I know this is a free game to play,but is it though????
We all know that if you didn't spend any real cash in this game,progression would be dead slow,and more people would end up quitting this game.They would be fed up.
One of the biggest problems is the dilithium cap at 8000 a day per toon.
This is far too small and really drags the game to a dead slow pace.
Yes I know cryptic is a business and they have to make their money,but surely theres a better fairer cheaper way of doing that.
Take the jemhadar attack ship as an example. Very popular. How about selling it in the z store at an affordable price for all????I bet more people would buy it.
The lock boxes. Totally unfair at the moment. Rubbish prizes from them most of the time.
Changing the odds of winning to favour the player would be good,and if theres guaranteed very valueable prizes there,more people would buy the lockbox keys.
Fleet projects. How about changing the dilithium rule there from refined to dilithium ore instead,to allow speedy progression for all fleets.
Ground borg missions. Arm the borg better but at the same time,take away the borg adaption to all weapons fired at them.
The drops in all patrols and missions. Currently they are mostly junk to just sell for EC.
How about there being something more valueable and useful to use for a toon or a ship perhaps.
To conclude this,If cryptic keep the prices excessively high as they are now,less people will be attracted to this game.
Get the prices right down and more affordable to all,then more new players will emerge.
CRYPTIC, think about this please. affordable prices will mean more players of this game,and yes more real money for cryptic.
they make more money selling the JHAS in lockboxes then they would ever on the c store..
this game really has the best f2p model there is.. you really dont have to spend a dime on this game and you can get full benefits as the people who do.
[12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
they make more money selling the JHAS in lockboxes then they would ever on the c store..
this game really has the best f2p model there is.. you really dont have to spend a dime on this game and you can get full benefits as the people who do.
Yes I am aware its f2p,but as said,playing the game that way all the time would be a dead slow pace,with little or no progression.
Why put it in the C store when they make more money with it being in a lottery.
Plus No one needs any of the ships in the lock box, players want them, and that's how they get their money from player greed. Yeah it's a two way street that greed train.:eek:
There are plenty of ships in the C store you can get, but you don't need anything from a lock box ship...you just want it.
Why put it in the C store when they make more money with it being in a lottery.
Plus No one needs any of the ships in the lock box, players want them, and that's how they get their money from player greed. Yeah it's a two way street that greed train.:eek:
There are plenty of ships in the C store you can get, but you don't need anything from a lock box ship...you just want it.
You have a good point there,however to add to the fun,i think lockbox key prices should come down.That will mean many more players buying the keys if its a guaranteed valueable prize,and no rubbish stuff in that lockbox.
You have a good point there,however to add to the fun,i think lockbox key prices should come down.That will mean many more players buying the keys if its a guaranteed valueable prize,and no rubbish stuff in that lockbox.
I don't see the Fun in opening a box with or without money...my fun is game play
You have a good point there,however to add to the fun,i think lockbox key prices should come down.That will mean many more players buying the keys if its a guaranteed valueable prize,and no rubbish stuff in that lockbox.
Your ideas will all result in Cryptic making far less money, so I put the chances of this happening at zero.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I know this is a free game to play,but is it though????
We all know that if you didn't spend any real cash in this game,progression would be dead slow,and more people would end up quitting this game.They would be fed up.
One of the biggest problems is the dilithium cap at 8000 a day per toon.
This is far too small and really drags the game to a dead slow pace.
Yes I know cryptic is a business and they have to make their money,but surely theres a better fairer cheaper way of doing that.
Take the jemhadar attack ship as an example. Very popular. How about selling it in the z store at an affordable price for all????I bet more people would buy it.
The lock boxes. Totally unfair at the moment. Rubbish prizes from them most of the time.
Changing the odds of winning to favour the player would be good,and if theres guaranteed very valueable prizes there,more people would buy the lockbox keys.
Fleet projects. How about changing the dilithium rule there from refined to dilithium ore instead,to allow speedy progression for all fleets.
Ground borg missions. Arm the borg better but at the same time,take away the borg adaption to all weapons fired at them.
The drops in all patrols and missions. Currently they are mostly junk to just sell for EC.
How about there being something more valueable and useful to use for a toon or a ship perhaps.
