Will this event be the standard 2 days? Winning 20 admiral battles in 2 days means going a perfect 20/20 or spending DIL on extra tokens. I love the new rewards and that they're different from before, but requiring perfect play or DIL is too much. The objectives should be hard but achievable, not impossible without DIL.
Just my thoughts. Even the best player of the Admiral's Division is at the sheer mercy of RNGesus. And I know what I am talking about. I had enough days of perfect runs, still I am having days, where RNGesus laughs at me like the infamous B****** & B******* from that old MTV show. Just saying. You have to plan alone for the ship battles 150 dilithium.
And this ain't the beginning. It gets even worse with the Gauntlet. After a initial run you have 14 additional runs (cooldown for crew regeneration is 3.25 hours) in this 48 hours midweek event. If you don't sleep at all in this 48 hours. And playing time isn't calculated too.
Playing the Gauntlet you are at the sheer mercy of RNGesus too. Even if you don't care for the rankings you have to waste insane amounts of merits for new opponents if you get a impassable wall of opponents. Or you pay dilithium for refreshing your crew. This costs 150 dilithium for all 5 of them.
In my case this means I get in the average 3 successes per run. 15×3=45. And no sleep. More realistic with sleep you probably play 10 runs. So I need 5 successes per run without investing any resources in this event.
With my average success rates at the Gauntlet I probably would have to invest 7×150 dilithium. And an additional 150 for the ship battles. 8×150=1200 dilithium.
My summary is: I would have to work like a dumb brainless communist and pay for my hard work more than buying a standard 10× premium pull straight away without working at all.
No Sir, I'd rather throw the tea in the harbor and go home.
I'm not against the substitution of participating in runs with achieving successful runs. But I am against working like a communist where hard work isn't honored at all. The shuttle runs may be okay like they are, but in this 2 days long midweek event it should rather be 15 successful Admiral Division battles and maybe 25 or 30 Gauntlet successes. My personal opinion.
If the work is for communists, I let them work alone. Without me.
When it was first announced, this event seemed impossible. Now that I have completed it on both accounts without using any dilithium, it felt more like the Kobayashi Maru. It really took some creativity, ingenuity, and preparation, but it is definitely much more doable than I initially hypothesized.
That being said, the community effort of running ghost ships when not on offense is the biggest reason this was possible, I think if we all had to go 10/10 both days against 100% of ships that were trying, it would have been much more difficult.
I also highly recommend running the Captain Proton ship, even when hunting ghost ships or weaker opponents (for those of us that tanked ahead of time). The ONLY thing that can really threaten you in those situations is a lack of shields/hull, and the Captain Proton ship has both is spades. I had a couple if hairy encounters but I managed to overcome them because the Proton ship is just tough as nails.
I just completed the event for free about half an hour ago.
For someone who's been playing since 2016 it's really not difficult to do, if you tank your arena rank and remember to switch your crew and ship back in, and if you plan your gauntlet activity accordingly since the days before. For some the arena objective could still be messed up by really bad RNG though.
The real problem with this and all objective events is that they seem designed to get players to spend resources that tend not to be overabundant for most of us. In return we get very generic rewards that for a long time player should be worth almost exactly as much as the resources invested (for a new player it's probably best to skip them all). What it doesn't take into account is the extra time spent in the game, which for many of us moves the needle towards "not worth it". And that's why so many people immediately look for a workaround to get the rewards for free. Some of us would probably do it regardless, but some would also be willing to just play it as intended if the rewards were better.
For those who like to apply strategy to the game the workarounds are fun in the beginning, but once it becomes a routine it feels like someone told you to play the floor is lava at work, while working, one day a week, for the foreseeable future. Timelines doesn't just take up more of our time now, it also takes up more of our mental energy that goes into planning around stuff and keeping in mind when to do or not to do things that used to be simple and intuitive.
Better rewards could break the game balance and it would be too easy to get them for free. But less generic rewards could be a solution. If the completion reward for this event had been a mixed rarity behold from the Sherwood collection pack, for example, it would have been very valuable to some players and useless to others. That would have made it easier for people to choose whether to spend their resources and/or time or just skip the event.
I too just finished. Not too difficult but still some individual, small challenges requiring some thought to my game play. In a way, I find it a bit refreshing. In a way.
Shuttles: easy. Like it doesn’t require a review. I’m not thrilled with giving up my off-day Tuesday to babysit shuttles but I easily did it.
