And since in STO ships have always been associated with level bands then it's hardly surprising that there is a new Tier of starships for a new level band.
It's not like people haven't been spending five years telling Cryptic they disagreed with the whole concept of ship tiers that vary with level until Cryptic relented and included a fleet retrofitting system.
There's the thing. You can't disagree with a design level decision in this game.
Now... Art? Or even content? Those are areas where feedback seems to get through.
We've had many character and ship artists discussing the fine points and improving things all along. Thomas started out as a community member giving feedback before doing UI.
Matt Miller and Heinig seem to accept feedback on content although I know they lurk more than they post.
These are areas where Cryptic has been especially and unusually open.
We have to some extent Bort and Gorgonzola discussing design but they're largely here to make sure that design is working as intended, not discuss what the design philosophy is or how it could improve. I think Dan Stahl had some level of commitment to that but was largely just plugging features and leaking internal spitballing of ideas, not really creating a dialogue on philosophy.
That's it. Artists and content folks have figured out how to internalize feedback on what we want and why and all the fine details. When you get into systems and big picture direction, it feels more like a flat, "Is it working? is it broken?" And a resentment directed back at players for having opinions that go deeper on that. It creates the impression that systems and business design are seem as more central to game design than art, story, or content because our interactions with those types of developers have a wholly different tone than our interactions with content and art designers.
It feels like it takes massive screaming and big consequences for the game before systems and principal design respond. Like it takes negative publicity, sales/activity dropping off rapidly, big things to get a rise there.
Whereas with Taco, it's a lot more like players say, "Hey, this ship looks wonky, here's reference." And it's a response of, "I'll make a note" or "I don't have time right now" or "Here's why I can't do that." And that satisfies maybe 9 people out of every 10, even on the "unreasonable" forums.
But the very desire to want to be satisfied is automatically seen as unreasonable in terms of principal design and systems design. Like, the forums and testers are automatically treated as unreasonable or even a hostile force before any attempt at a dialogue has been made.
I don't think its fair to jump down this guys throat, and a sense of entitlement may well be deserved if a person spends a large amount of money with a specific company over a period of time.
This is something that many multinational companies encourage with 'loyalty cards' ect, they build a relationship of give and take with the customer (of course the business by its very definition needs to take more than it gives).
I don't think most of the people upset by delta rising feel they should be entitled to everything for free, but they do feel entitled to a little bit of give and take, and a little bit of loyalty from cryptic - for instance the levelless item debacle is a bit of a slap in the face to people paid for those item in good faith (they were described as levelless after all).
It would not cost Cryptic much to be a little more loyal towards its playbase, and many companies do this anyway, not out of a sense of kindness, but because it makes good business sense - happy customers are paying customers - who stick around and continue to buy your product.
I'm under no illusion that Cryptic/PWE are here to be our friends, they are a business and out to make money, pure and simple - however, even from a business point of view, it would make sense to keep your customers happy - in particular, rewarding those who have supported them with large and/or continuous purchases over the years. Customers who feel 'burnt' are far less likely to make more purchases in the future.
But that's just me, many businesses do not follow these kind of rules, Cryptic/PWE most probably feel they make enough money that they don't need to worry about customer satisfaction.
I'm NOT the op, but let me just say THANK YOU, for not joining in on the 'dog-pile' of shameless 'butt-kissers', who will always defend the company, like they'rer trying to land a job with them.
To the O/P, it will never, EVER, do any good to voice/write/express your dissatisfaction in a 'forum'. Forums are nothing but a glorified 'hallelujah' chorus of shameless 'butt-kissers'.
I'm NOT the op, but let me just say THANK YOU, for not joining in on the 'dog-pile' of shameless 'butt-kissers', who will always defend the company, like they'rer trying to land a job with them.
To the O/P, it will never, EVER, do any good to voice/write/express your dissatisfaction in a 'forum'. Forums are nothing but a glorified 'hallelujah' chorus of shameless 'butt-kissers'.
have you read the forums lately (as in ever) ......these forums have 50x as many toxic whiners as they have butt kissers
If all your friends are going to take cyanide does that mean it's a good idea for you to as well?
I see it more akin to. IF all your friends are buying a house, are you going to as well?
There are advantages to owning a house, just as there are advantages for increasing level. Of course there are disadvantages as well but the point is that there are advantages unlike cyanide which doesn't.
If your friends do something and seems to work out for them, you will likely do it but it if your friends do something that you know... cause their death, you likely won't follow. This isn't about Peer pressure. It is about what works and what doesn't work in an MMO environment. Increasing level cap works.
Increasing level caps are meaningless number increases for the sake of bigger meaningless numbers.
