So... I finally bother to get my primary char up to Lev50...
And find out that you actually have to purchase a ship with *real* money?
What the hkind of business model is this?
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies. ~Alecto
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This is what I don't get either. People will always claim that everything is fine because you can sell your dilithium, but it is ridiculous and tedious work to actually grind as much dilithium you need to afford one of the VA ships. And, the best part is as a paying subber you also have to do this kind of TRIBBLE. I'm not a hater on the game, though there is much wrong with it. But I cannot find a plausible excuse for defending the companies policy regarding that.
And people, honestly, don't bring the veteran reward thing. 700-Day-Veteran and you get your VA ship - you KNOW that this only is achieveable by headstarters and pre-order-life-timers, those people WHO ALREADY GOT THOSE SHIPS FOR FREE A BAZILLION TIMES BEFORE
It is as it is - the new ships are always your reward for leveling up. Reaching max level in STO is no reward any more since you do not get a new ship.
You can, however, log in on the 2nd of February, then they are going to give away the new Flagships in a nerfed version for free. Then you can have a Odyssey class or the Klingon equivalent without their special abilities for free, those are VA ships.
Instead of crying about this, why not help put food on the devs tables and buy that ship. Stop being needy.
So essentially, what you got of your levels are more skill points to distribute in your skills, a handful of new Captain powers and access to better gear and STF missions on the way. It's not like you came out empty-handed and what you have is still very viable.
Yes, when you reach rank 50 essentially the last tier of ships is unlocked and you have to purchase them.
BUt who cares? You are getting an AMAZING game for FREE when we all SHOULD be paying 15/mo and if not, at LEAST spending some money every few months in the c store is well worth the game free for the entire year.
ALSO, you dont have to spend one DIME. The main difference between the rank 40 and rank 50 ships are threefold
maybe 5000 hull points
1-2 extra console slots and 1(or none) bridge slots
1 extra weapon(or none)
I see HUNDREDS of players in their rank 40 starships and they jujst outfit them with rank 50 consoles and bridge officer abilities. Its not a big deal at all.
And if you need a rank 50 ship, spend the 5-10 bucks and youll be fine. For a FREE GAME that gives more to free players than ANY OTHER AAA F2p game in existence, no need to cry buddy.
So now decided.... either play and appreciate the game for what it DOES give you or LEAVE - posting comments about what you dont like is a whiny annoyance is IS NOT going to help the devs decide to give rank 50 players a free ship.
Good luck, regardless.
S!
-X
Well, on the bright side, if you play the game and do the special shakedown mission (on Febuary 2nd to Febuary 6th), you get a free Vice Admiral cruiser, the Odyssey-class! xD
No, this is the difference between the level 30 (captain t4) and the level 40/50 ships (RA/VA t5)
Level 50 ships are in the same tier as level 40 ships. They don't gain anything, but what they have is shuffled. The Galaxy retrofit has the same weapons as a level 40 cruiser. It moves one console slot and its ensign bridge slot to a different department, but it doesn't gain either. It has a special power, but must give up a console slot to use it.
This game don't cost you a dime to play, run missions and use the doff system to earn Dilithium and sell it for C store points. Sence January 5th early access, and playing in november to get the 80,000 tribble test rewards i've got half of what i need to buy a really nice endgame ship.
In response to this and everyone else having the free-game card played:
Seriously? Guys, it has been 3 weeks you can play the game for free. I don't think the OP has made it to VA in the last three weeks for free but he already paid a nice amount of money to play this game. Now, his efford is meaningless because he doesn't get what others got and paid for. You cannot play the "fantastic free game" card now, it doesn't work.
And of course those +1 ships are the VA reward, this is what I played the game for. Reaching max level and have a nice ship, this is the whole motivation behind the repetative gameplay.
I am pretty much in full agreement with you except in the case of the Gold Members who ARE still paying and not really getting much to write home about.
This needs to be resaid until people get it. They are all T5 ships.
Like so many others have posted. You have 50 levels to be collecting dilithium, or you can put a few bucks into an otherwise free game.
I really want to respond to the comment about these new ships on 2/2/2012. They are NOT nerfed. Like all other ships earned in-game they have their unique setup with their own strengths and weaknesses. The c-store ships are +1 ships with more power than you "need" for the game, that doesn't make the in-game ships nerfed.
The Excelsior, the Dreadnought, the Garumba and the MVAE are 5.5 ships though.
I work that day (16 hours) - nice timing.
It starts Thursday and runs for 4 days.
If you consider a different BOFF layout as a .5 then Jem'hadar Attack ship is T6 as will be Odyssey and Bortas. I have all the ships you listed but fly only MVAE at the moment and NOT because of the console.
Why do I pay? Because I want to have the best of everything this fine game can give me and my kids. In addition I also give them C Store points when they want something and I am not rich, it's my hobby and I love it.
Now, as Gold members I know I can stop paying and go F2P and none of us will lose anything we gained so far. So what do I now pay for? I pay because I want to support the game, I want to see Cryptic be a profitable company and make this the best possible Star Trek game on the planet and THE only choice for ST fans and a fine one for any fan of MMOs.
So don't come on here whinning to me and the other lifers and sub payers that you may have to pay less than a packet of ciggies to get the best ship. Hell if you grind enough Dilithium you can even get those for free.
No you won't get much sympathy on this forum with an opening post like that. I suggest you see if you can get the same from another MMO, of course it won't be Star Trek though.
I am an F2P n00b, playing since the 18th. I am level 30, and that's with a full time job, wife and kids. If I had no job/life/family I could get to level 50 from zero in a week.
That said, even if this guy was pay2play, don't they get a c-point stipend in addition to the dilithium exchange? Too much QQ. I sprang for c-points to get better ships for T1 & 2, and honestly I don't think it was even worth it. The "free" ships are level appropriate, and the others are right that the T5s have barely anything over the T4s anyway.
The Jem'Hadar ship is at least T5.5, yes.
Getting 8,000 a day is easy. Barely takes an hour.
So here's the rough math:
8,000 Dilithum divided by 250 (average selling price for 1 C point) = 32.
Average days in one month = 30.
30 x 32 = 960 Cryptic points per month, or 1,360 per month if you have a gold membership.
That's not too bad at all. Keep in mind that the game is free to play, but still depends on people buying from the store. When the community grows and is much larger, perhaps offering a free token even for silver members will be viable, but for now since the community is not as big as I would care for... well, just give it time.
It's not like the retrofit models are THAT much better than the RA ships either. Yes, they are strong, but I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here.
did you not realy expect to pay for dreadnaught or Quads with special ablities and it be free
just wait till next week get the free big E or Bortas
what MMO's are doing free to a point then if you want to get good stuff time to break out and pay
don't feel so bad when we tested we had to buy ships twice
They should be giving at least 1 free ship to players who do reach VA and after that I agree you gotta buy your own.
So you people need to stop hating on the OP and place yourself in his shoes for once.
My advice for you is you better make sure to get the Federation Flagship " Odyssey Class " and do the mission for that. It will be free on the Feb 2 until Fen 6. Best advice I can give you.
Oh, yes, and you can earn roughly 14000 Dilithium a month, as another poster calculated.
This is bullcrap. Yes, you CAN do everything in one day and you can do anything with dilithium but this is not what a GAME should be about. When I start to "farm" Dilithium, I get bored brutally when I hit the 4k and knock it off. This is not what I play STO for. If so many people consider it fun to grind stupidly for purple crystals or sit in front of the game for 52 hours straight and hit VA it's fine, but this can't be what we expect from a game?
I play at a slower pace to have fun, I pay monthly for that as well. But then I, just like the OP, got "ripped" of my VA ship because I was too slow and not speeding through the game. This was a huge disappointment for me, too. And now I can pay monthly but still don't get anything out of it, I have to do the same stupid grinding f2p players have to and people always playing the "ITS A SUPER COOL FREE GAME DUDE" card, but it's not free, I paid for it, I paid gladly for it because I wanted to, but now I pay and don't get a "reward" for finally reaching the max level in this game. And if it shall be so then, okay, I enjoy a "super cool free game" and don't pay my sub anymore. It's as simple as that.
I'm not hating on Cryptic, but I just cannot take those calculations and the free game argument anymore.