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Gold Players - no VA token?
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I know things are still being sorted out...but I want to voice my opinion here now.
I have been a subscriber since launch. I pre-ordered. I subbed for 11 months before I bought my lifetime sub, and I would still be paying a monthly sub if I hadn't.
Gold players should not be losing anything.
I thought I read dan say that gold players wouldn't lose anything in the conversion to free to play, but it does seem to me like we are losing some things.
I'll use one example, and I am sure others can add their own as well...but no free ship token at VA?
Why? What reason is involved that gold players can't get a VA ship for free as we did in the past?
It's not like a gold player is playing for free. They are paying players. Why should we be expected to pay a monthly sub AND have to buy our VA ship? Why not just buy the VA ship alone and you don't get a sub?
I don't see the reasoning behind many of the things that seem to be taken away from gold players. I'd like to see someone from Cryptic come and explain why gold players aren't rewarded for our money.
I am a reasonable person, and I know that you can't get everything for free. But this isn't something we are asking you to give us, this is something we have always had. This is something that is being taken away from us. I wouldn't even mind doing a mission to ge the token, would actually be cool, but to make us buy a ship at VA is wrong. If we are giving you money each money to play, then we should be given that token for free.
There are other examples of things being taken away, others can comment on those, but this is the most recent one that seems wrong to me. If someone at Cryptic can explain WHY it's this way, maybe I can decide better if I agree....at this point, I just see it as wrong.
Thanks.
I have been a subscriber since launch. I pre-ordered. I subbed for 11 months before I bought my lifetime sub, and I would still be paying a monthly sub if I hadn't.
Gold players should not be losing anything.
I thought I read dan say that gold players wouldn't lose anything in the conversion to free to play, but it does seem to me like we are losing some things.
I'll use one example, and I am sure others can add their own as well...but no free ship token at VA?
Why? What reason is involved that gold players can't get a VA ship for free as we did in the past?
It's not like a gold player is playing for free. They are paying players. Why should we be expected to pay a monthly sub AND have to buy our VA ship? Why not just buy the VA ship alone and you don't get a sub?
I don't see the reasoning behind many of the things that seem to be taken away from gold players. I'd like to see someone from Cryptic come and explain why gold players aren't rewarded for our money.
I am a reasonable person, and I know that you can't get everything for free. But this isn't something we are asking you to give us, this is something we have always had. This is something that is being taken away from us. I wouldn't even mind doing a mission to ge the token, would actually be cool, but to make us buy a ship at VA is wrong. If we are giving you money each money to play, then we should be given that token for free.
There are other examples of things being taken away, others can comment on those, but this is the most recent one that seems wrong to me. If someone at Cryptic can explain WHY it's this way, maybe I can decide better if I agree....at this point, I just see it as wrong.
Thanks.
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I will reserve final judgement with the final build.... if the dilitium requirement is too hefty (i.e. I should be able to buy one AT VICE Adm promotion, provided I havent squandered my dilith on other stuff as I was comming up the ranks).
Now they say gold get 400 cyrptic points a month so roughly 4 months from getting VA i can get the ship i want. Instead of us just getting it like before.
I love alot of changes that are happening Doff system is cool. some of the cosmetic fixes are nice etc. But it seems since they are going F2P alot of us are being walked all over by them and I do not think they really understand this........or maybe they do and do not care...............
I think the story missions are rewarding skill points to much. I am of the opinion that story missions, exploration missions, and pvp should reward the same amount. I think 75 points is sufficient. Although, I do not believe pvp events rewarded skill points, but they do reward sufficient energy credits.
I think the reward for exploration mission of ore for daily exploration is okay, but they should allow exploration mission to continue to be the 3 mission reward as it has been. Then only let them reward a dilithium ore once a day, like the B'Tran did for Vice Admiral emblems.
I think regular exploration missions should reward random amounts of dilithium ore like the particle traces do currently. But if the whole point of the dilithium is to reward people for doing exploration missions and the time needed to do them, the current system does not do that. If anything it penalizes the person putting in a significant amount of time playing. Since all that is needed is to do 15 minutes of playing time once a day every 22 hours.
Thank you.
I know tokens may not be a big thing to many, but it's something we have always had. Why would someone subscribe to the game...when they can save that money and just buy the ship which they will have to buy anyway?
Extra storage...more energy credit capacity? Sorry, that just isn't enough to promote subs.
As someone who also pays Champions Online, someone who subscribes...there are many and plentiful reasons to actually pay to play CO. Nothing in STO makes me want to sub.
