It becomes a pay-to-win scenario, to answer your question.
F2P players have the 3 daily tickets, plus the 6 we were sent today, plus any they have squirreled away in their inbox. Each ticket, if ran to total maximum efficiency, is worth ~55k VP. Sure, you can keep grinding your crew and get 100VP completions here and there, but for the math let's assume 55k.
3 Tickets on Saturday, 3 Sunday, 3 Monday and 6 in the inbox makes 15 attempts at 55k VP each for a total of 825,000 VP! That will easily be top 1000.
Now here's the problem with everything I just typed. To get that 55k VP, you need to have already purchased and leveled all the featured crew for this week - Bev, Mayweather, Uhura and Picard. They give the best VP bonus, 2000VP points for each rare node on Epic. Mirror characters or variants get 1500 for the same scenario, and any plain character gets 1000. So instantly someone who is attempting to grind without spending is at an immediate disadvantage from someone who has already bought all the characters - a disadvantage of half the points.
All of this is nice and fine but eventually, you run out of tickets. Game over, your rank is your rank. Unless you have DIL to burn, then you start buying extra tickets. Then it's truly Pay-To-Win, as you can just grind your fingers away and buy tickets until you fall over from exhaustion.
I've won an Expedition event in the long ago past, and I did spend on tickets and crew, but the real work came in optimizing the strategy. The guys on top of the leaderboard right now that are crushing it probably did the same thing I and others have done - have a spreadsheet open with what crew to use on what mission and in what order - a carefully crafted plan that nets the absolute maximum VP in the shortest amount of time.
I can run a 46K VP ticket in about 10 minutes if I'm paying attention and trying. It doesn't take long with the above steps to push everyone else out of the way and plow ahead.
OK this is my first expedition, and competitively it doesn't make much sense. Won't everyone that has good crew all get the same amount of VPs? I mean the replay VPs are so miniscule as to be almost worthless, so doesn't everyone just cash in all their tickets, get all the stars, and thus get exactly the same amount of VPs as everyone else with at least pretty good crew?
Since Regular/Bonus/Event crew give different VPs, then kinda. If you've got the same event and bonus crew AND use them as efficiently you'll have the same VPs.
So it takes a bit of thinking and planning to squeeze out the best VPs (and in some cases some DIL if you want more event crew vs bonus.)
If you succeed the same number of shuttle missions in a faction (and failures dont drop your score per shuttle) you get the same VPs as well.
It comes down to how much you are willing to do. I always do best in expeditions - around top 300 just from using the free tickets. Not everyone will be willing to do all the free tickets. Of course having the event characters is worth quite a lot of points too.
I like the expeditions best because seldom used characters get to see some time and it makes it feel worthwhile to have gotten them so long ago. The revised format makes them much less painful. Who remembers failing to get the star 10x in a row!
Looks like it will take me 5/6 of the sorry tickets to get to the defiant. Probably could be done by others in 3 or 4/6.
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."
I hate expiditions. Lost 2000 spots in 24 hours since the switch. I just cannot spend the time to effectively compete in them. Others are not as time consuming in my opinion.
OK this is my first expedition, and competitively it doesn't make much sense. Won't everyone that has good crew all get the same amount of VPs? I mean the replay VPs are so miniscule as to be almost worthless, so doesn't everyone just cash in all their tickets, get all the stars, and thus get exactly the same amount of VPs as everyone else with at least pretty good crew?
Yes. The expedition event changes have standardized points so much that the only differentiation is if you bought event packs(and therefore have MED/ENG at 2x bonus) and how many tickets you play(or buy). Basically DB has made this the most P2W of all event types. People like the changes because it's not as aggravating, but they miss that it's now become being graded on a curve with a test that is too easy.
OK this is my first expedition, and competitively it doesn't make much sense. Won't everyone that has good crew all get the same amount of VPs? I mean the replay VPs are so miniscule as to be almost worthless, so doesn't everyone just cash in all their tickets, get all the stars, and thus get exactly the same amount of VPs as everyone else with at least pretty good crew?
