Why is everyone so hung up on the notion that everything will be upgraded through R&D? There is nothing - NOTHING - yet to indicate that...
Erm... yes there is and its already on Tribble.
At lvl 5/10/15 of the R&D schools you unlock the ability to craft Small/Medium/Superior Research Tech.
The tooltips for said items state that by using them in conjunction with DILITHIUM you can research your gear. Earn enough research and the gear will upgrade it's Mark. (There is also a chance for upgrade of rarity). It says that the higher the starting Mk the higher the cost in Research kits and dilithium to upgrade.
This research function isn't on Triblle yet - but the crafting of the Research kits is and yes its gonna cost ALOT of dil to turn things from 12 ->14
Having to do this for Mk-Infinity (levelless gear that came on C-store ships or lobi purchases - ie REAL money purchases) is insane. And it's wrong.
What gear exactly is this. I've never seen any gear that doesn't have a level indicated.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I have to say...they must REALLY hate making money since this pretty much killed the buying of lobi items. The MAIN reason for these was that they level with you and now, they don't. Seriously...WTF were they thinking with this move?!?
Quite the opposite. In fact, they probably plan you'll either buy the new lobi items that will conveniently comes after X2, or pay dil/zen to upgrade your gear. Both would be the best.
Which is one of their main selling points. Cryptic just undermined that entirely.
I'm not angry that my Mk XII Vulnerability Locators will probably have to be upgraded at some dilithium cost or other. I'm not angry that my Mk XII Omega Force Autocarbine will probably have an upgrade cost. I'm not angry that my Mk XII Fleet Shield, Warp Core, or Neutronium will probably have an upgrade cost.
But for gear that is advertised as infinitely leveling to suddenly have a cap, that is an underhanded bait and switch and I do take offense at that.
Additionally, although the patch notes only explicitly mentioned Lobi gear that levels with you, why would this not also affect the other scaling gear in STO like the Spiral Wave Disruptors, the Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo, or the Federation Type 3 Phaser Rifle (among many others)? Logically, by doing this to premium Lobi equipment** it is implied that this will affect all scaling gear because it would be incredibly inconsistent, and an even more blatant cash grab, to do otherwise.
**as opposed to imposing the cap restriction on mission-reward scaling gear and leaving premium scaling gear level-less up to and including 60.
And the solution to that is that there would (or should) be a system in place to manually upgrade said gear & weapons to the level 60 realm. I have no problem with that so long as it doesn't require a huge amount of Lobi to where it's like I'm having to buy it all over again.
To Cryptic/PWE:
As the owner of various Lobi Store purchases, plus the TOS Connie with ∞ blue phasers, please allow all ∞ items to scale (without cost) to Level 60.
The same is expected when you increase the level cap again.
Based on the release notes for your Tribble test server, your cap on these ∞ items is a bait-and-switch manipulation. As a lifetime subscriber, player and customer (having bought Zen on numerous occasions), I respectfully ask that you take steps to allow zero-cost scaling on those items.
Those items were originally issued as scalable items. Not "∞ to level 50"
∞ = infinity. In this case, scalable to the highest level.
Thank you.
[To those who are endlessly arguing about entitlement: stop. This is not about entitlement.]
[To those wondering why anyone would post like this, it's because Cryptic and PerfectWorld Entertainment need to be addressed directly about this. This is their official forum site; it makes sense to communicate here.]
It is by no means wrong in any shape or form, when you bought it it was only guaranteed to go up to the current item max, there was no suggestion or indication that it would go up to any future item levels.
If you pay for a 2014 model car, you are not guaranteed that they will upgrade it to a 2015 model car when those come out.
''in·fin·i·ty
noun \in-ˈfi-nə-tē\
: the quality of having no limits or end : the quality of being infinite''
Despite the fact that at the time it was only guaranteed to go up to the current item max, the characteristic of infinitely leveling automatically means that if there's a level cap increase, it will continue to adhere to the characteristic of infinitely leveling. Anything to the contrary means it isn't truly an infinite-mark item which is a violation of the characteristic of infinite leveling.
