I already spent so much time of grinding (STF's for dilithium, Fleet events for Fleet Marks and and the Doff subsystem for anothers DOFFS') that I haven't even played all the Story missions. Or some of the better and longer Foundry missions -.-
Funny thing is, I started STO to get my StarTrek fix from to these missions ...
So... less grinding from me and more playing. I will stop caring about the starbases with it useless weapons, consoles etc and give my dilithium as a tip to the foundry designers ;-)
So how much for a random purple in the future ? 5 x 5000 ? Or 158 zen, more than the price of a lockbox key, who taught these people math
All this means to me is having to finish up getting purples for fabrication and finishing colonization prior to s.7
And then it's goodbye doff'ing - especially if my only income of dil, stf, is going too
I think it could also be a move to slow you fleet disciples down so they have more time to work on fleet projects, it could easily be you people surprised them with far too rapid progress...
they FAILED at creating a good Dilithium Economy in the game
there are
- a few super easy missions that reward LOTS of dilithium that hardly can be considered PLAYING, even one that can is a clear EXPLOIT, and they have not fixed that one in ages.
HUGE PAYOUT, NO TIME SPEND
- lots of actual mission content (story or not) that does NOT reward any amount of dilithium at all, turning the "TIME BASED CURRENCY" into ...something that isn't time based at all.
TIME SPEND, NO PAYOUT
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
in fact they even added a daily timer after the fact to Kerrat, (instead of fixing the game wide AFK for DIL problem)
also artificially limiting matches played in each system that runs on a daily timer (because queue wait times are not long enough on their own... *sigh*)
- increasing / adding random cost on existing things that were formerly free or cheap for a gameplay reason
- not adding Dilithium rewards to ANY new mission-Content but odd Marks for external grind systems that even require Dilithium to progress.
Cryptic did not build a logical dil for time economy to begin with, and now they add cost and remove value randomly as they see fit without any kind of grand design behind it at all. Their stats and data mining tells them players play X to get their dilithium, or Y is in high demand so they remove value or add cost by that.
THIS WILL NOT WORK!
Cryptic gave me a goal, 8000 Dilithium per character per day.
That is the #1 reason i'm playing STO now.
They trained me (and every other dilithium farmer out there) to do so by their greedy prices on everything.
If Dilithium gets removed from STFs, i will no longer play STFs but get my Dilithium from somewhere else.
Simple as that.
It will have no impact on my daily 8000, it will only have a negative impact on the STF communities that wont see me around playing that content anymore (unless there are some real new epic rewards in the Rep System, have seen nothing good by now though, the Borg Set certainly won't make me play it again and i already got all 3 ground XII sets).
The weird thing for me is, everytime i start to enjoy SOMETHING in STO, Cryptic does something to make me not want to play it anymore.
The DOff System pretty much died when Heretic left and is only on Life Support now and is fully hooked up with the Monetization (the only cool new DOffs we get are from LockBoxes now... or random Active Roster Wizzards for Zen, and when was the last set of DOff Assignments added? The last Chain?... right just about when Heretic left.)
And now after Gozer left, the STFs are going to be frakked around with.
so... with a frakked up in-game economy that did not work out at all for me (i'm sitting on 10000+ Zen now, so getting the stuff is NOT the problem, all the above is!)
no Story Mission progression in MONTHS
a FAILED attempt at weekly Story Content with the Featured Episodes
and only one grind system after another...
WHY am i still playing this?
The only answer i have is... because there is nothing else out there that draws my attention (well i'm playing more Battlefield 3 these last few weeks, but i can't play that all day long) and i still like the Star Trek Themepark AND have invested too much to just rage quit about a single thing that annoys me... but i slowly see it getting to the point where there is nothing left for me in this game to care about and i still hope for something good.
I feel treated by Cryptic like a Cr*ckwh*re that just wants the next fix from the Drug Dealer.
they FAILED at creating a good Dilithium Economy in the game
there are
- a few super easy missions that reward LOTS of dilithium that hardly can be considered PLAYING, even one that can is a clear EXPLOIT, and they have not fixed that one in ages.
HUGE PAYOUT, NO TIME SPEND
- lots of actual mission content (story or not) that does NOT reward any amount of dilithium at all, turning the "TIME BASED CURRENCY" into ...something that isn't time based at all.
TIME SPEND, NO PAYOUT
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
in fact they even added a daily timer after the fact to Kerrat, (instead of fixing the game wide AFK for DIL problem)
also artificially limiting matches played in each system that runs on a daily timer (because queue wait times are not long enough on their own... *sigh*)
- increasing / adding random cost on existing things that were formerly free or cheap for a gameplay reason
- not adding Dilithium rewards to ANY new mission-Content but odd Marks for external grind systems that even require Dilithium to progress.
Cryptic did not build a logical dil for time economy to begin with, and now they add cost and remove value randomly as they see fit without any kind of grand design behind it at all. Their stats and data mining tells them players play X to get their dilithium, or Y is in high demand so they remove value or add cost by that.
THIS WILL NOT WORK!
Cryptic gave me a goal, 8000 Dilithium per character per day.
That is the #1 reason i'm playing STO now.
They trained me (and every other dilithium farmer out there) to do so by their greedy prices on everything.
If Dilithium gets removed from STFs, i will no longer play STFs but get my Dilithium from somewhere else.
Simple as that.
It will have no impact on my daily 8000, it will only have a negative impact on the STF communities that wont see me around playing that content anymore (unless there are some real new epic rewards in the Rep System, have seen nothing good by now though, the Borg Set certainly won't make me play it again and i already got all 3 ground XII sets).
The weird thing for me is, everytime i start to enjoy SOMETHING in STO, Cryptic does something to make me not want to play it anymore.
The DOff System pretty much died when Heretic left and is only on Life Support now and is fully hooked up with the Monetization (the only cool new DOffs we get are from LockBoxes now... or random Active Roster Wizzards for Zen, and when was the last set of DOff Assignments added? The last Chain?... right just about when Heretic left.)
And now after Gozer left, the STFs are going to be frakked around with.
so... with a frakked up in-game economy that did not work out at all for me (i'm sitting on 10000+ Zen now, so getting the stuff is NOT the problem, all the above is!)
no Story Mission progression in MONTHS
a FAILED attempt at weekly Story Content with the Featured Episodes
and only one grind system after another...
WHY am i still playing this?
The only answer i have is... because there is nothing else out there that draws my attention (well i'm playing more Battlefield 3 these last few weeks, but i can't play that all day long) and i still like the Star Trek Themepark AND have invested too much to just rage quit about a single thing that annoys me... but i slowly see it getting to the point where there is nothing left for me in this game to care about and i still hope for something good.
I feel treated by Cryptic like a Cr*ckwh*re that just wants the next fix from the Drug Dealer.
Yes... i think that about sums it up.
Even without mentioning the lack of pvp incentives, this about sums it up.
This whole currency conversion is a scam, as was the first conversion. this is literally the worst kind of Pay2Play i have seen in any game.
I got a serious hunch (with the dili tax on Fleet gear) that we are going to end up paying out more.
I take that one for granted. The question is just how much more, and what ridonkulous exchange rate is there going to be for all the gear that is already in our inventories/banks.
You know time based currencie, apparently S1 - S6 time is a lot less valuable then S7 time, indeed S8 time will be a lot more valuable....
i know some people think that they don't bother to listen to the players - well many times my threads are visited by Dev's so they do.
