WRGBen stated a new game feature was coming in Q1 of 2021, and was pushed back due to delays.
is the lack of communication through official channels frustrating? sure. but you have to give a studio a bit of rope here as they are going thru a transition period here, coupled with the covid shutdowns.
if 18 months go by since TP acquired the game from DB and set up the new studio, and we don't see significant progress / improvements, then fine, it might be time to hang it up.
I'm not as bothered by some things people mention - bad offers are nothing new and are easily ignored, and the offer wall was likewise readily ignored (though I think it's a problem that it's only available on one platform).
My biggest concern is the lack of progress. No new episode or mini-episode in over a year, lack of UI improvements (ship selection for voyages as a stand-out), not even fixes for long-standing bugs.
A lack of apparent investment in the game disincentives playing and spending.
Are there good points here? I've seen that in a couple posts that I've skimmed. I got bored after the tone of "Give me what I want! I'm entitled to things!"
Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll give another lesson on how to have a constructive, civil discussion. I've been busy, though. Can someone else do it this time?
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
My 4 year anniversary is only a couple months away, but burn-out and apathy are setting in. The game feels more like a chore than a fun escape these days, and DB/WRTP is terrible at engaging players and creating excitement, especially after so many failures and feedback falling on deaf ears.
I'm two months away from my four year anniversary and I have the same feelings.
Woohoo! We got a new collection today. And with that we got some decent bonus boosts BUT there are so many things that could be better and if it's not brought out in the open, the devs will have no idea what to work on, what was liked and what to do better on the next time.
STT has lost MANY players in the past 12 months. How do you know this, because DB/TP never gives out that kind of information?
It's simple math and you can see it everyday. The answer is in the Arena. Today's rough estimate of active players in the Admiral division is 62,900. That is the current 1% (for tops in the Admiral division, 629) times 100.
There was a time in the not so distant past that the top 1% number was well over 1000. That would be over 100,000 active participants in the Admiral division. As you can see, there is a nearly FORTY percent drop in active players. And that is only from what we can see on the outside.
My love for the franchise and love for the game are NOT intermingled. I started playing because I liked the thought of being part of (at the time) a very large community with similar interests. The numbers are dwindling and unless there are some MAJOR improvements in the near future, I think that the game will be lost.
For the flamers within this thread, have at it. You have your opinions and you make them well known.
I will admit that I was taken aback by Shan's comment. Not sure where else this should/could have been posted but if the players aren't allowed to voice their opinions OR their opinions mean so little, then perhaps it IS time for the game to fold.
Are there good points here? I've seen that in a couple posts that I've skimmed. I got bored after the tone of "Give me what I want! I'm entitled to things!"
Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll give another lesson on how to have a constructive, civil discussion. I've been busy, though. Can someone else do it this time?
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Thank you. This is much easier to digest. It won't leave me with an ulcer.
1. Development hasn't been earth-shattering, but not what I call minimal. I think I'm going on 2.5 years. I can speak to that, though I am forgetful.
A. Skirmishes were added about 2 years ago.
B. Campaigns were added about a year ago.
C. Honor sales have been done a couple ways.
D. 490 packs, and I think recap packs.
E. Chapter 10.
F. Distress calls at Infinity.
G. Collections added (not just today).
H. Rooms added to starbase to make replicator rations.
I. Improved art (and arguably story) quality.
J. Multiple deals available at once.
K. Feature to create replicator rations (imperfect solution to item limit, but it's something).
L. Expanded rewards so top 1,500 get the legendary.
M. Expanded threshold rewards.
N. Addressed fleet stealing concerns.
O. Ship battle animation skipping and speed-ups.
P. Player choice mega events once a year.
Q. Intro by Q. Yes, I'm a fan of de Lancie, so I made this item Q when I realized that I had enough items to do it.
R. Offer wall. (No, I don't like or use this feature, but I won't belittle anyone who does or ignore dev resources in the implementation.)
S. Shuttle rentals.
T. Temporary achievements for Bones and Homesteader Janeway.
U. WRG_Ben talking to players on Timelines Talks and Shan started adding a summary to the forum. Edit #2
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?) End edit #2
Did we request all of it at the top of our lists? No, not all. But some certainly was. So I guess I don't agree with premise 1.
2. Yes, the population has declined. Seems very normal for mobile games. I would love to reduce players leaving. Hopefully devs figure out how.
3. I see the effect of campaigns on rosters. I can't remember where I rambled about it allowing new players to catch up when deep roster players take a week off. Also, there was a 3-month stretch where campaigns objectively sucked. I'll concede the point, but I give it relatively little weight.
4. I suppose I can concede that communication has not been ideal for the past 3 years, but I added point U above because I think things are steering in a better direction. So realistically, this point is arguable.
Thank you for giving an itemized post without snark. This is the way constructive conversations happen. Your stated that we should agree on the basics to really have a conversation. Not sure where that leaves us since I really only agree on one point with any amount of conviction.
Edit #1: I am disappointed all the same that Decrepit Legendaries™ aren't a "thing" yet. But I temper that with appreciation for the improvements that have been added.
Are there good points here? I've seen that in a couple posts that I've skimmed. I got bored after the tone of "Give me what I want! I'm entitled to things!"
Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll give another lesson on how to have a constructive, civil discussion. I've been busy, though. Can someone else do it this time?
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Thank you. This is much easier to digest. It won't leave me with an ulcer.
1. Development hasn't been earth-shattering, but not what I call minimal. I think I'm going on 2.5 years. I can speak to that, though I am forgetful.
A. Skirmishes were added about 2 years ago.
B. Campaigns were added about a year ago.
C. Honor sales have been done a couple ways.
D. 490 packs, and I think recap packs.
E. Chapter 10.
F. Distress calls at Infinity.
G. Collections added (not just today).
H. Rooms added to starbase to make replicator rations.
I. Improved art (and arguably story) quality.
J. Multiple deals available at once.
K. Feature to create replicator rations (imperfect solution to item limit, but it's something).
L. Expanded rewards so top 1,500 get the legendary.
M. Expanded threshold rewards.
N. Addressed fleet stealing concerns.
O. Ship battle animation skipping and speed-ups.
P. Player choice mega events once a year.
Q. Intro by Q. Yes, I'm a fan of de Lancie, so I made this item Q when I realized that I had enough items to do it.
R. Offer wall. (No, I don't like or use this feature, but I won't belittle anyone who does or ignore dev resources in the implementation.)
S. Shuttle rentals.
T. Temporary achievements for Bones and Homesteader Janeway.
U. WRG_Ben talking to players on Timelines Talks and Shan started adding a summary to the forum.
Did we request all of it at the top of our lists? No, not all. But some certainly was. So I guess I don't agree with premise 1.
2. Yes, the population has declined. Seems very normal for mobile games. I would love to reduce players leaving. Hopefully devs figure out how.
3. I see the effect of campaigns on rosters. I can't remember where I rambled about it allowing new players to catch up when deep roster players take a week off. Also, there was a 3-month stretch where campaigns objectively sucked. I'll concede the point, but I give it relatively little weight.
