This is the time...
mejoyh
✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
After 3 years playing STT, guess its finally time for me to call it a day on STT. I just wanted to say it was great to have virtually met and conversed with everyone on the forum.
I've just found that my recent experiences playing the game has more often resulted in frustration, annoyance and anger more than being challenging which is not what I want when playing something I should be enjoying. I think the 'straw that broke the camel's back' was when I pulled Jhamel and Hernandez on the recap pulls. What should have been a happy moment (2 legendary cards in 7 pulls!) turned to frustration (bordering on mild anger) as now I'm forced to freeze 2 other legendary cards which were actually useful to make space for my army of 1/5 cards. I hate to admit it but this actually caused me a sleepless night... and yes... I know I can just airlock them but STT is built on the premise of being a virtual CCG.
It's strange how I should feel angry when getting new cards in a virtual CCG. I cant say I ever had this feeling when I played Magic or the original Star Trek CCG. Disappointed at not getting a card I wanted when opening packs but definitely not angry getting a rare card I didnt need....
So I'll be playing out the rest of this campaign to finish off Keiko and then I bid everyone a fond farewell
I've just found that my recent experiences playing the game has more often resulted in frustration, annoyance and anger more than being challenging which is not what I want when playing something I should be enjoying. I think the 'straw that broke the camel's back' was when I pulled Jhamel and Hernandez on the recap pulls. What should have been a happy moment (2 legendary cards in 7 pulls!) turned to frustration (bordering on mild anger) as now I'm forced to freeze 2 other legendary cards which were actually useful to make space for my army of 1/5 cards. I hate to admit it but this actually caused me a sleepless night... and yes... I know I can just airlock them but STT is built on the premise of being a virtual CCG.
It's strange how I should feel angry when getting new cards in a virtual CCG. I cant say I ever had this feeling when I played Magic or the original Star Trek CCG. Disappointed at not getting a card I wanted when opening packs but definitely not angry getting a rare card I didnt need....
So I'll be playing out the rest of this campaign to finish off Keiko and then I bid everyone a fond farewell
16
Comments
Ok, fine, all that aside is just frustrating. I can deal with frustrating. What gets me borderline angry are the skewed chances. How am I going up against a single skill target with 5% and my 2 skill 25% or 45% crew fails the majority of the time? Occasionally, fine, odds are what they are. But to lose most of the battles, fail to get a 6 streak unless I burn hundreds of merits, still finish in the top 10 and get nothing more than trainers or chrons is ridiculous. My Gauntlet Vaults don't give me anything higher than a 3* item anymore.
So yeah. Ready to give up on that broken feature.
That being said, the percentages are probably accurate. It's possible that the gauntlet is designed to give you better or worse chances depending on certain circumstances, like how long your win streak is for example, but it doesn't have to be that way. You wouldn't believe how many matches that I should have lost I actually won, since I stopped spending merits on it and started to carelessly fridge my crew.
Anyway, I also guess that it's less annoying to newer players since they can actually get some use out of the bunch of garbage smaller rewards that it has to offer
It certainly is frustrating, but treating the game as CCG is the reason I choose the freezing rather than airlocking. I also froze my 3* Kang and O'Brein. This emptied my ship for Commander Division. I also only used the 4* crew I had for the Mega as my crew in the Captain Division. I also had to rework my Admiral Division ship to use the crew I had available.
My main account I had some problems with crew space when I accidentally airlocked a crew that was not immortalized, and with all the crew I had from mega packs, I did not make the time limit for re-enlisting. Customer Support helped me out next day I had the crew back.
I do not know if above helps you. Wish you the best and a better gaming experience in future games.
I've developed strategies for avoiding the frustration of lousy recap packs and awful gauntlet experiences. I'll share, but I don't want to distract too much, so I'll spoiler it.
Recap packs:
Gauntlet:
I've seen you post plenty on the forums, @mejoyh . You generally bring a good perspective. I would love it if you could find a more relaxed way to play the game and still enjoy it so we can keep you in the community. If not, I get that. It's a personal decision. We keep Tom Paris's Fair Haven program running in one of our holosuites. You're welcome to stop by before you take off the captain pips, if you like.
The Gauntlet crew drop thing is equally annoying. Still no Red Angel here ... though I play it daily and never have an issue generating streaks. I get wanting to make these crew a bit of a treat to get, but limiting it to strictly chance is extremely annoying.