To conclude this,If cryptic keep the prices excessively high as they are now,less people will be attracted to this game.
Get the prices right down and more affordable to all,then more new players will emerge.
CRYPTIC, think about this please. affordable prices will mean more players of this game,and yes more real money for cryptic.
A Dil increase has been asked for many many times in the past (personally it is fine the way it is)
Lock boxes are STO's biggest money maker, What may be rubbish to one player may be valueable to another.
If fleet progression was speedy then there would be little or nothing to aim for.
Adapting to weapons is what Borg are renowned for, so why change that, would defeat the purpose of fighting Borg if they were easy to eliminate.
Loot drops, again what is useless to one player is useful to another, luck of the draw I guess.
The prices in game can be a lil excessive for some items, but I see no reason to amend them as most of the items have been at the prices they have for quite along time now, players must be buying them or I am pretty certain a review would of been done.
Cheaper prices more sales.
Expensive prices less sales.
Go take an economics class. More sales doesn't mean more profit.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
The lock boxes. Totally unfair at the moment. Rubbish prizes from them most of the time.
Changing the odds of winning to favour the player would be good,and if theres guaranteed very valueable prizes there,more people would buy the lockbox keys.
From the beginning it was known that lockboxes are form of gambling.
Fleet projects. How about changing the dilithium rule there from refined to dilithium ore instead,to allow speedy progression for all fleets.
Well it's only your own problem that you must have everything at once. Slow progress? Find more people who will donate or organize more Fleet events at which you will go as a team form marks, dilith, etc.
The drops in all patrols and missions. Currently they are mostly junk to just sell for EC.
How about there being something more valueable and useful to use for a toon or a ship perhaps.
Rare and very rare items means that they don't drop every time and are 'hard' to obtain. That is how all MMO works.
As it was already mention, you don't must have every item or ship, you want to have it. Thee real problem aren't Cryptic prices but fact that you want have everything now without spending some time in game working and earning for it. Right now earning enough EC for JHAS is less than two months by playing 2-3 specific missions per day only from junk drop, even faster if you get some luck with rare drop or exchange Dilith->ZEN->EC
I know this is a free game to play,but is it though????
Yes it is. the mission content is 100% free and everything can be earned by dilithium trading, Energy credits and playing the game. the payment is always optional in this game. you dont have to buy everything.
progression can be slow in some cases but that is the trade off. they give any player the way to play and purchase everything without paying a single penny. the trade off is that if you want stuff quickly, you pay money for it and you can pay a lot if you choose.
they are not going to make the jem'hadar attack ship available in the c-store for numerous reasons that have been mentioned time and time again, or get rid of lock boxes which brought in enough money to double their team size and produce larger and larger updates.
even the stuff you pay for is optional and usually only a bit better than what the game gives you for free anyway. there are thousands of people who dont pay any money at all and are going along quite happily.
You have a f2p with FULL content free, a selection of free ship for every 10lvl, almost every races available for free, all classes free, and the ability to trade IG currency for cash shop currency, and you complain ?
Wow.
Next time, play SWTOR, and you'll see what it is to play a f2p that's not free. In SWTOR, you have to pay to sprint.
You have a f2p with FULL content free, a selection of free ship for every 10lvl, almost every races available for free, all classes free, and the ability to trade IG currency for cash shop currency, and you complain ?
Wow.
Next time, play SWTOR, and you'll see what it is to play a f2p that's not free. In SWTOR, you have to pay to sprint.
Are you serious about SWTOR. Ohh well be giving that a miss then. Sorry STO I'm staying put LOL
Oh no I think Legacy of Romulus being priced as it is, IS actually a sensible thing to do, its just triple the price ppl pay for example... a full FPS game which has no other payment requirements to play online for as long as the game remains online.
Yes, that's a reasonable marketing strategy; which leads me to other issues, game balancing, PVP queues are a joke, STF's after being learned are too easy, the only exception being onslaught, which is my "Holy Graal" in STO.
