Not reading 25 pages of this and I'm sure it's been adressed but MMO = Grind. Name one MMO that is sucessful that doesn't have some sort of grind for the best gear. Besides this game is so easy I could fly a miranda around and still crush 90% of this content so who cares?
I don't mean to single you out Syrinx, you're simply the last person to use this phrase 'Cash Grab.'
I shouldn't admit this, but it really annoys me when people use this phrase.
First because it really doesn't mean anything. What exactly is the difference between a 'quick cash grab' and 'putting something up for sale'? So what I'm asking is: what exactly makes 'offering something for sale' morph into 'quick
That's pretty easy: It's the difference between selling a product with a reasonable markup to make a reasonable profit in a way that provides reasonable value-for-money based on the accepted market value of your trade, the man-hours invested and the quality of your work... and charging well over the odds because people will pay that much because a) You have a unique product available nowhere else, or the consumer is in some other way restricted from obtaining it from a competitor b) Because they've already invested heavily in your product, and dropping it for a competitor would invalidate the prior investment and c) Some consumers have no concept of the market value of your goods.
I do not believe a corporation has no ethical obligations aside from providing a return to their shareholders.
It appears to me like a major improvement would just be to introduce more dailies so that it's more fresh to accumulate emblems. There were 3 dailies added in Breen space and 4 in Eta Eridani -- still waiting on the Romulan ones. Some more PvP maps are also on the way and this could help reduce the monotony.
I have no problem with it being difficult to earn the ships, but two things that would improve this dramatically are more dailies and making the unlock account-wide, not per character.
So what exactly is a 'quick cash grab', and why is it a bad thing?
One example would be Cryptic selling C-Store ships for 1200 tokens, but only allowing you to buy 1500 tokens, thereby pocketing your money or forcing you to buy something extra.
I get your point, but heres the problem: no matter WHAT the method is, there are going to be people saying there should be an easier way to do it.
That's a good point, but really there are two issues. There are some people who want it to be less per ship. The value of something is pretty varied from person to person - Cryptic has made its decision about the pricing. The other issue is the way people actually get to the end of the grind. Many people in this thread have used words like "boring" or "tedium," and there is a large group that view a portion of the game as a chore, rather than something desirable to do.
Sure, MMOs have a grind. But just because STO's grind is better than other games' doesn't mean it's good. Games should not be chores - they should be fun. As another poster mentioned, good MMOs disguise the grind. Right now, STO doesn't. People are so fed up with the boredom and frustration that they see it only as an obstacle, not some achievement to overcome, leading to the idea that it's only there as a token gesture so Cryptic can say all their game-changing stuff is also available in game, while blocking people from achieving the in game method realistically. And, realistically, if you want a second VA ship on more than one character, that just sucks.
Additionally (and this has very little to do with the post I've quoted) STO's grind shouldn't be compared to other games' grinds. STO is not those games. Many people here are completely new to MMOs, being drawn in by their love of Star Trek. They don't see that getting 500 emblems is better than waiting for a cyclops, they just see that it sucks. A lot. And nothing about this game should suck.
That's pretty easy: It's the difference between selling a product with a reasonable markup...
So it's completely and totally subjective. This means that the only feedback that Cryptic should pay attention to is the statistics. Specifically how many people actually purchase the items.
One example would be Cryptic selling C-Store ships for 1200 tokens, but only allowing you to buy 1500 tokens, thereby pocketing your money or forcing you to buy something extra.
What would you call that?
You're really asking two questions there so I'm going to answer each one seperately.
First, restricting the number of tokens that you can buy into small chunks is something that's been done by merchants for a century or more at a carnivals and fairs. It's also necessary in many countries in order further disassociate virtual game tokens from money. Some governments around the world are already talking about charging you an income tax based on the amount of in-game currency that your characters have.
In answer to your second question, I think selling a C-Store ship for $15 worth of Atari Tokens is what I call "reasonable markup."
So it's completely and totally subjective. This means that the only feedback that Cryptic should pay attention to is the statistics. Specifically how many people actually purchase the items.
Thank you for answering my question.
Wait, what? How does that follow, precisely?
Yes, it's subjective, /yes/ they should most certainly listen to the 'feedback'... but basing that feedback solely on sale statistics is the very antithesis of the point I've been trying to make - that they have a greater responsibility than simply making as much money from us as they possibly can.
That 'feedback' should include what's being said here. The effect their policies are having on their standing in the eyes of their customers.
And it should include the very, very pertinent figure of how many people are earning these items in-game rather than purchasing them before they assert that the in-game methods are 'reasonable'. If 99 out of every 100 people obtaining these items is paying for them, then - quite simply - it is not, and by saying it is they are being outright dishonest.
Customers who feel lied to and manipulated are not going to remain loyal, and 'brand loyalty' is something any sensible business considers important - and it's beginning to feel to me very much like that is precisely what Cryptic is doing.
I don't have the figures, but I know that way, way more people that I know have purchased ships from the C-store than earned them in game. I - in fact - know of /no one/ who has done the latter.
Yes, the plural of 'anecdote' is not data, but it's a pretty large sample of people we're discussing here. People don't even talk about the in-game methods as an /option/, it's either 'is it worth me buying it or not?'. If that trend is indicative of the player-base at large, then suggestions from Cryptic that the in-game methods are viable and reasonable for the average player are false.
Likewise, if StormShade and the other devs have not accomplished the 500-emblem grind for themselves - then again their insistence that it is reasonable is - if not dishonest - then at least utterly meaningless.
So what exactly is a 'quick cash grab', and why is it a bad thing?
