No it doesn't. What makes it true is the fact that it is true. My acceptance of it being true doesn't affect it either way, nor does another persons disbelief affect its validity. It is what it is. :rolleyes:
then perhaps you should add something to your assertion, you know...to support it. Or at the very least, to address my points.
Saying 'it's correct because I say it's correct' Is useless in the context of anything approaching a discussion.
It's very odd to me that people are so vehemently against more varied content.
"Can we get more KDF Stuff?"
"No, FFS stop asking. I dont want it!"
It's even more funny when the word "entitlement" is used, because these are people saying they don't want someone else to have content THEY don't want.
More options>less options.
No, the funny thing is, that to some of us that's what we see the "Stop adding fed stuff and add KDF stuff" brigade saying.
I have seen very few players who prefer to play fed actually ever say "don't add KDF stuff because we want more fed stuff" ever, whilst the forums are full to the brim of posts basically saying "stop adding fed stuff, we want KDF stuff!"
Even when they do add KDF stuff, the reply from the "only KDF are good" group of players is to whine and complain about it. Then to use insults based upon fictional races in order to try to show how they're not "carebears" and how they are "so right and thoroughly Klingon".
To some of us the answer to "why not more KDF stuff?" is simply that those who WANT to play KDF are in a minority, and those willing to pay REAL MONEY for KDF stuff are a minority within that minority...
Personally, I have characters in ALL of the factions, and that way get to enjoy the entire game that is available, rather than building artificial fences based on some fictional idea of honour blah blah blah. Because news flash, when they add new content for feds, ALL players get new content, as ALL players have access to playing feds. Just some inviduals have built an imaginary wall, driven entirely by fiction.... I am as happy with KDF items and content, as Romulan items and content as Fed items and content, as I play them all.
No, the funny thing is, that to some of us that's what we see the "Stop adding fed stuff and add KDF stuff" brigade saying.
I have seen very few players who prefer to play fed actually ever say "don't add KDF stuff because we want more fed stuff" ever, whilst the forums are full to the brim of posts basically saying "stop adding fed stuff, we want KDF stuff!"
Even when they do add KDF stuff, the reply from the "only KDF are good" group of players is to whine and complain about it. Then to use insults based upon fictional races in order to try to show how they're not "carebears" and how they are "so right and thoroughly Klingon".
To some of us the answer to "why not more KDF stuff?" is simply that those who WANT to play KDF are in a minority, and those willing to pay REAL MONEY for KDF stuff are a minority within that minority...
Personally, I have characters in ALL of the factions, and that way get to enjoy the entire game that is available, rather than building artificial fences based on some fictional idea of honour blah blah blah. Because news flash, when they add new content for feds, ALL players get new content, as ALL players have access to playing feds. Just some inviduals have built an imaginary wall, driven entirely by fiction.... I am as happy with KDF items and content, as Romulan items and content as Fed items and content, as I play them all.
How many people consistently ask for KDF- specific incentives to be added Fedside? Cloaks, Plasmonic Leech, etc.
The devs caving on those whines are patently removing the incentives to play KDF. If someone cries foul, you get the same few people using the same few arguments why there isn't anything wrong with that. Frankly, that's BS.
Why don't people WANT to play KDF? No one here can answer for everyone, although I see many doing it anyway. What can't be ignored is that there are incentives in place NOT to play KDF. Not admitting that is ignorant at best.
Anyone taking the time to actually look at what people are asking for, in terms of their KDF characters, would see that there are numerous well thought out suggestions. C Store ships, fleet versions, and revamps of oft-hated ships included.
And some do have this imaginary RP(?) wall going on, though I suspect a lot of it is directed at the people saying "Stop whining because KDF is losing incentives/players because yet another thing got ported over. And LOL I dont want KDF stuff." Just look at the Klingon sections of the forum.
And I bet they sold a LOT of Vandals to KDF/Rommies last week, for just the reasons you refer to.
Yep. Bought one.
Also bought the B'rel Retro fit 'cuz it's a BoP. My purchase hinged on being able to grind for enough dilithium ore to cover at least 75% of the Zen needed to purchase the ship the night before the sale ended.
No, the funny thing is, that to some of us that's what we see the "Stop adding fed stuff and add KDF stuff" brigade saying.
I have seen very few players who prefer to play fed actually ever say "don't add KDF stuff because we want more fed stuff" ever, whilst the forums are full to the brim of posts basically saying "stop adding fed stuff, we want KDF stuff!"
