You realise you just dropped yourself in it there? "people that are "forced" to play"
nobody should be forced to play anything, they should WANT to play. If people are being forced to play in a certain way just to progress without the freedom to choose how they progress then I guarantee you they will not be as happy as if they had free choice. If they are not happy they will either suck it up and progress their toon to 60 and then go back to doing what they used to do, or leave.
As for going back to what they used to do, when was the last time you ran SBFD, or Mine Trap, or any of the other queues that have --- as the estimated wait time?
I admire your tenacity in trying to defend this train wreck but really you are too intelligent a person to keep it up forever against the overwhelming evidence, you remind me of a defense lawyer who knows his client is guilty, perhaps you'd feel better trying to get a reduced sentence rather then an aquittal?
After the hundredth failed STF I decided to go back to a game I hadn't played in almost a year: WOW. And wow it was! I don't feel forced to play. But I "want" to play. This is the perfect example of a superbly done expansion. The amount of content is staggering. Even after having reached lvl 100 I still have hundreds of quests to complete, areas to explore, garrison to expand, etc...
I played STO since DAY 1 and I really loved it. But being forced to grind patrol missions to get to the next level to continue experiecing the storyline was boring. I even got to a point where I didn't even want to know the rest of the story. And then after finally having reached level 60 I found that I had nothing else to do. Except failing STF's one after the other. And on top of that I'm a KDF player... I haven't logged on for the past week or so (thanks to ARC has encoutered an error. Please try again). And the sad thing is, it doesn't even bother me. I'm still hoping that things will improve but I fear they never will.
I don't usually take part in these kinds of threads. But i recently decided to start a new toon, which was my second, when DR came out to take advantage from many of the new features and knowledge I've gained from mistakes I made with my first toon.
And what I've noticed is the game becomes a little disjointed. For people who are brand new to the game without previous knowledge...i mean, what about them? Is it fair to them to have their rewards reduced simply for being new to the game? To get the gear you want/need you have to spend time in adventure zones gaining reputation, but rewards for those have been reduced again. Unless a new player is in a fleet with people who like/want to play some of the older STF's it is virtually impossible (if not really impossible) to take part in any of the old STF's. They may be old hat to the rest of us but as an example I've been playing STO for about a year now and have never played any of the old Klignon/Gorn STF's because it's old business now.
So a new player to the game is faced with the decision to hustle as fast as they can to play DR but miss out on all of the reputation (and end up over matched most of the time) or spend a longer time than older players in reputation to be competitive in the new content. I was level 50 by the time i got to the Nimbus III story line before I even started taking part in STF's or adventure zones. The initial leveling is too fast then all of a sudden slows to a crawl if you want to take part in any of the older reputation systems. Granted I just hit level 59 and just started the Dyson Sphere story line. But I'm having to bypass a lot of the content from the older reputation systems because...even from a year ago...it just takes so long to get things of value.
It's just very unbalanced when you look at a brand new player compared to someone who has leveled through all of the current content.
My suggestion would be if you want people to spend more time in DR (I haven't even began the DR missions yet or stepped foot in the DQ because I'm trying to follow the story line) by reducing the rewards players get from older content then also reduce the cost of leveling through the older reputation systems and reputation gear. If it's all old/outdated stuff then give it out at a lower cost.
Funnily enough it was so obvious to me that they were trying to manipulate players to make them play the new content that I just stopped going to the Delta Quadrant completely, weeks ago.
Good job, Cryptic.
Im boycotting DQ...I will do the opposite of what Cryptic wants me to do. Why help them when they DONT listen to playerbase:eek:
Devs, who are you trying to impress? Is it PWI, PWE? Is it someone high up at Cryptic, someone at CBS, or a combination of those?
You have done a fantastic job of ensuring that everyone stays in the Delta Quadrant by making sure only DQ patrols pay out any reasonable sort of XP.
You are effectively sacrificing the rest of the game, all other story missions pay out 2030 XP, STFs and other queues even less, whereas an Argala Patrol is over 10,000 which by the way is still way too low and doesn't satisfy the "You won't be levelling any slower" BS we got on the Nov 20th Patch.
So Devs, please explain your rationale here, oh I know you have no intention of answering this post much less actually doing anything about it. However I can suggest that what you are doing is dangerous for STO, in fact it's so dangerous you could say it's Elite Dangerous.
And now for something completely different.
