I agree with all the OP statements but (s)he missed the most important reason to lose faith.
On Holodeck *right now* the game is awesome, and fully functional for only $15 a month. When you rank up you get a new ship. When you get a new ship you can replay Featured Episodes and run exploration missions and gear that new ship properly.
On F2P server there is no way to have a fun, fully functional game for only $15 a month. When you rank up you get a percentage of what you need to buy to get a ship. All featured episodes are no longer availible at Lt Commander 1. You cant just spend a few hours doing Exploration and gear up given the 8000 a day refine limit.
Even with F2P bringing obvious restrictions you CANT opt out of these ridiculous restrictions even if you offer $15 a month.
They are CREATING artificial problems you can solve by buying Dilithium.
Yeah, i'd lost faith in Cryptic a long time ago, BUT.... i considered the STO team to be a seperate entity because up until F2P they weren't like the rest of Cryptic. They were doing great by the community. The game was going great, there was nwe content almost regularly. But then they started being just a part of Cryptic again.
I'm not losing faith in the game, i'm losing faith in the people making it. Lying to the fans/subs, making promises they won't keep, Telling us they're reworking the economy when they just renamed a few things and raised prices on things. I'm a huge trek fan, i like the game, but as it is, i'll probably not play until new content drops. I might even Drop my fed/klingon alts.
Like others have posted, I was a cryptic fanboy too. The only decision that ever really ticked me off was them putting the Champions Mirror Uniform on the C-Store. That seems like such a tiny issue now, compared to taking away a great game and replacing it with one giant "Insert Credit Card here" tag.
If it releases like this, my lifetime sub just became valueless, and I will have made the full transition from seeing Cryptic as visionaries to seeing them as common swindlers.
So I have been testing the Free to play build and I'm slowly losing faith that Cryptic has the best interests of this game at heart....This is my rant and my reasons.
1. Forced to level in order.....Why? i always loved deviating in the game and wandering around. Now missions come in a certain order whose brilliant idea was this? this is not fun doing the exact same order with ever new alt.
2. Buying my new tier of ships......excuse me...the federation isn't founded on money...So why does it feel like this game is becoming less and less about trek and starting to feel more like a grinding mmo from the east. (hmmm)
3. Klingons capped until you play federation....While I do not like the klingon faction limiting them to a higher level is utterly boneheaded....what will we do for pvp which is already suffering badly.
4. Forced dailies......When you force people to do something especially dailies simply to progress....you need to fire whoever thought this was a good idea.
5. the grind....Im sorry and I don't mean to sound bad with this comment but this is Star Trek not Aion....why are we copying an eastern style of MMO with grinding endlessly to get new rewards....where is the fun in this? can cryptic not find a better way to earn items.
Shattered promises....I recall It being said we would not Notice a whole lot of difference in our gameplay with the free to play conversion....yet this is beginning to feel a lot like SWG when the NGE went live....
the more I see the more im unhappy with my favorite game...I have never let my sub die since this game has come out....and thankfully never bought a lifetime Sub though for the first time....I am beginning to question Star treks future under cryptic and starting to wonder if the string of bad judgement means it's time to move on.
On F2P server there is no way to have a fun, fully functional game for only $15 a month. When you rank up you get a percentage of what you need to buy to get a ship. All featured episodes are no longer availible at Lt Commander 1. You cant just spend a few hours doing Exploration and gear up given the 8000 a day refine limit.
Even with F2P bringing obvious restrictions you CANT opt out of these ridiculous restrictions even if you offer $15 a month.
They are CREATING artificial problems you can solve by buying Dilithium.
Yep completly lost faith. I have always had a love/hate relationship with STO. Now its pretty much just 'hate'.
The game has lost its balance with these F2P changes, and has swung way too far into the realms of Evony/Pay2Win model. I was genuinly pleased when I heard the game was going F2P, now with these changes all's that I can see is the end of STO.
Star Trek fans are (usually) intelligent people, and will not support a model that attempts to milk them dry at any given opertunity, and since this is a trek franchise (and not hello kitty for instance) once you lose your core supporters there will be no one to replace them. That is why I dont see this game suriviving unless they make some major changes.
