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Blame the Players

dabelgravedabelgrave Member Posts: 979 Arc User
This was originally meant as a response to the EP's message, but that thread seems to be locked.


Blame the players.

That is the way this game has been going for the past year or so. If you want to make poor or unpopular changes to the game, blame the players.

You removed the hourly events, and replaced them with weekend events that take place less frequently. Blame the players, and claim they were not taking advantage of these times. The reality is players get less reward in the long run.

You removed exploration clusters and the associated missions. Blame the players, and claim they got lost and quit the game out of frustration. The reality is players have fewer options for varied mission types.

You made STFs into DPS races, and put the BNP-type drops out of reach for the average player. Blame the players since they needed a greater challenge. The reality is most players no longer consider these queues a worthwhile use of their time.

You needed to remove a means of leveling quickly without using the new Delta Rising content. Blame the players, and call it an exploit. Now players are frustrated and unsure where else to gain their skill points, expertise, and mastery at a decent rate.

So why is it you keep blaming the players for these changes that ultimately do not benefit the players?

In this latest instance, you should not have blamed the players. Instead, congratulate them on their ingenuity and resourcefulness in finding easier ways to grind their levels, specialization, and mastery. We are gamers, after all, and finding easier, efficient ways to do things is what we do. If you acknowledge without malice that we found an unintended means to bypass your game designs, we would be much more open to accepting your need to close the holes in your game design. Pass the blame and penalize our ingenuity and resourcefulness, however, and you can be sure to upset the players.

Stop blaming the players for your unpopular changes to the game, and definitely do not penalize them if they do find and use an oversight on your part. All you are doing is giving the players more reasons to distrust Cryptic, and consider alternative sources of entertainment. Please do not continue to blame the players and continue to hurt this game I otherwise enjoy.

Instead, I feel squeezed. I feel as if almost everything I do and enjoy with the game is slowly being removed or replaced with pay gates, and sometimes in such a way that it hurts the mmo part of mmorpg.

Old content, like the original Borg STFs have been redesigned and remade several times, each time changing it in ways to squeeze more effort out of me for less reward. Previously we had some STFs we did great with no problem, but others we were still struggling to get the optionals. Now we have no chance of meeting that goal, so why bother? Blame the players. They wanted more challenge and rewards.

The upgrade system also squeezes me. The "new" advanced and elite queues expect players to be using upgraded equipment. Fine. I might be able to dig a few more dollars out of my wallet. But what about my friends and fleet? If they cannot afford to upgrade their equipment, now we are no longer able to play together competitively. Why should they even bother teaming up or continuing to play? Blame the players. They wanted to be able to craft and upgrade their items.

Mission variety is another area where I am being squeezed into having fewer options. Most missions available are the kill 5 and move on type, with a few others sprinkled in. Exploration clusters might have been pretty uniform, but at least they had somewhat random variety. I never knew what to expect. I could warp into a mission and it could be ground, space, combat, aid the planet, scanning alien devices, investigating damaged ships, or something else. Now I am more or less limited to story missions and patrols, all of which are extremely similar. Blame the players. There was so much variety they were getting lost and quitting the game.

And why even bother having a friends list or be a member of a fleet? Everyone else is feeling squeezed too. Between missions becoming even more DPS-centric, the R&D and upgrade systems, the loss of mission variety, and decreased reasons to team up, some players I know are finding it difficult to find reasons to continue playing. Since head start, this is the first time I have ever found myself wondering if a great person I played with today will disappear forever tomorrow. Blame the players. They wanted all these changes.

So Cryptic, please stop blaming the players. Give us a broad Star Trek experience, not the continually squeezed and limited experience you are pushing us into. Some of us have high hopes for this game. Make it so.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • abfabfleetabfabfleet Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    If the thread is locked, it means no more posts, called necro... and here we go with keeping this story going :rolleyes:
  • daan2006daan2006 Member Posts: 5,346 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    going on title alone seems this what the Dev love doing here of late
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    swimwear off risa not fixed
    system Lord Baal is dead
    macronius wrote: »
    This! Their ability to outdo their own failures is quite impressive. If only this power could be harnessed for good.
  • ladymyajhaladymyajha Member Posts: 1,427 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    As much as I disagree with how Cryptic handled the situation, the thread was locked, meaning they either got the message, or simply don't care to hear it.

    Either way it's done, over with, kaput, finished. Do we really need yet another thread on this very same subject along with the dozens of others?
  • cheesebasketcheesebasket Member Posts: 1,099 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Inb4lock..
    The hamster will RULE ALLL....

    Mwahahahahahahaha
  • mikearoomikearoo Member Posts: 342 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Ahh yeah. IF the devs simply changed their approach things would be a lot better.

    I remember a while ago, running what was called a Hami raid, with a dev or two participating in City of Heroes. Things were dicey and then there was a mass wipe. In order to get the players back into the fight as quickly as possible Oil slick was called, to which the response from a dev was oil slick wtf?

    You see, there was a group rez power that relied on an enemy target, oil slick counted because you could either use oil slick as a means of control (enemies would slip over) or if someone had fire or energy, you could target it and ignite it.

    This was an unintended effect, but it was left alone because even though the devs hadn't planned on it, they couldn't deny it was ingenious
  • janus1975janus1975 Member Posts: 739 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    skollulfr wrote: »
    unpopular changes are going to be changes that take away an advantage...

    Yes, but this depends on factors such as whether it's universal (such as Reputation minimizing) and keeps the game accessible (such as only changing one aspect at a time). I defended the nerfing of the Reputation system when it happened as it was justified; changing so much at once was bound to create problems.
    ... the players did get lost. players frequently get lost. the 2d map with no z-axis nav info is not fit for perpose not to mention the number of players whos interaction with the map is "minimise it into the corner...

    This is sadly true, such as the "Lost Ship" massive lollipop sign in the Dyson Sphere. Again, worth putting in something that can be switched on and off... or at some point just saying "The way to do X is this, that's all she wrote". And yes, I've defended the existence of problems in the game in the past purely because there was some sort of workaround (does that mean I'll get stuff taken away one day randomly? Maybe!)
    ...dps races.... the pre dr patrolls where designed around 3 years ago...

    Power Creep is frankly a lazy way to create new content, especially in a franchise that rotates around adventure.
    ... litterally thread after thread of winge whine about wanting infinite progression and more power, with no consideration to it breaking the game...

    The feeling of progression depends on what you offer. Imagine if instead of more Combat progression after L50 it became non-combat/fun progressions, such as say, "Warp Speed!" offering a buff to sector warp; "Shoes!" offering jet boots for use in New Romulus; "Row Row Row Yer Boat" opening up a non-combat adventure mission where you lead some cadets on one of those Survival Weekends, I'm sure there are others but these should be doable or at least give some indications... adding little things on a regular routine basis giving people an opportunity to feel like there's always "something" happening, turning the "big releases" into real highlights and not "the only thing" that's going on.
    doing this after destroying the value of players t5 ships? bad timing compounded with designing the game around ideas for a lan rpg instead of an mmo.

    Totally agree. At this stage I'd like to see a way to block off L51+ for all my toons so I don't have to participate in the stupidity of the Moar Levels Grind Hell.
    .. the players here have often no clue about the mechanics they are asking for, and unfortunately for cryptic and players alike, their stuck with delusional people who think things like the rpg trinity or non dps classes have any place in a combat oriented international scale mmo game.

    If Cryptic dumped the idea that "combat" is all there is, looked at Adventure/mystery, introduced more career-specific options as we see in missions like SS Azure and Of Bajor, and looked at progression post-L50 in terms of "1-50 is improving combat, 51-wherever is adventure" or something, then they may have created a much better all-round product.

    Sorry but I think people (not just Cryptic, they're not the only company that thinks this way) need to stop thinking of excuses as to "why it can't be done", but start asking questions about "how it might be done".

    And finally: they need to stop biting the hand that feeds them.
  • rswfiredotcomrswfiredotcom Member Posts: 262 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    ladymyajha wrote: »
    As much as I disagree with how Cryptic handled the situation, the thread was locked, meaning they either got the message, or simply don't care to hear it.

    Either way it's done, over with, kaput, finished. Do we really need yet another thread on this very same subject along with the dozens of others?

    Yes. Yes, we do.
  • oneratsonerats Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    They can't just lock a thread and expect us to stop talking about it. If they do expect that, then they can lock as many threads as they want and ban as many accounts as they want. This was a big deal to those of us that got screwed out of a lot of time and effort. They screwed up, and they blamed us for it. I didn't even use their "exploit" and I certainly didn't do anything wrong. I got robbed regardless, and even still I think they did a serious injustice to those that did use their so called "exploit". Even those people should have been left alone, they do no harm to themselves or others - and it was Cryptic's failure to correct the issue in the first place, not the players for locating, reporting, and choosing to use the most effective method possible to level after it wasn't changed.
  • therealmttherealmt Member Posts: 428 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Fully agree with the OP. the game development is a direct reflection of what the playerbase wants.

    In example, pvp has been neglected for years, thats not because players shout 'we dont want pvp' but cryptic sees what you are up to. And statistically speaking there are very few players interested in pvp. the ones that are but dont play blame it on the state of pvp, and the effects of this constant loop increases until there is no returning point.

    What else do they see? they see everyone grinding like hell, just like a nice chinese farmer would. So what do they add next? ofcourse, more grind ;)

    Its a plague to the MMO world, mmos got infected with diseases.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • kiloacekiloace Member Posts: 488 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    *hands in the air*

    This is, without a doubt, the most angry I have seen the forums in years. I'm not about to hop on the wagon for a revolution, but it seems to me that the community will not quell itself this time. If Cryptic doesn't think of something quick, Season 10 is gonna end up with the title "The Community Strikes Back."


    All things considered though, I wonder just how tied Cryptic's hands are in all of this. We all know they were absorbed by PWE...the dev team may be as bound to relentless corporate will as every 2nd tier company Disney has absorbed in the past several years.
  • neoakiraiineoakiraii Member Posts: 7,468 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Don't hate the Player, hate the Game. :cool:
    GwaoHAD.png
  • selraxxxselraxxx Member Posts: 89 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    dabelgrave wrote: »
    Mission variety is another area where I am being squeezed into having fewer options. Most missions available are the kill 5 and move on type, with a few others sprinkled in. Exploration clusters might have been pretty uniform, but at least they had somewhat random variety. I never knew what to expect. I could warp into a mission and it could be ground, space, combat, aid the planet, scanning alien devices, investigating damaged ships, or something else. Now I am more or less limited to story missions and patrols, all of which are extremely similar. Blame the players. There was so much variety they were getting lost and quitting the game.
    .

    I really miss the old cluster exploration missions :mad:
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • shpoksshpoks Member Posts: 6,967 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I completely agree with your points OP. It seems we share the feelings on a lot of things happening in STO currently and during the past year.
    Ever since D'Angelo took over, the game is feeling smaller and smaller. If you take a note of the events that happened during that time, it's like his goal is to force everyone into the exact same linear path in the game, where side options to diversify gameplay don't exist and we must all play how, when and where the developer says, step by step. Now, even a person that has never played a game in his/hers life can tell you just how faulty approach that is. It's common sense, no need to be a rocket scientist to understand it. I'm very wary of what the goals of our EP about the game are as of late.
    HQroeLu.jpg
  • tankfox23tankfox23 Member Posts: 100 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Goal is very simple: money. Make it almost impossible to progress without feeling like you need to spend money. If anyone manages to pull away from their metrics nerf the "exploit" and bring them all down a peg. I didn't get hit by the mass loss of specialization points, but it was still incredibly obviously poorly implemented by Cryptic.
  • vawlkusvawlkus Member Posts: 348 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    So. Leveling in the game is an exploit according to D'Angelo. Ok.

    Y'know Cryptic, this doesn't happen in most other games. Take Destiny from Bungie for example. When playerd found the 'loot cave', did Bungie freak out and start banning players? Nope, they simply said "Ok, good job finding that, but it's not how this is supposed to go", patched the loot cave so it didn't work anymore, and put in a little voice-over treat to let their players know it was fixed. Not a single player was banned for using the loot cave, and nothing earned from it was taken away. Were the players mad about that? Not really. Most just said "whatever" and moved on to the next area in the game.

    Imagine how much less uproar there would have been if Cryptic had done the same in this intance instead of spazzing out, and using the nerfbat and banhammer AND blamed the players for something that the test server players warned them about months in advance.

    Interesting, isn't it?
  • seriousdaveseriousdave Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Well Cryptic, you blew it.

    As the previous poster statet, Bungie had a similar thing in Destiny and they handeled it with care without pissing off half the playerbase and labeling people as cheater and banning players left and right.

    So far it looks like the only things they consider "gameplay" are: waiting for timers, buy zen with $ and shorten timers with said zen/dil.
    Everything else will be deemed as exploit and pummeled into the ground with the nerfhammer.
  • kamenriderzero1kamenriderzero1 Member Posts: 906 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Consider this.

    Yes, Cryptic left these exploits in the game, but that was not an invitation to the players to use and abuse it.

    Several years ago, a boy was killed here in NYC, when he climbed down through a hole in a fence onto the main line of the Long Island Rail Road and started to graffiti the place.

    He was stuck by a train doing about 60-70 MPH.

    His parents immediately blamed the railroad, because the hole in the fence enticed him to climb down there. That was their excuse.

    This is what I'm seeing in these Skill point rage threads. "It was there , so I should be allowed to do it"

    If you leave your door unlocked and someone broke into your house and their excuse was "Well you left the door unlocked, obviously you wanted me to come in here and take your stuff", how would you feel?

    Because that's kinda how many of you are acting.
    Everywhere I look, people are screaming about how bad Cryptic is.
    What's my position?
    That people should know what they're screaming about!
    (paraphrased from "The Newsroom)
  • suuperduudesuuperduude Member Posts: 367 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Consider this.

    Yes, Cryptic left these exploits in the game, but that was not an invitation to the players to use and abuse it.

    Several years ago, a boy was killed here in NYC, when he climbed down through a hole in a fence onto the main line of the Long Island Rail Road and started to graffiti the place.

    He was stuck by a train doing about 60-70 MPH.

    His parents immediately blamed the railroad, because the hole in the fence enticed him to climb down there. That was their excuse.

    This is what I'm seeing in these Skill point rage threads. "It was there , so I should be allowed to do it"

    If you leave your door unlocked and someone broke into your house and their excuse was "Well you left the door unlocked, obviously you wanted me to come in here and take your stuff", how would you feel?

    Because that's kinda how many of you are acting.

    But Cryptic knew about this on Tribble. If the RR company knew about that hole in the fence, and knew kids were climbing down there, could it no be conceivable the RR company was fine with that?
    --
    Lion Heart of Hammer Squadron
  • originalkaticoriginalkatic Member Posts: 81 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    STO isn't being truly designed via interactions between the Devs and the Players, the managements/Corporate people in the offices of Cryptic/ARC/PWE is all in there as well, as such, anything that threatens the way all roads lead sooner or later to the Zen Store and allows players to easily (as opposed to tediously) earn advancement is going to be quickly quashed.
    Original Join Date: January 2010. Ragequit Date: January 7th 2012. Return Date: October 23rd 2014.

    Almost called it.
  • dabelgravedabelgrave Member Posts: 979 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm not trying to argue who is at fault for the latest fiasco---that's been done to death. I am saying Cryptic needs to stop blaming players for their unpopular changes and kneejerk reactions. Metrics? Exploiters? It's all worded in ways to pass the blame away from Cryptic.
  • lowy1lowy1 Member Posts: 964 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    This has the makings of the NGE only its STO style not SWG style. All was done for the sake of money and it backfired on them. SWG was one for the first MMOs to have a true Alpha Class, the Jedi. But because of some poor combat mechanics a non jedi melee stacker could beat a Jedi in 1v1 combat because he could stack his defense so incredibly high that the Jedi would not do any damage to him. Add in a Nice Janta Weapon Drop or Acklay Power Hammer and it wouldn't be fair. It would be as tedious as leveling in DQ on Elite but none the less the stacker would win.

    Players wanted it tweaked to lessen the stacking via diminishing returns or caps...instead we got Mass Exodus 1 the Combat Upgrade. Completely NOT what the players wanted. What needed Arthroscopic Surgery got Open Heart Surgery. At that point SOE for the most part learned their lesson, Lucas Arts had not. Some egghead thought it would be cool try to make it available for consoles and said people only wanted to play "Iconic" Classes. Thus we got the NGE or the frontal lobotomy when the only thing that was needed was an Aspirin. See, SWG was recovering from the CU because systems still worked for the most part.

