This month's mega

[10F] Belle'Anna

I don't normally post disappointment, and I'm not really, but usually the mega events have really improved my crew a great deal. I came in at the tail end of the Klingon mega, so it really had no impact apart from providing a few super-rares I still haven't immortalized. But the Discovery mega really turned this game around for me, it was exciting and I gained a whole heap of really strong crew I liked and still make up a good chunk of my main crew base.

Likewise with the Mirror Mega, some really great crew and a fantastic twist on characters we know and love. Again, the sense of excitement for me was pretty intense.

But this event has been less than exciting. Apart from Surak, who is fantastic, I have a second FFFE Katra, a Vulcan Wedding T'Pol who I'm keeping despite being marginal for voyages, and Keras who has a string enough command to help out my generally weak command crew, everyone else is going into cryo after the end of the month. Yes, I've not gotten any legendaries and things might be different if I had, so I'd like to hear other people's opinions on them. I'm waiting on Romulan Picard, who I'd like, and Mintakan Troi who MAY have a decent enough Med skill to make me keep her, but that's slim pickings.

I think it's because we've been asking for less new crew. Maybe we're getting what we asked for. It might be that it's given us chance to fully fuse existing crew. It's true, in one sense, I've been able to finish off Romulan Kirk and Valeris this event, I had Sela immortalized already but only recently. It's also interesting to see Rakal Troi getting a bit of a go again, after she was featured a few weeks back.

The artwork has been generally good, Vreenak and T'Pol standing out as fantastic, and Amanda, but Keras not my favourite, and I wasn't inspired by Spock.

I really don't have a big grudge, apart from not getting too many new crew that I'll keep active. Sometimes it's nice to have a change, don't you think?

Lady Gaghgagh

[10F] Belle'Anna wrote: »

I think it's because we've been asking for less new crew. Maybe we're getting what we asked for.

It's somewhat our fault on their inclusion, but the real ones who have the ability to make the inclusion of existing crew as optimally as possible is DB. DB should have seen our frustration at receiving all new crew in multiple events and looked at that concern then put into practice a remedy: reinserting existing crew, with moderation!

Moderation is the huge factor here and the factor which DB did not use. Clearly with a mega, you want to introduce a ton of new crew, everyone expects a mega to be that way. The original call for reinserting existing crew was never about megas anyway, it was about regular one-off weekly events. So if you do 4 existing crew in a mega which has 17 event crew altogether, then you're only stifling the potential of the mega. The moderation which should have been used would have been to pick 2 existing crew to throw into the mega, then establish 15 new and exciting crew that embody the theme of the mega. By having 2 more possible new crew to get, DB could have given us some of the crew we had expressed great interest in seeing, such as Kir'shara Archer, Commander Donatra, T'Pau, Proconsul Neral, Subcommander Selok, and Tallera just to name a few.

Instead, we got 4 existing crew who fit the theme but half of whose stats are subpar and 13 new crew (exciting is debatable). The problem with 13 crew in a mega which spans two races is you need to make a nice balance of the races represented by the mega and we just didn't get that. We got 2 real Romulans and 2 Romulan impostors, Romulans didn't even scratch making half of the event, the event they are supposedly centered on.

Another part of moderation is knowing which existing crew to pick. All the existing crew we got were as I said earlier, subpar. Katra McCoy was a great choice, after that though, it went downhill - Romulan Kirk is half-decent, Valeris's stats are terrible but she at least has gauntlet potential, and Sela is utter trash, she literally has no real gameplay power whatsoever. Additionally, people were pleading for T'Rul who not only is real Romulan, but is also excellent in stats (and a stat desperately needed for this mega), yet, we never got her. So all this goes to show me is DB needs to listen. Not hear a few words then make up their minds and go off planning with half of our concerns in mind, no they need to listen intently.

Pallidyne

The picks of the existing crew, particularly Sela, was off. They could have gone with folks who were pack only before like Nevesa stats notwithstanding, that would have given more folks some one to fuse or finish off.

The Borg Mega had almost as many existing crew. Just had all three new in the last one event of the mega. That's the only difference, but it was a damn fun event.

