Randomness and Change: Discussion
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[10F] Belle'Anna
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Personally, I think there a a few forum members who react terribly badly at unexpected changes. I don't understand the complete meltdown people have over these. We ask for variation in events, and when we get it all hell breaks loose.
DB have done right by saying 'it's gonna be variable'. If I was them, I wouldn't commit to anything apart from variation. It makes things interesting, for sure. And yes, it might break strategy but those strategies are stale. If we have to think on our feet, all the better. We have to with most games - random enemy spawns and all that. One of the best things I ever did with my favourite game - Skyrim - was to mod it with bandit hordes. You could walk into a dungeon you had been in dozens of times before and suddenly there would be 30 unexpected bandits. Talk about thinking on your feet and moving fast!
Reducing the number of faction missions actually decreases the event rewards between threshold and ranked. This is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing. The vast expanse between threshold and ranked is like traveling through Void Space. It isn't fun at all.
Events are broken anyway. When I see people getting 2,000,000VP through spending vast amounts of money, while I can only reach 250,000VP or so with hard work, it reminds me of the problems with capitalism. You don't stand a chance unless you have the cash.
Why someone would spend vast amounts of time and money, to win an event they have already bought the cards for, is beyond my comprehension. I literally don't understand this, and I suspect I never will.
The strategy for winning in Timelines is 'spend more cash'. Therefore, it doesn't matter how the events are structured, if you've got the money, you will win.
For those who don't, your event rank will not change much. Your ranked rewards will remain the same, there just won't be a massive void space between threshold and ranked. If you can think quickly on your feet, you might do a little better. If you have a tantrum and throw your phone down, you will have to spend money to get the crew you want, and buy a new phone into the bargain.
At the end of the day, a bit of randomness is good. It's fun. It keeps you on your toes. It's life.
Please enjoy your event. If you can't enjoy the game, go and find another one.
Unless you are a masochist. I'll just assume that anyone who continues playing while being so badly distressed needs help. Or at least, a good long walk in the structured chaos that is nature.
DB have done right by saying 'it's gonna be variable'. If I was them, I wouldn't commit to anything apart from variation. It makes things interesting, for sure. And yes, it might break strategy but those strategies are stale. If we have to think on our feet, all the better. We have to with most games - random enemy spawns and all that. One of the best things I ever did with my favourite game - Skyrim - was to mod it with bandit hordes. You could walk into a dungeon you had been in dozens of times before and suddenly there would be 30 unexpected bandits. Talk about thinking on your feet and moving fast!
Reducing the number of faction missions actually decreases the event rewards between threshold and ranked. This is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing. The vast expanse between threshold and ranked is like traveling through Void Space. It isn't fun at all.
Events are broken anyway. When I see people getting 2,000,000VP through spending vast amounts of money, while I can only reach 250,000VP or so with hard work, it reminds me of the problems with capitalism. You don't stand a chance unless you have the cash.
Why someone would spend vast amounts of time and money, to win an event they have already bought the cards for, is beyond my comprehension. I literally don't understand this, and I suspect I never will.
The strategy for winning in Timelines is 'spend more cash'. Therefore, it doesn't matter how the events are structured, if you've got the money, you will win.
For those who don't, your event rank will not change much. Your ranked rewards will remain the same, there just won't be a massive void space between threshold and ranked. If you can think quickly on your feet, you might do a little better. If you have a tantrum and throw your phone down, you will have to spend money to get the crew you want, and buy a new phone into the bargain.
At the end of the day, a bit of randomness is good. It's fun. It keeps you on your toes. It's life.
Please enjoy your event. If you can't enjoy the game, go and find another one.
Unless you are a masochist. I'll just assume that anyone who continues playing while being so badly distressed needs help. Or at least, a good long walk in the structured chaos that is nature.
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Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
It’s a tiki brand torch! It matches my white polo shirt!
Hear, hear!
I can understand for those who do spend a pretty penny on this game want things to work well, but while annoyed by some of the issues the degree of frustration here just does not seem proportional.
1. Voyage.
2. Have fun. If something isn't fun, don't do it.
3. Only pursue characters I care about.
4. Contribute to the fleet.
5. No more spending beyond monthly cards.
6. Have fun.
7. Voyage.
8. Have fun!
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
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I also think the way they address these issues in such a nonchalant manner is DEFINITELY not helping the situation. It's eroding the players' confidence in DB. I don't want to invest any more money into a game that I'm not confident is going to be around in 6 months. I think DB needs to take a good hard look at the way things have been going and ask themselves if they really think this sort of operation is sustainable long term.
Geez....just leave politics and RL out of this. It has nothing to do with this game.
Many people play this game to escape from real life and leave all this **** behind for a short amount of time.
This is a game some ppl spend on, cause otherwise the servers would be offline soon. And every player and especially those that make this game even possible(the spenders) have every right to complain, when things get messed up and/or are badly communicated by DB.
