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DB: MED node does not "affect every participant in a similar fashion".
·§ë· For the Many
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*edit: This is a lot less about human mistakes happening, and a lot more about integrity of the initial response, responsibility, transparency, avoidable & repeated stretching thin, and disconnect however well intentioned (e.g. 6+ tickets in a suddenly condensed time frame, and at this time).
MED node is not being fixed in part as the issue "affects every participant in a similar fashion"?
No - If a player got event packs to obtain a Mirror Crusher, prioritized their resources into levelling and equipping her or other bonus MED crew, then it does impact them more. As that bonus is mostly nullified for the epic & elite node.
With each ticket we run where the MED node is not fixed, it becomes less fair for players who focused their resources into these crew for that bonus.
and "- as shown by the timer in game, the event was not extended as previously announced and will end on Monday, 12/25 instead of Tuesday, 12/26."
-- I'm an advocate for shorter events, but kinda would've been nice to know this beforehand? The way it's written here, it appears that it isn't a bug, but DB made a decision to significantly alter the event without notifying us, leaving us to only find out halfway through the event itself. Maybe after we'd adapted our plans for a marathon 5-day event to accommodate their holiday schedule.
We love Trek and playing the game, DB. Please try to get more in touch with the player base.
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MED node is not being fixed in part as the issue "affects every participant in a similar fashion"?
No - If a player got event packs to obtain a Mirror Crusher, prioritized their resources into levelling and equipping her or other bonus MED crew, then it does impact them more. As that bonus is mostly nullified for the epic & elite node.
With each ticket we run where the MED node is not fixed, it becomes less fair for players who focused their resources into these crew for that bonus.
and "- as shown by the timer in game, the event was not extended as previously announced and will end on Monday, 12/25 instead of Tuesday, 12/26."
-- I'm an advocate for shorter events, but kinda would've been nice to know this beforehand? The way it's written here, it appears that it isn't a bug, but DB made a decision to significantly alter the event without notifying us, leaving us to only find out halfway through the event itself. Maybe after we'd adapted our plans for a marathon 5-day event to accommodate their holiday schedule.
We love Trek and playing the game, DB. Please try to get more in touch with the player base.
3
Comments
Regarding the messaging on shortening the event, it is absolutely 100% a bug and not what was intended. Lots of mistakes were made this week, but one mistake we didn't make was changing our minds on a whim.
Once we realized today that the event wasn't going to be extended, we tried to find a way to get things back on track, but due to how the event system is structured, all of the alternatives were far more damaging to players. It would have involved things such as missions progress resetting without warning, inconsistent debuffs, some players losing expedition tickets, and way too many unpredictable behavior.
If this happened on a weekday, or a non-holiday weekend, we may have been able to fix it with coding cleverness. Trying to do so today, however, was unlikely to end well, which is we why resorted to updating the messaging and getting the compensation out as quickly as possible before it got even later.
Civilian, Brand and Marketing
Ex-Disruptor Beam
Thanks for the response Black Pebble and Merry Christmas to you and all at DB!
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
Thanks for the response Black Pebble. This helps.
This would have been best if it had been communicated in the original message. We would be appreciative and run into fewer misunderstandings if full transparency and possibly excessive communications happened in the first place.
And I am still competing of sorts, in all fairness, but I wont let it destroy my Christmas, even if it means moderate standing.
You make a good point, and I'll keep that in mind.
PS: We spent more than 15 minutes trying to see if we could extend the timer. ;-) You'd think it'd be straightforward.....turns out not so much.
Civilian, Brand and Marketing
Ex-Disruptor Beam
I'm not assuming malice, but I think it's more for the purpose of taking the easy way instead of fixing something and so, sacrifices some realness.
I'd like a response on the MED nodes, the primary purpose for this post, and while I don't speak for everyone, I have a feeling that others would too.
As for being cool, I truly was as civil and diplomatic in the post as I could muster.
The world keeps turning all year round. If DB is still running events through the holidays, and still taking our money, then they're still accountable for these things.
~· Fly with the Subspace Eddies! ·~
Adding 6 more tickets means I am no longer on easy street. I now have to grind for 3-4 more hours before bedtime just to stay even with where I was before in the top 250. If I don’t do it, I’m going to probably drop down by 5000 spots by morning.
I appreciate the thought at trying to address a problem, but more event tickets are NOT a reward. They are a grindy punishment.
What we were saying is that the bug affected everyone in the same manner, by not giving any players additional VP for that specific elite/epic node clear. It didn't matter if you were using Mirror Beverly Crusher or not, The reward table for only that node was borked and capped out at 500.
We looked into the options, and while there was a possible fix, we're going back to the same risks as with the event extension.
1) Pushing code out on a day when you don't have the ability to test, directly into a live environment, is incredibly dangerous. Considering the issues that were already live, there was a not-insignificant chance it could have made things worse.
2) If the fix DID work, it could have led to an unbalanced field where players who chose to run expeditions after the fix would have received greater amounts of VP than the earlier players.
I understand that this still may not feel fair to everyone. I also understand that some players likely had saved up their FF/FE Mirror Beverly Crusher so they could steamroll through all the medical nodes. You still got to do it....for most of them.