Maybe it's cause it was the first mega, but a good chunk of it was that it was one faction/theme and all the new characters fit peoples expectations. (The existing ones were picked oddly as well, however, Phlox, Soran, Soong... and there was significant wtf feedback there as well.) The Klingon one had 3 existing as well, but they all fit the event (Grilka, Liason Torres, General Martok) and were on some level useful (Travis may argue on the Grilka front.). Discovery I had 3 existing as well (Captain Janeway, the Orion Slaver and Marla McGivers). Mirror had 3, (Sato, Tucker and Uhura).

Only Discovery II (Guest staring the Andorians) had just one existing character, (Shran).

So this one having four is as much an outlier as Discovery II having just one.

I like having existing crew in. It feels like the choices this time sucked, and the new crew, though in some cases seemed to be very requested folks (Amanda Grayson and Vreenak) they've come with not just non-power creep stats, but non-useful combinations, particularly 2 stat ones.


I've got the legendaries so far, and I'm still pretty meh about this mega.

[KF] Kapitan Dobchan

Surak, in all fairness, is just an upgraded version of Mirror T'Pol. Still, he's indeed better and more useful. In my case, I can't really complain about the event, because my work limits my "phone time", so I am missing out on iterations on faction missions, but still, we will get through it, and look forward to the next mega

Torias327

I fear a similar lukewarm experience is coming this summer. DS9 and Augments mixed is going to be a tough combo to satisfy both sides. Yes we have the Misfits who I personally hope to see, but they are already receiving mixed emotions and they aren’t even concrete yet. Following this mega, it seems Young Khan is a good guess for inclusion. Disappointing choices could happen, but they used Marla last mega so I doubt they would be blind enough to use her again. I think the player base wants Sisko and Bashir and O’Brien and there is a good chance in my mind what we get will be Augment Sisko and O’Brien and some left field version of Julian (1701 works for me though) and only some folks are happy. Worst case senario is Augment Rom and Tosk or the alien woman that ate Jake’s artistic energy shows up because sometimes these themes are just really out there (looking at you, Mintakan Troi, who stole a spot in my opinion) and then no one is happy. I think overall there is a lot to do to please in a 2 race/group mega and way too much ground to cover without a slew of new cards and then the whole “give us crew slots” starts right back up. I think going in with cautious expectations to this summer is probably the best for all involved, but being clear as a community what we like and don’t like is hard because there are a great many players all with fantastic ideas putting out great concepts right now. The downside to tons of solid approaches means tons of people won’t love the final choices. I agree with the many people that have said, I wish the poll was a bit less ambigous regarding how the choices voted for would be combined next time.

Lady Gaghgagh

Torias327 wrote: »

I fear a similar lukewarm experience is coming this summer. DS9 and Augments mixed is going to be a tough combo to satisfy both sides. Yes we have the Misfits who I personally hope to see, but they are already receiving mixed emotions and they aren’t even concrete yet.

I'm okay with the misfits, but I don't think we need all 4 to make an appearance as crew in just this one mega. I think probably Sarina and another. But not all 4.

I think the player base wants Sisko and Bashir and O’Brien and there is a good chance in my mind what we get will be Augment Sisko and O’Brien and some left field version of Julian (1701 works for me though) and only some folks are happy.

There are a lot of good Sisko variants that people want such as Solarship Sisko which would have ENG primary, Patriot Sisko, Klingon Sisko. Same with Bashir - 1701 Bashir, Dominion Prisoner Bashir, Plague Doctor Bashir. O'Brien could use a 1701 version as well. Or we could luck out and one week be most of the Gabriel Bell characters we're missing such as Bell Riots Julian and Jadzia as well as Time Traveller Kira and O'Brien from that episode.

Worst case senario is Augment Rom and Tosk or the alien woman that ate Jake’s artistic energy shows up because sometimes these themes are just really out there (looking at you, Mintakan Troi, who stole a spot in my opinion) and then no one is happy.

I actually think Onaya (the muse alien) would be a great addition, she's off-the-cuff, but has a ton of potential for a story as well as could provide interesting skills/stats.

I think overall there is a lot to do to please in a 2 race/group mega and way too much ground to cover without a slew of new cards and then the whole “give us crew slots” starts right back up.