4. I suppose I can concede that communication has not been ideal for the past 3 years, but I added point U above because I think things are steering in a better direction. So realistically, this point is arguable.
Thank you for giving an itemized post without snark. This is the way constructive conversations happen. Your stated that we should agree on the basics to really have a conversation. Not sure where that leaves us since I really only agree on one point with any amount of conviction.
Edit: I am disappointed all the same that Decrepit Legendaries™ aren't a "thing" yet. But I temper that with appreciation for the improvements that have been added.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something .) But again, not development, just marketing.
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
Are there good points here? I've seen that in a couple posts that I've skimmed. I got bored after the tone of "Give me what I want! I'm entitled to things!"
Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll give another lesson on how to have a constructive, civil discussion. I've been busy, though. Can someone else do it this time?
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Thank you. This is much easier to digest. It won't leave me with an ulcer.
1. Development hasn't been earth-shattering, but not what I call minimal. I think I'm going on 2.5 years. I can speak to that, though I am forgetful.
A. Skirmishes were added about 2 years ago.
B. Campaigns were added about a year ago.
C. Honor sales have been done a couple ways.
D. 490 packs, and I think recap packs.
E. Chapter 10.
F. Distress calls at Infinity.
G. Collections added (not just today).
H. Rooms added to starbase to make replicator rations.
I. Improved art (and arguably story) quality.
J. Multiple deals available at once.
K. Feature to create replicator rations (imperfect solution to item limit, but it's something).
L. Expanded rewards so top 1,500 get the legendary.
M. Expanded threshold rewards.
N. Addressed fleet stealing concerns.
O. Ship battle animation skipping and speed-ups.
P. Player choice mega events once a year.
Q. Intro by Q. Yes, I'm a fan of de Lancie, so I made this item Q when I realized that I had enough items to do it.
R. Offer wall. (No, I don't like or use this feature, but I won't belittle anyone who does or ignore dev resources in the implementation.)
S. Shuttle rentals.
T. Temporary achievements for Bones and Homesteader Janeway.
U. WRG_Ben talking to players on Timelines Talks and Shan started adding a summary to the forum.
Did we request all of it at the top of our lists? No, not all. But some certainly was. So I guess I don't agree with premise 1.
2. Yes, the population has declined. Seems very normal for mobile games. I would love to reduce players leaving. Hopefully devs figure out how.
3. I see the effect of campaigns on rosters. I can't remember where I rambled about it allowing new players to catch up when deep roster players take a week off. Also, there was a 3-month stretch where campaigns objectively sucked. I'll concede the point, but I give it relatively little weight.
4. I suppose I can concede that communication has not been ideal for the past 3 years, but I added point U above because I think things are steering in a better direction. So realistically, this point is arguable.
Thank you for giving an itemized post without snark. This is the way constructive conversations happen. Your stated that we should agree on the basics to really have a conversation. Not sure where that leaves us since I really only agree on one point with any amount of conviction.
Edit: I am disappointed all the same that Decrepit Legendaries™ aren't a "thing" yet. But I temper that with appreciation for the improvements that have been added.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something .) But again, not development, just marketing.
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
That's your opinion, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm generally happy with the state of the game. I want more, of course, but WRG_Ben has teased some new stuff, so I'll just wait in the meantime.
Part of my disagreement is your view of sales items. I don't buy most of them. I'm hardly a whale - possibly somewhere between big fish and dolphin. The point is that the game needs money to continue. Many of the sales items have been improvements for spenders to get more for their money. In the case of campaigns, which you dismiss, there is also a free track. The SR citation has been touted as useful by the VIP0 crowd. Reasons like this are whybi say we need to agree to disagree.
I realized that (as predicted) I left a few things out. I don't think they are overly impactful to the conversation, so I will indulge my preference for complete lists and add them above. I'll also add them here, just in case anyone thinks they impact the conversation.
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
Edit: it's been too long since the last 1,500 behold and cataclysm, so if anyone at WRG is reading, can we please get those again?
Can I thank all contributors to this thread for their time and very welcome input. Please do keep it coming!
I very genuinely hope that WRTP are paying attention to what their consumers are telling them here. Much of it may be difficult to hear, but all of it necessary to say.
Like anyone else, I've got criticisms and things I wish were added/improved.
But by far my biggest peeve is with older Legendaries being given the same value/rarity as newer ones. There are so many of these that we all have at 1-2 stars, and not any real hope of immortalizing them.
Permanently adding an old gold to every event's thresholds would go a long way in helping to rectify this. It would at least give progress a shove in the right direction. And it wouldn't mess much with player balance, as they'd still be out of reach for very new players, but be attainable and useful for people that don't have a lot of Legendaries yet.
There could also be more paths to getting these older, depowered characters, but including one as a final threshold reward in each event seems like an easy start.
I'll start my input by giving a well earned thank you to TP/WRG for the top 3 things I appreciate in the game, and dare I say, based on feedback from the community, I believe many (not ALL) would agree with this:
1.) Honor Sales! This is pure Latinum to the community! The only negative comments I ever see on this are players who spent their honor in the weeks prior to these sales.
2.) Campaigns! Many have said, and I agree, that this is the best value for your money in the game. The only time we don't get excited is either, we have the FF crew already, or the character is questionable at best.
3.) Temporary Achievements! These are fun and engaging! We like them, we like the rewards. Some have suggested a few tweaks and I think they have valid input on this.
I work in advertising in real life. There are things that really need to be adjusted moving forward. Primarily, communication. To build interest in the game, tell us 2 months in advance when the next honor sale is coming. Personally, I'd aim for 250k (instead of 130k) VP every event if I knew an honor sale was on it's way. Also, let us know what plans are coming for the next month. Build anticipation for upcoming points of interest. Tell us the next campaign halfway through the current one instead of days before. Give a teaser that a new collection is coming next month (great job with Smoke and Mirrors, well done. But let us know which one is next and we'll work towards that one). Let us know a few weeks in advance of an upcoming rank crew. ('Look forward to seeing one of your favorite First Officers in the next few weeks.')[Even movies give early trailers to build anticipation. And when people in the community talk about it, it builds more anticipation and forward momentum that keeps the energy alive] And have regularly scheduled, or at least, announced times when Portal updates and crew slot sales are coming. Why are you keeping these quiet?? That doesn't benefit you.
As an advertiser, I can tell that not a lot of thought went into Spocktober. Thank you for Science Officer Spock! And thank you for EV Suit Spock. But I was hoping that we'd get a trifecta of Legendary Spocks. (I understand the inclusion of Kal-i-fee Spock, but a 3rd Spock as rank rewards would have given this mega some flare.) This has been the most lackluster mega for myself personally. At the end of this event, I see no need to purchase the recap packs. Every new 4* crew will have been obtained (and if not, then the SR citation for this campaign will fix that). All I need to do is drop a citation on EV Spock and I'll be done. The Faction portion should have come later in the event to make Vulcans really worth getting. And the rank crew have been quite disappointing. In advertising they tell you to appeal to your audience. Not a lot of Star Trek fans were ever the Jock/Quarterback type of people. So having T'Pring, the girl who made Spock compete for her against the guy she already had chosen, be the rank Legendary was not a good choice! And I will never understand why T'Pring and Kal-i-fee Kirk are Legendaries, but Kal-i-fee Spock is SR. Without Spock you wouldn't have even had the episode. (But the programming is already done and I'm digressing)
I have been very uninterested in events for a long time. Most of the crew we get are useless one off characters like Nona, T'Pring, and Solok. I have no interest in trying hard for characters I have no connection to. If you need help in inspiration, look to the forums, or ask the community! There are plenty of threads about "Most Wanted crew". And I appreciate those surveys that we used to get to vote on our preference. It shows back and forth input from developers and community.
