DaveyNY, it would seem to me that you haven't played any really good games then. STO as it stands is at best mediocre. The thing that drew me in regardless of the mediocre reviews?
Star Trek.
I've played three MMO's... SWG, WoW and STO...
SWG was really great, till they drastically changed it.
WoW was fun for a while, but my interest in D&D type stuff is waning as I get older.
STO is still fun for me as a Trekker, nothing this game does will change my feelings I have toward the IP...
While it's available I'm going to play it and enjoy it to the best of my ability...
There's nothing like it available anywhere else.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Kyuui--Yes, I would continue on and create Part 2 of my Foundry mission to the best of my ability, with or without tips. I have written stories for years and until I did the Foundry, never got anything "material" back, but wrote simply for the fun and for the community...chatting back and forth about various people's stories. Which is the same reason I write for the Literary Challenges here. You don't get anything for that except for the fun. The community is the biggest payoff for me.
As for resources given to my fleet? Three toons contribute basically everything they have to my fleet, thank you very much. Only one toon farms for me, and he doesn't bring in that much.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Kyuui--Yes, I would continue on and create Part 2 of my Foundry mission to the best of my ability, with or without tips. I have written stories for years and until I did the Foundry, never got anything "material" back, but wrote simply for the fun and for the community...chatting back and forth about various people's stories. Which is the same reason I write for the Literary Challenges here: you don't get anything for that except for the fun.
Well I would say you're the rare animal, and when your ready to drop some of the worthless tips into a fleet, let me know, I know of a few who would take them willingly, and maybe even give you something in exchange.
That's probably why this game is so meh, no other choices and the devs know people will fork over money because it is Star Trek
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
As I stated 100s of threads before, additional Fleet Marks are coming.
Will Fleet Marks be added back to Foundry missions? Nope.
Will Fleet Marks be increased on other missions? Yes.
How soon?
As I hinted at last week, you will see changes over the next several month, but the first change will be this Thursday.
We are not detailing that change until the patch notes hit.
This is your response? After 2000 posts objecting to the lack of transparency, lack of discussion, and excessive grind of the game in general, and making many detailed proposals to improve the situation, your response is, "We're moving up the timetable on these new ways to grind we won't tell you about, but I'm going to pretend this was the plan all along. The first change is coming in 48 hours, but I'm not telling you about that either. Trust me."
Why should we trust you, Mr. Stahl? You and your team have a long history of doing as much to hurt Star Trek Online and TRIBBLE over its playerbase as you do to improve the game and help us. Worse, even changes that you have claimed would help us have often proven detrimental instead. So we must consider your judgement and/or motives and/or honesty to be suspect. Therefore, our role as forum posters is not to trust you, but rather to serve as watchdogs, examining every move you make and screaming bloody murder when you do something harmful. Many of us would love to contribute more to the process of designing the game, and you've gotten plenty of free business advice in this thread, but the only role you allow us is that of watchdogs, so that is the role we must fill.
Your most recent post is just more of the same things we've been objecting to all along. This isn't an answer, and it isn't a fix. Don't expect this to satisfy us, and don't expect this to keep us here. If anything, you've driven me that much closer to leaving. And I don't want to leave.
Honestly, the main reasons I still play STO are because I have friends here and because being a top member of my fleet lets me feel like there's some kind of a point to my life (and yeah, I'm probably depressed, deal with it). The more you force us to grind and the more you disrespect us the less I feel like this is worth it. You're pushing me right to the edge of leaving the game entirely. I haven't actually played in days, just logged on to see fleet chat so I can help out anyone with questions, and I didn't even do that yesterday. If this keeps up, I may very well quit STO and go back to some of my many other games.
Everyone is jumping to wrong ideas what they want to hear from his reply but this is the same BS as before. So i will wait and see till patch day. I will be ready to protest then if some stuff dont get fixed or more fleet marks are not add because i am no man slave working for small amount of crappy fleet marks.
Kyuui--Yes, I would continue on and create Part 2 of my Foundry mission to the best of my ability, with or without tips. I have written stories for years and until I did the Foundry, never got anything "material" back, but wrote simply for the fun and for the community...chatting back and forth about various people's stories. Which is the same reason I write for the Literary Challenges here. You don't get anything for that except for the fun. The community is the biggest payoff for me.
