Perhaps next time they can label the shuttle slots with “PUT KES HERE” “ARDRA GOES HERE” etc... now wouldn’t that be a lot of fun?
It’s not just about that it’s about who you level up.
I’ve been completely stung by this event after levelling up people who *should* be giving me amazing returns and bonuses, but instead I’m getting dross and languishing around 1500 in the rankings.
As others have pointed out. I have a 2/5 FE Killy who I’m struggling to find missions for. My last batch she’s stayed at home. That’s not right.
They can come here and read just as easily as we did. There have been enough in game messages referring to the forums. If they choose not to come here that’s on them
If 100% of these user base knew about the forums then that would be fair enough
But they don't. So that basically boils down to the same issue: if you don't know then you are at a significant disadvantage
Edit: fixed quotation
Every player receives an in-game message with a URL that leads to these forums, every week, prior to an event. Whether or not players choose to visit that URL is entirely up to them, not DB. 🖖🏻
Wait, it's one thing to say all players could read the forums and be more informed. It's quite another to say that they should suffer from a bug in the game because they don't read the forums. There's been no message that says that the forums are required to manage gameplay around errors in the game.
My comment was about players knowing of the existence of these forums. I never said that they should suffer from the bug, and of course DB should fix it to provide a level playing field. 🖖🏻
Ok, I agree with that. Your comment was the last in a series that seemed to suggest that we deserved to profit from this bug because other players don't read the forums. That seemed like a strange position to me. Since that wasn't your intent, I apologize. LLAP.
They can come here and read just as easily as we did. There have been enough in game messages referring to the forums. If they choose not to come here that’s on them
If 100% of these user base knew about the forums then that would be fair enough
But they don't. So that basically boils down to the same issue: if you don't know then you are at a significant disadvantage
Edit: fixed quotation
Every player receives an in-game message with a URL that leads to these forums, every week, prior to an event. Whether or not players choose to visit that URL is entirely up to them, not DB. 🖖🏻
Wait, it's one thing to say all players could read the forums and be more informed. It's quite another to say that they should suffer from a bug in the game because they don't read the forums. There's been no message that says that the forums are required to manage gameplay around errors in the game.
My comment was about players knowing of the existence of these forums. I never said that they should suffer from the bug, and of course DB should fix it to provide a level playing field. 🖖🏻
Ok, I agree with that. Your comment was the last in a series that seemed to suggest that we deserved to profit from this bug because other players don't read the forums. That seemed like a strange position to me. Since that wasn't your intent, I apologize. LLAP.
Thank you. I agree with you, actually, about the strangeness of such a position, which is why I regularly share information from these forums with my fleetmates. LLAP.
"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
A whole lot of complaining on here, as ever. Yep, there’s a bug affecting the ‘and’ shuttles, and yes we are the enlightened ones who actually know about it and can strategize (thanks to someone else’s hard work).
And yes, the event crew don’t perfectly fit into the available shuttles, but we still have SEC places for Ardra and single CMD places for Kes. It just requires a tiny amount of strategy to work it out, that’s the nature of the game, to find out how best to proceed/ succeed with the tools at hand.
Perhaps next time they can label the shuttle slots with “PUT KES HERE” “ARDRA GOES HERE” etc... now wouldn’t that be a lot of fun?
It disincentives spending when there is not good realization of the use of purchased crew in their event.
Yes you can work to make it the best with what you've got and yes that's playing the game. It would however, be more beneficial to those spending money for them to be more matching possibilities to maximize the use of said crew.
And I think your equating the lack of matching slots vs lack of folks wanting to think to be an apples/oranges argument.
I think most of the problems with shuttles all of you are having is your crew is not leveled enough. You cannot expect your shuttles to be successful running them with 3* and 4* crew that aren't FF or FE.
I think most of the problems with shuttles all of you are having is your crew is not leveled enough. You cannot expect your shuttles to be successful running them with 3* and 4* crew that aren't FF or FE.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
I think you might want to read the analysis done by the Task Force April folks in this thread. They give detailed analysis on how to reproduce as well as how to avoid the impact of the AND bug.
