In that case time to delete almost all my characters or just find a better game to play.
Well, if you don't actually enjoy those characters then it's really irrelevant if you delete them or not. If you do enjoy them then I don't see why you would delete them just because you don't plan to get them any better gear. I mean, what do good gear and a character being fun to play have to do with one another? Sure, I get it, you WANT the gear... so just want it on a few characters, and just enjoy the rest without worrying about gear.
Follow Jonsil's example and be honest with yourself about what you actually want to do with your time in game... and then do it, and don't begrudge others who want to do the things you don't.
You don't need the gear, or any of the rewards. You get to decide if you farm for them or not. Make your decision, and own that decision. No more pretending you're being forced into a process that you don't want to do when you're the only one forcing you into it. Heck, you don't even have to log in if you don't want to.
PS - threatening to "find another game to play" doesn't work
In that case time to delete almost all my characters or just find a better game to play.
Well, if you don't actually enjoy those characters then it's really irrelevant if you delete them or not. If you do enjoy them then I don't see why you would delete them just because you don't plan to get them any better gear. I mean, what do good gear and a character being fun to play have to do with one another? Sure, I get it, you WANT the gear... so just want it on a few characters, and just enjoy the rest without worrying about gear.
Follow Jonsil's example and be honest with yourself about what you actually want to do with your time in game... and then do it, and don't begrudge others who want to do the things you don't.
You don't need the gear, or any of the rewards. You get to decide if you farm for them or not. Make your decision, and own that decision. No more pretending you're being forced into a process that you don't want to do when you're the only one forcing you into it. Heck, you don't even have to log in if you don't want to.
PS - threatening to "find another game to play" doesn't work
I think if gear is the main progression for those toons (they've done all that they can in game) I can see how keeping those toons shelved for a month or more while you focus on one toon may not be appealing to some.
With that said soon there WILL BE some new things to do that have nothing to do with gear, if you have level 40 alts. A whole new zone of stuff.
EDIT: Also keep in mind freeform does really allow a person to play one toon as every toon now if they wanted to. With me about to get my third piece of justice gear, Darq Aura is nearly complete. If I wanted to to I could delete all my other toons and simply keep retconning her into other roles as needed/as I want to experience over the years. Whether or not pushing folks to feel like they only need one toon ever is the way to go (whether that is the dev's intent or not that is how some folks feel) is good for the game is an entirely separate debate. That could potentially lead to less money being spent over time in the Zen store if folks don't alt, or feel the need to alt.
In addition it potentially means less folks switching to alternate roles that the GCR content may need. For example, I'm on my tank but I see we need a healer or dog tank, I may switch if I have one. But if I only have one toon there is nothing for me to switch to, or if I feel compelled to stick with one toon for the full month or month and half to get the gear I want (notice I said want not need) then that is one less possible person who could bring that role for TA or cosmics.
For example, already I'm seeing the same or samish folks bring a dog CCer to Kiga. I don't think that's good in the long run in terms of community based content. Also there should be a steady stream of folks willing to try and learn dino and bring the necessary alts for it, but we're instead seeing Dino being ignored for now. (Ofcourse there are other MAIN and KEY issues related to that, but I don't pushing folks to feel like they should only stick to one toon, helps that situation.)
In my situation (and only speaking for myself) I don't want to bring a healer or dpser to dino as I really want to focus only on Darq till she is geared up. I have the necessary toons (including a dog tank build I copied from Spinny) but I don't feel the need to bring them, as I again want to focus just on Darq till she is geared.
EDIT2: And she just got her third justice piece. She's done and got the Justified perk (didn't even know that existed). So no more urgency for rampages for me anymore. I can just do everything for fun now.
You don't need the gear, or any of the rewards. You get to decide if you farm for them or not. Make your decision, and own that decision. No more pretending you're being forced into a process that you don't want to do when you're the only one forcing you into it. Heck, you don't even have to log in if you don't want to.
I agree with this, as it's obviously the truth. Making it sound like the grind/high prices is going to ruin current content or enjoyment is... a stretch, at best. Every reward in game is entirely optional, and none of them change any of the actual content. Unless things are messed with to the point where nobody queues for group content, but that's another matter.
However, there is some basis for complaint or feedback, for those who subscribe or support the game through the Z-store. The reason people pay money to the game is largely to support its continued development. If I've been paying them to continue working on it, and the work they end up doing all goes towards things that I feel are locked behind an untenable grind, I won't be happy about that. No, I'm still not forced to participate in the content or go after the rewards, but I can understand someone thinking that they haven't received what they paid for, in essence.
As has been stated, of course, it's then your prerogative to actually find a new game, switch to Silver, etc. Just saying that I can understand frustration for paying customers when the direction of the game goes so jarringly against both personal preference and prior experience.
Well, if we're going there, having this game installed on my computer at all is a "want". You know what else is a "want"? Cryptic making money from this game. If too many people don't "want" to play the content because it feels like a grind or requires groups they can't make, then they won't want to spend money. I would think if Cryptic wants money, they might be bothered to take other people's wants into consideration.
Part of the problem is that the way people have been playing the game is being changed. Before, switching to an alt the group needs for the content was no big deal. Now, people aren't going to bother because they have a toon they want to gear first. Then it's all about playing the waiting game for that role and at that point, not a whole lot of playing is going on. It just causes problems on several levels and for what? No really, for what? There is no advantage to snubbing play-styles that have been supported for years. The current dev team can blow smoke up everyone's **** about what was intended, but it's just another case of people wanting to shape CO in their image and not caring if it fits into or can be supported by the game.
If too many people don't "want" to play the content because it feels like a grind or requires groups they can't make, then they won't want to spend money. I would think if Cryptic wants money, they might be bothered to take other people's wants into consideration.
Whats more likely is that the other super ez system (which has been around for years) was was not performing adequately monetarily. PWE has the advantage of having several MMOs and years of trial and error under their belt. These guys have mountains of statistics for this game and others that we cant see.
Part of the problem is that the way people have been playing the game is being changed. Before, switching to an alt the group needs for the content was no big deal. Now, people aren't going to bother because they have a toon they want to gear first. Then it's all about playing the waiting game for that role and at that point, not a whole lot of playing is going on.
This is a problem that plagues all MMOs. Time will tell if these changes make the problem worse, but Its not like we don't already have issues with this. The one thing CO has going for it in this regard is that there are so many hybrid builds that can ease the strain in these situations.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Sterga hits it on the head. Also, remember that even though they have all kinds of data and statistics they devs can and do make mistakes, and if it's a big one they usually don't have the time to go back and overhaul it.
One of CO's biggest problems is that it keeps getting passed around to different dev teams who all have their own ideas. That's why we have tons of abandoned ideas in the game. Being basically in a dead zone for a year or so didn't do it any favors either. I can point to a game that is doing phenomenally well that makes it easy and appealing for everyone to roll alts for days.
It looks like this is more of CO being "brought up" to STO and CashCow standards. Or at least for CashCow, considering alting is not as friendly as it is in CO. One-size does not fit all with games. In CO's case, with the freeform system and character customization, making it easy to alt makes more sense. This isn't a typical class based MMO where rolling 10 different rouges is pointless. In CO, you could make those 10 different rouges and they can all be drastically different.
CO has some unique things in it, yet is being treated like any other class based fantasy MMO. Metrics do not tell the whole story.
If too many people don't "want" to play the content because it feels like a grind or requires groups they can't make, then they won't want to spend money. I would think if Cryptic wants money, they might be bothered to take other people's wants into consideration.
Whats more likely is that the other super ez system (which has been around for years) was was not performing adequately monetarily. PWE has the advantage of having several MMOs and years of trial and error under their belt. These guys have mountains of statistics for this game and others that we cant see.