It's spelled "wibble".
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
"Well,the dilithium for Zen exchange is a closed,player driven system.Without players trading their dilithium for Zen the system will crash...."
That's BS....do you really think Cryptic hasn't added dilithium to the exchange?You don't get to see who you are buying from,and on top of that....it doesn't cost Cryptic anything to put dilithium on there,they can just make it appear by a single keystroke,as much as they want.
They claimed that they lacked the foresight to do anything like that when asked about it once and, honestly, I believe them.
That said, it's well known that they have created ZEN as a promotional perk and a poorly kept secret that employees are allowed nearly unlimited ZEN for virtually any purposes.
So I don't know that there's any kind of automated fix. There are reasons why it would be bad economics that actually would hurt Cryptic and taint their metrics. Even adjusting for direct effect, it has impact if any of that ZEN gets exchanged for dilithium or used on sellable items. That impact can damage metrics by distorting things like exchange values, which would be player value measuring tools.
I think the issue would almost have to be with individual devs' use of their ZEN. (We also know some devs claim to voluntarily abstain from using free ZEN to test the game better.)
It's also somewhat problematic because it could be used for serious books cooking with a little laundering done. If I were a dev who wanted to spike store sales, I could requisition a bunch of dev ZEN "for testing purposes", dump it on the exchange, and that will spike store sales. Then I offload my dilithium for ZEN at a lower price, deliberately losing value, to pump value into the game economy and make the store look more profitable, aside from a mysterious cash shortage.
But then you can probably say, "Oh! That cash shortage must be due to lifetime account stipends, ZEN sales, and item sales." And that sounds reasonable enough that nobody would check. And you say, "But we should count that as revenue for certain purposes anyway because its an expense we avoided."
And then you get a nice bonus check based on C-Store performance and healthy looking metrics.
I doubt that is happening but it's the kind of system hole you don't want to have.
A crooked dev could flood the market with fake ZEN and continue to flood in order to make it look like players are spending more than they are.
I'm boycotting DQ also. I got to lvl59 with my main character. I figure I'll make it to level 60 next summer at the rate I'm going. I guess I don't want to "raise to the challenge"/bang my head against the wall.
It's far more enjoyable to start a new toon and process at a nice even pace all the way to level 50.
No, it was just his best guess based on supposition and what he thinks Cryptic is planning. There's no actual information there because only Cryptic themselves know what their long-term strategic plans are.
Oh, and long-term in business typically covers 5 years or more. A year is just short term. If the planning for this game only covers one year then that's worrying.
for a typical company a year may be short term but for computer game company's it is not, what is top dog this week could be out of date next week, you only have to look at how many new games come out every year and how you can buy a brand new xbox game and a month or two later it is I the bargain bucket for 1/10th the price.
game developers find it hard to plan much further then the end of their nose so a 1 year plan is long term to them.
besides which they may well have plans that may or may not come to fruition a few years from now but they have to take into account players trends and revenue flux before that can make these plans firm.
I have a couple of friends who played a certain tank game six months ago and raved about it all the time and how it was the best thing since sliced bread and how they would never tire of playing it, and spent an absolute fortune on it, now they would not give it the time of day.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
They claimed that they lacked the foresight to do anything like that when asked about it once and, honestly, I believe them.
That said, it's well known that they have created ZEN as a promotional perk and a poorly kept secret that employees are allowed nearly unlimited ZEN for virtually any purposes.
So I don't know that there's any kind of automated fix. There are reasons why it would be bad economics that actually would hurt Cryptic and taint their metrics. Even adjusting for direct effect, it has impact if any of that ZEN gets exchanged for dilithium or used on sellable items. That impact can damage metrics by distorting things like exchange values, which would be player value measuring tools.
I think the issue would almost have to be with individual devs' use of their ZEN. (We also know some devs claim to voluntarily abstain from using free ZEN to test the game better.)
It's also somewhat problematic because it could be used for serious books cooking with a little laundering done. If I were a dev who wanted to spike store sales, I could requisition a bunch of dev ZEN "for testing purposes", dump it on the exchange, and that will spike store sales. Then I offload my dilithium for ZEN at a lower price, deliberately losing value, to pump value into the game economy and make the store look more profitable, aside from a mysterious cash shortage.
