PS: On a side note, $15.00 USD for a ship? I wonder if there is some sort of consumer protection group Iol
One ship worth the same as 33% of the game new or a whole month membership Hmmmm...
I'd rather spend those 15 bucks on some half year old "classic" game then on a single digital item in a game where you have to pay a monthly fee to maintain access to that bought item....
but ofc that is up to everyone to decide where to dump his money on...
The idea of 500 emblems for account unlock instead of character sounds good for me... Let's see if we can get a reaction from the devs about this idea because many allready quoted it as a good move towards a compromise.
Instead of capping it at 18-20 emblems a day, cap it at 126-140 a week. This will allow the 'casual player' more flexibility on when they can get their emblems.
That does not help the casual player at all. If a casual player is only able to play for an hour or two per week, how are they going to earn 140 Emblems in that hour? All this is doing is making Emblem farming easier for those who play daily.
That said I've noticed that ships going in at the minute aren't for Emblems. They're for marks of exploration, now this is much more achievable as if you run B'Tran or the Klingon equivalent you receive marks and emblems for the same missions - just a thought people, just a thought.
You can also convert your Marks of Exploration to Emblems. Per STOWiki:
Emblems can be exchanged on a 1:1 basis for Marks of Exploration, Marks of Honor, or Marks of Valor from either the U.S.S. T'Kumbra or I.K.S. Jorn at Battle Group Omega.
A lot of those complaining about the 500 Emblem cost do not seem to realize this. If you convert your Marks of Exploration, you will have 9 Emblems a day for running B'Tran alone.
PS: On a side note, $15.00 USD for a ship? I wonder if there is some sort of consumer protection group Iol
One ship worth the same as 33% of the game new or a whole month membership Hmmmm...
I am just curious... how do you foresee Cryptic/Atari making any money from those who bought Liftetime subscriptions?
A lot of those complaining about the 500 Emblem cost do not seem to realize this. If you convert your Marks of Exploration, you will have 9 Emblems a day for running B'Tran alone.
I am almost 100% that the process you're referring is a conversion of emblems to Marks of Exploration and most definitely /not/ the other way around.
I am almost 100% that the process you're referring is a conversion of emblems to Marks of Exploration and most definitely /not/ the other way around.
Hmmm... you may be right. I seem to remember converting a bunch of Exploration Marks to Emblems to get some shields for my TAC Captain though. It might have been converting to Marks of Valor though. It has been quite some time so I do not recall specifically. I will check later.
That does not help the casual player at all. If a casual player is only able to play for an hour or two per week, how are they going to earn 140 Emblems in that hour? All this is doing is making Emblem farming easier for those who play daily.
Sorry perhaps 'casual player' was poor choice of words here. I mean to say it helps those players who have families and other commitments which prevent them from playing every day (as opposed to the 'die hard player' who plays every day). These 'casual' players miss out on their 'must be there every day' opportunity for emblems. If however they get a few days a week where they can play more (say, weekends), my proposal would allow them to get the same marks as someone who was on every day.
I'm not clear how you think this aids 'emblem farmers' - in fact I'm not sure what you mean by 'emblem farmers' at all.. At the end of every week someone who maxes out their emblems in the daily system would get the same number of emblems as in my system. And in fact could do so without having to grind the same missions over and over (which seems like a benefit to everyone).
Can you elaborate how my proposal creates a problem?
If however they get a few days a week where they can play more (say, weekends), my proposal would allow them to get the same marks as someone who was on every day.
I understand where you are coming from and agree with the spirit of what you are trying to say, but I will have to disagree with it. A weekly cap on Emblems penalizes those who are able to earn them faster by playing each day versus someone who plays infrequently.
I understand where you are coming from and agree with the spirit of what you are trying to say, but I will have to disagree with it. A weekly cap on Emblems penalizes those who are able to earn them faster by playing each day versus someone who plays infrequently.
The weekly cap is the same as the current daily cap x 7 (so if the daily cap is 18 emblems, for example), the weekly cap would be 18x7 or 126 emblems. If you choose to acquire those emblems at a rate of 18 per day, its no different then before.
I'm not sure if you're implying that collecting emblems is a competitive sport, where the daily player is at an unfair advantage in my system because they should be able to collect more then someone who only logs in a few days a week, but its not. I can think of no good reason to penalize people who can't log in every day over those who can.
Instead of thinking of this in terms of 'grinding daily', think of it in terms of 'logging in for x number of hours and doing stuff to get emblems'.