Gauntlet: also easy, finished it this morning and I have five more sets I could do. I also didn’t need to start two gauntlets or tank things to accomplish this (I did start my gauntlet at switchover though). Guess I never realized how many gauntlet wins I typically do. Again, just required work I don’t like doing on my off-day.
Arena: obviously the hard part; I went 19-20. I also was picking from the far left choices, rather than the far right. People tanking wasn’t something I saw regularly, so I don’t think it helped as much as people think. Just really careful with my selections. I think this should be lowered to 15 wins but others might disagree.
Yes, I had to buy tickets. And I have no problem with it. My cost-benefit thinking: a 4* cit (which I have use for) and a 10x pull are worth 150 dil. That would have changed if I needed more wins. Others have a different analysis and that’s ok. It is a resource allocation game too.
Overall review: not bad. It was a challenge. I’ll do it again. But I won’t be playing this type of OE regularly. It’s just a nice change of pace now and again. But new forms of gameplay are still desperately needed, as demonstrated by the last requirement, use 400 chronos. I was trying to think what else they could have been put in it’s place and could think of nothing that wouldn’t require a huge amount of time or hard to collect resources or was exactly the same thing (voyage dilemma; scans; ship battles).
This was a level 1 ship...turns out even if you bet against RNG, it will still ruin the moment.
Edit: PS also not buying tickets
How did this happen? Did you not tap fast enough to beat the damage reduction? That's the only way I could see this outcome happening. Asking as an arena enthusiast, not trying to be a jerk or condescending. I know the Proton builds rely on this very same damage reduction bug.
I will do the rest after work. But I would lie if I said it was fun or something...
I would prefer events that do not require that much constant attention (Gauntlet part).
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.
Finished everything this morning. Gauntlet turned out to be easier than I expected. In terms of arena, I think I benefitted more from tanking than ghost ships. I started to tank as soon as the event was announced. Down around 20k rank there were plenty of level 3-5 ships that were poorly staffed. I was able to beat them with no issue. I think I only saw 1 or 2 ghost ships while completing my 20.
I had a change of heart and did the event. For me for the arena it has always been about cloaking. Without a cloak I will lose much of the time. With the cloak I will seldom lose. And I managed the 20/20. Saw only 2 ghost ships. But that's in the top 4000.
The gauntlet is probably a bit more challenging. Was able to win about 10 per go. Probably spent 1000 honor's worth of merits. But of course the citation is worth much more. In general you'd have to win 7 or 8 per go. It's certainly doable. But I never seem able to stay down in the rankings so it's harder than it needs to be for me. I guess join the night before then start in the morning at very low rank. My 10 point battles are generally just as hard as 200 point. I don't play gauntlet but my rule of thumb when I do is that 75% chance of victory is nowhere near enough. 90% is required.
Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again."
Just finished the Gauntlet portion and got my loot. Sitting in first place too! Not that I have enough merits to maintain that. I’m probably gonna have to do yolo gauntlets the next few days to rebuild my merits.
Here’s why I usually won’t pass on a free 10 pack:
Took Garak.
This was a level 1 ship...turns out even if you bet against RNG, it will still ruin the moment.
Edit: PS also not buying tickets
How did this happen? Did you not tap fast enough to beat the damage reduction? That's the only way I could see this outcome happening. Asking as an arena enthusiast, not trying to be a jerk or condescending. I know the Proton builds rely on this very same damage reduction bug.
Looking at damage dealt, does Phoenix reflect damage like Bounty? I've lost battles that way before- hit the opposition with something so huge the reflection takes you too?
20/20 on Arena. Found a few level 1's (thanks for that) but most were just refreshing until I found decent ships/crew combos. Changed mine out to a level 1 just after reset.
This was a level 1 ship...turns out even if you bet against RNG, it will still ruin the moment.
Edit: PS also not buying tickets
How did this happen? Did you not tap fast enough to beat the damage reduction? That's the only way I could see this outcome happening. Asking as an arena enthusiast, not trying to be a jerk or condescending. I know the Proton builds rely on this very same damage reduction bug.
Looking at damage dealt, does Phoenix reflect damage like Bounty? I've lost battles that way before- hit the opposition with something so huge the reflection takes you too?
That was the first thing I checked. It does not have damage reflection. It has a position trigger at 8s, a weak nuke at 10, and (probably the thing that determined the outcome:) damage reduction at 6s.
