The players who are capable of pulling this off do not need the prize.
The players who need the prize are incapable of pulling this off.
It's two months since @Bylo Band said this, and now that we've had two of these, I'd say the actual experience has proven him completely right. (I am now going to be much less concise to make the same overall point!)
This time round, I had resigned myself to just missing out on the gauntlet objective, but thanks to my sleeping pattern being thrown off for other reasons, I've ended up waking up very early (the event ends at 6am for me) and squeezed one more set of rounds in ... only to think "oh, is that it?" 400 chronitons is one voyage's worth (not even a good voyage), 1000 honor maybe two (or spending a few k merits on pulls to immediately airlock ... which would also give a chance of a decent card along the way). I already had purple cites on hand, now I have another one. If a 3/4 event card came along that I really, really wanted to immortalise right away, I'd be fine and event if not, if I wanted it that badly, I'd be willing to pay the 18k honor to get a full price one from the honor hall.
The reduction of the numbers needed this time round is a slight improvement and makes the arena objective less frustrating, though I've got to be honest, deliberately playing to lose feels weird to me. (I know a lot of people tank shuttles, and I can see how the game mechanics end up meaning it's a good strategy, but I've never been able to bring myself to do it. Somehow doing it for the PvP elements feels different.) Confession time: I did spend dilithium on arena in the first event (when there was no margin for error) - because the button greys out, I didn't realise you could reroll more than once. (I also didn't realise until that event that you could go in and make changes to your ship and battle stations, and then save them without needing to play a round.)
The gauntlet objective, on the other hand, is I think doable without dilithium ... so long as you can log in four times a day (basically, get your four hour timers working perfectly, or sacrifice sleep). If you do that, you only need to win with fatigued crew five times across the eight rounds (plus any extra to balance out unlucky rolls with non-fatigued crew) which is usually not unachievable. However, gauntlet RNG is (by design) extremely volatile as several posts directly above me attest and so it is a significant source of frustration. And as @DavideBooks points out work can make it tricky; my job is flexible enough that I can usually fit in one time-sensitive STT thing during the work day - gauntlet in OEs, turning round shuttle missions during a faction - if I ignore everything else (like voyage dilemmas), but this week I'm covering for a colleague with COVID and so it's been flat out ... hence my only just making it because I woke up early.
There's also a meta-luck in how competitive your gauntlet ends up being. There are times i end up with walls of the exclusive characters all the way down to 150th and below, and others where relative newbies who are running the latest giveaway character with their unequipped proficiencies pop up in the top 50 long into the second day. You can give yourself a better chance by not starting a new gauntlet immediately at reset or at the main times when other time zones wake up, but it's still not guaranteed.
(Side note: I know people who play purely for streaks rather than rank already know this, but it is possible to tank gauntlet by leaving two skills uncovered - then you come up as "no matching skills" when other people roll that combo and are easy prey for them, leaving you nice and low in the rankings when you next log in, and thus more likely to get easy opponents.)
In conclusion: I'm not unhappy that I managed to finish, because hey, free stuff, but it wouldn't have been worth setting an alarm for it, let alone spending dil. (And I'm afraid it does feel like getting people to spend dil might be part of the point here from the devs' point of view.) Make the completion reward a gold cite, on the other hand, and I would feel very differently.
We're given 4 4* every month. Usually only one or two of them have a free 4th copy. There are plenty of people who can use that 4* cite. Especially with collections adding more importance to 4* crew.
So plenty of people need the 4* cite, including the people who can complete this.
I totally get that this event might not be enjoyable for all, and this bring me to another question: you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
It is not a new thing for games to offer various things that might appeal to different types of players.
Is there a part of: fear of missing out?
I did the event on my accounts and succeeded. I think it’s difficult to achieve for a lot of players that would be most helped. One suggestion I would make would be to increase the number of tiers: give rewards based on 10, 20, and 40 gauntlet wins.
Also, here’s my strategy for those who need it.
1. Once the event info is released, set your arena ship to a a low level 5* ship. You want to get to rank 20k or so. Only use your regular ship when you need it during the objective event. Play captain or commander level arena.
