a lot of folks saying they grow up seeing the fed side, or basically something to that effect so they want to be the kirk and picard and I get that.
I'm 29 and grew up with star trek, especially the older movies, and I have literally zero desire to make a federation character, I have one main character after a year and a half and I love my gorn to death. I have a fed-aligned rom alien and she's only level 13.
to me fed looks like... tons and tons of content, but the races all look the same and the ships all look the same (at least most of them).
kdf has varied looks in what few races they have, along with the kdf using designs from other races like the gorn, nausicaan, and orion, even their ancient enemies the Fek'Ihri. I swear it almost seems like kdf promotes diversity more than the fed does.
And that is your opinion. Due to the Federation centric view of Star Trek, most people are exposed to the Federation side of things while having little experience with the Klingon or Romulan side.
As far as KDF being more diverse than Federation, the Federation has been united for centuries so while there might be immense diversity in Federation ships, they are all civilian ships. Starfleet is responsible for the protection of the Federation so military ships come from the same source with a few exceptions. There is also the issue of the Federation grabbing anyone they can when a species achieves Warp Travel so independent development of military starships is almost non-existent in those cases. After all, if you are a member of the Federation, then there is not much point in developing your own fleet when Starfleet will save you.
Then you have the KDF where Gorn, Orions, and Nausicaans have all developed their own military fleets and have recently become part of the Klingon Empire. Therefore, Klingons have more military ship diversification than the Federation.
I can kind of see where the OP is coming from, but you also have to take into mind players attitude. That is, I would imagine most people that play the game grew up watching the show and always dreamed about being the Captain of a Federation starship.
So they tend to choose the Federation faction first, they probably get to max level play a few endgame content and then roll a new toon, be it Klingon or now Romulan. Now a lot of people will take it to max level and then grind out both or all of their toons. However a lot more will discover this game is very very grindy and don't have the time to play multiple toons, plus the fact that, yes you are correct there is less content in other faction than the Federation. So they head back to their first character and play that pretty much 99% of the time.
So when Cryptic looks at faction player numbers, they see that the Federation has more players so they produce more content for the faction that has more numbers.
A lot of players play Federation because it was their first toon and they will continue to play that more than any other toon.
So when Cryptic breaks down the numbers
Make 5 new fed ships at £1000 each 60% player base
Make 5 new Klingon ships at £1000 each 30% player base
Make 5 new Romulan ships at £1000 each 10% player base
Can you guess where they will be make money and where they will be losing money. I know it is an inconvenient truth, but that is how they run their business.
Disclaimer
I have no idea how much it costs them to make new content!
You got that wrong- the KDF is 16% of the playerbase. It's a non-changing constant. Stahl said so.
They know there's no money in the KDF or ROM playerbase, because there ISN'T a non-fed playerbase. There's only the Fed faction, the other two are simply for feds who need a break from their fed toons.
This is a federation game, star trek is ONLY about the federation. Everyone else are just punching bags for the blue guys. If your here to play anything but a feddie you're playing the wrong game. They say this with every item and expansion they create, whether they know it or not.
If that were the scenario, which it isn't. To pretend the KDF faction has remained static and untouched since February 2010 up until the launch of Delta Rising is simply untrue.
We can argue over what constitutes the vague definition of 'solid support' till the cows come home, but when it comes to business decisions, Cryptic knows which side of their bread is buttered. And it's the Federation.
Anybody who believes the KDF and Romulan Republic are completely ignored are either delusional or blind.
Maybe not as paid attention to as the Federation? Perhaps. But it's hard to blame Al Rivera for who the target demographics are.
And it isn't Romulans or Klingons. They throw both of those factions a bone when they can, but both of those factions are outweighed by the financial opportunity Federation players present.
And to not seize financial opportunities is poor business. If there is a choice in devoting labor hours to something Fed-related or KDF related on the schedule, they will typically lean Federation since it affects more players.
It's nobody's fault at Cryptic for people preferring the Federation. You have Gene Roddenberry to thank for that.
I may be tired, but I don't think you explained your original point to me. But your counter here is well enough written for me.
My thought on solid support is slightly more than a tossed bone. But a bit of meat. IE, either less numerical disparity or something to specifically address the weaknesses of the other two factions.
While I know in my cynical heart there will never be a no complaint addition or change. Greater support I think would be appreciated.
