The only way these nerfs make any lick of sense is catering to the PvP whiners.
The so-called power creep is irrelevant in the PvE game. This game is a grinder, and the rewards need to be good to get people to hop on that wheel. Nerf the rewards and a lot less people are going to hop on that wheel. And I hope that simple math kicks Cryptic in the wallet -- so they think twice before listening to players with opinions similar to yours.
Exactly.
It's a smoke screen if I have ever seen one.
Now, though, it's all starting to make sense...things like adding the junk boxes to the rep projects, for example. Junk boxes with stuff inside that you can destroy for about as many credits as it takes to do the project. I'm sick of clicking on them to be honest - I have plenty of credits, LOL. But since some folks cry about a few thousand credits being too hard to get - hey anything to make things easier.
If they think those junk boxes are going to be an incentive to do anything, they aren't.
This is about making it as simple as possible for someone to jump in and PvP without any effort whatsoever. Like I said previously, I'm sure soon we will hear about the new PvP content which will be a MOBA Lite, and a package for the Zen store you can buy to instantly get to level 50 (because a few days of DOFFing is too much to ask), and throw you some Mk XII gear so you can jump right in.
Since that group of folks is so well-known for sticking around games, I'm sure it will be a smashing success...
Read what Hawk has been saying... this is about PvE. It is NOT irrelevent.
Right now... a fully geared and reped toon... can easily do 30,000+ DPS in a PvE mission run.
A new toon / player coming in with out rep at all and basic new level 50 gear... is going to have to be skilled to put down 5,000.
That is a massive inbalance that is going to make it impossible for them to balance NEW content going forward.
We can't have new content that NEW players can't complete... or can't manage optionals even if they play perfectly.
On the flip side if they make content so that New Level 50 players can do level 50 content without major issues... it becomes super boring for players putting out 30k+ DPS.
SO... with that in mind as a developer Cryptic... This is PART of there solution.
I say part because think it though.
Is this change going to stop fully repped and geared players from pulling 30k ?
The answer is no it won't... not alone... so I think you can safely assume this is just the start my friend. There are more "nerfs" coming.
Relax when they get it right you will still be able to complete your Trek missions both the old favs and the new ones... and you might if they do it right be challenged by the optional objectives. Won't that be nice.
Oh an as a kicker... you won't have to QQ in zone chat that you have a new player on your team either. lol
I love how you conveniently failed to mention aux to bat technician spam which is what is allowing these min/maxers to achieve 50K+ dps. But by all means, keep lecturing us.
I think the metrics might defend their decision. Veteran players fall into three categories:
- Lifers
- Subs
- Freeps
Well two of those categories (lifers and freeps) will leave and come back, leave and come back, leave and come back ... for free.
Subs are, I'm guessing, the smallest minority of veteran players. And they keep getting squeezed into being lifers or freeps. At this stage it's probably even far more financially feasible to suck it up and sub till 1k days and go freep, or get the lifetime.
So retention is probably less of an issue for them. But rolling out the red carpet for new players is probably one of their high priority goals. Not for nothing but it's still an eastern MMO company at the helm. The game will keep getting plugged to new players because of that.
So I can see a big picture reason for making new players a priority.
But what you fail to see if the fallacy of that. New players are a priority to a point at which them move into the veteran category. So...churn. Always get new players who will hopefully buy lots of shinies...when they have purchased the shinies and realize the max level content of the game is junk highly repetitive grinds...they move on. But Cryptic/PWE already made their money off of them and so in comes the new crop. The "crop" is finite so the business model is not sustainable in the long-term. But that doesn't matter from a business perspective because the company doing such a thing will also "Churn" their games.
You are exactly correct. Their entire system from design to zen store is complete burn and churn. However, the number of people 1) interested in playing MMOs, 2) interested in playing sci-fi MMOs, and 3) interested in playing a Star Trek based MMO is finite and a a niche. Sadly when the "burn and churn" model does not yield sufficient income, most of the players will have a distaste for the game by then. The model is not sustainable, but if you look at everything that has been done, it perpetuates this.
There is a big fix to that built into this system though.
Lets say you so the Undine Rep and then decide to leave STO and go play SC or something else.
Now 6-7 months pass and you decide you miss Trek and STO... and SC isn't what you hoped so you come back.
Now you been gone and you have missed Telaxian / Vidian / and Vulcan Reputations.
So all your previous MAX rep toons are now only done 5 of the 8 Reps.
Everyone else just started the new Savior of Vulcan missions and guess what.... you can jump right in and join in because you already have enough unlocks to be able to continue to compete... and you don't feel like you have to grind 24h a day to catch up on the previous reps you missed.... Heck you might decided you don't even want to do that stuff at all... or you might just decide to do them but not at a GrindCore pace.
This change is making STO ... SC proof.
Thats only a half joke... this game bleeds people all the time... and they come back all the time. Almost everyone of us that has been here since Launch has had a least one period where we left for 2+ months. Many left for up to a year to play other games or because they where just burned on STO.
I know a few months back I had some friends return and they lasted a couple weeks... at which point they where completely turned off because they felt they had to grind like mad to catch up.... and there was no signs of Cryptic letting up on the grinds.
