To give some constructive feedback:
Someone in this long list of backlash suggested a variable Dilithium component to crafting.
Between 0 and 100% depending on how close you are to the full recipe.
I would fully support this. It would not only be a fair compromise I'd call it an improvement of the current crafting system.
The dedicated crafters, solo and fleet, could continue to do what they like and every impatient soul can have his/her shortcut to the desired gear or outright buy it if they don't feel like grinding for anomalies.
I could support this idea. Thanks for reminding us that their are "compromise" positions that are not unreasonable.
Other include:
Using EC instead
Only silver players have a dilithium cost for crafting (for Gold/LTS it is the old (current holodeck) way of crafting)
To be fair a) it is a weekend b) a knee-jerk response isn't good for anyone c) Stormshade has said they are aware of the feedback.
We will have to wait until after weekend until we get a response - and not first thing Monday morning either.
a- Yes, I agree. Raging about the lack of response over the weekend isn't reasonable. Earliest we can expect one is Monday.
b- 100% agree with this as well. Keep it civilized in here everyone.
c- True, he did say that. BUT he should have said that in THIS thread, rather than over in Blog #15. I was surprised that they posted that blog before addressing this issue in some way. Even if all it was was to say "we're aware of and reading your feedback"
An addition thought regarding point B, you guys won't see me get mad very often, but this sort of statement:
This isn't about EC, this is about Cryptic making the Chinese government their 50 million + dollars back by nickle and diming us via the cstore. How are people with Billions causing the problem? It is just EC.
Welcome to the world of PWI Chinese TRIBBLE, led poisoning idea of how to run a MMO, PWI doesnot give a TRIBBLE about players as long as they can empty the player's wallet. My advise try to get everything now maxed out before F2P takes place, so you can play without having to worry about crafting anything.
Line crossed. :mad:
This sort of groundless anti-Asian/anti-Chinese bashing/demagoguery is NOT helpful to anyone, particularly the player base. It is offensive to me (and I think many others) to suggest that all Asian and all Chinese companies (and by logical extension people) are unscrupulous and only out for profit.
While the above examples are the more tame versions of this belief that I have seen (in this thread and elsewhere), that does not excuse it. Lumping an entire race or culture into a stereotype is something that I would HOPE the STO community is better than. :mad:
If you want to argue that Asian companies tend to use a pay-2-win system more than other companies, that's fine. I think that's what Deigo was suggesting above. There are real data to support that trend. If you want to suggest that STO may become more similar to other MMO economies that Perfect World owns, that is ok too. If you want to argue that Perfect World isn't a great or well-run company, that's ok too.
But to suggest in any way that the negative traits, that you generalize an entire race/culture to have, are behind changes that you don't like . . . . . I expect better from all of you.:(
We wouldn't tolerate it if other players came in these forums and started bashing American companies because they are "lazy" or British Companies for being "snobby" or German companies for being drunk (it is Octoberfest isn't it?) Why would you tolerate other people being generalized like that?
We don't need this kind of rhetoric. Star Trek is better than this.Humanity is better than this. We're better than this.
"We" are more likely than not more-or-less average people granted some amount of anonymity and a great deal of non-accountability on an internet message board. That tends to bring out the worst in humanity, knowing there are inconsequential penalties for bad behavior.
So I would have to say, no, "we" as a whole, are NOT better than this. Some of us may be, but fear and anger makes humans do some pretty stupid things. It was only a matter of time before some of "us" decided to focus "our" anger on whatever simplified embodiment of what it is that caused "our" anger like the stupid, hairless apes "we" are.
"Cryptic = PWI = Chinese Corporation = Chinese Government = the Chinese ethnicity as a whole."
Or at least, that's my extrapolation of stupid-hairless-ape-think.
In any case it's a bridge too far.
Also, people tend to not take stupid, hairless ape-think seriously, or take it with some sort of negative reaction, so best not stink up LEGITIMATE criticism and feedback with such offal and lower-intestinal content.
Also, to coincide with the introduction of Dilithium, we are making adjustments to the crafting system. Unfortunately, a broken version of the crafting system that does not represent our intent is currently on Tribble. We are working on getting the correct version into a build, and I'll post more about it when the proper version is available for you all to take a look at.
What exactly was broken, that adding a dilithium Tax now fixes?
Recipes still require the same grind as before
Crafting XP levels are the same as before
Still unable to craft reasonable XII gear
The only changes introduced to fix the 'broken' system, is the additional need to grind for dilithium to craft the same old stuff we didn't need to spend any currency on before.
We're well aware of, and have been reading the feedback from blog #14, just like we read the rest of the forums.
If you were looking for a post that says, "Hey! We read things! These things even!" Well, here you go.
If you're looking for a post saying, "This is what we're going to do about this feedback from blog #14," please remember that it takes time for us to be able to read all that feedback, discuss it amongst the team, decide on a course of action, put it through testing, and then tell you about it as the changes are coming.
Work on crafting is continuing. That work does not stop the people who work on STFs from working on STFs.
So please, let's keep this thread about STFs. Not about crafting.
There's already several threads about crafting.