Personally my thoughts are to create a T6 science vessel for the KDF. A response from high command for falling behind both the federation and the RR in this field.
For the RR a command battle carrier. IE a carrier with command abilities. But no cloak like the KDF and fed carriers. Being the only none cloaking ship the romulans have barring the temporal ships. (And yeah if I was to argue here it would be all three of those should have a cloak but still.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Only read the OP posts, and I kind of agree, but I think it's too late to fix really, it's not really fixable anymore.
Originally it was circular logic. There was no Klingon anything originally except a handful of ships. Over the first couple of years, a handful of ships came out, but really no content, so people stopped playing Klinks.
Then Cryptic tried a few changes, mostly minor, and still people didn't come play it.
Then Cryptic added a full leveling content for the Klinks... and still no one really came and played it. People came, played the content, thanked Cryptic, and went back to their mains... Feds.
LoR was similiar. People came, played LoR contend, thanked Cryptic.. and went back to the Federation mains.
And there's the issue. People aren't sticking with Romulans or Klingons for the most part. Oh people have Romulan and Klingon alts, but especially with Delta Rising, people are concentrating for the most part on a single character, their mains... which for the most part are Feds.
So really... any new content... any new ships are going to favor the feds... by a wide margin... because the majority of the playerbase have their mains and spend the majority of their time as Feds.
Proved that even when Cryptic finally added Klingon content... people played it and went back to their Feds.
So adding new content or adding new ships won't really fix the issue. People have spent way too much time and effort and money on their Feds to ever truely abandon them for the Klingons no matter what Cryptic does.
Edit: As for the number of ship arguements. I'll argue that while the Feds have more ships... the Klingons got BETTER ships. I'm flying T-5U ships primarily with my Feds simply because their is very little improvement, and even the ship traits I have I ended up grabbing from a Benthian I got lucky getting while trying to get Lobi for my Talaxian BOff. The Klingons I love their two ships... love them with a passion.
It's already been said by others, but it seems it just doesn't sink in -- the primary reason that most people play Feds is due to the nature of the Star Trek franchise, not the amount of content available in-game for any given faction. Star Trek has always been about Starfleet, the Federation. It focuses on a Federation ship (or station) and its crew. Yes, there are other species and 'factions' present in the stories. But they are either there as antagonists or as supporting cast. Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and such are indeed 'part of Trek' but they are never the central focus. Maybe we feature them in an episode or two, but that's hardly the same as creating a whole series, or number of series, about them.
That nature means that most people who are Trek fans are focused on Starfleet and the Federation. There are niche groups who are indeed exceedingly focused on Klingons or Romulans, et al. But those are just that -- niche groups that will never come close to the size of the mainstream population of Starfleet-oriented viewers.
It also means that, in terms of canon and background material, a great deal more exists to draw upon regarding Starfleet than exists for those other species/factions. That can make development of Starfleet content much smoother/easier than trying to create new content for the other factions basically out of thin air.
Myself, I still don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves and insist upon playing only one faction. The game contains all three factions and all three are playable by everyone -- none of them are mutually exclusive. From a certain standpoint, if you refuse to explore all of the gameplay available, it becomes you, the player, who is at least partially responsible for limiting the value you get out of the game content. Yes, you're never going to get 'full value' out of your money if you choose only to ever play KDF. But in making that choice, you take at least a part of the responsibility for that upon yourself. I have characters in all of the factions -- maybe you should give it a try sometime.
People also seem to not understand or remember that the game really doesn't mesh well with the Federation (as seen on TV and in movies). A lot of people play as Romulans or KDF because it makes more sense in a "kill everything" game.
There really isn't a whole lot of exploration (Federation), but there is a whole lot of blowing things up (Klingons).
And I totally agree with not playing everything. You can't complain about lack of content, if you refuse to play all the content available to you.
People also seem to not understand or remember that the game really doesn't mesh well with the Federation (as seen on TV and in movies). A lot of people play as Romulans or KDF because it makes more sense in a "kill everything" game.
There really isn't a whole lot of exploration (Federation), but there is a whole lot of blowing things up (Klingons).
And I totally agree with not playing everything. You can't complain about lack of content, if you refuse to play all the content available to you.
Which would have worked well if (as I hinted above on ship focus) it was addressed as faction-specific styles for everything:
Want to blow stuff up? KDF with military focus
Want to sneak around creating havoc without anyone noticing? Green Blooded Romulans!