Part of the problem is that the way people have been playing the game is being changed. Before, switching to an alt the group needs for the content was no big deal. Now, people aren't going to bother because they have a toon they want to gear first. Then it's all about playing the waiting game for that role and at that point, not a whole lot of playing is going on.
This is a problem that plagues all MMOs. Time will tell if these changes make the problem worse, but Its not like we don't already have issues with this. The one thing CO has going for it in this regard is that there are so many hybrid builds that can ease the strain in these situations.
Errr except that it doesn't. You can already see this in what's going on with forming for teams in non-US time zones. The game's current population just doesn't completely support what you just stated.
Sterga its actually EASIER to alt in STO than it is in CO right now! the rep system and daily bonus marks allow alts to be geared up in only a few minutes play on each a day. you can easily gear 3-4 alts at a time, and within a reasonable time frame.
I'm not happy with this change at all. It discourages having multiple characters. I'm sitting at 28 currently, most of which only have average gear to begin with. I'll just settle with merc gear honestly if these changes go into effect. I don't want to spend hours and hours grinding on each character, I want to have fun.
Sterga its actually EASIER to alt in STO than it is in CO right now! the rep system and daily bonus marks allow alts to be geared up in only a few minutes play on each a day. you can easily gear 3-4 alts at a time, and within a reasonable time frame.
I make new alts fairly frequently in STO, unsurprisingly. When I start a new toon, I have my other toons craft some cool starting gear and mail it to the new guy (nothing like starting off a Fed with a pair of purple Mk II antiproton beam arrays and a purple quantum torpedo launcher!). I continue to do this as the toon advances, as every ten levels you add another two Marks to the max the toon can use. Eventually, I start getting the purple gear from other sources, like the Reputation system.
So far, I've only maxed one Rep, the Delta rep on my main - trying to decide who gets the sponsorship token that doubles the Rep points earned. I'm very close, however, to maxing the Temporal rep on my first Agent of Yesterday, Kevin Timeline; I'll probably give that token to my second, Stanek. (Or maybe to the new Klingon, Korkik - he's only recently made LCDR, and is IIRC at lvl 13 right now, so he won't be pursuing Reps for quite a while, as that system starts at lvl 52.)
So yes, STO is very alt-friendly. The only downside is that you don't get a free slot for maxing level on a toon; however, they occasionally give away free slots during special events (like the release of Legacy of Romulus and Agents of Yesterday), so now I have six toons on my main account...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
In other words.. you're dedicated to killing the game with a completely-unwelcome grind and an alt-unfriendly policy, both of which spit right in the face of the way the game was designed previously.
Good to know I can save the money I'd have spent on the game in the future.
If this is the future of CO? It has no future.
If you guys actually think these ideas are keeping the game healthy? That's a terrifying thing, that the people at the wheel are so vastly out of touch with the reality on the ground.
I quite strongly agree there. a small percentage of the playerbase asks for harder cosmics and endgame content. and the devs boost it.. but the people who complained are bored now so the buffed cosmics are largely not even bothered with. Of all the people i know on CO. less then 5 of them do cosmics or other endgame content with any regularity. CO has a very varied playerbase. catering to only one faction is a good way to get all the others to go somewhere else.
and now you wanna take a game that is praised for not only the capacity to have like 70 friggin alts, but for each one of them to be somewhat unique and useful, and now implement changes that discourage alt farming?
also, frankly in my opinion whoever said to the devs that the prices were too low, was either a moron, or had never actually played CO.
I mean I love CO. I have a blast there almost every day. but I cannot honestly say i would recommend it to my RL friends. not with the way CO is being turned into another cash cow for the accountants to milk until it runs dry then shut down. CO should be invested in. not bled out.
I guess the first counter feed back is why ask for feedback when you are "happy", also why not post the "rules" right upfront so people can work within them. 3 pages of posts wasted just to pretend feedback exists and say no.
My thoughts exactly. Putting up a feedback thread implies some intention of actually considering the feedback given. It's pretty much unanimous that the costs are too high; if THAT'S not enough to cause the prices to be reconsidered, what the hell is?
I'm super grateful for all Kaizerin's been doing. There's no doubt the game has been getting MUCH more stuff since she was hired. And, honestly, I suspect that these particular price choices aren't her doing, and that she's just having to "agree" with them out of typical forced-n-fake developer unity. Basically what I'm saying is, if the complaint-paragraph above actually gets read, please don't take it personally, Kaizerin. X) I APPRECIATE YOUUUUU
I think it's perfectly fine for you to say "No, I don't want to bring my healer, and I'm not going to" thereby putting pressure on other people to make a healer.
I agree. but what they said was its not really about what the Player wants at this junction. I Main a support toon because I enjoy the role, but once its fully geared and I'm trying to gear another it'd be more a case of "I'd like to bring my healer by my melee Dps needs the gear more so that the damn thing stops being reduced to pink jelly on the bosses' boots"
I was going to avoid posting here because the devs have already made up their mind and probably had no intention of ever making any changes despite giving us this feedback thread. However, I thought a lot about this regardless. I mostly lurked and only posted regarding build feedback for my toons, but I feel this is important enough to speak up.
What is the intended direction for this game? It was stated that the changes could cause frustrations among players and the reactions in this thread are showing just that. The goal of these changes is for “incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state” yet I find these changes at odds with this. Isn’t the player base what keeps the game in a healthy state? What is healthy about frustrating players? I get that different people have different reactions and you can’t please everyone. However, who are these changes being targeted at, the select few elite players? I get the impression based on previous changes that only a tiny amount of the player base is being considered for these changes.
For me personally, this isn’t solely about the price change of justice gear, but the overall direction that such a change is moving toward. The trend seems to be that alts are highly discouraged and we should stick with one character for hundreds of hours to get small improvements to their build. Is it realistically expected that we can stick with one build (including gear) for so many hours without getting bored and wanting to switch to another one? You can do that, but it effectively means there is little if any shared progress. I can personally say that getting one set of justice gear isn’t the end goal for me and that I will give up playing the game the moment I get it. However, it does give a goal to reach toward for level 40 toons. Sure I can choose to go for it or not, but I don’t see it being something desirable to aim toward at the moment.
Sure we can argue that if I don’t see it worth grinding for that I shouldn’t. I won’t be at the moment. However, is that really the right way to look at this? The devs want us to invest our time into this right? If so, then shouldn’t they want to cater to more people to get them to want to do this? Are only a very small minority of players worth targeting? From the reactions in this thread, I’m seeing the answer is no toward making justice gear a worthwhile goal. If the grind is so far, the gear might as well not exist for most players and therefore they’ll probably ignore it.
When it comes to the current cosmic fights, certain roles are needed. That isn’t a problem, but people who have those roles might not change to them because it means they’re not making progress on the characters they want. Let’s say I want to gear up a DPS, but another tank is needed for a cosmic fight. I could switch to that tank and get the fight started, but that means my DPS wouldn’t get anything. I could stick with my DPS to gear rewards for it, but then the waiting game for the fight is still there. Sure other people might cave in or someone with a tank they want to gear up will show up, but I don’t see that as being healthy. How is locking down gear progression to just the toon that ran the fight helping? It means the content is being ran less. Isn’t this the opposite of what’s wanted to keep the game healthy?
Sure it’s easy to say that players should just switch or call in others to fill in those missing roles, but that isn’t the current reality. I don’t see the price change on justice gear somehow going to change the current reality into what might be desired by the devs. I get that we don’t know how the new zone will work just yet in terms of rewards, but the justice gear price changes were brought up long before the launch of the new zone. It’s much easier to judge by what we have now instead of the maybes that is to come.