Right, let's just throw the definition of infinity out the window, just like we're throwing the definition of Universal (boff station) out the window (and, off-topic, the definition of "Literally" out the window).
Your car analogy is fatally flawed. What you're describing is the equivalent of paying for a Mk XII mark weapon and not being guaranteed to get an upgrade to a Mk XIV weapon. Well duh. Both of these weapons have Mk levels that are chiseled in stone.
In contrast to that, we're talking about the equivalent of a car has an inherent characteristic that makes not set in stone; it automatically upgrades itself every year, therefore, you are in fact guaranteed that it will become equal to a 2015 model because that is how the car functions at a core level. By its very nature, ∞ gear is fluid and not chiseled in stone.
And the solution to that is that there would (or should) be a system in place to manually upgrade said gear & weapons to the level 60 realm. I have no problem with that so long as it doesn't require a huge amount of Lobi to where it's like I'm having to buy it all over again.
I do have a problem with that. What they're doing is turning this equipment into a contradiction. "Hey look at me! I'm a level-less phaser that gets better as you get better, except for when I don't!"
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
It is by no means wrong in any shape or form, when you bought it it was only guaranteed to go up to the current item max, there was no suggestion or indication that it would go up to any future item levels.
So... no one ever bothered to teach you what that funky sideways eight was, huh?
Dear God, what has become of the public education system? :rolleyes:
The leveless gear only every went up to 50, and it was never stated to go beyond that if new levels were introduced.
As such, you had to no reason to believe that the infinity symbol, as used in ship gear, would go beyond that.
Thus, it was pretty clear that infinity, as used in STO, meant 1-50, not 1-whateevr levels we may or may not add later.
You can strawman real world usage of terms and phrases, but the in-game precedent always takes precedence.
I'm sorry, I really laughed out loud.
So, the ingame precedent takes precedence?
You suggest that, as the game only used to go to 50, infinity in context means fifty.
Problem with that is, its just a semantic shield.
Leveless items went to max level.
See what i did there?
Made an equally true statement that kind of undermines what you're arguing.
....and if we're going to get all semantic-y about this, I'd suggest that words like 'leveless' and the infinity symbol are, by their very nature less limited than limited states.
Thus, the reading 'good to max level' as opposed to 'good to 50' is clearly the more logical interpreation.
The leveless gear only every went up to 50, and it was never stated to go beyond that if new levels were introduced. As such, you had to no reason to believe that the infinity symbol, as used in ship gear, would go beyond that.
Thus, it was pretty clear that "infinity", as used in STO item ranking, meant 1-50, not 1-whatever levels we may or may not add later.
You can strawman real world usage of terms and phrases, but the in-game precedent always takes... well... precedence.
Wrong, the gear " scales with your level". No where in the game did it say "scales with your level until 50" until they retroactively added it in the tribble patch.
Precedent, by your own argument, says it levels to whatever the max is. Stopping leveling is breaking precedent.
Which was 50 at the time it was made, and thus, it was leveless between all levels that existed when it was made, not leveless for any future levels they may or made not add.
You are confusing leveless for what exists when it was made with leveless forever, which are two wildly different states of being.
Try not to.
Well yes, those are the two possible states i suppose.
However, what you're stubbornly not doing is focussing on how those states were defined.
What kind of language was used to desribe them?
Was it 'this item is good to 50' or was it 'good to max level'?
I agree there are two ways of looking at this, and I'd go further to say there's not a huge lot between it......but what weight there is clearly suggests these were meant to be max level goodies, not kit to discard along the way.
The leveless gear only ever went up to 50, and it was never stated to go beyond that if new levels were introduced. As such, you had to no reason to believe that the infinity symbol, as used in gear, would go beyond the 1-50 item level it currently did.
You can strawman real world usage of terms and phrases, but the in-game precedent always takes... well... precedence.
Next I expect you to try the "well I paid for it and anything I pay for should remain good forever" argument, and to preemptively nip that one in the butt, no, it shouldn't.