This is the first change they are making that makes GRINDS OPTIONAL ... instead of required and people are upset... boggles my mind honestly.
Not really, the answer to this is to put in progressively more challenging content not one - two event trickles that are just MOBs with over damage and excess health. You want to combat power creep...start upping the difficulty of content CREATIVELY not in junk ways.
1- This game isn't built the way you think it is. There is no tiered progression. There may be somewhat of an illusion of tiered progression. But there is no progressively more challenging content.
2- They're not designing the game that way. They haven't done it. They're not planning to do it. This isn't Dragon Raiding. You don't go from Zone X and Gear Tier Y to the next.
3- The feedback of "make more creative challenge" is all well and good. But no one EVER offers up what that is. What is it you think they can do with their game engine and programming constraints to make their AI more challenging?
You are wrong.
Look at Eve, its over 10 years old and still going strong. There are other mmo's out there that are still strong after years of operation.
This change, is bs.
You just dont see the light yet. Being, they dont care about the lifers or vets or anything, they care about the poor noob who cant hack the pace :P
I was going to start another 12 toons......Now, i will start none. I can hack it with new toons, why cant noobs handle it? whiners
Am I? Why is WoW selling a leveling service then? This is a MMO, not a single player game. What matters is a community, and a community can't survive if it can't attract new members, and nobody is going to join a game if all they have to look forward to is years of mandatory grind. Besides the Eve crackpots apparently, but I'm in the majority who think it's a horrible game.
There is no possible way they could not have seen this being a problem projected over the long term. To have a dev blog today saying that this is something they're just now getting around to fixing is dishonest. Particularly when reputation grinds are one of the biggest gripes Cryptic has had to deal with in the game.
This whole thing feels to me like they had it in the works, and the timing is more an issue of this is finally the rep addition that would make it a problem so now's the time for it.
I'm sorry, but not everyone can live in their mom's basement and dedicate all their free time to playing a game like you.
/sarcasm off
I'm a lifetime sub, I have max reps on a couple of characters, but unlike you apparently I've played games with such high barriers to entry that new people never join because it's impossible to beat the established players without dedicating a huge amount of time (or money), and you know what happens to these games? THEY DIE.
It's a fact under the current system and enough reps at some point either a newbie is going to see the time required to do ten or twenty grinds and they'll leave because they can't beat any of the content, or the content will become trivial to the vet with all the passives, and I don't want either situation to happen. This change is desperately needed to avoid that.
I think you don't understand what sarcasm is, because your first sentence wasn't sarcastic, it was a simple insult.
An ironic insult, no less, since I don't have max reps on any characters - I have multiple characters for collecting Dilith via DOFF missions, but I only have time to play one, one that I have been slowly working up the rep trees. So it sounds like you play much more than I. And now, with this change - I have no desire to - if I'm not going to be able to use the powers granted, why bother. I don't have time to sit and futz with swapping powers all the time - this game already has enough of that with all the gear, DOFF's, etc.
That's because I don't expect to walk into an MMO and have everything handed to me in a few weeks - it's something you play over time.
So you say two months of playing an hour a day is too long to finish the end game. That's ludicrous. 60 hours? That you can spread out over as long as you wish? Saying that's too much is laughable. It's only too much if you are one of those folks that feels the need to do it on many characters over and over - which is not the majority of people, only the "basement" folks you accuse me of being have time for that.
You miss the entire point of an MMO - to keep people playing. This isn't a single-player game you bound through beginning to end and then put away never to play again.
Your post couldn't be more incorrect on any level if you stated that Kirk was a Klingon.
There is a big fix to that built into this system though.
Lets say you so the Undine Rep and then decide to leave STO and go play SC or something else.
Now 6-7 months pass and you decide you miss Trek and STO... and SC isn't what you hoped so you come back.
Now you been gone and you have missed Telaxian / Vidian / and Vulcan Reputations.
So all your previous MAX rep toons are now only done 5 of the 8 Reps.
Everyone else just started the new Savior of Vulcan missions and guess what.... you can jump right in and join in because you already have enough unlocks to be able to continue to compete... and you don't feel like you have to grind 24h a day to catch up on the previous reps you missed.... Heck you might decided you don't even want to do that stuff at all... or you might just decide to do them but not at a GrindCore pace.
This change is making STO ... SC proof.
Thats only a half joke... this game bleeds people all the time... and they come back all the time. Almost everyone of us that has been here since Launch has had a least one period where we left for 2+ months. Many left for up to a year to play other games or because they where just burned on STO.
I know a few months back I had some friends return and they lasted a couple weeks... at which point they where completely turned off because they felt they had to grind like mad to catch up.... and there was no signs of Cryptic letting up on the grinds.
This is the first change they are making that makes GRINDS OPTIONAL ... instead of required and people are upset... boggles my mind honestly.
Why does it matter if 90% of people play PVE anyways? A decent team without reps can still get optionals nowadays so I'm still missing the point you're trying to make here.
This is the first change they are making that makes GRINDS OPTIONAL ... instead of required and people are upset... boggles my mind honestly.