As for resources given to my fleet? Three toons contribute basically everything they have to my fleet, thank you very much. Only one toon farms for me, and he doesn't bring in that much.
I truley believe most foundry authors do it because they want to tell a good story within the confines of the game, and I'm sure I can speak for most people when I say we appreciate it.
It's only a few authors who insist we play their (and only their) "Wuthering Heights in Space" that people take issue with.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
25 people. But people are not all equal as I'm sure you know already. Not all of us are the "UBERMEGAomfgWTF no life grinder" that their metric would seem to call for.
Well, hows about stating how the assess their metrics? How's about detailing how much play they expect those 25 "average joes" in their generic fleet to play in order to make a t5 base?
They could also cut out most of the "truuuuust meeee" stuff and tell us what is happening?
At this point, why should they bother as for a lot of posters, it's gotten to the point that unless they say:
"You people against this change were 100% correct -- we're performing an emergency patch to rollback all recent reward changes right now..."
then you don't want to hear it. Dan came back after a holiday weekend, posted in this thread that they will be upping the FM rewards in other content starting with this next patch; (and other the weekend the majority of this thread seemed to be:
"Can someone from Cryptic please respond to this thread and tell us what you plan to do?"
So they do that and it's still - "Not enough - I want an answer and fix to all my issues now!"
So IDK, but with a situation such as the above where if they don't say anything they're attacked; and if they do say anything, they're still attacked -- if I were them, I'd go with the attitude of:
"Why bother, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."
Because in the end, the honest fact is, most of the people who play STO (or any MMO) rarely (if ever) bother with reading or posting to the official forums; and the majority of players who like the game, just play it. That's why one of the major forms of feedback they use is metrics, because in the end, that determines potential for income generation, etc.
The ONLY ti,me they get worried if if they see a MASSIVE downturn in concurrent player numbers, or see the game isn't retaining new players who download it (IE they quit after a few levels or in the tutorial and never log in again.)
And if you want a real world STO example where the STO Forum feedback and real world STO metrics conflict; and clearly show the feedback from the minority on the Forums DOESN'T coincide with their real world player metrics feedback, I give you:
The Lockbox situation (and BTW, I'm not at all for having Lockboxes and I make my view know in game by NOT buying or using Lockboxes or Master Keys in any way -- that said:)
If you go by STO Forum feedback, Lockboxes are a negative item, bringing down the enjoyment of STO for a lot of players (by the comments posted)
YET -- their metrics show (and the Devs have backed this up by comments in interviews):
The sales of Master Keys to open Lockboxes is the most lucrative/successful method that STO has to generate revenue and profit to date. Like it or not, that's the situation; and I'm sure if that wasn't the case; we'd see Lockboxes and Master Keys completely disappear from STO in a heartbeat.
So, here's a bonifide case where if Cryptic simply used Forum feedback and the main/only source; they'd loose their major source of income generation, see less profit; and we as players would see slower STO game development, STO would have a smaller dev team, etc.
^^^
That's a trap you can fall into if you don't look at multiple sources of feedback to help paint a clearer picture of a large complex situation.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Believe me, when I see a loophole or flaw I'll call it a loophole or flaw. What they have here is BUGGY CODE! Most of this post has nothing to do with The Foundry or Fleet Marks. Those are just the latest in a string of bad decisions and changes made by Cryptic.
The release of Season 7 was a bad decision. It was released, and still is, broken. They should have QC'd for another month, and actually listened to their player base that told them beforehand how that content would be received. Same as this last patch. 75+ pages telling them about bugs, and how their players would view their changes, all in ONE DAY. and they went live with the patch anyways.
This is not smart decision making, which is mostly Epic Fail...
Now go grind your 3 hours so you can make enough Omega Marks, Romulan Marks, Fleet Marks and Lobi's so you can line up to do it again tomorrow.
And BTW, that 3 hour estimate was conservative...
I refuse to grind like that.
If you go back over my post history for the last few months, you'll find that I'm one of those players calling for less grind and more story/episodic content. My little 5-player fleet probably won't get past Tier 2 with our starbase, because we'd rather play "real" content than grind.
I have one character who is almost through the Romulan rep grind -- because I want to play the missions gated behind said grind. It is the last time I will do so. New Romulus is fun on occasion, but it is no more fun as a "daily" than any other content. I may revisit it on other characters later, but just as additional "story-light" missions in their careers, not with any intention of running through the whole rep grind.
