I'm more concerned with the 7 faction missions required to complete dailies. Everyone who is VIP0 or only logs in once a day is probably skipping those.
7 faction missions are easy. Players just need to have one faction with 30s mission, and put the worst crew in to keep failing them.
After much careful deliberation, I think this feature has the potential to be awesome.
I am looking forward to making sound decisions from random polestars.
Captain Kirk of [Battleship Musashi]
Playing since June 14th, 2019
Captain Level 80 / VIP 12
Crew Quarters: 241/270
Immortalized [436]: 5* x30, 4* x239, 3* x89, 2* x53, and 1* x27
Most recent Immortal: Deral (4/4)
Current Project: Waiting for sale with 680k Honor
Completed Collections: Eugenics, Daystrom, Romulan, Ferengi, Do No Harm, Veteran, EV Suit, Rare, Uncommon and Common
After much careful deliberation, I think this feature has the potential to be awesome.
I am looking forward to making sound decisions from random polestars.
I think it will be fun. Something new. Any additional way to add targeted legendaries is better than none. I hope if it is too miserly though that TP adjust it.
I'm more concerned with the 7 faction missions required to complete dailies. Everyone who is VIP0 or only logs in once a day is probably skipping those.
7 faction missions are easy. Players just need to have one faction with 30s mission, and put the worst crew in to keep failing them.
But how many casual players do that or even know that the option exists?
I'm more concerned with the 7 faction missions required to complete dailies. Everyone who is VIP0 or only logs in once a day is probably skipping those.
7 faction missions are easy. Players just need to have one faction with 30s mission, and put the worst crew in to keep failing them.
But how many casual players do that or even know that the option exists?
I've been wondering about how this will impact fleets with casual players. Active players already looked for active fleets to get the most honor (and maybe chronitons) from daily missions in active fleets. There will probably be another bunch of fleet jumps while this is new. It may slow after a while. It adds a bit of stress to admirals, tbh. They want to make sure their active members are getting the max possible benefit. They also don't want to lose any long-time loyal members. It's a balancing act.
I’m looking forward to trying this out. We recently had a repeat of the Sherwood Forest pack, a collection for which I am only missing Maid Marian. Pulled 20 packs and didn’t get her. Got lots of other stuff so that’s fine, but the retrieval system may allow me to get her far more easily. (I haven’t even started to think about the specific ways to do it - won’t worry about it until this is live.)
I’ve wanted White Rabbit since release but never seen him in a behold. This mechanism should help me get him. Ditto for a handful of other cards.
The complaints about it being slow and still-RNG-based are overblown (in my opinion). Of course these things are going to be part of it. Only a handful of players (that we know of) have collected every card, and most of them have since stopped playing. TP needs to keep some elements of scarcity and failure-risk in the game.
I’m looking forward to trying this out. We recently had a repeat of the Sherwood Forest pack, a collection for which I am only missing Maid Marian. Pulled 20 packs and didn’t get her. Got lots of other stuff so that’s fine, but the retrieval system may allow me to get her far more easily. (I haven’t even started to think about the specific ways to do it - won’t worry about it until this is live.)
I’ve wanted White Rabbit since release but never seen him in a behold. This mechanism should help me get him. Ditto for a handful of other cards.
The complaints about it being slow and still-RNG-based are overblown (in my opinion). Of course these things are going to be part of it. Only a handful of players (that we know of) have collected every card, and most of them have since stopped playing. TP needs to keep some elements of scarcity and failure-risk in the game.
And it will be a big hit when portal updates come around. I hope we can get a routine time for portal updates and sooner than previous ones. I want some of the high voyagers like Breen Kira and Pipe holding Kim that are not in portal.
At least they had a novelty Dabo that drained our credits before introducing a new feature that uses those formerly near-worthless credits.
Now they can sell them back to us.
At least they had a novelty Dabo that drained our credits before introducing a new feature that uses those formerly near-worthless credits.
Now they can sell them back to us.
I was annoyed with that too at first. But what does the new crew retrieval give you? Legendaries you want. What did the credit Dabo sale give you? Legendaries you want. I think you will find that the 10 million credits for a legendary you like will be far easier than the crew retrieval system so I think it was overall a net gain. I think TP was trying to lvl the playing field a bit so fewer players had mass boards of credits and more players started on an even playing field. But yes, it did look bad from a PR perspective.
