I dont think this has been brought up yet, but the thing I like best about ISM is that I can do my daily scans in less than 30 seconds after logging in. Before then, if I ever missed finishing my dailies it was because I could only log in twice that day and missed the final scan.
Erm... the first scan is free?
And I guess Federation, Human, and Starfleet Polestars are more valuable than thousands of free chrons to you?
I dont think this has been brought up yet, but the thing I like best about ISM is that I can do my daily scans in less than 30 seconds after logging in. Before then, if I ever missed finishing my dailies it was because I could only log in twice that day and missed the final scan.
Erm... the first scan is free?
And I guess Federation, Human, and Starfleet Polestars are more valuable than thousands of free chrons to you?
🤷
Yes the first is free. The other two are now cheap. They used to cost dil. Now I dont have to wait hours for the next to recharge. The other scans can now be completed instantly. No fuss. That is worth 200 honor at least once a week for me.
As for chrons, I also dont know where you get "thousands" of chrons from. After voyages were introduced, chrons became ubiquitous. Even if equipment crates gave usefull items more than once in a blue moon, it would save at most a couple hundred. There is also the replicator if you need more than that.
I would still prefer rare trait polestars to common ones, but chrons dont matter that much.
You will reach this point eventually. And back in my day we did it without voyages, campaigns, honor hall or the replicator.
You only need to scan once now, so still not sure what your point is. And you never had to pay for dil unless you somehow couldn't manage to log into the game two other times, hours apart. Even still, there's always an ad warp if you could only get to two scans for a quick third. Scanning was a largely worthless feature, but it was super easy to manage that requirement.
As for the rest of your post, I've already debunked it up thread.
You only need to scan once now, so still not sure what your point is. And you never had to pay for dil unless you somehow couldn't manage to log into the game two other times, hours apart. Even still, there's always an ad warp if you could only get to two scans for a quick third. Scanning was a largely worthless feature, but it was super easy to manage that requirement.
As for the rest of your post, I've already debunked it up thread.
You often give great insight and suggestions. Thank you. Here, however, I feel you have fallen into the trap that you think most others are like you. I know I do this frequently. The truth is that if you have enough unequipped low-level items, the little crates provided mostly useful items, but of very low chroniton value considering voyages and gauntlet. The gold crates, no matter how many open equipment places I have, provide disappointment as often as something useful. And occasionally the useful item is cheap anyway. But often the useful item comes in multiples when you only need one. It is true that you can reduce risk of unnecessary items by keeping many crew partly equipped. This is useful to very new players leveling crew and veteran players with good enough crew to allow other crew to stay on board without purpose. Personally, I value crew spots, so I save for them, so I can do that. Anyone with too-few spots, cannot. The fact is that those crates really can be (halfway) useful IF you plan for it carefully and have enough open crew. But the crates also dump unneeded items that have to be purged, which is a nuisance. As someone who is not really against the crates and at least partially agrees with your point, I can also say that your estimate of saving thousands of chronitons is more than a little hyperbolic. But let us say you save 2000 chronitons in a month with the crates. If you do not now, you will soon get to the point where you can average 500 chronitons in a day through voyages. Add to that gauntlet drops and daily rewards and fleet rewards. It takes a while to feel this way, but chronitons are cheap. If you cannot reach 8 hour voyages regularly, equip some of those crew you have sitting around. For me, the slightly improved chance of a gold of my choice thrice every two months is worth more. It is true that new constellations and polestars might give you duplicates, too. But I think of it as (I believe I read it first from ByloBand) trading a good thing for a better thing. You can disagree with me and your particular style might be more heavily hit than mine, but I believe this change is a net positive. We have to spend a few more chronitons (which, incidentally also means gaining experience and Captain level), but we get better crew. I happily spend 7 or 8 thousand chronitons on an even where I want the gold crew. The two or even three thousand (probably no where close to half of that) you lose from crates is changed to 34K ISM which will bring in the polestars very quickly, which helps you get those crew you want that you would spend 5 or 6 thousand chronitons on if they were in an event.
You only need to scan once now, so still not sure what your point is. And you never had to pay for dil unless you somehow couldn't manage to log into the game two other times, hours apart. Even still, there's always an ad warp if you could only get to two scans for a quick third. Scanning was a largely worthless feature, but it was super easy to manage that requirement.
As for the rest of your post, I've already debunked it up thread.
I was wondering if he hadn't noticed the change in the scan requirements. These days the scan one is just about the first one I finish for the day.
I have also demonstrated how many chronitons just a single item saves me and I have gotten multiple gold, purple, and blue items in a single crate. Up to five items per gold crate, ten golds crates per campaign, that is a lot of chronitons I don't have to spend, chronitons I don't have. Plus, the basic crates could have done a lot for these newer crew I have waiting in the lower levels.