If they didn't offer an upgrade to give the appearance that all those T5 ships they've built up over the years aren't end-of-lifed with DR, as they don't tend to come with consoles that are not bound to that class of ship, you'd have an entire dead level band of ships, so only fools and collectors would buy them and those that have bought them would feel cheated.
I can't put my Vesta aux cannons on anything that isn't a Vesta. I can't put my Oddy Worker Bees on anything but an Oddy.
One if it was just bigger numbers then I'd agree with you but... specialisations, Ship Mastery, an entirely new collection of story content reportedly more than Legacy of Romulus.
Though you seem to be forgetting about the upgrade path... T5 ships can be upgraded to T5U so that they become on par with T6 ships. You can continue to use your Oddy Worker bees for T6, you can continue to use your Vesta Aux cannons. While it does take some money to buy, like with Fleet Modules, keys and other similiar C-Store items there are numerous ways to obtain them. Via EC, via Dilithium Grind then exchanging for Zen or by paying money to buy Zen directly.
There is no reason why with the T5U ships that you can't continue to use your Oddy, Vesta, Bortasqu' whatever for the top tier content.
The guy is expressing his dissatisfaction with the game,that's his opinion,that's how he feels.He has as much right as of all you to express his opinions.The way some people react on here makes me think you treat STO like a religion!Ho-ly Cr-ap!
It's always the same,bashing the people who have a different opinion to yours....you people disgust me.
Yeah it's like some people are open minded, and think differently. So much butt-hurt from opinions. Very disgusting. I love the people not suffering from 'mindless drone' syndrome. Kinda reminds me of PlayStation fans :P
The dress is gold and white. Over 70% people says so. When viewed from a certain screen angle it appears blue and black. The dress displayed on amazon is a blue and black dress, but it's not the same dress in the picture. If you're seeing blue & black you're slightly colored blind. A normal upright screen = white and gold.
I am a lifetimer. I have spent much money on the game. It was my choice to do so. I don't feel entitled and am happy to see that the game is progressing. Remember alp...its only a game and perfect world doesn't run a charity.
It's not like people haven't been spending five years telling Cryptic they disagreed with the whole concept of ship tiers that vary with level until Cryptic relented and included a fleet retrofitting system.
There's the thing. You can't disagree with a design level decision in this game.
Now... Art? Or even content? Those are areas where feedback seems to get through.
We've had many character and ship artists discussing the fine points and improving things all along. Thomas started out as a community member giving feedback before doing UI.
Matt Miller and Heinig seem to accept feedback on content although I know they lurk more than they post.
These are areas where Cryptic has been especially and unusually open.
We have to some extent Bort and Gorgonzola discussing design but they're largely here to make sure that design is working as intended, not discuss what the design philosophy is or how it could improve. I think Dan Stahl had some level of commitment to that but was largely just plugging features and leaking internal spitballing of ideas, not really creating a dialogue on philosophy.
That's it. Artists and content folks have figured out how to internalize feedback on what we want and why and all the fine details. When you get into systems and big picture direction, it feels more like a flat, "Is it working? is it broken?" And a resentment directed back at players for having opinions that go deeper on that. It creates the impression that systems and business design are seem as more central to game design than art, story, or content because our interactions with those types of developers have a wholly different tone than our interactions with content and art designers.
It feels like it takes massive screaming and big consequences for the game before systems and principal design respond. Like it takes negative publicity, sales/activity dropping off rapidly, big things to get a rise there.
Whereas with Taco, it's a lot more like players say, "Hey, this ship looks wonky, here's reference." And it's a response of, "I'll make a note" or "I don't have time right now" or "Here's why I can't do that." And that satisfies maybe 9 people out of every 10, even on the "unreasonable" forums.
But the very desire to want to be satisfied is automatically seen as unreasonable in terms of principal design and systems design. Like, the forums and testers are automatically treated as unreasonable or even a hostile force before any attempt at a dialogue has been made.
I certainly understand your point of view and can agree with some aspects of it. However due to the basic design elements game, the fundamental thing of your ship being your space character. Then it is most likely just flat out unfeasible that the system this late in the stage change.
The basic fundamental core of the game has to be altered to remove ships from leveling. While it may appear simple such as "moving things things to items in development it is never that simple. CBS, is one thing for example they have said no to T5 Connie. Secondly, what systems are they going to put in place for expanding BOFF slots. Why even have tac, sci, eng ships at all if the they only modify basic stats of items put on the ship. All tac ships are going to be the same, all engineering ships are going to be the same, all science ships are going to be the same. All that changes is the look.