Both of these items are a big reason you get attempts to ban loot boxes like these. It IS gambling. I wish this game would tone down on some of those elements.
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
I would probably be less annoyed by it if I had that kind of luck
Since the Red Nightmare was added I haven't had a single legendary drop from the gauntlet (and I got exactly one useful reward, an equipment item, today). This is despite the fact that for at least one month and a half I did my best to get long win streaks at every gauntlet (we're talking 50+) and ranked in the top 10 consistently. I still rank in the top 10 more often than not, because I've been around for more than 3 years and I happen to have almost all good gauntleteers.
However, given that I go to sleep about 3 hours before reset, top 10 means rank 6-10 for me usually, so just three rewards.
I also have a certain history of bad gauntlet luck, given that I tried really hard to win the Caretaker when he was featured crew and while people on here were complaining about the fact that they were airlocking their dupes and kept getting new copies out of rank 70 or so, I only had one copy of Guinan until the moment they made the changes to drop rates last year. Which was nice (it gave me about one legendary a month for a year or so, then my luck ended and they stopped dropping this spring).
Maybe I shouldn't complain, as I have all other gauntlet exclusives FF (and three of them duped) but I really really dislike the gauntlet and the fact that there are gauntlet exclusive cards subject to pure RNG pointlessness. Every other card either gets added to the portal or you can save up/work towards obtaining them (fuse cards, honor hall, Lucille Davenport). If I want the Red Angel I'm forced to play this pointless endless slot game several times a day, every day, potentially without ever obtaining her.
That's one thing I strongly agree with.
I'd be happy enough if they added different ending times for it (so at least I could have some fun with my crew and reach rank 1 when I want to) and, most importantly, if they made gauntlet exclusives available elsewhere. In the honor hall, through more achievement tiers, I don't care what.
🖖
@ShadowPresence you will get it, I told this to a few in this thread and strangely enough they did get it. So just bear with it for a little while
Not interested in Keiko, Uhura hits 2 collections & my sabbatical is until January 2021 (scroll up). “Move along, move along ...”. 🖖
Part of the issue is if you have a 90% chance to win a match, that still means you lose 10% of the time, and you remember that loss. If you have a 90% chance to lose the match, you never even play the match so you don't see the 10% where you would have won.
The result is players constantly seeing these bad losses and never the lucky wins. So they feel like gauntlet is rigged against them.
Also, at 90% chance of winning, you only have a 28% chance of reaching a 12 streak. Eventually you hit that unlucky match and your streak is broken.
Gauntlet was designed to encourage you to spend DIL to revive streaks and crew. As long as you go in with that expectation, then whatever you get is extra. But if you expect to keep winning because you were favored, then you'll find nothing but frustration.
Feel as though I should complete the campaign as I paid for the card. You are right, there's no logical reason to complete the campaign if not coming back but it would bug me if I didn't complete it and left it partially done.
But there are many, many tactics that can be applied that have a significant impact on your performance. It's not the flat, near-zero-gameplay shell of an activity that i thought it was for the first ~6 months i played it.
The thing is, many of the ways to come out on top aren't so much gameplay as game theory, and take a lot more lateral thinking than one might expect from a game like this (and surely weren't intended by the devs!). But as your arsenal of tactics improves, it gets quite interesting - and if you're a math person, even fun! It's a place where low-spenders like me can't be easily brute-forced out of the competition - i think one of our big spenders revealed they spent over 11,000 dilithium to get their first Red Angel, and I already had two by that point. Indeed, at 1+ legendaries every two weeks or less, it has a big impact on my crew.
But you're right, it's only giving you "lottery tickets". I've been waiting for my tenth Guinan for almost six months, and back around May I went three weeks without a Gauntlet legendary drop! And even if you're happy with its math, that doesn't stop some Gauntlet rolls from being phone-throwingly frustrating!
And this is another vote for having the two concurrent Gauntlets end 12 hours apart, instead of 24. Make it so.
I might have a peak in January 2021 and turn in my accumewlated honor for some citations and begolds. But until then, it's a big break, maybe even an indefinite retirement. I've taken an 18 month break after one year of nonstop playing, then another 6 month break after three months of nonstop playing, after that break I only enjoyed the game for a single month (basically the mega and because I saw it's ETP and I hoped for Jhamel to make it and she made it).
The game ... if it's even a game ... lacks new inventions. Voyage-based events, small mini-events with easy-to-achieve thresholds, weekly or monthly achievements similar to what we have right now with the Star Trek Day achievements that give dilithium and purrple purrtals and even a gold citation.
Make these more often, please, and insert blue and purrple citations as well! Make the experience something to enjoy, also for the smaller players and the VIP 0 players! It's frustrating when you basically have no dilithium income as a VIP 0 player except the campaign and - after some time - immortalized crew. The dilithium amount in those mini-events wouldn't have to be big (let's say 50 or 100 each), but let the events be weekly or at least monthly in between normal events, similar to "achievements", not an extra event as in "Galaxy" or "Skirmish" etc, but with thresholds.
Also, make a marketplace for fleet mates to exchange currency or crew or items (mainly components) inside their own fleet at least. Increase fleet size maybe even, so 100 instead of 50 people could be in the same fleet.
A new episode or distress call wouldn't hurt either.
Time portal updates would have to occur every 3 months or more often to keep players interested. The 6 month requirement to make it to the portal can remain, I see no problem there. Also, portals would have to be reduced in price the older they are, sepurrated by year of release (2016 Portals, 2017 Portals, etc).
Older goldies could also be included in voyages with a lower chance, alongside the purrples already dropping. And also, why not give 3* and 4* components in voyages post 10 hours at least, if not post 8 hours? I'd say 0* and 1* up to 4 hours, 1* and 2* up to 6 hours, 2* and 3* up to 8 hours, finally 3* and 4* from 8 hours onward.
Speaking of components: Who needs 2'000 or more 1* and 2* Optrons or Incense when barely any crew needs those? Every crew needs casings, polyalloys, alcohol, clothing patterns, uniform patterns and databases instead. That's boring. The usage of components has to be more balanced as well, for all crew. Also, why no "Spices" in voyages? It's a component, isn't it?
As for the gauntlet ... no words there. It's a joke. All I did there was - if RNG was kind nuff - farm merits. Surely not the countless trainers.
Last, but not least, please change the prices of the faction stores. It's beyond ridiculous that a single star for a gold crew costs 15'000 Dilithium when there are way cheaper means to get gold crew in events or during the honor sale.
There is LOTS of potential in STT, but sadly it's not being seen and used. The only really positive things recently noticed were the overhauled ship menu which is now easier to pick ships from, and the expanded collections (and there is still much space for more expansion of existing collections as well as adding new ones).
~ Hugs & Kisses ... Jhamel
My point is that the strategies only allow you to have longer win streaks or higher ranking, which is good if you have some use for all the collateral rewards the gauntlet gives. But if all you need or want out of it is a legendary drop (especially if it's one specific legendary) then there is nothing that I would actually call a valid strategy.
We don't know the actual drop rates of legendaries out of the boxes/crates (correct me if I'm wrong) or if they're influenced by anything else than the box/crate type, but they must be much worse than the drop rates of legendaries out of 10x premium pulls. Which makes it pure gambling to me, even with the highest level crates, which I must have opened at least 200 of over the last two months.
The point is that I could spend 11.000 dilithium on it, but that gives me no guarantee whatsoever that I would actually get the Red Angel (see Bylo's experience with Locutus last year). There's also no guarantee that 11.000 dilithium would give me the featured legendary in a 3-crew premium pack, but at least I can burn them through within a few minutes. If there is an Arachnia, President of the Earth, Captain Proton pack and I want Arachnia, I don't have to make a choice, look at animations, refresh, make another choice, look at animations, refresh, make another choice, look at animations, refresh, 10 times in a row, 4 or 5 times a day, for weeks or months.
Of course win streaks and ranking have some impact (or I wouldn't have 4 immortal gauntlet legendaries and 3 dupes) but to me the gauntlet is still a mind-numbingly boring and frustrating feature. If I could appreciate the small rewards or the ranking or win streaks for themselves, no matter what the rewards are, then I guess I would also appreciate the strategies you mention.
Also, yes, it does feel nice to rank #1 even if you get nothing for it, but since that would require me to stay up until 2 am every two days, that's not an option