You know what workplaces, governments and in this case, mobile game companies do to divert your attention from glaring issues? they throw "free" stuff at you and hope you don't notice the garbage stinking up the joint.
Are 4/5's good? sure. Is it worth the inane grind of poor mega after poor mega every other month? Not to me.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
Yes. I have better uses of my time. YMMV
"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
Let's compile the major complaints about megas over the past 2-3 years that I've heard on a repeated basis:
The recurring character was terrible. I'd never cite them.
We were told we're getting one type of story, only to get something different (Romulan/Dominion mega? April Picard mega?
It was a "MEH-ga"
The story narrative stinks
There were TWO faction events in ONE mega!
We're getting horrible characters as the weekly golds
Yet people want MORE of these megas?
Mega events used to be something people got excited about because they were interesting. I can't describe how much people looked forward to the very first mega event, the Borg mega. It was something new and different and well thought out.
Now things are just routine, they're ordinary, they're poorly planned and results are extremely lackluster.
How many mega events in the past year were genuinely good? Maybe the ToS Mega in December, from top to bottom was a solid event. Almost every other mega event had major gripes.
I'd gladly take 3-4 megas a year, not 6, if that meant more thought could be put into them and new, fresh ideas could come into fruition and be implemented in these events.
Make MEGA events MEGA again.
It sounds like what you ultimately want is to relive that "Process of Assimilation" buzz all over again. The tease was electrifying, no doubt, as was the introduction of the Borg Queen and the concept of the recurring legendary. There was even an animated trailer for the thing! But you've romanticized it if you hold that up as the gold standard. Contemporaneous complaints abounded, including but not limited to:
Feeling misled by the rollout that it would give us a new event format altogether, which it didn't.
The redundancy of item recipes forced even players with well stocked inventories to have to farm for Polyalloys.
The first week didn't even introduce any new 4* crew. Drone Seven of Nine (added the previous October) was in the thresholds and Mirror Phlox (there at launch) was in the rank table.
Week 3a: Seven in Blue was in the thresholds for weeks 2 and 3, an egregious waste.
Week 3b: The rank reward 3* was Hugh, who was also that month's free daily reward crew and the redundancy was insulting.
Week 3c: Violating sacrosanct canon by introducing 5* Assimilated La Forge was a travesty, and several players made sure to let us know they would be airlocking him on sight and for DB to never do such a thing ever again.
Ending with a Faction/Expedition hybrid that was reflexively bashed, and Janeway saving the day inaugurated an entire trope complained about to this day.
Take away nostalgia for the rollout and "The Process of Assimilation" gets, if I understand your rubric, at best a C.
You know what workplaces, governments and in this case, mobile game companies do to divert your attention from glaring issues? they throw "free" stuff at you and hope you don't notice the garbage stinking up the joint.
Are 4/5's good? sure. Is it worth the inane grind of poor mega after poor mega every other month? Not to me.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
Yes. I have better uses of my time. YMMV
I mean, that’s like what, 10 minutes a week? I understand some people can’t commit to that, but I would certainly guess MOST people playing the game can.
I took a while to vote because I couldn’t decide. I’m fine with the current schedule but I wouldn’t hate it if we got more. @[RotP]Ran Airen brought up a good point about unfreezing crew for megas vs regular events. Not that that’s a huge deal for me personally, but I agree that it’s nice. I definitely don’t want LESS mega events, but I also agree that they haven’t seemed all that “mega” for quite a while. It seems like most things in this game. They introduce something new and then (almost) never update it. I don’t expect big new features to pop out like clockwork (or even ever at this point in the game), but minor tweaks to improve existing aspects of the game would sure be nice if they happened from time to time. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about quality vs. quantity. I’m not sure they’re related. I’m not convinced that fewer megas would mean “better” megas. I’d rather have 6 mediocre megas a year than 3 mediocre megas a year.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
You misunderstood the context of what I was saying. I'm saying it's tragic to get a poorly constructed mega event every other month, versus spacing them out more and putting better effort, thought and cohesion into them, resulting in a BETTER product.
Contemporaneous complaints abounded, including but not limited to:
Feeling misled by the rollout that it would give us a new event format altogether, which it didn't.
