In general I'd like to see the timers standardized, and the time between checks increased. Such that people with busy lives, inflexible work schedules, jobs where they can't just check their phone every hour or two, and some rational desire for a good nights sleep, are able to play this game competitively in a healthy way.
This of course would necessitate some mechanical changes in how the different game systems functioned. From a quality of life perspective, I'd like to be able to do all the things while only checking in on the game three times a day, so maybe something like:
Shuttles and Gauntlet every eight hours. Voyage dilemmas done away with (see below)
The Gauntlet would just be half as repetitive.
The Shuttle missions would just stay out longer and bring back more stuff or at least more things to learn from.
A dilemma about dilemmas. I liked idea of the voyage dilemmas at first, but now they are just one more thing on a different timer to manage, and after finding out how repetitive and largely inconsequential the "dilemmas" are, they just simply don't add anything to the game for me. The primary useful functionality of the "dilemma" could be replaced by a prompt from your first officer, letting you know you are out of antimatter and need to extend or recall the voyage at that point.
It is a completely ridiculous premise that a crew of trained officers would simply keep on going until they ran out of energy and got stranded.
In addition to choosing to extend a voyage, players could also spend some Dilithium at the beginning so that they leave with more antimatter. In this way players could simply opt in to spend for longer voyages both proactively and as needed.
We are all downstream from each other and ourselves, therefore choose to be relaxed and groovy. Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
I don't have any concerns about this, so just leave it alone.
Voyage dilemmas just require one click and they r ready for u whenever u have time as voyage stops when it hits a dilemma. You dont have to run shuttles at all when there isnt a faction event. Gauntlets can be ignored. Mostly they just give measley credits, training mats and non faction specific blue rare items that I cant use.
Voyage dilemmas just require one click and they r ready for u whenever u have time as voyage stops when it hits a dilemma. You dont have to run shuttles at all when there isnt a faction event. Gauntlets can be ignored. Mostly they just give measley credits, training mats and non faction specific blue rare items that I cant use.
There are people in my fleet, and I venture to guess elsewhere as well, who work jobs where they cannot just check their phones anytime they want. So even though the dilemma is "one click", that is something they cannot do every two hours, or sometimes even every three, four or more hours. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage, as compared to other players.
I might be mistaken, but I am pretty sure most people understand that they can opt-out of running shuttles and gauntlet rounds. I think the premise of this post is in discussing ways that people can opt-in to playing the game, without feeling like they constantly behind and missing out.
Personally, because of my particular situation, I could check in pretty much any time. Even so, it's just not fun to be downstream of the aforementioned scheduling mess. It would be a huge quality of life improvement to at least have the timers standardized.
We are all downstream from each other and ourselves, therefore choose to be relaxed and groovy. Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
I quite agree about the events. They are what's really pushing me away from the game. I really wish they were much shorter and repeats were more often. And aside from the nice 4/5 star character, I could do without megas entirely. Two new events a month, one repeat, and one off weekend would be ideal. Also shorten the events to fri-sun, and I'll really be in this for the long haul.
+1
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
I don't think the ENTIRE game should be based on hard schedules. There are already too many aspects that cause us to login to "play" STT. It's too rigid and time consuming if your aim is to compete. I'd much rather log in to play what I want, when I want.
From the very beginning I thought it was odd that a game was going to tell ME when to play it! WTF! If STT is going to continue to dictate a play schedule, players are doomed to experience burnout sooner or later.
Shuttles could easily be changed to allow a maximum number daily for free. Run 1 or run them all at once and they return immediately with your loot. Want more??? Pay. Why wait 3 hours? Some of us work, some of us sleep, some of us have other hobbies... The entire game is flawed to allow a player to sustain enjoyment.
Same for Gauntlet... You get a certain number of battles per day... play them when you want. Maybe the crew gets tired for 1 or 2 or 3 volleys and then they are full strength again. Play until you run out of battles for the day, or buy more.
Voyages... the AM failures is a crock, as are the 2hr dilemmas. As a leader, you'd think you could send out a competent crew and allow them to maintain their own voyage without having to micromanage their journey. It would be different if we were choosing where they go etc, but we don't. Just tell me how long they can roam for loot and let me decide if they should come back or refuel x times.
It just seems so overly complicated for something that's supposed to be a spare-time wasting app. It's turned into a entire day wasting app.
Obvious question: Why do I play anymore? I'll think about that and get back to you.