Yes. The expedition event changes have standardized points so much that the only differentiation is if you bought event packs(and therefore have MED/ENG at 2x bonus) and how many tickets you play(or buy). Basically DB has made this the most P2W of all event types. People like the changes because it's not as aggravating, but they miss that it's now become being graded on a curve with a test that is too easy.
I disagree on the P2W side, galaxies are still more P2W as you can just buy more chrons and go warp 10 all over.
Expeditions you still have to play the nodes and it slows someone down who is just paying to win who hasn't played enough to get their relevant characters leveled up.
I have to say, as this is my first expedition event ... I'm already extremely bored with it - and I've only completed two tickets. It's just not very fun as an event. My score has dropped from about 2100 to 2800 because I just can't get into playing it.
On a brite note, I scored #1 in the Admiral Division a little while ago. So that was cool. One of my personal goals checked off.
Expedition events used to be a lot more fun when there was an element of randomness and you really had to utilize your entire crew roster, but now it's just the same thing over and over and over.
When the faction ended mI was in the 200s, currently 3833. I have the crew to do the expiditions, but I dont want to spend the time doing all the crit nodes, about 1 hour per ticket. To much other things to do.
When the faction ended mI was in the 200s, currently 3833. I have the crew to do the expiditions, but I dont want to spend the time doing all the crit nodes, about 1 hour per ticket. To much other things to do.
Same here. I did three tickets total, and just blew it off after that. I don't have the slots available for any new characters anyway, and once I maxed my Mirror Uhura out it just became tedious. Absolutely my least favorite event type, bar none.
When the faction ended mI was in the 200s, currently 3833. I have the crew to do the expiditions, but I dont want to spend the time doing all the crit nodes, about 1 hour per ticket. To much other things to do.
When the faction ended mI was in the 200s, currently 3833. I have the crew to do the expiditions, but I dont want to spend the time doing all the crit nodes, about 1 hour per ticket. To much other things to do.
I did 3 tickets in one hour yesterday lol.
That's about average length, I think. The other day Frank (as I recall) was posting here on the forums and saying something about being able to run through a ticket and crit all the starred nodes in 10 minutes — but in this latest event, at least, I just don't think that was possible.
Once I actually stopped and took the time to make notes of the exact crew I was using for each path in each mission, it sped up considerably for me, but the quickest time I logged was just under 17 minutes, speeding through as fast as I could. Most of the time it was closer to averaging 20 minutes per ticket, or, 3 tickets per hour.
Now, if you didn't take notes of any kind, it's possible they could take you 30 minutes or more per ticket, if you had to search for crew each time and didn't remember who you used the previous run through. And if you weren't doing them in the same order, even that could be slowed down, I would guess. I could believe 45 minutes to do a ticket, and longer if the person isn't plowing through it without taking a break every so often to rest their eyes or their wrists. (All I can say is it's a good thing I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, or any related issues, or this weekend would've been murder.)
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing. ~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
I didn't even think of it I saw this, but we could have searched for "Terran Empire" in the crew manifest, and had a easier time scrolling during the event. What WAS I thinking?!
When the faction ended mI was in the 200s, currently 3833. I have the crew to do the expiditions, but I dont want to spend the time doing all the crit nodes, about 1 hour per ticket. To much other things to do.
I did 3 tickets in one hour yesterday lol.
That's about average length, I think. The other day Frank (as I recall) was posting here on the forums and saying something about being able to run through a ticket and crit all the starred nodes in 10 minutes — but in this latest event, at least, I just don't think that was possible.
Once I actually stopped and took the time to make notes of the exact crew I was using for each path in each mission, it sped up considerably for me, but the quickest time I logged was just under 17 minutes, speeding through as fast as I could. Most of the time it was closer to averaging 20 minutes per ticket, or, 3 tickets per hour.