See, that's the opinion I find to be ridiculous... not yours, the idea that one shouldn't make stuff for Faction A or C because Faction B wants stuff.
All I'd like to see is more balanced offerings, where...
adding something for the Feds means also adding something for the KDF and Roms...
while adding something for the Roms means also adding something for the Feds and KDF...
and adding something for the KDF means also adding something for the Feds and Roms...
all in equal measure.
Not offering 5 ships to 2, or trading an Aceton Assimilator from a 1500 Zen ship vs. a Sabotage Probe from a 2000 Zen ship vs. an Enhanced Plasma Manifold from a 500 Zen ship (that has an equivalent in the Enhanced Induction Coil, and that is available to the Roms anyway with the version dependent on ally faction) as the cross-faction lock box consoles. The decision to heavily weight offerings to one faction at a time diminishes the company's ability to capitalize on multi-faction players and creates a disincentive to multi-faction play.
Of course, in practice it's not the KDF or Roms that are getting the extra offerings at the cost of Fed offerings. Thus the thread(s) relating to the imbalance.
Even when they do add KDF stuff, the reply from the "only KDF are good" group of players is to whine and complain about it. Then to use insults based upon fictional races in order to try to show how they're not "carebears" and how they are "so right and thoroughly Klingon".
To some of us the answer to "why not more KDF stuff?" is simply that those who WANT to play KDF are in a minority, and those willing to pay REAL MONEY for KDF stuff are a minority within that minority...
The thing is, their imbalanced offerings work against them there... by having such limited offerings for the KDF and Rom factions, it means that the incentive to spend actual money is vastly diminished. While the Operations Pack is a great deal for a Fed-only or Fed-main player, it only has two ships each for the KDF and Roms; that means that there is little reason to purchase the pack as its contents for KDF and Rom players are so limited. At the same time, individual purchase of the contents in the C-Store allows KDF and Rom players to purchase over time, allowing for the use of the Dilithium Exchange to acquire the more limited offerings at no individual cost. The plus side of this is that it allows for a longer profit stream since the Dilithium Exchange is funded by continuing infusions of Zen from spenders and Dilithium from grinders, but the down side is that it reduces overspending on packs whose contents one may or may not make use of in full. It's harder to get folks to make impulse buys over a longer period of time, and for that they have the lock boxes.
My own spending on STO has been drastically reduced compared to other MMOs I've played in the past simply because of the limited offerings available to the half of our combined Fleets that I've chosen to help out... if there was more to buy, I might actually feel the need to do so rather than simply splitting my Dilithium between personal, Fleet, and Dil Exchange. It's not that I'm unwilling to spend money on a balanced game, it's that I don't have one here to spend money on.
Personally, I have characters in ALL of the factions, and that way get to enjoy the entire game that is available, rather than building artificial fences based on some fictional idea of honour blah blah blah. Because news flash, when they add new content for feds, ALL players get new content, as ALL players have access to playing feds. Just some inviduals have built an imaginary wall, driven entirely by fiction.... I am as happy with KDF items and content, as Romulan items and content as Fed items and content, as I play them all.
The imaginary wall was built by the devs, and enforced by your faction selection at character creation. I too have characters in ALL factions, and I find it silly that at T5 I can choose from 26 Fed ships and only 12 each KDF or Rom ships in the C-Store, and at T6 I can choose from 5 Fed ships and only 2 each KDF or Rom ships in the C-Store. I too am as happy with KDF and Rom items and content as I am with Fed items and content... that's why I'd like more of those things to spend money on. :P
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Well, Romulan-KDF get most of the perks of being Romulan themselves. (easy contraband generation, Klingon consoles, etc) while generally having better ships.
The KDF-revamp was pretty nifty-but it was a bit of a half measure. It made the leveling process much better, and they got rid of that stupid "you have to level a Fed character to even think of playing a KDF character" mechanic, but offered little in the way of bringing the KDF up to Fed level (new ships, costumes, etc).
And yet, if the "if you built it, they will come" idea was correct, then there should have been a significant increase in the player base, half measure or no.
Well, I can tell you don't know what you are talking about.
The NPC ships already have shield interactions, fire points, impulse/nacelle trails, damage effects, etc in addition to textures and models done-all of that information can be reused. It'd mostly be a copy-paste job of entering model/texture etc references over to a Player-character ship template and then editing fun stuff like number/type of console, boff layout and hull points, etc.