Ship balancing, space set balancing, all of that which added up keeps lots of players from doing PVP, and allows for mentally handycapped players to "verbally" attack all of the "Skill less noobs" (as was typed by the player that comes to mind) that opted to not spend or cant afford to spend RM. If you release a new ship, its benefits should be MARGINAL, not a free ticket to a easy win, specially if you have a PVP system in place that is accessible to everyone. A ranked system would actually work better in this business model as paying players would most likely face paying players and get more of a challenge off of their pvp matches, while non paying players would get their challenge also at a different level. Which would keep ppl coming back, spreading word to their friends, i.e., more potential costumers.
Next time, play SWTOR, and you'll see what it is to play a f2p that's not free. In SWTOR, you have to pay to sprint.
Don't be such a hater. Anyone can sprint in SWTOR, it's just that you can pay to unlock it a few levels earlier.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I know this is a free game to play,but is it though????
We all know that if you didn't spend any real cash in this game,progression would be dead slow,and more people would end up quitting this game.They would be fed up.
One of the biggest problems is the dilithium cap at 8000 a day per toon.
This is far too small and really drags the game to a dead slow pace.
Yes I know cryptic is a business and they have to make their money,but surely theres a better fairer cheaper way of doing that.
Take the jemhadar attack ship as an example. Very popular. How about selling it in the z store at an affordable price for all????I bet more people would buy it.
The lock boxes. Totally unfair at the moment. Rubbish prizes from them most of the time.
Changing the odds of winning to favour the player would be good,and if theres guaranteed very valueable prizes there,more people would buy the lockbox keys.
Fleet projects. How about changing the dilithium rule there from refined to dilithium ore instead,to allow speedy progression for all fleets.
Ground borg missions. Arm the borg better but at the same time,take away the borg adaption to all weapons fired at them.
The drops in all patrols and missions. Currently they are mostly junk to just sell for EC.
How about there being something more valueable and useful to use for a toon or a ship perhaps.
To conclude this,If cryptic keep the prices excessively high as they are now,less people will be attracted to this game.
Get the prices right down and more affordable to all,then more new players will emerge.
CRYPTIC, think about this please. affordable prices will mean more players of this game,and yes more real money for cryptic.
Yes this game is totally free, you can pay to buy things if you like, but everything in game apart from subscriber benefits are all obtainable by converting dilithium to zen
The cap on dilithium is 8000 per toon not account, if you have time and want more dilithium create a few alts, personally I can grind 64,000 dilithium per day which if i converted with current dilithium exchange prices I could get approx 500 zen per day
If drops from patrol missions were rare or very rare items then everyone would have them and prices would crash majorly, patrol missions are bog standard missions, to get blue and purple items there would diminish prizes for missions like starbase 24 and stfs.
Fleet progression isn't supposed to be speedy... the average starbase was slated to take over a year for a medium sized fleet to build, if you are impatient with that time frame, look to join a larger fleet that has progressed well.
Borg ground missions - Borg are meant to adapt, dont like it get the 3 piece ground set that has integrated weapon modulation, or just use melee weapons to kill the Borg
As for the Jem Hadar Attack Ship, as I stated before everything in the Z Store can be bought by converting dilithium... selling it for Zen would most likely lose Cryptic money instead of making more.
Lock Boxes while being very annoying are good money spinners as people are always willing to buy keys to try their luck at getting the ships, 90% of items in lock boxes can be bought from people selling on the exchange, so there is no need for you to have to buy keys if you don't wish.
I can appreciate the more fun part, cause there ain't no fun in grinding. However, more affordable? It doesn't cost anyone anything to play (you can acquire nearly everything through dilithium and exchanging it for zen).
If Cryptic made everything cheaper, everyone would have all the shiny stuff earlier, and then what would they do? They'd grow bored and not play.
I think the underlying problem (as of late) is that Cryptic don't seem to listen to any of us. They've closed the doors on communication. They closed down the monthly Ask Cryptic. All we know of what is coming are a few pieces of art work every now and again, or an interview in which various actual problems are overlooked or avoided. Interviews tend to focus on new content and how well the game is going, I can't remember listening to an interview where the bugs were addressed.
I purchased a lifetime subscription back during the last sale; why? Cause I grew sick of paying fees every so often for items that were unessential or buggy (or the items would be fine, but I couldn't use them correctly because of gameplay and bugs). The lifetime subscription sets me up now for life. 500zen per month should give me all that I'll ever need. I'm not going to buy things that don't work, and until Cryptic start listening to players (and making their listening public) there ain't no way I'm paying another sum of money.