Given how the trend of cosmics went, I have a feeling that the top players will easily complete the challenges in the new zone, and then the challenges will be tweaked and made more and more difficult. At that point, those players might get what they want and leave so that everyone else who wants a chance have to gather and figure it out among themselves how to deal with more difficult challenges for the same rewards. People might get burnt out and just stop showing up or leaving very large gaps in running time.
I like getting a new zone and more end game content, but I do not like a greater push toward grinding and discouraging alts.
Sterga its actually EASIER to alt in STO than it is in CO right now! the rep system and daily bonus marks allow alts to be geared up in only a few minutes play on each a day. you can easily gear 3-4 alts at a time, and within a reasonable time frame.
So yes, STO is very alt-friendly. The only downside is that you don't get a free slot for maxing level on a toon; however, they occasionally give away free slots during special events (like the release of Legacy of Romulus and Agents of Yesterday), so now I have six toons on my main account...
CO is the only MMO I know that gives a free slot to subscribers when they max level a character. With many MMO's, you get a certain amount of slots at F2P level and recieve more when you subscribe. Except for special events, thats all you're going to get unless you purchase another slot.
Perhaps that is the trade-off; a potential unlimited amount of alts for a harder alt grind/single character resources vs easier alt grind/sharable resources and limited/pay wall alts.
Perhaps that is the trade-off; a potential unlimited amount of alts for a harder alt grind/single character resources vs easier alt grind/sharable resources and limited/pay wall alts.
But if gearing an alt is made into such a grind, does that not tend to discourage alting? I mean, you just fought and bit and struggled to get cool gear while leveling your toon to 40 - and your reward is to do it all over again, without even any assistance from the elder toon?
It used to be that I could switch up toons, and still progress toward a set of gear - but if the one who buys it (with those tokens that are character-bound, not account-bound) has to be the one to use it (as the gear becomes character-bound, not account-bound), that means each toon has to do all the grinding. Whether or not the toon is suitable for it. "Putting pressure on someone else to make a healer" only works if you know that someone else wants to make a healer - otherwise, someone has to be the hero you want them to be, which isn't supposed to be this game's slogan at all.
And as I pointed out, while STO gives fewer slots out, whenever I make a new toon all my older ones can help out, by making the gear the newbies need. Korkik started out in a fairly basic B'rotlh-class Bird-of-Prey - equipped with Mk II heavy disruptor cannons, a Mk II quantum torpedo launcher, and a Mk II covariant shield. I can only do that in CO with the one set of Nemesis Heirloom gear I've managed to collect - for some reason my supply of Nemesis clues seems to have dried up on most of my toons - although there does exist the possibility of purchasing Aurum gear. But if this declaring "Heirloom" gear to be character-bound becomes a trend, how much longer will I be able to do that?
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
It's actually really easy to alt in CO, primarily because you don't need anything for that character to perform well in all content.
"Another character needs gear" isn't actually a very strong reason to not bring any character you feel like, unless you've decided that certain gear is personally very important to you. If you're one of the people that think like that then guess what... you're the reason for the price hike, because you're likely also the type of person that gets bored and restless once there's no more gear to farm. Secretly you love the process of farming gear, something inside of you needs it to feel like your time isn't wasted - that's also the reason you fight so hard to get prices lowered because, of course, your goal is to get gear. The more strongly your desire to fill this need of acquiring it, the more likely you are to resort to methods outside the game to get it. You'll make any claim, any threat, to try to convince devs to shorten the road to get closer to that goal. Unfortunately, a clever game designer can spot your type, and knows that the best thing they can do is make the road longer, because they know you'll keep walking down it, even if you threaten not to... especially if you threaten not to.
It's not people like me who don't really care about gear and who will happily switch to whatever character is needed no matter which one needs gear who got the prices hiked. It's you, the people who care so much about gear that you'll make your demands over and over long after it's been made clear that the prices aren't being lowered. Every time you demand the prices be lowered, it makes it more clear that they need to stay right where they are.
Perhaps that is the trade-off; a potential unlimited amount of alts for a harder alt grind/single character resources vs easier alt grind/sharable resources and limited/pay wall alts.
But if gearing an alt is made into such a grind, does that not tend to discourage alting? I mean, you just fought and bit and struggled to get cool gear while leveling your toon to 40 - and your reward is to do it all over again, without even any assistance from the elder toon?
It used to be that I could switch up toons, and still progress toward a set of gear - but if the one who buys it (with those tokens that are character-bound, not account-bound) has to be the one to use it (as the gear becomes character-bound, not account-bound), that means each toon has to do all the grinding. Whether or not the toon is suitable for it. "Putting pressure on someone else to make a healer" only works if you know that someone else wants to make a healer - otherwise, someone has to be the hero you want them to be, which isn't supposed to be this game's slogan at all.
And as I pointed out, while STO gives fewer slots out, whenever I make a new toon all my older ones can help out, by making the gear the newbies need. Korkik started out in a fairly basic B'rotlh-class Bird-of-Prey - equipped with Mk II heavy disruptor cannons, a Mk II quantum torpedo launcher, and a Mk II covariant shield. I can only do that in CO with the one set of Nemesis Heirloom gear I've managed to collect - for some reason my supply of Nemesis clues seems to have dried up on most of my toons - although there does exist the possibility of purchasing Aurum gear. But if this declaring "Heirloom" gear to be character-bound becomes a trend, how much longer will I be able to do that?
I agree, and I was not disputing your earlier comment. I was just making an observation based on my own MMO experiences.
I still play Everquest and it is similiar to STO in its current state. My elder toons have enough extra basic gear/resources to help out any alt I choose to make. And, like STO, I only have a limited number of character slots available to me, even though I have vet status in that game. Everquest has been through the "grind" growing pains, and it continues to try to keep a balance between "too grindy" and "too easy".
I guess I see the upcoming changes differently because I have been through them before with Evequest, and the issues today are no different then they were back then. No amount of forum suggestions and dev explanations can predict the outcome of game changes; only live server experience can truly let the devs know what the players want. For example, if the price change/token requirement change for Justic Gear goes to the live server as is and players buy into it, then the devs are going to feel they went in the right direction. If players do not buy into it, then the devs will have to make changes sooner than they wanted to.
As far as Nemesis clues, I have not had a problem with them showing up. Have you tried checking your mail? I know the Police Chief and Defender send you e-mail about certain Nemesis missions. Also, there is the issue of Nemesis mission clues being available to anyone; if someone else picks up your nemesis clue, it cancels out your Nemesis missions, and you will not get another clue. I am not sure if you can delete and make a new Nemesis if that happens, though.
As far as Nemesis clues, I have not had a problem with them showing up.
There's a long-standing bug with nemesis clues: if you're in a team or team-up (including NemCon and Nemesis alerts) you can pick up other people's clues. You can't actually do anything with the clue, but they can't get any new clues until you discard the one you picked up.
Your "elder" toons can still help your new toons level. That ignores the fact that they don't really need the help to begin with. I know that predictions are fun, but Nemesis Heirloom Gear is still passable between characters. Even if it becomes BoE, you'll still be able to use your lvl 40 toons to get a set for your new toons. What more do you honestly need to level up in this game... it's not like using quest rewards makes leveling hard.
Whether or not the toon is suitable for it. "Putting pressure on someone else to make a healer" only works if you know that someone else wants to make a healer - otherwise, someone has to be the hero you want them to be, which isn't supposed to be this game's slogan at all.
I know that other people want to make healers. How do I know this? People make healers. There are even quite a few people I know who used to never even consider the idea of playing a healer ( or a tank, or a CCer ) until this new wave of content, and once they tried it they actually realized that they really enjoyed it. I was one of them. Imagine that! Those people would have never discovered these new brands of fun if the game hadn't nudged them into it, and I would still be all >:C about playing a healer.
It used to be that I could switch up toons, and still progress toward a set of gear - but if the one who buys it (with those tokens that are character-bound, not account-bound) has to be the one to use it (as the gear becomes character-bound, not account-bound), that means each toon has to do all the grinding.
Let's be more accurate here: each toon that you decide you want the gear on has to do the grinding. Yes, it is important to remember that this is an actual choice you can make, rather than a requirement for participation. Yes, this does mean that many people will decide not to grind for the gear and then not do the content... or it might mean that people won't rush to get the gear, and instead will just play content casually and take whatever rewards they get when they happen to have enough tokens. I mean let's be honest, there are clearly people who are willing to do a long-term grind in this game: lots of people were participating in the RNG spectacle that is rampages where you didn't even know how long your grind was going to be. People still did that despite reports that it might be months before you ever see a piece of gear, and yet people still did it for... how long has it been since rampages came out? That's why all these horror stories of "People will stop playing if there's a grind!" ring a bit hollow because despite me having four characters decked out in Distinguished gear there are clearly plenty of people in this game even happier to grind than I am because the rng grind for Justice was too much for me - did it once, then swore off it for good. Now because they'll actually give you a set destination people act like now suddenly there's an end game gear grind in the game for the first time ever... when we've actually had one for quite a while before GCR content was even announced, one where you could go for days without ever seeing a hint of progress.
So yeah don't worry, game's gonna be fine, plenty of grinders here.
It's actually really easy to alt in CO, primarily because you don't need anything for that character to perform well in all content.
So what are you saying then, that any junk level 40 gear can perform for end game content? If so, I find that very hard to believe. Mods are included in gear too. With random gear, I most likely will not have anything that benefits my toon’s super stats well or energy management. How would a tank survive well without good defense and CON boosting gear? Even Merc with proper mods can help out a lot.
"Another character needs gear" isn't actually a very strong reason to not bring any character you feel like, unless you've decided that certain gear is personally very important to you. If you're one of the people that think like that then guess what... you're the reason for the price hike, because you're likely also the type of person that gets bored and restless once there's no more gear to farm. Secretly you love the process of farming gear, something inside of you needs it to feel like your time isn't wasted - that's also the reason you fight so hard to get prices lowered because, of course, your goal is to get gear. The more strongly your desire to fill this need of acquiring it, the more likely you are to resort to methods outside the game to get it. You'll make any claim, any threat, to try to convince devs to shorten the road to get closer to that goal. Unfortunately, a clever game designer can spot your type, and knows that the best thing they can do is make the road longer, because they know you'll keep walking down it, even if you threaten not to... especially if you threaten not to.
I don’t know if this is addressing me indirectly, but if so, I’m at not pleased with the assumptions made.
I really don’t understand where you’re coming from at all. Wanting to get certain gear is the reason for the price hike? From a business stand point how does this work? Currently you can’t buy SCR or GCR packs or boosts from say, the Z store. Silver and LTS players don’t have to pay for their time investment either. Having to stick with one toon to do this means I’m far less likely to buy costume packs compared to having alts that I would want to customize in different ways.
I am not the person that gets bored and restless once I get gear I want. There would be other alts to gear up in such cases. Who’s to say someone like me would even stick around by dragging out the grind? You say there are those who secretly love the process of farming gear? This personally doesn’t apply to me and don’t you dare tell me it does unless you can somehow read my mind because you can’t. What are you basing this off of, what you seen from some others? What about all of those who don’t fit into what you think? If get bored of something I will stop doing it. I got bored of cosmics after a while and I stopped even if it meant not getting some of the unique items from them. The effort required wasn’t worth my time.
It's not people like me who don't really care about gear and who will happily switch to whatever character is needed no matter which one needs gear who got the prices hiked. It's you, the people who care so much about gear that you'll make your demands over and over long after it's been made clear that the prices aren't being lowered. Every time you demand the prices be lowered, it makes it more clear that they need to stay right where they are.
I most likely will run the new content some because it’s new content and there will be an influx of players to do them. I suspect I won’t stick around at some point given the amount of effort vs reward factor. The current price of justice gear looks to not be worth the effort so I simply won’t bother. It’s just easier to ignore the top gear and stick with doing what I enjoy; playing multiple alts. I felt good about getting a full set of heirloom gear because I could share it among all my toons and have more fun without worrying about gear management till level 40.
1. In Champs, advancement after level 40 is from gear, devices, and power unlocks. You can give your characters different powers, more versatility, and small advantages in stats (from gear). If part of your enjoyment of MMORPGs is advancement, then getting these minor benefits and boosts is really enjoyable. If you feel like this bit of advancement is out of reach, then the game is less fun. There are players that feel this way. I myself like the advancement part of MMOs.
2. There are players that play less-than-favorite characters because they are filling a role/demand/need. My CCer is an example of such a toon. I only play him for Cosmics, and generally only Kiga at that. Though I am happy to help others complete a Cosmic run, he's not a toon I particularly care for. Some other players do this, too, with healers.
If that's the case, you should be in favor of high prices, because it means you aren't all finished quite so soon.
Except that it means you're playing the same content, with all of the frustration inherent to it, for weeks upon weeks without seeing any actual progress in your advancement.
Not related to the quoted post, I'd like to reiterate the question of "why make the ****ing thread if you have absolutely zero intention of listening?" That's the biggest thing irking me about all of this, not the price change itself. Was there some hope that people would go "MMM, YUMMY GRIND! RAISE THE PRICES, GIVE ME MORRRE" or something?
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
If that's the case, you should be in favor of high prices, because it means you aren't all finished quite so soon.
Errr I think they mean advancing various multiple toons at once, not just sticking to one toon forever. Which is how this game has traditionally been played. Even if the devs now don't like that, that is how the players have played it. This game has never been releasing new content at a lightning pace, so alting really has been what has kept this game going.
I'm not sure if the game's population can handle an attempt to shift that. But we'll see.
Not related to the quoted post, I'd like to reiterate the question of "why make the ****ing thread if you have absolutely zero intention of listening?" That's the biggest thing irking me about all of this, not the price change itself. Was there some hope that people would go "MMM, YUMMY GRIND! RAISE THE PRICES, GIVE ME MORRRE" or something?
They are listening, they just decided that they did not need to lower costs.
Not related to the quoted post, I'd like to reiterate the question of "why make the ****ing thread if you have absolutely zero intention of listening?" That's the biggest thing irking me about all of this, not the price change itself. Was there some hope that people would go "MMM, YUMMY GRIND! RAISE THE PRICES, GIVE ME MORRRE" or something?
They are listening, they just decided that they did not need to lower costs.
Pretty much this. I'm not even mad at them. I'm actually kind of impressed they stuck to their guns.
Do I think its good in the long run for the game. No. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
They are listening, they just decided that they did not need to lower costs.
What have they listened to? What has changed? What's up in the air? From the sound of it, they finalized all Justice-Gear-related decisions in advance, and then posted the feedback thread for-... Who knows what reason. I honestly can't think of one. Just some kind of feelgood garbage, I guess. Maybe bureaucratic customer-relation metrics devised by some oblivious sociopath requiring that changes be run by the playerbase, not acknowledging how much it obliterates trust for the input of the entire community to be so blatantly disregarded.
Post edited by williamkony on
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
So what are you saying then, that any junk level 40 gear can perform for end game content?
Yes actually, there was another threat where I compared "junk level 40 gear" to Mercenary and showed that it's basically the same. Obviously you'll want to grab "junk gear" that works for your stats, and yes there is "junk gear" for any combination of super stats. It's cheap too.
I don’t know if this is addressing me indirectly, but if so, I’m at not pleased with the assumptions made.
It wasn't addressing you indirectly or directly. Does that mean I can ignore whatever you wrote after this since you probably wrote it with the assumption that I was making assumptions about you?
I really don’t understand where you’re coming from at all. Wanting to get certain gear is the reason for the price hike?