The current trek model was never perfect, but I could live with it, the new one, I cannot.
And no a single response from any dev or GM, we are just talking to the air..... :mad:
I know what the answer will be when it comes.
"Please be patient"
"Wonderfull things are happening, all will be revealed soon!"
"We are not monsters, there is no conspiricy theory!"
"Thats why we dont come to the forums, look at all this anger!"
or
"INSERT CANNED RESPONSE HERE"
Completely fed up with Cryptics lack of morals, I have given them the beneifit of the doubt for a long time now, but they have revealed themselves to be money grubbers with no regard for customer service.
And no a single response from any dev or GM, we are just talking to the air..... :mad:
If a dev or GM actually responded saying "This is the way we decided it is going to be, not going to change now." Would you happily go your merry way, satisfied that you got that answer?
I'm actually beginning, as terrifying as it is, to agree with the conspiracy theorists that Stahl left because he saw this coming and would not preside over it in good conscience.
I would *love* nothing more than to be proven *wrong* but the timing on this is just far too close for it to be coincidence.
He doesn't have to be an altruist. He could have just figured "This thing's going to be a disaster and I don't want my name on it."
Cerritouru, then why are you still a staff in an STO fleet? You should all do what most of us have already done: Leave while it was still a bit of fun. Soon there will be no fun left. I left the game in July, by the way, with both of my LTS accounts. I keep monitoring the forum with this second one a bit.
The only reason I really still play this game is cause I have a lifteime sub and I still enjoy the space combat and the small changes every once in awhile to keep me interested. Otherwise, I can't really say I "Lost Faith" since I never really had a high opinion of this game.
However, in terms of this thread, I have a few things I'd like to say.
1) C-store: I don't see a problem with the changes here. Sure some prices changed, but otherwise the stuff in the C-store still isn't "necessary" to have fun in the game, even with the F2P setup. I haven't felt the need to use my 1200 stipend yet with my charecter.
2) There is a big issue right now with loot vs. time spent playing and levels due to the HUGE change in experience gained by completing the featured episodes, thats why everyone is short of Energy Credits on tribble.
For example, it used to take about 3-4 missions to get 1 level, now it takes just 1.5. That means the amount of loot and energy credits you get while playing has reduced by 2-3x, and the amount of time you play in each tier is 2-3x shorter!
That doesn't give you enough time to get good drops or earn enough energy credits to setup your tier of ship properly.
3) The lack of easy-to-obtain Exploration points to buy green gear hurts. You cant say spend 1 whole level just doing explorations to get some badges in order to buy some green gear for your ship, so you have to rely on Energy Credits which are as mentioned, much harder to come by, so you wind up with a poorly equipped ship throughout the early parts of the game.
The cost of the dilithium for early level items in the stores is quite high, meaning you have to spend MUCH more time grinding to get quality items early on.
This doesn't seem to be as big of an issue for the end of the game though, seeing as the sets are still available (at least I think they are, are they?) and end-game-content will be awarding Dilithium meaning you can still buy the same purple/blue items from stores that you did before in the same amount of time with the same amount of grinding.
4) The leveling "in order" is a big problem right now due to having the missions with low-level loot being higher level, meaning you don't get the kind of rewards you NEED from the missions for the level you are at. This needs fixing.
And playing the missions in order is also quite annoying as mentioned, as quite a few of them I just don't like and usually skip with the old layout. I think I'm going to start a separate thread with ideas about this though, since it appears to be a sticky point that most people don't like so far.
Overall, I'm not as upset as the rest of you apparently, I don't think the changes are as bad as they are being made out to be. I spent a TRIBBLE load of time grinding in the past to get my quality setups, and I don't see any big difference with that so far.
I agree with you 100% but there is a difference of grinding when you can or you choose to do so to get a better gear and forced grinding to be able to just get a ship so you can enter the next level, that really stinks. :mad:
Agreed, in the past some have called me a Cryptic apologist, but no more.
Add me to the list - I just recently found out I was cosidered the figurehead of the "Cryptic Defense Force" (never heard of it myself.) If I had a positive view of the game's direction for the first 18 months, and had some sympathy for what Cryptic was going through in being sold etc. (AS I've been at a corporation in my career where that happened) - sue me. I always spoke my opinion, and rarely did I ever try to speak for anyone else.
