Well STO could offer these in 5 flavors / price points :
Lvl 50 .
Lvl 50 with full Rep's unlocked .
Lvl 60 .
Lvl 60 with fill Reps unlocked .
Lvl 60 with full Reps + 60 Specializations unlocked .
It would literally cost them close to nothing to do (which by their "Scotty estimate" would take them months or years to implement) , and they'd be printing money for free .
... I support this BTW , and they could also sell R&D Lvl 15 unlocks as far as I'm concerned ...
Please don't take this as trolling by any means...but uh...why would you still play if they did that?
I think thats the game that just released the best expansion ever? or am i thinking about something else? :P
In regards to the instance 90 (or instant 60) putting aside how fast it is to level in WoW or STO, I think its a bad idea. STO already does a poor job of teaching new players how to do thing like group content. How much worse will it be if a new player is allowed to come right in, buy an instant 50-60 and start doing PVE content?
I used to be a raider towards the end of WoW vanilla, TBC and towards the end of Wrath. But all through MoP i was pretty much an uber casual and i stayed unguilded for a long time. When i finally did join a guild in MoP it was only because i wanted every XP buff possible (was rerolling fresh on a new server). The guild i ended up joining was a maxed out zerg guild...meaning they just threw out random invite to whoever would take them. A lot of its members bought fresh 90s and the things i saw...
1) a mage in 520 ilevel gear that could only do 20-25k dps. In their gear they should have been able to do 90k. If the gear had been optimized they should have been able to do upwards of 120k+.
2) I was trying to help one of our warlocks get geared up. We were doing a suicide/gauntlet run and at the end of it we would have to self res. So i told him to soulstone himself...to which he replied 'whats a soulstone?'. I had to explain how soulstone works and where it was as well as a few other abilities.
3) they had an adventure zone called the timeless isle...it was full of elite strength mobs. A normal day for an average player might result in no deaths, maybe 1 if you got unlucky with a stun or something. For these people...their repair bills would reach upwards of 100-120g. I even caught one of them saying "ohh 100g, thats not too bad" and no, they werent being sarcastic. Thats like someone doing several hours of advanced and elite queues and coming out with a full buff bar of injuries and saying that it was pretty good.
4) did a guild run with them once and we took a hunter pug. The hunter was trailing behind and accidentally pulled a pack. Well i was the first one in our guild group to engage (i was a dps warrior) and my other 3 guildies the tank, healer and the mage i mentioned earlier just kept right on walking. The hunter dropped group as soon as he realized he messed up and of course i died because i couldnt make it back to my guildies.
5) other TRIBBLE that i just saw in the adventure zone while questing with them. They didnt know how to get out of simple aoe on the ground...they just stood right in it and died. They didnt know how to dodge a telegraphed attack that could have been avoided, they just took the hit right to the face and died. Those are the kinds of things you learn while leveling up. STO already doesnt do a good job of teaching new players anything during the leveling process, but i dont think they need any more help making bad players worse.
The funny thing is that this is close to the end of MoP. These guild leadership was talking about stuff like wanting to run Siege of Orgrimmar raid in flex-mode. Pretty much looking at the performance of their class leads, most of which were in examples 1-5 above, i can say that they would not have made it past the first boss. Thats not me being elitist, thats just the truth. Gear is gear you know whatever...but they just lacked the proper skill and coordination needed. I mean... you cant move out of aoe? you lack the situational awareness to be a good tank? how can you expect to succeed in a raid? My very first raiding guild in vanilla WoW was like this. They just repeatedly threw themselves at bosses, not bothering to learn what went wrong, and relied on sheer luck and on the 7-10 good players to carry the whole group of 40.
As someone who boosted a Monk to 90, I admit there is a level difficulty beyond just the content, but with some work, experience, and reading through guides, by the time WoD came out I was flying through the NPCs like butter. Though my new zerg guildies kept on asking why I am getting low level Achievements and then taking a minute in order for the gears to start working in order to call me a fake monk, newb, and all sort of moron names.
As someone who boosted a Monk to 90, I admit there is a level difficulty beyond just the content, but with some work, experience, and reading through guides, by the time WoD came out I was flying through the NPCs like butter. Though my new zerg guildies kept on asking why I am getting low level Achievements and then taking a minute in order for the gears to start working in order to call me a fake monk, newb, and all sort of moron names.
Ohh dang thanks for reminding me, i forgot a good one about the monk. One of the guys in that zerg guild had a dps toon that he bought like a mage or hunter or something i forget. But what i do remember is they also bought a monk and wanted to heal with it. But once they got to 90 they stopped playing the monk because they found that monk healing was too complicated.