Yes actually. If people didn't care about the gear then there would have never been a reason to raise the prices would there?
Also the reason that there are no SCR or GCR packs in the store is because that content is meant to actually get people playing the game. Letting people buy their way past it would be counterproductive and would also be counterproductive to the idea of making top-end gear something that you achieve. They want you to climb the mountain, not pay to ride an elevator to the top.
If you're the type of person who needs to gear up every last one of your alts in top end gear, and who actually likes to really play all those alts... well great, you have thousands of hours of gameplay ahead of you! ( or you're slowly realizing that you don't actually like to play all of your alts... because if you did like to play them you would be hype about the prospect of having a goal-based reason to play them ). However, if you're one of the people that has 50 alts just so they can farm things for their main character 50 times faster then you'll just have to settle for the fact that you have to farm stuff at the same rate as everyone else from now on ( though I'll remind you, not everything - there are still quite a few things your 50 farming alts can still get you quicker than those of us who don't feel like having that many alts ).
They are listening, they just decided that they did not need to lower costs.
What have they listened to? What has changed? What's up in the air? From the sound of it, they finalized all Justice-Gear-related decisions in advance, and then posted the feedback thread for-... Who knows what reason. I honestly can't think of one. Just some kind of feelgood garbage, I guess. Maybe bureaucratic customer-relation metrics devised by some oblivious sociopath requiring that changes be run by the playerbase, not acknowledging how much it obliterates trust for the input of the entire community to be so blatantly disregarded.
Yep... anytime someone stays angry about this long enough they start to grow the tinfoil hat...
They are listening, they just decided that they did not need to lower costs.
What have they listened to? What has changed? What's up in the air? From the sound of it, they finalized all Justice-Gear-related decisions in advance, and then posted the feedback thread for-... Who knows what reason. I honestly can't think of one. Just some kind of feelgood garbage, I guess. Maybe bureaucratic customer-relation metrics devised by some oblivious sociopath requiring that changes be run by the playerbase, not acknowledging how much it obliterates trust for the input of the entire community to be so blatantly disregarded.
Yep... anytime someone stays angry about this long enough they start to grow the tinfoil hat...
And here I thought bronies were cheerful types.
What's tinfoil-hat-y about it? I don't understand why they put forth the thread with no intention to listen, as I said. I do know that bureaucracy and detached elites tends to ruin everything they touch, so that's one of the few explanations I can think of. Otherwise, it makes no logical sense.
I'm plenty cheerful, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the logic of making such a taunting thread in the first place.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
It looks like this is more of CO being "brought up" to STO and CashCow standards.
As a longtime STO player, I have to disagree immensely. If it were brought up to STO standards, we'd have:
1) More involving story content
2) More things players can do solo as well as in groups
3) Decent gear that wasn't a total headache to obtain.
4) Systems added to encourage alting. (The recently-concluded temporal agent event allowed us to make special temporal agent characters which, as they progressed in various things, would unlock things for all characters on the account. Really good things, too.)
5) Group content with several difficulties for a wide variety of players instead of just one, for the hardcore "raiders" ...if you can even call CO's top-level group content raid material.
6) A game where the "grind" material only took a few minutes every day, leaving you free to play the game how you want (without leaving you feeling like you're cheating yourself out of character advancement) for most of your play session.
- -
If anything the dev team is trying to bring CO up to vanilla WoW standards, where "hard" content was full of cheap mechanics (stuns/knocks anyone?) and grinds were excessive. WoW doesn't even do those kind of things anymore...
I really wish this game would be brought up to STO standards, but that's not going to happen until the current devs get their minds out of "must make only quasi-hard, punishing content!" and "must make gear take months of grinding to acquire because that's all that matters!"
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
I wonder if one reason for making this particular thread was to keep the price change conversation out of the main PTS/development threads. In the past, discussions like this, about things that weren't going to change, have dominated and derailed PTS threads.
This thread is the pressure-relief valve, the spillway, the detour.
"It looks like this is more of CO being "brought up" to STO and CashCow standards."
This part was the reference to when the devs said CO was going to be brought up to the other game standards.
"Or at least for CashCow [...]"
This part was me moving the next part to NWO and not STO because I don't play STO but have played NWO. So you guys can stop "disagreeing" with me since I was mostly talking about the game I do know and not the game I don't.
Now this is just a thought but...does anyone else see Drifter Salvage in Lockboxes being replaced or worked in with Silver Champ Recog or something?
Drifter Salvage is kinda being phased out in a big way once these changes go LIVE...the main draw to Drifter Salvage was/is Justice Gear (as well as some vehicles and devices).
Thinking about it I could see SCR and GCR packs being added to lockboxes...
I've wondered about the future of Drifter Salvage. I've hardly bought anything from the store but gear. Still, having to pay to open lock boxes was one way they had of generating income. The new top end gear doesn't require any real world cash, just tons of time. Why cut out a source of income? I confess that I'm not at all clear how all the changes surrounding the introduction of gcr are going to get more people to spend more money on the game.
Now this is just a thought but...does anyone else see Drifter Salvage in Lockboxes being replaced or worked in with Silver Champ Recog or something?
That would be a really weird change. In most games, "Drifter Salvage" (or whatever they choose to label the lottery box booby prize currency as) is used as an incentive to encourage players to continue paying to open said lottery boxes even if they aren't the gambling type.
Using STO as an example here, our version of DS is "Lobi Crystals" which can be traded for some really good gear, ships, etc which are unique to the Lobi store. Every time we get a new lockbox, we also get new, similarly-themed stuff in the Lobi store.
DS is an untapped asset to the game in this regard, something the CO team would do well to start making proper use of.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
So if junk gear is enough to do any end game content, then that almost sounds like justice gear is less appealing to get. That actually sounds like a selling point against me grinding for justice gear.
So I’ll look at it this way. The point of end game content in the game is so we can have something to work toward right? Not all content is going to be in range of everyone, I get that. The better gear will be more difficult to get. There are really hardcore players that will push through long and difficult content to get the top gear. However, how many players like this does CO really have? Adding new content like the new zone we’re getting and everything that comes with it must take a lot of time and money for the developers to do. The tradeoff for them having spent this time and money is to get players to run this content. By running this content, players should have new goals to reach and thus invest more time into playing. Perhaps they will be more likely to recommend the game to their friends. For Gold players, that means more sub money coming in. Basically the developers get more money out of it and the players get more enjoyment out of it. Sounds pretty healthy and like a win-win to me.
However, based on the feedback from this thread, many people are saying that they don’t feel the justice gear price is worth the effort. If they don’t feel it is worth the effort, they probably won’t go out of their way to grind for it. The new content is supposed to be another source of SCR and GCR right? If people don’t feel the end goal is worth it, then why go through the effort to reach it? That’s not to say they may not enjoy running the new content every now and then for the sake of it or to get rewards that cost less SCR and GCR. However, isn’t the point of adding this new content is to get players to run it a lot to justify the cost in making it? If players see the end goal as being out of reach, than they might not even bother at all. Therefore justice gear, the top gear, might as well not even exist and the content to run it won’t matter because that content isn’t being played. It sounds like the opposite of healthy for the game if only a very small minority of players would go through that effort. Wouldn’t that be a net loss for the developers by appealing to only a tiny amount of their player base?
From what it sounds like in this thread, there aren’t enough players who will go through that effort, including me. At least with the old justice gear prices, the currency could be shared account wide. SCR and GCR can’t be shared so I find that unappealing as someone with several alts. I find that frustrating because I see it as part of the trend of making the game more unappealing to alts. Therefore I’m spending less time playing and I’m far less likely to spend any extra money on it. I gladly spent plenty of money before, but now, I’m regretting that. Anyway I think people are seeing the current price as too much effort for too little gain. To me, it feels like a grind if I’m repeating the same tasks over and over with little to no change. Aside from some different players and toons showing up, I don’t enjoy repeating the same few things for hours and hours on end. I get bored and when that happens, I’ll take a break, which can sometimes be for months on it. It was how I felt toward cosmics after I got bored with them. Hopefully there will be more new content worth running so I can enjoy it more.