I'm losing interest because of some very easily fixable solutions aren't being implemented. Super old Legendaries not being easier to get (like added to Voyages). Why do I now have 8 level 1 ships, and no way to get anymore schematics for them?Regular Portal updates. I'm still waiting on Twilight T'Pol and Doctor Van Gogh to be added. Give us a new feature that gives us a reason to use our other Legendary crew or add a regular way to earn Legendary citations so we can make room for new crew we're working on. And communicate with us! Let us know what to expect or look forward to.
Thank you for what you are doing! Please at least consider our thoughts in this thread.
Are there good points here? I've seen that in a couple posts that I've skimmed. I got bored after the tone of "Give me what I want! I'm entitled to things!"
Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll give another lesson on how to have a constructive, civil discussion. I've been busy, though. Can someone else do it this time?
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Thank you. This is much easier to digest. It won't leave me with an ulcer.
1. Development hasn't been earth-shattering, but not what I call minimal. I think I'm going on 2.5 years. I can speak to that, though I am forgetful.
A. Skirmishes were added about 2 years ago.
B. Campaigns were added about a year ago.
C. Honor sales have been done a couple ways.
D. 490 packs, and I think recap packs.
E. Chapter 10.
F. Distress calls at Infinity.
G. Collections added (not just today).
H. Rooms added to starbase to make replicator rations.
I. Improved art (and arguably story) quality.
J. Multiple deals available at once.
K. Feature to create replicator rations (imperfect solution to item limit, but it's something).
L. Expanded rewards so top 1,500 get the legendary.
M. Expanded threshold rewards.
N. Addressed fleet stealing concerns.
O. Ship battle animation skipping and speed-ups.
P. Player choice mega events once a year.
Q. Intro by Q. Yes, I'm a fan of de Lancie, so I made this item Q when I realized that I had enough items to do it.
R. Offer wall. (No, I don't like or use this feature, but I won't belittle anyone who does or ignore dev resources in the implementation.)
S. Shuttle rentals.
T. Temporary achievements for Bones and Homesteader Janeway.
U. WRG_Ben talking to players on Timelines Talks and Shan started adding a summary to the forum.
Did we request all of it at the top of our lists? No, not all. But some certainly was. So I guess I don't agree with premise 1.
2. Yes, the population has declined. Seems very normal for mobile games. I would love to reduce players leaving. Hopefully devs figure out how.
3. I see the effect of campaigns on rosters. I can't remember where I rambled about it allowing new players to catch up when deep roster players take a week off. Also, there was a 3-month stretch where campaigns objectively sucked. I'll concede the point, but I give it relatively little weight.
4. I suppose I can concede that communication has not been ideal for the past 3 years, but I added point U above because I think things are steering in a better direction. So realistically, this point is arguable.
Thank you for giving an itemized post without snark. This is the way constructive conversations happen. Your stated that we should agree on the basics to really have a conversation. Not sure where that leaves us since I really only agree on one point with any amount of conviction.
Edit: I am disappointed all the same that Decrepit Legendaries™ aren't a "thing" yet. But I temper that with appreciation for the improvements that have been added.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something .) But again, not development, just marketing.
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
That's your opinion, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm generally happy with the state of the game. I want more, of course, but WRG_Ben has teased some new stuff, so I'll just wait in the meantime.
Part of my disagreement is your view of sales items. I don't buy most of them. I'm hardly a whale - possibly somewhere between big fish and dolphin. The point is that the game needs money to continue. Many of the sales items have been improvements for spenders to get more for their money. In the case of campaigns, which you dismiss, there is also a free track. The SR citation has been touted as useful by the VIP0 crowd. Reasons like this are whybi say we need to agree to disagree.
I realized that (as predicted) I left a few things out. I don't think they are overly impactful to the conversation, so I will indulge my preference for complete lists and add them above. I'll also add them here, just in case anyone thinks they impact the conversation.
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
Edit: it's been too long since the last 1,500 behold and cataclysm, so if anyone at WRG is reading, can we please get those again?
I totally agree that the game needs money to continue, but where we disagree is on how TP should go about it. My preference is that TP improves the actual game and earns our money by providing a quality 'gaming' experience. What DB and now TP are doing instead is nibbling around the edges trying to sell us the same game at a discount. Am I glad to see things like Campaigns? Yes I am, because it encourages people to spend money. Do I think that that is sufficient? No I don't. What's the point in playing events or buying crew if there is nothing to do with them?
The problem is, at the end of the day, this is a glorified CCG. The point is to collect the cards. There is nothing to do with the crew, because collecting the crew is supposed to be the goal in itself. I'd love to see more too, but fundamentally that's not what the game is.
Also, the events are glorified slot machines, and it seems like that's what the players want. The optimizations that have been made to events have just made them even more mindless and quicker to click through. Players keep asking for mindless events that are won by seeing who can click the same buttons with 0 thought while doing something else, so DB/TP keep making the events more mindless for that. I've often argued for events that require thought and are won based on skill not mindless grinding, but too many players seem to love the grind.
I'll start my input by giving a well earned thank you to TP/WRG for the top 3 things I appreciate in the game, and dare I say, based on feedback from the community, I believe many (not ALL) would agree with this:
1.) Honor Sales! This is pure Latinum to the community! The only negative comments I ever see on this are players who spent their honor in the weeks prior to these sales.
2.) Campaigns! Many have said, and I agree, that this is the best value for your money in the game. The only time we don't get excited is either, we have the FF crew already, or the character is questionable at best.
3.) Temporary Achievements! These are fun and engaging! We like them, we like the rewards. Some have suggested a few tweaks and I think they have valid input on this.
I work in advertising in real life. There are things that really need to be adjusted moving forward. Primarily, communication. To build interest in the game, tell us 2 months in advance when the next honor sale is coming. Personally, I'd aim for 250k (instead of 130k) VP every event if I knew an honor sale was on it's way. Also, let us know what plans are coming for the next month. Build anticipation for upcoming points of interest. Tell us the next campaign halfway through the current one instead of days before. Give a teaser that a new collection is coming next month (great job with Smoke and Mirrors, well done. But let us know which one is next and we'll work towards that one). Let us know a few weeks in advance of an upcoming rank crew. ('Look forward to seeing one of your favorite First Officers in the next few weeks.')[Even movies give early trailers to build anticipation. And when people in the community talk about it, it builds more anticipation and forward momentum that keeps the energy alive] And have regularly scheduled, or at least, announced times when Portal updates and crew slot sales are coming. Why are you keeping these quiet?? That doesn't benefit you.
