My f2p facebook account is ALWAYS short on trainers. My iOS account has more than I'll never need. That's the nature of the beast.
That being said, you messed up, DB. I expected you to start giving like 200 credits in place of the current 100. If you're just going to replace other item drops with a few more 500 credits here and there... no. Don't.
Here's how its going to play out. Let's say they just took 40%. They'll come back and say they listened to our complaints, they'll give us back 15%, and we'll still be down 25% from the original numbers.
Shuttles are still the primary source of trainers. If you are short on trainers it means you are not running your shuttles enough. Your shuttles should never be at rest. One week of around the clock shuttles (use overnight boost) and you will have thousands of gold and purple trainers.
That might be true for you and me and many more, but for someone that has just started, still is leveling 1* crew, that might not be investing anything, might be just having 2 shuttles only and little crew to put on the, more trainers sounds good for him!
I think it is even more important for new players to keep their shuttles running constantly. Especially since you get trainers even for failed shuttles. Running shuttles cost nothing. If 1* crew is all you have then run them with 1* crew. The shuttles scale to your crew level so having low level crew does not matter.
The shuttle difficulty scales, as does the quality of trainers. Newish players still using just cadets are going to be lucky to get 1 gold trainer from each shuttle, let alone 4-5. When I started I remember having a bottleneck of 7-8 cadets all at level 90-91 with their equipment built waiting for me to get higher quality shuttle trainers.
I finished a 4 hour (had 40 AM left) voyage. It came out about 15% lower chronitons than I would have expected, but more trainers. I don't mind the trainers; I like them. Ask again in six months. But I got 2 three star crew, 2 one star crew, and the 2 two star from delimmas. That is more than in recent weeks. I have no complaint there.
The shuttle difficulty scales, as does the quality of trainers. Newish players still using just cadets are going to be lucky to get 1 gold trainer from each shuttle, let alone 4-5. When I started I remember having a bottleneck of 7-8 cadets all at level 90-91 with their equipment built waiting for me to get higher quality shuttle trainers.
That’s why the key is quick shuttle turnaround. You have to get as many out in 24 hours as you can. Ignore the fails, just keep sending. Back when I was F2P I had 100s of each kind of trainers with only 2 shuttles while leveling crew. This was back when the ONLY way to get trainers was shuttles. You didn’t even get trainers for warping missions. That’s right sonny....uphill both ways....in the snow....without shoes.
I run voyages specifically for chrons. The only reason I generally spend dil is to extend a voyage to farm more chrons and 4*. Now, all DB has done is to ensure I do not spend dil on voyages because I can't earn enough chron to make it worthwhile. I don't have my crew up to the level you longer tenured players do yet so am still building up to getting deeper into the voyage time without having to spend dil. Thanks DB. This just might be enough to drive me to another game, and I so enjoyed this one.
Haven't done the math yet, but I suspect it is still more efficient to spend DIL on voyage extensions than extra cadet tickets.
It might very well be. But frankly, I feel like if that's said too loud they will start raising the dil cost of cadet missions or some other crap and say its for the new 'family size bundle pack of chrons'.
RNG gets stronger the less likely you have drops. As with 4 star crew, you can get 3 or 4 in a 2 hour period or none in a 12 hour run. The drop rate might be 1 every 4 hours but you won't see it that way.
Same as with chrons. If the drop rate has been reduced by half (from 16 to 8) every two hours, even if the amount dropped is increased to double, you will see much more variation every voyage.
So, if drop rate is dropped from 8 caches per hour and you used to get 10 per drop, to 4 per hour and 15 per drop, you'll get significantly more variation and a much lower drop rate on some voyages, whereas others may not appear to have changed much yet.
That will mean we get slightly more chronitons for the first two hours, about the same the next four, and significantly less thereafter, with RNG appearing more obvious at this level too.
It's going to be much more difficult to calculate an average chroniton expectation and you'll see much wider variation per voyage. And less on longer voyages. Time will tell, but I'm pretty sure that's what's happened here.
It's looking really bad at this point. I can't say that I'm shocked in grand terms, but I didn't necessarily expect the nerf to come as a bait and switch.