Conversely, I have never been tempted to cheat my way through the grind by participating in obvious exploits. No game is all that important to me. Either I have fun with what I do or I find something better to do.
STO is fun; it's just limited the amount of mission content available -- especially when compared to other MMOs.
At this point, why should they bother as for a lot of posters, it's gotten to the point that unless they say:
"You people against this change were 100% correct -- we're performing an emergency patch to rollback all recent reward changes right now..."
Again, it's not just about the rewards. That point seem to be lost on the CDF and Cryptic.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
We DO expect Fleet Holdings to require "group" gameplay for the most part. This is why we will continue to tune Fleet Holdings up through the May update.
Tune fleet holdings up ... even more? I don't know if that's the right way to go, honestly.
"Everything about the Jham'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Armsman, I'm not condoning using the forums as the only form of feed back for the devs. But as far as we can tell, the powers that be have been relying on metrics alone.
What I call for is that the powers that be to realise that this is a bad thing and that in order to make this game better (and make us rather happier) they should use a variety of methods to judge in game and community sentiment.
Also, I think that the whole "metrics" thing was seized upon because it has cropped up again and again in statements by Dan Stahl. It's almost meme worthy
In sociology (one of the areas of my studies) there are two main kinds of data. Quantitative and qualitative. The former is the type of thing you get in interviews and observation, where as the latter is what you'd get from questionnaires, metrics etc. Yes, metrics.
Both kinds of data have flaws and both have strengths. I think it is reasonable to think that to come up with a good solid picture you need lots of both types of data rather than one or the other.
From what we have seen, it would appear that Cryptic has fallen into the trap of favouring one kind over the other.
It's one of those terms that invalidates any argument on the part of the user, even if there are some good points in the argument otherwise.
That is, it seems to be equally applied to those who truly do seem to think nothing Cryptic does is faulty and to those who see both the good and the faults.
It is the flip side of calling someone a "troll" and carries about as weight.
It's one of those terms that invalidates any argument on the part of the user, even if there are some good points in the argument otherwise.
That is, it seems to be equally applied to those who truly do seem to think nothing Cryptic does is faulty and to those who see both the good and the faults.
It is the flip side of calling someone a "troll" and carries about as weight.
I suppose it'd be an exercise in futility to see the patch posted to Tribble this afternoon or evening so it has at least 24 hours of testing before it hits Holodeck?
Cautiously optimistic -- increasing fleet mark rewards should be very easy (you change a few numbers in a database). Adding them to PvP may take more time for their system and anti-AFK tech.
YET -- their metrics show (and the Devs have backed this up by comments in interviews):
The sales of Master Keys to open Lockboxes is the most lucrative/successful method that STO has to generate revenue and profit to date. <snip>
I hope they have an alternate plan for earning revenue then...
On May 9, the Wall Street Journal reported Japanese mobile video game firm Gree Inc. would discontinue certain online games that involved the purchase of virtual items that utilize a chance factor akin to lottery gaming. On Gree properties, as with many other online games utilizing micro transactions, customers buy mystery packages that, when opened, reveal virtual objects worth little to a lot depending on their rarity.
...Perfect World may be wise to reconcile with their players before a "critical threshold" of complaints are received, triggering a Japanese-like response.
What a suitable quote for what is going on this weekend as well.
Now if PWE wanted to know of a much better way they could earn tremendous profit and satisfy their customer base at the same time... well they don't listen to us anyway, so what's the point?
Instead all they want to do is remove things from the game and punish it's player base - well good luck with that strategy let me know how it works out for ya.
There are Four Lights... say no to ARCFleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
DaveyNY, it would seem to me that you haven't played any really good games then. STO as it stands is at best mediocre. The thing that drew me in regardless of the mediocre reviews?
Star Trek.
I'd be curious to know what your 'good' list of MMOs are. Maybe there's something really good out there I haven't tried yet.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Also, I think that the whole "metrics" thing was seized upon because it has cropped up again and again in statements by Dan Stahl. It's almost meme worthy .
Metrics are invaluable for accurate measurements -- but they are also easily manipulated in some situations.
For example, metrics may say a lot of people are participating in <insert grind name here>, but they cannot tell you if the players are enjoying it.