For example, lets say you log in each day for an hour to do dailies, which is 7 hours a week, but I can only log in for 7 hours on Saturdays. Why should you get 7x the number of emblems as I do? We both played for the same number of hours.
My proposal is just a way to loosen up on the artificial restriction of dailies, in favor of a less restrictive weekly cycle, but the end gain in emblems is the same.
For example, lets say you log in each day for an hour to do dailies, which is 7 hours a week, but I can only log in for 7 hours on Saturdays. Why should you get 7x the number of emblems as I do? We both played for the same number of hours.
This is what you already have. What you are suggesting is penalizing players for being able to log in daily because someone else is not able to.
If I can earn an item faster because I am able to play more than you, I should be able to. I should not be held to your schedule.
For example, lets say you log in each day for an hour to do dailies, which is 7 hours a week, but I can only log in for 7 hours on Saturdays. Why should you get 7x the number of emblems as I do? We both played for the same number of hours.
This is what you already have.
Unless I am entirely misunderstanding you, that's not what we already have. Right now if you logged in every day and got all your dailies done, it would take you (approx.) 14 hours of game time and you would end up with 126 emblems.
If I logged in on the weekend and played 14 hours of game time, I would only be able to collect around a max of 40 emblems (the first 4 hours of my game time). The remaining 10 hours of my time I would have to do something else.
So even though we both played the same number of hours, you ended up with more emblems.
How is that in any way fare?
Please provide a more detailed example of what you mean by 'emblem farmers' and how this gives anyone an unfair advantage.
This is what you already have. What you are suggesting is penalizing players for being able to log in daily because someone else is not able to.
If I can earn an item faster because I am able to play more than you, I should be able to. I should not be held to your schedule.
But.. you didn't play more then me.. we both played 14 hours (in my example). And the player who is playing daily isn't being penalized in any way - he still gets all his emblems.
And as for being held to someone else's schedule, currently weekly players are held to your daily schedule. And they shouldn't have to be held to your schedule either.. so that's not really an argument that benefits either side of this proposal.
You can also convert your Marks of Exploration to Emblems.
The Emblem --> X conversion is one-way only. There is no X --> Emblem.
Honestly, there is no system where someone who plays one or two hours a week will be able to get the same items as a person playing almost every day for 2-3 hours a week (at least) without the more avid player getting those items ridiculously easy. It's not going to happen. It would be really nice, but is wholly unrealistic without some kind of diminishing returns on emblems earned based on hours played. It's like saying someone that works out 1-2 times per week for 30 minutes should be as fit as someone that works out almost every day for an hour. It doesn't work that way. You get out of it what you put into it.
People who play 1-2 hours per week will be able to get anything in game for emblems after they've accrued enough, same as everyone else. Or they can just buy it from the C-Store, same as everyone else. If they don't like grinding for emblems and don't want to buy from the C-Store then they shouldn't sweat it. Nothing in the C-Store is a must have, at least right now. They can still do all the missions in STO with the "basic" ships and items.
I wasn't aware that there was a limit to the number of emblems we could get in a day, above the limit of the daily missions that award them. That doesn't make any sense. If someone wants to put in the time to grind emblems then why limit them artificially?
But.. you didn't play more then me.. we both played 14 hours (in my example). And the player who is playing daily isn't being penalized in any way - he still gets all his emblems.
Yes, the player is being penalized. Your idea is taking the Emblems earning capabilty they have now away from them.
This is also already what we have in game now. For discussions sake, let us say it takes 1 hour to earn 10 Emblems.
If I play once a day for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a week for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a month for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
How is that in any way fare?
How is it fair that I should be limited in earning Emblems because someone else is not able to play as much as I can?
And as for being held to someone else's schedule, currently weekly players are held to your daily schedule. And they shouldn't have to be held to your schedule either.. so that's not really an argument that benefits either side of this proposal.
I and players like myself who can log in daily are not stopping anyone else from doing so. Arbitrarily trying to penalize us by asking us to earn less Emblems each week because other players can not log in as much is silly.
The Emblem --> X conversion is one-way only. There is no X --> Emblem.
As I said earlier I am probably wrong with that one. I am fairly certain I converted Marks of Exploration to something... it was probably Marks of Valor.
Yes, the player is being penalized. Your idea is taking the Emblems earning capabilty they have now away from them.
This is also already what we have in game now. For discussions sake, let us say it takes 1 hour to earn 10 Emblems.
If I play once a day for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a week for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a month for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
How is it fair that I should be limited in earning Emblems because someone else is not able to play as much as I can?