I get the impression that the developers want the game to be a certain way regardless of the current reality. You could say these people are whinny, entitled, demanding, or whatever, but these people appear to be a much larger number than those that will happily spend hundreds of hours grinding for slightly better stats. I’m personally not making demands or threats. I’m saying I’m unhappy with this change and that I will spend less time and money toward the game as a result. The developers don’t have to listen and that’s okay. If they want to focus on appealing to a very specific audience, that’s their choice and right even if I personally wouldn’t want to be a part of it. I can’t see the future so I can’t say how this change will ultimately affect the game in the long run.
What have they listened to? What has changed? What's up in the air? From the sound of it, they finalized all Justice-Gear-related decisions in advance, and then posted the feedback thread for-... Who knows what reason. I honestly can't think of one. Just some kind of feelgood garbage, I guess. Maybe bureaucratic customer-relation metrics devised by some oblivious sociopath requiring that changes be run by the playerbase, not acknowledging how much it obliterates trust for the input of the entire community to be so blatantly disregarded.
Listening =/= Change. That's all I'm going to say.
obviously there was no intention of change, so i doubt they even bothered to listen...
No, they did bother to listen, otherwise Kai would never have responded back on page three of this thread. So you all need to get this idea that they don't listen out of your head.
Comments
Follow Jonsil's example and be honest with yourself about what you actually want to do with your time in game... and then do it, and don't begrudge others who want to do the things you don't.
You don't need the gear, or any of the rewards.
You get to decide if you farm for them or not.
Make your decision, and own that decision.
No more pretending you're being forced into a process that you don't want to do when you're the only one forcing you into it.
Heck, you don't even have to log in if you don't want to.
PS - threatening to "find another game to play" doesn't work
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
With that said soon there WILL BE some new things to do that have nothing to do with gear, if you have level 40 alts. A whole new zone of stuff.
EDIT: Also keep in mind freeform does really allow a person to play one toon as every toon now if they wanted to. With me about to get my third piece of justice gear, Darq Aura is nearly complete. If I wanted to to I could delete all my other toons and simply keep retconning her into other roles as needed/as I want to experience over the years. Whether or not pushing folks to feel like they only need one toon ever is the way to go (whether that is the dev's intent or not that is how some folks feel) is good for the game is an entirely separate debate. That could potentially lead to less money being spent over time in the Zen store if folks don't alt, or feel the need to alt.
In addition it potentially means less folks switching to alternate roles that the GCR content may need. For example, I'm on my tank but I see we need a healer or dog tank, I may switch if I have one. But if I only have one toon there is nothing for me to switch to, or if I feel compelled to stick with one toon for the full month or month and half to get the gear I want (notice I said want not need) then that is one less possible person who could bring that role for TA or cosmics.
For example, already I'm seeing the same or samish folks bring a dog CCer to Kiga. I don't think that's good in the long run in terms of community based content. Also there should be a steady stream of folks willing to try and learn dino and bring the necessary alts for it, but we're instead seeing Dino being ignored for now. (Ofcourse there are other MAIN and KEY issues related to that, but I don't pushing folks to feel like they should only stick to one toon, helps that situation.)
In my situation (and only speaking for myself) I don't want to bring a healer or dpser to dino as I really want to focus only on Darq till she is geared up. I have the necessary toons (including a dog tank build I copied from Spinny) but I don't feel the need to bring them, as I again want to focus just on Darq till she is geared.
EDIT2: And she just got her third justice piece. She's done and got the Justified perk (didn't even know that existed). So no more urgency for rampages for me anymore. I can just do everything for fun now.
However, there is some basis for complaint or feedback, for those who subscribe or support the game through the Z-store. The reason people pay money to the game is largely to support its continued development. If I've been paying them to continue working on it, and the work they end up doing all goes towards things that I feel are locked behind an untenable grind, I won't be happy about that. No, I'm still not forced to participate in the content or go after the rewards, but I can understand someone thinking that they haven't received what they paid for, in essence.
As has been stated, of course, it's then your prerogative to actually find a new game, switch to Silver, etc. Just saying that I can understand frustration for paying customers when the direction of the game goes so jarringly against both personal preference and prior experience.
Part of the problem is that the way people have been playing the game is being changed. Before, switching to an alt the group needs for the content was no big deal. Now, people aren't going to bother because they have a toon they want to gear first. Then it's all about playing the waiting game for that role and at that point, not a whole lot of playing is going on. It just causes problems on several levels and for what? No really, for what? There is no advantage to snubbing play-styles that have been supported for years. The current dev team can blow smoke up everyone's **** about what was intended, but it's just another case of people wanting to shape CO in their image and not caring if it fits into or can be supported by the game.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
It looks like this is more of CO being "brought up" to STO and CashCow standards. Or at least for CashCow, considering alting is not as friendly as it is in CO. One-size does not fit all with games. In CO's case, with the freeform system and character customization, making it easy to alt makes more sense. This isn't a typical class based MMO where rolling 10 different rouges is pointless. In CO, you could make those 10 different rouges and they can all be drastically different.
CO has some unique things in it, yet is being treated like any other class based fantasy MMO. Metrics do not tell the whole story.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
So far, I've only maxed one Rep, the Delta rep on my main - trying to decide who gets the sponsorship token that doubles the Rep points earned. I'm very close, however, to maxing the Temporal rep on my first Agent of Yesterday, Kevin Timeline; I'll probably give that token to my second, Stanek. (Or maybe to the new Klingon, Korkik - he's only recently made LCDR, and is IIRC at lvl 13 right now, so he won't be pursuing Reps for quite a while, as that system starts at lvl 52.)
So yes, STO is very alt-friendly. The only downside is that you don't get a free slot for maxing level on a toon; however, they occasionally give away free slots during special events (like the release of Legacy of Romulus and Agents of Yesterday), so now I have six toons on my main account...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Of all the people i know on CO. less then 5 of them do cosmics or other endgame content with any regularity. CO has a very varied playerbase. catering to only one faction is a good way to get all the others to go somewhere else.
and now you wanna take a game that is praised for not only the capacity to have like 70 friggin alts, but for each one of them to be somewhat unique and useful, and now implement changes that discourage alt farming?
also, frankly in my opinion whoever said to the devs that the prices were too low, was either a moron, or had never actually played CO.
I mean I love CO. I have a blast there almost every day. but I cannot honestly say i would recommend it to my RL friends. not with the way CO is being turned into another cash cow for the accountants to milk until it runs dry then shut down. CO should be invested in. not bled out.
All of This.
Yes
What is the intended direction for this game? It was stated that the changes could cause frustrations among players and the reactions in this thread are showing just that. The goal of these changes is for “incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state” yet I find these changes at odds with this. Isn’t the player base what keeps the game in a healthy state? What is healthy about frustrating players? I get that different people have different reactions and you can’t please everyone. However, who are these changes being targeted at, the select few elite players? I get the impression based on previous changes that only a tiny amount of the player base is being considered for these changes.
For me personally, this isn’t solely about the price change of justice gear, but the overall direction that such a change is moving toward. The trend seems to be that alts are highly discouraged and we should stick with one character for hundreds of hours to get small improvements to their build. Is it realistically expected that we can stick with one build (including gear) for so many hours without getting bored and wanting to switch to another one? You can do that, but it effectively means there is little if any shared progress. I can personally say that getting one set of justice gear isn’t the end goal for me and that I will give up playing the game the moment I get it. However, it does give a goal to reach toward for level 40 toons. Sure I can choose to go for it or not, but I don’t see it being something desirable to aim toward at the moment.