I know for myself, I've participated in some of the grind with the expectations, nurtured by Mr. Stahl's comments concerning the update formerly know as Season 8, that more of the content I enjoy is forthcoming.
However, early descriptions of Season 7 included the term "story-focused" which turned out not to be the case. So I take it with a grain of salt until I see the end result. My *hope* is that a lot of the story components were pushed off to the May update while systems upgrades were developed for Season 7. I will put off having any *expectations* one way or the other for now.
It's one of those terms that invalidates any argument on the part of the user, even if there are some good points in the argument otherwise.
No it doesn't invalidate anything it states the truth; whatever boneheaded decision the devs make and whatever boneheaded way they try to deflect the anger there are always a few that will defend them no matter what.
Cryptic could lower the refinement cap to 2k and jack up the dilithium prices by 50% and people would still defend the decision.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
I suppose it'd be an exercise in futility to see the patch posted to Tribble this afternoon or evening so it has at least 24 hours of testing before it hits Holodeck?
Cautiously optimistic -- increasing fleet mark rewards should be very easy (you change a few numbers in a database). Adding them to PvP may take more time for their system and anti-AFK tech.
Tribble seems to get it's patches in the afternoon-evening time window on the west coast (a quick glance at the Tribble notes puts the time window from about 12:30 to 4:00 ish Pacific time), so it may be slated to go up today.
Though you'd think that'd be something we could have been told...
We absolutely do listen to feedback. But there is another issue, some people like to exploit.
I take full responsibility and freely admit that we have been heavy handed with closing exploits and that in the future we will strive to be more considerate about how we close loopholes. Providing clear alternatives for players NOT exploiting while we close down the holes.
If you go back in time to when Foundry missions HAD NO REWARDS, these issues were not around. It is only when we started adding "tangible" rewards to the Foundry that the issues surrounding the Foundry became more in depth.
We want to reward Foundry missions. We want players to be recognized for making great missions (where great is determined by the player base - not us).
However, as soon as we started attaching real rewards to the Foundry, exploits started.
Whether it was the click a contact missions or the recent AFK farming of Foundry missions, having rewards on Foundry missions is problematic.
We take responsibility for putting the rewards there in the first place, but it is out of our desire to credit those who make missions in the Foundry that achieve status in the community.
So recently, we pulled Fleet Marks from the Foundry because there were too many people AFK completing missions, or in other words logging into the mission, letting the client sit there for 30 minutes and then collecting rewards, and Fleet Marks to boot.
Should we have upped the Fleet Marks on other missions before we pulled the FMs from the Foundry? Well I think the answer is obviously yes.
But to think that we are pulling Fleet Marks without an intention to add them back is false. We really do monitor Fleet Marks daily and we know how last week's changes impacted overall Fleet Mark earning. We will be compensating in this week's update to Holodeck.
Will it make everyone happy? no. But it will add Fleet Marks back into the economy.
We do plan to continue updating the Fleet Mark economies as the game progresses and as stated in posts several days ago, we will be reclassifying what are Events and what are Fleet Actions with a goal of making Fleet Marks the reward for "Group" gameplay.
Fleet Projects are only a small percentage Fleet Mark based so if you do not like to "group" then you'll have to contribute in other ways. We DO expect Fleet Holdings to require "group" gameplay for the most part. This is why we will continue to tune Fleet Holdings up through the May update.
No it doesn't invalidate anything it states the truth; whatever boneheaded decision the devs make and whatever boneheaded way they try to deflect the anger there are always a few that will defend them no matter what.
Cryptic could lower the refinement cap to 2k and jack up the dilithium prices by 50% and people would still defend the decision.
I agree that there are those who will defend anything. I've debated a few myself. The problem comes when those who see both the good and the bad get tarred with the same brush -- or those who have differing viewpoints as to whether a specific thing was a boneheaded move or not.
That is "if you disagree with my viewpoint, you're just a CDF/troll and what you say doesn't matter."
Whenever I see "CDF" or "troll" in a post, it automatically drops down the scale of validity for me. It's dismissive of someone else's viewpoint, not a rational point of discussion.
The initial post was on a Thursday. Stahl posted a second time later that day. Brandon posted letting us know feedback was continuously being collected on a weekend, Saturday IIRC. Today is Monday; the people capable of making decisions just got back to work today and doubtless have a massive pile of feedback, both intelligent and otherwise, to look through.