I know I know, your thought bubble already has TLDR on it.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
None of what this thread examined has anything to do with crew strength or shuttle difficulty. Shuttle difficulty, in fact, scales with successes so just about everyone should have an average success rate on their shuttles converging to about 66%ish.
However, there's a separate issue where the displayed success rates and significantly diverge from the observed success rates in the case of loading a shuttle's "AND" slot in the wrong order.
In fact, in 92 trials with loading in shuttles "backwards", they had an observed pass rate of 13% vs an average displayed success rate of 71%.
Edit: and you would have all of this information if you bothered to read the first post of the tread that I linked.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
Honestly, I don’t believe you. Unless you have always from day one chosen crew based on the first AND skill rather than the highest (or somehow never run a shuttle mission with an AND slot), I do not find it reasonable to say that you have never seen a problem with shuttles failing at an impossibly high rate. Especially as you’re trolling by saying that we’re just not using leveled crew...that is, unless you’ve found some way to power up crew past level 100, in which case I have a bunch of 5/5* legendaries that I would like to boost to level 200.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
Honestly, I don’t believe you. Unless you have always from day one chosen crew based on the first AND skill rather than the highest (or somehow never run a shuttle mission with an AND slot), I do not find it reasonable to say that you have never seen a problem with shuttles failing at an impossibly high rate. Especially as you’re trolling by saying that we’re just not using leveled crew...that is, unless you’ve found some way to power up crew past level 100, in which case I have a bunch of 5/5* legendaries that I would like to boost to level 200.
I believe it is possible to not have been greatly affected by this --- as I tended to ignore the DB suggestions and go with matching both skills... now I got bit now and again when I matched the second skill higher than the first and didn't have a percentage that met my expectations but that was less common. But I chalked that up to random chance.
For the longest time I didn't understand why folks were having the issue, but then reading here (And not pulling TLDRs) I got to understand and improve slightly as well and even ran a few tests of my own.
Now whether the above person is being honest, is mistaken in their memory or made some really good selections based on matching skills, I can't say.
I am just saying I haven't encountered any of these problems of shuttles failing. This is usually an ongoing complaint and I think the problem is people are using inadequate crew.
Honestly, I don’t believe you. Unless you have always from day one chosen crew based on the first AND skill rather than the highest (or somehow never run a shuttle mission with an AND slot), I do not find it reasonable to say that you have never seen a problem with shuttles failing at an impossibly high rate. Especially as you’re trolling by saying that we’re just not using leveled crew...that is, unless you’ve found some way to power up crew past level 100, in which case I have a bunch of 5/5* legendaries that I would like to boost to level 200.
I was very skeptical of the shuttle failures (shocking, I know). It wasn't until people started generating actual statistics showing that something was amiss that I came around. The "AND" research that was done recently was particularly damning.
After tracking several events and noticing a ~10% discrepancy between posted results and actual results for faction shuttle missions, the past couple events have seen significant improvements after purposefully addressing the first 'and' skill. Actual results have come within 1-2% of posted results.
For the last event - The Butchers of Beta Penthe - here are my results:
- 151 missions run
- 143 missions successful (94.7%)
- average posted success rate was 95.2% (144 successful missions would give a 95.4% result)
When picking my crew, I've used the suggested formula I saw posted somewhere earlier in this thread: Total = skill #1 + (skill #2 * 0.25)
Sometimes the 'best' crew member I went with was down around 7-10th in the recommended crew list.
I would suggest that we've moved beyond any reasonable doubt that a flaw exists, likely on the client-side calculated success rate players see within the faction event shuttle mission screen.
EDIT: As reference, here are the last 7 events that I tracked actual % VS posted % (first 4 were done normally, last 3 were done using manual calculation of 'best' crew):
- March 15: 93.3% posted VS 85.6% actual
- March 22: 94.7% vs 86.1%
- April 5: 93.4% vs 83.7%
- April 19: 92.8% vs 83.7%
- April 26: 91.6% vs 89.2%
- May 3: 89.8% vs 89.8%
- May 17: 95.2% vs 94.7%
* Note: actual results were closer to -15% when the kickstart missions @ 99% were excluded from the calculations above, using the normal method of assigning the recommended best crew
Yeah, this information has been invaluable; I've been avoiding faction events for a while since I've been doing so badly, and I could literally count on one hand the number of failed shuttles I had in this last event. It was magical.
