I have an male Orion pirate with an attack ship. My plan is to open just enough boxes to get the lobi required to upgrade the Jem'Hadar ship set to Mk. 12. If I happen to get an Heavy Escort Carrier in the process, bonus. Everything else I want from the new boxes I'll just buy off the exchange because EC is stupid easy to make in-game.
I'm a bit of a newb, only just figuring out what the heck these boxes are.
I don't mind it so much but if I was paying a subscription for this game I'd be pissed off. What do you get for subscribing? I followed a link to sub information and it only said how much it cost and didn't actually say what you get for subscribing...
I'm not a big fan if the ftp models
I don't understand why companies don't just lower subscription rates and use free trials to increase population like the EVE model but a lower sub. maybe $9 instead of $15
I don't mind it so much but if I was paying a subscription for this game I'd be pissed off. What do you get for subscribing? I followed a link to sub information and it only said how much it cost and didn't actually say what you get for subscribing...
You get a bunch of things for subscribing, but the most relevant of them to the discussion at hand is, you get $5 worth of cash shop points a month, which is enough to buy 4 keys; more if you save it up for three months.
The Features Matrix that shows what "Gold players" (AKA subscribers) get vs. "Silver players" (non-subscribers) is here:
A little off-topic, but why are they called Gold (premium) and Silver (free) accounts anyways? By that extension, who's a Bronze account? Banned players? :P
Back on track... I would agree that the lockbox stack should be increased to 250 or 999 or something larger, since they are worth virtually nothing (until that lockbox ends). But no, I like these premium ships, and although there are a lot of non-KDF/Starfleet ships running around and it doesn't follow canon, I really don't mind. Just as long as a couple premium Starfleet ships are released in future lockboxes, I'm fine. Like the Enterprise-J (Hint hint).
stardestroyer001, Admiral, Explorers Fury PvE/PvP Fleet | Retired PvP Player
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9 My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
I am really hoping for some game breaking stuff stats wise on in these boxes and some good debate. One way you can tell a game is still doing well and players are still interested is when the forums light up with complaints and problems - the more ******** and complaining the better as it tells me that STO is still going strong.
I will get both ships off the exchange and enough keys for lobi extras - I think this should be a really interesting box - I was kind of not too thrilled with the temporal box.
I was serious about my idea of having a 3rd faction that is unaligned. Heck you could have a whole fleet just full of lock box ships and former Fed and KDF captains. It would really put a different spin on the game and draw a lot of people who want to carry on a different career path.
That one is vanishingly unlikely. It's so huge, it would make all the current scaling issues way worse. On a scale where the J didn't fill your entire screen, you couldn't even see a Defiant well enough to recognize it, and a shuttle would be a pixel.
I'm exaggerating a little, but not by much.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
I refuse to play lockbox online - Like the lottery, I see it as a fools tax or in the least a tax on hope. I myself plan to do as I always do, the smart option of letting the fools and hopeful go broke gambling on these boxes then when they try to recoup their losses to buy more keys to feed their addiction, buy everything I want cut price with a 100% chance of getting it if I pay for it
***
All boxes are equal - even if you opened one at lv1, you'd have the same hair-thin chance of getting the grand prize as far as I know - you just wouldn't be able to use it
Sorry But by making it so that half of Starfleet is flying ships from NON -UFP members - Starfleet has lost all credibility and is nothing like Star-Trek any more - no debating that.
The issue is with all these lock-box ships Cryptic could make a excellent case and take advantage of a Non-aligned player faction.
Thing is, if the Ferengi really were aquiring all these derelict vessels, wouldn't they just keep them? Remember DS9 "Little Green Men"? And that was just a shuttle. It would seem the Ferengi would be more likely to do this:
1) Aquire various assorted factions direlicts.
2) Crew them with Nausican, Klingon, Orion, and any other mercenary types to be found.
3) Send these vessels out as commerce raiders, attacking all other faction's shipping, up to and including, the vessel's previous owners, and probably, other Ferengi, too.
4) Take percentage of Spoils from each mission.
5) Destroy said vessel, via subspace, warpcore, overload device, if it is in immediate danger of capture.
Why sell the ship once, when you have the gift that keeps on giving? Realistically, judging by the amount of these vessels out there, the Ferengi would spend more time, and money, recovering them, than they would make selling them. The whole Lobi consortium is just another Cryptic harebrain that is destroying the game.
how likely are you to actually get something good from a lock box? Even the low level ones I get as a newb? Are they worth opening?