The redundancy of item recipes forced even players with well stocked inventories to have to farm for Polyalloys.
The first week didn't even introduce any new 4* crew. Drone Seven of Nine (added the previous October) was in the thresholds and Mirror Phlox (there at launch) was in the rank table.
Week 3a: Seven in Blue was in the thresholds for weeks 2 and 3, an egregious waste.
Week 3b: The rank reward 3* was Hugh, who was also that month's free daily reward crew and the redundancy was insulting.
Week 3c: Violating sacrosanct canon by introducing 5* Assimilated La Forge was a travesty, and several players made sure to let us know they would be airlocking him on sight and for DB to never do such a thing ever again.
Ending with a Faction/Expedition hybrid that was reflexively bashed, and Janeway saving the day inaugurated an entire trope complained about to this day.
If that's your list of complaints ... just wow. I can't even...
Let's not forget, Assimilated La Forge is one of best characters to date. He was a gauntlet staple for a long time, before The CareTaker rolled around. In addition, ending with an Expedition was fantastic (speaking as someone who loves expedition events)
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
You misunderstood the context of what I was saying. I'm saying it's tragic to get a poorly constructed mega event every other month, versus spacing them out more and putting better effort, thought and cohesion into them, resulting in a BETTER product.
What boggles the mind for me is the support for re-runs of mega events. They’re not all going to be like the Borg, TOS, or Survivalist mega’s where the stories were good and crew were great. Re-runs mean we get another Minuet, Thrax, or T’Kuvma too...as helpful as they may have been for newer players during their initial runs, new crew with new stories can do exactly the same thing while not giving TP/WRG the opportunity to start mailing it in for nearly two months at a time (including the usual Flashback/Re-Run events before and after megas).
And really how much engagement should we expect from veterans in a full month-long re-run? There might be a few recurring legendaries worth doubling up on (I wouldn’t, but my crew is pretty deep right now) and there are certainly some featured event 5* crew worth going for, but I really wonder how many would threshold-and-out all month long...or how many would save their resources and skip the month entirely. If I were TP, I wouldn’t want to play the game of Complacency Chicken that is sure to result from players being bored for an entire month.
Fair point. What if they just started doing reruns of individual weeks from a mega?
That would probably be doable. It might be jarring to have just part of the story popping up but perhaps there could be a little effort put into smoothing those rough edges over with some additional dialogue.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
You misunderstood the context of what I was saying. I'm saying it's tragic to get a poorly constructed mega event every other month, versus spacing them out more and putting better effort, thought and cohesion into them, resulting in a BETTER product.
Contemporaneous complaints abounded, including but not limited to:
Feeling misled by the rollout that it would give us a new event format altogether, which it didn't.
The redundancy of item recipes forced even players with well stocked inventories to have to farm for Polyalloys.
The first week didn't even introduce any new 4* crew. Drone Seven of Nine (added the previous October) was in the thresholds and Mirror Phlox (there at launch) was in the rank table.
Week 3a: Seven in Blue was in the thresholds for weeks 2 and 3, an egregious waste.
Week 3b: The rank reward 3* was Hugh, who was also that month's free daily reward crew and the redundancy was insulting.
Week 3c: Violating sacrosanct canon by introducing 5* Assimilated La Forge was a travesty, and several players made sure to let us know they would be airlocking him on sight and for DB to never do such a thing ever again.
Ending with a Faction/Expedition hybrid that was reflexively bashed, and Janeway saving the day inaugurated an entire trope complained about to this day.
If that's your list of complaints ... just wow. I can't even...
Let's not forget, Assimilated La Forge is one of best characters to date. He was a gauntlet staple for a long time, before The CareTaker rolled around. In addition, ending with an Expedition was fantastic (speaking as someone who loves expedition events)
To be clear, those weren't my complaints, except the crafting fatigue, which was just about universal. I vaguely recall some players saying they weren't even keeping Icheb or Riley Frazier in weeks 3 and 4 just because of burnout. This was more just an overview of what I remember, presented with a bit of the hyperbolic flavor with which they were expressed. My point being, we're not monolithic, so no one's subjective assessment should be construed as an objective, authoritative ruling. Even deferring to a general consensus of views expressed on the forum is going to undermine a lot of judgments, including even the extent to which "The Process of Assimilation" was impeccable.