Paying for a gen 3 Iphone because it was top of the line when you first bought it doesn't automatically entitle you to a gen4 Iphone when it comes out.
You're really not good at this whole "cogent argument" thing are you? You can throw around the word strawman as much as you like but that doesn't make it a strawman argument.
-You said there was no indication that the level-less gear would continue to level past 50.
-He said, yes, the infinity symbol on the gear (and by extension, the fact that by its nature it continues to level) is precedent that says, "indeed it should continue to level past 50."
That is a direct answer to your claim, which is not a misrepresentation of what you said.
Level-less gear stopped leveling at 50 because, wait for it, 50 was only coincidentally what the current level cap was at the time. Gear stopping at 50 is the effect of a level cap. Gear ceasing to level is not the cause of a level cap being 50.
And again, your comparison to physical items is entirely lacking. You're still comparing apples to oranges with two separate products that have different and fixed specifications, whereas level-less gear by its very definition gets better specs every time your character increases in level.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
And they still are entirely viable weapons to be used in DR endgame, just like every other tier 5 ship and MK12 item is.
However, just like how end game gear for Burning Crusade got edged out from ultra top tier by end game gear from Wrath of the Lich King, so does MK12 gear, and anything built to work within the MK1-12 tier system, like the leveless items. that doesn't mean its bad or useless now however.
This is how MMOs have worked since MMOs got content updates.
This should have been a surprise to literally no one who hasn't hidden under a rock for the last nearly three decades of major MMO devlopment.
So you're claiming that the only "scaling items" in wow (pets) stopped scaling with expansions? See I recall that hunters and warlocks pets kept increasing in power. Unlike gear with fixed levels. Which is the exact precedent you are denying.
You mean like how operating system keep getting updates to improve them, yet only the newest operating system get the absolute most performance out of something.
Level 1-50 was Windows XP
50-60 is Windows 7
Feel lucky they are letting you upgrade your OS at all instead of having to do a complete wipe.
No, because again you're comparing separate products. XP is not 7 and does not have the same feature set with the only difference being numerical in nature like speed or size.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
The leveless gear only ever went up to 50, and it was never stated to go beyond that if new levels were introduced. As such, you had to no reason to believe that the infinity symbol, as used in gear, would go beyond the 1-50 item level it currently did.
Yes, because it leveled with you to the current cap of 50, everyone should EXPECT it to stop at 50 because ∞ = 50 !
You're awesome at this!
You also don't know what a straw man argument is. You see, a straw man (two words) is when you misrepresent an opponents argument. I didn't do that, I just said you obviously don't know what infinity means, which you obviously don't.
Congratulations, now we know TWO basic things you don't understand.
Now everyone commence a nice slow clap for the man...
Next I expect you to try the "well I paid for it and anything I pay for should remain good forever" argument...
I don't have a single piece of lobi gear so... I'm probably not going to make that argument. HOWEVER, the argument I would make is that Cryptic sold people on infinitely leveling gear (again "∞" not "/50") and thus it should provide people the product they advertised and accepted money for.
Paying for a gen 3 Iphone because it was top of the line when you first bought it doesn't automatically entitle you to a gen4 Iphone when it comes out.
See, now THAT is a bad analogy. An iPhone isn't sold to consumers as infinitely leveling. They are not told it will upgrade without limit as time goes on, are they?
Want me to correct your analogy? Fine. What Cryptic did is more like a phone company giving out a contract that promises that, as long as you maintain a contract with them, they will always provide you with the latest iPhone free (and some companies do provide a free upgrade policy just like this) then after living up to that contract for a time they instead violate that contract by asking their customers for an upgrade fee.
Infinity items are no different, they just had automatic updates on.
Except they are different. Because there is no such thing as a Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo Mk 1-12. There is one Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo Mk ∞.
