More honour piggy banks for the ivory towers after 10 hours, no surprise. Have to make sure they are the only ones with access. Pathetic
They would also be available to f2p who get revival tokens from threshold rewards and the recent "In this together" freebies. Your hostility is both unjustified and tiresome.
How old are the majority of your golds? If they are in the last 3 years, then the odds of adding a star would go up, statistically, if golds that you do not have are removed from the pool.
Yeah, I'll give you that one. Although I'm not willing to sift through all of my gold's to discover how many are pre-2018, I'm certain that I have more pre-2018 gold's in my "unowned" pile...
So I accept your argument
Fleet Admiral of NCC UK Midlands."Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." - J.T. Kirk, 2266
How old are the majority of your golds? If they are in the last 3 years, then the odds of adding a star would go up, statistically, if golds that you do not have are removed from the pool.
Yeah, I'll give you that one. Although I'm not willing to sift through all of my gold's to discover how many are pre-2018, I'm certain that I have more pre-2018 gold's in my "unowned" pile...
So I accept your argument
I can tell you that the lion's share of mine are less than 2 years old because that's when I could start ranking in events. If you're like me, then we might stand to gain from this proposal. And I tend to think that it would help newer players by that logic. I could be wrong, of course. It just seems the likely outcome, imo.
To be fair... My main aim has always been to complete the purple collection, and I have only 10 left in the portal to get (+62 to add stars to, and +15 of the most recent pack-only purples which haven't made it into the portal yet).
Gold crew is not really my main focus!
Fleet Admiral of NCC UK Midlands."Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." - J.T. Kirk, 2266
I like adding them to Voyage drops - not because they are useless, but because there are too many golds and not enough ways to get them.
To address stat creep, I also like the idea of a respec to make them more usable today. This game is BADLY in need of a stat rebalancing on cards older than a year...
CABTools.app
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
The question/suggestion put forward is too extreme ... there are a lot more elegant solutions to the "issue" that people think that older 5* cards are poor.
The examples always seen are "worst-case scenario" crew ... e.g. above: Rozhenkos are actually "new crew" (late 2018), Tosk is from mid-2018 ...
There are plenty of first-year (say up till end 2017) crew that are pretty decent ... for each poor crew someone mentions here I can list good to excellent crew ...
So, what do you mean by "old" crew? Just crew who are considered poor? Crew prior to 2018? ... but then you can still pull poor crew (Mirror Landry, the above two crew, Diversion Yates etc.) from your portal pulls.
1. Should they be added to voyages? Yes, that is a good idea that has been put forward many times here.
2. Removed from the portal? No.
Elegant solutions are:
- Splitting the portal into various "ages" - e.g. behold pulls from a select year - this has already been implemented a bit through the newer birthday pulls.
- adding 1 * of older crew to relevant events at the end of thresholds.
- etc.
Those 'worst-case scenarios' happen regularly as my roster of unlevelled 1* Legendaries can attest. There is a lot of junk in the portal these days.
My definition of junk is a character that does something weaker than 2 or 3 other available characters. I do consider bridge crew junk if they are weak even if they theoretically have more event usage than normal. Another way to think about junk characters is 'Would I cite this character?' If the answer is no, they are junk because a 1/5 is thrash and your odds of getting additional stars without citing them is low and getting ever lower the more they add to the premium packs.
By your standards, Linnis Paris would never even be added to the portal ... she's not even out yet.
That you personally don't value specific crew doesn't mean they should be removed from the portal ...
You could:
a) not pick them in a behold;
b) airlock them for 550 Honor ... Piñata style.
Dismissing crew because they are not top 2 in what they do is not reasonable ... there are so many new crew that fit the category ... e.g. the new Kira (she's not top 2 in anything) ... that they would never see the light of a portal pack.
You're just asking for packs to only include the "best" (as per your standards) 50 crew in the game ... why even create new cards then?
I am not suggesting removing all bad crew, I am suggesting removing older crew. And I am suggesting that almost all of older crew are junk. New crew like Linnus and Kay have 3x bonus event use and therefore you might invest in them to that end, and that's entirely reasonable. But there are a good 50 or more legendary older crew that genuinely have almost no actual gameplay value anymore.
And I accept that removing older crew won't magically make all behold options great choices, but it will improve the odds of that being the case.
I don't proactively Pinata, but they are certainly on the chopping block should the need arise. I can accept 10 to 1 odds of getting something decent out of a premium pack, but these days it's more like 50 to 1. Most beholds are filled with immortalised, mediocre or downright awful choices. And again, I don't want them to be unavailable, I just want them in a cheaper pack where the cost is commensurate with their gameplay value.
Here are a few pre-2018 crew I still use on a near-daily/regular basis just to balance those worst-case scenarios:
- Honey Bare Jadzia - get lots of event use and some voyage use.
- Falcon O'Brien - second-highest SEC in the game ... so yeah, he's on a shuttle every 3 hrs.
- Temporal Prisoner Chakotay - fairly unique skill combo for voyages
- Mirror Jean-Luc Picard - voyages
- RAF O'Brien - voyages
- The Keeper - voyages
- Assimilated La Forge - voyages
- Admiral Janeway - Arena
- Leo Da Vinci - voyages
EDIT: Mobile Doc - forgot about him ... you are leaving those without Indulgent Seven (i.e. me) down to the complete random chance of him dropping in a voyage ... I have a higher chance of him dropping in a portal pack ...
As for improving the odds ... of the more recently issued event crew we find such wonders as:
- Bridal Keiko
- Displaced G. Burnham
- Linnis Paris
- Elnor
- EV Suit Nhan
- Mirror Kyle Detmer
Look, I'm not saying there aren't bad cards out there from back then ... but I don't think they should be removed from the pool ... as a player we just have to deal with a poor behold, that's part of it. We're gonna get 'em no matter what ... I mean my two Merit 5*s have been Bell Riots Jadzia and Kai Opaka ... would I have preferred a Gary Seven or Tactical Officer Neelix instead? Hell yeah, but ah well.
Should we have other ways to add stars to those poor crew and make them useful? Yes, by all means.
I've always liked the idea of the chains giving voyage exclusive purples and wouldn't want to mess with that, but why not make the dilemmas that guarantee a purple (like the evacuate the station or let it crash one, or the terraforming one) have a chance at dropping a gold the same way the premium packs do? Make it the same 10%, make it less, who cares, but those dilemmas in my opinion should have that gold chance
I know for me, when I was a new player, I would be excited for those dilemmas as I needed so many purples and would be excited to see who I nabbed... now I just know it's a measly 200 honor and all excitement from them is gone
A lot of support and alternative suggestions have been presented and that was my goal here.
To weigh in, i do like the idea of adding more tiers to events to obtain these older crew. However, thinking back to my early days in this game, it took quite a while to build up the resources to clear tiers in an event, and clearing galaxy or skirmish tiers is costly (chrons) with a young roster. That cost came at the expense of developing and leveling the crew i already had.