You know what workplaces, governments and in this case, mobile game companies do to divert your attention from glaring issues? they throw "free" stuff at you and hope you don't notice the garbage stinking up the joint.
Are 4/5's good? sure. Is it worth the inane grind of poor mega after poor mega every other month? Not to me.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
Yes. I have better uses of my time. YMMV
I mean, that’s like what, 10 minutes a week? I understand some people can’t commit to that, but I would certainly guess MOST people playing the game can.
What part of “Your Mileage May Vary” did you not understand?
"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
What boggles the mind for me is the support for re-runs of mega events. They’re not all going to be like the Borg, TOS, or Survivalist mega’s where the stories were good and crew were great. Re-runs mean we get another Minuet, Thrax, or T’Kuvma too..
Well sure ... but the reason I personally put reruns forward was not so much for the mega-event 5* ... only T'Kuvma sits at 4/5, the rest are immortal on my crew ... all mega 5*s would be converted to a good chunk of Honor by me ... but the other 5*s that came with the events, per your example:
Minuet - Tuxedo Nog (yes please), Gloria, Data V (yes please), Musketeer Picard (sure, why not)
Thrax - Krenim Guest Paris (yes please), Rura Penthe Commandant (yes please), Gladiator Spock (yup), Conditioned La Forge (yes please)
T'Kuvma - Dress Uniform Scotty (meh, but sure), Away Team Saru, Suus Mahna Sarek (yes please), Lissan (uh, nah).
I've highlighted the crew I own ... (for me the only poor mega re-run would be T'Kuvma, even when checking all the others you didn't mention).
Those 12 crew will never come up in an event re-run if the current schedule is kept, and while some are not great anymore that is mainly down to them being older crew ... adding a last star through an event (e.g. SM Sarek) would be pretty neat compared to having to rely on chance to have him come up in a behold.
Furthermore, as the current set of 5*s have shown in this mega ... they're about on par with adding a star to an older crew. I mean, the Thrax mega would mean solid additions to my crew, probably better game-wise than the 4 we've obtained this mega:
- Paris vs Nhan
- Commandant vs the Romulan
- Spock vs Saru
- La Forge vs Hugh - though we don't know Hugh yet, that La Forge is pretty decent.
You know what workplaces, governments and in this case, mobile game companies do to divert your attention from glaring issues? they throw "free" stuff at you and hope you don't notice the garbage stinking up the joint.
Are 4/5's good? sure. Is it worth the inane grind of poor mega after poor mega every other month? Not to me.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
Yes. I have better uses of my time. YMMV
I mean, that’s like what, 10 minutes a week? I understand some people can’t commit to that, but I would certainly guess MOST people playing the game can.
What part of “Your Mileage May Vary” did you not understand?
I guess it’s the part where you have time to come to the forums and read about a game that you can’t find 10 minutes to play during events. But hey, it’s cool. I’m fine with the mystery.
You know what workplaces, governments and in this case, mobile game companies do to divert your attention from glaring issues? they throw "free" stuff at you and hope you don't notice the garbage stinking up the joint.
Are 4/5's good? sure. Is it worth the inane grind of poor mega after poor mega every other month? Not to me.
Is it really that bad to play to 25k vp each event?
No but it is inane, when it becomes inane it becomes forgettable. When it becomes forgettable it becomes abandoned.
Not only that but would it make TP any money.... magic 8 ball says outlook not so good.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
No but it is inane, when it becomes inane it becomes forgettable. When it becomes forgettable it becomes abandoned.
And this is why i can't remember most megas because they were wholly uninteresting. Like i said before, two megas stand out to me. The original, and the ToS one.
Travis ... i get it. It wasn't w/o flaws (minor ones, at worst), but it was ORIGINAL. And most of the characters were great. (Queen, La forge, Janeway).