It's simple- if you have a lot of crew to equip (~500 items open in my case) or you know how to set it up to farm the drops (several folks here), you will get good crate drops. If you finish every crew almost immediately, you have almost no chance of a good drop, because you have no good opinions. It is a matter of play style. It is a big deal to some and nothing to others.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
If there is only one scan required per day now I missed that and stand corrected. That makes the scan daily improvement now the best thing TP has done to the game so far.
The value of ISM in my estimation is now a wash.
But crates were endless disapointment so Im still glad they are gone.
If you found value in it...I guess it takes all types. Some people buy legendaries from faction stores. Some people buy trainers with honor. Unnecessary comment removed. ~Shan I dont have to understand it. I suppose I can accept it. But I am not going to advocate for it.
If there is only one scan required per day now I missed that and stand corrected. That makes the scan daily improvement now the best thing TP has done to the game so far.
The value of ISM in my estimation is now a wash.
But crates were endless disapointment so Im still glad they are gone.
If you found value in it...I guess it takes all types. Some people buy legendaries from faction stores. Some people buy trainers with honor. Unnecessary comment removed. ~Shan I dont have to understand it. I suppose I can accept it. But I am not going to advocate for it.
I regularly got value from the crates. I have stopped playing DABO because I will almost never get anymore than a rare item. I let the crates finish leveling up my crew. Now that I have to do it myself, I did not realize how many crew I had left needing items until now. And it is amazing how much of my Chrons are disappearing now.
I miss my crates, TP! I keep waiting, in vain, on equipment to appear as I claim the basic track out of habit. Now I just have Gauntlet and Dabo for help.
New crew are useless unequipped. I immortalized 29 crew last month and have reached 20 today. We will see how March goes. Last month was all purples, except two golds. This month includes a green, a blue, and three Golds, besides purples. Unnecessary comment removed. ~Shan
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
Trivial implies that each crate wasn't saving me, on average, around a day's worth of chronitons. Each campaign let me essentially double my equipping each month. It cost me a voyage worth of chronitons to do around two items on Lothario Q yesterday.
You said it yourself. YOU can level a new crew in five minutes. I haven't even finished the Punk Rocker in nearly a day. I still need five pieces of equipment on the new Q (similar with Salia) and I've had him two weeks. I'll get them finished in the next couple days, probably, but it will cost me.
I had 133 chronitons built up since last night and added 25 more from hitting 5 Cadet challenges.
I spent 75 to get 8 components to add to what I had to build Q's robes at lvl90.
So instead of fussing over crates why don't you re-direct some of that DIL stash into Cadet Challenges or Voyage extensions? Why not passionate advocacy for Cadet Tokens or Voyage Tokens to Campaigns?
The point is your argument relies heavily on the very temporary problem of not being able to level your crew. Crates are just a sort term band-aid. The level in power having an adequate selection of 5* crew is pretty immense actually. ISM addresses the latter.
:sighs, pinches bridge of nose, and tries to suppress the notoriously bad temper:
Why exactly would I invest in either of those? It would serve no purpose.
Four days a week you don't get any chronitons for the challenges except for the rewards from dailies and, after a certain point, the chroniton per minute average drops when you pass a specific point and have to factor in recall time for voyages. I'm close to a natural 10hr. I use a token or dilithium if I miss recall, but that is it.
Temporary problems, by definition, are not temporary when they have lasted two years. If it wasn't too dark, I would share a pic of my list of FF'D crew that needs finished and frozen. It covers one entire side of a page from a legal pad, six columns wide and is incomplete. I ran out of room and already had a different list on the back.
I have a fairly decent selection of golds- Gary Seven, Fury Kes, both 5* Renos, Away Team #1, et c. I just can't get them leveled. This event made Pah-Wraith Keiko a priority, so her and Chaotica make 28 immortal golds. The new Q will be 29. There are a handful I'd like to get more than others, but I have plenty to work on.
ISM will matter very little, if you can't get those new crew in. I have five, including Salia (who took all the chronitons I had to finish), that will go in stasis Monday at event finish. I have an EV Archer that will come in then. The 2* and 4* will take 2 slots, leaving 2. The lack of excessive event crew next week lets me work on my backlog at a chroniton conserving rate. Maybe I'll get someone else done.
You yourself stated why you got so little useful equipment from the crates. You have 26 items, mostly 5/4* rarity. The basics couldn't be and the premium ones had a low chance. That is the key difference between us.
You had 26 high options for RNG to work with.
I would not blink, if I counted twenty times that. I have 420 slots. 72 are filled by immortal/FE'd crew. That leaves 348 with, at minimum, one empty equipment slot. Some have all four empty. I would estimate a hundred to be 3* or less, all the way down to basic no star items. What are the odds I wouldn't get something useful, even if I had to build on it? A 2* outfit becomes a 4* a lot faster and cheaper than building it from scratch.
