With the closure of the
previous thread (which reached 7 pages) due to flaming, I am recreating this thread to hopefully have some constructive discussion and criticism on this issue.
The problem
With the 2 February patch, a new button was added under the minimap that links to the dilithium store. (Which Fed side, has issues such as no Antiproton weaponry) In order to keep the format of having 4 buttons under the minimap, the PvE queue button was removed and placed under the "more" dropdown. The Doff button was moved one space to the right.
Why is this bad?
It's not necessarily bad per se, but it puts the PvE queue button in a place where new players may not immediatly find it. With the importance of STFs in the current STO, this seems counterproductive. Furthermore, the new dilithium store button is very unattractive with it's ugly purple icon slapped on it.
Before this button was added, all of the queues were easily accessible on the UI, and everything looked, in my humble opinion, tidy and logical. This is no longer the case, with one queue button being tucked away.
Other players have commented that the ability to buy dilithium items everywhere will lead to less players visiting the social zones. Since STO isn't an MMO where you often see other Captains, this can't be the intended purpose of the store. After all, the devs added higher population caps on social instances because people felt the zones were "too empty".
One final comment is that the more dropdown menu already houses the dilithium exchange. Why can't the dilithium store be brought under that window? As an added bonus, it would let players open the dilithium exchange more often, something Cryptic is already trying to do by adding "Buy Dilithium" buttons everywhere.
Possible solutions
A few solutions have been proposed by the players:
1) Creating a dropdown menu for both the C-point store and the dilithium store, and then bringing the PvE button back to its original position. Forum user Forjo made a mock-up for this idea:
Click to see image.
2) Bringing back the original button layout. Bringing the Dilithium store under the Dilithium exchange window. This leads to only one menu option leading to all the functions of dilithium, and would potentially help Cryptic as well, by exposing the players to the Dilithium exchange more.
3) Removing the dilithium store button altogether, making sure players keep visiting the various social zones.
Please leave your feedback, be constructive, be kind!
Comments
Perhaps just have a "C" for the C-Store and a pink crystal for Dilithium Store, and put them at the end of the tab line not the beginning (they are rarely frequented in-game, so this makes practical sense). Would also use up far less space. Currently those two tabs, never used by me take up half the tab line.
I do not need the d-store. I get everything I want from the vendors at DS9 after playing a couple of STFs, and now that the Elite STFs have been nerfed to noob levels, it's now just as easy to get elite gear as it is to get normal gear. Why shove the dilithium store in our faces and make it annoying to access something we click at least a few dozen times a day?
I saw this solution in another thread and agree with it: Have both buttons up, but tomake them fit just have the d-store show only the pink icon, without text. It still catches the attention of the viewer without shoving out a feature that players use constantly.
There are several other odd things about that section of the GUI, honestly, but replacing the PVE with the d-store is just plain silly.
Please Cryptic give us the PVE button back, and make the Store a single button for both C-Store and D-Store.
I will never use the button but not because i dont like it because i am a lifer been here so long I have what I need and it is a very tiny minor annoyance .