The ship would not need to be rebuilt from scratch. They already have a significant amount of their work done for them in regard to making NPC ships flyable.
Technically true, but the result would be totally uncustomizable.
But... I personally dislike Klingons as a concept. Sure they're interesting.... but I'd much rather play an Orion.
And yet, if the "if you built it, they will come" idea was correct, then there should have been a significant increase in the player base, half measure or no.
Technically true, but the result would be totally uncustomizable.
But... I personally dislike Klingons as a concept. Sure they're interesting.... but I'd much rather play an Orion.
Well, the KDF (and Romulans) still don't have nearly as much content as the Federation.
As for the Romulans, supposedly they were wildly successful-to the point that it's been pointed out that it feels like the Rommies have more players than the Klingons....despite Klingons generally being more popular in Trek fandom. But then again, the Romulans have more content than the KDF in this game...
personally I suspect that the success of the Rom revamp vs the mini Klingon revamp in no small part has to do with all the shiny new toys that LoR brought to the table (for Romulans only, natch) vs what the Klingon revamp brought to the table LOR brought numerous new ships, ground equipment, costume options, new mechanics, and powerful bridge officers...it showed that there very much was a desire to play non-fed after all (despite how butchered the Roms are from the source material) The problem is, Cryptic hasn't really moved to support them that much since then.
As for you being a fan of the Orion ships...you are probably aware that Cryptic didn't bother to put much in the way of customization even for the flyable ones....so probably not much of an issue.
My Fleet Corsair's only customization options are the windows....lol!
And yet, if the "if you built it, they will come" idea was correct, then there should have been a significant increase in the player base, half measure or no.
er.....only true if the saying "if you do a half-assed job, half of them will come" is also true.
Which I'm pretty sure isn't true.
I do agree that the LoR expansion put a lot of very good content on the KDF side.
But the momentum, the sales pitch, was all about the Romulans.
And fair enough, because that was where the money was.
However, I do honestly think that an x.5 season, devoted entirely to the KDF, is what is required.
Furthermore, as I suggested earlier, one can consider the KDF to be the great missed cash opportunity for Cryptic in the game.
Klingons are, if not out, then certainly handed their hat.
Seriously, Klingons were the badasses, way back when. Then you got replaced by OP Roms (see my sig). You've pretty much been abandoned. Klingon content is pretty much a stub now.
Not sure Cryptic is entirely to blame, though. They tried, with the Dyson stuff, bringing Worf in and all; but no one cared. Best just to roll a Rom, and get it over with.
actually, they did NOT try. Worf's appeal is UNIVERSAL, and the Dyson ships were copy/pasta and honestly neither that good stat-wise, nor did they LOOK that good with that eggshell-white-and-pink layout of theirs.
"Trying" implies concepts like Effort and work. The guy who put those in for KDF "Departed the company for other opportunities".
All I'm saying is, introducing Worf apparently didn't get ppl excited enough about the Klink again. I remember them advertising with "New Klingon content!" But, at this point, Klingons are so far behind, in number of ships, cool traits, cool boffs, etc., that apparently not enough ppl took the bait.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not liking it. I have a Klingon alt myself (also, abandoned). And I respect those early adopters, who invested in rolling Klingon toons, as a leap of faith. But honestly, I don't think they're gonna do anything with it any more.
Furthermore, as I suggested earlier, one can consider the KDF to be the great missed cash opportunity for Cryptic in the game.
There's money in those batleth........
Even if the Klingon side had the same amount of ships, costumes, missions etc the Fed player base would still be much larger than the Klingon one.
In the past Cryptic has tried to motivate more players into creating a Klingon char. Stronger ships, battle cloak, raiding, more missions starting from lvl 1, marauding, much more dilithium farming missions... They have the numbers, we do not. If they think it's not worth spending more than 1/6 of their time on creating Klingon content they most likely have very good (economical) reasons for it.
Even if the Klingon side had the same amount of ships, costumes, missions etc the Fed player base would still be much larger than the Klingon one.
In the past Cryptic has tried to motivate more players into creating a Klingon char. Stronger ships, battle cloak, raiding, more missions starting from lvl 1, marauding, much more dilithium farming missions... They have the numbers, we do not. If they think it's not worth spending more than 1/6 of their time on creating Klingon content they most likely have very good (economical) reasons for it.
Well we can't exactly tell for sure because the KDF has never been on par content-wise with the Federation, much less at a content advantage.
Do I think that Fed would be more popular if all faction content was equal? possibly, but one thing's for certain-the KDF and Roms would certainly be a *lot* more popular, and their players wouldn't (rightly) feel like they are constantly getting shafted in the content department.
Flanking was delayed six months after the Breen Raider debuted, in a reduced form. WE got a combat pet from a mission drop (which was and is quite nice), got a raincheck with a bottomless due-date on the Fleet Negh, got to see the anticipated release of the first NEW ship for KDF in three years delayed so they could rush the Avenger (with no prior announcement) out, then delay the Mogh's release for another fiscal quarter (Three Months, folks.) In that same time, there were monthly releases of new ships and capabilities for Romulans and the Federation.)
First, I wouldn't even call the Mogh a new ship as it is just the KDF version of the Avenger, second I'd like to know what monthly release of new Romulan ships and capabilities you speak of? The Romulans have been around for a year and a half...it's been over a year since we got a original ship. After LoR was released we only ever saw two new ships...
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Well we can't exactly tell for sure because the KDF has never been on par content-wise with the Federation, much less at a content advantage.
True we can't be 100% sure but close. Judging from other MMOs I would make 3 statements:
1. Most people prefer to play on the "good" side.
2. If the game is based on a franchise, most prefer to play the more prominently shown faction
3. Once players have invested time and money into one faction they are unlikely to do the same again with other factions (not to the same extent at least)
All of these point into the same direction. That's why there will always be more Fed players than Klingon ones.
Do I think that Fed would be more popular if all faction content was equal? possibly, but one thing's for certain-the KDF and Roms would certainly be a *lot* more popular, and their players wouldn't (rightly) feel like they are constantly getting shafted in the content department.
By putting in more Klingon and Romulan content you would make those players happier. You might even motivate some players to create their first Klingon/Romulan character. But Cryptic basically has 2 options. Either they take a very high risk by creating lots of content for Klingons/Romulans only with potentially serious consequences if their strategy fails, or they can play safe. Create another Fed ship, knowing exactly what the cash inflow is going to be.
Even if the Klingon side had the same amount of ships, costumes, missions etc the Fed player base would still be much larger than the Klingon one.
In the past Cryptic has tried to motivate more players into creating a Klingon char. Stronger ships, battle cloak, raiding, more missions starting from lvl 1, marauding, much more dilithium farming missions... They have the numbers, we do not. If they think it's not worth spending more than 1/6 of their time on creating Klingon content they most likely have very good (economical) reasons for it.
Stronger ships? Where? The Bortasqu' is inferior to the Odyssey in just about every way other than Tac consoles, but with T5U that will change.
All you have Raptor choice wise is full of tac slots...or one less ensign tac. Sci wise it's obvious who wins there. Cruiser/BattleCruiser...well KDF was doing better till the Avenger. Carriers...KDF has it better in 2 hangar carriers while Feds completely blow the KDF away in single hangar ships.
So having better carriers means the KDF have more powerful ships? I don't really count raiders as a lot of people avoid them with how fragile they are...and moot anyways as Feds are getting those as well.
KDF has been treated like trash from the start...they were an after thought...and now that Romulans have sold they're an afterthought as well.
They put as little effort in as possible to the KDF and RR in fact it's obvious they intentionally tank them so they have a excuse to do little work on them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, they made the Bortasqu' a shoddy ship and when it didn't sell they came out and said KDF doesn't sell so we wont be working on them much. Then the same thing happens with the Ar'kif...they make it some odd mashup of a ship wanting to be Engineering but doesn't have enough slots for A2B and give it 3 sci console slots even though it's weak on sci. Not to mention they make another Tac based Warbird when Romulans are drowning in Tac based Warbirds. They wonder why it didn't sell with it's lousy build and Romulan tac based ships outnumber the other two types by more than 2 to 1.
Let us look at T6...what did the KDF get? A Raptor and a BC, neither of which the KDF are completely lacking of. The RR got yet ANOTHER Tac ship and a BC...exact same as what the KDF gets. the Qib and Aelahl have similar stats, the Faeht is almost a copy of the T'var...the only semi original ship the the Mat'Ha and that's because as I pointed out above all the Raptors are pretty much identical so it isn't hard to break that mold. Science is where KDF and RR are hurting the most yet we just get stuck with the same junk we have a ton of already.
