Seemed a bit harsh. The abilities I enjoy and the extra tweaking and control of the character/ship was a big bonus to me. Ships (and especially with lockbox abilities) is adding up to quite a bit at least in what abilities I have available and the ability to tweak the builds further, but there are several out there so everyone else's mileage will vary.
The main facepalm moments I have with this is, let's just moan in the review and suggest no alternative for anything. If you watch total biscuits reviews for example, he logically reasons something out as to why and often will add what would have been better to do, this guy/girl just seemed to moan with no solutions.
I particularly disagree with the 'lengthy' level cap nonesense, I did 4 levels since i've been back in about 5 days or a week so I am not sure what he/she's on about. I hate levelling up too fast as I just think what was the point.
Haven't done the story fully yet so can't comment on the episodic writing etc.
Winter event is being finished now, summer event will be done in February.
Well that covers the Winter and Summer events, but did you see anything from him or anyone else at Cryptic/PWE for the ME, DR lobi give-away, or the Lifetime sub sale? I sure didn't!
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and talks like a duck...It must be a duck!
Cryptic/PWE is no different than any other company on this planet. If revenue is falling then sales has to do something to get the cash flowing again!
The article was written with a lack of composure and polish. However, it is all true.
You know, this TRIBBLE is so bad, that I simply don't care enough anymore to actually set aside the 4 minutes required to actually type out the cliff notes. There is so much wrong and what they did offers so little for the player base to enjoy, I really don't care enough to even gripe any more.
I started reading the review and stopped when the reviewer started complaining about no voiceover for the player. I couldn't take them seriously after that. It's like they never played an MMO before, or have any understanding of the limitations of dialogue in this game.
Then I read the "About Us" for the website. Let's just say I was underwhelmed and not sure why one bad review from a game media site I never heard of means that all of the game reviews are going to suck. Dose of reality... let's wait for more of those reviews to start coming in, shall we, before we proclaim a media disaster?
I haven't had the time to really play, but the little bit I have played DR isn't causing me much angst. I'm still kitting out my ships and Intel BOFF's on all my alts and learning how to use the new stuff.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Well that covers the Winter and Summer events, but did you see anything from him or anyone else at Cryptic/PWE for the ME, DR lobi give-away, or the Lifetime sub sale? I sure didn't!
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and talks like a duck...It must be a duck!
Cryptic/PWE is no different than any other company on this planet. If revenue is falling then sales has to do something to get the cash flowing again!
Quack, Quack, Quack!
Zeus
:eek:
Absense of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I have shown that they work on at least some events months in advance. Additionally it is the case that many (possibly all) events are not on the calendar at the times they are finished, but instead only added with the official blog announcing them.
You appear to have an opinion with no evidence and are calling lack of any evidence from you opponent proof you are right. All hail the flying spaghetti monster may you be blessed by his noodly appendage. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof
Personally, I feel they have insufficient quality control. Whether they work on an event with one day lead or two months of lead, they spent the same number of hours on it, and that number includes too few on q/a.
let's wait for more of those reviews to start coming in, shall we, before we proclaim a media disaster?
Well that's the thing ... I don't think they will, that's how bad it is ... most of the reviewers will probably just think "Expansion ? ... yeah not really ... no review/re-visit necessary"
I have shown that they work on at least some events months in advance. Additionally it is the case that many (possibly all) events are not on the calendar at the times they are finished, but instead only added with the official blog announcing them.
Yet, every Event you're referring to ... IS on the Calender months in advance, while others are NOT (MU still missing, after it went live) ... did you even bother to check ... i.E. Winter Event is already there, no Blog Post afaik ...
... the only thing you've shown is ... how to compare apples to oranges ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I have shown that they work on at least some events months in advance. Additionally it is the case that many (possibly all) events are not on the calendar at the times they are finished, but instead only added with the official blog announcing them.
You appear to have an opinion with no evidence and are calling lack of any evidence from you opponent proof you are right. All hail the flying spaghetti monster may you be blessed by his noodly appendage. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof
Personally, I feel they have insufficient quality control. Whether they work on an event with one day lead or two months of lead, they spent the same number of hours on it, and that number includes too few on q/a.
Well it seems you are missing my point entirely.
I am simply stating in my OP that the discord with "The Best Expansion Ever" is spreading beyond these forums and the in-game chat to game review sites on the web and other social media. The word about DR is spreading and it does NOT bode well.
