Turnover is normal. People change jobs, get married, get bored and change games, whatever. The point here is that anecdote is not data, and without data its just speculation.
Its definitely desirable to retain players as long as possible (something cryptic doesnt try for very hard). People who play certainly spend more money in the c-store than people who don't play. The lack of an end-game is probably the #1 thing working against STO and there is no indication of cryptic understanding this. The only end-game content here is griding for stuff, which you eventually get, and then there is literally nothing else to do. No trading, crafting, open pvp, exploration systems, housing customization, ..., nothing but grind that is eventually met.
Cryptic has made changes to slow down the rate at which resources can be gathered (removal of hourlies, removal of fleet mark farming, etc), but what I am seeing is that stuff only means the established players are less likely to build secondary toons/ships, since the grind is harder (takes longer) for something where the rewards are smaller (alternate toon/ship). It has actually made the retention problem more acute.
Thinking about keeping people and grind. There is a reward in that other game for getting a character class to a certain level. One that does not help that class one bit. It shares one of their class abilities with any other character you may have in different classes.
So why not something like that here? Get to End game and you get an account bound token that you may use on any below 10 character of a different class of yours. So that when you max an engineer, you get an orbital strike token. Tactical gives the summon security squad token, etc. So that you roll a new toon and can have a science officer with orbital strike and/or security squads?
It would encourage people to play the game through more than once which is a different form of hidden grind. And gives some meaning to your first characters and power to later ones. Thus encouraging people to stay in the game longer. (Putting an accolade to them can help too.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I'll just say this; since the change from hourly events to "Event Weekends" my playing times have dropped from an average 20-25 hours per week to around 5-7 hours per week.
I have not spent any RL cash or exchanged dil for two months now.
I've not taken advantage of any of the offered weekend events, I've just had fun...
Seriously, now there are no advantages to logging in each day and checking out the hourlies/dailies, just to see if there's something juicy coming up in the time I have to play.
I used to log in, check My Doffs then check to see what hourlies/dailies were scheduled during my play-time. There wasn't always something that appealed, but I was already in-game and always found something else to do.
Now I only log in when I have something that I feel like doing, I rolled a new science Ferengi and I'm having a ball just rolling it through the levels, nice and slowly, not really 'rp'ing, but being Ferengi, trading for profit and buying the best eq for each level. Normally it would take 3-4 days to get VA and I wouldn't buy eq, but this time it will be slow and OP, lol...
My wife loves it and is a big fan of the change, my daughters thank you as they get to use my PC more, me, well I'm just having fun now...
Metrics...
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Lazarus Long --->Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Steven D'Angelo, you you will no longer get one cent more out of my wallet to support this game. Instead of blaming the active players that were those who paid for a LS or GS, you have made the decision to strip this game down so those of us who were 'active' to very limited.
i said from the beginning these weekend events should be supplemental to hourly events. hourly events had "a low turn out rate" cause half of them were complete ****. no one gives a **** about data samples, datachips, running around at the academy, shuttle queues of any kind, and crafting.
people want mirror universe, the old one not this time gated bull**** which makes people want to not just quit the game but quit life itself.
people want marks, you want us to grind out reputations which btw the ridiculously implamented revamp will make the grind more useless therefore limiting the people who are going to grind any future content. and you want us to grind out fleet holdings. which btw the nws STEALTH NERF made harder, but for players who dont suck TRIBBLE meaning not your target audience, will actually increase our marks per hour especially during a bonus event.
keep nerfing stuff, it gives good players a lot of a less reason to log in.
Steven D'Angelo, you you will no longer get one cent more out of my wallet to support this game. Instead of blaming the active players that were those who paid for a LS or GS, you have made the decision to strip this game down so those of us who were 'active' to very limited.
Karma, Steve, Karma. Enough said. :mad:
This.
There are a lot of good things in this game, good missions that the devs have worked hard on...but they are not popular because they don't seem worth the time compared to STFs or BZ.
What I don't understand is why they can't make some of the other PvE missions more attractive by adding a larger reward for them. That is the only reason people have played the three main STFs thousands of times. I mean, the dilithium reward for Mirror is 480, but it is time gated so that it takes about 12-15minutes. The optional timers for the STFs are also set at 15minutes, and yet you get double the reward. Doesn't make sense. If they want people to play the other content, make it worth their time. Sure, it might get old eventually, like the Voth BZ, but guess what? People still play it, and they called it a great success!
My point is that if they thought only some of the hourly events were popular, well, there was a good reason for that because the other event missions still gave a reward that was not worth the time. Reconsider the rewards based on average play time...give a larger reward for doing ground missions which usually take longer than space missions anyways.