At least they had a novelty Dabo that drained our credits before introducing a new feature that uses those formerly near-worthless credits.
Now they can sell them back to us.
I was annoyed with that too at first. But what does the new crew retrieval give you? Legendaries you want. What did the credit Dabo sale give you? Legendaries you want. I think you will find that the 10 million credits for a legendary you like will be far easier than the crew retrieval system so I think it was overall a net gain. I think TP was trying to lvl the playing field a bit so fewer players had mass boards of credits and more players started on an even playing field. But yes, it did look bad from a PR perspective.
It probably would have been more easily defensible if the dabo sale took the same 5mil to clear as the Crew Retrieval feature.
At least they had a novelty Dabo that drained our credits before introducing a new feature that uses those formerly near-worthless credits.
Now they can sell them back to us.
I was annoyed with that too at first. But what does the new crew retrieval give you? Legendaries you want. What did the credit Dabo sale give you? Legendaries you want. I think you will find that the 10 million credits for a legendary you like will be far easier than the crew retrieval system so I think it was overall a net gain. I think TP was trying to lvl the playing field a bit so fewer players had mass boards of credits and more players started on an even playing field. But yes, it did look bad from a PR perspective.
It probably would have been more easily defensible if the dabo sale took the same 5mil to clear as the Crew Retrieval feature.
Yes especially when it would have enabled more people to participate in it.
Maybe they did the Dabo sale to get a better idea of the amount of credits their players are willing to spend on legendary and super-rare crew and then tweak the retrieval prices accordingly.
If they had done the sale a month or two earlier it would have been nice though
I'll admit... the more time has passed the more I'm getting excited and eager to try this out. While not something to interact with daily, I'm ready to start diving into the challenge of combining polestars for crew.
The success of this thing is going to rely on the ease of collecting specific polestars and constellations. If they're as rare as the portal drops in a skirmish this thing will be dead on arrival.
On a scale from 1 to 10 this is a 0.9 to me. It does nothing cool, it is overly complicated and even consumes the only currency we did not have to worry about after like one year of playing any more, making it an additional point of concern, along with all the new rubbish.
This is much worse than I could have imagined. Really, I hate it from front to back.
it seems like a new way to win free stuff. What am I missing?
I believe this is the best of this new feature, but as stated before, we still have to see how easy/accessible/fair will it be to everybody, paying or not.
There appears to be a disconnect between the dev side view and the play side view (maybe they play, but they don't seem to play for the reasons most do). For example, do they see this as collecting baseball cards or more like MTG? They seem to consider the weight of participation in the game to be simply on collecting the cards. I would say, from the comments at least, that people who only play have a mindset more towards deckbuilding and table play, to reference MTG. The development side only seems to develop or consider the environment as a way to collect.
Yes there are a few bits that look like play, but they are crafted as a means of getting cards rather than using them. Events are just grinding for cards. The gauntlet is grinding for cards. The arena is grinding for ships. Voyaging is grinding for cards and the honor to cite them. I don't need to be cash trolled, yes it's to make money. But at a certain point without a strong way to use them to back it up, collecting starts to get or feel pointless. People who make TCGs certainly want to make money, but a lot of the development goes into aspects that don't directly generate cash. The game has to be engaging or there is no point in collecting.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
I'll admit... the more time has passed the more I'm getting excited and eager to try this out. While not something to interact with daily, I'm ready to start diving into the challenge of combining polestars for crew.
The success of this thing is going to rely on the ease of collecting specific polestars and constellations. If they're as rare as the portal drops in a skirmish this thing will be dead on arrival.
Yeah ... there are a number of crew you can instantly obtain with just one Polestar or with a combo ...
Pretty nice example, because this is quite a nice crew to own for most rosters (mostly for voyages, some shuttles).
So ... what value do you put on those three traits in the combo? They are all distinguishing traits for a number of crew that requires multiple traits to be able to obtain. I can't imagine any of these 4 traits will be easy to obtain ... like most traits outside of Human, Starfleet, Federation.
This is why I've really tempered my expectations ... I mean, the idea is great that you can target specific crew you want to own ... but in practice, I think it will probably (due to RNG) come down to ... can I target a specific crew with the Polestars I own? And you might be lucky to be able to add a star, but it might also mean you're left with a new "meh" 1/5 ... just like a current 5* behold.
