted mega pack.
Which brings me to my point: I think DB has been trying to help with this issue subtly.
1. The discounted mega packs. Can help adding stars to legendaries just earned and therefore not in time portal packs for a year or more.
2. Adding old legendaries at the 400k threshold for event returns. Another way to help.
3. Campaign: a great way to immortalize an existing 1/5 and getting an extra citation.
As these five pages of thread attest, a lot more should be done, but these above 3 tweaks are in the right direction.
Fun to look at how the last 3 months have changed the stats. I only wish I had included 5/5 back in July, as that number has definitely increased thanks to mega events and campaigns.
1/5: 65
2/5: 35 (+2)
3/5: 13
4/5: 17 (+3)
I also have several 1/5 crew waiting in my inbox (Mambo Picard, Survival Kirk, Cochrane), as well as an unclaimed 1/5 Davenport Janeway.
I am missing a total of 424 stars, which equates to 21.2 million honor!
I really need to be more decisive with my citations... I have nearly 650k honor saved up and 2 citations! I could cut my honor-debt down to just 410 stars or 20.5 million honor... lol
5/5 - 89
4/5 - 0
3/5 - 0
2/5 - 0
1/5 - 0
“Honor debt” - 0