Update on game progress updates and changes

Jason KSS

Hey @Shan, I've been talking to a few whales and we are hoping to get an update on some stuff. I (and a few other whales) are worried about the lack of new content. Grante, you mentioned that Picard's new show will be rolled in.

We were hoping for more info on the Gauntlet, Collections, Honor Hall, Portal Updates, and the announced QoL updates.

Gauntlet - while nothing has been promised, we're hoping that you can get the developers feedback on whether or not there are tweaks coming to the way the game is played. This game mode is easily the most frustrating aspect of the game and has caused me to question if I want to keep playing the game. Going up against 5 caretakers, 5 armus, etc... is pretty boring, and the critical hits are clearly weighed more against the attacker (from my data that I have recorded my 25% crit chances hit at around 8% of the time, while opponents hit at 37%. This is with 2,200 recorded rounds). If there are planned changes, I can totally see past the lack of updates to the game recently.

Collections - In a survey I spread around my old fleet, 61% of players that answered the survey said that they buy packs to fill out their collections. I'm one of those players and I'm starting to run out of people to collect (more on that later). I think that existing collections to need to have additional tiers (eg: To Boldly Go has a max of 25 FF/FE with 74 characters that you can choose from to FF/FE). There are also a lot of interesting and innovative things you can do with new collections, both rewards wise, and collection wise. Things like a Klingon Collection, a Mirror Universe Collection, and "Out of time/Time Travellers" are low hanging fruit and give additional value to crew who just get spaced (which there are a lot of in the SR rarity).

Honor Hall - What is the long term goals for this? Is there an intention to add more crew? Can we expect Kahless and Captain Beverly to remain there permanently? Has the team looked at reworking the value amounts of some of the items?

Portal Updates - When can we expect the next Portal Update? 3 whales part of my friend group have said that they are no longer buying packs until the portal updates, and I think I'm about there. There are quite a few cards that I want, and am willing to spend Dil on, but they just aren't there. Also, has there been discussion on having a schedule put in place for portal updates? Something like every quarter seems reasonable.

QoL update? - What is the time table for this to be implemented?

I know that there are a few of these that are pretty loaded. We would really appreciate an update

Thank you for being a positive force on the forums, Shan.

Jhamel

The next purrtal update is purrbly gunna be in August, because the last yearly update has been in August as well. That's why I'm now - from today on (opened last 10k special BeGold today) - saving all Blue+ Quality purrtals up to August for the update.

As for the collections, a new "Super Rare Crew", "Legendary Crew", "It Is a Good Day To Die", "Year Of Hell", "Long Live The Dominion" and "Hollow Pursuits" as well as exentions of the Vulcan, Physician, Cardassian, Spit Wire, etc. collections would be very welcome.

The Gauntlet needs to be split up like the Arena already looks like. Three divisions (up to blue, purrple only, gold only) that reset every 3 hours (to be in line with shuttles and scans).

Voyages also need a change, so the Dilemmas would occur every 90 minutes or 3 hours, also to be in line with shuttles and scans (and gauntlet in that case). If it would occur every 3 hours only, the rewards would have to be increased by 1.5 to 2 times for each dilemma accordingly. If every 90 minutes, it would be fair to leave the rewards untouched.

Purrtal updates should get fixed dates and occur twice a year guaranteed, preferably at the beginning of Convergence Week (Jan 14th) and July 4th (US national holiday).

As for the Honor Hall, there should be one new legendary character every year, same for the Gauntlet. There are still plenty of worthy candidates available as well as new possibilities in the STP show coming up.

Jenos Idanian

=j= Donatra wrote: »

The Gauntlet needs to be split up like the Arena already looks like. Three divisions (up to blue, purrple only, gold only) that reset every 3 hours (to be in line with shuttles and scans).

I like this idea. Though I would need to keep more rares and super rares unfrozen. Then... more revenue for DB cause you have to buy slots if you want to play the lower division gauntlets.

Exanimus

I'm not disagreeing with the ideas. I'm only pointing out the way things are is often that way for a reason.

Here could potentially be a large problem with organizing the game so everything can be done at the same time. That issue is server traffic. But constructing play so that people play more often for shorter periods there is less of a chance everyone will be stressing the servers all at once for a long time. For some reason the game crashed today. By coincidence, it also went down after the end of the honor sale. A lot of people probably logged in at the last minute to buy beholds, and they were also likely all training, citing, and warping for items during the hour after when it crashed. It's irritating for players, but the offset timing helps spread out activity and results in shorter times.

