I've seen a few incorrect posts about participation in this thread. Here are some good numbers; galaxies get about 60k, expedition about 70k and faction about 80k. Hybrids tend to split the 2 types that make them so about 70k for faction/galaxy and 75k for faction/expedition. This event had ~74,942.
There does appear to be a rising trend for galaxies and galaxy hybrids.
I've seen a few incorrect posts about participation in this thread. Here are some good numbers; galaxies get about 60k, expedition about 70k and faction about 80k. Hybrids tend to split the 2 types that make them so about 70k for faction/galaxy and 75k for faction/expedition. This event had ~74,942.
There does appear to be a rising trend for galaxies and galaxy hybrids.
This seems very low for Galaxies. How is participation being defined? Are people not just doing the minimum to qualify for the thresholds?
As far as expeditions go, again anecdotally, we all started a ticket, but many didn't complete even one. Do they count as participants?
I basically challenge the idea that we have 'good numbers'. But I could be wrong, how are these numbers sourced?
I've seen a few incorrect posts about participation in this thread. Here are some good numbers; galaxies get about 60k, expedition about 70k and faction about 80k. Hybrids tend to split the 2 types that make them so about 70k for faction/galaxy and 75k for faction/expedition. This event had ~74,942.
There does appear to be a rising trend for galaxies and galaxy hybrids.
This seems very low for Galaxies. How is participation being defined? Are people not just doing the minimum to qualify for the thresholds?
As far as expeditions go, again anecdotally, we all started a ticket, but many didn't complete even one. Do they count as participants?
I basically challenge the idea that we have 'good numbers'. But I could be wrong, how are these numbers sourced?
Every time I've seen the claim for participation rates it's been based off of one dummy account that completed a single item relatively early on in the event, then looking at where that account ranked after the event ended.
If that's the case, I really don't call that a quality sample. People check out, toss one thing in for participation, aren't providing any competition, or generally shouldn't be counted for participation purposes in my opinion.
We'd really need one account to try get closer to 5,000-10,000 VP to see where the real bottom of the participation charts lie. And a second account to try to rank 10,000-15,000 to get a good estimation of where the bottom of the competition is, and evaluate the VP there to see competition trends.
I agree with Thurthorad. A better gauge would be, "how many people max threshold". If max threshold gets you in top 8000, then that is all that are really putting time into the events. There were times on galaxy I would log in and only get 1 vp reward, so I could claim the community reward. A max threshold used to get top 3000. With the extended threshold, I got my 600 schematics early Monday morning. I finished at 1160, 6th in my fleet. If we knew how many people won schematics, we'd know how well the event did.
Or, if we wanted to go lower... How many Picards were given out, how many Mirror Uhura?
I've seen a few incorrect posts about participation in this thread. Here are some good numbers; galaxies get about 60k, expedition about 70k and faction about 80k. Hybrids tend to split the 2 types that make them so about 70k for faction/galaxy and 75k for faction/expedition. This event had ~74,942.
There does appear to be a rising trend for galaxies and galaxy hybrids.
This seems very low for Galaxies. How is participation being defined? Are people not just doing the minimum to qualify for the thresholds?
As far as expeditions go, again anecdotally, we all started a ticket, but many didn't complete even one. Do they count as participants?
I basically challenge the idea that we have 'good numbers'. But I could be wrong, how are these numbers sourced?
Every time I've seen the claim for participation rates it's been based off of one dummy account that completed a single item relatively early on in the event, then looking at where that account ranked after the event ended.
If that's the case, I really don't call that a quality sample. People check out, toss one thing in for participation, aren't providing any competition, or generally shouldn't be counted for participation purposes in my opinion.
We'd really need one account to try get closer to 5,000-10,000 VP to see where the real bottom of the participation charts lie. And a second account to try to rank 10,000-15,000 to get a good estimation of where the bottom of the competition is, and evaluate the VP there to see competition trends.
I understand why you may be somewhat sceptical of this methodology but in some events I have not competed and gotten 2 data points at the 1 turn it level. Those have always been within 1k of each other on galaxies and as little as 20 points apart on other types.
Knowing where each prize level lands would be interesting but would almost have to be crowd-sourced. So if someone could set up a wiki page/template I have low end data going back to "merry men".
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).
Or it means you did that much better in phase 1, OR it means you did that well with your event crew and bonus crew strategy and placement, OR it means you might have done an extra ticket each day.
Well also depends on if you mean making top 1000 or actually getting top 25.
In every expedition and expedition/hybrid so far that I've been in I've hit top 1000 except the very first one I did. In 1 of them I purchased 2 extra tickets. In the others I rode out on the tickets given. (Admittedly in full expeditions you get extra tickets in threshold so there was more than 3 per day.)
You're only going nutty balls the last day if you A) Don't have the 1-2 hours to kill the last 3 tickets or You're not optimizing your tickets and VPs. C) Your crew isn't strong enough in the bonus/event area or D) Other folks are buying up tickets with more DIL.