Thanks,
Stormshade
With that said, I will continue with the actual matter at hand...namely the crafting changes. As I stated yesterday, I am not an avid crafter. However, I have planned on making my Fed and KDF mains my crafters for their respective factions (for my alts, at least). Now, that will not happen (easily, at least) due to the restrictive nature of the Dilithium "tax", as people have so eloquently put it. Not to mention that anybody dedicated enough to the crafting profession for their respective fleets will get hosed to the point where they'll say "eff it" and signal the death knell of this useful fleet position.
Dilithium is NOT the currency that we want to see implemented as part of more than half of the crafting items. EC is fine. We need more sinks for it. Dilithium is being used in way too many areas of the game already. We have to pay for ships (beyond the free ships that only Gold members get)...we have to pay for gear that is actually useful and good...we now have to pay for crafting gear. What's next? We have to pay for the STF gear? What about the skill revamp? Maybe we have to pay through the nose for that.
Somebody mentioned using a sliding scale "tax" on Dilithium if Cryptic is hellbent on making us use it in this system. I would support it as long as it's NOT REQUIRED to spend it. If you're missing that one anomaly or rare particle trace, you can buy it from a special store on Memory Alpha or something.
In short, nobody will craft with Dilithium as a requirement if they can get something from one of the vendors for a little bit more without the grind of having to find the correct anomalies and particle traces needed for a comparable item for just RD alone.
Under the existing live model if I want to craft an item I can choose to spend my time gathering anomalies and traces or I can do other activities to earn energy credits and use them to buy the materials from the exchange. I can then sell the item I make on the exchange for an amount at least as much as the materials did/would have cost and I have profit. Energy credits is a fully tradeable 'time-based' currency and it works - at least for players.
Under a subscription model it also works for Cryptic as they are getting their $15 a month to allow me to do this. One problem in this for Cryptic is that for early LTS adopters like me that $15 a month has run out. Also a problem for Cryptic is that under a free to play model they gain nothing directly from this activity. A silver account can do all of that without paying a single cent. Someone using the crafted items can also avoid paying any real cash.
I don't like their solution to this however. I can deal with the anomalies and traces as before, and with the addition of the duty officer system I have more options in how to gather them, but I can't avoid the dilithium. It is not a fully tradeable currency so I must get it myself. I can either do in-game activities such as events, dailies etc. and convert a limited amount to currency, or I can spend real cash to get C-points and use those points to buy the dilithium from someone else. You might say how is that different to gathering other required components - 1. it is not tradeable except with real cash, 2. the activites are not directly related to crafting.
This might even work if I just wanted to play a single character, however I have no way to recoup that dilithium via in game trading. I can only sell it on the exhange for energy credits. Net loss to me, since because of the C-point/dilithium exchange the dilithium and therefore the crafted items has a real money value and the energy credits does not.
There are ways to introduce dilithium to crafting that do not have this problem. Several have been posted in this thread. One way is to sell the existing materials for dilithium, so Iike now I can gather myself or I can pay to shortcut that - but the choice is mine. Since the supply side of anomalies and traces has increased with the duty officer system, a reasonable adjustment of demand is possibly in order (i.e. increased amounts needed to craft).
Another way would be to change the crafting process itself from a 'press button, wait 10 sec' process to one that takes considerably longer - say 1 hour for green, 12 hour for blue, 2 days for purple, perhaps also scaled by rank. You could then sell an optional tradeable item, for dilithium or even directly for C-points, to reduce or eliminate this waiting time.
The point is to use the dilithium/c-points to pay for convenience, but not to make it a requirement.
Originally Posted by CivilPhil
Only silver players have a dilithium cost for crafting (for Gold/LTS it is the old (current holodeck) way of crafting)
This also works for me - possibly also incorpating the pay-for-covenience concept
Everything I crafted for my Advanced Escort last week for ZERO dilithium, would now cost me 236,793 Dilithium to get my full AEGIS set, all consoles, and Antiproton Weapons.
So we get a post from Stormy in another thread about STF changes, that states the Devs are aware of the anger in THIS thread... NOT good enough... We should have had that statement HERE..
...
I think the reason for posting it in there was to try and reign in the posts about the crafting tax and keep the thread on topic, hence posting that specific post in here wouldn't have had the desired effect...
Still, replying in the thread that is designated for the feedback you're replying to would be nice...
Stop playing the game. Just stop. Quit. Leave. Play something else. Stop coming to the forums.
It's obvious what they're doing: they're relaunching STO. That's what F2P is. The STO relaunch. All of us here, ALL OF US, were here for one and one reason only for them: to subsidize the game until the F2P relaunch.
They don't care about us anymore. We've given them the money they needed up to this point to relaunch the game. At this point, we're liabilities. We're costing them money. Sure, we may still occasionally buy something on the C-Store, but as more time goes on, even then we're still more of a liability. They WANT us gone. They are PURPOSEFULLY driving us away so they can get a new customer base, one that doesn't mind being donkey punched on a regular basis.
Cryptic is NOT going to change. This was all planned out months, if not years, ago. It's time for everyone to face facts and accept that they want us gone, and they do not care about us as customers. So WHY are you continuing to give them money??
Take your money and time and energy elsewhere. There are other games to play...LOTS of them. Tell your friends about how bad this game is becoming. Post about it on your Facebook page. Spread the word. And most importantly of all, have fun playing a different game.
Stop playing the game. Just stop. Quit. Leave. Play something else. Stop coming to the forums.
