test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The "apology"
I posted this in another thread but thinking more on this, IMHO this topic deserves it's own thread.
While the apology was a "step" in the right direction, it is just a "step".
Anytime a company berates it's own customers and it takes a week of rage by the customers for the "company" to apologize, then someone in-charge needs to re-evaluate several things.
1) The "company" exists to provide goods or services that it's customers want and in return it profits and grows.
2) Satisfied customers are the only way to make the "company" grow and profit.
3) Employees of the "company" represent the "company" when they communicate with the "company's" customers at ALL TIMES!
4) Fail to listen to customers and the "company" fails.
5) Not all customers in the world are the same. What sells in one part of the world does not mean it will sell everywhere. The "company" needs to have several different models of goods and services to reach a world wide customer base.
6) Forcing customers to buy what the "company" wants is a plan for failure.
7) Providing what customers want is a plan for success.
8) In a crisis, lack of communication turns a crisis into a disaster for the "company".
9) When customers stop using the "company's" goods or services the "company" starts to fail.
10) Not learning from past "company" mistakes causes the "company" to repeat mistakes and lose customers.
11) Customer trust and loyalty should be the one of the highest priorities of the "company".
12) Quality of the "company's" goods or services should never be compromised. A rush to market has the potential to fail as much as succeed.
I would suggest that the people in-charge at Cryptic and PWE take some time and look at the path Star Trek Online is headed and ask themselves one question,
Would I, as a customer, want to buy the "company's" goods and services in it's current state?
Speaking as one of your "whales", I am trying to answer that question for myself right now and so far the answer "Does not bode well".
Zeus
While the apology was a "step" in the right direction, it is just a "step".
Anytime a company berates it's own customers and it takes a week of rage by the customers for the "company" to apologize, then someone in-charge needs to re-evaluate several things.
1) The "company" exists to provide goods or services that it's customers want and in return it profits and grows.
2) Satisfied customers are the only way to make the "company" grow and profit.
3) Employees of the "company" represent the "company" when they communicate with the "company's" customers at ALL TIMES!
4) Fail to listen to customers and the "company" fails.
5) Not all customers in the world are the same. What sells in one part of the world does not mean it will sell everywhere. The "company" needs to have several different models of goods and services to reach a world wide customer base.
6) Forcing customers to buy what the "company" wants is a plan for failure.
7) Providing what customers want is a plan for success.
8) In a crisis, lack of communication turns a crisis into a disaster for the "company".
9) When customers stop using the "company's" goods or services the "company" starts to fail.
10) Not learning from past "company" mistakes causes the "company" to repeat mistakes and lose customers.
11) Customer trust and loyalty should be the one of the highest priorities of the "company".
12) Quality of the "company's" goods or services should never be compromised. A rush to market has the potential to fail as much as succeed.
I would suggest that the people in-charge at Cryptic and PWE take some time and look at the path Star Trek Online is headed and ask themselves one question,
Would I, as a customer, want to buy the "company's" goods and services in it's current state?
Speaking as one of your "whales", I am trying to answer that question for myself right now and so far the answer "Does not bode well".
Zeus
Post edited by zeus#0893 on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
so up till now they could literally do no wrong in their eyes. sure, bugs and glitches but nothing major like this. they needed a wake up call that players aren't homogeneous drones moving in lock step to what cryptic puts out. that they may grumble a bit, may lose a few but still keep playing and spending.
every mmo publisher/dev should always keep one thing in mind, the players are what keeps the games alive, without enough of them you just have an office full of people twiddling their thumbs and dead servers. keep them happy and they play more, buy more, and are more likely to spread the word that the games is good. tick them off...and the opposite.
so yes, while it was cryptic, it was also the white knights and the player base contributing as well. letting so many things go before that let that ego build up to the break point. and honestly...i am surprised as hell there even was an apology. i never expected that to happen.
i like being surprised in that way
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
@deadspacex64
With all that being said The apology was a step in the right direction but they need to take more steps. Last nerves have been gotten all over , Folks are tired they are mad and I feel that some epic level communication needs to start happening.
I'm no whale but I have sunk about 1500 bucks into this game. I'm willing to keep spending my money but only if we can get a frank and honest discussion about the state of the game and the direction they are taking us.
I also had more in depth to say in the original thread...
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
To the OP: I bet someone could hand you a million in cold hard cash and all you would do is moan about the creases in the paper.
They knew that what they did was overzealous and they were magnanimous to admit their error AND apologise for it, at least they do such a thing, unlike 99% of the forumites on here.