I think a good way to think about 'cash grab' is:
Things that a Ferengi company would do that a human company would not, business-wise.
Or
An aggressive implementation of fees and charges by an organization for services or items that are normally (or expected to be) free of charge with the intent to extract as much money from customers as possible. Also known as milking the customer (To obtain money or benefits from, in order to achieve personal gain; exploit).
Please Cryptic If you read this reconsider you math.
Theoretically speaking you are selling a ship for the price of a month membership:
1,200 Atari Points = $15.00 USD
Theoretically speaking you can get 500 Emblems in one month:
18 Emblems per day x 28 days = 504 Emblems
BUT the hidden factor is time. To get 18 Emblems it take approximately 4 hrs.
4 hrs x 28 days = 112 hrs for 500 Emblems
The average player of STO is a casual player (it was stated as such in another thread).
I am a casual player (and let me say I love and enjoy this game very much ) and I play for about one hour every other day or about 5 hrs a week, 20 hrs a month.
5.6 month x $15.00 USD membership per month = $84.00 USD per 500 Emblems = 1 Ship for one Character.
5 Months for one ship for one character. Yes I am clearly buying the ship for Atari Token!
PLEASE stop insulting us... C-store items are not available in game when in game will take half a year to get such item for ONE character while c-store purchase cost one month membership and it become available for all characters. :mad:
So what should a ship cost?
It should cost a month of my time to 'grind' for it.
Why?
Because a month of my game time = $15.00 USD (a month membership).
How many Emblems should a ship cost then?
At 5 Emblems per hour.
20 hrs x 5 = 100 Emblems
YES Cryptic please re-calculate your numbers and cut the prize.
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...
While I understand why you're asking the question nagus, I also think it's irrelevant.
To answer your question, it should be zero emblems. These things should be integrated into the game itself. As very rare world drops maybe, and rewards for certain content. Right now, that kind of content does not really exist. Once the STFs have the difficulty slider attached, then it's a possibility.
Items should come as a result of, not in place of, meaningful content. People have it backwards when they say the wants of the players are to blame for the C store items. The truth is, the players' desires showed Cryptic the things they could get away with charging for. This is why there's a steady influx of C store items and very little else in the game.
Utility items such as xp boosts, character renames etc. are fine for the store. It's expected pretty much.
Uniforms should already be in the game because they go back to a deliberate attempt by Cryptic to take advantage of what people expect from this IP for quick cash.
This is what most nay sayers of the C-store have said since BETA, fluff for the store, all other items available in game only as rewards. Nothing wrong with raiding for a couple months to get that class drop.......
Oh wait, we dont have end game content yet because they spend so much time making C-store stuff. Bottom line is the game is still not finished after a year of release, and we are paying for jsut about all the new content.
Please Cryptic If you read this reconsider you math.
Theoretically speaking you are selling a ship for the price of a month membership:
1,200 Atari Points = $15.00 USD
Theoretically speaking you can get 500 Emblems in one month:
18 Emblems per day x 28 days = 504 Emblems
BUT the hidden factor is time. To get 18 Emblems it take approximately 4 hrs.
4 hrs x 28 days = 112 hrs for 500 Emblems
The average player of STO is a casual player (it was stated as such in another thread).
I am a casual player (and let me say I love and enjoy this game very much ) and I play for about one hour every other day or about 5 hrs a week, 20 hrs a month.
5.6 month x $15.00 USD membership per month = $84.00 USD per 500 Emblems = 1 Ship for one Character.
5 Months for one ship for one character. Yes I am clearly buying the ship for Atari Token!
PLEASE stop insulting us... C-store items are not available in game when in game will take half a year to get such item for ONE character while c-store purchase cost one month membership and it become available for all characters. :mad:
So what should a ship cost?
It should cost a month of my time to 'grind' for it.
Why?
Because a month of my game time = $15.00 USD (a month membership).
How many Emblems should a ship cost then?
At 5 Emblems per hour.
20 hrs x 5 = 100 Emblems
YES Cryptic please re-calculate your numbers and cut the prize.
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...
This is what Cryptic needs to pay attention to. You have made it clear and simple, and hopefully they understand the time versus money issue.
To my mind, calling the 500 emblem grind an alternative to the cstore is invalid on its face. It simply isn't possible for people to spend every free waking hour in the day for a month grinding for one thing in a game they already paid for and are paying for the right to play something they already bought.
Imagine being someone like me with classes during the day, study time and work during the evening and roughly 6-10 hours for recreation and sleep. Just not feasable.
You're really asking two questions there so I'm going to answer each one seperately.
First, restricting the number of tokens that you can buy into small chunks is something that's been done by merchants for a century or more at a carnivals and fairs. It's also necessary in many countries in order further disassociate virtual game tokens from money. Some governments around the world are already talking about charging you an income tax based on the amount of in-game currency that your characters have.
In answer to your second question, I think selling a C-Store ship for $15 worth of Atari Tokens is what I call "reasonable markup."
A historic precedent of dishonesty, does not absolve nor shield current transgressors. Furthermore, I'd encourage Cryptic to put on a better show than a carpet-bagging carnival act.
If you find a single ship, advertised at $15 but costing you $18.75 (more than the cost of one month's access to the entire game) a reasonable buy; so be it.
This is what Cryptic needs to pay attention to. You have made it clear and simple, and hopefully they understand the time versus money issue.
I think they understand it pretty well. But their conclusions is that "5.6 months" for a casual player is just fine. That's it.
A "casual" player trying to grind for the best Raid gear in another MMO will need that long or longer as well.
Cryptic doesn't want a "casual player" to be subscribed only one month and then be done with the game. The game is a subscription based because people are supposed to keep playing it, keep being subscribed.