That said, as Tribble F2P testing moves forward; and I see for myself what's 'coming down the pipe'; (and no, it's more than just a simple adjustment of numbers per se - EG upping the Raw Dilithium converson limit and adjusting some prices WON'T fix the overall systemic issues being buillt into the F2P bversion of STO now - the F2P system they've developed and decided to go with is flawed at it's core as far as that goes IMO.)
If anything the attitude of DStahl (regardless of th fact that he promised much, and sometimes dilivered late) of "Make STO more Star Trek like" - which in general is what I thought of the majority of his additions to the game during hiis tenure); has been superceeded by a nerw attitude of "Let's make the first Western MMO using a TRUELY EASTERN MMO F2P model"; and if anything, the particular result for STO is removing EVEN MORE of whatever 'Star Trek' feel was a part of the game prior to this paradigm shift.
EVERYTHING now either 'locks you in with no real choice' (EG the new Story Mission structure that requires you to play EVERY MISSION in the exact same order on EVERY character you make (assuming you want to experience the story content of the game); or is SO timelocked by 20 hour (1 day) timers; or even the new Daily Events that last an hour but 'fire' in roptation, so if you want to play ione you HAVE to be on at a ertain time or miss out; or capped to make teh new economy work EG Raw Dilithium conversion of 8000 per day.)
Gone is the "Hey, I have 15 minuts, I think I'll playSTO.." days; pot F2P it's "Hey I want to play STO, but hell, my next Doff assignment doesn't complete for 2 hours; I can't get good rewards for <insert name of daily here>, for 3 hours; and the daily event I like doesn't hit for 2 hours; and I'd ony get mor raw dilithium that I can't convert for another 6 hours... <--- And THIS is where F2P is taking STO.
It's devolving into what EQ became lo those many years ago; or what some people feel regarding EVE Online today - more of another JOB (with tight scheduling for success) then a game (or worse a game where stuff like it's goping to force you to do to advance; ISN'T the point of the IP it's based on.)
So, yeah, with old guard Cryptic folks like Stoemsshade coming here and doing posts in response to these concerns of:
"Hey, with F2P the future for STO is brighter than it's ever been."
Just sound like more PR spin; and an attempt to convionce us (and those at Cryptic still working on STO)) hat STO is fine.
Me? I don't think that's goping to be the case going forward; and I too have lost faith that STO game development is going to improve the state of actual gameplay. The majority of what I have experienced on Tribble indicates the opposite for me.
Will I still play? Yes. I still like the Space Combat system overall; and some of the storylines of the next FE series.
Am I tempted to make other/new characters post F2P? No, not really. I don't like being 'locked into' content progression with zero choice or having to micromanage what I do so I can be sure to be able to afford to get and gear ships for any new character. It used to be you felt rewarded for leveling; but under STO F2P - even as an LTS - I've started to dread approaching that next Major rank, as I won't have enough to function well in that Rank until I'm alsmost to the next Rank - AND I really have to chart and schedule my play in advance to get what I need to advance. <--- BASD cycle for a GAME that's supposed tio be fun and relaxing.
Do I think anything will change in this new F2P Paradigm as a result of mine, and other existing players concerns and feedback over what we see as a negative direction?
Nope - they haven't annouced it - but they are on a tight deadline and the course has been set -- with no detours; jsut some arthimetic updates.
Sadly, I remember arguing with about half of the people in this thread during some of the more egregious CStore debacles and seeing them on my side of the camp is disconcerting and more than a little sad. I would rather have been wrong than see STO turn the direction it seems to be going and the fact tha apologists and "fan boys" are now on my side of the fence greatly concerns me. Ethics and morality have never been Cryptic's strong suit but this has gone completely out of control.
Since release, Cryptic has been unethical in its behavior towards the customer base, we have been lied to and misdirected for two years and sadly, it is only getting worse since Perfect World's takeover of the company. It was bad enough dealing with Infogrames/Atari but Perfect World makes them look like saints.
