Did some big business man who never ever played the game let alone had never seen a Star Trek episode come in and tell you to make all these changes? or did you all have a crack party?
Undine Infiltration is gone? Why?
Can't do stf's anymore and when I do get the urge to do an Advanced I have to pug it because half my fleet doens't play anymore because you've messed the game up! Then some silly willy naughty ned messes up the optional and we lose and I get a cd before I can do it again.
I've read since the launch of Delta Rising logins on Arc and Steam have declined by 20%, if this venting post of mine, all the other ones on here and those stats aren't a clue I think you need a new detective.
The story missions were pretty good, the voice cast of the show AWESOME, the cats are great and whoever said let's give them a *spoilers* doff of a certain Doctor who when you use a hypo he beams down to help heal deserves a raise. Whoever said "Let's change the PVE's and STF's so people can't do them unless they're in a big giant fleet and just get rid of this one all together" needs to go get bent, seriously kick that person with an iron boot til they bend then chuck them out.
I understand that parts of what I love about this game are still there but you've messed up so much of it right now it is really hard to see, and I'm one of those bone idle lazy bums who used to sit here all day and throw my money and time at you guys but I'm kind of over it now...
On the plus side I've lost 5 pounds since Delta Rising launched because every time I login to play I notice someone else I used to play with has "stopped playing until they fix it" and just logging in now is so mentally exhausting that I just don't do it.
Edit: I'm not so pissy any more. I now understand that the bulk of funds went to the voice over talents of the Voyager cast so therefore implementing the horrible grind was a must as it was an investment in the future of the game.
I'm still not happy at all about the stf's, I used to run them daily and it was a good way of teaching new recruits and a great team building exercise that now I'm not really afforded that luxury.
*still a little sulky but the temper tantrum is over lol*
Did some big business man who never ever played the game let alone had never seen a Star Trek episode come in and tell you to make all these changes?
Yes, their chinese publisher PWE, they are know for VERY grindy money sucking game mechanics. STO is changing into that with every patch.
Cryptic is under contractual obligation to do whatever their publisher says. And they have told them to apply more asian type mmo mechanics. (pay for every action).
Did some big business man who never ever played the game let alone had never seen a Star Trek episode come in and tell you to make all these changes? or did you all have a crack party?
Undine Infiltration is gone? Why?
Can't do stf's anymore and when I do get the urge to do an Advanced I have to pug it because half my fleet doens't play anymore because you've messed the game up! Then some silly willy naughty ned messes up the optional and we lose and I get a cd before I can do it again.
I've read since the launch of Delta Rising logins on Arc and Steam have declined by 20%, if this venting post of mine, all the other ones on here and those stats aren't a clue I think you need a new detective.
The story missions were pretty good, the voice cast of the show AWESOME, the cats are great and whoever said let's give them a *spoilers* doff of a certain Doctor who when you use a hypo he beams down to help heal deserves a raise. Whoever said "Let's change the PVE's and STF's so people can't do them unless they're in a big giant fleet and just get rid of this one all together" needs to go get bent, seriously kick that person with an iron boot til they bend then chuck them out.
I understand that parts of what I love about this game are still there but you've messed up so much of it right now it is really hard to see, and I'm one of those bone idle lazy bums who used to sit here all day and throw my money and time at you guys but I'm kind of over it now...
On the plus side I've lost 5 pounds since Delta Rising launched because every time I login to play I notice someone else I used to play with has "stopped playing until they fix it" and just logging in now is so mentally exhausting that I just don't do it.
I feel you there. Atm endgame can basically only be run by players under the protection of elite channels for the respective contend - if at all.
I had a few hours in game this weekend cuz I made a million dil via marks, bnp and contraband turn ins. My fatal mistake was to look at the chat.
Oh boy its a total mess in whatever channel you read. Considering things looked so bright less then 2 weeks ago this is the greatest disappointment STO ever faced and Im afraid the majority hasnt simply gotten there because they are still trapped behind the level cap time gates listening to Neelix NPC babble.
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Yes, their chinese publisher PWE, they are know for VERY grindy money sucking game mechanics. STO is changing into that with every patch.
Cryptic is under contractual obligation to do whatever their publisher says. And they have told them to apply more asian type mmo mechanics. (pay for every action).
Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....? I'm not disagreeing that they have a lot of money-raising game mechanics in play, but there is a big implication that they're like this purely because they're Chinese. As though it would somehow be more acceptable if an American firm was operating the same model.
Anyway, what did DR bring in which required people to pay more... T5U upgrades. That was, count it, the *only* thing added in DR which absolutely requires someone to spend money. Buying T6 ships, no different to the way the game was pre-F2P.
Everything else - Mk XIV gear, intel Boffs, specialisations - is essentially a question of "pay or play". Which is only an issue if you lack patience. The only real issue is that Gold gear is a very much higher absolute ceiling than has been seen before - but hey, got to give the hardcore players something to aim for right?
Sorry. There is a real question about whether STO's current state is fun or not. But railing that PWE are extorting money from the playerbase by putting in "pay-to-progress-faster" mechanisms is like obese individuals complaining that McDonalds uses too much fat.
Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....?
Am I the only one that gets annoyed when people cry racism where there is none?
The company is known for super grindy money machine games. Most of the Asian MMO market is that way. There is no racism in that statement. It just is what it is.
Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....? I'm not disagreeing that they have a lot of money-raising game mechanics in play, but there is a big implication that they're like this purely because they're Chinese. As though it would somehow be more acceptable if an American firm was operating the same model.
Anyway, what did DR bring in which required people to pay more... T5U upgrades. That was, count it, the *only* thing added in DR which absolutely requires someone to spend money. Buying T6 ships, no different to the way the game was pre-F2P.
Everything else - Mk XIV gear, intel Boffs, specialisations - is essentially a question of "pay or play". Which is only an issue if you lack patience. The only real issue is that Gold gear is a very much higher absolute ceiling than has been seen before - but hey, got to give the hardcore players something to aim for right?
Sorry. There is a real question about whether STO's current state is fun or not. But railing that PWE are extorting money from the playerbase by putting in "pay-to-progress-faster" mechanisms is like obese individuals complaining that McDonalds uses too much fat.
Who cares about any of those options when the game makes you feel like not wanting to pug relaxing things like ISE anymore?
Who cares about all of it when you have a good team blasting through IGA being stopped by a bug in Manus room where you cant do the uploads (on a 3 year old map)?
Who cares about it when somebody wants to run working and good maps like undine infiltration realizing its not available for the time being?
Who cares about it when new player tell you that they consider to leave because they feel like never being able to cope with veterans under current pve endgame conditions?
Who cares about it when players youve played with for 3 years and with whom you mastered every aspect of this game talk about leaving cuz the progression they made the past few years suddenly feel like a setback?
Sorry mate, players have every right to be angry. Maybe the tone is not always right but it only shows their dedication towards this game.
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The DR patch was good storylines from what I seen is good it's believable so far, congrats to that one they nailed it.
The Upgrade system however is very expensive already bought and chanced up to 100 euro's to get the dilithium needed to buy tech upgrades and the required dilithium, also bought the Mogh battle cruiser to perform.
But all this is pretty expensive to me and I don't have that much money to spend. I'm not sorry for it because I like to spend money on a good game, That said lets continue....
A lot of maps missing, I can't buy rep stuff that needs five elite objects like shields engines etc etc...
Pretty strange for a game to make such mistake to change an elite into an advanced play without noticing the changes will ruin the most off the rep play. So I play normal now just for fun but I can not get any gear because of it.
Well I hope devs are reading these posts and will make an attempt to change this !!! :cool:
As for the OP I see your point and agree with you 100% !!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
The DR patch was good storylines from what I seen is good it's believable so far, congrats to that one they nailed it.
The Upgrade system however is very expensive already bought and chanced up to 100 euro's to get the dilithium needed to buy tech upgrades and the required dilithium, also bought the Mogh battle cruiser to perform.
But all this is pretty expensive to me and I don't have that much money to spend. I'm not sorry for it because I like to spend money on a good game, That said lets continue....
A lot of maps missing, I can't buy rep stuff that needs five elite objects like shields engines etc etc...
Pretty strange for a game to make such mistake to change an elite into an advanced play without noticing the changes will ruin the most off the rep play. So I play normal now just for fun but I can not get any gear because of it.
Well I hope devs are reading these posts and will make an attempt to change this !!! :cool:
As for the OP I see your point and agree with you 100% !!!
Its nice to know someone understands and feels my pain lol =-)
The DR patch was good storylines from what I seen is good it's believable so far, congrats to that one they nailed it.
The Upgrade system however is very expensive already bought and chanced up to 100 euro's to get the dilithium needed to buy tech upgrades and the required dilithium, also bought the Mogh battle cruiser to perform.
If you really already spend that money, the game wasn't ruined - players spending money on the game is what Cryptic wants to achieve.
If you stop giving them money because of the grind, then Cryptic has reached a point where they need to evaluate their choice sand look at the feedback on how to get players back into a spending mood.
(Of course, you're just one guy and one data point and don't determine this alone, but you get what I am saying).
The game has gotten too grindy and "ruined" if cryptic is making less money, rather than more.
But:
How many people have already decked out their ship and character with Mark XII Purples and Reputation Sets, and all reputation slots filled?
Did you ever count how much Dilithium you needed to spend to get there?
How much money do you think was spend while players were getting there - and does Cryptic still get that kind of money when most players already are fully decked out?
And if you think the grind is too long - how long did it take you to get to the current state? Do you think the "new grind" will make it that much longer?
I think the "new grind" with the new level and gear caps exists to bascially "reset" the player community to the ponit they were when the game went F2P. You have another 60 levels to climb, and re-equip your gear. It's pretty much what probably every level cap increase in MMOs is to do.
It could of course be that they did not tune it right for a majority of players and end up hurting their business. Time will tell.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
A lot of maps missing, I can't buy rep stuff that needs five elite objects like shields engines etc etc...
Pretty strange for a game to make such mistake to change an elite into an advanced play without noticing the changes will ruin the most off the rep play. So I play normal now just for fun but I can not get any gear because of it.
Well I hope devs are reading these posts and will make an attempt to change this !!! :cool:
As for the OP I see your point and agree with you 100% !!!
I'm assuming you are talking about the 'elite objects' Borg Neural Processor and Ancient Power Core? And i only mention those two because they are the only rep that requires you to go into an advanced/elite to get them. You can still get the Voth implants and Undine injectors by doing the battlezones. I got 10+ Voth implants doing i think 2 or 3 of the Voth ground BZ...and i HATE ground in STO. I also hit tier 5 Omega rep on an alt just recently and i got the dil, marks and EC but i also got 10 neural processors. It only takes 9 neurals to craft assimilated engines, deflectors and shields. And even though you may not be able to farm borg instances back to back to back with your eyes closed you should still be able to do advanced cure which is relatively easier then the other advanced. You may not be able to get all your neural processors in one afternoon, but you can still get them if you find the easiest borg instance. I dont know if any of the advanced that drops power cores are really easy though. Also dont forget that Nukara and New Romulus has all of its gear available with marks, dil and ec. Dyson and 8472 used the 'elite objects' too but you can get them in the space and ground BZ which is open to anybody.