I can only speak for myself, but the only thing about this that upsets me is that they are just now getting around to addressing it instead of fixing this previously when there were fewer rep systems.
Sure, you could make the argument that they could ignore it for the next 2 years when we have 10+ Rep systems, and the furor then would be far more powerful than it is now.
But then if that happened, you would have people saying, "Hey, we might have 10 rep systems now, but just think if they didn't fix this until 2 years from now when we have 20 rep systems. It's better for them to fix it when we have 10 rep systems instead of 20."
My disgust revolves around the fact Cryptic knew rep systems were going to be unpopular, and that the powers granted by them would not be infinitely sustainable. Instead of fixing it then, they fix it later and tell people who have earned those powers to 'suck it up, since the powers we're allowing you to have are more powerful'.
To me, that is fully deserving of the 80 or so pages of outrage we have. Because they knew then, and did not do anything to stop it from getting to this point.
AdjudicatorHawk could be releasing a dev blog on something else today if the early design discussions addressed this issue then instead of saying, "We'll get to it later."
What fallacy am I failing to see? I mean my whole post is just conjecture on what it is I think might be their corporate enforced goals. I could be way off. But PWE probably has a few guidelines that the folks at Cryptic have to incorporate into the work they do. It wouldn't surprise me if one of those goals was continued design decisions that cater to the new player experience.
Always get new players who will hopefully buy lots of shinies...when they have purchased the shinies and realize the max level content of the game is junk highly repetitive grinds.
All I'm going to say is this game is far different than other MMOs in terms of its ability to sell shinies.
In a fantasy MMO it's like "Ooooh a sparkly sword, black and red armor with a glow, and a flying horsie that snorts fire!"
That is pretty short term ooh and ahh.
This game?
It's Star Trek.
There are people who bought the Oberth.
THE OBERTH.
Let that sink in.
Spend some time this year going to a Star Trek convention. Check the prices on some old Mego action figures. Then watch someone pay those prices. Because it's TREK!
The bread and butter of this game has always been the store. Because people are buying Star Trek collectibles. And then playing them in the game.
That's a very different dynamic than, say, even Neverwinter Online.
Folks bought Pakleds as a playable race back before the F2P conversion.
This whole thing feels to me like they had it in the works, and the timing is more an issue of this is finally the rep addition that would make it a problem so now's the time for it.
I can agree with that. Unfortunately, there are some things that 'timing was an issue' is a good excuse for.
Rep grinds knowingly being one of the most persistent complaints about the game and saying 'timing was an issue' shows apathy to the players.
This isn't a bit of an error. This is what I'd consider a faux pas.
There is a big fix to that built into this system though.
Lets say you so the Undine Rep and then decide to leave STO and go play SC or something else.
Now 6-7 months pass and you decide you miss Trek and STO... and SC isn't what you hoped so you come back.
Now you been gone and you have missed Telaxian / Vidian / and Vulcan Reputations.
So all your previous MAX rep toons are now only done 5 of the 8 Reps.
Everyone else just started the new Savior of Vulcan missions and guess what.... you can jump right in and join in because you already have enough unlocks to be able to continue to compete... and you don't feel like you have to grind 24h a day to catch up on the previous reps you missed.... Heck you might decided you don't even want to do that stuff at all... or you might just decide to do them but not at a GrindCore pace.
This change is making STO ... SC proof.
Thats only a half joke... this game bleeds people all the time... and they come back all the time. Almost everyone of us that has been here since Launch has had a least one period where we left for 2+ months. Many left for up to a year to play other games or because they where just burned on STO.
I know a few months back I had some friends return and they lasted a couple weeks... at which point they where completely turned off because they felt they had to grind like mad to catch up.... and there was no signs of Cryptic letting up on the grinds.
This is the first change they are making that makes GRINDS OPTIONAL ... instead of required and people are upset... boggles my mind honestly.
It is still going to be that way. This is what happens...
1 - Player grinds and grinds and grinds gets tired takes a break
2- Comes back after a few major updates...grinds and grinds but does not really finish they give up.
3 - Come back later and even more content and grinds have been added, time spent in game is less.
The more content they miss and the more they feel left behind the less likely they will be to return and if they do the time spent in game will be less. It is a slow bleed until they decide to just move on completely.
The real issue I have with this whole thing is that it is build on the heavy grinding of minimal uninteresting content. In fact, barely enough content to actually do it and they are all basically the same. We are seeing very little creativity in handling these missions. Let's just face it, it is a churn game that is it. You are not meant to play this game in a sustained manner for years. Why? The longer the average player plays the less likely they are to buy because they already have a wealth of stuff. The whole logic behind this change is just that.
When people feel their progression becomes static or stale...it is time to move on, let go. This game is what it is, it will be developed as a churn game, accept it or move on. However, many people feel tied to the game because of their purchases, because it is a Star Trek game and they love Trek. It would be healthier for them to let go and move on, not buy. If you actually saw that happen, I guarantee you this game would either go under or the development model would drastically shift.
Am I? Why is WoW selling a leveling service then? This is a MMO, not a single player game. What matters is a community, and a community can't survive if it can't attract new members, and nobody is going to join a game if all they have to look forward to is years of mandatory grind. Besides the Eve crackpots apparently, but I'm in the majority who think it's a horrible game.
If you think people left the game over this, you are having a fantasy.
People leave over things like lockboxes and ships staring them in the face they can only get if they spend $100's of dollars. They don't leave because some folks can finish PvE content more quickly than them because frankly they never will know.
It's all about PvP, not matter what anyone says - and very few people PvP in this game, so there you go - very very few people left over it.
If you think more people are going to play because one of the end-game systems just became less rewarding to long term play, you are thinking backwards.
I love how you conveniently failed to mention aux to bat technician spam which is what is allowing these min/maxers to achieve 50K+ dps. But by all means, keep lecturing us.
I hit 40k with out tech doffs... so yes I can lecture if I feel like it. lol
Yes doffs are also an issue... and I hope they address that as well... I have been commenting on what they posted I like the change. I hope they change much more to come... Taking a swing at tech doffs isn't the lowest thing on my list either.
I hit 40k with out tech doffs... so yes I can lecture if I feel like it. lol
Yes doffs are also an issue... and I hope they address that as well... I have been commenting on what they posted I like the change. I hope they change much more to come... Taking a swing at tech doffs isn't the lowest thing on my list either.
And in what ship were you in when you hit 40k without tech doffs? It didn't happen to be a scimitar by any chance, would it?
1- This game isn't built the way you think it is. There is no tiered progression. There may be somewhat of an illusion of tiered progression. But there is no progressively more challenging content.
2- They're not designing the game that way. They haven't done it. They're not planning to do it. This isn't Dragon Raiding. You don't go from Zone X and Gear Tier Y to the next.
3- The feedback of "make more creative challenge" is all well and good. But no one EVER offers up what that is. What is it you think they can do with their game engine and programming constraints to make their AI more challenging?
You are so blinded in your unilateral support of this game and company. Just look at any other MMO with deeper more detailed end-game raids. The MOBs and boss level fights are creative and different requiring players to think, manage engagements, have the need for varied group structure. The devs could go play any other game out there and see what their competition is doing.
I applaud you for having such an undaunted view and defense of this game but that is just as harmful as the opposite view.
The only thing better about lockbox ships are consoles.... and I think many of us hope they turn there eye to Universal consoles in general next.
In terms of Unis, here's my preference:
Change them from UNIVERSAL to SPECIAL. Change and add cloaks to ships which are also type SPECIAL.
Now from there, assign two special console slots to all ships. This is a basic power bonus increase.
Then give ships with turnrate of 6 or less one bonus special and turnrate of 3 or less 2 bonus special slots.
Ships also get one bonus special slot for having 4 Sci or more consoles and one bonus Special slot for having 4 or more Eng console slots. One more for not being able to equip cannons or cloak.
Max possible is 7 Special console slots and that would be on a 2/4/4 console layout ship with a turnrate of 3 or less.
Typical battle oriented ship would have 2 special slots. But by comparison, the Galaxy would have 5 special console slots because it gets one bonus for its turnrate and one bonus for its console loadout and one bonus for no canons/cloak. The dreadnought would have 5 and need to use for for its cloak if it opts to be a cloaking ship.
Now... a key proviso: this applies to power oriented consoles. Consoles with powers would lose bonus stats and be purely power consoles. Consoles with pure stat bonus would remain universal.
It would be nice if they left us all with our current REP passives.
Then the first time we slotted a new REP trait it converted us over to the new system.
Yes doffs are also an issue... and I hope they address that as well... I have been commenting on what they posted I like the change. I hope they change much more to come... Taking a swing at tech doffs isn't the lowest thing on my list either.
Your ideas will be the death of this game. Nerfing everything to please PvPers (as your arguments for PvE are bunk) has harmed many an MMO more than it helped -- unless the game was designed around PvP to begin with.
Keeping the grinds, but decreasing the rewards is not the solution. Decreasing the grinds is.
I don't think I like this. The reason I say I don't think I do is because my mind is still in a state of shock from reading the article.
Not only have you removed one of my favourite passives (Rotating Weapon Frequency: handy as hell if you want to make use of Fleet armour/shields/weapons and thus don't have an integral remodulator), but you want to cut those of us who have tier 5 in all rep systems from having currently 16 passive skills... to 4? I mean seriously, 4? Could have at least made it 8 or something, I mean the next rep is being added with these changes so at that point we're going to have to pick 4 out of 24 passives!
I realise that some people have been complaining about 'power creep', but still this is taking it a bit too far the other way in my opinion. We're going to lose so many of the things we've put a LOT of time and effort into getting. I urge you to reconsider this limitation.
I also note that you specify we can change our 'passive traits' for free, but you don't say the same about the 'active powers' is that intentional and meaning we'll have to pay to change those, or is it a mistake in the blog?
*Disclaimer* Before someone comes along and starts telling me why I'm 'wrong', this post is my opinion and my feedback to the devs. Feel free to share your own feedback in your own post.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
You are wrong.
Look at Eve, its over 10 years old and still going strong. There are other mmo's out there that are still strong after years of operation.
This change, is bs.
You just dont see the light yet. Being, they dont care about the lifers or vets or anything, they care about the poor noob who cant hack the pace :P
I was going to start another 12 toons......Now, i will start none. I can hack it with new toons, why cant noobs handle it? whiners
Eve has been flat since there push for new players back in 2010/2011.
They have been slowly bleeding players for 3 years. There sub numbers have stayed flat however due to the nature of Eve many long time players are maintaining mulitple accounts. lol
Eve has managed a slow drain instead of a fast one as it is a completely different example of a MMO.
EVE is a complete oddity in the market. It caters completely to a very hard core PvP market... which means it has seen its max potential and has managed to hang on to those players because no one else caters to that end of the market.
And they should not fit in the same proverbial room, if they have the ability to earn the power the same as long time players. eventually they would be able to compete. after they earned it. Absolutely no reason other than placating cry babies to have new players on equal footing with long time players.
the old rep system to get the ground 3 piece set you had to grind on all 3 different ground missions. doing so you eventually ( way to random ) got the ground set and learned how to play on the ground. learned the mission. and the ques for those mission always had people.
now you never have to touch the ground to earn the ground set. then somebody comes in all decked out and is still a complete noob.
I believe that power creep is a problem that is for sure, but I don't see this as the way to fix the problem. the entire rep system is flawed just to make the new players and cry babies happy.
Id rather see each mission give an item after beating it x amount of times. easy mode gives mk x elite give mk xi and after you have both sets earned via playing the mission (not random drops) you can buy the mk xii set from a rep store. That way you would know when your going to get the sets, like the accolades.
Same would go for space gear. tie each part of a set to a mission. play mission x amount of times earn the set. period no need for marks or any of that other junk. then once the lesser sets are unlocked you go to rep store and buy the mk12 items you have now unlocked with Dilithium / EC / EXP .
And the only CAP increase should be in the MOBs not the players. increase mob lvl to 60 to help offset the damage you devs have already done with power creep.
After a little thinking about all this why not just work the rep passives the same way other passives in the game work. let them only apply to that type of enemy, nukara rep passives apply to tholians, omega rep passives apply to borg and so on. then just leave the t5 power we earn as the reward for completing the rep. no reason to complicate all this. and if you want to limit the power creep that would seem like the better approach to me atleast.
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
the Op is right this game has gone so far down hill this year im surprised anyone even logs in anymore. Maybe you can give me and the masses who feel the same a reason to log in?
As snoggymack said, going French Revolution on Cryptic/PWE isn't going to solve anything.
After all, when you have the French Revolution, you get Napoleon Bonaparte in the aftermath.
People will always be the same. Game developers will always be the same. If it isn't Cryptic or PWE's devs, it'll be some other devs who will enrage you.
Treat STO as the game you currently have instead of the game you wish you had.
I don't think I like this. The reason I say I don't think I do is because my mind is still in a state of shock from reading the article.
Not only have you removed one of my favourite passives (Rotating Weapon Frequency: handy as hell if you want to make use of Fleet armour/shields/weapons and thus don't have an integral remodulator), but you want to cut those of us who have tier 5 in all rep systems from having currently 16 passive skills... to 4? I mean seriously, 4? Could have at least made it 8 or something, I mean the next rep is being added with these changes so at that point we're going to have to pick 4 out of 24 passives!
I realise that some people have been complaining about 'power creep', but still this is taking it a bit too far the other way in my opinion. We're going to lose so many of the things we've put a LOT of time and effort into getting. I urge you to reconsider this limitation.
*Disclaimer* Before someone comes along and starts telling me why I'm 'wrong', this post is my opinion and my feedback to the devs. Feel free to share your own feedback in your own post.
Well, technically, it's 8 passives - 4 space, 4 ground. Essentially, you can pick and choose any set you want to help out.
Niche and genre games will all have their people who feel the same way you might about Oberths and Packled's here. So your comment is inflammatory to other communities of gamers. You like this, they like other things. To them a flaming sword is just as good.
What you fail to see is the whole model here is a churn, if it were not there would have been alternate solutions to this issue rather than lets make a fresh 50 equal to a veteran 50. That there should tell you that you and I as veteran players are not the target audience and we are viewed as a liability. Whether it be because of adamant defense or criticism of the game or that we have purchased a bunch of things and are really only likely to make a few purchases of items that we are really interested in.
Those players that are the target now will have spent a bunch of money before they become us and spend less money or leave the game. I agree with you here in general, the game is not built for retention, it will never be built for retention. It is built to get waves of new players in to make purchases. Not have veteran players continue to play the game to continue to make sustained purchases.
Why does it matter if 90% of people play PVE anyways? A decent team without reps can still get optionals nowadays so I'm still missing the point you're trying to make here.
Grinds effect both PvP and PvE players... yes I know when people see me talking they assume (mostly rightly) that I am thinking about PvP.
Truth is grind effects all players. There have been just as many "Cryptic Stop the grind" threads started in the General and PvE sections as there have been in the PvP section. Tells me that no one likes to feel behind... and that everyone feels the need to complete what is in front of them.