What gets me; some of these people (players) will moan like hell, yet they'll then go and put $50 or $70 into the game. Hypocrites. If people are complaining, the last thing you should do is continue to pay. Producers and Developers aren't likely to do anything until people stop paying.
The only thing I experience from opening lockboxes is the feeling of having wasted my money yet again....
So instead of doing that you are far better off converting your ZEN to DIL and spending the DIL on Fleet projects and shopping in the DIL store or buying Fleet ships if you need a new good ship, rather then taking a chance that you might get a decent ship from a lockbox.
The only thing I'd really want them to do to make the game more fun is reduce the grind and make it more alt friendly. The reputation system is ultimately better than the old random drop system but it's not alt friendly. At least with the old random drop system I was able to buy decent mk xi gear with some grinding and without having to put up with a money and dilithium sink that took days to unlock what I wanted.
it's possible to make 500K on all your alts in about five minutes each per day via foundry mass space battle missions, and then buy MK XI purples in the exchange.
alts are not hard to gear up at all.
and that was just one example...... if you use a little ingenuity and incentive, it is really easy.
_______________________
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Cheaper prices more sales.
Expensive prices less sales.
Sam Walton... is that you?
I think what some people are trying to explain to you is that everything in STO is constantly on sale because of Dilithum.
Let's say you're a casual gamer who makes 25,000 Dilithium per week - roughly 3 days of playing. That's around 125 Zen on the Exchange. So you can buy 1 Key for free, or get 2 Keys at 50% discount, or 4 Keys at 25% discount, and so on.
The prices seem expensive until you realize that virtually no one is paying full price for anything. The guy who earns 8k Dilithium per day is getting around 2,000 free Zen per month. And that means the $25.00 C-Store ship he wants can only costs him $5.00, and if he's willing to wait for another week to buy it he can get it for free.
If you're choosing to pay full price that's your decision. It's not because the game demands it. You can have anything you want without spending a penny of your own money, but you need to be willing to earn it.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Don't be such a hater. Anyone can sprint in SWTOR, it's just that you can pay to unlock it a few levels earlier.
Don't force me to make the list of everything that's locked for a f2p. Yeah you unlock the sprint later, but it was just an example to show how it works.
For example, as a f2p, you earn less reward from quests.
As someone mentioned, SWTOR makes his best to annoy the player, hoping he will sub.
But hey, for a game that ask you to pay for TRIBBLE romance, or give you cash shop alternative to ingame grinding...
Don't force me to make the list of everything that's locked for a f2p. Yeah you unlock the sprint later, but it was just an example to show how it works.
For example, as a f2p, you earn less reward from quests.
As someone mentioned, SWTOR makes his best to annoy the player, hoping he will sub.
But hey, for a game that ask you to pay for TRIBBLE romance, or give you cash shop alternative to ingame grinding...
Now, now, now don't be a hater. We're gamers. We don't need to hate other games just because they're not what we want from a game - there's already enough of that on this forum about STO.
We all look for different things in a game. If we all only liked the same things we'd all only be playing WoW.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
STO has the most forgiving F2P system I've ever seen, even aside from the fact that it gives you the option to pay nothing at all, or pay others to do your grinding (though I'll admit there's a lot of it) for you. It leaves you a lot more options than you'll get almost anywhere else.
As for the lockboxes, those aren't unique to STO, but the ships in them need to stay in them, if for no other reason than that as I understand it, starting with the JHAS, making the ships available to players ingame was only greenlit by the IP holder on the condition that they remain rare. (If virtually every player in the game is flying around in non-Federation, non-Klingon ships, it wouldn't look very much like a Star Trek game anymore.)
Comments
this game really has the best f2p model there is.. you really dont have to spend a dime on this game and you can get full benefits as the people who do.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Yes I am aware its f2p,but as said,playing the game that way all the time would be a dead slow pace,with little or no progression.
Plus No one needs any of the ships in the lock box, players want them, and that's how they get their money from player greed. Yeah it's a two way street that greed train.:eek:
There are plenty of ships in the C store you can get, but you don't need anything from a lock box ship...you just want it.
