Most players would be happier if they paid dev/engineers more to fix bugs and glitches before they pay voice actors to come in. Believe it or not people do realize it takes money to run it, but you get more if people don't feel like they have to pay to be competitive. When it gets to the point where they are so far behind people say eff it what other games are you plying in fleet chat, there's a problem.
No matter how many bugs/glitches they fix, there will always be more since the game's code gets updated every time they bring in something new. They do try to fix as many things as they can but also have to balance it with bring something new. No game is bug free.
I find it extremely funny the number of people who complain because its hard to get the top of the line greatest thing in this game without spending money.
It's like they forgot that this game needs people to spend money to stay afloat. If you could get all the stuff in game easily without spending money, how long do you suppose this game would stay around.
Cryptic has a good thing going with this game. Everything is playable for free. You don't need all the top level gear, or c-store ships to play this game.
Everything is attainable in game without money. Yes it takes time, but that's the point.... if it didn't this game wouldn't make any money at all.
As every Zen buys less and less dilithium, more and more people are convinced the amount isn't worth their real-life dollars.
Slowing the faucets while simultaneously raising the drains is going to drive some people away (less dil generated), lower many people's daily farming capacity (less dil generated), reduce many players' stockpiles (less dil in the system), and consume all of some players' capacity (what they create is almost immediately destroyed).
People's perception of what Dil's value is (in the sense of time taken to earn) is going to rise, since they are spending more 'time units' in acquiring them, they will expect the purchasing power to rise and net them more Zen.
Point being, with Dil supply constricting rapidly, it becomes a "seller's market" but this game isn't a life necessity. The playerbase's reaction to this in Dil pricing is going to make at least some of their Zen-buyer whales close their wallets.
People have continually said how generous Cryptic's free to play model is and how that anything that's in game can be had without spending real money. Throughout the last several months, this statement has been less and less accurate.
With all the changes that have come over the last few months and the changes being implemented with DR it is harder than it has been in almost two years for an average player to get anything he wants without spending RL money.
EC is harder to earn. They're taking away loot drops from the end of STFs. For those that may not have gotten good drops or haven't paid attention this may not seem like a big deal but over the last two years I've gotten numerous purple MK XI and XII drops at the end and sold those on the exchange for a good amount of EC.
Not only is it more time consuming to earn dilithium, there are much more things that need dilithium to get than ever before. As someone who has found themselves turned into a "casual" by life circumstances and no longer able to devote 30-40 hours a week to the game a.k.a. "have it be your second job" getting new gear or ships through grinding is no longer an option for me.
I've said it in another thread but I've watched this game go from casual friendly to primarily benefiting those that are super grinders and those that are willing to dump lots of money and the players in between are left in a state of "why am I here?" limbo and mediocrity.
I've stepped off the gear treadmill and at this point I'm only logging in a hour here and there to do a cap&hold match if I can even get one, check on the fleet, and without new content to play there's really nothing to do that interest me.
I've realized that it makes much more sense to play a sub game like SWTOR, FF, or a single player game as those games can provide me with a much more enjoyable experience. This Free to play model is not sustainable long term.
I honestly don't mind spending money on a game, but IMO all of the prices are ridiculously high and things that should be a no-brainer as free for Gold or Lifers are not (Re-specs).
I'll keep my R&D training going and pew in a match here and there but probably won't play much until Delta Rising hits and there is brand new story content to play. Once I'm done with that stuff I'll be back to uber-casual till the next content update. Is this what you want Cryptic?
My proposed solution:
Increase the benefits of subbing Gold and going Lifetime across the board. Increase your revenue by gaining monthly subbers accordingly. Gold Members and Lifers should get the following:
Increased EC from vendor gear sales, and anything in game that gives a small amount of straight EC as a reward like Doff missions etc.
Unlimited skill tree re-specs
Increased Dilithium rewards across the board for anything that awards dilithium in the game by a percentage.
Faster Run speed
Shorter Queue cool down times
and I'm sure there's other things I can think of.
Make it so! :cool:
Just play TOR. Its a better game with a better free to play model if you invest to getting Preffered (Just buy the Expansion).
Than you can simple grind out credits and buy all the "f2p restrictions" off save the moneycap.
That's the only real TOR F2P restriction, the 350k money cap. (Though that's not as little as it is in STO, the most expensive items in TOR range from 2mil to 12 mil for the rarest of stuff).
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
I completely agree with you op, but this will never change until the player base changes.. it is how it works. Unfortunately. Cryptic is in their total right to make things as they wish, and if they want to make things only focused to those players (rich people and people who spent 24 hours a day playing) there is nothing we can do. Only the players who are giving cryptic the resources to keep doing what they want are the ones to be blamed. In this matter cryptic is no different from other company at all (well, maybe.. but just lets stop there..).