It's obvious what they're doing: they're relaunching STO. That's what F2P is. The STO relaunch. All of us here, ALL OF US, were here for one and one reason only for them: to subsidize the game until the F2P relaunch.
They don't care about us anymore. We've given them the money they needed up to this point to relaunch the game. At this point, we're liabilities. We're costing them money. Sure, we may still occasionally buy something on the C-Store, but as more time goes on, even then we're still more of a liability. They WANT us gone. They are PURPOSEFULLY driving us away so they can get a new customer base, one that doesn't mind being donkey punched on a regular basis.
Cryptic is NOT going to change. This was all planned out months, if not years, ago. It's time for everyone to face facts and accept that they want us gone, and they do not care about us as customers. So WHY are you continuing to give them money??
Take your money and time and energy elsewhere. There are other games to play...LOTS of them. Tell your friends about how bad this game is becoming. Post about it on your Facebook page. Spread the word. And most importantly of all, have fun playing a different game.
The main reason that most of us are still here is because of our love of Trek and wanting to see the game succeed. If we didn't care, we would have left long before the F2P announcement. We're fighting for a game that we believe has a lot of potential.
If Cryptic doesn't care about those who have supported the game for so long, telling others that the game is getting better, buying an LTS or paying a monthly sub, buying stuff off of the C-Store, etc. then that is their loss. We are the ones that they should care about because we're the ones who would (and HAVE) stayed during the rough times. They want us gone so badly, then they should TELL US instead of leading us along with ********** promises that they never intend to fulfill and bending us over a table and doing unspeakable things to our beloved franchise.
I've seen even the most diehard Cryptic supporters getting fed up with these latest practices and threatening to leave. That should tell people something.
Stop playing the game. Just stop. Quit. Leave. Play something else. Stop coming to the forums.
It's obvious what they're doing: they're relaunching STO. That's what F2P is. The STO relaunch. All of us here, ALL OF US, were here for one and one reason only for them: to subsidize the game until the F2P relaunch.
They don't care about us anymore. We've given them the money they needed up to this point to relaunch the game. At this point, we're liabilities. We're costing them money. Sure, we may still occasionally buy something on the C-Store, but as more time goes on, even then we're still more of a liability. They WANT us gone. They are PURPOSEFULLY driving us away so they can get a new customer base, one that doesn't mind being donkey punched on a regular basis.
Cryptic is NOT going to change. This was all planned out months, if not years, ago. It's time for everyone to face facts and accept that they want us gone, and they do not care about us as customers. So WHY are you continuing to give them money??
Take your money and time and energy elsewhere. There are other games to play...LOTS of them. Tell your friends about how bad this game is becoming. Post about it on your Facebook page. Spread the word. And most importantly of all, have fun playing a different game.
EDIT2: I should point out, I'm not an MMO gamer, other games really don't interest me, I'm a Star Trek fan first and foremost, this is my first MMO, I came here because it's Star Trek. I've tried out Champions since (chosen to support Cryptic Studios pre-PW), but it couldn't hold my interest. I've tried DDO since (as D&D is another long-time love of mine) but it hasn't been able to hold my interest either. (I still prefer sitting around a Table rolling dice for D&D, 3.5 forever!)
I reread your post three times over while I considered my response.
There's a few things to consider.
As a LTS, my sub cash went to Atari, so PW's apathy towards my desires is somewhat understandable.. If that's all they consider.
I've paid (guesstimation) about $150-$200 into the C-Store over the past 20 months. Only about $40 of that has occurred since the PW acquisition.
Subscribers paying $15 a month are likely paying more into the game than a non-subscriber who frequents the C-Store (assuming the average F2P player will buy $12.50 worth of C-Store points per month).
The average subscriber will likely also frequent the C-Store (albeit less than a F2P player, say, buying $6.25 per month).
If my guesstimates aren't too far off, the average Sub will be paying $21.49 to PW/Cryptic, while the average F2P player will be paying in $12.50 to $18.75 (if they buy more C-Store points than even I think they will).
If we take into account the 400-point Stipend Golds will get, and we figure that at $5 worth of C-Store points. Taking into account the "cost" (even though as a digital product it has no real-world recurring cost of production) Golds will be paying in an average $16.49 per month, while F2P players will be putting in $12.50-$18.75. If PW is being more optimistic than I am about how much F2P will pay without Subscribing, then it makes sense for them to be focusing on them, rather than we who are to be the Golds.
But it's usually a mistake to be optimistic about people willingly giving you money.
PW likely still cares about Subs, but not LTS, and nowhere near as much as they desire the F2P players they can railroad to the C-Store.
On the other hand, it may be the LTS they're thinking of. As non-paying Golds, with a stipend and all the benefits of being Gold, they may be trying to railroad Golds into the C-Store more than they're going to try and railroad the F2P players, who we can be fairly sure will be frequenting the C-Store.
EDIT: It may also be that they don't want to railroad Sub Golds, but LTS Golds. It may be in PWs intrest to have three categories of Subscribers.