Now, if you didn't take notes of any kind, it's possible they could take you 30 minutes or more per ticket, if you had to search for crew each time and didn't remember who you used the previous run through. And if you weren't doing them in the same order, even that could be slowed down, I would guess. I could believe 45 minutes to do a ticket, and longer if the person isn't plowing through it without taking a break every so often to rest their eyes or their wrists. (All I can say is it's a good thing I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, or any related issues, or this weekend would've been murder.)
My times were mostly the same (~20) and most of the time was spend on Normal difficulty scrolling down to find Picard or Uhura.
I took no notes, but I was able to assemble a variety of crew fairly easily without notes. The Picard/Uhura nodes were easy for me to determine where I'd use them and remember that-- and just sprinkled in other crew along the rest of the way.
The one note I did take was the difficulty level of each mission.
Last night I noticed I was pretty highly ranked for someone who normally barely makes the top 5000. So I hustled and bustled and ended up 648, and it only cost me about 40 dilithium worth of extra turns. Granted, it took me hours and hours and yes, was SUPER BORING, but let's just say I'm happy to have placed well in an event that it looks like a lot of people gave up on!
Well all, as an update: That was the worst event I ever played. Ugh what a boring grind. Thanks for all your guys help anyways. Hopefully these will be used sparingly going forward.
Hopefully, that's it for expedition events. They honestly seem not worth the effort for DB. They are difficult for them to code, and the player base mostly hates them. Even most of their boosters admit they're tedious, they just like getting the rewards because they have personalities that can take the repetition.
It's obvious that DB have been reluctant to do them and this one has been such a mess that hopefully they'll never do one again. Not that we don't need another event type, it's just that expeditions are not the answer.
Hopefully, that's it for expedition events. They honestly seem not worth the effort for DB. They are difficult for them to code, and the player base mostly hates them. Even most of their boosters admit they're tedious, they just like getting the rewards because they have personalities that can take the repetition.
It's obvious that DB have been reluctant to do them and this one has been such a mess that hopefully they'll never do one again. Not that we don't need another event type, it's just that expeditions are not the answer.
You've stated that several times in several threads, and though there are some who don't like expeditions, those of us who still enjoy the event type do not appreciate being thrown in with the entire playerbase.
Though they can be tedious and repetitious in the end, so can galaxies, and factions. These at least give some of the base core play of the game -- the away mission -- as the play type.
Since you're in a repeating mode, I think I'll repeat as well. If you're just here to collect crew, expeditions will drive you nuts. If you actually enjoyed the base parts of the game -- at least the first several tickets are enjoyable.
Similar to the call to let us warp the daily events though (which I am not a part of), repetition of the core gameplay is a pretty awful experience.
And while Galaxies and Faction events have an element of tedium about them, it's the sheer relentlessness of the tedium in expedition events that is a huge part of their lack of appeal. Galaxies, you can just do when you feel like, factions you have to do at certain points, but it only takes a few seconds. Expeditions both take longer overall AND have the necessity to do them daily. You also can't prefarm expeditions like you can Galaxy events.
As I said, I get that some of the appeal of expeditions is that they are just something different, and I also get that there will always be some people who like whatever event is designed. I'd just prefer that DB focus on getting a different event type into the rotation, one that can be played whenever you feel like it within the event parameters and that doesn't involved an enormous amount of repetition.
The reason I am highlighting all of this now, is that this is the time whilst the pain of expeditions is fresh in peoples minds, and where even some of the people who ask for it most realise how much of a dog it is. Imagine that this happened as often as Galaxies? You'd have a rebellion on your hands.
Similar to the call to let us warp the daily events though (which I am not a part of), repetition of the core gameplay is a pretty awful experience.
And while Galaxies and Faction events have an element of tedium about them, it's the sheer relentlessness of the tedium in expedition events that is a huge part of their lack of appeal. Galaxies, you can just do when you feel like, factions you have to do at certain points, but it only takes a few seconds. Expeditions both take longer overall AND have the necessity to do them daily. You also can't prefarm expeditions like you can Galaxy events.
