I know some of you folks used those 6 extra tickets and zipped ahead. I know because I went from 600th place to 3050th by event end. And for your hard work on those tickets I say congrats.
BUT. The fact is, DB yanked the rug out from under me for my run, twice. I was planning for an event that would run through Tuesday. I spent and tended during the faction portion accordingly. 600th place.
Those extra tickets make for a lot of extra work, especially if you're milking extra 100s which I'd started doing for expeditions. Not sure about you, but I do have things to do on Christmas Eve and Christmas. So I was planning on using those 6 tickets (we shall call it extra work just to keep up with the Joneses, now) on Monday night and Tuesday.
But I can't. Because the event was ending early. There was no announcement. It was something I had to figure out, and I figured out Christmas Eve.
I'm not losing my ranking and rewards for DB's double screwup. I put in the work early, I was planning to put in the work toward the scheduled end. DB gave me extra work and shortened the time. Honor doesn't fix that. At all.
And if you don't read it until the 24th, Dralix, guess what? And it still doesn't change the fact you were planning for a longer event in the first half. Rug was still pulled out from under me.
And if you don't read it until the 24th, Dralix, guess what?
How were you planning to use tickets that you didn't know about? Either you read it and knew the event was ending earlier, or you read the forum announcement that said the same thing, or someone told you there was free tickets in a mail but didn't tell you about the change in end time.
If you want to put it frankly, the goalposts were moved. Giving the extra tickets and shortening the time completely altered the playing field, in the direction of some, to the cost of others. That's not a fair adjustment. It wasted all the time I put in early on my tickets, all the times I kept my shuttles going out at 3 hours or shorter. It was a poor decision, no doubt made because nothing better could be rigged up.
I'm glad DB enjoyed its Christmas. Mine ended up stressful for that.
And if you don't read it until the 24th, Dralix, guess what?
How were you planning to use tickets that you didn't know about? Either you read it and knew the event was ending earlier, or you read the forum announcement that said the same thing, or someone told you there was free tickets in a mail but didn't tell you about the change in end time.
And it still doesn't change the fact you were planning for a longer event in the first half. Rug was still pulled out from under me.
I agree 100%. My only comment was about your claim, in two separate threads, that there was no in game announcement. There was.
I found out about them on the later 24th. My thought on the 24th was 'wow, extra tickets. That explains why folks are zipping up on the scoreboard. Okay, I'll have to plan this out. I'm busy today and tomorrow, so I'll finish up this last ticket today and I can tackle the... wait. WAIT. They're expecting me to do 9 tickets now before noon Christmas day? There's no way I can do that! I've got gifts to wrap, relatives to visit, we're getting together to open gifts in the morning. This completely screws up my schedule! And the people can use those 6 tickets to zip past me!'
Let me see ... you were planning to use those those tickets on Monday night and Tuesday - for about 30 seconds until you finished reading the announcement that you say wasn't sent. And you had to figure out that the event ended early on your own - by reading the in game announcement that you say wasn't sent.
Dralix, I'm not sure what your problem is, but let me explain it. I found out through the e-mail. But if they'd made an announcement on the 23rd or something that would pop up I would have found out earlier.
I found out late the 24th because that's when I read through the mail. It's also the time I went to the boards and figured out that indeed, it was ending early.
You say we found out the 23rd. That's if we were online then and immediately opened the mail, which some do not. My tickets were done for the 23rd, and they were mostly done for the 24th when I opened and read the mail. By then it's sometime afternoon and I have a Christmas party to go to.
They let us know in the mail, but they didn't make any kind of announcement when the game starts. No broad box saying it would end early. So people are going to find out only when they open that up and read. For me, it was the late 24th.
My problem, such that it is, is that you're saying there was no in game announcement, when there was. But now I understand, you meant something more eye catching than a mail. Not a bad idea. At the same time, lesson learned for you - read your in game mail. That's where important things are communicated.
Tucking it away into a mail and announcing when when you get on - entirely different things, Dralix. One you'll notice immediately. One you'll notice when you open it up and read. They didn't make an announcement, and BY THAT I mean they didn't put anything for when you log in. If you consider a mail an 'announcement', then that's our point of contention. That's not an announcement. That's a mail. An apology mail no less.
I will say I did miss the ending early announcement in the email, and if it had not been for my fleet mates posting it in our discord chat, I might have missed it entirely. Glad I have a good fleet...