People might stay and/or come back if they had reason to play the other content in this game and feel like it was time well spent. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing the new Undine missions, but I fear their ultimate fate will be the same as The Breach and Storming the Spire.
Edit: Speaking of ground, I always loved the ground STFs, especially when people played them because they needed Prototype tech in order to get gear pieces and accolades. It had a common goal that usually fostered some friendships along the way with people constantly running those missions. Now? You see some brave people attempt to form a group for ground sometimes, but otherwise, zip. People complained about the tech drops, but I think they were a far better carrot then what we have now.
Starfleet: Persephone, Silas, Alexandra, Purrs-a-lot, Insanity, Alala, Nicki Minaj, Apathy and Liz Lemon KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
However these resaons stated by the OP are not the only reasons
The Galaxy reboot....was such a failure and made so many lose heart.............left
Ground losing the reason to ground...Elite costumes for one ....there just uniforms now so the ground ques are empy...............there is no reson to do ground
4x the time involved for 25% of the reward for time invested verses space
overpowered romulans making vet players toons laughing stock characters
I have saw a huge loss in vet players recently......In my fleet and from my friends list as well..........along from other area's in the game
Even the JHAS is not selling well.....................That speaks volumes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and still nothing but grind content................no end game content
just grind content that goes to no where
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
However these resaons stated by the OP are not the only reasons
The Galaxy reboot....was such a failure and made so many lose heart.............left
Ground losing the reason to ground...Elite costumes for one ....there just uniforms now so the ground ques are empy...............there is no reson to do ground
4x the time involved for 25% of the reward for time invested verses space
overpowered romulans making vet players toons laughing stock characters
I have saw a huge loss in vet players recently......In my fleet and from my friends list as well..........along from other area's in the game
Even the JHAS is not selling well.....................That speaks volumes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and still nothing but grind content................no end game content
just grind content that goes to no where
While I don't think the failed galaxy upgrade caused a significant number of people to drop the game (yes it went bad but still) I'll agree on the rest.
Its not the hourly event removal only, its the course that game takes in general.
I went from one to five hours per day to having logged in just once in the last three weeks.
I'm having fun playing Mount & Blade Warband right now, among other games I paid cash money for at a price lower than a Cryptic ship pack would cost me.
I don't like reward nerfing of which I've been subjected to several waves now.
To me, the calendar removal was clearly a nerf.
I don't like the mangling of Mirror Incursion which had been just plain fun for alt leveling.
I'm not the least bit interested in Dyson Spheres, sorry. I think they are goofy.
Would rather have something to do on core worlds.
I admittedly didn't spend much cash here because I had difficulty finding anything worth buying, and/or at a reasonable price. 3 x pixel boats or 5 new games.
Keep having fun where you can. I envy you if you are.
LLAP
Edit: Speaking of ground, I always loved the ground STFs, especially when people played them because they needed Prototype tech in order to get gear pieces and accolades. It had a common goal that usually fostered some friendships along the way with people constantly running those missions. Now? You see some brave people attempt to form a group for ground sometimes, but otherwise, zip. People complained about the tech drops, but I think they were a far better carrot then what we have now.
Very true, and there was NO REASON AT ALL the tech drops had to die. The tech drops could have just remained as a feature, alongside the rep system. Instead, all we got was an absolutely massive price hike. Infinity% price increases are just plain unreasonable. Suffice it to say I haven't bought any of those pieces since because A: Ground is Dead, and B: I didn't receive an infinity% income increase to go with the infinity% price increase.
Very true, and there was NO REASON AT ALL the tech drops had to die. The tech drops could have just remained as a feature, alongside the rep system. Instead, all we got was an absolutely massive price hike. Infinity% price increases are just plain unreasonable. Suffice it to say I haven't bought any of those pieces since because A: Ground is Dead, and B: I didn't receive an infinity% income increase to go with the infinity% price increase.
Sorry the tech drops were a terrible idea from day one.
The true problem is splitting up the stfs. A good piece of end content needs ground and space in one mission.
Sorry the tech drops were a terrible idea from day one.
The true problem is splitting up the stfs. A good piece of end content needs ground and space in one mission.
I remember the aggravation and malice from unlucky people who never managed to snag the tech, and while I remember the feeling myself, I can't ignore the difference in game environment between then and now. People may have been angry back then because they had not gotten the proto tech, but that same desire to keep trying fostered entire groups of friends and fleets, mine included. Now...any sense of community that we had is gone or dwindling.
However, I absolutely agree that the combined stfs felt epic, and getting through them always felt satisfying. They should have just let fed and KDF team together back then instead of splitting them. The old old stfs FELT like end game raids...or at least more so than anything we have now.