You are correct that a [Plasma Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]] is a different item from a [Plasma Beam Array Mk XII [Dmg]] and by no means should I expect my [Plasma Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]] to automatically become better. I'm in agreement with you that anyone that whines about gear that has a fixed state needing an upgrade is foolish, and I say as much earlier in this thread. I have no problem with forking over dilithium to upgrade my XII fleet gear for example. But thus far you don't seem to be making the connection that a single leveling item is not the same thing as 12 separate items that have to be replaced when you level up.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Except it's not.. It's the same item. The item stays the same. The item that I have at level 30 is the same item that I have at level 50. When I am level 50 the item that I got at level 30 is the same item. The item is not removed from my equipment slot and I don't have to buy a new one from the exchange or an NPC store to make it get better.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Yes, because it leveled with you to the current cap of 50, everyone should EXPECT it to stop at 50 because ∞ = 50 !
You're awesome at this!
You also don't know what a straw man argument is. You see, a straw man (two words) is when you misrepresent an opponents argument. I didn't do that, I just said you obviously don't know what infinity means, which you obviously don't.
Congratulations, now we know TWO basic things you don't understand.
Now everyone commence a nice slow clap for the man...
I don't have a single piece of lobi gear so... I'm probably not going to make that argument. HOWEVER, the argument I would make is that Cryptic sold people on infinitely leveling gear (again "∞" not "/50") and thus it should provide people the product they advertised and accepted money for.
See, now THAT is a bad analogy. An iPhone isn't sold to consumers as infinitely leveling. They are not told it will upgrade without limit as time goes on, are they?
Want me to correct your analogy? Fine. What Cryptic did is more like a phone company giving out a contract that promises that, as long as you maintain a contract with them, they will always provide you with the latest iPhone free (and some companies do provide a free upgrade policy just like this) then after living up to that contract for a time they instead violate that contract by asking their customers for an upgrade fee.
(Psst... I'm better at this than you.)
I think you're absolutely right on all of this except I'm not sure what players can do except quit or refuse to participate in any monetized upgrades until a revamp is forced. (A total boycott wouldn't be needed to send a message here but players could insist on ONLY buying 100% cosmetic space items or non-space items.)
I think this is an example of a dumb and short sighted decision to shortchange a player retroactively on a prior purchase in order to try to sell them what they already had back to them.
I can anticipate the counter-arguments from Cryptic. Likely that:
1) They can change terms whenever they feel the need.
2) It makes design sense to them in order to incentivize other upgrades.
3) Cryptic has to make money and that what they do to monetize something is a necessary evil.
4) Players only had the expectation of the item scaling through level 50 before because levels 51-60 didn't exist.
I don't think any of these four arguments are valid but I can guarantee that's what their arguments are. And I find it to be a shame if these are their four arguments because they're rather self-absorbed and tenuous arguments.
However, just like how end game gear for Burning Crusade got edged out from ultra top tier by end game gear from Wrath of the Lich King.
You tried to compare fixed level gear in WoW to not-fixed level gear in STO. So I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't being deliberately deceptive and assumed you meant the only things in WoW that function exactly like the infinite gear in STO, that being pets.
"end game" burning crusade pets were level X. End Game Lich King pets were Level X+Y.
End game fixed level gear in wow stayed level X. These are two different mechanics that are exact parallels to the infinite gear and the marked gear in STO.
End game infinity gear in STO were functionally mark 10-equivalent. End game infinite gear in Delta Rising will not be mark 12-equivalent. Your example fails to prove what you want it to.
As regards your examples of Operating Systems and Cars, those are apples to oranges comparisons. The STO infinite gear is more like a lease that does actually replace your posessions. When I level up my mark 6 gun magically becomes a mark 7. When I look at the Connie in the zen store it specifically says "these phasers level with your captain." Note the period. There is no "until level 50" nor any other limit. It simply says they level with my captain. In my Windows EULA Microsoft mentions end-of-life for their product. Again, your example fails.
Still, this change really surprises me. We're not even talking about mark 14 items. If the devs let the gear scale exactly as it has, they'd be equal to mark 12 when we hit 60. Instead they are giving us a bump to purple so it does increase to mark 11 equivalent. I'm not sure why they won't go that small bit extra. Seems weird from both a game balance and a marketing standpoint.
...except I'm not sure what players can do except quit or refuse to participate in any monetized upgrades until a revamp is forced.