The "nefarious" plan of any MMO company is to have people that keep paying for their game. And "grind" is part of it. You might not like it, but it is also the only way MMOs can work in the first place. The alternative are games like Startrek: Final Unity or Command & Conquer or Diablo II. You pay once, play through the game, and are done with it. The company churns out the next game and hopefully you buy it. But it won't give you the experience of the previous game. Maybe it wil be better, maybe it will be worse...
Right, I'm not standing against the C-store. I see its need and its value to players, the game and Cryptic.
I'm happy to see that some C-store items are made available in game. It is a shame that not all items are made available in game. There are going to be younger players (say 15 or younger - who cannot legally work - in England at least -) who will want an item but have no means of getting it. But still at least there alternate options to acquire certain items without having to sepnd hard earned cash.
However
500 Emblems is steep and expensive in terms of cost of time spent completing missions to earn 500 emplems. Even then you have to grind more emblems, marks etc to kit the ship out in weapons and consoles. The process is arduous and painful and while there is the alternate option of simply paying for it with cash, it is unethical that the 'paying for it' should be so much more appealing than playing the game and earning 500 emblems.
In fact I don't think I have collected 500 emblems. I know for a fact that I've never accumilateed 500 emblems in one go.
And again while I see the need for the C-store and I don't feel that purchasing with emblems should be as easy or as instanenous as paying with cash. I feel needing to collect 500 emblems really isn't an option for most, IMO.
Personally my suggestion would be to either lower the cost of emblem/mark related items or increase the opportunities or the number of emblems/marks awarded form completing missions to make it a realistic and viable option.
I highlighted the important part of your posting. Cryptic should bring in enough different ways & content where it is NOT painfull of playing to get the emblems. The content where players can earn the emblems should still be fun to play while have to repeat it . To develop enough diversity in content is the greatest issue in all Cryptic games. That's why they have the random misison generators in all their games, but these ( while it is that they try to generate random missions ) don't work well compared to the massive amount of content other MMORPG developers come up with real Add-On packs.
The new way of creating content via dailys in sector-blocks after a featured series is a way i like much more, especially when the dailys have optional goals. A really good example ( while not daily missions ) are the KDF patrol missions in Pi Canis .. they are excellent work, i would like to see more of this type of mission but only bigger, in the future.
DISCLAIMER
While writing the above it is clear to me that grinding / repeating content is inevitable in the whole MMORPG concept, because no company can develop enough new and fresh content so that players never have to repeat content.
I don't mean to single you out Syrinx, you're simply the last person to use this phrase 'Cash Grab.'
I shouldn't admit this, but it really annoys me when people use this phrase.
First because it really doesn't mean anything. What exactly is the difference between a 'quick cash grab' and 'putting something up for sale'? So what I'm asking is: what exactly makes 'offering something for sale' morph into 'quick cash grab', and why is 'quick cash grab' a bad thing?
Secondly, since when is it bad for a business to make money? You know what happens if Cryptic doesn't make money? People lose their jobs. And in this economy people often can't find another job quickly, which means that some people lose their houses. Cryptic employees, and their spouses and their children, are depending upon those 'cash grabs' to stay off of the street.
Atari isn't GM or Exxon. Their executives aren't wear gold-plated underwear and bathing in piles of cash. Sure millions of dollars is a lot of money, but not once you have to divide it up across the salaries for roughly 300 employees and then pay taxes and bills on top of that.
So what exactly is a 'quick cash grab', and why is it a bad thing?
It's ok to single me out. If you don't want to be called on what you post, don't post it
You dislike the phrase 'cash grab' as I dislike ' expecting things for free' particularly in the context of STO.
By cash grab, I personally mean money on top of money. We've already been told that money made from the C store provides otherwise unavailable funds so the devs can continue to create content for the game. That is not borne out by the releases we see. When looking at at a 4 month lapse ahead with no new playable content, Cryptic are happy to release yet another item to the C store to make more instant cash from the people, despite expecting continued subscriptions which are of no worth. (Server support is not worth in light of stagnation)
At launch, this game had about a month's play till it was exhausted beyond constant grind. Since that time (13 months now of subscription) there has been maybe another week's worth of content added in total, and that's being conservative with play times I think.
Despite that, the constant stream of extra cost items to the store is still going strong.
Take the KDF. While already lacking in ship options at all, instead of improving that with in game additions, Cryptic chose instead to add each of the new ships to store. Yes, they have the same single token at LG, which puts them on par with the Feds, but it doesn't really when they have less original options anyway.
There was no lower tier Garumba added, or any of the others to flesh out a very sparse faction.
And you're right, the view is subjective. Every view is subjective, and merely opinion, but the more that agree to a view, the closer it comes to concensus; example being, is there anyone that feels STO's end game is fine?
To answer your other question, it's fine for a company to make money. The problem arises when a company tries to make justification for their own bad policies and tries to take more from the consumer base while not having provided what they should have for the initial cost. Again, this is subjective, but I'm happy with the view since I appear to not be alone in that.
We're all hit by the economy, not just the corporations, and frankly if Cryptic weren't up to the task of STO, they shouldn't have taken it on. It was their pitch that they could make an MMO in half the time other companies would take, and so they did. But! It was half a game in that half developement time. No good crying about outmoded prices forcing them to sell extras to make ends meet when the fault lies with a shoddy game not being up to the task of maintaining subscriptions.
Guild wars is a better game by far than STO with no subscription and no Store to speak of. It's actually a better comparison MMO-wise to STO than wow. The hero system is much better implemented than the Boffs, the instancing is less intrusive than STO, and despite having a level cap of 20, the game doesn't even really start until that point. The opposite of STO whereby the game dies out as you reach level cap.
And those that say we shouldn't make comparisons to other games, you're wrong. Everything in life is compared to what came before, be it Coke vs Pepsi, Ferrari vs. Lamborghini etc. etc. MMOs are no different.
And - for the final time, StormShade, I have to ask:
If you are a Cryptic employee, all items on the C-store are provided to you for free - along with the cost of your player account.
Have you done the 500 emblem grind for yourself? Has anyone on the STO development team done this?
If not, coming in here and telling us that the prices and the grind are justified and reasonable rings very, very hollow.
I expect most Cryptic employees have played most missions so many times they are 100x sicker of them then us. Its their job to play the content, I'm sure its not just the QA guys who play a mission and verify something works. I bet a Cryptic employee can bum rush any mission and know exactly how fast something can be earned in a this game if you know how the system works.
Agreed, the money from the c-store is an obvious incentive to the designers of the game. But, you touched on emblems, which, I bet if you actually leveled up a character from the start would mean something to you. My VA has 40 emblems... Lets put it in perspective, my VA from 2.2.10 will never have the "buying" power that a 3.2.11 character has... due to emblems.
For the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone, could take 4 or more hours to grind the emblems.
I timed myself, from start to 10, then 14 emblems, I scanned every anomaly in each map i hit, provoked the breen patrol fed my dog, and got a cup of coffee as well. it took me a whopping 77 minutes to hit 10 tokens and one hour and 57 minutes to get the Btran ones done as well for a total of 14 due to the combat missions that i did.
LESS THAN TWO HOURS... not 4 or more. IF you want it you can do it, I got to 40, in 3 days or 6 hours of work and normally i stop and do a lot of other stuff on the fly.
The Key to the grind? DO NOT DO PVP or the FA, those, waste your time for little to NO payback. I've done my share of grinds, this is no different, don't waste time, don't do things that take require any wait time or Que's. Its NOT hard, I'm sorry, its not too steep, its doable and only takes 2 hours a day, and ever 2-3 days, a bit longer since you'll get the additional daily.
and I'm Not trying to insult, flame or anything of the nature, I'm trying to figure out how/why folks are taking that long, so i can understand and maybe even help......
The primary purpose of this board is for us as a community to discuss issues related to the game. Its not a box for complaints or love letters addressed to the devs. There are a whole series of feedback forums for that purpose.
That said, if you want to start a new thread called, "Does StormShade have the right to an Opinion", feel free. The rest of us are discussing whether or not 500 Emblems is reasonable. Many of us agree with Stormshade.
Though, I do, at this point, see no good reason why the unlock shouldn't be account-wide for any given ship.
Your joking right? more then half the guys in this thread disagree with 500 emblem cost?! please don't be the wise-guy and stop sucking-up to the devs/forum admins, there is no prize to win here if you do so.
on a side note, if the 500 emblem item unlocks "account wise" then no one will complain about it, just a thought for the devs
I believe WoW eventually added an account-wide unlock for the upper-end Northrend riding skill.
Owky who said that the northrend flight skill is account wise?!, where did that info come from? and on a side note: has totally nothing to do with STO, comparing Apples with Oranges.
Ok, after reading this thread I have a question for anyone tho thinks 500 emblems is "too much":
How many do you think is a reasonable number?
Whatever that number may be, what happens when someone else says THAT number is too much?
Do you think the number should be adjusted for EVERY person who thinks it is "too much", or just for YOUR definition of "too much"?
personally i find 250 emblems a good reason, but i'm happy with 300 as well like some have said.
if there are more players that gonna nag about that number, well thats a fact "humans" in general are never happy with what there having and spoiled brads are everywhere.
no the number should not be adjusted for every guy that said so! yet "to much is to much"!
Not reading 25 pages of this and I'm sure it's been adressed but MMO = Grind. Name one MMO that is sucessful that doesn't have some sort of grind for the best gear. Besides this game is so easy I could fly a miranda around and still crush 90% of this content so who cares?
yes in a way this statement is true, all mmo's have "grind" BUT name me one MMO's other then STO that has only one "grind" ? i'll explain more before you all start raging down on me.
i mean is there is only one "boring" way to grind in this game cus of lack of content! the few daily missions and the explorer missions witch are mega boring btw! let cryptic add more deferent ways to farm emblems to the game and i would not even care about the 500 emblem cost. yet i'm afraid wen cryptic do add more ways for emblem farming that the 500 emblem cost will go up ! cus you can farm the emblems better! the big point is like some already said Cryptic does not want you to farm for them, there goal is to make you buy it from the C-store! (marketing right there for yah).
For the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone, could take 4 or more hours to grind the emblems.
I timed myself, from start to 10, then 14 emblems, I scanned every anomaly in each map i hit, provoked the breen patrol fed my dog, and got a cup of coffee as well. it took me a whopping 77 minutes to hit 10 tokens and one hour and 57 minutes to get the Btran ones done as well for a total of 14 due to the combat missions that i did.
LESS THAN TWO HOURS... not 4 or more. IF you want it you can do it, I got to 40, in 3 days or 6 hours of work and normally i stop and do a lot of other stuff on the fly.