Of course the Dev's are just doing their job and probably don't have a lot of say - I would much prefer to hear from Mr Stahl himself.
Don't beat Brandon over the head - he was first and formost always a player before going to work there - I am sure that he is just as concerned as we are about things and will keep this feedback going to where it has to.
So keep letting them know how you feel about the state of the game.
And Brandon, if you can shed any more light on proposed changes - true or false it would certainly help. Remember they are just "proposed" so I don't see harm in letting us know.
As much as I understand the need to monetize some aspects of the game I honestly believe Cryptic's doing it wrong and is in fact ruining the whole game.
Since it was announced that Perfect World is buying Cryptic there has been numerous concerns that the whole game is going to be "asian-ised", with pay to play elements and horrendous grind. "This isn't the case", we were assured, and true, the F2P model was quite good and most of the things were achieveable for an average player.
But now it's all chaning for the worse, and the game is becoming one endless grind. I don't even see the point of repeating what's already been said. Players are not rewarded properly for their game time, and are often forced to repeat the same ridiculously EASY missions over and over in order to gain some laughably low rewards. On top of that, we're constantly being thrown more and more so called "goals to achieve", which ended up being nothing more than yet another currency sink (starbases, special projects, lotteries, lobi store, personal advancement system and so on).
Still, in all honesty, the thing that annoys me the most is that there were some great ideas introduced in recent seasons. New missions, even the grindy ones, were a nice alternative to the ones already present in the game. With a good team, they were fun and enjoyable. But that's the point - they're not alternative. They're grindy. They're too easy. And in addition, each mission now is going to reward a different thing. For Romulan Marks go do Romulan missions. For Omega Marks go run STFs. For Fleet Marks go do Fleet missions. For doffs go do doff missions in different instances. Want dilithium? Go do completely different missions like the STF... oh wait, no, those are no longer going to reward dilithium... and are now extremely easy... yeah... Great job Cryptic...
I'll say this - Cryptic has become a way too greedy Ferengi. The problem with this is that even though they may have noted increased revenue in past months, they still want to try and squeeze even more money off their player base. They forget that instead of paying the players may simply feel discouraged and drop the game completely. There's simply a limit to how much devoted players can accept, and I belive Cryptic is close to crossing the line.
I'm going to start out with just a few topics for my long response
First and Foremost. THE BORG SET: The Borg Set wasn't totally introduced till at least two weeks after season 3 started. Myself as well as other SUBSCRIBERS worked our asses off day in and day out to get those set pieces and whatnot. some people base their entire ship around those ship parts or their entire PVP build. NERFING THEM WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA. A lot of us worked our asses off back when STF's were 2+ Hour Planned Missions. Now we're getting the **** end of the stick because of this nerf with more TRIBBLE from the Omega Store and Reputation System. Make your own new set with the Reputation System. Don't frack us over in the long run. if this is right and a so called PVP fleet is to blame for this nerf I am out of here.
Dilithium: I fracking hope that the rumor that Dilithium is no longer being rewarded from STF's is false because without Dilithium in STF's I have no reason to get Dilithium. I know the person who is responsible for the Dilithium Economy is on Medical leave but DON'T TRIBBLE IT OVER JUST BECAUSE HE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.
Duty Officer System: Yeah there hasn't been many Duty Officer missions since Heretic left and this upsets me. We don't even know who is handling the Doff system now and I doubt with all the cryptic silence we never will. I'm almost feeling like PWE is putting a gun to your head unless there is a new blog every tuesday saying "NEW AND EXCITING THING!!!". Also I hope the rumor that the free duty officer packs every week from SFA. KDFA are no longer availble are false. thats one of the only ways to get duty officers lately. Don't TRIBBLE your people over. Again.
PVP: I can't even express how little love PVP is getting. Back when Cloaked Intentions came out we were promised a map or anything just to keep our blood flowing and that has not came. We just want new maps. New stuff. Hell even PVP Space and Ground sets would be nice. Frack why don't you just make ANOTHER PVP currency again. Marks Of Honor anyone? Give PVP love and more and more people will start PVPing and fighting each other.
Grind: I'm not against a little grind here and there but some parts are getting reticulated and aren't rewarding people right. In Vice Admiral PVP you should at least get 50k Energy Credits a match. Once done with 3 matchs of PVP you should at least get 3K Dilithium. Once done Foundry Missions you should get 3k Dilithium. 1K Diltihium is good for Elite STF's. 500 Dilithium for Normal STF's. Fleet marks need to be regulated and calculated again. Keep Fleet Marks in Officer Reports. Keep it somewhat grindy but not INSANELY grindy.
Money: A lot of people surprisingly still pay 15$ a month just to get all the goodies in this game. I'm pretty sure the number is well over 100K 15 monther subscribers. Money-tizing is good to a certain limit and PWE is really really damn close to crossing that line and pissing a lot of people off and making them leave. I think maybe Upping the Monthly Stipend to 1000 would be a very wise choice.
Storyline Content: Yeah Season 7 is said to be all about that but I HIGHLY doubt it will get the KDF up to Federation Standards. What happaned to "Two Factions, Full PVE conent, Full PVP content" that was uttered back in 200-8-9? Keep the story coming. even if you need to make KDF Content Pritority one. Which in some cases will make a lot of people happy. Hell put in Other Currency Rewards in Storyline Content. You do a Romulan Mission you get Romulan Marks. you do a borg related mission you get Omega Marks. SO ON AND SO FORTH. You do ANY mission in a team and you get Fleet Marks. Simple as that.
That is all that I have to say for now. I could mention lockboxes and whatnot but thats getting stale.
Hell put in Other Currency Rewards in Storyline Content. You do a Romulan Mission you get Romulan Marks. you do a borg related mission you get Omega Marks. SO ON AND SO FORTH.
AFAIK that is the plan.
Of course it will be a lot less marks than one of the grind missions... which makes no sense if you consider the time invested in a 10 minute queue map vs. the 30 - 45 minutes invested in a Story mission.
Anyway new players who play through all the mission content will probably get a tiny amount of ROM/BORG marks to get the rep system started.
If I remember and understand some of the "historical" posts correctly, one of the goals of the Dilithium system was so that you would earn a certain amount of Dilithium for every activity you completed in-game, almost like how you earn ECs from every activity in the game...
And the 8k/day limit was to prevent "power players" with no life but tons of time to play from skewing the system via earning tons of dil while "casual" players were expected to have a somewhat hard time of it in 1-2 hours / day play...
However, this is still not the case. Not a shred of dilithium from the storyline missions, heck, first toon that I took from 1-50 storyline, he was lucky to earn 8k Dil from the "storyline" activities of exploring the various sector blocks & the initial raid on Ker'rat...
The last new source of Dilithium is the mining event (released during season 5), unless you count the "random" Nukara "dailies" of Thinning the herd / crystal matters...
And, there's a "rationale" that you don't want "older" content abandoned because of the "newer" content... Aka - the only reason to hang around Defera after the storyarc is the fact that it's one of the richest sectors in Dilithium...
Did anyone ever stop to think that by varying the reward levels (give, say, 200 dil for each "fleet event" ran, but keep the bigger 1440 payouts in Defera / the nebula missions...) the possibility to actually meet this theoretical goal of "dilithium from every in-game activity" can be met?