But then you can probably say, "Oh! That cash shortage must be due to lifetime account stipends, ZEN sales, and item sales." And that sounds reasonable enough that nobody would check. And you say, "But we should count that as revenue for certain purposes anyway because its an expense we avoided."
And then you get a nice bonus check based on C-Store performance and healthy looking metrics.
I doubt that is happening but it's the kind of system hole you don't want to have.
A crooked dev could flood the market with fake ZEN and continue to flood in order to make it look like players are spending more than they are.
The Dilithium/Zen exchange is only profitable if the Zen players get for their Dilithium is spent in the C-store,taking the Zen out of the in game economy.
By the time the Dyson ships came out,most players already had the T5 ship(s) they wanted.At the same time players had Dilithium to spare,as they could earn it at a comfortable rate,costs for Reputation and Fleet gear were reasonable and with fleets opening up their stores to players outside their fleet,the demand for Dilithium slowly dropped.
The Zen being traded for Dilithium wasn't spent,and new Zen didn't enter the system.and as a direct result they sold less Zen.
To get it moving again they not only had to give players a reason to spend Zen (content that required a new class of ships) but also take out the staggering amount of Dilithium on the exchange by creating a chronic shortage (raising costs and lowering the earning potential to halt the flow of Dilithium into the system).
And look at that....the C-store has everything you need to make your gaming experience easier,and Cryptic even has Dilithium to spare now the players don't have enough to trade.
These are some shrewd people.
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
Problem being, they released an "Expansion" intended to take 35 hours continuous to hit endpoint, with about 5 hours of actual content.
(I'm being generous, it's in my nature).
There is very much more than 5hrs of content. There's more than 5hrs of main story content alone. Then there's the Delta patrols, which were in fact written to be part of the story. I really never felt they were like the normal, grind-it-out patrols from many of the other sectors. I thought they flowed very well with the story, especially the ones where you're seeking or solidifying alliances. And some of the patrols were in fact VO'd, so there was clearly intent for them to be played as story.
And the Kobali adventure zone was designed with quite a bit of content as well. No idea how long that's supposed to be measured out in hours, but there were enough mini missions to keep me there for quite a long time.
I also counted the brand new PvEs as content, which I spent a fair amount of time in to get the new Delta Marks. That's probably one of the ways I got my levels so quickly as well.
Yes, the expansion wasn't entirely composed of story missions with full VO. But there was still a lot of content overall.
it gives players an incentive to do it again, that isn't "Gawd, I need the points!!"
Y'hear what I'm sayin?
There is not a game on the planet that can create content to fill this type of need for replayability its just impossible. STO has less of this grind then other games. If they speed things up people say one week after release that they are at max cap on everything and "i am borred and i have nothing to do" so they have to slow you down somehow.
this is the treadmill of this type of game and it wont ever go away because content creation can never keep up so some companies have decided to remove this type of gaming and create sandbox mmo's because they freely admit they can't keep up.
so you have a choice find an mmo that you dont mind this type of grind thing (personally i have never minded grinding because i am in no rush so most games dont bug me and I have played some games that are well pretty bad lol )
Or
You can play a sandbox which give players zero direction SOE has gone this route of making its next set of mmo's sandboxes either total sandboxes or sandboxy big time with story and some content, but they have surrendered and freely admit it lol.
STO is what it is and I enjoy the story. They can't afford to create anymore content then they are though or they would do it. They have x number of staff and y number of dollars and a target date.
this is the treadmill of this type of game and it wont ever go away because content creation can never keep up so some companies have decided to remove this type of gaming and create sandbox mmo's because they freely admit they can't keep up.
Sandboxes are the opposite of linear.
You claimed that MMOs in general, and STO in particular are non-linear.
Therefore, you claim that STO is, at least in part, a sandbox.
Which you then go on to denigrate, after claiming STO's very non-linearity is why it is a superior game.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
There's about enough to get you to Level 55, starting cold, with a L50 toon.
spacing it out in half-assed Patrols with clip text that you have to re-run more than once to get to the next level?
Yeeeeahh...okay.
Here's the problem - It was done that way INTENTIONALLY. Why? They figure/hope that once you notice the situation that you have to Grind a bit, you'll purchase an XP boost. Now it's true you don't have to purchase such a Boost (you can 'grind' a few patrols in DR or do other STO content (Dailies, etc.); but tghey hope it will nudge some players to buy the XP Boosts.