I have been looking forward to a hybrid expedition event for a long time. So I went all out, hoping to be in decent position at the end of the faction portion so that I could run tickets Saturday, coast Sunday and Monday, and climb back up Monday night and Tuesday morning. Saturday afternoon I was 15th. That evening I found out about the timer screw up and knew I wasted my gold and purple boosts. I did as best I could , given it was CHRISTMAS. I did manage 9 tickets Sunday and 3 on Monday. Finished in the 70s. But it was a bitter disappointment, since my strategy hinged on the much-announced Tuesday end date. I thought about putting in a ticket, but haven't since I don't know what to ask for. I spent about $75 on this event. I would have spent $10 if I'd had accurate info at the beginning.
I asked for the bracket I was in before the 6-ticket explosion, as a best guess. I never know what records they have back there but no doubt they have my bracket placement between phase shifts.
It really does become too much a mess to sort out fairly for everyone now- which is the big, big flaw.
Actually the extra tickets helped me get the Defiant.....
Me too - I would never have got the Defiant otherwise, even with the extra day.
Sure, there were some screw ups this event, and I don't feel the 6 tickets was the right idea, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what you're expecting. I can't see any reason why they'd ever give dilithium as compensation.
Korrin
Which "Extra day"?!?!? They cut it off a DAY EARLY
Well it didn't end early - it ended at the usual event end, we just didn't get the extra day that was promised.
What I meant was, even with the extra day's worth of 3 tickets, I wouldn't have gotten to the 750k threshold - it took me 5 of those extra 6 tickets to get there. So for me, the compensation worked out well. I can totally understand how for some it didn't though.
And now on the ticekts people routed because of them screwing this up, the CSR's are playing stupid. I am dealing with a CSR right now who will not even acknowledge that there were any errors with the event this weekend.
So typical, deflect, disassemble, and out and out lie about making mistakes. My wallet has closed, and will not be reopened. A shame, too, because I have been a Star Trek Fan since TOS was on its ORIGINAL run.
My guess is that the tickets were to give everybody a shot at all the thresholds of the event. I found the time to use them, so it wasn't that big of a deal to me. But I understand that it pissed people off. What I don't understand is why they not just adjusted the timer to make the event end a day later?! Would that have blown up the whole game?
I would prefer that the screw ups would just stop. I'm not necessarily talking about the server failure, those things can happen and I'm not close enough to the issue to assess why it happend. I am talking more about the constant and repeating screw ups that happen in the day-to-day handling of the business, most of which the OP mentioned; every week a trait wrong, the wrong bonus, a bonus-crew not receiving the bonus, an x* item to build an (x-1)* item, etc.
There are just so many things wrong with the game (and with wrong, I mean "off"), things that does not make sense but could be fixed within minutes. Take the ranked reward system for example. Does it make sense that there is virtually no difference between rank 1000 and rank 26? Of course not! I spend 10 minutes on that and come up with a better system that makes a lot more sense. DB was not able to address the issue since I started playing 7 months ago. This is just neglect and nothing else. This goes even beyond incompetence. It just seems along the way they stopped caring since they can always send sorrytons out and think everything will be fine.
I am glad to see though that a lot of the performance issues were taken care of in the recent weeks (startup used to be 3 minutes for me, now it's about 30 seconds). When it comes to DB one should be glad about the little things I guess
And now on the ticekts people routed because of them screwing this up, the CSR's are playing stupid. I am dealing with a CSR right now who will not even acknowledge that there were any errors with the event this weekend.
So typical, deflect, disassemble, and out and out lie about making mistakes. My wallet has closed, and will not be reopened. A shame, too, because I have been a Star Trek Fan since TOS was on its ORIGINAL run.
I have also found the response to my ticket completely inadequate. The response is essentially that they can do nothing, their hands are tied, etc. and then refer me to Shan’s post saying the compensation for the screwup was the 6 extra tickets. What the heck?!? They’ve done better in the past.
Which means they don’t get it at all. The six extra tickets made my situation worse, not better.
The simple fact is, until people quit buying stuff, they are not going to care. That is why my wallet has closed and been locked as far as STT is concerned. And contacting them telling them that they are not buying because of the repeated, preventable screw ups.
This event was a bit of a mess to begin with. An expedition event over one of the busiest holidays of the year, they did this last year and failed to learn the lesson of it. I left so many unused tickets on the table last year and from what I read here in the forums, I wasn't alone.