As I said, I get that some of the appeal of expeditions is that they are just something different, and I also get that there will always be some people who like whatever event is designed. I'd just prefer that DB focus on getting a different event type into the rotation, one that can be played whenever you feel like it within the event parameters and that doesn't involved an enormous amount of repetition.
The reason I am highlighting all of this now, is that this is the time whilst the pain of expeditions is fresh in peoples minds, and where even some of the people who ask for it most realise how much of a dog it is. Imagine that this happened as often as Galaxies? You'd have a rebellion on your hands.
The only relentlessness of the tedium of this event was too many tickets. The 6 tickets threw everyone over the board.
And they do NOT take more time overall if you just play the three tickets and just get your critical nodes. As has been stated several times and testified to by several other people here you can do a ticket in 20-30 minutes getting all the nodes. Its only grindy when you choose to extend the ticket to more repetitions trying to eek out that lil pence of VP that you get doing a mission again with no nodes left.
I spend more time on galaxies (typically 3-4 hours a day) whereas on this one IF THERE HAD BEEN NO EXTRA TICKETS I would have only spent 1-2.
Most of the pain here was not caused by the event type Expedition, but by the sadistic or negligent incompetence of folks trying to rush an event during a holiday weekend.
Incidentally I was here when Expeditions were as often as Galaxies and some folks embraced them and some folks didn't. There was no big uprising like you predicted. Galaxies got more grief then actually.
And difficult to code? They use virtually the same code as Episode 8 and the other rest of the core game. Someone at DB just typoed -- and QC dropped another ball. (just like in a galaxy or two this year when we got the wrong Super Rare reward on one or more recipes). Did everyone say ditch the galaxy because of that?
The other two incidents, the holiday timer and the server go boom have nothing to do with the event type --- as we have seen the exact same or similar screw ups this year with galaxies and factions with them miscalculating event timers or entering them wrong with Factions and Galaxies--- AND we were in the faction phase when the server access went boom. (As has happened in several faction events this year.)
And again, you misstate what must be the appeal for all folks who like expeditions. Its not just that they are something different.
For some people, myself and others who have stated this in other threads, It's that they are the away mission that is part of the core game, which is something we enjoy for what it is.
I back Pallidyne up here - this event would have been fine if they had not given everyone 6 tickets. And I'm repeating that myself, I've already complained about it in other threads. The compensation was the wrong one to give.
I was looking forward to this event - expeditions have been vastly improved since when they first come out. Automatic rewards for criting the node, no 1 hr time limits, unlocked missions stayed unlocked for the entirety of the event, bonus and featured reward scaling. In expeditions, I never plan to repeat the epic levels missions for 100vp a throw. I only go for the crit rewards and then cancel and then start the next ticket. It took about 20mins to crit all the missions.
But it still needs a few of tweaks, one of which is the default sorting of the crew. As has already been stated in other threads; x3 crew first, then x2, then all the rest in rarity order. Secondly, I would keep it down to 3 missions only, like the last hybrid. 4 adds 33% more time to playing the event. Add a space mission if you want, but more on that in a second. And thirdly, and is something that needs doing in all events, allow us to turn off the damn VP and reward animations. They are so annoying when you're trying to grind out missions in galaxies and it's the same in expedition events.
Anyway, I was a little disappointed that ship battles didn't get some tweaking. It was a good idea, if a little irrelevant feature in last hybrid, the VPs were so low.
I had a couple of thoughts on this, talked about it in my fleet discussion, like a series of 3 battles, with repairs allowed after each battle dependent on whether you staffed it with featured, bonus, or non-bonus crew. 0% repairs for non-bonus, 10% for bonus, 20% for featured (or something like that). And the ship trait provding extra VP bonuses if it was a featured or bonus ship.
Anyway, the latter is something for the make it so forum. I should really post it there.
I have always enjoyed Expedition events. I still enjoy them although the changes have made me enjoy them less. It's still a chance to play the away missions in the game which I rarely do with warp. It's a chance to use crew I rarely use otherwise. It's a chance to think about crew selection and how to utilize secondary/tertiary stats that are rarely relevant otherwise.