I fear that the developers will look at the total numbers and say, "look how many people successfully did 20/20 battles. We need to do it just like this again!"
I just hope the developers are told by @Shan that the only reason most of us got 20/20 is because of the community working together to fight the system.
I just gave up on Gauntlet due to RNG. I kept losing to opponents that I should have been beating. All the crits were going their way and I was not going to keep using merits and dilithium to refresh my players.
Having event challenges where completion is dependent on the roll of the dice is not something I am happy with.
The only reason I completed the Arena challenge was because I spent 150 dilithium today. Again, the RNG gods had not been on my side.
I fear that the developers will look at the total numbers and say, "look how many people successfully did 20/20 battles. We need to do it just like this again!"
I just hope the developers are told by @Shan that the only reason most of us got 20/20 is because of the community working together to fight the system.
If this happened in a month where I wanted the schematics, I would be a little upset. Between that and backing off to 18 Arena wins, I think the event was fine.
Speaking of schematics... that economy is still lousy. I really want that Negh'var, but I'm miles away. And the portal is so diluted now... progress is slower than snail pace.
Next time they do something like this, how about selling some schematics of the good ships? Proton, Krayton, Warship Voyager, Negh'var, Bounty, T'Ong, Roddenberry... throw us a bone, eh?
Does not everyone realize that you can spend 50 Merits to refresh Gauntlet opponents? Or do they just not have or are not willing to spend the Merits? My normal Gauntlet play is to target 8 wins per round and play 4 rounds per day. I was able to get my 50 wins early in my 6th round but it costs Merits.
It can take 4 to 5 refreshes per win depending on luck and how fatigued my crew is.
The only other factor might be the crew people have but it seems like there are a number of options for a viable Gauntlet team. I only have 2 gauntlet exclusives running this Gauntlet.
Finished. The 10x pull (BeGold) wasn’t great, but could have been worse. At least some of the schematics were useful (USS Yeager to lvl8, Aquatic to lvl2}
I just finished. I, too, got a useful Begold from the pack so I feel it was worth the effort.
Shuttles: Easily done. If you have four shuttles than this shouldn't be a problem and as this event was targeted at more seasoned players I would assume most of them have all four.
Gauntlet: This turned out a bit trickier than I had anticipated. I was hit by some really bad RNG here and there. I could have easily gotten another round in though. However, I haven't been at work yesterday and today and if I had, I don't think I would have been able to complete the 50 wins in time.
Arena: 20/20. I started tanking over the weekend so I was at around 17000 when the event started. Saw lots of drones or low level ships which were easy to beat. I'm not sure I'd be willing to tank arena though if I still needed that month's schematics.
So, overall it was a nice change from the regular mid week events and I appreciate that WRG are trying something new for more seasoned players. However, I think I would skip the event if I needed that month's schematics and have to work regularly. I don't like losing on purpose in one area of the game just to be able to win something.
Also just finished. Not sure how I would have done Gauntlet on a normal work day (no signal at work, and I'm there from 8-6 with an hour commute either side).
But with cooperation with others the arena turned out to be easier than I thought.
Gauntlet was much more of a nail biter.
Appreciated the citation, the purple pull turned out to be all-frozen.
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
Arena: 20/20 done it without attacking any ghost ships. Did not saw one but I also did not drop below 2k. But I also don't use auto (maybe that's why so many people have bad RNG luck? Auto is much slower then tapping) I play arena everyday so I know which ships & crew setup I can win and which ones I might or will loose. I did it with Krayton : Tribble Kirk - Jett Reno - Ardra - Fury Kes
Shuttles: Easy if you have 4.
Gauntlet: Spend 2k merits. Need 3 more wins. Will have it with the last cycle.
Great event!
Edit: If arena was Captain division, that would be a lot more difficult to get 20/20.
Arena: 20/20 done it without attacking any ghost ships. Did not saw one but I also did not drop below 2k. But I also don't use auto (maybe that's why so many people have bad RNG luck? Auto is much slower then tapping) I play arena everyday so I know which ships & crew setup I can win and which ones I might or will loose. I did it with Krayton : Tribble Kirk - Jett Reno - Ardra - Fury Kes
Shuttles: Easy if you have 4.
Gauntlet: Spend 2k merits. Need 3 more wins. Will have it with the last cycle.
Great event!
Edit: If arena was Captain division, that would be a lot more difficult to get 20/20.