But anyways in response to your post, you have to remember that not everybody takes that same kind of effort to research their toon. The above monk i mentioned just gave up after like 3-4 days, no joke. Also that last part of your post? i actually ran into the exact same thing. See my main was a prot war that i had tanked on ever since the vanilla UBRS, MC, ZG and AQ20 days. Tanked every fight in TBC pre-nerf, and our guild managed to get Kalecgos to like 3% dragon 4% demon but then the next week the huge 30% boss hitpoint nerf came out. We did pretty well in WOTLK too, managed to get Magic Seeker/Realm First Malygos 25 kill. And kept a pretty good boss kill pace through out WOTLK. I did all this stuff on my prot war, acting as a MT for the 2 raid guild i was in. During MoP since i had the free 90 token for pre-purchasing WoD i decided to buy a 90 warrior on the server i was starting over on rather then transferring over my main. Ohhh man you would not believe the amount of QQ i got from people after zoning into a heroic dungeon, getting inspected and them seeing i had the 480 instant-90 gear. Some people even rage quit because they thought i was just gonna be some scrub tank. But of course the other 3 people that ended up staying would find out that i wasnt hehe.
If they take something from WoW expansions I'd prefer id would be the amount of new landmass to explore* together with the amount of quest it brings instead of a lvl up token... which they kind of did with the XP bonus tokens.
I'm so not bothered by leveling to lvl 60 & all the points afterwards I'd consider after max progression anyway instead of leveling. I'm bothered by them adding a system made for long term play but bring it only with two fistful of new stuff to play before its back to the "repeat mission"; camp STFs or wait for events treadmill.
*Maybe instead of one world with 5-6 new reagions like NewDreanor Crypic makes 5-6 new planets with explorable ground size like one of the new Dreanor regions.
If they take something from WoW expansions I'd prefer id would be the amount of new landmass to explore* together with the amount of quest it brings instead of a lvl up token... which they kind of did with the XP bonus tokens.
I'm so not bothered by leveling to lvl 60 & all the points afterwards I'd consider after max progression anyway instead of leveling. I'm bothered by them adding a system made for long term play but bring it only with two fistful of new stuff to play before its back to the "repeat mission"; camp STFs or wait for events treadmill.
*Maybe instead of one world with 5-6 new reagions like NewDreanor Crypic makes 5-6 new planets with explorable ground size like one of the new Dreanor regions.
I think that most people dislike those types of leveling zones. Thats basically the same type of zone as the Nimbus ground area or the Kobali BZ. If you were to come up with a space version of it you are looking at something like the Dyson space BZ but with more quests. In STO each space storyline quest takes place in its own area. That means they have to take the time to create art and 3d model assets for every new quest. In WoW you just create a huge zone and put a quest here quest there quest over here, sometimes you will even reuse the same areas for quests. STO doesnt reuse a lot of the areas for quests. Like take for example the Voyager interior. How much time do you think was spent creating that interior? it was a replica too so it had to be the right scale and had to have the right appearance. Cause if not fans of ST Voyager series would notice. OK...now look at how many times they used the interiors. IMO not enough times to get their moneys worth. That is of course unless you could selling it as a bridge interior hehe. But how many other locations are just like that? painstakingly put together but only to be used once?
Please don't take this as trolling by any means...but uh...why would you still play if they did that?
Two reasons :
- From the time they went F2P 'till Pre-DR , the whole leveling thing was precieved as a pre-stage, as by the Devs own words , the game begins at endgame .
Having a way to purchase your way to either the beginning of said endgame (grind) or to the end of it is to me just a natural progression of the "buy all you can buffee" that F2P games are .
- My second reason to doing this is that on an ethical level, they already did this when they began to sell veterancy to fresh players .
Remember , once there was a difference between slugging it out in this game for 1000 days and just having logged in .
By selling veterancy, they made that difference moot .
Thus if we follow that ethical behavior , I see no difference between buying a 1000 day veteran title or buying a Level 50 or 60 toon , with or without the Rep / Specializations unlocked .
Because at the end of the day ... it stopped mattering to Cryptic , so why should it matter to us ??
They literraly sold out the old vets who supported them , so how is this any different ?
And on the plus side -- if you are a vet , and you slogged through leveling 10-20-30 toons and for one reason or another you wanted one more toon ... -- are you gonna tell me that leveling one more toon is gonna be the bee's knees ?