What I HATE is having to play 9 tickets in a single day on a holiday weekend. I wanted to claw my eyes out when I was done with that. I understand why DB thought it was a solution to the timer screwup, but like free chronitons or an extra day during a galaxy event, they don't understand that for players trying to rank giving everyone extra to compete with just raises the cost(in time or resources) for everyone. I hope we never see 6 extra tickets given at once again.
I'd love to see expedition events continue, but there are still some tweaks DB could make. Make each mission longer, create even more branching with complicated skill groups that force players to think about who to run on each mission. Make it so there is strategy that goes into the tickets and not just repetitive action. I'd rather have 2 tickets a day that take 30-40 min each than 3 tickets that I mindlessly click through in 20 minutes.
Similar to the call to let us warp the daily events though (which I am not a part of), repetition of the core gameplay is a pretty awful experience.
And while Galaxies and Faction events have an element of tedium about them, it's the sheer relentlessness of the tedium in expedition events that is a huge part of their lack of appeal. Galaxies, you can just do when you feel like, factions you have to do at certain points, but it only takes a few seconds. Expeditions both take longer overall AND have the necessity to do them daily. You also can't prefarm expeditions like you can Galaxy events.
As I said, I get that some of the appeal of expeditions is that they are just something different, and I also get that there will always be some people who like whatever event is designed. I'd just prefer that DB focus on getting a different event type into the rotation, one that can be played whenever you feel like it within the event parameters and that doesn't involved an enormous amount of repetition.
The reason I am highlighting all of this now, is that this is the time whilst the pain of expeditions is fresh in peoples minds, and where even some of the people who ask for it most realise how much of a dog it is. Imagine that this happened as often as Galaxies? You'd have a rebellion on your hands.
The only relentlessness of the tedium of this event was too many tickets. The 6 tickets threw everyone over the board.
And they do NOT take more time overall if you just play the three tickets and just get your critical nodes. As has been stated several times and testified to by several other people here you can do a ticket in 20-30 minutes getting all the nodes. Its only grindy when you choose to extend the ticket to more repetitions trying to eek out that lil pence of VP that you get doing a mission again with no nodes left.
I spend more time on galaxies (typically 3-4 hours a day) whereas on this one IF THERE HAD BEEN NO EXTRA TICKETS I would have only spent 1-2.
Most of the pain here was not caused by the event type Expedition, but by the sadistic or negligent incompetence of folks trying to rush an event during a holiday weekend.
Incidentally I was here when Expeditions were as often as Galaxies and some folks embraced them and some folks didn't. There was no big uprising like you predicted. Galaxies got more grief then actually.
And difficult to code? They use virtually the same code as Episode 8 and the other rest of the core game. Someone at DB just typoed -- and QC dropped another ball. (just like in a galaxy or two this year when we got the wrong Super Rare reward on one or more recipes). Did everyone say ditch the galaxy because of that?
The other two incidents, the holiday timer and the server go boom have nothing to do with the event type --- as we have seen the exact same or similar screw ups this year with galaxies and factions with them miscalculating event timers or entering them wrong with Factions and Galaxies--- AND we were in the faction phase when the server access went boom. (As has happened in several faction events this year.)
What you miss is that if you are competing at the end of the event for place, then the tediousness of this event goes off the charts as you are doing lots of extra tickets. If you are not doing extra tickets and are still placing well, this is testament to the fact that so many people just don't compete in these events.
This is just anecdote I know, but I have quite a few RL friends playing this game now, across many different platforms, and apart from one person they all hate the expeditions. The newer players really like Galaxies and the more established players favor Faction events. They are mostly casual players (though they spend money), with the hardest core player being the one who defends expeditions. And a part of why he likes it is that he does well in expeditions precisely because so few compete.
If you can't acknowledge that that is a serious reason that these events are so rare, then I have to assume you are just using a rhetorical approach to your argument. They will stay rare, but I really want them extinct at this point as they are likely bad for the game.