Tuesday. Tomorrow. If we don't get a reply by the end of the day Tuesday, then whine about being ignored. Believe it or not, it takes time to consider responses and possible solutions.
Unfortunately, there would be a workaround on this one. Larger fleet Commanders would simply cut loose their non productive or less productive members in favor of cheaper projects. If given the opportunity; I fear a good portion would bite at the chance. If you have a 100 man fleet,but only 20 contribute the majority, it would be in their best interest to let the others go,and allow the highly productive members to work a little less to get way more.
But I concede your point,there are certainly more than the two options Dan gave us. PWE just doesn't want you to think there may be more options available.
As I stated 100s of threads before, additional Fleet Marks are coming.
Will Fleet Marks be added back to Foundry missions? Nope.
Will Fleet Marks be increased on other missions? Yes.
How soon?
As I hinted at last week, you will see changes over the next several month, but the first change will be this Thursday.
We are not detailing that change until the patch notes hit.
Wow...would it be possible for you to show just a little more contempt in that post? Each and every negative reaction in this thread is the result of your hamfisted attempts at cleaning up a mess you created. In short, you fully deserve the wrath of the players for the shortsignted and ill timed decision you made. Yes, you. As Executive Producer, it's my understanding that every game changing decision goes through you. You owe your customers more than a "we'll talk about it when WE decide to" and you bloody well know it.
This is a full blown, five alarm cluster-frak that needs some serious fixing immediately. Not a week from now, not a month from now, and certainly not "whenever we get around to it." The decision was made to remove access to an already limited currency with no viable replacement ready to go.
Your players are more than a set of metrics. If you actually took the time to just park yourself in ESD and listen to the zone chat, you might realize that. This game is more than a series of spreadsheets and figures to the players. I don't think it's too much to ask that you consider the players of your game in a higher regard than a collection of data. Stop telling us "you're playing it wrong" and let us play the game as we want. Sure, fix the massive exploits, the bugs, and whatnot, but for the love of (insert deity of preference here), stop telling us HOW to play the game, and let us actually play it!
You majorly fraked up. But the sad part is, in your eyes, you've done nothing wrong, even though the state of morale across the boards and in the game should very clearly tell you otherwise. Your snide post proves to me that you're completely out of touch with the decisions you make for this game and even more out of touch with the people who play it. I sincerely hope you see this and start making decisions that are good for the players and not just PWE/Cryptic's bottom line.
I think you're completely missing the real problem here:
The FM/IOR thing was only a tiny capper that tipped things over, the real problem's like that iceberg that looks pretty right off the side of your cruise ship.
the REAL problem, is the constant march of bugs and defects, at least two in every patch.
And the displayed cavalier attitude TOWARD those long-known issues that go unresolved while the Staff seems to obsess over the gated grind tacked on at end-game (and not in a positive or constructive manner, either.)
Forget "Customer Service" because the real problem is "Quality of Workmanship".
The two-minute Engineering Team bug, for instance, is a significant, REAL problem-one that happens to coincide with the patch that also removed the FM from IOR. The "Ensign Flatulent" cloaking bug is a LONG STANDING ISSUE (one that was cavalierly deflected as "Working as intended"...) Lag-inducing pet-spams are a real problem, one that has not even been acknowledged at developer level.
Then we go to the S7 issues- Rep system items not showing up because they were never finished, the Rep Passives having to be hot-patched because (surprise) they were never TESTED, Staff decisions to go forward with S7 as-it-was when the Test feedback showed it wasn't ready for prime-time and needed significant work.
Not "Insignificant", not a minor tweak, but SERIOUS work.
Missions that don't load, don't activate, or activate you right into "Well, it's already over" (Tau Dewa Alerts), Maps with Lag-generators (Pi Canis, Regulus sector, etc. Borg alerts-those big white swatches of lag that make those activities a pain in the hindquarters to even LOOK AT.) Missions that bug-and-crash routinely (and used to work just fine) like the opening mission for the 2800 string. Starbase Fleet Defense is so bugged almost nobody bothers playing it anymore-in spite of the payout (which is too low for the time invested).
There are hundereds more-issues that people have come up with 'workarounds' for that should NEVER HAVE BEEN ISSUES TO BEGIN WITH.