2. Join a gauntlet on Monday prior to the gauntlet reset time. Don’t play. The goal is to start the objective event at close to rank 200. This will get you a gauntlet to start on Tuesday that lasts less than 24 hours. This also lets you start a second gauntlet during the objective event.
3. On Sunday (if it isn’t a faction event) start retaining completed shuttles. You can send more without needing to open them. This isn’t necessary if you have a tanked faction.
I had no issue completing this midweek event, and do appreciate that player feedback was actually taken into consideration.
Having said that, there are a couple things I don't like about these events.
1. The event encourages people to tank (the arena and/or shuttle factions), which goes against the spirit of the game and of competition in general. I like a challenge, but when the best solution is to effectively cheat the system, it takes the fun and sense of accomplishment out of it.
2. Luck plays too big a role, which can be very frustrating when RNG overshadows good planning and otherwise effective gameplay.
3. A lot of recent additions seem to be little more than encouragement to drain in-game assets that players have been known to hoard that are very overpriced - honor, merits, shuttle tokens, and even dilithium. I feel like these midweeks events are deliberately designed to be resource drainers, which ultimately is meant to increase spending on stuff that players have never spent much money on. For all the talk about strategy, finishing the tasks are really more about volume than strategy, since they all come easy if you're willing to drain your resources to make the challenges easier and/or even out the RNG.
I like having something to do when events aren't running, which is what players have long asked for, but these midweek event are quickly becoming redundant and boring. I am a completionist so I'll keep doing them, but they feel more like a chore than gaming, and they definitely aren't fun.
Gauntlet: I ended up at 40/45 using 8 refreshes I think - ridiculous RNG losses again on the way. Absolutely terrible gaming experience. So, I invested an absurd amount of time into this - obviously this game is not directed at people with a job or any other life. And then still the RNG f***s one over and now I not only loose the reward for that objective, but also the completion reward (the citation).
8 refreshes is very low and that is why you ended up at 40/45.
I meant that I had 8 times the whole team refreshed (so 9 times in total competing with the whole team). Maybe "refresh" was not the right word for it - I don't know what the right word is.
I have a very good team for gauntlet and I used up the whole team 9 times and still only 40 wins due to RNG. You can call that what you want, I call it ridiculous.
I totally get that this event might not be enjoyable for all, and this bring me to another question: you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
Maybe some small direct reply before the answer: You created an event and created a feedback thread for getting feedback about it. Why asking the people that give feedback why they don't just stay away from the event and feedback thread, if they don't like it?
Because not playing an event means to fall behind, falling behind means being worse off for the next event. That means that the next event will be even more difficult to compete. And so on.
But, yeah, probably you are right that one should not participate in something one does not enjoy. Actually, this game is providing way more frustration than fun since it does not ask the player for any skill or provide any fun activity. It is mostly RNG, a giant time demand, a big hump of pay2cheat and one tiny bit of planning. I like planning, but its share for success in this game become so little, that it alone is not enough to constitute a reason to play.
If I ask myself, why I am here, then I guess the answer is addiction. I played this game since the beginning (6.5 years?) and the only reason I am still here is the thought that I could lose the achievements I made by falling behind when not participating in current events. But what "achievements" are these actually? The possibilty to continue to do these annoying chores that events have become? Hmm.
So, you are right, one should look at it and ask oneself: Why? Is it worth it? And for most people still here, the honest answer is maybe: "No, it's just an addiction. And truthfully looking at it, I will be happier without it and it would be better to quit!"
So, thanks @Shan for everything. I will try to quit this unhealthy addiction and quit the game.
Another example:
If everyone uses 2 good crew and 3 weak crew in Gauntlet. Everyone can get easy 45 wins.
And that would be playing "against" the game's goals. I don't like that and to me it's poor design when such actions are beneficial.
Forcing game goals at players would do the game more damage.
People don't want to be forced to one certain direction. They want freedom to how they want to play the game and set their own goals.
Maybe it's a game goal that you can choice. Rank high or try to get high win streaks.