Pretty much, but that localized boycott will never happen in a size great enough to matter. Look at lockboxes, everyone hates them but people MUST have the shinies so they open them anyway. In fact, people open enough of them that Good Ol' Bort flat out told us once that if their legality was questionable in any particular country, well... they'd just pull the game from that country.
And that of course kicks the living heck out of your third point, the one Cryptic does love to wave around every now and then when people ask why EVERYTHING needs a Dilithium or Zen price tag. If lock boxes are successful enough that they can gut out entire portions of the player base to keep them... why monetize EVERYTHING? Why make people pay multiple times for the product they already bought? Why keep digging deeper and deeper into the player base? Why keep adding in new "taxes"? I mean, really... are we seeing spectacularly more content than we ever have before? Not really. Heck, they were rolling out FEs weekly before lock boxes even existed... and that was in ADDITION to Seasons which updated mechanics... and it seemed like the Seasons were even more frequent!
So yeah, there's nothing that we can do. What little we can try will amount to nothing. Cryptic will monetize whatever they choose... which will be everything, and we'll see no spectacular increase in content thanks to that.
Comments
Erm... yes there is and its already on Tribble.
At lvl 5/10/15 of the R&D schools you unlock the ability to craft Small/Medium/Superior Research Tech.
The tooltips for said items state that by using them in conjunction with DILITHIUM you can research your gear. Earn enough research and the gear will upgrade it's Mark. (There is also a chance for upgrade of rarity). It says that the higher the starting Mk the higher the cost in Research kits and dilithium to upgrade.
This research function isn't on Triblle yet - but the crafting of the Research kits is and yes its gonna cost ALOT of dil to turn things from 12 ->14
Having to do this for Mk-Infinity (levelless gear that came on C-store ships or lobi purchases - ie REAL money purchases) is insane. And it's wrong.
...#LLAP...
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Some of the weapons and armor in the lobi store, as well as special weapons off of certain cstore ships (the phasers off the TOS Connie, for example).
And the solution to that is that there would (or should) be a system in place to manually upgrade said gear & weapons to the level 60 realm. I have no problem with that so long as it doesn't require a huge amount of Lobi to where it's like I'm having to buy it all over again.
As the owner of various Lobi Store purchases, plus the TOS Connie with ∞ blue phasers, please allow all ∞ items to scale (without cost) to Level 60.
The same is expected when you increase the level cap again.
Based on the release notes for your Tribble test server, your cap on these ∞ items is a bait-and-switch manipulation. As a lifetime subscriber, player and customer (having bought Zen on numerous occasions), I respectfully ask that you take steps to allow zero-cost scaling on those items.
Those items were originally issued as scalable items. Not "∞ to level 50"
∞ = infinity. In this case, scalable to the highest level.
Thank you.
[To those who are endlessly arguing about entitlement: stop. This is not about entitlement.]
[To those wondering why anyone would post like this, it's because Cryptic and PerfectWorld Entertainment need to be addressed directly about this. This is their official forum site; it makes sense to communicate here.]
∞
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infinity
''in·fin·i·ty
noun \in-ˈfi-nə-tē\
: the quality of having no limits or end : the quality of being infinite''
Despite the fact that at the time it was only guaranteed to go up to the current item max, the characteristic of infinitely leveling automatically means that if there's a level cap increase, it will continue to adhere to the characteristic of infinitely leveling. Anything to the contrary means it isn't truly an infinite-mark item which is a violation of the characteristic of infinite leveling.
Right, let's just throw the definition of infinity out the window, just like we're throwing the definition of Universal (boff station) out the window (and, off-topic, the definition of "Literally" out the window).
Your car analogy is fatally flawed. What you're describing is the equivalent of paying for a Mk XII mark weapon and not being guaranteed to get an upgrade to a Mk XIV weapon. Well duh. Both of these weapons have Mk levels that are chiseled in stone.
In contrast to that, we're talking about the equivalent of a car has an inherent characteristic that makes not set in stone; it automatically upgrades itself every year, therefore, you are in fact guaranteed that it will become equal to a 2015 model because that is how the car functions at a core level. By its very nature, ∞ gear is fluid and not chiseled in stone.
I do have a problem with that. What they're doing is turning this equipment into a contradiction. "Hey look at me! I'm a level-less phaser that gets better as you get better, except for when I don't!"
Joined January 2009
So... no one ever bothered to teach you what that funky sideways eight was, huh?
Dear God, what has become of the public education system? :rolleyes:
I'm sorry, I really laughed out loud.
So, the ingame precedent takes precedence?
You suggest that, as the game only used to go to 50, infinity in context means fifty.
Problem with that is, its just a semantic shield.
Leveless items went to max level.
See what i did there?
Made an equally true statement that kind of undermines what you're arguing.
....and if we're going to get all semantic-y about this, I'd suggest that words like 'leveless' and the infinity symbol are, by their very nature less limited than limited states.
Thus, the reading 'good to max level' as opposed to 'good to 50' is clearly the more logical interpreation.
If we're going to get all semantic-y about it.
Which you did.
Wrong, the gear " scales with your level". No where in the game did it say "scales with your level until 50" until they retroactively added it in the tribble patch.
Precedent, by your own argument, says it levels to whatever the max is. Stopping leveling is breaking precedent.
Well yes, those are the two possible states i suppose.
However, what you're stubbornly not doing is focussing on how those states were defined.
What kind of language was used to desribe them?
Was it 'this item is good to 50' or was it 'good to max level'?
I agree there are two ways of looking at this, and I'd go further to say there's not a huge lot between it......but what weight there is clearly suggests these were meant to be max level goodies, not kit to discard along the way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
You're really not good at this whole "cogent argument" thing are you? You can throw around the word strawman as much as you like but that doesn't make it a strawman argument.
-You said there was no indication that the level-less gear would continue to level past 50.
-He said, yes, the infinity symbol on the gear (and by extension, the fact that by its nature it continues to level) is precedent that says, "indeed it should continue to level past 50."
That is a direct answer to your claim, which is not a misrepresentation of what you said.
Level-less gear stopped leveling at 50 because, wait for it, 50 was only coincidentally what the current level cap was at the time. Gear stopping at 50 is the effect of a level cap. Gear ceasing to level is not the cause of a level cap being 50.
And again, your comparison to physical items is entirely lacking. You're still comparing apples to oranges with two separate products that have different and fixed specifications, whereas level-less gear by its very definition gets better specs every time your character increases in level.
Joined January 2009
So you're claiming that the only "scaling items" in wow (pets) stopped scaling with expansions? See I recall that hunters and warlocks pets kept increasing in power. Unlike gear with fixed levels. Which is the exact precedent you are denying.
No, because again you're comparing separate products. XP is not 7 and does not have the same feature set with the only difference being numerical in nature like speed or size.
Joined January 2009
Yes, because it leveled with you to the current cap of 50, everyone should EXPECT it to stop at 50 because ∞ = 50 !
You're awesome at this!
You also don't know what a straw man argument is. You see, a straw man (two words) is when you misrepresent an opponents argument. I didn't do that, I just said you obviously don't know what infinity means, which you obviously don't.
Congratulations, now we know TWO basic things you don't understand.
Now everyone commence a nice slow clap for the man...
I don't have a single piece of lobi gear so... I'm probably not going to make that argument. HOWEVER, the argument I would make is that Cryptic sold people on infinitely leveling gear (again "∞" not "/50") and thus it should provide people the product they advertised and accepted money for.
See, now THAT is a bad analogy. An iPhone isn't sold to consumers as infinitely leveling. They are not told it will upgrade without limit as time goes on, are they?
Want me to correct your analogy? Fine. What Cryptic did is more like a phone company giving out a contract that promises that, as long as you maintain a contract with them, they will always provide you with the latest iPhone free (and some companies do provide a free upgrade policy just like this) then after living up to that contract for a time they instead violate that contract by asking their customers for an upgrade fee.
(Psst... I'm better at this than you.)