And so I've started looking at crew I can target using mostly common traits but with some of the more uncommon ones ...
e.g. Klingon (fairly common) with Cardassian (slightly less common) --> add either Mirror Universe or 5* or Villain and you are left with two choices:
Mirror Kira and Mirror Worf ... I have neither, so if those three traits stack up fairly quickly this will be a default choice until one is 5/5 ... adds a notch to both the Klingon and Mirror collections.
All of this on the assumption that Quantum will not charge above a certain maximum so forcing me to do a crew retrieval every so often if I am to stay economical in the use of Quantum.
There appears to be a disconnect between the dev side view and the play side view (maybe they play, but they don't seem to play for the reasons most do). For example, do they see this as collecting baseball cards or more like MTG? They seem to consider the weight of participation in the game to be simply on collecting the cards. I would say, from the comments at least, that people who only play have a mindset more towards deckbuilding and table play, to reference MTG. The development side only seems to develop or consider the environment as a way to collect.
Yes there are a few bits that look like play, but they are crafted as a means of getting cards rather than using them. Events are just grinding for cards. The gauntlet is grinding for cards. The arena is grinding for ships. Voyaging is grinding for cards and the honor to cite them. I don't need to be cash trolled, yes it's to make money. But at a certain point without a strong way to use them to back it up, collecting starts to get or feel pointless. People who make TCGs certainly want to make money, but a lot of the development goes into aspects that don't directly generate cash. The game has to be engaging or there is no point in collecting.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
Ben briefly talked about second Voyages. The challenge is Voyages are the bets loot in the game right now. So if they add a second Voyage they would need to rethink/rebalance the loot. Also, locking up 12 additional crew means rethinking crew slots since you'd need 12 crew + however many extra to be able to choose the 12. It's a good idea, and builds towards the give us something to do with crew not just a way to collect them. But it does take more design/planning then just adding a second Voyage.
Here is my quick rethink of Voyages loot. For the Planetary Voyage, keep it as is. The most valuable loot will be replaced by other items in the Continuum Voyage.
For the Continuum Voyage, replace the 4* drops with Rarity Constellations; replace the Honor with Quantum; replace Merits with ISM. Maybe replace the 1* 2* 3* crew drops (Equivalent to honor for many of us now) with Credits or ISM. No Voyage exclusive crew. With that change, they'd only need to design enough dilemmas for 12 or 14 or 16 hour voyages, unless they think people are going to want to extend it much more with dil.
I don't think that this would break the economy of the game. But of course, I'm just a player, and don't have access to all the relevant data.
There appears to be a disconnect between the dev side view and the play side view (maybe they play, but they don't seem to play for the reasons most do). For example, do they see this as collecting baseball cards or more like MTG? They seem to consider the weight of participation in the game to be simply on collecting the cards. I would say, from the comments at least, that people who only play have a mindset more towards deckbuilding and table play, to reference MTG. The development side only seems to develop or consider the environment as a way to collect.
Yes there are a few bits that look like play, but they are crafted as a means of getting cards rather than using them. Events are just grinding for cards. The gauntlet is grinding for cards. The arena is grinding for ships. Voyaging is grinding for cards and the honor to cite them. I don't need to be cash trolled, yes it's to make money. But at a certain point without a strong way to use them to back it up, collecting starts to get or feel pointless. People who make TCGs certainly want to make money, but a lot of the development goes into aspects that don't directly generate cash. The game has to be engaging or there is no point in collecting.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
Ben briefly talked about second Voyages. The challenge is Voyages are the bets loot in the game right now. So if they add a second Voyage they would need to rethink/rebalance the loot. Also, locking up 12 additional crew means rethinking crew slots since you'd need 12 crew + however many extra to be able to choose the 12. It's a good idea, and builds towards the give us something to do with crew not just a way to collect them. But it does take more design/planning then just adding a second Voyage.
Once you're a late-game player, is there really much of value coming back on voyages, aside from 4* crew that were recently added to the portal? I'm not sure how adding a second voyage would break the game, from a valuation perspective.
I do agree about crew slots, but that speaks volumes about how players need more free crew slots to play a card-collecting game. Plus, how can they say that a second voyage puts strain on crew slots, yet they don't mention the new crew retrieval feature in a similar fashion?
There appears to be a disconnect between the dev side view and the play side view (maybe they play, but they don't seem to play for the reasons most do). For example, do they see this as collecting baseball cards or more like MTG? They seem to consider the weight of participation in the game to be simply on collecting the cards. I would say, from the comments at least, that people who only play have a mindset more towards deckbuilding and table play, to reference MTG. The development side only seems to develop or consider the environment as a way to collect.
Yes there are a few bits that look like play, but they are crafted as a means of getting cards rather than using them. Events are just grinding for cards. The gauntlet is grinding for cards. The arena is grinding for ships. Voyaging is grinding for cards and the honor to cite them. I don't need to be cash trolled, yes it's to make money. But at a certain point without a strong way to use them to back it up, collecting starts to get or feel pointless. People who make TCGs certainly want to make money, but a lot of the development goes into aspects that don't directly generate cash. The game has to be engaging or there is no point in collecting.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
Ben briefly talked about second Voyages. The challenge is Voyages are the bets loot in the game right now. So if they add a second Voyage they would need to rethink/rebalance the loot. Also, locking up 12 additional crew means rethinking crew slots since you'd need 12 crew + however many extra to be able to choose the 12. It's a good idea, and builds towards the give us something to do with crew not just a way to collect them. But it does take more design/planning then just adding a second Voyage.
Once you're a late-game player, is there really much of value coming back on voyages, aside from 4* crew that were recently added to the portal? I'm not sure how adding a second voyage would break the game, from a valuation perspective.
I do agree about crew slots, but that speaks volumes about how players need more free crew slots to play a card-collecting game. Plus, how can they say that a second voyage puts strain on crew slots, yet they don't mention the new crew retrieval feature in a similar fashion?
I suppose the 1*-3_ crew we from Voyages turns into Honor, which we're not supposed to hoard. So a 2nd Voyage would make that "problem" worse.
And I also agree with the issue of limited Crew Slots in a Card Collecting game. There are some events I just threshold and out because I don't have enough slots for crew that are *nice*, but not *great*. If the slots weren't an issue, I might compete more for them. But I realize they just can't open it up to tons of crew slots at this point, because many players have paid dilithium (and potentially real money) to increase their slots, and that wouldn't be fair to them. But it makes me think that the game wasn't originally designed as a purely Card Collecting game, but changed its focus over time.
the original excuse was that massive crew slots would bog and lag down the game. I'm not sure if this is still maintained.
Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again."
As a fleet admiral, the idea of this is high on my list. And the addition to that is tracking the dailies necessary for hitting the tiers of ISM.
I personally have no desire to drive my members to distraction over the dailies but I will also need to know who consistently isn't doing much around them. The raw "daily targets" number we get won't be helpful.
There appears to be a disconnect between the dev side view and the play side view (maybe they play, but they don't seem to play for the reasons most do). For example, do they see this as collecting baseball cards or more like MTG? They seem to consider the weight of participation in the game to be simply on collecting the cards. I would say, from the comments at least, that people who only play have a mindset more towards deckbuilding and table play, to reference MTG. The development side only seems to develop or consider the environment as a way to collect.
Yes there are a few bits that look like play, but they are crafted as a means of getting cards rather than using them. Events are just grinding for cards. The gauntlet is grinding for cards. The arena is grinding for ships. Voyaging is grinding for cards and the honor to cite them. I don't need to be cash trolled, yes it's to make money. But at a certain point without a strong way to use them to back it up, collecting starts to get or feel pointless. People who make TCGs certainly want to make money, but a lot of the development goes into aspects that don't directly generate cash. The game has to be engaging or there is no point in collecting.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
Ben briefly talked about second Voyages. The challenge is Voyages are the bets loot in the game right now. So if they add a second Voyage they would need to rethink/rebalance the loot. Also, locking up 12 additional crew means rethinking crew slots since you'd need 12 crew + however many extra to be able to choose the 12. It's a good idea, and builds towards the give us something to do with crew not just a way to collect them. But it does take more design/planning then just adding a second Voyage.
I do not want a second voyage if the voyage loots will be halved. Have to use more crew and more slots to get what I am currently getting now with current system would not be a benefit to me.
Getting back on topic (which I helped derail), and duplicate posting here in the more appropriate thread, I was thinking more about our forced free build from the pre-set portal pull of polestars...
A food-for-thought strategy is being able to target a useful crew with the free retrieval, while preserving as many polestars as possible. I was surprised by how many of my 4/5 and 3/5 crew have multiple hits with the 7 free polestars, though many of them aren't great.
One option that jumped out right away is that I believe I could immortalize Mirror Data via 100% target using just 2 polestars (android & saboteur). Although I was hoping to use that saboteur polestar for Saboteur Garak, that might be a good option to guarantee I can immortalize a 5* crew while sacrificing as few polestars for the mandatory retrieval as possible.
I jumped fleet today- from our stats we only had 2 or 3 other active players I think. If we get 100 ISM daily individually, I couldn't miss out on another 900.
I'd like a second voyage to maybe be targeted- specific faction or even items. I'd love to be able to send a crew out to look for rarer items, maybe they can boost their chance by having a specific trait instead of a small antimatter boost. Admittedly this idea is mainly due to recent frustration of getting 1x 2* science experiment after 2 days of shuttles!
I jumped fleet today- from our stats we only had 2 or 3 other active players I think. If we get 100 ISM daily individually, I couldn't miss out on another 900.
I feel like this concept puts too much weight on the fleets. 40 members doing dailies is very steep. We lost two long time fleet members within the last two days as they quit the game. So we are down to 42 captains. 30 will be achievable most of the time but 40 will be rare.
For me to consider this well balanced at least 50% of the daily ISM aquisition should lie in the individual's hand. 10% (a bit more as a VIP) is way too little.
Oh, we are recruiting!
/edit: Sadly, I feel like we lost those fleet members not despite but because of the new feature. It forces fleets to narrowly control the members' activity, and at this stagnant point in the game understandably some do not want to commit to doing their dailies, well, daily. It is a game after all!
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
I jumped fleet today- from our stats we only had 2 or 3 other active players I think. If we get 100 ISM daily individually, I couldn't miss out on another 900.
I feel like this concept puts too much weight on the fleets. 40 members doing dailies is very steep. We lost two long time fleet members within the last two days as they quit the game. So we are down to 42 captains. 30 will be achievable most of the time but 40 will be rare.
For me to consider this well balanced at least 50% of the daily ISM aquisition should lie in the individual's hand. 10% (a bit more as a VIP) is way too little.
Oh, we are recruiting!
/edit: Sadly, I feel like we lost those fleet members not despite but because of the new feature. It forces fleets to narrowly control the members' activity, and at this stagnant point in the game understandably some do not want to commit to doing their dailies, well, daily. It is a game after all!
Agreed. 40 is too high for most fleets, especially when it is not just doing some dailies but completing them.
Comments
7 faction missions are easy. Players just need to have one faction with 30s mission, and put the worst crew in to keep failing them.
After much careful deliberation, I think this feature has the potential to be awesome.
I am looking forward to making sound decisions from random polestars.
Playing since June 14th, 2019
Captain Level 80 / VIP 12
Crew Quarters: 241/270
Immortalized [436]: 5* x30, 4* x239, 3* x89, 2* x53, and 1* x27
Most recent Immortal: Deral (4/4)
Current Project: Waiting for sale with 680k Honor
Completed Collections: Eugenics, Daystrom, Romulan, Ferengi, Do No Harm, Veteran, EV Suit, Rare, Uncommon and Common
I think it will be fun. Something new. Any additional way to add targeted legendaries is better than none. I hope if it is too miserly though that TP adjust it.
But how many casual players do that or even know that the option exists?
I've been wondering about how this will impact fleets with casual players. Active players already looked for active fleets to get the most honor (and maybe chronitons) from daily missions in active fleets. There will probably be another bunch of fleet jumps while this is new. It may slow after a while. It adds a bit of stress to admirals, tbh. They want to make sure their active members are getting the max possible benefit. They also don't want to lose any long-time loyal members. It's a balancing act.
I’ve wanted White Rabbit since release but never seen him in a behold. This mechanism should help me get him. Ditto for a handful of other cards.
The complaints about it being slow and still-RNG-based are overblown (in my opinion). Of course these things are going to be part of it. Only a handful of players (that we know of) have collected every card, and most of them have since stopped playing. TP needs to keep some elements of scarcity and failure-risk in the game.
And it will be a big hit when portal updates come around. I hope we can get a routine time for portal updates and sooner than previous ones. I want some of the high voyagers like Breen Kira and Pipe holding Kim that are not in portal.
Now they can sell them back to us.
I was annoyed with that too at first. But what does the new crew retrieval give you? Legendaries you want. What did the credit Dabo sale give you? Legendaries you want. I think you will find that the 10 million credits for a legendary you like will be far easier than the crew retrieval system so I think it was overall a net gain. I think TP was trying to lvl the playing field a bit so fewer players had mass boards of credits and more players started on an even playing field. But yes, it did look bad from a PR perspective.
It probably would have been more easily defensible if the dabo sale took the same 5mil to clear as the Crew Retrieval feature.
Yes especially when it would have enabled more people to participate in it.
If they had done the sale a month or two earlier it would have been nice though
The success of this thing is going to rely on the ease of collecting specific polestars and constellations. If they're as rare as the portal drops in a skirmish this thing will be dead on arrival.
I agree with you, I had to read it several times to more or less undertand the mechanics
I believe this is the best of this new feature, but as stated before, we still have to see how easy/accessible/fair will it be to everybody, paying or not.
About an hour 30 into the Timelines Talks, Ben said that this is a card collecting game. So the idea of baseball cards seems to be more the thought process of the devs/owners.
And yet there are many of us who want to *do* something with our cards. Maybe not to the extent of MTG, but more than currently. So I offer this as an idea that would both let us players do something more with our cards, and yet the devs/owners see us as trying to get more cards.
How about setting up a second Voyage, with the rewards all/mostly related to the new feature. (ISM, Quantum, Constellations, Polestars, and Credits). Maybe instead of the current Planetary Voyage, it could be a Continuum Voyage, seeking to get more helpful items from the various Q characters with a trip into the Continuum.
This would:
1) Give those players worried about not getting enough materials because of less-than-active fleets a way to strive for them on their own.
2) Potentially give those who will struggle to get a 4* or 5* Polestar by ranking in events a way to get them to make the new feature more appealing, if those Polestars would possibly come with dilemmas, for example.
3) Take relatively little dev time, since the code for Voyages is already developed. Make less text items, and less dilemmas, and I would think the content could be written pretty quickly as well.
4) Give something more to do with 12 crew.
5) Add a layer of strategy to Voyages. Do I want to send out my best crew on the current Planetary Voyage, with the chance for 4* drops and Honor for cites, or on the new Continuum Voyage, to increase my chance to Build-A-Crew Pack I want?
And if you look on the Galaxy Map screen, there's a place the icon could fit right next to the current Voyages button.
I hope through this whole discussion the devs/owners put a high priority on finding things for us to do with our cards once we've collected them. For the long term longevity/enjoyment of the game.
(Personal story you can avoid: One of my first online game was a Marvel one called HeroUp/Super Hero Squad Online. Sadly, that game ended Jan 2017, I think after Disney bought Marvel and wanted to change vendors. But in the game, after I collected characters [think cards], I could send them on missions, use them in events, play card games with them, or even just have them go around the environments that were built. If that game was still around, I'm pretty sure I would still be playing it. It gave me variety and enjoyment. In my mind, I'm contrasting this with STT. Once I collect these cards, I'm not having much fun with them. They have stats for me to try to get the best ones; I can grind with them for more cards; I can read the creative story-lines that are in the game; but that's only going so far. I can feel that I'm starting to get bored in a way that wasn't happening with that first game. I really don't want to search around and see if there is a Marvel/Trek game that is around now that is closer to that other game, because I've invested quite a bit into STT. But if I'm feeling this way, I'm just worried about how long people are going to stick around because they're "invested" if they're no longer really "enjoying" the game.)
As for the Crew Retrieval itself, I'm sure I will use it. It will be a sort of mental challenge to figure out what cards I can actually get from it, while avoiding 1*, 2*, or 3*. We'll see how it works out.
Yeah ... there are a number of crew you can instantly obtain with just one Polestar or with a combo ...
Ba'ul
1. Ba'ul.
2. Brutal, Geneticist, Interrogator.
Pretty nice example, because this is quite a nice crew to own for most rosters (mostly for voyages, some shuttles).
So ... what value do you put on those three traits in the combo? They are all distinguishing traits for a number of crew that requires multiple traits to be able to obtain. I can't imagine any of these 4 traits will be easy to obtain ... like most traits outside of Human, Starfleet, Federation.
This is why I've really tempered my expectations ... I mean, the idea is great that you can target specific crew you want to own ... but in practice, I think it will probably (due to RNG) come down to ... can I target a specific crew with the Polestars I own? And you might be lucky to be able to add a star, but it might also mean you're left with a new "meh" 1/5 ... just like a current 5* behold.
And so I've started looking at crew I can target using mostly common traits but with some of the more uncommon ones ...
e.g. Klingon (fairly common) with Cardassian (slightly less common) --> add either Mirror Universe or 5* or Villain and you are left with two choices:
Mirror Kira and Mirror Worf ... I have neither, so if those three traits stack up fairly quickly this will be a default choice until one is 5/5 ... adds a notch to both the Klingon and Mirror collections.
All of this on the assumption that Quantum will not charge above a certain maximum so forcing me to do a crew retrieval every so often if I am to stay economical in the use of Quantum.
Ben briefly talked about second Voyages. The challenge is Voyages are the bets loot in the game right now. So if they add a second Voyage they would need to rethink/rebalance the loot. Also, locking up 12 additional crew means rethinking crew slots since you'd need 12 crew + however many extra to be able to choose the 12. It's a good idea, and builds towards the give us something to do with crew not just a way to collect them. But it does take more design/planning then just adding a second Voyage.
For the Continuum Voyage, replace the 4* drops with Rarity Constellations; replace the Honor with Quantum; replace Merits with ISM. Maybe replace the 1* 2* 3* crew drops (Equivalent to honor for many of us now) with Credits or ISM. No Voyage exclusive crew. With that change, they'd only need to design enough dilemmas for 12 or 14 or 16 hour voyages, unless they think people are going to want to extend it much more with dil.
I don't think that this would break the economy of the game. But of course, I'm just a player, and don't have access to all the relevant data.
Once you're a late-game player, is there really much of value coming back on voyages, aside from 4* crew that were recently added to the portal? I'm not sure how adding a second voyage would break the game, from a valuation perspective.
I do agree about crew slots, but that speaks volumes about how players need more free crew slots to play a card-collecting game. Plus, how can they say that a second voyage puts strain on crew slots, yet they don't mention the new crew retrieval feature in a similar fashion?
I suppose the 1*-3_ crew we from Voyages turns into Honor, which we're not supposed to hoard. So a 2nd Voyage would make that "problem" worse.
And I also agree with the issue of limited Crew Slots in a Card Collecting game. There are some events I just threshold and out because I don't have enough slots for crew that are *nice*, but not *great*. If the slots weren't an issue, I might compete more for them. But I realize they just can't open it up to tons of crew slots at this point, because many players have paid dilithium (and potentially real money) to increase their slots, and that wouldn't be fair to them. But it makes me think that the game wasn't originally designed as a purely Card Collecting game, but changed its focus over time.
As a fleet admiral, the idea of this is high on my list. And the addition to that is tracking the dailies necessary for hitting the tiers of ISM.
I personally have no desire to drive my members to distraction over the dailies but I will also need to know who consistently isn't doing much around them. The raw "daily targets" number we get won't be helpful.
I do not want a second voyage if the voyage loots will be halved. Have to use more crew and more slots to get what I am currently getting now with current system would not be a benefit to me.
A food-for-thought strategy is being able to target a useful crew with the free retrieval, while preserving as many polestars as possible. I was surprised by how many of my 4/5 and 3/5 crew have multiple hits with the 7 free polestars, though many of them aren't great.
One option that jumped out right away is that I believe I could immortalize Mirror Data via 100% target using just 2 polestars (android & saboteur). Although I was hoping to use that saboteur polestar for Saboteur Garak, that might be a good option to guarantee I can immortalize a 5* crew while sacrificing as few polestars for the mandatory retrieval as possible.
I'd like a second voyage to maybe be targeted- specific faction or even items. I'd love to be able to send a crew out to look for rarer items, maybe they can boost their chance by having a specific trait instead of a small antimatter boost. Admittedly this idea is mainly due to recent frustration of getting 1x 2* science experiment after 2 days of shuttles!
I feel like this concept puts too much weight on the fleets. 40 members doing dailies is very steep. We lost two long time fleet members within the last two days as they quit the game. So we are down to 42 captains. 30 will be achievable most of the time but 40 will be rare.
For me to consider this well balanced at least 50% of the daily ISM aquisition should lie in the individual's hand. 10% (a bit more as a VIP) is way too little.
Oh, we are recruiting!
/edit: Sadly, I feel like we lost those fleet members not despite but because of the new feature. It forces fleets to narrowly control the members' activity, and at this stagnant point in the game understandably some do not want to commit to doing their dailies, well, daily. It is a game after all!
Agreed. 40 is too high for most fleets, especially when it is not just doing some dailies but completing them.