No Honor Sale in January (spoiler: optimism ahead!)
Prime Lorca
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
On Timelines Talks, @WRG Ben said there would be no honor sale in January or February. This struck a certain sour chord with the community. At first, I was bummed. Then I got to thinking about it. I asked myself a series of questions.
What will it mean for my roster?
Will I want to prioritize crew differently during the next honor sale?
How close will I be to the Klingon collection (mentioned by Ben) milestones when it is released this month?
Which collection could be released next month?
Where will I be in relation to those milestones?
What is the new game mode to be announced in February?
Which crew will I want to prioritize in that game mode?
How will that affect my behold decisions?
I could easily save citations from an honor sale, but if they had the sale now, how much would I regret behold decisions when March rolls around?
Realistically, I want a chance to evaluate the new changes and game mode before I go making 20+ behold decisions. In that regard, I'm glad they're waiting on the honor sale. It seems like the right thing to do for all the captains here who play the long game.
What will it mean for my roster?
Will I want to prioritize crew differently during the next honor sale?
How close will I be to the Klingon collection (mentioned by Ben) milestones when it is released this month?
Which collection could be released next month?
Where will I be in relation to those milestones?
What is the new game mode to be announced in February?
Which crew will I want to prioritize in that game mode?
How will that affect my behold decisions?
I could easily save citations from an honor sale, but if they had the sale now, how much would I regret behold decisions when March rolls around?
Realistically, I want a chance to evaluate the new changes and game mode before I go making 20+ behold decisions. In that regard, I'm glad they're waiting on the honor sale. It seems like the right thing to do for all the captains here who play the long game.
Farewell 🖖
9
Comments
Generally speaking, honor sales are probably the only thing that I really look forward to in the game and I won't spend my honor outside of one anyway. I don't need to anymore, but it might be different for new players or for people who are very low on crew slots.
Now I do put a lot of expectations on the new game mode though
And to be honest the thing that disappointed me was the reply to the possibility of different ending times for the gauntlet. I do realize that it would be somewhat complicated to implement, but the reasoning that it would take longer to get people to join one didn't really make sense to me. It's not like now we're staying up until 2 am to join with everyone else anyway. It seems to me like they're not even considering the issue, which might be because it doesn't affect all players.
But I'll make my personal guesses on whether or not they actually listen to our feedback and suggestions when I see the new game mode. It was mentioned that it was requested by players for a long time, so it will be interesting to see what it is and how it works.
Also Ben teased something new / different wih the portal and said hold on to your protal pulls.....yet another reason not to want to run though a bunch of beholds right now!!
I agree with Ben that having a multitude of Gauntlets running based on when the player joins or by region might be bad idea.
However someone posted an excellent Idea in YouTube chat. So there are currently 2 Gauntlets starting/ending at 6:00pm cst daily. Why not bump that up slightly to 4 Gauntlets with 2 per day ending at 6am or 6pm depending on the one you join?
I too am looking for to the new features.
The new collections are great please keep them up!
So the continuance of the terrible month of December goes on? Is TP/WRG trying to get rid of the long-term players? This in my opinion is very bad planning and management. For those who were waiting on good news, I see just about all bad news. 'Just wait a little longer' is the tone I am receiving. The player base has been waiting far too long for certain things like improved in-game chat; allowing a co-admiral to do the same things as an Admiral; allowing officers to manage the motd; allowing the Admiral/co-admiral to add or remove players from a squad - the list of things goes on. Not to mention the Bah Humbug Christmas deals we never saw.
No, I see virtually no good news in what you said.
I was speaking strictly of the honor sale. And more specifically how the new changes may impact behold selections and avoiding buyer's remorse.
Your desires for better fleet management and communication tools are absolutely valid and I support them. I hope there is a renewed push for those things and that they are implemented later this year.
I don't want to lose sight of the good things, though. WRG is letting us see the coming changes soon. Then after we see how they impact the game, we can make more informed roster decisions later - hopefully during an honor sale in March or April.
They just had an employee spend an hour talk about all the upcoming changes in the next ~1.5 months. Including new things happening for the rest of convergence day. Why don't we wait to see those changes before breaking out the pitchforks.
They also announced a change to that event button. While I agree that its current state is suboptimal, I'll wait to complain about it again until I see it.
I don't mean to dismiss your complaints. I've heard others voice them as well. You're not alone. This community has a variety of pitchforks and torches. I think we can wait a couple weeks, then decide if we need the three-pronged or four-pronged pitchforks.
We're getting a little off track from the honor sale thing. I think the following thread is more appropriate for discussing the lack of winter holiday deals:
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/17331/how-satisfied-are-you-with-the-game-over-the-festive-period#latest
Again, I sympathize. TP lost some of my money by not having better deals. I hope next year is better. But for the time being, I think it wise to be patient about a pending honor sale.
I don't quite understand leaving the game simply because their isn't an honour sale. Sounds like they've already got one foot out the door and were looking for an excuse. I can understand things feeling stale, but then maybe one should step back a bit and lower their expectations a tad. There's also nothing stopping anyone from simply putting the game down a little while and coming back to hunt all the crew they missed out on while they were away.
I was disappointed with a lot of what was said yesterday (a new distress call and mini events were some of the most exciting teases in past appearances on STT). I have been very excited for an honor sale and what else could come in January. I felt the CD events had been hyped a lot and they ultimately feel smaller than last yeae. At one point through the episode I considered sitting this weekends event out, or putting the game aside for a few weeks, stop spending etc. Then Ben mentioned the change to the packs next week... now I need to hit thresholds this weekend for that premium pack. Lol, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.
Maybe my expectations were too high, I definitely feel let down but that might be my own fault for expecting something different or better. I spent a lot of time thinking last night (about my frustrations with the game and world events - yikes) and I reminded myself that I need to focus on what I like about the day to day game play and enjoy the here and now, not just wait for the next sale or game change. I use Timelines as an escape from the world, stress and to emurse myself in Star Trek.
So in the end, yes I am disappointed with the smaller celebrations, but I need to focus on the aspects of the game I do enjoy and continue to do so while simultaneously playing the long game and preparing for the future. I am excited for some of what was mentioned, so hopefully there will be new things by the end of February that will bring me even more daily joy in the game.
I can see why they don’t want to put it on a schedule, but the regular honor prices are too much IMHO.
I was hoping for a big haul that would actually kick me into another level of playing (I haven’t been as concentrated on who I cited as many are; just looking to FF my 4/5 crew mainly to finish them).
But PrimeLorca has a good point. After burning some honor (on beholds; terrible but I couldn’t decide who to cite— and scored my first Fury and a second star in another Legendary) last night to relieve the disappointment, I am now holding tight and looking forward to what comes the rest of the month.
We all have different opinions on the Big Things that come to us, but Ben seemed really excited for us to see what they have in store, so I am hoping they are game changers and things that knock some of the staleness out of our experiences with Timelines.
It breeds unfounded expectation amongst the player base and feeds into the hoarding mentality ... which in turn means that a player sees little to no crew progression outside of one or two blips a year when they spend big and finally immortalise the Gary Seven (or other critical crew) they picked up ... so players end up sitting on mountains of Honor with a crew that is pretty much the same for 6-12 months (the time between Honor Sales) ... the only significant changes being mega-event crew and gift crew (e.g. Luau Paris) ... and on top of that players find the time to complain about those mega-event crew.
--> when players do not see progression in their crew it will breed irritation and anxiety until an Honor Sale because they are not seeing any improvements ... due to their own doing.
And then you have those who bumble along like me ... I cited up the Xindi Insectoid and Pollard 3 weeks before the January 2020 Honor Sale and then cited up Indulgent Seven 3 weeks prior to the August 2020 one ... go figure ... did I care? not really because I was super happy to get these crew working at full force for me ... I just spent 3 citations (150k Honor) on citing up Aviator year because of some silly Honor Pact thing ... and I'm glad I did and am waiting on a next Honor Pact candidate to roll out.
--> but the thing is, I'm seeing continual improvement to my crew ... I'm regularly immortalising crew that mean something to me or help me out, not just being drip-fed through mega-event crew that might be a disappointment for my roster (e.g. Suspiria, Humanoid Figure).