Therein lies the problem, we have to find a balance.

Catpain

I'm probably in the minority, but I think they should consider including repeat legendaries in these events. I would be more inclined to compete to add another star to one of those than to add yet another 1/5 that's just going to be permanent dead weight.

Banjo1012

Catpain wrote: »

I'm probably in the minority, but I think they should consider including repeat legendaries in these events. I would be more inclined to compete to add another star to one of those than to add yet another 1/5 that's just going to be permanent dead weight.

I agree with this as well. Traditionally there is a re-run the week after a mega. We shall see who we get a shot at more stars for.

Dirk Gunderson

I’m not grumpy about the inclusion of existing crew, even though Sela was probably not the best choice. It is something we’ve asked for and I wouldn’t say that it was a request that only applied to non-mega events.

That being said, I think there was a big whiff on who we got for new crew. Warship Tuvok, Vreenak, and Surak are all great but a lot of us have been dying to get more Romulans and we missed out on all but one of the favorites. Given the staggering number of DS9 characters to chose from I have to say I am worried that we’ll get shafted on Augments in the summer mega...I hope I’m proven wrong.

Ivanstone

I'm mostly ok with the current Mega. Two stat crew is never a great idea although I can live with it now and again. 4*'s are mostly for filling up collection slots. You use them until you can get something better. Even then some crew are weak. Ex. Keras has boring stats and he's not even especially great at ship battles which is a bit weird. You'd figure he'd have some hellacious cloak trigger but he's got nothing.

Biggest complaint would be giving us no ENG crew but then serving up a tonne of ENG seats on shuttles. 5 Missions have pure ENG seats. I expect less MED seats in general but only one shuttle used any (one for Katra McCoy, one for Rakal Troi). At least I could bend the ENG AND seats to my advantage sometimes.

Banjo1012

Ivanstone wrote: »

I'm mostly ok with the current Mega. Two stat crew is never a great idea although I can live with it now and again. 4*'s are mostly for filling up collection slots. You use them until you can get something better. Even then some crew are weak. Ex. Keras has boring stats and he's not even especially great at ship battles which is a bit weird. You'd figure he'd have some hellacious cloak trigger but he's got nothing.

Biggest complaint would be giving us no ENG crew but then serving up a tonne of ENG seats on shuttles. 5 Missions have pure ENG seats. I expect less MED seats in general but only one shuttle used any (one for Katra McCoy, one for Rakal Troi). At least I could bend the ENG AND seats to my advantage sometimes.

I found that odd myself about the ENG. I could be wrong as this may only be the case with me but theres not even many Romulans or Vulcans on my roster as bonus crew with that skill.

Captain_Who

Ivanstone wrote: »

Biggest complaint would be giving us no ENG crew but then serving up a tonne of ENG seats on shuttles. 5 Missions have pure ENG seats. I expect less MED seats in general but only one shuttle used any (one for Katra McCoy, one for Rakal Troi). At least I could bend the ENG AND seats to my advantage sometimes.

The problem with ENG AND is that I've become 99% certain that ANDs are calculated differently from the server than the client, and anything after the AND ALWAYS get's quartered. I'm not positive about the bonus, but I know treating the after the AND as a small bonus and not a full value has dramatically decreased my failures the last few weeks on AND shuttles.

[QH] Captain Ziggy

Captain_Who wrote: »

Ivanstone wrote: »

Biggest complaint would be giving us no ENG crew but then serving up a tonne of ENG seats on shuttles. 5 Missions have pure ENG seats. I expect less MED seats in general but only one shuttle used any (one for Katra McCoy, one for Rakal Troi). At least I could bend the ENG AND seats to my advantage sometimes.

The problem with ENG AND is that I've become 99% certain that ANDs are calculated differently from the server than the client, and anything after the AND ALWAYS get's quartered. I'm not positive about the bonus, but I know treating the after the AND as a small bonus and not a full value has dramatically decreased my failures the last few weeks on AND shuttles.

I've been working the same theory, even getting lower displayed % as a result of some choices but seem to be coming out ahead. Helps that I've got a few ENG crew such as Laborer Spock, Rom Data and T'Rul no doubt but I do think that prioritising the primary displayed skill in AND combos is working.

÷ The Eternal Champion

Agree with most here... Event has been less than MEGA no doubt

Mirror-Mega Tons of Powerful new crew (I prefer cannon crew, but the Comic Next Gen Mirror crew were a welcome exception - really neat toons).

This MEGA has been the worst do far, nothing to do with Rolumans or Vulcans, just the way is was handled.

(Of course Mirror Janeway was awful and Kolinar Spock was awesome - but you get the point).

SST - 9of7

DB makes powerful crew "POWER CREEP, PLEASE STOP" next DB makes average crew "CREW TOO WEAK!"

Personally I enjoy the mega and especially surak. A few things could be improved though.
The choice of existing crew could be improved as 3/4 were pre-existing event rewards. Personally I had all 4 immortalised.

Additional bringing new crew in faction events as thresholds is just annoying. Amanda Grayson had to report to the airlock because of this lapse along with the 4 duplicate McCoys.

Travis S McClain

It took me entirely too long to have this epiphany, but in hindsight I see now one substitution that I think would have made a surprisingly strong impact on my perception of this mega-event. It goes back to that first week. I appreciated the concentration of TOS movie crew (Kolinahr Spock, Amanda Grayson, Katra McCoy), but I also agreed with others who felt that while Amanda and McCoy individually were related enough to be okay inclusions, the two of them in a single event just did not pass the sniff test for what a Vulcan/Romulan mega-event ought to be. So imagine if you will the following alternative Featured Crew:

Surak (5* recurring Legendary)
Kolinahr Spock (5* new)
Amanda Grayson (4* new)
Sybok (4* existing)

Yeah, that's right. Sybok. The Vulcan who was banished for rejecting Vulcans' rejection of emotions. That guy. Can anyone in the entire galaxy be more appreciative that Surak has returned and is chastising Vulcans over their suppression of emotion? This would be the most epic "I TOLD YOU SO!" of all time. Why don't we get to see Sybok enjoying it?! Sybok may well be the single most perfect character for this story, but he's nowhere near it.

This changes the entire landscape of the mega-event from the outset. Instead of being frustrated that Amanda Grayson and Katra McCoy have stolen two Featured Crew slots from real Vulcans, we simply enjoy the pleasant surprise of Amanda being the beloved Jane Wyatt version from IV. She's still tangential, but she makes sense and makes players happy. We can make room for that Amanda, we say. On to Week 2, where Warship Tuvok, Vulcan Wedding T'Pol, and Lieutenant Valeris (and a new 2* Science Officer T'Pol!) add more Vulcans.

Week 3 has Romulan-in-name-only Romulan Kirk, but he's paired with Senator Vreenak and Commander Keras, two of the most often requested Romulans there are. Romulan Kirk is now the only real letdown in the first three weeks, and even he's acceptable. Week 4 with Mintakan Troi and Commander Sela is still a colossal disappointment, though, but those first three weeks feel more grounded and focused, and all we had to do was replace Katra McCoy with Sybok!

[QH] Captain Ziggy

Travis S McClain wrote: »

It took me entirely too long to have this epiphany, but in hindsight I see now one substitution that I think would have made a surprisingly strong impact on my perception of this mega-event. It goes back to that first week. I appreciated the concentration of TOS movie crew (Kolinahr Spock, Amanda Grayson, Katra McCoy), but I also agreed with others who felt that while Amanda and McCoy individually were related enough to be okay inclusions, the two of them in a single event just did not pass the sniff test for what a Vulcan/Romulan mega-event ought to be. So imagine if you will the following alternative Featured Crew:

Surak (5* recurring Legendary)
Kolinahr Spock (5* new)
Amanda Grayson (4* new)
Sybok (4* existing)

Yeah, that's right. Sybok. The Vulcan who was banished for rejecting Vulcans' rejection of emotions. That guy. Can anyone in the entire galaxy be more appreciative that Surak has returned and is chastising Vulcans over their suppression of emotion? This would be the most epic "I TOLD YOU SO!" of all time. Why don't we get to see Sybok enjoying it?! Sybok may well be the single most perfect character for this story, but he's nowhere near it.

This changes the entire landscape of the mega-event from the outset. Instead of being frustrated that Amanda Grayson and Katra McCoy have stolen two Featured Crew slots from real Vulcans, we simply enjoy the pleasant surprise of Amanda being the beloved Jane Wyatt version from IV. She's still tangential, but she makes sense and makes players happy. We can make room for that Amanda, we say. On to Week 2, where Warship Tuvok, Vulcan Wedding T'Pol, and Lieutenant Valeris (and a new 2* Science Officer T'Pol!) add more Vulcans.

Week 3 has Romulan-in-name-only Romulan Kirk, but he's paired with Senator Vreenak and Commander Keras, two of the most often requested Romulans there are. Romulan Kirk is now the only real letdown in the first three weeks, and even he's acceptable. Week 4 with Mintakan Troi and Commander Sela is still a colossal disappointment, though, but those first three weeks feel more grounded and focused, and all we had to do was replace Katra McCoy with Sybok!

I would agree except that I needed those McCoy fuses and already have Sybok immortalised. 😁

Dirk Gunderson

Captain Ziggy wrote: »

Travis S McClain wrote: »

It took me entirely too long to have this epiphany, but in hindsight I see now one substitution that I think would have made a surprisingly strong impact on my perception of this mega-event. It goes back to that first week. I appreciated the concentration of TOS movie crew (Kolinahr Spock, Amanda Grayson, Katra McCoy), but I also agreed with others who felt that while Amanda and McCoy individually were related enough to be okay inclusions, the two of them in a single event just did not pass the sniff test for what a Vulcan/Romulan mega-event ought to be. So imagine if you will the following alternative Featured Crew:

Surak (5* recurring Legendary)
Kolinahr Spock (5* new)
Amanda Grayson (4* new)
Sybok (4* existing)

Yeah, that's right. Sybok. The Vulcan who was banished for rejecting Vulcans' rejection of emotions. That guy. Can anyone in the entire galaxy be more appreciative that Surak has returned and is chastising Vulcans over their suppression of emotion? This would be the most epic "I TOLD YOU SO!" of all time. Why don't we get to see Sybok enjoying it?! Sybok may well be the single most perfect character for this story, but he's nowhere near it.

This changes the entire landscape of the mega-event from the outset. Instead of being frustrated that Amanda Grayson and Katra McCoy have stolen two Featured Crew slots from real Vulcans, we simply enjoy the pleasant surprise of Amanda being the beloved Jane Wyatt version from IV. She's still tangential, but she makes sense and makes players happy. We can make room for that Amanda, we say. On to Week 2, where Warship Tuvok, Vulcan Wedding T'Pol, and Lieutenant Valeris (and a new 2* Science Officer T'Pol!) add more Vulcans.

Week 3 has Romulan-in-name-only Romulan Kirk, but he's paired with Senator Vreenak and Commander Keras, two of the most often requested Romulans there are. Romulan Kirk is now the only real letdown in the first three weeks, and even he's acceptable. Week 4 with Mintakan Troi and Commander Sela is still a colossal disappointment, though, but those first three weeks feel more grounded and focused, and all we had to do was replace Katra McCoy with Sybok!

I would agree except that I needed those McCoy fuses and already have Sybok immortalised. 😁

I had Sybok at 3/4* and McCoy at 1/4* before the mega, so I’m with Captain Ziggy on this.

Pallidyne

Sybok would have made the storyline more interesting, yes, and shown why Surak should have been locked up in a 35th floor subbasement after he's said his second statement.

Frankly I find the idea of Surak going all tyrannical over folks who in his opinion misinterpreted things and forcibly ripping the entire races minds open at the same time to be unenjoyable. Feels like a bad take on Accession. And our characters who participated in the event were complicit. (I've got no problems with him saying, yeah you folks got it wrong, but his actions were not only cruel, but frankly sadistic and abusive parenting.)

Frankly, the plot has been written well grammatically and dramatically but stuff like this makes me feel more dirty when I read the plot than finding any form of enjoyment, and this mega has had that effect more than any event in the year and a half I've been playing. I'd take a lamely written lets have a party event over this.

We always gotta always turn our heroes into villains these days.