As far as event planning goes, I understand events like the Winter and Summer events take time to develop and roll out, but like any company worth anything, they can enable gimmicks to increase revenue and customer involvement if the metrics start showing a decline in the companies' revenue stream. Gimmicks like the free lobi, lifetime sub sell, and the MU event.
It really is not too hard to get the picture that the DR expansion is not living up to the expectations Cryptic/PWE had for it.
I am simply stating in my OP that the discord with "The Best Expansion Ever" is spreading beyond these forums and the in-game chat to game review sites on the web and other social media. The word about DR is spreading and it does NOT bode well.
As far as event planning goes, I understand events like the Winter and Summer events take time to develop and roll out, but like any company worth anything, they can enable gimmicks to increase revenue and customer involvement if the metrics start showing a decline in the companies' revenue stream. Gimmicks like the free lobi, lifetime sub sell, and the MU event.
It really is not too hard to get the picture that the DR expansion is not living up to the expectations Cryptic/PWE had for it.
I started reading the review and stopped when the reviewer started complaining about no voiceover for the player. I couldn't take them seriously after that. It's like they never played an MMO before, or have any understanding of the limitations of dialogue in this game.
Then I read the "About Us" for the website. Let's just say I was underwhelmed and not sure why one bad review from a game media site I never heard of means that all of the game reviews are going to suck. Dose of reality... let's wait for more of those reviews to start coming in, shall we, before we proclaim a media disaster?
I haven't had the time to really play, but the little bit I have played DR isn't causing me much angst. I'm still kitting out my ships and Intel BOFF's on all my alts and learning how to use the new stuff.
You gotta remember who you're talking to/about; i.e. the ones who are actually playing this game and seeing all the same issues first hand. Everything were working toward is stuff for PvP, btw no one does because it sucks or doesn't exist at all. I would be happy just to have more to do than just grind between story line missions, or just more missions to level up with. I'm stuck at lvl 56 and creeping. I'm so sick of grinding.
And with the release of the Mirror Invasion, the Lifetime sub sale, free lobi, etc. it seems someone at Cryptic/PWE is seeing something in the metrics that suggests the number of players might be decreasing instead of increasing since the launch of "The Best Expansion Ever"!
Zeus
:eek:
Oh great, another rave review by a fanboi. You can tell this is a Cryptic plant.
I started reading the review and stopped when the reviewer started complaining about no voiceover for the player. I couldn't take them seriously after that. It's like they never played an MMO before, or have any understanding of the limitations of dialogue in this game.
Then I read the "About Us" for the website. Let's just say I was underwhelmed and not sure why one bad review from a game media site I never heard of means that all of the game reviews are going to suck. Dose of reality... let's wait for more of those reviews to start coming in, shall we, before we proclaim a media disaster?
I haven't had the time to really play, but the little bit I have played DR isn't causing me much angst. I'm still kitting out my ships and Intel BOFF's on all my alts and learning how to use the new stuff.
I thought the voice overs and content was great. The reemergence of the Bluegill was AWESOME.
The problem is for all the good Cryptic does (and the deserve props for it), the BS tied to poor communication hurts everything. Right now there are more than 2 dozen negative reviews out there, beyond the reach of this forums.
Players are leaving. The data we can see supports that.
STO has an image problem with a vocal percentage of it's fan base.
Legacy of Romulus might be the best expansion for Romulans and Klingons, but for Federation it lacked a ton of content. It just contained the Nimbus Adventure Zone, Nukara Reputation, and trait revamp for Feds. DR has a bunch of new missions for everyone, the Specialization system, new ships, new ship mechanics, new reputation, new Queue difficulty, and new adventure zone. So if you consider Delta Rising to be the best STO expansion based on the amount of content that it added to the game, then it does beat Legacy of Romulus that way.
"The community is still here being helpful and helping each other through the grind. That said, when people found some missions to farm in the old content the game's developers actually shut that section of space down, forcing players to play where they want them to go."
^^ And that was being generous, as there was no mention of Cryptic having robbed people's accounts over having played the 'old content.'
I thought the voice overs and content was great. The reemergence of the Bluegill was AWESOME.
The problem is for all the good Cryptic does (and the deserve props for it), the BS tied to poor communication hurts everything. Right now there are more than 2 dozen negative reviews out there, beyond the reach of this forums.
Players are leaving. The data we can see supports that.