The problems are legion, too many to list, too many features that aren't features, too many bugs, too many things that don't work right (and should-often things that worked FINE in earlier versions of the game's code...)
When you ADD the attitude displayed in the thinking BEHIND the FM patch (articulated BY Mr. Stahl himself at the beginning of this thread), the CORRECT response IS TO BE ANGRY.
What a suitable quote for what is going on this weekend as well.
Now if PWE wanted to know of a much better way they could earn tremendous profit and satisfy their customer base at the same time... well they don't listen to us anyway, so what's the point?
Instead all they want to do is remove things from the game and punish it's player base - well good luck with that strategy let me know how it works out for ya.
If you lived through the late 1980s, you may remember the old 900 numbers. During the late afternoon hours, when kids got back from school, the 900 commercials use to lure kids into calling. Companies ran the commercials during "Smurfs", "She-Ra", "He-Man", "M.A.S.K.", "Gi-Joe", etc... You got the first minute for .50 cents, and then every other additional minute costs $1+. Kids would call the 900 number, so they can hear a message from their favorite cartoon character. If what the article says is true, MMOs have replaced the old 900 number scams. What ultimately happened to the 900 number industry was an outcry, which triggered the US government to act with strict regulations.
I wonder if the tides are shifting against microtransactions?
Comments
I've played three MMO's... SWG, WoW and STO...
SWG was really great, till they drastically changed it.
WoW was fun for a while, but my interest in D&D type stuff is waning as I get older.
STO is still fun for me as a Trekker, nothing this game does will change my feelings I have toward the IP...
While it's available I'm going to play it and enjoy it to the best of my ability...
There's nothing like it available anywhere else.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
As for resources given to my fleet? Three toons contribute basically everything they have to my fleet, thank you very much. Only one toon farms for me, and he doesn't bring in that much.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Well I would say you're the rare animal, and when your ready to drop some of the worthless tips into a fleet, let me know, I know of a few who would take them willingly, and maybe even give you something in exchange.
That's probably why this game is so meh, no other choices and the devs know people will fork over money because it is Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
This is your response? After 2000 posts objecting to the lack of transparency, lack of discussion, and excessive grind of the game in general, and making many detailed proposals to improve the situation, your response is, "We're moving up the timetable on these new ways to grind we won't tell you about, but I'm going to pretend this was the plan all along. The first change is coming in 48 hours, but I'm not telling you about that either. Trust me."
Why should we trust you, Mr. Stahl? You and your team have a long history of doing as much to hurt Star Trek Online and TRIBBLE over its playerbase as you do to improve the game and help us. Worse, even changes that you have claimed would help us have often proven detrimental instead. So we must consider your judgement and/or motives and/or honesty to be suspect. Therefore, our role as forum posters is not to trust you, but rather to serve as watchdogs, examining every move you make and screaming bloody murder when you do something harmful. Many of us would love to contribute more to the process of designing the game, and you've gotten plenty of free business advice in this thread, but the only role you allow us is that of watchdogs, so that is the role we must fill.
Your most recent post is just more of the same things we've been objecting to all along. This isn't an answer, and it isn't a fix. Don't expect this to satisfy us, and don't expect this to keep us here. If anything, you've driven me that much closer to leaving. And I don't want to leave.
Honestly, the main reasons I still play STO are because I have friends here and because being a top member of my fleet lets me feel like there's some kind of a point to my life (and yeah, I'm probably depressed, deal with it). The more you force us to grind and the more you disrespect us the less I feel like this is worth it. You're pushing me right to the edge of leaving the game entirely. I haven't actually played in days, just logged on to see fleet chat so I can help out anyone with questions, and I didn't even do that yesterday. If this keeps up, I may very well quit STO and go back to some of my many other games.
We are quite literally, the golden geese. Metaphorically speaking of course.
*HAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWNKK* Oh look, I just laid another golden egg. Come on and earn it Cryptic!
I truley believe most foundry authors do it because they want to tell a good story within the confines of the game, and I'm sure I can speak for most people when I say we appreciate it.