You have a good point there,however to add to the fun,i think lockbox key prices should come down.That will mean many more players buying the keys if its a guaranteed valueable prize,and no rubbish stuff in that lockbox.
I don't see the Fun in opening a box with or without money...my fun is game play
Your ideas will all result in Cryptic making far less money, so I put the chances of this happening at zero.
Expensive prices less sales.
A Dil increase has been asked for many many times in the past (personally it is fine the way it is)
Lock boxes are STO's biggest money maker, What may be rubbish to one player may be valueable to another.
If fleet progression was speedy then there would be little or nothing to aim for.
Adapting to weapons is what Borg are renowned for, so why change that, would defeat the purpose of fighting Borg if they were easy to eliminate.
Loot drops, again what is useless to one player is useful to another, luck of the draw I guess.
The prices in game can be a lil excessive for some items, but I see no reason to amend them as most of the items have been at the prices they have for quite along time now, players must be buying them or I am pretty certain a review would of been done.
Apparently Cryptic's metrics don't agree, and only they have the information needed to judge if things are worth lowering in price or not.
Your best bet is to wait for when Cryptic to have a discount sale.
Go take an economics class. More sales doesn't mean more profit.
Most people in the game don't get even near of this limit.
From the beginning it was known that lockboxes are form of gambling.
Well it's only your own problem that you must have everything at once. Slow progress? Find more people who will donate or organize more Fleet events at which you will go as a team form marks, dilith, etc.
But that is exactly how borg work, it adapts.
Rare and very rare items means that they don't drop every time and are 'hard' to obtain. That is how all MMO works.
As it was already mention, you don't must have every item or ship, you want to have it. Thee real problem aren't Cryptic prices but fact that you want have everything now without spending some time in game working and earning for it. Right now earning enough EC for JHAS is less than two months by playing 2-3 specific missions per day only from junk drop, even faster if you get some luck with rare drop or exchange Dilith->ZEN->EC
Yes it is. the mission content is 100% free and everything can be earned by dilithium trading, Energy credits and playing the game. the payment is always optional in this game. you dont have to buy everything.
progression can be slow in some cases but that is the trade off. they give any player the way to play and purchase everything without paying a single penny. the trade off is that if you want stuff quickly, you pay money for it and you can pay a lot if you choose.
they are not going to make the jem'hadar attack ship available in the c-store for numerous reasons that have been mentioned time and time again, or get rid of lock boxes which brought in enough money to double their team size and produce larger and larger updates.
even the stuff you pay for is optional and usually only a bit better than what the game gives you for free anyway. there are thousands of people who dont pay any money at all and are going along quite happily.
Wow.
Next time, play SWTOR, and you'll see what it is to play a f2p that's not free. In SWTOR, you have to pay to sprint.
Are you serious about SWTOR. Ohh well be giving that a miss then. Sorry STO I'm staying put LOL
Yes, that's a reasonable marketing strategy; which leads me to other issues, game balancing, PVP queues are a joke, STF's after being learned are too easy, the only exception being onslaught, which is my "Holy Graal" in STO.
Ship balancing, space set balancing, all of that which added up keeps lots of players from doing PVP, and allows for mentally handycapped players to "verbally" attack all of the "Skill less noobs" (as was typed by the player that comes to mind) that opted to not spend or cant afford to spend RM. If you release a new ship, its benefits should be MARGINAL, not a free ticket to a easy win, specially if you have a PVP system in place that is accessible to everyone. A ranked system would actually work better in this business model as paying players would most likely face paying players and get more of a challenge off of their pvp matches, while non paying players would get their challenge also at a different level. Which would keep ppl coming back, spreading word to their friends, i.e., more potential costumers.
Don't be such a hater. Anyone can sprint in SWTOR, it's just that you can pay to unlock it a few levels earlier.
That makes more sense
Yes this game is totally free, you can pay to buy things if you like, but everything in game apart from subscriber benefits are all obtainable by converting dilithium to zen
The cap on dilithium is 8000 per toon not account, if you have time and want more dilithium create a few alts, personally I can grind 64,000 dilithium per day which if i converted with current dilithium exchange prices I could get approx 500 zen per day
If drops from patrol missions were rare or very rare items then everyone would have them and prices would crash majorly, patrol missions are bog standard missions, to get blue and purple items there would diminish prizes for missions like starbase 24 and stfs.