STO has an image problem with a vocal percentage of it's fan base.
What do you do?
This ^^^^^ It's just the bad is so bad on this occasion you can't help but keep at it until they finally accept this isn't sustainable and actually sort it out.
I think Cryptic should be grateful a lot of people are willing to ride the storm towards a better game quality and aren't just dumping them on the spot. We've been trying to sort this out for a long time, this just happens to be the worst it's been.
Like ddesjardins has said, the reviews are rolling in and they're not looking pretty. Some are comments on posts about DR, which is still damaging.
Cryptic needs to accept they're wrong, for once, and actually do what has been told to them for a long time, interact with the playerbase properly and learn why people are having gripes with the game right now instead of trying to silence us constantly.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
This ^^^^^ It's just the bad is so bad on this occasion you can't help but keep at it until they finally accept this isn't sustainable and actually sort it out.
I think Cryptic should be grateful a lot of people are willing to ride the storm towards a better game quality and aren't just dumping them on the spot. We've been trying to sort this out for a long time, this just happens to be the worst it's been.
Like ddesjardins has said, the reviews are rolling in and they're not looking pretty. Some are comments on posts about DR, which is still damaging.
Cryptic needs to accept they're wrong, for once, and actually do what has been told to them for a long time, interact with the playerbase properly and learn why people are having gripes with the game right now instead of trying to silence us constantly.
And there's also the Steam charts. It's not good for actual numbers but it's great for trends.
If you're a cynic you could easily assume that the mirror event was rushed in so close to the release of the new best ever expansion if you saw the original page for it where there was a more than a couple of copy pastes from the previous one.
Things like being for 50's or the boff actually being a shotgun. All got edited surprisingly quick but like a lot of cryptic releases did require so post launch tweaking.
DR might have a bunch of new missions but the large part of those are fairly generic wave based patrols spread across as far as they can just to spin out the torture some more. The exploiting wouldnt have been as big an issue if they listened to tribble reports, didnt go for the easiest reward for overlevelling and actually made sufficient content to level to 60 from let alone to the actual cap of 110.
If they bothered to fix the skill bar reset bug more people might be trying the ground zone but it's an annoyance most will avoid.
If they bothered to fix the skill bar reset bug more people might be trying the ground zone but it's an annoyance most will avoid.
Frost and coldsnap are pretty actively working on this one. Check the thread for them asking for help tracking it down in the bug section. There are workarounds too.
I don't know about you, but that looks pretty damning. Yes, the itty bitty spike at the end is DR.
Yeah I've been putting that out as well, I agree with you entirely that says a lot, especially the rates at which they go down over time, DR is nose diving compared to LoR lol :P
I've found those trends to be very accurate since I found out about those, so I'd happily say they're reflective of what's going on in-game.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Yeah I've been putting that out as well, I agree with you entirely that says a lot, especially the rates at which they go down over time, DR is nose diving compared to LoR lol :P
I've found those trends to be very accurate since I found out about those, so I'd happily say they're reflective of what's going on in-game.
It's not that damning, really. That chart shows a general trendline downward, which is what MMOs do. Peaks in the market leader are lower than valleys in the same game were 5 years ago. The overall trend for any MMO is downward as new ones come out to slice the pie smaller and smaller. The problem in the second part, comparing the drop-off from LoR to DR is in the granularity of the graph. Go zoom into the month around LOR and you'll get 3 data points, month before, month of and month after, that's it, for DR you get multiple numbers from each day, so it's going to look a lot more volatile.
For the OP:
I can't tell you what the planning process is for things like Mirror Event, but, based on last year at abut this time, the Lifetime sale is about 2 weeks earlier than the Autumn one last year, which may have been held back a bit to coincide with Season 8 release. Couldn't find a start date post for it, but it came with the addition of the Vet EV suits in the patch note here.
Mirror Event is a bit trickier, since we didn't have it last year, We did have a Crystalline Event about a month earlier, but it's hard to discern a pattern from too few instances, especially since they've added more. It looks to me like hey plan to have one of either the Crystalline or Mirror events run each quarter, but I could be way off base.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
The story is basic and predictable with only one twist that this expansion doesn't follow up on.
Didn't get a chance and by the time I hit 60 I barely wanted to play the game.
PVP-Didn't get a chance and by the time I hit 60 I barely wanted to play the game.
This is the worst expansion I have ever played.