Then, you just run into the ire of price raising and the amount of time that needs to be invested to get all the desired toys, not both QQing about time required in "older" content + the price increases...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
@sekritagent
I can absolutely understand your motives and why you are frustrated.
Just my 0,02 eurons:
What makes me sick about STO isn't their inceased prices. I think they have to get money somehow, alhrough i absolutely do not agree with their methods!
STO doesn't feel like a game, everything costs money or has to be "grinded".
I don't know about other people but as soon as a Game becomes purely repetitive and not funny at all anymore it becomes work. (at least where i am coming from.)
It feels just like a Cryptic money machine. A game should be fun to play and not constantly ask me for my money. (Sorry to you Crypic fanboys, this is more a matter of feeling)
All this wouldn't be that bad if STO where at least a real Star Trek game... (or if Cryptic would at least make SOME efford to make it one)
Just go to ESD and walk around a bit. If i wouldn't know, i never would have guessed that this where a Star Trek game! (Starfleet personell wearing mohawk, combat armor/kits? Security carrying HUGE Blaster like weapons and march throug a starfleet facilityas if they where on a battlefield?)
But even this wouldn't be that bad if Cryptic would have made the ships right.
They obviously have no idea how Ships in Star Trek work. Otheriwse they never would have "forced" them into a genereic Stone/Paper/Scissor MMO mechanic.
One of the things i liked about Trek was that there wheren't small fighter ships zipping around like in BSG or Star Wars. Trek ships where more like Napoleonic Tall ships.
But Cryptic just made what they found "cooler" and pressed those ships into a system they just don't belong.
It gets even worse.
They took ONE abnormal ship (defiant) that was introduced by some Trek producers who didn't care about Star Trek themselves and made it a WHOLE BRANCH of new ships.
This wouldn't be that evil but they made those ships DOMINATE everything else!
My point is if you ask any people about Star Trek ships, how many would come up with the Defiant as their favourite?
Personally i don't care about that ship, i want to fly the ships that are much more iconic at Star Trek.
There are already enough games featuring small fighter like spaceships, thats not what i expect or want in a Star Trek game!
Heck, i want to fly Big Ships, and i don't want to play nanny for those ugly little bucket ships while i have to rely on them ot fight the enemy!
I mean, it's not that there wouldn't be another way to do it. Other games pictured Star Trek ships much more true, but Cryptic didn't care or didn't want to waste a second thought about it.
As always they just made what THEY find "cool" regardless if it suits to Star Trek or not.
Stuff like that makes me sick!
I don't want to start about their ship designs.... :mad:
Another thing is Ground Combat. At first it was much more tactical so as leader of a away team you could act much more in a strategic manner. But they found it obvoiusly too boring and introduced shotguns, and other sillly stuff like that. They made ground combat so action oriented it isn't even funny. Don't get me wrong Ground combat wasn't very good before the revamped it, but it got much worse!
What also bothers me is the general storyline of STO. The federation at war with almost everyone else?
Ever heard of O V E R K I L L ?
I could go on and on....
Cryptic doesn't care about creating a believeable or (at least) good Star Trek game, they shamelessly exaggerate every aspect of Star trek(except the peaceful aspect of it. They seemlingly think this is not very important. LOL), if it is their ship designs, interiors* or even the uniforms, not to speak of combat armor and kit visuals. * The first time i was speechless about the HUGE interiours, but when i saw Space i had to laugh. (someone must have confused something big time! lol)
On the other hand they systematically made everything related to TNG look either weak or useless.
Just look at the Galaxy Class, the most boring healership in the Game!
Ehey even made TNG phaser totally useless, unless someone likes to use wide beam or Stun weapons, not to speak of childish holograms and a ugly spike on the handle on the weapon itself.
Even the TNG series unifom looks washed off and creased. Has anyone tried to use the TNG series communicator? It' way too big and it looks more like a Kids toy than the piece of equipment that was shown in the series.
On the other Hand they made the Nebula, the Galaxy Class ugly little sister ships much more useful and fun to fly than the Galaxy itself. Heck even the Excelsior and Galor class have more firepower than a Galaxy Class!
What's the point to alienate TNG fans? Would it have hurt them to make the Galaxy Class on par with the other Starfleet cruisers? They easily could have made one of their own ship desgns the super "tank" without any noticeable firepower!
THATS not how a company should treat its customers!
Sorry, but you can't rationalise that away IMO.
My point:
STO doesn't even feel like a Star Trek game, it's just a game where some random Star Trek like ships fly around!
Cryptic would have done much better if they had created their own Sci Fi universe, instead of TRIBBLE Star Trek with their weird ideas!
I hope some devs finally reads this.
Sorry for being upset. But Star Trek is one of the very things i really like and seeing it treated like this, by people who obviously don't care, makes me sick.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
they FAILED at creating a good Dilithium Economy in the game
there are
- a few super easy missions that reward LOTS of dilithium that hardly can be considered PLAYING, even one that can is a clear EXPLOIT, and they have not fixed that one in ages.
HUGE PAYOUT, NO TIME SPEND
- lots of actual mission content (story or not) that does NOT reward any amount of dilithium at all, turning the "TIME BASED CURRENCY" into ...something that isn't time based at all.
TIME SPEND, NO PAYOUT
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
in fact they even added a daily timer after the fact to Kerrat, (instead of fixing the game wide AFK for DIL problem)
also artificially limiting matches played in each system that runs on a daily timer (because queue wait times are not long enough on their own... *sigh*)
- increasing / adding random cost on existing things that were formerly free or cheap for a gameplay reason
- not adding Dilithium rewards to ANY new mission-Content but odd Marks for external grind systems that even require Dilithium to progress.
Cryptic did not build a logical dil for time economy to begin with, and now they add cost and remove value randomly as they see fit without any kind of grand design behind it at all. Their stats and data mining tells them players play X to get their dilithium, or Y is in high demand so they remove value or add cost by that.
THIS WILL NOT WORK!
Cryptic gave me a goal, 8000 Dilithium per character per day.
That is the #1 reason i'm playing STO now.
They trained me (and every other dilithium farmer out there) to do so by their greedy prices on everything.
If Dilithium gets removed from STFs, i will no longer play STFs but get my Dilithium from somewhere else.
Simple as that.
It will have no impact on my daily 8000, it will only have a negative impact on the STF communities that wont see me around playing that content anymore (unless there are some real new epic rewards in the Rep System, have seen nothing good by now though, the Borg Set certainly won't make me play it again and i already got all 3 ground XII sets).
<snip>
the STF stuff is speculation/rumor out of the other thread don't jump on that in this thread please, stay on topic thx
the rest is rather related to the other thread... so <snip>
Guys, appreciate the feedback, but let's not turn this into an "angry rant" thread. It's not a thread to "get it all out" as the developers will just tune out as they do now.
The topic is specifically the ever-increasing prices (dilithium, ZEN, grind currencies) and constant nerfing of our already-expensive ships and gear to make the new stuff available for grind currency better by comparison.
For me, I think they've choked off our income unless you dedicate yourself to EVE-style grind. I play this game because I can get ahead and get pretty good gear (not "barely passable", not "the best of the best", but "pretty good") with the income I get from casual play. Now that they're removing all of that, I already have a time and energy-consuming job and don't need or want another.
They've hit us too hard and too often over the past 3 seasons and I'm close to being done. There's too many other good games competing for my attention.