With that comparison, do you understand now? I couldn't really lose and you couldn't really win. I can understand why you would rather have something else you can use, but those 20, 30, 40+ items a month they took away make a huge difference to me. New crew are nice and, I never turn them down, but I need to equip what I have and they hit me hard there. I have immortalized random crew with a crate drop. Of course, I want them.
I’ve only JUST started playing, but I fill all equipment slots except on a very few I am leveling, and those items would turn up in loot crates and they turn up on the Dabo wheel. Anytime I get a new toon I level them to open their four equipment slots, fill them, and there they sit until I get to them to level. That way useless junk doesn’t pop up. In fact when I’d notice toons I was leveling needed items for crafting if I found a low-level toon that needed to equip that item I would leave that slot empty in hopes of it popping to use for crafting for my higher toons. Maybe you’re just drowning in resources but the way I play at this early stage I quickly realized how advantageous crates could be and adjusted accordingly. I think you and I play differently, so we’re just naturally going to disagree.
EXAMPLE FOR LEAVING SLOTS OPEN:
Like, this guy? F—k this guy. He can sit there and wait. That dumb holoprogram pops up a lot for other toons I’m working on. He can sit there and wait and make himself useful increasing odds on a passive drop for an item I need to craft items for toons that matter. It makes a difference for me anyway.
Exactly, @Trollita . You figured it out right off.
If you have a lot of open equipment slots, crates, like Dabo and Gauntlet drops, can be extremely useful. I always have a bunch open, hundreds, at any given moment. Any crew not immortal has one open slot minimum. I sometimes get something for someone I don't have (yet) or something for someone extra I just dismissed, but, most of the time, I got decent stuff. I got what I needed to level Nomad up to the next tier of levels from a Gauntlet drop a couple hours ago. I had a couple of things for the Nick Locarno I got from Retrieval already sitting in my inventory.
If you never have anything but a few high rarity bits open, you aren't going to get useful RNG equipment drops. The math is just bad. I can see both sides of the argument, but to dismiss the crates as useless it totally unfair. They were beneficial to a lot of players in various ways, depending on how long they had been playing and play style. Having no value to you and having no value period are two very different things and some people don't see that.
ISM is nice if you need a ton of Polestars to get those few you need to target those last couple crew. I used three that I had multiples of to narrow down to a pool of around sixteen Golds that were either new or needed stars when I Retrieved yesterday. I am not hungry for Polestars. ISM doesn't do much for me, right now. Long time players with rosters full of immortal crew and deep inventories need those last couple crew or stars and want ISM to scan for Constellations and open them. Equipping is easy when you have just a couple to devote your generous resources to. I understand that. I have 300+ crew to supply. I need all the equipment and components I can get. A single, good equippable makes my whole day.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
I'm not sure, @Trollita. I know completely eliminating one thing some people value and replacing it with something not everyone likes is too extreme. There needs to be balance and more player input.
Fairness would have the crates returned, maybe tweaked a little, so they don't open when claimed, but can be stored for later use. They won't clutter the inventory of detractors sitting over with boosts and supply kits, unopened.
Taking all of something is going to frustrate someone. It probably makes the coding easier since it is simply replacement on a sliding scale, but even trainers have value to a young player. I would like to avoid simply throwing someone else under the bus.
The trick would be to do one of the following:
* Change what gets replaced with every ten block of tiers. The crates gets replaced between 1 and 10, trainers between 11 and 20, etc. That would still give ten drops of ISM per track, but it wouldn't completely ditch anything. No one gets completely burned by the changes.
* Put it in with something. This would have made the most sense, unless each tier can only drop one item. If it can't be done, it can't be done, but was it an option? I would like to know if it is a choice or constraint.
* Give each track a set of ISM bonuses, that unlock in parallel, and either drop ISM at a certain point like the fifth or tenth tier in each block or do a full track in parallel, maybe with Constellations or Polestars tossed in eventually. This might be the trick to boosting Campaign sales. Maybe even have surplus accolades become ISM at the end. That would get power players the ISM they want and solve the surplus accolades complaint in one go.
* Some other idea or hybrid idea I haven't thought of. Toss them out here if you have them, people.
I just know the "all for all" approach has left a lot of people upset. Lots of valid concerns and points have been brought up on this thread and some misunderstandings cleared up. I think some of us have gotten a better idea of how others play during this, but I know everyone here realizes other people were upset by this and had genuine reasons to be. It was a hard hit to their play style and resources and the payoff wasn't enough to offset it.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
1. Equipment I can craft and obtain fairly easily and have been able to do so for years, even when I had loads of crew to equip never really had issues (outside of some Section 31 components). I also don't use the replicator, so that probably says enough.
I can't stress enough how much I hate(d) getting equipment from crates (and also Gauntlet crates or Dabo spins).
3. I'm already running out of ISM to open Constellations ... granted, I do not buy the Premium track of Campaigns ... also, my Quantum is at 100 or so, so it will be a while before I can retrieve my next crew ... however:
- I currently have 1,000 ISM ... and 1 unopened Constellation ... (see below - all but the Federation Polestar would be handy for me to target specific crew I'd like to own).