Gearing up through Omega has gotten a bit harder, but its still doable. All the other reps are also still doable with no big changes. Delta Alliance i dont know yet cause i havent done too much there.
...If you stop giving them money because of the grind, then Cryptic has reached a point where they need to evaluate their choice sand look at the feedback on how to get players back into a spending mood...
On this point, this is precisely where I am at.
I'm a lifetime, bought the LoR pack, the Steam pack, the Delta Rising pack. For the past couple of years or thereabouts, I also gave myself 10,000 zen per month to play with. I had no problem buying the ships just for the consoles, the bridge officers, costumes, and associated gadgetry. Heck, I've even bought dilithium just to dump into fleet projects. And I've had no problem with this, until...
R&D.
Suddenly, I tried to update a little console from Mk XII to Mk XIII and a heap of dilithium disappeared. Okay, won't touch that until I'm Level 15 on the R&D, that seems to be the trick there.
And then comes Delta Rising.
An annoying grindfest of boring "5 groups of 5" patrol missions, that takes a ton of effort for very little leveling-up reward, unless you buy XP tokens. Which I won't buy. And then, they take a bunch of players (not me), and wind back their levels because they don't personally like that they used a workaround that didn't involve their pet project, DR.
Well sorry, but I will not be supporting this game with any further funds. I don't appreciate the feeling that I'm being shoehorned into buying something as worthless as XP tokens, I don't appreciate being unable to play PvE queues I used to thanks to the badly handled levels, I'm not happy about being unable to just play the DR storyline thanks to Level Barriers and badly thought-out progression tables.
But the way that players have been treated over their fast leveling is just arrogant and contemptuous. To be blunt and absolutely clear on my position: retrograde nerfs are not on.
So no more money is going from my wallet to Cryptic unless this mess is sorted out. I don't, however, hold out much hope of that happening.
I'm a lifetime, bought the LoR pack, the Steam pack, the Delta Rising pack. For the past couple of years or thereabouts, I also gave myself 10,000 zen per month to play with. I had no problem buying the ships just for the consoles, the bridge officers, costumes, and associated gadgetry. Heck, I've even bought dilithium just to dump into fleet projects. And I've had no problem with this, until...
R&D.
Suddenly, I tried to update a little console from Mk XII to Mk XIII and a heap of dilithium disappeared. Okay, won't touch that until I'm Level 15 on the R&D, that seems to be the trick there.
And then comes Delta Rising.
An annoying grindfest of boring "5 groups of 5" patrol missions, that takes a ton of effort for very little leveling-up reward, unless you buy XP tokens. Which I won't buy. And then, they take a bunch of players (not me), and wind back their levels because they don't personally like that they used a workaround that didn't involve their pet project, DR.
Well sorry, but I will not be supporting this game with any further funds. I don't appreciate the feeling that I'm being shoehorned into buying something as worthless as XP tokens, I don't appreciate being unable to play PvE queues I used to thanks to the badly handled levels, I'm not happy about being unable to just play the DR storyline thanks to Level Barriers and badly thought-out progression tables.
But the way that players have been treated over their fast leveling is just arrogant and contemptuous. To be blunt and absolutely clear on my position: retrograde nerfs are not on.
So no more money is going from my wallet to Cryptic unless this mess is sorted out. I don't, however, hold out much hope of that happening.
I totally agree, I'm not an LTS and I may not have brought all the packs but all the zen I have spent in game has been done via grind. To see all this happen is very disheartening as well as disappointing and for the first time since I have started to play this game am now questioning myself as to whether I should continue or not!
Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....? I'm not disagreeing that they have a lot of money-raising game mechanics in play, but there is a big implication that they're like this purely because they're Chinese. As though it would somehow be more acceptable if an American firm was operating the same model.
Yes you are alone in attempting to find racism in a comment that is totally benign. However I will address some of your other points. It's only acceptable to those who have accepted that method, currently the Chinese MMO's and the Korean MMO's along with a lot of Japanese RPG's have a very grindy nature which contains a lot of timelock/paywall content. IMO it's just something that will over time be eradicated from the industry, but PWE are well known for pushing it with their products, hence the outrage at it in STO, which is a mostly Western IP.
Anyway, what did DR bring in which required people to pay more... T5U upgrades. That was, count it, the *only* thing added in DR which absolutely requires someone to spend money. Buying T6 ships, no different to the way the game was pre-F2P.
Actually there are no T6 ships that do not have a fee attached whether it's via lockbox or Zen. That can be circumvented by Dil but that's 471000 dil @ 157 conversion rate. That's only 15-20 days worth of dil capping on 4 characters.
Everything else - Mk XIV gear, intel Boffs, specialisations - is essentially a question of "pay or play". Which is only an issue if you lack patience. The only real issue is that Gold gear is a very much higher absolute ceiling than has been seen before - but hey, got to give the hardcore players something to aim for right?
Which for the hardcore players is nothing, they have dil and EC reserves out the wazoo. For the Casual player it's where it hurts, they'll likely never get to Mk 14 Very Rare let alone UR or Epic. The content is balanced against Mk 14 high level gear, mostly UR gear at 60, which shows the rather idiotic design decisions that got ratified.
Sorry. There is a real question about whether STO's current state is fun or not. But railing that PWE are extorting money from the playerbase by putting in "pay-to-progress-faster" mechanisms is like obese individuals complaining that McDonalds uses too much fat.
That's the only valid question. It's not. It's a grindfest of proportions that make most Western players balk. The Koreans/Chinese/Japanese might not worry about it as it's a staple of a lot of their games, but this IP and game is aimed at a Western audience primarily in the USA, Europe and associated countries such as Australia for instance.
BTW it's not fat you need to worry about at McD's, it's the sugar. That's the killer, literally...
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I have to say, I'm on the fence where the grind to level 60 is concerned. I don't like it - in fact I rather hate it. But the fact is, when you have a game with players that will happily boast about how they "reached level 50 in four hours", I don't really see what else they could have done.
Actually from a balance and design perspective quite a lot, most of the changes that could be made include making enemy ships more difficult by giving them full loadouts, this in turn would make the PvE challenge actually be closer to PvP in a lot of ways, but mostly the good ones. Science captains with their Crowd Control would be sought after, as would the Engineer Tanks specced for +Threat.
Some of the missions would require a minor rebalance to work correctly, however that wouldn't be too bad to do especially as they can be done on a rolling update schedule.
That would then remove the need for the Hull Sponge technique so far employed within the game, there would be a bonus to the AI hulls but not on the scale seen so far.
Adjustments could also be made to things like Shield and hull amounts across the board. Increasing cooldowns on equipment might cause a bit of consternation initially too, but it would reduce some of the OP behaviour of some builds and allow for a bit more diversity.
These are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head, but there are lots more possibilities.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Infiltration was removed because the shield never dropped - it was unstartable. When they put it back? Well it is a recent endgame mission that gives rewards so I'd guess fairly soon but who knows when their too busy stopping us from 'exploiting'.
I have to say, I'm on the fence where the grind to level 60 is concerned. I don't like it - in fact I rather hate it. But the fact is, when you have a game with players that will happily boast about how they "reached level 50 in four hours", I don't really see what else they could have done.
I haven't found it all that difficult to reach. I'm currently at 59. I got up to 58 from Boff assignments and a very small number of STFs. I have not done any of the new missions or patrolled any systems. So I'm good with the pace on that. It takes as many skill points to go from 50-60 as it does 0-50, so I pretty much expected it before I even started.
All of that said..I don't think that's one of the main concerns. I'm sure it is for some people, but the issues run much deeper than that one thing. The grind after getting to 60 is what I think concern a lot of people. They don't want to grind back all their gear to be competitive again. They feel their gear has become obsolete. I don't know if this is true or not; I seem to be doing just fine with the Borg set I got three years ago.
For me, and others, one of the big issues is the change in experience earned. I am leveling two new characters right now and that has become a monumental and painful grind...it's making me question if I really want to continue with those characters or not.
I also think the specialization feature needs some work (space and ground should always be active) and it was a bad move to take away the dilithium you could have earned if you maxed out the specs. Everything in this game grants something of value when you reach the end of it -- like commendations, for example.
And last: what they did to so many players was simply wrong. They crossed a line; they broke a cardinal rule in MMOs: never take away anything from the players, no matter what. It is the fastest way to alienate your base that there is. It has killed MMOs in the past and it could very well kill this one (and I'm not the type to go around predicting imminent demise). But I am rational and I am a realist and what I see happening right now is a monumental mistake that Cryptic has refused to acknowledge or address in any meaningful fashion...and this time I believe it really will hurt them, and hurt them tremendously.
Anyway, there are a rather large number of problems and issues that are causing this massive hemorrhage. It's bad enough that Cryptic absolutely must change some things, and quickly. They can write all the hyperbole they want (D'Angelo claiming hundreds of thousands of players play this game -- yeah, sure they do) and the glowing reviews they're leaving for themselves. That's all PR. But they know this wasn't successful; they can see the numbers.
Oh, don't get me wrong - my post was, literally, only a reference to the grind to level 60.
I complete agree otherwise. And whilst I won't go off on some long-winded rant about what I dislike about DR, I will say that I LOATHE absolutely everything about the upgrading process and really don't see why someone thought that it was either a good idea or necessary.
I think it falls into a long-term vision they have...one that isn't necessarily bad...but they approached it very poorly. It is utterly insane to change a game as much as they have where literally one day the game is one way and the next it is profoundly different.
They did need to do something about end game, at least in my opinion. I quit three years ago because I became bored after I reached 50. I did not like endlessly grinding STFs. It wasn't my thing. And I refuse to grind for weapons and equipment in any game. So they needed ways to keep people like me from leaving when we reached the end.
In the past three years, this game has grown a lot though and there are many different things I can do now. For the first two weeks I was back, I literally learned of something new (and substantive) on a daily basis. So they might have already achieved that goal. If people were still leaving, then they probably did not do enough to steer people toward these different activities.
Sorry to "talk" your "eyes" off. I need some sleep, lol...
Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....? I'm not disagreeing that they have a lot of money-raising game mechanics in play, but there is a big implication that they're like this purely because they're Chinese. As though it would somehow be more acceptable if an American firm was operating the same model.
The type of game mechanics and microtransactions that are used by PWE are generally the norm in the far east. In the west the norm was the subscription model. Therefore it is not a leap to say it is because they are a company a far east company as that is the gaming business model.
This has been changing over time as more and more microtransaction games have been released mostly in the form of apps, and more games have gone down the freemiumk route. However it takes time for it to become the acceptable norm for us considering howlong the subscription based mosel has been around.
It's all good - this is a forum - discussion is what it's all about
And as I said, my feelings with regard to the level 60 grind remain - with many players 'boasting' about how they levelled a character from level 0 to level 50 in the space of four hours, I don't really see how else The Powers That Be could have approached this.
My biggest issue remains with the astronomical cost of upgrading anything.
Really? The answer is quite simple: more missions, so that you have something to do until you hit 60. After that: enjoy the grind if you want more.
There are quite some things that I really started to dislike, although I am still hoping the devs will improve. Here is my top 3 in random order.
1) devs need to start to listen to the players, it will avoid having to use the nerfbat. Issues are spotted in Tribble and reported. What is done with it? Nothing. People are raising concerns on the forum, for all to read, also new potential players. What is done with it? Nothing.
2) the grind... OMG the grind. Want marks? Grind. Want levels? Grind. Want R&D? Grind. Want anything? Grind. I would not mind, if you at least give me something to do.
3) they have got to get the priorities straight. People are still not able to enter the game nearly 3 weeks after DR release. That is insane! That is the worst publicity there is. Instead, they opted to close an "exploit", which could have been solved by stopping the dil and rethink the system.
All in all, that are my top 3. Totally useless though, because of 1). Have you ever seen devs react in any of these topics??
Who cares about it when players youve played with for 3 years and with whom you mastered every aspect of this game talk about leaving cuz the progression they made the past few years suddenly feel like a setback?
.
cant say ive had this issue the new difficulty and new upgrades in no way made me feel like i was pushed back at all but granted my ship playstyle has absolutely 0 relance on ship weapons. all the hp buff did was makes enemies die in abut a minute rather than 5 seconds (no biggie there) as for the dil nerf...well annoying but i was making 5 or 6 times the dil i could refine each day so im not worried about it. upgrading costs...meh ill take em as they come epic gear is not #1 on my to-do list in fact its pretty far down the line.
I'm a lifetime, bought the LoR pack, the Steam pack, the Delta Rising pack. For the past couple of years or thereabouts, I also gave myself 10,000 zen per month to play with. I had no problem buying the ships just for the consoles, the bridge officers, costumes, and associated gadgetry. Heck, I've even bought dilithium just to dump into fleet projects. And I've had no problem with this, until...
R&D.
Suddenly, I tried to update a little console from Mk XII to Mk XIII and a heap of dilithium disappeared. Okay, won't touch that until I'm Level 15 on the R&D, that seems to be the trick there.
And then comes Delta Rising.
An annoying grindfest of boring "5 groups of 5" patrol missions, that takes a ton of effort for very little leveling-up reward, unless you buy XP tokens. Which I won't buy. And then, they take a bunch of players (not me), and wind back their levels because they don't personally like that they used a workaround that didn't involve their pet project, DR.
Well sorry, but I will not be supporting this game with any further funds. I don't appreciate the feeling that I'm being shoehorned into buying something as worthless as XP tokens, I don't appreciate being unable to play PvE queues I used to thanks to the badly handled levels, I'm not happy about being unable to just play the DR storyline thanks to Level Barriers and badly thought-out progression tables.
But the way that players have been treated over their fast leveling is just arrogant and contemptuous. To be blunt and absolutely clear on my position: retrograde nerfs are not on.
Very well put .
I especially liked that you noted that DR didn't really start with DR , but with the R&D (crafting) that we got 2 months before DR .
Some folks did the math on that and put out a warning about Alt's being dead .
Many , like myself thought , well , we'll see .
The DR hit , and it made the R&D + the Ship & Gear leveling an absolute financial nightmare .
Add to that the XP & awards cuts , the HP mess and the inability to play Elite (or Advanced) for most folks and you're left scratching your noggin ... .
I'd really like some of the podcasts to weigh in on this , but 3 of the 5 STO podcasts I listened to died , and the rest ... , well let's just say that my hopes are not high at being represented adequately .
2) the grind... OMG the grind. Want marks? Grind. Want levels? Grind. Want R&D? Grind. Want anything? Grind. I would not mind, if you at least give me something to do.
But what is it that you're doing really ?
To me it seems that you're not working toward unlocking some amazing new content .
If anything , you're working toward becoming "as powerful" as you were 2 weeks ago , with a little fludd thrown in with the ship mastery .
But at the end of the day , you're asked to pay and pay and pay (or grind ~ infinitum) to get to to ISE & the rest of the STF's ... again .
There seems to be a cost VS award thing here that has yet to be looked at or answered .
Why am I expected to go Mk 14 , when Mk 14 is just the new Mk 12 ?
All I see is the stick , with no carrot in sight .
Did some big business man who never ever played the game let alone had never seen a Star Trek episode come in and tell you to make all these changes? or did you all have a crack party?
Undine Infiltration is gone? Why?
Can't do stf's anymore and when I do get the urge to do an Advanced I have to pug it because half my fleet doens't play anymore because you've messed the game up! Then some silly willy naughty ned messes up the optional and we lose and I get a cd before I can do it again.
I've read since the launch of Delta Rising logins on Arc and Steam have declined by 20%, if this venting post of mine, all the other ones on here and those stats aren't a clue I think you need a new detective.
The story missions were pretty good, the voice cast of the show AWESOME, the cats are great and whoever said let's give them a *spoilers* doff of a certain Doctor who when you use a hypo he beams down to help heal deserves a raise. Whoever said "Let's change the PVE's and STF's so people can't do them unless they're in a big giant fleet and just get rid of this one all together" needs to go get bent, seriously kick that person with an iron boot til they bend then chuck them out.
I understand that parts of what I love about this game are still there but you've messed up so much of it right now it is really hard to see, and I'm one of those bone idle lazy bums who used to sit here all day and throw my money and time at you guys but I'm kind of over it now...
On the plus side I've lost 5 pounds since Delta Rising launched because every time I login to play I notice someone else I used to play with has "stopped playing until they fix it" and just logging in now is so mentally exhausting that I just don't do it.
Why did they ruin the game?
Well... you can "thank" for that to the morrons that came here on forums demanding for dil sinks... they have it now to choke off with it in the forms of the craft and upgrade systems.
And you can also "thank" all the sado-maso idiots and DPS wankers who came on forums demanding for harder content... That ruined the game for the majority of players.
Ohh and undine infiltration was taken out for the same reason. A few started to farm it, yelling that its easy, so the devs took it down and probably will put it back impossible to be done afterwards...
The game is terrible now, and unfortunely, after finishing the story arc, there isnt any more incentive to log until next season:(.
Why did they ruin the game?
Well... you can "thank" for that to the morrons that came here on forums demanding for dil sinks... they have it now to choke off with it in the forms of the craft and upgrade systems.
And you can also "thank" all the sado-maso idiots and DPS wankers who came on forums demanding for harder content... That ruined the game for the majority of players.
Ohh and undine infiltration was taken out for the same reason. A few started to farm it, yelling that its easy, so the devs took it down and probably will put it back impossible to be done afterwards...
The game is terrible now, and unfortunely, after finishing the story arc, there isnt any more incentive to log until next season:(.
More accurately, they ruined the game for short term profit.
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Yes, their chinese publisher PWE, they are know for VERY grindy money sucking game mechanics. STO is changing into that with every patch.
Cryptic is under contractual obligation to do whatever their publisher says. And they have told them to apply more asian type mmo mechanics. (pay for every action).
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
I feel you there. Atm endgame can basically only be run by players under the protection of elite channels for the respective contend - if at all.
I had a few hours in game this weekend cuz I made a million dil via marks, bnp and contraband turn ins. My fatal mistake was to look at the chat.
Oh boy its a total mess in whatever channel you read. Considering things looked so bright less then 2 weeks ago this is the greatest disappointment STO ever faced and Im afraid the majority hasnt simply gotten there because they are still trapped behind the level cap time gates listening to Neelix NPC babble.
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Am I alone in finding the remarks against PWE increasingly racist in tone....? I'm not disagreeing that they have a lot of money-raising game mechanics in play, but there is a big implication that they're like this purely because they're Chinese. As though it would somehow be more acceptable if an American firm was operating the same model.
Anyway, what did DR bring in which required people to pay more... T5U upgrades. That was, count it, the *only* thing added in DR which absolutely requires someone to spend money. Buying T6 ships, no different to the way the game was pre-F2P.
Everything else - Mk XIV gear, intel Boffs, specialisations - is essentially a question of "pay or play". Which is only an issue if you lack patience. The only real issue is that Gold gear is a very much higher absolute ceiling than has been seen before - but hey, got to give the hardcore players something to aim for right?
Sorry. There is a real question about whether STO's current state is fun or not. But railing that PWE are extorting money from the playerbase by putting in "pay-to-progress-faster" mechanisms is like obese individuals complaining that McDonalds uses too much fat.
Also this helped: "T'Nara@ When you get mad at the game just remember this. One guys biggest complaint was that he couldn't beat the doctor."
Am I the only one that gets annoyed when people cry racism where there is none?
The company is known for super grindy money machine games. Most of the Asian MMO market is that way. There is no racism in that statement. It just is what it is.
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Who cares about any of those options when the game makes you feel like not wanting to pug relaxing things like ISE anymore?
Who cares about all of it when you have a good team blasting through IGA being stopped by a bug in Manus room where you cant do the uploads (on a 3 year old map)?
Who cares about it when somebody wants to run working and good maps like undine infiltration realizing its not available for the time being?
Who cares about it when new player tell you that they consider to leave because they feel like never being able to cope with veterans under current pve endgame conditions?
Who cares about it when players youve played with for 3 years and with whom you mastered every aspect of this game talk about leaving cuz the progression they made the past few years suddenly feel like a setback?
Sorry mate, players have every right to be angry. Maybe the tone is not always right but it only shows their dedication towards this game.
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The Upgrade system however is very expensive already bought and chanced up to 100 euro's to get the dilithium needed to buy tech upgrades and the required dilithium, also bought the Mogh battle cruiser to perform.
But all this is pretty expensive to me and I don't have that much money to spend. I'm not sorry for it because I like to spend money on a good game, That said lets continue....
A lot of maps missing, I can't buy rep stuff that needs five elite objects like shields engines etc etc...
Pretty strange for a game to make such mistake to change an elite into an advanced play without noticing the changes will ruin the most off the rep play. So I play normal now just for fun but I can not get any gear because of it.
Well I hope devs are reading these posts and will make an attempt to change this !!! :cool:
As for the OP I see your point and agree with you 100% !!!
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
Its nice to know someone understands and feels my pain lol =-)
If you stop giving them money because of the grind, then Cryptic has reached a point where they need to evaluate their choice sand look at the feedback on how to get players back into a spending mood.
(Of course, you're just one guy and one data point and don't determine this alone, but you get what I am saying).
The game has gotten too grindy and "ruined" if cryptic is making less money, rather than more.
But:
How many people have already decked out their ship and character with Mark XII Purples and Reputation Sets, and all reputation slots filled?
Did you ever count how much Dilithium you needed to spend to get there?
How much money do you think was spend while players were getting there - and does Cryptic still get that kind of money when most players already are fully decked out?
And if you think the grind is too long - how long did it take you to get to the current state? Do you think the "new grind" will make it that much longer?
I think the "new grind" with the new level and gear caps exists to bascially "reset" the player community to the ponit they were when the game went F2P. You have another 60 levels to climb, and re-equip your gear. It's pretty much what probably every level cap increase in MMOs is to do.
It could of course be that they did not tune it right for a majority of players and end up hurting their business. Time will tell.