As an advertiser, I can tell that not a lot of thought went into Spocktober. Thank you for Science Officer Spock! And thank you for EV Suit Spock. But I was hoping that we'd get a trifecta of Legendary Spocks. (I understand the inclusion of Kal-i-fee Spock, but a 3rd Spock as rank rewards would have given this mega some flare.) This has been the most lackluster mega for myself personally. At the end of this event, I see no need to purchase the recap packs. Every new 4* crew will have been obtained (and if not, then the SR citation for this campaign will fix that). All I need to do is drop a citation on EV Spock and I'll be done. The Faction portion should have come later in the event to make Vulcans really worth getting. And the rank crew have been quite disappointing. In advertising they tell you to appeal to your audience. Not a lot of Star Trek fans were ever the Jock/Quarterback type of people. So having T'Pring, the girl who made Spock compete for her against the guy she already had chosen, be the rank Legendary was not a good choice! And I will never understand why T'Pring and Kal-i-fee Kirk are Legendaries, but Kal-i-fee Spock is SR. Without Spock you wouldn't have even had the episode. (But the programming is already done and I'm digressing)
I have been very uninterested in events for a long time. Most of the crew we get are useless one off characters like Nona, T'Pring, and Solok. I have no interest in trying hard for characters I have no connection to. If you need help in inspiration, look to the forums, or ask the community! There are plenty of threads about "Most Wanted crew". And I appreciate those surveys that we used to get to vote on our preference. It shows back and forth input from developers and community.
I'm losing interest because of some very easily fixable solutions aren't being implemented. Super old Legendaries not being easier to get (like added to Voyages). Why do I now have 8 level 1 ships, and no way to get anymore schematics for them?Regular Portal updates. I'm still waiting on Twilight T'Pol and Doctor Van Gogh to be added. Give us a new feature that gives us a reason to use our other Legendary crew or add a regular way to earn Legendary citations so we can make room for new crew we're working on. And communicate with us! Let us know what to expect or look forward to.
Thank you for what you are doing! Please at least consider our thoughts in this thread.
One thing I can answer to. They don’t announce the honor sale in advance so when it springs up as a surprise to someone like me, I spend $100 for 360k honor so I can participate in the fun too. It may be conniving but it worked.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something .) But again, not development, just marketing.
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
That's your opinion, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm generally happy with the state of the game. I want more, of course, but WRG_Ben has teased some new stuff, so I'll just wait in the meantime.
Part of my disagreement is your view of sales items. I don't buy most of them. I'm hardly a whale - possibly somewhere between big fish and dolphin. The point is that the game needs money to continue. Many of the sales items have been improvements for spenders to get more for their money. In the case of campaigns, which you dismiss, there is also a free track. The SR citation has been touted as useful by the VIP0 crowd. Reasons like this are whybi say we need to agree to disagree.
I realized that (as predicted) I left a few things out. I don't think they are overly impactful to the conversation, so I will indulge my preference for complete lists and add them above. I'll also add them here, just in case anyone thinks they impact the conversation.
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
Edit: it's been too long since the last 1,500 behold and cataclysm, so if anyone at WRG is reading, can we please get those again?
I totally agree that the game needs money to continue, but where we disagree is on how TP should go about it. My preference is that TP improves the actual game and earns our money by providing a quality 'gaming' experience. What DB and now TP are doing instead is nibbling around the edges trying to sell us the same game at a discount. Am I glad to see things like Campaigns? Yes I am, because it encourages people to spend money. Do I think that that is sufficient? No I don't. What's the point in playing events or buying crew if there is nothing to do with them?
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Methinks thou hast no interest in actually hearing others opine. This is just a place to vent, as I initially suspected. Very well. I hope you find it therapeutic.
for what it's worth, there's a lot of new "features" or "event types" or game modes that people have proposed in the past, but WRG employees like Ben have stated their code base/back end simply won't allow for it.
there's so many great ideas out there, but unfortunately, it's wasted potential as the foundation on what the game was built on just won't allow for it.
if you can go back and watch the last interview with Ben and get past a lot of the fluff, you'll see where people asked about certain game modes but he said they simply can't build it given what they have. it would probably involve a whole new game, starting from the ground up, to put in some of these things. I doubt many people would play a Timelines 2, myself included.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something .) But again, not development, just marketing.
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
That's your opinion, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm generally happy with the state of the game. I want more, of course, but WRG_Ben has teased some new stuff, so I'll just wait in the meantime.
Part of my disagreement is your view of sales items. I don't buy most of them. I'm hardly a whale - possibly somewhere between big fish and dolphin. The point is that the game needs money to continue. Many of the sales items have been improvements for spenders to get more for their money. In the case of campaigns, which you dismiss, there is also a free track. The SR citation has been touted as useful by the VIP0 crowd. Reasons like this are whybi say we need to agree to disagree.
I realized that (as predicted) I left a few things out. I don't think they are overly impactful to the conversation, so I will indulge my preference for complete lists and add them above. I'll also add them here, just in case anyone thinks they impact the conversation.
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
Edit: it's been too long since the last 1,500 behold and cataclysm, so if anyone at WRG is reading, can we please get those again?
I totally agree that the game needs money to continue, but where we disagree is on how TP should go about it. My preference is that TP improves the actual game and earns our money by providing a quality 'gaming' experience. What DB and now TP are doing instead is nibbling around the edges trying to sell us the same game at a discount. Am I glad to see things like Campaigns? Yes I am, because it encourages people to spend money. Do I think that that is sufficient? No I don't. What's the point in playing events or buying crew if there is nothing to do with them?
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
Methinks thou hast no interest in actually hearing others opine. This is just a place to vent, as I initially suspected. Very well. I hope you find it therapeutic.
Not true at all. I am very interested in other's opinions. But that doesn't mean that they are immune from criticism. You seem to confuse game development with marketing and that should be called out, because it's the core reason that you don't agree with the basic premise of people's complaints. Your threshold for DBs actions is as low as they created a poll therefore they did something. It seems to me that you're just trying to defend your prior which is that you like the game where it is and you seek to do this my a) coming in and adding pure snark and then b) when nailed down labeling things like giving cheaper crew as development.
What I want us to agree on is a narrower definition of development than you want to argue. I am still hoping that you will see the light. I don't expect you to suddenly want the game to change a lot because you like it how it is, but I do want you to understand that other people's opinions are valid because they are here to play a game and not just collect nice pictures.
As I've said before maybe it's unreasonable of me to expect that people who have stayed and are ardent defenders of DB/TP to understand because naturally most people who disagree with you have left in droves, but I think it is important to try and convince you, because you guys set the tone here and you suppress debate you don't like and so if we want to have this discussion properly in the forum where they are most useful we need you guys to accept that people who are complaining aren't entitled jerks, they're people who love the game as much as you do, they just have different expectations of it.
So much of that stuff above is a yes for me. There's been a lot of good hashing of it so I'll just say that paying attention to developing both additional game-play items, coupled with fleet tools would keep both myself as a fleet admiral, as well as my fleetmates more engaged with the game. The lists of things just in this thread could keep WR/TP busy for a long time.
For me, this is the key overarching statement made thus far:
We just need a little nugget of hope for the future.