Having the trait limit 100% makes it possible to skip grinds or at least not feel they must be completed because I am MISSING something. No one likes to be missing things... and no one really likes super grinds. (we all like some grind we can admit that).
This system will make it much easier for Returning players to jump back in and not feel the second they come back that they are missing the basics. Makes it much more likely they won't just leave again... which has for sure happened with players of all stripes. This change will help there.
Comments
Exactly.
It's a smoke screen if I have ever seen one.
Now, though, it's all starting to make sense...things like adding the junk boxes to the rep projects, for example. Junk boxes with stuff inside that you can destroy for about as many credits as it takes to do the project. I'm sick of clicking on them to be honest - I have plenty of credits, LOL. But since some folks cry about a few thousand credits being too hard to get - hey anything to make things easier.
If they think those junk boxes are going to be an incentive to do anything, they aren't.
This is about making it as simple as possible for someone to jump in and PvP without any effort whatsoever. Like I said previously, I'm sure soon we will hear about the new PvP content which will be a MOBA Lite, and a package for the Zen store you can buy to instantly get to level 50 (because a few days of DOFFing is too much to ask), and throw you some Mk XII gear so you can jump right in.
Since that group of folks is so well-known for sticking around games, I'm sure it will be a smashing success...
I love how you conveniently failed to mention aux to bat technician spam which is what is allowing these min/maxers to achieve 50K+ dps. But by all means, keep lecturing us.
I can't. But ousting the devs won't give you a reason either.
So go play something else?
I hear Trexels is fun.
But what you fail to see if the fallacy of that. New players are a priority to a point at which them move into the veteran category. So...churn. Always get new players who will hopefully buy lots of shinies...when they have purchased the shinies and realize the max level content of the game is junk highly repetitive grinds...they move on. But Cryptic/PWE already made their money off of them and so in comes the new crop. The "crop" is finite so the business model is not sustainable in the long-term. But that doesn't matter from a business perspective because the company doing such a thing will also "Churn" their games.
Now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh.
There is a big fix to that built into this system though.
Lets say you so the Undine Rep and then decide to leave STO and go play SC or something else.
Now 6-7 months pass and you decide you miss Trek and STO... and SC isn't what you hoped so you come back.
Now you been gone and you have missed Telaxian / Vidian / and Vulcan Reputations.
So all your previous MAX rep toons are now only done 5 of the 8 Reps.
Everyone else just started the new Savior of Vulcan missions and guess what.... you can jump right in and join in because you already have enough unlocks to be able to continue to compete... and you don't feel like you have to grind 24h a day to catch up on the previous reps you missed.... Heck you might decided you don't even want to do that stuff at all... or you might just decide to do them but not at a GrindCore pace.
This change is making STO ... SC proof.
Thats only a half joke... this game bleeds people all the time... and they come back all the time. Almost everyone of us that has been here since Launch has had a least one period where we left for 2+ months. Many left for up to a year to play other games or because they where just burned on STO.
I know a few months back I had some friends return and they lasted a couple weeks... at which point they where completely turned off because they felt they had to grind like mad to catch up.... and there was no signs of Cryptic letting up on the grinds.
This is the first change they are making that makes GRINDS OPTIONAL ... instead of required and people are upset... boggles my mind honestly.
This would have been better.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
1- This game isn't built the way you think it is. There is no tiered progression. There may be somewhat of an illusion of tiered progression. But there is no progressively more challenging content.
2- They're not designing the game that way. They haven't done it. They're not planning to do it. This isn't Dragon Raiding. You don't go from Zone X and Gear Tier Y to the next.
3- The feedback of "make more creative challenge" is all well and good. But no one EVER offers up what that is. What is it you think they can do with their game engine and programming constraints to make their AI more challenging?
Am I? Why is WoW selling a leveling service then? This is a MMO, not a single player game. What matters is a community, and a community can't survive if it can't attract new members, and nobody is going to join a game if all they have to look forward to is years of mandatory grind. Besides the Eve crackpots apparently, but I'm in the majority who think it's a horrible game.
This whole thing feels to me like they had it in the works, and the timing is more an issue of this is finally the rep addition that would make it a problem so now's the time for it.
I think you don't understand what sarcasm is, because your first sentence wasn't sarcastic, it was a simple insult.
An ironic insult, no less, since I don't have max reps on any characters - I have multiple characters for collecting Dilith via DOFF missions, but I only have time to play one, one that I have been slowly working up the rep trees. So it sounds like you play much more than I. And now, with this change - I have no desire to - if I'm not going to be able to use the powers granted, why bother. I don't have time to sit and futz with swapping powers all the time - this game already has enough of that with all the gear, DOFF's, etc.
That's because I don't expect to walk into an MMO and have everything handed to me in a few weeks - it's something you play over time.
So you say two months of playing an hour a day is too long to finish the end game. That's ludicrous. 60 hours? That you can spread out over as long as you wish? Saying that's too much is laughable. It's only too much if you are one of those folks that feels the need to do it on many characters over and over - which is not the majority of people, only the "basement" folks you accuse me of being have time for that.
You miss the entire point of an MMO - to keep people playing. This isn't a single-player game you bound through beginning to end and then put away never to play again.