I believe you're misunderstanding what he's saying (not that I think it should be done but), I believe the only way what he's suggesting would actually work is the best way to explain it. That would be instead of emblem missions being daily they would need to be changed to make them a 7 per week. Thus, both of you could do the mission 7 times per week whether that was one per day or all 7 on the weekend.
What he's ignoring by not making a concrete example that could work is that not all things that earn emblems can only be done daily, so without limiting you to earning at a lesser rate you will always be able more than him.
I think one of the main issues is that CO's c-store/grinding seems far more reasonable and thats even F2P now. I mean, equipment unlocks account wide, rather than just the character.
I and players like myself who can log in daily are not stopping anyone else from doing so. Arbitrarily trying to penalize us by asking us to earn less Emblems each week because other players can not log in as much is silly.
OK I see the confusion here. You are in no way being penalized by my proposal.
I suggested you could earn a maximum of 126 emblems per week, which is exactly the same number of emblems as if you were earning 18 (the current daily maximum) x 7 days:
weekly max of 126 = daily max of 18 x 7 days
If you could earn 20 maximum a day right now (I think you can on the Klingon side) then the weekly maximum in my system would be 7 x 20 or 140 emblems.
weekly max of 140 = daily max of 20 x 7 days
These two systems reward the exact same number of emblems each week, and in fact, if you had to skip a day for some reason, my system would still give you the option to earn those 'missed daily emblems'. So you are being penalized less in my system when you miss a day's play.
You are still not getting it. Whether it is Emblems per day with a daily cap or Emblems per hour with a weekly cap, it makes no difference. Your total time to earn 500 Emblems remains the same.
As I said earlier, for discussions sake, let us say it takes 1 hour to earn 10 Emblems.
If I play once a day for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a week for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a month for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
To further this, how many hours in total will it take me to earn 500 Emblems if I play for 1 hour each day? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play once a week for 1 hour? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play for 1 hour once a month?
Which of these three scenarios will seem to take the longest?
To further this, how many hours in total will it take me to earn 500 Emblems if I play for 1 hour each day? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play once a week for 1 hour? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play for 1 hour once a month?
Here's the part where I think the confusion lies:
Its going to take you approximately 50 hours to make 500 emblems in either of our systems. (Really that's just a figure we pulled out of a hat). When I bought it up I was using a emblems per hour figure to illustrate that you have to do X amount of work to get X amount of emblems.
Here's the important part:
I was NOT trying to imply this X emblems per hour figure was some sort of 'hard coded restriction' on the number of emblems you could gain in an hour. If someone can farm emblems faster then 10 per hour, more power to them - it would be just like it is now.
I apologize if I didn't make that clear.
The bottom line is my system is exactly the same in every way to the current system, but removes the 'I must log in each day' restriction with a 'I must log in every week' version.
The bottom line is my system is exactly the same in every way to the current system, but removes the 'I must log in each day' restriction with a 'I must log in every week' version.
And what of those who can not log in every week? It is going to take them longer to earn 500 Emblems than you, even with your revision. Is your idea fair to them? Of course not.
You are still not seeing it. What you are proposing is really no different than what is in place now.
And what of those who can not log in every week? It is going to take them longer to earn 500 Emblems than you, even with your revision. Is your idea fair to them? Of course not.
You are still not seeing it. What you are proposing is really no different than what is in place now.
Its not the same because it mitigates the problem by loosening the restriction, and allows people greater freedom when collecting a week's worth of emblems.
If you don't see the difference between what I propose and what is in place now, that's OK. Lets just agree to disagree at this point. Really no point in going back and forth like this.
Actually, what we promised was that if an item affected game play was added to the C-Store, it would be available in-game, through in-game means as well. I feel as though we've lived up to that promise.
If 500 emblem per character grind is what you mean, then you must have a lot of free time to play. If it was 500 emblems for an account wide then you wouldn't be getting all this frustration from people.
Believe it or not, the grind is supposed to be steep for other reasons. A big part of why people play MMOs is the same reason people play Pokemon. It's the "Gotta catch 'em all" theory. You have several hooks in a MMO to keep people interested:
Social Aspects
People make friends when they play MMOs.
People don't like to lose contact with their friends.
Leaving an MMO in some ways is like leaving a family to social players.
Achievements
Sought after items (JBoots, that really awesome ship...)
Character Power Advancement (Gaining levels, new powers and abilities, high end equipment)
Achievements specifically are meant to be very hard to attain. Once you've reached level cap, you need to start looking for other things to keep your players interested. This is why we add new playable content, create new items, ships, and gear, and we make them difficult to attain. It's so you always have something to achieve. So, why would we sell sought after items, ships etc. on the C-store?