The idea to extend it to Tuesday had merits (See what I did there?) but it didn't really give the amount of time that would be needed to do the event properly for a LOT of players. If you're going to do an expedition event properly, you need 25-35 minutes per ticket to clear all nodes. 4 tickets per day means around 2 hours per day. Over a holiday weekend, that's unrealistic for a lot of people.
The game crash at the event start also produced a lot of issues, turning over shuttles takes 2 minutes and can get you a strong, steady amount of Victory Points if you stay on top of the timers. Losing an hour at the start can really set people back.
And finally, the failure to extend it. There's already a lack of time for most players to complete their tickets, and now here comes extra tickets for the truncated time table! So those who already were struggling to have time to compete, can now be taken almost completely out of play.
I don't mean to be rude or judge harshly, but this was a failure on many fronts.
I have been looking forward to a hybrid expedition event for a long time. So I went all out, hoping to be in decent position at the end of the faction portion so that I could run tickets Saturday, coast Sunday and Monday, and climb back up Monday night and Tuesday morning. Saturday afternoon I was 15th. That evening I found out about the timer screw up and knew I wasted my gold and purple boosts. I did as best I could , given it was CHRISTMAS. I did manage 9 tickets Sunday and 3 on Monday. Finished in the 70s. But it was a bitter disappointment, since my strategy hinged on the much-announced Tuesday end date. I thought about putting in a ticket, but haven't since I don't know what to ask for. I spent about $75 on this event. I would have spent $10 if I'd had accurate info at the beginning.
You should ask for a full refund. Yes you got what was written on the packs/offers, but you bought them based on the false information that the event would run through the 26th. Even though it was unintentional, they still gave you misleading information that you used to make your purchase decisions.
Like many others, I intended to do heavy lifting in the event on Dec 26 but early ending messed me up, Event ended with 7 unused events as I was unable to make time during my family commitments. Worse part is that I got suckered into the 1 Mayweather at the end just to simply FF where otherwise I would have done normally due to rankings.
The event was fair, but the promise of extended event time did sucker me into a few early packs. Otherwise known the weekend was going to be a gongshow I would have skipped the event.
Actually the extra tickets helped me get the Defiant.....
Me too - I would never have got the Defiant otherwise, even with the extra day.
Sure, there were some screw ups this event, and I don't feel the 6 tickets was the right idea, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what you're expecting. I can't see any reason why they'd ever give dilithium as compensation.
Korrin
Which "Extra day"?!?!? They cut it off a DAY EARLY
Well it didn't end early - it ended at the usual event end, we just didn't get the extra day that was promised.
What I meant was, even with the extra day's worth of 3 tickets, I wouldn't have gotten to the 750k threshold - it took me 5 of those extra 6 tickets to get there. So for me, the compensation worked out well. I can totally understand how for some it didn't though.
Korrin
To be abundantly clear: that was modified midstream, during the event. They moved the goalposts, and they expect us to be fine with it.
Actually the extra tickets helped me get the Defiant.....
Me too - I would never have got the Defiant otherwise, even with the extra day.
Sure, there were some screw ups this event, and I don't feel the 6 tickets was the right idea, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what you're expecting. I can't see any reason why they'd ever give dilithium as compensation.
Korrin
Which "Extra day"?!?!? They cut it off a DAY EARLY
Well it didn't end early - it ended at the usual event end, we just didn't get the extra day that was promised.
What I meant was, even with the extra day's worth of 3 tickets, I wouldn't have gotten to the 750k threshold - it took me 5 of those extra 6 tickets to get there. So for me, the compensation worked out well. I can totally understand how for some it didn't though.
Korrin
To be abundantly clear: that was modified midstream, during the event. They moved the goalposts, and they expect us to be fine with it.
To be most likely more accurate: it was most likely never changed at all to be longer than the usual event duration. Us players became aware of it in the middle of the event when the phases changed.
Actually the extra tickets helped me get the Defiant.....
Me too - I would never have got the Defiant otherwise, even with the extra day.
Sure, there were some screw ups this event, and I don't feel the 6 tickets was the right idea, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what you're expecting. I can't see any reason why they'd ever give dilithium as compensation.
Korrin
Which "Extra day"?!?!? They cut it off a DAY EARLY
Well it didn't end early - it ended at the usual event end, we just didn't get the extra day that was promised.
What I meant was, even with the extra day's worth of 3 tickets, I wouldn't have gotten to the 750k threshold - it took me 5 of those extra 6 tickets to get there. So for me, the compensation worked out well. I can totally understand how for some it didn't though.