The Key to the grind? DO NOT DO PVP or the FA, those, waste your time for little to NO payback. I've done my share of grinds, this is no different, don't waste time, don't do things that take require any wait time or Que's. Its NOT hard, I'm sorry, its not too steep, its doable and only takes 2 hours a day, and ever 2-3 days, a bit longer since you'll get the additional daily.
and I'm Not trying to insult, flame or anything of the nature, I'm trying to figure out how/why folks are taking that long, so i can understand and maybe even help......
you have a desk-job do you? "no insult intended here", some of us come home very tired and we game in a state of "this can't feel like a job" or i quit playing it !? i want to relax wen i game, if i get stressed from a game i just quit it for that day. farming in mmo's is very normal BUT the way you have to farm can be different (fun), farming in STO (SUCKS and is NO FUN at all) the same every day for days until you have what you need.
if i have to give examples:
- world of warcraft (mob hunting, raiding, quests / dailys, pvp , exchange (some items that you farm can be soled and thus buy-able by other players)
- aion (mob hunting, quests / dailys, raids, pvp, exchange)
- lineage2 (mob hunting, raiding, quests, pvp, exchange)
(all the game above here have more then one place where i can farm for them)
- STO (daily mission, explorer mission, bugged STF) "only one place in the universe", i won't even put pvp inhere cus that's so unbalanced that it will make you mad as hell in the process.
i can go on here if i wish but i made my point. its well known fact that STO is not a complete game, after a year yes lots of things got added and game has improved alot "thank god" but still this game feels like its a "beta" to me! bugs, incomplete idea's, unbalanced. for all intent here i don't want to insult the devs but i'm a strong believer of telling things like i see them.
personally i find 250 emblems a good reason, but i'm happy with 300 as well like some have said.if there are more players that gonna nag about that number, well thats a fact "humans" in general are never happy with what there having and spoiled brads are everywhere.
Your very same statement can be applied to 500 or 1000 Emblems. 500 Emblems will take the equivilent time of a 1 month subscription to earn, which also happens to generally be the price of the ship in the C-Store. That is equitable.
For the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone, could take 4 or more hours to grind the emblems.
If you poke through the thread here a bit, you will note there were a couple of posters who mentioned they run on Advanced or even Elite difficulty. That would account for a lengthier time to complete what others can do on Normal setting.
If you stumble into to it by blind coincidence .. its a nice bonus..
MErly placing a "Token" cp equiv on something aw well not losing any tribble hairs over it.
I can get more bang out of Admrial Quinns and Lt Laurels Ship plaques for a balanced Starship Officer.
ITs nice the option is there ans its not liek a Free Jupiter Battleship with over 72k hull.. So what ever floats your space boat.
Your very same statement can be applied to 500 or 1000 Emblems. 500 Emblems will take the equivilent time of a 1 month subscription to earn, which also happens to generally be the price of the ship in the C-Store. That is equitable.
the point here is not only the cost! well not for me at-least, but the way to get the emblems. the way it is now ingame to farm the emblems is boring to say the least!
i mean is there is only one "boring" way to grind in this game cus of lack of content! the few daily missions and the explorer missions witch are mega boring btw! let cryptic add more deferent ways to farm emblems to the game and i would not even care about the 500 emblem cost.[sic]
I think this may be the root of many of these problems. As I see it people feel 300 emblems is too much for two reasons:
1. Its boring
2. It takes too much time (a month's time), or longer if you don't log in every day.
It seems to me the right solution here is to loosen up on the hard rules of how emblems are acquired. Perhaps instead of a max of 18-20 emblems a day, Its set to something like 126-140 a week (7 x 18-20), which you could get over a few days, or all at once in a single (albeit long) gaming session.
Additionally, to fight the tedium, you should be able to get those emblems in more ways (mission replays, weeklies, etc). This would remove much of the 'grind', allowing people more flexibility and ways to enjoy the higher end content while 'grinding'. I can't recall the number of times I've been told, "I can't join you right now, have to grind my dailies.", but if someone could just get those emblems while they were helping me with my weekly, everybody wins!
I'm sure there are some things to work out here, (for example, perhaps low level replay missions don't give any emblems if they are too easy for your character, or substantially reduced emblems).
Adding this sort of emblem reward to existing content is also something that the developers could expand on as they go, they could do the weeklies first, then the highest ranking missions second, etc.
the point here is not only the cost! well not for me at-least, but the way to get the emblems. the way it is now ingame to farm the emblems is boring to say the least!
I do not disagree that the Emblem farming can be boring to some. However, even if they were to add Emblems as a reward for more content (which I think they will do at some point), you will still have to replay said content over and over. You are still going to have those out there who will say Emblem farming is boring regardless of how many missions/fleet actions etc. award Emblems there may be.
I think this may be the root of many of these problems. As I see it people feel 300 emblems is too much for two reasons:
1. Its boring
2. It takes too much time (a month's time), or longer if you don't log in every day.
It seems to me the right solution here is to loosen up on the hard rules of how emblems are acquired. Perhaps instead of a max of 18-20 emblems a day, Its set to something like 126-140 a week (7 x 18-20), which you could get over a few days, or all at once in a single (albeit long) gaming session.
Additionally, to fight the tedium, you should be able to get those emblems in more ways (mission replays, weeklies, etc). This would remove much of the 'grind', allowing people more flexibility and ways to enjoy the higher end content while 'grinding'. I can't recall the number of times I've been told "can't join you right now, have to grind my dailies", but if someone could just get those emblems while they were helping me with my weekly, everybody wins!
I'm sure there some things to work out here, (for example, perhaps low level replay missions don't give any emblems if they are too easy for your character, or substantially reduced emblems).
Adding this sort of emblem reward to existing content is also something that the developers could expand on as they go, they could do the weeklies first, then the highest ranking missions second, etc.