I think that most people dislike those types of leveling zones. Thats basically the same type of zone as the Nimbus ground area or the Kobali BZ. If you were to come up with a space version of it you are looking at something like the Dyson space BZ but with more quests. In STO each space storyline quest takes place in its own area. That means they have to take the time to create art and 3d model assets for every new quest. In WoW you just create a huge zone and put a quest here quest there quest over here, sometimes you will even reuse the same areas for quests. STO doesnt reuse a lot of the areas for quests. Like take for example the Voyager interior. How much time do you think was spent creating that interior? it was a replica too so it had to be the right scale and had to have the right appearance. Cause if not fans of ST Voyager series would notice. OK...now look at how many times they used the interiors. IMO not enough times to get their moneys worth. That is of course unless you could selling it as a bridge interior hehe. But how many other locations are just like that? painstakingly put together but only to be used once?
I'm aware of that; I'm aware of the technical limitation; I'm aware of the really cool looking stuff Cryptics art department does & that WoW comparisons under the aspect Blizzards resources are everything but fair.
But besides that sometimes they just love shooting in their own foot i.e. by releasing the Intrepid interior as one map instead of a bridge & usable with all standard bridges interior or by neglecting than removing a solid foundation for a procedual generated exploration system instead of fixing & expanding/improving it which is acutally a perfect supplicant to cover WoW (and others) 70% of the same in new coating quests.
And for sure there is also probably a rationale explanation for why not right around the corner but in the end of the day the fact is that in one case I have no reason to buy it and in the other it means less options to spend playtime. And at this point it make zero difference to having a fresh lvl 60 char with 80% MK13 equip or a lvl60+50Special points char with full gold MK14.
- From the time they went F2P 'till Pre-DR , the whole leveling thing was precieved as a pre-stage, as by the Devs own words , the game begins at endgame .
Having a way to purchase your way to either the beginning of said endgame (grind) or to the end of it is to me just a natural progression of the "buy all you can buffee" that F2P games are .
But uh, that's kind of the point...of why it didn't make sense. Cause you were suggesting buying you way to the end of the endgame (or near it) - and thus - why would you still play? You've bought yourself to the point of not having a reason to play.
It would be one thing to buy a toon to 60 (though oddly enough, much of it starts at 50 or earlier) to get to endgame...to get to the "start" of the game in that sense. But then to continue past that - well...er...why bother? That was kind of the gist of the question there.
- My second reason to doing this is that on an ethical level, they already did this when they began to sell veterancy to fresh players .
Remember , once there was a difference between slugging it out in this game for 1000 days and just having logged in .
By selling veterancy, they made that difference moot .
Thus if we follow that ethical behavior , I see no difference between buying a 1000 day veteran title or buying a Level 50 or 60 toon , with or without the Rep / Specializations unlocked .
Because at the end of the day ... it stopped mattering to Cryptic , so why should it matter to us ??
They literraly sold out the old vets who supported them , so how is this any different ?
And I can definitely see I should have worded the question better...it wasn't an "ethical" why would you continue playing...it was the simpler "what would you do" why would you continue playing.
And on the plus side -- if you are a vet , and you slogged through leveling 10-20-30 toons and for one reason or another you wanted one more toon ... -- are you gonna tell me that leveling one more toon is gonna be the bee's knees ?
I don't have an issue leveling toons, I couldn't even guess how many toons I've leveled and deleted over the years. Hell, I forget how many T5 L50s I deleted just before the launch of DR - where they'd all made more progress in R&D than the current guy has - wait, I had one for each KDF ship type and the Rom, so it would have been 8? Nah, had to be more cause I've got 11 toons now. Just can't remember. Can't remember at this point how many I deleted at the end of last year. Couldn't even guess how many I deleted during 2013...and...well, prior to S7 I was deleting guys every 2-3 weeks because I refused to pay the respec cost. Hell, I've been thinking about deleting my main guy again even though it would mean losing the RMC on him - wouldn't be the first character bound thing lost over the years.
Which is why I guess I asked - I play games because I have something to do...and if there wasn't something to do, I wouldn't play. It's how I kept ending up with more and more alts - cause I'd run out of stuff to do with the guys I had and would add more to have more to do. If I didn't keep deleting them here and there, I'd have just kept buying more and more slots.
Well STO could offer these in 5 flavors / price points :
Lvl 50 .
Lvl 50 with full Rep's unlocked .
Lvl 60 .
Lvl 60 with fill Reps unlocked .
Lvl 60 with full Reps + 60 Specializations unlocked .
It would literally cost them close to nothing to do (which by their "Scotty estimate" would take them months or years to implement) , and they'd be printing money for free .
... I support this BTW , and they could also sell R&D Lvl 15 unlocks as far as I'm concerned ...
The trouble here is, the STO devs actually want players to play the game.