To be totally fair, having FM for investigate officer reports is a mistake. Since FM were rewards, I haven't done a single fleet event.
Or maybe it was the fleet events that were the mistake. Isn't it interesting that players are willing to do basically anything/everything to earn fleet marks, besides the fleet events?
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
I echo this sentiment. If they want us to grind dil, fleet marks and whatever other currency of the season, why not simply add these rewards to content that we already enjoy? I only run the Breen, Eta Eridani and B'Tran cluster dailies. Those are the only dailies I enjoy. If I have to grind whatever, please tie it into content that I'm actually interested in playing.
I havent been on tribble, but I heard the dilithium reward for STF's was bumped down to 400.
Anyone on tribble to check that out... Im asking my fleet as soon as I can log on later today.
EDIT: NVM I guess the OP was right.. you wont get ANY dilithium for completing STF's also no more salvage to turn in for dilithium...no more dilithium period for STF's. They are removing any way to get dilith. from STF's.
they FAILED at creating a good Dilithium Economy in the game
there are
- a few super easy missions that reward LOTS of dilithium that hardly can be considered PLAYING, even one that can is a clear EXPLOIT, and they have not fixed that one in ages.
HUGE PAYOUT, NO TIME SPEND
- lots of actual mission content (story or not) that does NOT reward any amount of dilithium at all, turning the "TIME BASED CURRENCY" into ...something that isn't time based at all.
TIME SPEND, NO PAYOUT
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
in fact they even added a daily timer after the fact to Kerrat, (instead of fixing the game wide AFK for DIL problem)
also artificially limiting matches played in each system that runs on a daily timer (because queue wait times are not long enough on their own... *sigh*)
- increasing / adding random cost on existing things that were formerly free or cheap for a gameplay reason
- not adding Dilithium rewards to ANY new mission-Content but odd Marks for external grind systems that even require Dilithium to progress.
Cryptic did not build a logical dil for time economy to begin with, and now they add cost and remove value randomly as they see fit without any kind of grand design behind it at all. Their stats and data mining tells them players play X to get their dilithium, or Y is in high demand so they remove value or add cost by that.
THIS WILL NOT WORK!
Cryptic gave me a goal, 8000 Dilithium per character per day.
That is the #1 reason i'm playing STO now.
They trained me (and every other dilithium farmer out there) to do so by their greedy prices on everything.
If Dilithium gets removed from STFs, i will no longer play STFs but get my Dilithium from somewhere else.
Simple as that.
It will have no impact on my daily 8000, it will only have a negative impact on the STF communities that wont see me around playing that content anymore (unless there are some real new epic rewards in the Rep System, have seen nothing good by now though, the Borg Set certainly won't make me play it again and i already got all 3 ground XII sets).
The weird thing for me is, everytime i start to enjoy SOMETHING in STO, Cryptic does something to make me not want to play it anymore.
The DOff System pretty much died when Heretic left and is only on Life Support now and is fully hooked up with the Monetization (the only cool new DOffs we get are from LockBoxes now... or random Active Roster Wizzards for Zen, and when was the last set of DOff Assignments added? The last Chain?... right just about when Heretic left.)
And now after Gozer left, the STFs are going to be frakked around with.
so... with a frakked up in-game economy that did not work out at all for me (i'm sitting on 10000+ Zen now, so getting the stuff is NOT the problem, all the above is!)
no Story Mission progression in MONTHS
a FAILED attempt at weekly Story Content with the Featured Episodes
and only one grind system after another...
WHY am i still playing this?
The only answer i have is... because there is nothing else out there that draws my attention (well i'm playing more Battlefield 3 these last few weeks, but i can't play that all day long) and i still like the Star Trek Themepark AND have invested too much to just rage quit about a single thing that annoys me... but i slowly see it getting to the point where there is nothing left for me in this game to care about and i still hope for something good.
I feel treated by Cryptic like a Cr*ckwh*re that just wants the next fix from the Drug Dealer.
Yes... i think that about sums it up.
Pretty much in the same situation. I find myself playing sto less and less.
Before PWE took over I was playing 5-6 hours a day, now im down to between half an hour to an hour, and that is just dlithium grinding to make my 8k on one toon and 15k a day on my alts.
I play Tor for the story and also GW2 for its freshness.
I had never played an mmo before sto came out, but my love for Trek brought me here.
All this game has done is made me very cynical and very untrustworthy of any other mmo developer.
I have an awful bad taste in my mouth thanks to cryptic, I honestly don't know if i'll be back if season 7 goes live as it is
Dilithium: I fracking hope that the rumor that Dilithium is no longer being rewarded from STF's is false because without Dilithium in STF's I have no reason to get Dilithium. I know the person who is responsible for the Dilithium Economy is on Medical leave but DON'T TRIBBLE IT OVER JUST BECAUSE HE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.
This is NOT a rumor per se - it is currently not being awarded right off on tribble - it could be "working as intended" or just a bug - they have not commented yet - I think they are testing the waters.
Duty Officer System: Yeah there hasn't been many Duty Officer missions since Heretic left and this upsets me. We don't even know who is handling the Doff system now and I doubt with all the cryptic silence we never will. I'm almost feeling like PWE is putting a gun to your head unless there is a new blog every tuesday saying "NEW AND EXCITING THING!!!". Also I hope the rumor that the free duty officer packs every week from SFA. KDFA are no longer availble are false. thats one of the only ways to get duty officers lately. Don't TRIBBLE your people over. Again.
.
This is NOT a rumor - junior packs are no longer free and cost 1000 dilth - also upgrading 5 commons to 1 green is now 500 dilth on tribble - 2500 for greens to blue - 5000 from blue to purple.
Sorry for being too much off topic in my previous post, but i just get too upset somtimes when writing about cryptic.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I still get to fly my ship around and blow things up, and do story missions for free. That isn't going to change. I am really curious to see how this all comes out on Holodeck.
-PURE SPECULATION ALERT-
I wonder if they are raising prices because the plan is to reduce dilithium rewards in each mission/event what have you, but add them to everything in the game. They probably want to do that, but can't do it without upsetting the current input to output relationship. Perhaps one of the under the hood changes in S7, is adding the code/tech to add dilithium ore rewards to missions they were not able to add them to before.
Actually, now that I am thinking about it from a practical point of view, it could be that redoing the rewards to add the "rep system" meant that someone was working on the loot for every mission, and could spend the man hours adding Dil rewards to every mission.
It seems to me that the Devs have been looking at the game like a buffet. You can do this or that... whatever, there are some rewards attached to anything that you want to do. And I think they are trying to do away with "This is the one path to get the best loot."
If that is the case, and if the devs think the current econ is stable, and flowing the way they want, one would need to raise prices to maintain a balance if more is coming in.
Separately, It looks to me like they are step by step adding a dil price to every reward/loot in the game to say, "Here is the expected amount of time playing that is the minimum for this reward. We want this to cost about a month of grinding at 8k per day. Shortcut that with Zen or multi toon Grinding if you like."
Adding a Dil cost to getting Duty Officers doesn't bother me specifically. (Yes, I have a "recruiting officer" Stationed at SFA with only one job.) Yet, I am OK with an approach of a Dil cost for every single reward in the game, as long as there is a Dil reward to every activity in the game. That way, I can do anything in the game to get some Dil, and have pleanty whenever I want to spend it, or pay $ for the shortcut.