Cheers,
- Z
this is the first real good reply i'v seen in this thread, as what picard always says, "make it so"
Comments
That's pretty easy: It's the difference between selling a product with a reasonable markup to make a reasonable profit in a way that provides reasonable value-for-money based on the accepted market value of your trade, the man-hours invested and the quality of your work... and charging well over the odds because people will pay that much because a) You have a unique product available nowhere else, or the consumer is in some other way restricted from obtaining it from a competitor b) Because they've already invested heavily in your product, and dropping it for a competitor would invalidate the prior investment and c) Some consumers have no concept of the market value of your goods.
I do not believe a corporation has no ethical obligations aside from providing a return to their shareholders.
If you are a Cryptic employee, all items on the C-store are provided to you for free - along with the cost of your player account.
Have you done the 500 emblem grind for yourself? Has anyone on the STO development team done this?
If not, coming in here and telling us that the prices and the grind are justified and reasonable rings very, very hollow.
I have no problem with it being difficult to earn the ships, but two things that would improve this dramatically are more dailies and making the unlock account-wide, not per character.
One example would be Cryptic selling C-Store ships for 1200 tokens, but only allowing you to buy 1500 tokens, thereby pocketing your money or forcing you to buy something extra.
What would you call that?
That's a good point, but really there are two issues. There are some people who want it to be less per ship. The value of something is pretty varied from person to person - Cryptic has made its decision about the pricing. The other issue is the way people actually get to the end of the grind. Many people in this thread have used words like "boring" or "tedium," and there is a large group that view a portion of the game as a chore, rather than something desirable to do.
Sure, MMOs have a grind. But just because STO's grind is better than other games' doesn't mean it's good. Games should not be chores - they should be fun. As another poster mentioned, good MMOs disguise the grind. Right now, STO doesn't. People are so fed up with the boredom and frustration that they see it only as an obstacle, not some achievement to overcome, leading to the idea that it's only there as a token gesture so Cryptic can say all their game-changing stuff is also available in game, while blocking people from achieving the in game method realistically. And, realistically, if you want a second VA ship on more than one character, that just sucks.
Additionally (and this has very little to do with the post I've quoted) STO's grind shouldn't be compared to other games' grinds. STO is not those games. Many people here are completely new to MMOs, being drawn in by their love of Star Trek. They don't see that getting 500 emblems is better than waiting for a cyclops, they just see that it sucks. A lot. And nothing about this game should suck.
Thank you for answering my question.
You're really asking two questions there so I'm going to answer each one seperately.
First, restricting the number of tokens that you can buy into small chunks is something that's been done by merchants for a century or more at a carnivals and fairs. It's also necessary in many countries in order further disassociate virtual game tokens from money. Some governments around the world are already talking about charging you an income tax based on the amount of in-game currency that your characters have.
In answer to your second question, I think selling a C-Store ship for $15 worth of Atari Tokens is what I call "reasonable markup."
Wait, what? How does that follow, precisely?
Yes, it's subjective, /yes/ they should most certainly listen to the 'feedback'... but basing that feedback solely on sale statistics is the very antithesis of the point I've been trying to make - that they have a greater responsibility than simply making as much money from us as they possibly can.
That 'feedback' should include what's being said here. The effect their policies are having on their standing in the eyes of their customers.
And it should include the very, very pertinent figure of how many people are earning these items in-game rather than purchasing them before they assert that the in-game methods are 'reasonable'. If 99 out of every 100 people obtaining these items is paying for them, then - quite simply - it is not, and by saying it is they are being outright dishonest.
Customers who feel lied to and manipulated are not going to remain loyal, and 'brand loyalty' is something any sensible business considers important - and it's beginning to feel to me very much like that is precisely what Cryptic is doing.
I don't have the figures, but I know that way, way more people that I know have purchased ships from the C-store than earned them in game. I - in fact - know of /no one/ who has done the latter.
Yes, the plural of 'anecdote' is not data, but it's a pretty large sample of people we're discussing here. People don't even talk about the in-game methods as an /option/, it's either 'is it worth me buying it or not?'. If that trend is indicative of the player-base at large, then suggestions from Cryptic that the in-game methods are viable and reasonable for the average player are false.
Likewise, if StormShade and the other devs have not accomplished the 500-emblem grind for themselves - then again their insistence that it is reasonable is - if not dishonest - then at least utterly meaningless.
Weren't they at 300 before? That seemed reasonable to me.
I think a good way to think about 'cash grab' is:
Things that a Ferengi company would do that a human company would not, business-wise.
Or
An aggressive implementation of fees and charges by an organization for services or items that are normally (or expected to be) free of charge with the intent to extract as much money from customers as possible. Also known as milking the customer (To obtain money or benefits from, in order to achieve personal gain; exploit).
That's what 'cash grab' means to me, anyway.
Z
Please Cryptic If you read this reconsider you math.
Theoretically speaking you are selling a ship for the price of a month membership:
1,200 Atari Points = $15.00 USD
Theoretically speaking you can get 500 Emblems in one month:
18 Emblems per day x 28 days = 504 Emblems
BUT the hidden factor is time. To get 18 Emblems it take approximately 4 hrs.
4 hrs x 28 days = 112 hrs for 500 Emblems
The average player of STO is a casual player (it was stated as such in another thread).
I am a casual player (and let me say I love and enjoy this game very much
500 Emblems = 112 hrs divided 20 hrs per month = 5.6 month
5.6 month x $15.00 USD membership per month = $84.00 USD per 500 Emblems = 1 Ship for one Character.
5 Months for one ship for one character. Yes I am clearly buying the ship for Atari Token!
PLEASE stop insulting us... C-store items are not available in game when in game will take half a year to get such item for ONE character while c-store purchase cost one month membership and it become available for all characters. :mad:
So what should a ship cost?