I'm assuming you are talking about the 'elite objects' Borg Neural Processor and Ancient Power Core? And i only mention those two because they are the only rep that requires you to go into an advanced/elite to get them. You can still get the Voth implants and Undine injectors by doing the battlezones. I got 10+ Voth implants doing i think 2 or 3 of the Voth ground BZ...and i HATE ground in STO. I also hit tier 5 Omega rep on an alt just recently and i got the dil, marks and EC but i also got 10 neural processors. It only takes 9 neurals to craft assimilated engines, deflectors and shields. And even though you may not be able to farm borg instances back to back to back with your eyes closed you should still be able to do advanced cure which is relatively easier then the other advanced. You may not be able to get all your neural processors in one afternoon, but you can still get them if you find the easiest borg instance. I dont know if any of the advanced that drops power cores are really easy though. Also dont forget that Nukara and New Romulus has all of its gear available with marks, dil and ec. Dyson and 8472 used the 'elite objects' too but you can get them in the space and ground BZ which is open to anybody.
Gearing up through Omega has gotten a bit harder, but its still doable. All the other reps are also still doable with no big changes. Delta Alliance i dont know yet cause i havent done too much there.
On this point, this is precisely where I am at.
I'm a lifetime, bought the LoR pack, the Steam pack, the Delta Rising pack. For the past couple of years or thereabouts, I also gave myself 10,000 zen per month to play with. I had no problem buying the ships just for the consoles, the bridge officers, costumes, and associated gadgetry. Heck, I've even bought dilithium just to dump into fleet projects. And I've had no problem with this, until...
R&D.
Suddenly, I tried to update a little console from Mk XII to Mk XIII and a heap of dilithium disappeared. Okay, won't touch that until I'm Level 15 on the R&D, that seems to be the trick there.
And then comes Delta Rising.
An annoying grindfest of boring "5 groups of 5" patrol missions, that takes a ton of effort for very little leveling-up reward, unless you buy XP tokens. Which I won't buy. And then, they take a bunch of players (not me), and wind back their levels because they don't personally like that they used a workaround that didn't involve their pet project, DR.
Well sorry, but I will not be supporting this game with any further funds. I don't appreciate the feeling that I'm being shoehorned into buying something as worthless as XP tokens, I don't appreciate being unable to play PvE queues I used to thanks to the badly handled levels, I'm not happy about being unable to just play the DR storyline thanks to Level Barriers and badly thought-out progression tables.
But the way that players have been treated over their fast leveling is just arrogant and contemptuous. To be blunt and absolutely clear on my position: retrograde nerfs are not on.
So no more money is going from my wallet to Cryptic unless this mess is sorted out. I don't, however, hold out much hope of that happening.
I totally agree, I'm not an LTS and I may not have brought all the packs but all the zen I have spent in game has been done via grind. To see all this happen is very disheartening as well as disappointing and for the first time since I have started to play this game am now questioning myself as to whether I should continue or not!
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Yes you are alone in attempting to find racism in a comment that is totally benign. However I will address some of your other points. It's only acceptable to those who have accepted that method, currently the Chinese MMO's and the Korean MMO's along with a lot of Japanese RPG's have a very grindy nature which contains a lot of timelock/paywall content. IMO it's just something that will over time be eradicated from the industry, but PWE are well known for pushing it with their products, hence the outrage at it in STO, which is a mostly Western IP.
Actually there are no T6 ships that do not have a fee attached whether it's via lockbox or Zen. That can be circumvented by Dil but that's 471000 dil @ 157 conversion rate. That's only 15-20 days worth of dil capping on 4 characters.
Which for the hardcore players is nothing, they have dil and EC reserves out the wazoo. For the Casual player it's where it hurts, they'll likely never get to Mk 14 Very Rare let alone UR or Epic. The content is balanced against Mk 14 high level gear, mostly UR gear at 60, which shows the rather idiotic design decisions that got ratified.
That's the only valid question. It's not. It's a grindfest of proportions that make most Western players balk. The Koreans/Chinese/Japanese might not worry about it as it's a staple of a lot of their games, but this IP and game is aimed at a Western audience primarily in the USA, Europe and associated countries such as Australia for instance.
BTW it's not fat you need to worry about at McD's, it's the sugar. That's the killer, literally...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Actually from a balance and design perspective quite a lot, most of the changes that could be made include making enemy ships more difficult by giving them full loadouts, this in turn would make the PvE challenge actually be closer to PvP in a lot of ways, but mostly the good ones. Science captains with their Crowd Control would be sought after, as would the Engineer Tanks specced for +Threat.
Some of the missions would require a minor rebalance to work correctly, however that wouldn't be too bad to do especially as they can be done on a rolling update schedule.
That would then remove the need for the Hull Sponge technique so far employed within the game, there would be a bonus to the AI hulls but not on the scale seen so far.
Adjustments could also be made to things like Shield and hull amounts across the board. Increasing cooldowns on equipment might cause a bit of consternation initially too, but it would reduce some of the OP behaviour of some builds and allow for a bit more diversity.
These are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head, but there are lots more possibilities.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I haven't found it all that difficult to reach. I'm currently at 59. I got up to 58 from Boff assignments and a very small number of STFs. I have not done any of the new missions or patrolled any systems. So I'm good with the pace on that. It takes as many skill points to go from 50-60 as it does 0-50, so I pretty much expected it before I even started.
All of that said..I don't think that's one of the main concerns. I'm sure it is for some people, but the issues run much deeper than that one thing. The grind after getting to 60 is what I think concern a lot of people. They don't want to grind back all their gear to be competitive again. They feel their gear has become obsolete. I don't know if this is true or not; I seem to be doing just fine with the Borg set I got three years ago.
For me, and others, one of the big issues is the change in experience earned. I am leveling two new characters right now and that has become a monumental and painful grind...it's making me question if I really want to continue with those characters or not.