I really did love the old old STFs...miss them a lot.
Starfleet: Persephone, Silas, Alexandra, Purrs-a-lot, Insanity, Alala, Nicki Minaj, Apathy and Liz Lemon KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
Sorry the tech drops were a terrible idea from day one.
I never said it wasn't terrible, just that the replacement was quite naturally worse, because the entropy of a closed system must always increase. Regardless of how bad the tech drop system was, it was affordable. Jacking it up by a factor infinity made it VERY MUCH NOT AFFORDABLE, not to mention killing the entire mission and thus the desire to even GET that stuff.
The old stfs seemed only epic because they were the closest thing to end content we ever had in the game.
Compared it their counterparts in other games they were mediocre at best.
Problem is now we have literally no pve end content. And pvp is a joke.
That's the problem with cryptic that becomes more and more apparent: they actually have no idea what they are doing and how games work.
I never said it wasn't terrible, just that the replacement was quite naturally worse, because the entropy of a closed system must always increase.
You keep saying that, but quite frankly, it's bullsh*t as it applied to this game or any game
A computer game is, quite simply, not a closed system.
By your logic, what could Cryptic ever do to improve the game? UNder what circumstances do you treat it as an "open" system and under what circumstances do you treat it as "closed"? Os is positive change per se impossible, and once a game is released, it can only turn worse?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Partially correct. I think it's more that certain individuals at Cryptic, just don't care. When there's no direction coming from the top, other than "Just look busy doing something!", cohesiveness breaks down, and people work on the things that they think should be worked on. Correspondly we get "remasters" of content that 90% of the playerbase no longer plays anymore, for mediocre loot. Like the recent revamp of ESD. As a veteran player, (back when I still actually "played" the game), ESD was just someplace I quickly ran in, and out of, to do whatever I needed to do there. It's not like I spent any time looking around, thinking "This looks terrible, if only this place were redone, it would negate all the other pre-launch bugs in game".
Mhm. Problem is the kind iof direction that come from the top. Time gated events. More time gated events. Even more time gated events. The actual topic, removal of the hourlys.. Does not affect me but obviously others.
Not working on the parts that actually require work.
And while revamping some stuff is deeply in need, right now they are more busy removing stuff and revamping unneeded stuff.
Simple example: people want more story content. What do we get? Revamped story content. The old missions might not be as polished as the newer ones, but they are perfectly fine. In some aspects even better then the new ones.
Still instead of making new missions all resources go to changing old ones. Assimilated in its current state is still one of the best missions. The new version might be better... But not as good as an entirely new mission which would take the same effort.
And there is always that topic of end content. Cryptic simply does not know what end content is.
So there are good people especially in the art department. Most of the content we get isn't that bad at all, taken for its self. It's mostly well crafted (with exceptions like the new mirror invasion).
But it's partly the wrong kind of content (=still no end content), it's partly advertised badly (time gated event for the ONLY mission in that game that requires teamwork? That's so stupid that the responsible person is either TRIBBLE or sabotaging on purpose. No middle ground) or rewarded badly (new Romulus: 10 marks for each of those acivities? The zone is crafted nicely but you don't really get anything out of doing stuff there. Same for mission replays....)
But that's not even all.
Things like the lockbox and lobby system are vomit inducing and despite full. But if they have to be here... They should at least be done right.
But they are not even capable of doing that.
Then all that half assed half done stuff like interiors or the doff system or bos... The game has a ton of potential in its core... And tons of flaws is the essentials.
How can a game like that, a role playing game like that, looking that great, with tons of costumisation... Be less immersive then super Mario brothers on the classic game boy?
Honesty, I wouldn't know how to make a game so little immersive ON PURPOSE.
So, I ultimately agree that the mistakes come from the top.
DStahl was not a very good lead, but still god like compared to DAngelo. What Cryptic needs before ANYTHING else is someone competent in that very position.
As I said previously, no one played some of the hourly events because they involved missions that simply were not time efficient. This game prioritized grinding resources, and only the missions that garnered the greatest reward are played regularly.
Time gating is only a big problem because the rewards come no where close to the time investment as compared to the alternatives. If they want us to at their new content, like voth space missions, or even shuttle missions, increase the reward. Make it worth the time. Otherwise, it will be a one or two week novelty, then be abandoned.
Starfleet: Persephone, Silas, Alexandra, Purrs-a-lot, Insanity, Alala, Nicki Minaj, Apathy and Liz Lemon KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
As I said previously, no one played some of the hourly events because they involved missions that simply were not time efficient. This game prioritized grinding resources, and only the missions that garnered the greatest reward are played regularly.