The ship is your space character. It is simple as that... and as the level increases so you ship needs to become better as well, ship tiers is how they designed the system so that A t1 ship is usable in the first 10 levels, T2 in the next 10 levels, T3... so on and so on. Your character needs to expand as you level, and as your ship is your space character so does your ship.
The new reputation, the one you will be working on from levels 50 to 60, offers Mk XII gear according to the blog. That's right folks all that gear you grinded for will not become outdated with the expansion or level cap raise and will have equal treatment to that gear from the new reputation as far as transforming it into top tier.
Actually no. OP is a "whale" and Cryptic's primary audience. If they TRIBBLE off more like him then the game's going to take a financial hit.
I'd like to bring up this point once more.
Let's leave aside the validity of the OP's argument (i.e., laughably low) and consider the larger impacts.
- We know whales exist
- We know that they spend hundreds of dollars each year on this game
- We know most people either do not have that level of disposable income or are unwilling to do so for this game
- We know there are a large number of players who pay little to nothing
- We know the PRIMARY source of ZEN injections are the same whales who buy every stupid pack Cryptic decides to vomit forth.
I have no idea of how many subscribers vs. lifetimers vs. freeplayers there are, nor do I have any idea of the percentage of players that spend more than $50 a month in ZEN purchases (for whatever reason.
I do know that Cryptic cares more about one customer who drops $500 a year than the 500 customers that do not spend any money and refer no one to the game to spend money. The former is their actual customer, the latter is a net cost they maintain in hope that they will bring friends to the game who will play. If you tell yourself anything else you are misguided.
Does the OP have a point? Of course not. And yet, in his petulance, we see a very real problem in that the people who drop lots of cash effectively form a large percentage of Cryptic profits, and losses on said profits are unlikely to do anything but inspire Cryptic to try and wring moar monies out of the playerbase.
Saying all the above to say the below:
While I literally disagree with every word the OP wrote, I can't dismiss the larger argument that by moving in the direction it is, Cryptic is not 'rewarding' those with large sunk costs into the game. I know that sunk costs are sunk and trying to redeem them is a losing proposition, and that in the short term those who do so will only provide more money for Cryptic, but in the long term some form of sustainable fix has to be found to replace losses like this one.
As far the whole entitlement argument goes ... meh. I've dropped waaaaaaaaaay more than you, kid, and the only thing I expect from Cryptic at this point is not to turn the Borg into lovable space bunnies and give me an Iconian Lockbox. You'd be better served to do the same instead of crying. $500 to people who can afford it is nothing, I make more than that in one day of work, and if you can afford to toss that kind of money at the game for years, you should instead be thinking of the fun you got out of it.
I certainly understand your point of view and can agree with some aspects of it. However due to the basic design elements game, the fundamental thing of your ship being your space character. Then it is most likely just flat out unfeasible that the system this late in the stage change.
The basic fundamental core of the game has to be altered to remove ships from leveling. While it may appear simple such as "moving things things to items in development it is never that simple. CBS, is one thing for example they have said no to T5 Connie. Secondly, what systems are they going to put in place for expanding BOFF slots. Why even have tac, sci, eng ships at all if the they only modify basic stats of items put on the ship. All tac ships are going to be the same, all engineering ships are going to be the same, all science ships are going to be the same. All that changes is the look.
The ship is your space character. It is simple as that... and as the level increases so you ship needs to become better as well, ship tiers is how they designed the system so that A t1 ship is usable in the first 10 levels, T2 in the next 10 levels, T3... so on and so on. Your character needs to expand as you level, and as your ship is your space character so does your ship.
See... And this is where I think I can see behind the curtain somewhat and occasionally transcend these arguments towards a big picture view.
It boils down in many respects to this:
Our ship is our space character. Our ship is also a piece of gear. Our ship is a "mount" in fantasy MMO terms. Our ship is also 90% of what constitutes our playable class in space.
This is where STO took some really bold, unprecedented steps (being a space/ground game) but also where STO has a lot of its big issues. Community issues. Design issues.
Take sector space. Sector space was intended as a social zone. Which implies our ship is our avatar, a personal point of customization. Early ship customization would agree with this. But some ships are not really customizable at all. Some ships have customization or costume options which flaunt or defy factional or theme boundaries to the point of disrupting immersion. Ship design is a subset of character art and, mechanically, is controlled like a character but replaced like a piece of gear. Contrast with mounts in a game like WoW; while some are flying and some are not and use may vary by the flying/no flying function needed there, the result of years of deliberation there was to make all mounts equal in speed so that no mount is ever obsolete. Also, all mounts there including very rare ones are now account wide.