I also think the specialization feature needs some work (space and ground should always be active) and it was a bad move to take away the dilithium you could have earned if you maxed out the specs. Everything in this game grants something of value when you reach the end of it -- like commendations, for example.
And last: what they did to so many players was simply wrong. They crossed a line; they broke a cardinal rule in MMOs: never take away anything from the players, no matter what. It is the fastest way to alienate your base that there is. It has killed MMOs in the past and it could very well kill this one (and I'm not the type to go around predicting imminent demise). But I am rational and I am a realist and what I see happening right now is a monumental mistake that Cryptic has refused to acknowledge or address in any meaningful fashion...and this time I believe it really will hurt them, and hurt them tremendously.
Anyway, there are a rather large number of problems and issues that are causing this massive hemorrhage. It's bad enough that Cryptic absolutely must change some things, and quickly. They can write all the hyperbole they want (D'Angelo claiming hundreds of thousands of players play this game -- yeah, sure they do) and the glowing reviews they're leaving for themselves. That's all PR. But they know this wasn't successful; they can see the numbers.
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I think it falls into a long-term vision they have...one that isn't necessarily bad...but they approached it very poorly. It is utterly insane to change a game as much as they have where literally one day the game is one way and the next it is profoundly different.
They did need to do something about end game, at least in my opinion. I quit three years ago because I became bored after I reached 50. I did not like endlessly grinding STFs. It wasn't my thing. And I refuse to grind for weapons and equipment in any game. So they needed ways to keep people like me from leaving when we reached the end.
In the past three years, this game has grown a lot though and there are many different things I can do now. For the first two weeks I was back, I literally learned of something new (and substantive) on a daily basis. So they might have already achieved that goal. If people were still leaving, then they probably did not do enough to steer people toward these different activities.
Sorry to "talk" your "eyes" off. I need some sleep, lol...
Firesworn Nation (@rswfire) - https://www.firesworn.com
The type of game mechanics and microtransactions that are used by PWE are generally the norm in the far east. In the west the norm was the subscription model. Therefore it is not a leap to say it is because they are a company a far east company as that is the gaming business model.
This has been changing over time as more and more microtransaction games have been released mostly in the form of apps, and more games have gone down the freemiumk route. However it takes time for it to become the acceptable norm for us considering howlong the subscription based mosel has been around.
Really? The answer is quite simple: more missions, so that you have something to do until you hit 60. After that: enjoy the grind if you want more.
There are quite some things that I really started to dislike, although I am still hoping the devs will improve. Here is my top 3 in random order.
1) devs need to start to listen to the players, it will avoid having to use the nerfbat. Issues are spotted in Tribble and reported. What is done with it? Nothing. People are raising concerns on the forum, for all to read, also new potential players. What is done with it? Nothing.
2) the grind... OMG the grind. Want marks? Grind. Want levels? Grind. Want R&D? Grind. Want anything? Grind. I would not mind, if you at least give me something to do.
3) they have got to get the priorities straight. People are still not able to enter the game nearly 3 weeks after DR release. That is insane! That is the worst publicity there is. Instead, they opted to close an "exploit", which could have been solved by stopping the dil and rethink the system.
All in all, that are my top 3. Totally useless though, because of 1). Have you ever seen devs react in any of these topics??
How dare you disagree?
cant say ive had this issue the new difficulty and new upgrades in no way made me feel like i was pushed back at all but granted my ship playstyle has absolutely 0 relance on ship weapons. all the hp buff did was makes enemies die in abut a minute rather than 5 seconds (no biggie there) as for the dil nerf...well annoying but i was making 5 or 6 times the dil i could refine each day so im not worried about it. upgrading costs...meh ill take em as they come epic gear is not #1 on my to-do list in fact its pretty far down the line.
so ya just my 2 cents.
Very well put .
I especially liked that you noted that DR didn't really start with DR , but with the R&D (crafting) that we got 2 months before DR .
Some folks did the math on that and put out a warning about Alt's being dead .
Many , like myself thought , well , we'll see .
The DR hit , and it made the R&D + the Ship & Gear leveling an absolute financial nightmare .
Add to that the XP & awards cuts , the HP mess and the inability to play Elite (or Advanced) for most folks and you're left scratching your noggin ... .
I'd really like some of the podcasts to weigh in on this , but 3 of the 5 STO podcasts I listened to died , and the rest ... , well let's just say that my hopes are not high at being represented adequately .
But what is it that you're doing really ?
To me it seems that you're not working toward unlocking some amazing new content .
If anything , you're working toward becoming "as powerful" as you were 2 weeks ago , with a little fludd thrown in with the ship mastery .
But at the end of the day , you're asked to pay and pay and pay (or grind ~ infinitum) to get to to ISE & the rest of the STF's ... again .
There seems to be a cost VS award thing here that has yet to be looked at or answered .
Why am I expected to go Mk 14 , when Mk 14 is just the new Mk 12 ?
All I see is the stick , with no carrot in sight .
I'm ... sorry ? :eek:
Why did they ruin the game?
Well... you can "thank" for that to the morrons that came here on forums demanding for dil sinks... they have it now to choke off with it in the forms of the craft and upgrade systems.
And you can also "thank" all the sado-maso idiots and DPS wankers who came on forums demanding for harder content... That ruined the game for the majority of players.
Ohh and undine infiltration was taken out for the same reason. A few started to farm it, yelling that its easy, so the devs took it down and probably will put it back impossible to be done afterwards...
The game is terrible now, and unfortunely, after finishing the story arc, there isnt any more incentive to log until next season:(.
More accurately, they ruined the game for short term profit.