Korrin
To be abundantly clear: that was modified midstream, during the event. They moved the goalposts, and they expect us to be fine with it.
To be most likely more accurate: it was most likely never changed at all to be longer than the usual event duration. Us players became aware of it in the middle of the event when the phases changed.
Either way, it didn’t go as advertised, and some of us made purchases based on that misrepresentation. DB needs to do something for anyone who made a purchase on that event prior to the notification of the change in event length.
I agree with the OP on the difficulties of this event. I think it is important to note that the bungling effected people differently. For some, it was an enormous benefit because the extra 6 tickets allowed them to ATC. For others, those 6 tickets in conjunction with the loss of the day, doomed the event to failure. I know I drained (drained!!) my resources to come in top 500 going into phase 2. We celebrate Christmas, and I am the main cook and bottle washer. I needed Monday night if those extra tickets were to mean anything. It's about planning. I don't mind at all events falling on a big holiday (it's more equitable), but to have that kind of change happen mid-event renders any forethought or planning useless and expensive.
Obviously this event was a complete and utter shambles. It really is amazing that such a travesty can happen; it would be hard to make it worse if you tried!
I agree with everyone above; it was stupid to do a long expedition over Christmas in the first place. But the first and foremost thing you need to do with any event is get the start and end times right. DB couldn't even do something as basic as that. (The event was clearly supposed to end later with the extra threshold rewards and such).
But the most important issue for me is fair compensation. By that, I mean it is NOT fair to give compensation only to those who ask for it. We can't have a situation where the people that moan the loudest get the most free stuff. Everyone should get the same, regardless of how many tickets they send.
The other thing DB doesn't seem to understand is that we need time in advance to plan for the events. This is why we ask for (and should get) advance notice of event crew and such; we make decisions based on the information we're given. Deviating from this information and completely alternating the nature of the event once it has started is obviously unacceptable.
Comments
BUT. The fact is, DB yanked the rug out from under me for my run, twice. I was planning for an event that would run through Tuesday. I spent and tended during the faction portion accordingly. 600th place.
Those extra tickets make for a lot of extra work, especially if you're milking extra 100s which I'd started doing for expeditions. Not sure about you, but I do have things to do on Christmas Eve and Christmas. So I was planning on using those 6 tickets (we shall call it extra work just to keep up with the Joneses, now) on Monday night and Tuesday.
But I can't. Because the event was ending early. There was no announcement. It was something I had to figure out, and I figured out Christmas Eve.
I'm not losing my ranking and rewards for DB's double screwup. I put in the work early, I was planning to put in the work toward the scheduled end. DB gave me extra work and shortened the time. Honor doesn't fix that. At all.
The very same mail that gave you those tickets, dated 12-23, states in bold that the event would end on 12/25.
How were you planning to use tickets that you didn't know about? Either you read it and knew the event was ending earlier, or you read the forum announcement that said the same thing, or someone told you there was free tickets in a mail but didn't tell you about the change in end time.
I agree 100%. My only comment was about your claim, in two separate threads, that there was no in game announcement. There was.
I'm glad DB enjoyed its Christmas. Mine ended up stressful for that.
I found out about them on the later 24th. My thought on the 24th was 'wow, extra tickets. That explains why folks are zipping up on the scoreboard. Okay, I'll have to plan this out. I'm busy today and tomorrow, so I'll finish up this last ticket today and I can tackle the... wait. WAIT. They're expecting me to do 9 tickets now before noon Christmas day? There's no way I can do that! I've got gifts to wrap, relatives to visit, we're getting together to open gifts in the morning. This completely screws up my schedule! And the people can use those 6 tickets to zip past me!'
Get it now?
Let me see ... you were planning to use those those tickets on Monday night and Tuesday - for about 30 seconds until you finished reading the announcement that you say wasn't sent. And you had to figure out that the event ended early on your own - by reading the in game announcement that you say wasn't sent.
I found out late the 24th because that's when I read through the mail. It's also the time I went to the boards and figured out that indeed, it was ending early.
You say we found out the 23rd. That's if we were online then and immediately opened the mail, which some do not. My tickets were done for the 23rd, and they were mostly done for the 24th when I opened and read the mail. By then it's sometime afternoon and I have a Christmas party to go to.