Our suggestions *seem* to go into a black hole. There does not appear to be any effect of player recommendations. I believe that the developers do review what is being requested, but there is no obvious feedback loop.
For example, I think that part of the event hub might have come from one of my recommendations around having the event leader board remain available after the event is over. That is indeed a component of the hub, but I'm sure that with some player input, the hub would have been rolled out a bit differently.
There must be a queue...why not let us have a little hope for the future and show us what's coming up? There has to be a new Ben there somewhere...
And when TP makes improvements to enable new game modes, the same people complain or just say it's sales or not a new feature.
Work done to make temporary achievements easier for TP to deploy so they can happen more often: " minimal development"
Event hub to allow for mini events: Event hub **tsk tsk**
I think a lot of the commentary on this was quite nuanced. My own included. In an of itself the update has made the game worse, not better. When we see the improvements I'll give them plaudits if they're deserved, but I'll be honest I'm not expecting much so for the moment the event hub is merely a retrograde UI change. If DB told us what was coming maybe we'd react differently, but they don't so it's on them.
Edited to add: I don't have an issue with the event hub itself. I am hopeful that it is a useful feature and shows a greater commitment from TP to events, but it's not what the game needs. We need Voyages 3.0, something that will use our crew depth and get us pouring over spreadsheets and examining new crew for strengths again. I'd honestly love a Deep Voyages feature which was just another Voyage but it only popped up once a day and used 100 frozen crew or something. It would just be a stopgap feature but would actually address our main complaint which is why do we bother acquiring new crew when we have nothing to do with them.
Honest question, did you watch the interview with WRG Ben?
Even if not: Those things should also be communicated from an official source in the forum. Plus and even better in the game. Cause forum etc. represent only a small part of the active player base. But everyone who plays obviously is in the game to do that. So published there it really reaches everyone who is interested. And the more people know the better for the growth/success of the game.
Also for a long time way before the official launch of STT there were countless regular and detailed updates about many big and even very small development details and plans. We are far away from things we already had. Despite double the team power after the switch to TP/WRG...
What I want us to agree on is a narrower definition of development than you want to argue. I am still hoping that you will see the light.
People have legitimate hopes for the game. If you've read any thread I've started, then you know I'm one of them. What you want is for me to agree that everything devs have done so far is insufficient. I won't do that. That's why we need to agree to disagree. Y'all can vent. That's what the forum is for. I thank you in particular for doing so in a pretty civil and effective manner. I hope some of the improvements suggested here are in the works or will be at some point.
I've been reading a lot of this and some interesting feedback but led me to a couple of ideas (and forgive me if they have been ruled out before):
Has there ever been a beta community of players for STT to give feedback on upcoming changes? I know you can register for something on the player page but I don't think it does anything? Some of the issues around UI etc. could have been picked up earlier by WRG with this kind of initiative.
The other is that we all "like" to complain about a lack of content and there's a lot of technical capabilities out there in the player community. So is there a possibility of community created mini-events? The obvious thought for me was an expedition. The general feedback is that it is too time consuming for the developers, so why not let us create one? I suspect there's loads of reasons why this won't work like backend tools, access, etc. but I thought I'd put it out there.
Not in Shan's post, were nuanced responses to why certain features could not make it into the game, and it usually had to do limitations of the game itself or the backend. I don't have direct timestamps for you, but they are buried in there
Even if not: Those things should also be communicated from an official source in the forum. Plus and even better in the game. Cause forum etc. represent only a small part of the active player base. But everyone who plays obviously is in the game to do that. So published there it really reaches everyone who is interested. And the more people know the better for the growth/success of the game.
Agreed, I said before, there needs to be better official communication lines with the player base. Having said that, it is nice to see individual employees taking some initiative to reach out to the community, even if it is via unofficial channels. I've said in other areas before, Nod, the former STT producer, used to sit in Discord and chat with us. Test2 also sat in Line and gave tons of information.
Not in Shan's post, were nuanced responses to why certain features could not make it into the game, and it usually had to do limitations of the game itself or the backend. I don't have direct timestamps for you, but they are buried in there
Reading between the lines we get:
1. on our backlog
2. no changes are planned
3. looking into
4. we’re not looking into
5. no ETA though
6. not a set in stone
7. do not have a specific schedule.
8. too early for any details
That's a lot of negativity. And as has been said, chat issues and admiral tools are issues that are almost 5 and 3 years old and are still on backlog? Do appreciate the communication and summary from Shan just disappointed that there wasn't much there that was encouraging (imo)
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
I'll start my input by giving a well earned thank you to TP/WRG for the top 3 things I appreciate in the game, and dare I say, based on feedback from the community, I believe many (not ALL) would agree with this:
1.) Honor Sales! This is pure Latinum to the community! The only negative comments I ever see on this are players who spent their honor in the weeks prior to these sales.
2.) Campaigns! Many have said, and I agree, that this is the best value for your money in the game. The only time we don't get excited is either, we have the FF crew already, or the character is questionable at best.
3.) Temporary Achievements! These are fun and engaging! We like them, we like the rewards. Some have suggested a few tweaks and I think they have valid input on this.
I work in advertising in real life. There are things that really need to be adjusted moving forward. Primarily, communication. To build interest in the game, tell us 2 months in advance when the next honor sale is coming. Personally, I'd aim for 250k (instead of 130k) VP every event if I knew an honor sale was on it's way. Also, let us know what plans are coming for the next month. Build anticipation for upcoming points of interest. Tell us the next campaign halfway through the current one instead of days before. Give a teaser that a new collection is coming next month (great job with Smoke and Mirrors, well done. But let us know which one is next and we'll work towards that one). Let us know a few weeks in advance of an upcoming rank crew. ('Look forward to seeing one of your favorite First Officers in the next few weeks.')[Even movies give early trailers to build anticipation. And when people in the community talk about it, it builds more anticipation and forward momentum that keeps the energy alive] And have regularly scheduled, or at least, announced times when Portal updates and crew slot sales are coming. Why are you keeping these quiet?? That doesn't benefit you.
As an advertiser, I can tell that not a lot of thought went into Spocktober. Thank you for Science Officer Spock! And thank you for EV Suit Spock. But I was hoping that we'd get a trifecta of Legendary Spocks. (I understand the inclusion of Kal-i-fee Spock, but a 3rd Spock as rank rewards would have given this mega some flare.) This has been the most lackluster mega for myself personally. At the end of this event, I see no need to purchase the recap packs. Every new 4* crew will have been obtained (and if not, then the SR citation for this campaign will fix that). All I need to do is drop a citation on EV Spock and I'll be done. The Faction portion should have come later in the event to make Vulcans really worth getting. And the rank crew have been quite disappointing. In advertising they tell you to appeal to your audience. Not a lot of Star Trek fans were ever the Jock/Quarterback type of people. So having T'Pring, the girl who made Spock compete for her against the guy she already had chosen, be the rank Legendary was not a good choice! And I will never understand why T'Pring and Kal-i-fee Kirk are Legendaries, but Kal-i-fee Spock is SR. Without Spock you wouldn't have even had the episode. (But the programming is already done and I'm digressing)
I have been very uninterested in events for a long time. Most of the crew we get are useless one off characters like Nona, T'Pring, and Solok. I have no interest in trying hard for characters I have no connection to. If you need help in inspiration, look to the forums, or ask the community! There are plenty of threads about "Most Wanted crew". And I appreciate those surveys that we used to get to vote on our preference. It shows back and forth input from developers and community.