Yeah, this information has been invaluable; I've been avoiding faction events for a while since I've been doing so badly, and I could literally count on one hand the number of failed shuttles I had in this last event. It was magical.
I totally agree. My success rate was so much better than in the past. Skeptics can be skeptical all they want. This is a real thing
I'm just sad that we can't move this issue beyond "We are looking into it". Ever since people started suspecting the "solution" to the problem I have joined in and been happy with results. However, DB continue to design the events (shuttle slots) ignoring the issue meaning that crew they are trying to let us benefit from are not actually usable.
I'm just sad that we can't move this issue beyond "We are looking into it". Ever since people started suspecting the "solution" to the problem I have joined in and been happy with results. However, DB continue to design the events (shuttle slots) ignoring the issue meaning that crew they are trying to let us benefit from are not actually usable.
I think it's even worse than ignoring the issue. After the last event started, I had the relatively new-to-me Boosters pack offer (U$D 4.99, limit 2) pop up, which struck me as DB recognizing and attempting to monetize the AND bug. I would love to hear from someone, anyone, at DB to dispel this insidious notion of mine. 🖖🏻
"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've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
I've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
If we're going to rank different exploits across history, players utilizing this one would have to be one of the most benign examples ever. In this case, players are intentionally using "weaker" crew to increase their potential score because of a flaw in how the server is calculating results. Yes, it improves a player's performance relative to someone ignoring the bug, but it only brings them up to par with the displayed odds.
Now that it's widely known, this one's all on DB to fix. The short term fix is to not include "AND" slots on any event shuttle missions.
I've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
If we're going to rank different exploits across history, players utilizing this one would have to be one of the most benign examples ever. In this case, players are intentionally using "weaker" crew to increase their potential score because of a flaw in how the server is calculating results. Yes, it improves a player's performance relative to someone ignoring the bug, but it only brings them up to par with the displayed odds.
Now that it's widely known, this one's all on DB to fix. The short term fix is to not include "AND" slots on any event shuttle missions.
It should be a 2 line fix. The short term fix is to fix the problem. It's insane that we've had multiple faction events and server releases without having this fixed.
They haven't even stated that they have managed to replicate the results.
Seriously, just recruit an unpaid intern, load an account with a ton of dil (for fast completion) and merits (for buying transmissions), and let them hammer out a few thousand shuttle runs in a few hours, deliberately placing primary-skill-as-second-skill crew in the slots, and recording their displayed success rate. Server logs will give you the actual success rate. Compare the two. Report back and thank the community for their contribution. Decide on and announce plans for resolution.
They haven't even stated that they have managed to replicate the results.
Seriously, just recruit an unpaid intern, load an account with a ton of dil (for fast completion) and merits (for buying transmissions), and let them hammer out a few thousand shuttle runs in a few hours, deliberately placing primary-skill-as-second-skill crew in the slots, and recording their displayed success rate. Server logs will give you the actual success rate. Compare the two. Report back and thank the community for their contribution. Decide on and announce plans for resolution.
That suggestion costs money.
DB makes money off this bug and the purposely addictive nature of the game (look up Skinner box video game design) prevents players from stop spending until DB does the ethical thing. Ask yourself, does DB make more money when players fail or succeed?
Either they are incompetent AND (ha ha) / OR unethical. They are only in business because they are standing on a loyal base of star trek fans necks and managed to create an addictive enough game.
Bugs, who cares! Make no mistake, they are fully aware and very likely pissed the players figured it out. Think of Ferengi when you think of DB.
They are not Ferengi. Shan works for them and presumably she gets paid and wears clothes. 😉😀
In all seriousness, they have obviously made an addictive game, but we all know that. I (most of the time) don't believe they are intentionally nefarious.
I've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
isn't figuring out the mechanics of the game just part of playing the game?
I've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
isn't figuring out the mechanics of the game just part of playing the game?
Figuring out game mechanics is fun. Suffering because the game is doing the exact opposite of what was advertised is not.
I've been thinking about this. Wouldn't this qualify as an exploit? There's a bug in the game and only some people are aware of it and the people who are aware of it are at a significant advantage over those who don't know about it. That's the definition of an exploit to me. I feel the ethical thing for DB would have been to postpone this faction event (and any further ones) until it was fixed.
I assume there are multiple layers in your post, but nevertheless commenting on the surface layer:
- DB and ethics ?
- Players visiting the forums are aware of things other players are not. And we've been told forum visitors only make up a tiny part of the player base. Should the forums and DB's posts on it be considered exploits as well ?
At the end of the day, statistics have demonstrated a significant variation between the what the game tells you and what the server calculates. The problem is probably trivial to fix, but acknowledging the problem also acknowledges that people who have spent money to acquire boosts may have used them in such a way that they were worthless, which possibly opens up a legal issue (mis-sold etc.)
However, what's the lost value really though? It's not as if we can cash in our investment in the game, so nobody has technically lost anything?
Comments
It’s not just about that it’s about who you level up.
I’ve been completely stung by this event after levelling up people who *should* be giving me amazing returns and bonuses, but instead I’m getting dross and languishing around 1500 in the rankings.
As others have pointed out. I have a 2/5 FE Killy who I’m struggling to find missions for. My last batch she’s stayed at home. That’s not right.
Ok, I agree with that. Your comment was the last in a series that seemed to suggest that we deserved to profit from this bug because other players don't read the forums. That seemed like a strange position to me. Since that wasn't your intent, I apologize. LLAP.
Thank you. I agree with you, actually, about the strangeness of such a position, which is why I regularly share information from these forums with my fleetmates. LLAP.
It disincentives spending when there is not good realization of the use of purchased crew in their event.
Yes you can work to make it the best with what you've got and yes that's playing the game. It would however, be more beneficial to those spending money for them to be more matching possibilities to maximize the use of said crew.
And I think your equating the lack of matching slots vs lack of folks wanting to think to be an apples/oranges argument.
I recommend you give this thread a read:
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/5097/edit-final-results-2nd-experiment-results-and-shuttles-are-absolutely-bugged#latest
I think you might want to read the analysis done by the Task Force April folks in this thread. They give detailed analysis on how to reproduce as well as how to avoid the impact of the AND bug.
I know I know, your thought bubble already has TLDR on it.
None of what this thread examined has anything to do with crew strength or shuttle difficulty. Shuttle difficulty, in fact, scales with successes so just about everyone should have an average success rate on their shuttles converging to about 66%ish.
However, there's a separate issue where the displayed success rates and significantly diverge from the observed success rates in the case of loading a shuttle's "AND" slot in the wrong order.
In fact, in 92 trials with loading in shuttles "backwards", they had an observed pass rate of 13% vs an average displayed success rate of 71%.
Edit: and you would have all of this information if you bothered to read the first post of the tread that I linked.
Honestly, I don’t believe you. Unless you have always from day one chosen crew based on the first AND skill rather than the highest (or somehow never run a shuttle mission with an AND slot), I do not find it reasonable to say that you have never seen a problem with shuttles failing at an impossibly high rate. Especially as you’re trolling by saying that we’re just not using leveled crew...that is, unless you’ve found some way to power up crew past level 100, in which case I have a bunch of 5/5* legendaries that I would like to boost to level 200.
I believe it is possible to not have been greatly affected by this --- as I tended to ignore the DB suggestions and go with matching both skills... now I got bit now and again when I matched the second skill higher than the first and didn't have a percentage that met my expectations but that was less common. But I chalked that up to random chance.
For the longest time I didn't understand why folks were having the issue, but then reading here (And not pulling TLDRs) I got to understand and improve slightly as well and even ran a few tests of my own.
Now whether the above person is being honest, is mistaken in their memory or made some really good selections based on matching skills, I can't say.
I was very skeptical of the shuttle failures (shocking, I know). It wasn't until people started generating actual statistics showing that something was amiss that I came around. The "AND" research that was done recently was particularly damning.
For the last event - The Butchers of Beta Penthe - here are my results:
- 151 missions run
- 143 missions successful (94.7%)
- average posted success rate was 95.2% (144 successful missions would give a 95.4% result)
When picking my crew, I've used the suggested formula I saw posted somewhere earlier in this thread: Total = skill #1 + (skill #2 * 0.25)
Sometimes the 'best' crew member I went with was down around 7-10th in the recommended crew list.
I would suggest that we've moved beyond any reasonable doubt that a flaw exists, likely on the client-side calculated success rate players see within the faction event shuttle mission screen.
EDIT: As reference, here are the last 7 events that I tracked actual % VS posted % (first 4 were done normally, last 3 were done using manual calculation of 'best' crew):
- March 15: 93.3% posted VS 85.6% actual
- March 22: 94.7% vs 86.1%
- April 5: 93.4% vs 83.7%
- April 19: 92.8% vs 83.7%
- April 26: 91.6% vs 89.2%
- May 3: 89.8% vs 89.8%
- May 17: 95.2% vs 94.7%
* Note: actual results were closer to -15% when the kickstart missions @ 99% were excluded from the calculations above, using the normal method of assigning the recommended best crew
I totally agree. My success rate was so much better than in the past. Skeptics can be skeptical all they want. This is a real thing
I think it's even worse than ignoring the issue. After the last event started, I had the relatively new-to-me Boosters pack offer (U$D 4.99, limit 2) pop up, which struck me as DB recognizing and attempting to monetize the AND bug. I would love to hear from someone, anyone, at DB to dispel this insidious notion of mine. 🖖🏻
If we're going to rank different exploits across history, players utilizing this one would have to be one of the most benign examples ever. In this case, players are intentionally using "weaker" crew to increase their potential score because of a flaw in how the server is calculating results. Yes, it improves a player's performance relative to someone ignoring the bug, but it only brings them up to par with the displayed odds.
Now that it's widely known, this one's all on DB to fix. The short term fix is to not include "AND" slots on any event shuttle missions.
It should be a 2 line fix. The short term fix is to fix the problem. It's insane that we've had multiple faction events and server releases without having this fixed.
Seriously, just recruit an unpaid intern, load an account with a ton of dil (for fast completion) and merits (for buying transmissions), and let them hammer out a few thousand shuttle runs in a few hours, deliberately placing primary-skill-as-second-skill crew in the slots, and recording their displayed success rate. Server logs will give you the actual success rate. Compare the two. Report back and thank the community for their contribution. Decide on and announce plans for resolution.
That suggestion costs money.
DB makes money off this bug and the purposely addictive nature of the game (look up Skinner box video game design) prevents players from stop spending until DB does the ethical thing. Ask yourself, does DB make more money when players fail or succeed?
Either they are incompetent AND (ha ha) / OR unethical. They are only in business because they are standing on a loyal base of star trek fans necks and managed to create an addictive enough game.
Bugs, who cares! Make no mistake, they are fully aware and very likely pissed the players figured it out. Think of Ferengi when you think of DB.
In all seriousness, they have obviously made an addictive game, but we all know that. I (most of the time) don't believe they are intentionally nefarious.
Leeta got paid and wore clothes. You have only proven that Shan is not Ferengi.
isn't figuring out the mechanics of the game just part of playing the game?
Second Star to the Right - Join Today!
Figuring out game mechanics is fun. Suffering because the game is doing the exact opposite of what was advertised is not.
Second Star to the Right - Join Today!
I assume there are multiple layers in your post, but nevertheless commenting on the surface layer:
- DB and ethics ?
- Players visiting the forums are aware of things other players are not. And we've been told forum visitors only make up a tiny part of the player base. Should the forums and DB's posts on it be considered exploits as well ?
However, what's the lost value really though? It's not as if we can cash in our investment in the game, so nobody has technically lost anything?