Again, an important caveat to my argument is that I would like to see them replaced with another event type, as I tire of constant faction and galaxy events. I just don't think that the 'novelty' of expeditions is worth the inherent tedium of them. (You may not find them tedious, but I genuinely believe that the majority of people do).
Comments
F2P players have the 3 daily tickets, plus the 6 we were sent today, plus any they have squirreled away in their inbox. Each ticket, if ran to total maximum efficiency, is worth ~55k VP. Sure, you can keep grinding your crew and get 100VP completions here and there, but for the math let's assume 55k.
3 Tickets on Saturday, 3 Sunday, 3 Monday and 6 in the inbox makes 15 attempts at 55k VP each for a total of 825,000 VP! That will easily be top 1000.
Now here's the problem with everything I just typed. To get that 55k VP, you need to have already purchased and leveled all the featured crew for this week - Bev, Mayweather, Uhura and Picard. They give the best VP bonus, 2000VP points for each rare node on Epic. Mirror characters or variants get 1500 for the same scenario, and any plain character gets 1000. So instantly someone who is attempting to grind without spending is at an immediate disadvantage from someone who has already bought all the characters - a disadvantage of half the points.
All of this is nice and fine but eventually, you run out of tickets. Game over, your rank is your rank. Unless you have DIL to burn, then you start buying extra tickets. Then it's truly Pay-To-Win, as you can just grind your fingers away and buy tickets until you fall over from exhaustion.
I've won an Expedition event in the long ago past, and I did spend on tickets and crew, but the real work came in optimizing the strategy. The guys on top of the leaderboard right now that are crushing it probably did the same thing I and others have done - have a spreadsheet open with what crew to use on what mission and in what order - a carefully crafted plan that nets the absolute maximum VP in the shortest amount of time.
I can run a 46K VP ticket in about 10 minutes if I'm paying attention and trying. It doesn't take long with the above steps to push everyone else out of the way and plow ahead.
Hope that was some insight for ya.
Since Regular/Bonus/Event crew give different VPs, then kinda. If you've got the same event and bonus crew AND use them as efficiently you'll have the same VPs.
So it takes a bit of thinking and planning to squeeze out the best VPs (and in some cases some DIL if you want more event crew vs bonus.)
If you succeed the same number of shuttle missions in a faction (and failures dont drop your score per shuttle) you get the same VPs as well.
I like the expeditions best because seldom used characters get to see some time and it makes it feel worthwhile to have gotten them so long ago. The revised format makes them much less painful. Who remembers failing to get the star 10x in a row!
Looks like it will take me 5/6 of the sorry tickets to get to the defiant. Probably could be done by others in 3 or 4/6.
Tickets increase in Dilithium cost with every new purchase.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Yes. The expedition event changes have standardized points so much that the only differentiation is if you bought event packs(and therefore have MED/ENG at 2x bonus) and how many tickets you play(or buy). Basically DB has made this the most P2W of all event types. People like the changes because it's not as aggravating, but they miss that it's now become being graded on a curve with a test that is too easy.
I disagree on the P2W side, galaxies are still more P2W as you can just buy more chrons and go warp 10 all over.
Expeditions you still have to play the nodes and it slows someone down who is just paying to win who hasn't played enough to get their relevant characters leveled up.
Expedition events used to be a lot more fun when there was an element of randomness and you really had to utilize your entire crew roster, but now it's just the same thing over and over and over.
Same here. I did three tickets total, and just blew it off after that. I don't have the slots available for any new characters anyway, and once I maxed my Mirror Uhura out it just became tedious. Absolutely my least favorite event type, bar none.
I made a suggestion including Implementation advice on that, as i total agree, how frustrating scrolling for away missions is.
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/1659/highly-improved-crew-selection#latest
Well, it should be Event crew at the top and Bonus crew underneath that for Expeditions. Uhura and Picard were each 5/16*'s at Epic for me.
At least Picard (at 3/5) defaulted to almost the top of the list for me.