Captain and Commander are near 90% RNG. You're absolutely right that those would be a nightmare.
Overall I enjoyed the challenge. Next time I'll remember to lvl1 my Admiral arena ship well before the event starts, the shuttle bit was fairly easy as I've spent the last few months trying to get good shuttlers for each skill set as I can. It was the Gauntlet where I struggled. 50 fights is a lot and yes, I used Dil but not an obscene amount (<300), I just paced myself and was patient. I do think that if STT is going to run this type of event for more experienced players, then it should run a concurrent standard objective too with the option that you have to pick one or the other (not both).
I'm admiral of ISS Yamato and we have three other fleets of folks playing for fun at all levels of play.
I lost a one of the captains in my fleets due to 'another change' based off the Objective Event. He had been in my fleet for years. There is general disgruntledness about the new objective event for 'advanced' players. I prefer gruntled people playing the game.
I do like the option where people can choose the type of OE they want to play as mentioned in a post previous to mine. You don't want to ostracize new players so they no longer want to play.
Arena Battles
I recommended everyone take a level 1 ship like Hiawatha and put it in as your admiral level arena ship. I didn't bother changing crew. The week or so previous to the the OE starting I lost in admiral division every night. When I did finally do battles for the OE, I went back to Krayton and only fought Borg Cubes that had no Ardra and/or bad crew. By tanking and choosing I was able to 10 wins on both my primary (lvl99) and lvl70 (monthly card only). If we can get lots of people to tank their admiral division and put bad ships or no crew, it will help everyone in Arena. I think the only problem with that are the ships and crew of people that no longer play may still be in the Arena for battles.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy to spend dilithum for arena tickets
Gauntlet
This is really hard for most folks in the 4 fleets we have playing together. We usually do fleet gauntlets on Monday so they coincide with the OE. Unfortunately gauntlet is more rigged for folks to lose AND the added higher crit rate for crew to also equalize old players and new players makes gauntlet a very random thing to win.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy so you have to pay to refresh crew with dilithium.
Shuttle Missions
This is doable for folks that have 4 shuttles, easy if you have at least one faction tanked.
Spending 400 chrono
This is easy as long as you complete the three previous objectives. I used a supply kit to make it go farther.
Winnings
Overall folks want something to make them feel good about their level of play AND will benefit them. I immortalize purple crew and freeze them
in most cases. A gold citation would make more sense for players this was supposedly geared for. In this case you have people struggling and people that can work the objective event easily. Pointing out a class distinction is not the best way to get folks to work or play together. Give options and try to help folks at all levels of play.
I'm admiral of ISS Yamato and we have three other fleets of folks playing for fun at all levels of play.
I lost a one of the captains in my fleets due to 'another change' based off the Objective Event. He had been in my fleet for years. There is general disgruntledness about the new objective event for 'advanced' players. I prefer gruntled people playing the game.
I do like the option where people can choose the type of OE they want to play as mentioned in a post previous to mine. You don't want to ostracize new players so they no longer want to play.
Arena Battles
I recommended everyone take a level 1 ship like Hiawatha and put it in as your admiral level arena ship. I didn't bother changing crew. The week or so previous to the the OE starting I lost in admiral division every night. When I did finally do battles for the OE, I went back to Krayton and only fought Borg Cubes that had no Ardra and/or bad crew. By tanking and choosing I was able to 10 wins on both my primary (lvl99) and lvl70 (monthly card only). If we can get lots of people to tank their admiral division and put bad ships or no crew, it will help everyone in Arena. I think the only problem with that are the ships and crew of people that no longer play may still be in the Arena for battles.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy to spend dilithum for arena tickets
Gauntlet
This is really hard for most folks in the 4 fleets we have playing together. We usually do fleet gauntlets on Monday so they coincide with the OE. Unfortunately gauntlet is more rigged for folks to lose AND the added higher crit rate for crew to also equalize old players and new players makes gauntlet a very random thing to win.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy so you have to pay to refresh crew with dilithium.
Shuttle Missions
This is doable for folks that have 4 shuttles, easy if you have at least one faction tanked.
Spending 400 chrono
This is easy as long as you complete the three previous objectives. I used a supply kit to make it go farther.
Winnings
Overall folks want something to make them feel good about their level of play AND will benefit them. I immortalize purple crew and freeze them in most cases. A gold citation would make more sense for players this was supposedly geared for. In this case you have people struggling and people that can work the objective event easily. Pointing out a class distinction is not the best way to get folks to work or play together. Give options and try to help folks at all levels of play.