Fleet progression isn't supposed to be speedy... the average starbase was slated to take over a year for a medium sized fleet to build, if you are impatient with that time frame, look to join a larger fleet that has progressed well.
Borg ground missions - Borg are meant to adapt, dont like it get the 3 piece ground set that has integrated weapon modulation, or just use melee weapons to kill the Borg
As for the Jem Hadar Attack Ship, as I stated before everything in the Z Store can be bought by converting dilithium... selling it for Zen would most likely lose Cryptic money instead of making more.
Lock Boxes while being very annoying are good money spinners as people are always willing to buy keys to try their luck at getting the ships, 90% of items in lock boxes can be bought from people selling on the exchange, so there is no need for you to have to buy keys if you don't wish.
And there it is.
I wouldn't recommend this game to someone I hate as it is. A year ago? I sure would have. Now? No way.
If Cryptic made everything cheaper, everyone would have all the shiny stuff earlier, and then what would they do? They'd grow bored and not play.
I think the underlying problem (as of late) is that Cryptic don't seem to listen to any of us. They've closed the doors on communication. They closed down the monthly Ask Cryptic. All we know of what is coming are a few pieces of art work every now and again, or an interview in which various actual problems are overlooked or avoided. Interviews tend to focus on new content and how well the game is going, I can't remember listening to an interview where the bugs were addressed.
I purchased a lifetime subscription back during the last sale; why? Cause I grew sick of paying fees every so often for items that were unessential or buggy (or the items would be fine, but I couldn't use them correctly because of gameplay and bugs). The lifetime subscription sets me up now for life. 500zen per month should give me all that I'll ever need. I'm not going to buy things that don't work, and until Cryptic start listening to players (and making their listening public) there ain't no way I'm paying another sum of money.
What gets me; some of these people (players) will moan like hell, yet they'll then go and put $50 or $70 into the game. Hypocrites. If people are complaining, the last thing you should do is continue to pay. Producers and Developers aren't likely to do anything until people stop paying.
So instead of doing that you are far better off converting your ZEN to DIL and spending the DIL on Fleet projects and shopping in the DIL store or buying Fleet ships if you need a new good ship, rather then taking a chance that you might get a decent ship from a lockbox.
" free " is pretty durned affordable....
and then you can pay for what you want thereafter.....and we all know from a few threads that some people spend thousands of dollars here.
so yeah... Free to a couple bucks to loads of cash ...that pretty much covers every consumer type IMO.
.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
alts are not hard to gear up at all.
and that was just one example...... if you use a little ingenuity and incentive, it is really easy.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
I think what some people are trying to explain to you is that everything in STO is constantly on sale because of Dilithum.
Let's say you're a casual gamer who makes 25,000 Dilithium per week - roughly 3 days of playing. That's around 125 Zen on the Exchange. So you can buy 1 Key for free, or get 2 Keys at 50% discount, or 4 Keys at 25% discount, and so on.
The prices seem expensive until you realize that virtually no one is paying full price for anything. The guy who earns 8k Dilithium per day is getting around 2,000 free Zen per month. And that means the $25.00 C-Store ship he wants can only costs him $5.00, and if he's willing to wait for another week to buy it he can get it for free.
If you're choosing to pay full price that's your decision. It's not because the game demands it. You can have anything you want without spending a penny of your own money, but you need to be willing to earn it.
For example, as a f2p, you earn less reward from quests.
As someone mentioned, SWTOR makes his best to annoy the player, hoping he will sub.
But hey, for a game that ask you to pay for TRIBBLE romance, or give you cash shop alternative to ingame grinding...
We all look for different things in a game. If we all only liked the same things we'd all only be playing WoW.
As for the lockboxes, those aren't unique to STO, but the ships in them need to stay in them, if for no other reason than that as I understand it, starting with the JHAS, making the ships available to players ingame was only greenlit by the IP holder on the condition that they remain rare. (If virtually every player in the game is flying around in non-Federation, non-Klingon ships, it wouldn't look very much like a Star Trek game anymore.)