We've been saying it for days, whining and raging about the changes. The fact remains that cryptic does make changes for the benefit of it's players.
You guys forget the nerd rage over the LoR launch? Removing dil from the STFs? I think lasted 3 days. Reducing the time it took to complete the reps? They shortened it by half within 2 weeks.
The STF queues are effectively dead.
We should have 300-500 players actively playing right now, regardless of the launch of new content. Even during LoR the queues were active. Mirror Incursion at this time of this time of the day should be in the hundreds, it's less than 60.
Players are leaving, and are being very vocal about it.
I've been through 4 launches now, and it's never been this bad. Seven friends, 4 paying have cancelled their accounts. An eighth returned today, but that was to find out where the fleet is meeting in RIFTS tomorrow.
The bugs prevent us from playing.
I have got one 60th level toon read with enough gear to play. The problem is the loadouts are completely fractured for this toon. I could try to play, but every map I'm forced to rebuild my HUD. It's frustrating.
Can't Use Stuff I've PAID FOR.
Remens can't use Ship Mastery. I can't access the Intel costumes paid for. Zen sales are being blocked on the exchange. Romulans are stuck at the academy and have to pay ec to get out.
Anything you've earn and collected over 3 years is now no longer 'ELITE'.
Lets be brutally honest. It's too expensive to update more than one toon UNLESS you invest. I have 50+ ships across 7 alts. I liked playing my alts,now I can't afford it. And I just dropped $250 on this game.
Upgrades? How about you spend 100K dil and 10 million ec for something that's worse than what you started with?
Seriously - don't upgrade anything until you've seen it tested elsewhere. Even then you risk something YOU PAID FOR.
And communication from the company. You're all Exploiters (then you're not). Trust what we post. XP will be higher. You will get Delta marks in the new Mirror Incursion.
Stealth XP nerfs. First In patrols, then in doffing. And Delta Marks in Mirror Incursion? No where to be seen. Who do you believe?
Angry? Voicing your opinion?
Lets add a 5 minute cool-down on the forum. Lets ban words like ****** and ******* <--- negative words used to describe something that's broken.
The game needs something and quick.
If I had launched something as clearly dysfunctional and detrimental to paying customers, I'd lose my job. Someone made the decision to approve this TRIBBLE. Someone said launch.
They need to account for that.
Oh and to the people who say - if you don't like it, why don't you go away? Simple answer. If there was another Star Trek MMO, hell yeah. But As II'm a frustrated angry paying customer, you bet I'm gonna voice my opinion here and every website that will let me post.
This. Those 'banned words' (you can get around it by putting spaces or hyphens in between the letters, btw) aren't swear words, are they?
I know you doubted the accuracy/usefulness of the Steam Charts figures I posted earlier (which was completely reasonable of you to do), but the declining numbers correlate with what you are saying.
Their non-apology is simply not good enough when there are loads of other problems that they've created, worsened, and as of yet have completely failed to even acknowledge.
For these people, I would say that the reason we 'complain' is because we care. If I didn't care, if I didn't enjoy the game or want it to succeed, I would simply quit playing and be done with it. If we didn't care, we wouldn't post.. we wouldn't take part in discussion, we would simply quit.
I hope Cryptic understand that the 'complainers' on this issue are really just players who care and are seeing a very disturbing trend that we feel is killing the game we love. We speak up hoping for change, we don't enjoy being malcontents.
With everything happening, sounds like upper management or home head quarters want things to change. So here you go folks.
Mirror Invasion (normal is changing almost like the advanced) I did say I wasn't going to do the advanced but I did get into it. Most of the other players fell out and left me to deal with the massive attacks. I only have one ship there is no way I can defeat all those extremely spawning terrain ships. Funny when they left the system had drop down the award selection so I had chosen Task force one. But I couldn't leave even though I was the only one left. The mission kept on going. So I exit out of STO. Then had signed back in and found that my ship had warped into MIRROR INVASION, I was able to warp out back into sector space.