It was far easier to reach the two and four hour mark in voyages and get the occasional purple.
My dream solution would be two fold, more dilemma trees with gold legendary chances, and a fixed legendary drop chance similar, though perhaps slightly rarer than the existing super rare drops.
My thinking is this would give newer players a chance at a gold crew earlier in the game that can help with clearing the galaxy map, better shuttle success, etc.
I would like for older underpowered crew to be removed from premium portal because in reality, i only pick them from a begold when there is no other/better choice, and like others have mentioned, they sit on my roster 1/5 and unleveled. If i knew that they could pop up in voyages, i would be less inclined to eject them as they could potentially be cited to 5/5 simply through voyage rewards and help with collections/achievements without “wasting” 4 citations that i would rather spend on more powerful, relevant crew.
Again, really appreciate everyones participation in this poll!
I view most of these suggestions (intentionally or not) as whales of various sizes looking for a way to gain an advantage over everyone else, and justifying it by saying they would pay for it. I would suggest looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine you just lost your job, like record numbers of people have recently and spending money on the game was no longer a possibility for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the people who CAN spend are fusing up their legendarys left and right. How long do you think it would take to become frustrated by that scenario? How long until you realize you can never catch up? How long until you just quit playing altogether? I suspect it would happen faster than most people think.
The question/suggestion put forward is too extreme ... there are a lot more elegant solutions to the "issue" that people think that older 5* cards are poor.
The examples always seen are "worst-case scenario" crew ... e.g. above: Rozhenkos are actually "new crew" (late 2018), Tosk is from mid-2018 ...
There are plenty of first-year (say up till end 2017) crew that are pretty decent ... for each poor crew someone mentions here I can list good to excellent crew ...
So, what do you mean by "old" crew? Just crew who are considered poor? Crew prior to 2018? ... but then you can still pull poor crew (Mirror Landry, the above two crew, Diversion Yates etc.) from your portal pulls.
1. Should they be added to voyages? Yes, that is a good idea that has been put forward many times here.
2. Removed from the portal? No.
Elegant solutions are:
- Splitting the portal into various "ages" - e.g. behold pulls from a select year - this has already been implemented a bit through the newer birthday pulls.
- adding 1 * of older crew to relevant events at the end of thresholds.
- etc.
Those 'worst-case scenarios' happen regularly as my roster of unlevelled 1* Legendaries can attest. There is a lot of junk in the portal these days.
My definition of junk is a character that does something weaker than 2 or 3 other available characters. I do consider bridge crew junk if they are weak even if they theoretically have more event usage than normal. Another way to think about junk characters is 'Would I cite this character?' If the answer is no, they are junk because a 1/5 is thrash and your odds of getting additional stars without citing them is low and getting ever lower the more they add to the premium packs.
By your standards, Linnis Paris would never even be added to the portal ... she's not even out yet.
That you personally don't value specific crew doesn't mean they should be removed from the portal ...
You could:
a) not pick them in a behold;
b) airlock them for 550 Honor ... Piñata style.
Dismissing crew because they are not top 2 in what they do is not reasonable ... there are so many new crew that fit the category ... e.g. the new Kira (she's not top 2 in anything) ... that they would never see the light of a portal pack.
You're just asking for packs to only include the "best" (as per your standards) 50 crew in the game ... why even create new cards then?
I am not suggesting removing all bad crew, I am suggesting removing older crew. And I am suggesting that almost all of older crew are junk. New crew like Linnus and Kay have 3x bonus event use and therefore you might invest in them to that end, and that's entirely reasonable. But there are a good 50 or more legendary older crew that genuinely have almost no actual gameplay value anymore.
And I accept that removing older crew won't magically make all behold options great choices, but it will improve the odds of that being the case.
I don't proactively Pinata, but they are certainly on the chopping block should the need arise. I can accept 10 to 1 odds of getting something decent out of a premium pack, but these days it's more like 50 to 1. Most beholds are filled with immortalised, mediocre or downright awful choices. And again, I don't want them to be unavailable, I just want them in a cheaper pack where the cost is commensurate with their gameplay value.
Here are a few pre-2018 crew I still use on a near-daily/regular basis just to balance those worst-case scenarios:
- Honey Bare Jadzia - get lots of event use and some voyage use.
- Falcon O'Brien - second-highest SEC in the game ... so yeah, he's on a shuttle every 3 hrs.
- Temporal Prisoner Chakotay - fairly unique skill combo for voyages
- Mirror Jean-Luc Picard - voyages
- RAF O'Brien - voyages
- The Keeper - voyages
- Assimilated La Forge - voyages
- Admiral Janeway - Arena
- Leo Da Vinci - voyages
EDIT: Mobile Doc - forgot about him ... you are leaving those without Indulgent Seven (i.e. me) down to the complete random chance of him dropping in a voyage ... I have a higher chance of him dropping in a portal pack ...
As for improving the odds ... of the more recently issued event crew we find such wonders as:
- Bridal Keiko
- Displaced G. Burnham
- Linnis Paris
- Elnor
- EV Suit Nhan
- Mirror Kyle Detmer
Look, I'm not saying there aren't bad cards out there from back then ... but I don't think they should be removed from the pool ... as a player we just have to deal with a poor behold, that's part of it. We're gonna get 'em no matter what ... I mean my two Merit 5*s have been Bell Riots Jadzia and Kai Opaka ... would I have preferred a Gary Seven or Tactical Officer Neelix instead? Hell yeah, but ah well.
Should we have other ways to add stars to those poor crew and make them useful? Yes, by all means.
My argument is not to remove them from availability, but to move them to a cheaper pack. Make the Premium pack the stuff from the last 2 years, or 3 years perhaps, it's predominantly the launch stuff that is uber bad. What I would like is that the Premium Pack stays useful and is not getting more and more random over time.
I view most of these suggestions (intentionally or not) as whales of various sizes looking for a way to gain an advantage over everyone else, and justifying it by saying they would pay for it. I would suggest looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine you just lost your job, like record numbers of people have recently and spending money on the game was no longer a possibility for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the people who CAN spend are fusing up their legendarys left and right. How long do you think it would take to become frustrated by that scenario? How long until you realize you can never catch up? How long until you just quit playing altogether? I suspect it would happen faster than most people think.
You have this enormous paranoia about people trying to beat you. Honestly, the idea that someone wants to 'catch' me never entered my mind, because I don't consider myself in competition with anyone. When I want to rank, I rank, If I want to rank highly, I rank highly. My only enemy is the amount of effort/resources I want to put in. The other players don't occur to me at all, though I am distantly aware that they are there of course. I just don't see this game as a PvP game. There are no real stakes. I'd be shocked if the vast majority of people didn't feel exactly the same way as me, so believe me when I say that my perception of the problems in the game at the moment has absolutely nothing to do with you now or ever.