Hinges on what your definition of "worth" is. You can make ECs selling most of the stuff on the Exchange. But ECs are largely, a worthless currency anyway, unless you've got millions of them.
I am really hoping for some game breaking stuff stats wise on in these boxes and some good debate. One way you can tell a game is still doing well and players are still interested is when the forums light up with complaints and problems - the more ******** and complaining the better as it tells me that STO is still going strong
Oh gods no, the last thing i want is being forced to be vocal on hot threads because the devs did TRIBBLE again. We had to do that for almost a month with season 7 (during tribble testing and two weeks after the release). Enough. I just want to play the game, not having ridiculous forum discussions because some genius thought it was smart to release even more OP stuff so that the previous one turns out to be completely outdated.
Actually, I think that could work anyway, as a third faction - independent contractors.
Halliburton and Blackwater and what have you, but in space.
Lower tiers - retrofitted freighter, something like a statistically gimped tuffli
Medium tiers - selection of kdf and fed hand-me-downs (preferably with the option of 'worn and battered' armor style)
Top tiers - Maybe a Ferengi vessel, a selection of KDF/FED ships one can get 'on a long lease' (say, a BoP, the patrol escort, a battlecruiser and a dssv) and the lock box ships all factions can get. Definitely put firm restrictions in, as full access to all kdf/fed ships would be both overdoing it and unrealistic - you don't put your most advanced and powerful tech in the hands of contractors. C-store: selection, mostly (based on) older fed/kdf models. Maybe the Breen ship.
Starbases styled in the vein of Drozana, which would serve just fine as a starting point too.
Then, some minor tutorial and access too most Federation missions, minus the black ops arc, seeing as one wouldn't use outside contractors for that, and the FE's. Can queue on both sides in PvP.
Wouldn't require a lot of new assets or programming, would introduce a whole new flavor.
*shrug*
Not going to happen, but an interesting thought experiment.
Why bother playing a game called Star Trek Online, if you'd rather play as something other than Star Fleet? Try EVE Online.
i don't play EVE for several reasons
- 1: endless leveling system, you will NEVER catch up to the big guys that started years ago
- 2: worst UI EVER, even worse than STOs (so tiny fonts you need to lean forward to read stuff *ugh*)
- 3: i don't know what the hell all the items are, i DO know what a Phaser and a Photon Torpedo is, but in EVE i have no idea what is what, which means more reading up on stuff in tiny fonts...
no thx
would i want to play a Cardassian from Cardassia Prime flying a Galor / Hideki / Keldon class? With a Proper Cardi Uniform... Cardi DOff Assignments and Chains... Cardi Starbase?
HELL YEAH!
Add some real history / story and interesting characters like Garak and Dukat, an interesting Plot to that Faction and heck i'd buy that on a Retail Disc without thinking twice about it.
or a Romulan Faction... or whatever, i don't care as long as its interesting and TREK...
and for realz let me play some actual bad guy faction for a change, the Klingons aren't bad guys at all, the Romulans now have their fed friendly sub faction (if at all we get to play those, no chance at ever playing for the evil Tal Shiar!).... even the Cardies are almost Federation Members now.
Seriously i wonder when the Borg are going to apply for membership in the Federation.
I'm only sorry Cryptic chose not to keep this sort of stuff for a paid mini-faction expansion. Their selling out the long-term options for short-term gain.
Why bother with a Klingon mini-faction then? Or ever adding any other non-UFP faction to the game? Not to mention, there have been many episodes and films that have had non-Starfleet characters. Travis Mayweather came from a family of freight runners. Captain Sisko even married a freighter captain. We have seen traders and such on Trek many times.
The Klingons were originally put in for the PvPers. As for Mayweather, and Sisko, one is a backstory, and the other is supporting cast, respectively. Both are used for character developement, but that's about the extent of it. Let's face it, neither Voyager, or DS9, would be very exciting, if every week, you tuned in to see the next industrial replicator run. The point of Trek is to showcase all the cool, extraordinary, adventures, that the ordinary people, who are not in StarFleet, are excluded from partaking in. It's the StarFleet captains, not the frieghter captains, who save the universe. Putting that type of stuff in STO, would only make the game even more boring, than it already is, if that's possible. It would be like physically, having to play through Doff assignment grinds, with your toon.
Yes, I am pretty sure we will be hearing Stahl lamenting the decision that will invalidated the possibility of a Dominion faction at some point in time.
I'm sure he never read the story of the goose that laid the golden egg... or is familiar with the term "shooting yourself in the foot"
It wasn't a big thing when the original lock box came out. A few "winners" flying around in whatever ship it was. But now I can't do an stf without everyone but me in some sort of non-ip ship and that really irks me. It completely ruins the ip and I have a hard time playing anymore.