I'm losing interest because of some very easily fixable solutions aren't being implemented. Super old Legendaries not being easier to get (like added to Voyages). Why do I now have 8 level 1 ships, and no way to get anymore schematics for them?Regular Portal updates. I'm still waiting on Twilight T'Pol and Doctor Van Gogh to be added. Give us a new feature that gives us a reason to use our other Legendary crew or add a regular way to earn Legendary citations so we can make room for new crew we're working on. And communicate with us! Let us know what to expect or look forward to.
Thank you for what you are doing! Please at least consider our thoughts in this thread.
One thing I can answer to. They don’t announce the honor sale in advance so when it springs up as a surprise to someone like me, I spend $100 for 360k honor so I can participate in the fun too. It may be conniving but it worked.
True, and I do purchase some of those as well. But if we knew in advance the next honor sale, I believe we'd see more engagement in the game. Both in events (trying to reach 250k VP) and in voyages. And with people popping in more often, there's a better chance of spenders seeing something that catches their eye.
Comments
is the lack of communication through official channels frustrating? sure. but you have to give a studio a bit of rope here as they are going thru a transition period here, coupled with the covid shutdowns.
if 18 months go by since TP acquired the game from DB and set up the new studio, and we don't see significant progress / improvements, then fine, it might be time to hang it up.
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My biggest concern is the lack of progress. No new episode or mini-episode in over a year, lack of UI improvements (ship selection for voyages as a stand-out), not even fixes for long-standing bugs.
A lack of apparent investment in the game disincentives playing and spending.
This is a shockingly unproductive comment and is just snark itself. There is nothing wrong with people highlighting the flaws they perceive and giving voice to them. Sure, you might not like their tone, but don't get distracted by that, there is real feeling and logic to their concerns. People are bored, some have been for a long time. You may be happy with the game as is, but if this discussion shows anything it shows that a lot of people aren't and your continued access to the game may depend on keeping at least some of those players happy and paying.
I do have some questions for you though, if you care to answer them.
Do you agree with any of these premises?
1. Development on this game has been minimal for the last 3 years despite DB and now TP taking in millions of our dollars.
2. The population of the game has been in decline for a long while now and DB and now TP have made little effort to address that decline.
3. Due to campaigns and time, many players have many FF crew that have little or no gameplay value and new crew often have less gameplay value than many existing crew.
4. DB and now TP have been exceptionally poor communicators over that time. (This is not a dig at Shan, we all understand that she operates under constraints)
I am happy for anybody to weigh in on these observations but there are particular regular forum goers that I would be especially happy to hear from, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's hard to have a discussion if people don't agree on the basics.
I'm two months away from my four year anniversary and I have the same feelings.
Woohoo! We got a new collection today. And with that we got some decent bonus boosts BUT there are so many things that could be better and if it's not brought out in the open, the devs will have no idea what to work on, what was liked and what to do better on the next time.
STT has lost MANY players in the past 12 months. How do you know this, because DB/TP never gives out that kind of information?
It's simple math and you can see it everyday. The answer is in the Arena. Today's rough estimate of active players in the Admiral division is 62,900. That is the current 1% (for tops in the Admiral division, 629) times 100.
There was a time in the not so distant past that the top 1% number was well over 1000. That would be over 100,000 active participants in the Admiral division. As you can see, there is a nearly FORTY percent drop in active players. And that is only from what we can see on the outside.
My love for the franchise and love for the game are NOT intermingled. I started playing because I liked the thought of being part of (at the time) a very large community with similar interests. The numbers are dwindling and unless there are some MAJOR improvements in the near future, I think that the game will be lost.
For the flamers within this thread, have at it. You have your opinions and you make them well known.
I will admit that I was taken aback by Shan's comment. Not sure where else this should/could have been posted but if the players aren't allowed to voice their opinions OR their opinions mean so little, then perhaps it IS time for the game to fold.
Bart's Mid Iowa fleet - Tex Gunslinger
Thank you. This is much easier to digest. It won't leave me with an ulcer.
1. Development hasn't been earth-shattering, but not what I call minimal. I think I'm going on 2.5 years. I can speak to that, though I am forgetful.
A. Skirmishes were added about 2 years ago.
B. Campaigns were added about a year ago.
C. Honor sales have been done a couple ways.
D. 490 packs, and I think recap packs.
E. Chapter 10.
F. Distress calls at Infinity.
G. Collections added (not just today).
H. Rooms added to starbase to make replicator rations.
I. Improved art (and arguably story) quality.
J. Multiple deals available at once.
K. Feature to create replicator rations (imperfect solution to item limit, but it's something).
L. Expanded rewards so top 1,500 get the legendary.
M. Expanded threshold rewards.
N. Addressed fleet stealing concerns.
O. Ship battle animation skipping and speed-ups.
P. Player choice mega events once a year.
Q. Intro by Q. Yes, I'm a fan of de Lancie, so I made this item Q when I realized that I had enough items to do it.
R. Offer wall. (No, I don't like or use this feature, but I won't belittle anyone who does or ignore dev resources in the implementation.)
S. Shuttle rentals.
T. Temporary achievements for Bones and Homesteader Janeway.
U. WRG_Ben talking to players on Timelines Talks and Shan started adding a summary to the forum.
Edit #2
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
End edit #2
Did we request all of it at the top of our lists? No, not all. But some certainly was. So I guess I don't agree with premise 1.
2. Yes, the population has declined. Seems very normal for mobile games. I would love to reduce players leaving. Hopefully devs figure out how.
3. I see the effect of campaigns on rosters. I can't remember where I rambled about it allowing new players to catch up when deep roster players take a week off. Also, there was a 3-month stretch where campaigns objectively sucked. I'll concede the point, but I give it relatively little weight.
4. I suppose I can concede that communication has not been ideal for the past 3 years, but I added point U above because I think things are steering in a better direction. So realistically, this point is arguable.
Thank you for giving an itemized post without snark. This is the way constructive conversations happen. Your stated that we should agree on the basics to really have a conversation. Not sure where that leaves us since I really only agree on one point with any amount of conviction.
Edit #1: I am disappointed all the same that Decrepit Legendaries™ aren't a "thing" yet. But I temper that with appreciation for the improvements that have been added.
A I'll give you skirmishes,
B I don't think campaigns count as game development, just a sales tactic.
Same for C and D, just sales.
E Chapter 10 fair enough, not what I would call serious development, but some would (i haven't played any of Chapter 10, because I don't need to)
F Same for Infinity Distress call. Not serious development, but it is content.
G Collections are again not what I would consider development, but they aren't nothing either and are an important aspect of making frozen crew have some effect on your capability.
H Adding starbase rooms is minimal development and is essentially the end of the feature. Not disagreeing with that choice mind you, but again, just a band aid.