Nothing new here. PWE at its finest.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
It wouldn't require that many or complex tweaks to turn the game around.
We already know a lot of people enjoy playing story content.
Instead of subtracting from the whole game why didn't they let you play the voyager story missions with your friends and then raised the exp for all new content they wanted you to play.
Why not carrot people to play it maybe add higher drops or whatever it's just so pointless to whip and delete
What happens for me is I remember this stuff 5 years from now and since I am a pitiful, resentful and bitter person I will never shut up about it.
The illusion that hey if we silence veto it for a few weeks they stop posting.. hilarious
But yeah, I don't know, whoever is in charge of the current doctrine needs to wake up.
And likewise the other developers around that person needs to re-locate their sack and be honest with him
It's not that damning, really. That chart shows a general trendline downward, which is what MMOs do. Peaks in the market leader are lower than valleys in the same game were 5 years ago. The overall trend for any MMO is downward as new ones come out to slice the pie smaller and smaller. The problem in the second part, comparing the drop-off from LoR to DR is in the granularity of the graph. Go zoom into the month around LOR and you'll get 3 data points, month before, month of and month after, that's it, for DR you get multiple numbers from each day, so it's going to look a lot more volatile.
I'm just looking at it compared to DR. They claimed it was the best expansion ever... well LoR certainly peaked a lot higher and took longer to fall back to normal. DR only got a bit over S8/8.5/9 and dropped off much, much faster. The fact that it's been what, two or three weeks and numbers are already almost back down to normal is pretty convincing that this was not the most successful by a long shot.
I'm just looking at it compared to DR. They claimed it was the best expansion ever... well LoR certainly peaked a lot higher and took longer to fall back to normal. DR only got a bit over S8/8.5/9 and dropped off much, much faster. The fact that it's been what, two or three weeks and numbers are already almost back down to normal is pretty convincing that this was not the most successful by a long shot.
Part of the problem is just reading the numbers, thinking "yeah that looks okay" and not digging further. Getting out the calculator, on peak, DR is appalling. It didn't bring in a huge peak. On 'averages', it's a bit too early to tell, and the "last 30 days" average has continued to fall. We won't really know until January really (October launch, November dropoff, and December settlement). However, even then the "monthly average" for LoR was higher than the current "Last 30 days".
Plus when you keep an eye out on the dailies, it peaked and then had a rapid dropoff, and the past few days have seen a daily "hour on hour comparison" fall of around 20%. Ditto for "Day on day".
The Mirror Universe event doesn't seem to have been too great, with a 23% drop over the peak when released to now. Compare that to yesterday and the same time bracket had a 21% drop. At best, this suggests that MU did nothing. More cynically, there has been a 9% greater dropoff during MU than yesterday.
If we were to look at LoR as the benchmark and decide to judge DR like-on-like, then LoR had an impact of bringing in at peak 2.4 times as many people from its 'month before' lowpoint. The same for DR taking that 2799 point (longer back which is being generous) should have seen a peak of 6717 rather than the 5432 gained. If taking the real "month before" point, it should have reached a peak of 8412. So on those figures, it's not great.
If we look at dropoff rate, then LoR went from 7402 to 6143 in one month, or dropping 18%, or say 9% in two weeks. DR to match this should have dropped from 5432 to 4943 in two weeks. It instead has dropped to 4505 or 17%.
I could dig even futher but you see the picture: LoR remains the benchmark, DR would have been okay (especially if it was about long-term or future playability) but it was touted as "The most successful launch ever". One these figures, it's just not.
If you're a cynic you could easily assume that the mirror event was rushed in so close to the release of the new best ever expansion if you saw the original page for it where there was a more than a couple of copy pastes from the previous one.
Things like being for 50's or the boff actually being a shotgun. All got edited surprisingly quick but like a lot of cryptic releases did require so post launch tweaking.
Not to mention it is the old version where you can close all the rifts and be bored out of your mind for the last half of the event. Pretty sure they fixed that last time yet are still using the original revamped version.
I don't know about you, but that looks pretty damning. Yes, the itty bitty spike at the end is DR.
Steam charts is messy even just for measuring trends. However the last time a season released with a purple rock event after the peak player number was higher during said event than it was for the actual release.
This leads the cynic in me to believe DR is fading extremely fast. Especially when combined with the free lobi event pushed out in what seemed to be a hurry and the mirror event as well.