Mega events should revolve around major foes, or major storylines. The Q event came real close to this, as it directly pertained to the core issue of Timelines itself. It had potential, but opportunities were squandered given a poor pool of characters to choose from as legendary cards. We were left with some fringe gold characters that few care about , poor statistics and will see little future use. (Colonel Q, Q2)
Sometimes, less is simply more
Imagine Timelines where we had 2-3 megas a year, where the story was worth reading instead of skipping over entirely, where the recurring gold was fantastic, every gold character was worth its own weight in gold, discount packs made sense, LTO's were excellent variants, the bonus pool wasn't some ridiculously large conglomerate of traits, and the characters carried over from week to week as useful characters, building upon itself as each week went.
would that not be worth a few less crappy megas a year?
First, awesome use of bullet points in this thread!
Shifting gears, I think the only way I'd be down for a rerun of a mega is if the 25K reward table slot usually reserved for the recurring character was instead a 5* notation, or "some kind of" voucher people could use to either get a copy of the recurring legend or exchange it for a 5* citation.
I've always said fewer events would be better and that certainly goes for mega events. 1 would be preferred, 2 would be acceptable. I enjoy the 6 5/5 golds per year (cause lets face it, I always cite), but not enough to want that many mega events. My ideal schedule follows.
2 new events per month
1 true rerun event (no new crew, and the gold in the threshold)
1 week off
Throw in 2 of those mini events per month (one can be on the off week)
Bring back full expeditions for Q's sake
Rotate all the event styles evenly with no hybrids, those are the worst.
1 mega event per year.
Simply put, events should be events. If they happen all of the time then it's just normal game play not an event. Mega events should be Mega, like 28 full days of an event, should include every style of event, no break in between, and 1 per year. Having 6 per year makes it seem less mega and more normal. There is just as much time spent on mega events as normal events.
My humble 2 strips of latinum.
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PM for details.
Mega events should revolve around major foes, or major story lines. The Q event came real close to this, as it directly pertained to the core issue of Timelines itself. It had potential, but opportunities were squandered given a poor pool of characters to choose from as legendary cards. We were left with some fringe gold characters that few care about , poor statistics and will see little future use. (Colonel Q, Q2)
This. My thirst thought that sprang to mind was grouping similar minded episodes together from say TOS, for example:
Dagger of the Mind
The Conscience of the King
Whom Gods Destroy
and even Turnabout Intruder and Wolf in the Fold.
Now some characters are existing in the game, but look at the source material and potential for a great story line mash up with the characters that aren't.
But then you can go further by looking at other series that fit the bill eg a couple of episodes from voyager with Lon Suder and Dejaren yes they are in the game as well but hey at least they have choice for rotating the existing and fitting purples as bonus crew, and there are plenty of other examples like the framing of Tom Paris for murder episode etc.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
Comments
Yes. I have better uses of my time. YMMV
It sounds like what you ultimately want is to relive that "Process of Assimilation" buzz all over again. The tease was electrifying, no doubt, as was the introduction of the Borg Queen and the concept of the recurring legendary. There was even an animated trailer for the thing! But you've romanticized it if you hold that up as the gold standard. Contemporaneous complaints abounded, including but not limited to:
Take away nostalgia for the rollout and "The Process of Assimilation" gets, if I understand your rubric, at best a C.
I mean, that’s like what, 10 minutes a week? I understand some people can’t commit to that, but I would certainly guess MOST people playing the game can.
You misunderstood the context of what I was saying. I'm saying it's tragic to get a poorly constructed mega event every other month, versus spacing them out more and putting better effort, thought and cohesion into them, resulting in a BETTER product.
If that's your list of complaints ... just wow. I can't even...
Let's not forget, Assimilated La Forge is one of best characters to date. He was a gauntlet staple for a long time, before The CareTaker rolled around. In addition, ending with an Expedition was fantastic (speaking as someone who loves expedition events)
Second Star to the Right - Join Today!
Gotcha. Sorry for the confusion.
That would probably be doable. It might be jarring to have just part of the story popping up but perhaps there could be a little effort put into smoothing those rough edges over with some additional dialogue.
