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Has the Future degraded to Greed?
cenell
Member Posts: 88 Arc User
From what I have been reading, there has been a lot of concern about all this new "upgrade" stuff from many players. Upgrade this ship, upgrade those consoles, upgrade that weapon. I do not know how every one else feels about this, but to me, this all feels like one big "cha-CHING"! for Cryptic and I am genuinely concerned STO is losing the mission and focus it once had.
Didn't used to be pay to win, I mean sure, you can "buy" the best most "newest" ships, you can purchase all the dil you want, It was still set on you had to "earn" what you carried, be in fleet marks, reputations, missions, whatever.
Now, it just seems with this new ever increasing "upgrade" system, STO is heading more towards that " pay to win" scenario so many people hate, loathe, dislike, etc.
I hope this is going to be taken seriously as I thoroughly enjoy STO in many ways, my only personal gripe would be upgrading a ship(such as the scimitar) that I already invested a significant portion of money into, another "payment" seems a little excessive.
But I digress, I am not against cryptic making money, keeps everything running, but making money by turning the game into "pay to win" I can't see a future in that.
Didn't used to be pay to win, I mean sure, you can "buy" the best most "newest" ships, you can purchase all the dil you want, It was still set on you had to "earn" what you carried, be in fleet marks, reputations, missions, whatever.
Now, it just seems with this new ever increasing "upgrade" system, STO is heading more towards that " pay to win" scenario so many people hate, loathe, dislike, etc.
I hope this is going to be taken seriously as I thoroughly enjoy STO in many ways, my only personal gripe would be upgrading a ship(such as the scimitar) that I already invested a significant portion of money into, another "payment" seems a little excessive.
But I digress, I am not against cryptic making money, keeps everything running, but making money by turning the game into "pay to win" I can't see a future in that.
Post edited by cenell on
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In all honestly, nothing in STO requires spending actual money. Everything....mostly everything, can be got via earning currency in game and then turning it into Zen to buy stuff.
They cater for everyone, the rich whales, the impatient and the smart sensible player.
You just need to choose which one of those you want to be...
if you dont like the system you dont need to use it, but the game is there for you to play without charge, the core content is free wihout charge, but you want stuff to help your ship and toon out, you have to work for it by farming and grinding EC and dil to get it for the most part, between that rep marks and system that offer a few good devices, consoles and such.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
bad news friend...
since you don't have to give cyptic any money at all it's still not play to win. it may be call craft to win but the call pay the game and gofforbid anyone actualy does that.
you paid for a tier 5 ship you got a tier 5 ship. you have no right to ask for more no matter how much you paid you got what you paid for. now any other game would tell you were you can stick your entitlement but cryptic likes you so they will let you upgrade it but the need to keep the lights on so you give them 5 - 10 dollars... a 3rd to a 6th what tier ship is likely to cost. and what a week grind if you can't buy zen.
check your entitlement.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Crafting system is a huge resource sink or an immense timegate, comparable in scope to building your own single-track fleet holding (like, say, half of an embassy). Better yet, new gear upgrade system makes it a half-necessity - without ability to craft own upgrade kits, average player will be forced to rely on drops (haha) or paying through the nose on exchange for kits created by other players (who don't get rich in the process, and just try to cut losses from leveling crafting).
Take into account playing actively on more than one character and/or using more than one ship on given character.
I know for sure I was priced out of the incoming "upgrades" (9 characters, 7 of them actually played, 3 or 4 of them using more than one ship). I will be relying heavily on upgraded risian ships and maybe, somewhere in the future, upgrade dual banks I use for BO to mk 14. Thats about everything I will be getting from DR.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Regarding all the upgarde stuff:
Almost all event ships that required no money will get a free T5U upgrade. They may not be everyones favorite choice but that's a freebie from cryptic, like it or not that's what we get.
Upgrading our gear does also not involve money, only stuff that can be obtained in-game. It does require a good amount of resources but no zen is involved in any step of the process.
STO is not P2W but extremly "pay for convenience" since there are timers and caps all over the place. Sure, you can spend hundreds of bucks to get dilithium to speed up everything but that's your own fault since you could also just wait and do something else instead.