Right now I am only doing the following daily:
Borg Disconnect (Normal)
Mirror Event (Normal)
Bug Hunt (Normal) this one depends on if anyone is queued up for it though.
Advanced is too hard and it's creating a gap between older and newer players. Before DR, you could get a group of four or even three people together who had good gear and they would be able to compensate if the other one or two people did not have the right gear, traits and skills. This made it possible for newer players to do advanced missions and get BNP's and such items to start collecting gear.
Now it's almost impossible for newer players to start collecting better stuff since you need some of the players with the highest DPS if you want to compensate for two newer/ less well geared players.
______________________________
So, either the missions are changed back the way they were, that is, they can be done again by three above average players and two newer players who are still collecting and building their ship, or they should change the rewards: give one BNP (and related items for all the other rep systems) for normal missions, and more BNP's for advanced and elite. This might of course result in a much greater supply of dilithium, but then again, there's still a huge sink for that.
Either one of these things is done, or we'll have to get used to newer players ruining missions because at a certain point they have to build their ships and characters and they have no other way to do it, at least not without endangering the rewards for the real advanced/elite players.
If Cryptic wants to avoid masses of players walking away and if they don't want to kill their own game or large parts of it (the PUGging for example) then they'd better start making these changes soon.
Advanced is too hard and it's creating a gap between older and newer players. Before DR, you could get a group of four or even three people together who had good gear and they would be able to compensate if the other one or two people did not have the right gear, traits and skills. This made it possible for newer players to do advanced missions and get BNP's and such items to start collecting gear.
Now it's almost impossible for newer players to start collecting better stuff since you need some of the players with the highest DPS if you want to compensate for two newer/ less well geared players.
______________________________
So, either the missions are changed back the way they were, that is, they can be done again by three above average players and two newer players who are still collecting and building their ship, or they should change the rewards: give one BNP (and related items for all the other rep systems) for normal missions, and more BNP's for advanced and elite. This might of course result in a much greater supply of dilithium, but then again, there's still a huge sink for that.
Either one of these things is done, or we'll have to get used to newer players ruining missions because at a certain point they have to build their ships and characters and they have no other way to do it, at least not without endangering the rewards for the real advanced/elite players.
If Cryptic wants to avoid masses of players walking away and if they don't want to kill their own game or large parts of it (the PUGging for example) then they'd better start making these changes soon.
Summed up well. They need to fix this or STO has no future...
It's really sad, but for the first time in four years I feel like I am on a sinking ship...
I feel these changes are akin to taking my car into the garage, and the mechanic removes 3 gears - charges me for the privilege of making it harder to drive.... and then informing me I can drive effectively again by giving him even more money over a period of time.
So they made enemies harder by giving them more HP. It's not interesting or challenging. Its just boring.
Heres how to make STF's interesting and more difficult without resulting to beefing HP.
Penalty box: if a player blows a node before all 4 are down to a certain level of HP - they get placed in a penalty box (with a few npc for them to fight in order to get out) (with a pop - up explaining why). Not only does it make things a bit more difficult, but ensures players learn from the experience (as opposed to people screaming 'noooooob!!!!' at them).
The Kang moves... (slowly) away from enemies. A note flashes up informing the Kang needs defending. Or perhaps place a regenerating shield array nearby that gives an xp boost to those who activate it when the kang is damaged (meaning those defending the kang are not just sitting around)
Instead of constant re spawning when fighting the Borg queen/diamond and ridiculous amounts of cubes to fight some kind of side mission ground infiltration that one or two away teams undertake to disable or disrupt their barrage/collective consciousness.
The above are probably naff ideas, but I'm sure an intelligent Dev team can come up with something better than just buffing HP.
2) The average STO player is not a social creature. I'm not talking in a ESD political raging/gorn joking/ERP kind of way. I'm talking about teaming. About planning missions. About working as a team to achieve a goal. It's because of this that most players PUG.
If I wanted my progression to be determined by a clique I'd still be raiding in WoW.
/300 seconds
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
If I wanted my progression to be determined by a clique I'd still be raiding in WoW.
Case in point.
I'm not knocking the lifestyle. While I enjoy complex missions, with preplanned strategies, setting up for a premade run is not something I typically want to spend my limited gaming time doing. It's more of a once in a while thing, when I've got extra free time.
So, the bulk of my time in queue events is spent pugging. And in the vast majority of pugs, there is no planning. Hell, no chat at all. You just go in and get it done (hopefully). Which is why the most popular queue events tend to be the most pug friendly.
Which is what I feel Advanced queues should be. A way to get necessary rewards and upgrade materials, in a pug friendly environment.
I'm not knocking the lifestyle. While I enjoy complex missions, with preplanned strategies, setting up for a premade run is not something I typically want to spend my limited gaming time doing. It's more of a once in a while thing, when I've got extra free time.
So, the bulk of my time in queue events is spent pugging. And in the vast majority of pugs, there is no planning. Hell, no chat at all. You just go in and get it done (hopefully). Which is why the most popular queue events tend to be the most pug friendly.
Which is what I feel Advanced queues should be. A way to get necessary rewards and upgrade materials, in a pug friendly environment.
This is what practocally EVERYONE i know feels it should be, except the 50K scimitards who still don't notice the differance.
i wonder if the devs feel upset when they look at their PvE queues and see that nobody is playing them...
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
This. Those 'banned words' (you can get around it by putting spaces or hyphens in between the letters, btw) aren't swear words, are they?
I know you doubted the accuracy/usefulness of the Steam Charts figures I posted earlier (which was completely reasonable of you to do), but the declining numbers correlate with what you are saying.
Their non-apology is simply not good enough when there are loads of other problems that they've created, worsened, and as of yet have completely failed to even acknowledge.
This cannot be restated enough.
The forbidden words were not curses - but they include d_e_g_r_a_d_e which was an apt description for problems with the upgrade system.
My reference to player data comes from three sources and ignores STEAM as it represents a small slice, and an inaccurate one.
1.) Fleet activity, of which I am an admin. I have made notes on players seen and number of total players for the past 16 months. Gateway also gives you data as to last logins.
2.) Queue levels. I have always watched the numbers of actual games (stf's) running hourly. There was a time I was a power grinder there runing 7 alts per day to max out dil. The last year it's been more about running missions for fun, training fleeties etc. I took detailed notes during the launch of LoR 'cause i was curious.
3.) Chat channels (actual number of online vs. active players). Even during launches of new content, players remain attached to channels. I was curious to see the impact of the original 10K channel (original member) versus active elitestf and publicelitestf.
These three taken individually are an inaccurate view, and unscientific as I cannot measure the same effect with other player-accounts, nor do I have a decent sample size. Collectively they paint a very real picture of player disinterest. The launch of a Mirror event so soon after launch is a clear indication that there's something wrong.
And of course:
4.) Purely anecdotal, but my friends list and the number of "I Quit" emails sent to me privately. Many of them are going to try other games for the first time. In fact we're try to get together later today in RIFT.
The forbidden words were not curses - but they include d_e_g_r_a_d_e which was an apt description for problems with the upgrade system.
My reference to player data comes from three sources and ignores STEAM as it represents a small slice, and an inaccurate one.
1.) Fleet activity, of which I am an admin. I have made notes on players seen and number of total players for the past 16 months. Gateway also gives you data as to last logins.
2.) Queue levels. I have always watched the numbers of actual games (stf's) running hourly. There was a time I was a power grinder there runing 7 alts per day to max out dil. The last year it's been more about running missions for fun, training fleeties etc. I took detailed notes during the launch of LoR 'cause i was curious.
3.) Chat channels (actual number of online vs. active players). Even during launches of new content, players remain attached to channels. I was curious to see the impact of the original 10K channel (original member) versus active elitestf and publicelitestf.
These three taken individually are an inaccurate view, and unscientific as I cannot measure the same effect with other player-accounts, nor do I have a decent sample size. Collectively they paint a very real picture of player disinterest. The launch of a Mirror event so soon after launch is a clear indication that there's something wrong.
And of course:
4.) Purely anecdotal, but my friends list and the number of "I Quit" emails sent to me privately. Many of them are going to try other games for the first time. In fact we're try to get together later today in RIFT.
Ah, I see. Well, whether you include the Steamcharts figures or not, the conclusion is the same.
If your fleet's interested in other games, I suggest Star Citizen if you haven't already checked it out. Be warned, though - it's a lot of info to sort through for new people. You can PM me here (click the 'message' button; you'll need an account, of course) with any questions you might have about it.
Ah, I see. Well, whether you include the Steamcharts figures or not, the conclusion is the same.
If your fleet's interested in other games, I suggest Star Citizen if you haven't already checked it out. Be warned, though - it's a lot of info to sort through for new people. You can PM me here (click the 'message' button; you'll need an account, of course) with any questions you might have about it.
Thanks - we might just do that.
For the moment we're trying out RIFT - mostly because it's new for all of us, and we'd like to stay together - be among friends.
Thank you first of all to the cast of Voyager for being a part of this expansion. It's not their fault this expansion has turned into an epic fail. The person that planned this little DR scheme out should be fired and go work for Blizzard where your ability to invent infinite pointless grinding will be much appreciated. Before DR this game felt like climbing a mountain and now it feels like climbing a mountain under water. Thanks for drowning us all...
Reading through all these posts makes me really wonder if re-subbing a couple days ago was such a good idea
Depends on what Cryptic is doing atm and for this very case. Queues are the basis for PvE endgame in STO and the ones used to and appreciated by the community have simply been REMOVED and replaced with contend that, from my observation, 4 out of 5 players cant cope with. I really have no idea who came up with this decision but the consequences seem fatal. Even mirror event is only run by a mere fraction of players if one takes the numbers from last event into account.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
this is desesperately empty, and finally after a long long long wait, when you can play; the bugs kill the mission or this is too difficult; well difficult for a normal player.
i have almost upgraded my ship to MK XIV (not Ur or gold, rare is enough), but i won't upgrade my ground gears; i become crazy with all this grinding; I'm at my maximum capacity for tolerance
Queues except from CE are virtually empty. Does Cryptic want us to invite imaginary friends for those who left? The business policy of XP NERF and EXTREME grinding is making LOTS of people to leave this game.
Yeah, my fed char is feeling a bit like my klingon char two seasons ago. No pugs on most queues. Its the reason why I stopped playing my klingon after a while. I dont want to wait sometimes, I just want to click the engage button and do some mindless FAW spamming. And obviously many others wanted to do this too pre DR.
Additional there are still some bugged queues, making the problem even worse.
Normal queues have hardly anyone in them as well. Normal disconnected queue has between 4-7 at any given time. With around 15-25 playing usually close to 15.
This! I know, cause I used to be one of the whales.
As did I, pretty reliably as well. I put in a tenner to buy the intrepid pack, the rest has come from stipend, I didn't even buy DR, which makes me wonder, who are the whales now as most seem to be leaving, or at least reducing what they're putting in? :P
I spent an evening downloading DR. Fired up the game. After finding out with shock and horror that all my super expensive lobi/lockbox ships are now in the same not-T6 trash tier as everything else, I fired up ISE just to warm up. Or whatever ISE is called nowadays.
Imagine how much fun I had, how excited I was to find that the mission's enemies now took 3 times longer to kill and "optional" objectives were now required objectives. Imagine how much that fun and excitement compounded when we finally got to the end screen, and we got half the reward that was the previous norm.
Miission is harder, takes 3 times longer, gives half the reward, and you're wondering why the queues are dead?
while i dont mind the challenge arent Optionals supposed to be Optional? i think its dumb that they still called Optionals still . what made the Queued events like the STFs was that you had a goal like the optional but didnt need it to grind out the gear . once you geared up you could team up and go for that optional .
as it stands now you cant even do that with a fresh 50 toon .
The launch of a Mirror event so soon after launch is a clear indication that there's something wrong.