^^^
Welcome to F2P monetization tatics.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
And its a shame really, because I really would like to support Cryptic... but they seem to be getting more and more greedy and money driven... Look at all the dilithium sinks, they are all over the place these days and there is nothing to compensate for... Look at the rushed out patches, missions seem incomplete and are full of bugs. Look at some of the responses and decisions from the devs in regard of "their" playerbase.... "pvp player...." "exploiters..." its a shame a once great game is beeing handled like that
No no no do not mention PVPers we have been getting punched in the face by the developers since launch. Now now you're beginning to understand how we feel
Oh boy, things are getting bad if you think cryptic is somehow designing the game around selling XP boosts that are so old and low value they are useless.
If you take a step back and look at it, its all much easier to explain the problems with just bad design. It is pretty clear the person or people designing this game are not qualified, they are missing such basics it boggles the mind.
Oh boy, things are getting bad if you think cryptic is somehow designing the game around selling XP boosts that are so old and low value they are useless.
If you take a step back and look at it, its all much easier to explain the problems with just bad design. It is pretty clear the person or people designing this game are not qualified, they are missing such basics it boggles the mind.
Yes, if they're trying to sell XP boosts then I guess nobody told the person who nerfed XP payouts, because he totally screwed that plan!
Yes, if they're trying to sell XP boosts then I guess nobody told the person who nerfed XP payouts, because he totally screwed that plan!
Yeah, the XP boosts are ridonkolusly useless. I guess they removed the old timed boosters because people could have tons of missions ready for turn in and then cash in all at once or something like that.
But they are currently simply useless.
Maybe they should determine on unpacking how much skill points they grant dependent on your current level (so at low level,s they give little, and at high levels, they give a lot).
I think event he distinction "minor"/"major" is useless. Maybe it could be something like
"Fast Boost": 50 % bonus skill points up to a maximum of one 1/2 of current level worth of hit points.
"Large Boost": 25 % bonus skill points up to a maximum of your current level worth of hit points.
Same price, and then you can decide wehther you want to use 2X Zen to gain an extra level every 2 levels, or to buy X to gain an extra level every 4 levels.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Would your jaw drop if, when you rolled into a Tau Dewa patrol yo've done a thousand times...
The thing that made DR much less of a grind to me was that I didn't min-max my way to lvl60. I didn't pick out the single best patrol, or the single best queue, to quickly level my main toon as fast as possible. If I had played the same highest-reward content several times over, yeah I would've gotten seriously bored.
I went into DR understanding what the devs had previously said to the community prior to launch, and that was to expect a fairly significant time requirement in order to get to lvl60. It's with that mindset that I ended up being surprised how quickly I got to 60 - that's entirely subjective because of my original perspective of course, but it is how I felt nonetheless. But I did enjoy the patrols, the story, the new queues, etc. I never felt that there was anything missing, or that I was being shortchanged on content. It's not like they took away the rest of the game from me just to force me to stay in the Delta Quadrant either. So there was plenty of variety to keep me occupied - thing is, I chose variety over repetitive grinds for the highest payout.
And I'll hammer on the fact that the Delta patrols were specifically designed to be part of the storyline. It didn't seem like content-filler or anything - it was nice to see patrols that were relevant, as opposed to the one-off nature of patrols in other sectors.
Yes they can, of course they can because you forgot one part of your equation, profit margin. If they lower their profit margins somewhat then they can make a higher quality product that people will want to play and will want to stick around buying more shinies. Maximising your profit margin at the expense of your quality control and content is extremely short sighted business practice and this is going to turn around and bite them hard in the TRIBBLE.
I don't think any of us can make a claim about profit margins, not knowing what they were aiming for. Either way, when it comes to profit, I hope Cryptic comes out well in the positive. If they don't, then the survivability of the game is at stake. They're a company, so I expect them to have a financial goal in mind.
And I felt quality was just fine. The quality of the content itself was very high in my opinion, and I very much enjoyed playing it all. As for post-launch bugs, this will always happen with any software product. Early adopters see the worst of what happens when an ambitious content update releases live, and is first subjected to the greatest variety of variables that even the most vigorous testing couldn't have tracked. I'd be complaining right now if there was radio silence from the devs on bug fixes, but that's not at all the case - bug fixes are fairly frequent. Are they fixing everything right way? No, but that's not possible in any scenario. Some bugs take a long time to track and fix. But they're actively working, and as a customer that's all I can ask.