Just play TOR. Its a better game with a better free to play model if you invest to getting Preffered (Just buy the Expansion).
Than you can simple grind out credits and buy all the "f2p restrictions" off save the moneycap.
That's the only real TOR F2P restriction, the 350k money cap. (Though that's not as little as it is in STO, the most expensive items in TOR range from 2mil to 12 mil for the rarest of stuff).
always amazed by the weak willed fools who don't like sto and tell everyone to go and play other games but can't seam to leave sto themselves. it's the old 'don't do as i do, do as i say' approach to life. grow a pair and just leave yourself. prove your actions speak louder then your words.
People have continually said how generous Cryptic's free to play model is and how that anything that's in game can be had without spending real money. Throughout the last several months, this statement has been less and less accurate.
With all the changes that have come over the last few months and the changes being implemented with DR it is harder than it has been in almost two years for an average player to get anything he wants without spending RL money.
EC is harder to earn. They're taking away loot drops from the end of STFs. For those that may not have gotten good drops or haven't paid attention this may not seem like a big deal but over the last two years I've gotten numerous purple MK XI and XII drops at the end and sold those on the exchange for a good amount of EC.
Not only is it more time consuming to earn dilithium, there are much more things that need dilithium to get than ever before. As someone who has found themselves turned into a "casual" by life circumstances and no longer able to devote 30-40 hours a week to the game a.k.a. "have it be your second job" getting new gear or ships through grinding is no longer an option for me.
I've said it in another thread but I've watched this game go from casual friendly to primarily benefiting those that are super grinders and those that are willing to dump lots of money and the players in between are left in a state of "why am I here?" limbo and mediocrity.
I've stepped off the gear treadmill and at this point I'm only logging in a hour here and there to do a cap&hold match if I can even get one, check on the fleet, and without new content to play there's really nothing to do that interest me.
I've realized that it makes much more sense to play a sub game like SWTOR, FF, or a single player game as those games can provide me with a much more enjoyable experience. This Free to play model is not sustainable long term.
I honestly don't mind spending money on a game, but IMO all of the prices are ridiculously high and things that should be a no-brainer as free for Gold or Lifers are not (Re-specs).
I'll keep my R&D training going and pew in a match here and there but probably won't play much until Delta Rising hits and there is brand new story content to play. Once I'm done with that stuff I'll be back to uber-casual till the next content update. Is this what you want Cryptic?
My proposed solution:
Increase the benefits of subbing Gold and going Lifetime across the board. Increase your revenue by gaining monthly subbers accordingly. Gold Members and Lifers should get the following:
Increased EC from vendor gear sales, and anything in game that gives a small amount of straight EC as a reward like Doff missions etc.
Unlimited skill tree re-specs
Increased Dilithium rewards across the board for anything that awards dilithium in the game by a percentage.
Faster Run speed
Shorter Queue cool down times
and I'm sure there's other things I can think of.
Make it so! :cool:
I have to say that unfortunately since launch I've been a LTS so i cannot relate to a sub or f2p aspect
of the game.
I'll always be able to leave for a time then return later as long as the servers are still up. Because of that i want the game to last forever and I'm not concerned about free stuff for me at all. For that reason I'd rather not see the unlimited free respecs as it could be game changing but a free one per month maybe. Increased EC anything would only add to the issues with the EC markets as the true casual player would be hurt here.
Faster run speed would be game changing in events and PvP. Queue times I'm up for. As I see it a LTS pays less than a Sub in the long term. The game is very much f2p as the content and iconic ships are free to earn as well as earning epic gear as other f2p players in other games can only use rare items.
To me the poster has alot of great point's. To me the dilith market and system is in massive shamble's. If u factor fleet holding and toon requirements dilith requirments are up bye 60 percent for my 16 toons. And i allso find the hyper inflation on the exchange is getting nuts. But hey i remebr a key 2 years ago going for 1.5 million now i see them going for allmost 3. Everything cost more now bottum line. Star Trek didnt have ne money so the more they move over into this model less i want to play. And honestly all i see is a bunch of lifer defending a dilith refineing cap that is pure nuts. 8k aday right so it would take 4 days to pay off a borg engine for say. But wait now u have to upgrade and fleet holding and several other hundred new things that needs dilith. The cap is nuts this dilith feaver they are createing is even more nuts
The dil market is based off cost of pay to play market items in the store, the need for dil in game and the cost of items in the exchange. A separate market, the lobi store which i also think should include the items from old lock boxes at a significantly higher price than the other items in the lobi store. This makes the chance to win in the box still has value based on what it will cost in the lobi.