.|. You Rang? - Lurch
I like it when admirals bring fleet sentiments here. I'm curious if your fleet saw it as a team building exercise at all - particularly gauntlet, where players could stack some skills and leave others empty. A fleet could potentially make two groups: one with weak MED and the other with weak ENG. Dropping some merits could get you some favorable matches now and then. Would your fleet be interested in the challenge of another go with more time to plan and prep?
For the arena bit, instead of 20 arena wins, maybe they could set it as "hit rank 500 or better", or similar. You're highly unlikely to get there without a L10 ship & decent crew, so it works for the "experienced player" requirement, but doesn't penalise you if you're regularly near the top of the rankings & therefore up against peer-level opponents. Making something difficult in PvE is fine, but ranked PvP is automatically difficult, since you naturally rise to the level of your ship & crew's competence.
Gauntlets have a similar issue; experienced players will naturally rise to the level of other experienced players, so it becomes a coin toss as to how well you do. The highly varied nature of gauntlet requirements means that there will be more variety than in the arena, but it's still the challenge of peers rather than game, which already reduces win rates. A better option would be to again require the player to hit to certain ranking rather than win X rounds, since experienced players will be able to reach ranks that inexperienced players couldn't hope to achieve without massive doses of luck.
I like having more challenging objective events, at least occasionally. And I think specifically counting "wins" rather than attempts is a nice way to set them apart. Overall I didn't find this too onerous, and receiving a 10x pull and a SR citation were certainly worth the effort.
Things have been hectic at work for me, so I didn't have much opportunity to run shuttles or the gauntlet during the day. I did use a small amount of dil on gauntlet refreshes, maybe ~200, and two days worth of dil is worth it for the rewards. I don't generally do the gauntlet so 50 wins was a slog, although targeting low trophy folks did make things easier.
I was a little worried about the 20/20 skirmish wins. However, like others here I cleared out my ship when this was announced to drop me down the ranks. And after completing this, switched back to a level 1 ship so folks still working on this can get an easier victory.
I appreciate that there were fewer objectives than usual, to balance out the increased difficulty.
I'm hoping the next time an event like this is run it has some different challenges, just to keep things varied. Completing voyages, collecting a pile of a certain 4* component, stuff like that.
Presumably outside the scope of the Objective Event UX, but I almost wonder if Expeditions would work as special, mid-week events. I enjoy the mechanic of chapters/expeditions, but not the repetition of Expedition events. But if we only had to complete them once, it feels like the best of both worlds.
Six degrees in Inter-species Veterinary Medicine. Treating all manner of critters, from Tribbles to Humans.
Shuttles 20/20
Gauntlet 46/50 (real life got in the way)
Arena 10/20 (as expected, but didn’t care)
I’ll preface this by saying that it was my choice to not try to win this OE, so I’m not crying over it. But… I’m opposed to the notion that deliberately tanking as a community is something to be encouraged. I’m happy it worked for many of you (seriously, congrats!) - I just don’t think the event should be designed to produce this group strategy. Maybe that wasn’t the goal, but the genie is out now. (Tanking shuttle factions is different in my mind - that is a purely individual behavior that neither affects nor requires anyone else.)
I’ll note that I believe in playing all 3 arena divisions every day, so I was already self-limited to 16 possible wins. Yes, I know it takes 14 days to become unranked, so skipping 2 days is not a big deal. And yet… in my experience, it’s far easier to stop doing something than it is to start. If I skip commander and captain for 2 days, will I even bother to resume them? Is it wise to encourage players to stop playing parts of the game, or to play other parts of it backwards?
Kudos to WRG for trying to build a challenging OE. I just don’t think this was the right design. Just my 2 credits. It’ll be interesting to see if any adjustments are made for future 5-pip OEs.
Comments
And this ain't the beginning. It gets even worse with the Gauntlet. After a initial run you have 14 additional runs (cooldown for crew regeneration is 3.25 hours) in this 48 hours midweek event. If you don't sleep at all in this 48 hours. And playing time isn't calculated too.
Playing the Gauntlet you are at the sheer mercy of RNGesus too. Even if you don't care for the rankings you have to waste insane amounts of merits for new opponents if you get a impassable wall of opponents. Or you pay dilithium for refreshing your crew. This costs 150 dilithium for all 5 of them.
In my case this means I get in the average 3 successes per run. 15×3=45. And no sleep. More realistic with sleep you probably play 10 runs. So I need 5 successes per run without investing any resources in this event.
With my average success rates at the Gauntlet I probably would have to invest 7×150 dilithium. And an additional 150 for the ship battles. 8×150=1200 dilithium.
My summary is: I would have to work like a dumb brainless communist and pay for my hard work more than buying a standard 10× premium pull straight away without working at all.
No Sir, I'd rather throw the tea in the harbor and go home.
I'm not against the substitution of participating in runs with achieving successful runs. But I am against working like a communist where hard work isn't honored at all. The shuttle runs may be okay like they are, but in this 2 days long midweek event it should rather be 15 successful Admiral Division battles and maybe 25 or 30 Gauntlet successes. My personal opinion.
If the work is for communists, I let them work alone. Without me.
That being said, the community effort of running ghost ships when not on offense is the biggest reason this was possible, I think if we all had to go 10/10 both days against 100% of ships that were trying, it would have been much more difficult.
I also highly recommend running the Captain Proton ship, even when hunting ghost ships or weaker opponents (for those of us that tanked ahead of time). The ONLY thing that can really threaten you in those situations is a lack of shields/hull, and the Captain Proton ship has both is spades. I had a couple if hairy encounters but I managed to overcome them because the Proton ship is just tough as nails.
For someone who's been playing since 2016 it's really not difficult to do, if you tank your arena rank and remember to switch your crew and ship back in, and if you plan your gauntlet activity accordingly since the days before. For some the arena objective could still be messed up by really bad RNG though.
The real problem with this and all objective events is that they seem designed to get players to spend resources that tend not to be overabundant for most of us. In return we get very generic rewards that for a long time player should be worth almost exactly as much as the resources invested (for a new player it's probably best to skip them all). What it doesn't take into account is the extra time spent in the game, which for many of us moves the needle towards "not worth it". And that's why so many people immediately look for a workaround to get the rewards for free. Some of us would probably do it regardless, but some would also be willing to just play it as intended if the rewards were better.
For those who like to apply strategy to the game the workarounds are fun in the beginning, but once it becomes a routine it feels like someone told you to play the floor is lava at work, while working, one day a week, for the foreseeable future. Timelines doesn't just take up more of our time now, it also takes up more of our mental energy that goes into planning around stuff and keeping in mind when to do or not to do things that used to be simple and intuitive.
Better rewards could break the game balance and it would be too easy to get them for free. But less generic rewards could be a solution. If the completion reward for this event had been a mixed rarity behold from the Sherwood collection pack, for example, it would have been very valuable to some players and useless to others. That would have made it easier for people to choose whether to spend their resources and/or time or just skip the event.
Shuttles: easy. Like it doesn’t require a review. I’m not thrilled with giving up my off-day Tuesday to babysit shuttles but I easily did it.
Gauntlet: also easy, finished it this morning and I have five more sets I could do. I also didn’t need to start two gauntlets or tank things to accomplish this (I did start my gauntlet at switchover though). Guess I never realized how many gauntlet wins I typically do. Again, just required work I don’t like doing on my off-day.
Arena: obviously the hard part; I went 19-20. I also was picking from the far left choices, rather than the far right. People tanking wasn’t something I saw regularly, so I don’t think it helped as much as people think. Just really careful with my selections. I think this should be lowered to 15 wins but others might disagree.
Yes, I had to buy tickets. And I have no problem with it. My cost-benefit thinking: a 4* cit (which I have use for) and a 10x pull are worth 150 dil. That would have changed if I needed more wins. Others have a different analysis and that’s ok. It is a resource allocation game too.
Overall review: not bad. It was a challenge. I’ll do it again. But I won’t be playing this type of OE regularly. It’s just a nice change of pace now and again. But new forms of gameplay are still desperately needed, as demonstrated by the last requirement, use 400 chronos. I was trying to think what else they could have been put in it’s place and could think of nothing that wouldn’t require a huge amount of time or hard to collect resources or was exactly the same thing (voyage dilemma; scans; ship battles).
How did this happen? Did you not tap fast enough to beat the damage reduction? That's the only way I could see this outcome happening. Asking as an arena enthusiast, not trying to be a jerk or condescending. I know the Proton builds rely on this very same damage reduction bug.
I would prefer events that do not require that much constant attention (Gauntlet part).
The gauntlet is probably a bit more challenging. Was able to win about 10 per go. Probably spent 1000 honor's worth of merits. But of course the citation is worth much more. In general you'd have to win 7 or 8 per go. It's certainly doable. But I never seem able to stay down in the rankings so it's harder than it needs to be for me. I guess join the night before then start in the morning at very low rank. My 10 point battles are generally just as hard as 200 point. I don't play gauntlet but my rule of thumb when I do is that 75% chance of victory is nowhere near enough. 90% is required.
Here’s why I usually won’t pass on a free 10 pack:
Took Garak.
Looking at damage dealt, does Phoenix reflect damage like Bounty? I've lost battles that way before- hit the opposition with something so huge the reflection takes you too?
That was the first thing I checked. It does not have damage reflection. It has a position trigger at 8s, a weak nuke at 10, and (probably the thing that determined the outcome:) damage reduction at 6s.
I just hope the developers are told by @Shan that the only reason most of us got 20/20 is because of the community working together to fight the system.
Having event challenges where completion is dependent on the roll of the dice is not something I am happy with.
The only reason I completed the Arena challenge was because I spent 150 dilithium today. Again, the RNG gods had not been on my side.
If this happened in a month where I wanted the schematics, I would be a little upset. Between that and backing off to 18 Arena wins, I think the event was fine.
Speaking of schematics... that economy is still lousy. I really want that Negh'var, but I'm miles away. And the portal is so diluted now... progress is slower than snail pace.
Next time they do something like this, how about selling some schematics of the good ships? Proton, Krayton, Warship Voyager, Negh'var, Bounty, T'Ong, Roddenberry... throw us a bone, eh?
It can take 4 to 5 refreshes per win depending on luck and how fatigued my crew is.
The only other factor might be the crew people have but it seems like there are a number of options for a viable Gauntlet team. I only have 2 gauntlet exclusives running this Gauntlet.
Shuttles: Easily done. If you have four shuttles than this shouldn't be a problem and as this event was targeted at more seasoned players I would assume most of them have all four.
Gauntlet: This turned out a bit trickier than I had anticipated. I was hit by some really bad RNG here and there. I could have easily gotten another round in though. However, I haven't been at work yesterday and today and if I had, I don't think I would have been able to complete the 50 wins in time.
Arena: 20/20. I started tanking over the weekend so I was at around 17000 when the event started. Saw lots of drones or low level ships which were easy to beat. I'm not sure I'd be willing to tank arena though if I still needed that month's schematics.
So, overall it was a nice change from the regular mid week events and I appreciate that WRG are trying something new for more seasoned players. However, I think I would skip the event if I needed that month's schematics and have to work regularly. I don't like losing on purpose in one area of the game just to be able to win something.
But with cooperation with others the arena turned out to be easier than I thought.
Gauntlet was much more of a nail biter.
Appreciated the citation, the purple pull turned out to be all-frozen.
Shuttles: Easy if you have 4.
Gauntlet: Spend 2k merits. Need 3 more wins. Will have it with the last cycle.
Great event!
Edit: If arena was Captain division, that would be a lot more difficult to get 20/20.
Captain and Commander are near 90% RNG. You're absolutely right that those would be a nightmare.
Public profile
Captain Zombie's Combo chain calculator
I've left my ship weak for anyone who still needs it and is fortunate enough to find it.
I'm admiral of ISS Yamato and we have three other fleets of folks playing for fun at all levels of play.
I lost a one of the captains in my fleets due to 'another change' based off the Objective Event. He had been in my fleet for years. There is general disgruntledness about the new objective event for 'advanced' players. I prefer gruntled people playing the game.
I do like the option where people can choose the type of OE they want to play as mentioned in a post previous to mine. You don't want to ostracize new players so they no longer want to play.
Arena Battles
I recommended everyone take a level 1 ship like Hiawatha and put it in as your admiral level arena ship. I didn't bother changing crew. The week or so previous to the the OE starting I lost in admiral division every night. When I did finally do battles for the OE, I went back to Krayton and only fought Borg Cubes that had no Ardra and/or bad crew. By tanking and choosing I was able to 10 wins on both my primary (lvl99) and lvl70 (monthly card only). If we can get lots of people to tank their admiral division and put bad ships or no crew, it will help everyone in Arena. I think the only problem with that are the ships and crew of people that no longer play may still be in the Arena for battles.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy to spend dilithum for arena tickets
Gauntlet
This is really hard for most folks in the 4 fleets we have playing together. We usually do fleet gauntlets on Monday so they coincide with the OE. Unfortunately gauntlet is more rigged for folks to lose AND the added higher crit rate for crew to also equalize old players and new players makes gauntlet a very random thing to win.