Your post couldn't be more incorrect on any level if you stated that Kirk was a Klingon.
Why does it matter if 90% of people play PVE anyways? A decent team without reps can still get optionals nowadays so I'm still missing the point you're trying to make here.
I can only speak for myself, but the only thing about this that upsets me is that they are just now getting around to addressing it instead of fixing this previously when there were fewer rep systems.
Sure, you could make the argument that they could ignore it for the next 2 years when we have 10+ Rep systems, and the furor then would be far more powerful than it is now.
But then if that happened, you would have people saying, "Hey, we might have 10 rep systems now, but just think if they didn't fix this until 2 years from now when we have 20 rep systems. It's better for them to fix it when we have 10 rep systems instead of 20."
My disgust revolves around the fact Cryptic knew rep systems were going to be unpopular, and that the powers granted by them would not be infinitely sustainable. Instead of fixing it then, they fix it later and tell people who have earned those powers to 'suck it up, since the powers we're allowing you to have are more powerful'.
To me, that is fully deserving of the 80 or so pages of outrage we have. Because they knew then, and did not do anything to stop it from getting to this point.
AdjudicatorHawk could be releasing a dev blog on something else today if the early design discussions addressed this issue then instead of saying, "We'll get to it later."
What fallacy am I failing to see? I mean my whole post is just conjecture on what it is I think might be their corporate enforced goals. I could be way off. But PWE probably has a few guidelines that the folks at Cryptic have to incorporate into the work they do. It wouldn't surprise me if one of those goals was continued design decisions that cater to the new player experience.
All I'm going to say is this game is far different than other MMOs in terms of its ability to sell shinies.
In a fantasy MMO it's like "Ooooh a sparkly sword, black and red armor with a glow, and a flying horsie that snorts fire!"
That is pretty short term ooh and ahh.
This game?
It's Star Trek.
There are people who bought the Oberth.
THE OBERTH.
Let that sink in.
Spend some time this year going to a Star Trek convention. Check the prices on some old Mego action figures. Then watch someone pay those prices. Because it's TREK!
The bread and butter of this game has always been the store. Because people are buying Star Trek collectibles. And then playing them in the game.
That's a very different dynamic than, say, even Neverwinter Online.
Folks bought Pakleds as a playable race back before the F2P conversion.
Pakleds.
And flew them in Oberths.
Just let that sink in a little.
I can agree with that. Unfortunately, there are some things that 'timing was an issue' is a good excuse for.
Rep grinds knowingly being one of the most persistent complaints about the game and saying 'timing was an issue' shows apathy to the players.
This isn't a bit of an error. This is what I'd consider a faux pas.
It is still going to be that way. This is what happens...
1 - Player grinds and grinds and grinds gets tired takes a break
2- Comes back after a few major updates...grinds and grinds but does not really finish they give up.
3 - Come back later and even more content and grinds have been added, time spent in game is less.
The more content they miss and the more they feel left behind the less likely they will be to return and if they do the time spent in game will be less. It is a slow bleed until they decide to just move on completely.
The real issue I have with this whole thing is that it is build on the heavy grinding of minimal uninteresting content. In fact, barely enough content to actually do it and they are all basically the same. We are seeing very little creativity in handling these missions. Let's just face it, it is a churn game that is it. You are not meant to play this game in a sustained manner for years. Why? The longer the average player plays the less likely they are to buy because they already have a wealth of stuff. The whole logic behind this change is just that.
When people feel their progression becomes static or stale...it is time to move on, let go. This game is what it is, it will be developed as a churn game, accept it or move on. However, many people feel tied to the game because of their purchases, because it is a Star Trek game and they love Trek. It would be healthier for them to let go and move on, not buy. If you actually saw that happen, I guarantee you this game would either go under or the development model would drastically shift.
If you think people left the game over this, you are having a fantasy.
People leave over things like lockboxes and ships staring them in the face they can only get if they spend $100's of dollars. They don't leave because some folks can finish PvE content more quickly than them because frankly they never will know.
It's all about PvP, not matter what anyone says - and very few people PvP in this game, so there you go - very very few people left over it.
If you think more people are going to play because one of the end-game systems just became less rewarding to long term play, you are thinking backwards.
I hit 40k with out tech doffs... so yes I can lecture if I feel like it. lol
Yes doffs are also an issue... and I hope they address that as well... I have been commenting on what they posted I like the change. I hope they change much more to come... Taking a swing at tech doffs isn't the lowest thing on my list either.
And in what ship were you in when you hit 40k without tech doffs? It didn't happen to be a scimitar by any chance, would it?
You are so blinded in your unilateral support of this game and company. Just look at any other MMO with deeper more detailed end-game raids. The MOBs and boss level fights are creative and different requiring players to think, manage engagements, have the need for varied group structure. The devs could go play any other game out there and see what their competition is doing.
I applaud you for having such an undaunted view and defense of this game but that is just as harmful as the opposite view.
In terms of Unis, here's my preference:
Change them from UNIVERSAL to SPECIAL. Change and add cloaks to ships which are also type SPECIAL.
Now from there, assign two special console slots to all ships. This is a basic power bonus increase.
Then give ships with turnrate of 6 or less one bonus special and turnrate of 3 or less 2 bonus special slots.
Ships also get one bonus special slot for having 4 Sci or more consoles and one bonus Special slot for having 4 or more Eng console slots. One more for not being able to equip cannons or cloak.
Max possible is 7 Special console slots and that would be on a 2/4/4 console layout ship with a turnrate of 3 or less.
Typical battle oriented ship would have 2 special slots. But by comparison, the Galaxy would have 5 special console slots because it gets one bonus for its turnrate and one bonus for its console loadout and one bonus for no canons/cloak. The dreadnought would have 5 and need to use for for its cloak if it opts to be a cloaking ship.
Now... a key proviso: this applies to power oriented consoles. Consoles with powers would lose bonus stats and be purely power consoles. Consoles with pure stat bonus would remain universal.
Then the first time we slotted a new REP trait it converted us over to the new system.
WIN - WIN for everyone.
Your ideas will be the death of this game. Nerfing everything to please PvPers (as your arguments for PvE are bunk) has harmed many an MMO more than it helped -- unless the game was designed around PvP to begin with.
Keeping the grinds, but decreasing the rewards is not the solution. Decreasing the grinds is.
I don't think I like this. The reason I say I don't think I do is because my mind is still in a state of shock from reading the article.
Not only have you removed one of my favourite passives (Rotating Weapon Frequency: handy as hell if you want to make use of Fleet armour/shields/weapons and thus don't have an integral remodulator), but you want to cut those of us who have tier 5 in all rep systems from having currently 16 passive skills... to 4? I mean seriously, 4? Could have at least made it 8 or something, I mean the next rep is being added with these changes so at that point we're going to have to pick 4 out of 24 passives!
I realise that some people have been complaining about 'power creep', but still this is taking it a bit too far the other way in my opinion. We're going to lose so many of the things we've put a LOT of time and effort into getting. I urge you to reconsider this limitation.
I also note that you specify we can change our 'passive traits' for free, but you don't say the same about the 'active powers' is that intentional and meaning we'll have to pay to change those, or is it a mistake in the blog?
*Disclaimer* Before someone comes along and starts telling me why I'm 'wrong', this post is my opinion and my feedback to the devs. Feel free to share your own feedback in your own post.
Eve has been flat since there push for new players back in 2010/2011.
They have been slowly bleeding players for 3 years. There sub numbers have stayed flat however due to the nature of Eve many long time players are maintaining mulitple accounts. lol
Eve has managed a slow drain instead of a fast one as it is a completely different example of a MMO.
EVE is a complete oddity in the market. It caters completely to a very hard core PvP market... which means it has seen its max potential and has managed to hang on to those players because no one else caters to that end of the market.
After a little thinking about all this why not just work the rep passives the same way other passives in the game work. let them only apply to that type of enemy, nukara rep passives apply to tholians, omega rep passives apply to borg and so on. then just leave the t5 power we earn as the reward for completing the rep. no reason to complicate all this. and if you want to limit the power creep that would seem like the better approach to me atleast.
As snoggymack said, going French Revolution on Cryptic/PWE isn't going to solve anything.
After all, when you have the French Revolution, you get Napoleon Bonaparte in the aftermath.
People will always be the same. Game developers will always be the same. If it isn't Cryptic or PWE's devs, it'll be some other devs who will enrage you.
Treat STO as the game you currently have instead of the game you wish you had.
Well, technically, it's 8 passives - 4 space, 4 ground. Essentially, you can pick and choose any set you want to help out.
Niche and genre games will all have their people who feel the same way you might about Oberths and Packled's here. So your comment is inflammatory to other communities of gamers. You like this, they like other things. To them a flaming sword is just as good.
What you fail to see is the whole model here is a churn, if it were not there would have been alternate solutions to this issue rather than lets make a fresh 50 equal to a veteran 50. That there should tell you that you and I as veteran players are not the target audience and we are viewed as a liability. Whether it be because of adamant defense or criticism of the game or that we have purchased a bunch of things and are really only likely to make a few purchases of items that we are really interested in.
Those players that are the target now will have spent a bunch of money before they become us and spend less money or leave the game. I agree with you here in general, the game is not built for retention, it will never be built for retention. It is built to get waves of new players in to make purchases. Not have veteran players continue to play the game to continue to make sustained purchases.
Grinds effect both PvP and PvE players... yes I know when people see me talking they assume (mostly rightly) that I am thinking about PvP.
Truth is grind effects all players. There have been just as many "Cryptic Stop the grind" threads started in the General and PvE sections as there have been in the PvP section. Tells me that no one likes to feel behind... and that everyone feels the need to complete what is in front of them.
Having the trait limit 100% makes it possible to skip grinds or at least not feel they must be completed because I am MISSING something. No one likes to be missing things... and no one really likes super grinds. (we all like some grind we can admit that).
This system will make it much easier for Returning players to jump back in and not feel the second they come back that they are missing the basics. Makes it much more likely they won't just leave again... which has for sure happened with players of all stripes. This change will help there.