Since this new policy, not only I will only buy slots on sales, I will not purchase dilithium anymore
What's the policy?
I would rather buy 5 slots for 1,500 dil than for 3,000, sure, but it's not like a slot sale is the only time you can buy slots...
And it's not like there ever was a policy of a crew slot sale every X months.
And no policy that says we have to continue spending money on this game either. TP should consider that.
Such a good point. After 4.5 years of literally daily play and 1.5 years of finishing in the top-1500 of every single event, I quit playing this game because I ran all the way out of crew slots for legendaries (having airlocked or frozen all purples). I didn't want to choose between airlocking 1/5s I had worked for or freezing more 5/5s and impacting my ability to run long voyages (having already frozen the 40ish 5/5s I have that never got voyage use).
The actual punishment for playing the game every day and participating in every event is having to spend $40 per month on crew slots to keep playing (that's the non-sale sticker price for 5 crew slots). The crew slot sales are too infrequent to cut the cost on that in any meaningful way.
Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
new crew every week - but no starting slot expansion I somewhat get......but not making slots available at price where many user will buy them seems odd.......
They are hurting themselves in the long run, I think.
I have enough saved for 8 bundles at sale price, but with my current strategy I might not buy that many, like I would have a few months ago. I will likely buy some slots at the next sale, but not as many. I don't need them and can wait with a larger reserve for other things.
I'm at a balancing point with enough good 5* crew to freeze most 4* crew as they get immortalized or fairly soon after. I still have a few purples serving, but I freeze about one longtime immortalized purple a week now. Scrooge Data just knocked EV Suit Chekov past my threshold for staying out, so he was froze. Fugitive Burnham or Dress Uniform Bashir will likely go next. Soong and Rand might not make it much past the event if I finish them by the end.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
Agree with all of you. I stop even buying monthly card for the first time ever, don't need dill. I will not buying pack to airlock them, no slot sale, so no need for dill.
Since this new policy, not only I will only buy slots on sales, I will not purchase dilithium anymore
What's the policy?
I would rather buy 5 slots for 1,500 dil than for 3,000, sure, but it's not like a slot sale is the only time you can buy slots...
And it's not like there ever was a policy of a crew slot sale every X months.
And no policy that says we have to continue spending money on this game either. TP should consider that.
Such a good point. After 4.5 years of literally daily play and 1.5 years of finishing in the top-1500 of every single event, I quit playing this game because I ran all the way out of crew slots for legendaries (having airlocked or frozen all purples). I didn't want to choose between airlocking 1/5s I had worked for or freezing more 5/5s and impacting my ability to run long voyages (having already frozen the 40ish 5/5s I have that never got voyage use).
The actual punishment for playing the game every day and participating in every event is having to spend $40 per month on crew slots to keep playing (that's the non-sale sticker price for 5 crew slots). The crew slot sales are too infrequent to cut the cost on that in any meaningful way.
The most frustrating thing, about hearing that, is there were slot sales (under DB) every other month, for about a year. After TP takes over, we're waiting months on end. Don't get me wrong, TP/WRG can do w/e it likes, it's their game; but I can't help but feel like they are, once again, unnecessarily eroding the community. And the game can only take so much of that before it breaks.
PS @WRG, I'm not saying you should have a slot sale ASAP (although you absolutely should), I'm saying you should have a "roadmap" for such things. And the fact that you don't is detrimental to the game; ie the community. My 2¢.
Ten Forward Loungers - Give Your Best, Get Our Best!
Visit us on discord to find out more: https://discord.gg/hg8ZRyn/
An artifical bottleneck of slots is being made bigger then it need be.......this allows them to push the price for for the rarest "product" in the game up and keep it inflated......
If you want to play, you either climb the VIP ranks quickly to get the "free" slots or you pay for slots.....
lovely Catch-22 they have created...
If you have already spent $$ on the game or time to the game - then it is very hard for you to walk away......so at some point you will stump up for this......
and as soon as you "learn to live" with the inflated price of slots, it becomes normal.
Also new players, who have not seen a slot sale, don't know about them - so to them the price is acceptable........
An artifical bottleneck of slots is being made bigger then it need be.......
Also new players, who have not seen a slot sale, don't know about them - so to them the price is acceptable........
New player & I've never seen a slot sale. But I can see many players screenshots of hundreds of slots. Still waiting for a sale as the Slot price is artificial high, and Im still limiting my real money Pack purchases because I've got space issues!
As to some players writing about starting with only 35 slots when the game launched a few pages back..... They seem to recall that, but fail to recall that there wasn't 1,000 crew in the game. Getting enough copies of a particular member to freeze them with the wide field is no easy task for a new player.
As to some players writing about starting with only 35 slots when the game launched a few pages back..... They seem to recall that, but fail to recall that there wasn't 1,000 crew in the game. Getting enough copies of a particular member to freeze them with the wide field is no easy task for a new player.
This is partly why I advocated someplace recently (not sure if it was this thread or another) that newer players should ignore most 1/4 cards and focus on the lower card tiers until they are truly ready to tackle the 4* maelstrom. Keep 'em at 2/4 and up, airlock most of them otherwise. There are too many to try to collect them all in the early phase of the game and most don't really help at 1/4 (these days, there are even new 3* cards that beat older 4* cards).
That said, I'm offering this advice from the perspective of a 4 year player. Maybe I should start a new alt account just to see if anything I'm saying has any validity.
Since this new policy, not only I will only buy slots on sales, I will not purchase dilithium anymore
What's the policy?
I would rather buy 5 slots for 1,500 dil than for 3,000, sure, but it's not like a slot sale is the only time you can buy slots...
And it's not like there ever was a policy of a crew slot sale every X months.
And no policy that says we have to continue spending money on this game either. TP should consider that.
Such a good point. After 4.5 years of literally daily play and 1.5 years of finishing in the top-1500 of every single event, I quit playing this game because I ran all the way out of crew slots for legendaries (having airlocked or frozen all purples). I didn't want to choose between airlocking 1/5s I had worked for or freezing more 5/5s and impacting my ability to run long voyages (having already frozen the 40ish 5/5s I have that never got voyage use).
The actual punishment for playing the game every day and participating in every event is having to spend $40 per month on crew slots to keep playing (that's the non-sale sticker price for 5 crew slots). The crew slot sales are too infrequent to cut the cost on that in any meaningful way.
Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
Unless there is (still) some technical reason like hardware/software limitation for this restriction on crew slots, I really do not understand this decision as a long-term strategy for this game that we all enjoy...
Even when that eventual crew slot sale comes, we need to realize that it will only be a short-term bandage that pushes back the inevitable yet again. There needs to be a long-term solution to this major pain point that affects both newbies and veteran players.
Since this new policy, not only I will only buy slots on sales, I will not purchase dilithium anymore
What's the policy?
I would rather buy 5 slots for 1,500 dil than for 3,000, sure, but it's not like a slot sale is the only time you can buy slots...
And it's not like there ever was a policy of a crew slot sale every X months.
And no policy that says we have to continue spending money on this game either. TP should consider that.
Such a good point. After 4.5 years of literally daily play and 1.5 years of finishing in the top-1500 of every single event, I quit playing this game because I ran all the way out of crew slots for legendaries (having airlocked or frozen all purples). I didn't want to choose between airlocking 1/5s I had worked for or freezing more 5/5s and impacting my ability to run long voyages (having already frozen the 40ish 5/5s I have that never got voyage use).
The actual punishment for playing the game every day and participating in every event is having to spend $40 per month on crew slots to keep playing (that's the non-sale sticker price for 5 crew slots). The crew slot sales are too infrequent to cut the cost on that in any meaningful way.
Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
Unless there is (still) some technical reason like hardware/software limitation for this restriction on crew slots, I really do not understand this decision as a long-term strategy for this game that we all enjoy...
Even when that eventual crew slot sale comes, we need to realize that it will only be a short-term bandage that pushes back the inevitable yet again. There needs to be a long-term solution to this major pain point that affects both newbies and veteran players.
Agreed. I would like someone from the company to explain what the long term plan is for crew slots and what they can do to alleviate this problem in any way. Just ignoring players is a bad way for a company to run. It is why I stopped playing Kixeye games.
There are so many quality of life upgrades we could use.
Slots are one of them. Maybe the biggest, but not the only one.
I'd like the Vault sorting to include frozen crew in the ranking of stats with crew in quarters, instead of having them underneath with the ones I don't have. I'm searching the Vault to see if I have something better frozen than what I have in quarters. It would be nice if they were together.
Something that doesn't crash constantly would be nice. I have to reinstall about twice a month.🙄
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
Since this new policy, not only I will only buy slots on sales, I will not purchase dilithium anymore
What's the policy?
I would rather buy 5 slots for 1,500 dil than for 3,000, sure, but it's not like a slot sale is the only time you can buy slots...
And it's not like there ever was a policy of a crew slot sale every X months.
And no policy that says we have to continue spending money on this game either. TP should consider that.
Such a good point. After 4.5 years of literally daily play and 1.5 years of finishing in the top-1500 of every single event, I quit playing this game because I ran all the way out of crew slots for legendaries (having airlocked or frozen all purples). I didn't want to choose between airlocking 1/5s I had worked for or freezing more 5/5s and impacting my ability to run long voyages (having already frozen the 40ish 5/5s I have that never got voyage use).
The actual punishment for playing the game every day and participating in every event is having to spend $40 per month on crew slots to keep playing (that's the non-sale sticker price for 5 crew slots). The crew slot sales are too infrequent to cut the cost on that in any meaningful way.
The most frustrating thing, about hearing that, is there were slot sales (under DB) every other month, for about a year. After TP takes over, we're waiting months on end. Don't get me wrong, TP/WRG can do w/e it likes, it's their game; but I can't help but feel like they are, once again, unnecessarily eroding the community. And the game can only take so much of that before it breaks.
PS @WRG, I'm not saying you should have a slot sale ASAP (although you absolutely should), I'm saying you should have a "roadmap" for such things. And the fact that you don't is detrimental to the game; ie the community. My 2¢.
A year ago to get in the top 1% in Admiral Arena you needed to be in the top 1000. So there were 100k players regularly playing in Admiral. 2-3 months ago it was down to 725 meaning 72500 regularly players in Admiral. Now the top 1% is 661 so down to 66100 regular players. So we've lost 34k regular players in 12 months. This is unsustainable and very soon the game will be uneconomical. I've invested alot of time and money in this game and I do not want to lose this. TP needs to wake up and ask themselves why 34% of players have left in the last 12 months, not all will be over crew slots but it will be due to the game not listening to its players.
Could have to do with the lack of variety in the Arena. Some might just quit arena. I don't play the two lower levels anymore. I have all 3* ships maxed and all but the newest additions to the 4* line-up. The 5* schematics are still useful to me, for now. That might explain the choice of Arena for the temporary achievement. Does anyone know if more people were playing? It seemed like it.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
Greed? really? your entire outlook on this entire thing is so negative. i already explained there are technical limitations.
Even if there are technical limitations and giving out more crew slots would be a problem, with new crew being added at a pace of 3 a week, at some point this issue will need to be adressed. If it's not through more crew slots, then it could be solved by making it easier to immortalize lower rarity crew (3* and 4*) or older crew, or by splitting up the portal or allowing players to temporarily freeze crew that is not immortal. If people really stop buying offers and packs because of a lack of crew slots, then keeping things as they are won't really benefit WRG in the long run.
Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
Greed? really? your entire outlook on this entire thing is so negative. i already explained there are technical limitations.
Why the large decrease in crew slot sales in this year versus last? Why are we not allowed to freeze crew that are fully equipped but not with full stars? Why no communication on this subject from TP? The longer this game goes on the more this is a problem for players and the more the lack of communication on the subject from the company reflects poorly on them. I have been playing this game for more than four years and been positive most of that time but these last six months have been very difficult for me to enjoy the game. I have had to airlock so many legendaries and super rares and am not able to unfreeze my crew for events. I have even frozen immortalized legendaries that I did not need and am still running into crew slot shortage. I find the lack of crew slot sales and communication from TP exasperating and it is affecting my spending and my gameplay. Long term players are quitting because of the issue and I do not want to be one of them. I have lost several long term players in my fleet this year because of it. So I am trying to get the attention of TP so that they will do something before any more of us quit. I want this game to be popular and profitable but I am not liking the direction TP is going with this.
So I you say it's been 6 months of this growing Slot issue, isn't that around the time of the purchase/transition to TP?. I assume most people are competent, reasonable and act in their interests, but this is odd.
A. If the issue is exclusively a infastructure/technical one perhaps the DBA/developer that knew that back-end system did not make the transition and they can't afford to tax the system even in the slightest degree until they hire a replacement/expert.
B. Or perhaps there was always a management plan/decision to write the purchase off the books at a loss for financial reasons. Who knows if its more profitable to purchase the ST IP then shut things down (for something new?) before they do anything.
Tilting Point aquired a "card collecting game" but over the last few months it seems they have almost eliminated the ability to reasonably collect Crew. I'm certain this decision driven from the top for "reasons" not apparent to the player at this time.
I've enjoyed they game for the very short time I've played, and I really hope someone with actual decision making ability looks at the state of the game and what profits are being missed out on by limiting collecting.
A. If the issue is exclusively a infastructure/technical one perhaps the DBA/developer that knew that back-end system did not make the transition and they can't afford to tax the system even in the slightest degree until they hire a replacement/expert.
Well their database sits on MySQL, a known "free" database system that serves its purpose but has a massive scalability issues. Considering, by the time they began to encounter performance issues, the vast resources of the DB team looked forward to developing the walking dead game , with a much smaller team carrying on Timelines. My guess is, it would have been extremely expensive for them to bring on a dedicated DB person or even a consultant to try to migrate their back end to a better database server, or such an option would have been too expensive for them to stay on the positive side of the ledger.
Also, given some of the interviews Ben has given, he has continued to hint at the fact, that every time WRG adds a feature, or makes an adjustment to the system, they have to analyze the impact it has on their systems. From here, it's pure speculation as to what that has been with some of the recent additions or even the last large scale addition of 5 free slots per player, plus additional slots that players bought on sale. Also, after some research, i'd venture to say there are about 10 or less technical developers on the WRG team, working hard on a variety of issues and new features. To dedicate a small team's efforts back to analyzing slots just carves away time from those other issues or new features.
While slots may be a defining issue for some players, for other players it's going to be a desire to see new features, or something else. heck there was an entire thread about lack of new features and how the game was stale. the tough things a company has to do is weigh what is more important, especially with a small team.
Guess what ... limited slots is a hard issue for players. I get it. I've sent 60+ legendary cards to the freezer to make room for new cards, so i feel the pain as well. But some of us have also been around 4+ years and can see the forest through the trees and know there are many other circumstances and issues at hand. We've talked directly with people like Nod or Test2 on Discord/Line and know a thing or two. There was a day where devs interacted directly with the players and it was very insightful. WRGBen has done a decent job of trying to pick back up on this.
WRG has to play a delicate balancing game, but also have to follow certain directives from the higher ups at TP. TP also did not spend 20+ million on STT to drive it into the ground. Instead of the constant despair I see on the forum ... perhaps be patient and hope for the best?
Still doesn’t explain why there are fewer crew slot sales this year than last or why TP is not telling us these things themselves. They have left the players to make guesses and speculate.
WRG has to play a delicate balancing game, but also have to follow certain directives from the higher ups at TP. TP also did not spend 20+ million on STT to drive it into the ground. Instead of the constant despair I see on the forum ... perhaps be patient and hope for the best?
I have been patient and hoping for the best on various issues that have existed in the game - some of which have been present for years and some of which could be fixed in a matter of minutes. You're welcome to go through my comment history and see how I almost never wrote a negative comment about STT before 2020 - but enough is enough.
Being patient and hoping for the best has not worked. The ship is sinking faster than ever before. SteamSpy confirms the player numbers have been dropping consistently for the last six months. The comments about TP's failures are justified.
I like Star Trek Timelines, but it's good food in a restaurant that is being run increasingly badly. (And Spock only knows how our investments in our accounts fit into that analogy!) At least some of us care enough about the game to stick around and point out how it can be improved, and how desperately some of those improvements are needed. And it's also worth bearing in mind that players are customers - we shouldn't have to know or worry about the technical reasons behind significant problems in the game. It's TP's responsibility to resolve game problems, one way or another. If they cannot, as Ben seems to have implied, then the obvious response is for customers not to waste money on an unfixable mess.
Or perhaps, like many players have already chosen, it's best not to waste any time on it either.
When I started to play Timelines in late 2016, like most mobile games it seemed to push players to spend money to reduce frustration rather than maximise their enjoyment of the game. That's why I stayed ftp for about 12 months. This has changed from many points of view with voyages, campaigns, achievements and some of the better offers for low/medium spenders.
I think the reason why the price for crew slots is so annoying and people are unwilling to pay it, is that it still falls into the "spend money to make the experience less awful" field. If WRG/TP doesn't want players to actually spend that money, because crew slots are a problem, then they should find another way to reduce player frustration.
This doesn't affect me personally (I currently have 17 slots occupied by 1* and lv1 dupes - because I don't like it when I have to search for the crew to airlock after a voyage returns) and it's hard to tell how many people are actually affected by it to the point that they don't enjoy the game anymore. But since this game has such a strong collecting aspect to it, I would guess that they're probably more than the ones annoyed by the "Section 31" trait on Agent Janeway, the in-game mail cheat, the items in threshold rewards, the ending time of the gauntlet, the same player winning all faction events, the same players getting all FTMs, the expansion of collections, the lack of expansions for collections, the rewards in the arena, the lack of a new gauntlet legendary, the lack of new features, the addition of non-canon crew, the choice of ranked rewards, the choice of a campaign legendary, the offer wall...
And people have complained about all of these things and sometimes they've been listened to and sometimes not. So it would make sense that this keeps being brought up too.
As to some players writing about starting with only 35 slots when the game launched a few pages back..... They seem to recall that, but fail to recall that there wasn't 1,000 crew in the game. Getting enough copies of a particular member to freeze them with the wide field is no easy task for a new player.
This is partly why I advocated someplace recently (not sure if it was this thread or another) that newer players should ignore most 1/4 cards and focus on the lower card tiers until they are truly ready to tackle the 4* maelstrom. Keep 'em at 2/4 and up, airlock most of them otherwise. There are too many to try to collect them all in the early phase of the game and most don't really help at 1/4 (these days, there are even new 3* cards that beat older 4* cards).
That said, I'm offering this advice from the perspective of a 4 year player. Maybe I should start a new alt account just to see if anything I'm saying has any validity.
I'm at 14 months playing the game. In that time, this lesson has been the hardest though best to learn for playing this game.
There are a lot of different perspectives and ways to play. I don't want to get bogged down critiquing them. This game is designed for spending, fact not moral judgement. As useful as player defense for the dev room can be, at a certain point it is just not going to do the job of reassuring other players of the issues, limitations, directions in the dev room. Player shields only work short term. I'm not critiquing the players defenses accuracy or objectivity. If the person working the fryer at McDonald's for 10 years tried to run defense for the company it simply doesn't carry the weight and reassurance that hearing from the company does.
I have learned and am still struggling with playing the game from a strategic perspective rather than as a fan. Playing the game by ruthlessly trying to keep my effort on developing from the top tier down. I have been forced to airlock cards for characters I like and want. And while this makes for an slightly more productive style of play what it does is blunt your emotional investment in the game. Once the cards represent characters you are tolerating rather than faces you want to see the result is annoyance and frustration. For the type of personality that engages with emotion and social interaction rather than strategy and ranking, the design of play doesn't suit them.
I will abstain from commenting on mechanics, except to point out that they are designed for profit and not for play balance. What I would change is irrelevant. The problem is less the slots precisely and more the lack of faith players would pay the same for lower rarity cards. The game only pumps out legends and SRs. They have made the distinction meaningless in some ways and laughable in others.
If you want to play this game without getting upset you need to find a way to engage on a purely strategic level and as a fan after that. Every card will come around again in time. Play to clear away and space missions for warp. Play to max gains from the gauntlet as needed. Play to maximize schematics. Play to hit 8 hours comfortablely and still be able to succeed faction missions. Look at collecting as a side benefit. Burn your portal packs for honour and schematics. Collecting needs to be a long long term goal.
I don't like playing this way, I would rather the objective be primarily collecting, with other play objectives coming up close behind. I would love a slot sale, but at the same time I know it would only be a brief respite. There is a structure issue that needs to be looked at. And I believe the key issue is the belief that players will only drop cash at a target goal for power creep. This bias has unbalanced the nature of the card collection structure.
The problem, I have, with the "technical limitations" argument, is that you can purchase those slots, right now, if you're willing to pay full price. So, one would assume that, as things stand right at this moment, STT has the ability, technically speaking, to house all those cards/crew slots for all active accounts. Which makes me think that the "technical limitations" are related to the increase in maximum crew slots and/or the 5 free slots. The thing is, the community is not asking for free slots, nor an increase in the maximum; we are asking, simply, for a sale.
And that's the thing, @TP@WRG@WRG Ben@Shan , you need to have regular, predictable slot sales.
Heck, why not have them before every mega? Then, people might be more inclined to purchase various crew packs during the mega. Just a thought.
Ten Forward Loungers - Give Your Best, Get Our Best!
Visit us on discord to find out more: https://discord.gg/hg8ZRyn/
If the game is so tenuously held together that merely offering a discount on crew slots risks compromising it, it's in deep trouble.
The obvious (IMO) solution, if that is in fact the case, is to permanently lower the crew slot price to 1500 dil and do away with slot sales altogether. Then, the occasional 5 free slots and increase in the maximum will, once again, feel like a special gift; not much needed relief towards the hemorrhaging of crew.
Ten Forward Loungers - Give Your Best, Get Our Best!
Visit us on discord to find out more: https://discord.gg/hg8ZRyn/
I havent read the whole thread, but the last couple of pages had me thinking that many players have been asking for 4* and 5* collections, and many players have been asking for more slots. Maybe its the ideal combination to have rewards for those collections be increased slots - it makes sense that those who can start to hit tiered rewards in a collection for those cards are also the ones who probably need the additional slot room.
I havent read the whole thread, but the last couple of pages had me thinking that many players have been asking for 4* and 5* collections, and many players have been asking for more slots. Maybe its the ideal combination to have rewards for those collections be increased slots - it makes sense that those who can start to hit tiered rewards in a collection for those cards are also the ones who probably need the additional slot room.
I think that is a marvelous idea. +1 from me.
If I had one addition it would be, to not make, say, a 'Mirror Collection' give out free slots. Rather, have a SR and Legendary collection, similar to the Uncommon Crew/Common Crew/Rare Crew collections, that give out free slots for each tier.
I havent read the whole thread, but the last couple of pages had me thinking that many players have been asking for 4* and 5* collections, and many players have been asking for more slots. Maybe its the ideal combination to have rewards for those collections be increased slots - it makes sense that those who can start to hit tiered rewards in a collection for those cards are also the ones who probably need the additional slot room.
I think that is a marvelous idea. +1 from me.
If I had one addition it would be, to not make, say, a 'Mirror Collection' give out free slots. Rather, have a SR and Legendary collection, similar to the Uncommon Crew/Common Crew/Rare Crew collections, that give out free slots for each tier.
This is a pretty good idea. There have been calls for legendary and SR collections for a long while. I would start with awarding 5 slots for every 20 crew immortalized. You would still have to either freeze crew or buy slots that way.
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Sorry to see another long term player quitting because of TP’s greed. We have had so few crew slot discount events this year compared to last. I have had to airlock so many legendaries now and didn’t even really try last two events because I had no space for the legendaries. I do not know why TP is being so stubborn and short sided on this issue and why they do not seem to care. This post has been up since July and I do not see a response from the company. All we got was Ben going on a show and saying no crew discount slot events anytime for weeks. That is pitiful. Two times on a show to talk to the community and that is all he said about the biggest issue in the game.
what are you not telling us TP?
I have enough saved for 8 bundles at sale price, but with my current strategy I might not buy that many, like I would have a few months ago. I will likely buy some slots at the next sale, but not as many. I don't need them and can wait with a larger reserve for other things.
I'm at a balancing point with enough good 5* crew to freeze most 4* crew as they get immortalized or fairly soon after. I still have a few purples serving, but I freeze about one longtime immortalized purple a week now. Scrooge Data just knocked EV Suit Chekov past my threshold for staying out, so he was froze. Fugitive Burnham or Dress Uniform Bashir will likely go next. Soong and Rand might not make it much past the event if I finish them by the end.
The most frustrating thing, about hearing that, is there were slot sales (under DB) every other month, for about a year. After TP takes over, we're waiting months on end. Don't get me wrong, TP/WRG can do w/e it likes, it's their game; but I can't help but feel like they are, once again, unnecessarily eroding the community. And the game can only take so much of that before it breaks.
PS @WRG, I'm not saying you should have a slot sale ASAP (although you absolutely should), I'm saying you should have a "roadmap" for such things. And the fact that you don't is detrimental to the game; ie the community. My 2¢.
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If you want to play, you either climb the VIP ranks quickly to get the "free" slots or you pay for slots.....
lovely Catch-22 they have created...
If you have already spent $$ on the game or time to the game - then it is very hard for you to walk away......so at some point you will stump up for this......
and as soon as you "learn to live" with the inflated price of slots, it becomes normal.
Also new players, who have not seen a slot sale, don't know about them - so to them the price is acceptable........
However, this topic is not really new: https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/comment/75423/#Comment_75423
New player & I've never seen a slot sale. But I can see many players screenshots of hundreds of slots. Still waiting for a sale as the Slot price is artificial high, and Im still limiting my real money Pack purchases because I've got space issues!
As to some players writing about starting with only 35 slots when the game launched a few pages back..... They seem to recall that, but fail to recall that there wasn't 1,000 crew in the game. Getting enough copies of a particular member to freeze them with the wide field is no easy task for a new player.
This is partly why I advocated someplace recently (not sure if it was this thread or another) that newer players should ignore most 1/4 cards and focus on the lower card tiers until they are truly ready to tackle the 4* maelstrom. Keep 'em at 2/4 and up, airlock most of them otherwise. There are too many to try to collect them all in the early phase of the game and most don't really help at 1/4 (these days, there are even new 3* cards that beat older 4* cards).
That said, I'm offering this advice from the perspective of a 4 year player. Maybe I should start a new alt account just to see if anything I'm saying has any validity.
Unless there is (still) some technical reason like hardware/software limitation for this restriction on crew slots, I really do not understand this decision as a long-term strategy for this game that we all enjoy...
Even when that eventual crew slot sale comes, we need to realize that it will only be a short-term bandage that pushes back the inevitable yet again. There needs to be a long-term solution to this major pain point that affects both newbies and veteran players.
Agreed. I would like someone from the company to explain what the long term plan is for crew slots and what they can do to alleviate this problem in any way. Just ignoring players is a bad way for a company to run. It is why I stopped playing Kixeye games.
Slots are one of them. Maybe the biggest, but not the only one.
I'd like the Vault sorting to include frozen crew in the ranking of stats with crew in quarters, instead of having them underneath with the ones I don't have. I'm searching the Vault to see if I have something better frozen than what I have in quarters. It would be nice if they were together.
Something that doesn't crash constantly would be nice. I have to reinstall about twice a month.🙄
A year ago to get in the top 1% in Admiral Arena you needed to be in the top 1000. So there were 100k players regularly playing in Admiral. 2-3 months ago it was down to 725 meaning 72500 regularly players in Admiral. Now the top 1% is 661 so down to 66100 regular players. So we've lost 34k regular players in 12 months. This is unsustainable and very soon the game will be uneconomical. I've invested alot of time and money in this game and I do not want to lose this. TP needs to wake up and ask themselves why 34% of players have left in the last 12 months, not all will be over crew slots but it will be due to the game not listening to its players.
Greed? really? your entire outlook on this entire thing is so negative. i already explained there are technical limitations.
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Why the large decrease in crew slot sales in this year versus last? Why are we not allowed to freeze crew that are fully equipped but not with full stars? Why no communication on this subject from TP? The longer this game goes on the more this is a problem for players and the more the lack of communication on the subject from the company reflects poorly on them. I have been playing this game for more than four years and been positive most of that time but these last six months have been very difficult for me to enjoy the game. I have had to airlock so many legendaries and super rares and am not able to unfreeze my crew for events. I have even frozen immortalized legendaries that I did not need and am still running into crew slot shortage. I find the lack of crew slot sales and communication from TP exasperating and it is affecting my spending and my gameplay. Long term players are quitting because of the issue and I do not want to be one of them. I have lost several long term players in my fleet this year because of it. So I am trying to get the attention of TP so that they will do something before any more of us quit. I want this game to be popular and profitable but I am not liking the direction TP is going with this.
A. If the issue is exclusively a infastructure/technical one perhaps the DBA/developer that knew that back-end system did not make the transition and they can't afford to tax the system even in the slightest degree until they hire a replacement/expert.
B. Or perhaps there was always a management plan/decision to write the purchase off the books at a loss for financial reasons. Who knows if its more profitable to purchase the ST IP then shut things down (for something new?) before they do anything.
Tilting Point aquired a "card collecting game" but over the last few months it seems they have almost eliminated the ability to reasonably collect Crew. I'm certain this decision driven from the top for "reasons" not apparent to the player at this time.
I've enjoyed they game for the very short time I've played, and I really hope someone with actual decision making ability looks at the state of the game and what profits are being missed out on by limiting collecting.
Well their database sits on MySQL, a known "free" database system that serves its purpose but has a massive scalability issues. Considering, by the time they began to encounter performance issues, the vast resources of the DB team looked forward to developing the walking dead game , with a much smaller team carrying on Timelines. My guess is, it would have been extremely expensive for them to bring on a dedicated DB person or even a consultant to try to migrate their back end to a better database server, or such an option would have been too expensive for them to stay on the positive side of the ledger.
Also, given some of the interviews Ben has given, he has continued to hint at the fact, that every time WRG adds a feature, or makes an adjustment to the system, they have to analyze the impact it has on their systems. From here, it's pure speculation as to what that has been with some of the recent additions or even the last large scale addition of 5 free slots per player, plus additional slots that players bought on sale. Also, after some research, i'd venture to say there are about 10 or less technical developers on the WRG team, working hard on a variety of issues and new features. To dedicate a small team's efforts back to analyzing slots just carves away time from those other issues or new features.
While slots may be a defining issue for some players, for other players it's going to be a desire to see new features, or something else. heck there was an entire thread about lack of new features and how the game was stale. the tough things a company has to do is weigh what is more important, especially with a small team.
Guess what ... limited slots is a hard issue for players. I get it. I've sent 60+ legendary cards to the freezer to make room for new cards, so i feel the pain as well. But some of us have also been around 4+ years and can see the forest through the trees and know there are many other circumstances and issues at hand. We've talked directly with people like Nod or Test2 on Discord/Line and know a thing or two. There was a day where devs interacted directly with the players and it was very insightful. WRGBen has done a decent job of trying to pick back up on this.
WRG has to play a delicate balancing game, but also have to follow certain directives from the higher ups at TP. TP also did not spend 20+ million on STT to drive it into the ground. Instead of the constant despair I see on the forum ... perhaps be patient and hope for the best?
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Being patient and hoping for the best has not worked. The ship is sinking faster than ever before. SteamSpy confirms the player numbers have been dropping consistently for the last six months. The comments about TP's failures are justified.
I like Star Trek Timelines, but it's good food in a restaurant that is being run increasingly badly. (And Spock only knows how our investments in our accounts fit into that analogy!) At least some of us care enough about the game to stick around and point out how it can be improved, and how desperately some of those improvements are needed. And it's also worth bearing in mind that players are customers - we shouldn't have to know or worry about the technical reasons behind significant problems in the game. It's TP's responsibility to resolve game problems, one way or another. If they cannot, as Ben seems to have implied, then the obvious response is for customers not to waste money on an unfixable mess.
Or perhaps, like many players have already chosen, it's best not to waste any time on it either.
I think the reason why the price for crew slots is so annoying and people are unwilling to pay it, is that it still falls into the "spend money to make the experience less awful" field. If WRG/TP doesn't want players to actually spend that money, because crew slots are a problem, then they should find another way to reduce player frustration.
This doesn't affect me personally (I currently have 17 slots occupied by 1* and lv1 dupes - because I don't like it when I have to search for the crew to airlock after a voyage returns) and it's hard to tell how many people are actually affected by it to the point that they don't enjoy the game anymore. But since this game has such a strong collecting aspect to it, I would guess that they're probably more than the ones annoyed by the "Section 31" trait on Agent Janeway, the in-game mail cheat, the items in threshold rewards, the ending time of the gauntlet, the same player winning all faction events, the same players getting all FTMs, the expansion of collections, the lack of expansions for collections, the rewards in the arena, the lack of a new gauntlet legendary, the lack of new features, the addition of non-canon crew, the choice of ranked rewards, the choice of a campaign legendary, the offer wall...
And people have complained about all of these things and sometimes they've been listened to and sometimes not. So it would make sense that this keeps being brought up too.
I'm at 14 months playing the game. In that time, this lesson has been the hardest though best to learn for playing this game.
There are a lot of different perspectives and ways to play. I don't want to get bogged down critiquing them. This game is designed for spending, fact not moral judgement. As useful as player defense for the dev room can be, at a certain point it is just not going to do the job of reassuring other players of the issues, limitations, directions in the dev room. Player shields only work short term. I'm not critiquing the players defenses accuracy or objectivity. If the person working the fryer at McDonald's for 10 years tried to run defense for the company it simply doesn't carry the weight and reassurance that hearing from the company does.
I have learned and am still struggling with playing the game from a strategic perspective rather than as a fan. Playing the game by ruthlessly trying to keep my effort on developing from the top tier down. I have been forced to airlock cards for characters I like and want. And while this makes for an slightly more productive style of play what it does is blunt your emotional investment in the game. Once the cards represent characters you are tolerating rather than faces you want to see the result is annoyance and frustration. For the type of personality that engages with emotion and social interaction rather than strategy and ranking, the design of play doesn't suit them.
I will abstain from commenting on mechanics, except to point out that they are designed for profit and not for play balance. What I would change is irrelevant. The problem is less the slots precisely and more the lack of faith players would pay the same for lower rarity cards. The game only pumps out legends and SRs. They have made the distinction meaningless in some ways and laughable in others.
If you want to play this game without getting upset you need to find a way to engage on a purely strategic level and as a fan after that. Every card will come around again in time. Play to clear away and space missions for warp. Play to max gains from the gauntlet as needed. Play to maximize schematics. Play to hit 8 hours comfortablely and still be able to succeed faction missions. Look at collecting as a side benefit. Burn your portal packs for honour and schematics. Collecting needs to be a long long term goal.
I don't like playing this way, I would rather the objective be primarily collecting, with other play objectives coming up close behind. I would love a slot sale, but at the same time I know it would only be a brief respite. There is a structure issue that needs to be looked at. And I believe the key issue is the belief that players will only drop cash at a target goal for power creep. This bias has unbalanced the nature of the card collection structure.
And that's the thing, @TP @WRG @WRG Ben @Shan , you need to have regular, predictable slot sales.
Heck, why not have them before every mega? Then, people might be more inclined to purchase various crew packs during the mega. Just a thought.
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The obvious (IMO) solution, if that is in fact the case, is to permanently lower the crew slot price to 1500 dil and do away with slot sales altogether. Then, the occasional 5 free slots and increase in the maximum will, once again, feel like a special gift; not much needed relief towards the hemorrhaging of crew.
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I think that is a marvelous idea. +1 from me.
If I had one addition it would be, to not make, say, a 'Mirror Collection' give out free slots. Rather, have a SR and Legendary collection, similar to the Uncommon Crew/Common Crew/Rare Crew collections, that give out free slots for each tier.
This is a pretty good idea. There have been calls for legendary and SR collections for a long while. I would start with awarding 5 slots for every 20 crew immortalized. You would still have to either freeze crew or buy slots that way.