Is our ship something we ARE or something we HAVE? The game gives conflicting answers to that question. Players have many conflicting answers to that question.
The IP meanwhile doesn't take switching ships lightly and tried very hard to keep captains in the same style of ship. The replacement Defiant was another Defiant-class. Every ship Kirk commanded had the same basic proportions and configuration.
The big exception is Picard and my understanding is that the real world reasons for the Enterprise-D/E switch-up were a bit more complicated. In general, a film model for a ship needed to be higher resolution because movies were higher resolution. This is why ships (and species) have always been adapted for movies.
The Enterprise-E was introduced (and took the longer form much like the Excelsior) because movie screens are wider than television screens. The Galaxy and the Connie require that you either have dead space around them on a wide screen or that you crop parts of the ship. The less bulky Connie can pull this off better because you can view other things comfortably through the struts in a close up "over the shoulder" view. The Galaxy blocks too much of the view of what's around it in a close-up.
So aside from a case where the director needed a different ship for camera reasons, captains have tended to be stuck with very identifiable ships. You look at a Connie and know that's Kirk. You look at a Defiant and know that's Sisko and/or his crew.
DS9 bent this somewhat by showing so many Galaxies but you'll note that they did that only after Picard had a new ship. You didn't see Connies. Any Sovereigns or Intrepids you saw were in the extreme background and you didn't see other Defiants up close typically.
You could look at the ship and know who it was by the shape as a broad rule.
STO is not super-coherent on this stuff and the lack of coherency creates ambiguity and confusion. It's not a fault in any active sense of current designers but it's an unaddressed fault from the initial design that confuses things. And ship collecting has been such a huge revenue source that it's pushed aside any reasons the devs might have for revisiting the philosophy of what constitutes an avatar in any coherent way.
But the new stuff dredges up a lot of these issues. On one hand, it's "just new gear." On the other hand, it'd be like if WoW told their existing orcs they had to play goblins to progress or that their new alts had to be goblins to experience a new class.
It's muddy and a case of where something that has probably principally financed the game by far (ship sales and ship collecting) has also sown a lot of confusion and strife because the fun factor of collecting and the money made off it by developers have really discouraged players or devs from ever really sitting down and settling on a single, unified, coherent, and easy to communicate view of what ships are and what they are for in Star Trek Online. The finance and fun have made it too easy to ignore some real flaws in terms of design and perception.
As time goes on, this game will have to move beyond ship sales to survive. They're expensive to produce. They're too expensive to capture the money of fickle and high turnover players and low turnover players have collections they want to use as their demand for new ships dwindles. The demand for them is finite. The longterm health of the game means making the game work without relying on ship sales or accepting that the limits on ship sales as a product will slowly de-fund the game and ultimately be what closes the doors on the game. It may take many years but it's like when someone finds they have a terminal illness that is inoperable. You have to then accept that this game's cause of death will eventually be the limitations and shortcomings of ships as a product and ships as designed.
And right now, the confused design goals and appeal of ships is starting to show because of where we're at with this expansion. Avatar or item. Gear or class. Social or personal. Expandable or finite. These issues are really starting to poke through right now.
While I literally disagree with every word the OP wrote, I can't dismiss the larger argument that by moving in the direction it is, Cryptic is not 'rewarding' those with large sunk costs into the game. I know that sunk costs are sunk and trying to redeem them is a losing proposition, and that in the short term those who do so will only provide more money for Cryptic, but in the long term some form of sustainable fix has to be found to replace losses like this one.
This cuts to the core of what I'm talking about with muddled ship design in my last mega-post.
In a F2P game?
People who have lockbox ships are real whales. People who spend $25, $50, $100 on a single ship pack are ALSO a form of whale though because most don't do that and much of the system is designed to get THOSE whales to subsidize other players' ship purchases (through dilithium exchange) to trick out their whale ships.
And the problem is... There is a finite demand for ships. It's driven a whale market (lockboxes, mega-bundles, fleet expenses) and a mini-whale market ($25-100 packs) but at a certain point, the whale desire dries up.
Much of what Delta Rising seems to want, design wise, is to renew the whale market by getting them to spend more to continue to fly their own ships and to get them to also abandon their collections in favor of new purchases that rely on specialist bridge officers.
I really think, though, that the risk Cryptic is running is in overburdening a single product as revenue source (ships sold to people who have ships) and a failure to diversify cash cow sources of income. Making people re-buy their ships or start brand new collections of new types of ships seems like a plan that will cost Cryptic existing whales and scare off new players from becoming whales. It devalues an existing collection rather than developing a more diverse line of alternative products.