It should cost a month of my time to 'grind' for it.
Why?
Because a month of my game time = $15.00 USD (a month membership).
How many Emblems should a ship cost then?
At 5 Emblems per hour.
20 hrs x 5 = 100 Emblems
YES Cryptic please re-calculate your numbers and cut the prize.
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...
This is what most nay sayers of the C-store have said since BETA, fluff for the store, all other items available in game only as rewards. Nothing wrong with raiding for a couple months to get that class drop.......
Oh wait, we dont have end game content yet because they spend so much time making C-store stuff. Bottom line is the game is still not finished after a year of release, and we are paying for jsut about all the new content.
This is what Cryptic needs to pay attention to. You have made it clear and simple, and hopefully they understand the time versus money issue.
Imagine being someone like me with classes during the day, study time and work during the evening and roughly 6-10 hours for recreation and sleep. Just not feasable.
A historic precedent of dishonesty, does not absolve nor shield current transgressors. Furthermore, I'd encourage Cryptic to put on a better show than a carpet-bagging carnival act.
If you find a single ship, advertised at $15 but costing you $18.75 (more than the cost of one month's access to the entire game) a reasonable buy; so be it.
A "casual" player trying to grind for the best Raid gear in another MMO will need that long or longer as well.
Cryptic doesn't want a "casual player" to be subscribed only one month and then be done with the game. The game is a subscription based because people are supposed to keep playing it, keep being subscribed.
The "nefarious" plan of any MMO company is to have people that keep paying for their game. And "grind" is part of it. You might not like it, but it is also the only way MMOs can work in the first place. The alternative are games like Startrek: Final Unity or Command & Conquer or Diablo II. You pay once, play through the game, and are done with it. The company churns out the next game and hopefully you buy it. But it won't give you the experience of the previous game. Maybe it wil be better, maybe it will be worse...
I highlighted the important part of your posting. Cryptic should bring in enough different ways & content where it is NOT painfull of playing to get the emblems. The content where players can earn the emblems should still be fun to play while have to repeat it . To develop enough diversity in content is the greatest issue in all Cryptic games. That's why they have the random misison generators in all their games, but these ( while it is that they try to generate random missions ) don't work well compared to the massive amount of content other MMORPG developers come up with real Add-On packs.
The new way of creating content via dailys in sector-blocks after a featured series is a way i like much more, especially when the dailys have optional goals. A really good example ( while not daily missions ) are the KDF patrol missions in Pi Canis .. they are excellent work, i would like to see more of this type of mission but only bigger, in the future.
DISCLAIMER
While writing the above it is clear to me that grinding / repeating content is inevitable in the whole MMORPG concept, because no company can develop enough new and fresh content so that players never have to repeat content.
It's ok to single me out. If you don't want to be called on what you post, don't post it
You dislike the phrase 'cash grab' as I dislike ' expecting things for free' particularly in the context of STO.
By cash grab, I personally mean money on top of money. We've already been told that money made from the C store provides otherwise unavailable funds so the devs can continue to create content for the game. That is not borne out by the releases we see. When looking at at a 4 month lapse ahead with no new playable content, Cryptic are happy to release yet another item to the C store to make more instant cash from the people, despite expecting continued subscriptions which are of no worth. (Server support is not worth in light of stagnation)
At launch, this game had about a month's play till it was exhausted beyond constant grind. Since that time (13 months now of subscription) there has been maybe another week's worth of content added in total, and that's being conservative with play times I think.
Despite that, the constant stream of extra cost items to the store is still going strong.
Take the KDF. While already lacking in ship options at all, instead of improving that with in game additions, Cryptic chose instead to add each of the new ships to store. Yes, they have the same single token at LG, which puts them on par with the Feds, but it doesn't really when they have less original options anyway.
There was no lower tier Garumba added, or any of the others to flesh out a very sparse faction.
And you're right, the view is subjective. Every view is subjective, and merely opinion, but the more that agree to a view, the closer it comes to concensus; example being, is there anyone that feels STO's end game is fine?
To answer your other question, it's fine for a company to make money. The problem arises when a company tries to make justification for their own bad policies and tries to take more from the consumer base while not having provided what they should have for the initial cost. Again, this is subjective, but I'm happy with the view since I appear to not be alone in that.
We're all hit by the economy, not just the corporations, and frankly if Cryptic weren't up to the task of STO, they shouldn't have taken it on. It was their pitch that they could make an MMO in half the time other companies would take, and so they did. But! It was half a game in that half developement time. No good crying about outmoded prices forcing them to sell extras to make ends meet when the fault lies with a shoddy game not being up to the task of maintaining subscriptions.
Guild wars is a better game by far than STO with no subscription and no Store to speak of. It's actually a better comparison MMO-wise to STO than wow. The hero system is much better implemented than the Boffs, the instancing is less intrusive than STO, and despite having a level cap of 20, the game doesn't even really start until that point. The opposite of STO whereby the game dies out as you reach level cap.
And those that say we shouldn't make comparisons to other games, you're wrong. Everything in life is compared to what came before, be it Coke vs Pepsi, Ferrari vs. Lamborghini etc. etc. MMOs are no different.
Perhaps the phrase should be 'extra-cash grab'
I expect most Cryptic employees have played most missions so many times they are 100x sicker of them then us. Its their job to play the content, I'm sure its not just the QA guys who play a mission and verify something works. I bet a Cryptic employee can bum rush any mission and know exactly how fast something can be earned in a this game if you know how the system works.
I timed myself, from start to 10, then 14 emblems, I scanned every anomaly in each map i hit, provoked the breen patrol fed my dog, and got a cup of coffee as well. it took me a whopping 77 minutes to hit 10 tokens and one hour and 57 minutes to get the Btran ones done as well for a total of 14 due to the combat missions that i did.
