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Image from https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online

For reference before we start, read up on the upcoming Mycelial Crisis event debuting in Star Trek Online with the release of “Season 18”, Star Trek Online: Awakening.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Are we good? Okay.

This Mycelial Event is already causing a stir in the community. You can read some of the responses here and here. (Just in case it needs to be said…language warning on those links. I won’t cuss on my blog, so if you want a fully clean-language, safe-for-work response, keep reading.)

It’s my hope to cut through both the bad and the good of the new system, and then give a personal take on all of it.

THE GOOD

Account-wide Tracking.

This is the first event that will fully track progress no matter which character(s) do the content. Maybe a Patrol has NPCs you need to defeat for an Endeavor, while another character is best suited to complete the Deal Kinetic Damage (Space) Endeavor quickly. Split that up among 2 characters and it’s now 30 total progress points rather than 2 separate TFO Token rewards.

Automatic Progress Tracking.

Progress is tracked automatically. No more tokens, Reputation UI, slotting projects, etc. You do a new Patrol, you get 15 progress points. The new mission? 45 points. No more inventory clutter, tracking multiple characters’ progress, forgetting to slot a project and missing out from that feel-bad moment when it’s 2:00 PM Eastern and you realize no character slotted the event project.

The Buyout is a BUYOUT!

Perhaps you’ve seen this item in the Z-Store (AKA “C-Store” for those who’ve been around longer than dirt.):

This item is colloquially referred to as a “buyout pack.” The intent is that, for 800 or 1000 Zen (depending on if it’s the first weekend of the event), you can get 10 days’ worth of progress bought out of the 14 you’d need. You also got 1 Ultimate Tech Upgrade (along with 500 Ship Coupon Progress Tokens for the TFOs that were part of that “Meta Event”).

This wasn’t a true “buyout pack.” It was 5/7ths of a buyout. You still needed 4 Featured TFO Tokens, usually meaning you had to run the event for at least 4 days on a character.

The buyout option for this event is a true buyout: You pay Zen, you’re done and don’t need to do any more of the event. Do as little or as much as you like, pay Zen for the difference, and it’s totally fine!

The Buyout is Prorated.

Imagine, if you will…you do 15 days of the event. School tied you up, family needed you, medical emergency, etc. And then you realize, “Uh oh, the event’s over and I can’t get the ship!”

Unlike the “buyout” of the Featured TFOs, the buyout price for this event is prorated. Let’s say you get 900 of the 1,200 progress points it takes to get the ship. Your Zen amount is then reduced by 3/4 (900/1200), meaning you only pay 1,500 Zen.

Dilithium Is Given Beyond Full Completion.

This seems like a nerf to events. There’s no Dilithium given as you progress toward the new ship! But consider this more like the Summer/Winter/Anniversary events that give a T6 ship. Once you get the ship, you could do each daily and get 40 marks, not even enough to turn into Dilithium in any Reputation’s conversion store.

After you get 1,200 progress points, hitting the 60-point daily cap gets you at least 5,000 Dilithium. That number goes up in the days beyond. Think of that as like getting 500 Marks and converting those to Dilithium…and you keep earning more after that.

Multiple Ways to Earn Progress

Tired of the TFO? Run the mission.

Tired of the mission? Do the Patrols.

Tired of the Patrols? Do the TFO.

You aren’t tied to one piece of content to earn progress in this event. Maybe for a week, Patrols are your best bet. You get tired of them and try the mission and 1 Patrol. Perhaps you like the TFO and figure you can do it twice a day fine. It’s your choice!

For all the good that comes with this event, there’s bad that has to go with it.

THE BAD

Multiple Toons? That Was Nice…

Since event progress is tracked along the whole account, you can no longer complete a main Event project (50,000 Dilithium, 500 Fleet Marks, 250 Reputation Marks) on each character on your account. If you use 4 different characters, doing 1 Patrol each to gain progress in the Mycelial Crisis Event…well, it’s all the same progress being tracked. Congrats, you have your 60 points for doing 4 Patrols!

6,000 ZEN!? SIX THOUSAND!?

If you’re in the United States, 6,000 Zen is roughly equivalent to $60. At the current Dilithium Exchange Rate (415 Dilithium per Zen as of 9/2/2019 at 10:17 PM Eastern), that’s 2,490,000 Dilithium!

If you want to “buyout” on day 1, yes, this is extreme.

You Can’t Stack Old “Projects”/Event Reward Claims (kinda)

Before, when you could slot projects on multiple characters, you could slot an event’s project and if you didn’t like the TFO or almost got enough tokens but not quite, you could wait until that TFO came back around (or the next Featured TFO, in recent months) and not only pick back up where you left off but potentially finish off the current event’s project, as well.

That is mostly gone with the new events update. You can still get your ship (or other event “Grand Prize”) later, but at the prorated rate (if you did any of the event), which costs Zen instead of Featured TFO Tokens.

FOMO: Do It Or Pay For It.

This is the toughest drawback to the new event structure. Since you can’t stack up Featured TFO Tokens and/or slot event projects for later progression, you’ll have to be cognizant of making sure you do your 60 points per day or you won’t get your event item (or have to pay a high price to get it later).

PERSONAL REACTION/JUSTIFICATIONS/RANTS

Let’s compare this to some other event types we most commonly have.

FEATURED TFO: No contest, this doesn’t compare. We get a ship plus goodies. Featured TFOs never gave ships (unless you count the Beacon of Kahless from the first Battle at the Binary Stars event). They were also shorter: 14 days needed out of 20 available (21 if you could do the event before maintenance on the final Thursday of its run).

SUMMER/WINTER/ANNIVERSARY: This is much more in-line with what we’re getting. In early December – mid-January, late January – late February, and early July – mid-August, we get events where the main project rewards an account-unlocked Tier 6 [T6] Starship. It’s from this perspective from which I’ll give my personal opinion.

Summer/Winter/Anniversary These ships had a “buyout” option of buying the vouchers needed via the Lobi Store or related event store in the Reputation UI tab. Thanks to CounterYolo, he figured the average buyout cost for Summer and Winter events was ~32,000 Zen . The Duration of the event was 25 daily completions out of ~40 available days. This meant you had about a 2-week grace period to finish the part that gives you a ship. After the primary event completion, you could keep doing the daily for 40 Marks.

Mycelial Crisis This ship has a straight buyout of 6,000 Zen , which gets reduced based on how much of the event you do. The Duration to get the ship is 1,200 progress points, equating to 20 full daily completions (60 progress points capped per day * 20 days). We do not yet know how long the event will run total, but a worst case guess would be at earliest October 3rd (the first Thursday maintenance day after full completion), giving 25 days total and a 3-day grace period (the shortest grace period, save for First Contact Day). However, if we base it off the Summer and Winter Events, I’d guess the end could be as late as October 17th, giving 38 days total, thus an 18-day grace period (longer than even the Summer and Winter events). After the primary event completion (getting the “Grand Prize” of the ship + weapons + Ultimate Tech Upgrades), you get Dilithium for each day’s completion, starting at 5,000 Dilithium and increasing from there.



So combining the above with the pros and cons of this new system, what’s my personal take? What does “Joe and STO” think of this new event structure, and of this event in particular?

EVENT STRUCTURE

I like not having to keep track from character to character which one has done what project(s). I’m also glad this won’t take up any more inventory slots (though it was only 1 slot). We no longer have to worry about slotting projects, which can be a huge “feel bad” for someone who did the event but forgot that one step, therefore losing out on that account-unlocked reward.

I don’t like not being able to earn progress via another event after the previous event(s) is done. There are legitimate reasons for missing an event such as business travel, school work, and family responsibilities. For items that can be meta defining, this creates a worse “feel bad” than forgetting to slot a project.

