Portal updates

JM

Does anyone know how often they update the portal with the released characters? I am not 100% sure but if Ilia Probe isn't there it means it's been more than 6 months? (I could be wrong). Just wondering how often because I would spend some money but it seems the portal has gone a bit stale (I tend to get the same character drops often).
Thanks!

Jhamel

What the title is asking ... will it or will it not?

WaldoMag

Thanks for asking. +1 want to know.

Dralix

A time portal update would be independent of a client upgrade.

Shan

When a Time Portal update will occur we will let you know

Black Pebble

It does not include an update to the Time Portal. I don't have an ETA for you on when an update could be expected, but it is something we are aware of and are planning.

bowdy

Ok, I assume I'm gonna have to raise this in engineering, but I don't see any collections tab or way of searching the vault. Other than it's now alphabetically arranged by crew member. I'm using Android, just upgraded to 4.0.

Secret Journey

Dang...too dangerous to spend even $1 on the time portal as is...

Dralix

Please note that many of the new features and changes described below will only go live after a forced upgrade to ensure all players are on 4.0. The forced upgrade will occur in about one week.

[7TW] UnkieB

bowdy wrote: »

Ok, I assume I'm gonna have to raise this in engineering, but I don't see any collections tab or way of searching the vault. Other than it's now alphabetically arranged by crew member. I'm using Android, just upgraded to 4.0.

From the announcement...

Please note that many of the new features and changes described below will only go live after a forced upgrade to ensure all players are on 4.0. The forced upgrade will occur in about one week.

So I'd assume after the forced update

Jhamel

Thankies for the instant meowtification!

bowdy

Yeah - one of my fleet mates just pointed that out. Ta.

South of Sulu

Black Pebble wrote: »

It does not include an update to the Time Portal. I don't have an ETA for you on when an update could be expected, but it is something we are aware of and are planning.

I would be nice if you guys got on schedule for the updates. Every 3 months for example.

[10F] Belle'Anna

I'm glad you are looking into it @Black Pebble.

I kind of hope you are looking at giving us a few options too, not just diluting the pool which is getting a bit large now. Kind of like how Voyages only gives us crew that were in the portal up until the last update.

Ljofa

I updated last night: not liking the fact that when items are crafted and attached to characters, the text is now barely readable because that window is background whilst the item box is foreground. Please fix or revert

[7TW] UnkieB

I hope that DB will eventually get to the point of putting updating the portal on their calendar and just doing it every 2 months (with the exception of specific toons DB chooses to hold back) like we were originally told was going to happen and not only doing it after long time prompting from the masses.

Captain_Who

I'm struggling to understand why this isn't automated, and why there's no policy on this. Most companies at least have a soft policy.

DB clearly thinks they make more money by keeping a very outdated portal, but that flies in the face of all business logic that I can come up with, and goes against all the anecdotal evidence provided within this forum.
I can also provide one more empirical data point that this cost them my money this week when I was offered a crew special, but declined it because the risk reward ratio is simply too high.

I know companies like to feed the whales, but it's unwise to do so at the neglect of the other 50% of your revenue stream. There's also a not insignificant percentage of the whales claiming this is effecting their spending as well. If you choose to believe their claims are factual or not is another matter.

[GoT] Terfin

Captain_Who wrote: »

I'm struggling to understand why this isn't automated, and why there's no policy on this.

Automation takes more time to make than you may realize, and has to be carefully tested. It's not something you would bang out in just a couple of hours. Depending on their current setup, and how they would want it to function, it's possible it would take several days of work to complete. From what I can tell, DB has a pretty bare-bones staff, so something like this wouldn't have a high enough priority for them to work on it.

Captain_Who wrote: »

I know companies like to feed the whales, but it's unwise to do so at the neglect of the other 50% of your revenue stream.

I'd say whales account for far more than 50% of the revenue stream, but that somewhat depends on your definitions. (http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mobile-gaming-micropayments-who-pays) That said, I do agree that this issue mostly affects whales, so I am a bit surprised it has been ignored so long.

{DD} Smelly

They SAY about 90 days. In reality, it hasn't been updated since October.

<TGE> Clifford

Note that some older purples aren’t in there anyway, even though all logic says they should be.

V.

the person who was trying to keep on top of this was laid off.

JM

Such a shame. Some consistency and transparency would really go a long way. I really like the game but it wouldn’t take much for it to be better.

[10F] Belle'Anna

This is the last time it was updated, with the list of additions, way back in October 2017.

https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/414/hybrid-faction-galaxy-event-notes-first-impressions-10-12-time-portal-additions

These are working lists of who is and who isn't in the portal

https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/3866/legendaries-not-in-portal

https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/3582/super-rares-not-in-portal

Black Pebble mentioned a couple of weeks back that they were 'working on it' but nothing more than that rather vague promise, unfortunately.

Zetterbeard

It is both ridiculous and somewhat embarrassing that something as major as the regular pool is not updated regularly. We may as well be treating any new crew from events as one time only crew.

SSR Barkley

@Black Pebble the Time Portal update issue is holding many of your spenders back from investing further in the game. This is something we used to get on a regular basis, so we're curious as to what the delay would be in getting more characters added to the time portal pool.

[DC] Principia

SSR Barclay wrote: »

@Black Pebble the Time Portal update issue is holding many of your spenders back from investing further in the game. This is something we used to get on a regular basis, so we're curious as to what the delay would be in getting more characters added to the time portal pool.

Seconded. No-one with a saturated crew has any particular reason to pull regular portals until the portal gets updated. For some reason, this basic premise was known and accepted when the "hey, we're going to start rolling formerly limited crew into the standard premium portal every two months (though we reserve the right to hold back specific crew for DB reasons)" promise was originally made, but has since been forgotten.

The last update, which also took virtual teeth-pulling to obtain, was in October; we're now going from the 5th month without an update into the sixth. That's going from updates 6 times a year to now 2.

People cannot buy virtual merch you don't put up for sale.

Hungry Dog DDM

I'm guessing a third legendary honor hall character will show up before they update the portals.

Pallidyne

Well I'm not buying any of the pack offers, like the 10x10 til the portals updated... I'm just banking any community ones too. Too great of odds for purple duplicates for this cat...

Pallidyne

Starting to think they don't want to do it due to the debacle last time in trying to do so.

[DC] Principia

Pallidyne wrote: »

Starting to think they don't want to do it due to the debacle last time in trying to do so.

If the recurring issues with new special packs being offered for sale that don't actually give the crew they advertise is symptomatic of a larger problem with the game's base code, I suppose that could be the case.

For Cardassia

Pallidyne wrote: »

Starting to think they don't want to do it due to the debacle last time in trying to do so.

When I'm feeling charitable I choose to believe that because of the last debacle, they're just taking longer to properly QA the process.