There needs to be something that promotes subs here. A ship token isn't much, no, but it's something we have always had.
Personally, I have max level captains of all three types on Fed side, and 2 on KDF side. I have one slot left that I was going to use to make the last captain, KDF tac, when F2P went live...but I honestly would never buy a VA ship from the store. Not when I am a subscriber who already gave you my money.
Buying XP bonuses or extra ship/storage slots or even Unifrom slots...sure, no problem. I don't mind buying unoforms either...love to see some new KDF stuff there. I own all but ONE of the FED uniforms, so I have no trouble buying that either.
But those are extras, those are things you don't have to have to play the game and be competitive...a VA ship, however, is not one of those things. As you said in the Dev Blog, the ships is backbone of this game, and being a subscriber is something that should be rewarded.
Not with just tokens, but also with no limits on the very fabric of the gameplay.
I have played nearly every PW game, and they aren't really a grind. The way this game is turning, it's starting to feel very grindish to me. I hate grinds. I won't play a game that forces me to grind. KDF I accepted because I understood why it was ignored, didn't like it but understood it.
Even Champions is a grind any more. I quit City of Heroes, WoW, LotRO and a dozen other games because they were grinds that got boring. I have been loyal to STO, despite the increasing push toward grinding that has taken place over the last year.
Note to devs: Grinding DOES prolong gameplay, but not in a good way. Don't do it. More players hate it than like it.
I just want someone to explain WHY we lose our VA token if we are a subscriber? I have two accounts, and I need to understand why I should still pay the monthly sub for the other one? It would take me four months just to get enough points to buy one of those ships...I'd save a ton of money just buying it.
It's an honest question, can we get some sort of answer...? Even if it's just saying, "We got your money dude!"
I always thought getting gear and ships in STO was way to easy. Nothing wrong with doing a little work.
Also remember this will mainly effect new gold players once F2P goes live. It is not like Cryptic is going to take away what we already have on the deck.
I to have played from launch and all six of my toons are fully geared out ship,equip,weapons,ground , and space. I don't see myself running up another toon until the Romulans come out... and that will be quite a long time.
Compare the Va ships to the mark 12 gear, your going to have to work at it to proclaim yourself ubber, it is no longer going to be handed to you.
In a word: No.
They are bonus ships. They are not needed to play end game content. They are not Tier 6, they are Tier 5.5. Giving us one for free was, IMHO, a mistake to start with. Cryptic has realized taht, and they are becoming purchaseable ships like any other +1 ship. I only hope they go all the way with turning them into +1 ships and make their special abilities consoles. (Stealth Console, Saucer Separation Console, and Ablative Armour Console) But we'll see.
When they open levelign up to level 60/61 which they've said they want to do with season 5, THEN give us a free VA ship token so we can get an actual T6 ship.
The VA token was a primary feature of the raised level cap, and as such it must still be rewarded.
Someone mentioned Champions Online, those subbers do indeed get their money worth.
They even have a crapload of costumes stuff that are completely FREE for subscribers.
However, Star Trek Online offers us absolutely NOTHING in terms of C-Store incentive of being a susbcriber.
No free ships, no free uniforms, nothing.
Keeping the VA tokens is the very least they can do.
My engineer VA on holodeck is running around in a Soveriegn-class ship and doing just fine, thanks. Thus, there's no need for a free ship at VA. Maybe, if and when they add Tier Six ships, then you may have an argument.
My advice: Be happy we got the Tier 2 through Tier 5 tokens back.
If they are smart they will restore the tokens all the way up to VA.
Again, there really wouldn't be much point. You can only fly one ship at a time, for crying out loud. Even if you do maintain a full set of ships for VA, you're still going to need dilithium to respec, last I checked. I don't know how much offhand, but still.
That's just the way I look at it, and I don't really expect Cryptic will look at it differently. After all, part of the point of free-to-play is to get folks to spend money.
What does how many ships you can fly have to do with anything?
You get a respec token at every rank as a Gold member and the VA ships are unique from their Rear Admiral counterparts.
The point of free-to-play is to get non-subcribers to spend money, not to fleece the subscribers.
In the end, all that matters is that subscribers don't get cheated, I.E that the VA tokens stay.
I posted a similar topic the other day and got slammed by one user about "Wanting everything for free" He totally missed the point, but this OP has my point exactly, gold members SHOULD get to pick that ONE VA ship when they hit that rank free.. This is not wanting everything, its wanting that one ship pick we get now for actually PAYING TO PLAY THE GAME, not just emptying our credits crards into the c-store in order to best everyone else by saying Oh I already bought that..