We knew the mirror event was coming before the expansion even went live, from Tribble. This stuff was planned well in advanced. (A bit of a tangent, but I doubt it was coincidence that the shotgun was first available on the day a new Elachi-heavy episode came out, where its shield penetration is incredibly useful.)
while i dont mind the challenge arent Optionals supposed to be Optional? i think its dumb that they still called Optionals still . what made the Queued events like the STFs was that you had a goal like the optional but didnt need it to grind out the gear . once you geared up you could team up and go for that optional .
as it stands now you cant even do that with a fresh 50 toon .
They're not called optional when they're not optional.
I think PW makes most of it's money off on new players, high turn around is good for them... This is a F2P game, not subscription based. If new players buy the lifetime sub or other ship packs and then drop the game after 3 to 6 months... that's good. As long as new folks keep coming in to replace the folks who have left, the game will not suffer and will continue to make money.
Regardless of the changes made to the game... it has no effect for new players playing this game... they can hit L50 easily doing the storyline... infact they will hit well before and now have plenty of storyline missions to advance to L60 and beyond for spec points.
I think PW makes most of it's money off on new players, high turn around is good for them... This is a F2P game, not subscription based. If new players buy the lifetime sub or other ship packs and then drop the game after 3 to 6 months... that's good. As long as new folks keep coming in to replace the folks who have left, the game will not suffer and will continue to make money.
This is a bad policy. I know I have seen what 9.5 different versions of STO and 2 expansions. The game was drastically changed once it went from sub to F2P but at least DStahl had the guts to confront the playerbase and keep everyone informed so as not to worry about the new model.
In contrast the new Mr EP (D'Angelo) made a false apology, rewarded exploiters while punished ALL the playerbase with the greatest NERF ever. What gives? At least they should be decent enough to formulate the new business plan instead of creating chaos and ill feelings on their playerbase with every added NERF since DR.
If you are not in an active fleet or have a great friend list for private matches you have to wait longer and longer.
If you love variety, you dont find it in this game anymore. Because a lot of players run the same queues again and again: Fleet Alert, Crystalline Catasrophe (Advanced), Khitomer and Infected.
For other queues you have to wait a long time. Some want run for hours. Some wont run anytime.
I want to fight on Nukara, because i havent do this for a long time. But these queues wont start. Starbase Incursion: wont start. Starbase 24: wont start.
I think PW makes most of it's money off on new players, high turn around is good for them...
I don't have anything concrete to base it on, but I have a really hard time believing that new players are keeping this going. I don't tend to see a lot of genuinely low-level players, and I personally wouldn't have even started (let alone stayed around) without a friend already being into it.
Add to that the exorbitant prices ($30+ for a playable character unlock?), lack of real direction/explanation of basic game mechanics, time gates and bugs omni-present, and the general nastiness of specific large sections of the community and nothing seems to be new player friendly.
Not trying to get my hate on there, just being blunt that there's a lot to drive new players away before they'd get deep enough in to spend any real money.
Add to that the exorbitant prices ($30+ for a playable character unlock?), lack of real direction/explanation of basic game mechanics, time gates and bugs omni-present, and the general nastiness of specific large sections of the community and nothing seems to be new player friendly.
That's only if your visit the forums...
if your brand new to the game and your a fan of ST... you can start out with 3 toons for free.
You can do Fed, KDF and yeah the crappy half faction Romulans. Each with their own storyline. <- no comment on quality of storyline.
No need for character unlocks... and if you sub for 1 month... you can have a total of 4 toons.
No one is really reporting any major game breaking issues with being Lvl 1 to start the game.
Leveling is super easy and they give you a new ship every 10 levels up to L40.
Events also give folks a free T5 (T6 upcoming) ship.
All the changes are for post 50... and you can probably hit L50 be playing the game normally and ending up at L50 at around the middle to the end of the Romulan storyarc. Tons more storlyine missions to go past L50. These give real chunks of XP not the piddly 2k replay XP.
Sure I dont like the new game mechanics and the nerfs... but for someone brand new... there is no nerf cause this is how it has always been.