If you go high or win streak, you get more Gauntlet crates which have a higher chance in rare rewards.
But if you can rank high you can go for the Gauntlet Vault but it's hard then to get a high win streak.
I had no issue completing this midweek event, and do appreciate that player feedback was actually taken into consideration.
Having said that, there are a couple things I don't like about these events.
1. The event encourages people to tank (the arena and/or shuttle factions), which goes against the spirit of the game and of competition in general. I like a challenge, but when the best solution is to effectively cheat the system, it takes the fun and sense of accomplishment out of it.
2. Luck plays too big a role, which can be very frustrating when RNG overshadows good planning and otherwise effective gameplay.
3. A lot of recent additions seem to be little more than encouragement to drain in-game assets that players have been known to hoard that are very overpriced - honor, merits, shuttle tokens, and even dilithium. I feel like these midweeks events are deliberately designed to be resource drainers, which ultimately is meant to increase spending on stuff that players have never spent much money on. For all the talk about strategy, finishing the tasks are really more about volume than strategy, since they all come easy if you're willing to drain your resources to make the challenges easier and/or even out the RNG.
I like having something to do when events aren't running, which is what players have long asked for, but these midweek event are quickly becoming redundant and boring. I am a completionist so I'll keep doing them, but they feel more like a chore than gaming, and they definitely aren't fun.
I agree that the midweek event is designed to encourage playing. And to the extent that playing uses resources sure it uses resources. But to take merits as an example, the only use for them are gauntlet refreshes, merit pulls, and unfreezing crew. I have more than enough for unfreezing crew, and merit pulls are really about converting to honor. So if I have to use extra merits in gauntlet to find easier opponents for wins, that's still a better use to earn a 4* cite than converting to honor.
It's really arena and encouraging to tanking that bothers me. I'll continue to do it, and can win my matches if I do it, but I dislike it from a game design perspective.
I totally get that this event might not be enjoyable for all, and this bring me to another question: you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
It is not a new thing for games to offer various things that might appeal to different types of players.
Is there a part of: fear of missing out?
Let me ask you a question back.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
Appreciating our feedback is one thing.
The company LITENING to our feedback and being willing to make changes to increase the desire to engage from more players is a better thing.
Players are going to do the Objective Event to try and get the rewards. That is Human nature. But, that only goes so far when the Task Goals are so dependent on RNG. After enough fails because of RNG making people miss goals, people are going to get burned out. There are multiple people JUST ON PAGE TEN who are saying they are looking at not playing at all. Making them feel ignored when they give feedback and it is not applied to make the game engaging? Not the way to go.
Just my opinion.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
1. The event encourages people to tank (the arena and/or shuttle factions), which goes against the spirit of the game and of competition in general. I like a challenge, but when the best solution is to effectively cheat the system, it takes the fun and sense of accomplishment out of it.
1. I’m still baffled that people consider tanking shuttles to be a legitimate strategy in any part of the game. It’s also entirely unnecessary for success in this event.
2. Tanking Arena is something else. I do it because it’s the path of least resistance. I might lose out on schematics but even if I need a particular ship it might not be useful.
I would perhaps consider learning how to do Arena correctly if the interface was better. Changing your ship is easy, changing your crew is an annoyance. Being able to save multiple ships with an optimal crew set up would be delightful.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Eleven pages that include many people that are saying it is not fun for them.
The hubris of this whole "I can do it, so everyone else can do it, too. RNG is not real." thing is mind-shattering. Feels like we are playing a Star Wars game instead of a Star Trek game......
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
The hubris of this whole "I can do it, so everyone else can do it, too. RNG is not real."
I consider RNG to be 100% real. Which is why I take measures to mitigate it.
1. Arena portion. Tank it.
2. Shuttle portion. I have good crew so I reasonably expect to pass 95% of my shuttles if I use 3-4* skill boosts. Which I have hundreds of. It’s not like I have anything better to spend them on. If I had a lower success chance I would run more shuttles. If I’m not mistaken, isn’t it possible to save up a bunch of completed shuttles and then cash them in at the start of an event?
3. Gauntlet portion. Use good crew. Set aside the time to play as much as possible. Spend merits like hell. Don’t be afraid to tank a partially exhausted crew. RNG also means you’ll pull the occasional win out of your **tsk tsk**.
I totally get that this event might not be enjoyable for all, and this bring me to another question: you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
It is not a new thing for games to offer various things that might appeal to different types of players.
Is there a part of: fear of missing out?
The rewards a good. It is a bit extra, but I don't hate it, personally. The number of gauntlet wins is possibly high and the number of arena wins is definitely high or people wouldn't play to fail.
But the best answer is yes, fear of missing out. You could also call it many other things, but it amounts to the same:
This game is completely designed to get people to buy and play for the latest thing so they don't miss out. That is how you get money from us. Of course the people who play the most have that mindset. Another word is addiction.
I totally get that this event might not be enjoyable for all, and this bring me to another question: you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
It is not a new thing for games to offer various things that might appeal to different types of players.
Is there a part of: fear of missing out?
For me, it's free stuff for only mild variation to my general playing habits, so I may as well go for it. I was expecting to miss out this time and found that I really didn't mind that much, so it's definitely not FOMO.
But I'm at level 98 on main and I'm already planning to scale back hugely once I hit the cap - just log in quickly twice a day to cover dailies, and focus the time and energy I give to STT on my Nightmare alt. I definitely won't do any type of OE at that point on main, not even the endurance ones beyond the point that dailies include anyway, unless it's for the sake of one of a very small number of characters I really want to collect all variants of.
I’ll throw out a different question: why doesn’t WRG just have a single phase of an old event instead of an objective event each week?
It would give people something to do, shouldn’t be too hard to code, would give folks another way to add/improve their roster, and WRG could offer those crew in packs, which might improve the monetization.
It appears that right after the event started my account was reset and i lost my daily achievements,
12k chronitons were dropped to 3k, at least 1500 merits down to 49 and all my captain progress at level 96. This happened right after noon est.
There are others in my fleet Starfleet Alpha Commad that have had this happen today as well.
I have put in a ticket with no response so far. I can't play in the event without merits and won't until this is resolved.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Eleven pages that include many people that are saying it is not fun for them.
If 100 players play a game.
65 like it -> 10 mention it on the forum
35 don't like it -> 20 mention it on the forum
Then it looks like it is bad.
Keep in mind that humans tend to complain much faster then that they'll tell it is great.
In general, the entire forum is almost one complaint.
Minor feedback: Perhaps explain the pips in the event rules, so that players might have an idea of what the difficulty level implies before attempting these:
Also, change the reward for the gauntlet portion to include merits, as those are used therein:
Major feedback: @Ivanstone and others have been pretty spot-on with their analyses of how to approach these. However, I still think @Bylo Band said it best:
*I didn't really intentionally tank Arena. I've been focused on Captain Division for Yeager schematics this month and simply haven't played Admiral Division. I DID switch my ship to an easy target for everyone else when I wasn't playing myself. I generally do this in division I'm not playing.
*I started launching shuttles Monday, like I do for any MOE with a shuttle requirement. I didn't mess with it to much and still had 12 ready off the bat.
*Gauntlet hates me. I spent dil because I was sooo close. I wouldn't have had to, if I'd paid more attention. I will live with that.
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*
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Eleven pages that include many people that are saying it is not fun for them.
The hubris of this whole "I can do it, so everyone else can do it, too. RNG is not real." thing is mind-shattering. Feels like we are playing a Star Wars game instead of a Star Trek game......
Comment Moderated ~Shan - As has been pointed out regularly, forum posts do not represent all players. Especially when there are plenty of people disagreeing with you here too.
The hubris of deciding that just because you dislike something, then everyone must dislike it.
They've now run this twice. WRG has plenty of player engagement data. They even made changes after the first run. How about you let them look at the player data and see how the event performed for all players before declaring that the event is bad just because you don't like it.
They may even tweak the event again. But WRG certainly shouldn't be abandoning an event type because of a couple forum posts.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Eleven pages that include many people that are saying it is not fun for them.
The hubris of this whole "I can do it, so everyone else can do it, too. RNG is not real." thing is mind-shattering. Feels like we are playing a Star Wars game instead of a Star Trek game......
I don't know how many times you need to be told, forum posts do not represent all players. Especially when there are plenty of people disagreeing with you here too.
The hubris of deciding that just because you dislike something, then everyone must dislike it.
They've now run this twice. WRG has plenty of player engagement data. They even made changes after the first run. How about you let them look at the player data and see how the event performed for all players before declaring that the event is bad just because you don't like it.
They may even tweak the event again. But WRG certainly shouldn't be abandoning an event type because of a couple forum posts.
I'm responsible for what I say. Not for how you misinterpret it. Please show me ONE PLACE where I said that others must dislike the Objective Events? Since you want to put words in my mouth, I will exercise an ability the Forums gave for situations like this.
You know, in deference to Shan, I'm just going to leave this here and point out who turned this from productive comments about the event into screaming personal attacks at people who had different opinions.
A reminder about mindfulness and that you can exercise the ability you have to take a step back before posting. Or write a whole post to get it out of your system and then not post it - that works too.
I hope to be able to keep this thread open.
I hope that feedback and strategies will continue to be shared here, and I hope some of you will be willing to entertain the possibility that there might be different ways to approach this.
But if you are really not enjoying these events, do not participate, that's an important part of the data that will be looked at.
Tanking to succeed is a choice not a game design.
I managed 18/20 without tanking.
The strategy I use is to pick targets I know I can win against. I keep track against which setup my setup wins.
Of course it's possible (for some players), but I think it's undeniable that succeeding becomes easier if you tank first.
You can always find ways to make the game easier.
Another example:
If everyone uses 2 good crew and 3 weak crew in Gauntlet. Everyone can get easy 45 wins.
You do make a good point about help that can be done by players in gauntlet.
Maybe a better solution, is to keep one skill void. That way you can concentrate your crew on the other 5, giving a good chance to win.
But , I must say I think the game purposely picks the better crew, the higher your level is in gauntlet. ( I am talking about how gauntlet chooses the captain's that provide the defending crew in gauntlet . I know the best crew of that captain's will always be picked)
Edit: make sure the day before these events that you start your gauntlet. That way you can finish a gauntlet the 1st day of the event. And, then join the next gauntlet right away. Might gain a round this way.
I think that for me and both of my "end game" accounts the the current unleashed variety is my favorite midweek objective so far. The rewards are desirable, the objectives are achievable and don't require fiddling with crew space (I think the fusion as goal in objectives is the absolute worst unless it is with the month long for the crew member you are getting stars on). Managing crew space is already too tedious part of this game as it is.
All this being said I think that having midweek events be more engaging than grinding would be preferable. I think there is a lot of potential in breathing life into the galaxy map with some requirements and achievement tiers that reward all levels of player would be very beneficial.
For example you could have objective events require players to complete certain galaxy map away missions using only variants of x,y,z crew (where x,y,z are crew with many variants and many rarity levels available). Something similar could be done with ship battle missions, requiring the use of specific ships, ship traits, or crew variants. With the ship battles you could also not require a specific mission but a specific opponent ship.
I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed the rewards. I didn't spend any dilithium or money (although I did use merits in gauntlet... which I recouped from gauntlet). I only played in the evenings after work. It was not difficult. I did tank but I have no issues with that. I agree with Shan.
Fleet Admiral of NCC UK Midlands."Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." - J.T. Kirk, 2266
It was very much doable, for a mid-level player like me. I could have done Gauntlet, but I have poor luck and am bad about remembering to play. If I'd put in the work, I could have done it without the dil.
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*
you gave it a try, it is not an activity that you like, why participate? There is no sarcasm or anything in my question, I really want to know.
I can tell my reasons to try - 2000 honor and 4* Cite. Honor is always a good thing, a 4* cite is sometines very usefull.