The resolution we came to may not be the resolution you wanted, but it was the best one we were able to implement to benefit the most players we could, given the constraints we were under.
PS: Some of you may be thinking, if all of this is true, doesn't that mean doing a phase change for a new event over a holiday could be risky? You're absolutely right, and that's a conversation we're going to have when folks get back in on Tuesday.
Civilian, Brand and Marketing
Ex-Disruptor Beam
However I disagree that it doesn't matter if you're using Crusher and other bonus crew or not - it matters by many thousands of VP. ---- edit: I would have still gone for her; as a big fan of Crusher and Expeditions who waited for this for months. But it's objectively inaccurate to claim that this doesn't affect players with MED bonus crew more, whether Mirror Bev or Phlox or others. This is just one of a handful of avoidable issues, any one of which could have made the difference in a player investing their efforts or not.
Saying that it doesn't matter, and essentially that discrepancy in VP doesn't matter, to me sounds like you're saying that it doesn't matter that time effort and resources were put into this crew.
Disagree that no minds were changed on a whim this week; it was even explained to us that in the span of a day or so, which things would be upped or lowered in voyages were changed. And we still don't have clarity on it (were told there would be more chance of crew dropping, then it changed to less. Less for all crew, or just cadets?)
Though I appreciate the gesture of attempting to compensate with extra expedition tickets today, I agree with Speckles that the extra tickets make the event more hardcore now that it's condensed by a day.
Thanks for the explanation about the length of the event. Things happen and that makes sense. Please consider making next week's event only 4 days long as well. Happy holidays!
~· Fly with the Subspace Eddies! ·~
However I think the QC guys need to not be given a holiday break from their weekly beatings.
Initial run wise, this was sloppier than we've seen in a while. Supposedly the notification time for events was cut to give DB time to get their fecal matter together as they could not give us a heads up as they were spending all that time getting things right.
That being said, making hasty changes mid event could be disasterous. As Buckaroo Banzai once said "Don't pull on that you don't know what it's attached to."
So DB has my respect for not going half cocked, but gets a severe ding for being in the situation to begin with..
You do know that Christmas is not celebrated by everyone around here right?
And not everyone has family, so your admonition is kinda messed up even if well intentioned.
But I'm confused by the people who say that since they paid for Crusher, that they are more affected by this than those who didn't. Where in the lead up to the event did DB say specifically how many Med nodes there would be?
Sorry, Black Pebble, but this is just another ham handed attempt by DB to fix a MASSIVE SCREW UP on your part, in the most MINIMALIST WAY POSSIBLE.
Comments removed. ˜Shan
This. SO this. X!,000,000 THIS.
But its not going to happen.
Comment removed. ~Shan
I would hope after this that you discuss ways with your programmers on how to maybe create a structure that is easier to make some changes quickly... like event timer.
Enjoy your weekend and I hope everyone at DB has a Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
Edit - Just as a quick note I spent dilithium on getting event crew this weekend and while it does effect me if I understand the issue correctly it only is an issue with 1node. The 6 tickets helps me more because I use her on more nodes that give me larger bonus than people who didn’t get her.
So you were doing us a kindness with the extra day (and, oops, it's taken away)
This should have been paused like happened before. Would have preferred coming back to phase 2 after the holiday & you fixing the nodes
You need to put a week off into your event schedule - not just for our sake, but for yours. This is sloppy work. Do better. Or until you can, do less and make sure it’s right.
Truly yours,
Silver
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
Also, you can hire me and i can make some stuff work.
I will work for whiskey.
Timelines Crew Cost Viewer
Why not use holidays as a time for reruns? Regular length, chill, (assuming) less stuff to test and fix beforehand and during - make things simple for players and staff.
~· Fly with the Subspace Eddies! ·~
I like this idea of reruns for holidays and more reruns of events in general.
Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
Lol mine says 16
Then a guy drives by with a bullhorn and announces to the runners that some problems were found with the track. It was a little muddy, and some runners found it challenging. They had also realized they didn't mark the finish line correctly, and it was actually only 19 miles instead of 26.5.
They couldn't get a hold of the guy who paints finish lines to fix it, but they had a solution. They would just have all 50,000 runners run another 40 miles to the next town because they had a finish line there that looked good to them. It was really the best solution to the bullhorn guys. And the run to the next town is going to be way muddier than the current track, but it was ok because everybody had to go through it equally.
The runners were free to quit if they wanted, but that means they wasted the 17 miles they already ran and get nothing for their efforts, plus they wouldn't get refunds on the money they spent entering the race or get anything in return for all the time they spent preparing for the race.
So here we are, running for the next town, hating ourselves for every rotten step we take and swearing we are never spending time preparing for another marathon again or paying an entrance fee for this company again. Oh, and we are doing it all on Christmas Eve instead of spending it with our families.
Expeditions are great and I've had great success with them in the past but you can't grind up a threshold board that fast with them and reruns at best give you 100 extra points (half an hour and good crew will net you 10,000) but you try going from 250,000 to 750,000 that way. Yikes.
I think a better form of compensation would have included 600 ISS Defiant schematics so we at least all get a chance to own a level 1 version of that ship.