If I was Criptic, and I read some of the things i've read on the forum today about this, I would just say "Do you know what, next time any exploits happen and you take advantage of, then you lose, simple as. So don't bleat next time you get hit with a penalty."
I've been around for quite sometime on this game, and all I have seen is nothing but moany posts on the GD section of this forum, and its getting very boring. In fact, the Mods should get more strict to clear all this up.
People moaned that there was no content, and many complained that they would like to get to Admiral rank and to go to level 60. Now after DR has launched, people are moaning about the extra content, and many are complaiing about having to get to rank 60. Its madness, complete madness. You all sound totally bonkers.
I remember the months pre-LOR, the forums were alight with speculation and wonder, but sadly, this was overshadowed by the majority of pessimists who were saying things like "Craptic won't make a Romulan faction..." "Cryptic doesnt care, they won't make anything special..." "...we will not see Romulans as a playable species..." etc etc etc. Those people were ALL WRONG, but did anyone have the maturity to say "wow, well I was wrong, thanks Cryptic!" no, not a single soul.
The same thing with this specialisation points situation, mostly the same people who were making or contributing to complaints threads, maybe even some who have posted here (though I'm not here to name and shame), haven't even had the decency to recognise the massive turnaround Crypic has made to the benefit of the playerbase, not one person has just said:
"Cryptic listened, they recognised, apologised, and got it sorted straight away. Well done Cryptic!"
As players in a community game, and as human being in the real world, you should all be bloody ashamed of yourselves. It's little wonder "Cryptic doesn't listen" Becasue if they did listen to such a erratic hypcritical forum such as this, the game would be really f**ked up.
If you complain, then it means you don't like the game and you should move on to something you do like. Leave the game alone for people who enjoy it for what it is.
ungrateful? here's a newsflash for ya...we pay them moron. they don't make the game out of the kindness of the hearts, they don't offer it up for free. gratitude for something you pay for is facepalm worthy.
should i be grateful for taxes? my internet bills? well? cryptic/pwe is a business. they are in the business of entertianment...so should i be grateful to movie studios and theatres as well? cable stations?
i do love you white knights...you just don't realize how silly you are and for that reason make easy targets vs anyone with logic.
but one of the absolute stupidist things you do in the name of defending the game...is tell others to leave which if they did HURTS the game
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Lead by example.
Neither STO nor Cryptic will ever satisfy everybody; some people will always be ticked off no matter what they do. Logically, some people probably should leave; as the game will only ever get worse in their opinion, and their complaining about it will never do anything but make the forums and game chat a little more toxic.
The only thing that separates the events of the past few weeks from any other point in STO's history is that there were/are apparently more people who were ticked off than usual; enough to make Cryptic reconsider.
Although I felt you were being overdramatic, I could get behind the overall sentiment of giving Cryptic a break here. But what you said here above is simply untrue, and being patently non-factual detracts from the point you were trying to make. Many peeps, including yours truly, have thanked Cryptic for their recent turnabout, and vowed not to yank their chain about it any further.
But, 'got it sorted straight away'?! Um, no? LOL. Took em a whole week. Which is an eternity, in terms of accruing damage. All of this is very reminiscent of the Jita Riots (EvE Online), after 'Monoclegate' (CCP's version of the monetizing). The damage incurred from it was desasterous, and nearly killed CCP. Judging by the empty queues, I can not but conclude Cryptic has taken a similar hit after Specgate.
But, like I said, far as I'm concerned, that's all air thru the engine now, and I simply hope they learned from it.
that is true...mmoers tend to be a fractious bunch. some want one shot kills and be king of the verse, some want to hit max and instantly have everything. but there's still a portion that wants a quality game, reasonable challenges with reasonable rewards for succeeding, devs that listen and are able to separate gamer types to know who they should maybe be listening to.
and honesty, talking to the player base as adults no matter how childish some in the community may act we all aren't children. there are some basic things they should have done and hadn't been.
toxicity is born of frustration and unhappiness in mmo's, that's a truth. players unhappy with the game, game mechanics, the devs, or the publishers ESPECIALLY if they think nothing they say matters and they like/love that game or don't want to leave...they'll start taking it out on other players, devs, and anyone else that they can bait.
the post your worst stf's thread is a good indicator in a way...during upheavals there tends to be more xx stf got trolled today posts than when everything is running smooth that's in addition to other post expressly stating discontent. esd trolling increases...though that can be really hard to judge since there's so much there most times..but in space around esd it starts as well...a place usually more rational if not silent.
the game won't get worse if they stay, cryptics isn't stupid, they are adults as well. and the trolling doesn't cease...but it does tend to go down to a low boil. and cryptic already has a group of players they want nothing to do with...they make up either 25% or 40% depending on who's stats you use of mmo gamers...the soloers. so they've already shrunk their player base by a pretty good margin in the matter of gamer types.
not hard to sort from there
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
What is going on isn't about the nerf on the Exploit alone - it is about destroying the game that was entertaining and making it unplayable.