It's a combination of A and the fact that, by milking extra 100 VPs you can earn about 20-30,000 extra per ticket. It takes several hours and it's VERY tedious. But I sure as heck did it.
Then when you throw a bunch of tickets in for a shorter deadline, combine it with RL obligations for the two most obligatory days of the year for many (Christmas Eve and Christmas) and voila.
Again, I mean to take nothing away from those that did quickgrind the tickets in. You did it, you earned the points. But DB's the one running the event. DB's the one that said the event would be longer, then mid-event shortened it and threw in a bunch of tickets, thus thwarting some's work.
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.
...And a part of why he likes it is that he does well in expeditions precisely because so few compete.
What number of people took part in this expedition compared with the previous two Mirror events? Even with Christmas, I'd be very surprised if it was significantly different.
You seem to have drawn this "people don't compete" conclusion based on your own dislike of them. I'd always assumed it was easier for me to be competitive in these events because a) as this event needs a time investment, a number of players don't put in the time to crit every single node each time, and b) many players don't quite follow the mechanics, and receive lower rewards because they aren't using crew with bonuses, or are afraid to "cancel" their ticket, or haven't developed the best approach to use their bonus crew most efficiently.
There's some thought required with Expeditions, not just time, which is why I like to see them now and again. Not every month, perhaps, but 4-6 times a year, maybe. It's a nice bone for those of us who play for fun and haven't even spent $5 on the game yet.
For people who like to spend money to "win", perhaps for Expedition events they could save their $100 that they would spend on crew packs, and just take it to their local trophy store and buy themselves a nice trophy instead?
Comments
There does appear to be a rising trend for galaxies and galaxy hybrids.
This seems very low for Galaxies. How is participation being defined? Are people not just doing the minimum to qualify for the thresholds?
As far as expeditions go, again anecdotally, we all started a ticket, but many didn't complete even one. Do they count as participants?
I basically challenge the idea that we have 'good numbers'. But I could be wrong, how are these numbers sourced?
Every time I've seen the claim for participation rates it's been based off of one dummy account that completed a single item relatively early on in the event, then looking at where that account ranked after the event ended.
If that's the case, I really don't call that a quality sample. People check out, toss one thing in for participation, aren't providing any competition, or generally shouldn't be counted for participation purposes in my opinion.
We'd really need one account to try get closer to 5,000-10,000 VP to see where the real bottom of the participation charts lie. And a second account to try to rank 10,000-15,000 to get a good estimation of where the bottom of the competition is, and evaluate the VP there to see competition trends.
Or, if we wanted to go lower... How many Picards were given out, how many Mirror Uhura?
Keep in mind, it's only Epic/Elite and one of the normals, but that's still 46k VP in 7 mins.
I understand why you may be somewhat sceptical of this methodology but in some events I have not competed and gotten 2 data points at the 1 turn it level. Those have always been within 1k of each other on galaxies and as little as 20 points apart on other types.
Knowing where each prize level lands would be interesting but would almost have to be crowd-sourced. So if someone could set up a wiki page/template I have low end data going back to "merry men".
Or it means you did that much better in phase 1, OR it means you did that well with your event crew and bonus crew strategy and placement, OR it means you might have done an extra ticket each day.
Well also depends on if you mean making top 1000 or actually getting top 25.
In every expedition and expedition/hybrid so far that I've been in I've hit top 1000 except the very first one I did. In 1 of them I purchased 2 extra tickets. In the others I rode out on the tickets given. (Admittedly in full expeditions you get extra tickets in threshold so there was more than 3 per day.)
You're only going nutty balls the last day if you A) Don't have the 1-2 hours to kill the last 3 tickets or
Then when you throw a bunch of tickets in for a shorter deadline, combine it with RL obligations for the two most obligatory days of the year for many (Christmas Eve and Christmas) and voila.
Again, I mean to take nothing away from those that did quickgrind the tickets in. You did it, you earned the points. But DB's the one running the event. DB's the one that said the event would be longer, then mid-event shortened it and threw in a bunch of tickets, thus thwarting some's work.
You seem to have drawn this "people don't compete" conclusion based on your own dislike of them. I'd always assumed it was easier for me to be competitive in these events because a) as this event needs a time investment, a number of players don't put in the time to crit every single node each time, and b) many players don't quite follow the mechanics, and receive lower rewards because they aren't using crew with bonuses, or are afraid to "cancel" their ticket, or haven't developed the best approach to use their bonus crew most efficiently.
There's some thought required with Expeditions, not just time, which is why I like to see them now and again. Not every month, perhaps, but 4-6 times a year, maybe. It's a nice bone for those of us who play for fun and haven't even spent $5 on the game yet.
For people who like to spend money to "win", perhaps for Expedition events they could save their $100 that they would spend on crew packs, and just take it to their local trophy store and buy themselves a nice trophy instead?