LESS THAN TWO HOURS... not 4 or more. IF you want it you can do it, I got to 40, in 3 days or 6 hours of work and normally i stop and do a lot of other stuff on the fly.
The Key to the grind? DO NOT DO PVP or the FA, those, waste your time for little to NO payback. I've done my share of grinds, this is no different, don't waste time, don't do things that take require any wait time or Que's. Its NOT hard, I'm sorry, its not too steep, its doable and only takes 2 hours a day, and ever 2-3 days, a bit longer since you'll get the additional daily.
and I'm Not trying to insult, flame or anything of the nature, I'm trying to figure out how/why folks are taking that long, so i can understand and maybe even help......
Your joking right? more then half the guys in this thread disagree with 500 emblem cost?! please don't be the wise-guy and stop sucking-up to the devs/forum admins, there is no prize to win here if you do so.
on a side note, if the 500 emblem item unlocks "account wise" then no one will complain about it, just a thought for the devs
Owky who said that the northrend flight skill is account wise?!, where did that info come from? and on a side note: has totally nothing to do with STO, comparing Apples with Oranges.
personally i find 250 emblems a good reason, but i'm happy with 300 as well like some have said.
if there are more players that gonna nag about that number, well thats a fact "humans" in general are never happy with what there having and spoiled brads are everywhere.
no the number should not be adjusted for every guy that said so! yet "to much is to much"!
yes in a way this statement is true, all mmo's have "grind" BUT name me one MMO's other then STO that has only one "grind" ? i'll explain more before you all start raging down on me.
i mean is there is only one "boring" way to grind in this game cus of lack of content! the few daily missions and the explorer missions witch are mega boring btw! let cryptic add more deferent ways to farm emblems to the game and i would not even care about the 500 emblem cost. yet i'm afraid wen cryptic do add more ways for emblem farming that the 500 emblem cost will go up ! cus you can farm the emblems better! the big point is like some already said Cryptic does not want you to farm for them, there goal is to make you buy it from the C-store! (marketing right there for yah).
you have a desk-job do you? "no insult intended here", some of us come home very tired and we game in a state of "this can't feel like a job" or i quit playing it !? i want to relax wen i game, if i get stressed from a game i just quit it for that day. farming in mmo's is very normal BUT the way you have to farm can be different (fun), farming in STO (SUCKS and is NO FUN at all) the same every day for days until you have what you need.
if i have to give examples:
- world of warcraft (mob hunting, raiding, quests / dailys, pvp , exchange (some items that you farm can be soled and thus buy-able by other players)
- aion (mob hunting, quests / dailys, raids, pvp, exchange)
- lineage2 (mob hunting, raiding, quests, pvp, exchange)
(all the game above here have more then one place where i can farm for them)
- STO (daily mission, explorer mission, bugged STF) "only one place in the universe", i won't even put pvp inhere cus that's so unbalanced that it will make you mad as hell in the process.
i can go on here if i wish but i made my point. its well known fact that STO is not a complete game, after a year yes lots of things got added and game has improved alot "thank god" but still this game feels like its a "beta" to me! bugs, incomplete idea's, unbalanced. for all intent here i don't want to insult the devs but i'm a strong believer of telling things like i see them.
Your very same statement can be applied to 500 or 1000 Emblems. 500 Emblems will take the equivilent time of a 1 month subscription to earn, which also happens to generally be the price of the ship in the C-Store. That is equitable.
If you poke through the thread here a bit, you will note there were a couple of posters who mentioned they run on Advanced or even Elite difficulty. That would account for a lengthier time to complete what others can do on Normal setting.
MErly placing a "Token" cp equiv on something aw well not losing any tribble hairs over it.
I can get more bang out of Admrial Quinns and Lt Laurels Ship plaques for a balanced Starship Officer.
ITs nice the option is there ans its not liek a Free Jupiter Battleship with over 72k hull.. So what ever floats your space boat.
the point here is not only the cost! well not for me at-least, but the way to get the emblems. the way it is now ingame to farm the emblems is boring to say the least!
I think this may be the root of many of these problems. As I see it people feel 300 emblems is too much for two reasons:
1. Its boring
2. It takes too much time (a month's time), or longer if you don't log in every day.
It seems to me the right solution here is to loosen up on the hard rules of how emblems are acquired. Perhaps instead of a max of 18-20 emblems a day, Its set to something like 126-140 a week (7 x 18-20), which you could get over a few days, or all at once in a single (albeit long) gaming session.
Additionally, to fight the tedium, you should be able to get those emblems in more ways (mission replays, weeklies, etc). This would remove much of the 'grind', allowing people more flexibility and ways to enjoy the higher end content while 'grinding'. I can't recall the number of times I've been told, "I can't join you right now, have to grind my dailies.", but if someone could just get those emblems while they were helping me with my weekly, everybody wins!
I'm sure there are some things to work out here, (for example, perhaps low level replay missions don't give any emblems if they are too easy for your character, or substantially reduced emblems).
Adding this sort of emblem reward to existing content is also something that the developers could expand on as they go, they could do the weeklies first, then the highest ranking missions second, etc.
Cheers,
- Z
I do not disagree that the Emblem farming can be boring to some. However, even if they were to add Emblems as a reward for more content (which I think they will do at some point), you will still have to replay said content over and over. You are still going to have those out there who will say Emblem farming is boring regardless of how many missions/fleet actions etc. award Emblems there may be.
this is the first real good reply i'v seen in this thread, as what picard always says, "make it so"