The errors of DR from a design perspective may appear on paper to be easy to fix but the reality in my view is most of the damage has already been done thanks to a level increase for 'reasons' without a proper understanding of why other games do them.
The direct and instant reduction in every player character's power (compared to rewards earnable) was absolutely terrible. Even elder scrolls has learned why everything auto scaling is a bad idea.
The obsolescence of expensive purchases without an additional purchase harmed the consumer confidence in the product.
A 'grind to progress story' barrier likely chased off quite a few interested in STO as a quasi single player story game more than an MMO.
Boring HP sponges do not make for compelling combat when your combat model only remains engaging thanks to the amount of button mashing involved.
Group gameplay from a casual/PuG perspective is still a nightmare with the experience wildly varying depending upon luck of the teammate draw, bugs, and the fact some elite content is still easier than some advanced content.
Some of those might not bother you. All combined they broke many camel backs. They fail to understand the differences in their theoretical excel STO game and the actual game experience. They fail to understand the psychological impact behind specific design decisions. And they willingly choose to put all their revenue eggs in the 'shiny new ship & Zen Exchange for shiny new ship' basket.
*Forgot to mention the idea of adding a grind to all the new grind in an attempt to keep players logged in might not have been the, best, idea. Would be different if it offered a great way to cover all those existing grinds but the lack of Delta Marks and meh exp gains miss that mark.
Comments
The main facepalm moments I have with this is, let's just moan in the review and suggest no alternative for anything. If you watch total biscuits reviews for example, he logically reasons something out as to why and often will add what would have been better to do, this guy/girl just seemed to moan with no solutions.
I particularly disagree with the 'lengthy' level cap nonesense, I did 4 levels since i've been back in about 5 days or a week so I am not sure what he/she's on about. I hate levelling up too fast as I just think what was the point.
Haven't done the story fully yet so can't comment on the episodic writing etc.
Yes how dare people have an opposing opinion to you, I mean really, how dare they.
Well that covers the Winter and Summer events, but did you see anything from him or anyone else at Cryptic/PWE for the ME, DR lobi give-away, or the Lifetime sub sale? I sure didn't!
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and talks like a duck...It must be a duck!
Cryptic/PWE is no different than any other company on this planet. If revenue is falling then sales has to do something to get the cash flowing again!
Quack, Quack, Quack!
Zeus
:eek:
You know, this TRIBBLE is so bad, that I simply don't care enough anymore to actually set aside the 4 minutes required to actually type out the cliff notes. There is so much wrong and what they did offers so little for the player base to enjoy, I really don't care enough to even gripe any more.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1278251&page=7
His comments sum up this entire bullcr** post completely. #waitsfortheblueraygun
[SIGPIC]Click here to visit my STO YouTube channel[/SIGPIC]
XD
Then I read the "About Us" for the website. Let's just say I was underwhelmed and not sure why one bad review from a game media site I never heard of means that all of the game reviews are going to suck. Dose of reality... let's wait for more of those reviews to start coming in, shall we, before we proclaim a media disaster?
I haven't had the time to really play, but the little bit I have played DR isn't causing me much angst. I'm still kitting out my ships and Intel BOFF's on all my alts and learning how to use the new stuff.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Absense of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I have shown that they work on at least some events months in advance. Additionally it is the case that many (possibly all) events are not on the calendar at the times they are finished, but instead only added with the official blog announcing them.
You appear to have an opinion with no evidence and are calling lack of any evidence from you opponent proof you are right. All hail the flying spaghetti monster may you be blessed by his noodly appendage.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof
Personally, I feel they have insufficient quality control. Whether they work on an event with one day lead or two months of lead, they spent the same number of hours on it, and that number includes too few on q/a.
Well that's the thing ... I don't think they will, that's how bad it is ... most of the reviewers will probably just think "Expansion ? ... yeah not really ... no review/re-visit necessary"
Yet, every Event you're referring to ... IS on the Calender months in advance, while others are NOT (MU still missing, after it went live) ... did you even bother to check ... i.E. Winter Event is already there, no Blog Post afaik ...
... the only thing you've shown is ... how to compare apples to oranges ...
Well it seems you are missing my point entirely.
I am simply stating in my OP that the discord with "The Best Expansion Ever" is spreading beyond these forums and the in-game chat to game review sites on the web and other social media. The word about DR is spreading and it does NOT bode well.
As far as event planning goes, I understand events like the Winter and Summer events take time to develop and roll out, but like any company worth anything, they can enable gimmicks to increase revenue and customer involvement if the metrics start showing a decline in the companies' revenue stream. Gimmicks like the free lobi, lifetime sub sell, and the MU event.
It really is not too hard to get the picture that the DR expansion is not living up to the expectations Cryptic/PWE had for it.
Zeus
:eek:
by the time I get the other 4 of my 6 toons up to 60lvl I don't think I will want to play this anymore
You gotta remember who you're talking to/about; i.e. the ones who are actually playing this game and seeing all the same issues first hand. Everything were working toward is stuff for PvP, btw no one does because it sucks or doesn't exist at all. I would be happy just to have more to do than just grind between story line missions, or just more missions to level up with. I'm stuck at lvl 56 and creeping. I'm so sick of grinding.
Oh great, another rave review by a fanboi. You can tell this is a Cryptic plant.
LOL
OK, /sarcasm off
/300 seconds
I thought the voice overs and content was great. The reemergence of the Bluegill was AWESOME.
The problem is for all the good Cryptic does (and the deserve props for it), the BS tied to poor communication hurts everything. Right now there are more than 2 dozen negative reviews out there, beyond the reach of this forums.
Players are leaving. The data we can see supports that.
STO has an image problem with a vocal percentage of it's fan base.
What do you do?
^^ And that was being generous, as there was no mention of Cryptic having robbed people's accounts over having played the 'old content.'
This ^^^^^ It's just the bad is so bad on this occasion you can't help but keep at it until they finally accept this isn't sustainable and actually sort it out.
I think Cryptic should be grateful a lot of people are willing to ride the storm towards a better game quality and aren't just dumping them on the spot. We've been trying to sort this out for a long time, this just happens to be the worst it's been.
Like ddesjardins has said, the reviews are rolling in and they're not looking pretty. Some are comments on posts about DR, which is still damaging.
Cryptic needs to accept they're wrong, for once, and actually do what has been told to them for a long time, interact with the playerbase properly and learn why people are having gripes with the game right now instead of trying to silence us constantly.
And there's also the Steam charts. It's not good for actual numbers but it's great for trends.
http://steamcharts.com/app/9900#All
I don't know about you, but that looks pretty damning. Yes, the itty bitty spike at the end is DR.
Things like being for 50's or the boff actually being a shotgun. All got edited surprisingly quick but like a lot of cryptic releases did require so post launch tweaking.
DR might have a bunch of new missions but the large part of those are fairly generic wave based patrols spread across as far as they can just to spin out the torture some more. The exploiting wouldnt have been as big an issue if they listened to tribble reports, didnt go for the easiest reward for overlevelling and actually made sufficient content to level to 60 from let alone to the actual cap of 110.
If they bothered to fix the skill bar reset bug more people might be trying the ground zone but it's an annoyance most will avoid.
Yeah I've been putting that out as well, I agree with you entirely that says a lot, especially the rates at which they go down over time, DR is nose diving compared to LoR lol :P
I've found those trends to be very accurate since I found out about those, so I'd happily say they're reflective of what's going on in-game.
It's not that damning, really. That chart shows a general trendline downward, which is what MMOs do. Peaks in the market leader are lower than valleys in the same game were 5 years ago. The overall trend for any MMO is downward as new ones come out to slice the pie smaller and smaller. The problem in the second part, comparing the drop-off from LoR to DR is in the granularity of the graph. Go zoom into the month around LOR and you'll get 3 data points, month before, month of and month after, that's it, for DR you get multiple numbers from each day, so it's going to look a lot more volatile.
For the OP:
I can't tell you what the planning process is for things like Mirror Event, but, based on last year at abut this time, the Lifetime sale is about 2 weeks earlier than the Autumn one last year, which may have been held back a bit to coincide with Season 8 release. Couldn't find a start date post for it, but it came with the addition of the Vet EV suits in the patch note here.
Mirror Event is a bit trickier, since we didn't have it last year, We did have a Crystalline Event about a month earlier, but it's hard to discern a pattern from too few instances, especially since they've added more. It looks to me like hey plan to have one of either the Crystalline or Mirror events run each quarter, but I could be way off base.
Nothing new here. PWE at its finest.
We already know a lot of people enjoy playing story content.