A week of grind ?? good for you if you have the time to grind 15 toons per day, but some people work so they can't do that
Hooo i miss so much the time before the f2p conversion, This time where the server was stable (yes it happened) the time where cryptic swear to us the shop will be only for vanity stuff, the time they promis the game will never become f2p, the time they promise they will never sell ships buy the shop .....
Hooo i hurt myslef
I have 3. and am faaarrrrrr to lazy to stress myself over making sure I log on ever day and grind up some dil.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
i still prefer the pre-f2p to this stuff, far more simpler times.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
ok so let say the convertion is around 180 dili per zen
a ship is 2500 zen So :
2500*180= 450000 dilithium need for the ship
you have 3 toons so you do 8000*3 dili per day so 24000
now how much day for the ship :
450000/24000 = 18.75
and the end you need 19 days for have just one ship so we are far of you "a week of grind"
And it's not greed. It is just business.
The servers don't run itself. New missions don't make themselves (ask a Foundry author). New ships don't make themselves. new mechanics don't make themselves.
Cryptic needs money to continue making the game. They also need profits so that the shareholders of Perfect World are kept happy (which is who Perfect World is responsible to).
How would you know it's greed? How much money do you think gets reinvested into the game(s), and how much many is used to buy private Yachts or swim in gold coins?
If you think it's too expensive, you can complain, but ultimately, the only meaningful thing to do that really proves its too expensive is that you stop buying. Cryptic will only react when sales go down.
Complaints help them know why sales decline, but without a decline, there is no reason to change yet - at least if the complaints don't give a good hint how they could earn even more money and still have happy players.
"It's too grindy" doesn't help Cryptic, for example, because "less grind" means that many people play less since there is nothing for them to work for. "More Story Missions" doesn't help them, because they know by now what story content costs them to make and how much it gets them. (Why do you think weekly, bi-weekly or monthly featured episodes didn't happen?)
I will attempt to clarify.
I did not specifically say the game was "pay to win" I said, the system being applied is heading in that direction. Yes, I am well aware you can "farm and Mine" all the Dil you need for projects but again, the point here was missed.
Dil, and for that matter ECs, take time, in SOME capacity to acquire, so, for a casual gamer, this will limit what he or she brings in, unless you plan to sit ALL day at your com and have no life....
ahem, anyway,
on a second note, I never said I was "entitled" to anything, that is a fool's notion. I said and I quote "my personal gripe, and I dislike" never came to " give me free stuff. Read it again.
Last but not least the POINT of all this was, if I recall I did make mention, my comment about what has already been posted by so many others and the fact that Cryptic, that always states" they take the feedback from the player base" will take this seriously, plain and simple.
Some people do not like big changes, others love them, not everyone is going to be happy with one aspect or the other. it happens, I accept that.
a upgrade is 500 to 1000 zen. and I was talking about upgrades being that easy and wow two whole week for a new ship thats... barely an after thought.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
you are absolutely right on all your point, and that why i preferred when the game wasn't a f2p.
But what you say doesn't justify the way they start to take. because if you look all the history of the game since the f2p they just take back many things and add only payable (i'm not sue for this word) stuff so no nice story at all, no last free ship at the level 50, no more exploration ....
But a lot of new stuff for keep us busy and grind or pay. soon it will be only that in the game we will lose the trek of star trek for it become star grind.
That is the "beauty" of their system.
The negative side of that is has other repercussions. Tthere is still every desire to put stuff in the C-Store that people really, really want, because if there is nothing there, people won't sell their Dilithium for Zen, and likewise, there must be stuff you realy, really want for Dlithium, because otherwise there is n reason to buy Dilithium.
So ultimately, power creep is still good for business for Cryptic, and it will never go away.
seriously? two weeks is QUITE an investment of time and resources. here I thought f2p was supposed to be CASUAL gamer friendly, seems the CASUAL gamers( you know, the ones with JOBS and Families) are in the minority, how odd.....
You know i will maybe surprise you but when you have a job, a wife, childrens, dog ..... is hardly possible to even make 8000 per day so 3 toons during 2 weeks stop dreaming.
I can still move.
I can still fight.
I will never give up!
A subscription game still needs money, and if not enough people subscribe, mission content cannot be made. I strongy suspect that Startrek Online was in such a position before the F2P move.