Do they?! Is that why the only place worthwhile being is currently Argala only?!
The Thursday patch...should have been earlier imho - cause well, Thursday's patch is also going to be the Winter Event - so it's going to have that mixed thing going for it.
Why would they do something according to your own personal opinion? That doesn't make any sense.
Opinion? Metrics! Argala is currently the *only* place paying out any decent XP. Of course there's the "I don't care about any rewards, I just want to be where I want to be!" thingy; but, objectively, they're not spreading out rewards evenly across systems/STF's. So, since XP is what people need most (next to Dilithium, which you simply always need), Argala is the only decent place to obtain it. That is not an opinion, but a fact.
Of course there's the "I don't care about any rewards, I just want to be where I want to be!" thingy; but, objectively, they're not spreading out rewards evenly across systems/STF's.
That's not objective in the least. In fact, it's patently wrong.
(next to Dilithium, which you simply always need), Argala is the only decent place to obtain it. That is not an opinion, but a fact.
It is an opinion, and calling it fact over and over will never make it fact. What is "decent" or not is all in our minds, and it varies from person to person. That, by definition, is subjective.
But I'm not here to antagonize you(as if explaining fallacies are somehow antagonizing now). You probably meant to use different terms. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but did you mean "optimal"? That word seems to fit the context better than "decent". Correct me if I'm wrong here.
But uh, that's kind of the point...of why it didn't make sense. Cause you were suggesting buying you way to the end of the endgame (or near it) - and thus - why would you still play? You've bought yourself to the point of not having a reason to play.
You could also claim that those who bought a Scimi , emptied the Lobi store and got some good Doffs have no more "reason" to play ... as he/she have achieved "top dog" status ... , so where to now ?
But in my view , our reasons for playing are the same yet very different , when you take a closer look .
One person wants to hop over to Lvl 50 / 60 .
To another , the journey is more important .
More to the point can you explain why you don't seem to have quibbles about being able to purchase a high level toon in WOW , but you question the same thing in STO ?
I'm curious as to your reasoning .
It would be one thing to buy a toon to 60 (though oddly enough, much of it starts at 50 or earlier) to get to endgame...to get to the "start" of the game in that sense. But then to continue past that - well...er...why bother? That was kind of the gist of the question there.
Well , my suggestions to purchase levels & rep & specializations was perhaps an "unpolished thought" if you will .
To polish it further , I'd need to go into both how and why it would be profitable for Cryptic (a lot of pure speculation by me) , along with more guessing as to what is the point where Cryptic is willing to retain VS cast off spending players .
So there is "supposition A" :
For example , if we're speculating that their current strategy is retention , rather then their previous "churn" strategy , then it would be more like what you propose , that the very top tiers of advancement (full rep / specializations / R&D) should not be for sale .
And "supposition B" :
In direct opposite to this sit the short term profit mongers , who for example are likely responsible for the 3 Dyson ship pack that is being sold as a 9 ship pack for something like 100$ .
See from my POV , those who put that offer up didn't really care if you stayed around , after you payed 100$ for 3 ships .
And if it's the team who supports supposition B , that has the final call -- or they are being listened to because of the recent player bleed / deadline , then some form of purchasable advancement is something that I see as possible .
The only striking difference between the STO and the WOW scenarios is that WOW is likely to have a buttload of content waiting for the mint top level player ... and I doubt they have an unplayable game / empty queue problems .
Which is why I guess I asked - I play games because I have something to do...and if there wasn't something to do, I wouldn't play.
The last time STO actually had something long term to do was when Starbases & their spinoff's were the thing .
Yet we're still here , and we're likely to get some form of Fleet Asset sooner or later .
Mean while we're offered more and more distractions via events .
... at this point I'm wondering when the next Lobi discount will roll around ...
You could also claim that those who bought a Scimi , emptied the Lobi store and got some good Doffs have no more "reason" to play ... as he/she have achieved "top dog" status ... , so where to now ?
If their goal was "top dog" status, they've got a long way to go beyond just that.
But in my view , our reasons for playing are the same yet very different , when you take a closer look .
One person wants to hop over to Lvl 50 / 60 .
To another , the journey is more important .
But the journey doesn't stop at 50/60...there is still progression. Which is something I've never understood about the destination/journey discussion, because with it being a MMO - there's always a journey...cause if you're done, you're done and not playing.
More to the point can you explain why you don't seem to have quibbles about being able to purchase a high level toon in WOW , but you question the same thing in STO ?
I'm curious as to your reasoning .
Cause I don't care about WoW? This is STO...so I'm discussing STO...er...
Well , my suggestions to purchase levels & rep & specializations was perhaps an "unpolished thought" if you will .
To polish it further , I'd need to go into both how and why it would be profitable for Cryptic (a lot of pure speculation by me) , along with more guessing as to what is the point where Cryptic is willing to retain VS cast off spending players .
So there is "supposition A" :
For example , if we're speculating that their current strategy is retention , rather then their previous "churn" strategy , then it would be more like what you propose , that the very top tiers of advancement (full rep / specializations / R&D) should not be for sale .
And "supposition B" :
In direct opposite to this sit the short term profit mongers , who for example are likely responsible for the 3 Dyson ship pack that is being sold as a 9 ship pack for something like 100$ .
See from my POV , those who put that offer up didn't really care if you stayed around , after you payed 100$ for 3 ships .
And if it's the team who supports supposition B , that has the final call -- or they are being listened to because of the recent player bleed / deadline , then some form of purchasable advancement is something that I see as possible .
They didn't pay $100 for 3 ships, though - they paid $100 for 9 ships that could be used on how many different toons? They paid for how many potential ships then? The value of those ships will vary from person to person...much like everything.
The only striking difference between the STO and the WOW scenarios is that WOW is likely to have a buttload of content waiting for the mint top level player ... and I doubt they have an unplayable game / empty queue problems .
Thing is, how much content in WoW is the same content over and over - different colors, but the same thing? Doesn't STO have enough of that already? Just because WoW has more of it, doesn't necessarily make that a good thing, eh?
The last time STO actually had something long term to do was when Starbases & their spinoff's were the thing .
Yet we're still here , and we're likely to get some form of Fleet Asset sooner or later .
Mean while we're offered more and more distractions via events .
R&D? Captain Specialization?
Cryptic has added things because some folks complained there were not long term things to do. Thing is, not everybody was making that complaint, so some of those that didn't are in turn complaining about them having been included.
Different folks want different things - Cryptic doing anything is going to TRIBBLE somebody off.
First I don't even know what LVL 90 means in World of ********. STO and my sons DCuniverse is the only 2 mmo's I have ever played. But they are doing a lvl 90 boost with purchase of a expansion. Makes me wonder if they would offer something in cstore that would get a toon to Vice Admiral would people buy it? Me personally no. I have one toon I llay. Sure I have a ROM and KDF along with some I'm just messing around and want to see what toon I can create people. But really one toon I play and intend to play. But I know others that are toon nuts! Also is LVL 90 high on ********? How many lvls do they go??
Just in case you didn't read it correctly this thread is totally off the track. This is: Star Trek Online General Discussion
- This forum is for general discussion and feedback related to Star Trek Online.
... and to get money, they design a system that strongly suggests you play the game ... in order to spend money on it.
Folks oft tend to overlook that. Yes, Cryptic wants the money - they're a business - but they know they have to provide something for that money. Folks tend to make it out that Cryptic just wants money and folks will just give it to them. It's kind of funny, eh?
Cryptic doesn't want anybody to play...they just want money.
Lol, it's kind of funny. They want folks to play - want them in the game - want them to have stuff to do - want them to like the game so they will be willing to pay for things.
No, they want you to spend money. A lot of it. Playing doesn't pay the bills. Forking over cash does.
It's an odd balance.
Theoretically, the game design is supposed to be time vs. money. The less time you have, the more you spend. Free to Play is in some sense Pay Not to Play.
However this has an even stranger balance because investors measure success based on average time spent per player, in part because they may not be given full breakdowns of numbers on subsidiaries. It's a marketshare metric, under the assumption that if you're here, you're not somewhere else.
So not playing costs them investors who want to see you at your computer. However, people pay not to play as much. So I think Cryptic's success metrics are at odds with one another. Or can be. Ideally, you pay, you're satisfied, you play more, investors see average playtime go up. But that kind of requires that spenders not be pushed to grind as much as non-spenders.
And they are offering levels 1 - 90 for 5 bucks. An amazing deal for a ton of content. If you have an old Wow account its already upgraded to this for free. Thats all the exspansions before the new one.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
edited November 2014
Autoleveling by purchase was implimented in WoW because they wanted people who weren't already able to play the new expansion content to play the new expansion content. Basically targeting those who were not patient enough to level on their own. So... instead of say... you're level 56 Paladin with gear that you collected on your own, you get bumped up to lv 90 with a preconstructed set of gear based on your class, alot like the stock equipment on a brand new ship.
A friend of mine got me a week on WoW after I had been away for a couple years. I liked my sword before I got bumped up to at least Wrath of the Lich King. It was a nice looking sword. After the bump... I still had said sword, but I was given a new one that looked like it was a rock carved into the shape of a crude sword as a level appropriate weapon.
Autoleveling is a double edged sword. Yes you get to play the content NOW, but is it with gear you collected? No. And WoW does that because they've got such a high level cap. STO's level cap is about half that, so its not exactly feasable to add a "Pay money, get levels to play new content".
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
No, they want you to spend money. A lot of it. Playing doesn't pay the bills. Forking over cash does.
What do you mean "no"? Of course they want players to spend money. The game couldn't be funded any further if we didn't. Not sure what your definition of "a lot" is, though. And simultaneously, they do want us to play the game. And enjoy it.
I know you're implying that they're just shallow and greedy. And guess what... that doesn't at all refute my point. Even if they were the greediest devs in the history of game development, they'd still be able to recognize that happy players give more money. It's in their best interest to make us happy, and greedy or not, they'd know it. A happy customer is a generous customer.
Comments
Please don't take this as trolling by any means...but uh...why would you still play if they did that?
As someone who boosted a Monk to 90, I admit there is a level difficulty beyond just the content, but with some work, experience, and reading through guides, by the time WoD came out I was flying through the NPCs like butter. Though my new zerg guildies kept on asking why I am getting low level Achievements and then taking a minute in order for the gears to start working in order to call me a fake monk, newb, and all sort of moron names.
Ohh dang thanks for reminding me, i forgot a good one about the monk. One of the guys in that zerg guild had a dps toon that he bought like a mage or hunter or something i forget. But what i do remember is they also bought a monk and wanted to heal with it. But once they got to 90 they stopped playing the monk because they found that monk healing was too complicated.
But anyways in response to your post, you have to remember that not everybody takes that same kind of effort to research their toon. The above monk i mentioned just gave up after like 3-4 days, no joke. Also that last part of your post? i actually ran into the exact same thing. See my main was a prot war that i had tanked on ever since the vanilla UBRS, MC, ZG and AQ20 days. Tanked every fight in TBC pre-nerf, and our guild managed to get Kalecgos to like 3% dragon 4% demon but then the next week the huge 30% boss hitpoint nerf came out. We did pretty well in WOTLK too, managed to get Magic Seeker/Realm First Malygos 25 kill. And kept a pretty good boss kill pace through out WOTLK. I did all this stuff on my prot war, acting as a MT for the 2 raid guild i was in. During MoP since i had the free 90 token for pre-purchasing WoD i decided to buy a 90 warrior on the server i was starting over on rather then transferring over my main. Ohhh man you would not believe the amount of QQ i got from people after zoning into a heroic dungeon, getting inspected and them seeing i had the 480 instant-90 gear. Some people even rage quit because they thought i was just gonna be some scrub tank. But of course the other 3 people that ended up staying would find out that i wasnt hehe.
I'm so not bothered by leveling to lvl 60 & all the points afterwards I'd consider after max progression anyway instead of leveling. I'm bothered by them adding a system made for long term play but bring it only with two fistful of new stuff to play before its back to the "repeat mission"; camp STFs or wait for events treadmill.
*Maybe instead of one world with 5-6 new reagions like NewDreanor Crypic makes 5-6 new planets with explorable ground size like one of the new Dreanor regions.
I think that most people dislike those types of leveling zones. Thats basically the same type of zone as the Nimbus ground area or the Kobali BZ. If you were to come up with a space version of it you are looking at something like the Dyson space BZ but with more quests. In STO each space storyline quest takes place in its own area. That means they have to take the time to create art and 3d model assets for every new quest. In WoW you just create a huge zone and put a quest here quest there quest over here, sometimes you will even reuse the same areas for quests. STO doesnt reuse a lot of the areas for quests. Like take for example the Voyager interior. How much time do you think was spent creating that interior? it was a replica too so it had to be the right scale and had to have the right appearance. Cause if not fans of ST Voyager series would notice. OK...now look at how many times they used the interiors. IMO not enough times to get their moneys worth. That is of course unless you could selling it as a bridge interior hehe. But how many other locations are just like that? painstakingly put together but only to be used once?
Two reasons :
- From the time they went F2P 'till Pre-DR , the whole leveling thing was precieved as a pre-stage, as by the Devs own words , the game begins at endgame .
Having a way to purchase your way to either the beginning of said endgame (grind) or to the end of it is to me just a natural progression of the "buy all you can buffee" that F2P games are .
- My second reason to doing this is that on an ethical level, they already did this when they began to sell veterancy to fresh players .
Remember , once there was a difference between slugging it out in this game for 1000 days and just having logged in .
By selling veterancy, they made that difference moot .
Thus if we follow that ethical behavior , I see no difference between buying a 1000 day veteran title or buying a Level 50 or 60 toon , with or without the Rep / Specializations unlocked .
Because at the end of the day ... it stopped mattering to Cryptic , so why should it matter to us ??
They literraly sold out the old vets who supported them , so how is this any different ?
And on the plus side -- if you are a vet , and you slogged through leveling 10-20-30 toons and for one reason or another you wanted one more toon ... -- are you gonna tell me that leveling one more toon is gonna be the bee's knees ?
I'm aware of that; I'm aware of the technical limitation; I'm aware of the really cool looking stuff Cryptics art department does & that WoW comparisons under the aspect Blizzards resources are everything but fair.
But besides that sometimes they just love shooting in their own foot i.e. by releasing the Intrepid interior as one map instead of a bridge & usable with all standard bridges interior or by neglecting than removing a solid foundation for a procedual generated exploration system instead of fixing & expanding/improving it which is acutally a perfect supplicant to cover WoW (and others) 70% of the same in new coating quests.
And for sure there is also probably a rationale explanation for why not right around the corner but in the end of the day the fact is that in one case I have no reason to buy it and in the other it means less options to spend playtime. And at this point it make zero difference to having a fresh lvl 60 char with 80% MK13 equip or a lvl60+50Special points char with full gold MK14.
But uh, that's kind of the point...of why it didn't make sense. Cause you were suggesting buying you way to the end of the endgame (or near it) - and thus - why would you still play? You've bought yourself to the point of not having a reason to play.
It would be one thing to buy a toon to 60 (though oddly enough, much of it starts at 50 or earlier) to get to endgame...to get to the "start" of the game in that sense. But then to continue past that - well...er...why bother? That was kind of the gist of the question there.
And I can definitely see I should have worded the question better...it wasn't an "ethical" why would you continue playing...it was the simpler "what would you do" why would you continue playing.
I don't have an issue leveling toons, I couldn't even guess how many toons I've leveled and deleted over the years. Hell, I forget how many T5 L50s I deleted just before the launch of DR - where they'd all made more progress in R&D than the current guy has - wait, I had one for each KDF ship type and the Rom, so it would have been 8? Nah, had to be more cause I've got 11 toons now. Just can't remember. Can't remember at this point how many I deleted at the end of last year. Couldn't even guess how many I deleted during 2013...and...well, prior to S7 I was deleting guys every 2-3 weeks because I refused to pay the respec cost. Hell, I've been thinking about deleting my main guy again even though it would mean losing the RMC on him - wouldn't be the first character bound thing lost over the years.
Which is why I guess I asked - I play games because I have something to do...and if there wasn't something to do, I wouldn't play. It's how I kept ending up with more and more alts - cause I'd run out of stuff to do with the guys I had and would add more to have more to do. If I didn't keep deleting them here and there, I'd have just kept buying more and more slots.
World of Warships....hrmm, that one works. When is that supposed to be coming out? It's in alpha now, no?
Crazy idea, I know.
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Do they?! Is that why the only place worthwhile being is currently Argala only?!
The Thursday patch...should have been earlier imho - cause well, Thursday's patch is also going to be the Winter Event - so it's going to have that mixed thing going for it.
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Opinion? Metrics! Argala is currently the *only* place paying out any decent XP. Of course there's the "I don't care about any rewards, I just want to be where I want to be!" thingy; but, objectively, they're not spreading out rewards evenly across systems/STF's. So, since XP is what people need most (next to Dilithium, which you simply always need), Argala is the only decent place to obtain it. That is not an opinion, but a fact.
That's not objective in the least. In fact, it's patently wrong.
Who elected you to speak for everyone?
It is an opinion, and calling it fact over and over will never make it fact. What is "decent" or not is all in our minds, and it varies from person to person. That, by definition, is subjective.
But I'm not here to antagonize you(as if explaining fallacies are somehow antagonizing now). You probably meant to use different terms. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but did you mean "optimal"? That word seems to fit the context better than "decent". Correct me if I'm wrong here.
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You could also claim that those who bought a Scimi , emptied the Lobi store and got some good Doffs have no more "reason" to play ... as he/she have achieved "top dog" status ... , so where to now ?
But in my view , our reasons for playing are the same yet very different , when you take a closer look .
One person wants to hop over to Lvl 50 / 60 .
To another , the journey is more important .
More to the point can you explain why you don't seem to have quibbles about being able to purchase a high level toon in WOW , but you question the same thing in STO ?
I'm curious as to your reasoning .
Well , my suggestions to purchase levels & rep & specializations was perhaps an "unpolished thought" if you will .
To polish it further , I'd need to go into both how and why it would be profitable for Cryptic (a lot of pure speculation by me) , along with more guessing as to what is the point where Cryptic is willing to retain VS cast off spending players .
So there is "supposition A" :
For example , if we're speculating that their current strategy is retention , rather then their previous "churn" strategy , then it would be more like what you propose , that the very top tiers of advancement (full rep / specializations / R&D) should not be for sale .
And "supposition B" :
In direct opposite to this sit the short term profit mongers , who for example are likely responsible for the 3 Dyson ship pack that is being sold as a 9 ship pack for something like 100$ .
See from my POV , those who put that offer up didn't really care if you stayed around , after you payed 100$ for 3 ships .
And if it's the team who supports supposition B , that has the final call -- or they are being listened to because of the recent player bleed / deadline , then some form of purchasable advancement is something that I see as possible .
The only striking difference between the STO and the WOW scenarios is that WOW is likely to have a buttload of content waiting for the mint top level player ... and I doubt they have an unplayable game / empty queue problems .
The last time STO actually had something long term to do was when Starbases & their spinoff's were the thing .
Yet we're still here , and we're likely to get some form of Fleet Asset sooner or later .
Mean while we're offered more and more distractions via events .
... at this point I'm wondering when the next Lobi discount will roll around ...
Yeah, I stopped reading here. Now you're just trolling.
But it's your call. *shrug*
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If their goal was "top dog" status, they've got a long way to go beyond just that.
But the journey doesn't stop at 50/60...there is still progression. Which is something I've never understood about the destination/journey discussion, because with it being a MMO - there's always a journey...cause if you're done, you're done and not playing.
Cause I don't care about WoW? This is STO...so I'm discussing STO...er...
They didn't pay $100 for 3 ships, though - they paid $100 for 9 ships that could be used on how many different toons? They paid for how many potential ships then? The value of those ships will vary from person to person...much like everything.
Thing is, how much content in WoW is the same content over and over - different colors, but the same thing? Doesn't STO have enough of that already? Just because WoW has more of it, doesn't necessarily make that a good thing, eh?
R&D? Captain Specialization?
Cryptic has added things because some folks complained there were not long term things to do. Thing is, not everybody was making that complaint, so some of those that didn't are in turn complaining about them having been included.
Different folks want different things - Cryptic doing anything is going to TRIBBLE somebody off.
Heh, can probably check out when the last one was - the marketing folks are about the only thing anywhere close to consistent with Cryptic. :P
Just in case you didn't read it correctly this thread is totally off the track. This is:
Star Trek Online General Discussion
- This forum is for general discussion and feedback related to Star Trek Online.
Folks oft tend to overlook that. Yes, Cryptic wants the money - they're a business - but they know they have to provide something for that money. Folks tend to make it out that Cryptic just wants money and folks will just give it to them. It's kind of funny, eh?
Cryptic doesn't want anybody to play...they just want money.
Lol, it's kind of funny. They want folks to play - want them in the game - want them to have stuff to do - want them to like the game so they will be willing to pay for things.
It's an odd balance.
Theoretically, the game design is supposed to be time vs. money. The less time you have, the more you spend. Free to Play is in some sense Pay Not to Play.
However this has an even stranger balance because investors measure success based on average time spent per player, in part because they may not be given full breakdowns of numbers on subsidiaries. It's a marketshare metric, under the assumption that if you're here, you're not somewhere else.
So not playing costs them investors who want to see you at your computer. However, people pay not to play as much. So I think Cryptic's success metrics are at odds with one another. Or can be. Ideally, you pay, you're satisfied, you play more, investors see average playtime go up. But that kind of requires that spenders not be pushed to grind as much as non-spenders.
A friend of mine got me a week on WoW after I had been away for a couple years. I liked my sword before I got bumped up to at least Wrath of the Lich King. It was a nice looking sword. After the bump... I still had said sword, but I was given a new one that looked like it was a rock carved into the shape of a crude sword as a level appropriate weapon.
Autoleveling is a double edged sword. Yes you get to play the content NOW, but is it with gear you collected? No. And WoW does that because they've got such a high level cap. STO's level cap is about half that, so its not exactly feasable to add a "Pay money, get levels to play new content".
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I want money too. Please give me money too.
I know you're implying that they're just shallow and greedy. And guess what... that doesn't at all refute my point. Even if they were the greediest devs in the history of game development, they'd still be able to recognize that happy players give more money. It's in their best interest to make us happy, and greedy or not, they'd know it. A happy customer is a generous customer.
That's profit 101. You'd be a poor Ferengi.
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