Weekend events not only aren't working anymore, most are useless. 5 days of XP bonus for most players is useless at this point in the game. It literally just needs to be an hourly event. The academy collection hour and the double lore hours were pointless. The reason the hourly events weren't used is because many of them were utterly pointless.
Hourly Events should include: Bonus Marks, Bonus Dilithium, Foundry bonuses, XP bonus, EC bonus, DOFF mission bonus, Latinum bonus.
I'm sure there are a few more that could be randomly put into the rotation.
Weekend events not only aren't working anymore, most are useless. 5 days of XP bonus for most players is useless at this point in the game. It literally just needs to be an hourly event. The academy collection hour and the double lore hours were pointless. The reason the hourly events weren't used is because many of them were utterly pointless.
Hourly Events should include: Bonus Marks, Bonus Dilithium, Foundry bonuses, XP bonus, EC bonus, DOFF mission bonus, Latinum bonus.
I'm sure there are a few more that could be randomly put into the rotation.
Actually I think hourly events should have featured particular things like... Infected hour... Double marks from infected ( or "Borg stf hour" in general) or "nukara ground hour" or "new romulus ground hour" or... Well essentially hours for every one of those pve missions in the q that are abandoned.
the hourly events were great...the only problem they had was that some stfs reward WAY, WAY more than other content...so even if there was a shuttle hour, the rewards from ISE was way better and it takes only 5 minutes...
an obvious problem in the game, still unknown to the developement team
the breach...too long, should be cut into an outer and inner part.
azura nebula...way too easy, still you need to sit your time off of minimal reward. Increase rewards, and make the rewards dependent of the ships killed. AND increase the spawn rate...the time inbetween is too freaking long.
CSE/KASE/ISE: increase mob level to 52 (as it was at the beginning, when the NEW STFs were introduced)
decrease mark and dilithium reward
klingon scoutforce, starbase 24, and basically all other fleet events need a revisit...spawnrate, and mechanic are not up to date anymore.
list goes on and on
as i see it, that is material for a whole season and it would benefit the game more than new content.
while i do enjoy my solo in-game grinding, i really miss the regular heartbeat of teaming up in the various
daily calendered events. the 'all weekend' event system sounds great in principal, but, as a regular system
its like eating your full weeks worth of meals in a few days and starving for the remainder of your week.
that's fine every now and then, but i'd much prefer my meals spread out over the week, and just have
the occasional weekend party.
By your logic, what could Cryptic ever do to improve the game?
Open Source. This is why open sourced games have lasted 20 years or more, and continue to exist so long as people are willing to put energy into it, while closed-source games inevitably die. As closed systems, their entropy can only increase, never decrease, so death is inevitable.
UNder what circumstances do you treat it as an "open" system and under what circumstances do you treat it as "closed"?
It is a closed system because it receives no external input: Only people who are already part of the Cryptic system can act upon the system, but since they are already part of the system, their actions can only increase net entropy. Since if they were to increase their OWN entropy in doing so, they would end up dying, they must necessarily increase the game's entropy if they wish to survive.
I checked that Steam top 100 link someone posted. STO has more steam players online than EVE when I checked. Leading me to knee jerk, "hey, if it's beating EVE it can't be that bad."
I do miss the hourly schedule. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that that one thing is the death knell for the game. If they put it up for a vote, I'd vote to bring it back, but really the hourly was just something I looked at to see if anything good was coming up, I didn't plan my day around it.
Same with the STF's. I have days when I live in the queue's. But after getting my Hakeev, I've been hanging out in Red Alerts and running my Romulan through the story. So I'm one of those people who is a regular in STF's but haven't been running them as much for a while. I'm still in the game, just doing something else. I imagine I'm not the only one who is taking some time off from pew-pew after the two week slog.
After four years of reading posts about how the game is dying and will be lights out in X days or weeks unless Y happens NOW! I've decided that as long as I keep seeing these posts then everything is going reasonably well. When people actually quit posting doom-rants and just leave, that's when it's time to worry.
I checked that Steam top 100 link someone posted. STO has more steam players online than EVE when I checked. Leading me to knee jerk, "hey, if it's beating EVE it can't be that bad."
I do miss the hourly schedule. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that that one thing is the death knell for the game. If they put it up for a vote, I'd vote to bring it back, but really the hourly was just something I looked at to see if anything good was coming up, I didn't plan my day around it.
Same with the STF's. I have days when I live in the queue's. But after getting my Hakeev, I've been hanging out in Red Alerts and running my Romulan through the story. So I'm one of those people who is a regular in STF's but haven't been running them as much for a while. I'm still in the game, just doing something else. I imagine I'm not the only one who is taking some time off from pew-pew after the two week slog.