And yes, sometimes it may feel like a lil over the top, but maybe people are getting sick of hearing the same promises(...we will make sure, we will try to do better.....and so on) over and over again, with nothing changes. And they are sick of the constant issues. When has been the last full week where nothing went wrong? I can t even remember. And yes, i know nobody is forced to keep playing, which again doesn t mean, that we can t raise our voices, when things get messed up.
you realize first gif only says "Long time one gets use to it",
and second gif only says "ever remember feeling any other way"? lol
Shuttles do not need chrons. Galaxy does.
Knowing a full galaxy is coming a week before allows players the choice of saving chrons or leveling crew.
Knowing a full faction is coming allows players to confidently use those chrons leveling crew.
This change at the last minute makes any planning of chrons, except the never use them except to hoard in case of last minute changes, wrong. Unless you will buy more from portal.
And anyone on a budget may find this problematic.
This is not a case of player should have known better. We read the forum, we are supposed to have info that positions us knowing better than those that don't check db official communications on forum.
It doesn't matter we are all in the same boat. Not so with hybrid. Some may have been saving chrons knowing their crew does not get enough vp from shuttles.
But players with a deep crew roster up til now could prioritize the shuttles. And have used that to determine their estimate of how many chrons needed, if any, for those only doing thresholds may have been planning to only do shuttles.
It's not so much the random change. It's that doing it last minute makes impossible to trust using any chrons for any purpose other than events OR crew, unless spending $$ after event starts.
And what's next? We are told it's full faction but last minute it's galaxy or hybrid galaxy?
Never level crew with your chrons or be forced to sit out events because this makes it IMPOSSIBLE to have chrons for any purpose other than saved for events. Because event types have gone rng.
This possibility is completely unacceptable, but not unrealistic.
Why i don't agree with OP view of this trend as reasonable. This is an underhanded way to force hoarding chrons into our strategy for all events.
Db wants us to accept their turning chrons into a necessary resource reserve for 'announced' faction events.
I don't like this idea at all.
I'm yet again in agreement entirely with @[10F] Belle'Anna. Her point is precisely that this IS a trivial little diversion to be a respite from real social issues. Squandering that kind of energy on this game is absurd. Save it for something that actually means something. These pretty little pixels don't.
While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and say that I'm truly disappointed to hear any member of this particular fandom characterize sociopolitical affairs as some kind of extracurricular nuisance. Just what is the point of Star Trek if not to encourage us to give a damn?
But then, maybe that's why I'm quickly approaching my second anniversary as a player and I still genuinely enjoy it. I've yet to encounter anything that has had me stark raving mad the way some posters behave weekly, if not daily. I do dedicate a good deal of my time to mental health advocacy. People's lives are dramatically affected by a shortage of resources to help with those needs. People die. That, unlike "DB IS A BUNCH OF LYING CROOKS!", is not hyperbole. I take it seriously. And even there, I make a pointed effort to avoid the kinds of ridiculous meltdowns that dominate this forum anymore.
And frankly, I've grown sick of trying to sift through it all to find the increasingly rare kernels of mature discourse. There are real dragons out there to be slayed. Star Trek Timelines isn't one of them.
I'm not mad about having to rework a strat on the fly. I'm in an awesome fleet and we had a plan in a couple of minutes. I agree that it can be fun. I was (and still am) mad that after the fact DB comes up and says it was the plan all along. It was a miscommunication. I'm mad because this kind of thing is so common. I think that Shan saying that future events will be variable as it relates to shuttles is laying the groundwork to cover for their next screw up.
I started a thread to hold DB accountable, though maybe not in the most constructive way, for their past promises. Promises for more transparency, better internal and external communication, and consideration of players. They have made these promises several times and have systematically failed to follow through.
I mean, it appears that if they choose to reject variation and never change anything again they won't tell us about that decision.
People who think the vitriol is about the change have totally missed the point, and it appears to me intentionally so.
Yes, we should expend effort towards social reform and improving our society, and I think many folks here actually do.
I know several other players who spend 2-4 hours a week volunteering at an animal shelter (not the same shelter but ones local to them). At least 1 of them posted criticisms towards being upset towards DBs communications methods.
These things do not need to be mutually exclusive, and frankly the energy spent on the forums may not even be that much time spent to give the back and forth replies. I know in my case most of my forum time is spent during an aspect of my job where I am watching status bars waiting for results. (Yes QC and QA is part of my actual job at least in my current project...)
One could argue that we should all just stop playing the game and all other games and go on a march for our specific favorite cause as much as commenting the same on the energy spent on the forums pro and con regarding the current state of affairs.
Honestly, I would love it if this place took a chill pill on the civility side, however, I also don't think that is also exclusive to giving DB continued passes on their communication methodologies.
I'd flag myself for spam but apparently the forum considers that autocanibalism or some such
Sorry, couldn't help myself. No vitriol was intended ...
I wonder if it’s an example of a bad internet connection? (:
The existing event types were fine as they were, we just needed more types.
Black shirt, white shirt, grey shirt.
Let's add some new colors.
That's the variation I want.
A ship battle event.
Defend ds9 battle event
Gauntlet event
Expedition event.
Take those for y, add them to the two core Torres we have, hybrid these as well and it'll take weeks to recycle event type and THAT will keep things fun
The people screaming about how DB lied to them and this is clearly just a ploy to get all their money are annoying to be frank. DB is not some evil entity out to screw you out of your money. They're a small company that's made some bad mistakes. They've also made worse mistakes than this.
Again, I was mainly disappointed with the lack of communication. And I did lose some time on the event waiting to see if this was a bug or not, which kind of messed up my timing on the event/my lunch break. So yeah, I was annoyed. But I mellowed out pretty quickly, unlike others who decided this is just the worst thing ever.
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comments in bold
DB have done right by saying 'it's gonna be variable'. If I was them, I wouldn't commit to anything apart from variation. It makes things interesting, for sure. And yes, it might break strategy but those strategies are stale. If we have to think on our feet, all the better.
Have they, people wanted concrete clarifications on events, they thought they were given them, then, whoosh, rug pulled from under feet. The thing is it has broken a strategy, yes, but this has unnecessarily broken an already crumbling event style. It doesn't change anything at the top just requires them to shell out more of their endless supply of fortune. But to the the layperson it requires to dip some more small change out.
Reducing the number of faction missions actually decreases the event rewards between threshold and ranked. This is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing. The vast expanse between threshold and ranked is like traveling through Void Space. It isn't fun at all.
I don’t see any change to threshold gaps? Correct me if I’m wrong, so being at a lower VP after a limited kickstart, surely that means the void is bigger? Thus decreasing the fun further.
Please enjoy your event. If you can't enjoy the game, go and find another one.
Unless you are a masochist. I'll just assume that anyone who continues playing while being so badly distressed needs help. Or at least, a good long walk in the structured chaos that is nature.
If I can find an exact replica of this game with all the changes people want, I’ll let you know.
People vent because they like this game they understand the model but they don’t want it to constantly be blighted by jumping profit margins for little or nothing in return. You can’t honestly tell me this change has been good to the average Joe or Josephine.
At times I come to this forum to read about news, interesting or funny posts people put forth and for trek lore which is amazing to see. After reading some ranty or just overly negative (DB is the worse) threads, I do feel more negative overall (definitely more so than if I had not checked the forums).
We should give DB feedback. "Hey guys please pick it up a bit, your dropping the ball" is all we need to tell them.
Rage-hate messages might get us better compensations but do not help the atmosphere around here and it should be out of place when it comes to anything related with Star Trek.
I thank the OP for ethos on his post.
Sorry folks. Was a browser issue actually. It was not showing me that the message had posted nor new messages in the thread til I dumpted the cache.
All is forgiven...the community and the moderators are very forgiving!!
Yet many of those same people, will instigate, engage in and perpetuate the kind of interactions and ways of being which they claim to want to escape from. So rather than co-creating a different kind of experience, they fill it up with more of the same, the aggregate of the unexamined. Where, just like in the larger world we are all the downstream of the raw unresolved and often times ill-informed and ill-considered anger and frustration.
Outrage is easy, solutions are difficult.
For instance, one will note how much outrage and sensationalism drives participation. Negatively titled and click bait type threads will get more views, same as it is in any other media stream. Whereas threads which offer possible solutions to those issues get ignored or buried by more vitriolic and complaint oriented threads. People, by and large, will spend far more time and effort to state their opinion, usually with an irrational amount of certainty, rather than educating themselves or considering other perspectives. This leads to the forum filling up with so many, predominately negative, fire-and-forget types of posts.
So even if people participate in solutions or ideas threads, not many bother reading what has been posted before, educating themselves on the ongoing conversations on the matter, or even demonstrating a basic understanding of the underlying mechanics before, let's say inadvertently, derailing the entire thread with cynicism, pessimism and/or ad hominem. This is of course, much of what happens outside of the game, which prevents advocacy and policy from evolving and adapting to our best scientific and ethical understandings.
Having put a lot of effort into advocating for and advising on policy for real world issues, and having been part of many gaming communities, it's abundantly clear to me that people are people, wherever people are. If we want a different experience, we are, each of us, going to have to exercise more discipline and self awareness in order to create it.
Consider participating in civil discourse, understanding the Tardigrade, and wandering with the Subspace Eddies.
Unfortunately, I think the lack of communication is a two-way thing. I remember a few months back when DB promised more interaction, but quite honestly nowadays I think Shan and Black Pebble try to avoid the forums because of the toxicity. Dealing with some of the vitriol headed their way cannot be fun. I've had angry clients on the phone, and tried to do my best by them, but it's exceptionally taxing. And the way some of the players carry on you'd think they'd deliberately robbed them blind.
I dunno, but I wonder if we'd see more interaction from DB if they didn't get hammered so hard every time they make a mistake. Sure, they make a few. The big ones they really make an effort to fix up. The small ones they send out sorrytons or whatever.
Personally, I don't feel like I'm being ripped off in any way. On the contrary, I get a huge amount of enjoyment for what little I can afford to send their way.
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Am I crazy for thinking it makes sense to be... nice? Not just here, but nice in general? It makes me wonder from what culture these people are where it's acceptable to be so incredibly impolite to others.