In my line of work I deal with a lot of objectives and targets, and they always have to be SMART. I am sorry to say but these objectives are not SMART. The A part is the problem. If there is RNG involved then they are not Achievable with any kind of resources but money to spend for another try.
Objectives can be very very hard to achieve using skill and in game resources and that is perfectly fine. But if there is RNG factor no mather how good you are, there is great chance you will have to spend dilithium (and buy it) to achive a goal.
And that makes it very bad gaming experience form many of us.
Comments
And that would be playing "against" the game's goals. I don't like that and to me it's poor design when such actions are beneficial.
We're given 4 4* every month. Usually only one or two of them have a free 4th copy. There are plenty of people who can use that 4* cite. Especially with collections adding more importance to 4* crew.
So plenty of people need the 4* cite, including the people who can complete this.
I did the event on my accounts and succeeded. I think it’s difficult to achieve for a lot of players that would be most helped. One suggestion I would make would be to increase the number of tiers: give rewards based on 10, 20, and 40 gauntlet wins.
Also, here’s my strategy for those who need it.
1. Once the event info is released, set your arena ship to a a low level 5* ship. You want to get to rank 20k or so. Only use your regular ship when you need it during the objective event. Play captain or commander level arena.
2. Join a gauntlet on Monday prior to the gauntlet reset time. Don’t play. The goal is to start the objective event at close to rank 200. This will get you a gauntlet to start on Tuesday that lasts less than 24 hours. This also lets you start a second gauntlet during the objective event.
3. On Sunday (if it isn’t a faction event) start retaining completed shuttles. You can send more without needing to open them. This isn’t necessary if you have a tanked faction.
Having said that, there are a couple things I don't like about these events.
1. The event encourages people to tank (the arena and/or shuttle factions), which goes against the spirit of the game and of competition in general. I like a challenge, but when the best solution is to effectively cheat the system, it takes the fun and sense of accomplishment out of it.
2. Luck plays too big a role, which can be very frustrating when RNG overshadows good planning and otherwise effective gameplay.
3. A lot of recent additions seem to be little more than encouragement to drain in-game assets that players have been known to hoard that are very overpriced - honor, merits, shuttle tokens, and even dilithium. I feel like these midweeks events are deliberately designed to be resource drainers, which ultimately is meant to increase spending on stuff that players have never spent much money on. For all the talk about strategy, finishing the tasks are really more about volume than strategy, since they all come easy if you're willing to drain your resources to make the challenges easier and/or even out the RNG.
I like having something to do when events aren't running, which is what players have long asked for, but these midweek event are quickly becoming redundant and boring. I am a completionist so I'll keep doing them, but they feel more like a chore than gaming, and they definitely aren't fun.
I have a very good team for gauntlet and I used up the whole team 9 times and still only 40 wins due to RNG. You can call that what you want, I call it ridiculous.
Maybe some small direct reply before the answer: You created an event and created a feedback thread for getting feedback about it. Why asking the people that give feedback why they don't just stay away from the event and feedback thread, if they don't like it?
Because not playing an event means to fall behind, falling behind means being worse off for the next event. That means that the next event will be even more difficult to compete. And so on.
But, yeah, probably you are right that one should not participate in something one does not enjoy. Actually, this game is providing way more frustration than fun since it does not ask the player for any skill or provide any fun activity. It is mostly RNG, a giant time demand, a big hump of pay2cheat and one tiny bit of planning. I like planning, but its share for success in this game become so little, that it alone is not enough to constitute a reason to play.
If I ask myself, why I am here, then I guess the answer is addiction. I played this game since the beginning (6.5 years?) and the only reason I am still here is the thought that I could lose the achievements I made by falling behind when not participating in current events. But what "achievements" are these actually? The possibilty to continue to do these annoying chores that events have become? Hmm.
So, you are right, one should look at it and ask oneself: Why? Is it worth it? And for most people still here, the honest answer is maybe: "No, it's just an addiction. And truthfully looking at it, I will be happier without it and it would be better to quit!"