This is NOT a rumor per se - it is currently not being awarded right off on tribble - it could be "working as intended" or just a bug - they have not commented yet - I think they are testing the waters.
It seems more likely to me that since STFs on Tribble have their rewards tied into the Rep system, and the Rep system isn't there yet, they simply don't drop any end loot yet. Not really a bug, but not the end shape of things either.
-PURE SPECULATION ALERT-
I wonder if they are raising prices because the plan is to reduce dilithium rewards in each mission/event what have you, but add them to everything in the game. They probably want to do that, but can't do it without upsetting the current input to output relationship. Perhaps one of the under the hood changes in S7, is adding the code/tech to add dilithium ore rewards to missions they were not able to add them to before.
If they do that, then it might not be so bad. However, I seriously doubt it.
Myself, after thinking about it a bit, I have come to the realization that this is how they plan on making microtransactions micro. In practical terms it costs a few cents worth of Zen to do this sort of thing, which you "spend" every time you get a new pack or grind up DOffs. This is rather logical, as, frankly, despite everyone saying it should be for "new uniforms" and other aesthetics, new uniforms are only bought a few times in a player's time in a game for most, if at all, and simply don't have the attractive punch that something with actual power has.
However, the problem therein lies in that it essentially increases the cost of dil for starbases by a massive amount, and also turns it into a bit of a gambling situation. Many people, including myself, refuse to participate in gambling.
So they have a few options as to how to make this actually WORK, but unless they take them this seems like it's going to backfire horribly.
Maybe that's necessary in order for them to realize what limits there are with this.
It seems more likely to me that since STFs on Tribble have their rewards tied into the Rep system, and the Rep system isn't there yet, they simply don't drop any end loot yet. Not really a bug, but not the end shape of things either.
Like I said they are testing the waters - this is not just a test of game mechanics going on on tribble, it is also a test of player reactions - so the dilth nerf " rumor" could currently be "working as intended" - to see how the player base reacts. And the rep system is not fully understood by the players yet so the rewards are not comparable to anything that we now have to judge by.
PVP: I can't even express how little love PVP is getting. Back when Cloaked Intentions came out we were promised a map or anything just to keep our blood flowing and that has not came. We just want new maps. New stuff. Hell even PVP Space and Ground sets would be nice. Frack why don't you just make ANOTHER PVP currency again. Marks Of Honor anyone? Give PVP love and more and more people will start PVPing and fighting each other.
The thing with PVP is that the one dev (forget the name, someone else around here will no doubt be able to rattle it off real quick) who was doing anything with PVP - and my understanding was that PVP, namely doing the inital design work for a complete revamp of it, was his side/free time project - left several months ago. Unless someone else picked it up and I just haven't heard (a distinct possibility) there is literally nobody even thinking about PVP right now. So asking for "love" for PVP is like asking a hurricane to suddenly start turning the opposite direction. I'm very afraid that, for PVP to get the amount of work it needs, you're looking at devoting a full development cycle to that. Let alone getting all the new gear rebalanced.
And I suspect more than a little bit that PWE is breathing down Cryptic's necks closely enough that it'd be hard to cut that much development time off for something that'd be hard to monetize without causing huge amounts of outrage.
-PURE SPECULATION ALERT-
I wonder if they are raising prices because the plan is to reduce dilithium rewards in each mission/event what have you, but add them to everything in the game. They probably want to do that, but can't do it without upsetting the current input to output relationship. Perhaps one of the under the hood changes in S7, is adding the code/tech to add dilithium ore rewards to missions they were not able to add them to before.
Actually, now that I am thinking about it from a practical point of view, it could be that redoing the rewards to add the "rep system" meant that someone was working on the loot for every mission, and could spend the man hours adding Dil rewards to every mission.
It seems to me that the Devs have been looking at the game like a buffet. You can do this or that... whatever, there are some rewards attached to anything that you want to do. And I think they are trying to do away with "This is the one path to get the best loot."
If that is the case, and if the devs think the current econ is stable, and flowing the way they want, one would need to raise prices to maintain a balance if more is coming in.
Separately, It looks to me like they are step by step adding a dil price to every reward/loot in the game to say, "Here is the expected amount of time playing that is the minimum for this reward. We want this to cost about a month of grinding at 8k per day. Shortcut that with Zen or multi toon Grinding if you like."
Adding a Dil cost to getting Duty Officers doesn't bother me specifically. (Yes, I have a "recruiting officer" Stationed at SFA with only one job.) Yet, I am OK with an approach of a Dil cost for every single reward in the game, as long as there is a Dil reward to every activity in the game. That way, I can do anything in the game to get some Dil, and have pleanty whenever I want to spend it, or pay $ for the shortcut.
The theory here is actually ok. But NOT at the cost of:
an overabundance of grind currencies in the first place, and charging us grind currencies on top of other grind currencies for gear
nerfing the expensive stuff we already grinded for in favor of buffing the new shinies available for new grind currencies
prices that are too damn high - a good phaser beam or torpedo on a ship should not take me a week to grind if I have 8 weapons slots to fill
rewards that are increasingly slashed or choked off - why am I spending a month grinding for something in STO when I could go play any of 50 better games that are less work?
Frankly, STO is nowhere near a good enough game to make these sorts of labor demands from its playerbase, F2P income needs or not. EVE, maybe for certain folks. STO, absolutely not. They're lucky we still log in at all based on our affinity for the IP after what they've pulled over the last 3 years and would do best not to test our patience further.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
Change The Borg Set Back The Way It Was. 4 Piece. Set 2 With Shield Regen.
agree, this borg set separation will **** up every actual or future starship set combination.
If they want to expand the borg sets, at least leave the original borg set UNTOUCHED make the console to combine with further sets, but not remove it from the original 4 piece set
this is what pisses me of the most of all, aside from a hypotetic future lvl cap increase with equipment MK cap increase.
i assure you if every of that mentioned above upcoming to S7 becomes live, i will leave this game at warp 10
But STO is no longer a "passion" of mine, it's become just something to do once in a while...
I find that to be kinda-sorta depressing.
Are you talking about yourself here or some of the devs ?
'Cause the only ones who still seem to care are the visual artists .
As to the actual topic ... it heartens me to see some of you still care so much , and it's disheartening that long time players are turning in less and less after the 3 course grind that Cryptic have served up in the last 3 seasons (5,6,7) .
I have nothing to add that was not said already by more eloquent ppl .
Comments
Funny thing is, I started STO to get my StarTrek fix from to these missions ...
So... less grinding from me and more playing. I will stop caring about the starbases with it useless weapons, consoles etc and give my dilithium as a tip to the foundry designers ;-)
All this means to me is having to finish up getting purples for fabrication and finishing colonization prior to s.7
And then it's goodbye doff'ing - especially if my only income of dil, stf, is going too
I think it could also be a move to slow you fleet disciples down so they have more time to work on fleet projects, it could easily be you people surprised them with far too rapid progress...
they FAILED at creating a good Dilithium Economy in the game
there are
- a few super easy missions that reward LOTS of dilithium that hardly can be considered PLAYING, even one that can is a clear EXPLOIT, and they have not fixed that one in ages.
HUGE PAYOUT, NO TIME SPEND
- lots of actual mission content (story or not) that does NOT reward any amount of dilithium at all, turning the "TIME BASED CURRENCY" into ...something that isn't time based at all.