Instead of subtracting from the whole game why didn't they let you play the voyager story missions with your friends and then raised the exp for all new content they wanted you to play.
Why not carrot people to play it maybe add higher drops or whatever it's just so pointless to whip and delete
What happens for me is I remember this stuff 5 years from now and since I am a pitiful, resentful and bitter person I will never shut up about it.
The illusion that hey if we silence veto it for a few weeks they stop posting.. hilarious
But yeah, I don't know, whoever is in charge of the current doctrine needs to wake up.
And likewise the other developers around that person needs to re-locate their sack and be honest with him
I'm just looking at it compared to DR. They claimed it was the best expansion ever... well LoR certainly peaked a lot higher and took longer to fall back to normal. DR only got a bit over S8/8.5/9 and dropped off much, much faster. The fact that it's been what, two or three weeks and numbers are already almost back down to normal is pretty convincing that this was not the most successful by a long shot.
Part of the problem is just reading the numbers, thinking "yeah that looks okay" and not digging further. Getting out the calculator, on peak, DR is appalling. It didn't bring in a huge peak. On 'averages', it's a bit too early to tell, and the "last 30 days" average has continued to fall. We won't really know until January really (October launch, November dropoff, and December settlement). However, even then the "monthly average" for LoR was higher than the current "Last 30 days".
Plus when you keep an eye out on the dailies, it peaked and then had a rapid dropoff, and the past few days have seen a daily "hour on hour comparison" fall of around 20%. Ditto for "Day on day".
The Mirror Universe event doesn't seem to have been too great, with a 23% drop over the peak when released to now. Compare that to yesterday and the same time bracket had a 21% drop. At best, this suggests that MU did nothing. More cynically, there has been a 9% greater dropoff during MU than yesterday.
If we were to look at LoR as the benchmark and decide to judge DR like-on-like, then LoR had an impact of bringing in at peak 2.4 times as many people from its 'month before' lowpoint. The same for DR taking that 2799 point (longer back which is being generous) should have seen a peak of 6717 rather than the 5432 gained. If taking the real "month before" point, it should have reached a peak of 8412. So on those figures, it's not great.
If we look at dropoff rate, then LoR went from 7402 to 6143 in one month, or dropping 18%, or say 9% in two weeks. DR to match this should have dropped from 5432 to 4943 in two weeks. It instead has dropped to 4505 or 17%.
I could dig even futher but you see the picture: LoR remains the benchmark, DR would have been okay (especially if it was about long-term or future playability) but it was touted as "The most successful launch ever". One these figures, it's just not.
Not to mention it is the old version where you can close all the rifts and be bored out of your mind for the last half of the event. Pretty sure they fixed that last time yet are still using the original revamped version.
Steam charts is messy even just for measuring trends. However the last time a season released with a purple rock event after the peak player number was higher during said event than it was for the actual release.
This leads the cynic in me to believe DR is fading extremely fast. Especially when combined with the free lobi event pushed out in what seemed to be a hurry and the mirror event as well.
The errors of DR from a design perspective may appear on paper to be easy to fix but the reality in my view is most of the damage has already been done thanks to a level increase for 'reasons' without a proper understanding of why other games do them.
The direct and instant reduction in every player character's power (compared to rewards earnable) was absolutely terrible. Even elder scrolls has learned why everything auto scaling is a bad idea.
The obsolescence of expensive purchases without an additional purchase harmed the consumer confidence in the product.
A 'grind to progress story' barrier likely chased off quite a few interested in STO as a quasi single player story game more than an MMO.
Boring HP sponges do not make for compelling combat when your combat model only remains engaging thanks to the amount of button mashing involved.
Group gameplay from a casual/PuG perspective is still a nightmare with the experience wildly varying depending upon luck of the teammate draw, bugs, and the fact some elite content is still easier than some advanced content.
Grind exp. Grind crafting components. Grind upgrades. Grind grind grind.
Some of those might not bother you. All combined they broke many camel backs. They fail to understand the differences in their theoretical excel STO game and the actual game experience. They fail to understand the psychological impact behind specific design decisions. And they willingly choose to put all their revenue eggs in the 'shiny new ship & Zen Exchange for shiny new ship' basket.
*Forgot to mention the idea of adding a grind to all the new grind in an attempt to keep players logged in might not have been the, best, idea. Would be different if it offered a great way to cover all those existing grinds but the lack of Delta Marks and meh exp gains miss that mark.