This hole Cryptic is digging seems inescapable to me since there seems to be little, if any, interest in showing any respect whatever to the paying public in search of the next gold mine. I had almost begun to feel as though I were tilting at windmills in my prior anti-cstore and anti-Atari posts but I am starting to wonder if my target were wrong and it was that Cryptic lacks those same ethics as both Atari and Perfect Worlds seems to be missing.
Both my wife and I took ethics in college and we do understand both business ethics and general ethics neither of which has ever been displayed by Cryptic, I still have my textbooks and seriously considered sending them to the Cryptic main office but I think that would be a waste of my time and money, I no longer believe they have any interest in ethical behavior.
Originally I played City of Heroes. I loved City of Heroes. And was disappointed when Cryptic sold it to NCNC. But It continued to get better until they recked PVP for about 6 Months+ So I moved on. Floated around.. Migrated to Champions Online for a short stint and heard about Star Trek Online and thought "Oh that's going to be AWESOME! And I like Cryptic, they made City of Heroes! They will make it a great gaming experience!"
I look back and wonder where did they go wrong?
When the game came out, sure it had it's bugs, but it was a fun experience. Not "Trek" enough, but fun. Lately how ever, it's almost like the Ferengi have taken over. Next I'll be expecting us to have to by a copy of the Rules of Aquisition before we can even enter the game. :rolleyes:
My issues with the current Free To Play Model are:
Forced Mission Chains. - These should be level unlockable. Not forced to do each chain in the story in order to get further. It should be like the TV series. You can skip parts of it, and if you liked the later story, maybe go back and play the other series to see how things got to where they are now.
Dilithium costs are WAY to high, ESPECIALLY in high end, NON STF, Gear. - If you look at the old Emblem Gear, it's 240,000 REFINED Dilithium. Now imagine having to grind out Dailies for Refined and Unrefined, then having to use your current 8,000 cap. It could take Months to fully out fit a ship.
Klingon Empire. Even at level 17/19 The Klingon Empire does not have enough eposides. Some one will go from Federation side at level 25, take one look at just the content and probobly wonder why they should bother, and more then likely just go back to their Feds. I've been preaching for Equality between the sides of the game for a long time, but at this rate, it might be another 2 Years before that happens. Sure I have a Life time sub, but at this rate my interest in playing may wayne so far that I might give up all together..:(
PVP The biggest flaw that happened, was when the game launched. And that flaw was a Public Fed vs Fed Que in addition to the Fed Vs Klingon. They should have made Fed vs Fed a Private Que, and left the Fed Vs Klingon the Public part of the Que. Same with Klingon vs Klingon should also be a Private Que. This will still be in the F2P model, and honestly I wish it wasn't. But it's not something new so I'll leave that personal Pevee alone.
Not enough Refined Dilithium per Rank up. This bothers me. I like that at least we're getting Discounts. And I can understand that as your normal leveling you should get enough Refined Dilithium to buy your ships at each rank, but maybe it shouldn't be the same for Silver vs Gold. Maybe what we're looking at should be Silver, and Gold gets, instead of Dilithium to buy a new ship, the Free ship Tokens. Though I know Cryptic is trying to filter those out. It would at least give incentive to paying for the game, at least long enough to reach VA 1 and then later re-sub when the Level cap gets raised again.
Removal of the Borg Set. So far I don't like that the Borg Set seems to have been removed. Now I could be wrong on this point. And would be glad to be wrong. But if that set does get removed, I can only hope that those of us who worked hard to get full sets on our characters, we don't lose them.
Old Bugs are still there, and things are getting more unbalanced. The original game balance that was in the game, made the game fun. And originally if something was broken, they tried to fix it swiftly, but as the months grew longer, things have been left Stagnent, over powered, or not working perhaps as intended. Now I know they are supposed to be getting worked on, or fixed in the F2P Model. But what is the future for the game's combat balance? Maybe there should be a statement that Combat is going to be changing, where damage will be higher to comphensate for the amount of healing and resistances that are in the game now? Most of these issues are in space of course. Ground seems better, but it still isn't as perfect as I'm sure it eventually could be.