So long as they can keep attracting new folks, fresh blood... the game will make do. Also even if folks here dont like the chanages... they still pay $ when they offer them something they want like the new re-bagged intrepid.
so... how long till cryptic admits the vast majority of the playerbase is outright ignoring/refusing to play STFs, fleet actions/etc? and decides to... you know, tune them?
queues are somehow deader than they were pre-DR, the only queue that actually sees some degree of moderate activity is mostly crystalline catastrophe and disconnected with some low activity for infected and khitomer.
before there used to be 70-150 people playing infected on any given time, 50-100+ doing crystalline, 30-80+ doing khitomer, not to mention plenty of other queues also saw some activity like undine infiltration, vicious cycle, rh'lhho station, the breach, gorn minefield, colony invasion, starbase defense.
the state of the queues is depressing, and this is supposed to be an expansion release.
Yep for example I'm trying to queue for any of the STFs for 8472 so I can finally finish my set. Some of them have 0 and -- as the number of players playing and the time till next STF and thats 24hrs a day mind you.
It's getting ridiculous honestly between this and cutting off the Rom missions I'm surprised they haven't taken notice of the lack of players.
If you love variety, you dont find it in this game anymore. Because a lot of players run the same queues again and again: Fleet Alert, Crystalline Catasrophe (Advanced), Khitomer and Infected..
Which has always been the case. What is this "anymore" you speak of?
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Comments
This. Those 'banned words' (you can get around it by putting spaces or hyphens in between the letters, btw) aren't swear words, are they?
I know you doubted the accuracy/usefulness of the Steam Charts figures I posted earlier (which was completely reasonable of you to do), but the declining numbers correlate with what you are saying.
Their non-apology is simply not good enough when there are loads of other problems that they've created, worsened, and as of yet have completely failed to even acknowledge.
This cannot be restated enough.
It wasn't, and I didn't.
Mirror Invasion (normal is changing almost like the advanced) I did say I wasn't going to do the advanced but I did get into it. Most of the other players fell out and left me to deal with the massive attacks. I only have one ship there is no way I can defeat all those extremely spawning terrain ships. Funny when they left the system had drop down the award selection so I had chosen Task force one. But I couldn't leave even though I was the only one left. The mission kept on going. So I exit out of STO. Then had signed back in and found that my ship had warped into MIRROR INVASION, I was able to warp out back into sector space.
Right now I am only doing the following daily:
Borg Disconnect (Normal)
Mirror Event (Normal)
Bug Hunt (Normal) this one depends on if anyone is queued up for it though.
Time will only tell!
Now it's almost impossible for newer players to start collecting better stuff since you need some of the players with the highest DPS if you want to compensate for two newer/ less well geared players.
______________________________
So, either the missions are changed back the way they were, that is, they can be done again by three above average players and two newer players who are still collecting and building their ship, or they should change the rewards: give one BNP (and related items for all the other rep systems) for normal missions, and more BNP's for advanced and elite. This might of course result in a much greater supply of dilithium, but then again, there's still a huge sink for that.
Either one of these things is done, or we'll have to get used to newer players ruining missions because at a certain point they have to build their ships and characters and they have no other way to do it, at least not without endangering the rewards for the real advanced/elite players.
If Cryptic wants to avoid masses of players walking away and if they don't want to kill their own game or large parts of it (the PUGging for example) then they'd better start making these changes soon.
Summed up well. They need to fix this or STO has no future...
It's really sad, but for the first time in four years I feel like I am on a sinking ship...
So they made enemies harder by giving them more HP. It's not interesting or challenging. Its just boring.
Heres how to make STF's interesting and more difficult without resulting to beefing HP.
Penalty box: if a player blows a node before all 4 are down to a certain level of HP - they get placed in a penalty box (with a few npc for them to fight in order to get out) (with a pop - up explaining why). Not only does it make things a bit more difficult, but ensures players learn from the experience (as opposed to people screaming 'noooooob!!!!' at them).