Most folks see this as a marking ploy so you have to pay to refresh crew with dilithium.
Shuttle Missions
This is doable for folks that have 4 shuttles, easy if you have at least one faction tanked.
Spending 400 chrono
This is easy as long as you complete the three previous objectives. I used a supply kit to make it go farther.
Winnings
Overall folks want something to make them feel good about their level of play AND will benefit them. I immortalize purple crew and freeze them
in most cases. A gold citation would make more sense for players this was supposedly geared for. In this case you have people struggling and people that can work the objective event easily. Pointing out a class distinction is not the best way to get folks to work or play together. Give options and try to help folks at all levels of play.
.|. You Rang? - Lurch
I like it when admirals bring fleet sentiments here. I'm curious if your fleet saw it as a team building exercise at all - particularly gauntlet, where players could stack some skills and leave others empty. A fleet could potentially make two groups: one with weak MED and the other with weak ENG. Dropping some merits could get you some favorable matches now and then. Would your fleet be interested in the challenge of another go with more time to plan and prep?
For the arena bit, instead of 20 arena wins, maybe they could set it as "hit rank 500 or better", or similar. You're highly unlikely to get there without a L10 ship & decent crew, so it works for the "experienced player" requirement, but doesn't penalise you if you're regularly near the top of the rankings & therefore up against peer-level opponents. Making something difficult in PvE is fine, but ranked PvP is automatically difficult, since you naturally rise to the level of your ship & crew's competence.
Gauntlets have a similar issue; experienced players will naturally rise to the level of other experienced players, so it becomes a coin toss as to how well you do. The highly varied nature of gauntlet requirements means that there will be more variety than in the arena, but it's still the challenge of peers rather than game, which already reduces win rates. A better option would be to again require the player to hit to certain ranking rather than win X rounds, since experienced players will be able to reach ranks that inexperienced players couldn't hope to achieve without massive doses of luck.
Things have been hectic at work for me, so I didn't have much opportunity to run shuttles or the gauntlet during the day. I did use a small amount of dil on gauntlet refreshes, maybe ~200, and two days worth of dil is worth it for the rewards. I don't generally do the gauntlet so 50 wins was a slog, although targeting low trophy folks did make things easier.
I was a little worried about the 20/20 skirmish wins. However, like others here I cleared out my ship when this was announced to drop me down the ranks. And after completing this, switched back to a level 1 ship so folks still working on this can get an easier victory.
I appreciate that there were fewer objectives than usual, to balance out the increased difficulty.
I'm hoping the next time an event like this is run it has some different challenges, just to keep things varied. Completing voyages, collecting a pile of a certain 4* component, stuff like that.
Presumably outside the scope of the Objective Event UX, but I almost wonder if Expeditions would work as special, mid-week events. I enjoy the mechanic of chapters/expeditions, but not the repetition of Expedition events. But if we only had to complete them once, it feels like the best of both worlds.
Starport
Gauntlet 46/50 (real life got in the way)
Arena 10/20 (as expected, but didn’t care)
I’ll preface this by saying that it was my choice to not try to win this OE, so I’m not crying over it. But… I’m opposed to the notion that deliberately tanking as a community is something to be encouraged. I’m happy it worked for many of you (seriously, congrats!) - I just don’t think the event should be designed to produce this group strategy. Maybe that wasn’t the goal, but the genie is out now. (Tanking shuttle factions is different in my mind - that is a purely individual behavior that neither affects nor requires anyone else.)
I’ll note that I believe in playing all 3 arena divisions every day, so I was already self-limited to 16 possible wins. Yes, I know it takes 14 days to become unranked, so skipping 2 days is not a big deal. And yet… in my experience, it’s far easier to stop doing something than it is to start. If I skip commander and captain for 2 days, will I even bother to resume them? Is it wise to encourage players to stop playing parts of the game, or to play other parts of it backwards?
Kudos to WRG for trying to build a challenging OE. I just don’t think this was the right design. Just my 2 credits. It’ll be interesting to see if any adjustments are made for future 5-pip OEs.