What I see as a problem for the game is that I don't need to spend any money anymore. I was never a whale, but I literally don't have a thing to spend money on that will improve my position. I buy the campaign and the monthly card mostly out of habit and because I want to support the game. But I would like to spend more here. I'm spending it anyway, just elsewhere.
I'm not rich, but I do have a gaming budget and WRG are not doing a great job of getting me to spend it here. To me that's a canary in the coalmine. They need to monetise all across their demographics, perhaps especially people who aren't resource constrained right now. At the end of the day this game needs a sustainable way to generate revenue to pay for the servers, the development, such as it is, and the license.
Just to illustrate, the recent deal with the 50 premium packs and the 8k dilithium: I didn't buy it, because I value the premium packs in their current form so little.
I view most of these suggestions (intentionally or not) as whales of various sizes looking for a way to gain an advantage over everyone else, and justifying it by saying they would pay for it. I would suggest looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine you just lost your job, like record numbers of people have recently and spending money on the game was no longer a possibility for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the people who CAN spend are fusing up their legendarys left and right. How long do you think it would take to become frustrated by that scenario? How long until you realize you can never catch up? How long until you just quit playing altogether? I suspect it would happen faster than most people think.
I have 51 immo'd legendaries. You know how much first and probably second year legendaries will help my roster? Temporary Prisoner Chakotay will not replace Ba'ul. 2-skillers replace no one. Shinzon and company replace no one. Sure, there's a satisfaction in completing something. Maybe freezing them will free up some slots. But suggesting that this would be some game-breaking sleight against my f2p alt is a bit hyperbolic. And as mentioned before, the voyage tokens in threshold and freebies are a path for f2p to follow. Also as mentioned, it could help newer players get more useful beholds. This outrage like someone is pulling the ladder up behind them could use a little more thought behind it.
Everyone who says, "I still want legendaries in the portal as another path to finish them" ... I respect that. That's what you want. It wouldn't be right to just take it away from you without some compromise if you feel passionately about it. I haven't voted yet because I haven't decided which would benefit my game the most.
I view most of these suggestions (intentionally or not) as whales of various sizes looking for a way to gain an advantage over everyone else, and justifying it by saying they would pay for it. I would suggest looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine you just lost your job, like record numbers of people have recently and spending money on the game was no longer a possibility for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the people who CAN spend are fusing up their legendarys left and right. How long do you think it would take to become frustrated by that scenario? How long until you realize you can never catch up? How long until you just quit playing altogether? I suspect it would happen faster than most people think.
I guess it depends on your mindset.
I'm competing with... Me. I like collecting the characters, although I'm under no illusions that getting all the 5*s is far beyond me. Even if I came across enough funds to manage that, there are much worthier causes in need of largesse.
I'm unlikely to win an event, as I've no desire to put the effort in others do - without any judgement on those who do put the effort in, I, personally, have better uses for my time.
So, I look to improve my voyages, get to level 99, help add to starbase rooms...
I guess my ego no longer needs me to beat people at something, like it once did, so I just enjoy the ride these days.
To be honest, I voted yes, because I'd really like to see legendaries drop in voyages and to get a way to finish some weak ones that I have in my crew and get some actual use out of them. Whether they are removed from the portal or not, is not something that I feel strongly about.
However, to me a potential removal from the portal seems like more of a benefit for new players and low spenders than for anyone else. I'm a low spender myself and almost only buy the monthly card at this point (I've been playing for more than 3 years and made it to VIP12, because after one year of being an ftp player and 6 months of monthly card I started buying a few offers for 8-10 months, before going back to the monthly card - I mention this for reference, because I'm definitely not a whale trying to pull up a ladder behind me).
As a long term player, I have a huge amount of 1/5*-2/5* in my crew, which means that almost any begold I get will at least land me an additional star on someone, even if it's a really bad one. But it's still disappointing to see a Shinzon - Daystrom - Chaotica behold, even if it won't waste any of my crew slots. Begolds are so rare that it's annoying when they're useless and it must be even more annoying for a new player or an ftp player.
That being said, the best option for me would be to separate old cards and make them available in the portal at a lower price or just in dedicated packs, instead of removing them altogether. Ideally, they should be easier or cheaper to obtain, because at least it wouldn't feel disappointing to get one of them.
A card that is labeled "legendary" and has the lowest drop rate of anything in the game shouldn't cause disappointment when it drops.
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
I’ll remind you guys I’m in the same boat as you. I can rank whenever I want too. But MOST players aren’t in that position.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
I’ll remind you guys I’m in the same boat as you. I can rank whenever I want too. But MOST players aren’t in that position.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
I would, because I've been advocating my position for literally years, long before I ran out of stuff to buy I was watching many of the whales hit the end of 'content' and retire.
This isn't a true pvp game. Other players are like weather, nothing is personal and you have no control over anything except your own effort or expenditure. Events are literally designed to be pay to win. A competition in this game is just an auction. My own personal rule is that I never buy event boosts, be they rushing a shuttle or buying chrons or whatever. But, lots of other people do. That's part of how the game is paid for. But because of that the idea of 'competing' in any meaningful way is kind of pointless. What that does mean however is that any player can buy their way to rank, even a new player. You may not like that, but that's the game as designed.
Skirmishes are your favourite event and they are the only event where you actually need to have something, a decent ship, as an asset. So skirmishes are the event where new players have the greatest disadvantage (though I guess you can buy ship packs if you really have money to burn). After that it's just how many chrons you have and how little you have to do with your weekend.
If you want the game to survive it needs to be paid for. Therefore you need people to have a reason to spend money. And you need people who have enough money to spend on a dinky Star Trek themed mobile game. I genuinely just don't think this is the game you think it is, or you are just blinkered by your own narrow view of the situation.
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
I’ll remind you guys I’m in the same boat as you. I can rank whenever I want too. But MOST players aren’t in that position.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
My response:
1st paragraph-
Im not sure that there is a real consensus on what time threshold would need to be crossed for legendaries to drop, but lets say its 8hrs. Even without a token, low spenders can save dilithium from the campaign and get past the 8 hr mark. F2p is a slow methodical grind in games like these. That is not likely to change. Do you really think you will see a f2player in the top ten of any of this games events?
2nd paragraph-
Who is talking about events? For new players, an easier way to acquire crew that can help with the galaxy map completion, shuttle success and voyage length seems like a great thing. For more experienced players with developed rosters, the acquisition of low power legendaries would mostly be vanity. They already have more powerful crew.
3rd paragraph-
Yes, exactly. Which is why i see these changes helping way more with the early stages of the game than they would influence the end game. A tier ten card is not going to improve MY roster, but it could improve a new players roster.
4th paragraph-
Agreed, i see it as a pvp game
5th paragraph-
This isnt a poll titled “make f2p more balanced with the whales”. I suggested the changes based on my observations of this game and thinking about what would have helped me out when i was new to it, along with what would result in more enjoyment now. No one is stopping you from making your own thread to suggest/poll the changes that you want.