Pay to win. This is something I can understand being right for a Free to Play Model. You want the best, and coolest ships, then you have to pay for them. But why not let Gold have those ships auto unlocked, but you maybe still have to pay Dilithium for them? Where Silver would have to pay C-store points to unock them? And a gold member could also pay C-store points to unlock them incase they ever went Silver. Just a suggestion here. I mean ship costumes aside, it would be nice if this were a change in the F2P Model.
All in all, those above paragraphs are probobly only some of the issues I have with the game. I'm sure there are others that I haven't said. And I'm sure I'm repeating what others have said, but since it's all feed back, I can only hope that it gets listened to and implimented in some way in order to make the F2P And Star Trek Online experience better as a whole.
Heres the question though. At what point do you walk away from STO? What is the final straw?
I honestly don't know, since I have a litetime sub my thought processes are going to be different to those that sub monthly. My sub has "paid for itself" but I also hate the thought of abandoning the game entirely due to the unethical choices made by the company. On the other hand, I have no wish to hang around someplace I am obviously not wanted as a customer.
I took a break over the summer to work on and drive my old cars but came back when the weather started changing. Now, I am forced to wonder what I am going to do this winter since STO seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.
The game seemed to be moving in the right direction a couple weeks ago when I re-subbed, but this new FTP model is destroying any hope I had for the game to improve. I had a feeling this would turn into a grind fest under the new owners but I had no idea it would be this bad.
-shrug- no faith lost on my part, though it's getting dangerous to post an opinion like that anywhere on most of the forum because it turns into flame bait
something to do with 'no changes just content' crowd spoiling for a fight...
The whole F2P thing was expected on my part and I look forward to it, the final change-over and the surge in subscribers
Wait until a bug cripples -- I mean DESTROYS their forced story progression. And we know how they bring in bugs.
Whoever thought of the forced story progression should have a thing over his/her head that says the first bug that puts forced story progression to its knees should resign from Cryptic. No, not be fired. Resign! That way they can't then go and collect unemployment.
Too late. As it stands there are a couple missions that were broken and can lock up progression now.
I honestly don't know, since I have a litetime sub my thought processes are going to be different to those that sub monthly. My sub has "paid for itself" but I also hate the thought of abandoning the game entirely due to the unethical choices made by the company. On the other hand, I have no wish to hang around someplace I am obviously not wanted as a customer.
I took a break over the summer to work on and drive my old cars but came back when the weather started changing. Now, I am forced to wonder what I am going to do this winter since STO seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.
I'm in the same boat as thanatos. I'm on a life-sub, I'd've been gone already if it wasn't for that. But, yeah, the end of the line for me is when I just don't care anymore, and I've gotten there.
Comments
On Holodeck *right now* the game is awesome, and fully functional for only $15 a month. When you rank up you get a new ship. When you get a new ship you can replay Featured Episodes and run exploration missions and gear that new ship properly.
On F2P server there is no way to have a fun, fully functional game for only $15 a month. When you rank up you get a percentage of what you need to buy to get a ship. All featured episodes are no longer availible at Lt Commander 1. You cant just spend a few hours doing Exploration and gear up given the 8000 a day refine limit.
Even with F2P bringing obvious restrictions you CANT opt out of these ridiculous restrictions even if you offer $15 a month.
They are CREATING artificial problems you can solve by buying Dilithium.
I'm not losing faith in the game, i'm losing faith in the people making it. Lying to the fans/subs, making promises they won't keep, Telling us they're reworking the economy when they just renamed a few things and raised prices on things. I'm a huge trek fan, i like the game, but as it is, i'll probably not play until new content drops. I might even Drop my fed/klingon alts.
If it releases like this, my lifetime sub just became valueless, and I will have made the full transition from seeing Cryptic as visionaries to seeing them as common swindlers.
This to the Nth degree.
Also this.
Out of sight, out of mind? (Like there aren't still 50 F2P threads in the main forum.. the whole game is about F2P now)
Stormie: Instead of moving this, can you actually GET SOME ANSWERS FOR US?
The game has lost its balance with these F2P changes, and has swung way too far into the realms of Evony/Pay2Win model. I was genuinly pleased when I heard the game was going F2P, now with these changes all's that I can see is the end of STO.
Star Trek fans are (usually) intelligent people, and will not support a model that attempts to milk them dry at any given opertunity, and since this is a trek franchise (and not hello kitty for instance) once you lose your core supporters there will be no one to replace them. That is why I dont see this game suriviving unless they make some major changes.
The current trek model was never perfect, but I could live with it, the new one, I cannot.
Not likely. Getting answers out of Cryptic is like tring to catch a greased up pig.
I know what the answer will be when it comes.
"Please be patient"
"Wonderfull things are happening, all will be revealed soon!"
"We are not monsters, there is no conspiricy theory!"
"Thats why we dont come to the forums, look at all this anger!"
or
"INSERT CANNED RESPONSE HERE"
Completely fed up with Cryptics lack of morals, I have given them the beneifit of the doubt for a long time now, but they have revealed themselves to be money grubbers with no regard for customer service.
If a dev or GM actually responded saying "This is the way we decided it is going to be, not going to change now." Would you happily go your merry way, satisfied that you got that answer?
He doesn't have to be an altruist. He could have just figured "This thing's going to be a disaster and I don't want my name on it."
Lol altruist? he went to work for Zygna who specialise in pay2win. He cut his teeth on STO :P
However, in terms of this thread, I have a few things I'd like to say.
1) C-store: I don't see a problem with the changes here. Sure some prices changed, but otherwise the stuff in the C-store still isn't "necessary" to have fun in the game, even with the F2P setup. I haven't felt the need to use my 1200 stipend yet with my charecter.
2) There is a big issue right now with loot vs. time spent playing and levels due to the HUGE change in experience gained by completing the featured episodes, thats why everyone is short of Energy Credits on tribble.
For example, it used to take about 3-4 missions to get 1 level, now it takes just 1.5. That means the amount of loot and energy credits you get while playing has reduced by 2-3x, and the amount of time you play in each tier is 2-3x shorter!
That doesn't give you enough time to get good drops or earn enough energy credits to setup your tier of ship properly.
3) The lack of easy-to-obtain Exploration points to buy green gear hurts. You cant say spend 1 whole level just doing explorations to get some badges in order to buy some green gear for your ship, so you have to rely on Energy Credits which are as mentioned, much harder to come by, so you wind up with a poorly equipped ship throughout the early parts of the game.
The cost of the dilithium for early level items in the stores is quite high, meaning you have to spend MUCH more time grinding to get quality items early on.
This doesn't seem to be as big of an issue for the end of the game though, seeing as the sets are still available (at least I think they are, are they?) and end-game-content will be awarding Dilithium meaning you can still buy the same purple/blue items from stores that you did before in the same amount of time with the same amount of grinding.
4) The leveling "in order" is a big problem right now due to having the missions with low-level loot being higher level, meaning you don't get the kind of rewards you NEED from the missions for the level you are at. This needs fixing.
And playing the missions in order is also quite annoying as mentioned, as quite a few of them I just don't like and usually skip with the old layout. I think I'm going to start a separate thread with ideas about this though, since it appears to be a sticky point that most people don't like so far.
Overall, I'm not as upset as the rest of you apparently, I don't think the changes are as bad as they are being made out to be. I spent a TRIBBLE load of time grinding in the past to get my quality setups, and I don't see any big difference with that so far.
Add me to the list - I just recently found out I was cosidered the figurehead of the "Cryptic Defense Force" (never heard of it myself.) If I had a positive view of the game's direction for the first 18 months, and had some sympathy for what Cryptic was going through in being sold etc. (AS I've been at a corporation in my career where that happened) - sue me. I always spoke my opinion, and rarely did I ever try to speak for anyone else.
That said, as Tribble F2P testing moves forward; and I see for myself what's 'coming down the pipe'; (and no, it's more than just a simple adjustment of numbers per se - EG upping the Raw Dilithium converson limit and adjusting some prices WON'T fix the overall systemic issues being buillt into the F2P bversion of STO now - the F2P system they've developed and decided to go with is flawed at it's core as far as that goes IMO.)
If anything the attitude of DStahl (regardless of th fact that he promised much, and sometimes dilivered late) of "Make STO more Star Trek like" - which in general is what I thought of the majority of his additions to the game during hiis tenure); has been superceeded by a nerw attitude of "Let's make the first Western MMO using a TRUELY EASTERN MMO F2P model"; and if anything, the particular result for STO is removing EVEN MORE of whatever 'Star Trek' feel was a part of the game prior to this paradigm shift.
EVERYTHING now either 'locks you in with no real choice' (EG the new Story Mission structure that requires you to play EVERY MISSION in the exact same order on EVERY character you make (assuming you want to experience the story content of the game); or is SO timelocked by 20 hour (1 day) timers; or even the new Daily Events that last an hour but 'fire' in roptation, so if you want to play ione you HAVE to be on at a ertain time or miss out; or capped to make teh new economy work EG Raw Dilithium conversion of 8000 per day.)
Gone is the "Hey, I have 15 minuts, I think I'll playSTO.." days; pot F2P it's "Hey I want to play STO, but hell, my next Doff assignment doesn't complete for 2 hours; I can't get good rewards for <insert name of daily here>, for 3 hours; and the daily event I like doesn't hit for 2 hours; and I'd ony get mor raw dilithium that I can't convert for another 6 hours... <--- And THIS is where F2P is taking STO.
It's devolving into what EQ became lo those many years ago; or what some people feel regarding EVE Online today - more of another JOB (with tight scheduling for success) then a game (or worse a game where stuff like it's goping to force you to do to advance; ISN'T the point of the IP it's based on.)
So, yeah, with old guard Cryptic folks like Stoemsshade coming here and doing posts in response to these concerns of:
"Hey, with F2P the future for STO is brighter than it's ever been."
Just sound like more PR spin; and an attempt to convionce us (and those at Cryptic still working on STO)) hat STO is fine.
Me? I don't think that's goping to be the case going forward; and I too have lost faith that STO game development is going to improve the state of actual gameplay. The majority of what I have experienced on Tribble indicates the opposite for me.
Will I still play? Yes. I still like the Space Combat system overall; and some of the storylines of the next FE series.
Am I tempted to make other/new characters post F2P? No, not really. I don't like being 'locked into' content progression with zero choice or having to micromanage what I do so I can be sure to be able to afford to get and gear ships for any new character. It used to be you felt rewarded for leveling; but under STO F2P - even as an LTS - I've started to dread approaching that next Major rank, as I won't have enough to function well in that Rank until I'm alsmost to the next Rank - AND I really have to chart and schedule my play in advance to get what I need to advance. <--- BASD cycle for a GAME that's supposed tio be fun and relaxing.
Do I think anything will change in this new F2P Paradigm as a result of mine, and other existing players concerns and feedback over what we see as a negative direction?
Nope - they haven't annouced it - but they are on a tight deadline and the course has been set -- with no detours; jsut some arthimetic updates.
Since release, Cryptic has been unethical in its behavior towards the customer base, we have been lied to and misdirected for two years and sadly, it is only getting worse since Perfect World's takeover of the company. It was bad enough dealing with Infogrames/Atari but Perfect World makes them look like saints.
This hole Cryptic is digging seems inescapable to me since there seems to be little, if any, interest in showing any respect whatever to the paying public in search of the next gold mine. I had almost begun to feel as though I were tilting at windmills in my prior anti-cstore and anti-Atari posts but I am starting to wonder if my target were wrong and it was that Cryptic lacks those same ethics as both Atari and Perfect Worlds seems to be missing.
Both my wife and I took ethics in college and we do understand both business ethics and general ethics neither of which has ever been displayed by Cryptic, I still have my textbooks and seriously considered sending them to the Cryptic main office but I think that would be a waste of my time and money, I no longer believe they have any interest in ethical behavior.
I look back and wonder where did they go wrong?
When the game came out, sure it had it's bugs, but it was a fun experience. Not "Trek" enough, but fun. Lately how ever, it's almost like the Ferengi have taken over. Next I'll be expecting us to have to by a copy of the Rules of Aquisition before we can even enter the game. :rolleyes:
My issues with the current Free To Play Model are:
Forced Mission Chains. - These should be level unlockable. Not forced to do each chain in the story in order to get further. It should be like the TV series. You can skip parts of it, and if you liked the later story, maybe go back and play the other series to see how things got to where they are now.
Dilithium costs are WAY to high, ESPECIALLY in high end, NON STF, Gear. - If you look at the old Emblem Gear, it's 240,000 REFINED Dilithium. Now imagine having to grind out Dailies for Refined and Unrefined, then having to use your current 8,000 cap. It could take Months to fully out fit a ship.
Klingon Empire. Even at level 17/19 The Klingon Empire does not have enough eposides. Some one will go from Federation side at level 25, take one look at just the content and probobly wonder why they should bother, and more then likely just go back to their Feds. I've been preaching for Equality between the sides of the game for a long time, but at this rate, it might be another 2 Years before that happens. Sure I have a Life time sub, but at this rate my interest in playing may wayne so far that I might give up all together..:(
PVP The biggest flaw that happened, was when the game launched. And that flaw was a Public Fed vs Fed Que in addition to the Fed Vs Klingon. They should have made Fed vs Fed a Private Que, and left the Fed Vs Klingon the Public part of the Que. Same with Klingon vs Klingon should also be a Private Que. This will still be in the F2P model, and honestly I wish it wasn't. But it's not something new so I'll leave that personal Pevee alone.
Not enough Refined Dilithium per Rank up. This bothers me. I like that at least we're getting Discounts. And I can understand that as your normal leveling you should get enough Refined Dilithium to buy your ships at each rank, but maybe it shouldn't be the same for Silver vs Gold. Maybe what we're looking at should be Silver, and Gold gets, instead of Dilithium to buy a new ship, the Free ship Tokens. Though I know Cryptic is trying to filter those out. It would at least give incentive to paying for the game, at least long enough to reach VA 1 and then later re-sub when the Level cap gets raised again.
Removal of the Borg Set. So far I don't like that the Borg Set seems to have been removed. Now I could be wrong on this point. And would be glad to be wrong. But if that set does get removed, I can only hope that those of us who worked hard to get full sets on our characters, we don't lose them.
Old Bugs are still there, and things are getting more unbalanced. The original game balance that was in the game, made the game fun. And originally if something was broken, they tried to fix it swiftly, but as the months grew longer, things have been left Stagnent, over powered, or not working perhaps as intended. Now I know they are supposed to be getting worked on, or fixed in the F2P Model. But what is the future for the game's combat balance? Maybe there should be a statement that Combat is going to be changing, where damage will be higher to comphensate for the amount of healing and resistances that are in the game now? Most of these issues are in space of course. Ground seems better, but it still isn't as perfect as I'm sure it eventually could be.
Pay to win. This is something I can understand being right for a Free to Play Model. You want the best, and coolest ships, then you have to pay for them. But why not let Gold have those ships auto unlocked, but you maybe still have to pay Dilithium for them? Where Silver would have to pay C-store points to unock them? And a gold member could also pay C-store points to unlock them incase they ever went Silver. Just a suggestion here. I mean ship costumes aside, it would be nice if this were a change in the F2P Model.
All in all, those above paragraphs are probobly only some of the issues I have with the game. I'm sure there are others that I haven't said. And I'm sure I'm repeating what others have said, but since it's all feed back, I can only hope that it gets listened to and implimented in some way in order to make the F2P And Star Trek Online experience better as a whole.
Lies will kill cryptic someday.
Amazing.
I honestly don't know, since I have a litetime sub my thought processes are going to be different to those that sub monthly. My sub has "paid for itself" but I also hate the thought of abandoning the game entirely due to the unethical choices made by the company. On the other hand, I have no wish to hang around someplace I am obviously not wanted as a customer.
I took a break over the summer to work on and drive my old cars but came back when the weather started changing. Now, I am forced to wonder what I am going to do this winter since STO seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.
something to do with 'no changes just content' crowd spoiling for a fight...
The whole F2P thing was expected on my part and I look forward to it, the final change-over and the surge in subscribers
Too late. As it stands there are a couple missions that were broken and can lock up progression now.
I'm in the same boat as thanatos. I'm on a life-sub, I'd've been gone already if it wasn't for that. But, yeah, the end of the line for me is when I just don't care anymore, and I've gotten there.