Am I throwing Honor out willy nilly? No ... I've set an Honor base for myself of around 150k (so I can buy a cite and one of the Honor Hall crew on a whim) but above that I'm willing to spend at any point during the year if that Honor goes towards something I care about ... be it good crew, collection crew, Honor Pact crew etc. ... I'm currently at 235k and am mulling over my options of where to invest next.
I could easily be well over 600k (not a lot by any standard, but a reasonable amount for a now non-spender) if I hadn't cited up Yar(3), Spock(1), Braxton(3) and Burnham(1) since the last Honor Sale ... but what is the fun in that?
I only listen to YouTube when I need a refresh on fixing a leaky faucet. :-)
The details on no honor sale came straight from WRG Ben, that's good enough for me (and I share your general opinion on YouTube, listening to this one was the exception not the rule). But he also said that there would be one in the near future, possibly March. So I choose to remain hopeful and keep saving honor, I should be able to break 1 million in the bank with an extra couple of months.
I don't really want to get this thread off track, but I always assumed that if they make changes to the gauntlet ending time, it would either be a rotating one or one with two resets (so the option you are suggesting). I agree that having countless different ending times would be a mess, but I think that's obvious. Ben's reply in the livestream just sounded to me like they never even spent a single thought on this issue.
And that bothers me, because it's not the first time that they seem to forget that they have players outside of the US (see fleet rewards not being available after reset for the first months, the issue around EU privacy laws...). I'm sure there's less European players than Americans, but we're a substantial group and we spend time and money on Timelines just like everyone else. If they put resources into making sure that the game runs smoothly on all devices, then they should also make sure, when possible, that they're offering the same experience to people in different parts of the world.
So we stockpile Honor and wait for Honor Sales...that are never advertised, pre-scheduled, announced, they just drop out of no where and you have to be ready for them. You will play for months with obvious holes in your roster that you could fix, but you don't because the smart play is to wait. You spend hours over the course of months compiling lists of cards to upgrade while you wait for the Honor Sale. After a point, saving up for and then going nuts during Honors Sales essentially becomes the game after a while.
Personally, this feels like cancelling a holiday, it is thoroughly disappointing and I am not really sure how it can be spun any other way.
I agree completely. Although I'd prefer if you leave my one star Gary Seven out of this!
If the cost of a Legendary citation was permanently reduced to 40k I'd stop hording. Well, I'd probably keep a little on hand, getting a begold + citation for 40k is still a great deal, but I'm approaching 400k.
Starport
You laid it out perfectly. @RaraRacing too, honor sales were a very bad idea if they aren't committed to doing them frequently.
On the other hand I was absolutely delighted to get the in-game mail giving us an idea of what the next 6 weeks or so will look like. This is exactly the type of thing that the game needs more often. So high praise for that. Hopefully they will continue forward in the same vein and use these communications to set our expectations and discipline themselves to deliver on them.
I joined late and left early, so I did not hear that. The argument makes no sense indeed.
The starting time could simply be the time stamp when 1 of 200 joined. How is this complicated or prolonging grouping times? Annoying!
I agree with this , you just have to look at what they do with gold cards to see it is possible . When you get your gold card you get an offer of a second and a 24 hour timer starts . If they can do this with individual cards then why not with each gauntlet ? A 48 hour timer could start when you have enough people for it .
I can imagine that people would go nuts if TP made an honor sale and 1 month later there would be something to regret about how we spent the honor we accumulated over half a year.
On the other hand I had wished for more lead time regarding the portal pulls too. If there will be a big impact in our favor I will really be pissed about all the portals I opened over the last weeks.
There was mention of the honor economy. I wonder how these two things can be reconciled. They created a situation where many players don't like to spend their honor outside of a sale. And they ran the sale twice in a calendar year, so it set certain expectations. Anything less than meeting those expectations will be viewed as an insult. Basically, I think they need to run the sale at least one more time. They can give notice that it will be the last sale of its kind. The problem there is that it kind of pulls the ladder up behind us (long term players). It makes it harder for newer captains to catch up. So... the solution kind of creates another problem. I can see a small burst of stat creep, starting about 4 months from now as a solution to that problem, but even that is imperfect since long term players will have an edge in getting and developing said new crew. Video game development seems to be quite the balancing act.
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Captain Level 99
Played since January 2017
TP: Do better!!!