I really think, though, that the risk Cryptic is running is in overburdening a single product as revenue source (ships sold to people who have ships) and a failure to diversify cash cow sources of income. Making people re-buy their ships or start brand new collections of new types of ships seems like a plan that will cost Cryptic existing whales and scare off new players from becoming whales. It devalues an existing collection rather than developing a more diverse line of alternative products.
Agreed 100%.
The continued sucess and stability of STO as a game will be determined by how successful this gamble pans out and just how quickly and effectively they can diversify their revenue.
You even see this 'all eggs in one basket' approach with the lockboxes. Say I'm willing to spend for a costume option, most are in lockboxes as a quick example. Lockboxes have swallowed up so many of those smaller potential markets to the point it is difficult to even think of a new thing to market.
I look at the Cstore and see nothing worth buying. If ships are to be replaced I have no interest in them at their price point. I don't like gambling with keys. Doff packs and RnD packs are such terrible values for the cost. Services are over priced for someone with alts, at least to me when compared to their prices in other games.
They have very little, or nothing, to offer those players who want to toss $10-$15 bucks at the game each month. So they are far to reliant upon the whales to make the money they then toss strait at ST celeb voice actors. I do not know if the approach is sustainable, but I do know heavy whale reliance is volatile.
I want to quickly add in what another game is doing.
Marvel Heroes is pretty fun and relies primarily upon sales of consumable 'boosts' but primarily upon releasing new hero characters for people to buy. They now have quite a few heroes and no matter how you look at it eventually they will run into creative limits on new heroes to offer.
Recently they have created a new game system called 'team up heroes'. They are basically pets or sidekicks that offer a large variety of ways to use them for the player and opened up an entirely new design space to monetize in the future without effecting the current hero offerings or sales at all.
Simply having lockbox ships does not make a player a whale. I have 5 and have never spent a dime on this game. Doffing has been super profitable and an easy way to get rich in game. Now the market has shifted to crafters, and I'm kicking myself for not jumping in at the beginning.
The only difference between haves and have nots is knowledge.
I'm terms of what my avatar is, it's my toon on the ground. My ship is simply a piece of equipment that is as easily changed as any other.
Much of what Delta Rising seems to want, design wise, is to renew the whale market by getting them to spend more to continue to fly their own ships and to get them to also abandon their collections in favor of new purchases that rely on specialist bridge officers.
This is a very good point. Someone made the observation that buying lock-box ships does not make one a whale, and I certainly agree. However, the ZEN to buy keys to have them listed on the EC so that people don't have to spend their own money has to be injected from some source.
DR has to offer a very compelling reason to invest more, and right now I am seriously not seeing it. While I have thrown away staggering amounts of cash on this game, that was with the knowledge that all of it was providing a long-term benefit that would never expire.
Now, that is simply not the case, and the new materials presented ... underwhelm. Without more changes to core gameplay and content, REAL content and not rehashed rep systems and grinds, the utility metric of fun-to-money simply isn't there, especially when Cryptic's motives are so transparent and the offerings so thin.
DR has to offer a very compelling reason to invest more, and right now I am seriously not seeing it. While I have thrown away staggering amounts of cash on this game, that was with the knowledge that all of it was providing a long-term benefit that would never expire.
you believed that even when they said they were making a level cap increase years ago? even when they posted what the new admiral titles would be on the forum? that seems very naive to believe something even when they told you the opposite was going to happen.
DR has to offer a very compelling reason to invest more, and right now I am seriously not seeing it. While I have thrown away staggering amounts of cash on this game, that was with the knowledge that all of it was providing a long-term benefit that would never expire.
They could've turned off the servers the day after you spent all that RL $$. No game seems to have had such long term benefits w/o being on life support and no content updates. You can still use your Cstore ships in DR, you do NOT need T5U/T6 ships.
Comments
Ok, this has to be the best comment in the whole thread. Hands down.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
It's not like people haven't been spending five years telling Cryptic they disagreed with the whole concept of ship tiers that vary with level until Cryptic relented and included a fleet retrofitting system.
There's the thing. You can't disagree with a design level decision in this game.
Now... Art? Or even content? Those are areas where feedback seems to get through.
We've had many character and ship artists discussing the fine points and improving things all along. Thomas started out as a community member giving feedback before doing UI.
Matt Miller and Heinig seem to accept feedback on content although I know they lurk more than they post.
These are areas where Cryptic has been especially and unusually open.
We have to some extent Bort and Gorgonzola discussing design but they're largely here to make sure that design is working as intended, not discuss what the design philosophy is or how it could improve. I think Dan Stahl had some level of commitment to that but was largely just plugging features and leaking internal spitballing of ideas, not really creating a dialogue on philosophy.