We are getting fleeced big time, we are losing a lot from the game that we have been paying for. This fleecing and removing of ships etc and limitations should ONLY ever be appliled to the silver, not the Gold/Lifers...
*End Rant*
Should we get those for free because we're paying for the game?
They are 100%, absolutely, purely, optional. You do not need them to advance in the game, you do not need them to be competitive at level 51, they give you a slight edge, but that's it.
And we're not losing anything, they're not going to go to our Holodeck toons and take away our VA ships cause we didn't pay C-Store points for them. If you want a new alt you're going to have to put work into him. That is all. If you're getting close to VA on Holodeck, go back to Holodeck and spend the next couple of weeks getting him to VA so you can use your token before they go away.
If you don't think what you get for being a gold member is worth it, don't pay for it. If you're a lifer, well, you should have realized going in that there was no looking back, and you'd be stuck with whatever changes Cryptic decides to make to the game, good or bad. Besides, you get to play forever for the equivalent of 20 months of subscription. So if you became a lifer before June 2010 you are getting everything a gold member will be getting for free.
I wouldnt have a problem with F2P if it didnt severely degrade the experience from where it currently is on Live, but it does, the game is much worse off for actual paying subscribers then it is right now. Your paying the same amount, why settle for less?
I mean they are obviously fine with things either way and do not care, so why even argue?
If Cryptic decides to listen to the feedback and keep the VA tokens then thats a win for everyone, so why work against it?
Frankly, I see people complaining about losing their ship tokens and, horror or horrors, actually having to put some work into the game and I just find it sad. I don't want a game where everything's handed to me on a silver platter. That's not fun, or at least, that's not a game. The reason I left STO the first time was because there was no challenge, I was max level within about 2 weeks, with every mission in the game done, and a T5 ship (best at the time) fully kitted out with purples.
And to be honest, your avatars don't do much to convince me that your opinion should matter, a giant "anti-cryptic" sign, to me, just says that no matter what Cryptic did you wouldn't be happy.
Call me an apologist, but I agree with that statement. Frankly, I don't even know WHAT a VA token is for I don't even think we ever had one. I thought we got our T5 ships when we became a rear admiral. The only ships that are considered VA level ships were the small set of ships which were obtainable through 500 emblems or thru C-Store purchases. The only issue I have now is the fact they took out the non-Cstore method of obtaining those ships. Now you must spend C-Points, whether you trade dilithium for Cpoints from someone else or buy them on your own.
I personally always spent CStore points to get my dreadnaught and imperial class skin among other things(which ironically I never use), but I feel the option to get them for free should remain. I do like the fact you can trade dilithium for someone else's cpoints, similarly allowing you to get em for free, but it seems like an un-necessary step.
I think the Dilithium->C-store option is a good compromise for Cryptic. People want things for free, they want to not go out of business. This way, people can still grind stuff for free, but they'll get money from it somewhere along the line.
Anti Cryptic sign is a visible sign of displeasure with the current situation. Many people could say the same thing about Apologists, that their opinion doesnt matter because like good children they blindly find everything being done good and cant see faults.
The problem is taking away things from people that are currently on live, When I got to VA on live, I got a FREE ship, if you didnt want to use it and rather buy it thats your problem.
F2p transition shouldnt make things worse for gold customers, it should make it better. Silver is fine, they are playing for free but dont take things away from gold players.
happened to be that ship plaque you got at level 51 from quinn that allowed you to get a defiant, galaxy, or intrepid retro for free without using 500 emblems or C-points, it's something that's been in the game since I've been playing, and thats approaching 400 days.
I don't ever remember something like that. It's been a while since I obtained VA, which I did shortly after the level cap was increased
I've been playing since launch and I got my VA plaque and a Free ship too as have all my friends, its not anyone elses fault but yours if you didnt realize you had one and spent real money.
Doesnt mean out of the blue all subscribers should have to buy a ship at cap, its a greedy move and it reduces the experience all players have right now.
I could have gotten a ship with my token for free and just don't remember it...no need to get antagonistic.
However, if you did NOT spend that ship token till you reached VA you got to turn it in for a VA ship.
Ahh that makes sense. Explains why I'm somewhat confused here -- idk what I spent the token on but I know I spent it on something. Whether it was a VA ship or not, I can't remember
No more antagonistic then you were, your statement implied everyone should spend money for T5s because you did. The point stands though, giving subscribers a worse experience then is available on live is a bad way to go.
Reread the highlighted portions and tell me where I implied everyone should pay cuz I did.