Censorship of your customer base's criticism is the most important step to becoming obsolete and lose viability in the market.
I remember when max rank was 60. I remember loading in to find all my points refunded, my achievements meaningless, and the game I knew how to play gone. Some of the changes have been good. Destroying accessibility and playability unless one buys additional content at the cost of a months worth of lunches is what is totally bonkers.
I wasn't part of that group. But I will say they have continued to do a very poor job of supporting Klingon and Romulan factions. All they really need is convert existing Fed ships to the other factions. With the Romulans, since they depend on their "allies" for logistical support, they could allow them to get the ships available at T5 from the faction to which they are allied. That still would not take care of the fact that the Romulans and Klingons do not have much in decent science based ships. (Klingons have one, and Romulans have no science ships - only a science based cruiser).
It is not done. I didn't ask for these complicated additional things that are only usable if I spend lots of money for each character. I feel lied to since the Advanced STFs are not the same as what the Elite used to be, not in performance, entertainment, or reward.
I will never be ashamed of holding any corporation to a standard of performance that provides the product for which I want to pay. While my account was initially a gift, I have sunk hundreds of dollars into it since then. All of that effort was invalidated by Delta Rising. This summer they destroyed my ability to craft. I had everything to max level. Then instead of converting our crafting so that we can maintain what we already had, they destoy everything and make us start over. Then they destroyed my STFs and things I did to work on my fleet with Delta Rising. Why? The general appearance is so they can force me to spend over $30.00/character or more to get back the ability to do what I could already do. Not only that, but if I pony up the several hundred dollars for this, I will still have to go into STFs with ships that are more complicated to set up and operate, less capable against their oposing force than our T5 ships were against the foes before the change, and have to grind for days, weeks, and hours to do it. No! I want the game I enjoyed playing back.
The philosophy of love it or leave it came from a Jew living in Spain during the Inquisition. When one is faced with torture, political and religious persecution, and genocide the "Love it or Leave it" mantra applies. Cryptic is not committing any of these crimes against humanity. But all of those I know who can go to play other games have left to play other games. They remain in contact to see if Cryptic fixes this, or if it will be another Monocle Gate. I am watching as well. Cryptic has provided no customer service for years. They have not listened to their customer base for years. They have not been concerned about poor business relations with their customers for years. When I asked directly how they were going to keep Delta Rising from turning STO into a Pay to Win game, they ignored the question. The seeming reason for ignoring it was that they intended to make it pay to win and drop a massive percentage of their player base. The alternative is they were so out of touch with their player base, and what Trekkers and Trekkies are about, that they made this massive a mistake and now need to correct it. Either way, none of this is the fault of a player base which they disdain and with which they have refused to interact.
Very astute observation. What we saw here was pretty much what I called 'The final straw!' in my initial post upon realizing they had taken my points. It was really just, well, EVERYTHING: the ridiculous cost of R&D, Rarity Upgrades, time-gates, nerfing every possible way to make EC, Dilithium, etc.
This is probably one of the most damaging things D'Angelo has done. He has single-handedly destroyed/invalidated everything I had of value. My new Rom I had? Had to 'starve' her: all lockbox ships I had on her, rep gear, lobi consoles, can't use em any more; and I 'cannibalized' some of her Account-bound weaponry, to use on my Fed main. I simply can't afford to sink an equal (huge) amount of cash into an alt, like I did to get my main 'DR-Ready.' Same for my ships: I upgraded a few, all to Mk XIV, Ultra Rare; the rest is just sitting in my shipyard, collecting dust. And it hurts, as I loved taking other ships out when I felt like playing a different ship today.
D'Angelo, and his insatiable greed, have all but destroyed the game for me. This used to be a fun game, where an end-game piece of rep gear cost like 39k Dilithium, which you could either open your wallet for, or grind for. Nowadays, it cost me 100k+ in Dilithium, and 20+ mil in EC, to upgrade my Assimilated console to Ultra Rare Mk XIV. And that's just 1 console! And R&D used to be an optional mini-game; now it's as good as a must (all with its own money-grubbing schemes).