Definitely won't be spending on AM refills in the future, and since I wasn't caught dead buying chronitons before voyages (outside the occasional set of cadet tickets) it's not like they're going to magically squeeze me from that end now that they've introduced us to trickle-down voyage economics. I'm just less happy with the game now, assuming things shake out the way they appear to be shaking out.
STT was fun as a faster-paced game while it lasted...
First Officer - Task Force April
Squadron Leader - [TFA] Bateson’s Bulldogs
I still haven't decided about this, but myself, along with a few in my fleet have noticed that the 1-3 minute Hazards are now coming more often in the 1 minute cycles over the 2 and 3 minutes, which in turn, will drop the AM like a rock later into the voyage.
I still haven't decided about this, but myself, along with a few in my fleet have noticed that the 1-3 minute Hazards are now coming more often in the 1 minute cycles over the 2 and 3 minutes, which in turn, will drop the AM like a rock later into the voyage.
I only have a sample of one, but my projections of time remaining after the 6 hour dilemma matched what I experienced. So I don't think that has changed.
At first blush it looks like around a massive 50% decrease in chronitons for extended voyages, but I would expect a higher random element. I don’t see much difference in credits but the number of trainers is through the roof. Crew drops appear to be slightly lower and hugely skewed towards 1* crew, but it’s hard to judge of a single voyage as that was always subject to the vagaries of the dubiously random number generator.
My first voyage since update : 30% less chrons, 40% more legendary trainers, not much fluctuation in credits. I'm extremely disappointed. Now I get less of my main incentive, and more of something I don't need at all. I guess I'll be playing less and spending less. I don't understand the strategy. Bad business.
My first voyage since update : 30% less chrons, 40% more legendary trainers, not much fluctuation in credits. I'm extremely disappointed. Now I get less of my main incentive, and more of something I don't need at all. I guess I'll be playing less and spending less. I don't understand the strategy. Bad business.
Okay I've been doing some number crunching. If cache drop rates are between 3 and 10 per 2 hours as I've been seeing so far, with the new rates, plus 30 chron dilemmas, an average 8 hour voyage can expect anything from 192 to 460 chronitons (a very wide range which might be greater still).
An average 8 hour voyage previously used to net 424 with the same 30 chron dilemmas.
I've enjoyed the game a lot more with the extra chrons, made it a lot more engaging with levelling up and freezing crew.
I think DB need to quickly realise taking things away isn't a good idea. Start off tight and loosen up, and you get good response from players, start loose and then tighten is just going to annoy everyone.
If they wanted to reduce chron stockpiles surely the sensible route would be to have a chron-based character portal? Similar to what they did with Merits, but tailored to entice people to dump chrons on it.
Already have 16 4* training, 6 3* rations, 14 2* rations....and 41 chronitons. I know we all read the in game mail or the post here on the forums and expected a slight reduction in chronitons but remember when voyages first came out you could come away from a 10 hour voyage with around a thousand, then it was nerfed so you got a few hundred less (800 or so from 10 hours was still a lot, that would make a dent in trying to level some crew) but right now "slight reduction" seems to be leaning towards "cut to a pittance" especially since it'll drop further after 4 hours.
Going to let it run today and see what I bring back after 10 hours which is how long I'd normally run a voyage for anyway.
I don't know if anyone else has had good luck with 4* crew, but I've had 5 drop coming up to the 12 hour dilemma, which is by far the most I've had on voyage (3 being the most) not that I do 12 hour voyages much. And the chron rate drop appears to have perked up somewhat after the 10th hour (in sure that's RNG)
I think one important thing to consider is: If you had never experienced the past few months of voyages, would you be happy with the rewards you are now receiving?
Yesterday, I pulled in ~300 chronotons from a 7 hour voyage along with a 4* crew member at a relatively small cost on my part (had to set up the team and my shuttle crew was slightly worse than it might have otherwise been).
On cadet days, we get 600 chrons, so that single voyage would still represent a 50% increase in my daily chron income (and closer to a 100% increase when you consider I could probably run two of those in a day). I can say, without a doubt, I would be happy with these returns if voyages were being freshly released
Yes, it's a nerf, and nerfs always come with a lot of feel-bads. I feel DB has done a very poor job in communicating the content of this change and, more importantly, haven't addressed why they felt the change is necessary.