Sure we can argue that if I don’t see it worth grinding for that I shouldn’t. I won’t be at the moment. However, is that really the right way to look at this? The devs want us to invest our time into this right? If so, then shouldn’t they want to cater to more people to get them to want to do this? Are only a very small minority of players worth targeting? From the reactions in this thread, I’m seeing the answer is no toward making justice gear a worthwhile goal. If the grind is so far, the gear might as well not exist for most players and therefore they’ll probably ignore it.
When it comes to the current cosmic fights, certain roles are needed. That isn’t a problem, but people who have those roles might not change to them because it means they’re not making progress on the characters they want. Let’s say I want to gear up a DPS, but another tank is needed for a cosmic fight. I could switch to that tank and get the fight started, but that means my DPS wouldn’t get anything. I could stick with my DPS to gear rewards for it, but then the waiting game for the fight is still there. Sure other people might cave in or someone with a tank they want to gear up will show up, but I don’t see that as being healthy. How is locking down gear progression to just the toon that ran the fight helping? It means the content is being ran less. Isn’t this the opposite of what’s wanted to keep the game healthy?
Sure it’s easy to say that players should just switch or call in others to fill in those missing roles, but that isn’t the current reality. I don’t see the price change on justice gear somehow going to change the current reality into what might be desired by the devs. I get that we don’t know how the new zone will work just yet in terms of rewards, but the justice gear price changes were brought up long before the launch of the new zone. It’s much easier to judge by what we have now instead of the maybes that is to come.
Given how the trend of cosmics went, I have a feeling that the top players will easily complete the challenges in the new zone, and then the challenges will be tweaked and made more and more difficult. At that point, those players might get what they want and leave so that everyone else who wants a chance have to gather and figure it out among themselves how to deal with more difficult challenges for the same rewards. People might get burnt out and just stop showing up or leaving very large gaps in running time.
I like getting a new zone and more end game content, but I do not like a greater push toward grinding and discouraging alts.
CO is the only MMO I know that gives a free slot to subscribers when they max level a character. With many MMO's, you get a certain amount of slots at F2P level and recieve more when you subscribe. Except for special events, thats all you're going to get unless you purchase another slot.
Perhaps that is the trade-off; a potential unlimited amount of alts for a harder alt grind/single character resources vs easier alt grind/sharable resources and limited/pay wall alts.
It used to be that I could switch up toons, and still progress toward a set of gear - but if the one who buys it (with those tokens that are character-bound, not account-bound) has to be the one to use it (as the gear becomes character-bound, not account-bound), that means each toon has to do all the grinding. Whether or not the toon is suitable for it. "Putting pressure on someone else to make a healer" only works if you know that someone else wants to make a healer - otherwise, someone has to be the hero you want them to be, which isn't supposed to be this game's slogan at all.
And as I pointed out, while STO gives fewer slots out, whenever I make a new toon all my older ones can help out, by making the gear the newbies need. Korkik started out in a fairly basic B'rotlh-class Bird-of-Prey - equipped with Mk II heavy disruptor cannons, a Mk II quantum torpedo launcher, and a Mk II covariant shield. I can only do that in CO with the one set of Nemesis Heirloom gear I've managed to collect - for some reason my supply of Nemesis clues seems to have dried up on most of my toons - although there does exist the possibility of purchasing Aurum gear. But if this declaring "Heirloom" gear to be character-bound becomes a trend, how much longer will I be able to do that?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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"Another character needs gear" isn't actually a very strong reason to not bring any character you feel like, unless you've decided that certain gear is personally very important to you. If you're one of the people that think like that then guess what... you're the reason for the price hike, because you're likely also the type of person that gets bored and restless once there's no more gear to farm. Secretly you love the process of farming gear, something inside of you needs it to feel like your time isn't wasted - that's also the reason you fight so hard to get prices lowered because, of course, your goal is to get gear. The more strongly your desire to fill this need of acquiring it, the more likely you are to resort to methods outside the game to get it. You'll make any claim, any threat, to try to convince devs to shorten the road to get closer to that goal. Unfortunately, a clever game designer can spot your type, and knows that the best thing they can do is make the road longer, because they know you'll keep walking down it, even if you threaten not to... especially if you threaten not to.
It's not people like me who don't really care about gear and who will happily switch to whatever character is needed no matter which one needs gear who got the prices hiked. It's you, the people who care so much about gear that you'll make your demands over and over long after it's been made clear that the prices aren't being lowered. Every time you demand the prices be lowered, it makes it more clear that they need to stay right where they are.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I still play Everquest and it is similiar to STO in its current state. My elder toons have enough extra basic gear/resources to help out any alt I choose to make. And, like STO, I only have a limited number of character slots available to me, even though I have vet status in that game. Everquest has been through the "grind" growing pains, and it continues to try to keep a balance between "too grindy" and "too easy".
I guess I see the upcoming changes differently because I have been through them before with Evequest, and the issues today are no different then they were back then. No amount of forum suggestions and dev explanations can predict the outcome of game changes; only live server experience can truly let the devs know what the players want. For example, if the price change/token requirement change for Justic Gear goes to the live server as is and players buy into it, then the devs are going to feel they went in the right direction. If players do not buy into it, then the devs will have to make changes sooner than they wanted to.
As far as Nemesis clues, I have not had a problem with them showing up. Have you tried checking your mail? I know the Police Chief and Defender send you e-mail about certain Nemesis missions. Also, there is the issue of Nemesis mission clues being available to anyone; if someone else picks up your nemesis clue, it cancels out your Nemesis missions, and you will not get another clue. I am not sure if you can delete and make a new Nemesis if that happens, though.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Let's be more accurate here: each toon that you decide you want the gear on has to do the grinding. Yes, it is important to remember that this is an actual choice you can make, rather than a requirement for participation. Yes, this does mean that many people will decide not to grind for the gear and then not do the content... or it might mean that people won't rush to get the gear, and instead will just play content casually and take whatever rewards they get when they happen to have enough tokens. I mean let's be honest, there are clearly people who are willing to do a long-term grind in this game: lots of people were participating in the RNG spectacle that is rampages where you didn't even know how long your grind was going to be. People still did that despite reports that it might be months before you ever see a piece of gear, and yet people still did it for... how long has it been since rampages came out? That's why all these horror stories of "People will stop playing if there's a grind!" ring a bit hollow because despite me having four characters decked out in Distinguished gear there are clearly plenty of people in this game even happier to grind than I am because the rng grind for Justice was too much for me - did it once, then swore off it for good. Now because they'll actually give you a set destination people act like now suddenly there's an end game gear grind in the game for the first time ever... when we've actually had one for quite a while before GCR content was even announced, one where you could go for days without ever seeing a hint of progress.
So yeah don't worry, game's gonna be fine, plenty of grinders here.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
So what are you saying then, that any junk level 40 gear can perform for end game content? If so, I find that very hard to believe. Mods are included in gear too. With random gear, I most likely will not have anything that benefits my toon’s super stats well or energy management. How would a tank survive well without good defense and CON boosting gear? Even Merc with proper mods can help out a lot.
I don’t know if this is addressing me indirectly, but if so, I’m at not pleased with the assumptions made.
I really don’t understand where you’re coming from at all. Wanting to get certain gear is the reason for the price hike? From a business stand point how does this work? Currently you can’t buy SCR or GCR packs or boosts from say, the Z store. Silver and LTS players don’t have to pay for their time investment either. Having to stick with one toon to do this means I’m far less likely to buy costume packs compared to having alts that I would want to customize in different ways.