I do the six-daily scans method (3 Ad warps and 3x paid, of which the first is 3 so total cost 400 ISM) ... and the numbers of Constellations I've got coming in is quite frequent, as to now have a backlog of opening them.
Furthermore, my fleet brings in 700 ISM daily (sometimes the full 1000), but for the rest it comes in via Campaigns (up until now). Tomorrow, I think I'll get in the 1,800 from the free track ... letting me open my current Constellation and a possible second should I find another.
I like to keep a stash of 1,000 at the moment, just in case my ad warps mess up and I still want to do 6/7 pulls during the day.
So, through fleet ISM and the scan costs I'm +300 ISM each day.
If I didn't have the influx of ISM from Campaigns I'd have a lot more un-opened Constellations.
For all the advocates who apparently loved the ol crates ...
Those were either broken or implemented incorrectly.
The weird things i have seen from them are plenty , i will put some forward ..
- No Gold equipment from a gold box, while there were a number of crew with open gold item equipment slots
- Gold equipment from a gold box for a unowned or immortalized crew
- Normal boxxes , i cannot even remember how many times i got Losira's pants from those , or other useless low level immortalized crew equipment.
The biggest mistake and the moste hate for the crates comes from the simple fact the boxxes were implied to be usefull to the player, the mistake made here was not restricting the crates to (only) check from a item list of usable items, instead of EVERYTHING.
The idea was good, the implementation flawed, apparently it was easier to replace with ISM to supplement the convoluted retrieval system than code the desired behaviour from the boxxes instead.
Complexity can be a good thing ... complexity for complexity's sake is bad.
Uh, the gold crates were only designated as having rare or better equipment. There was never a guaranteed gold in them.
Getting the gold for an unowned crew does sound odd, but you have it when you get them. As for the immortal ones, I haven't had that happen to me and I've have a lot of gold equipment. The only time I end up with spare gold equipment is if I have the threshold crew finished before a rerun. That is odd and I'm not sure how that happens.
The basics had up to rare items and, if you have crew available for reenlistment when you claim it, you sometimes get things for that crew, like with Dabo. I always checked that it was empty before claiming a crate.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
When many items can be obtained and crew slots are at a premium, most players cannot afford to have slot space taken up by crew that cannot be used in events nor can be frozen. For me my problem is obtaining the crew I want, not leveling them up. I prefer the ism.
I can't stress enough how much I hate(d) getting equipment from crates (and also Gauntlet crates or Dabo spins).
Funnily enough equipment drops are the only useful stuff I get out of the Gauntlet (except for the rare and random legendary drops).
But I have a lot of crew selectively unequipped at low levels, which means that I mostly used the Gautlet and campaign to farm 2*, 3* and sometimes 4* science lessons, science experiments, social lessons, security reports and so on. It wasn't a necessity, especially since I have more chrons than I can use, but it was nice.
I still find ISM more useful than the crates were, but I guess that that depends on everyone's individual playstyle.
Uh, the gold crates were only designated as having rare or better equipment. There was never a guaranteed gold in them.
Getting the gold for an unowned crew does sound odd, but you have it when you get them. As for the immortal ones, I haven't had that happen to me and I've have a lot of gold equipment. The only time I end up with spare gold equipment is if I have the threshold crew finished before a rerun. That is odd and I'm not sure how that happens.
The basics had up to rare items and, if you have crew available for reenlistment when you claim it, you sometimes get things for that crew, like with Dabo. I always checked that it was empty before claiming a crate.
In the large scheme of things equipment boxes are:
- Short term solutions
- Individualistic - single-player oriented
ISM on the other hand meets ALL player's needs ... everyone needs ISM to open Constellations to get Polestars to be able to use the new system implemented.
There are many examples where equipment instead of ISM in the new situation would actively punish certain players ... where extra ISM does not punish anyone.
- If you are part of a small fleet you might not have another source of ISM than Campaigns and the 100 daily ISM ... and now events. Having a steady income will allow this type of player to use a new system that has been brought into the game ... imagine if there was a rule that said that voyages could only be populated by 5* crew.
- If you are a player (like me) who does not purchase the premium track of a Campaign ... you are never going to get those 4* or 5* equipment items ... my equipment boxes only gave up to 3* items ... and it was a really, really mixed bag, even when I purposely left crew with unequipped items ... most of it was some specific crew's 3* clothing who I'd immortalized eons ago.
Man, I hated having to empty my inventory every week ... thankfully that is easier now ... and I still get a bunch of random crap through Dabo and Gauntlet, equipment crates aren't gone, you can still use that technique.
When I was part of a Scouts group as a kid we used to do hikes in the Rockies etc. our motto was that we walked as a group at the speed/pace of the individual who walked slowest and we tried to help that individual as much as possible, I even used to carry some extra items etc. to help lighten their load.