After four years of reading posts about how the game is dying and will be lights out in X days or weeks unless Y happens NOW! I've decided that as long as I keep seeing these posts then everything is going reasonably well. When people actually quit posting doom-rants and just leave, that's when it's time to worry.
Well the aim of this post is to give an early warning - if we wait till people actually stop posting, the game will be well and truely dead, and by that time, there will be nothing that you, I or Cryptic can do about it.
I can't imagine anything so catastrophic that the game would die overnight, or even "Fast", anyway. Like everything else, death will be a slow and agonizingly drawn out process. In fact, it can't really be averted no matter what happens. Health is just the slowest rate at which something can die. The march of entropy is inevitable and inexorable.
Weekend events not only aren't working anymore, most are useless. 5 days of XP bonus for most players is useless at this point in the game.
But what about the people that call for the old Mirror Event mission for XP grinding? Apparently some people still need XP. Maybe most don't need it, but some clearly do.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Open Source. This is why open sourced games have lasted 20 years or more, and continue to exist so long as people are willing to put energy into it, while closed-source games inevitably die. As closed systems, their entropy can only increase, never decrease, so death is inevitable.
You're still not describing a closed system in the thermodynamic sense.
1) Cryptic loses old team members and hires new team members.
2) Cryptic team members can learn new stuff, by attending conferences, reading articles, or attending seminars and courses, and sharing experiences with developers from different games (be it in-house or external).
3) Players give feedback to the development team. The players themselves are not limited to the game - some are new joiners, others have experiences from other games.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I checked that Steam top 100 link someone posted. STO has more steam players online than EVE when I checked. Leading me to knee jerk, "hey, if it's beating EVE it can't be that bad."
I do miss the hourly schedule. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that that one thing is the death knell for the game. If they put it up for a vote, I'd vote to bring it back, but really the hourly was just something I looked at to see if anything good was coming up, I didn't plan my day around it.
Same with the STF's. I have days when I live in the queue's. But after getting my Hakeev, I've been hanging out in Red Alerts and running my Romulan through the story. So I'm one of those people who is a regular in STF's but haven't been running them as much for a while. I'm still in the game, just doing something else. I imagine I'm not the only one who is taking some time off from pew-pew after the two week slog.
After four years of reading posts about how the game is dying and will be lights out in X days or weeks unless Y happens NOW! I've decided that as long as I keep seeing these posts then everything is going reasonably well. When people actually quit posting doom-rants and just leave, that's when it's time to worry.
Honestly, comparing games to EVE is like comparing foods to rotting road kill. Even if its bad, it will still come out on top.
Honestly, I saw a forum signature. It said "Cryptic took out the hourly events, and all people complained about was a free ship. You deserve what's coming next."
Aaaaand Cryptic is delivering that full:
-Nerfing reputations.
-Bugging up romulans.
-Making swimwear Risa only. Damn, would it have been too much to let us use it on foundry maps with water where there are no trolls?
So yes. Cryptic got away with that, and now they are getting away with everything else.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Honestly, comparing games to EVE is like comparing foods to rotting road kill. Even if its bad, it will still come out on top.
That's nonsense. Most roadkill people dismiss as "rotting" is actually quite fresh, having been lying there for less than a few hours. In fact, roadkill can taste quite good.
But let's look at why the comparison is flawed: Firstly, it's a STEAM comparison. This means it only collects meaningful statistics for USERS WHO PLAY THE GAME THROUGH STEAM. Comparing an unknown percentage of players who play one game to an unknown percentage of players who play another game, neither of which actually requires Steam, is a meaningless result.
I disagree with the assertion that it is a "nerf". If you look at the actual hard numbers, the changes INCREASE, not DECREASE, power. The simple fact is that whatever you do before and after, your ship will be tougher and/or harder hitting after the change than before. This therefore cannot be characterized as a nerf. Yes, it is a change. Yes, therefore, it will make the game worse on net in keeping with the Second Law. But it is not a "nerf" as you would characterize it.
It is a test server. Bugs are expected. It is premature to claim that this is some malign intent, when, in fact, the entire point of a test server is that it is frequently broken.
Well the aim of this post is to give an early warning - if we wait till people actually stop posting, the game will be well and truely dead, and by that time, there will be nothing that you, I or Cryptic can do about it.
Unfortunately the first thing seen in this early warning is "GAME DYING FAST!". Kinda strikes as another person calling wolf. People have been saying the game is dying since launch. It's 4 years in now, it's a little dated. The game will die eventually. So eventually someone will be right with their doom thread. I doubt this change is the game killer it's being heralded as though.
Comments
Thinking about keeping people and grind. There is a reward in that other game for getting a character class to a certain level. One that does not help that class one bit. It shares one of their class abilities with any other character you may have in different classes.