I have never purchased a key or opened a lockbox. I buy stuff in the exchange though.
I am nearing 40 and can count all the times I gambled.
1) 1 lottery ticket 4 years ago for my wife
2) 11 years ago 23 cents on a penny slot on Las Vegas
3) 1998 a lottery ticket in came free in a happy meal
4) 1995 I spent 20$ on a slot machine in Greece and lost it all
Everyone one of those "gambles" hurt.
I cannot play a lockbox.
That and my government is making online lotteries illegal.
Put it in the zen store? Sure. Some of those ships are nice. But there is no way I will ever pay for nothing.
I opened a few lock boxes trying to get the Wells, but in the end I bought one from the Exchange. Otherwise, the lock box ships haven't interested me at all, and the only reason for me to open boxes at all right now is to get enough Lobi to purchase the items I want from the store. Once I've got everything I need for this character, I probably won't bother with them any more.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
If I happen to have a lot of spare dil/ec I'll probably open a few boxes: this is a game after all and a game-of-chance on occasion is fine with me (really, the various DOff cadres are gamble-boxes as well, albeit Zen-free).
I'm not buying Zen with actual money to ever buy a lockbox key.
Will never, ever happen.
Considering this is literally the only way KDF gets ships anymore, yes... Yes I do. Although I'm at the point where I can generally buy what I want with EC now.
i don't play EVE for several reasons
- 1: endless leveling system, you will NEVER catch up to the big guys that started years ago
- 2: worst UI EVER, even worse than STOs (so tiny fonts you need to lean forward to read stuff *ugh*)
- 3: i don't know what the hell all the items are, i DO know what a Phaser and a Photon Torpedo is, but in EVE i have no idea what is what, which means more reading up on stuff in tiny fonts...
1) you train for a ship, and ships have a skill cap. You can be as good as anyone in your given ship within a year(outside of capitals). Sometimes substantially less for a the smaller ships. Since all the ship classes serve a purpose... It's really just an excuse for people who don't understand how the game works.
2) it's a complicated UI, it's also extremely customizable and interactive, including font size. its not bad by a long shot... It's actually one of the more advanced in the industry
Comments
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
This. So much this. Add commodities, hypos, and every other consumable to that list.
I don't mind it so much but if I was paying a subscription for this game I'd be pissed off. What do you get for subscribing? I followed a link to sub information and it only said how much it cost and didn't actually say what you get for subscribing...
I'm not a big fan if the ftp models
I don't understand why companies don't just lower subscription rates and use free trials to increase population like the EVE model but a lower sub. maybe $9 instead of $15
pay to win puts me off.
You get a bunch of things for subscribing, but the most relevant of them to the discussion at hand is, you get $5 worth of cash shop points a month, which is enough to buy 4 keys; more if you save it up for three months.
The Features Matrix that shows what "Gold players" (AKA subscribers) get vs. "Silver players" (non-subscribers) is here:
http://sto.perfectworld.com/about/freetoplay/features-matrix
Back on track... I would agree that the lockbox stack should be increased to 250 or 999 or something larger, since they are worth virtually nothing (until that lockbox ends). But no, I like these premium ships, and although there are a lot of non-KDF/Starfleet ships running around and it doesn't follow canon, I really don't mind. Just as long as a couple premium Starfleet ships are released in future lockboxes, I'm fine. Like the Enterprise-J (Hint hint).
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
I will get both ships off the exchange and enough keys for lobi extras - I think this should be a really interesting box - I was kind of not too thrilled with the temporal box.
I was serious about my idea of having a 3rd faction that is unaligned. Heck you could have a whole fleet just full of lock box ships and former Fed and KDF captains. It would really put a different spin on the game and draw a lot of people who want to carry on a different career path.
That one is vanishingly unlikely. It's so huge, it would make all the current scaling issues way worse. On a scale where the J didn't fill your entire screen, you couldn't even see a Defiant well enough to recognize it, and a shuttle would be a pixel.
I'm exaggerating a little, but not by much.
***
All boxes are equal - even if you opened one at lv1, you'd have the same hair-thin chance of getting the grand prize as far as I know - you just wouldn't be able to use it
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Thing is, if the Ferengi really were aquiring all these derelict vessels, wouldn't they just keep them? Remember DS9 "Little Green Men"? And that was just a shuttle. It would seem the Ferengi would be more likely to do this:
1) Aquire various assorted factions direlicts.
