One Admiral's Story
Bylo Band
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
(tagging @STT Community so this can be shared with whoever)
During the last Faction event my fleet was forced to dismiss an active player nobody disliked who was contributing to our starbase donations, contributing to our dailies, was active every day, and was steadily growing and gaining captain levels (was level 76 when dismissed). Why you may ask was this player dismissed? Here then is the sad story.
This player joined the fleet several months ago, did not respond to any messages/directions, ignored the established structure/harmony that had been built for years, and started their own squadron instead of joining an existing squadron. As admiral I did my best to spread out the officers and sanctioned/blessed/approved/whatever enough squadrons so that every one of them had an officer/squadron leader so that new players would instantly gravitate to them and get stronger. All I could do was communicate my intentions and trust that it would work out because admirals have ZERO control over squadron composition/creation.
So this new player we all suspected was not an English speaker who had no business being squad leader created a new squadron because I lacked the ability to prevent it and as more people filtered into the fleet to replace the inactive players that were being dismissed, they naturally assumed all squadrons were created equal and a few of them joined this player's squadron. Again, I am powerless to prevent this, powerless to shut the squadron down, and powerless to demote that player as squadron leader or promote somebody else to take their place.
Since this squadron leader did not know what they were doing they never shared an event crew with their squad and this lead to several new players losing hope and quitting the game completely. They were replaced in the fleet but the game lost at least a handful of people who wanted to play but lost interest in part because they had no hope during Faction events and the mechanism in place to correct for this was not being done...and again, the admiral (me!) had zero ability to do anything about any of it.
So after several Faction events of this player ignoring messages in fleet chat and private messages we moved an officer into that squadron away from their original squadron which caused problems for the players in there who lost their crew share, dismissed the player in question/squad leader, and had to hope that the game would randomly select the officer to be the new squadron leader because AGAIN, the admiral has zero control over any of this. Thankfully the officer won the RNG battle with the other people in the squadron, all the players were kicked out of the squadron, and it was ultimately disbanded permanently, but doing what we needed to do to manage the fleet required kicking an active player out of the fleet completely as that is the only control an admiral has, hoping that RNG would select the person I wanted in charge to be picked as squadron leader, four players in a perfectly run squadron lost their squad leader/officer during a Faction event to deal with this mess, and three other players who had done absolutely nothing wrong were forced to move themselves to a new squadron when the unsanctioned squadron was disbanded, and all of this was thanks to the decision to give admirals ZERO control of their fleet.
WRG, your admirals are BEGGING you for more control, we know how to play the game, we know what to do, please let us help you retain your players before they quit! Give us the power to demote squadron leaders, give us the power to set a maximum number of squadrons, give us the power to promote/demote within all squadrons, these are all obvious things that have been neglected forever and it is hurting your player base.
During the last Faction event my fleet was forced to dismiss an active player nobody disliked who was contributing to our starbase donations, contributing to our dailies, was active every day, and was steadily growing and gaining captain levels (was level 76 when dismissed). Why you may ask was this player dismissed? Here then is the sad story.
This player joined the fleet several months ago, did not respond to any messages/directions, ignored the established structure/harmony that had been built for years, and started their own squadron instead of joining an existing squadron. As admiral I did my best to spread out the officers and sanctioned/blessed/approved/whatever enough squadrons so that every one of them had an officer/squadron leader so that new players would instantly gravitate to them and get stronger. All I could do was communicate my intentions and trust that it would work out because admirals have ZERO control over squadron composition/creation.
So this new player we all suspected was not an English speaker who had no business being squad leader created a new squadron because I lacked the ability to prevent it and as more people filtered into the fleet to replace the inactive players that were being dismissed, they naturally assumed all squadrons were created equal and a few of them joined this player's squadron. Again, I am powerless to prevent this, powerless to shut the squadron down, and powerless to demote that player as squadron leader or promote somebody else to take their place.
Since this squadron leader did not know what they were doing they never shared an event crew with their squad and this lead to several new players losing hope and quitting the game completely. They were replaced in the fleet but the game lost at least a handful of people who wanted to play but lost interest in part because they had no hope during Faction events and the mechanism in place to correct for this was not being done...and again, the admiral (me!) had zero ability to do anything about any of it.