I agree with the list you have made here. I've left MMOs before because of boredom but came back to them later because I missed playing with the people I met on them. Granted, I love the people I play with on here (Stonewall Fleet - coolest fleet EVAH!!) but I have quit the game for months at a time & came back because of new FE, ships, the gal x I hated after I bought but love now that they twiked it, ect. My biggest turn off & the reason I always quit is I get ticked off when I see stuff like the new MVAM ship, which I love & am hating myself a little for buying from c store, not being included without grinding. Look at a popular MMO like City of Heroes. It's been around awhile, 5+ years, & is a great game. I played it from Issue 2 until right after AE was added. That game has had like 2 expansions you had to buy in the time it's be out & you didn't really have to buy them because they didn't change the game. Sure they have these costume packs you can buy, but they don't make the gameplay different. You can say that the ships you add to the store don't change the game because you can get them ingame too, but like many have said on here, they do change it because most people don't want to grind for months for one ship that doesn't even unlock it for the account. That means if they want it bad enough, they have to buy it. CoH never made you pay for a game changer power. If all you sold in the store was costumes, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. Costumes do nothing but look better. And full disclosure, I have bought a lot of the ships, including this one, from the store. Didn't like it but it's stupid grinding for months for one ship, then get it only to have a new ship come out that you might like more. Leading to more months of grinding.
For players like this. Despite what ever MGDawson personally feels about the C-store, they now have the option of spending money in exchange for time. Users like this may either complete the emblem grind, or, they may purchase the item from the C-Store. This player now has an alternative way to get that shiny new ship they've always wanted. In exchange for the time they would spend playing the game trying to earn this item, they can choose the instant gratification option.
I'm guilty of the "instant gratification option". But only because I don't want to waste my time grinding out months of playtime. Playtime I could be using to play the game I'm paying a sub for. Again I say look at CoH. They charge the same amount for a monthly sub, $14.99. With that you get access to everything. They do have the costume packs that you can pay to get, but again they are just costumes, nothing game changer.
Here's another thought, I've been playing MMOs for close to 20 years now. The standard fee for a one month subscription for an MMO has remained at $14.99 USD for at minimum the last 12 years, possibly longer.
At the same time, the cost of living has continued to rise. I used to be able to go see a movie for $4.50 if I went to a matinee showing, and avoided the concession stand. Now, I'm lucky if I can see one for $9. I'll spend $15 on admission alone to go see an IMAX movie.
The cost of gasoline has almost doubled. Milk and produce is much more expensive than it used to be as well, and don't even get me started on rent.
My MMO subscription fee has remained the same however, despite the fact that prices for the infrastructure and people required to build, maintain, and improve my MMO have continued to rise. So I would say that if you're not raising the cost of my subscription, while providing an alternate way for me and others to get the items that we want in order to supplement the higher costs of running an MMO, while at the same time allowing me to continue to play the game, and earn the items I want in the same way I always have, for the same cost I always have, than no. This is not a greedy act.
You might disagree with me, and you have the right to do so. However, I think it remains reasonable, considering that an MMO is still the best bang for your entertainment dollar.
Thanks,
Stormshade
I do disagree. It is a greedy act. If you can't run this game, create new content, new powers, ect. on a monthly fee from your paying subscribers, then you need to either "trim the fat" from the over paid staff or up the monthly sub price & make all the c-store items free. 500 emblems for a per character item is a greedy act. It's a greedy act because you know that most people who work for a living, who only get a couple hours a day if that, to play this game will fork out more money to buy it rather than grinding because they work for a living & only have a few hours if that a day to play. The thing that drew everyone to this game in the first place was Star Trek. We are all fans of a great bunch of shows that a lot of us grew up watching. Every ship I've bought, the Gal-X, Excel, refit Defiant, MVAM escort, ect., I bought because I liked it in the show. That is what keeps everyone coming back to this game. It's unlike any game I've played before. It's based on something we loved. I understand STO is in it to make money, but like I said, if you can't do it on a monthly sub. fee without adding game changers to it (however slightly they do change it) then trim the fat.
I do disagree. It is a greedy act. If you can't run this game, create new content, new powers, ect. on a monthly fee from your paying subscribers, then you need to either "trim the fat" from the over paid staff or up the monthly sub price & make all the c-store items free. 500 emblems for a per character item is a greedy act. It's a greedy act because you know that most people who work for a living, who only get a couple hours a day if that, to play this game will fork out more money to buy it rather than grinding because they work for a living & only have a few hours if that a day to play. The thing that drew everyone to this game in the first place was Star Trek. We are all fans of a great bunch of shows that a lot of us grew up watching. Every ship I've bought, the Gal-X, Excel, refit Defiant, MVAM escort, ect., I bought because I liked it in the show. That is what keeps everyone coming back to this game. It's unlike any game I've played before. It's based on something we loved. I understand STO is in it to make money, but like I said, if you can't do it on a monthly sub. fee without adding game changers to it (however slightly they do change it) then trim the fat.