2) Crew them with Nausican, Klingon, Orion, and any other mercenary types to be found.
3) Send these vessels out as commerce raiders, attacking all other faction's shipping, up to and including, the vessel's previous owners, and probably, other Ferengi, too.
4) Take percentage of Spoils from each mission.
5) Destroy said vessel, via subspace, warpcore, overload device, if it is in immediate danger of capture.
Why sell the ship once, when you have the gift that keeps on giving? Realistically, judging by the amount of these vessels out there, the Ferengi would spend more time, and money, recovering them, than they would make selling them. The whole Lobi consortium is just another Cryptic harebrain that is destroying the game.
Hinges on what your definition of "worth" is. You can make ECs selling most of the stuff on the Exchange. But ECs are largely, a worthless currency anyway, unless you've got millions of them.
Oh gods no, the last thing i want is being forced to be vocal on hot threads because the devs did TRIBBLE again. We had to do that for almost a month with season 7 (during tribble testing and two weeks after the release). Enough. I just want to play the game, not having ridiculous forum discussions because some genius thought it was smart to release even more OP stuff so that the previous one turns out to be completely outdated.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Why bother playing a game called Star Trek Online, if you'd rather play as something other than Star Fleet? Try EVE Online.
- 1: endless leveling system, you will NEVER catch up to the big guys that started years ago
- 2: worst UI EVER, even worse than STOs (so tiny fonts you need to lean forward to read stuff *ugh*)
- 3: i don't know what the hell all the items are, i DO know what a Phaser and a Photon Torpedo is, but in EVE i have no idea what is what, which means more reading up on stuff in tiny fonts...
no thx
would i want to play a Cardassian from Cardassia Prime flying a Galor / Hideki / Keldon class? With a Proper Cardi Uniform... Cardi DOff Assignments and Chains... Cardi Starbase?
HELL YEAH!
Add some real history / story and interesting characters like Garak and Dukat, an interesting Plot to that Faction and heck i'd buy that on a Retail Disc without thinking twice about it.
or a Romulan Faction... or whatever, i don't care as long as its interesting and TREK...
and for realz let me play some actual bad guy faction for a change, the Klingons aren't bad guys at all, the Romulans now have their fed friendly sub faction (if at all we get to play those, no chance at ever playing for the evil Tal Shiar!).... even the Cardies are almost Federation Members now.
Seriously i wonder when the Borg are going to apply for membership in the Federation.
The Klingons were originally put in for the PvPers. As for Mayweather, and Sisko, one is a backstory, and the other is supporting cast, respectively. Both are used for character developement, but that's about the extent of it. Let's face it, neither Voyager, or DS9, would be very exciting, if every week, you tuned in to see the next industrial replicator run. The point of Trek is to showcase all the cool, extraordinary, adventures, that the ordinary people, who are not in StarFleet, are excluded from partaking in. It's the StarFleet captains, not the frieghter captains, who save the universe. Putting that type of stuff in STO, would only make the game even more boring, than it already is, if that's possible. It would be like physically, having to play through Doff assignment grinds, with your toon.
Tholian Lock box announcement thread in 3(last post) days had 22,000 views, Temporal in 8(last post) days had 23,000 views
Dominion is only at 5300 views now - so we shall see - less people on the forums - less interest in the box? less interest in the game?
I'm sure he never read the story of the goose that laid the golden egg... or is familiar with the term "shooting yourself in the foot"
I have never purchased a key or opened a lockbox. I buy stuff in the exchange though.
I am nearing 40 and can count all the times I gambled.
1) 1 lottery ticket 4 years ago for my wife
2) 11 years ago 23 cents on a penny slot on Las Vegas
3) 1998 a lottery ticket in came free in a happy meal
4) 1995 I spent 20$ on a slot machine in Greece and lost it all
Everyone one of those "gambles" hurt.
I cannot play a lockbox.
That and my government is making online lotteries illegal.
Put it in the zen store? Sure. Some of those ships are nice. But there is no way I will ever pay for nothing.
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'm not buying Zen with actual money to ever buy a lockbox key.
Will never, ever happen.
He's dead, Jim.
1) you train for a ship, and ships have a skill cap. You can be as good as anyone in your given ship within a year(outside of capitals). Sometimes substantially less for a the smaller ships. Since all the ship classes serve a purpose... It's really just an excuse for people who don't understand how the game works.
2) it's a complicated UI, it's also extremely customizable and interactive, including font size. its not bad by a long shot... It's actually one of the more advanced in the industry
3) that's fair, it's a complex game