So after several Faction events of this player ignoring messages in fleet chat and private messages we moved an officer into that squadron away from their original squadron which caused problems for the players in there who lost their crew share, dismissed the player in question/squad leader, and had to hope that the game would randomly select the officer to be the new squadron leader because AGAIN, the admiral has zero control over any of this. Thankfully the officer won the RNG battle with the other people in the squadron, all the players were kicked out of the squadron, and it was ultimately disbanded permanently, but doing what we needed to do to manage the fleet required kicking an active player out of the fleet completely as that is the only control an admiral has, hoping that RNG would select the person I wanted in charge to be picked as squadron leader, four players in a perfectly run squadron lost their squad leader/officer during a Faction event to deal with this mess, and three other players who had done absolutely nothing wrong were forced to move themselves to a new squadron when the unsanctioned squadron was disbanded, and all of this was thanks to the decision to give admirals ZERO control of their fleet.
WRG, your admirals are BEGGING you for more control, we know how to play the game, we know what to do, please let us help you retain your players before they quit! Give us the power to demote squadron leaders, give us the power to set a maximum number of squadrons, give us the power to promote/demote within all squadrons, these are all obvious things that have been neglected forever and it is hurting your player base.
11
Comments
If they are non-communicatative just dismiss them, why let them cause so much disruption on an assumption that they do not speak the language? My 2 cents
I did not want to remove this player, he/she was very active and was contributing every day. It absolutely **tsk tsk** that the only option available to me to get even a slim chance to remedy the situation (because there was no guarantee who the game would default to squadron leader - we know from past experience) was to completely dismiss them from the fleet. They did not deserve that nor did anybody in the fleet want that to happen.
If the other squad members were communicating within the fleet, why would it matter who the squad lead defaulted to? Just share the plan with each of them and give the rogue member the boot. I agree that some additional fleet tools could be beneficial, but it could also cause some admirals to overreach and turn some players off. Good communication is the key, and lack of communication outright should just be dismissed.
If i was in your fleet and saw a player was allowed to walk all over the admiral, i would have walked all over you as well. Weak leadership invites people to challenge it. @Bylo Band
I hope the game makers give you what you need.
And the poor fleet managment options will NEVER change(i and other asked even DB back then years ago and WRG as well, it’s hopeless)so just deal with it properly.
Your „rant“ will change nothing.
They won t.
Agreed. I hate to say it, but the game has long past the time where they might actually fix things or make changes unless there is some way to monetize it. Chat -nope. UI - nope. Fleet management - nope. And on and on and on.....
STT is living week to week, and one day the bills will be higher than revenue and, well, Kirk and McCoy said it best in ST6:
KIRK: We're not finished.
McCOY: Speak for yourself. One day, one night—Kobayashi Maru.
After reading the rant again, to me it seems like @Bylo Band is just firing way above their station. There is no way that any reasonable admiral in that situation would allow it to go on for so long. Maybe it would be a good idea for them to consider stepping down into a “vice admiral” role and let someone else do the dirty work.
The “story” should have gone something like:
We had a rogue captain in our fleet who made a squad without asking and wouldnt stand down. So i booted them. The end.
100% correct. Time for Bylo Band to retire as admiral if he can't manage this scenario where any reasonably competent admiral would have handled it in about two minutes.
Noticing the two people condemning @Bylo Band the most are doing it from "guest" accounts. Wondering why that is 🤔
Unless your full legal name is "IceCat" you don't have a leg to stand on either, sport. 🤔
Out of respect for @Bylo Band , please keep your comments on topic and in relation to the subject of the thread, @IceCat
Also, fun fact: IceCat is inserting a straw man in an attempt to derail the conversation. Its valuable to be able to identify this type of underhanded tactic.
So let's address the issue of if more flexibility is good as a general principle and leave aside the attacks on an admiral and long-term participant of the forums. I think it appropriate to say you would handle it differently, but the real question is if more tools for admirals would be good. After all, there may be other situations where those tools would help you.