Again, i appreciate your feedback on this. Ultimately i think some relatively small changes to this game can vastly improve the experience for everyone.
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
I’ll remind you guys I’m in the same boat as you. I can rank whenever I want too. But MOST players aren’t in that position.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
I don't think weak legendaries dropping in voyages (at any time they should choose to let them drop) would be of any particular advantage for anyone, except for collectors who really want them for one reason or another or want to freeze them to the vault.
Whales don't need them. They either already have them immortal or they will just airlock them for honor. New players also don't need them, when there are super-rares that are way more useful and easier to obtain. Ftp players don't need them either and would probably arilock them for crew slots and honor if they happened to get one.
The only ones really benefitting from this would be average long time players who at this point have a crew full of 1/5* and little to look forward to or spend resources/money on. And collectors who for some reason want to own every possible version of a specific crew.
I can't think of any aspect of the game where I would get a significant advantage if I managed to immortalize my Chaotica or get Daystrom to 3/5*.
A card that is labeled "legendary" and has the lowest drop rate of anything in the game shouldn't cause disappointment when it drops.
(I 100% agree with the rest of your post, but I just wanted to highlight a sentiment I've noticed in this thread)
This is, unfortunately, something that cannot be eliminated(controlled, sort of) ... as it will almost always be the case ... because if you remove the "worst", those that were a tier above that assessment (i.e. "bad") will become the "worst" and you'll then feel disappointed when you get those in a pull.
Furthermore, there is also the effect that when you remove a whole selection of crew from the portal it ALSO means you'll have a higher chance of pulling that stat stud Vargas or our favourite animated crew April ... just plain bad crew that have been issued since the start of 2018 (for example) ... now, I know I'd rather have a 2016 Janeway over those two any day ... but hey, that's my personal, weird, opinion.
The majority of the posts in this thread are only focused on the extremes of best-case/worst-case scenarios, whereas the vast majority of people's portal pulls are somewhere in between ... on average there's someone you can use, even if it is only adding a star to someone you picked up in a late-2018 event ... how disappointed an individual player feels comes down to the expectations they have when they do the pull.
The only way to completely remove disappointment is if there is 100% clarity on what you're getting when you buy something ... I know my choice is between three Phloxes, so I won't be disappointed when those three Phloxes show up in the behold.
There are, however, many elegant ways to reduce (not remove) disappointment:
- In another game I play, there is a guarantee that you will not get more duplicates of cards than the amount that are useful (2 for all rarities, 1 for legendary) UNTIL you have all cards of a certain rarity ... so I will ALWAYS open a new card until I have all cards (there are caveats, but I won't go into those) ... in STT this would remove the disappointment of an all immortal behold.
- Splitting the portal pool (as suggested by you and others) to give an illusion that players will get better cards if they pull from the newer pool is also an elegant solution. Players will be happy they don't have a chance to pull Kai Opaka if they go for the "new" packs.
- Adding certain 5*s to voyages ... but just imagine the disappointment if Kai Opaka drops for you just after 10 hrs and you don't own her and so you've got a new 1/5 that you have no other way of *ing up other than hoping she drops again from a voyage (because hey, she was removed from the portal pool) ... I was already kinda frustrated at how long it took for the last Mutated Paris to drop from a voyage who I needed to immortalise Evolved Janeway ... I can't imagine how rare a 5* drop would be from voyages, let alone a specific 5*.
A card that is labeled "legendary" and has the lowest drop rate of anything in the game shouldn't cause disappointment when it drops.
(I 100% agree with the rest of your post, but I just wanted to highlight a sentiment I've noticed in this thread)
This is, unfortunately, something that cannot be eliminated(controlled, sort of) ... as it will almost always be the case ... because if you remove the "worst", those that were a tier above that assessment (i.e. "bad") will become the "worst" and you'll then feel disappointed when you get those in a pull.
Furthermore, there is also the effect that when you remove a whole selection of crew from the portal it ALSO means you'll have a higher chance of pulling that stat stud Vargas or our favourite animated crew April ... just plain bad crew that have been issued since the start of 2018 (for example) ... now, I know I'd rather have a 2016 Janeway over those two any day ... but hey, that's my personal, weird, opinion.
The majority of the posts in this thread are only focused on the extremes of best-case/worst-case scenarios, whereas the vast majority of people's portal pulls are somewhere in between ... on average there's someone you can use, even if it is only adding a star to someone you picked up in a late-2018 event ... how disappointed an individual player feels comes down to the expectations they have when they do the pull.
The only way to completely remove disappointment is if there is 100% clarity on what you're getting when you buy something ... I know my choice is between three Phloxes, so I won't be disappointed when those three Phloxes show up in the behold.
You're right about that, but I think that it's also a matter of how often a begold turns out to be disappointing and how disappointing it is. Having to choose between three cards that will never get any use in any part of the game is what is really annoying. If the pool was smaller and the worst options were removed from it, there would be better chances of always having at least one option that could get some actual event, shuttle or gauntlet use from time to time (but of course, the pool of cards would have to be split up again at some point).
Generally speaking, I also think that bad and old cards should be easier to obtain, whether this is done by having them in separate sections of the portal, by featuring them in dedicated packs or by having them drop in voyages or in the gauntlet or in some other way. That way at least they would be easier to upgrade and wouldn't be completely useless anymore.
You're right about that, but I think that it's also a matter of how often a begold turns out to be disappointing and how disappointing it is. Having to choose between three cards that will never get any use in any part of the game is what is really annoying. If the pool was smaller and the worst options were removed from it.
Again, sure ... but like I mentioned before ...
But who determines what constitutes "worst"?
- Is it age? Leo Da Vinci is pre-2018 and I consider him to still be one of the best voyagers available ... Elnor (or Linnis Paris or 3-skiller Clancy) is brand spanking new, but would be considered a disappointment if seen in a begold ... just read all the comments about players hoping to not pull him in end-of-mega packs last time around.
- Is it base stats? Seven of Nine is pathetic in that department, but many new players would benefit from having her as Gauntlet crew ... and you only need her 1/5.
"Dark Ages" McCoy or The Keeper don't have the best base stats, but they sure are a solid option for voyages.
- Is it only 2-skill crew? But I personally like collections so any opportunity to add stars to Niners Sisko or Will Scarlett are appreciated ... seeing them in a behold is not a disappointment in my case. Furthermore, there are many 0/5 3-skillers who I would skip over if Niners Sisko (or a number of other 2-skillers I own) was one of the options ...
As I said ... the occurrence (and frequency) of having to choose between three crew who you will never use in-game will not go away (or be significantly reduced) even if you remove a chunk of the crew available.
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
Depends on the level of spenders.
Let's be honest, if the krakens want to FF all their legendaries, they'll do so via honour. Buy a few hundred packs to farm honour, buy cites. Done.