Except they are different. Because there is no such thing as a Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo Mk 1-12. There is one Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo Mk ∞.
You are correct that a [Plasma Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]] is a different item from a [Plasma Beam Array Mk XII [Dmg]] and by no means should I expect my [Plasma Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]] to automatically become better. I'm in agreement with you that anyone that whines about gear that has a fixed state needing an upgrade is foolish, and I say as much earlier in this thread. I have no problem with forking over dilithium to upgrade my XII fleet gear for example. But thus far you don't seem to be making the connection that a single leveling item is not the same thing as 12 separate items that have to be replaced when you level up.
Joined January 2009
Joined January 2009
I think you're absolutely right on all of this except I'm not sure what players can do except quit or refuse to participate in any monetized upgrades until a revamp is forced. (A total boycott wouldn't be needed to send a message here but players could insist on ONLY buying 100% cosmetic space items or non-space items.)
I think this is an example of a dumb and short sighted decision to shortchange a player retroactively on a prior purchase in order to try to sell them what they already had back to them.
I can anticipate the counter-arguments from Cryptic. Likely that:
1) They can change terms whenever they feel the need.
2) It makes design sense to them in order to incentivize other upgrades.
3) Cryptic has to make money and that what they do to monetize something is a necessary evil.
4) Players only had the expectation of the item scaling through level 50 before because levels 51-60 didn't exist.
I don't think any of these four arguments are valid but I can guarantee that's what their arguments are. And I find it to be a shame if these are their four arguments because they're rather self-absorbed and tenuous arguments.
Let's see, maybe it was when you said: You tried to compare fixed level gear in WoW to not-fixed level gear in STO. So I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't being deliberately deceptive and assumed you meant the only things in WoW that function exactly like the infinite gear in STO, that being pets.
"end game" burning crusade pets were level X. End Game Lich King pets were Level X+Y.
End game fixed level gear in wow stayed level X. These are two different mechanics that are exact parallels to the infinite gear and the marked gear in STO.
End game infinity gear in STO were functionally mark 10-equivalent. End game infinite gear in Delta Rising will not be mark 12-equivalent. Your example fails to prove what you want it to.
As regards your examples of Operating Systems and Cars, those are apples to oranges comparisons. The STO infinite gear is more like a lease that does actually replace your posessions. When I level up my mark 6 gun magically becomes a mark 7. When I look at the Connie in the zen store it specifically says "these phasers level with your captain." Note the period. There is no "until level 50" nor any other limit. It simply says they level with my captain. In my Windows EULA Microsoft mentions end-of-life for their product. Again, your example fails.
Still, this change really surprises me. We're not even talking about mark 14 items. If the devs let the gear scale exactly as it has, they'd be equal to mark 12 when we hit 60. Instead they are giving us a bump to purple so it does increase to mark 11 equivalent. I'm not sure why they won't go that small bit extra. Seems weird from both a game balance and a marketing standpoint.
Pretty much, but that localized boycott will never happen in a size great enough to matter. Look at lockboxes, everyone hates them but people MUST have the shinies so they open them anyway. In fact, people open enough of them that Good Ol' Bort flat out told us once that if their legality was questionable in any particular country, well... they'd just pull the game from that country.
And that of course kicks the living heck out of your third point, the one Cryptic does love to wave around every now and then when people ask why EVERYTHING needs a Dilithium or Zen price tag. If lock boxes are successful enough that they can gut out entire portions of the player base to keep them... why monetize EVERYTHING? Why make people pay multiple times for the product they already bought? Why keep digging deeper and deeper into the player base? Why keep adding in new "taxes"? I mean, really... are we seeing spectacularly more content than we ever have before? Not really. Heck, they were rolling out FEs weekly before lock boxes even existed... and that was in ADDITION to Seasons which updated mechanics... and it seemed like the Seasons were even more frequent!
So yeah, there's nothing that we can do. What little we can try will amount to nothing. Cryptic will monetize whatever they choose... which will be everything, and we'll see no spectacular increase in content thanks to that.
In short: Bleh.