So, thanks @Shan for everything. I will try to quit this unhealthy addiction and quit the game.
Live long and prosper.
Forcing game goals at players would do the game more damage.
People don't want to be forced to one certain direction. They want freedom to how they want to play the game and set their own goals.
Maybe it's a game goal that you can choice. Rank high or try to get high win streaks.
If you go high or win streak, you get more Gauntlet crates which have a higher chance in rare rewards.
But if you can rank high you can go for the Gauntlet Vault but it's hard then to get a high win streak.
I agree that the midweek event is designed to encourage playing. And to the extent that playing uses resources sure it uses resources. But to take merits as an example, the only use for them are gauntlet refreshes, merit pulls, and unfreezing crew. I have more than enough for unfreezing crew, and merit pulls are really about converting to honor. So if I have to use extra merits in gauntlet to find easier opponents for wins, that's still a better use to earn a 4* cite than converting to honor.
It's really arena and encouraging to tanking that bothers me. I'll continue to do it, and can win my matches if I do it, but I dislike it from a game design perspective.
Let me ask you a question back.
Why would the company do an Event that was supposedly introduced to increase player engagement between Events, that is being proven to make engagement less fun?
Appreciating our feedback is one thing.
The company LITENING to our feedback and being willing to make changes to increase the desire to engage from more players is a better thing.
Players are going to do the Objective Event to try and get the rewards. That is Human nature. But, that only goes so far when the Task Goals are so dependent on RNG. After enough fails because of RNG making people miss goals, people are going to get burned out. There are multiple people JUST ON PAGE TEN who are saying they are looking at not playing at all. Making them feel ignored when they give feedback and it is not applied to make the game engaging? Not the way to go.
Just my opinion.
1. I’m still baffled that people consider tanking shuttles to be a legitimate strategy in any part of the game. It’s also entirely unnecessary for success in this event.
2. Tanking Arena is something else. I do it because it’s the path of least resistance. I might lose out on schematics but even if I need a particular ship it might not be useful.
I would perhaps consider learning how to do Arena correctly if the interface was better. Changing your ship is easy, changing your crew is an annoyance. Being able to save multiple ships with an optimal crew set up would be delightful.
I'm sorry, I don't agree that it is proven to be less fun.
For me and I'm not alone, this is extra fun and we welcome the extra resources you gain with it.
Eleven pages that include many people that are saying it is not fun for them.
The hubris of this whole "I can do it, so everyone else can do it, too. RNG is not real." thing is mind-shattering. Feels like we are playing a Star Wars game instead of a Star Trek game......
I consider RNG to be 100% real. Which is why I take measures to mitigate it.
1. Arena portion. Tank it.
2. Shuttle portion. I have good crew so I reasonably expect to pass 95% of my shuttles if I use 3-4* skill boosts. Which I have hundreds of. It’s not like I have anything better to spend them on. If I had a lower success chance I would run more shuttles. If I’m not mistaken, isn’t it possible to save up a bunch of completed shuttles and then cash them in at the start of an event?
3. Gauntlet portion. Use good crew. Set aside the time to play as much as possible. Spend merits like hell. Don’t be afraid to tank a partially exhausted crew. RNG also means you’ll pull the occasional win out of your **tsk tsk**.
The rewards a good. It is a bit extra, but I don't hate it, personally. The number of gauntlet wins is possibly high and the number of arena wins is definitely high or people wouldn't play to fail.
But the best answer is yes, fear of missing out. You could also call it many other things, but it amounts to the same:
This game is completely designed to get people to buy and play for the latest thing so they don't miss out. That is how you get money from us. Of course the people who play the most have that mindset. Another word is addiction.
For me, it's free stuff for only mild variation to my general playing habits, so I may as well go for it. I was expecting to miss out this time and found that I really didn't mind that much, so it's definitely not FOMO.
But I'm at level 98 on main and I'm already planning to scale back hugely once I hit the cap - just log in quickly twice a day to cover dailies, and focus the time and energy I give to STT on my Nightmare alt. I definitely won't do any type of OE at that point on main, not even the endurance ones beyond the point that dailies include anyway, unless it's for the sake of one of a very small number of characters I really want to collect all variants of.