They let us know in the mail, but they didn't make any kind of announcement when the game starts. No broad box saying it would end early. So people are going to find out only when they open that up and read. For me, it was the late 24th.
It really does become too much a mess to sort out fairly for everyone now- which is the big, big flaw.
Well it didn't end early - it ended at the usual event end, we just didn't get the extra day that was promised.
What I meant was, even with the extra day's worth of 3 tickets, I wouldn't have gotten to the 750k threshold - it took me 5 of those extra 6 tickets to get there. So for me, the compensation worked out well. I can totally understand how for some it didn't though.
Korrin
So typical, deflect, disassemble, and out and out lie about making mistakes. My wallet has closed, and will not be reopened. A shame, too, because I have been a Star Trek Fan since TOS was on its ORIGINAL run.
I would prefer that the screw ups would just stop. I'm not necessarily talking about the server failure, those things can happen and I'm not close enough to the issue to assess why it happend. I am talking more about the constant and repeating screw ups that happen in the day-to-day handling of the business, most of which the OP mentioned; every week a trait wrong, the wrong bonus, a bonus-crew not receiving the bonus, an x* item to build an (x-1)* item, etc.
There are just so many things wrong with the game (and with wrong, I mean "off"), things that does not make sense but could be fixed within minutes. Take the ranked reward system for example. Does it make sense that there is virtually no difference between rank 1000 and rank 26? Of course not! I spend 10 minutes on that and come up with a better system that makes a lot more sense. DB was not able to address the issue since I started playing 7 months ago. This is just neglect and nothing else. This goes even beyond incompetence. It just seems along the way they stopped caring since they can always send sorrytons out and think everything will be fine.
I am glad to see though that a lot of the performance issues were taken care of in the recent weeks (startup used to be 3 minutes for me, now it's about 30 seconds). When it comes to DB one should be glad about the little things I guess
I have also found the response to my ticket completely inadequate. The response is essentially that they can do nothing, their hands are tied, etc. and then refer me to Shan’s post saying the compensation for the screwup was the 6 extra tickets. What the heck?!? They’ve done better in the past.
Which means they don’t get it at all. The six extra tickets made my situation worse, not better.
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Agree, I thought that was fine...
The idea to extend it to Tuesday had merits (See what I did there?) but it didn't really give the amount of time that would be needed to do the event properly for a LOT of players. If you're going to do an expedition event properly, you need 25-35 minutes per ticket to clear all nodes. 4 tickets per day means around 2 hours per day. Over a holiday weekend, that's unrealistic for a lot of people.
The game crash at the event start also produced a lot of issues, turning over shuttles takes 2 minutes and can get you a strong, steady amount of Victory Points if you stay on top of the timers. Losing an hour at the start can really set people back.
And finally, the failure to extend it. There's already a lack of time for most players to complete their tickets, and now here comes extra tickets for the truncated time table! So those who already were struggling to have time to compete, can now be taken almost completely out of play.
I don't mean to be rude or judge harshly, but this was a failure on many fronts.
You should ask for a full refund. Yes you got what was written on the packs/offers, but you bought them based on the false information that the event would run through the 26th. Even though it was unintentional, they still gave you misleading information that you used to make your purchase decisions.
The event was fair, but the promise of extended event time did sucker me into a few early packs. Otherwise known the weekend was going to be a gongshow I would have skipped the event.
To be abundantly clear: that was modified midstream, during the event. They moved the goalposts, and they expect us to be fine with it.
To be most likely more accurate: it was most likely never changed at all to be longer than the usual event duration. Us players became aware of it in the middle of the event when the phases changed.
Either way, it didn’t go as advertised, and some of us made purchases based on that misrepresentation. DB needs to do something for anyone who made a purchase on that event prior to the notification of the change in event length.
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I agree with everyone above; it was stupid to do a long expedition over Christmas in the first place. But the first and foremost thing you need to do with any event is get the start and end times right. DB couldn't even do something as basic as that. (The event was clearly supposed to end later with the extra threshold rewards and such).
But the most important issue for me is fair compensation. By that, I mean it is NOT fair to give compensation only to those who ask for it. We can't have a situation where the people that moan the loudest get the most free stuff. Everyone should get the same, regardless of how many tickets they send.
The other thing DB doesn't seem to understand is that we need time in advance to plan for the events. This is why we ask for (and should get) advance notice of event crew and such; we make decisions based on the information we're given. Deviating from this information and completely alternating the nature of the event once it has started is obviously unacceptable.