    What the NGE brought us was 9 "Iconic" Professions, and nothing else that worked properly because in order to "simplify the game and add linear features to it. All in order to get more players and to compete with WoW. But, they instead broke the game and gave us that fu**ing legacy quest. Weapons didn't work, Jedi were pedestrian and regular classes were now able to afk farm the DWB for the Mandalorian Armor materials. PreCU, you'd need a group of 20 with Jedi and you might make it down to the crafting room in 2 hours.

    Needless to say, the game never fully recovered even though some of the last updates were amazing. Atmospheric Flight Anyone? Their TCG was ingenious. None of it had to do with paying money or grinding an eternity for better gear, it was just shinies that made quality of life better or decorations vehicles etc. Vet rewards were amazing as well, not the 80% TRIBBLE we get now. Oh you got to choose the reward because there were lots of them not just here you go too bad if it sucks.

    That is the path this game has taken. PWE/Cryptic needs to get away from the Greed is Good (Gordon Gekko) by placing astronomically high pay walls in front of everything. This ain't the 80s. You might keep your few whales for a while until they find another game to spend on their money on, but you won't keep them long if no one else is playing.
    HzLLhLB.gif

  • wudwaenwudwaen Member Posts: 72 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    ladymyajha wrote: »
    As much as I disagree with how Cryptic handled the situation, the thread was locked, meaning they either got the message, or simply don't care to hear it.

    Either way it's done, over with, kaput, finished. Do we really need yet another thread on this very same subject along with the dozens of others?

    I don't think Cryptic has gotten the message. I see nothing about how screwed up Deltra Rising has been. Players I know that have for years played no other game, dedicated all of their gaming investment to STO are now playing other MMOs. Those I know who are still playing, looking for any exploit that will make continued play tolerable, live in countries where government owned internet services are so limited that it would take them weeks to download and play another game.
    1. STFs I enjoyed - gone or destroyed.
    2. Ships I play for RP reasons - useless. Upgrading RP (or other) ships excessively expensive.
    3. Content I need for developing my fleet - unplayable.
    4. Characters that had maxed out crafting - can craft nothing.
    5. Out of my dozen characters - 6 are Borg: Neural Processors only available in Pay to Win areas.
    6. Out of my dozen characters - 6 are not Feds: The new ships don't support half of them.
    7. For a dozen characters I am expected to spend over $300.00 in ship purchases, some of which haven't been designed yet, so they can play current content.
    8. With a Lifetime account it will take a minimum of 6 months to obtain one new ship - and that ship will only support 1/9th of the character options.

    As it stands, the only content in game I will consider playing is from before this summer.

    Can I believe they don't want to hear that a lot of man hours were spent programming something a huge number of us don't like? Yes. Are they ignoring just how pissed off so many of us are - I sincerely hope not. If the game isn't fixed soon - I expect the servers will have to be turned off within a year. It has become too expensive, too exclusive, and too frustrating to play this F2P game.
    Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
  • lowy1lowy1 Member Posts: 964 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Not gonna happen. History has shown that companies who stand up and take responsibily for their actions goes out of buisness...quickly. Kinda like how we keep harping on about we want an honest politian. Yeah well, we had one. Walter Mondale. He told the truth and was annilated for it (yeah...no other politian will make that mistake again...and hasn't since). We say we want honesty, we want responsible...but when we get it, we shun from it because truth hurts. You want cryptic to stop doing what they do? You need stop rewarding EVERY company that does this then...which at this point is impossible. And we, the people created this mess by believeing in the lies we knew were lies and punishing those who dare tell the truth. So yeah...it is actually our (collective american culture here) fault...our fault that we now only accept it, but if you don't we punish you. Truth hurts don't it.

    I think you will see it slowly change over time because of Social Media. There are thousands of games out there that offer a potential experience that could pull someone away from this game. If people find a model that works for them , they will leave. I think one of the problems with MMOs that feature a AAA IP is that they get lazy or over confident that it will sell because it says Star Wars or Star Trek. Don't get me wrong it will at first but they have tokeep the quality there and then some or people will leave. With those IPs they are attracting not just gamers but fans of the IP that may otherwise not game at all if it is not SW or ST.
    HzLLhLB.gif

This discussion has been closed.