Platinum: LTS, some Railroads to the C-Store, lots of benefits (reduced crafting costs, an EC/GPL stipend, XP bonuses, etc..) Gold: Normal Subs, no railroads to the C-Store, C-Store point Stipend, no limits (no Dilithium tax cropping up everywhere), but no bonuses other than the C-Store stipend. Silver: F2P players, lots of Railroads to the C-Store, all the limits present in the current F2P matrix plus the omnipresent Dilithium tax.
I must disagree with the majority of people here.
Look at the full game experience as we always knew it:
Day 0: you create a toon
Day 7: you are Vice Admiral, with all purple gear and having purple\blue gear while leveling up because a fleet mate crafted them for you
Day 8: you start complaining that there is no end-game content
Day 9: you start pvping
Day 10: you finally understand game mechanincs and start complaining that pvp is unbalanced
Day XX: you quit the game
*snip*
My hat off to you sir...I don't have the time to crank out a VA in 7 days, and while that's not quite as fast as a Genesis device creating new life, I don't think that experience is the same for everyone in the game, as it is today on Holodeck.
I guess I should be quitting the game now, according to your list, since there isn't any end-game content and I'm not really into PvP? :rolleyes:
good god! 7 days and your VA? and i was told i had no life for being RA/VA in a month!
thou it took me 3 weeks to hit that on test but thats test. they upped the skill points issued via quest complete by almost double. reason? well its simple they need you to test they stuff. in order to test some of it you need to be a VA. if i see or hear of anyone hitting VA in 7 days im calling them out and telling them to get out of they parents house... god son grow up please.
Im probably going to get banned for this but I honestly don't care. Im a Soldier, and its my duty to defend things I care about from people who would do them harm. Cryptic and PW's behavior is harming something I care about. When I was 3 years old, I saw the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and I was hooked. Ive seen every episode of every series and every movie, my favorite memory is still seeing The Undiscovered Country in theaters with my Dad. I care about Star Trek more than I care about the game, though its the best game regarding the series ever made.
Anyway, my suggestion: CBS owns the IP. Contact CBS. Tell them about what they're doing, and how they're taking advantage of us. I dont think they know, CBS isnt NBC Universal, they grant their licensees a great deal of autonomy. I worked for NBC Universal for years before I enlisted, they're psychopathic about their IP and even worse now that Comcast owns them. In other words they interfere constantly, Disney's about middle of the road, and CBS is very hands off.
Anyway, write down what you feel is going wrong with the game and how you want to save it, and send it to:
CBS Headquarters
ATTN: CBS Consumer Products
51 W. 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019-6188
If we go after CBS on this issue, that PW/Cryptic is making their IP (and one of their most profitable IPs at that) look bad, they may pull the plug on them or switch developers. Strongly suggest that a different company like Zenimax Online (I know, I know, Bethesda dropped the ball on ST: Legacy, but this game also runs on Bethesda/Zenimax's Gamebryo engine and they know what they're doing with it, they're the best choice).
I've already wrote them two weeks ago to voice my conerns. Interestingly, many of the warnings I mentioned in that letter such as Die Heart Star Trek Fans loosing faith because of this is becoming true.
Haven't heard a response as of yet, but who knows how long the letter and attached forum posts take to be sent to the right person in the corporation.
ok so i have to ask. do you plan on actually having it the way it is now? if so they i suggest that all persons that had copied they're mains into test be giving the ability to use the bloody system. ive done at least 20+ any haven't earnt any CXP.
why? CAUSE YOU BLOODY WELL DIDNT PUT IT IN FOR COPIED PLAYERS!
and and bigger FYI!
ENABLE THE ABILITY TO SEND TICKETS IN GAME IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LISTEN< SOME MATTERS CAN BE FIXED THAT SHOULD BE TAKING PRIORITY OVER NEW CONTENT!
PS - Sorry for caps. i feel people are ignoring me and i cant remember how to do color...
I've already wrote them two weeks ago to voice my conerns. Interestingly, many of the warnings I mentioned in that letter such as Die Heart Star Trek Fans loosing faith because of this is becoming true.
Haven't heard a response as of yet, but who knows how long the letter and attached forum posts take to be sent to the right person in the corporation.
No, the single worst idea ever (TM) was actually shared by two people. Both decided it was a great idea to invade Russia. Total outcome? Over 20 million dead.
But this change to crafting surely ranks up there with Battlecruiser 3000, Ultima IX, and Master of Orion III. Maybe you can think of some other truly bad choices?
I know I'll never get my money outta Master Orion III. I still use the CD as a coaster...
I can only assume you are speaking of Napolean Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler.
Though you're right, Napoleon did involve Russia, but it didn't involve 20 million casualties.
no france lost about 650k soldiers thou, and ended up hurting the russian armies at the time. but at that time what germany lost in russia compared to what france lost would be close to the same number.
but yeah, it was a good choice. had hitler planned it right and had the right stuff they would have won, and we would all be speaking german, instead of us defeating them.
I could support this idea. Thanks for reminding us that their are "compromise" positions that are not unreasonable.