The whales can do the same, at a slightly lower rate.
The dolphins will be in the same boat as F2P, in other words having some tokens they can use, saving dil for better use.
Relying on RNG in voyages to FF your weaker legendaries is pretty much the dumbest move you can make. You can already do 10 hours and not see a 4*, so you really think doing a 14-16 hour voyage where you've got 4-6 hours hoping RNG will not only deliver you a 5*, but one you actually need?
I'm not sure how big the pool of weaker 5*s are, but other than a few outliers, the majority will be lucky to get more than a couple of stars on a selected 5* per year.
Moreover, there are 4* cards - easier to get - that eclipse many of those weaker 5*s
The primary benefit of having 5*s possibly drop after 10 hours is accelerating clearing space in your roster, and that's pretty much it.
So, no, I don't think it'll make much difference. The odd exceptionally lucky dolphin gets to achieve parity with a whale or kraken for the odd event? Not game breaking.
If there is a concern about ranking distortion due to people gaining a benefit via cards, stick a maximum limit on the number of packs an individual account can buy.
For me, the concern of voyages dropping weak legendaries distorting event rankings is on a par with someone overly concerned with the lack of ice in their drink on the Titanic. There are bigger issues at play.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
I assume that's targeted at yours truly.
You'll note I didn't state anything about it not being PvP, but that it doesn't have to be. You choose to compete. I choose to pick where in thresholds I'd like to go. I auto 5 Arena battles, because I care not - I'd like to get more Captain Proton ships pieces, but it's not a life-defining need. I play Gauntlet as and when, usually finisher closer to 100 than 1.
And I take enjoyment in playing, in helping my fleet bump up the starbase.
As for advantages, never won Gauntlet, never broken top 50 in an event, never finished in top 20 in Arena. Was once at number one for 5 seconds a couple of years back though.
Hey folks, here's your poster child for success in this game. Follow my lead, and you too can achieve mediocrity in the game!
I'm sure the queue will be forming shortly. No selfies or autographs please!
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
I've spent a fair chunk of my life advocating for changes I wouldn't benefit from, so yes.
I wouldn't benefit much, if at all, from adding legendaries post 10 hours, it just looks like an occasional use for my tokens in the hope - hope, not expectation - that it might drop a 5* I want to add a star to.
I just think it's a nice idea for when, should lady luck tip you the wink, you inch closer to getting a weak 5* into the freezer rather than the airlock.
As stated earlier in my post, I don't actually think this provides any real benefit to the spenders as they have better options to achieve the same end via the power of the wallet.
And I'll add an FYI of my own, I have come to truly detest the view that anyones opinions - including my own - are insulated from criticism unless it's applied with certain rules. It's a sign that someone is seeking validation for their opinion, rather than wishing to debate it.
Ok, voyage tokens... let’s go down that rabbit hole. ASSUMING newer and/or f2p peeps can reach 300k vp in every event (which I DON’T think is very realistic in the first place), and ASSUMING they can ALWAYS get to 8 hours on voyages without a token, and ASSUMING that there’s a CHANCE that legendarys can drop after 10 hours (which seems to be what people are mostly advocating for here) that means they have a 2 hour window once every 2 weeks to hope a legendary drops. Meanwhile, spenders can just run 14-16 hour voyages EVERY day (anyone wanna make an argument that that WOULDN’T happen?)
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
Depends on the level of spenders.
Let's be honest, if the krakens want to FF all their legendaries, they'll do so via honour. Buy a few hundred packs to farm honour, buy cites. Done.
The whales can do the same, at a slightly lower rate.
The dolphins will be in the same boat as F2P, in other words having some tokens they can use, saving dil for better use.
Relying on RNG in voyages to FF your weaker legendaries is pretty much the dumbest move you can make. You can already do 10 hours and not see a 4*, so you really think doing a 14-16 hour voyage where you've got 4-6 hours hoping RNG will not only deliver you a 5*, but one you actually need?
I'm not sure how big the pool of weaker 5*s are, but other than a few outliers, the majority will be lucky to get more than a couple of stars on a selected 5* per year.
Moreover, there are 4* cards - easier to get - that eclipse many of those weaker 5*s
The primary benefit of having 5*s possibly drop after 10 hours is accelerating clearing space in your roster, and that's pretty much it.
So, no, I don't think it'll make much difference. The odd exceptionally lucky dolphin gets to achieve parity with a whale or kraken for the odd event? Not game breaking.
If there is a concern about ranking distortion due to people gaining a benefit via cards, stick a maximum limit on the number of packs an individual account can buy.
For me, the concern of voyages dropping weak legendaries distorting event rankings is on a par with someone overly concerned with the lack of ice in their drink on the Titanic. There are bigger issues at play.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
I assume that's targeted at yours truly.
You'll note I didn't state anything about it not being PvP, but that it doesn't have to be. You choose to compete. I choose to pick where in thresholds I'd like to go. I auto 5 Arena battles, because I care not - I'd like to get more Captain Proton ships pieces, but it's not a life-defining need. I play Gauntlet as and when, usually finisher closer to 100 than 1.
And I take enjoyment in playing, in helping my fleet bump up the starbase.
As for advantages, never won Gauntlet, never broken top 50 in an event, never finished in top 20 in Arena. Was once at number one for 5 seconds a couple of years back though.
Hey folks, here's your poster child for success in this game. Follow my lead, and you too can achieve mediocrity in the game!
I'm sure the queue will be forming shortly. No selfies or autographs please!
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
I've spent a fair chunk of my life advocating for changes I wouldn't benefit from, so yes.
I wouldn't benefit much, if at all, from adding legendaries post 10 hours, it just looks like an occasional use for my tokens in the hope - hope, not expectation - that it might drop a 5* I want to add a star to.
I just think it's a nice idea for when, should lady luck tip you the wink, you inch closer to getting a weak 5* into the freezer rather than the airlock.
As stated earlier in my post, I don't actually think this provides any real benefit to the spenders as they have better options to achieve the same end via the power of the wallet.
And I'll add an FYI of my own, I have come to truly detest the view that anyones opinions - including my own - are insulated from criticism unless it's applied with certain rules. It's a sign that someone is seeking validation for their opinion, rather than wishing to debate it.
Well said, 🖖
"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 have to say I am somewhat amazed in what lengths people will go to throw in the P2P/whale argument, to try and discredit something.
Firstly if we are talking about whales would they really be needing to get unfused old/weak legendary cards, well perhaps if they deliberately abstained from getting them the first time round.
Secondly you can get to ten hours voyages F2P, you can even extend voyages beyond this thanks to the introduction of voyage tokens being routinely handed out and earnable through event thresholds.
Ok so it all hinges on stage/game progression but then everything you ever did on the game hindered on that aspect. This example is a relatively f2p earnable avenue not available currently really can't understand the reticence on this part.
