[Arno12]

I'm sure this whole mess would be solved if cryptic announced that Lobi, traits and Lockbox stuff became unlocked account wide, then everyone would be happy, I know I would

[Petrarch]

I'm sure this whole mess would be solved if cryptic announced that Lobi, traits and Lockbox stuff became unlocked account wide, then everyone would be happy, I know I would

There was a rumour that the 6th Mastery tier on the Jem Hadar ships was installed for exactly that reason, a dry run to test the system out and apply it to other character only ships, but it remains to be seen if anything will come of it, or it remains just that, a rumour.

[Scarlett]

So, I just came back from a RA run and I'm slowly becoming a fan. In the short time I had to play today I grabbed more Marks faster than I would have normally. By switching around the three I used (Borg, Elachi, Tholian) I felt accomplished, even though I have run those countless times. Granted, I can't imagine myself running each more than three times in a session. I think anyone who does that is missing the point and indirectly, though intentionally, harming their gaming experience.

There was some online chatter within the Fleet to look at the other queues and, for my part, the idea of joining a Brotherhood of the Lost queue was less daunting. Frankly, after 6 RA runs within 30-40 minutes, I almost preferred to do something different.

[Generator]

The Lost? We gonna street-sweep in Skyway City?

[Petrarch]

I'm hoping what I'm going to say comes across the right way here.

I'm still unconvinced that the changes to the Red Alerts were necessary, at least at this point in time. And the reason I think that is a fairly straight forward one.

I do prefer to do the queues for what I'm after in terms of marks and the various rep tokens. If I need Dyson marks, I go do the battlezone, which is an area of the game I actually quite enjoy, though I'm aware not everyone is down with the ground stuff. The Dyson queues were actually amongst my favourite back in the day. I did the borg queues for Omega, the CE queue for Nukara and so on.

The Red Alerts I only did as I needed to. Rather than seeing them as the crux of the mark grind, I instead viewed them as a lifeline. Why? Because many of the queues are dead, there's no getting around that fact, it's simply the way it is. Competitive queues fell out of favour within weeks, the Dyson ones rarely, if ever, pop these days. Terran, Undine, Temporal and Lukari are all dead in the water too. Now certainly you could have an argument that the Red Alerts do have a hand in that, as they never used to reward a mark choice back in the day and you could see how many players would view it as the easy way out. There's a lot of players out there in STO in various degrees of attitude, ranging from laziness, helpful, entitled etc - but we need to cut through all that and ask ourselves a simple question - What's fun?

I would love to see the queues fixed and see them popping away like they used to, I really would. But at the moment, that's not happening and one of the main lifelines for marks for newer players or folks needing to top up has been taken away without addressing the underlying problem. Alongside the episode revamp, content is being pushed quietly into the background rather than being addressed or utilised in a way that benefits the game. That only serves to erode trust and goodwill. Yes, we do have the random queues in the pipeline, but we've no idea if that's going to work and it could inflame things even more going forward. If it works, great, we could have took the loss of the RA's on the chin and moved on. If it doesn't, we're right back at square one and on fire to boot.

While the reactions I've seen from various areas of the community range from reasonable to outright vitriol (ambassadorKael is really taking one for the team right now), I do think Cryptic have approached things in an entirely cack-handed manner and now there's even more pieces to pick up.

[Scarlett]

The Red Alerts I only did as I needed to. Rather than seeing them as the crux of the mark grind, I instead viewed them as a lifeline. Why? Because many of the queues are dead, there's no getting around that fact, it's simply the way it is. Competitive queues fell out of favour within weeks, the Dyson ones rarely, if ever, pop these days. Terran, Undine, Temporal and Lukari are all dead in the water too. Now certainly you could have an argument that the Red Alerts do have a hand in that, as they never used to reward a mark choice back in the day and you could see how many players would view it as the easy way out. There's a lot of players out there in STO in various degrees of attitude, ranging from laziness, helpful, entitled etc - but we need to cut through all that and ask ourselves a simple question - What's fun?

I would love to see the queues fixed and see them popping away like they used to, I really would. But at the moment, that's not happening and one of the main lifelines for marks for newer players or folks needing to top up has been taken away without addressing the underlying problem. Alongside the episode revamp, content is being pushed quietly into the background rather than being addressed or utilised in a way that benefits the game. That only serves to erode trust and goodwill. Yes, we do have the random queues in the pipeline, but we've no idea if that's going to work and it could inflame things even more going forward.

QFT. You guys are awesome.

BUT, I think that's what Cryptic is tackling, even if it's heavy handed - the fact the RA were the quickest, easiest way to get Marks. Humans, and gamers especially, will almost always seek the most efficient way to achieve a goal and RA's did that. SO, Cryptic is essentially forcing players to go the long and hard route IF the players really wants that Rep equipment or trait(s).

As someone who doesn't have a lot of time, I'm strangely okay with this idea as the quickest path is usually the most boring. Maybe I'm the anomaly, but I can appreciate a hard-won victory. I'm not saying "you" can't or won't either, or that "you" are lazier than me. I'm just becoming convinced this was a change that may be a positive in the long-run.

Who knows, maybe the STO community should start focusing on telling Cryptic what could change in the existing queues to make them "fun". I mean, have you tried that Gravity one? C'mon, is that objectively fun?

[Generator]

I've actually been meaning to try that one, I locked into "Tzenkethi Front" early on for Lukari Marks, and feel like I need to branch out some. Can I deduce from your tone that you're not a fan...?

[Sul-Matuul]

Petarch I totally see you point and I think it's sadly a situation we all shared a part in.
Many of us would love to play all sorts of varied queues to get marks, dil etc, but sadly we had no option but to run with the RA's as anything else was dead.
The RA's getting omni-marks was meant to be to help people who couldn't get queues to pop. So in a way it did fix that issue, but it also utterly killed off the queues as well.That's like having a forest fire and rather than putting it out you just nuke the whole forest to get rid of the problem. It ws a bad decision from Cryptic at the time, and sadly people got used to it too easily. Then when they pull it out or change it suddenly people literally have no idea what to do.

Those of us older players will remember needing to do varied content to chase down marks or rewards we needed. And tbh i think most older gamer will accept this was what you always did in games if you wanted something; you needed to put in a lot of effort and there were rarely easy routes or shortcuts to getting the good gear etc. STO is way too easy in terms of getting top end gear, i know it's meant to be casual but when you can get EVERYTHING from one single mission, and loot itself has ceased to be a meaningful draw to anything then something is very wrong.

Now.....despite all the saltiness and upset in the player-base I'm honestly hoping this will actually be a good thing for fleets like UFP, HoK. We right here can now sit in a prime position to help our members get through this change by keeping up a steady flow of PVE queues being run, encouraging socializing and generally just all being the cool dudes everyone round here is and helping each other out.
UFP's strongest point I think is the real sense of community round here so i'm really meaning it when i say i think all our members can look to the fleet for help in getting rewards now, even if the RA changes seem like the end of the world to them.
We're all here for each other and every member new & old can freely ask me and probably many others for help if they are struggling to get certain rewards.

[Scarlett]

I've actually been meaning to try that one, I locked into "Tzenkethi Front" early on for Lukari Marks, and feel like I need to branch out some. Can I deduce from your tone that you're not a fan...?

To be fair, I tried it twice and settled on "no". BUT, I'm also not a fan of Infected Conduit because it's some high stress because I feel like I'm trying to compete and/or keep up with some heavy hitters. Sooooo ...

Does this mean, I won't go for it again? No. I will be happy to give it a shot, but I'd rather have a fleet-mate in there with me

[Generator]

To be fair, I tried it twice and settled on "no". BUT, I'm also not a fan of Infected Conduit because it's some high stress because I feel like I'm trying to compete and/or keep up with some heavy hitters. Sooooo ...

Does this mean, I won't go for it again? No. I will be happy to give it a shot, but I'd rather have a fleet-mate in there with me

Anytime, Scar! /thumbs_up

Seriously, any of you that might be on when I am, I'm game to run damn near anything. Find me, and let's blow s**t up for fun and profit. Mostly fun.

"I'm just one man."
"Now we're two."

[Scarlett]

Why not start a team?

I mean, I'm no leader, I'm a follower learning to be a leader

In other words: TAG!

[Generator]

I'll see how functional I am by that time of night, if it's "functional enough to throw invites around," you watch me!