Hey devs, I was just wondering if you are going to slow the game down when F2P comes out. Basically, it would be nice if the ships, weapons, and gear that I get every level, should be of use for more than a day. Right now, it is way too fast. I think it should take much longer for you to progress thru the game. Even in Holodeck.
I know a problem might be if you simply lower XP in missions, this might not be a fix, because then people who exclusively play the story line missions to level, may be at end game missions at captain. But I would much rather this than them being VA in a week.
Right now lets be honest, being a VA doesnn't mean squat. Getting the ulitmate endgame toon is as easy as pie. Bottom line, most of us who are playing the game right now on tribble, has a VA on holodeck with end game gear, if not 4

So I can honestly say I would not look forward to trying to level a toon from scratch this way. (Because I have played the current content mutiple times.) But I for one will try to level a toon from scratch for the sole purpose of giving you my feed back about how fast I am leveling. I want it to be hard to make VA.
I have invested alot of my time and money in this game, and I don't want 10,000 new people coming into the game and getting to VA with endgame gear in a week. Honestly, I have not played other MMORPG's but I think it should be at least 3 months of casual play to make VA.
I know it would be a pain for us current people to make A NEW TOON. But we have to think of the whole picture my current subs. Do we want a bunch of people jumping in getting everything we have in a week? We are mad about the dilithium for crafting and what not, but don't we already have all the resources we already need? I hope the vast mojority of people who have been here a year or more would agree.
I realized after some thought today that we have already had a taste of you guys trying to slow down Item progression. And I have to admit, looking at it at this angle, I am sorry for some of the things I posted, and I agree alot more with what you are trying to do. Whats more, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT!

So basically after all of this rambling, what I want to know is this.
What are the plans if any are in place to slow down level progression? And if so, will we see it come to tribble so we can test it BEFORE it goes F2P?
After thought: I would like to say, I personally am looking forward and will welcome all the New Community members, I just don't think they should fly thru the game
Comments
Keep in mind that they do plan on slowing the game down. Unfortunately, it appears that they are doing so by injecting dilithium into a lot of places in the game, which (dilithium) is not plentiful currently.
IMO, they needed to wait until they released more content into the game before doing this, but that's neither her nor there now. Never mind I said that back in March when the F2P for STO buzz was starting. I'm just a nobody in the sea of many...
It's tragic.
Yeah. But unfortunately that won't stop people from becoming VA in a week, that will just make our gear actually worth something. I just want to see (or hear) about what Cryptic has in mind about slowing down just the level progression part of the game, while keeping the new people happy.
I know it will be hard for me to have an unbiased opinion if and when they roll out with the new level progression scheme. Cause it should take forever to level, and like I said, I know the content. But I wil try to look at it from the point of view of a person who has never seen the game before.
I know I lost sight of this POV on some aspects of my feedback. Like with the dilithium crafting. In the end, the IDEA of it, is for those of us that HAVE been here so long. Now as for the ship tokens, I am glad they brought them back for subs, and I like the way it is now.
We may have 1 to 6 or more VA's now, but if you think about it, some if not most have been here for 1 to 2 years! We deserve what we have. So we really want someone else to get the same in a month? What equipment and ships we already have has not changed, just how we will get future ones. Lets keep this in mind.
We have a New Cryptic. Things will and should be done in a new way. Change always happens, and usually for the better. Sometimes its hard
Yes, they said this is what they did.
But soon we will have to test the slowed down version, it seems blazeingly fast already to me. Maybe we are not talking the same thing.
This.
Right now they're actually taking the reason out of doing a lot of content, such as the exploration missions, meaning that if they slow you down to much, you end up with nothing but an exp grind session with no reward. Patrols, sector defenses,, and exploration missions have become all but worthless under the new dilithium system, as its currently implemented.
So slowing it down isn't the answer. There currently isn't enough storyline to level you to VA, the events and doff system are nice, but after a while of doing them again and again it'll get boring. Add in the STFs as they are currently implemented, and it becomes a grind after VA too.