I did 3 tickets in one hour yesterday lol.
That's about average length, I think. The other day Frank (as I recall) was posting here on the forums and saying something about being able to run through a ticket and crit all the starred nodes in 10 minutes — but in this latest event, at least, I just don't think that was possible.
Once I actually stopped and took the time to make notes of the exact crew I was using for each path in each mission, it sped up considerably for me, but the quickest time I logged was just under 17 minutes, speeding through as fast as I could. Most of the time it was closer to averaging 20 minutes per ticket, or, 3 tickets per hour.
Now, if you didn't take notes of any kind, it's possible they could take you 30 minutes or more per ticket, if you had to search for crew each time and didn't remember who you used the previous run through. And if you weren't doing them in the same order, even that could be slowed down, I would guess. I could believe 45 minutes to do a ticket, and longer if the person isn't plowing through it without taking a break every so often to rest their eyes or their wrists. (All I can say is it's a good thing I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, or any related issues, or this weekend would've been murder.)
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
I didn't even think of it I saw this, but we could have searched for "Terran Empire" in the crew manifest, and had a easier time scrolling during the event. What WAS I thinking?!
My times were mostly the same (~20) and most of the time was spend on Normal difficulty scrolling down to find Picard or Uhura.
I took no notes, but I was able to assemble a variety of crew fairly easily without notes. The Picard/Uhura nodes were easy for me to determine where I'd use them and remember that-- and just sprinkled in other crew along the rest of the way.
The one note I did take was the difficulty level of each mission.
The 3X event crew should be at the top no matter what.
It's obvious that DB have been reluctant to do them and this one has been such a mess that hopefully they'll never do one again. Not that we don't need another event type, it's just that expeditions are not the answer.
You've stated that several times in several threads, and though there are some who don't like expeditions, those of us who still enjoy the event type do not appreciate being thrown in with the entire playerbase.
Though they can be tedious and repetitious in the end, so can galaxies, and factions. These at least give some of the base core play of the game -- the away mission -- as the play type.
Since you're in a repeating mode, I think I'll repeat as well. If you're just here to collect crew, expeditions will drive you nuts. If you actually enjoyed the base parts of the game -- at least the first several tickets are enjoyable.
Similar to the call to let us warp the daily events though (which I am not a part of), repetition of the core gameplay is a pretty awful experience.
And while Galaxies and Faction events have an element of tedium about them, it's the sheer relentlessness of the tedium in expedition events that is a huge part of their lack of appeal. Galaxies, you can just do when you feel like, factions you have to do at certain points, but it only takes a few seconds. Expeditions both take longer overall AND have the necessity to do them daily. You also can't prefarm expeditions like you can Galaxy events.
As I said, I get that some of the appeal of expeditions is that they are just something different, and I also get that there will always be some people who like whatever event is designed. I'd just prefer that DB focus on getting a different event type into the rotation, one that can be played whenever you feel like it within the event parameters and that doesn't involved an enormous amount of repetition.
The reason I am highlighting all of this now, is that this is the time whilst the pain of expeditions is fresh in peoples minds, and where even some of the people who ask for it most realise how much of a dog it is. Imagine that this happened as often as Galaxies? You'd have a rebellion on your hands.
The only relentlessness of the tedium of this event was too many tickets. The 6 tickets threw everyone over the board.
And they do NOT take more time overall if you just play the three tickets and just get your critical nodes. As has been stated several times and testified to by several other people here you can do a ticket in 20-30 minutes getting all the nodes. Its only grindy when you choose to extend the ticket to more repetitions trying to eek out that lil pence of VP that you get doing a mission again with no nodes left.
I spend more time on galaxies (typically 3-4 hours a day) whereas on this one IF THERE HAD BEEN NO EXTRA TICKETS I would have only spent 1-2.
Most of the pain here was not caused by the event type Expedition, but by the sadistic or negligent incompetence of folks trying to rush an event during a holiday weekend.