I have to disagree with your advice. "trim the fat" and you get people who do not have the experience to fix bug trying to do so and the game will break
Increase subscription fees and people will leave, and with no money the game will end
C-store is a good option to get more money... I like it and have use it.
But I believe they need to do two things.
1).- Cut the price a little in Tokens and Emblems so that more people can possibly obtain these items.
2).- Allowed people to only buy the amount of tokens they need to buy the item they want.
There is a reason why Walmart is successful.
Cryptic think about quantity
Yet Atari wants to see Star Trek Online make money, so the C-Store is necessary.
I honestly get that it's a lot of hard work, but for many that can't pay anything more than a monthly sub, having the option at all is a wonderful thing. They just had to set a high price to please Atari.
The C-store is NOT required to make STO successful. Hard work and finishing a game that was released 18 months early is. Spend the time actually finishing the in game content. Bring it up to standards that warrant this Teir 1 IP.
If this game is surviving off the C-store, then we are all gonna be sorry, it will NEVER replace a solid game foundation. I cant stand the argument that the "C-store is needed" for Star Trek to be a success.
Lots of responses here, let's go through a few of them:
You might disagree with me, and you have the right to do so. However, I think it remains reasonable, considering that an MMO is still the best bang for your entertainment dollar.
Thanks,
Stormshade
I would agree that 14.99 is well worth it, but an extra 25 dollars every time something new is released through the C-store is not. I would rather wait for a expansion and pay 50 bucks, i would save 100 dollar in ship cost alone.
It seems, at least from browsing the threads in favor of the C-store, there are many many more that do not like it. And lets not forget most players never even look at the forums of a game. I would think it should be given fair weight.
When Everquest came out I swore I wouldn't pay to have the right to play a game I'd already bought. I thought it was the beginning of a slippery slope.
Eventually, I decided I'd be willing, as long as new material was constantly being added to the game, that justified it.
Then DDO went free to play, and I saw them charging people for little bits of the game they had already bought. I worried that we were sliding further down the slope, but at least DDO wasn't charging us to actually play the game, there were just large bits of it that were inaccessible. It seemed a fair compromise.
Then CoH started charging for booster packs. That meant we were now paying for the game, paying to play the game, and then paying for the stuff IN the game. Still the boosters were small and just luxuries for the most part.
Then along came STO, where we pay for the game, pay to be allowed to play, AND pay for large pieces of the game. We're sliding further and further down the slippery slope.
For my part, I refuse to make use of the C-Store, even though it leaves me at a disadvantage, and/or impacts on my experience of the setting. I refuse to be gouged any more than I already have been.
I'm very disappointed in the obvious money-grubbing at the expense of the playerbase. I realize it's a business, and the point is to make money, but it isn't always necessary or advisable or ETHICAL to charge as much as the market will bear, especially when the product is substandard.
The players here paid and have continued paying for an incomplete product. It's like we paid for a car that wasn't finished being built, but we're being asked to pay for each door, TRIBBLE, lid and dial. If they wanted to charge us more for C-Store stuff, they should have finished the damn game FIRST.
I, like many, don't appreciate being taken advantage of. A company that acquires such a reputation is taking a dreadful risk. A bad reputation is a difficult thing to shake. Just ask Sony Online.
Comments
I'd rather spend those 15 bucks on some half year old "classic" game then on a single digital item in a game where you have to pay a monthly fee to maintain access to that bought item....
but ofc that is up to everyone to decide where to dump his money on...
The idea of 500 emblems for account unlock instead of character sounds good for me... Let's see if we can get a reaction from the devs about this idea because many allready quoted it as a good move towards a compromise.
That does not help the casual player at all. If a casual player is only able to play for an hour or two per week, how are they going to earn 140 Emblems in that hour? All this is doing is making Emblem farming easier for those who play daily.
Just my opinion, I believe this is better solved by having the 500 Emblems unlock the ship account wide.
You can also convert your Marks of Exploration to Emblems. Per STOWiki:
A lot of those complaining about the 500 Emblem cost do not seem to realize this. If you convert your Marks of Exploration, you will have 9 Emblems a day for running B'Tran alone.