ISM is just that ... helping those who need it most to be able to partake in all activities too ... do I personally really need the extra ISM, probably not, but I know players out there that do need the help, so I'm happy that they get this extra boost to be able to enjoy the game.
Just to highlight the "issue" if ISM was NOT part of Campaigns ...
So today I got 1800 from the reward track; 300 from my fleet and 100 from the daily.
Opened the Civil War Worf Constellation --> Maverick
Did a couple of scans on the way to 6 scans and ... got the next Constellation; Kilana ... if I open that I'll be +300 compared to yesterday ... so, thankfully ISM is part of the reward track, imagine if I would have gotten 2-3 useless 0-3* items instead of 1800 ISM.
@Emporer Borg Queen
Here's my inventory. Except for the White Rabbit, Stamets (top Gauntlet finish box) and the new Rand & Remmick stuff ... all this equipment is from Gauntlet boxes and ripe for the replicator or the discard. And this is just one page, above this is even more junk from crew already immortalised/equipped etc.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all accept that crates work for some people, and not for others... it all depends on your playing style and what you choose to put your time/resources into.
In other news, I have 31 polestars at present... of which 10 are accounted for by starfleet/human. It’s not surprising given the volume of crew with those traits, but it is bloody annoying when you get an otherwise juicy constellation and it gives you human yet again
@Emporer Borg Queen
Here's my inventory. Except for the White Rabbit, Stamets (top Gauntlet finish box) and the new Rand & Remmick stuff ... all this equipment is from Gauntlet boxes and ripe for the replicator or the discard. And this is just one page, above this is even more junk from crew already immortalised/equipped etc.
To be honest, that's only ever happened to me with legendary equipment (even if I leave 10 to 15 legendary items unequipped I will still get random useless stuff half of the time). But most of the drops aren't for legendary equipment anyway, they're usually purple or 3* items even in premium crates. I think I have about 70 to 80 unequipped items in my crew currently, which are all strategically selected, so to say. I haven't gotten useless 2*, 3* and 4* items from campaigns or gauntlet in a long time.
Dabo still drops random crap though for some reason.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all accept that crates work for some people, and not for others... it all depends on your playing style and what you choose to put your time/resources into.
In other news, I have 31 polestars at present... of which 10 are accounted for by starfleet/human. It’s not surprising given the volume of crew with those traits, but it is bloody annoying when you get an otherwise juicy constellation and it gives you human yet again
I have three accounts I have been buying the premium campaign track on all three.
I will not be buying the premium campaign track on any of my accounts. It is my way to protest the removal of crates.
Now, how many people who did not buy the premium campaign track before are going to buy it now that they replaced the crates with ISM.
I think this is going to depend on level of player. I bought the pass. So far I am not impressed. I don’t know where people are getting ISM to unlock multiple polestars but the ISM I have gotten to do so has lended, well, crap. Quantum holding at 1,000. I would be better off with the crates to equip who I already I have. Saving credits for crafting. I found the hoarders thread pretty hilarious; maybe this update is good for those folks.
I have three accounts I have been buying the premium campaign track on all three.
I will not be buying the premium campaign track on any of my accounts. It is my way to protest the removal of crates.
Now, how many people who did not buy the premium campaign track before are going to buy it now that they replaced the crates with ISM.
I think this is going to depend on level of player. I bought the pass. So far I am not impressed. I don’t know where people are getting ISM to unlock multiple polestars but the ISM I have gotten to do so has lended, well, crap. Quantum holding at 1,000. I would be better off with the crates to equip who I already I have. Saving credits for crafting. I found the hoarders thread pretty hilarious; maybe this update is good for those folks.
The thread I find hilarious, "Can we trade our bad polestars". The point of the campaign ISM is to let people accumulate a lot of polestars. Most of those will be bad. Now they also want to trade them.
Edit: We need the ISM, but there are other choices to get rid of then those crates of equipment. Replicators or non-gold trainers.
Again, the question is not ISM yes/no in campaigns. I think we all agree that their addition was a good thing.
The question is rather if turning down a share of the player base with just replacing the crates instead of replacing several things in part was a good idea.
Credits, trainers, replictor rations... is that all so valuable to you that you are unwilling to give up parts of these rewards to get some crates back? If not for yourself (as you hate the crates), at least for the sake of your fellow players who used to cherish them? That would be a kind move.
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.
Someone probably said this, but I'm not going to wade through pages of the thread to find it.
They should have dumped trainers and/or replicator rations for ISM. While loot crates aren't entirely useful for me personally, I think they are better overall in the game.
Comments
Erm... the first scan is free?
And I guess Federation, Human, and Starfleet Polestars are more valuable than thousands of free chrons to you?
🤷
Yes the first is free. The other two are now cheap. They used to cost dil. Now I dont have to wait hours for the next to recharge. The other scans can now be completed instantly. No fuss. That is worth 200 honor at least once a week for me.