Voyage dilemmas just require one click and they r ready for u whenever u have time as voyage stops when it hits a dilemma. You dont have to run shuttles at all when there isnt a faction event. Gauntlets can be ignored. Mostly they just give measley credits, training mats and non faction specific blue rare items that I cant use.
I can’t imagine not doing shuttle missions constantly. Mostly because I like having basic holoprograms, uncommon science experiments, basic medical experiments, and a host of other items that range from extremely difficult to impossible to obtain any other way.
Dilemmas, Shuttles, and Gauntlet every four hours. (The Gauntlet schedule.)
I voted 4 on everything. But this game is already starting to burn me out. I have days I forget to gauntlet or launch shuttles at all, voyage notifications don't work (nor do shuttle half the time), voyages just don't return anything of value any more.
If notifications actually worked, and I could get all 3 done at once, I'd log in then and stay engaged longer. Instead half the time I log in and right back out, or just think "meh, I'll check later when there might actually be something to do".
During the week I usually make things bend to dilemma's. Gauntlet mostly already works on the same table already and I am somewhat indifferent to shuttles. Voyages give the most desirable loot, so they get the most attention.
During a faction event I am trying to do well in I bend my scheduling to event shuttles. I try to get the dilemma's done in a timely manner but crew will always be prioritized to keeping shuttles going efficiently.
I don't have any good suggestions for people's personal timing. I can afford to babysit the game even though I normally work ~60-70 hours a week.
I don't have any concerns about this, so just leave it alone.
On days I work, I hit my shuttles when I get up, and then on my morning and afternoon break, and then hopefully on the bus ride home. I will get the voyage dilemma with each shuttle, and then once on the buss to work. Will do what ever I cn in the Guantlet every time I log in.
The vast majority of the 59 people who voted so far?
Precisely.
I think it's fair to estimate that most players would prefer timers which line up more smoothly, and limited as it is - this small representation of the more active player base helps to substantiate it.
I voted 'other', because you do not have to do each one every few hours. Why not take a break so you don't get burned out? Step away for a week or two. omg live your life a bit.
Voyages... the AM failures is a crock, as are the 2hr dilemmas. As a leader, you'd think you could send out a competent crew and allow them to maintain their own voyage without having to micromanage their journey.
But what if you've happened to staff your Voyage with: Torchbearer, Celebratory Tyler, Lwaxana, Trelane, The Clown, Satan's Robot, pancake Rom, and M-113 Creature?
Probably couldn't fly their way out of a paper bag.
(And please feel free to create an episode based off that bunch stuck on a ship together.)
Third time in the last 5 events where I got bumped out of the rank I was aiming for (and held comfortably the entire event) due to a last second rush to the finish by everybody just below me.
We really need to broaden the reward ranges so they are percent-based, rather than a certain arbitrary fixed number they decided on 2 years ago when the player base was smaller. There are a lot more players competing now then there were when we first launched events, and it is an unnecessary bottleneck and source of frustration for events.
I know I can buy packs if I want a better chance of pulling that 5* character, but that brings me to my second issue: we need to fix event packs so they aren't so rigged to give me a character I've already unlocked and fully fused every single time. Giving me a 50-75% chance of just converting my $10 into a piddly 500 honor for an airlock pack with some garbage schematics is a purchase I will regret every single time. Why can't you guarantee I get value for my money?
I don't have any concerns but I think voyages should take 1 hour to return regardless of how long they were. They should have tiers on the shuttles like someone else previously said a 2 hour voyage brings you back the lower end loot while the 3 hour brings back the 3/4* loot
Personally, I feel like this game is the BOSS of my life.
It tells ME when to play it.
I remember when we played video games at OUR convenience, whenever we had free time.
Nowadays, unless you want to suffer consequences, you have to STOP whatever you're doing in life (or work), turn on your phone and play your mobile game because we've been psychologically conditioned to OBEY the game.
Game first, life comes second.
Not the way I wanna live, and I definitely feel burned out by the scheduling demands of ST Timelines.
I'm not really bothered about the Gauntlet/Shuttles/Voyages schedule really ...
I often start a Gauntlet, do one batch and then forget about it for a day, check in again, run a second batch and end top 40 ... I couldn't care less about that aspect of the game and really just want portal pulls out of it for the chance to get crew (usually Honor but sometimes an added star to a 4*).
Shuttles do define my weekends a bit, if the event is geared towards that, but besides those times I often forget about them and only send 3 batches or so a day. I might be inclined to pay attention if one of my crew needs a Faction only item, but that is rarely the case these days.