Having the spec points gradually increase is the whole point of the system. It's supposed to reward continued play.
I'm "done" the spec tree as far as I'd like it to go. I have no interest in the Intel powers, so I just filled one of the secondaries and now I'm stockpiling for whenever they release the next specialization. I didn't feel the need to super-grind to get the even the secondary tree done as fast as possible, it just happened as I played whatever I felt like playing.
And the queues aren't nearly as empty as some would have you believe. I was in WW for a bit and decided to shift gears for a little pew-pew in space - done several PvEs in rapid succession with no problems.
EDIT: the "queues are empty" argument was an immediate reaction to players seeing low numbers in their old favourites. That argument ignores that
a) immediately after DR launched, there were large numbers showing in the 3 new queues,
b) also after launch, a lot of players were spending their time playing the story instead of queues, and
c) within a few days the Mirror Event started and the numbers were large in those queues until the event ended.
As someone who did play a few queues to get up to lvl60, I never saw the truth in the "queues are empty" argument. Volumes in the older content were understandably lower for the reasons I stated above.
Having the spec points gradually increase is the whole point of the system. It's supposed to reward continued play.
I'm "done" the spec tree as far as I'd like it to go. I have no interest in the Intel powers, so I just filled one of the secondaries and now I'm stockpiling for whenever they release the next specialization.
LOL. I went the exact opposite direction: I have no interest in Commando, and stopped after Intel and Pilot; and now I'm stockpiling for whenever they release the next Specialization.
Filling the hole is simple: you don't put the finish line past the point you have content to fill it.
.
it's just putting it together and spending the effort.
okay seriously have you ever had to develop content? lol
I know there are some design issues with this game I am the first to point out that there are some concepts which are lacking but content creation is not quick or easy and for the most part the work on the delta quadrant is solid and properly done.
They are also in the case of delta quadrant adding it in pieces that is the point they can choose to work on something for 4 years and release it at once or release it in parts which is what has gone on with the delta package, because another criteria they have to meet is the constant demand from players for new content. MMO's are not single player games they are never done ever.
The delta area is appropriately structured for FUTURE expansion the patrol missions are better then patrol missions anywhere else in the game and fit the theme of the quadrant.
They have had to create a framework that they can expand on and MMO's are typically beta because of how they are built.
Halo is done, mass effect 1 & 2 are complete its a complete product packaged and out the door and in the case of the mass effect series they are designing it to make you purchase the next versions of 3 & 4 some games might create an addon package but they are basically done once released if they are single player versions intended to be a stand alone product. MMO's are nothing like these games they are constantly evolving living creations that is kinda like laundry or dishes or housework they are never ever *done* so you see part one of the delta expansion they release seasons of content and have to bootstrap it to the present structure. In the future seasons will have expansions that stick onto the framework they created. They are not done yet it will never be *done* even when they shut it down it will stil not be done
I point you to games like everquest that game is an mmo and one of the oldest on the market to this day they release expansions to plug into the rest of the game. Its never done it will only one day be shut down when it no longer draws customers.
I guarantee you though nothing being done here is 'easy' or quick. That is why we have bugs and errors in the game because its far from easy or quick.
Comments
After the hundredth failed STF I decided to go back to a game I hadn't played in almost a year: WOW. And wow it was! I don't feel forced to play. But I "want" to play. This is the perfect example of a superbly done expansion. The amount of content is staggering. Even after having reached lvl 100 I still have hundreds of quests to complete, areas to explore, garrison to expand, etc...
I played STO since DAY 1 and I really loved it. But being forced to grind patrol missions to get to the next level to continue experiecing the storyline was boring. I even got to a point where I didn't even want to know the rest of the story. And then after finally having reached level 60 I found that I had nothing else to do. Except failing STF's one after the other. And on top of that I'm a KDF player... I haven't logged on for the past week or so (thanks to ARC has encoutered an error. Please try again). And the sad thing is, it doesn't even bother me. I'm still hoping that things will improve but I fear they never will.
And what I've noticed is the game becomes a little disjointed. For people who are brand new to the game without previous knowledge...i mean, what about them? Is it fair to them to have their rewards reduced simply for being new to the game? To get the gear you want/need you have to spend time in adventure zones gaining reputation, but rewards for those have been reduced again. Unless a new player is in a fleet with people who like/want to play some of the older STF's it is virtually impossible (if not really impossible) to take part in any of the old STF's. They may be old hat to the rest of us but as an example I've been playing STO for about a year now and have never played any of the old Klignon/Gorn STF's because it's old business now.