So before they slow it down too much, they need to add in some real new content and not this grind. Unfortunately they probably won't, for a long long time, if not forever.
The leveling on tribble has been accelerated on pourpose for testing reasons. This has been said by a few devs. I expect the pace of the game to be similar to the holodeck. The speed on holodeck is fine, a casual player won't hit the cap for a few months.
My first toon took 6 months to hit the cap, and I was playing about an hour a day.
But if they just want to slow things down, and can't create more content on short notice, that might get them closer to what they want in "levelling speed".
And is it so bad if "endgame" is Captain 10, or Level 40? CO has only 40 levels. Captain is the rank everyone wants to be in Startrek.
Of course, that will never happen.
If it takes you a week to grind just to get it (on lower levels) you won't even have that much time to enjoy it before you no longer are on that Tier. This is why I say it needs to be slowed down. And I am not talking about how it is on tribble now. I mean how it is on holodeck now. Hopefully they have a bucnh of new content lined up so if they do slow it down, By the time you get up there, more content will have arrived.
Here's hoping
They're already slowing the game down too much. honestly this isn't going to solve anything. There are people out there who love to rush to end-gme. These people are always going to find the fastest path to end-game and then complain about the ease of getting there and the lack of end-game content. I took until my 600 day reward to level my first character to VA and I do NOT have a fully decked out ship yet. i know a lot of people have gone much faster than I have, but I believe the majority of the community is closer to my slow progress than the hurry up and wait group.
Hopefully Cryptic knows the stats and how many of the community have had too easy of a time leveling. If I'm in the minority, then things will slow way down, and I will end up finding the game too grindy to level any more characters. I just hope they don't slow the whole game to a crawl for a small percentage of the community who will always rush to the end regardless.
Hmm, I never thought about it like that. I assumed most people who have been around for 365+ days had at least 2 VA's. I could be wrong though.
I was going off of my own progress honestly. I actually compensated for the speed leveling I did do. I Actually have 5 VA's. 4 Fed. 1 Klink. I can say I honestly only hurried on 3 of those toons.
Here's why. I Love Star Trek. When I first got this game. And made my first toon. I played every single mission and read every single letter in those missions. I cannot rmember clearly, but I think it took me 3-4 months to hit VA. I did not get end level gear till I joined my fleet 2 months later. (Because some STF's were just to hard with pugs) I have been in my fleet ever since. After that 6 months, and I got my main VA Tac toon decked out, I made 2 more VA's. 1 Sci, 1 Eng. I did this specifically to run the STF's and have the versatility to be any of the 3. So because of this, the Sci, and Eng toons I made, I speed leveled. And I will tell you, I had both of them to VA with end level gear in about 1 month. (With fleet resources.)
Now the difference in my Tac toon and the 2 others is immediatly apparent when you open the mission journal. (Or look at their Diplomacy Rank) The only missions I have available for my Tac toon is STF's and Fleet Actions/PvP. For the other two, I have not done 1 patrol mission, not 1 nebulea has been scanned, and some main line missions have been skipped. I wish I could hide those missions. :rolleyes:
When I made my klink, I did it like my Tac. Every mission was new and I wanted to read it all. Not that it took long to do this, but leveling a klink back then was a slow painful process anyway. So when I said most of us have at least 1 VA with end level gear if not 4. You can see where I was coming from. I guess I could be wrong about that.
But the bottom line for me is IF you wanted to, you COULD level a toon to VA with end level gear in a week. And lets not talk about a "Q" weekend. I just thought that this should not be possible even if one wanted to do it. Becasue if we got 3/4 of our current population with at least 1 VA now. Say we have 10,000 peeps. That's 7,500 VA's and 2,500 leveling one. Now F2P we get 100,000 peeps. Then in a week 75,000 VA's. I don't think a VA will be very special then. Is it even now? That was just what I was thinking. I guess I could be wrong.
Needless to say your not meant to get to VA like this anyway, it removes the fun and challenge from the game.
On a different note, the XP boost is only for the testing phase (I know this has been mentioned), I much prefer the pace of the holodeck it's steady, not to slow and not to fast. Though I did reach VA in just over 67 days I did play continuously, sometimes from 12 in the afternoon to well after 4 in the morning (mainly because it was a dark period at work), but I think the overall consensus is that 100 days or just over is the required to hit VA.
And all this talk of dillithium how are people having so much trouble with it, are you doing the Doff missions alongside your other missions? I have 38,000 + dill just from doing the Doff and the occasional dill. giving missions.
Challenge?
Especially when they said that most players didn't even hit level 20...
Yes Challenge, you may not see one but some of the people out their will, I for one found at least one mission to be challenging, the doomsday machine especially.
I understand that but since you can just respawn and continue if killed it doesn't really matter if it takes 1 or 10 tries.
The place to start is removing the accelerated DOFF leveling XP.
I'd rather they not TRIBBLE up one of the things they got right just because of some mythical uber levelers
It's this way because they didn't do it "right" with new missions, promoting and supporting PvP, revamp exploration, rethink fleet actions ect, in order to slow progression down while maintaining an convenient leveling experience.
They took the cheap and easy way with just adding a massive grind (or paying rl cash) as additional barrier.
Based upon the following Quote from SS, I think you are correct, They did not do it right.
SS states that the changes are supposed to SLOW Down Rate, (Presumably, Ranking, unless I am mistaken here), Progression.
Ranking is Affected by XP or Skill Points Earned. These, and, these alone, Affect Rank, Not other Costs. The previous Badges, and Honors, and the Current Dilithium, Do No Affect Rank. Rank is Only Affected By Skill Points, or XP's? Where does Dilithium Affect that??
If they want to slow down ranking, then Change the Items that Affect Ranking, Not the Costs of getting the Equipment you need for that Rank you have reached.
Why would you want to do that?
For all the end game content STO has?
I guess it's your money, spend it like you want, but...
Just seems very explotive and with little reward to me.
I would Strongly agree with an XP cap on Foundry. Players would use it as an Exploit, which IMHO, it would be.
Leg 1: Ranking Slow Down! (Personally, I Agree Strongly with this idea being promoted)
Cut Back on the Skill Points Paid Out for Everything, and raise the Numbers of Points Needed to get there.
(Cryptic: Make It So)
Leg 2: (If I am viewing this leg correctly) is to Slow Down the Distribution of Blue and Purple Equipment into the hands of the Masses????, and also, I guess, those Tier 5 ships???
Thus the Imposition of the Dilithium Costs that have Raised the Roof lately on the forum.
Why Can't These Two Legs Walk Forward at the same time?
When I first came into this game, Ranking was really Fast, and it does not seem to have slowed down any since then. The only way I can see that Ranking can be slowed down, is to change the Points Process that control that Ranking. Reduce Pay Outs of Those Points Across the Board, and Raise the Numbers of points to be reached to get to that next rank. BLAM! Ranking Slowed Down as desired. Adding Dilithium Costs to everything will not slow down ranking.
With the current Dilithium Dilemma, Players who progress to the Ranks of VA, or Lt Gen can not obtain the ships and equipment that they need to play at their Rank Level. They then need to Grind for Weeks or Months to get what they need for the Rank They Reached. If Ranking was slowed down as suggested above, ( and as Cryptic seems to want it to be), then by the time players reach the Top Rank, they could have earned the necessary Dilithium along the way to obtain the equipment they need for the rank level they reach.
If it took me 6 to 12 months to get my VA or Lt Gen, I would not mind, BUT, Allow me the equipment, and the ship, due to my Rank I have Obtained. If I could get that level Tier 5 Ship at Rank, even if it is Outfitted with all White Gear, that would be fine. Then, as I wish, I could Work, or Grind for the better gear as I see fit.
Change the F2P server to reflect the proper Rank Progression Cryptic seems to desire instead of having those Points Numbers Inflated to current levels to speed things up. It still gives players a false hope of things to come, that won't then be there in the end.