Other include:
Using EC instead
Only silver players have a dilithium cost for crafting (for Gold/LTS it is the old (current holodeck) way of crafting)
a- Yes, I agree. Raging about the lack of response over the weekend isn't reasonable. Earliest we can expect one is Monday.
b- 100% agree with this as well. Keep it civilized in here everyone.
c- True, he did say that. BUT he should have said that in THIS thread, rather than over in Blog #15. I was surprised that they posted that blog before addressing this issue in some way. Even if all it was was to say "we're aware of and reading your feedback"
An addition thought regarding point B, you guys won't see me get mad very often, but this sort of statement:
not so bad
A bit worse
Starting to cross a line here
Line crossed. :mad:
This sort of groundless anti-Asian/anti-Chinese bashing/demagoguery is NOT helpful to anyone, particularly the player base. It is offensive to me (and I think many others) to suggest that all Asian and all Chinese companies (and by logical extension people) are unscrupulous and only out for profit.
While the above examples are the more tame versions of this belief that I have seen (in this thread and elsewhere), that does not excuse it. Lumping an entire race or culture into a stereotype is something that I would HOPE the STO community is better than. :mad:
If you want to argue that Asian companies tend to use a pay-2-win system more than other companies, that's fine. I think that's what Deigo was suggesting above. There are real data to support that trend. If you want to suggest that STO may become more similar to other MMO economies that Perfect World owns, that is ok too. If you want to argue that Perfect World isn't a great or well-run company, that's ok too.
But to suggest in any way that the negative traits, that you generalize an entire race/culture to have, are behind changes that you don't like . . . . . I expect better from all of you.:(
We wouldn't tolerate it if other players came in these forums and started bashing American companies because they are "lazy" or British Companies for being "snobby" or German companies for being drunk (it is Octoberfest isn't it?) Why would you tolerate other people being generalized like that?
We don't need this kind of rhetoric. Star Trek is better than this.Humanity is better than this. We're better than this.
Drop the Asian/Chinese bashing. Please.
The Chinese Government is not a race or culture. Thank you for attempting to chill my speech.
And we are still waiting on the Enterprise-F.....I'll bet you will either need to craft it and it will cost you 2.5 million Dilithium or you can get it 'cheap' from the C-store at the low,low price of 10000 C-points.:rolleyes:
no france lost about 650k soldiers thou, and ended up hurting the russian armies at the time. but at that time what germany lost in russia compared to what france lost would be close to the same number.
but yeah, it was a good choice. had hitler planned it right and had the right stuff they would have won, and we would all be speaking german, instead of us defeating them.
According to the Wiki on Napoleans invasion of Russia, total losses for Napoleons Empire were around about 463K, while Russia lost about 210K, total losses from the conflict ending up at 673K, far less than one Million, and nowhere near the 20 Million lost in WWII when Mussolini and Hitler tried to take on the Soviet Union.
But this is off topic, so let's suffice it to say, if Hitler hadn't been such a moron and egotist, WWII would have ended very differently, but I doubt we'd be speaking German. It's more likely we would be speaking Russian.
It's one thing to add things to the game that cost more than what we have on live right now, but to take stuff we can get for free right now and tell us we're going to make you grind for weeks or months or pay cash for the same thing is counterproductive. After all, I presume they wanted us to test on Tribble instead of staying on Live, but this is telling us very loudly to stop testing and get everything you can for free before they drastically raise the price in money, time, and effort to get those same things.
Right now you're foolish if you're not doing all your crafting and getting all your free ships on Live now instead of testing for them and paying for the privilege. Right now you're paying to get screwed later. I got my tier 3 va on tribble and there is no further reason for me to test and plenty of reasons for me to stop testing and get all my alts to VA and craft every sample I have before the anal probe comes.
I don't like dilithium as a requirement even for silvers. Why disincentivize a silver from crafting items for his/her alts? This reduces the incentive for someone to purchase extra character slots. If supply of anomalies is a problem, then increase the number we harvest and put a lot more crafting nodes all over the place.
As for Cryptic saying the game is going to be basically the same for me as an LTS once the game goes f2p, I no longer believe it. This atrocious idea of adding gated dilithium to the game at all, much less for crafting, and requiring me to spend real world money to make items for my own alts or grind through weeks of mind-numbing dailies hardly qualifies as 'essentially the same' for me once we hit f2p.
It's one thing to add things to the game that cost more than what we have on live right now, but to take stuff we can get for free right now and tell us we're going to make you grind for weeks or months or pay cash for the same thing is counterproductive. After all, I presume they wanted us to test on Tribble instead of staying on Live, but this is telling us very loudly to stop testing and get everything you can for free before they drastically raise the price in money, time, and effort to get those same things.
Right now you're foolish if you're not doing all your crafting and getting all your free ships on Live now instead of testing for them and paying for the privilege. Right now you're paying to get screwed later. I got my tier 3 va on tribble and there is no further reason for me to test and plenty of reasons for me to stop testing and get all my alts to VA and craft every sample I have before the anal probe comes.
Agreed, ive quit tribble for good as has most if not the entire fleet I belong too. We have like you read between the lines and are power levelling every toon we have in crafting, ships and gear so we dont get caught out.
I urge everyone else to do the same, its obvious they wont change anything or we would have had a backtrack by now.
Please dont say its the weekend and that all will be well come monday, this is crisis management from now on...
I've stopped playing on Tribble as well. I have one more toon to get to VA, and then gear up, so i'll be doing that. After it goes live, and if they don't radically change the Gold player set up, they'll not get another dime from me. I'm already paring down my BOffs to 5.
