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Do the devs actually want the KDF playerbase to grow?
captain4merica
Member Posts: 55 Arc User
If the answer is "yes", then why not provide incentives for playing KDF such as bonus dilithium from dailies, better loot drop rates, etc?
If the answer is "no", why do you think that is?
If the answer is "no", why do you think that is?
Post edited by captain4merica on
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On top of this, merging events into one hour like the starfleet and klingon acadamy events now share a timeslot instead of having a seperate one means more players spending time on one faction character rather than two.
Then add in the fact that fleet ships on the kdf are not as good as their Fed counterparts, the myriad of bugs that go on unfixed and the public decleration that Cryptic want to spend more time on the Federation faction because that is where the money is..... I could go on and on, but frankly Cryptic does not care for the KDF very much which is a shame.
But on the upside having more dedicated and experianced players on the KDF side means less new players to ruin pugs......
They have told us rather clearly that the small playerbase doesnt justify KDF exclusive content development. Regardless of what we want, that is simply their stance. So the only way we will actually get more KDF exclusive content is if the playerbase grows first.
I think the answer is "yes" if the cost and work are negligible or if the work and cost can be applied to things that all factions get.
I think the answer is "no" because the cost of improving the KDF, creating KDF exclusive content, would generate better returns elsewhere.
My last napkin math suggested a full leveling experience for KDF would cost around $4 million USD.
My last napkin math guesstimate session also suggests that their projected sales are built around an average of $1 USD spent per player per month. And stipends don't count towards that. (Stipends may count AGAINST that.) And only about 1 in 10 players actually spends money. So we're looking at a baseline of $10 per month for the people who do spend and more to offset the cost of the stipends that go out.
But just going with the $1 per player per month number, they'd need 330k new Klingons in the next year to justify it. Without losing any feds. When their current player total is probably hovering around 300k,, 48k of whom have a Klingon character.
For them to finish the Klingon faction, the investment would require Klingons becoming 60% of the game, without losing a single Fed player.
So, at this point, if they HAD the $4 million, as a straight up gift earmarked for STO development, they would be unwise to make more than 1 Klingon exclusive mission with it because that $4 million would always generate a better return when spent on Fed or faction neutral content. Always. No way around that.
Yes, they would see gains in the KDF if they used it to fix the KDF. But those gains would not be worth it compared to the gains they'd see if they spent it another way... and anybody who made the call to do that would be on the chopping block for blowing $4 million one way when spending it another way would generate more money.
Supposedly that mission was started back when they were in their "PW wants both factions to have equal content" phase shortly after PW bought Cryptic. So all they did was finish what they had already been working on. Since then they have changed their tune and told us that the KDF playerbase is too small to justify exclusive development resources.
While it is true that the content they have been releasing lately is playable by both factions, it is really just Fed content with some lame dialog changes for KDF players. None of the FEs really feel like Klingon missions, they feel like Fed missions. So while Fed players may not have technically gotten any Fed exclusive content in a while, they have still gotten plenty of content that feels more like Fed content than KDF content.
The following is my opinion. It is opinion only. You have been warned.
In short no.
The KDF side was released in a half measure. At the time, it was accepted policy at Cryptic to release broad content vs deep content.
I beleive they intended to "revisit" the KDF side to deepen it at a later date. They went with the "something is better than nothing" approach.
Due to management changes, focus reorientation, mandate reorganization or whatever the accepted term is these days, that didnt happen.
Now the favored response I hear from Cryptic devs when the KDF question pops up is "Well, we have more Federation players than KDF players so were choosing to focus on them first."
See what they did there? They just blamed you for the lack of KDF content.
In other words. "We gimped the KDF from the start, and you guys realized it... shame on you. Because you chose not to throw as much of your playing time on the limited content we released, we have decided that you must not have been very interested in it in the first place. It's you're own damn fault."
Like I said, this is just my opinion. I have nothing to back this up other than my own observations and intuition.
~ I don't want the world... I just want your half!
Adding to this, dialogue in Second Wave is unchanged, so you talk to S'taass as if you are a Fed which is ridiculous.
You also talk to Shon as if you weren't a Fed.
I did, it's not hard. My fed toon makes for great additional bank storage slots. Actually he's lvl24, still with a Cheyenne.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Maybe not, but my point of view is that most gamers who are new to the game will not want to abandon their half leveled avatar to make a new one in a different faction, especially if they makes friends or join a fleet on the Fed side.
I hate Shon and would gladly butcher him even as a Fed
from my point of view KDF is the best player race..
i wish they would mirror the KDF and make a romulan race.
It really depends on whether the "boring missions" are what you want the gear to play or whether you see the missions as being what stands in the way of you playing, doesn't it?
The KDF side is incredible. Everyone that plays it learns to love it, and it has a lot of character. I always loved the atmosphere that you get from being a KDF player. From the hustle and bustle of First City, to the awesome look of the Academy, there is a lot to love on our end.
But is the KDF attracting new players? I don't think so either. Sure once everyone gets bored leveling their Fed, they start a KDF (which is, admittedly, how I came to the KDF). But I also find it a bit strange that you have to unlock the KDF halfway through your leveling of a Starfleet toon. I haven't seen a game that's worked like that, well, ever before. I understand that since we start at level 20, you cant exactly start that way from scratch, but there has to be a better way.
And with the Starbases now implemented, the want to split the resources of a single player will be reduced. (I went TOTALLY KDF since starbases to prevent this from happening to myself.) But how many new players will make the same decision as me?
Long story short: the KDF needs an overhaul. I couldn't begin to tell the devs how to make this happen, but the problem is clear. And with such a rich, lore-filled culture as the Klingons, there is a lot of potential that they just aren't tapping into.
Maybe somebody in high places could invest 4000000$ into STO but ONLY if it were sent directly into KDF development?
Seriously though, other than giving them a paid assignment like that, I don't think we'll ever see finished KDF. Too bad, too, as I've been revisiting my character, Kihlass, quite a bit these days.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Now, if they could come up with something that would bring a flood of new players to STO, who all wanted to play KDF, I dare say they would do it. If it's just a matter of getting the people who play STO to live out their Starfleet fantasies to give the KDF a try, then they would probably just be throwing money down the drain.
Unless they can come up with something really awesome for the KDF faction (and come up with a reason for it being KDF only that the bulk of the player base would actually accept), it's just more practical, and cost effective, to focus their efforts on the Feds.
Once you get into the meeting, you are correct, but before then it is different.
So they may only have gone half way on that mission but they did go half way....
True at least they realised having KDF doing assignments for that Shon douche would've been too lazy.
No. KDF is just more fun.
It is still a different flavor, and you max out at 50 long before you run out of content even in the KDF, even if much of the content is shared with the Feds.
Last December a mission was put into the game. A simple mission, go to DS9 talk to a guy, thats all easy right. This mission was for both Feds and KDF. However if you were a KDF you couldnt complete said mission, it was bugged. In fact it told you to go to Qo'nos not DS9.
Said mission sat bugged for over a month without being fixed. Something this simple, this trivial bugged for a month. Why?
Something as simple as fixing the UI to be the correct color, still bugged. And for how long? Why?
Do they want the KDF to grow? I havent the slightest clue. what I do know is KDF problems are not Federation problems which means they are not player base problems.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
I have a content system I think is better than episodic missions or traditional MMO quests and cheaper to produce but I'm not casually handing it out, either.
It's not really all that different at endgame.
Honestly, I'm almost of the mind that they should just raise the starting KDF level to 50 and start billing other factions as Monster Play Plus.
As in, you can play FEs. You get environments. You get 10 or so missions. And you start at level 50, unlocked at level 50.
Because not having levels 1-20 blocks off people who want to think of themselves as a pure KDF player but STO will never satisfy that player.
But having to level 20-50 keeps away people who are super-casual and disinterested from investing in a KDF alt. And level 20 is further from the only content Cryptic will likely be developing, which is all level 50 content.
Most of the content is for LG anyway and that is as it should be in an MMO, since i don't play it for the single player missions.
there are enough ships with a lot of deversity. It's not balanced, but that has economic reasons...and i think making klingons a full faction wouldn't change that. Even if other argue against that...there are only so many people interested in playing a klingon in my opinion.
Thats the reason cryptic invests more into fed, because there's the money.
if you consider my thoughts, the answer to the OPs question is just there.
yes they want it to grow, but if it doesn't it's not a consern for cryptic since the content they generate is layed out by 80% or more for both factions anyway.
the ground to let the klingon playerbase grow is there, but there are just not so many people actually interested in playing a klingons. Not because to play a fed toon is better or more conveniant, but because most people who play this game don't care to have a klingon as a main. Sad but true.
or get 40,000 normal people to invest only $100 each into KDF only content? tho to make it so its not a single big gamble it could be 4 lots of $25 per person to ensure that its pro-KDF content (aka they keep up their side they get all of it in a gated approach, but would lose upto 75% of its not upto standards etc on the first checkpoint).
Tho not too sure on this idea as there are prob problems that I'm not noticing atm (half awake currently).
Also first time posting on here since the forum-change sillyness ?_?
Subbed since 8th February 2010