It's only a few authors who insist we play their (and only their) "Wuthering Heights in Space" that people take issue with.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
At this point, why should they bother as for a lot of posters, it's gotten to the point that unless they say:
"You people against this change were 100% correct -- we're performing an emergency patch to rollback all recent reward changes right now..."
then you don't want to hear it. Dan came back after a holiday weekend, posted in this thread that they will be upping the FM rewards in other content starting with this next patch; (and other the weekend the majority of this thread seemed to be:
"Can someone from Cryptic please respond to this thread and tell us what you plan to do?"
So they do that and it's still - "Not enough - I want an answer and fix to all my issues now!"
So IDK, but with a situation such as the above where if they don't say anything they're attacked; and if they do say anything, they're still attacked -- if I were them, I'd go with the attitude of:
"Why bother, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."
Because in the end, the honest fact is, most of the people who play STO (or any MMO) rarely (if ever) bother with reading or posting to the official forums; and the majority of players who like the game, just play it. That's why one of the major forms of feedback they use is metrics, because in the end, that determines potential for income generation, etc.
The ONLY ti,me they get worried if if they see a MASSIVE downturn in concurrent player numbers, or see the game isn't retaining new players who download it (IE they quit after a few levels or in the tutorial and never log in again.)
And if you want a real world STO example where the STO Forum feedback and real world STO metrics conflict; and clearly show the feedback from the minority on the Forums DOESN'T coincide with their real world player metrics feedback, I give you:
The Lockbox situation (and BTW, I'm not at all for having Lockboxes and I make my view know in game by NOT buying or using Lockboxes or Master Keys in any way -- that said:)
If you go by STO Forum feedback, Lockboxes are a negative item, bringing down the enjoyment of STO for a lot of players (by the comments posted)
YET -- their metrics show (and the Devs have backed this up by comments in interviews):
The sales of Master Keys to open Lockboxes is the most lucrative/successful method that STO has to generate revenue and profit to date. Like it or not, that's the situation; and I'm sure if that wasn't the case; we'd see Lockboxes and Master Keys completely disappear from STO in a heartbeat.
So, here's a bonifide case where if Cryptic simply used Forum feedback and the main/only source; they'd loose their major source of income generation, see less profit; and we as players would see slower STO game development, STO would have a smaller dev team, etc.
^^^
That's a trap you can fall into if you don't look at multiple sources of feedback to help paint a clearer picture of a large complex situation.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I refuse to grind like that.
If you go back over my post history for the last few months, you'll find that I'm one of those players calling for less grind and more story/episodic content. My little 5-player fleet probably won't get past Tier 2 with our starbase, because we'd rather play "real" content than grind.
I have one character who is almost through the Romulan rep grind -- because I want to play the missions gated behind said grind. It is the last time I will do so. New Romulus is fun on occasion, but it is no more fun as a "daily" than any other content. I may revisit it on other characters later, but just as additional "story-light" missions in their careers, not with any intention of running through the whole rep grind.
Conversely, I have never been tempted to cheat my way through the grind by participating in obvious exploits. No game is all that important to me. Either I have fun with what I do or I find something better to do.
STO is fun; it's just limited the amount of mission content available -- especially when compared to other MMOs.
Again, it's not just about the rewards. That point seem to be lost on the CDF and Cryptic.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
CDF = Cryptic Defense Force??
Tune fleet holdings up ... even more? I don't know if that's the right way to go, honestly.
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
I think you've moved the "up". I read it as "up through May." (up relating to time frame, e.g., "up until release".)
What I call for is that the powers that be to realise that this is a bad thing and that in order to make this game better (and make us rather happier) they should use a variety of methods to judge in game and community sentiment.
Also, I think that the whole "metrics" thing was seized upon because it has cropped up again and again in statements by Dan Stahl. It's almost meme worthy
In sociology (one of the areas of my studies) there are two main kinds of data. Quantitative and qualitative. The former is the type of thing you get in interviews and observation, where as the latter is what you'd get from questionnaires, metrics etc. Yes, metrics.
Both kinds of data have flaws and both have strengths. I think it is reasonable to think that to come up with a good solid picture you need lots of both types of data rather than one or the other.
From what we have seen, it would appear that Cryptic has fallen into the trap of favouring one kind over the other.
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
It's one of those terms that invalidates any argument on the part of the user, even if there are some good points in the argument otherwise.
That is, it seems to be equally applied to those who truly do seem to think nothing Cryptic does is faulty and to those who see both the good and the faults.
It is the flip side of calling someone a "troll" and carries about as weight.