Devs, I'm disaapointed in this last update adding the cost of dilithium to R&D. I personally farm anormalies create items and put them on the exchange. I also craft for my fleet mates. They rather pay than farm. Did you guys ever consider who this hurt us before pulling this latest stunt? Its apparent you gents didn't consider it. You guys are in a Bubble just like Washington DC elected officials. Lets take this to vote before making changes. These half cocked ideals need to be looked at by us! We are the ones who have to suffer. I went through nearly 200,000 in dilithium creating R&D items. I dont know if you have a way of checking my log times and what I was doing for 8 hours (farming). The farming is my cross to bare. I was selling the Aegis per item set for 500,000 to 600,000 per Aegis piece. Now I matched everyone else at 4-5 million per item due to the dilithium being added.
In the back of my head I wonder when you guys are going to pull the rug from under our feet again.
Agreed, ive quit tribble for good as has most if not the entire fleet I belong too. We have like you read between the lines and are power levelling every toon we have in crafting, ships and gear so we dont get caught out.
I urge everyone else to do the same, its obvious they wont change anything or we would have had a backtrack by now.
Please dont say its the weekend and that all will be well come monday, this is crisis management from now on...
I also cannot bring myself to log back in to Tribble. However, it's not so that I can power level crafting or getting more toons to VA/LG and gearing them out. As much as I'd love to log in to EITHER shard, the changes and silence are just too depressing to make me want to do anything other than finally play through my huge backlog of single-player games, particularly with DXHR: Missing Link out and Arkham City releasing for PC next month.
Comments
I could support this idea. Thanks for reminding us that their are "compromise" positions that are not unreasonable.
Other include:
Using EC instead
Only silver players have a dilithium cost for crafting (for Gold/LTS it is the old (current holodeck) way of crafting)
a- Yes, I agree. Raging about the lack of response over the weekend isn't reasonable. Earliest we can expect one is Monday.
b- 100% agree with this as well. Keep it civilized in here everyone.
c- True, he did say that. BUT he should have said that in THIS thread, rather than over in Blog #15. I was surprised that they posted that blog before addressing this issue in some way. Even if all it was was to say "we're aware of and reading your feedback"
An addition thought regarding point B, you guys won't see me get mad very often, but this sort of statement: not so bad A bit worse Starting to cross a line here Line crossed. :mad:
This sort of groundless anti-Asian/anti-Chinese bashing/demagoguery is NOT helpful to anyone, particularly the player base. It is offensive to me (and I think many others) to suggest that all Asian and all Chinese companies (and by logical extension people) are unscrupulous and only out for profit.
While the above examples are the more tame versions of this belief that I have seen (in this thread and elsewhere), that does not excuse it. Lumping an entire race or culture into a stereotype is something that I would HOPE the STO community is better than. :mad:
If you want to argue that Asian companies tend to use a pay-2-win system more than other companies, that's fine. I think that's what Deigo was suggesting above. There are real data to support that trend. If you want to suggest that STO may become more similar to other MMO economies that Perfect World owns, that is ok too. If you want to argue that Perfect World isn't a great or well-run company, that's ok too.
But to suggest in any way that the negative traits, that you generalize an entire race/culture to have, are behind changes that you don't like . . . . . I expect better from all of you.:(
We wouldn't tolerate it if other players came in these forums and started bashing American companies because they are "lazy" or British Companies for being "snobby" or German companies for being drunk (it is Octoberfest isn't it?) Why would you tolerate other people being generalized like that?
We don't need this kind of rhetoric. Star Trek is better than this. Humanity is better than this. We're better than this.
Drop the Asian/Chinese bashing. Please.
Now this works for me and would be a MAJOR perk for those who subscribe.
Yup.
That is debatable.
"We" are more likely than not more-or-less average people granted some amount of anonymity and a great deal of non-accountability on an internet message board. That tends to bring out the worst in humanity, knowing there are inconsequential penalties for bad behavior.
So I would have to say, no, "we" as a whole, are NOT better than this. Some of us may be, but fear and anger makes humans do some pretty stupid things. It was only a matter of time before some of "us" decided to focus "our" anger on whatever simplified embodiment of what it is that caused "our" anger like the stupid, hairless apes "we" are.
"Cryptic = PWI = Chinese Corporation = Chinese Government = the Chinese ethnicity as a whole."
Or at least, that's my extrapolation of stupid-hairless-ape-think.
In any case it's a bridge too far.
Also, people tend to not take stupid, hairless ape-think seriously, or take it with some sort of negative reaction, so best not stink up LEGITIMATE criticism and feedback with such offal and lower-intestinal content.
Keep the legit comments coming, peoples.
Good luck, and the Peace of Cthulu be upon you.
What exactly was broken, that adding a dilithium Tax now fixes?
The only changes introduced to fix the 'broken' system, is the additional need to grind for dilithium to craft the same old stuff we didn't need to spend any currency on before.
With that said, I will continue with the actual matter at hand...namely the crafting changes. As I stated yesterday, I am not an avid crafter. However, I have planned on making my Fed and KDF mains my crafters for their respective factions (for my alts, at least). Now, that will not happen (easily, at least) due to the restrictive nature of the Dilithium "tax", as people have so eloquently put it. Not to mention that anybody dedicated enough to the crafting profession for their respective fleets will get hosed to the point where they'll say "eff it" and signal the death knell of this useful fleet position.