It would give people something to do, shouldn’t be too hard to code, would give folks another way to add/improve their roster, and WRG could offer those crew in packs, which might improve the monetization.
It appears that right after the event started my account was reset and i lost my daily achievements,
12k chronitons were dropped to 3k, at least 1500 merits down to 49 and all my captain progress at level 96. This happened right after noon est.
There are others in my fleet Starfleet Alpha Commad that have had this happen today as well.
I have put in a ticket with no response so far. I can't play in the event without merits and won't until this is resolved.
Hagbard (SAC)
If 100 players play a game.
65 like it -> 10 mention it on the forum
35 don't like it -> 20 mention it on the forum
Then it looks like it is bad.
Keep in mind that humans tend to complain much faster then that they'll tell it is great.
In general, the entire forum is almost one complaint.
Also, change the reward for the gauntlet portion to include merits, as those are used therein:
Major feedback: @Ivanstone and others have been pretty spot-on with their analyses of how to approach these. However, I still think @Bylo Band said it best: 🖖
*I started launching shuttles Monday, like I do for any MOE with a shuttle requirement. I didn't mess with it to much and still had 12 ready off the bat.
*Gauntlet hates me. I spent dil because I was sooo close. I wouldn't have had to, if I'd paid more attention. I will live with that.
Comment Moderated ~Shan - As has been pointed out regularly, forum posts do not represent all players. Especially when there are plenty of people disagreeing with you here too.
The hubris of deciding that just because you dislike something, then everyone must dislike it.
They've now run this twice. WRG has plenty of player engagement data. They even made changes after the first run. How about you let them look at the player data and see how the event performed for all players before declaring that the event is bad just because you don't like it.
They may even tweak the event again. But WRG certainly shouldn't be abandoning an event type because of a couple forum posts.
You know, in deference to Shan, I'm just going to leave this here and point out who turned this from productive comments about the event into screaming personal attacks at people who had different opinions.
A reminder about mindfulness and that you can exercise the ability you have to take a step back before posting. Or write a whole post to get it out of your system and then not post it - that works too.
I hope to be able to keep this thread open.
I hope that feedback and strategies will continue to be shared here, and I hope some of you will be willing to entertain the possibility that there might be different ways to approach this.
But if you are really not enjoying these events, do not participate, that's an important part of the data that will be looked at.
Thank you
Maybe a better solution, is to keep one skill void. That way you can concentrate your crew on the other 5, giving a good chance to win.
But , I must say I think the game purposely picks the better crew, the higher your level is in gauntlet. ( I am talking about how gauntlet chooses the captain's that provide the defending crew in gauntlet . I know the best crew of that captain's will always be picked)
Edit: make sure the day before these events that you start your gauntlet. That way you can finish a gauntlet the 1st day of the event. And, then join the next gauntlet right away. Might gain a round this way.
All this being said I think that having midweek events be more engaging than grinding would be preferable. I think there is a lot of potential in breathing life into the galaxy map with some requirements and achievement tiers that reward all levels of player would be very beneficial.
For example you could have objective events require players to complete certain galaxy map away missions using only variants of x,y,z crew (where x,y,z are crew with many variants and many rarity levels available). Something similar could be done with ship battle missions, requiring the use of specific ships, ship traits, or crew variants. With the ship battles you could also not require a specific mission but a specific opponent ship.
I can tell my reasons to try - 2000 honor and 4* Cite. Honor is always a good thing, a 4* cite is sometines very usefull.
In my line of work I deal with a lot of objectives and targets, and they always have to be SMART. I am sorry to say but these objectives are not SMART. The A part is the problem. If there is RNG involved then they are not Achievable with any kind of resources but money to spend for another try.
Objectives can be very very hard to achieve using skill and in game resources and that is perfectly fine. But if there is RNG factor no mather how good you are, there is great chance you will have to spend dilithium (and buy it) to achive a goal.
And that makes it very bad gaming experience form many of us.