TIME SPEND, NO PAYOUT
- lots of game systems that are still running on DAILY timers, meaning that you can't play the one type of content you enjoy the most to fill up your daily 8000, you are forced to play content you might not enjoy at all.
in fact they even added a daily timer after the fact to Kerrat, (instead of fixing the game wide AFK for DIL problem)
also artificially limiting matches played in each system that runs on a daily timer (because queue wait times are not long enough on their own... *sigh*)
- increasing / adding random cost on existing things that were formerly free or cheap for a gameplay reason
- not adding Dilithium rewards to ANY new mission-Content but odd Marks for external grind systems that even require Dilithium to progress.
Cryptic did not build a logical dil for time economy to begin with, and now they add cost and remove value randomly as they see fit without any kind of grand design behind it at all. Their stats and data mining tells them players play X to get their dilithium, or Y is in high demand so they remove value or add cost by that.
THIS WILL NOT WORK!
Cryptic gave me a goal, 8000 Dilithium per character per day.
That is the #1 reason i'm playing STO now.
They trained me (and every other dilithium farmer out there) to do so by their greedy prices on everything.
If Dilithium gets removed from STFs, i will no longer play STFs but get my Dilithium from somewhere else.
Simple as that.
It will have no impact on my daily 8000, it will only have a negative impact on the STF communities that wont see me around playing that content anymore (unless there are some real new epic rewards in the Rep System, have seen nothing good by now though, the Borg Set certainly won't make me play it again and i already got all 3 ground XII sets).
The weird thing for me is, everytime i start to enjoy SOMETHING in STO, Cryptic does something to make me not want to play it anymore.
The DOff System pretty much died when Heretic left and is only on Life Support now and is fully hooked up with the Monetization (the only cool new DOffs we get are from LockBoxes now... or random Active Roster Wizzards for Zen, and when was the last set of DOff Assignments added? The last Chain?... right just about when Heretic left.)
And now after Gozer left, the STFs are going to be frakked around with.
so... with a frakked up in-game economy that did not work out at all for me (i'm sitting on 10000+ Zen now, so getting the stuff is NOT the problem, all the above is!)
no Story Mission progression in MONTHS
a FAILED attempt at weekly Story Content with the Featured Episodes
and only one grind system after another...
WHY am i still playing this?
The only answer i have is... because there is nothing else out there that draws my attention (well i'm playing more Battlefield 3 these last few weeks, but i can't play that all day long) and i still like the Star Trek Themepark AND have invested too much to just rage quit about a single thing that annoys me... but i slowly see it getting to the point where there is nothing left for me in this game to care about and i still hope for something good.
I feel treated by Cryptic like a Cr*ckwh*re that just wants the next fix from the Drug Dealer.
Yes... i think that about sums it up.
Even without mentioning the lack of pvp incentives, this about sums it up.
This whole currency conversion is a scam, as was the first conversion. this is literally the worst kind of Pay2Play i have seen in any game.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
To be totally fair, having FM for investigate officer reports is a mistake. Since FM were rewards, I haven't done a single fleet event.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I take that one for granted. The question is just how much more, and what ridonkulous exchange rate is there going to be for all the gear that is already in our inventories/banks.
You know time based currencie, apparently S1 - S6 time is a lot less valuable then S7 time, indeed S8 time will be a lot more valuable....
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Of course the Dev's are just doing their job and probably don't have a lot of say - I would much prefer to hear from Mr Stahl himself.
Don't beat Brandon over the head - he was first and formost always a player before going to work there - I am sure that he is just as concerned as we are about things and will keep this feedback going to where it has to.
So keep letting them know how you feel about the state of the game.
And Brandon, if you can shed any more light on proposed changes - true or false it would certainly help. Remember they are just "proposed" so I don't see harm in letting us know.
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Since it was announced that Perfect World is buying Cryptic there has been numerous concerns that the whole game is going to be "asian-ised", with pay to play elements and horrendous grind. "This isn't the case", we were assured, and true, the F2P model was quite good and most of the things were achieveable for an average player.
But now it's all chaning for the worse, and the game is becoming one endless grind. I don't even see the point of repeating what's already been said. Players are not rewarded properly for their game time, and are often forced to repeat the same ridiculously EASY missions over and over in order to gain some laughably low rewards. On top of that, we're constantly being thrown more and more so called "goals to achieve", which ended up being nothing more than yet another currency sink (starbases, special projects, lotteries, lobi store, personal advancement system and so on).
Still, in all honesty, the thing that annoys me the most is that there were some great ideas introduced in recent seasons. New missions, even the grindy ones, were a nice alternative to the ones already present in the game. With a good team, they were fun and enjoyable. But that's the point - they're not alternative. They're grindy. They're too easy. And in addition, each mission now is going to reward a different thing. For Romulan Marks go do Romulan missions. For Omega Marks go run STFs. For Fleet Marks go do Fleet missions. For doffs go do doff missions in different instances. Want dilithium? Go do completely different missions like the STF... oh wait, no, those are no longer going to reward dilithium... and are now extremely easy... yeah... Great job Cryptic...
I'll say this - Cryptic has become a way too greedy Ferengi. The problem with this is that even though they may have noted increased revenue in past months, they still want to try and squeeze even more money off their player base. They forget that instead of paying the players may simply feel discouraged and drop the game completely. There's simply a limit to how much devoted players can accept, and I belive Cryptic is close to crossing the line.
First and Foremost. THE BORG SET: The Borg Set wasn't totally introduced till at least two weeks after season 3 started. Myself as well as other SUBSCRIBERS worked our asses off day in and day out to get those set pieces and whatnot. some people base their entire ship around those ship parts or their entire PVP build. NERFING THEM WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA. A lot of us worked our asses off back when STF's were 2+ Hour Planned Missions. Now we're getting the **** end of the stick because of this nerf with more TRIBBLE from the Omega Store and Reputation System. Make your own new set with the Reputation System. Don't frack us over in the long run. if this is right and a so called PVP fleet is to blame for this nerf I am out of here.
Dilithium: I fracking hope that the rumor that Dilithium is no longer being rewarded from STF's is false because without Dilithium in STF's I have no reason to get Dilithium. I know the person who is responsible for the Dilithium Economy is on Medical leave but DON'T TRIBBLE IT OVER JUST BECAUSE HE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.
Duty Officer System: Yeah there hasn't been many Duty Officer missions since Heretic left and this upsets me. We don't even know who is handling the Doff system now and I doubt with all the cryptic silence we never will. I'm almost feeling like PWE is putting a gun to your head unless there is a new blog every tuesday saying "NEW AND EXCITING THING!!!". Also I hope the rumor that the free duty officer packs every week from SFA. KDFA are no longer availble are false. thats one of the only ways to get duty officers lately. Don't TRIBBLE your people over. Again.
PVP: I can't even express how little love PVP is getting. Back when Cloaked Intentions came out we were promised a map or anything just to keep our blood flowing and that has not came. We just want new maps. New stuff. Hell even PVP Space and Ground sets would be nice. Frack why don't you just make ANOTHER PVP currency again. Marks Of Honor anyone? Give PVP love and more and more people will start PVPing and fighting each other.
Grind: I'm not against a little grind here and there but some parts are getting reticulated and aren't rewarding people right. In Vice Admiral PVP you should at least get 50k Energy Credits a match. Once done with 3 matchs of PVP you should at least get 3K Dilithium. Once done Foundry Missions you should get 3k Dilithium. 1K Diltihium is good for Elite STF's. 500 Dilithium for Normal STF's. Fleet marks need to be regulated and calculated again. Keep Fleet Marks in Officer Reports. Keep it somewhat grindy but not INSANELY grindy.
Money: A lot of people surprisingly still pay 15$ a month just to get all the goodies in this game. I'm pretty sure the number is well over 100K 15 monther subscribers. Money-tizing is good to a certain limit and PWE is really really damn close to crossing that line and pissing a lot of people off and making them leave. I think maybe Upping the Monthly Stipend to 1000 would be a very wise choice.
Storyline Content: Yeah Season 7 is said to be all about that but I HIGHLY doubt it will get the KDF up to Federation Standards. What happaned to "Two Factions, Full PVE conent, Full PVP content" that was uttered back in 200-8-9? Keep the story coming. even if you need to make KDF Content Pritority one. Which in some cases will make a lot of people happy. Hell put in Other Currency Rewards in Storyline Content. You do a Romulan Mission you get Romulan Marks. you do a borg related mission you get Omega Marks. SO ON AND SO FORTH. You do ANY mission in a team and you get Fleet Marks. Simple as that.
That is all that I have to say for now. I could mention lockboxes and whatnot but thats getting stale.
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AFAIK that is the plan.
Of course it will be a lot less marks than one of the grind missions... which makes no sense if you consider the time invested in a 10 minute queue map vs. the 30 - 45 minutes invested in a Story mission.
Anyway new players who play through all the mission content will probably get a tiny amount of ROM/BORG marks to get the rep system started.
And the 8k/day limit was to prevent "power players" with no life but tons of time to play from skewing the system via earning tons of dil while "casual" players were expected to have a somewhat hard time of it in 1-2 hours / day play...
However, this is still not the case. Not a shred of dilithium from the storyline missions, heck, first toon that I took from 1-50 storyline, he was lucky to earn 8k Dil from the "storyline" activities of exploring the various sector blocks & the initial raid on Ker'rat...
The last new source of Dilithium is the mining event (released during season 5), unless you count the "random" Nukara "dailies" of Thinning the herd / crystal matters...
And, there's a "rationale" that you don't want "older" content abandoned because of the "newer" content... Aka - the only reason to hang around Defera after the storyarc is the fact that it's one of the richest sectors in Dilithium...
Did anyone ever stop to think that by varying the reward levels (give, say, 200 dil for each "fleet event" ran, but keep the bigger 1440 payouts in Defera / the nebula missions...) the possibility to actually meet this theoretical goal of "dilithium from every in-game activity" can be met?
Then, you just run into the ire of price raising and the amount of time that needs to be invested to get all the desired toys, not both QQing about time required in "older" content + the price increases...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I can absolutely understand your motives and why you are frustrated.
Just my 0,02 eurons:
What makes me sick about STO isn't their inceased prices. I think they have to get money somehow, alhrough i absolutely do not agree with their methods!
STO doesn't feel like a game, everything costs money or has to be "grinded".
I don't know about other people but as soon as a Game becomes purely repetitive and not funny at all anymore it becomes work. (at least where i am coming from.)
It feels just like a Cryptic money machine. A game should be fun to play and not constantly ask me for my money.
(Sorry to you Crypic fanboys, this is more a matter of feeling)
All this wouldn't be that bad if STO where at least a real Star Trek game...
(or if Cryptic would at least make SOME efford to make it one)
Just go to ESD and walk around a bit. If i wouldn't know, i never would have guessed that this where a Star Trek game!
(Starfleet personell wearing mohawk, combat armor/kits? Security carrying HUGE Blaster like weapons and march throug a starfleet facilityas if they where on a battlefield?)
But even this wouldn't be that bad if Cryptic would have made the ships right.
They obviously have no idea how Ships in Star Trek work. Otheriwse they never would have "forced" them into a genereic Stone/Paper/Scissor MMO mechanic.
One of the things i liked about Trek was that there wheren't small fighter ships zipping around like in BSG or Star Wars. Trek ships where more like Napoleonic Tall ships.
But Cryptic just made what they found "cooler" and pressed those ships into a system they just don't belong.
It gets even worse.
They took ONE abnormal ship (defiant) that was introduced by some Trek producers who didn't care about Star Trek themselves and made it a WHOLE BRANCH of new ships.
This wouldn't be that evil but they made those ships DOMINATE everything else!
My point is if you ask any people about Star Trek ships, how many would come up with the Defiant as their favourite?
Personally i don't care about that ship, i want to fly the ships that are much more iconic at Star Trek.
There are already enough games featuring small fighter like spaceships, thats not what i expect or want in a Star Trek game!
Heck, i want to fly Big Ships, and i don't want to play nanny for those ugly little bucket ships while i have to rely on them ot fight the enemy!
I mean, it's not that there wouldn't be another way to do it. Other games pictured Star Trek ships much more true, but Cryptic didn't care or didn't want to waste a second thought about it.
As always they just made what THEY find "cool" regardless if it suits to Star Trek or not.
Stuff like that makes me sick!
I don't want to start about their ship designs.... :mad:
Another thing is Ground Combat. At first it was much more tactical so as leader of a away team you could act much more in a strategic manner. But they found it obvoiusly too boring and introduced shotguns, and other sillly stuff like that. They made ground combat so action oriented it isn't even funny. Don't get me wrong Ground combat wasn't very good before the revamped it, but it got much worse!
What also bothers me is the general storyline of STO. The federation at war with almost everyone else?
Ever heard of O V E R K I L L ?
I could go on and on....
Cryptic doesn't care about creating a believeable or (at least) good Star Trek game, they shamelessly exaggerate every aspect of Star trek (except the peaceful aspect of it. They seemlingly think this is not very important. LOL), if it is their ship designs, interiors* or even the uniforms, not to speak of combat armor and kit visuals.
* The first time i was speechless about the HUGE interiours, but when i saw Space i had to laugh. (someone must have confused something big time! lol)
On the other hand they systematically made everything related to TNG look either weak or useless.
Just look at the Galaxy Class, the most boring healership in the Game!
Ehey even made TNG phaser totally useless, unless someone likes to use wide beam or Stun weapons, not to speak of childish holograms and a ugly spike on the handle on the weapon itself.
Even the TNG series unifom looks washed off and creased. Has anyone tried to use the TNG series communicator? It' way too big and it looks more like a Kids toy than the piece of equipment that was shown in the series.
On the other Hand they made the Nebula, the Galaxy Class ugly little sister ships much more useful and fun to fly than the Galaxy itself. Heck even the Excelsior and Galor class have more firepower than a Galaxy Class!
What's the point to alienate TNG fans? Would it have hurt them to make the Galaxy Class on par with the other Starfleet cruisers? They easily could have made one of their own ship desgns the super "tank" without any noticeable firepower!
THATS not how a company should treat its customers!
Sorry, but you can't rationalise that away IMO.
I hope some devs finally reads this.
Sorry for being upset. But Star Trek is one of the very things i really like and seeing it treated like this, by people who obviously don't care, makes me sick.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
the STF stuff is speculation/rumor out of the other thread don't jump on that in this thread please, stay on topic thx
the rest is rather related to the other thread... so <snip>
The topic is specifically the ever-increasing prices (dilithium, ZEN, grind currencies) and constant nerfing of our already-expensive ships and gear to make the new stuff available for grind currency better by comparison.