Thirdly I don't think we have discussed/addressed exactly how and when legendaries should dropped from voyages that is equally important to the discussion as to it's feasibility. Until the exact parameters are set out. Discussions about fairness et al are a mute point entirely.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
There is one particularly stellar VIP0 player whose longest voyage is tied with my longest, at 10:58. I don't know what that means for other VIP0 and f2p players, but it tells me that the chasm isn't so wide as some may think. I'm not denying that it exists. I mean, there's a reason people spend and that's to get ahead or caught up, depending upon how they look at it. From my point of view, it cost me quite a lot to catch up with that VIP0 player. Some of the ViP0 crowd stand to gain just as much as I, if the parameters were set at the 10 hour mark.
This has been discussed before. It was a good idea then. It’s an even better idea now. The oldest legendary crew have such weak stats, all players would benefit from their removal from the portal so that if you get a legendary crew/behold, you’re likely to get a crew with usable stats. Adding these same legendaries to the voyage pool would increase the value of voyages (marginally) and make voyages more interesting again.
The only down side to this idea from a player perspective is actually a good reason for Wicked Realms to do this: it will start eating up crew slots, and players will feel a stronger motivation to use dilithium or money to buy more.
Comments
Always a pleasure to see your input.
They would also be available to f2p who get revival tokens from threshold rewards and the recent "In this together" freebies. Your hostility is both unjustified and tiresome.
Yeah, I'll give you that one. Although I'm not willing to sift through all of my gold's to discover how many are pre-2018, I'm certain that I have more pre-2018 gold's in my "unowned" pile...
So I accept your argument
I can tell you that the lion's share of mine are less than 2 years old because that's when I could start ranking in events. If you're like me, then we might stand to gain from this proposal. And I tend to think that it would help newer players by that logic. I could be wrong, of course. It just seems the likely outcome, imo.
Gold crew is not really my main focus!
To address stat creep, I also like the idea of a respec to make them more usable today. This game is BADLY in need of a stat rebalancing on cards older than a year...
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
Here are a few pre-2018 crew I still use on a near-daily/regular basis just to balance those worst-case scenarios:
- Honey Bare Jadzia - get lots of event use and some voyage use.
- Falcon O'Brien - second-highest SEC in the game ... so yeah, he's on a shuttle every 3 hrs.
- Temporal Prisoner Chakotay - fairly unique skill combo for voyages
- Mirror Jean-Luc Picard - voyages
- RAF O'Brien - voyages
- The Keeper - voyages
- Assimilated La Forge - voyages
- Admiral Janeway - Arena
- Leo Da Vinci - voyages
EDIT: Mobile Doc - forgot about him ... you are leaving those without Indulgent Seven (i.e. me) down to the complete random chance of him dropping in a voyage ... I have a higher chance of him dropping in a portal pack ...
As for improving the odds ... of the more recently issued event crew we find such wonders as:
- Bridal Keiko
- Displaced G. Burnham
- Linnis Paris
- Elnor
- EV Suit Nhan
- Mirror Kyle Detmer
Look, I'm not saying there aren't bad cards out there from back then ... but I don't think they should be removed from the pool ... as a player we just have to deal with a poor behold, that's part of it. We're gonna get 'em no matter what ... I mean my two Merit 5*s have been Bell Riots Jadzia and Kai Opaka ... would I have preferred a Gary Seven or Tactical Officer Neelix instead? Hell yeah, but ah well.
Should we have other ways to add stars to those poor crew and make them useful? Yes, by all means.
I know for me, when I was a new player, I would be excited for those dilemmas as I needed so many purples and would be excited to see who I nabbed... now I just know it's a measly 200 honor and all excitement from them is gone
A lot of support and alternative suggestions have been presented and that was my goal here.
To weigh in, i do like the idea of adding more tiers to events to obtain these older crew. However, thinking back to my early days in this game, it took quite a while to build up the resources to clear tiers in an event, and clearing galaxy or skirmish tiers is costly (chrons) with a young roster. That cost came at the expense of developing and leveling the crew i already had.
It was far easier to reach the two and four hour mark in voyages and get the occasional purple.
My dream solution would be two fold, more dilemma trees with gold legendary chances, and a fixed legendary drop chance similar, though perhaps slightly rarer than the existing super rare drops.
My thinking is this would give newer players a chance at a gold crew earlier in the game that can help with clearing the galaxy map, better shuttle success, etc.
I would like for older underpowered crew to be removed from premium portal because in reality, i only pick them from a begold when there is no other/better choice, and like others have mentioned, they sit on my roster 1/5 and unleveled. If i knew that they could pop up in voyages, i would be less inclined to eject them as they could potentially be cited to 5/5 simply through voyage rewards and help with collections/achievements without “wasting” 4 citations that i would rather spend on more powerful, relevant crew.
Again, really appreciate everyones participation in this poll!
My argument is not to remove them from availability, but to move them to a cheaper pack. Make the Premium pack the stuff from the last 2 years, or 3 years perhaps, it's predominantly the launch stuff that is uber bad. What I would like is that the Premium Pack stays useful and is not getting more and more random over time.
You have this enormous paranoia about people trying to beat you. Honestly, the idea that someone wants to 'catch' me never entered my mind, because I don't consider myself in competition with anyone. When I want to rank, I rank, If I want to rank highly, I rank highly. My only enemy is the amount of effort/resources I want to put in. The other players don't occur to me at all, though I am distantly aware that they are there of course. I just don't see this game as a PvP game. There are no real stakes. I'd be shocked if the vast majority of people didn't feel exactly the same way as me, so believe me when I say that my perception of the problems in the game at the moment has absolutely nothing to do with you now or ever.
What I see as a problem for the game is that I don't need to spend any money anymore. I was never a whale, but I literally don't have a thing to spend money on that will improve my position. I buy the campaign and the monthly card mostly out of habit and because I want to support the game. But I would like to spend more here. I'm spending it anyway, just elsewhere.
I'm not rich, but I do have a gaming budget and WRG are not doing a great job of getting me to spend it here. To me that's a canary in the coalmine. They need to monetise all across their demographics, perhaps especially people who aren't resource constrained right now. At the end of the day this game needs a sustainable way to generate revenue to pay for the servers, the development, such as it is, and the license.
Just to illustrate, the recent deal with the 50 premium packs and the 8k dilithium: I didn't buy it, because I value the premium packs in their current form so little.
I have 51 immo'd legendaries. You know how much first and probably second year legendaries will help my roster? Temporary Prisoner Chakotay will not replace Ba'ul. 2-skillers replace no one. Shinzon and company replace no one. Sure, there's a satisfaction in completing something. Maybe freezing them will free up some slots. But suggesting that this would be some game-breaking sleight against my f2p alt is a bit hyperbolic. And as mentioned before, the voyage tokens in threshold and freebies are a path for f2p to follow. Also as mentioned, it could help newer players get more useful beholds. This outrage like someone is pulling the ladder up behind them could use a little more thought behind it.