Comments
That being said, you messed up, DB. I expected you to start giving like 200 credits in place of the current 100. If you're just going to replace other item drops with a few more 500 credits here and there... no. Don't.
The shuttle difficulty scales, as does the quality of trainers. Newish players still using just cadets are going to be lucky to get 1 gold trainer from each shuttle, let alone 4-5. When I started I remember having a bottleneck of 7-8 cadets all at level 90-91 with their equipment built waiting for me to get higher quality shuttle trainers.
Maybe I'll just have to refill my Voyages 40% less often, then 25% less after they "compromise"
It might very well be. But frankly, I feel like if that's said too loud they will start raising the dil cost of cadet missions or some other crap and say its for the new 'family size bundle pack of chrons'.
Same as with chrons. If the drop rate has been reduced by half (from 16 to 8) every two hours, even if the amount dropped is increased to double, you will see much more variation every voyage.
So, if drop rate is dropped from 8 caches per hour and you used to get 10 per drop, to 4 per hour and 15 per drop, you'll get significantly more variation and a much lower drop rate on some voyages, whereas others may not appear to have changed much yet.
That will mean we get slightly more chronitons for the first two hours, about the same the next four, and significantly less thereafter, with RNG appearing more obvious at this level too.
It's going to be much more difficult to calculate an average chroniton expectation and you'll see much wider variation per voyage. And less on longer voyages. Time will tell, but I'm pretty sure that's what's happened here.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
Definitely won't be spending on AM refills in the future, and since I wasn't caught dead buying chronitons before voyages (outside the occasional set of cadet tickets) it's not like they're going to magically squeeze me from that end now that they've introduced us to trickle-down voyage economics. I'm just less happy with the game now, assuming things shake out the way they appear to be shaking out.
STT was fun as a faster-paced game while it lasted...
Squadron Leader - [TFA] Bateson’s Bulldogs
I’ve been running 2 refresh voyages since the announcement. Usually got to around 12 hrs and 1000-1200 chrons. That’s my best recollection.
It's always been 75 chrons. It's 100 honor/75 chrons/4*; 60 honor/50 chrons/3*; and 30 honor/30 chrons/2*
I only have a sample of one, but my projections of time remaining after the 6 hour dilemma matched what I experienced. So I don't think that has changed.
Check out our website to find out more:
http://tenforwardloungers.freecluster.eu
An average 8 hour voyage previously used to net 424 with the same 30 chron dilemmas.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
I think DB need to quickly realise taking things away isn't a good idea. Start off tight and loosen up, and you get good response from players, start loose and then tighten is just going to annoy everyone.
If they wanted to reduce chron stockpiles surely the sensible route would be to have a chron-based character portal? Similar to what they did with Merits, but tailored to entice people to dump chrons on it.
Already have 16 4* training, 6 3* rations, 14 2* rations....and 41 chronitons. I know we all read the in game mail or the post here on the forums and expected a slight reduction in chronitons but remember when voyages first came out you could come away from a 10 hour voyage with around a thousand, then it was nerfed so you got a few hundred less (800 or so from 10 hours was still a lot, that would make a dent in trying to level some crew) but right now "slight reduction" seems to be leaning towards "cut to a pittance" especially since it'll drop further after 4 hours.
Going to let it run today and see what I bring back after 10 hours which is how long I'd normally run a voyage for anyway.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
Yesterday, I pulled in ~300 chronotons from a 7 hour voyage along with a 4* crew member at a relatively small cost on my part (had to set up the team and my shuttle crew was slightly worse than it might have otherwise been).
On cadet days, we get 600 chrons, so that single voyage would still represent a 50% increase in my daily chron income (and closer to a 100% increase when you consider I could probably run two of those in a day). I can say, without a doubt, I would be happy with these returns if voyages were being freshly released
Yes, it's a nerf, and nerfs always come with a lot of feel-bads. I feel DB has done a very poor job in communicating the content of this change and, more importantly, haven't addressed why they felt the change is necessary.