Sigh. Must Stop. Starting to feel upset again.
Agreed. Absolutely. But don't you ever look at the forums and think 'who would even want to interact with this'?
Try having a civil conversation with someone while twenty other people scream demands and abuse in your ear; it doesn't end well for anyone. The devs need to communicate with us, and they need to do so respectfully, no question about that; but it seems there is always a large portion of the community (though the proportions vary quite a bit) that is determined to make having a meaningful dialogue as difficult and unpleasant as possible.
It's easy to say the devs should be able to rise above that sort of thing, but they are human too; and the flaming and baiting often relentless. Both parties have to take steps to make the other feel welcome at the table; but we tend to forget that and just put all the blame on Cryptic when dialogue breaks down.
I really don't know where you left your common sense or brain for that matter, but in the real world CUSTOMERS complain when a company screws them over! Maybe for you it is okay to be screwed by a company, but I don't like it and I will complain now and in the future. I enjoy Start Trek and my friends are here and that is why I am here! This used to be an enjoyable time away from real life where we had fun, but with the current state of mind at Cryptic/PWE, fun has been removed! While you are entitled to your opinion, SO AM I! If you don't agree fine, but where do get off saying to anyone here to leave the game! Did you buy Cryptic/PWE and only you can say who can play this game or say anything about? I don't think so!
Maybe you should re-evaluate your "CDF" attitude and take a step back and think about how you interact with others. This game, aka product, made by Cryptic has been turned into a grindfest full of bugs and broken code! If you can't see that then you must be blind to what the majority of Cryptic's STO customers have already stated!
I really feel sorry for you as you seem to only want to defend bad decisions by Cryptic and slam anyone who does not agree with you.
My OP pointed out 12 common things that all normal companies already know.
And the number one offense Cryptic/PWE did this past week is...
YOU DON'T HAVE ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES CALL CUSTOMERS MORONS IN PUBLIC! PERIOD!
Now if you think that is acceptable then you have a serious problem in your thought process!
I challenge you to come up with any sane reason why you believe that Cryptic can do that and think they can keep customers!
Please post a reply so I can ignore your biased "CDF" opinion going forward!
Zeus
I think "insatiable greed" is perhaps overdramatic. I think Cryptic is sometimes guilty of what I would call the "Economist's Fallacy." Economists often assume that transactions speak louder than words and that if someone can be lead to make a transaction, it is because they are happy with the outcome and would make the same transaction again. Basically, "Your lips say no but your wallet says yes."
Even many economists recognize that this is an imperfect measure and that context and order of events matter, however. And this is where behavioral economics has importance.
I have said I spent an uncomfortable amount of money after the upgrade system launched. Purely by the numbers, you would think I was thrilled with it. I appreciated the concept of it but was uncomfortable with how much I spent both in new money and accumulated resources. Why did I spend? Because I sensed that if I didn't get it all over with, I might spend more later doing it over time, not paying attention. Because I had gear items that I enjoyed that I was tired of being underpowered using. Because I liked "Mindscape" after playing it on Tribble. Because I had some extra money on hand that I would not ordinarily.
You couldn't just say, "He liked the upgrade system because he spent and so we're going to repeat the whole process in January with kit and bridge officer upgrades and expect him to spend that much again." Lessons that you learn from my transaction history are incomplete, contextual, and not necessarily repeatable.
The stuff I did to get a full 29th century temporal theme will not work again. The ships I've bought are not an indicator that I have a limitless hunger for ships. I'd really rather not ever buy another ship again and have Cryptic develop new categories of thing to sell me like bridge officer/trait/costume bundles.
I think the smart thing for them would be to focus less on repeat purchases and more on subtle things to get the 90-95% of players who don't spend to spend something, even if it's small. And directly spend, not trade dilithium. I really think the smart money is to target the goal of getting at least 25% of players to spend something while keeping people like me making small purchases rather than expecting me to always spend big.
I REALLY believe in what I posted earlier about offering a sensational value for a small buy-in price.
I think they should remaster the Romulan and Cardassian episodes. As they remaster them? Chop the Skillpoint gains in half to proportionately mirror DR content.
And then hit from the other direction. For $1 a month, you get a Silver Plus subscription with double Skillpoints. (Also included with Gold subs.)
So you have a choice. Grind from Captain rank on or spend at least $1 a month personally. That wouldn't antagonize gold and lifers and it isn't asking a lot of free players aside from getting them over the conceptual hurdle of spending their first $1 a month on the game.