So why not something like that here? Get to End game and you get an account bound token that you may use on any below 10 character of a different class of yours. So that when you max an engineer, you get an orbital strike token. Tactical gives the summon security squad token, etc. So that you roll a new toon and can have a science officer with orbital strike and/or security squads?
It would encourage people to play the game through more than once which is a different form of hidden grind. And gives some meaning to your first characters and power to later ones. Thus encouraging people to stay in the game longer. (Putting an accolade to them can help too.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I'll just say this; since the change from hourly events to "Event Weekends" my playing times have dropped from an average 20-25 hours per week to around 5-7 hours per week.
I have not spent any RL cash or exchanged dil for two months now.
I've not taken advantage of any of the offered weekend events, I've just had fun...
Seriously, now there are no advantages to logging in each day and checking out the hourlies/dailies, just to see if there's something juicy coming up in the time I have to play.
I used to log in, check My Doffs then check to see what hourlies/dailies were scheduled during my play-time. There wasn't always something that appealed, but I was already in-game and always found something else to do.
Now I only log in when I have something that I feel like doing, I rolled a new science Ferengi and I'm having a ball just rolling it through the levels, nice and slowly, not really 'rp'ing, but being Ferengi, trading for profit and buying the best eq for each level. Normally it would take 3-4 days to get VA and I wouldn't buy eq, but this time it will be slow and OP, lol...
My wife loves it and is a big fan of the change, my daughters thank you as they get to use my PC more, me, well I'm just having fun now...
Metrics...
Steven D'Angelo, you you will no longer get one cent more out of my wallet to support this game. Instead of blaming the active players that were those who paid for a LS or GS, you have made the decision to strip this game down so those of us who were 'active' to very limited.
Karma, Steve, Karma. Enough said. :mad:
people want mirror universe, the old one not this time gated bull**** which makes people want to not just quit the game but quit life itself.
people want marks, you want us to grind out reputations which btw the ridiculously implamented revamp will make the grind more useless therefore limiting the people who are going to grind any future content. and you want us to grind out fleet holdings. which btw the nws STEALTH NERF made harder, but for players who dont suck TRIBBLE meaning not your target audience, will actually increase our marks per hour especially during a bonus event.
keep nerfing stuff, it gives good players a lot of a less reason to log in.
This.
There are a lot of good things in this game, good missions that the devs have worked hard on...but they are not popular because they don't seem worth the time compared to STFs or BZ.
What I don't understand is why they can't make some of the other PvE missions more attractive by adding a larger reward for them. That is the only reason people have played the three main STFs thousands of times. I mean, the dilithium reward for Mirror is 480, but it is time gated so that it takes about 12-15minutes. The optional timers for the STFs are also set at 15minutes, and yet you get double the reward. Doesn't make sense. If they want people to play the other content, make it worth their time. Sure, it might get old eventually, like the Voth BZ, but guess what? People still play it, and they called it a great success!
My point is that if they thought only some of the hourly events were popular, well, there was a good reason for that because the other event missions still gave a reward that was not worth the time. Reconsider the rewards based on average play time...give a larger reward for doing ground missions which usually take longer than space missions anyways.
People might stay and/or come back if they had reason to play the other content in this game and feel like it was time well spent. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing the new Undine missions, but I fear their ultimate fate will be the same as The Breach and Storming the Spire.
Edit: Speaking of ground, I always loved the ground STFs, especially when people played them because they needed Prototype tech in order to get gear pieces and accolades. It had a common goal that usually fostered some friendships along the way with people constantly running those missions. Now? You see some brave people attempt to form a group for ground sometimes, but otherwise, zip. People complained about the tech drops, but I think they were a far better carrot then what we have now.
KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee
Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
However these resaons stated by the OP are not the only reasons
The Galaxy reboot....was such a failure and made so many lose heart.............left
Ground losing the reason to ground...Elite costumes for one ....there just uniforms now so the ground ques are empy...............there is no reson to do ground
4x the time involved for 25% of the reward for time invested verses space
overpowered romulans making vet players toons laughing stock characters
I have saw a huge loss in vet players recently......In my fleet and from my friends list as well..........along from other area's in the game
Even the JHAS is not selling well.....................That speaks volumes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and still nothing but grind content................no end game content
just grind content that goes to no where
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
While I don't think the failed galaxy upgrade caused a significant number of people to drop the game (yes it went bad but still) I'll agree on the rest.
Its not the hourly event removal only, its the course that game takes in general.
I'm having fun playing Mount & Blade Warband right now, among other games I paid cash money for at a price lower than a Cryptic ship pack would cost me.