I Improved art is not development
J More sales nonsense
K Not nothing but roundly derided as inadequate
L Not development, that's just a tweak of an existing feature and a small one at that.
M Same as above
N This is at best bug squashing
O QoL tweaking of an existing feature. Happy to have it? Yes, but the very definition of minimal development.
P Nonsense marketing. If you think using a poll is development you have a very low threshold
Q Again, marketing nonsense. It's cool (I actually wondered at the time does John DeLancie have shares or something
R Offer Wall is sales again, not gameplay at all. Just BS out of game stuff
S Shuttle Rentals, tweak to an existing feature, minimal development.
T Temporary Achievements minimal development. One assumes they will now go into the new Events tab (which is again minimal development)
U Is it great that they let someone talk to us? Yes, absolutely. Does it count as video game development though? Does it make up for saying nothing for 3 years? Absolutely not.
I think some of our disagreements are around UI updates that are just to sell stuff. That is not core gameplay and so to me is not game development. Same goes for silly stuff like Offer Walls and the fleet stealing stuff. (I'm not saying that these aren't important in their own right, just don't affect gameplay and so therefore are not game development.)
Tweaks of existing features, like updating threshold tables and adding chapters I would consider bare minimum development. No new system is being developed just adding to an existing feature. You can add releasing new cards every week to this definition. This is all ops stuff I would imagine.
Collections I am on the fence on. They are great and important for giving otherwise useless crew some added value, but they don't seem like that big a deal to add to the game. But for the sake of our discussion I am willing to concede that Skirmishes and Collections initial implementation count as non-minimal development.
So where does that leave us? About 2 years since anything serious was done? And very little in the guts of 3 years? Voyages was a proper system that was added. Skirmishes are an important event type and both dramatically changed the game. We need something similar again and we needed it 2 years ago. At the very least we needed it 1 year ago and if not then we need something ambitious as soon as possible. That's how you retain the player base and that's how you give yourself a shot at getting old players back.
We also need assurances from TP/WRG that we are not wrong to have faith. My spending has decreased dramatically over the last year, because my faith is waning and I am currently very skeptical that the game is going to last much longer if the population continues to get smaller and the player base continues to get restless and bored.
That's your opinion, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm generally happy with the state of the game. I want more, of course, but WRG_Ben has teased some new stuff, so I'll just wait in the meantime.
Part of my disagreement is your view of sales items. I don't buy most of them. I'm hardly a whale - possibly somewhere between big fish and dolphin. The point is that the game needs money to continue. Many of the sales items have been improvements for spenders to get more for their money. In the case of campaigns, which you dismiss, there is also a free track. The SR citation has been touted as useful by the VIP0 crowd. Reasons like this are whybi say we need to agree to disagree.
I realized that (as predicted) I left a few things out. I don't think they are overly impactful to the conversation, so I will indulge my preference for complete lists and add them above. I'll also add them here, just in case anyone thinks they impact the conversation.
V. Beholds for 1,500 dilithium.
W. Pandemic care packages.
X. Cataclysm mini event.
Y. Added 2 voyage-exclusive SR's. (McCoy and Worf?)
Edit: it's been too long since the last 1,500 behold and cataclysm, so if anyone at WRG is reading, can we please get those again?
I very genuinely hope that WRTP are paying attention to what their consumers are telling them here. Much of it may be difficult to hear, but all of it necessary to say.
But by far my biggest peeve is with older Legendaries being given the same value/rarity as newer ones. There are so many of these that we all have at 1-2 stars, and not any real hope of immortalizing them.
Permanently adding an old gold to every event's thresholds would go a long way in helping to rectify this. It would at least give progress a shove in the right direction. And it wouldn't mess much with player balance, as they'd still be out of reach for very new players, but be attainable and useful for people that don't have a lot of Legendaries yet.
There could also be more paths to getting these older, depowered characters, but including one as a final threshold reward in each event seems like an easy start.
1.) Honor Sales! This is pure Latinum to the community! The only negative comments I ever see on this are players who spent their honor in the weeks prior to these sales.
2.) Campaigns! Many have said, and I agree, that this is the best value for your money in the game. The only time we don't get excited is either, we have the FF crew already, or the character is questionable at best.
3.) Temporary Achievements! These are fun and engaging! We like them, we like the rewards. Some have suggested a few tweaks and I think they have valid input on this.
I work in advertising in real life. There are things that really need to be adjusted moving forward. Primarily, communication. To build interest in the game, tell us 2 months in advance when the next honor sale is coming. Personally, I'd aim for 250k (instead of 130k) VP every event if I knew an honor sale was on it's way. Also, let us know what plans are coming for the next month. Build anticipation for upcoming points of interest. Tell us the next campaign halfway through the current one instead of days before. Give a teaser that a new collection is coming next month (great job with Smoke and Mirrors, well done. But let us know which one is next and we'll work towards that one). Let us know a few weeks in advance of an upcoming rank crew. ('Look forward to seeing one of your favorite First Officers in the next few weeks.')[Even movies give early trailers to build anticipation. And when people in the community talk about it, it builds more anticipation and forward momentum that keeps the energy alive] And have regularly scheduled, or at least, announced times when Portal updates and crew slot sales are coming. Why are you keeping these quiet?? That doesn't benefit you.
As an advertiser, I can tell that not a lot of thought went into Spocktober. Thank you for Science Officer Spock! And thank you for EV Suit Spock. But I was hoping that we'd get a trifecta of Legendary Spocks. (I understand the inclusion of Kal-i-fee Spock, but a 3rd Spock as rank rewards would have given this mega some flare.) This has been the most lackluster mega for myself personally. At the end of this event, I see no need to purchase the recap packs. Every new 4* crew will have been obtained (and if not, then the SR citation for this campaign will fix that). All I need to do is drop a citation on EV Spock and I'll be done. The Faction portion should have come later in the event to make Vulcans really worth getting. And the rank crew have been quite disappointing. In advertising they tell you to appeal to your audience. Not a lot of Star Trek fans were ever the Jock/Quarterback type of people. So having T'Pring, the girl who made Spock compete for her against the guy she already had chosen, be the rank Legendary was not a good choice! And I will never understand why T'Pring and Kal-i-fee Kirk are Legendaries, but Kal-i-fee Spock is SR. Without Spock you wouldn't have even had the episode. (But the programming is already done and I'm digressing)
I have been very uninterested in events for a long time. Most of the crew we get are useless one off characters like Nona, T'Pring, and Solok. I have no interest in trying hard for characters I have no connection to. If you need help in inspiration, look to the forums, or ask the community! There are plenty of threads about "Most Wanted crew". And I appreciate those surveys that we used to get to vote on our preference. It shows back and forth input from developers and community.
I'm losing interest because of some very easily fixable solutions aren't being implemented. Super old Legendaries not being easier to get (like added to Voyages). Why do I now have 8 level 1 ships, and no way to get anymore schematics for them?Regular Portal updates. I'm still waiting on Twilight T'Pol and Doctor Van Gogh to be added. Give us a new feature that gives us a reason to use our other Legendary crew or add a regular way to earn Legendary citations so we can make room for new crew we're working on. And communicate with us! Let us know what to expect or look forward to.