I am not the person that gets bored and restless once I get gear I want. There would be other alts to gear up in such cases. Who’s to say someone like me would even stick around by dragging out the grind? You say there are those who secretly love the process of farming gear? This personally doesn’t apply to me and don’t you dare tell me it does unless you can somehow read my mind because you can’t. What are you basing this off of, what you seen from some others? What about all of those who don’t fit into what you think? If get bored of something I will stop doing it. I got bored of cosmics after a while and I stopped even if it meant not getting some of the unique items from them. The effort required wasn’t worth my time.
I most likely will run the new content some because it’s new content and there will be an influx of players to do them. I suspect I won’t stick around at some point given the amount of effort vs reward factor. The current price of justice gear looks to not be worth the effort so I simply won’t bother. It’s just easier to ignore the top gear and stick with doing what I enjoy; playing multiple alts. I felt good about getting a full set of heirloom gear because I could share it among all my toons and have more fun without worrying about gear management till level 40.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
1. In Champs, advancement after level 40 is from gear, devices, and power unlocks. You can give your characters different powers, more versatility, and small advantages in stats (from gear). If part of your enjoyment of MMORPGs is advancement, then getting these minor benefits and boosts is really enjoyable. If you feel like this bit of advancement is out of reach, then the game is less fun. There are players that feel this way. I myself like the advancement part of MMOs.
2. There are players that play less-than-favorite characters because they are filling a role/demand/need. My CCer is an example of such a toon. I only play him for Cosmics, and generally only Kiga at that. Though I am happy to help others complete a Cosmic run, he's not a toon I particularly care for. Some other players do this, too, with healers.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Not related to the quoted post, I'd like to reiterate the question of "why make the ****ing thread if you have absolutely zero intention of listening?" That's the biggest thing irking me about all of this, not the price change itself. Was there some hope that people would go "MMM, YUMMY GRIND! RAISE THE PRICES, GIVE ME MORRRE" or something?
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I'm not sure if the game's population can handle an attempt to shift that. But we'll see.
Do I think its good in the long run for the game. No. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Also the reason that there are no SCR or GCR packs in the store is because that content is meant to actually get people playing the game. Letting people buy their way past it would be counterproductive and would also be counterproductive to the idea of making top-end gear something that you achieve. They want you to climb the mountain, not pay to ride an elevator to the top.
If you're the type of person who needs to gear up every last one of your alts in top end gear, and who actually likes to really play all those alts... well great, you have thousands of hours of gameplay ahead of you! ( or you're slowly realizing that you don't actually like to play all of your alts... because if you did like to play them you would be hype about the prospect of having a goal-based reason to play them ). However, if you're one of the people that has 50 alts just so they can farm things for their main character 50 times faster then you'll just have to settle for the fact that you have to farm stuff at the same rate as everyone else from now on ( though I'll remind you, not everything - there are still quite a few things your 50 farming alts can still get you quicker than those of us who don't feel like having that many alts ).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And here I thought bronies were cheerful types.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm plenty cheerful, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the logic of making such a taunting thread in the first place.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
1) More involving story content
2) More things players can do solo as well as in groups
3) Decent gear that wasn't a total headache to obtain.
4) Systems added to encourage alting. (The recently-concluded temporal agent event allowed us to make special temporal agent characters which, as they progressed in various things, would unlock things for all characters on the account. Really good things, too.)
5) Group content with several difficulties for a wide variety of players instead of just one, for the hardcore "raiders" ...if you can even call CO's top-level group content raid material.
6) A game where the "grind" material only took a few minutes every day, leaving you free to play the game how you want (without leaving you feeling like you're cheating yourself out of character advancement) for most of your play session.
- -
If anything the dev team is trying to bring CO up to vanilla WoW standards, where "hard" content was full of cheap mechanics (stuns/knocks anyone?) and grinds were excessive. WoW doesn't even do those kind of things anymore...
I really wish this game would be brought up to STO standards, but that's not going to happen until the current devs get their minds out of "must make only quasi-hard, punishing content!" and "must make gear take months of grinding to acquire because that's all that matters!"
This thread is the pressure-relief valve, the spillway, the detour.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
This part was the reference to when the devs said CO was going to be brought up to the other game standards.
"Or at least for CashCow [...]"
This part was me moving the next part to NWO and not STO because I don't play STO but have played NWO. So you guys can stop "disagreeing" with me since I was mostly talking about the game I do know and not the game I don't.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Drifter Salvage is kinda being phased out in a big way once these changes go LIVE...the main draw to Drifter Salvage was/is Justice Gear (as well as some vehicles and devices).
Thinking about it I could see SCR and GCR packs being added to lockboxes...
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Using STO as an example here, our version of DS is "Lobi Crystals" which can be traded for some really good gear, ships, etc which are unique to the Lobi store. Every time we get a new lockbox, we also get new, similarly-themed stuff in the Lobi store.
DS is an untapped asset to the game in this regard, something the CO team would do well to start making proper use of.
So I’ll look at it this way. The point of end game content in the game is so we can have something to work toward right? Not all content is going to be in range of everyone, I get that. The better gear will be more difficult to get. There are really hardcore players that will push through long and difficult content to get the top gear. However, how many players like this does CO really have? Adding new content like the new zone we’re getting and everything that comes with it must take a lot of time and money for the developers to do. The tradeoff for them having spent this time and money is to get players to run this content. By running this content, players should have new goals to reach and thus invest more time into playing. Perhaps they will be more likely to recommend the game to their friends. For Gold players, that means more sub money coming in. Basically the developers get more money out of it and the players get more enjoyment out of it. Sounds pretty healthy and like a win-win to me.
However, based on the feedback from this thread, many people are saying that they don’t feel the justice gear price is worth the effort. If they don’t feel it is worth the effort, they probably won’t go out of their way to grind for it. The new content is supposed to be another source of SCR and GCR right? If people don’t feel the end goal is worth it, then why go through the effort to reach it? That’s not to say they may not enjoy running the new content every now and then for the sake of it or to get rewards that cost less SCR and GCR. However, isn’t the point of adding this new content is to get players to run it a lot to justify the cost in making it? If players see the end goal as being out of reach, than they might not even bother at all. Therefore justice gear, the top gear, might as well not even exist and the content to run it won’t matter because that content isn’t being played. It sounds like the opposite of healthy for the game if only a very small minority of players would go through that effort. Wouldn’t that be a net loss for the developers by appealing to only a tiny amount of their player base?
From what it sounds like in this thread, there aren’t enough players who will go through that effort, including me. At least with the old justice gear prices, the currency could be shared account wide. SCR and GCR can’t be shared so I find that unappealing as someone with several alts. I find that frustrating because I see it as part of the trend of making the game more unappealing to alts. Therefore I’m spending less time playing and I’m far less likely to spend any extra money on it. I gladly spent plenty of money before, but now, I’m regretting that. Anyway I think people are seeing the current price as too much effort for too little gain. To me, it feels like a grind if I’m repeating the same tasks over and over with little to no change. Aside from some different players and toons showing up, I don’t enjoy repeating the same few things for hours and hours on end. I get bored and when that happens, I’ll take a break, which can sometimes be for months on it. It was how I felt toward cosmics after I got bored with them. Hopefully there will be more new content worth running so I can enjoy it more.
I get the impression that the developers want the game to be a certain way regardless of the current reality. You could say these people are whinny, entitled, demanding, or whatever, but these people appear to be a much larger number than those that will happily spend hundreds of hours grinding for slightly better stats. I’m personally not making demands or threats. I’m saying I’m unhappy with this change and that I will spend less time and money toward the game as a result. The developers don’t have to listen and that’s okay. If they want to focus on appealing to a very specific audience, that’s their choice and right even if I personally wouldn’t want to be a part of it. I can’t see the future so I can’t say how this change will ultimately affect the game in the long run.