I can back up the OPs math on gauntlet results. From the results I've recorded the game's posted chances for critical do not reflect the results. What my analysis of the data suggests is that the chance to crit is modified against the player behind the screen based on their running win total. When I have a running total of zero or one the posted chance to crit is more accurately reflected.

I think the game would benefit less from making play more convenient, and more from widening the focus of character abilities to affect play.

All the abilities we get are directed at ship battles. It's a huge aspect of the game, but it's been focused on so long that the differences between the abilities are becoming so slight. A sesond plus or minus charge time. A little extra damage. Very minor, and for the most part seem steady increases to ensure the new cards are relevant.

What we need is an overhaul of the shuttle mission system to make who is on the shuttles more interesting. If a character has a Cardassian trait, he should give a small boost to success. May even have a penalty of the crew is bajoran. This would make crew viewed as crappy because their Arena, Gauntlet, and Voyage numbers fall short have a value beyond their skill stats. It would expand the usefulness of traits. Certain characters with traits like Trader might make a small modification to the end results. For example, if you have a trader the game might increase the rarity value of a single item by a single star at random. Of maybe someone with a Trader skill could have an ability that activates a sort of Item based behold. Like say you have the 1* Quark with the ability of 1% Item Behold. When it activates during the end of mission there is a behold selection of three items of 1* rarity. This would hugely increase the strategy of the game and make weak battle characters have some value beyond collections.

Similar to expanding the shuttle's, I there there is room to add abilities that affect Voyages without changing much of what already exists. Have the ship you use affect rewards. Starfleet ships might more often pick up Starfleet crew (small modifier nothing huge). Flying a Klingon ship might result in picking up a couple Klingon faction items. Add a couple dilemmas that can only be accessed by smaller ships on short voyages. If a character has a Jury Rigger trait (and is placed in the engineering section) maybe the Hazard loss is reduced by 1 for every star fused to it. Maybe a Ferangi with Rich trait in the Diplomatic section increases federation credit drops by 1% for every star fused. Maybe a trait mods chroniton drops. Maybe some one with a Romantic matched trait influences the type of crew you find. A Lwaxana might influence the drop table infavour of male crew. It would massively add to the statagy of play. Small chances that give value to characters beyond battle.

Leonardo_DBid

=j= Donatra wrote: »

As for the collections, a new "Super Rare Crew", "Legendary Crew", "It Is a Good Day To Die", "Year Of Hell", "Long Live The Dominion" and "Hollow Pursuits" as well as exentions of the Vulcan, Physician, Cardassian, Spit Wire, etc. collections would be very welcome.

Agreed. Sometimes I don't know if a collection exist for a crew member or not, so I need to check which can sometimes be boring.

Which reminds me about something else. The game doesn't detect a duplicate once it's frozen in the vault and I think most people would appreciate if the game could detect a frozen crew member as a duplicate.

Furthermore, I also think that changing the text for duplicates from "Fusible" to "Duplicate" would be beneficial for any player. Especially for veteran players and perhaps for average players too.

=j= Donatra wrote: »

The Gauntlet needs to be split up like the Arena already looks like. Three divisions (up to blue, purrple only, gold only) that reset every 3 hours (to be in line with shuttles and scans).

I like the idea and I wonder why haven't DB changed that before.

Perhaps add another division and that's for immortalized crew only.


I wish DB could add something in the gauntlet to prevent this from happening.

=j= Donatra wrote: »

Voyages also need a change, so the Dilemmas would occur every 90 minutes or 3 hours, also to be in line with shuttles and scans (and gauntlet in that case). If it would occur every 3 hours only, the rewards would have to be increased by 1.5 to 2 times for each dilemma accordingly. If every 90 minutes, it would be fair to leave the rewards untouched.

I disagree. I think letting a dilemma occur more often than it does today and that could be something like this.

30 min - Dilemma Part 1 of 3
60 min - Dilemma Part 2 of 3
90 min - Dilemma Part 3 of 3
2 hours - Dilemma Result of previous dilemmas

Jhamel

30 minutes is too short, for sure. 2 hours is just not really fitting with any other cooldowns. Maybe the standard shuttle and scan cooldown could be reduced to 2 instead of 3 hours instead to be in line with dilemmas though, since the stuff you get out of a normal shuttle or a single scan isn't that much.

Gib - Admiral Mariners

Or change the dilemmas to 3 hours. When I am not working I set a timer based on shuttles, not dilemmas.

Jhamel

If the dilemmas were every 3 hours, the chance to ever get any of the voyage crew (especially the 3 part dilemma ones) would be drastically reduced to almeowst eliminated.