Everyone who says, "I still want legendaries in the portal as another path to finish them" ... I respect that. That's what you want. It wouldn't be right to just take it away from you without some compromise if you feel passionately about it. I haven't voted yet because I haven't decided which would benefit my game the most.
My preference would be for cards to get an age buff to mitigate power creep:
A card gets a buff based on how old it is, plus gets a buff based on how long you've had it.
Nothing massive, but enough so that retain some use as time goes on
Given your sunny personality, I imagine these days of social distancing must be a real difficulty for you.
I guess it depends on your mindset.
I'm competing with... Me. I like collecting the characters, although I'm under no illusions that getting all the 5*s is far beyond me. Even if I came across enough funds to manage that, there are much worthier causes in need of largesse.
I'm unlikely to win an event, as I've no desire to put the effort in others do - without any judgement on those who do put the effort in, I, personally, have better uses for my time.
So, I look to improve my voyages, get to level 99, help add to starbase rooms...
I guess my ego no longer needs me to beat people at something, like it once did, so I just enjoy the ride these days.
However, to me a potential removal from the portal seems like more of a benefit for new players and low spenders than for anyone else. I'm a low spender myself and almost only buy the monthly card at this point (I've been playing for more than 3 years and made it to VIP12, because after one year of being an ftp player and 6 months of monthly card I started buying a few offers for 8-10 months, before going back to the monthly card - I mention this for reference, because I'm definitely not a whale trying to pull up a ladder behind me).
As a long term player, I have a huge amount of 1/5*-2/5* in my crew, which means that almost any begold I get will at least land me an additional star on someone, even if it's a really bad one. But it's still disappointing to see a Shinzon - Daystrom - Chaotica behold, even if it won't waste any of my crew slots. Begolds are so rare that it's annoying when they're useless and it must be even more annoying for a new player or an ftp player.
That being said, the best option for me would be to separate old cards and make them available in the portal at a lower price or just in dedicated packs, instead of removing them altogether. Ideally, they should be easier or cheaper to obtain, because at least it wouldn't feel disappointing to get one of them.
A card that is labeled "legendary" and has the lowest drop rate of anything in the game shouldn't cause disappointment when it drops.
You don’t think after several months of that, all those “weak” legendarys the spenders have been fusing up would make NO difference to event ranks?
I’ll remind you guys I’m in the same boat as you. I can rank whenever I want too. But MOST players aren’t in that position.
To pretend that this isn’t a pvp game is absurd, since nearly EVERY aspect of the game is a competition. The fact that people here can forget that goes to show just how much of an advantage your purchases have given you.
And just FYI, I think it’s rude to criticize my post without answering the question I asked, so let me ask it again: If YOU couldn’t benefit from the changes you’re advocating for because of financial constraints, would you still be advocating for it?
I would, because I've been advocating my position for literally years, long before I ran out of stuff to buy I was watching many of the whales hit the end of 'content' and retire.
This isn't a true pvp game. Other players are like weather, nothing is personal and you have no control over anything except your own effort or expenditure. Events are literally designed to be pay to win. A competition in this game is just an auction. My own personal rule is that I never buy event boosts, be they rushing a shuttle or buying chrons or whatever. But, lots of other people do. That's part of how the game is paid for. But because of that the idea of 'competing' in any meaningful way is kind of pointless. What that does mean however is that any player can buy their way to rank, even a new player. You may not like that, but that's the game as designed.
Skirmishes are your favourite event and they are the only event where you actually need to have something, a decent ship, as an asset. So skirmishes are the event where new players have the greatest disadvantage (though I guess you can buy ship packs if you really have money to burn). After that it's just how many chrons you have and how little you have to do with your weekend.
If you want the game to survive it needs to be paid for. Therefore you need people to have a reason to spend money. And you need people who have enough money to spend on a dinky Star Trek themed mobile game. I genuinely just don't think this is the game you think it is, or you are just blinkered by your own narrow view of the situation.
My response:
1st paragraph-
Im not sure that there is a real consensus on what time threshold would need to be crossed for legendaries to drop, but lets say its 8hrs. Even without a token, low spenders can save dilithium from the campaign and get past the 8 hr mark. F2p is a slow methodical grind in games like these. That is not likely to change. Do you really think you will see a f2player in the top ten of any of this games events?
2nd paragraph-
Who is talking about events? For new players, an easier way to acquire crew that can help with the galaxy map completion, shuttle success and voyage length seems like a great thing. For more experienced players with developed rosters, the acquisition of low power legendaries would mostly be vanity. They already have more powerful crew.
3rd paragraph-
Yes, exactly. Which is why i see these changes helping way more with the early stages of the game than they would influence the end game. A tier ten card is not going to improve MY roster, but it could improve a new players roster.
4th paragraph-
Agreed, i see it as a pvp game
5th paragraph-
This isnt a poll titled “make f2p more balanced with the whales”. I suggested the changes based on my observations of this game and thinking about what would have helped me out when i was new to it, along with what would result in more enjoyment now. No one is stopping you from making your own thread to suggest/poll the changes that you want.
Again, i appreciate your feedback on this. Ultimately i think some relatively small changes to this game can vastly improve the experience for everyone.
I don't think weak legendaries dropping in voyages (at any time they should choose to let them drop) would be of any particular advantage for anyone, except for collectors who really want them for one reason or another or want to freeze them to the vault.
Whales don't need them. They either already have them immortal or they will just airlock them for honor. New players also don't need them, when there are super-rares that are way more useful and easier to obtain. Ftp players don't need them either and would probably arilock them for crew slots and honor if they happened to get one.
The only ones really benefitting from this would be average long time players who at this point have a crew full of 1/5* and little to look forward to or spend resources/money on. And collectors who for some reason want to own every possible version of a specific crew.
I can't think of any aspect of the game where I would get a significant advantage if I managed to immortalize my Chaotica or get Daystrom to 3/5*.
(I 100% agree with the rest of your post, but I just wanted to highlight a sentiment I've noticed in this thread)
This is, unfortunately, something that cannot be eliminated(controlled, sort of) ... as it will almost always be the case ... because if you remove the "worst", those that were a tier above that assessment (i.e. "bad") will become the "worst" and you'll then feel disappointed when you get those in a pull.
Furthermore, there is also the effect that when you remove a whole selection of crew from the portal it ALSO means you'll have a higher chance of pulling that stat stud Vargas or our favourite animated crew April ... just plain bad crew that have been issued since the start of 2018 (for example) ... now, I know I'd rather have a 2016 Janeway over those two any day ... but hey, that's my personal, weird, opinion.
The majority of the posts in this thread are only focused on the extremes of best-case/worst-case scenarios, whereas the vast majority of people's portal pulls are somewhere in between ... on average there's someone you can use, even if it is only adding a star to someone you picked up in a late-2018 event ... how disappointed an individual player feels comes down to the expectations they have when they do the pull.