Dilithium is NOT the currency that we want to see implemented as part of more than half of the crafting items. EC is fine. We need more sinks for it. Dilithium is being used in way too many areas of the game already. We have to pay for ships (beyond the free ships that only Gold members get)...we have to pay for gear that is actually useful and good...we now have to pay for crafting gear. What's next? We have to pay for the STF gear? What about the skill revamp? Maybe we have to pay through the nose for that.
Somebody mentioned using a sliding scale "tax" on Dilithium if Cryptic is hellbent on making us use it in this system. I would support it as long as it's NOT REQUIRED to spend it. If you're missing that one anomaly or rare particle trace, you can buy it from a special store on Memory Alpha or something.
In short, nobody will craft with Dilithium as a requirement if they can get something from one of the vendors for a little bit more without the grind of having to find the correct anomalies and particle traces needed for a comparable item for just RD alone.
Yes, but if it were my company, I would want to set the record straight right now! :rolleyes:
Under the existing live model if I want to craft an item I can choose to spend my time gathering anomalies and traces or I can do other activities to earn energy credits and use them to buy the materials from the exchange. I can then sell the item I make on the exchange for an amount at least as much as the materials did/would have cost and I have profit. Energy credits is a fully tradeable 'time-based' currency and it works - at least for players.
Under a subscription model it also works for Cryptic as they are getting their $15 a month to allow me to do this. One problem in this for Cryptic is that for early LTS adopters like me that $15 a month has run out. Also a problem for Cryptic is that under a free to play model they gain nothing directly from this activity. A silver account can do all of that without paying a single cent. Someone using the crafted items can also avoid paying any real cash.
I don't like their solution to this however. I can deal with the anomalies and traces as before, and with the addition of the duty officer system I have more options in how to gather them, but I can't avoid the dilithium. It is not a fully tradeable currency so I must get it myself. I can either do in-game activities such as events, dailies etc. and convert a limited amount to currency, or I can spend real cash to get C-points and use those points to buy the dilithium from someone else. You might say how is that different to gathering other required components - 1. it is not tradeable except with real cash, 2. the activites are not directly related to crafting.
This might even work if I just wanted to play a single character, however I have no way to recoup that dilithium via in game trading. I can only sell it on the exhange for energy credits. Net loss to me, since because of the C-point/dilithium exchange the dilithium and therefore the crafted items has a real money value and the energy credits does not.
There are ways to introduce dilithium to crafting that do not have this problem. Several have been posted in this thread. One way is to sell the existing materials for dilithium, so Iike now I can gather myself or I can pay to shortcut that - but the choice is mine. Since the supply side of anomalies and traces has increased with the duty officer system, a reasonable adjustment of demand is possibly in order (i.e. increased amounts needed to craft).
Another way would be to change the crafting process itself from a 'press button, wait 10 sec' process to one that takes considerably longer - say 1 hour for green, 12 hour for blue, 2 days for purple, perhaps also scaled by rank. You could then sell an optional tradeable item, for dilithium or even directly for C-points, to reduce or eliminate this waiting time.
The point is to use the dilithium/c-points to pay for convenience, but not to make it a requirement.
This also works for me - possibly also incorpating the pay-for-covenience concept
No thanks.
I think the reason for posting it in there was to try and reign in the posts about the crafting tax and keep the thread on topic, hence posting that specific post in here wouldn't have had the desired effect...
Still, replying in the thread that is designated for the feedback you're replying to would be nice...
It's obvious what they're doing: they're relaunching STO. That's what F2P is. The STO relaunch. All of us here, ALL OF US, were here for one and one reason only for them: to subsidize the game until the F2P relaunch.
They don't care about us anymore. We've given them the money they needed up to this point to relaunch the game. At this point, we're liabilities. We're costing them money. Sure, we may still occasionally buy something on the C-Store, but as more time goes on, even then we're still more of a liability. They WANT us gone. They are PURPOSEFULLY driving us away so they can get a new customer base, one that doesn't mind being donkey punched on a regular basis.
Cryptic is NOT going to change. This was all planned out months, if not years, ago. It's time for everyone to face facts and accept that they want us gone, and they do not care about us as customers. So WHY are you continuing to give them money??
Take your money and time and energy elsewhere. There are other games to play...LOTS of them. Tell your friends about how bad this game is becoming. Post about it on your Facebook page. Spread the word. And most importantly of all, have fun playing a different game.
The main reason that most of us are still here is because of our love of Trek and wanting to see the game succeed. If we didn't care, we would have left long before the F2P announcement. We're fighting for a game that we believe has a lot of potential.
If Cryptic doesn't care about those who have supported the game for so long, telling others that the game is getting better, buying an LTS or paying a monthly sub, buying stuff off of the C-Store, etc. then that is their loss. We are the ones that they should care about because we're the ones who would (and HAVE) stayed during the rough times. They want us gone so badly, then they should TELL US instead of leading us along with ********** promises that they never intend to fulfill and bending us over a table and doing unspeakable things to our beloved franchise.
I've seen even the most diehard Cryptic supporters getting fed up with these latest practices and threatening to leave. That should tell people something.