That's it. Artists and content folks have figured out how to internalize feedback on what we want and why and all the fine details. When you get into systems and big picture direction, it feels more like a flat, "Is it working? is it broken?" And a resentment directed back at players for having opinions that go deeper on that. It creates the impression that systems and business design are seem as more central to game design than art, story, or content because our interactions with those types of developers have a wholly different tone than our interactions with content and art designers.
It feels like it takes massive screaming and big consequences for the game before systems and principal design respond. Like it takes negative publicity, sales/activity dropping off rapidly, big things to get a rise there.
Whereas with Taco, it's a lot more like players say, "Hey, this ship looks wonky, here's reference." And it's a response of, "I'll make a note" or "I don't have time right now" or "Here's why I can't do that." And that satisfies maybe 9 people out of every 10, even on the "unreasonable" forums.
But the very desire to want to be satisfied is automatically seen as unreasonable in terms of principal design and systems design. Like, the forums and testers are automatically treated as unreasonable or even a hostile force before any attempt at a dialogue has been made.
I'm NOT the op, but let me just say THANK YOU, for not joining in on the 'dog-pile' of shameless 'butt-kissers', who will always defend the company, like they'rer trying to land a job with them.
To the O/P, it will never, EVER, do any good to voice/write/express your dissatisfaction in a 'forum'. Forums are nothing but a glorified 'hallelujah' chorus of shameless 'butt-kissers'.
have you read the forums lately (as in ever) ......these forums have 50x as many toxic whiners as they have butt kissers
I see it more akin to. IF all your friends are buying a house, are you going to as well?
There are advantages to owning a house, just as there are advantages for increasing level. Of course there are disadvantages as well but the point is that there are advantages unlike cyanide which doesn't.
If your friends do something and seems to work out for them, you will likely do it but it if your friends do something that you know... cause their death, you likely won't follow. This isn't about Peer pressure. It is about what works and what doesn't work in an MMO environment. Increasing level cap works.
One if it was just bigger numbers then I'd agree with you but... specialisations, Ship Mastery, an entirely new collection of story content reportedly more than Legacy of Romulus.
Though you seem to be forgetting about the upgrade path... T5 ships can be upgraded to T5U so that they become on par with T6 ships. You can continue to use your Oddy Worker bees for T6, you can continue to use your Vesta Aux cannons. While it does take some money to buy, like with Fleet Modules, keys and other similiar C-Store items there are numerous ways to obtain them. Via EC, via Dilithium Grind then exchanging for Zen or by paying money to buy Zen directly.
There is no reason why with the T5U ships that you can't continue to use your Oddy, Vesta, Bortasqu' whatever for the top tier content.
Yeah it's like some people are open minded, and think differently. So much butt-hurt from opinions. Very disgusting. I love the people not suffering from 'mindless drone' syndrome. Kinda reminds me of PlayStation fans :P
I certainly understand your point of view and can agree with some aspects of it. However due to the basic design elements game, the fundamental thing of your ship being your space character. Then it is most likely just flat out unfeasible that the system this late in the stage change.
The basic fundamental core of the game has to be altered to remove ships from leveling. While it may appear simple such as "moving things things to items in development it is never that simple. CBS, is one thing for example they have said no to T5 Connie. Secondly, what systems are they going to put in place for expanding BOFF slots. Why even have tac, sci, eng ships at all if the they only modify basic stats of items put on the ship. All tac ships are going to be the same, all engineering ships are going to be the same, all science ships are going to be the same. All that changes is the look.
The ship is your space character. It is simple as that... and as the level increases so you ship needs to become better as well, ship tiers is how they designed the system so that A t1 ship is usable in the first 10 levels, T2 in the next 10 levels, T3... so on and so on. Your character needs to expand as you level, and as your ship is your space character so does your ship.
The new reputation, the one you will be working on from levels 50 to 60, offers Mk XII gear according to the blog. That's right folks all that gear you grinded for will not become outdated with the expansion or level cap raise and will have equal treatment to that gear from the new reputation as far as transforming it into top tier.
But not the things you opened your wallet for.
I'd like to bring up this point once more.
Let's leave aside the validity of the OP's argument (i.e., laughably low) and consider the larger impacts.
- We know whales exist
- We know that they spend hundreds of dollars each year on this game
- We know most people either do not have that level of disposable income or are unwilling to do so for this game
- We know there are a large number of players who pay little to nothing
- We know the PRIMARY source of ZEN injections are the same whales who buy every stupid pack Cryptic decides to vomit forth.