The Kang moves... (slowly) away from enemies. A note flashes up informing the Kang needs defending. Or perhaps place a regenerating shield array nearby that gives an xp boost to those who activate it when the kang is damaged (meaning those defending the kang are not just sitting around)
Instead of constant re spawning when fighting the Borg queen/diamond and ridiculous amounts of cubes to fight some kind of side mission ground infiltration that one or two away teams undertake to disable or disrupt their barrage/collective consciousness.
The above are probably naff ideas, but I'm sure an intelligent Dev team can come up with something better than just buffing HP.
If I wanted my progression to be determined by a clique I'd still be raiding in WoW.
/300 seconds
Case in point.
I'm not knocking the lifestyle. While I enjoy complex missions, with preplanned strategies, setting up for a premade run is not something I typically want to spend my limited gaming time doing. It's more of a once in a while thing, when I've got extra free time.
So, the bulk of my time in queue events is spent pugging. And in the vast majority of pugs, there is no planning. Hell, no chat at all. You just go in and get it done (hopefully). Which is why the most popular queue events tend to be the most pug friendly.
Which is what I feel Advanced queues should be. A way to get necessary rewards and upgrade materials, in a pug friendly environment.
This is what practocally EVERYONE i know feels it should be, except the 50K scimitards who still don't notice the differance.
i wonder if the devs feel upset when they look at their PvE queues and see that nobody is playing them...
The forbidden words were not curses - but they include d_e_g_r_a_d_e which was an apt description for problems with the upgrade system.
My reference to player data comes from three sources and ignores STEAM as it represents a small slice, and an inaccurate one.
1.) Fleet activity, of which I am an admin. I have made notes on players seen and number of total players for the past 16 months. Gateway also gives you data as to last logins.
2.) Queue levels. I have always watched the numbers of actual games (stf's) running hourly. There was a time I was a power grinder there runing 7 alts per day to max out dil. The last year it's been more about running missions for fun, training fleeties etc. I took detailed notes during the launch of LoR 'cause i was curious.
3.) Chat channels (actual number of online vs. active players). Even during launches of new content, players remain attached to channels. I was curious to see the impact of the original 10K channel (original member) versus active elitestf and publicelitestf.
These three taken individually are an inaccurate view, and unscientific as I cannot measure the same effect with other player-accounts, nor do I have a decent sample size. Collectively they paint a very real picture of player disinterest. The launch of a Mirror event so soon after launch is a clear indication that there's something wrong.
And of course:
4.) Purely anecdotal, but my friends list and the number of "I Quit" emails sent to me privately. Many of them are going to try other games for the first time. In fact we're try to get together later today in RIFT.
Ah, I see. Well, whether you include the Steamcharts figures or not, the conclusion is the same.
If your fleet's interested in other games, I suggest Star Citizen if you haven't already checked it out. Be warned, though - it's a lot of info to sort through for new people. You can PM me here (click the 'message' button; you'll need an account, of course) with any questions you might have about it.
Thanks - we might just do that.
For the moment we're trying out RIFT - mostly because it's new for all of us, and we'd like to stay together - be among friends.
Depends on what Cryptic is doing atm and for this very case. Queues are the basis for PvE endgame in STO and the ones used to and appreciated by the community have simply been REMOVED and replaced with contend that, from my observation, 4 out of 5 players cant cope with. I really have no idea who came up with this decision but the consequences seem fatal. Even mirror event is only run by a mere fraction of players if one takes the numbers from last event into account.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
i have almost upgraded my ship to MK XIV (not Ur or gold, rare is enough), but i won't upgrade my ground gears; i become crazy with all this grinding; I'm at my maximum capacity for tolerance
Queues except from CE are virtually empty. Does Cryptic want us to invite imaginary friends for those who left? The business policy of XP NERF and EXTREME grinding is making LOTS of people to leave this game.
Additional there are still some bugged queues, making the problem even worse.
Normal queues have hardly anyone in them as well. Normal disconnected queue has between 4-7 at any given time. With around 15-25 playing usually close to 15.
@Desdecardo since 2008.