Overall, I feel the setup is a net positive for normal gameplay. Not being able to stack up event reward claims is a big negative and is something I hope Cryptic would revisit for the future as they get feedback and business analysis on how this type of event pans out.

BUYOUT PACKAGE

That this event has a true buyout option works in its favor. You don’t have to do any of the event as long as you pay the Zen. However, if you’re playing and not skipping the event entirely, 6,000 Zen is effectively a false price. If you want to get “the best of both worlds,” do half the event (600 progress points, 10 days’ full completions) and “buyout” at 3,000 Zen. Why? Because that’s what an account-unlocked Tier 6 ship at full price costs in the Z-Store.

Since it’s an account unlock, let’s treat this like a Z-Store purchase anyway. In that case, treat event progress like earning Dilithium for your ship. One progress point would equal an effective 2,075 Dilithium, meaning the following effective Dilithium values for each piece of content per run (not counting base Dilithium rewards and converting Marks into Dilithium):

Mission: 93,375 Dilithium

TFO: 62,250 Dilithium

Patrols: 31,125 Dilithium per Patrol

I don’t feel this is a bad deal, especially considering each character can only refine 8,000-~9,000 Dilithium per day.

REWARDS

We don’t have a version of new event similar to a Featured TFO, so I’m judging by the Summer/Winter/Anniversary events of the past. Although my analysis above compares to Summer and Winter events, this may be closer to the Anniversary event (which has similar Lobi Store buyouts for Anniversary vouchers). It’s not a big ask of Cryptic to have you go to 3 different maps and collect Omega particles. This is a more involved version of that, and you can queue or Transwarp to everything, cutting down on travel time.

For all 3 other ship-earning events, you only get the ship. Here, you get the ship, 8 space weapons (account-bound, but claimable once per account), and 3 Ultimate Tech Upgrades specifically for ship weapons. That’s already more than we get during the Anniversary (which ironically also gives materials toward a type of Upgrade). Afterward, we get more Dilithium than we would have with Mark-to-Dilithium conversions. And don’t forget the Dilithium and Marks (or mission reward(s) ) for doing the new content.

I’m fine with the rewards and think they’re worth the effort.

RANTS

Oh, I can’t let Cryptic off too easy. “Cryptic apologist,” they’d say…and probably will anyway, but hopefully this shows my attempt to view as many angles as possible.

The “Fear of Missing Out” is real. I can’t slot this and complete it later like I did in the past. While my lifestyle at the moment should allow me to do this event with little effort, I’m not most other people (and I may not even be able to in a weeks’ time, let alone 3-5 weeks’, depending on life events). Buying out only with Zen can get rough over the long term. I bought some of those Featured TFO “buyouts” because I wanted the Ultimate Tech Upgrade, but the more frequent the events, the less I could justify paying what would have became essentially another monthly/bi-monthly fee. While I recognize Cryptic is a business and has a profit motive, slapping 6,000 Zen on the undiscounted buyout indicates they are out for as much money as they can get and quickly. DO NOT FALL FOR THAT! To me, the fair value of the buyout is 3,000 Zen for the ship, 1,500 Zen total for the Ultimate Tech Upgrades (if we break the Featured TFO “buyout” as 500 Zen for the Featured TFO Tokens and the other 500 Zen for the Upgrade), and the weapons at 0 Zen (because specialty weapons aren’t in the Z-Store) for a 4,500 Zen fair price. Some may argue that it should be lower considering the Ultimate Tech Upgrades this gives are only for starship weapons, but I’m trying to give some benefit of the doubt as to their value. So I’d say 4,500 Zen probably should have been the starting buyout price instead. If you can get this ship’s buyout down to between 3,000 – 4,500 Zen, I think you’d be doing fine (with anything below 3,000 Zen effectively being a discount).

This feels like a long piece for me, but I wanted to try and hit as many highlights and lowlights as possible. Let me know what you think.