Voyages ... well, they do decide my time the most. I need the chronitons for levelling crew and I'm always hoping for new 4*s to pick up. But I do not follow the rigid schedule of two hours.
To be honest ... what is really killing my drive to continue with this game is the constant event overload (as others have mentioned) ... and the mega-events are not my favourite ... sure we get a cool 5*, but the 4 weeks of new crew is horrendous. We are going to be on a run where there are 7 consecutive events with the bulk being new crew ... ugh.
We used to also get ample time to set up for events (Wednesday notice, now Friday). So, personally I would like:
- going back to a Wednesday notice.
- more re-runs.
- more variety in event-types.
- going back to a Wednesday notice.
- more re-runs.
- more variety in event-types.
100% agree here. I suppose there is technical/logistical reasons we don't get more notice, particularly due to the rate of new crew releases.
I'd personally like re-runs every other week so that DB have time to come up with some half decent artwork and not the garbage they have been releasing recently. Ultimately though, they make more money on releasing new crew so unless we stop buying them, they will keep releasing tripe.
Dilemmas, Shuttles, and Gauntlet every two hours. (The Dilemma schedule.)
I for one would like a similar event handling like "Wrath of Gems" is doing ... one week event, one week no event to relax and level up crew that you wouldn't because you're always on the run for the next event.
Also, everything at a 2 hour interval is okay, so those who wanna do more can do more, and those who can't, they won't. But different intervals make it a lot more cumplicated (Dilemmas 2 hour, Shuttles 3 hour, Gawntlet 4 hour), so the shuttles are always out of sync with Gauntlet and Voyage.
"Everything about the Jem'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris (ST-DS9 Episode 2x26 "The Jem'Hadar")
None the above. If anything causes burnout, it's the back to back to back events. Every week is a race to level event crew, plus finish whatever existing crew already in our roster that we're working on, not to mention playing the event itself.
We need a break DB! The occasional rerun is nice, but I for one would not mind at all if we had a week off every month.
Comments
This of course would necessitate some mechanical changes in how the different game systems functioned. From a quality of life perspective, I'd like to be able to do all the things while only checking in on the game three times a day, so maybe something like:
Shuttles and Gauntlet every eight hours. Voyage dilemmas done away with (see below)
The Gauntlet would just be half as repetitive.
The Shuttle missions would just stay out longer and bring back more stuff or at least more things to learn from.
A dilemma about dilemmas. I liked idea of the voyage dilemmas at first, but now they are just one more thing on a different timer to manage, and after finding out how repetitive and largely inconsequential the "dilemmas" are, they just simply don't add anything to the game for me. The primary useful functionality of the "dilemma" could be replaced by a prompt from your first officer, letting you know you are out of antimatter and need to extend or recall the voyage at that point.
It is a completely ridiculous premise that a crew of trained officers would simply keep on going until they ran out of energy and got stranded.
In addition to choosing to extend a voyage, players could also spend some Dilithium at the beginning so that they leave with more antimatter. In this way players could simply opt in to spend for longer voyages both proactively and as needed.
Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
There are people in my fleet, and I venture to guess elsewhere as well, who work jobs where they cannot just check their phones anytime they want. So even though the dilemma is "one click", that is something they cannot do every two hours, or sometimes even every three, four or more hours. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage, as compared to other players.
I might be mistaken, but I am pretty sure most people understand that they can opt-out of running shuttles and gauntlet rounds. I think the premise of this post is in discussing ways that people can opt-in to playing the game, without feeling like they constantly behind and missing out.
Personally, because of my particular situation, I could check in pretty much any time. Even so, it's just not fun to be downstream of the aforementioned scheduling mess. It would be a huge quality of life improvement to at least have the timers standardized.
Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
+1
From the very beginning I thought it was odd that a game was going to tell ME when to play it! WTF! If STT is going to continue to dictate a play schedule, players are doomed to experience burnout sooner or later.
Shuttles could easily be changed to allow a maximum number daily for free. Run 1 or run them all at once and they return immediately with your loot. Want more??? Pay. Why wait 3 hours? Some of us work, some of us sleep, some of us have other hobbies... The entire game is flawed to allow a player to sustain enjoyment.
Same for Gauntlet... You get a certain number of battles per day... play them when you want. Maybe the crew gets tired for 1 or 2 or 3 volleys and then they are full strength again. Play until you run out of battles for the day, or buy more.