As for chrons, I also dont know where you get "thousands" of chrons from. After voyages were introduced, chrons became ubiquitous. Even if equipment crates gave usefull items more than once in a blue moon, it would save at most a couple hundred. There is also the replicator if you need more than that.
I would still prefer rare trait polestars to common ones, but chrons dont matter that much.
You will reach this point eventually. And back in my day we did it without voyages, campaigns, honor hall or the replicator.
As for the rest of your post, I've already debunked it up thread.
You often give great insight and suggestions. Thank you. Here, however, I feel you have fallen into the trap that you think most others are like you. I know I do this frequently. The truth is that if you have enough unequipped low-level items, the little crates provided mostly useful items, but of very low chroniton value considering voyages and gauntlet. The gold crates, no matter how many open equipment places I have, provide disappointment as often as something useful. And occasionally the useful item is cheap anyway. But often the useful item comes in multiples when you only need one. It is true that you can reduce risk of unnecessary items by keeping many crew partly equipped. This is useful to very new players leveling crew and veteran players with good enough crew to allow other crew to stay on board without purpose. Personally, I value crew spots, so I save for them, so I can do that. Anyone with too-few spots, cannot. The fact is that those crates really can be (halfway) useful IF you plan for it carefully and have enough open crew. But the crates also dump unneeded items that have to be purged, which is a nuisance. As someone who is not really against the crates and at least partially agrees with your point, I can also say that your estimate of saving thousands of chronitons is more than a little hyperbolic. But let us say you save 2000 chronitons in a month with the crates. If you do not now, you will soon get to the point where you can average 500 chronitons in a day through voyages. Add to that gauntlet drops and daily rewards and fleet rewards. It takes a while to feel this way, but chronitons are cheap. If you cannot reach 8 hour voyages regularly, equip some of those crew you have sitting around. For me, the slightly improved chance of a gold of my choice thrice every two months is worth more. It is true that new constellations and polestars might give you duplicates, too. But I think of it as (I believe I read it first from ByloBand) trading a good thing for a better thing. You can disagree with me and your particular style might be more heavily hit than mine, but I believe this change is a net positive. We have to spend a few more chronitons (which, incidentally also means gaining experience and Captain level), but we get better crew. I happily spend 7 or 8 thousand chronitons on an even where I want the gold crew. The two or even three thousand (probably no where close to half of that) you lose from crates is changed to 34K ISM which will bring in the polestars very quickly, which helps you get those crew you want that you would spend 5 or 6 thousand chronitons on if they were in an event.
I was wondering if he hadn't noticed the change in the scan requirements. These days the scan one is just about the first one I finish for the day.
I have also demonstrated how many chronitons just a single item saves me and I have gotten multiple gold, purple, and blue items in a single crate. Up to five items per gold crate, ten golds crates per campaign, that is a lot of chronitons I don't have to spend, chronitons I don't have. Plus, the basic crates could have done a lot for these newer crew I have waiting in the lower levels.
It's simple- if you have a lot of crew to equip (~500 items open in my case) or you know how to set it up to farm the drops (several folks here), you will get good crate drops. If you finish every crew almost immediately, you have almost no chance of a good drop, because you have no good opinions. It is a matter of play style. It is a big deal to some and nothing to others.
The value of ISM in my estimation is now a wash.
But crates were endless disapointment so Im still glad they are gone.
If you found value in it...I guess it takes all types. Some people buy legendaries from faction stores. Some people buy trainers with honor. Unnecessary comment removed. ~Shan I dont have to understand it. I suppose I can accept it. But I am not going to advocate for it.
I regularly got value from the crates. I have stopped playing DABO because I will almost never get anymore than a rare item. I let the crates finish leveling up my crew. Now that I have to do it myself, I did not realize how many crew I had left needing items until now. And it is amazing how much of my Chrons are disappearing now.
New crew are useless unequipped. I immortalized 29 crew last month and have reached 20 today. We will see how March goes. Last month was all purples, except two golds. This month includes a green, a blue, and three Golds, besides purples.
Unnecessary comment removed. ~Shan
EXAMPLE FOR LEAVING SLOTS OPEN:
Like, this guy? F—k this guy. He can sit there and wait. That dumb holoprogram pops up a lot for other toons I’m working on. He can sit there and wait and make himself useful increasing odds on a passive drop for an item I need to craft items for toons that matter. It makes a difference for me anyway.
If you have a lot of open equipment slots, crates, like Dabo and Gauntlet drops, can be extremely useful. I always have a bunch open, hundreds, at any given moment. Any crew not immortal has one open slot minimum. I sometimes get something for someone I don't have (yet) or something for someone extra I just dismissed, but, most of the time, I got decent stuff. I got what I needed to level Nomad up to the next tier of levels from a Gauntlet drop a couple hours ago. I had a couple of things for the Nick Locarno I got from Retrieval already sitting in my inventory.