EDIT2: I should point out, I'm not an MMO gamer, other games really don't interest me, I'm a Star Trek fan first and foremost, this is my first MMO, I came here because it's Star Trek. I've tried out Champions since (chosen to support Cryptic Studios pre-PW), but it couldn't hold my interest. I've tried DDO since (as D&D is another long-time love of mine) but it hasn't been able to hold my interest either. (I still prefer sitting around a Table rolling dice for D&D, 3.5 forever!)
I reread your post three times over while I considered my response.
There's a few things to consider.
If we take into account the 400-point Stipend Golds will get, and we figure that at $5 worth of C-Store points. Taking into account the "cost" (even though as a digital product it has no real-world recurring cost of production) Golds will be paying in an average $16.49 per month, while F2P players will be putting in $12.50-$18.75. If PW is being more optimistic than I am about how much F2P will pay without Subscribing, then it makes sense for them to be focusing on them, rather than we who are to be the Golds.
But it's usually a mistake to be optimistic about people willingly giving you money.
PW likely still cares about Subs, but not LTS, and nowhere near as much as they desire the F2P players they can railroad to the C-Store.
On the other hand, it may be the LTS they're thinking of. As non-paying Golds, with a stipend and all the benefits of being Gold, they may be trying to railroad Golds into the C-Store more than they're going to try and railroad the F2P players, who we can be fairly sure will be frequenting the C-Store.
EDIT: It may also be that they don't want to railroad Sub Golds, but LTS Golds. It may be in PWs intrest to have three categories of Subscribers.
Platinum: LTS, some Railroads to the C-Store, lots of benefits (reduced crafting costs, an EC/GPL stipend, XP bonuses, etc..)
Gold: Normal Subs, no railroads to the C-Store, C-Store point Stipend, no limits (no Dilithium tax cropping up everywhere), but no bonuses other than the C-Store stipend.
Silver: F2P players, lots of Railroads to the C-Store, all the limits present in the current F2P matrix plus the omnipresent Dilithium tax.
Haven't heard a response as of yet, but who knows how long the letter and attached forum posts take to be sent to the right person in the corporation.
why? CAUSE YOU BLOODY WELL DIDNT PUT IT IN FOR COPIED PLAYERS!
and and bigger FYI!
ENABLE THE ABILITY TO SEND TICKETS IN GAME IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LISTEN< SOME MATTERS CAN BE FIXED THAT SHOULD BE TAKING PRIORITY OVER NEW CONTENT!
PS - Sorry for caps. i feel people are ignoring me and i cant remember how to do color...
lets hope CBS dont shut us down.
1. Increase / Remove the Dilithium Ore Refinement
2. Make Dilithium Ore tradeable
Then the crafters can get all items they need by mail or trade and make the item as needed.
I can only assume you are speaking of Napolean Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler.
Benito Mussolini and Hitler, actually.
Though you're right, Napoleon did involve Russia, but it didn't involve 20 million casualties.
no france lost about 650k soldiers thou, and ended up hurting the russian armies at the time. but at that time what germany lost in russia compared to what france lost would be close to the same number.
but yeah, it was a good choice. had hitler planned it right and had the right stuff they would have won, and we would all be speaking german, instead of us defeating them.
The Chinese Government is not a race or culture. Thank you for attempting to chill my speech.
No, Napolean didn't involve 20 million souls.
What he did was squander the souls of 690,000 men and camp followers in 1812, the so-called Grand Armee'.
In 1812, that was alot of people.
According to the Wiki on Napoleans invasion of Russia, total losses for Napoleons Empire were around about 463K, while Russia lost about 210K, total losses from the conflict ending up at 673K, far less than one Million, and nowhere near the 20 Million lost in WWII when Mussolini and Hitler tried to take on the Soviet Union.
But this is off topic, so let's suffice it to say, if Hitler hadn't been such a moron and egotist, WWII would have ended very differently, but I doubt we'd be speaking German. It's more likely we would be speaking Russian.
Right now you're foolish if you're not doing all your crafting and getting all your free ships on Live now instead of testing for them and paying for the privilege. Right now you're paying to get screwed later. I got my tier 3 va on tribble and there is no further reason for me to test and plenty of reasons for me to stop testing and get all my alts to VA and craft every sample I have before the anal probe comes.
As for Cryptic saying the game is going to be basically the same for me as an LTS once the game goes f2p, I no longer believe it. This atrocious idea of adding gated dilithium to the game at all, much less for crafting, and requiring me to spend real world money to make items for my own alts or grind through weeks of mind-numbing dailies hardly qualifies as 'essentially the same' for me once we hit f2p.
Agreed, ive quit tribble for good as has most if not the entire fleet I belong too. We have like you read between the lines and are power levelling every toon we have in crafting, ships and gear so we dont get caught out.
I urge everyone else to do the same, its obvious they wont change anything or we would have had a backtrack by now.
Please dont say its the weekend and that all will be well come monday, this is crisis management from now on...
In the back of my head I wonder when you guys are going to pull the rug from under our feet again.
I also cannot bring myself to log back in to Tribble. However, it's not so that I can power level crafting or getting more toons to VA/LG and gearing them out. As much as I'd love to log in to EITHER shard, the changes and silence are just too depressing to make me want to do anything other than finally play through my huge backlog of single-player games, particularly with DXHR: Missing Link out and Arkham City releasing for PC next month.