The only way to completely remove disappointment is if there is 100% clarity on what you're getting when you buy something ... I know my choice is between three Phloxes, so I won't be disappointed when those three Phloxes show up in the behold.
There are, however, many elegant ways to reduce (not remove) disappointment:
- In another game I play, there is a guarantee that you will not get more duplicates of cards than the amount that are useful (2 for all rarities, 1 for legendary) UNTIL you have all cards of a certain rarity ... so I will ALWAYS open a new card until I have all cards (there are caveats, but I won't go into those) ... in STT this would remove the disappointment of an all immortal behold.
- Splitting the portal pool (as suggested by you and others) to give an illusion that players will get better cards if they pull from the newer pool is also an elegant solution. Players will be happy they don't have a chance to pull Kai Opaka if they go for the "new" packs.
- Adding certain 5*s to voyages ... but just imagine the disappointment if Kai Opaka drops for you just after 10 hrs and you don't own her and so you've got a new 1/5 that you have no other way of *ing up other than hoping she drops again from a voyage (because hey, she was removed from the portal pool) ... I was already kinda frustrated at how long it took for the last Mutated Paris to drop from a voyage who I needed to immortalise Evolved Janeway ... I can't imagine how rare a 5* drop would be from voyages, let alone a specific 5*.
etc. etc. etc.
You're right about that, but I think that it's also a matter of how often a begold turns out to be disappointing and how disappointing it is. Having to choose between three cards that will never get any use in any part of the game is what is really annoying. If the pool was smaller and the worst options were removed from it, there would be better chances of always having at least one option that could get some actual event, shuttle or gauntlet use from time to time (but of course, the pool of cards would have to be split up again at some point).
Generally speaking, I also think that bad and old cards should be easier to obtain, whether this is done by having them in separate sections of the portal, by featuring them in dedicated packs or by having them drop in voyages or in the gauntlet or in some other way. That way at least they would be easier to upgrade and wouldn't be completely useless anymore.
Again, sure ... but like I mentioned before ...
But who determines what constitutes "worst"?
- Is it age? Leo Da Vinci is pre-2018 and I consider him to still be one of the best voyagers available ... Elnor (or Linnis Paris or 3-skiller Clancy) is brand spanking new, but would be considered a disappointment if seen in a begold ... just read all the comments about players hoping to not pull him in end-of-mega packs last time around.
- Is it base stats? Seven of Nine is pathetic in that department, but many new players would benefit from having her as Gauntlet crew ... and you only need her 1/5.
"Dark Ages" McCoy or The Keeper don't have the best base stats, but they sure are a solid option for voyages.
- Is it only 2-skill crew? But I personally like collections so any opportunity to add stars to Niners Sisko or Will Scarlett are appreciated ... seeing them in a behold is not a disappointment in my case. Furthermore, there are many 0/5 3-skillers who I would skip over if Niners Sisko (or a number of other 2-skillers I own) was one of the options ...
As I said ... the occurrence (and frequency) of having to choose between three crew who you will never use in-game will not go away (or be significantly reduced) even if you remove a chunk of the crew available.
Depends on the level of spenders.
Let's be honest, if the krakens want to FF all their legendaries, they'll do so via honour. Buy a few hundred packs to farm honour, buy cites. Done.
The whales can do the same, at a slightly lower rate.
The dolphins will be in the same boat as F2P, in other words having some tokens they can use, saving dil for better use.
Relying on RNG in voyages to FF your weaker legendaries is pretty much the dumbest move you can make. You can already do 10 hours and not see a 4*, so you really think doing a 14-16 hour voyage where you've got 4-6 hours hoping RNG will not only deliver you a 5*, but one you actually need?
I'm not sure how big the pool of weaker 5*s are, but other than a few outliers, the majority will be lucky to get more than a couple of stars on a selected 5* per year.
Moreover, there are 4* cards - easier to get - that eclipse many of those weaker 5*s
The primary benefit of having 5*s possibly drop after 10 hours is accelerating clearing space in your roster, and that's pretty much it.
So, no, I don't think it'll make much difference. The odd exceptionally lucky dolphin gets to achieve parity with a whale or kraken for the odd event? Not game breaking.
If there is a concern about ranking distortion due to people gaining a benefit via cards, stick a maximum limit on the number of packs an individual account can buy.
For me, the concern of voyages dropping weak legendaries distorting event rankings is on a par with someone overly concerned with the lack of ice in their drink on the Titanic. There are bigger issues at play.
I assume that's targeted at yours truly.
You'll note I didn't state anything about it not being PvP, but that it doesn't have to be. You choose to compete. I choose to pick where in thresholds I'd like to go. I auto 5 Arena battles, because I care not - I'd like to get more Captain Proton ships pieces, but it's not a life-defining need. I play Gauntlet as and when, usually finisher closer to 100 than 1.
And I take enjoyment in playing, in helping my fleet bump up the starbase.
As for advantages, never won Gauntlet, never broken top 50 in an event, never finished in top 20 in Arena. Was once at number one for 5 seconds a couple of years back though.
Hey folks, here's your poster child for success in this game. Follow my lead, and you too can achieve mediocrity in the game!
I'm sure the queue will be forming shortly. No selfies or autographs please!
I've spent a fair chunk of my life advocating for changes I wouldn't benefit from, so yes.
I wouldn't benefit much, if at all, from adding legendaries post 10 hours, it just looks like an occasional use for my tokens in the hope - hope, not expectation - that it might drop a 5* I want to add a star to.
I just think it's a nice idea for when, should lady luck tip you the wink, you inch closer to getting a weak 5* into the freezer rather than the airlock.
As stated earlier in my post, I don't actually think this provides any real benefit to the spenders as they have better options to achieve the same end via the power of the wallet.
And I'll add an FYI of my own, I have come to truly detest the view that anyones opinions - including my own - are insulated from criticism unless it's applied with certain rules. It's a sign that someone is seeking validation for their opinion, rather than wishing to debate it.
Well said, 🖖
Firstly if we are talking about whales would they really be needing to get unfused old/weak legendary cards, well perhaps if they deliberately abstained from getting them the first time round.
Secondly you can get to ten hours voyages F2P, you can even extend voyages beyond this thanks to the introduction of voyage tokens being routinely handed out and earnable through event thresholds.
Ok so it all hinges on stage/game progression but then everything you ever did on the game hindered on that aspect. This example is a relatively f2p earnable avenue not available currently really can't understand the reticence on this part.
Thirdly I don't think we have discussed/addressed exactly how and when legendaries should dropped from voyages that is equally important to the discussion as to it's feasibility. Until the exact parameters are set out. Discussions about fairness et al are a mute point entirely.
The only down side to this idea from a player perspective is actually a good reason for Wicked Realms to do this: it will start eating up crew slots, and players will feel a stronger motivation to use dilithium or money to buy more.
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