Additionally there needs to be ways to earn or buy lobi in game.
Lobi for dil would aid the dil market as a means for people to earn lobi faster and the ability to sell more dil and therefore more Zen. The ability to buy some if not all items from the lock boxes from the lobi market would decrease the cost of these items and boxes in the exchange but may increase or decrease keys,if dil can be sold for lobi then that would likely decrease keys value in the exchange.
This IMO would more benefit f2p over subs but would help all.
I'm pretty sure telling someone to go play a rival MMORPG on these forums might be a no no.
I'm hesitant to call "TOR" a rival MMORPG to STO. A competitor, yes, in the same light as how TERA/****/Scarlet Blade/RIFT/WoW/etc are also competitors.
Still, in response to OP I still consider STO to have a "Generous Free to Play Model" because the road to earning ZEN for the cash shop is still pretty straight forward: Get Dilithium, exchange for ZEN on the Dilithium Exchange, get cash shop item. All the recent changes just makes me a better shopper (wait for sales, spend Dilithium smartly, group up with friends on Dil collection runs once in a while, etc).
I guess you can say I have patience and am not intimidated by Dilithium sinks.
Member since November 2009... I think. (UFP) Ragnar
Yes, it's so good that Cryptic won't implement it.
It benefits players too much.
Actually it would benefit cryptic too. Lobi can be earned via play during featured episode reruns, but there are few of those. This would inspire key sales far more than rerunning the old lockboxes does. Plus a t rewards both casuals (buy for ec off the auctionhouse) and whales (get with keyslobi and sell extras on the ah).
if you've played any of dr on tribble, or watched any of the vids, or read any of the posts from people who have, then you know 99% can be done in free t5 ships using existing gear. you don't need to upgrade to mk 13 or 14 gear. you don't need gold gear. you don't need to upgrade to a t6 ship. and even if you want that stuff you can grind for most of it if you're too cheap to spend a few bucks.
the op's like too many others: wants it even though he does not need it, and then's pissed that they can't get it all by playing only 5 minutes.
So 99%, or most of the content in DR can be done in ships we have now? with existing gear? What about the new DR queues and the new DR difficulties?
One the one hand *yay* we can do most of the content with existing ships and gear so we need to upgrade. On the other hand...oh no not again.
So 99%, or most of the content in DR can be done in ships we have now? with existing gear? What about the new DR queues and the new DR difficulties?
One the one hand *yay* we can do most of the content with existing ships and gear so we need to upgrade. On the other hand...oh no not again.
Can it be done? Yep.
Will it be done? Realistically, no.
For example, 15k useful DPS per player is the amount of damage one has to do in order not to fail the 15 minute timer on ISA - so only the top 10% or so STO players will actually be able to do an Advanced STF without upgrading.
Today's ISE pugs will pretty much never complete ISA without massive improvements in player quality, simply due to how high the minimum DPS bar has been raised.
You wrote something that really made me think. If the game is only a grind and theres no new content for us to play then why are we even playing. That is so true. The game offers PVE players nothing. I hope when delta hits were not able to blow through all the content in a couple of ours. I know it can't last forever. It should at least last 1 week and it should have massive replay value. If its over quick and nothing else to do but grind. This may be the best time to actually quit. Cryptic needs something big to keep its players. Like they don't know. World of ********:Warlords of Draenor is closeing in. I prefer star trek's cannon over WOW's but I will say this. I played wow for 4 years and there was Never a time when there was nothing exciting to do. I wish the social aspect of STO was as good as WOWs. I agree 100% tho about the grind. I don't want to play a game just to grind. Grinding should be a part of the game thats always second or 3rd on the to-do list. Misssions and STFs should always be first. Delta better get it right or it might be all over but the crying.
Umm... I dunno what World of War.craft you were playing, but WoW was grinding, on top of grinding, on top of a little more grinding... And then, just for good measure, grinding...
I played for about 8 years before suspending my account... I would not call myself a 'hard-core' raider, but in that time I did raid with some very strong raiding guilds...
The entire process was one grind after another... Heroics to get you into Raids... Reputation Factions to get you into raids... Raids to get you into the next tier or raiding...
And then there was the farming for gold so you could stock up on supplies for each raid... Potentially hundreds of gold per week in flasks, potions and new enchants and gems for your latest acquisitions...
And if you weren't raiding, you were grinding away in the same old Heroics or through the same quests over and over (I wish I had killed Mankrik's wife in the end!) while leveling alts...
WoW was nothing but grind... STO has nothing on WoW when it comes to grinding...
The entitlement is strong in these forums...
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,564Community Moderator
I'm hesitant to call "TOR" a rival MMORPG to STO. A competitor, yes, in the same light as how TERA/****/Scarlet Blade/RIFT/WoW/etc are also competitors.
Still, in response to OP I still consider STO to have a "Generous Free to Play Model" because the road to earning ZEN for the cash shop is still pretty straight forward: Get Dilithium, exchange for ZEN on the Dilithium Exchange, get cash shop item. All the recent changes just makes me a better shopper (wait for sales, spend Dilithium smartly, group up with friends on Dil collection runs once in a while, etc).
I guess you can say I have patience and am not intimidated by Dilithium sinks.
I agree with this person. As a F2P player myself I've learned to play the DL Exchange to get what I want out of the C-Store. For example I grind the big events like the Crystaline Entity to get DL if I want something big, or I just save up over time. I'm not concerned about upgrading everything right off the bat. It gets done when it gets done.
If you get Zen from the DL Exchange, you learn the patterns. Prices go up when new things are announced like ships, prices go down when there's more need for Dilithium than Zen. Its a living market. Knowing when to cash in is key. And considering that everything short of Veteran rewards is available to even a F2P player with a plan... it really is generous and I aplaude Cryptic for doing so.
If you want something... set a goal and work towards it. Not everything has to be done now.
For example, 15k useful DPS per player is the amount of damage one has to do in order not to fail the 15 minute timer on ISA - so only the top 10% or so STO players will actually be able to do an Advanced STF without upgrading.
Today's ISE pugs will pretty much never complete ISA without massive improvements in player quality, simply due to how high the minimum DPS bar has been raised.
But is that not the point of the new high-difficulty STF's? Is greater difficulty in STF's not what a large (not majority, but large enough) portion of the community have been wanting for some time? I know I'm looking forward to something that is going to present a real challenge...
All story episodes should be doable in a basic T5... If people are struggling with this a T5U, or even a T6, will not necessarily help them, as their ship is not the problem...
They will also never improve unless presented with a challenge that forces them to adapt, seek advice, learn and get better...
I know that might be asking alot, but when current Elites are so easy that I topped DPS on Crystalline Entity Elite with my newest 50 (a Reman Sci in a T5 Ha'nom running all low level gear) on the second run through, something needs to be done to force people to learn...
Actually it would benefit cryptic too. Lobi can be earned via play during featured episode reruns, but there are few of those. This would inspire key sales far more than rerunning the old lockboxes does. Plus a t rewards both casuals (buy for ec off the auctionhouse) and whales (get with keyslobi and sell extras on the ah).
This is one of those rare triple win ideas.
A nice way will be to give players 1 lobi crystal every certain ammount of play time , let's say 1 hour. This way you will be granted 1 lobi cristal for free if you play 1 hour and so on. I dont know why something like this is not implemented. And this is done in severals mmorpgs.. btw.
On the OP I think the generous FtP model is still there.
But when we talk about the needs for money, I think there are better ways to do it.
The idea of retiring old box items to the lobi store is creative and I would open more new boxes for the lobi to get some of the older box only ships this way.
And while I am a LTS and I am not asking for a free gimme, I think the disparity of silver and gold needs to be greater. My reasoning is to give a better reason to get a subscription. It needs to be small, ungame breaking, but measurable. An idea example: +1000 dil refining/day. For someone that gets dil easily this is an incentive for the sub. The items you get from gold and LTS should be marked better than silver to make them worth it. I suggest the refining cap as something that can easily go away if you stop subscribing. But an LTS needs an extra hook. Sure you get an android, a special species type, and a vet ship. But all of those are being bested by things you can get with a silver account. So as an incentive for an LTS over a gold slot. Borg racials do not cost trait slots. And/or two extra trait slots that gold and silver do not have. This way they can put in more of these new traits without losing out or having to consider as hard as a gold or silver account does. Will it make a LTS more powerful than a regular account? Maybe a little, it has the potential and with that potential more people will want to fork out the cash to get them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
So 99%, or most of the content in DR can be done in ships we have now? with existing gear? What about the new DR queues and the new DR difficulties?
One the one hand *yay* we can do most of the content with existing ships and gear so we need to upgrade. On the other hand...oh no not again.
the only thing that can't be done on regular difficulty is 1 queue. the others can be done on any of the 3 difficulties. you can do regular, advanced, or elite stfs. and the only reason to do an elite queue is to get elite gear. and the only reason to have elite gear is to do elite queues easier. so it's an endless circle going nowhere.
But is that not the point of the new high-difficulty STF's? Is greater difficulty in STF's not what a large (not majority, but large enough) portion of the community have been wanting for some time? I know I'm looking forward to something that is going to present a real challenge...
All story episodes should be doable in a basic T5... If people are struggling with this a T5U, or even a T6, will not necessarily help them, as their ship is not the problem...
They will also never improve unless presented with a challenge that forces them to adapt, seek advice, learn and get better...
I know that might be asking alot, but when current Elites are so easy that I topped DPS on Crystalline Entity Elite with my newest 50 (a Reman Sci in a T5 Ha'nom running all low level gear) on the second run through, something needs to be done to force people to learn...
it's important to remember we have players who can't do estfs now. we see threads all the time from 'good' players raging about the bad players in estfs, and how cryptic should limit their access so it doesn't ruin it for others. it's not going to be any different in dr. most players are going to do it on regular. the slightly better players will do it on advanced. the small group of exceptional players are doing to do elites.
and not everyone wants to get better. lots of players just play to play. their casuals just here to get their star trek fix for a couple of hours before getting back to the regular life. they're not all here to challenge themselves. life can be challenging enough.
A nice way will be to give players 1 lobi crystal every certain ammount of play time , let's say 1 hour. This way you will be granted 1 lobi cristal for free if you play 1 hour and so on. I dont know why something like this is not implemented. And this is done in severals mmorpgs.. btw.
The featured episode relays give 500 lobi in one shot. That is very nice as you can miss half the event and still afford a complete space set. But it is deliberately just a tad below what you need for a lobi ship so you either buy a few keys or save up. Very nice for cryptic and for players.
Also, sto gives away scads of free costumes, ships, and other items year rounds via the different events. I made a free account last year just so I could track all the free giveaways and in less than 1 year it already has over $100 in stuff from cryptic. Mostly in the form of the free ships (gorn science, ferengi na far shuttle, etc) they just recently handed out.
What I like about sto's model is that it gives more free stuff to the person who only logs in for a short time. The 1 lobi per hour or 2 hours model means most of the reward goes to the hardcore gamer who is logged in all the time and casuals get almost nothing. I really don't like those models.
"It's still a great F2P model because it IS still possible to get anything you want in game."
Because it's possible doesn't mean it's likely or even in the realm of happening ever. It's possible for me to have coitus with marina sirtis with michael dorn watching but will it ever happen? No! Just like it's possible for me to grind out enough dil to buy a c-store ship. Is it possible? Sure. Would it ever happen? No!
So to say that this F2P model is a good one because of "a possibility" available to me is some kind of bull plop that just doesn't hold water.
All we've seen is more time gates and more grind and like Virus said "Delta Rising: Casual Dying"
My main point to my OP is that I'd love to see better perks for Gold and Lifers to balance against all the recent changes in the game and I think it would be a great way for Cryptic to get a more steady revenue stream. Just seems like they leave so much money "on the table" so to speak and would rather gouge us on a few things instead of providing value on many things.
Also, sto gives away scads of free costumes, ships, and other items year rounds via the different events. I made a free account last year just so I could track all the free giveaways and in less than 1 year it already has over $100 in stuff from cryptic. Mostly in the form of the free ships (gorn science, ferengi na far shuttle, etc) they just recently handed out.
Still, lobi cristals are the hardest currency to adquire and limited only to lockboxes. I think it is about time to change that.
And i dont care about cryptic giving so many free things. I consider that seeing how filled is this game of non solved and ignored bugs, and glitchs everywhere, and seeing that no efforts are being directed to fix these things, everything they give me for free is just a compensation, nothing more. But people will see em as a real gifts, and thats precisely what cryptic wants, they feeling happy to keep players , happy lol. But again, any other company could do the same thing, and they will be in their right. Of course, another thing is how much you care about your customers.
Still, lobi cristals are the hardest currency to adquire and limited only to lockboxes. I think it is about time to change that.
they do lobi events regularly, like the ce event that gave players hundreds. they're not just found in lockboxes. that's just the most common way to get them.
"It's still a great F2P model because it IS still possible to get anything you want in game."
Because it's possible doesn't mean it's likely or even in the realm of happening ever. It's possible for me to have coitus with marina sirtis with michael dorn watching but will it ever happen? No! Just like it's possible for me to grind out enough dil to buy a c-store ship. Is it possible? Sure. Would it ever happen? No!
So to say that this F2P model is a good one because of "a possibility" available to me is some kind of bull plop that just doesn't hold water.
All we've seen is more time gates and more grind and like Virus said "Delta Rising: Casual Dying"
That's a very selective memory. You didn't get the free na far shuttle? Nebula? Marauder flight deck cruiser? Account wide horta combat pet? Oddysey and bortasque costumes? All good things costume? Gladius escort?
I know rommies have been shafted in the past three give away events, but there's been quite a lot of free stuff handed out.
they do lobi events regularly, like the ce event that gave players hundreds. they're not just found in lockboxes. that's just the most common way to get them.
I would like to know what consider you "regularly". Lobi events are once in a year, in fact i cant remember if this year we had one btw. And its about 15 lobi every day per account. I think the maximum ammount of lobis in the even you can gather was about 200. Or something like that. That is NOTHING. Being aware of the excessive prices of lobi stuff, you still will need to open thousands of lockboxes to just save enough to buy a lobi ship, and all of that done in let's say a year or more ??? so, you can buy a lobi ship, lets say once every year, probably more?? lol.
I would like to know what consider you "regularly". Lobi events are once in a year, in fact i cant remember if this year we had one btw. And its about 15 lobi every day per account. I think the maximum ammount of lobis in the even you can gather was about 200. Or something like that. That is NOTHING. Being aware of the excessive prices of lobi stuff, you still will need to open thousands of lockboxes to just save enough to buy a lobi ship, and all of that done in let's say a year or more ??? so, you can buy a lobi ship, lets say once every year, probably more?? lol.
It is ridiculous.
they do 2-3 events a year so it's regularly. and what makes you think 200 lobi is nothing? that's about 50 bucks worth of lobi if you had to buy them.
and math genius, each lockbox gives a minimum of 4 lobi, so to get a lobi ship you'd need to open a maximum of 200 lockboxes not 'thousands.' and if you opened 200 boxes you'd have millions of ecs worth of stuff to sell that you didn't need; and you could use that to buy keys and open even more lockboxes for free, getting even more lobi store stuff.
That's a very selective memory. You didn't get the free na far shuttle? Nebula? Marauder flight deck cruiser? Account wide horta combat pet? Oddysey and bortasque costumes? All good things costume? Gladius escort?
I know rommies have been shafted in the past three give away events, but there's been quite a lot of free stuff handed out.
I haven't forgotten those giveaways and nothing I've said could lead you to that conclusion nor is your comment relevant to this discussion. I never said "Whaaa I want free stuffs! or "Cryptic never gives me free stuffs!"
We're talking about day to day end game gear, day to day ability to earn EC and Dilithium. We're talking about the possibility of a casual player in STO to be able to earn enough of these currencies through the free to play model to buy something in the rep store, c-store etc.
Comments
No matter how many bugs/glitches they fix, there will always be more since the game's code gets updated every time they bring in something new. They do try to fix as many things as they can but also have to balance it with bring something new. No game is bug free.
As every Zen buys less and less dilithium, more and more people are convinced the amount isn't worth their real-life dollars.
Slowing the faucets while simultaneously raising the drains is going to drive some people away (less dil generated), lower many people's daily farming capacity (less dil generated), reduce many players' stockpiles (less dil in the system), and consume all of some players' capacity (what they create is almost immediately destroyed).
People's perception of what Dil's value is (in the sense of time taken to earn) is going to rise, since they are spending more 'time units' in acquiring them, they will expect the purchasing power to rise and net them more Zen.
Point being, with Dil supply constricting rapidly, it becomes a "seller's market" but this game isn't a life necessity. The playerbase's reaction to this in Dil pricing is going to make at least some of their Zen-buyer whales close their wallets.
Yes, it's so good that Cryptic won't implement it.
It benefits players too much.
STO Screenshot Archive
Just play TOR. Its a better game with a better free to play model if you invest to getting Preffered (Just buy the Expansion).
Than you can simple grind out credits and buy all the "f2p restrictions" off save the moneycap.
That's the only real TOR F2P restriction, the 350k money cap. (Though that's not as little as it is in STO, the most expensive items in TOR range from 2mil to 12 mil for the rarest of stuff).
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
I have to say that unfortunately since launch I've been a LTS so i cannot relate to a sub or f2p aspect
of the game.
I'll always be able to leave for a time then return later as long as the servers are still up. Because of that i want the game to last forever and I'm not concerned about free stuff for me at all. For that reason I'd rather not see the unlimited free respecs as it could be game changing but a free one per month maybe. Increased EC anything would only add to the issues with the EC markets as the true casual player would be hurt here.
Faster run speed would be game changing in events and PvP. Queue times I'm up for. As I see it a LTS pays less than a Sub in the long term. The game is very much f2p as the content and iconic ships are free to earn as well as earning epic gear as other f2p players in other games can only use rare items.
The dil market is based off cost of pay to play market items in the store, the need for dil in game and the cost of items in the exchange. A separate market, the lobi store which i also think should include the items from old lock boxes at a significantly higher price than the other items in the lobi store. This makes the chance to win in the box still has value based on what it will cost in the lobi.
Additionally there needs to be ways to earn or buy lobi in game.
Lobi for dil would aid the dil market as a means for people to earn lobi faster and the ability to sell more dil and therefore more Zen. The ability to buy some if not all items from the lock boxes from the lobi market would decrease the cost of these items and boxes in the exchange but may increase or decrease keys,if dil can be sold for lobi then that would likely decrease keys value in the exchange.
This IMO would more benefit f2p over subs but would help all.
I'm hesitant to call "TOR" a rival MMORPG to STO. A competitor, yes, in the same light as how TERA/****/Scarlet Blade/RIFT/WoW/etc are also competitors.
Still, in response to OP I still consider STO to have a "Generous Free to Play Model" because the road to earning ZEN for the cash shop is still pretty straight forward: Get Dilithium, exchange for ZEN on the Dilithium Exchange, get cash shop item. All the recent changes just makes me a better shopper (wait for sales, spend Dilithium smartly, group up with friends on Dil collection runs once in a while, etc).
I guess you can say I have patience and am not intimidated by Dilithium sinks.
(UFP) Ragnar
Actually it would benefit cryptic too. Lobi can be earned via play during featured episode reruns, but there are few of those. This would inspire key sales far more than rerunning the old lockboxes does. Plus a t rewards both casuals (buy for ec off the auctionhouse) and whales (get with keyslobi and sell extras on the ah).
This is one of those rare triple win ideas.
So 99%, or most of the content in DR can be done in ships we have now? with existing gear? What about the new DR queues and the new DR difficulties?
One the one hand *yay* we can do most of the content with existing ships and gear so we need to upgrade. On the other hand...oh no not again.
Can it be done? Yep.
Will it be done? Realistically, no.
For example, 15k useful DPS per player is the amount of damage one has to do in order not to fail the 15 minute timer on ISA - so only the top 10% or so STO players will actually be able to do an Advanced STF without upgrading.
Today's ISE pugs will pretty much never complete ISA without massive improvements in player quality, simply due to how high the minimum DPS bar has been raised.
Umm... I dunno what World of War.craft you were playing, but WoW was grinding, on top of grinding, on top of a little more grinding... And then, just for good measure, grinding...
I played for about 8 years before suspending my account... I would not call myself a 'hard-core' raider, but in that time I did raid with some very strong raiding guilds...
The entire process was one grind after another... Heroics to get you into Raids... Reputation Factions to get you into raids... Raids to get you into the next tier or raiding...
And then there was the farming for gold so you could stock up on supplies for each raid... Potentially hundreds of gold per week in flasks, potions and new enchants and gems for your latest acquisitions...
And if you weren't raiding, you were grinding away in the same old Heroics or through the same quests over and over (I wish I had killed Mankrik's wife in the end!) while leveling alts...
WoW was nothing but grind... STO has nothing on WoW when it comes to grinding...
I agree with this person. As a F2P player myself I've learned to play the DL Exchange to get what I want out of the C-Store. For example I grind the big events like the Crystaline Entity to get DL if I want something big, or I just save up over time. I'm not concerned about upgrading everything right off the bat. It gets done when it gets done.
If you get Zen from the DL Exchange, you learn the patterns. Prices go up when new things are announced like ships, prices go down when there's more need for Dilithium than Zen. Its a living market. Knowing when to cash in is key. And considering that everything short of Veteran rewards is available to even a F2P player with a plan... it really is generous and I aplaude Cryptic for doing so.
If you want something... set a goal and work towards it. Not everything has to be done now.
But is that not the point of the new high-difficulty STF's? Is greater difficulty in STF's not what a large (not majority, but large enough) portion of the community have been wanting for some time? I know I'm looking forward to something that is going to present a real challenge...
All story episodes should be doable in a basic T5... If people are struggling with this a T5U, or even a T6, will not necessarily help them, as their ship is not the problem...
They will also never improve unless presented with a challenge that forces them to adapt, seek advice, learn and get better...
I know that might be asking alot, but when current Elites are so easy that I topped DPS on Crystalline Entity Elite with my newest 50 (a Reman Sci in a T5 Ha'nom running all low level gear) on the second run through, something needs to be done to force people to learn...
A nice way will be to give players 1 lobi crystal every certain ammount of play time , let's say 1 hour. This way you will be granted 1 lobi cristal for free if you play 1 hour and so on. I dont know why something like this is not implemented. And this is done in severals mmorpgs.. btw.
But when we talk about the needs for money, I think there are better ways to do it.
The idea of retiring old box items to the lobi store is creative and I would open more new boxes for the lobi to get some of the older box only ships this way.
And while I am a LTS and I am not asking for a free gimme, I think the disparity of silver and gold needs to be greater. My reasoning is to give a better reason to get a subscription. It needs to be small, ungame breaking, but measurable. An idea example: +1000 dil refining/day. For someone that gets dil easily this is an incentive for the sub. The items you get from gold and LTS should be marked better than silver to make them worth it. I suggest the refining cap as something that can easily go away if you stop subscribing. But an LTS needs an extra hook. Sure you get an android, a special species type, and a vet ship. But all of those are being bested by things you can get with a silver account. So as an incentive for an LTS over a gold slot. Borg racials do not cost trait slots. And/or two extra trait slots that gold and silver do not have. This way they can put in more of these new traits without losing out or having to consider as hard as a gold or silver account does. Will it make a LTS more powerful than a regular account? Maybe a little, it has the potential and with that potential more people will want to fork out the cash to get them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
and not everyone wants to get better. lots of players just play to play. their casuals just here to get their star trek fix for a couple of hours before getting back to the regular life. they're not all here to challenge themselves. life can be challenging enough.
The featured episode relays give 500 lobi in one shot. That is very nice as you can miss half the event and still afford a complete space set. But it is deliberately just a tad below what you need for a lobi ship so you either buy a few keys or save up. Very nice for cryptic and for players.
Also, sto gives away scads of free costumes, ships, and other items year rounds via the different events. I made a free account last year just so I could track all the free giveaways and in less than 1 year it already has over $100 in stuff from cryptic. Mostly in the form of the free ships (gorn science, ferengi na far shuttle, etc) they just recently handed out.
What I like about sto's model is that it gives more free stuff to the person who only logs in for a short time. The 1 lobi per hour or 2 hours model means most of the reward goes to the hardcore gamer who is logged in all the time and casuals get almost nothing. I really don't like those models.
Because it's possible doesn't mean it's likely or even in the realm of happening ever. It's possible for me to have coitus with marina sirtis with michael dorn watching but will it ever happen? No! Just like it's possible for me to grind out enough dil to buy a c-store ship. Is it possible? Sure. Would it ever happen? No!
So to say that this F2P model is a good one because of "a possibility" available to me is some kind of bull plop that just doesn't hold water.
All we've seen is more time gates and more grind and like Virus said "Delta Rising: Casual Dying"
My main point to my OP is that I'd love to see better perks for Gold and Lifers to balance against all the recent changes in the game and I think it would be a great way for Cryptic to get a more steady revenue stream. Just seems like they leave so much money "on the table" so to speak and would rather gouge us on a few things instead of providing value on many things.
Still, lobi cristals are the hardest currency to adquire and limited only to lockboxes. I think it is about time to change that.
And i dont care about cryptic giving so many free things. I consider that seeing how filled is this game of non solved and ignored bugs, and glitchs everywhere, and seeing that no efforts are being directed to fix these things, everything they give me for free is just a compensation, nothing more. But people will see em as a real gifts, and thats precisely what cryptic wants, they feeling happy to keep players , happy lol. But again, any other company could do the same thing, and they will be in their right. Of course, another thing is how much you care about your customers.
That's a very selective memory. You didn't get the free na far shuttle? Nebula? Marauder flight deck cruiser? Account wide horta combat pet? Oddysey and bortasque costumes? All good things costume? Gladius escort?
I know rommies have been shafted in the past three give away events, but there's been quite a lot of free stuff handed out.
I would like to know what consider you "regularly". Lobi events are once in a year, in fact i cant remember if this year we had one btw. And its about 15 lobi every day per account. I think the maximum ammount of lobis in the even you can gather was about 200. Or something like that. That is NOTHING. Being aware of the excessive prices of lobi stuff, you still will need to open thousands of lockboxes to just save enough to buy a lobi ship, and all of that done in let's say a year or more ??? so, you can buy a lobi ship, lets say once every year, probably more?? lol.
It is ridiculous.
and math genius, each lockbox gives a minimum of 4 lobi, so to get a lobi ship you'd need to open a maximum of 200 lockboxes not 'thousands.' and if you opened 200 boxes you'd have millions of ecs worth of stuff to sell that you didn't need; and you could use that to buy keys and open even more lockboxes for free, getting even more lobi store stuff.
I haven't forgotten those giveaways and nothing I've said could lead you to that conclusion nor is your comment relevant to this discussion. I never said "Whaaa I want free stuffs! or "Cryptic never gives me free stuffs!"
We're talking about day to day end game gear, day to day ability to earn EC and Dilithium. We're talking about the possibility of a casual player in STO to be able to earn enough of these currencies through the free to play model to buy something in the rep store, c-store etc.