I looked on the news page and couldn't see it.
Hehe; yeah, that was in small reference to the Motion Picture, and V'Ger's 'insatiable curiosity.' :P
So, maybe not insatiable greed, but definitely pushing, very hard, towards a Korean model, in which every little bit is monetized.
Also, loved your post! Good stuff on the "Economist's Fallacy." Cryptic would do well to read it, and maybe learn from it.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1282041
However, some of the posts on this thread need to be called out, and indeed anywhere else they appear:
Specifically, "Love it or leave it!"
This I want to address specifically those who has expressed this sentiment:
This is a phrase that shouldn't ever be uttered. You know what? Customers complaining are customers who are unsatisfied and yet are still around waiting for the company to fix something. You know what else has happened? Others have packed up and LEFT!
Yes, that's right: those who have done what you've insisted we do, "love it or leave", have left, taking their money elsewhere. These are people who in all likelihood, will not come back even after a problem is rectified. Crack open any business book and you'll find case study on top of case study where businesses have done the wrong thing, sometimes even something fairly minor, and rather than the customers saying something, droves of people have simply not returned. Heck, there are television shows on this phenomenon.
You know what happens in these cases? Businesses die, with the owners having no chance to ever know why. Is this really what you want to happen to STO?
Now, the really breathtaking thing about this too, is that here you are, in a forum, dissatisfied with the fact that there's a thread about a problem... so you come in, and start expressing that dissatisfaction. Think about this for a moment:
You're not loving it, so according to your own rule... why haven't you left?
Anyone who comes into a thread and blurts out "Love it or leave it!" is automatically showing themselves up to be a hypocrite. So stop it. Either accept others are dissatisfied and deal with it on those terms, or leave.
"Love it or leave it" is a waste of effort to even type out. End of discussion.
All so very, very true!
In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're generating a whole lot of adversity towards themselves, 'making' people spend that much money. Like you and I, we'll do it maybe once, because we're too deeply invested in the game (figuratively and literally) to call it quits on the spot; but their antics engender quite a bit of resentment in the process. Rather than going thru this cycle again, come January, with boff kits and upgrades, people are far more likely to say "F* this! I'm done!" It's always better to get your customers to pay you 100 bars of Latinum over 10 years, than 20 bars right now, but never see them back.
The other day, speaking of economics, I had an interesting notion about it as well.
Ever seen James (from the 'Jesse & James' duo) hedge out one of his get-rich-fast schemes? Those go like "I sell this to one person, who then sells it 10 others people, who then each, in turn, sell it to 10 other people!" That is essentially the way D'Angelo reasons: "We let ppl upgrade like 5 weps per ship, on 5 ships, each wep at least needing 5 upgrade cycles! *ding* *ding* *ding* *drool*!
In the grown-up world, spending doesn't scale logarithmically like that, of course. In fact, quite the opposite: people ere scale down! Taking myself as example, instead of having like 10 fully decked lockbox ships, I now only use maybe 2, as I can no longer afford the hundreds of millions in EC for endless upgrade tokens (especially for rarity upgrades), and huge amounts of Dilithium. And that C-Store Ody in my sig? Yeah, she's still flying, but no longer with a full Polaron set, but just the single Utra Rare Borg set I made, and the UR Mk XIV phasers I pulled off my Aquatic Carrier. My Elachi Escort? Haven't even gotten to upgrading all my Disruptor stuff yet. Etc. And I know I'm not alone in this.
So, essentially, all this money-grubbing has quite a destructive influence on the game.
I agree with this sentiment. Feedback, including negative feedback, must be produced by the customers in order to facilitate communication as to what they believe a company is doing right or is doing wrong.
I personally do not believe in "Love it or leave it.", I think it is useless hyperbole for much of the same reason you state. However, at the same time I think there is destructive feedback which exists purely to introduce venom into what could have otherwise been a constructive line of communication.
If all someone has to contribute to a discussion is rhetoric and venom, then I would argue "Love it or leave it." is equally as valuable.
I hear a lot of things on the forums that are outdated and outmoded philosophies of business. Things like "The customer is always right."
That's an idiom that similarly needs to be thrown out the window. Mainly, because it serves its purpose locally more than it would on an international scale.
When you have a few hundred thousand customers, a few hundred thousand customers, each from different walks of life with different opinions can't all simultaneously be right. The probability of a unanimous agreement among them all is extremely low.
