Please Help me to Understand...

Jayne Cobb

Fellow Captains. Upon a very successful visit at the track, and that this is the eve of another event, I ponder this: Why would I spend $150 (rounded) to buy event crew, level them, do my best in the event, only to be rewarded with the very things I have already spent money on? I'm a little new to the game (4 months or so,) and I've spent some cash on small things to get going. Now, I have to ask myself, what is the point of the events? In 15yrs of online gaming, I've never come across such an **tsk tsk**-backwards way of playing. Am I missing something? Share your thoughts with me.

Skizzy • VIP0 • §ë

I've honestly often wondered this myself over the past year and half I've been playing. I have not once been tempted to buy event packs prior to an event. I'd rather see how well I can do in the event and earn whatever characters I can without spending money. Then, if I really want to fuse some of my winnings, I might turn to the event pack.

Jayne Cobb

I've done that Skizzy; getting that last card to fuse POST-event. But honestly, the more I contemplate this quandry, the more confused I become. It's one thing to be a 'whale' when playing online games, but it's another thing entirely different when you can only succeed (relatively speaking) by buying the very things you are competing for?! Shouldn't this events' rewards be next weeks event crew???

McCaptainface

This is exactly why I do not understand how or why the bigger multi event packs sell so well..... 2x5* then 5/10 event packs as well?!? Completely baffles me? your spending money so that you don't have to play the game (as we now know its a card collection game) and your paying to airlock the vast majority of what you could of won for free.... alot of people with more money than brain cells....

Jayne Cobb

Were I younger or more inclined, I'm sure there is a 'phrase' or 'biz buzz word' that describes this phenomenon.

Jayne Cobb

"Yeah, I spent $100 bucks to have a 5/5 and two 4/4's for the event"
"Cool maeng. What did you win for placing top 100?"
"I won the exact same shyt I already bought! Yay, me! I have two of everything in a game with limited spaces to keep these things."

Am I missing something? I really hope I am.

McCaptainface

Your not. Personally (especially after what has happened with DB this last week or so) I can not wait to see the forums the day DB decide to close down Timelines. All those people who have spent thousands realising the pixels they bought will disappear into nothing I might just laugh myself to an early grave

eXo | SilverRose (retired)

It depends. If you're getting the $100, it's for the 5* crew. Usually, you won't get 5 copies through the deal. I normally buy the $100 pack because it lets me get a head start on the 5/5, and I can use the event to fuse up. I might also go for duplicates if the crew warrants it. I pulled 5 copies of Lorca on top of the 2 I got from the deal, so I'm going to pursue a duplicate in this event.

With regard to the 4* crew, that's not the purpose of the $100 pack. That's what the $25 is for. I'll sit out events some weeks and buy the $25 to collect the new crew without having to play the event, especially if it's a galaxy.

Dralix

1. Bragging rights
2. You can have multiple 5/5 and 4/4 to allow you to win/buy two more 5/5 and 4/4 next event
3. You can vault the dupe until needed for the next event
4. Bragging rights

McCaptainface

To be fair (again after seeing whats happened to DB this past week) all you need to do is a little research and see the forums of DB's other games:

Game of Thrones: Very little use of forums, no one talking on there, pretty bad reviews on itunes and google play and (i am guessing) by the looks of it on it's way out.

Walking Dead: Brand New, lots of money pumped into it, yet not great reviews, and as far as I can see no real forums run by DB and not as many downloads as hoped.

Star Trek Timelines, even with it's less likes on facebook and less monthly users must be the cash cow that keeps this company going, so these packs and the way the game works must be right somehow. Star Trek fans will do anything for their franchise.

Jayne Cobb

It's so counter-intuitive to think that when I gaze upon the leader-boards, the top players ALREADY OWN everything they end up winning. It's like you are paying for the food at an "all you can eat" competition, only to be rewarded with the same food you ate during the competition?! Is that analogy analogous?

Capt. Chaos

I can't image the top 10 finishers wouldn't have everything already except for the bragging rights. Whatever powers up your warp core...

izausome

This last event, I got 1 pack (got saru) with monthly card dil.

With all the chrons from voyages i stockpiled, on top of a month of pre farming common galaxy items, i came in 4th. Got me 3 brand new copies of desert georgiou. On top of the 4th place rewards, i also got all achievements from the top 100 to top 5 of event finishes. Was a nice haul for not spending more then the monthly card each month.

So not everyone buys all the packs and then competes hard, there was even a VIP0 that has won a galaxy event.

KNakamura

The answer can boil down to : avoiding the galaxy event, sometimes.

Or knowing you won't get that 5*. Regardless, I try to avoid the $100 deal.

[QH] He-Who-Meows

If you want the 5* crew fully fused, it's usually the cheapest method... even with the all event crew FF/FE, it will still take a lot of extra resources to reach the top 25 (where you start to win multiple 5*s), let alone the top 10 in any event...

Sam Reed

Normally I wouldn't buy anything more than an event 10-pull or two ahead of time and then just go with event drops, but I did more this time because I love Captain Lorca so much, I wanted to try and be first to immortalize him... but SilverRose beat me by a couple minutes.

I wouldn't even consider it unless it were a character I loved.

I think it's mostly for people who have a lot of money. If you have money, you probably don't have as much time, so it's a good shortcut.

[DB:DB] Deb

If I play an event it's cause I think it'll be fun. Just like I pay for other fun things, I sometimes spend on events.

{SST} Captain Magenta Borealis

Buying that $100 offer will normally net a guaranteed FF 5* if you also buy the $25 offer for the last one that appears when you get a 5* (so long as it is not within 72 hours of getting another). I will do that if it is a character I really want (like Janeway). From experience, I have the two 5*s from the deal, plus another two that will normally be granted witihn the 10 10x event pack pulls it comes with. At that point, I may hold back a bit with the event if I do not feel I can place high enough for another, unless of course it is Janeway; then I will take a second copy to add onto my Janeway army.

I do believe that there should be more rewards granted for the top tier of prizes so that it is just not more copies of event crew found in those packs and then a couple of Portal pulls that may or may not net anything. Maybe adding guaranteed 4* and 5* Beholds as prizes will help provide more ways to expand upon them.

cannabination

Perhaps the $100 deal would be more beneficial on an event with 2 5*s? The event reward structure is definitely jacked. The stratification of the rewards is skewed such that rank 26 is basically getting the same stuff as rank 999, with only the top 25 getting multiple copies of the 5*? Does it cost DB a pound of flesh for each copy distributed?

In a game that purports to have hundreds of thousands of players, I'm not sure I understand the logic of drawing that line at .001% or whatever to start seeing a decent ROI for time/resources invested.

{SST} Captain Magenta Borealis

cannabination wrote: »

Perhaps the $100 deal would be more beneficial on an event with 2 5*s? The event reward structure is definitely jacked. The stratification of the rewards is skewed such that rank 26 is basically getting the same stuff as rank 999, with only the top 25 getting multiple copies of the 5*? Does it cost DB a pound of flesh for each copy distributed?

In a game that purports to have hundreds of thousands of players, I'm not sure I understand the logic of drawing that line at .001% or whatever to start seeing a decent ROI for time/resources invested.

The issue is that they have not really chanced their prize model to coincide with player growth. If they expanded the prize pool, it would be more worth it for anyone playing.

(HGH)Apollo

Doing well in the event alone usually just gets u a 1/5. U get the pack deals and u start with several which u can lvl up and use in the event to get the remaining 1/5 u need.

Jim Steele

I agree the rewards are not really worth the effort if your buying cards. The honour system is worthless as an exchange rate.

A prize of dilithium would be beneficial, as to get to the top you need to spend dilithium so why not reward us with some instead of single pulls or a 5/5* character to airlock?

Even if its only enough to buy a premium pull, we could at least save up for more useful stuff.

[10F] Captain Lerysh

It's because most of the top levels still only get 1/5 of the featured legendary. It takes top 25 to get 2 and first place to get 5/5. Even of just the top 1000 getting the reward that's 2.5% of people who get multiple covers. If you are playing at the $100 a week level you get 2/5 of the legendary crew, plus 10 pulls to hopefully get to 4/5 and then place in the top 1000. The 4*s are ancillary.

Also, in non-galaxy events, something we haven't had for a while so I'll forgive you for forgetting, threshold rewards only add up to 3/4 for the featured character. If you are going to dilithium mine that 4/4 you may as well do it at the start of the event.

[10F] Captain Lerysh

Jim Steele wrote: »

I agree the rewards are not really worth the effort if your buying cards. The honour system is worthless as an exchange rate.

A prize of dilithium would be beneficial, as to get to the top you need to spend dilithium so why not reward us with some instead of single pulls or a 5/5* character to airlock?

Even if its only enough to buy a premium pull, we could at least save up for more useful stuff.

If somehow I found myself with unlimited resources and could 5/5 a character during their event AND place first I would keep them both. They are still 5/5 legendary characters, and likely they are main characters who are frequently featured. Airlock the 4* variants, keep the 5*s.

Captain Soweto

My sole goal for the event is basically to get the legendary piece of equipment for the featured character, then stop there. It saves me from having to build that or spend the 250,000 and replicator rations. While I am building a pretty good stock now, my crew isn't good enough to compete in a Faction event, and a Galaxy event requires saving a ton of chrons or having to buy them, which if you want to fully fuse, can easily get up to what it costs just to buy the event pack. I tried my hand at one Galaxy event. I came in 9th. The two in the top of that event had like 10X the score I had. Everyone else was competing just to get in the top 5, and by Monday morning, it was just too rich for my blood and I settled with the place I was going to take.

So no, people aren't buying the event pack to compete in the event. Most the time they are buying the pack so that they DON'T have to try to compete in the event.

FutureImperfecta

I play the event with what I have 99.5 percent of the time. Once, I pre purchased 1 single event 10, to gain an extra event character to go after the 5 star. Other wise any event purchase is post, if I missed the goal I set for my self before it starts.

Event characters bonus should last 2 weeks.
Week of and following week, every week.

Farmogoyf

I buy the $100 pack because it almost always gives me a 4/5* of the feature legendary, plus a few copies of random 1/5* beholds here and there. With the addition of the 1000 Chrons, half a million credits, and some other goodies, it is an easy way to expand my crew that is a better deal than any of the other "normal" means of buying stuff (premium packs, buying Dil directly, etc...). For me, I gotta collect em all! I'm a ST fanatic!

The event prizes, on the other hand, make no sense to try for. The top 3 often spend hundreds of $$$, which I get the EXACT same stuff (if not more) just buying the single $100 pack each event. The prize structure is totally borked, and needs fixed ASAP. I would love to see Dil or Legendary citation/behold as a reward for top slots. THAT would be something to work towards. But as it stands, events are only a means to new crew for me from the $100 pack, and worth very little otherwise.

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••]

Jayne Cobb wrote: »

Fellow Captains. Upon a very successful visit at the track, and that this is the eve of another event, I ponder this: Why would I spend $150 (rounded) to buy event crew, level them, do my best in the event, only to be rewarded with the very things I have already spent money on? I'm a little new to the game (4 months or so,) and I've spent some cash on small things to get going. Now, I have to ask myself, what is the point of the events? In 15yrs of online gaming, I've never come across such an ****-backwards way of playing. Am I missing something? Share your thoughts with me.

I have thought this myself...but never really took to the forums about it...maybe a wiser method would make the ranked reward be next week's crew or (dare I say) citations!

[DB-DO BETTER] [7TW] Captain plim123

I have suggested multiple times that the reward crew for an event should be the bonus crew for the NEXT event.

guest_794019455684608

Prizes are so skewed to top few people that win week after week, lower and minimum pay yo play folks have no chance at main ranked prizes. I played so hard last week and could not get past top 2600 so I gave up. And today's shuttles are already failing 3/4 with high 90 percent shuttles!

Althea Biermont

It makes no sense to me either. What would make more sense is if the rewards for the current event were the event crew for the next event. Then there would truly be something to shoot for. Then the players at the top would actually get something other than stuff to airlock

To me it seems DB would make even more money from this mechanism because people would spend a lot to NOT have to buy event crew. Odds are they would spend more, overall, trying to rank in the event than they ever would have on some portal pulls.