Want to have adventures but hardly any really epic battles and everything diplomatic? Starfleet
Though I fully understand that realistically, this all fits into the category "What could have been".
You got that wrong- the KDF is 16% of the playerbase. It's a non-changing constant. Stahl said so.
They know there's no money in the KDF or ROM playerbase, because there ISN'T a non-fed playerbase. There's only the Fed faction, the other two are simply for feds who need a break from their fed toons.
This is a federation game, star trek is ONLY about the federation. Everyone else are just punching bags for the blue guys. If your here to play anything but a feddie you're playing the wrong game. They say this with every item and expansion they create, whether they know it or not.
You have a valid point, considering the KDF was a PvP-centric afterthought for high level Fed players in the original release of the game, making it a convenient break from the usual.
Indeed, the Romulans and KDF mainly serve to to allow players to enjoy some of the game from the sides of the "villains", before returning to a Federation-oriented storyline. Indeed, almost no missions feature any more class-specific options to situations, much less any race or faction-specific options to situations. And unfortunately, the allure of the Romulans and KDF are nowhere near the level that the Star Wars Empire has gained (to use the closest comparison of a popular "villain" faction), which just feeds back into the time and effort to further personalize them not being worth the cost when they can just copy/paste 95% of the Federation-oriented story and just leave it as-is.
And as far as CBS cares (given they are the rights holders letting Cryptic even use the Star Trek brand), this is perfectly fine. We don't hear them pushing for greater KDF or Romulan recognition the way we've heard the Devs mention that CBS has pushed the Federation.
So as another person said, the real blame for this imbalance lies in the original creator; Gene Roddenberry, as all his stories have indeed focused on the Federation side, to the detriment of any other faction, being left as 1-dimensional villains (fairly compared to Star Wars, where the villains were given enough of a personality to make them memorable and have enough followers to make it worth catering to both factions across various media; games included).
That's what happens when people use absolutes like "complete idiot" or "completely brilliant".
Complete leaves no room for interpretation. They are either completely one thing, or completely the other.
The point is people are human beings who are generally neither one nor the other, but if someone is going to make such accusations, they're going to be faced with the uncomfortable reality that maybe they're just being hyperbolic and venomous for the sake of being hyperbolic and venomous.
The more likely scenario is that Al Rivera is just like any other person, neither malicious nor a certified genius. That he is capable of making good decisions that people like, and capable of making bad decisions people don't like.
And that instead of focusing on each decision on a case-by-case basis it is mentally easier to write him off as either a completely evil mastermind or an incompetent idiot, despite the contradictory nature of holding both of these beliefs.
Well, considering the rise in surveillance and the Big Brother state ,the capabiltiy to double-think may become more and more important, exactly as Orwell predicted.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
You got that wrong- the KDF is 16% of the playerbase. It's a non-changing constant. Stahl said so.
So people still bring up that number, derived from a statement that's 3-4 years old and was made before F2P, before having a restricted KDF-slot, before doffing and all it's contraband benefits, and at a time when leveling a KDF char was an even worse grindfest than what we recieved between 52-60 today?
That's like the people who are still complaining about Crystal Pepsi or new Coke.
So people still bring up that number, derived from a statement that's 3-4 years old and was made before F2P, before having a restricted KDF-slot, before doffing and all it's contraband benefits, and at a time when leveling a KDF char was an even worse grindfest than what we recieved between 52-60 today?
That's like the people who are still complaining about Crystal Pepsi or new Coke.
Well I tell you what. Find us anything to dispute that number, otherwise you're simply trying to counter it with zero facts to back up your arguement except wishful thinking and hope.
So people still bring up that number, derived from a statement that's 3-4 years old and was made before F2P, before having a restricted KDF-slot, before doffing and all it's contraband benefits, and at a time when leveling a KDF char was an even worse grindfest than what we recieved between 52-60 today?
That's like the people who are still complaining about Crystal Pepsi or new Coke.
HEY! I have a complaint about Crystal Pepsi. . . I can't get it any more.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
You have a valid point, considering the KDF was a PvP-centric afterthought for high level Fed players in the original release of the game, making it a convenient break from the usual.
Indeed, the Romulans and KDF mainly serve to to allow players to enjoy some of the game from the sides of the "villains", before returning to a Federation-oriented storyline. ).
really.... I was KDF from the start. My Fed toon is the one I rarely log into. A lot of us simply created a Fed toon until PVP opened up at like Level 6 or 10 or what ever and then switched over
Now that there are Romulans - ive always been Romulan in my heard - Both my fed and KDF toons are minor ALTS and ALL I play is my Romulan.
I think what we really need to discuss though is they have just gotten cheap and lazy. Make everyon allies and write one weak story. Throw in an occasional BS dialog option and call it a day no matter how much sense it actually makes for Klingons or Roumlans.
really.... I was KDF from the start. My Fed toon is the one I rarely log into. A lot of us simply created a Fed toon until PVP opened up at like Level 6 or 10 or what ever and then switched over
Now that there are Romulans - ive always been Romulan in my heard - Both my fed and KDF toons are minor ALTS and ALL I play is my Romulan.
I think what we really need to discuss though is they have just gotten cheap and lazy. Make everyon allies and write one weak story. Throw in an occasional BS dialog option and call it a day no matter how much sense it actually makes for Klingons or Roumlans.
I also was KDF from the start.
No wait- I COULDN'T be KDF from the start, the game wouldn't let me. I came to STO to play a Klingon in a PvP game, what I got was was a single player federation centic game that I could play a Klingon after I paid my dues playing a feddie bear.
I freely admit I'm playing the wrong game, but it's all we got. Getting slapped by cryptic everytime they make new content or a new c-store ship is just part of the game. I just try to remain happy grinding for whatever scraps they decide to toss to the side of the playerbase they deny exists as some of us are NOT here as federation fanboys.
Comments
And that is your opinion. Due to the Federation centric view of Star Trek, most people are exposed to the Federation side of things while having little experience with the Klingon or Romulan side.
As far as KDF being more diverse than Federation, the Federation has been united for centuries so while there might be immense diversity in Federation ships, they are all civilian ships. Starfleet is responsible for the protection of the Federation so military ships come from the same source with a few exceptions. There is also the issue of the Federation grabbing anyone they can when a species achieves Warp Travel so independent development of military starships is almost non-existent in those cases. After all, if you are a member of the Federation, then there is not much point in developing your own fleet when Starfleet will save you.
Then you have the KDF where Gorn, Orions, and Nausicaans have all developed their own military fleets and have recently become part of the Klingon Empire. Therefore, Klingons have more military ship diversification than the Federation.
You got that wrong- the KDF is 16% of the playerbase. It's a non-changing constant. Stahl said so.
They know there's no money in the KDF or ROM playerbase, because there ISN'T a non-fed playerbase. There's only the Fed faction, the other two are simply for feds who need a break from their fed toons.
This is a federation game, star trek is ONLY about the federation. Everyone else are just punching bags for the blue guys. If your here to play anything but a feddie you're playing the wrong game. They say this with every item and expansion they create, whether they know it or not.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I may be tired, but I don't think you explained your original point to me. But your counter here is well enough written for me.
My thought on solid support is slightly more than a tossed bone. But a bit of meat. IE, either less numerical disparity or something to specifically address the weaknesses of the other two factions.
While I know in my cynical heart there will never be a no complaint addition or change. Greater support I think would be appreciated.
Personally my thoughts are to create a T6 science vessel for the KDF. A response from high command for falling behind both the federation and the RR in this field.
For the RR a command battle carrier. IE a carrier with command abilities. But no cloak like the KDF and fed carriers. Being the only none cloaking ship the romulans have barring the temporal ships. (And yeah if I was to argue here it would be all three of those should have a cloak but still.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Originally it was circular logic. There was no Klingon anything originally except a handful of ships. Over the first couple of years, a handful of ships came out, but really no content, so people stopped playing Klinks.
Then Cryptic tried a few changes, mostly minor, and still people didn't come play it.
Then Cryptic added a full leveling content for the Klinks... and still no one really came and played it. People came, played the content, thanked Cryptic, and went back to their mains... Feds.
LoR was similiar. People came, played LoR contend, thanked Cryptic.. and went back to the Federation mains.
And there's the issue. People aren't sticking with Romulans or Klingons for the most part. Oh people have Romulan and Klingon alts, but especially with Delta Rising, people are concentrating for the most part on a single character, their mains... which for the most part are Feds.
So really... any new content... any new ships are going to favor the feds... by a wide margin... because the majority of the playerbase have their mains and spend the majority of their time as Feds.