What affects one customer in an MMO will likely affect more, and they may not all like the same thing. So to say "The customer is always right." is intellectually dishonest because as players in an MMO we're all connected to each other whether we like it or not.
and people think cryptic alone is ruining the game. guys(and gals) hate to tell you but thats not true... they have f'ed up more then once but the need to hold a grudge and keep at it after it's been taken care of isn't helping anyone. least of all the fan base. so drop it telll the next TRIBBLE up then go back to flaming them. don't worry their human it's not going to long.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Yes I agree with you on that. In such circumstances, I personally tend to start using a variant of "This has already been discussed and shown to be unworkable". Sometimes, I'll just not respond and hope the thread dies on its own. Other times, I'll even make fun of some really obviously silly idea that keeps getting brought up if it's becoming clear that it's a troll! Forums should be fun
Yes, building on from your comment I think the thrust here is that there needs to be a worthwhile justification for things, and that goes for both customers and businesses. If something is justifiable, and that justification is generally acceptable in terms of being 'reasonable' in terms of historical context (what's gone before in the business), and for what's currently needed (solving a problem or avoiding a future problem), then that's probably as far as it can be expected to go.
IIRC, the concept of "the customer is always right" is sort of like "perception is reality": without going into detail, there's a history there that people tend not to understand when they bring it up.
As an individual I can't expect Cryptic to produce STO to be precisely what I want. However, I can use the forums to gauge how others feel about issues that I find problematic or unjustified. If the consensus is that I'm in the minority, then yes I have to learn to live with that, and vice versa. In my own case as an example, I've done that with Level 60 (personally not interested in more levels but the majority seem to like the idea, and I accept that that's the end of the matter).
There are approaches for MMOs to address this issue of "multiple differentiated customers" of course. Someone much earlier in SpecGate posted a video presentation at a conference about how in another game, types of players were analyzed and they formed a series of "player archetype" which allowed the company to internally assess the impact of changes on the player base as differentiated groups. With a customer base the size of an MMO, this sounds like the kind of approach that would be helpful.
I don't think anyone is arguing that "The customer is always right." pertains to their own small self per se. On a whole, though, yes, I'd say going very much against the grain of what your customers want (aka, the playerbase) is never sound business acumen. That's not to say every individual is always getting their way, but, overall, yes, you can't make a product your customers, at large, don't want.
I DO think you have to gauge whether it's worth engaging the customer disagreeably. There's a great Latin motto I TRY to live by, which translates "Who benefits?"
I also think consistency is important to project in business. It isn't that the customer is always right but "faster than light, no left or right" applies to more than just Tom Paris' description of warp travel. Detours from a prior company strategy or vision can be disruptive and destructive.. F2P was a big transition that mainly worked because what had happened prior was no longer working. If not for the content drought prior to the PWE acquisition, some of those changes would not have been accepted.
I daresay that the DS9 FE series smoothed the F2P transition and that the Voyager cast reunion has prevented the current expansion from being rockier than what it has been. It may look like it didn't have a massive goodwill payoff in Steam numbers but I think it probably prevented the game from imploding over some of the changes.
I favor consistent, simple business models (complexity breeds distrust) and policies which are explainable, replicatable, and independently justifiable. The problem with the XP nerf wasn't JUST that it was disagreeable towards customers or that it showed too much loss aversion on Cryptic's part (sometimes good business means eating a hit when you accidentally undercharge someone). The problem was that it really had no precedent and not enough assurance that it wouldn't happen again. It seemed unpredictable. Sure, the extreme exploiters, you might argue, could have predicted it. But some people were hit who couldn't have predicted it because they were simply soloing new patrols on Elite and doing good DPS with builds like Aux2Bat.
Your innovations and good features can afford to be unpredictable but it's important that your policies and customer interactions do feel predictable. Both echoing the past but also in a way that people will feel like they can anticipate negative responses in the future. This nerf BOTH differed from past handling and was applied to some people who had no means of predicting the response.
Heck, I favor predictability to an extent that I would like to see the Lobi store become more standardized so that all Lobi bridge officers come in three profession choices and are customizable. So that all lockbox ships have a Lobi ship they share a set bonus with and a related shuttle like the Tholian/Temporal ships. So that there is a costume unlock (preferably unlocked the same way) in the Lobi store for every lockbox.
Some of these things would yield added expenses or require new purchases but the standardization would make the process of how to get what easier to explain and easier to predict, which is important to me as a customer, even if it means paying a bit more.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Regarding the Lobi "system" idea, I've also considered the same thing and wondered why something like that has not been done yet as I believe the player base would back such a monetization strategy.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè