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Policy Proposal: Lockbox Ships Should be Available Through C-Store to Subscribers

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  • gradstudent1gradstudent1 Member Posts: 633 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    The Korrath is a Science ship, why would it get dual cannons? Or a cloak for that matter?





    And the players who spend the same on the Wells or Mobius should get a lesser ship for what reason?

    What would you suggest they get in addition to keep the ships balanced vs. each other?

    Or is it that you do not think they should be balanced, and that the KDF should get a version that is clearly superior?

    In terms of the cannons question on a science ship, it will be interesting to see if the Vesta, which according to the books as I understand them, has cannons.

    I understand the problem with cannons on a science ship, however. The potential for it to be OP is very real.
  • bitemepwebitemepwe Member Posts: 6,760 Arc User
    edited September 2012

    What strikes me the most is that when two sets of ships are given to both factions and the ships in their respective categories are pound for pound dead equal - that this is not enough and people still feel the KDF isn't being given it's due.

    At least that's the feeling I get from threads like this.


    You mean this thread that started out asking for nothing KDF oriented and merely pushed the idea that possibly lockbox ships could become a Cstore perk for subscribers?

    Or where it was derailed from that topic concerning the KDF ships lack of Cloaking?

    As far as I can tell no one has bitched about anything.

    I found it odd that the KDF ships didn't have a cloaking option (considering its a factional feature they've long had) and even submitted that I would have no issue with whatever the Devs do to offset such an advantage (especially since cloaking doesn't carry much of a handicap it seems)

    Someone else asked about cannons and why they seem left off the KDF designs.

    SO maybe your own bias is giving you the mpression this is a KDF ***** threads?

    edit: Ok patrickngo has complained. Up until then this was a mild mannered thread.
    Leonard Nimoy, Spock.....:(

    R.I.P
  • nephilim83nephilim83 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    How about this: Along with the stipend of 500 zen, subscribers also get a stipend of 10million EC. That's not a lot of EC in the grand scheme of things, but it would make it easier for subscribers to save up and buy the ships they want directly from the exchange. Honestly, anyone subscribing to a F2P game should get a good bit more than what Cryptic is offering so far (all those bank and inventory slots sure are nice, though).
  • majesticmsfcmajesticmsfc Member Posts: 1,401 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    nephilim83 wrote: »
    How about this: Along with the stipend of 500 zen, subscribers also get a stipend of 10million EC. That's not a lot of EC in the grand scheme of things, but it would make it easier for subscribers to save up and buy the ships they want directly from the exchange. Honestly, anyone subscribing to a F2P game should get a good bit more than what Cryptic is offering so far (all those bank and inventory slots sure are nice, though).

    Nice idea, but 10 Million as you say is really nothing. Problem with providing EC is that it would alter the economy in the game, to a point that a lot of items would become inaccessible to F2P players.

    Perhaps give players a requestion form every 3 months, to be able to get a Lock Box ship. A one off, character only ship. Is an account requestion forum but can only be used on a single character, once used no other character on the account can use it.

    Perhaps they could add it to the Vet reward, where 100 Day, 300 day, 600 day and 900 day subscribers get the requestion form. Would certainly encourage more subscriptions I think.
    Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
  • scurry5scurry5 Member Posts: 1,554 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Hmmm, what would happen if they made it into a fleet project?

    One where you dump in huge numbers of lockboxes plus a bunch of keys, giving you a couple of lockbox ship requisitions.

    There might be some abuses with fleet leaders grabbing them first, so maybe a huge amount of fleet credits plus fleet ship modules would do the trick? Or, put in a system to randomly allocate them to fleet members who are able to afford it.
  • mbomberdavidmbomberdavid Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    aveldra wrote: »
    ^^^this, but I don't completely blame Cryptic for all of this, I blame the people that keep buying the lockbox keys. They're the real problem.

    If you think supporting the game is a problem, then guilty as charged. I went lifetime about two weeks after i got the game. The next week i made a second account and went lifetime from the start. That was nearly 2 years ago so unless we lifers actually buy zen we are no longer contributing revenue to the game. Thus i spend liberally on zen and once you have maxed out your account with every ship you want, every bank slot, every doff spot, etc... There really is not much else to spend zen on other than lock boxes. Since you can only fly one ship at a time i give away many of the ships i get - i can confirm they are rare drops. It is funny though, you can get 2-3 in 5 minutes sometimes and spend $600.00 and get nothing. The lessor rewards make good gifts and i drop them in the fleet bank or at a low price on the exchange. (I dont do this much as it seems some player will scoop them up cheep likely wanting to put them back on the exchange for a higher price)
    The people that work on this game are like the rest of us, bills to pay and life to live; non paying players do not add money to the game, at least not directly. Thus, some of us that are able need to do more so that the rest can play for free or cheap...
  • mbomberdavidmbomberdavid Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    bitemepwe wrote: »
    Paying $200 to $250 for a virtual product that has absolutely no value outside of this game is fr2cking stupid.


    Am i fr2cking stupid? Possibly, but it is in my mind an entertainment expense. If you go out to eat, drink, watch a film, enjoy smoking, visiting strip clubs, world travle etc... that is all money spent. I guess we all have our vices.
  • majesticmsfcmajesticmsfc Member Posts: 1,401 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    scurry5 wrote: »
    Hmmm, what would happen if they made it into a fleet project?

    One where you dump in huge numbers of lockboxes plus a bunch of keys, giving you a couple of lockbox ship requisitions.

    There might be some abuses with fleet leaders grabbing them first, so maybe a huge amount of fleet credits plus fleet ship modules would do the trick? Or, put in a system to randomly allocate them to fleet members who are able to afford it.

    The idea is to make subscriptions more worth while as well as helping to keep them rare. Hence why I altered my original idea with the vet reward requestion idea.

    A fleet project, any tom, richard and harry could get them and then who would play the lock box lottery. At least combine them with the vet rewards, Cryptic might get more subscriptions and lifetime members.
    Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
  • scurry5scurry5 Member Posts: 1,554 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    The idea is to make subscriptions more worth while as well as helping to keep them rare. Hence why I altered my original idea with the vet reward requestion idea.

    A fleet project, any tom, richard and harry could get them and then who would play the lock box lottery. At least combine them with the vet rewards, Cryptic might get more subscriptions and lifetime members.

    I see your point. However, with the number of people I see around with vet rewards active, it doesn't exactly seem like it would make the lockbox ships rare. Maybe a pretty high-level, like the 1000-day one or so would do the trick.
  • bitemepwebitemepwe Member Posts: 6,760 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    scurry5 wrote: »
    I see your point. However, with the number of people I see around with vet rewards active, it doesn't exactly seem like it would make the lockbox ships rare. Maybe a pretty high-level, like the 1000-day one or so would do the trick.

    The lock box ships are not rare now. The only ones that can be even called rare are the Time ships, and only becuase the boxes just started being opened. Give it a week or two and they too will be uncommon but plentiful through out STO like all the rest.
    Leonard Nimoy, Spock.....:(

    R.I.P
  • scurry5scurry5 Member Posts: 1,554 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    bitemepwe wrote: »
    The lock box ships are not rare now. The only ones that can be even called rare are the Time ships, and only becuase the boxes just started being opened. Give it a week or two and they too will be uncommon but plentiful through out STO like all the rest.

    Yeah, I guess that's true. It kinda makes you wonder what Cryptic's definition of 'rare' is. 1% of player base? 0.5%? It's difficult to see where they're going with that, or even if CBS's limitations are still in place.

    Either that, or this is the most profitable model they can find.
  • bitemepwebitemepwe Member Posts: 6,760 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    scurry5 wrote: »
    Yeah, I guess that's true. It kinda makes you wonder what Cryptic's definition of 'rare' is. 1% of player base? 0.5%? It's difficult to see where they're going with that, or even if CBS's limitations are still in place.

    Either that, or this is the most profitable model they can find.

    If the 1% of the playerbase has even a single LockBox ship then STO is being played by far more people than anyone has ever imagined and we have been shafted on the whole, " but but Cryptic hasn't the resources.." excuses given in the past on why anything failed to make it into game becuase there are a lot of LockBox ships in the game.
    Leonard Nimoy, Spock.....:(

    R.I.P
  • phyrexianherophyrexianhero Member Posts: 768 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Thank you for bringing this perspective. I did not realize that this was the case. Did you hear this in an interview? Thanks again.

    I heard it in an interview (with Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera) but it's been repeated many times, such as the latest Lock Box FAQ:
    Q: Why does this ship work differently from others in the game?
    A: We are using the Lock Box to release starships that normally could not be put into the game or the C-Store because it would not be IP appropriate to have them widely available. Rather than simply not have them in the game, we are using this alternate way to make something special available to the player base.
    bullcrap. thats just bureaucratise for 'we can release crappy cstore ships from now on and make the real good ones be our amazing cash making lockbox gambling scam!'

    Note I said that was Cryptic's position, not mine.
    notapwefan wrote: »
    They were intended to be rare but...are they that rare? :D

    People that play frequently and in heavy volume are atypical. Play enough and you see the same people over and over again. If you looked at 1000 accounts, I doubt you'd see 5% of them with these lock box ships on their characters. However, look at 200 STF runs with the 5 ships the players bring and I'd expect you'd see something greater than that rate.
    They also said they were going to be not faction specific, as in Faction Neutral like the Galor, D'Kora and Jem'Hadar Attack ship. Now we get the Wells and Korath. Another promise broken, gone back on?

    I think their entire stance on this whole rare and faction neutral ship thing they claimed is a load of bull. I think a lot of stuff they told us that CBS won't let them do is more their way to restrict things and make more money off.

    Yes, I brought up this point earlier. Also offering lock boxes with a guaranteed amount of Lobi crystals and selling ships for a fixed amount of Lobi crystals is essentially offering it for a maximum price.
    Playing since January 2010. STOwiki administrator. Accolade hunter.
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  • bitemepwebitemepwe Member Posts: 6,760 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    People that play frequently and in heavy volume are atypical. Play enough and you see the same people over and over again. If you looked at 1000 accounts, I doubt you'd see 5% of them with these lock box ships on their characters. However, look at 200 STF runs with the 5 ships the players bring and I'd expect you'd see something greater than that rate.


    I do think that is the case for STO.
    I see many different and new players all the time in Ker'rat and PvP in general with lockbox ships I have never see before.
    I feel they are not as rare as many have been led to believe and more people spend hours playing STO than we may have previuosly thought.
    Leonard Nimoy, Spock.....:(

    R.I.P
  • edited September 2012
    This content has been removed.
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    bitemepwe wrote: »
    Or where it was derailed from that topic concerning the KDF ships lack of Cloaking?
    That would be a good point sure.
    bitemepwe wrote: »
    I found it odd that the KDF ships didn't have a cloaking option (considering its a factional feature they've long had) and even submitted that I would have no issue with whatever the Devs do to offset such an advantage (especially since cloaking doesn't carry much of a handicap it seems)

    Someone else asked about cannons and why they seem left off the KDF designs.

    I found some canon, not that this will dissuade people from thinking that functionally identical cross faction ship designs should favor one faction with Dual Cannons on a Sci ship that has Sensor Analysis and a Cloaking Device on both.

    It's always interesting to find a bit of supporting canon, eve though this game is really it's own monster. (This isn't aimed specifically at you, the insistence that the KDF versions deserve cannons and or cloaks at no loss of hull/shields or no special advantage added to the Fed ships can be found posted in multiple sub-forums).


    In at least one version of the 26th century, the Klingon Empire and races such as the Ithenites, and Xindi, joined the Federation. In the 2550s of this timeline, the Federation proved instrumental in halting an invasion of the galaxy by a power known as the Sphere Builders. This action caused the Sphere Builders to try to stop the Federation from ever being formed by manipulating the Xindi into attempting to destroy Earth in 2153. (ENT: "Azati Prime") By the timeline's 31st century, the Federation had become embroiled in the Temporal Cold War, attempting to maintain the integrity and outcome of its subjective history.


    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets


    Welcome, comrade.

    bitemepwe wrote: »
    SO maybe your own bias is giving you the mpression this is a KDF ***** threads?

    You've used that phrase twice in one post, now find the post in this thread where I used that word.


    bitemepwe wrote: »
    The lock box ships are not rare now. The only ones that can be even called rare are the Time ships, and only becuase the boxes just started being opened. Give it a week or two and they too will be uncommon but plentiful through out STO like all the rest.


    If they were not relatively rare, and just uncommon we wouldn't see threads like these where people basically just want these massive money makers to be in the c-store where they would make drastically less money.

    At which point we'd also see them all over the place.
  • jnohdjnohd Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Dumb question - would you pay 7000 Zen for a Timeship? Indirectly, that's what they were going for this morning, technically. About 5500 for the Mirror.

    If they ever account bind keys, they will be in for a rude awakening as to the real state of this game...
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  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    jnohd wrote: »
    Dumb question - would you pay 7000 Zen for a Timeship? Indirectly, that's what they were going for this morning, technically. About 5500 for the Mirror.

    No, they're going for more than that. They're always going for more than what they are listed on the exchange.

    Let's say you spend enough zen on keys to sell on the exchange for ECs to buy a Time Sci or Destroyer - there is another player who spent X amount of keys to open boxes or gather lobi to put that ship on the exchange.


    The exchange prices drop due to supply and undercutting, and because there is no listing fee on the exchange which allows for some (pretty hysterically dumb) price wars - the actual % of ships unlocked never changes, nor does the number of keys purchased on average across the entire population of the game.
  • dwapookdwapook Member Posts: 43 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    It'd be awesome if there was a special vendor in the Captain's Table offering lockbox ships and other lockbox items for lobi crystals.. Players would still need to buy the lockboxes for the lobi, but the extra guarantee might help drive sales..
  • majesticmsfcmajesticmsfc Member Posts: 1,401 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    jnohd wrote: »
    If they ever account bind keys, they will be in for a rude awakening as to the real state of this game...

    Ha that would be awesome, might make them (Cryptic/PWE) wake up a bit. I know a lot of subscribers use their Stipend to buy keys to make EC for Purple Quality MkXII items for their characters. A lot of F2P players buy their keys off the exchange by selling their STF loot etc.
    Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
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