Thank you for what you are doing! Please at least consider our thoughts in this thread.
I totally agree that the game needs money to continue, but where we disagree is on how TP should go about it. My preference is that TP improves the actual game and earns our money by providing a quality 'gaming' experience. What DB and now TP are doing instead is nibbling around the edges trying to sell us the same game at a discount. Am I glad to see things like Campaigns? Yes I am, because it encourages people to spend money. Do I think that that is sufficient? No I don't. What's the point in playing events or buying crew if there is nothing to do with them?
Also, the events are glorified slot machines, and it seems like that's what the players want. The optimizations that have been made to events have just made them even more mindless and quicker to click through. Players keep asking for mindless events that are won by seeing who can click the same buttons with 0 thought while doing something else, so DB/TP keep making the events more mindless for that. I've often argued for events that require thought and are won based on skill not mindless grinding, but too many players seem to love the grind.
One thing I can answer to. They don’t announce the honor sale in advance so when it springs up as a surprise to someone like me, I spend $100 for 360k honor so I can participate in the fun too. It may be conniving but it worked.
Methinks thou hast no interest in actually hearing others opine. This is just a place to vent, as I initially suspected. Very well. I hope you find it therapeutic.
there's so many great ideas out there, but unfortunately, it's wasted potential as the foundation on what the game was built on just won't allow for it.
if you can go back and watch the last interview with Ben and get past a lot of the fluff, you'll see where people asked about certain game modes but he said they simply can't build it given what they have. it would probably involve a whole new game, starting from the ground up, to put in some of these things. I doubt many people would play a Timelines 2, myself included.
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Not true at all. I am very interested in other's opinions. But that doesn't mean that they are immune from criticism. You seem to confuse game development with marketing and that should be called out, because it's the core reason that you don't agree with the basic premise of people's complaints. Your threshold for DBs actions is as low as they created a poll therefore they did something. It seems to me that you're just trying to defend your prior which is that you like the game where it is and you seek to do this my a) coming in and adding pure snark and then b) when nailed down labeling things like giving cheaper crew as development.
What I want us to agree on is a narrower definition of development than you want to argue. I am still hoping that you will see the light. I don't expect you to suddenly want the game to change a lot because you like it how it is, but I do want you to understand that other people's opinions are valid because they are here to play a game and not just collect nice pictures.
As I've said before maybe it's unreasonable of me to expect that people who have stayed and are ardent defenders of DB/TP to understand because naturally most people who disagree with you have left in droves, but I think it is important to try and convince you, because you guys set the tone here and you suppress debate you don't like and so if we want to have this discussion properly in the forum where they are most useful we need you guys to accept that people who are complaining aren't entitled jerks, they're people who love the game as much as you do, they just have different expectations of it.
For me, this is the key overarching statement made thus far:
Our suggestions *seem* to go into a black hole. There does not appear to be any effect of player recommendations. I believe that the developers do review what is being requested, but there is no obvious feedback loop.
For example, I think that part of the event hub might have come from one of my recommendations around having the event leader board remain available after the event is over. That is indeed a component of the hub, but I'm sure that with some player input, the hub would have been rolled out a bit differently.
There must be a queue...why not let us have a little hope for the future and show us what's coming up? There has to be a new Ben there somewhere...
Work done to make temporary achievements easier for TP to deploy so they can happen more often: " minimal development"
Event hub to allow for mini events: Event hub **tsk tsk**
I think a lot of the commentary on this was quite nuanced. My own included. In an of itself the update has made the game worse, not better. When we see the improvements I'll give them plaudits if they're deserved, but I'll be honest I'm not expecting much so for the moment the event hub is merely a retrograde UI change. If DB told us what was coming maybe we'd react differently, but they don't so it's on them.
Edited to add: I don't have an issue with the event hub itself. I am hopeful that it is a useful feature and shows a greater commitment from TP to events, but it's not what the game needs. We need Voyages 3.0, something that will use our crew depth and get us pouring over spreadsheets and examining new crew for strengths again. I'd honestly love a Deep Voyages feature which was just another Voyage but it only popped up once a day and used 100 frozen crew or something. It would just be a stopgap feature but would actually address our main complaint which is why do we bother acquiring new crew when we have nothing to do with them.
Honest question, did you watch the interview with WRG Ben?
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Even if not: Those things should also be communicated from an official source in the forum. Plus and even better in the game. Cause forum etc. represent only a small part of the active player base. But everyone who plays obviously is in the game to do that. So published there it really reaches everyone who is interested. And the more people know the better for the growth/success of the game.
Also for a long time way before the official launch of STT there were countless regular and detailed updates about many big and even very small development details and plans. We are far away from things we already had. Despite double the team power after the switch to TP/WRG...
People have legitimate hopes for the game. If you've read any thread I've started, then you know I'm one of them. What you want is for me to agree that everything devs have done so far is insufficient. I won't do that. That's why we need to agree to disagree. Y'all can vent. That's what the forum is for. I thank you in particular for doing so in a pretty civil and effective manner. I hope some of the improvements suggested here are in the works or will be at some point.
Has there ever been a beta community of players for STT to give feedback on upcoming changes? I know you can register for something on the player page but I don't think it does anything? Some of the issues around UI etc. could have been picked up earlier by WRG with this kind of initiative.
The other is that we all "like" to complain about a lack of content and there's a lot of technical capabilities out there in the player community. So is there a possibility of community created mini-events? The obvious thought for me was an expedition. The general feedback is that it is too time consuming for the developers, so why not let us create one? I suspect there's loads of reasons why this won't work like backend tools, access, etc. but I thought I'd put it out there.
What interview? Who's WRG Ben?
Here's a link to the forum announcement / recap of his appearance on player-hosted Timelines Talks:
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/16807/some-star-trek-timelines-news-and-star-trek-day#latest
It's a very long video, but here's the YouTube link:
Not in Shan's post, were nuanced responses to why certain features could not make it into the game, and it usually had to do limitations of the game itself or the backend. I don't have direct timestamps for you, but they are buried in there
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Players were often part of beta programs, including to things like testing voyages, but that may have long ago been abandoned.
Agreed, I said before, there needs to be better official communication lines with the player base. Having said that, it is nice to see individual employees taking some initiative to reach out to the community, even if it is via unofficial channels. I've said in other areas before, Nod, the former STT producer, used to sit in Discord and chat with us. Test2 also sat in Line and gave tons of information.
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Reading between the lines we get:
1. on our backlog
2. no changes are planned
3. looking into
4. we’re not looking into
5. no ETA though
6. not a set in stone
7. do not have a specific schedule.
8. too early for any details
That's a lot of negativity. And as has been said, chat issues and admiral tools are issues that are almost 5 and 3 years old and are still on backlog? Do appreciate the communication and summary from Shan just disappointed that there wasn't much there that was encouraging (imo)
True, and I do purchase some of those as well. But if we knew in advance the next honor sale, I believe we'd see more engagement in the game. Both in events (trying to reach 250k VP) and in voyages. And with people popping in more often, there's a better chance of spenders seeing something that catches their eye.