I am just curious... how do you foresee Cryptic/Atari making any money from those who bought Liftetime subscriptions?
i like this idea. per character always seemed a touch harsh.
I am almost 100% that the process you're referring is a conversion of emblems to Marks of Exploration and most definitely /not/ the other way around.
Hmmm... you may be right. I seem to remember converting a bunch of Exploration Marks to Emblems to get some shields for my TAC Captain though. It might have been converting to Marks of Valor though. It has been quite some time so I do not recall specifically. I will check later.
Sorry perhaps 'casual player' was poor choice of words here. I mean to say it helps those players who have families and other commitments which prevent them from playing every day (as opposed to the 'die hard player' who plays every day). These 'casual' players miss out on their 'must be there every day' opportunity for emblems. If however they get a few days a week where they can play more (say, weekends), my proposal would allow them to get the same marks as someone who was on every day.
I'm not clear how you think this aids 'emblem farmers' - in fact I'm not sure what you mean by 'emblem farmers' at all.. At the end of every week someone who maxes out their emblems in the daily system would get the same number of emblems as in my system. And in fact could do so without having to grind the same missions over and over (which seems like a benefit to everyone).
Can you elaborate how my proposal creates a problem?
Thanks,
-- Z
I understand where you are coming from and agree with the spirit of what you are trying to say, but I will have to disagree with it. A weekly cap on Emblems penalizes those who are able to earn them faster by playing each day versus someone who plays infrequently.
The weekly cap is the same as the current daily cap x 7 (so if the daily cap is 18 emblems, for example), the weekly cap would be 18x7 or 126 emblems. If you choose to acquire those emblems at a rate of 18 per day, its no different then before.
I'm not sure if you're implying that collecting emblems is a competitive sport, where the daily player is at an unfair advantage in my system because they should be able to collect more then someone who only logs in a few days a week, but its not. I can think of no good reason to penalize people who can't log in every day over those who can.
Instead of thinking of this in terms of 'grinding daily', think of it in terms of 'logging in for x number of hours and doing stuff to get emblems'.
For example, lets say you log in each day for an hour to do dailies, which is 7 hours a week, but I can only log in for 7 hours on Saturdays. Why should you get 7x the number of emblems as I do? We both played for the same number of hours.
My proposal is just a way to loosen up on the artificial restriction of dailies, in favor of a less restrictive weekly cycle, but the end gain in emblems is the same.
-- Z
This is what you already have. What you are suggesting is penalizing players for being able to log in daily because someone else is not able to.
If I can earn an item faster because I am able to play more than you, I should be able to. I should not be held to your schedule.
For example, lets say you log in each day for an hour to do dailies, which is 7 hours a week, but I can only log in for 7 hours on Saturdays. Why should you get 7x the number of emblems as I do? We both played for the same number of hours.
This is what you already have.
Unless I am entirely misunderstanding you, that's not what we already have. Right now if you logged in every day and got all your dailies done, it would take you (approx.) 14 hours of game time and you would end up with 126 emblems.
If I logged in on the weekend and played 14 hours of game time, I would only be able to collect around a max of 40 emblems (the first 4 hours of my game time). The remaining 10 hours of my time I would have to do something else.
So even though we both played the same number of hours, you ended up with more emblems.
How is that in any way fare?
Please provide a more detailed example of what you mean by 'emblem farmers' and how this gives anyone an unfair advantage.
Cheers and thanks,
-- Z
But.. you didn't play more then me.. we both played 14 hours (in my example). And the player who is playing daily isn't being penalized in any way - he still gets all his emblems.
And as for being held to someone else's schedule, currently weekly players are held to your daily schedule. And they shouldn't have to be held to your schedule either.. so that's not really an argument that benefits either side of this proposal.
The Emblem --> X conversion is one-way only. There is no X --> Emblem.
Honestly, there is no system where someone who plays one or two hours a week will be able to get the same items as a person playing almost every day for 2-3 hours a week (at least) without the more avid player getting those items ridiculously easy. It's not going to happen. It would be really nice, but is wholly unrealistic without some kind of diminishing returns on emblems earned based on hours played. It's like saying someone that works out 1-2 times per week for 30 minutes should be as fit as someone that works out almost every day for an hour. It doesn't work that way. You get out of it what you put into it.
People who play 1-2 hours per week will be able to get anything in game for emblems after they've accrued enough, same as everyone else. Or they can just buy it from the C-Store, same as everyone else. If they don't like grinding for emblems and don't want to buy from the C-Store then they shouldn't sweat it. Nothing in the C-Store is a must have, at least right now. They can still do all the missions in STO with the "basic" ships and items.