Incidentally I was here when Expeditions were as often as Galaxies and some folks embraced them and some folks didn't. There was no big uprising like you predicted. Galaxies got more grief then actually.
And difficult to code? They use virtually the same code as Episode 8 and the other rest of the core game. Someone at DB just typoed -- and QC dropped another ball. (just like in a galaxy or two this year when we got the wrong Super Rare reward on one or more recipes). Did everyone say ditch the galaxy because of that?
The other two incidents, the holiday timer and the server go boom have nothing to do with the event type --- as we have seen the exact same or similar screw ups this year with galaxies and factions with them miscalculating event timers or entering them wrong with Factions and Galaxies--- AND we were in the faction phase when the server access went boom. (As has happened in several faction events this year.)
For some people, myself and others who have stated this in other threads, It's that they are the away mission that is part of the core game, which is something we enjoy for what it is.
I was looking forward to this event - expeditions have been vastly improved since when they first come out. Automatic rewards for criting the node, no 1 hr time limits, unlocked missions stayed unlocked for the entirety of the event, bonus and featured reward scaling. In expeditions, I never plan to repeat the epic levels missions for 100vp a throw. I only go for the crit rewards and then cancel and then start the next ticket. It took about 20mins to crit all the missions.
But it still needs a few of tweaks, one of which is the default sorting of the crew. As has already been stated in other threads; x3 crew first, then x2, then all the rest in rarity order. Secondly, I would keep it down to 3 missions only, like the last hybrid. 4 adds 33% more time to playing the event. Add a space mission if you want, but more on that in a second. And thirdly, and is something that needs doing in all events, allow us to turn off the damn VP and reward animations. They are so annoying when you're trying to grind out missions in galaxies and it's the same in expedition events.
Anyway, I was a little disappointed that ship battles didn't get some tweaking. It was a good idea, if a little irrelevant feature in last hybrid, the VPs were so low.
I had a couple of thoughts on this, talked about it in my fleet discussion, like a series of 3 battles, with repairs allowed after each battle dependent on whether you staffed it with featured, bonus, or non-bonus crew. 0% repairs for non-bonus, 10% for bonus, 20% for featured (or something like that). And the ship trait provding extra VP bonuses if it was a featured or bonus ship.
Anyway, the latter is something for the make it so forum. I should really post it there.
What I HATE is having to play 9 tickets in a single day on a holiday weekend. I wanted to claw my eyes out when I was done with that. I understand why DB thought it was a solution to the timer screwup, but like free chronitons or an extra day during a galaxy event, they don't understand that for players trying to rank giving everyone extra to compete with just raises the cost(in time or resources) for everyone. I hope we never see 6 extra tickets given at once again.
I'd love to see expedition events continue, but there are still some tweaks DB could make. Make each mission longer, create even more branching with complicated skill groups that force players to think about who to run on each mission. Make it so there is strategy that goes into the tickets and not just repetitive action. I'd rather have 2 tickets a day that take 30-40 min each than 3 tickets that I mindlessly click through in 20 minutes.
What you miss is that if you are competing at the end of the event for place, then the tediousness of this event goes off the charts as you are doing lots of extra tickets. If you are not doing extra tickets and are still placing well, this is testament to the fact that so many people just don't compete in these events.
This is just anecdote I know, but I have quite a few RL friends playing this game now, across many different platforms, and apart from one person they all hate the expeditions. The newer players really like Galaxies and the more established players favor Faction events. They are mostly casual players (though they spend money), with the hardest core player being the one who defends expeditions. And a part of why he likes it is that he does well in expeditions precisely because so few compete.
If you can't acknowledge that that is a serious reason that these events are so rare, then I have to assume you are just using a rhetorical approach to your argument. They will stay rare, but I really want them extinct at this point as they are likely bad for the game.
Again, an important caveat to my argument is that I would like to see them replaced with another event type, as I tire of constant faction and galaxy events. I just don't think that the 'novelty' of expeditions is worth the inherent tedium of them. (You may not find them tedious, but I genuinely believe that the majority of people do).