So not every event makes me want to push to top 1000, lets set that out. Sometimes I buy a pack and pop the gold and that’s a great weekend because done after threshold. But I do the open 30, run 10, open 10 run 30. I run my shuttles. I get my bonus crew. I sit at 500-750 until Saturday night, when I slide to 1200. I keep pushing and I finishe around 1400-1900 based on how sexually desirable or stat heavy the gold is. If it’s a high demand event, I will crash anywhere from 200 to 1500 places in the last hours, with normal play. And since I budget to buy crew and packs and slots and the such, I do not budget to spend on dilithium in droves to auto finish shuttles. After the kickstarter, it’s all normal play with the boosts I have from the calendar and cadets and purchases, and I seldom ever run out of boosts. Failing 3 out of 4 missions with 85% runs 2 or 3 times, as the RNG is apt to do, pretty much precludes me from placing without the addition of dilithium. There’s simply too many people playing harder than there used to be, and those top slots are much more competive. I often see the “I get the 5* without trying every week” posts, and I have researched and run the strats, and I have gotten better but still not good enough, but I would rather spend 50$ and know I have The 5* crew of the week than spend 50$ and play my butt off to get ganked at the end with someone that had 1100 bonus items in a galaxy vs my 900. I really do prefer certainty over the gamble. There were multiple events though where I tried and woke up and pushed and spent and played and just couldn’t get past 1500. Maybe it’s me, but if so than that’s an even better reason to transition to free play and phase out if it isn’t fun. 125$ a month really can’t be a lot of money compared to the spending that takes place with the top 1000 regulars. It doesn’t even sound like much when you math out 7$ a day on coffee and a bagel per month (140$ for a 5 day work week). But it is an expense, and the number just isn’t worth the frustrations and stresses of constantly being told by a game thanks for money, but we need more to win. You’re so close, just spend another 20 this month and you can win. It’s deceptively easy to ignore, and hence the true insidious nature of micro transactions. I said before, I made the choice, and I don’t regret it. But the game hasn’t evolved enough with stagnant rewards brackets and increasingly disturbing RNG controlling every aspect. At least if I traded it in for a gambling habit I’d have the same chance to win money that I do getting a single holoprogram on any given day lmao.
I still feel there´s something wrong. I regularly place top 1000 in shuttle Events and am DEFINITELY spending less than 125$ a month. Probably about 5$ (monthly) + 20$ (2x 10xpacks). In January it was even 0$ as I wanted to reduce my spending.
I rarely if ever spend on Events and only if I´m place 1043 or so and Need to finish those last Shuttles. (and even then it didnt work as half of them failed and the only good it did was me landing in place 1005 or so)
>edit: are you in a fleet? the one shared crewmember helps much!
Popping in for an update, I’ve gotten both my Cornwells so far, haven’t paid to upgrade her, but I like the character so I am not giving up the easy copies yet. At a non mathematical guess, my fail rate is roughly 40% on my shuttles this event, none sent out below 92%, the vast majority over 97%, so far. If anything backs up my lack of fun and feelings to let it go, this event is big time. Statistics or no, failing 3-8% of the time does not look like 1 or 2 out 4 shuttles failing consistently every 3 hours. It’s worse than a casino, because at least a casino doesn’t get to legally make up totally baseless odds from thin air. Sigh. I am excited to see the 500th crew, though, hopefully it’s Andorian Janeway or TimeWarp Disco Janeway.
My fail rate SHOULD be somewhere at 8-11% per shuttle, meaning the Chance of all 4 succeeding is somewhere at 65%, but from those 4 at least 1 Fails all the time. I slowly would tend to agree there´s something wrong with the numbers
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I still feel there´s something wrong. I regularly place top 1000 in shuttle Events and am DEFINITELY spending less than 125$ a month. Probably about 5$ (monthly) + 20$ (2x 10xpacks). In January it was even 0$ as I wanted to reduce my spending.
I rarely if ever spend on Events and only if I´m place 1043 or so and Need to finish those last Shuttles. (and even then it didnt work as half of them failed and the only good it did was me landing in place 1005 or so)
>edit: are you in a fleet? the one shared crewmember helps much!
My fail rate SHOULD be somewhere at 8-11% per shuttle, meaning the Chance of all 4 succeeding is somewhere at 65%, but from those 4 at least 1 Fails all the time. I slowly would tend to agree there´s something wrong with the numbers