I have no idea of how many subscribers vs. lifetimers vs. freeplayers there are, nor do I have any idea of the percentage of players that spend more than $50 a month in ZEN purchases (for whatever reason.
I do know that Cryptic cares more about one customer who drops $500 a year than the 500 customers that do not spend any money and refer no one to the game to spend money. The former is their actual customer, the latter is a net cost they maintain in hope that they will bring friends to the game who will play. If you tell yourself anything else you are misguided.
Does the OP have a point? Of course not. And yet, in his petulance, we see a very real problem in that the people who drop lots of cash effectively form a large percentage of Cryptic profits, and losses on said profits are unlikely to do anything but inspire Cryptic to try and wring moar monies out of the playerbase.
Saying all the above to say the below:
While I literally disagree with every word the OP wrote, I can't dismiss the larger argument that by moving in the direction it is, Cryptic is not 'rewarding' those with large sunk costs into the game. I know that sunk costs are sunk and trying to redeem them is a losing proposition, and that in the short term those who do so will only provide more money for Cryptic, but in the long term some form of sustainable fix has to be found to replace losses like this one.
As far the whole entitlement argument goes ... meh. I've dropped waaaaaaaaaay more than you, kid, and the only thing I expect from Cryptic at this point is not to turn the Borg into lovable space bunnies and give me an Iconian Lockbox. You'd be better served to do the same instead of crying. $500 to people who can afford it is nothing, I make more than that in one day of work, and if you can afford to toss that kind of money at the game for years, you should instead be thinking of the fun you got out of it.
See... And this is where I think I can see behind the curtain somewhat and occasionally transcend these arguments towards a big picture view.
It boils down in many respects to this:
Our ship is our space character. Our ship is also a piece of gear. Our ship is a "mount" in fantasy MMO terms. Our ship is also 90% of what constitutes our playable class in space.
This is where STO took some really bold, unprecedented steps (being a space/ground game) but also where STO has a lot of its big issues. Community issues. Design issues.
Take sector space. Sector space was intended as a social zone. Which implies our ship is our avatar, a personal point of customization. Early ship customization would agree with this. But some ships are not really customizable at all. Some ships have customization or costume options which flaunt or defy factional or theme boundaries to the point of disrupting immersion. Ship design is a subset of character art and, mechanically, is controlled like a character but replaced like a piece of gear. Contrast with mounts in a game like WoW; while some are flying and some are not and use may vary by the flying/no flying function needed there, the result of years of deliberation there was to make all mounts equal in speed so that no mount is ever obsolete. Also, all mounts there including very rare ones are now account wide.
Is our ship something we ARE or something we HAVE? The game gives conflicting answers to that question. Players have many conflicting answers to that question.
The IP meanwhile doesn't take switching ships lightly and tried very hard to keep captains in the same style of ship. The replacement Defiant was another Defiant-class. Every ship Kirk commanded had the same basic proportions and configuration.
The big exception is Picard and my understanding is that the real world reasons for the Enterprise-D/E switch-up were a bit more complicated. In general, a film model for a ship needed to be higher resolution because movies were higher resolution. This is why ships (and species) have always been adapted for movies.
The Enterprise-E was introduced (and took the longer form much like the Excelsior) because movie screens are wider than television screens. The Galaxy and the Connie require that you either have dead space around them on a wide screen or that you crop parts of the ship. The less bulky Connie can pull this off better because you can view other things comfortably through the struts in a close up "over the shoulder" view. The Galaxy blocks too much of the view of what's around it in a close-up.
So aside from a case where the director needed a different ship for camera reasons, captains have tended to be stuck with very identifiable ships. You look at a Connie and know that's Kirk. You look at a Defiant and know that's Sisko and/or his crew.
DS9 bent this somewhat by showing so many Galaxies but you'll note that they did that only after Picard had a new ship. You didn't see Connies. Any Sovereigns or Intrepids you saw were in the extreme background and you didn't see other Defiants up close typically.
You could look at the ship and know who it was by the shape as a broad rule.
STO is not super-coherent on this stuff and the lack of coherency creates ambiguity and confusion. It's not a fault in any active sense of current designers but it's an unaddressed fault from the initial design that confuses things. And ship collecting has been such a huge revenue source that it's pushed aside any reasons the devs might have for revisiting the philosophy of what constitutes an avatar in any coherent way.
But the new stuff dredges up a lot of these issues. On one hand, it's "just new gear." On the other hand, it'd be like if WoW told their existing orcs they had to play goblins to progress or that their new alts had to be goblins to experience a new class.