To be clear, those weren't my complaints, except the crafting fatigue, which was just about universal. I vaguely recall some players saying they weren't even keeping Icheb or Riley Frazier in weeks 3 and 4 just because of burnout. This was more just an overview of what I remember, presented with a bit of the hyperbolic flavor with which they were expressed. My point being, we're not monolithic, so no one's subjective assessment should be construed as an objective, authoritative ruling. Even deferring to a general consensus of views expressed on the forum is going to undermine a lot of judgments, including even the extent to which "The Process of Assimilation" was impeccable.
What part of “Your Mileage May Vary” did you not understand?
Well sure ... but the reason I personally put reruns forward was not so much for the mega-event 5* ... only T'Kuvma sits at 4/5, the rest are immortal on my crew ... all mega 5*s would be converted to a good chunk of Honor by me ... but the other 5*s that came with the events, per your example:
I've highlighted the crew I own ... (for me the only poor mega re-run would be T'Kuvma, even when checking all the others you didn't mention).
Those 12 crew will never come up in an event re-run if the current schedule is kept, and while some are not great anymore that is mainly down to them being older crew ... adding a last star through an event (e.g. SM Sarek) would be pretty neat compared to having to rely on chance to have him come up in a behold.
Furthermore, as the current set of 5*s have shown in this mega ... they're about on par with adding a star to an older crew. I mean, the Thrax mega would mean solid additions to my crew, probably better game-wise than the 4 we've obtained this mega:
- Paris vs Nhan
- Commandant vs the Romulan
- Spock vs Saru
- La Forge vs Hugh - though we don't know Hugh yet, that La Forge is pretty decent.
I guess it’s the part where you have time to come to the forums and read about a game that you can’t find 10 minutes to play during events. But hey, it’s cool. I’m fine with the mystery.
No but it is inane, when it becomes inane it becomes forgettable. When it becomes forgettable it becomes abandoned.
Not only that but would it make TP any money.... magic 8 ball says outlook not so good.
And this is why i can't remember most megas because they were wholly uninteresting. Like i said before, two megas stand out to me. The original, and the ToS one.
Travis ... i get it. It wasn't w/o flaws (minor ones, at worst), but it was ORIGINAL. And most of the characters were great. (Queen, La forge, Janeway).
Mega events should revolve around major foes, or major storylines. The Q event came real close to this, as it directly pertained to the core issue of Timelines itself. It had potential, but opportunities were squandered given a poor pool of characters to choose from as legendary cards. We were left with some fringe gold characters that few care about , poor statistics and will see little future use. (Colonel Q, Q2)
Sometimes, less is simply more
Imagine Timelines where we had 2-3 megas a year, where the story was worth reading instead of skipping over entirely, where the recurring gold was fantastic, every gold character was worth its own weight in gold, discount packs made sense, LTO's were excellent variants, the bonus pool wasn't some ridiculously large conglomerate of traits, and the characters carried over from week to week as useful characters, building upon itself as each week went.
would that not be worth a few less crappy megas a year?
Second Star to the Right - Join Today!
Shifting gears, I think the only way I'd be down for a rerun of a mega is if the 25K reward table slot usually reserved for the recurring character was instead a 5* notation, or "some kind of" voucher people could use to either get a copy of the recurring legend or exchange it for a 5* citation.
2 new events per month
1 true rerun event (no new crew, and the gold in the threshold)
1 week off
Throw in 2 of those mini events per month (one can be on the off week)
Bring back full expeditions for Q's sake
Rotate all the event styles evenly with no hybrids, those are the worst.
1 mega event per year.
Simply put, events should be events. If they happen all of the time then it's just normal game play not an event. Mega events should be Mega, like 28 full days of an event, should include every style of event, no break in between, and 1 per year. Having 6 per year makes it seem less mega and more normal. There is just as much time spent on mega events as normal events.
My humble 2 strips of latinum.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
This. My thirst thought that sprang to mind was grouping similar minded episodes together from say TOS, for example:
Now some characters are existing in the game, but look at the source material and potential for a great story line mash up with the characters that aren't.
But then you can go further by looking at other series that fit the bill eg a couple of episodes from voyager with Lon Suder and Dejaren yes they are in the game as well but hey at least they have choice for rotating the existing and fitting purples as bonus crew, and there are plenty of other examples like the framing of Tom Paris for murder episode etc.