For me, I think they've choked off our income unless you dedicate yourself to EVE-style grind. I play this game because I can get ahead and get pretty good gear (not "barely passable", not "the best of the best", but "pretty good") with the income I get from casual play. Now that they're removing all of that, I already have a time and energy-consuming job and don't need or want another.
They've hit us too hard and too often over the past 3 seasons and I'm close to being done. There's too many other good games competing for my attention.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~BranFlakes
Or maybe it was the fleet events that were the mistake. Isn't it interesting that players are willing to do basically anything/everything to earn fleet marks, besides the fleet events?
I echo this sentiment. If they want us to grind dil, fleet marks and whatever other currency of the season, why not simply add these rewards to content that we already enjoy? I only run the Breen, Eta Eridani and B'Tran cluster dailies. Those are the only dailies I enjoy. If I have to grind whatever, please tie it into content that I'm actually interested in playing.
Anyone on tribble to check that out... Im asking my fleet as soon as I can log on later today.
EDIT: NVM I guess the OP was right.. you wont get ANY dilithium for completing STF's also no more salvage to turn in for dilithium...no more dilithium period for STF's. They are removing any way to get dilith. from STF's.
Yeah, that's right.
Pretty much in the same situation. I find myself playing sto less and less.
Before PWE took over I was playing 5-6 hours a day, now im down to between half an hour to an hour, and that is just dlithium grinding to make my 8k on one toon and 15k a day on my alts.
I play Tor for the story and also GW2 for its freshness.
I had never played an mmo before sto came out, but my love for Trek brought me here.
All this game has done is made me very cynical and very untrustworthy of any other mmo developer.
I have an awful bad taste in my mouth thanks to cryptic, I honestly don't know if i'll be back if season 7 goes live as it is
This is NOT a rumor per se - it is currently not being awarded right off on tribble - it could be "working as intended" or just a bug - they have not commented yet - I think they are testing the waters.
This is NOT a rumor - junior packs are no longer free and cost 1000 dilth - also upgrading 5 commons to 1 green is now 500 dilth on tribble - 2500 for greens to blue - 5000 from blue to purple.
Sorry for being too much off topic in my previous post, but i just get too upset somtimes when writing about cryptic.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
I still get to fly my ship around and blow things up, and do story missions for free. That isn't going to change. I am really curious to see how this all comes out on Holodeck.
-PURE SPECULATION ALERT-
I wonder if they are raising prices because the plan is to reduce dilithium rewards in each mission/event what have you, but add them to everything in the game. They probably want to do that, but can't do it without upsetting the current input to output relationship. Perhaps one of the under the hood changes in S7, is adding the code/tech to add dilithium ore rewards to missions they were not able to add them to before.
Actually, now that I am thinking about it from a practical point of view, it could be that redoing the rewards to add the "rep system" meant that someone was working on the loot for every mission, and could spend the man hours adding Dil rewards to every mission.
It seems to me that the Devs have been looking at the game like a buffet. You can do this or that... whatever, there are some rewards attached to anything that you want to do. And I think they are trying to do away with "This is the one path to get the best loot."
If that is the case, and if the devs think the current econ is stable, and flowing the way they want, one would need to raise prices to maintain a balance if more is coming in.
Separately, It looks to me like they are step by step adding a dil price to every reward/loot in the game to say, "Here is the expected amount of time playing that is the minimum for this reward. We want this to cost about a month of grinding at 8k per day. Shortcut that with Zen or multi toon Grinding if you like."
Adding a Dil cost to getting Duty Officers doesn't bother me specifically. (Yes, I have a "recruiting officer" Stationed at SFA with only one job.) Yet, I am OK with an approach of a Dil cost for every single reward in the game, as long as there is a Dil reward to every activity in the game. That way, I can do anything in the game to get some Dil, and have pleanty whenever I want to spend it, or pay $ for the shortcut.
It seems more likely to me that since STFs on Tribble have their rewards tied into the Rep system, and the Rep system isn't there yet, they simply don't drop any end loot yet. Not really a bug, but not the end shape of things either.
If they do that, then it might not be so bad. However, I seriously doubt it.
Myself, after thinking about it a bit, I have come to the realization that this is how they plan on making microtransactions micro. In practical terms it costs a few cents worth of Zen to do this sort of thing, which you "spend" every time you get a new pack or grind up DOffs. This is rather logical, as, frankly, despite everyone saying it should be for "new uniforms" and other aesthetics, new uniforms are only bought a few times in a player's time in a game for most, if at all, and simply don't have the attractive punch that something with actual power has.
However, the problem therein lies in that it essentially increases the cost of dil for starbases by a massive amount, and also turns it into a bit of a gambling situation. Many people, including myself, refuse to participate in gambling.
So they have a few options as to how to make this actually WORK, but unless they take them this seems like it's going to backfire horribly.
Maybe that's necessary in order for them to realize what limits there are with this.
Like I said they are testing the waters - this is not just a test of game mechanics going on on tribble, it is also a test of player reactions - so the dilth nerf " rumor" could currently be "working as intended" - to see how the player base reacts. And the rep system is not fully understood by the players yet so the rewards are not comparable to anything that we now have to judge by.
So, when did Cryptic and PW let the House and the Senate run this game???
As of November, I will have 900 days in this game as a lifer. I've seen some good and bad.
Now as PW has taken control I've seen more bad than good.
Inflating the costs in game and in the Zen store for one.
Nerfing kits and abilities is another.
Enough is enough, let us enjoy the game without gouging us.:mad:
The thing with PVP is that the one dev (forget the name, someone else around here will no doubt be able to rattle it off real quick) who was doing anything with PVP - and my understanding was that PVP, namely doing the inital design work for a complete revamp of it, was his side/free time project - left several months ago. Unless someone else picked it up and I just haven't heard (a distinct possibility) there is literally nobody even thinking about PVP right now. So asking for "love" for PVP is like asking a hurricane to suddenly start turning the opposite direction. I'm very afraid that, for PVP to get the amount of work it needs, you're looking at devoting a full development cycle to that. Let alone getting all the new gear rebalanced.
And I suspect more than a little bit that PWE is breathing down Cryptic's necks closely enough that it'd be hard to cut that much development time off for something that'd be hard to monetize without causing huge amounts of outrage.
The theory here is actually ok. But NOT at the cost of:
Frankly, STO is nowhere near a good enough game to make these sorts of labor demands from its playerbase, F2P income needs or not. EVE, maybe for certain folks. STO, absolutely not. They're lucky we still log in at all based on our affinity for the IP after what they've pulled over the last 3 years and would do best not to test our patience further.
agree, this borg set separation will **** up every actual or future starship set combination.
If they want to expand the borg sets, at least leave the original borg set UNTOUCHED make the console to combine with further sets, but not remove it from the original 4 piece set
this is what pisses me of the most of all, aside from a hypotetic future lvl cap increase with equipment MK cap increase.
i assure you if every of that mentioned above upcoming to S7 becomes live, i will leave this game at warp 10
Are you talking about yourself here or some of the devs ?
'Cause the only ones who still seem to care are the visual artists .
As to the actual topic ... it heartens me to see some of you still care so much , and it's disheartening that long time players are turning in less and less after the 3 course grind that Cryptic have served up in the last 3 seasons (5,6,7) .
I have nothing to add that was not said already by more eloquent ppl .