I don't like reward nerfing of which I've been subjected to several waves now.
To me, the calendar removal was clearly a nerf.
I don't like the mangling of Mirror Incursion which had been just plain fun for alt leveling.
I'm not the least bit interested in Dyson Spheres, sorry. I think they are goofy.
Would rather have something to do on core worlds.
I admittedly didn't spend much cash here because I had difficulty finding anything worth buying, and/or at a reasonable price. 3 x pixel boats or 5 new games.
Keep having fun where you can. I envy you if you are.
LLAP
Sorry the tech drops were a terrible idea from day one.
The true problem is splitting up the stfs. A good piece of end content needs ground and space in one mission.
I remember the aggravation and malice from unlucky people who never managed to snag the tech, and while I remember the feeling myself, I can't ignore the difference in game environment between then and now. People may have been angry back then because they had not gotten the proto tech, but that same desire to keep trying fostered entire groups of friends and fleets, mine included. Now...any sense of community that we had is gone or dwindling.
However, I absolutely agree that the combined stfs felt epic, and getting through them always felt satisfying. They should have just let fed and KDF team together back then instead of splitting them. The old old stfs FELT like end game raids...or at least more so than anything we have now.
I really did love the old old STFs...miss them a lot.
KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee
Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
Well, certainly the split-up STFs made for a more disjointed experience. They should bring back STF Classic.
Compared it their counterparts in other games they were mediocre at best.
Problem is now we have literally no pve end content. And pvp is a joke.
That's the problem with cryptic that becomes more and more apparent: they actually have no idea what they are doing and how games work.
A computer game is, quite simply, not a closed system.
By your logic, what could Cryptic ever do to improve the game? UNder what circumstances do you treat it as an "open" system and under what circumstances do you treat it as "closed"? Os is positive change per se impossible, and once a game is released, it can only turn worse?
Mhm. Problem is the kind iof direction that come from the top. Time gated events. More time gated events. Even more time gated events. The actual topic, removal of the hourlys.. Does not affect me but obviously others.
Not working on the parts that actually require work.
And while revamping some stuff is deeply in need, right now they are more busy removing stuff and revamping unneeded stuff.
Simple example: people want more story content. What do we get? Revamped story content. The old missions might not be as polished as the newer ones, but they are perfectly fine. In some aspects even better then the new ones.
Still instead of making new missions all resources go to changing old ones. Assimilated in its current state is still one of the best missions. The new version might be better... But not as good as an entirely new mission which would take the same effort.
And there is always that topic of end content. Cryptic simply does not know what end content is.
So there are good people especially in the art department. Most of the content we get isn't that bad at all, taken for its self. It's mostly well crafted (with exceptions like the new mirror invasion).
But it's partly the wrong kind of content (=still no end content), it's partly advertised badly (time gated event for the ONLY mission in that game that requires teamwork? That's so stupid that the responsible person is either TRIBBLE or sabotaging on purpose. No middle ground) or rewarded badly (new Romulus: 10 marks for each of those acivities? The zone is crafted nicely but you don't really get anything out of doing stuff there. Same for mission replays....)
But that's not even all.
Things like the lockbox and lobby system are vomit inducing and despite full. But if they have to be here... They should at least be done right.
But they are not even capable of doing that.
Then all that half assed half done stuff like interiors or the doff system or bos... The game has a ton of potential in its core... And tons of flaws is the essentials.
How can a game like that, a role playing game like that, looking that great, with tons of costumisation... Be less immersive then super Mario brothers on the classic game boy?
Honesty, I wouldn't know how to make a game so little immersive ON PURPOSE.
So, I ultimately agree that the mistakes come from the top.
DStahl was not a very good lead, but still god like compared to DAngelo. What Cryptic needs before ANYTHING else is someone competent in that very position.
Time gating is only a big problem because the rewards come no where close to the time investment as compared to the alternatives. If they want us to at their new content, like voth space missions, or even shuttle missions, increase the reward. Make it worth the time. Otherwise, it will be a one or two week novelty, then be abandoned.
KDF: Absolution, Vox, Vadim, Sammiches and Unknown Refugee
Member of Network 23 FED and Imperial Legion
Weekend events not only aren't working anymore, most are useless. 5 days of XP bonus for most players is useless at this point in the game. It literally just needs to be an hourly event. The academy collection hour and the double lore hours were pointless. The reason the hourly events weren't used is because many of them were utterly pointless.
Hourly Events should include: Bonus Marks, Bonus Dilithium, Foundry bonuses, XP bonus, EC bonus, DOFF mission bonus, Latinum bonus.
I'm sure there are a few more that could be randomly put into the rotation.