Voyages... the AM failures is a crock, as are the 2hr dilemmas. As a leader, you'd think you could send out a competent crew and allow them to maintain their own voyage without having to micromanage their journey. It would be different if we were choosing where they go etc, but we don't. Just tell me how long they can roam for loot and let me decide if they should come back or refuel x times.
It just seems so overly complicated for something that's supposed to be a spare-time wasting app. It's turned into a entire day wasting app.
Obvious question: Why do I play anymore? I'll think about that and get back to you.
I can’t imagine not doing shuttle missions constantly. Mostly because I like having basic holoprograms, uncommon science experiments, basic medical experiments, and a host of other items that range from extremely difficult to impossible to obtain any other way.
If notifications actually worked, and I could get all 3 done at once, I'd log in then and stay engaged longer. Instead half the time I log in and right back out, or just think "meh, I'll check later when there might actually be something to do".
During a faction event I am trying to do well in I bend my scheduling to event shuttles. I try to get the dilemma's done in a timely manner but crew will always be prioritized to keeping shuttles going efficiently.
I don't have any good suggestions for people's personal timing. I can afford to babysit the game even though I normally work ~60-70 hours a week.
Precisely.
I think it's fair to estimate that most players would prefer timers which line up more smoothly, and limited as it is - this small representation of the more active player base helps to substantiate it.
~· Fly with the Subspace Eddies! ·~
Trista
But what if you've happened to staff your Voyage with: Torchbearer, Celebratory Tyler, Lwaxana, Trelane, The Clown, Satan's Robot, pancake Rom, and M-113 Creature?
Probably couldn't fly their way out of a paper bag.
(And please feel free to create an episode based off that bunch stuck on a ship together.)
We really need to broaden the reward ranges so they are percent-based, rather than a certain arbitrary fixed number they decided on 2 years ago when the player base was smaller. There are a lot more players competing now then there were when we first launched events, and it is an unnecessary bottleneck and source of frustration for events.
I know I can buy packs if I want a better chance of pulling that 5* character, but that brings me to my second issue: we need to fix event packs so they aren't so rigged to give me a character I've already unlocked and fully fused every single time. Giving me a 50-75% chance of just converting my $10 into a piddly 500 honor for an airlock pack with some garbage schematics is a purchase I will regret every single time. Why can't you guarantee I get value for my money?
It tells ME when to play it.
I remember when we played video games at OUR convenience, whenever we had free time.
Nowadays, unless you want to suffer consequences, you have to STOP whatever you're doing in life (or work), turn on your phone and play your mobile game because we've been psychologically conditioned to OBEY the game.
Game first, life comes second.
Not the way I wanna live, and I definitely feel burned out by the scheduling demands of ST Timelines.
I often start a Gauntlet, do one batch and then forget about it for a day, check in again, run a second batch and end top 40 ... I couldn't care less about that aspect of the game and really just want portal pulls out of it for the chance to get crew (usually Honor but sometimes an added star to a 4*).
Shuttles do define my weekends a bit, if the event is geared towards that, but besides those times I often forget about them and only send 3 batches or so a day. I might be inclined to pay attention if one of my crew needs a Faction only item, but that is rarely the case these days.
Voyages ... well, they do decide my time the most. I need the chronitons for levelling crew and I'm always hoping for new 4*s to pick up. But I do not follow the rigid schedule of two hours.
To be honest ... what is really killing my drive to continue with this game is the constant event overload (as others have mentioned) ... and the mega-events are not my favourite ... sure we get a cool 5*, but the 4 weeks of new crew is horrendous. We are going to be on a run where there are 7 consecutive events with the bulk being new crew ... ugh.
We used to also get ample time to set up for events (Wednesday notice, now Friday). So, personally I would like:
- going back to a Wednesday notice.
- more re-runs.
- more variety in event-types.
I'd personally like re-runs every other week so that DB have time to come up with some half decent artwork and not the garbage they have been releasing recently. Ultimately though, they make more money on releasing new crew so unless we stop buying them, they will keep releasing tripe.
Jim
Also, everything at a 2 hour interval is okay, so those who wanna do more can do more, and those who can't, they won't. But different intervals make it a lot more cumplicated (Dilemmas 2 hour, Shuttles 3 hour, Gawntlet 4 hour), so the shuttles are always out of sync with Gauntlet and Voyage.
We need a break DB! The occasional rerun is nice, but I for one would not mind at all if we had a week off every month.
P.S. Good poll btw, worthy of thought.