Yet the Feds get a ship for each major type, in fact for 2 out of 3 of them they get 2 each.
Of course it isn't worth working on the KDF or RR, because they intentionally tanked both of them...they make them suck and act all surprised when people don't want to play them. Sure the KDF had some nice toys but the Feds got them all, and now they're doing it to the RR.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
True we can't be 100% sure but close. Judging from other MMOs I would make 3 statements:
1. Most people prefer to play on the "good" side.
2. If the game is based on a franchise, most prefer to play the more prominently shown faction
3. Once players have invested time and money into one faction they are unlikely to do the same again with other factions (not to the same extent at least)
All of these point into the same direction. That's why there will always be more Fed players than Klingon ones.
By putting in more Klingon and Romulan content you would make those players happier. You might even motivate some players to create their first Klingon/Romulan character. But Cryptic basically has 2 options. Either they take a very high risk by creating lots of content for Klingons/Romulans only with potentially serious consequences if their strategy fails, or they can play safe. Create another Fed ship, knowing exactly what the cash inflow is going to be.
As I said before. Cryptic knows the numbers.
Yes, the Federation might be the more innately more profitable, but the way Cryptic treats its ancilliary content, it's like a sandwitch without bread. Cryptic always makes a beeline right for whatever's the most lucrative at a given time at the expense of all else.
it's a very short term profit paradigm IMO, and relies on keeping players chasing the bouncing ball without really developing anything fully.
These half measures are just going to serve to further foster resentment among players who use that content.
Federation stuff will always be more profitable. That's just the way it is. And, surely, some people ONLY play to make a xxxCapt Kurkxxx or p1card character.
There really isn't much argument against that. However...
In any video game, people will want variety. Unfortunately, KDF was poorly conceived from the beginning. It was like "Sure, you technically CAN play KDF, but you have to jump through x hoop and wait until x" in order to do so.
By the time KDF started to catch up, and be more viable, everyone had fleets, friend lists, etc. that they would have to completely ignore in order to play KDF side. Already, that's an incentive not to.
Besides having to start a fleet completely from scratch, there are less ships available, further incentive to stay put.
So there are less people willing to give it a try. More new people enter the game. They hear people saying "KDF sucks" out of habit, and see that there are far less people KDF side.
The more that time goes by without Cryptic doing something about it, the worse it gets...until you see an expansion, with new, shiny ships for the expansion. Will a new player pick 5 ships or 2? More or less total ships? If you can do everything that makes KDF attractive without leaving Fedside, why do it?
IMO, they missed a big opportunity with the expansion. They could have done something like "Delta Fleets" and have them cross-faction, for those characters over 50. They could have had "Delta Ships" that are neither Federation, Klingon, or Romulan, and had those available cross-faction. Bad ideas? Maybe. But better than doing absolutely nothing, and just using "There are less people" as a copout.
As for you being a fan of the Orion ships...you are probably aware that Cryptic didn't bother to put much in the way of customization even for the flyable ones....so probably not much of an issue.
My Fleet Corsair's only customization options are the windows....lol!
I never said I liked their ships(although I do like them, I don't use them). I'm more a fan of the Orion race.
Parsing Stahl's comments over the period in question, it's revealed that the 1-20 missions added were a "work of love"-that means done on the side, without official support. Note that DStahl "Left for other opportunities" shortly after.
Kinda like Gozer did.
"Left for other opportunities" is Management speak for "Fired." It's the line you get from HR when you're calling about a job applicant that they got rid of, because saying outright "Fired" or "Fired for Cause" is opn grounds for a lawsuit for slander. (Or libel, in the case of printed material)
Except they didn't... we KNOW where Stahl went. It was a transfer to a different game at the same studio.
This beyond the difference in available hull types, this is straight tracking of traits. The mechanism is built and intended to make KDF the worst option you can take.
you don't really understand how ship traits work do you? two things: 1; 2 of the fed ships have the same trait. 2; there are multiple ways to get traits, one of which is automatic based on leveling.
i cannot fathom that making new kdf ships is less profitable than making the Aquarius or steam runner or any of the new ships.
Other than the avenger I haven't seen anyone flying anything faction-new and I play every single day.
Comments
Saying 'it's correct because I say it's correct' Is useless in the context of anything approaching a discussion.
No, the funny thing is, that to some of us that's what we see the "Stop adding fed stuff and add KDF stuff" brigade saying.
I have seen very few players who prefer to play fed actually ever say "don't add KDF stuff because we want more fed stuff" ever, whilst the forums are full to the brim of posts basically saying "stop adding fed stuff, we want KDF stuff!"
Even when they do add KDF stuff, the reply from the "only KDF are good" group of players is to whine and complain about it. Then to use insults based upon fictional races in order to try to show how they're not "carebears" and how they are "so right and thoroughly Klingon".
To some of us the answer to "why not more KDF stuff?" is simply that those who WANT to play KDF are in a minority, and those willing to pay REAL MONEY for KDF stuff are a minority within that minority...
Personally, I have characters in ALL of the factions, and that way get to enjoy the entire game that is available, rather than building artificial fences based on some fictional idea of honour blah blah blah. Because news flash, when they add new content for feds, ALL players get new content, as ALL players have access to playing feds. Just some inviduals have built an imaginary wall, driven entirely by fiction.... I am as happy with KDF items and content, as Romulan items and content as Fed items and content, as I play them all.
How many people consistently ask for KDF- specific incentives to be added Fedside? Cloaks, Plasmonic Leech, etc.
The devs caving on those whines are patently removing the incentives to play KDF. If someone cries foul, you get the same few people using the same few arguments why there isn't anything wrong with that. Frankly, that's BS.
Why don't people WANT to play KDF? No one here can answer for everyone, although I see many doing it anyway. What can't be ignored is that there are incentives in place NOT to play KDF. Not admitting that is ignorant at best.
Anyone taking the time to actually look at what people are asking for, in terms of their KDF characters, would see that there are numerous well thought out suggestions. C Store ships, fleet versions, and revamps of oft-hated ships included.
And some do have this imaginary RP(?) wall going on, though I suspect a lot of it is directed at the people saying "Stop whining because KDF is losing incentives/players because yet another thing got ported over. And LOL I dont want KDF stuff." Just look at the Klingon sections of the forum.
Yep. Bought one.
Also bought the B'rel Retro fit 'cuz it's a BoP. My purchase hinged on being able to grind for enough dilithium ore to cover at least 75% of the Zen needed to purchase the ship the night before the sale ended.
Mechanical incentives should not exist, period.
If having a mechanical advantage is the reason you're playing KDF, then clearly you don't actually care about the KDF, you just want that edge.
All I'd like to see is more balanced offerings, where...
adding something for the Feds means also adding something for the KDF and Roms...
while adding something for the Roms means also adding something for the Feds and KDF...
and adding something for the KDF means also adding something for the Feds and Roms...
all in equal measure.
Not offering 5 ships to 2, or trading an Aceton Assimilator from a 1500 Zen ship vs. a Sabotage Probe from a 2000 Zen ship vs. an Enhanced Plasma Manifold from a 500 Zen ship (that has an equivalent in the Enhanced Induction Coil, and that is available to the Roms anyway with the version dependent on ally faction) as the cross-faction lock box consoles. The decision to heavily weight offerings to one faction at a time diminishes the company's ability to capitalize on multi-faction players and creates a disincentive to multi-faction play.
Of course, in practice it's not the KDF or Roms that are getting the extra offerings at the cost of Fed offerings. Thus the thread(s) relating to the imbalance.
The thing is, their imbalanced offerings work against them there... by having such limited offerings for the KDF and Rom factions, it means that the incentive to spend actual money is vastly diminished. While the Operations Pack is a great deal for a Fed-only or Fed-main player, it only has two ships each for the KDF and Roms; that means that there is little reason to purchase the pack as its contents for KDF and Rom players are so limited. At the same time, individual purchase of the contents in the C-Store allows KDF and Rom players to purchase over time, allowing for the use of the Dilithium Exchange to acquire the more limited offerings at no individual cost. The plus side of this is that it allows for a longer profit stream since the Dilithium Exchange is funded by continuing infusions of Zen from spenders and Dilithium from grinders, but the down side is that it reduces overspending on packs whose contents one may or may not make use of in full. It's harder to get folks to make impulse buys over a longer period of time, and for that they have the lock boxes.