And there is no cause to be so mean about it.
I'm posting from my one and only account. Under an identifiable user name. Not a ghost account like some here.
One of two things is going on here. Either you're too new to have a username, in which case, your opinions are uninformed. Or, you refuse to post your critiques under your main account, in which case you're slandering a respected player without even having the honour of putting your name behind it.
Nothing you have posted here indicates respect. This disingenuous comment is the real straw man, since if you could stand behind your claims, you'd do so under your main, named account.
Agree completely, @DavideBooks . Whatever your fleet's style of leadership, I think most would agree that fleet admirals should have the ability to assign leaders of squadrons, amongst other personnel management decisions. As an actual admiral would.
Bylo's feedback on this was on the nose, and whether others agree or not, there was no call for the personal attacks and mean-spirited comments towards him.
Admirals should be capable of leading their fleet with the available tools and resources. End of story.
While quality of life upgrades would be welcome, their arrival will likely not occur before armageddon, second coming of jesus, alien invasion, etc. you get the point. And my comments were in reaction to bylos assertion that his fleet was in disarray because wrg didnt give them the tools they needed. Which is not a true statement or acceptable placement of blame.
Its whining. Plane and simple.
Nothing you have posted in this thread is relevant to the discussion being had, and you are attempting to bait me into a derailed argument. Do you have some kind of issue with me that you want to handle through im?
I would be happy to have a discussion with you and others about how fleet leadership can be accomplished without requiring the developers to spend time creating yet another broken feature.
And this is, my named, primary, account. Nice to meet you icecat. My name is "guest_1677442946962966“.
Sad but true. To be fair, I don’t think Timelines even has to post a loss in order for the servers to be shut down. It could be as simple as not meeting profit requirements set by management.
Should TPG try harder? Yes. Is there any evidence that they will do so? Sadly no.
Bylo Band’s suggestion is a good one. One that’s been made multiple times over the years. It should be implemented. I wish it would be.
I have no clue what these "guests" have said. Based on context I am 100% positive it was 100% negative. But as I've said for years, ignoring "guests" is the way to go. I'm not losing sleep over it, neither should you
But yes, every fleet operates differently. We try to be forgiving, give people chances, look at suboptimization as a chance to learn/grow. Our hope during the entire process was to reach this person and teach them, that would have been a massive victory. This is not a job, it is something people do for fun. If I was paying this person of course the standard would have been much higher, but given the context and given how this person was really active, I just wanted to share the story because it was a sad day for me, it was a missed opportunity somewhere.
Communication was 100% attempted but the game's awful chat system was definitely part of this, we had no way of knowing if A] this player was simply ignoring messages, B] this player was never seeing the messages before the system erased them, C] the player was never receiving the messages at all, or D] this player could not read/write in English. Many members of the fleet discussed this player for weeks and we made the group decision to continue to try and get them to learn. I was proud of us for putting in the effort, we do not give up on people easily and I was sad that we were forced to take the action we did, had we simply been able to demote them within the squadron we would have kept an active player, that is all I was trying to say here.
I think most people here would say respectful discourse in these forums is always relevant, no matter the topic of discussion. As is our duty to speak up when people are being less than respectful, particularly to a player who has done so much for this community.
I am not trying to bait you into anything, thr least of which is "a derailed argument". Nor do I have any issue with you (I don't even know who you are) other than to ask that you to show more respect to @Bylo Band .
While you weren't as disrespectful as the other anonymous poster, your comments implying Bylo wasn't "any respectful admiral" and was "firing above his station" were less than appropriate in a respectful conversation. As was your attempt to undermine my point by accusing me of "underhanded tactics".
Whether you can give advice on fleet leadership or not, Bylo's request that WRG implement a very basic (and quite frankly long overdue) fix is neither out of line or unreasonable. To attack him for making a request many players want is unfair.
If this is your primary account, which I will take in good faith is true, would you change your name to your in-game name, or at least identify yourself with it? I think signing your "name" to your posts, rather than having a guest handle, would go a long way to creating a civil discourse on this topic.