Actually I think hourly events should have featured particular things like... Infected hour... Double marks from infected ( or "Borg stf hour" in general) or "nukara ground hour" or "new romulus ground hour" or... Well essentially hours for every one of those pve missions in the q that are abandoned.
an obvious problem in the game, still unknown to the developement team
the breach...too long, should be cut into an outer and inner part.
azura nebula...way too easy, still you need to sit your time off of minimal reward. Increase rewards, and make the rewards dependent of the ships killed. AND increase the spawn rate...the time inbetween is too freaking long.
CSE/KASE/ISE: increase mob level to 52 (as it was at the beginning, when the NEW STFs were introduced)
decrease mark and dilithium reward
klingon scoutforce, starbase 24, and basically all other fleet events need a revisit...spawnrate, and mechanic are not up to date anymore.
list goes on and on
as i see it, that is material for a whole season and it would benefit the game more than new content.
while i do enjoy my solo in-game grinding, i really miss the regular heartbeat of teaming up in the various
daily calendered events. the 'all weekend' event system sounds great in principal, but, as a regular system
its like eating your full weeks worth of meals in a few days and starving for the remainder of your week.
that's fine every now and then, but i'd much prefer my meals spread out over the week, and just have
the occasional weekend party.
i've been unable to get a KDF fleet defense form the pve queue in weeks now
It is a closed system because it receives no external input: Only people who are already part of the Cryptic system can act upon the system, but since they are already part of the system, their actions can only increase net entropy. Since if they were to increase their OWN entropy in doing so, they would end up dying, they must necessarily increase the game's entropy if they wish to survive.
Correct. Net improvement is physically impossible. Every change can only locally improve one area while making the game as a whole worse.
I do miss the hourly schedule. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that that one thing is the death knell for the game. If they put it up for a vote, I'd vote to bring it back, but really the hourly was just something I looked at to see if anything good was coming up, I didn't plan my day around it.
Same with the STF's. I have days when I live in the queue's. But after getting my Hakeev, I've been hanging out in Red Alerts and running my Romulan through the story. So I'm one of those people who is a regular in STF's but haven't been running them as much for a while. I'm still in the game, just doing something else. I imagine I'm not the only one who is taking some time off from pew-pew after the two week slog.
After four years of reading posts about how the game is dying and will be lights out in X days or weeks unless Y happens NOW! I've decided that as long as I keep seeing these posts then everything is going reasonably well. When people actually quit posting doom-rants and just leave, that's when it's time to worry.
Well the aim of this post is to give an early warning - if we wait till people actually stop posting, the game will be well and truely dead, and by that time, there will be nothing that you, I or Cryptic can do about it.
1) Cryptic loses old team members and hires new team members.
2) Cryptic team members can learn new stuff, by attending conferences, reading articles, or attending seminars and courses, and sharing experiences with developers from different games (be it in-house or external).
3) Players give feedback to the development team. The players themselves are not limited to the game - some are new joiners, others have experiences from other games.
Honestly, comparing games to EVE is like comparing foods to rotting road kill. Even if its bad, it will still come out on top.
Honestly, I saw a forum signature. It said "Cryptic took out the hourly events, and all people complained about was a free ship. You deserve what's coming next."
Aaaaand Cryptic is delivering that full:
-Nerfing reputations.
-Bugging up romulans.
-Making swimwear Risa only. Damn, would it have been too much to let us use it on foundry maps with water where there are no trolls?
So yes. Cryptic got away with that, and now they are getting away with everything else.
But let's look at why the comparison is flawed: Firstly, it's a STEAM comparison. This means it only collects meaningful statistics for USERS WHO PLAY THE GAME THROUGH STEAM. Comparing an unknown percentage of players who play one game to an unknown percentage of players who play another game, neither of which actually requires Steam, is a meaningless result.
I disagree with the assertion that it is a "nerf". If you look at the actual hard numbers, the changes INCREASE, not DECREASE, power. The simple fact is that whatever you do before and after, your ship will be tougher and/or harder hitting after the change than before. This therefore cannot be characterized as a nerf. Yes, it is a change. Yes, therefore, it will make the game worse on net in keeping with the Second Law. But it is not a "nerf" as you would characterize it.
It is a test server. Bugs are expected. It is premature to claim that this is some malign intent, when, in fact, the entire point of a test server is that it is frequently broken.
Last year, you ASKED for this. This year, you get it, and now you complain.
Unfortunately the first thing seen in this early warning is "GAME DYING FAST!". Kinda strikes as another person calling wolf. People have been saying the game is dying since launch. It's 4 years in now, it's a little dated. The game will die eventually. So eventually someone will be right with their doom thread. I doubt this change is the game killer it's being heralded as though.