And Exploration wasn't removed because only grind works for Cryptic. It was removed because it was ****. It would have been very easy to make Exploration grindier - just create an "Exploration Reputation" with a kick-TRIBBLE endgame set and require people to do Exploration missions over and over and over to earn marks. In fact, that was basically how Exploration used to work before F2P, when you still got Exploration Marks. No reputation system, but you needed marks to buy endgame gear, and to do it, you grinded exploration missions.
No that not true cryptic was starting to act like that even before pwe
they have chosen the ease not the pleasure for the players.
oh, btw, if they really need money; they should remove the dil exchange to zen, but at the same time the prices should be lowered. how many master keys are not from real money; 1/2?
If you don't have the time to play the game that much, would you really need to upgrade the gear of 3 characters?
Not to forget that Delta Rising will come with new missions you will want to play, which will also occupy your time.
Of course, what an horrible idea. Wasting all that time on missions, still sitting on subpar gear, not earning any Dilithium...
Mustrum "Where is the damn forest, all I see are some large plants" Ridcully
I can still move.
I can still fight.
I will never give up!
if you did nothing but pay sto to for two weeks yes it is but a couple hours a day? nope.
hear let me try math.
8 hours for sleep
8 for work
hour for travel
thats 17
lets assume your an idiot and buy food every day hour for that
so 18
give an hour for TRIBBLE/sex time because I'm nice
19 oh we're getting low on time.
2 hour outside family/friend time
hour dinner
22, nice even number don't you think.
two hours gaming.
24. time management is op isn't?
now if you'll excuse me it's time for the first 8 hours.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
No no i don't care about the upgrade and don't plan to do them.
The thing is i have a problem with the way they take for this game. i see less and less contents in the game, and more and more grind or buy stuff. that my point.
When it will be no mission, no nice stuff to do but grind rep and dilithium do you think they will ear more money ?
I know they need to earn money for continue the game, but it must be a balance between contents and grind or buy stuff.
And please stop escuse every of their action by the money excuse if they didn't already make benefice with the game they will not realise and new extension.
A couple hours a day, is that right? well, how much can you actually get done in that 2 hour timeblock EXACTLY? maybe one char maxed dil(8000) maybe 2? I pretty much know Dyson ground can take anywhere between 25-50 mins to complete, of course that depends on a LOT of factors, run the dinos TWICE you might get 8000 dil, so you spend, lets see, 45 mins maybe 1h20 mins depending on players also doing them, you spend the rest of the time doing what? maybe ONE rep worth of marks???, this is quoting YOUR 2 hour timeframe mind you. now, try playing new content with subpar gear because you didn't have time to grind for the best, and tell me your going to be either enjoying it more or being more frustrated?
Game, Set, Match........
Atari refused to reinvest STO income back into the game and just sucked up all the sub money.
Well, its just paying off - you spend time/effort and exchange results for ZEN bought by another player. Actual money is still there, its just not you spending it.
To add insult to injury - gear upgrade system is straight copied form other PWE game. They just replaced "you succeed or your items gets deleted" with "try multiple times for low chance for rarity upgrade". The rest is basically the same - items ensureing a slightly better chance for success, additional tokens that protect item from destroying/making the process slightly cheaper...
And I laughed heartily when my GF showed me the original system, calling it a Chinese chances farm. I laughed because then STO was better than that.
Oh well.
Not that it helped them in the long run... I was quite deeply invested in Test Drive Unlimited 2 community. One day Atari decided to just pack and leave. TDU2 forums went offline with a notice they are moving it to Atari forums, and that was it. Threads about it were deleted from actual Atari forums. Not surprisingly this happened very soon after release of third wonky DLC pack. Paid content that was commonly stolen by about half of the ingame population and full of bugs that were never adressed. Each consecutive patch was breaking more stuff than it was fixing... All that, with exception of pirated DLCs, sounds very familiar:P Atari legendary quality carried over to STO
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
As for upgrading general gear, I don't see that happening. The only gear I can see anyone dumping their resources to upgrade to XIV Gold would be the curiosity/novelty weapons, like the TR-116. But as for upgrading ALL of their guns, shields, armours, and whatever else, again, PvPers, hardcores, and those people who feel they MUST have the best and newest of everything.
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