It's muddy and a case of where something that has probably principally financed the game by far (ship sales and ship collecting) has also sown a lot of confusion and strife because the fun factor of collecting and the money made off it by developers have really discouraged players or devs from ever really sitting down and settling on a single, unified, coherent, and easy to communicate view of what ships are and what they are for in Star Trek Online. The finance and fun have made it too easy to ignore some real flaws in terms of design and perception.
As time goes on, this game will have to move beyond ship sales to survive. They're expensive to produce. They're too expensive to capture the money of fickle and high turnover players and low turnover players have collections they want to use as their demand for new ships dwindles. The demand for them is finite. The longterm health of the game means making the game work without relying on ship sales or accepting that the limits on ship sales as a product will slowly de-fund the game and ultimately be what closes the doors on the game. It may take many years but it's like when someone finds they have a terminal illness that is inoperable. You have to then accept that this game's cause of death will eventually be the limitations and shortcomings of ships as a product and ships as designed.
And right now, the confused design goals and appeal of ships is starting to show because of where we're at with this expansion. Avatar or item. Gear or class. Social or personal. Expandable or finite. These issues are really starting to poke through right now.
This cuts to the core of what I'm talking about with muddled ship design in my last mega-post.
In a F2P game?
People who have lockbox ships are real whales. People who spend $25, $50, $100 on a single ship pack are ALSO a form of whale though because most don't do that and much of the system is designed to get THOSE whales to subsidize other players' ship purchases (through dilithium exchange) to trick out their whale ships.
And the problem is... There is a finite demand for ships. It's driven a whale market (lockboxes, mega-bundles, fleet expenses) and a mini-whale market ($25-100 packs) but at a certain point, the whale desire dries up.
Much of what Delta Rising seems to want, design wise, is to renew the whale market by getting them to spend more to continue to fly their own ships and to get them to also abandon their collections in favor of new purchases that rely on specialist bridge officers.
I really think, though, that the risk Cryptic is running is in overburdening a single product as revenue source (ships sold to people who have ships) and a failure to diversify cash cow sources of income. Making people re-buy their ships or start brand new collections of new types of ships seems like a plan that will cost Cryptic existing whales and scare off new players from becoming whales. It devalues an existing collection rather than developing a more diverse line of alternative products.
Agreed 100%.
The continued sucess and stability of STO as a game will be determined by how successful this gamble pans out and just how quickly and effectively they can diversify their revenue.
You even see this 'all eggs in one basket' approach with the lockboxes. Say I'm willing to spend for a costume option, most are in lockboxes as a quick example. Lockboxes have swallowed up so many of those smaller potential markets to the point it is difficult to even think of a new thing to market.
I look at the Cstore and see nothing worth buying. If ships are to be replaced I have no interest in them at their price point. I don't like gambling with keys. Doff packs and RnD packs are such terrible values for the cost. Services are over priced for someone with alts, at least to me when compared to their prices in other games.
They have very little, or nothing, to offer those players who want to toss $10-$15 bucks at the game each month. So they are far to reliant upon the whales to make the money they then toss strait at ST celeb voice actors. I do not know if the approach is sustainable, but I do know heavy whale reliance is volatile.
Marvel Heroes is pretty fun and relies primarily upon sales of consumable 'boosts' but primarily upon releasing new hero characters for people to buy. They now have quite a few heroes and no matter how you look at it eventually they will run into creative limits on new heroes to offer.
Recently they have created a new game system called 'team up heroes'. They are basically pets or sidekicks that offer a large variety of ways to use them for the player and opened up an entirely new design space to monetize in the future without effecting the current hero offerings or sales at all.
That approach is much more, consumer friendly.
The only difference between haves and have nots is knowledge.
I'm terms of what my avatar is, it's my toon on the ground. My ship is simply a piece of equipment that is as easily changed as any other.
This is a very good point. Someone made the observation that buying lock-box ships does not make one a whale, and I certainly agree. However, the ZEN to buy keys to have them listed on the EC so that people don't have to spend their own money has to be injected from some source.
DR has to offer a very compelling reason to invest more, and right now I am seriously not seeing it. While I have thrown away staggering amounts of cash on this game, that was with the knowledge that all of it was providing a long-term benefit that would never expire.
Now, that is simply not the case, and the new materials presented ... underwhelm. Without more changes to core gameplay and content, REAL content and not rehashed rep systems and grinds, the utility metric of fun-to-money simply isn't there, especially when Cryptic's motives are so transparent and the offerings so thin.
They could've turned off the servers the day after you spent all that RL $$. No game seems to have had such long term benefits w/o being on life support and no content updates. You can still use your Cstore ships in DR, you do NOT need T5U/T6 ships.