So a new player to the game is faced with the decision to hustle as fast as they can to play DR but miss out on all of the reputation (and end up over matched most of the time) or spend a longer time than older players in reputation to be competitive in the new content. I was level 50 by the time i got to the Nimbus III story line before I even started taking part in STF's or adventure zones. The initial leveling is too fast then all of a sudden slows to a crawl if you want to take part in any of the older reputation systems. Granted I just hit level 59 and just started the Dyson Sphere story line. But I'm having to bypass a lot of the content from the older reputation systems because...even from a year ago...it just takes so long to get things of value.
It's just very unbalanced when you look at a brand new player compared to someone who has leveled through all of the current content.
My suggestion would be if you want people to spend more time in DR (I haven't even began the DR missions yet or stepped foot in the DQ because I'm trying to follow the story line) by reducing the rewards players get from older content then also reduce the cost of leveling through the older reputation systems and reputation gear. If it's all old/outdated stuff then give it out at a lower cost.
Im boycotting DQ...I will do the opposite of what Cryptic wants me to do. Why help them when they DONT listen to playerbase:eek:
And now for something completely different.
It's spelled "wibble".
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
But it's pronounced "Throat-wobbler Mangrove."
They claimed that they lacked the foresight to do anything like that when asked about it once and, honestly, I believe them.
That said, it's well known that they have created ZEN as a promotional perk and a poorly kept secret that employees are allowed nearly unlimited ZEN for virtually any purposes.
So I don't know that there's any kind of automated fix. There are reasons why it would be bad economics that actually would hurt Cryptic and taint their metrics. Even adjusting for direct effect, it has impact if any of that ZEN gets exchanged for dilithium or used on sellable items. That impact can damage metrics by distorting things like exchange values, which would be player value measuring tools.
I think the issue would almost have to be with individual devs' use of their ZEN. (We also know some devs claim to voluntarily abstain from using free ZEN to test the game better.)
It's also somewhat problematic because it could be used for serious books cooking with a little laundering done. If I were a dev who wanted to spike store sales, I could requisition a bunch of dev ZEN "for testing purposes", dump it on the exchange, and that will spike store sales. Then I offload my dilithium for ZEN at a lower price, deliberately losing value, to pump value into the game economy and make the store look more profitable, aside from a mysterious cash shortage.
But then you can probably say, "Oh! That cash shortage must be due to lifetime account stipends, ZEN sales, and item sales." And that sounds reasonable enough that nobody would check. And you say, "But we should count that as revenue for certain purposes anyway because its an expense we avoided."
And then you get a nice bonus check based on C-Store performance and healthy looking metrics.
I doubt that is happening but it's the kind of system hole you don't want to have.
A crooked dev could flood the market with fake ZEN and continue to flood in order to make it look like players are spending more than they are.
I'm boycotting DQ also. I got to lvl59 with my main character. I figure I'll make it to level 60 next summer at the rate I'm going. I guess I don't want to "raise to the challenge"/bang my head against the wall.
It's far more enjoyable to start a new toon and process at a nice even pace all the way to level 50.
for a typical company a year may be short term but for computer game company's it is not, what is top dog this week could be out of date next week, you only have to look at how many new games come out every year and how you can buy a brand new xbox game and a month or two later it is I the bargain bucket for 1/10th the price.
game developers find it hard to plan much further then the end of their nose so a 1 year plan is long term to them.
besides which they may well have plans that may or may not come to fruition a few years from now but they have to take into account players trends and revenue flux before that can make these plans firm.
I have a couple of friends who played a certain tank game six months ago and raved about it all the time and how it was the best thing since sliced bread and how they would never tire of playing it, and spent an absolute fortune on it, now they would not give it the time of day.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
AdBlock Plus and Ghostery for peace of mind.
The Dilithium/Zen exchange is only profitable if the Zen players get for their Dilithium is spent in the C-store,taking the Zen out of the in game economy.
By the time the Dyson ships came out,most players already had the T5 ship(s) they wanted.At the same time players had Dilithium to spare,as they could earn it at a comfortable rate,costs for Reputation and Fleet gear were reasonable and with fleets opening up their stores to players outside their fleet,the demand for Dilithium slowly dropped.
The Zen being traded for Dilithium wasn't spent,and new Zen didn't enter the system.and as a direct result they sold less Zen.
To get it moving again they not only had to give players a reason to spend Zen (content that required a new class of ships) but also take out the staggering amount of Dilithium on the exchange by creating a chronic shortage (raising costs and lowering the earning potential to halt the flow of Dilithium into the system).
And look at that....the C-store has everything you need to make your gaming experience easier,and Cryptic even has Dilithium to spare now the players don't have enough to trade.
These are some shrewd people.
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
There is very much more than 5hrs of content. There's more than 5hrs of main story content alone. Then there's the Delta patrols, which were in fact written to be part of the story. I really never felt they were like the normal, grind-it-out patrols from many of the other sectors. I thought they flowed very well with the story, especially the ones where you're seeking or solidifying alliances. And some of the patrols were in fact VO'd, so there was clearly intent for them to be played as story.
And the Kobali adventure zone was designed with quite a bit of content as well. No idea how long that's supposed to be measured out in hours, but there were enough mini missions to keep me there for quite a long time.
I also counted the brand new PvEs as content, which I spent a fair amount of time in to get the new Delta Marks. That's probably one of the ways I got my levels so quickly as well.
Yes, the expansion wasn't entirely composed of story missions with full VO. But there was still a lot of content overall.
There is not a game on the planet that can create content to fill this type of need for replayability its just impossible. STO has less of this grind then other games. If they speed things up people say one week after release that they are at max cap on everything and "i am borred and i have nothing to do" so they have to slow you down somehow.
this is the treadmill of this type of game and it wont ever go away because content creation can never keep up so some companies have decided to remove this type of gaming and create sandbox mmo's because they freely admit they can't keep up.
so you have a choice find an mmo that you dont mind this type of grind thing (personally i have never minded grinding because i am in no rush so most games dont bug me and I have played some games that are well pretty bad lol )
Or
You can play a sandbox which give players zero direction SOE has gone this route of making its next set of mmo's sandboxes either total sandboxes or sandboxy big time with story and some content, but they have surrendered and freely admit it lol.
STO is what it is and I enjoy the story. They can't afford to create anymore content then they are though or they would do it. They have x number of staff and y number of dollars and a target date.
Sandboxes are the opposite of linear.
You claimed that MMOs in general, and STO in particular are non-linear.
Therefore, you claim that STO is, at least in part, a sandbox.
Which you then go on to denigrate, after claiming STO's very non-linearity is why it is a superior game.
I am puzzled.
Here's the problem - It was done that way INTENTIONALLY. Why? They figure/hope that once you notice the situation that you have to Grind a bit, you'll purchase an XP boost. Now it's true you don't have to purchase such a Boost (you can 'grind' a few patrols in DR or do other STO content (Dailies, etc.); but tghey hope it will nudge some players to buy the XP Boosts.
^^^
Welcome to F2P monetization tatics.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
No no no do not mention PVPers we have been getting punched in the face by the developers since launch. Now now you're beginning to understand how we feel
If you take a step back and look at it, its all much easier to explain the problems with just bad design. It is pretty clear the person or people designing this game are not qualified, they are missing such basics it boggles the mind.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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Yes, if they're trying to sell XP boosts then I guess nobody told the person who nerfed XP payouts, because he totally screwed that plan!
Free Tibet!
Yeah, the XP boosts are ridonkolusly useless. I guess they removed the old timed boosters because people could have tons of missions ready for turn in and then cash in all at once or something like that.
But they are currently simply useless.
Maybe they should determine on unpacking how much skill points they grant dependent on your current level (so at low level,s they give little, and at high levels, they give a lot).
I think event he distinction "minor"/"major" is useless. Maybe it could be something like
"Fast Boost": 50 % bonus skill points up to a maximum of one 1/2 of current level worth of hit points.
"Large Boost": 25 % bonus skill points up to a maximum of your current level worth of hit points.
Same price, and then you can decide wehther you want to use 2X Zen to gain an extra level every 2 levels, or to buy X to gain an extra level every 4 levels.
The thing that made DR much less of a grind to me was that I didn't min-max my way to lvl60. I didn't pick out the single best patrol, or the single best queue, to quickly level my main toon as fast as possible. If I had played the same highest-reward content several times over, yeah I would've gotten seriously bored.
I went into DR understanding what the devs had previously said to the community prior to launch, and that was to expect a fairly significant time requirement in order to get to lvl60. It's with that mindset that I ended up being surprised how quickly I got to 60 - that's entirely subjective because of my original perspective of course, but it is how I felt nonetheless. But I did enjoy the patrols, the story, the new queues, etc. I never felt that there was anything missing, or that I was being shortchanged on content. It's not like they took away the rest of the game from me just to force me to stay in the Delta Quadrant either. So there was plenty of variety to keep me occupied - thing is, I chose variety over repetitive grinds for the highest payout.
And I'll hammer on the fact that the Delta patrols were specifically designed to be part of the storyline. It didn't seem like content-filler or anything - it was nice to see patrols that were relevant, as opposed to the one-off nature of patrols in other sectors.
I don't think any of us can make a claim about profit margins, not knowing what they were aiming for. Either way, when it comes to profit, I hope Cryptic comes out well in the positive. If they don't, then the survivability of the game is at stake. They're a company, so I expect them to have a financial goal in mind.
And I felt quality was just fine. The quality of the content itself was very high in my opinion, and I very much enjoyed playing it all. As for post-launch bugs, this will always happen with any software product. Early adopters see the worst of what happens when an ambitious content update releases live, and is first subjected to the greatest variety of variables that even the most vigorous testing couldn't have tracked. I'd be complaining right now if there was radio silence from the devs on bug fixes, but that's not at all the case - bug fixes are fairly frequent. Are they fixing everything right way? No, but that's not possible in any scenario. Some bugs take a long time to track and fix. But they're actively working, and as a customer that's all I can ask.
I'm "done" the spec tree as far as I'd like it to go. I have no interest in the Intel powers, so I just filled one of the secondaries and now I'm stockpiling for whenever they release the next specialization. I didn't feel the need to super-grind to get the even the secondary tree done as fast as possible, it just happened as I played whatever I felt like playing.
And the queues aren't nearly as empty as some would have you believe. I was in WW for a bit and decided to shift gears for a little pew-pew in space - done several PvEs in rapid succession with no problems.
EDIT: the "queues are empty" argument was an immediate reaction to players seeing low numbers in their old favourites. That argument ignores that
a) immediately after DR launched, there were large numbers showing in the 3 new queues,
b) also after launch, a lot of players were spending their time playing the story instead of queues, and
c) within a few days the Mirror Event started and the numbers were large in those queues until the event ended.
As someone who did play a few queues to get up to lvl60, I never saw the truth in the "queues are empty" argument. Volumes in the older content were understandably lower for the reasons I stated above.
Working on your uniform doesn't generate XP. That may be why you find the progression so slow
LOL. I went the exact opposite direction: I have no interest in Commando, and stopped after Intel and Pilot; and now I'm stockpiling for whenever they release the next Specialization.
okay seriously have you ever had to develop content? lol
I know there are some design issues with this game I am the first to point out that there are some concepts which are lacking but content creation is not quick or easy and for the most part the work on the delta quadrant is solid and properly done.
They are also in the case of delta quadrant adding it in pieces that is the point they can choose to work on something for 4 years and release it at once or release it in parts which is what has gone on with the delta package, because another criteria they have to meet is the constant demand from players for new content. MMO's are not single player games they are never done ever.
The delta area is appropriately structured for FUTURE expansion the patrol missions are better then patrol missions anywhere else in the game and fit the theme of the quadrant.
They have had to create a framework that they can expand on and MMO's are typically beta because of how they are built.
Halo is done, mass effect 1 & 2 are complete its a complete product packaged and out the door and in the case of the mass effect series they are designing it to make you purchase the next versions of 3 & 4 some games might create an addon package but they are basically done once released if they are single player versions intended to be a stand alone product. MMO's are nothing like these games they are constantly evolving living creations that is kinda like laundry or dishes or housework they are never ever *done* so you see part one of the delta expansion they release seasons of content and have to bootstrap it to the present structure. In the future seasons will have expansions that stick onto the framework they created. They are not done yet it will never be *done* even when they shut it down it will stil not be done
I point you to games like everquest that game is an mmo and one of the oldest on the market to this day they release expansions to plug into the rest of the game. Its never done it will only one day be shut down when it no longer draws customers.
I guarantee you though nothing being done here is 'easy' or quick. That is why we have bugs and errors in the game because its far from easy or quick.