If you never have anything but a few high rarity bits open, you aren't going to get useful RNG equipment drops. The math is just bad. I can see both sides of the argument, but to dismiss the crates as useless it totally unfair. They were beneficial to a lot of players in various ways, depending on how long they had been playing and play style. Having no value to you and having no value period are two very different things and some people don't see that.
ISM is nice if you need a ton of Polestars to get those few you need to target those last couple crew. I used three that I had multiples of to narrow down to a pool of around sixteen Golds that were either new or needed stars when I Retrieved yesterday. I am not hungry for Polestars. ISM doesn't do much for me, right now. Long time players with rosters full of immortal crew and deep inventories need those last couple crew or stars and want ISM to scan for Constellations and open them. Equipping is easy when you have just a couple to devote your generous resources to. I understand that. I have 300+ crew to supply. I need all the equipment and components I can get. A single, good equippable makes my whole day.
How do you please everybody? Tough nut to crack.
Fairness would have the crates returned, maybe tweaked a little, so they don't open when claimed, but can be stored for later use. They won't clutter the inventory of detractors sitting over with boosts and supply kits, unopened.
Taking all of something is going to frustrate someone. It probably makes the coding easier since it is simply replacement on a sliding scale, but even trainers have value to a young player. I would like to avoid simply throwing someone else under the bus.
The trick would be to do one of the following:
* Change what gets replaced with every ten block of tiers. The crates gets replaced between 1 and 10, trainers between 11 and 20, etc. That would still give ten drops of ISM per track, but it wouldn't completely ditch anything. No one gets completely burned by the changes.
* Put it in with something. This would have made the most sense, unless each tier can only drop one item. If it can't be done, it can't be done, but was it an option? I would like to know if it is a choice or constraint.
* Give each track a set of ISM bonuses, that unlock in parallel, and either drop ISM at a certain point like the fifth or tenth tier in each block or do a full track in parallel, maybe with Constellations or Polestars tossed in eventually. This might be the trick to boosting Campaign sales. Maybe even have surplus accolades become ISM at the end. That would get power players the ISM they want and solve the surplus accolades complaint in one go.
* Some other idea or hybrid idea I haven't thought of. Toss them out here if you have them, people.
I just know the "all for all" approach has left a lot of people upset. Lots of valid concerns and points have been brought up on this thread and some misunderstandings cleared up. I think some of us have gotten a better idea of how others play during this, but I know everyone here realizes other people were upset by this and had genuine reasons to be. It was a hard hit to their play style and resources and the payoff wasn't enough to offset it.
1. Equipment I can craft and obtain fairly easily and have been able to do so for years, even when I had loads of crew to equip never really had issues (outside of some Section 31 components). I also don't use the replicator, so that probably says enough.
I can't stress enough how much I hate(d) getting equipment from crates (and also Gauntlet crates or Dabo spins).
3. I'm already running out of ISM to open Constellations ... granted, I do not buy the Premium track of Campaigns ... also, my Quantum is at 100 or so, so it will be a while before I can retrieve my next crew ... however:
- I currently have 1,000 ISM ... and 1 unopened Constellation ... (see below - all but the Federation Polestar would be handy for me to target specific crew I'd like to own).
I do the six-daily scans method (3 Ad warps and 3x paid, of which the first is 3 so total cost 400 ISM) ... and the numbers of Constellations I've got coming in is quite frequent, as to now have a backlog of opening them.
Furthermore, my fleet brings in 700 ISM daily (sometimes the full 1000), but for the rest it comes in via Campaigns (up until now). Tomorrow, I think I'll get in the 1,800 from the free track ... letting me open my current Constellation and a possible second should I find another.
I like to keep a stash of 1,000 at the moment, just in case my ad warps mess up and I still want to do 6/7 pulls during the day.
So, through fleet ISM and the scan costs I'm +300 ISM each day.
If I didn't have the influx of ISM from Campaigns I'd have a lot more un-opened Constellations.
Those were either broken or implemented incorrectly.
The weird things i have seen from them are plenty , i will put some forward ..
- No Gold equipment from a gold box, while there were a number of crew with open gold item equipment slots
- Gold equipment from a gold box for a unowned or immortalized crew
- Normal boxxes , i cannot even remember how many times i got Losira's pants from those , or other useless low level immortalized crew equipment.
The biggest mistake and the moste hate for the crates comes from the simple fact the boxxes were implied to be usefull to the player, the mistake made here was not restricting the crates to (only) check from a item list of usable items, instead of EVERYTHING.
The idea was good, the implementation flawed, apparently it was easier to replace with ISM to supplement the convoluted retrieval system than code the desired behaviour from the boxxes instead.
Complexity can be a good thing ... complexity for complexity's sake is bad.
Getting the gold for an unowned crew does sound odd, but you have it when you get them. As for the immortal ones, I haven't had that happen to me and I've have a lot of gold equipment. The only time I end up with spare gold equipment is if I have the threshold crew finished before a rerun. That is odd and I'm not sure how that happens.
The basics had up to rare items and, if you have crew available for reenlistment when you claim it, you sometimes get things for that crew, like with Dabo. I always checked that it was empty before claiming a crate.
Funnily enough equipment drops are the only useful stuff I get out of the Gauntlet (except for the rare and random legendary drops).
But I have a lot of crew selectively unequipped at low levels, which means that I mostly used the Gautlet and campaign to farm 2*, 3* and sometimes 4* science lessons, science experiments, social lessons, security reports and so on. It wasn't a necessity, especially since I have more chrons than I can use, but it was nice.
I still find ISM more useful than the crates were, but I guess that that depends on everyone's individual playstyle.
In the large scheme of things equipment boxes are:
- Short term solutions
- Individualistic - single-player oriented
ISM on the other hand meets ALL player's needs ... everyone needs ISM to open Constellations to get Polestars to be able to use the new system implemented.
There are many examples where equipment instead of ISM in the new situation would actively punish certain players ... where extra ISM does not punish anyone.
- If you are part of a small fleet you might not have another source of ISM than Campaigns and the 100 daily ISM ... and now events. Having a steady income will allow this type of player to use a new system that has been brought into the game ... imagine if there was a rule that said that voyages could only be populated by 5* crew.
- If you are a player (like me) who does not purchase the premium track of a Campaign ... you are never going to get those 4* or 5* equipment items ... my equipment boxes only gave up to 3* items ... and it was a really, really mixed bag, even when I purposely left crew with unequipped items ... most of it was some specific crew's 3* clothing who I'd immortalized eons ago.
Man, I hated having to empty my inventory every week ... thankfully that is easier now ... and I still get a bunch of random crap through Dabo and Gauntlet, equipment crates aren't gone, you can still use that technique.
When I was part of a Scouts group as a kid we used to do hikes in the Rockies etc. our motto was that we walked as a group at the speed/pace of the individual who walked slowest and we tried to help that individual as much as possible, I even used to carry some extra items etc. to help lighten their load.
ISM is just that ... helping those who need it most to be able to partake in all activities too ... do I personally really need the extra ISM, probably not, but I know players out there that do need the help, so I'm happy that they get this extra boost to be able to enjoy the game.
So today I got 1800 from the reward track; 300 from my fleet and 100 from the daily.
Opened the Civil War Worf Constellation --> Maverick
Did a couple of scans on the way to 6 scans and ... got the next Constellation; Kilana ... if I open that I'll be +300 compared to yesterday ... so, thankfully ISM is part of the reward track, imagine if I would have gotten 2-3 useless 0-3* items instead of 1800 ISM.
@Emporer Borg Queen
Here's my inventory.
In other news, I have 31 polestars at present... of which 10 are accounted for by starfleet/human. It’s not surprising given the volume of crew with those traits, but it is bloody annoying when you get an otherwise juicy constellation and it gives you human yet again
To be honest, that's only ever happened to me with legendary equipment (even if I leave 10 to 15 legendary items unequipped I will still get random useless stuff half of the time). But most of the drops aren't for legendary equipment anyway, they're usually purple or 3* items even in premium crates. I think I have about 70 to 80 unequipped items in my crew currently, which are all strategically selected, so to say. I haven't gotten useless 2*, 3* and 4* items from campaigns or gauntlet in a long time.
Dabo still drops random crap though for some reason.
As do trainers, but I do not want more of them.
I will not be buying the premium campaign track on any of my accounts. It is my way to protest the removal of crates.
Now, how many people who did not buy the premium campaign track before are going to buy it now that they replaced the crates with ISM.
I think this is going to depend on level of player. I bought the pass. So far I am not impressed. I don’t know where people are getting ISM to unlock multiple polestars but the ISM I have gotten to do so has lended, well, crap. Quantum holding at 1,000. I would be better off with the crates to equip who I already I have. Saving credits for crafting. I found the hoarders thread pretty hilarious; maybe this update is good for those folks.
The thread I find hilarious, "Can we trade our bad polestars". The point of the campaign ISM is to let people accumulate a lot of polestars. Most of those will be bad. Now they also want to trade them.
Edit: We need the ISM, but there are other choices to get rid of then those crates of equipment. Replicators or non-gold trainers.
The question is rather if turning down a share of the player base with just replacing the crates instead of replacing several things in part was a good idea.
Credits, trainers, replictor rations... is that all so valuable to you that you are unwilling to give up parts of these rewards to get some crates back? If not for yourself (as you hate the crates), at least for the sake of your fellow players who used to cherish them? That would be a kind move.
They should have dumped trainers and/or replicator rations for ISM. While loot crates aren't entirely useful for me personally, I think they are better overall in the game.