Proved that even when Cryptic finally added Klingon content... people played it and went back to their Feds.
So adding new content or adding new ships won't really fix the issue. People have spent way too much time and effort and money on their Feds to ever truely abandon them for the Klingons no matter what Cryptic does.
Edit: As for the number of ship arguements. I'll argue that while the Feds have more ships... the Klingons got BETTER ships. I'm flying T-5U ships primarily with my Feds simply because their is very little improvement, and even the ship traits I have I ended up grabbing from a Benthian I got lucky getting while trying to get Lobi for my Talaxian BOff. The Klingons I love their two ships... love them with a passion.
People also seem to not understand or remember that the game really doesn't mesh well with the Federation (as seen on TV and in movies). A lot of people play as Romulans or KDF because it makes more sense in a "kill everything" game.
There really isn't a whole lot of exploration (Federation), but there is a whole lot of blowing things up (Klingons).
And I totally agree with not playing everything. You can't complain about lack of content, if you refuse to play all the content available to you.
Which would have worked well if (as I hinted above on ship focus) it was addressed as faction-specific styles for everything:
Want to blow stuff up? KDF with military focus
Want to sneak around creating havoc without anyone noticing? Green Blooded Romulans!
Want to have adventures but hardly any really epic battles and everything diplomatic? Starfleet
Though I fully understand that realistically, this all fits into the category "What could have been".
You have a valid point, considering the KDF was a PvP-centric afterthought for high level Fed players in the original release of the game, making it a convenient break from the usual.
Indeed, the Romulans and KDF mainly serve to to allow players to enjoy some of the game from the sides of the "villains", before returning to a Federation-oriented storyline. Indeed, almost no missions feature any more class-specific options to situations, much less any race or faction-specific options to situations. And unfortunately, the allure of the Romulans and KDF are nowhere near the level that the Star Wars Empire has gained (to use the closest comparison of a popular "villain" faction), which just feeds back into the time and effort to further personalize them not being worth the cost when they can just copy/paste 95% of the Federation-oriented story and just leave it as-is.
And as far as CBS cares (given they are the rights holders letting Cryptic even use the Star Trek brand), this is perfectly fine. We don't hear them pushing for greater KDF or Romulan recognition the way we've heard the Devs mention that CBS has pushed the Federation.
So as another person said, the real blame for this imbalance lies in the original creator; Gene Roddenberry, as all his stories have indeed focused on the Federation side, to the detriment of any other faction, being left as 1-dimensional villains (fairly compared to Star Wars, where the villains were given enough of a personality to make them memorable and have enough followers to make it worth catering to both factions across various media; games included).
Well, considering the rise in surveillance and the Big Brother state ,the capabiltiy to double-think may become more and more important, exactly as Orwell predicted.
So people still bring up that number, derived from a statement that's 3-4 years old and was made before F2P, before having a restricted KDF-slot, before doffing and all it's contraband benefits, and at a time when leveling a KDF char was an even worse grindfest than what we recieved between 52-60 today?
That's like the people who are still complaining about Crystal Pepsi or new Coke.
Well I tell you what. Find us anything to dispute that number, otherwise you're simply trying to counter it with zero facts to back up your arguement except wishful thinking and hope.
HEY! I have a complaint about Crystal Pepsi. . . I can't get it any more.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
really.... I was KDF from the start. My Fed toon is the one I rarely log into. A lot of us simply created a Fed toon until PVP opened up at like Level 6 or 10 or what ever and then switched over
Now that there are Romulans - ive always been Romulan in my heard - Both my fed and KDF toons are minor ALTS and ALL I play is my Romulan.
I think what we really need to discuss though is they have just gotten cheap and lazy. Make everyon allies and write one weak story. Throw in an occasional BS dialog option and call it a day no matter how much sense it actually makes for Klingons or Roumlans.
I also was KDF from the start.
No wait- I COULDN'T be KDF from the start, the game wouldn't let me. I came to STO to play a Klingon in a PvP game, what I got was was a single player federation centic game that I could play a Klingon after I paid my dues playing a feddie bear.
I freely admit I'm playing the wrong game, but it's all we got. Getting slapped by cryptic everytime they make new content or a new c-store ship is just part of the game. I just try to remain happy grinding for whatever scraps they decide to toss to the side of the playerbase they deny exists as some of us are NOT here as federation fanboys.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG