A F2P MMO does not need "loyal" customers. It needs impulsive, impatient ones. Cryptic (we should really say PW here, as all the decisions are coming from them) doesn't really care about its existing customer base, because going F2P is going to bring in orders of magnitude more new players. F2P MMOs live on a constantly turning over population of casual players who join the game, make one or two impulse microtransaction purchases, then move on to the next thing when they realize the game is no good. Anyone who stays and buys a subscription is just an added bonus.
I believe they want new impulsive buyers from F2P, yes. But they also don't want to loose their existing base - the ones who have been subscribing monthly and those who have been buying from the C-Store.
If it's anyone they don't need it's the Lifers who bought their LTS when it first went on sale. We are truly playing for free, especially if we don't buy much from the C-Store. We're part of the picture when it comes to the new grind or pay economy. They want the system to encourage us to play more or buy ships from the C-Store just like Silver players.
There are only two explanations for the outlandish state of the proposed economy. One is that someone ROYALLY screwed up with their idea of economy pricing. However, it's so egregiously bad that it baffles the mind that a mistake of this magnitude can be even made in honesty. It's like McDonalds trying to charge $150 for a hamburger, and being completely and genuinely serious about it.
The other explanation is that this was always the plan, and they ROYALLY misjudged how we would react/perceive these economic changes. But again, a situation this out of whack stretches the imagination on how they could be so far off with their judgement of what we would consider tolerable. Did they really think these values were even somewhere close to reasonable? It's one thing to be off by a factor of two or so, but to be off by a factor of
I guess the philosophical question at the end of the day is, of the above two situations, which is worse... a company so flabbergastingly incompetent to propose such an unbelievably one-sided economy, or a company so two-faced and underhanded that they knowingly proposed said economy and are trying to get away with it. Neither really put forth the image of hope and confidence for a healthy STO future.
At this point, I believe they knew exactly the kind of numbers the Dilithium Stores had on them. They do internal testing before things go to beta. So the line about them not paying much attention to the back end, etc is pretty much a cover up.
I think their plan is to see how much of this economy existing subscribers can stomach. Because the more we don't mind "grind or pay" the more money goes into their pocket. They will tweak the prices down until they think it's just the right amount of pain to prompt C-Store sales or longer play times. That's what this is about... seeing how much we can stomach and how much they can fit into their wallets.
I remember watching a STOKed episode where Dan Stalh stated that Dilitium would be your currency of time spent playing so why don't missions have dilithium thats time spent playing, and even if it's less than the dailys but it's still dilithium and a way to earn it that isn't so much a grind house. i'd rather play throught the Breen series than Grind dailys or relive the guardean of tomorrow mission a few times. (once we earn EC merits and Xp) now it's XP. so maybe to help the situation xp and dilithium.
I was testing F2P on Tribble as well, and I was surprised that when I level up, it said head to the Shipyard for a new ship and when I got there I could not get one... I had received 7K Dilithium, but the ships started at 10k...
I would like to see for Subs and Lifetimers to get a new ship on level up once F2P goes live. (Like many of you said, Subs and Lifers should not have taken things away from them)
On that note, I do not like grinding for Dilithium at all. In the current system I can get emblems from doing STFs on VA/LG level which I can spend on weapons and so on... I never heard Picard saying after he crashed the Enterprise....:"Ohhh TRIBBLE, now I have to work for the next 5 years in a Dilithium mine to pay for the next ship..."
STO was no fun until I hit VA/LG level, since that time I've been online every day doing STFs only...
Since -currently- everything on Tribble is for testing purpose only, I will have to wait and see what happens when it goes live... If I do not get any advantages as a Subscriber or lose things I am accustomed to, I will drop my subscription and probably drop STO altogether.
...
There are only two explanations for the outlandish state of the proposed economy. One is that someone ROYALLY screwed up with their idea of economy pricing. However, it's so egregiously bad that it baffles the mind that a mistake of this magnitude can be even made in honesty. It's like McDonalds trying to charge $150 for a hamburger, and being completely and genuinely serious about it.
...
I still like to joke around about someone putting one too many 0's in the base price database...
...
Crytic should also take into consideration that if a VA would help someone to lvl from 1 to 51 without that the newbe buying anything, the newbe would have easily much dilitium at lvl 51. so giving out much dilitium at each ranking up should be reconsidered and insted of giving that much dilitium people should get less dilitihum at each rank but have discount on a single ship.
They actually already did this... With the 'discount' token you only have to pay 10% of the price for the ship of that tier, you also are given 10% of what you were given before. And I've been told you're required to actually purchase a ship to finish the mission...
Thanks for the feedback everyone. We do indeed have the prices wrong (perhaps even by an order of magnitude) on the gear and such that sells for Dilithium. We had a lot of focus in the team on getting the sources of Dilithium hooked up and working, and did not pay as much attention to the back end pricing yet as we probably should have. We will be reviewing the pricing to make it a lot more sane, because I agree with you that it's painful right now to do quite a few things.
Stephen D'Angelo
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
All a smoke screen...
There is no way, these prices and this system was caused by a accident. The amount of detail that went into the pricing of items and the events is to large in scope to be a accident. The computer does not program itself. I am just hoping that guy who left STOked does not move his whole family to California. He may be moving into a bad situation.
It was said before that these prices and changes was based on statistical analysis. I doubt that.
At Sony Online Entertainment, they kept writing letters like these for almost six months as the subscriber kept telling them 'NO!" They did not listen. A year from now or sooner, most of us are going to read about either 1) How F2P was a great thing or 2) How Cryptic Studio went out their way to be the first MMORPG/F2P to fail in a no way they cold loss scenario.
If Cryptic Studio fails with Star Trek Online, and I suspect it will, then their will be no coming back from that. Perfect World can easily setup Cryptic Studios up as the fall guy. When FASA Corporation lost Star Trek in the 80s that ended that companies dream of financial sovereignty. Sure they had great products like Battletech, Shadowrun (not sure if that was the correct name, it has been a long time).
Star Trek is unique. The business model that works for World of Warcraft and Champions Online, will not work in the long run. There is a reason Star Trek has survived these 45+ years and all these other genre and fads have not.
People have given Cryptic the benefit of the doubt with Season 4.1 and lack of content this year. If Cryptic intends to go down this road that it is with F2P, then it is doomed. The economy around the world is tightening up. With food prices and gas prices going up, this system is in conflict with that reality.
However, with the current changes that have been released so far, I have not seen any evidence that Cryptic Studios is listening to the player base. If anything, they have double down on their bet.
It will be fun/interesting to watch a company go out-of-it's-way to self destruct like a 'crack' addict.
I do not see why they do not listen to their players... Unless they already know they got a lot of silver players who will like this new system, they are risking an awful lot with disgruntling all their loyal customers.
Right now there needs to be a ton of changes to the dilithium system. Let me start with a simple change to the way you earn it. Right now you earn Dilithium Ore and hit the refine button and instantly it transforms into Refined Dilithium... that is kind of bland and isn't very Star Trek. How about this: You Queue up to (let's say) 25,000 dilithium ore, it will refine 100 at a time with the time for refinement equaling 5 minutes. That would take about 21 hrs to refine the entire queue of ore. But lets not make it a straight transition, have you earn an equivalent amount of dilithium to your ore with a standard deviation of 8. So some times you get a little bit mroe refined dilithium for your ore, sometimes a little bit less. Then we can use DOFFs or other means to boost efficiency, so you can earn dilithium ore equivalent + X efficiency within the standard deviation. Or lets say implement some sort of ability were you can knock an amount of time off the refinement process (let's say a minute), but you have to travel at warp 6 and can't use TW skills. This way it isn't a hard cap, and you earn it in trickles.
Of course I still think dilithium pricing needs changes, especially for the lower level players that are going to out rank the items they are trying to buy long before they have enough dilithium to buy them. Maybe 100-120 for Lt items, 490-550 for LC items, 1,100-1,250 Cm items, and then have it kind of tier off for Cp and above as they will have more time to earn dilithium. I still think they need to give us the dilithium for our next tier ship, or go back to just being given a ship like they had before. This "we give you 80% of the dilithium you need for your next rank ship" is TRIBBLE.
I also think they need to up how much you earn. Merits were given with almost every mission, why not include a little bit of dilithium ore with every mission. Provide it as rewards for FA as well. At present there is no real effective way to earn dilithium ore, the ways to earn it are few and far between.
So in short change the refinement method, lower the costs, & up the amount we earn. No I am not stating the numbers I made up are fact of how it should work, but how it works currently does need to change. I was using my numbers as a way to represent in which direction I think it should change. Cryptic, the system really does need changed.
I
Some of the changes and the general feel of Tribble right now is making me not want to touch STO ever again once this all goes Live. I've been here since Beta, I've enjoyed playing and have brought several friends into the game, but I'm not feeling the 'love'.. not feeing any 'loyalty' in return for my patronage and support that I've given Cryptic and STO.
This is exactly how I feel.
I also do invest, probably about what I'd normally pay as a sub, in the C-Store, but that was for items that added to the 'Trek' experience.
Being 'forced' via an artificial economy will just anger me and I'll refuse to purchase from the C-Store and just quit STO altogether.
i.e. Cryptic's or PW's plan to increase profits by forcing RL money to be spent is going to backfire.
I'm afraid Cryptic is going to loose their regular support base over this - if this hits Live. I know I'm already feeling put off enough by the changes in Tribble to jump ship once this hits Live. And, I have a feeling, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
If I wanted to 'grind' I'd play a different MMO. I chose Star Trek as my first MMO experience because the Star Trek IP is different at its core. The 'Trek' in STO is being removed and killed by this new direction. And STO without 'Trek' has no reason for the person interested in Star Trek to play it.
Which begs the question of why obtain the Star Trek IP if the essential elements of Star Trek are removed?
<<All I wanted from 4.1 was content that's it..>> <-- Pretty much this.
I love the new Doff system; however the other changes - i.e. the economy, forced scaling, forced linear mission play (FEs) just kill STO overall. It's like getting a nice new sound system for your working car, but at the same time they replaced the fuel tank with one that only lets you have 5 gallons at a time, and forces you to pay 100x last months fuel price.
They need to bare in mind it takes a leisurely week at most to get a character from Lt 1 to VA 1. A Stipend of 800 per months means very little if a mid or low level weapon costs 21,000 as by the time we have that much we will have LONg outlevelled the weapon.
Now i realise they assume we will also be making dilithium in game via dailies and events etc.. to make up the amount quicker, but in my experience thus far exploration dailies give a little under 2k dilithium for the daily (although the daily doesnt seem to currently reset the dilithium reward just skill points and xp so far, probably a bug), the events vary but are usually in the same range at most (starfleet academy for example over an hours you can get between 500 and 2000 by doing the same monotonous activity for an entire hour..another grind.
there need to be far more plentiful methods of earning dilithium and the amounts earned and prices to buy with it need tweaking MASSIVELY.
Just to give everyone a little pick at what I have seen when I reached Vice Admiral lower Half.
I am running an Engineer and have chosen the Assault Cruiser as my ship for this rank.
Now in order for me to upgrade this ship with Blue Quality Items including my Engineer, I would have to collect a total of 1,242,000 Refined Dilithium,:eek: Oh yes, It reads
One Million Two Hundred Forty Two Thousand. :eek:
I about fell over when I saw the number. I had to do it 4 times in hopes that it was a mistake on my part. ( Im still hoping it is)
This includes Ship Weapons, Engine, Shields, Deflector, and consuls.
Plus My Engineers Weapon (2), Shield, and Armor
Not Kits, because you can buy Blue ones with EC
Now at the games current state, how long do you think it would take me to grind out this much Dilithium?
There's another problem with the current Tribble economy.
Cryptic has been saying that trading dilithium for C-points is the plan for earning stuff from the C-Store without having to pay for it yourself. The problem I'm seeing is with the current setup is who's going to want to trade their dilithium for C-points when they have to grind for days just to buy a photon torpedo launcher? With the current crazy prices people looking to exchange dilithium won't be able to afford to until they hit the level cap and they aren't going to be buying unless they can get large quantities of C-points for what they spend weeks grinding out. Meanwhile the people looking to buy dilithium aren't going to be selling the C-points that they paid real money for unless each C-point brings in large chunks of dilithium.
Right now on Holodeck I can do any exploration cluster mission for 75 Badges of varying marks, as many times a day as I want. If I have the spare time I can outfit an entire ship and crew of boffs in a day or less from the stores that take Badges of Exploration. This is impossible under the current dilithium system on Tribble.
Devs, if 75 Badges of exploration = 1440 dilithium, then go take a good hard look at what you can buy for badges of exploration on Holodeck. Adjust the dilithium prices accordingly.
Either the prices on items need to come down to a fraction of their current cost in dilithium, or the amount of dilithium we can earn and refine per day needs to go up drastically. Because if things stay the way they are this economy is going to be broken beyond repair the second it hits Holodeck.
This 100 times, the exchange rate will be dictated by the player your tradeing with unless the matrix has a hard fixed exchange rate, doubt that, maybe. If it doesnt have a fixed exchange noone will trade for anything less than prohibitive cost that noone will pay in cpts.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. We do indeed have the prices wrong (perhaps even by an order of magnitude) on the gear and such that sells for Dilithium. We had a lot of focus in the team on getting the sources of Dilithium hooked up and working, and did not pay as much attention to the back end pricing yet as we probably should have. We will be reviewing the pricing to make it a lot more sane, because I agree with you that it's painful right now to do quite a few things.
Stephen D'Angelo
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
The ship costs at each tier, the cost of endgame gear at over 1 million dilithium per ship and toon. And this was just a mathematical error?. Ok thanks for the update but im with Songbird on this one, dont buy it. Either it is a smoke screen as Klytemnestra said or your now backpedaling to save november and possibly even decembers subscription fees landing in the bank before you lose that money before the F2P launch, im going to say its both. And i suspect even if the equipment costs are adjusted down lets say 50-75% that PW wont allow that anyway because it wont fit their "free to pay more than you ever have before to do anything" eastern MMO style. :rolleyes:
Just to give everyone a little pick at what I have seen when I reached Vice Admiral lower Half.
I am running an Engineer and have chosen the Assault Cruiser as my ship for this rank.
Now in order for me to upgrade this ship with Blue Quality Items including my Engineer, I would have to collect a total of 1,242,000 Refined Dilithium,:eek: Oh yes, It reads
One Million Two Hundred Forty Two Thousand. :eek:
I about fell over when I saw the number. I had to do it 4 times in hopes that it was a mistake on my part. ( Im still hoping it is)
This includes Ship Weapons, Engine, Shields, Deflector, and consuls.
Plus My Engineers Weapon (2), Shield, and Armor
Not Kits, because you can buy Blue ones with EC
Now at the games current state, how long do you think it would take me to grind out this much Dilithium?
The items are only Mark 10 Blue.
Read this Cryptic (you too PW), the defineing point won in most debates with people who play videogames as entertainment vs. other forms is that at 15.00 per month its a lot cheaper than burning gas to get dinner and a movie. A lot of video games now are fast approaching makeing this a non reality these days. You are priceing yourselves out of a job, get the point and while your at it drive it home to PW as well. Or kiss your game goodbye. Have you SDangelo or anyone at PW done any research whatsoever to compare the potential cost of your current players P2P cost as opposed to their potential F2P costs, and the draw that outside mediums of entertainment perhaps drawing customers away because the gap in those costs are now negligable might have? Probably not, thats because gamers psych 101 at development school says "build it and they will pay-n-play", cost be damned. Thats going to backfire at some point and i think it may be sooner than you realise, these people arent mushrooms.
Just to give everyone a little pick at what I have seen when I reached Vice Admiral lower Half.
I am running an Engineer and have chosen the Assault Cruiser as my ship for this rank.
Now in order for me to upgrade this ship with Blue Quality Items including my Engineer, I would have to collect a total of 1,242,000 Refined Dilithium,:eek: Oh yes, It reads
One Million Two Hundred Forty Two Thousand. :eek:
I about fell over when I saw the number. I had to do it 4 times in hopes that it was a mistake on my part. ( Im still hoping it is)
This includes Ship Weapons, Engine, Shields, Deflector, and consuls.
Plus My Engineers Weapon (2), Shield, and Armor
Not Kits, because you can buy Blue ones with EC
Now at the games current state, how long do you think it would take me to grind out this much Dilithium?
The items are only Mark 10 Blue.
:eek:
Wow.
Assuming you get 1,440 Dilithium Ore per Daily, you have to do 5.5 Dailies to reach your 8k refining limit. Let's assume it takes you about 20mins to do one Daily. That's about 2hrs per day repeating the same Dailies for 155.25 days. Not cool, interesting, new, or fun missions. No, the same old GRINDING Day-in-day out for just over 5 months.
And you can't even skip a day, or take a break, and make it up with a long weekend session, nope. You're gated by the refining limit. So to make that 5.175 months you are
Assuming you get 1,440 Dilithium Ore per Daily, you have to do 5.5 Dailies to reach your 8k refining limit. Let's assume it takes you about 20mins to do one Daily. That's about 2hrs per day repeating the same Dailies for 155.25 days. Not cool, interesting, new, or fun missions. No, the same old GRINDING Day-in-day out for just over 5 months.
And you can't even skip a day, or take a break, and make it up with a long weekend session, nope. You're gated by the refining limit. So to make that 5.175 months you are
Grinding.
Every.
Single.
Day.
So what's wrong with that?
:eek:
Again, wow.
Lol, and what will they do when they finish that grind and find out Cryptic has spent that 5.175 months doing nothing but adding more cstore goodies to the game, more bugs, and theyve struggled through all this drooling on keyboards and fighting server not responding messages. Only to find out they have no endgame content to blaze away with their hard earned gains at anyway. :rolleyes:
The devs have already stated the prices on items in tribble is wrong and they are working on correcting it. Its not that they put in wrong prices, there is a hidden bug that has multiplied what the prices should be. No ship component should cost you the same as your ship does to begin with.
Second
There are many dailies and events that award straight dilithium not ore. Every one seems to be thinking that ore is the only way you get dilithium and your wrong. Once the price adjustments have been made the daily haul from both ore and straight dilithium should be more than enough to fully equip a ship in a week tops. Be patient and see the price corrections first.
Also the important gear (ie borg equipment) has its own system of points that must be garnered from stf's. They are given out by the guys in battle armor by the admirals office. From the looks of it one stf run (space or ground) will garner one point to trade for one borg component. Which actually works out better than the old emblems which required 3 or 4 stfs or va dailes per component.
Now as far as trade scale take satelite repair which awards one emblem on holodeck. With the dilithium system you get 400 ore wich refines to 400 dilithium. So each emblem you have currently will translate to 400 dilithium when they go live (wether or not you will have to refine it is unknown). Following that model 100 emblems will translate into 40,000 dilithium. Which when they adjust the pricing should be enough to fully equip any ship with a full complement of weapons and/or consoles.
The devs have already stated the prices on items in tribble is wrong and they are working on correcting it. Its not that they put in wrong prices, there is a hidden bug that has multiplied what the prices should be. No ship component should cost you the same as your ship does to begin with.
Second
There are many dailies and events that award straight dilithium not ore. Every one seems to be thinking that ore is the only way you get dilithium and your wrong. Once the price adjustments have been made the daily haul from both ore and straight dilithium should be more than enough to fully equip a ship in a week tops. Be patient and see the price corrections first.
Also the important gear (ie borg equipment) has its own system of points that must be garnered from stf's. They are given out by the guys in battle armor by the admirals office. From the looks of it one stf run (space or ground) will garner one point to trade for one borg component. Which actually works out better than the old emblems which required 3 or 4 stfs or va dailes per component.