Thank you for the clarification..:)
Cautiously optimistic -- increasing fleet mark rewards should be very easy (you change a few numbers in a database). Adding them to PvP may take more time for their system and anti-AFK tech.
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
I hope they have an alternate plan for earning revenue then... The article even mentions STO directly. Do you want to know more?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/611721-regulation-may-alter-mmo-landscape-part-1
What a suitable quote for what is going on this weekend as well.
Now if PWE wanted to know of a much better way they could earn tremendous profit and satisfy their customer base at the same time... well they don't listen to us anyway, so what's the point?
Instead all they want to do is remove things from the game and punish it's player base - well good luck with that strategy let me know how it works out for ya.
Fleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
I'd be curious to know what your 'good' list of MMOs are. Maybe there's something really good out there I haven't tried yet.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Metrics are invaluable for accurate measurements -- but they are also easily manipulated in some situations.
For example, metrics may say a lot of people are participating in <insert grind name here>, but they cannot tell you if the players are enjoying it.
I know for myself, I've participated in some of the grind with the expectations, nurtured by Mr. Stahl's comments concerning the update formerly know as Season 8, that more of the content I enjoy is forthcoming.
However, early descriptions of Season 7 included the term "story-focused" which turned out not to be the case. So I take it with a grain of salt until I see the end result. My *hope* is that a lot of the story components were pushed off to the May update while systems upgrades were developed for Season 7. I will put off having any *expectations* one way or the other for now.
No it doesn't invalidate anything it states the truth; whatever boneheaded decision the devs make and whatever boneheaded way they try to deflect the anger there are always a few that will defend them no matter what.
Cryptic could lower the refinement cap to 2k and jack up the dilithium prices by 50% and people would still defend the decision.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Tribble seems to get it's patches in the afternoon-evening time window on the west coast (a quick glance at the Tribble notes puts the time window from about 12:30 to 4:00 ish Pacific time), so it may be slated to go up today.
Though you'd think that'd be something we could have been told...
Why wasn't this posted in this thread, too?
I agree that there are those who will defend anything. I've debated a few myself. The problem comes when those who see both the good and the bad get tarred with the same brush -- or those who have differing viewpoints as to whether a specific thing was a boneheaded move or not.
That is "if you disagree with my viewpoint, you're just a CDF/troll and what you say doesn't matter."
Whenever I see "CDF" or "troll" in a post, it automatically drops down the scale of validity for me. It's dismissive of someone else's viewpoint, not a rational point of discussion.
The question is... is he the Executive Producer or just in charge of the Foundry and UGC now?
Maybe he has been told by the "overlords" to do the later and not speak as an Executive Producer...
PWE/Cryptic Stop the FARM, Bring back the FUN!
Zeus
Wow...would it be possible for you to show just a little more contempt in that post? Each and every negative reaction in this thread is the result of your hamfisted attempts at cleaning up a mess you created. In short, you fully deserve the wrath of the players for the shortsignted and ill timed decision you made. Yes, you. As Executive Producer, it's my understanding that every game changing decision goes through you. You owe your customers more than a "we'll talk about it when WE decide to" and you bloody well know it.
This is a full blown, five alarm cluster-frak that needs some serious fixing immediately. Not a week from now, not a month from now, and certainly not "whenever we get around to it." The decision was made to remove access to an already limited currency with no viable replacement ready to go.
Your players are more than a set of metrics. If you actually took the time to just park yourself in ESD and listen to the zone chat, you might realize that. This game is more than a series of spreadsheets and figures to the players. I don't think it's too much to ask that you consider the players of your game in a higher regard than a collection of data. Stop telling us "you're playing it wrong" and let us play the game as we want. Sure, fix the massive exploits, the bugs, and whatnot, but for the love of (insert deity of preference here), stop telling us HOW to play the game, and let us actually play it!
You majorly fraked up. But the sad part is, in your eyes, you've done nothing wrong, even though the state of morale across the boards and in the game should very clearly tell you otherwise. Your snide post proves to me that you're completely out of touch with the decisions you make for this game and even more out of touch with the people who play it. I sincerely hope you see this and start making decisions that are good for the players and not just PWE/Cryptic's bottom line.
Direct and to the heart of the matter. Good post.
I wonder if the tides are shifting against microtransactions?
We will have to wait and see.