As did I, pretty reliably as well. I put in a tenner to buy the intrepid pack, the rest has come from stipend, I didn't even buy DR, which makes me wonder, who are the whales now as most seem to be leaving, or at least reducing what they're putting in? :P
as it stands now you cant even do that with a fresh 50 toon .
We knew the mirror event was coming before the expansion even went live, from Tribble. This stuff was planned well in advanced. (A bit of a tangent, but I doubt it was coincidence that the shotgun was first available on the day a new Elachi-heavy episode came out, where its shield penetration is incredibly useful.)
-edit-
They're not called optional when they're not optional.
Regardless of the changes made to the game... it has no effect for new players playing this game... they can hit L50 easily doing the storyline... infact they will hit well before and now have plenty of storyline missions to advance to L60 and beyond for spec points.
This is a bad policy. I know I have seen what 9.5 different versions of STO and 2 expansions. The game was drastically changed once it went from sub to F2P but at least DStahl had the guts to confront the playerbase and keep everyone informed so as not to worry about the new model.
In contrast the new Mr EP (D'Angelo) made a false apology, rewarded exploiters while punished ALL the playerbase with the greatest NERF ever. What gives? At least they should be decent enough to formulate the new business plan instead of creating chaos and ill feelings on their playerbase with every added NERF since DR.
If you are not in an active fleet or have a great friend list for private matches you have to wait longer and longer.
If you love variety, you dont find it in this game anymore. Because a lot of players run the same queues again and again: Fleet Alert, Crystalline Catasrophe (Advanced), Khitomer and Infected.
For other queues you have to wait a long time. Some want run for hours. Some wont run anytime.
I want to fight on Nukara, because i havent do this for a long time. But these queues wont start. Starbase Incursion: wont start. Starbase 24: wont start.
I don't have anything concrete to base it on, but I have a really hard time believing that new players are keeping this going. I don't tend to see a lot of genuinely low-level players, and I personally wouldn't have even started (let alone stayed around) without a friend already being into it.
Add to that the exorbitant prices ($30+ for a playable character unlock?), lack of real direction/explanation of basic game mechanics, time gates and bugs omni-present, and the general nastiness of specific large sections of the community and nothing seems to be new player friendly.
Not trying to get my hate on there, just being blunt that there's a lot to drive new players away before they'd get deep enough in to spend any real money.
http://steamcharts.com/app/9900#1y
wonder why people still post this, its only really relevant for steam mandatory games.
Best example is war thunder that had new record with over 120k people playing, while steam charts only show 25k peak for the same time.
I don't launch a single MMO from steam (not even using the overlay) and most people do the same.
That's only if your visit the forums...
if your brand new to the game and your a fan of ST... you can start out with 3 toons for free.
You can do Fed, KDF and yeah the crappy half faction Romulans. Each with their own storyline. <- no comment on quality of storyline.
No need for character unlocks... and if you sub for 1 month... you can have a total of 4 toons.
No one is really reporting any major game breaking issues with being Lvl 1 to start the game.
Leveling is super easy and they give you a new ship every 10 levels up to L40.
Events also give folks a free T5 (T6 upcoming) ship.
All the changes are for post 50... and you can probably hit L50 be playing the game normally and ending up at L50 at around the middle to the end of the Romulan storyarc. Tons more storlyine missions to go past L50. These give real chunks of XP not the piddly 2k replay XP.
Sure I dont like the new game mechanics and the nerfs... but for someone brand new... there is no nerf cause this is how it has always been.
So long as they can keep attracting new folks, fresh blood... the game will make do. Also even if folks here dont like the chanages... they still pay $ when they offer them something they want like the new re-bagged intrepid.
Yep for example I'm trying to queue for any of the STFs for 8472 so I can finally finish my set. Some of them have 0 and -- as the number of players playing and the time till next STF and thats 24hrs a day mind you.
It's getting ridiculous honestly between this and cutting off the Rom missions I'm surprised they haven't taken notice of the lack of players.
Which has always been the case. What is this "anymore" you speak of?
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!