I wasn't aware that there was a limit to the number of emblems we could get in a day, above the limit of the daily missions that award them. That doesn't make any sense. If someone wants to put in the time to grind emblems then why limit them artificially?
Z
Yes, the player is being penalized. Your idea is taking the Emblems earning capabilty they have now away from them.
This is also already what we have in game now. For discussions sake, let us say it takes 1 hour to earn 10 Emblems.
If I play once a day for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a week for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a month for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
How is it fair that I should be limited in earning Emblems because someone else is not able to play as much as I can?
I and players like myself who can log in daily are not stopping anyone else from doing so. Arbitrarily trying to penalize us by asking us to earn less Emblems each week because other players can not log in as much is silly.
As I said earlier I am probably wrong with that one. I am fairly certain I converted Marks of Exploration to something... it was probably Marks of Valor.
I believe you're misunderstanding what he's saying (not that I think it should be done but), I believe the only way what he's suggesting would actually work is the best way to explain it. That would be instead of emblem missions being daily they would need to be changed to make them a 7 per week. Thus, both of you could do the mission 7 times per week whether that was one per day or all 7 on the weekend.
What he's ignoring by not making a concrete example that could work is that not all things that earn emblems can only be done daily, so without limiting you to earning at a lesser rate you will always be able more than him.
OK I see the confusion here. You are in no way being penalized by my proposal.
I suggested you could earn a maximum of 126 emblems per week, which is exactly the same number of emblems as if you were earning 18 (the current daily maximum) x 7 days:
If you could earn 20 maximum a day right now (I think you can on the Klingon side) then the weekly maximum in my system would be 7 x 20 or 140 emblems.
These two systems reward the exact same number of emblems each week, and in fact, if you had to skip a day for some reason, my system would still give you the option to earn those 'missed daily emblems'. So you are being penalized less in my system when you miss a day's play.
-- Z
As I said earlier, for discussions sake, let us say it takes 1 hour to earn 10 Emblems.
If I play once a day for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a week for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
If I play once a month for 1 hour, how many hours total will I have spent earning 50 Emblems?
To further this, how many hours in total will it take me to earn 500 Emblems if I play for 1 hour each day? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play once a week for 1 hour? How many hours in total to earn 500 if I play for 1 hour once a month?
Which of these three scenarios will seem to take the longest?
Here's the part where I think the confusion lies:
Its going to take you approximately 50 hours to make 500 emblems in either of our systems. (Really that's just a figure we pulled out of a hat). When I bought it up I was using a emblems per hour figure to illustrate that you have to do X amount of work to get X amount of emblems.
Here's the important part:
I was NOT trying to imply this X emblems per hour figure was some sort of 'hard coded restriction' on the number of emblems you could gain in an hour. If someone can farm emblems faster then 10 per hour, more power to them - it would be just like it is now.
I apologize if I didn't make that clear.
The bottom line is my system is exactly the same in every way to the current system, but removes the 'I must log in each day' restriction with a 'I must log in every week' version.
-- Z
And what of those who can not log in every week? It is going to take them longer to earn 500 Emblems than you, even with your revision. Is your idea fair to them? Of course not.
You are still not seeing it.
Its not the same because it mitigates the problem by loosening the restriction, and allows people greater freedom when collecting a week's worth of emblems.
If you don't see the difference between what I propose and what is in place now, that's OK. Lets just agree to disagree at this point. Really no point in going back and forth like this.
Cheers and thanks for the feedback in any case,
-- Z
If 500 emblem per character grind is what you mean, then you must have a lot of free time to play. If it was 500 emblems for an account wide then you wouldn't be getting all this frustration from people.
I agree with the list you have made here. I've left MMOs before because of boredom but came back to them later because I missed playing with the people I met on them. Granted, I love the people I play with on here (Stonewall Fleet - coolest fleet EVAH!!) but I have quit the game for months at a time & came back because of new FE, ships, the gal x I hated after I bought but love now that they twiked it, ect. My biggest turn off & the reason I always quit is I get ticked off when I see stuff like the new MVAM ship, which I love & am hating myself a little for buying from c store, not being included without grinding. Look at a popular MMO like City of Heroes. It's been around awhile, 5+ years, & is a great game. I played it from Issue 2 until right after AE was added. That game has had like 2 expansions you had to buy in the time it's be out & you didn't really have to buy them because they didn't change the game. Sure they have these costume packs you can buy, but they don't make the gameplay different. You can say that the ships you add to the store don't change the game because you can get them ingame too, but like many have said on here, they do change it because most people don't want to grind for months for one ship that doesn't even unlock it for the account. That means if they want it bad enough, they have to buy it. CoH never made you pay for a game changer power. If all you sold in the store was costumes, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. Costumes do nothing but look better. And full disclosure, I have bought a lot of the ships, including this one, from the store. Didn't like it but it's stupid grinding for months for one ship, then get it only to have a new ship come out that you might like more. Leading to more months of grinding.