Now as far as trade scale take satelite repair which awards one emblem on holodeck. With the dilithium system you get 400 ore wich refines to 400 dilithium. So each emblem you have currently will translate to 400 dilithium when they go live (wether or not you will have to refine it is unknown). Following that model 100 emblems will translate into 40,000 dilithium. Which when they adjust the pricing should be enough to fully equip any ship with a full complement of weapons and/or consoles.
All sounds great to me, if and when it materializes, and they also make gold subs a measure above silvers wich they are currently not. Ill check the dev posts, your last paragraph looks a tad optomistic to me as it almost seems as itd make the push toward the cstore less dramatic. Anyway i hope your right, always welcome good news, ahh and before i forget i was aware from another thread that refined dilithium was awarded for dailies as well. Hopefully the prices, availability, and grind will adjust. Wel see.
The devs have already stated the prices on items in tribble is wrong and they are working on correcting it. Its not that they put in wrong prices, there is a hidden bug that has multiplied what the prices should be. No ship component should cost you the same as your ship does to begin with...
Kraken, while I can't speak for anyone else, I can say that I DO read the Dev posts. And have since I started in these forums. I have seen the Devs say things like:
...Are the prices wrong? Is Dilithium gated too much? It's possible, and in fact likely. We're going to read what you post, analyze the data about what people are doing in the game to see how the silent majority is voting with their actions, and then revise...
No firm, reassuring promises of correction, but vague possibilities or maybies. Combine that with things like:
...I know that there is a strong belief that there should be a completely free ship at rank up, but that is what you have been used to and it can be hard to imagine smooth game play without it...
Which to me reads like: "Don't worry about the changes. You'll get used to it."
See I have been reading Dev posts. Every one. And I've seen how they can be incorrect, or perhaps misleading. Things like:
The goal has been to leave subscriptions alone and ensure that you enjoy all the same benefits you have today (if not more). There will be more details on this soon.
And others farther back that say things like there will be so many FEs in 2011 that there will be barely a week or two between them and that the C-Store will be fluff only... Lots of unfufillied things being "worked on", lots of stories told to placate subscribers. All the while it appears to me that they spent their dev time not on new missions (content) but C-Store P2W items and F2P.
And hey, I know, things change. I just don't like the direction STO is changing and I feel that now, during Beta it's important to let them know that. I think Cryptic/PWI are pushing as hard as they can to see where we break, and they need to know they've already crossed too many lines.
And hey, I'm not angry per se. More sad/disappointed that a once fun thing appears to be getting taken away. It's just a game after all and if Cryptic doesn't want my money/patronage, that's fine. I can take it elsewhere.
P.S. Please link for me a post where a Dev said there was a "bug" that multiplied the prices.
P.P.S. I hope you (and any other reader, Dev or otherwise) knows that I realy hope my bleak future of STO doesn't happen. I hope they turn it around. I hope they make it fun again. I still have a little hope or I wouldn't be fighting "so hard" -- But there's not much left. Frankly, I'm really looking forward to the forthcoming F2P Blog where they tell us about the Holodeck to F2P conversion rates... I have a feeling that's gonna hurt. :rolleyes:
Agree with OP and subsequent posts. Prices now (with capped earning) will kill off this game.
However, please allow me to make one more point that is not talked about often.
I have 4 characters on holo. All max level, and all with MkXI Purple set ups. I have been grinding on these for months and months, and have an average of 2,000 emblems on each of them, not to mention all the other badges/merit/honor points that they have accumulated.
Currently if I wanted to drastically change my build (eg go from support carrier on one toon to BoP with tricks, or from a tank with teeth to an all out DpS escort) I could do so, many times over on each character.
My plea is that current players are not cheated by conversion rates that take the current currencies and change it into the "New World" money.
I have already been grinding for months and months. If all of this effort is wasted because it is felt that everyone should start from the same point, or that developers feel that it would restrict their ability to charge us for things then that will be it...Game over & see you later and I will be playing another Sci-fi based MMO due for lauch in the not so very far, far away future,
And hey, I know, things change. I just don't like the direction STO is changing and I feel that now, during Beta it's important to let them know that. I think Cryptic/PWI are pushing as hard as they can to see where we break, and they need to know they've already crossed too many lines.
I agree 1000% with you.
Also, your Avatar and Signature are awesome! I lol'd good although this is not a funny situation. I hope the devs see, listen and change.
Dilithium should only be used to replace Badges, Merits, Honor, and emblems. anything that is available for EC now on Holodeck should remain so. The first ship players get upon ranking up should always be free regardless of how that is achieved (Keeping the ship tokens would be best). As far as dilithium itself goes, forget the Dilithium ore/ Refined Dilithium conversion; it's ridiculous. Just call it "Dilithium" and be done with it. As far as pricing goes, they need to come down by at least 2 or 3 zeroes, and the dailies need to be fixed so that they award dilithium every time you complete them, not just once.
For Episode missions, sure they scale to the level of the player, yet, except for the Featured Episode missions, the rewards do not scale. I also hope the leveling curve currently on tribble doesn't go live on holodeck, because most every player will have ranked up to VA just as they're starting the Cardassian missions (possible exageration, but i think you get the point). Also, i can't help feeling like the story dialogue could be a bit more.. interactive.. like in certain featured episodes. Even on Holodeck, the Episodes could still use some fleshing out.
Boffs: When being awarded new officers, players should get a choice of which career officer they recieve ( i've been getting way too many engineers), and they should have more variety in the powers they possess (most boffs i've been awarded all have the same skills).
Doffs: The initial pack of Doffs players recieve need more variety as well. Instead of getting several Doffs over 2 or 3 departments, players should get at least 1 or 2 in each and with a greater variety of traits (virtually all of my starter Doffs had the exact same set of traits on both Fed and KDF). There's also an issue where it's possible to get duplicate Doffs.
New Tutorial - I had an idea for a new tutorial for STO, where new players started as Cadets just graduating from the Academy, then were assigned to a ship headed for vega where they board their starter ship (instead of the Khitomer) to clean out the borg, then the rest of the tutorial would be the same as it already is. The way the tutorial is on tribble now... just feels like more of the same.
Bottom Line, there's a great deal more work and polish needed before F2P is ready for Live. I hope Cryptic and Perfect World take these posts very seriously and are willing to make sure the work is done right, otherwise F2P might end up DOA.
Question on Dilithium: arent we suppose to get some while playing the Storyline Mission/Episodes??
on to wat i have seen of Dilithium: only getting it doing the non mission content like pvp, exploration missions, FA etc is going to hurt the new player base cause the first thing i think new players r going to look for is MISSIONS they wouldnt want to do pvp, exploration missions or FA etc til they get to max lvl.
i should know...thats the way i play...I lvl up using the Storyline Missions/Feature Episodes...and dont worry all the other stuff til i hit VA...i would hate to change that playstyle.
The devs have already stated the prices on items in tribble is wrong and they are working on correcting it. Its not that they put in wrong prices, there is a hidden bug that has multiplied what the prices should be. No ship component should cost you the same as your ship does to begin with.
Second
There are many dailies and events that award straight dilithium not ore. Every one seems to be thinking that ore is the only way you get dilithium and your wrong. Once the price adjustments have been made the daily haul from both ore and straight dilithium should be more than enough to fully equip a ship in a week tops. Be patient and see the price corrections first.
Also the important gear (ie borg equipment) has its own system of points that must be garnered from stf's. They are given out by the guys in battle armor by the admirals office. From the looks of it one stf run (space or ground) will garner one point to trade for one borg component. Which actually works out better than the old emblems which required 3 or 4 stfs or va dailes per component.
Now as far as trade scale take satelite repair which awards one emblem on holodeck. With the dilithium system you get 400 ore wich refines to 400 dilithium. So each emblem you have currently will translate to 400 dilithium when they go live (wether or not you will have to refine it is unknown). Following that model 100 emblems will translate into 40,000 dilithium. Which when they adjust the pricing should be enough to fully equip any ship with a full complement of weapons and/or consoles.
I do not believe anything the developers say, I watch what they do.
The developers, programmers, and whatever Cryptic Studio employee is involved in this have been writing and saying many things since last November. There were plenty of words and articles on how they were going to consolidate the currency in the game to improve the economy. However, they left out the detail of making exploration missions a daily.
Why?
Because they new by their own internal statistics, people were doing the exploration missions because they enjoy them. Also, people do the exploration missions because they are the only thing in the game that is Star Trek like. Doing exploration missions currently in Star Trek Online takes work and the reward for doing them is satisfactory to most people.
The people planning this game desire to change the game so that people are no longer cultured to do them. Why? Because, they offer the player with the most range of freedom. The player can do them independent of the stories, events, and STF's. Also, that is where the long term player makes a living in this game.
If you look at the tool they set up with hourly events, and monthly events. That is the main method they plan to use to hand out dilithium ore. If there is a exploration system where people can freely choose to do another task and earn the same or near the same reward, then that threatens their [the developers] economic plan to make money in the game.
They want to put in place a economic system where you have to use the C-Store, and you have to use the dilithium to advance in the game. The rewards are meant to train mindless fools over time by classical conditioning or instrumental conditioning. That is the main purpose of scheduling events on a regular interval.
In the laboratory, it can take about 20 trials to classically train rabbits or mice to a certain distal stimulus.
The exploration missions as they are, is a threat to that system.
If their desire was to consolidate the system, they would have simply called the badges 'dilithium' and the overall system would have remained the same.
The system the game is going to may not be fully known to the programmers of the game, but I am sure the real leaders of the game know the purpose.
The game environment provides the contextual stimulus (sometimes referred to as Conditioned Compensatory Response) the dilithium provides the Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The Unconditioned Response is the joy people get playing Star Trek. The Conditioned Response is the joy you get from star Trek while buying dilithium at the C-Store with real money to get dilithium because the game is to slow to get you your 'high' from the game in normal conditions.
They are making you all a video game junkie and trying to profit from that. The game is nothing more than a narcotic. That is why F2P or free-to-play works. Idiot teenagers (some adults) get hooked on to the narcotic from free hand outs. Before they know it, they are paying 'threw-the-roof' to get their high. That is how carnivals and casinos work.
That is what makes is shady and sinister.
The part they have overlooked is that 'anger' can be a stronger unconditional response to 'joy'. So that is what presents a confound to their economic plan. Sure, outside the United States, where socialism is prevalent, it is easier for those cultures to fall into a conditioned response. However, in the United States, people are cultured to be individuals. Just like the Federation in Star Trek..
The progression of the developments in this game is a one-size-fits-all style. The game developers (the government) imposes it on the player (citizen). However, everyone who has been playing the game long term since launch can see it coming. The game is moving to fewer options and less reward. The changes are designed to weed out the long term player and life-time subscription holder because the three years they invested in to help Cryptic Studios make their financial obligations to the bank is no longer required.
The overall plan was to make the game viable in the timeline they were given, then milk the name Star Trek until the license is yanked.
I do not believe anything the developers say, I watch what they do.
They are making you all a video game junkie and trying to profit from that. The game is nothing more than a narcotic. That is why F2P or free-to-play works. Idiot teenagers (some adults) get hooked on to the narcotic from free hand outs. Before they know it, they are paying 'threw-the-roof' to get their high. That is how carnivals and casinos work.
That is what makes is shady and sinister.
Thank you.
I think this is a tad overstated (especially since a| most players have adult brains and b| the pure Skinnerian model doesn't work). However, it is clear that they want people "dependent" (in a non-psychological sense) on "the chain". This is the main reason they capped explorations as dailies and they are being stingy with dilithium. They figure by having to go through "the chain", eventually your inability to get ships will catch up with you.
As I've said in numerous interviews - don't take me at my word - just look at my track record for making the improvements that I said we would with the KDF and judge by that.
Yea know, I really wonder what that Track record would look like, all the Things Said to come that never came.
Sadly looking back is 20/20, and it's a Sad sad picture.
I am looking forward to seeing the price changes that are coming..... oh wait I've been here before.....
I think this is a tad overstated (especially since a| most players have adult brains and b| the pure Skinnerian model doesn't work). However, it is clear that they want people "dependent" (in a non-psychological sense) on "the chain". This is the main reason they capped explorations as dailies and they are being stingy with dilithium. They figure by having to go through "the chain", eventually your inability to get ships will catch up with you.
Edit: stray keystroke removed.
This is not a Skinner model...it is a Watson model
Skinner works in the sense of instrumental conditioning. However, instrumental conditioning relies on the participant to actively behave to affect the desired conditioned. It is more classical conditioning because it is a type of associative learning, but here the participant does not have to be cognitive of the or instrumental to the learning condition. Watson applies here because we live in that world.
Car commercials, modern advertisements, sports entertainment, movies, TV, and games, revolve around the simple process of classical conditioning to get consumers to use their products. Even your parents used it to train you to do things their way. Schools use the method to get students to learn.
Where Cryptic Studio is going wrong here is that it is better to let the 'fools' figure out the method they want to be video game junkies then have the 'developers' impose it on the players.
I'm forced to agree that while 90% of the F2P update is bloody awesome...that remaining 10% is just as maddening as the 90% awesome. the Dilithium grind looks like its just going to be a time sink, and frankly, i have way better things to do. I come play STO to relax, enjoy myself and whatnot, and while i see a price adjustment in the future, i don't WANT to grind for my new ship, i leveled... that's all the grind i should really need unless their gonna tweak the XP/leveling system...
In response to the latest adjustment to Dilithium prices on Tribble: not enough. No where near enough. Keep going.
That said there still hasn't been anything said or done about the true villian in all of this: the daily refinement limits.
Also I would like to mention the latest Dev blog. I cannot begin to describe how heartbroken and infuriated I was when Cryptic began to talk about taking this game in the direction of gear grind. They flat out admitted it. It's like murdering your father and proudly brandishing your bloodied knife through the streets while shouting how you plan to invest your inheritance in time shares.
I'd like to add the DOFF system to this, the concept is good but having to wait up to 3 real life days? Is that a joke? They already have XP Requirements at ungodly amounts and are trying to lure us off the scent of that by saying they dont intend it to be a grind but a long term goal. Well guess what, perception is everything and most people see it as a GRIND. But I digress, at least if your going to keep XP so insanely high you could make White Common Doffs freely available as a EC Sink or something, and lower the timers on missions to MAX 1 day without nerfing the XP amounts.
What good is 9 dxp at 1-2d mission timer when you can goto the nebula and earn 10 dxp doing a short mission? I mean come on here, there is something wrong with this system. IF someone wants to sit on STO all day "Facebooking" the system waiting for 90m to 9h timers to count down, let them.
All this grinding is so not fun. Take a lesson from Sony Online Entertainment; Alienating a majority of your customers with bad changes leaves you with no money since most people will migrant away from the boring and over to something that is actually fun.
Comments
I believe they want new impulsive buyers from F2P, yes. But they also don't want to loose their existing base - the ones who have been subscribing monthly and those who have been buying from the C-Store.
If it's anyone they don't need it's the Lifers who bought their LTS when it first went on sale. We are truly playing for free, especially if we don't buy much from the C-Store. We're part of the picture when it comes to the new grind or pay economy. They want the system to encourage us to play more or buy ships from the C-Store just like Silver players.
At this point, I believe they knew exactly the kind of numbers the Dilithium Stores had on them. They do internal testing before things go to beta. So the line about them not paying much attention to the back end, etc is pretty much a cover up.
I think their plan is to see how much of this economy existing subscribers can stomach. Because the more we don't mind "grind or pay" the more money goes into their pocket. They will tweak the prices down until they think it's just the right amount of pain to prompt C-Store sales or longer play times. That's what this is about... seeing how much we can stomach and how much they can fit into their wallets.
I would like to see for Subs and Lifetimers to get a new ship on level up once F2P goes live. (Like many of you said, Subs and Lifers should not have taken things away from them)
On that note, I do not like grinding for Dilithium at all. In the current system I can get emblems from doing STFs on VA/LG level which I can spend on weapons and so on... I never heard Picard saying after he crashed the Enterprise....:"Ohhh TRIBBLE, now I have to work for the next 5 years in a Dilithium mine to pay for the next ship..."
STO was no fun until I hit VA/LG level, since that time I've been online every day doing STFs only...
Since -currently- everything on Tribble is for testing purpose only, I will have to wait and see what happens when it goes live... If I do not get any advantages as a Subscriber or lose things I am accustomed to, I will drop my subscription and probably drop STO altogether.
All a smoke screen...
There is no way, these prices and this system was caused by a accident. The amount of detail that went into the pricing of items and the events is to large in scope to be a accident. The computer does not program itself. I am just hoping that guy who left STOked does not move his whole family to California. He may be moving into a bad situation.
It was said before that these prices and changes was based on statistical analysis. I doubt that.
At Sony Online Entertainment, they kept writing letters like these for almost six months as the subscriber kept telling them 'NO!" They did not listen. A year from now or sooner, most of us are going to read about either 1) How F2P was a great thing or 2) How Cryptic Studio went out their way to be the first MMORPG/F2P to fail in a no way they cold loss scenario.
If Cryptic Studio fails with Star Trek Online, and I suspect it will, then their will be no coming back from that. Perfect World can easily setup Cryptic Studios up as the fall guy. When FASA Corporation lost Star Trek in the 80s that ended that companies dream of financial sovereignty. Sure they had great products like Battletech, Shadowrun (not sure if that was the correct name, it has been a long time).
Star Trek is unique. The business model that works for World of Warcraft and Champions Online, will not work in the long run. There is a reason Star Trek has survived these 45+ years and all these other genre and fads have not.
People have given Cryptic the benefit of the doubt with Season 4.1 and lack of content this year. If Cryptic intends to go down this road that it is with F2P, then it is doomed. The economy around the world is tightening up. With food prices and gas prices going up, this system is in conflict with that reality.
However, with the current changes that have been released so far, I have not seen any evidence that Cryptic Studios is listening to the player base. If anything, they have double down on their bet.
It will be fun/interesting to watch a company go out-of-it's-way to self destruct like a 'crack' addict.
Thank you.
Of course I still think dilithium pricing needs changes, especially for the lower level players that are going to out rank the items they are trying to buy long before they have enough dilithium to buy them. Maybe 100-120 for Lt items, 490-550 for LC items, 1,100-1,250 Cm items, and then have it kind of tier off for Cp and above as they will have more time to earn dilithium. I still think they need to give us the dilithium for our next tier ship, or go back to just being given a ship like they had before. This "we give you 80% of the dilithium you need for your next rank ship" is TRIBBLE.
I also think they need to up how much you earn. Merits were given with almost every mission, why not include a little bit of dilithium ore with every mission. Provide it as rewards for FA as well. At present there is no real effective way to earn dilithium ore, the ways to earn it are few and far between.
So in short change the refinement method, lower the costs, & up the amount we earn. No I am not stating the numbers I made up are fact of how it should work, but how it works currently does need to change. I was using my numbers as a way to represent in which direction I think it should change. Cryptic, the system really does need changed.
This is exactly how I feel.
I also do invest, probably about what I'd normally pay as a sub, in the C-Store, but that was for items that added to the 'Trek' experience.
Being 'forced' via an artificial economy will just anger me and I'll refuse to purchase from the C-Store and just quit STO altogether.
i.e. Cryptic's or PW's plan to increase profits by forcing RL money to be spent is going to backfire.
I'm afraid Cryptic is going to loose their regular support base over this - if this hits Live. I know I'm already feeling put off enough by the changes in Tribble to jump ship once this hits Live. And, I have a feeling, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
If I wanted to 'grind' I'd play a different MMO. I chose Star Trek as my first MMO experience because the Star Trek IP is different at its core. The 'Trek' in STO is being removed and killed by this new direction. And STO without 'Trek' has no reason for the person interested in Star Trek to play it.
Which begs the question of why obtain the Star Trek IP if the essential elements of Star Trek are removed?
<<All I wanted from 4.1 was content that's it..>> <-- Pretty much this.
I love the new Doff system; however the other changes - i.e. the economy, forced scaling, forced linear mission play (FEs) just kill STO overall. It's like getting a nice new sound system for your working car, but at the same time they replaced the fuel tank with one that only lets you have 5 gallons at a time, and forces you to pay 100x last months fuel price.
Now i realise they assume we will also be making dilithium in game via dailies and events etc.. to make up the amount quicker, but in my experience thus far exploration dailies give a little under 2k dilithium for the daily (although the daily doesnt seem to currently reset the dilithium reward just skill points and xp so far, probably a bug), the events vary but are usually in the same range at most (starfleet academy for example over an hours you can get between 500 and 2000 by doing the same monotonous activity for an entire hour..another grind.
there need to be far more plentiful methods of earning dilithium and the amounts earned and prices to buy with it need tweaking MASSIVELY.
I am running an Engineer and have chosen the Assault Cruiser as my ship for this rank.
Now in order for me to upgrade this ship with Blue Quality Items including my Engineer, I would have to collect a total of 1,242,000 Refined Dilithium,:eek: Oh yes, It reads
One Million Two Hundred Forty Two Thousand. :eek:
I about fell over when I saw the number. I had to do it 4 times in hopes that it was a mistake on my part. ( Im still hoping it is)
This includes Ship Weapons, Engine, Shields, Deflector, and consuls.
Plus My Engineers Weapon (2), Shield, and Armor
Not Kits, because you can buy Blue ones with EC
Now at the games current state, how long do you think it would take me to grind out this much Dilithium?
The items are only Mark 10 Blue.
:eek:
Wow.
Assuming you get 1,440 Dilithium Ore per Daily, you have to do 5.5 Dailies to reach your 8k refining limit. Let's assume it takes you about 20mins to do one Daily. That's about 2hrs per day repeating the same Dailies for 155.25 days. Not cool, interesting, new, or fun missions. No, the same old GRINDING Day-in-day out for just over 5 months.
And you can't even skip a day, or take a break, and make it up with a long weekend session, nope. You're gated by the refining limit. So to make that 5.175 months you are
Grinding.
Every.
Single.
Day.
So what's wrong with that?
:eek:
Again, wow.
READ THE DEV POSTS PLEASE
The devs have already stated the prices on items in tribble is wrong and they are working on correcting it. Its not that they put in wrong prices, there is a hidden bug that has multiplied what the prices should be. No ship component should cost you the same as your ship does to begin with.
Second
There are many dailies and events that award straight dilithium not ore. Every one seems to be thinking that ore is the only way you get dilithium and your wrong. Once the price adjustments have been made the daily haul from both ore and straight dilithium should be more than enough to fully equip a ship in a week tops. Be patient and see the price corrections first.
Also the important gear (ie borg equipment) has its own system of points that must be garnered from stf's. They are given out by the guys in battle armor by the admirals office. From the looks of it one stf run (space or ground) will garner one point to trade for one borg component. Which actually works out better than the old emblems which required 3 or 4 stfs or va dailes per component.
Now as far as trade scale take satelite repair which awards one emblem on holodeck. With the dilithium system you get 400 ore wich refines to 400 dilithium. So each emblem you have currently will translate to 400 dilithium when they go live (wether or not you will have to refine it is unknown). Following that model 100 emblems will translate into 40,000 dilithium. Which when they adjust the pricing should be enough to fully equip any ship with a full complement of weapons and/or consoles.
All sounds great to me, if and when it materializes, and they also make gold subs a measure above silvers wich they are currently not. Ill check the dev posts, your last paragraph looks a tad optomistic to me as it almost seems as itd make the push toward the cstore less dramatic. Anyway i hope your right, always welcome good news, ahh and before i forget i was aware from another thread that refined dilithium was awarded for dailies as well. Hopefully the prices, availability, and grind will adjust. Wel see.
See I have been reading Dev posts. Every one. And I've seen how they can be incorrect, or perhaps misleading. Things like: And others farther back that say things like there will be so many FEs in 2011 that there will be barely a week or two between them and that the C-Store will be fluff only... Lots of unfufillied things being "worked on", lots of stories told to placate subscribers. All the while it appears to me that they spent their dev time not on new missions (content) but C-Store P2W items and F2P.
And hey, I know, things change. I just don't like the direction STO is changing and I feel that now, during Beta it's important to let them know that. I think Cryptic/PWI are pushing as hard as they can to see where we break, and they need to know they've already crossed too many lines.
And hey, I'm not angry per se. More sad/disappointed that a once fun thing appears to be getting taken away.
P.S. Please link for me a post where a Dev said there was a "bug" that multiplied the prices.
P.P.S. I hope you (and any other reader, Dev or otherwise) knows that I realy hope my bleak future of STO doesn't happen. I hope they turn it around. I hope they make it fun again. I still have a little hope or I wouldn't be fighting "so hard" -- But there's not much left. Frankly, I'm really looking forward to the forthcoming F2P Blog where they tell us about the Holodeck to F2P conversion rates... I have a feeling that's gonna hurt. :rolleyes:
However, please allow me to make one more point that is not talked about often.
I have 4 characters on holo. All max level, and all with MkXI Purple set ups. I have been grinding on these for months and months, and have an average of 2,000 emblems on each of them, not to mention all the other badges/merit/honor points that they have accumulated.
Currently if I wanted to drastically change my build (eg go from support carrier on one toon to BoP with tricks, or from a tank with teeth to an all out DpS escort) I could do so, many times over on each character.
My plea is that current players are not cheated by conversion rates that take the current currencies and change it into the "New World" money.
I have already been grinding for months and months. If all of this effort is wasted because it is felt that everyone should start from the same point, or that developers feel that it would restrict their ability to charge us for things then that will be it...Game over & see you later and I will be playing another Sci-fi based MMO due for lauch in the not so very far, far away future,
I agree 1000% with you.
Also, your Avatar and Signature are awesome! I lol'd good although this is not a funny situation. I hope the devs see, listen and change.
For Episode missions, sure they scale to the level of the player, yet, except for the Featured Episode missions, the rewards do not scale. I also hope the leveling curve currently on tribble doesn't go live on holodeck, because most every player will have ranked up to VA just as they're starting the Cardassian missions (possible exageration, but i think you get the point). Also, i can't help feeling like the story dialogue could be a bit more.. interactive.. like in certain featured episodes. Even on Holodeck, the Episodes could still use some fleshing out.
Boffs: When being awarded new officers, players should get a choice of which career officer they recieve ( i've been getting way too many engineers), and they should have more variety in the powers they possess (most boffs i've been awarded all have the same skills).
Doffs: The initial pack of Doffs players recieve need more variety as well. Instead of getting several Doffs over 2 or 3 departments, players should get at least 1 or 2 in each and with a greater variety of traits (virtually all of my starter Doffs had the exact same set of traits on both Fed and KDF). There's also an issue where it's possible to get duplicate Doffs.
New Tutorial - I had an idea for a new tutorial for STO, where new players started as Cadets just graduating from the Academy, then were assigned to a ship headed for vega where they board their starter ship (instead of the Khitomer) to clean out the borg, then the rest of the tutorial would be the same as it already is. The way the tutorial is on tribble now... just feels like more of the same.
Bottom Line, there's a great deal more work and polish needed before F2P is ready for Live. I hope Cryptic and Perfect World take these posts very seriously and are willing to make sure the work is done right, otherwise F2P might end up DOA.
on to wat i have seen of Dilithium: only getting it doing the non mission content like pvp, exploration missions, FA etc is going to hurt the new player base cause the first thing i think new players r going to look for is MISSIONS they wouldnt want to do pvp, exploration missions or FA etc til they get to max lvl.
i should know...thats the way i play...I lvl up using the Storyline Missions/Feature Episodes...and dont worry all the other stuff til i hit VA...i would hate to change that playstyle.
I do not believe anything the developers say, I watch what they do.
The developers, programmers, and whatever Cryptic Studio employee is involved in this have been writing and saying many things since last November. There were plenty of words and articles on how they were going to consolidate the currency in the game to improve the economy. However, they left out the detail of making exploration missions a daily.
Why?
Because they new by their own internal statistics, people were doing the exploration missions because they enjoy them. Also, people do the exploration missions because they are the only thing in the game that is Star Trek like. Doing exploration missions currently in Star Trek Online takes work and the reward for doing them is satisfactory to most people.
The people planning this game desire to change the game so that people are no longer cultured to do them. Why? Because, they offer the player with the most range of freedom. The player can do them independent of the stories, events, and STF's. Also, that is where the long term player makes a living in this game.
If you look at the tool they set up with hourly events, and monthly events. That is the main method they plan to use to hand out dilithium ore. If there is a exploration system where people can freely choose to do another task and earn the same or near the same reward, then that threatens their [the developers] economic plan to make money in the game.
They want to put in place a economic system where you have to use the C-Store, and you have to use the dilithium to advance in the game. The rewards are meant to train mindless fools over time by classical conditioning or instrumental conditioning. That is the main purpose of scheduling events on a regular interval.
In the laboratory, it can take about 20 trials to classically train rabbits or mice to a certain distal stimulus.
The exploration missions as they are, is a threat to that system.
If their desire was to consolidate the system, they would have simply called the badges 'dilithium' and the overall system would have remained the same.
The system the game is going to may not be fully known to the programmers of the game, but I am sure the real leaders of the game know the purpose.
The game environment provides the contextual stimulus (sometimes referred to as Conditioned Compensatory Response) the dilithium provides the Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The Unconditioned Response is the joy people get playing Star Trek. The Conditioned Response is the joy you get from star Trek while buying dilithium at the C-Store with real money to get dilithium because the game is to slow to get you your 'high' from the game in normal conditions.
They are making you all a video game junkie and trying to profit from that. The game is nothing more than a narcotic. That is why F2P or free-to-play works. Idiot teenagers (some adults) get hooked on to the narcotic from free hand outs. Before they know it, they are paying 'threw-the-roof' to get their high. That is how carnivals and casinos work.
That is what makes is shady and sinister.
The part they have overlooked is that 'anger' can be a stronger unconditional response to 'joy'. So that is what presents a confound to their economic plan. Sure, outside the United States, where socialism is prevalent, it is easier for those cultures to fall into a conditioned response. However, in the United States, people are cultured to be individuals. Just like the Federation in Star Trek..
The progression of the developments in this game is a one-size-fits-all style. The game developers (the government) imposes it on the player (citizen). However, everyone who has been playing the game long term since launch can see it coming. The game is moving to fewer options and less reward. The changes are designed to weed out the long term player and life-time subscription holder because the three years they invested in to help Cryptic Studios make their financial obligations to the bank is no longer required.
The overall plan was to make the game viable in the timeline they were given, then milk the name Star Trek until the license is yanked.
Thank you.
I think this is a tad overstated (especially since a| most players have adult brains and b| the pure Skinnerian model doesn't work). However, it is clear that they want people "dependent" (in a non-psychological sense) on "the chain". This is the main reason they capped explorations as dailies and they are being stingy with dilithium. They figure by having to go through "the chain", eventually your inability to get ships will catch up with you.
Edit: stray keystroke removed.
Sadly looking back is 20/20, and it's a Sad sad picture.
I am looking forward to seeing the price changes that are coming..... oh wait I've been here before.....
*Takes his Bat'leth and goes home*
This is not a Skinner model...it is a Watson model
Skinner works in the sense of instrumental conditioning. However, instrumental conditioning relies on the participant to actively behave to affect the desired conditioned. It is more classical conditioning because it is a type of associative learning, but here the participant does not have to be cognitive of the or instrumental to the learning condition. Watson applies here because we live in that world.
Car commercials, modern advertisements, sports entertainment, movies, TV, and games, revolve around the simple process of classical conditioning to get consumers to use their products. Even your parents used it to train you to do things their way. Schools use the method to get students to learn.
Where Cryptic Studio is going wrong here is that it is better to let the 'fools' figure out the method they want to be video game junkies then have the 'developers' impose it on the players.
Thank you.
That said there still hasn't been anything said or done about the true villian in all of this: the daily refinement limits.
Also I would like to mention the latest Dev blog. I cannot begin to describe how heartbroken and infuriated I was when Cryptic began to talk about taking this game in the direction of gear grind. They flat out admitted it. It's like murdering your father and proudly brandishing your bloodied knife through the streets while shouting how you plan to invest your inheritance in time shares.
What good is 9 dxp at 1-2d mission timer when you can goto the nebula and earn 10 dxp doing a short mission? I mean come on here, there is something wrong with this system. IF someone wants to sit on STO all day "Facebooking" the system waiting for 90m to 9h timers to count down, let them.
All this grinding is so not fun. Take a lesson from Sony Online Entertainment; Alienating a majority of your customers with bad changes leaves you with no money since most people will migrant away from the boring and over to something that is actually fun.