My own spending on STO has been drastically reduced compared to other MMOs I've played in the past simply because of the limited offerings available to the half of our combined Fleets that I've chosen to help out... if there was more to buy, I might actually feel the need to do so rather than simply splitting my Dilithium between personal, Fleet, and Dil Exchange. It's not that I'm unwilling to spend money on a balanced game, it's that I don't have one here to spend money on.
The imaginary wall was built by the devs, and enforced by your faction selection at character creation. I too have characters in ALL factions, and I find it silly that at T5 I can choose from 26 Fed ships and only 12 each KDF or Rom ships in the C-Store, and at T6 I can choose from 5 Fed ships and only 2 each KDF or Rom ships in the C-Store. I too am as happy with KDF and Rom items and content as I am with Fed items and content... that's why I'd like more of those things to spend money on. :P
I do believe you've missed the point entirely.
But... I personally dislike Klingons as a concept. Sure they're interesting.... but I'd much rather play an Orion.
My character Tsin'xing
As for the Romulans, supposedly they were wildly successful-to the point that it's been pointed out that it feels like the Rommies have more players than the Klingons....despite Klingons generally being more popular in Trek fandom. But then again, the Romulans have more content than the KDF in this game...
personally I suspect that the success of the Rom revamp vs the mini Klingon revamp in no small part has to do with all the shiny new toys that LoR brought to the table (for Romulans only, natch) vs what the Klingon revamp brought to the table LOR brought numerous new ships, ground equipment, costume options, new mechanics, and powerful bridge officers...it showed that there very much was a desire to play non-fed after all (despite how butchered the Roms are from the source material) The problem is, Cryptic hasn't really moved to support them that much since then.
As for you being a fan of the Orion ships...you are probably aware that Cryptic didn't bother to put much in the way of customization even for the flyable ones....so probably not much of an issue.
My Fleet Corsair's only customization options are the windows....lol!
er.....only true if the saying "if you do a half-assed job, half of them will come" is also true.
Which I'm pretty sure isn't true.
I do agree that the LoR expansion put a lot of very good content on the KDF side.
But the momentum, the sales pitch, was all about the Romulans.
And fair enough, because that was where the money was.
However, I do honestly think that an x.5 season, devoted entirely to the KDF, is what is required.
Furthermore, as I suggested earlier, one can consider the KDF to be the great missed cash opportunity for Cryptic in the game.
There's money in those batleth........
Seriously, Klingons were the badasses, way back when. Then you got replaced by OP Roms (see my sig). You've pretty much been abandoned. Klingon content is pretty much a stub now.
Not sure Cryptic is entirely to blame, though. They tried, with the Dyson stuff, bringing Worf in and all; but no one cared. Best just to roll a Rom, and get it over with.
All I'm saying is, introducing Worf apparently didn't get ppl excited enough about the Klink again. I remember them advertising with "New Klingon content!" But, at this point, Klingons are so far behind, in number of ships, cool traits, cool boffs, etc., that apparently not enough ppl took the bait.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not liking it. I have a Klingon alt myself (also, abandoned). And I respect those early adopters, who invested in rolling Klingon toons, as a leap of faith. But honestly, I don't think they're gonna do anything with it any more.
Even if the Klingon side had the same amount of ships, costumes, missions etc the Fed player base would still be much larger than the Klingon one.
In the past Cryptic has tried to motivate more players into creating a Klingon char. Stronger ships, battle cloak, raiding, more missions starting from lvl 1, marauding, much more dilithium farming missions... They have the numbers, we do not. If they think it's not worth spending more than 1/6 of their time on creating Klingon content they most likely have very good (economical) reasons for it.
Do I think that Fed would be more popular if all faction content was equal? possibly, but one thing's for certain-the KDF and Roms would certainly be a *lot* more popular, and their players wouldn't (rightly) feel like they are constantly getting shafted in the content department.
First, I wouldn't even call the Mogh a new ship as it is just the KDF version of the Avenger, second I'd like to know what monthly release of new Romulan ships and capabilities you speak of? The Romulans have been around for a year and a half...it's been over a year since we got a original ship. After LoR was released we only ever saw two new ships...
True we can't be 100% sure but close. Judging from other MMOs I would make 3 statements:
1. Most people prefer to play on the "good" side.
2. If the game is based on a franchise, most prefer to play the more prominently shown faction
3. Once players have invested time and money into one faction they are unlikely to do the same again with other factions (not to the same extent at least)
All of these point into the same direction. That's why there will always be more Fed players than Klingon ones.
By putting in more Klingon and Romulan content you would make those players happier. You might even motivate some players to create their first Klingon/Romulan character. But Cryptic basically has 2 options. Either they take a very high risk by creating lots of content for Klingons/Romulans only with potentially serious consequences if their strategy fails, or they can play safe. Create another Fed ship, knowing exactly what the cash inflow is going to be.
As I said before. Cryptic knows the numbers.
Stronger ships? Where? The Bortasqu' is inferior to the Odyssey in just about every way other than Tac consoles, but with T5U that will change.
All you have Raptor choice wise is full of tac slots...or one less ensign tac. Sci wise it's obvious who wins there. Cruiser/BattleCruiser...well KDF was doing better till the Avenger. Carriers...KDF has it better in 2 hangar carriers while Feds completely blow the KDF away in single hangar ships.
So having better carriers means the KDF have more powerful ships? I don't really count raiders as a lot of people avoid them with how fragile they are...and moot anyways as Feds are getting those as well.
KDF has been treated like trash from the start...they were an after thought...and now that Romulans have sold they're an afterthought as well.
They put as little effort in as possible to the KDF and RR in fact it's obvious they intentionally tank them so they have a excuse to do little work on them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, they made the Bortasqu' a shoddy ship and when it didn't sell they came out and said KDF doesn't sell so we wont be working on them much. Then the same thing happens with the Ar'kif...they make it some odd mashup of a ship wanting to be Engineering but doesn't have enough slots for A2B and give it 3 sci console slots even though it's weak on sci. Not to mention they make another Tac based Warbird when Romulans are drowning in Tac based Warbirds. They wonder why it didn't sell with it's lousy build and Romulan tac based ships outnumber the other two types by more than 2 to 1.
Let us look at T6...what did the KDF get? A Raptor and a BC, neither of which the KDF are completely lacking of. The RR got yet ANOTHER Tac ship and a BC...exact same as what the KDF gets. the Qib and Aelahl have similar stats, the Faeht is almost a copy of the T'var...the only semi original ship the the Mat'Ha and that's because as I pointed out above all the Raptors are pretty much identical so it isn't hard to break that mold. Science is where KDF and RR are hurting the most yet we just get stuck with the same junk we have a ton of already.
Yet the Feds get a ship for each major type, in fact for 2 out of 3 of them they get 2 each.
Of course it isn't worth working on the KDF or RR, because they intentionally tanked both of them...they make them suck and act all surprised when people don't want to play them. Sure the KDF had some nice toys but the Feds got them all, and now they're doing it to the RR.
it's a very short term profit paradigm IMO, and relies on keeping players chasing the bouncing ball without really developing anything fully.
These half measures are just going to serve to further foster resentment among players who use that content.
There really isn't much argument against that. However...
In any video game, people will want variety. Unfortunately, KDF was poorly conceived from the beginning. It was like "Sure, you technically CAN play KDF, but you have to jump through x hoop and wait until x" in order to do so.
By the time KDF started to catch up, and be more viable, everyone had fleets, friend lists, etc. that they would have to completely ignore in order to play KDF side. Already, that's an incentive not to.
Besides having to start a fleet completely from scratch, there are less ships available, further incentive to stay put.
So there are less people willing to give it a try. More new people enter the game. They hear people saying "KDF sucks" out of habit, and see that there are far less people KDF side.
The more that time goes by without Cryptic doing something about it, the worse it gets...until you see an expansion, with new, shiny ships for the expansion. Will a new player pick 5 ships or 2? More or less total ships? If you can do everything that makes KDF attractive without leaving Fedside, why do it?
IMO, they missed a big opportunity with the expansion. They could have done something like "Delta Fleets" and have them cross-faction, for those characters over 50. They could have had "Delta Ships" that are neither Federation, Klingon, or Romulan, and had those available cross-faction. Bad ideas? Maybe. But better than doing absolutely nothing, and just using "There are less people" as a copout.
Except they didn't... we KNOW where Stahl went. It was a transfer to a different game at the same studio. you don't really understand how ship traits work do you? two things: 1; 2 of the fed ships have the same trait. 2; there are multiple ways to get traits, one of which is automatic based on leveling.
My character Tsin'xing
Other than the avenger I haven't seen anyone flying anything faction-new and I play every single day.
majQa'