I'm guilty of the "instant gratification option". But only because I don't want to waste my time grinding out months of playtime. Playtime I could be using to play the game I'm paying a sub for. Again I say look at CoH. They charge the same amount for a monthly sub, $14.99. With that you get access to everything. They do have the costume packs that you can pay to get, but again they are just costumes, nothing game changer.
I do disagree. It is a greedy act. If you can't run this game, create new content, new powers, ect. on a monthly fee from your paying subscribers, then you need to either "trim the fat" from the over paid staff or up the monthly sub price & make all the c-store items free. 500 emblems for a per character item is a greedy act. It's a greedy act because you know that most people who work for a living, who only get a couple hours a day if that, to play this game will fork out more money to buy it rather than grinding because they work for a living & only have a few hours if that a day to play. The thing that drew everyone to this game in the first place was Star Trek. We are all fans of a great bunch of shows that a lot of us grew up watching. Every ship I've bought, the Gal-X, Excel, refit Defiant, MVAM escort, ect., I bought because I liked it in the show. That is what keeps everyone coming back to this game. It's unlike any game I've played before. It's based on something we loved. I understand STO is in it to make money, but like I said, if you can't do it on a monthly sub. fee without adding game changers to it (however slightly they do change it) then trim the fat.
I have to disagree with your advice. "trim the fat" and you get people who do not have the experience to fix bug trying to do so and the game will break
Increase subscription fees and people will leave, and with no money the game will end
C-store is a good option to get more money... I like it
But I believe they need to do two things.
1).- Cut the price a little in Tokens and Emblems so that more people can possibly obtain these items.
2).- Allowed people to only buy the amount of tokens they need to buy the item they want.
There is a reason why Walmart is successful.
Cryptic think about quantity
The C-store is NOT required to make STO successful. Hard work and finishing a game that was released 18 months early is. Spend the time actually finishing the in game content. Bring it up to standards that warrant this Teir 1 IP.
If this game is surviving off the C-store, then we are all gonna be sorry, it will NEVER replace a solid game foundation. I cant stand the argument that the "C-store is needed" for Star Trek to be a success.
I would agree that 14.99 is well worth it, but an extra 25 dollars every time something new is released through the C-store is not. I would rather wait for a expansion and pay 50 bucks, i would save 100 dollar in ship cost alone.
It seems, at least from browsing the threads in favor of the C-store, there are many many more that do not like it. And lets not forget most players never even look at the forums of a game. I would think it should be given fair weight.
Eventually, I decided I'd be willing, as long as new material was constantly being added to the game, that justified it.
Then DDO went free to play, and I saw them charging people for little bits of the game they had already bought. I worried that we were sliding further down the slope, but at least DDO wasn't charging us to actually play the game, there were just large bits of it that were inaccessible. It seemed a fair compromise.
Then CoH started charging for booster packs. That meant we were now paying for the game, paying to play the game, and then paying for the stuff IN the game. Still the boosters were small and just luxuries for the most part.
Then along came STO, where we pay for the game, pay to be allowed to play, AND pay for large pieces of the game. We're sliding further and further down the slippery slope.
For my part, I refuse to make use of the C-Store, even though it leaves me at a disadvantage, and/or impacts on my experience of the setting. I refuse to be gouged any more than I already have been.
I'm very disappointed in the obvious money-grubbing at the expense of the playerbase. I realize it's a business, and the point is to make money, but it isn't always necessary or advisable or ETHICAL to charge as much as the market will bear, especially when the product is substandard.
The players here paid and have continued paying for an incomplete product. It's like we paid for a car that wasn't finished being built, but we're being asked to pay for each door, TRIBBLE, lid and dial. If they wanted to charge us more for C-Store stuff, they should have finished the damn game FIRST.
I, like many, don't appreciate being taken advantage of. A company that acquires such a reputation is taking a dreadful risk. A bad reputation is a difficult thing to shake. Just ask Sony Online.
2. Buy from c-store
3. unsubscribe
I take 3. Monthly sub + cstore. What you pay sub for? For funding more cstore items? And only people defending i see they got lifetime sub.....
Access to the game.