I really don't care what season 10 brings. At this point I'm not even playing the game much. I think for now I'll just log in during special events to get free ships and any kinda giveaway event.
I'm just patiently waiting for 1 of 2 things to happen:
#1 Cryptic stops being such stubborn dicks and tries to find a way to be more flexible and make the game better.
#2 The game is sunsetted.
Remember not too long ago Cryptic left a post saying there was a bug with the amount of skill points awarded post level 50 from doff assignments and other parts of the game. They explained that they were fixing the bug while at the same time increasing the amount of skill points needed to level up and earn specialization points. In that same post they flat out said they wanted us to take the same amount of time to level up.
A lot of players asked "why even bother fixing the bug if it's gonna take the same amount of time to level up and earn spec points?" It made no sense to fix the bug if they're pretty adamant about it.
For the most part, I enjoyed what came before Season #8. I haven't truly enjoyed anything (including DR) since.
I can say I fall into that feeling myself. I LOVED STO pre S8. I've felt more alienated by the changes ever since. I'm more hanging around to see if they do anything about the player's concerns and/or drop the "balancing" nerfbat, at least for awhile. it's not been an enjoyable experience as of late with rules of play constantly being drastically altered.
It isn't about making a hasty decision. It's about them not wanting to make the decision in the first place. The system is set in stone and they are just waiting for us to shut up about it. When we do they'll claim "the players love it".
Players do love it. Not all players, but some. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that when they say "players" they're speaking for all of us.
*awaits someone to come along, spot this post and take my "players do love it" statement out-of-context* :rolleyes:
Remember the uproar about the limitations on the reputation traits with the trait revamp? Yeah....eventually most of us gave up trying to get them to change their minds and nothing was ever changed and it's been quite a while since that took place.
Whether we talk about it until we're blue in the face or just give up and stop caring, Cryptic is stubborn and don't give a **** what we want.
True enough. but maybe after they release more specializations, they'll make it easier to gain points...?
IMO, if Cryptic continues down their current path of stifling dissent on these forums, people will stop posting/playing/PAYING and take their anger to other websites, forums, games, etc. Cryptic would do well to try some damage control pretty quick to help lessen the effects of negative advertising on these other sites. Their actions are only hurting themselves and the BOTTOM LINE.
If the players leave (and the money dries up), the game will more than likely get shut down. The devs (who don't get transferred to other games) get to draw unemployment checks.
They won't like it, but I am of the opinion that at making at least some conciliatory gestures to the disgruntled players will go a long way in repairing the rift between Cryptic/PWE and the player base.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
What happened to Hawk? I've searched but can't seem to find a reason why he left. He didn't leave a goodbye message on the forums like pwebranflakes did when he left.
That was kind of the weird thing, imho, about it. No update on Twitter of a new job, no update of LinkedIn, lol...it's like he quit Cryptic to go play the new WoW expansion. Yeah, maybe back in the day I might have taken time off from work (sad, eh?)...but lol, it's just a trip how that played out.
well i kind of already abandoned the game. ofc i log in for the daily ice-runs with two toons, RnD dailies, sometimes dilithium mining and doffing, but thats it. the game lost purpose since DR. i don't have the time nor the will to grind through the specializations, not only with my main toon, no i won't farm patrol mobs for hours. i'm tired of wasting all my hard earned in-game founds on RNG-lottery box opening scandal or craft-RnD sink, to gear up even one toon. i get that the whole map is static but now the queues are also empty, pvp is a joke right now, theres basically nothing to do.
so now i put all my geekiness into FireFall - dynamic T/FPS MMO shooter with a much more living open world and a ton of stuff to do. also, BranFlakes is there...
Defiant
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
I think Season #10 will keep STO "muddling" through by appealing to some, alienating some, providing some improvements and creating some issues, but essentially keeping the game alive.
Pretty much what the last two seasons (and an expansion) have done then?
Most of the stories are more Fed based anyways in the game.
I understand that a lot of missions are universal, but there are some very good, very solid and very sound (unique) missions for both the KDF and Republic.
I'm keeping my expectations pretty low. I'm sure they'll add the usual new season stuff... new rep, few new queues, featured episode or two. And it's time for a new fleet holding.
A new rep is a new grind, that ****s got old. New quenes are not the answer considering far too many current queues are empty (and it's not a bug - they are empty. Low expectations though, that's the way to go, then we can all be presently surprised if they do something right.
Killing threads changes people's opinion and make them enjoy stuff they used to hate?
It might be prudent to take into account that it isn't always the Devs that close threads, it's sometimes (and more often than not) the Mods - and they wont work for Cryptic. They're exactly the same as us, just ya'know, a little more powerful here.
What happened to Hawk? I've searched but can't seem to find a reason why he left. He didn't leave a goodbye message on the forums like pwebranflakes did when he left.
Also, that thread seems to have gone nowhere after he left, barring Borticus' post about Adjuticatorhawk leaving over a month ago.
Pretty much what the last two seasons (and an expansion) have done then?
Yes, plus all the ones before.
The game survived its own launch. Where you around then? I wasn't even there from the start, and it was a mess still weeks later. And there were so many issues, so many shortcomings.
But improvements were made.
Lots of people left. But enough stayed for the game to survive until Atari sold it off to PWE. Which probably rescued it. But at no point do I really remember any long periods of people on the forum being overjoyed by what was happening in the game.
Yet the game survives. It's not the greatest Star Trek MMO I could imagine. But... it's doing okay. There are so many things I would wish it to improve on. I used to be an avid PvPer, but all those lockbox ships and special console powers and special mission rewards (OMG, People - including me - joked about making Tractor Beam Mines available to players and that's EXACTLY WHAT CRYPTIC DID!") ruined a lot of the fun of the game, and reputation sets and reputation abilities added another barrier of entry.
But while that made me give up on PvP (more than that - I left the game entirely for 2 years), there are apparently still people around still PvPing.
I think Cryptic managed to always add just enough content and features to keep players playing. They also added stuff that helped turn the game make a profit. And I think it took them a while to figure this out. They had a noble aspiration once - featured episodes, weekly or monthly or whatever. It didn't work out - it didn't create a business model that would make them enough money. Not for subscriptions, not for F2P. But a mix of ships, lockboxes, and "grind" for resources like Dilithium provided what they needed. People buy Zen for master keys, get ships, or to get Dilithium they didn't want to grind themselves.
But that will mean they will have to always add new dilithium sinks, and ways to make us want lockbox ships. For C-Store ships, I think for a long time they could rely on simply selling the next canon (or other fan favorite) ship to the game. But they reached an end there. A tier increase was an obvious move here, I think.
Reputations and Fleets (including FLeet Gear) was a major dilithium sink - but many people still managed to get "geared out". In fact, despite 2 years of absence, I had VR or several characters, and had completed most reps. I probably am not quite casual, playing about daily for 1 to 2 hours, but still - it shows me that for many people, they were starting to accumulate wealth with no purpose or pure luxury stuff ("hey, how about I get this other rep set to have that one, too.", or "today I am trying a Disruptor build). They'd risk losing players that had no longer any goals to work for.
And so, they added an new gear tier.
It's a "cheap" method to do it, but if has to be cheap, because it's a measure that exists to keep the game afloat - it's not something that already allows to make any big investment. (In a way it's maintenance to keep the game alive.) It isn't bound to excite people, of course. It's just another number added to everything. It may TRIBBLE some off, people that believed there would be an end to the hamster wheel - but the hamster wheel is what powers the game. Wishing it to stop is the same thing as wishing the game to stop. If not for everyone, than at least for yourself.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The Season 'whatever' is make or break thread comes out each and every christmas week like clock work. We detail all the good things they did, remind ourselves all the unprofessional things they did, and the wildy muse and speculate as to what was gonna come next year after the anniversary event.
And we were all pretty much wrong 50% of the time.
Delta Rising should have been an epic release with the level of voice talent they secured, and frankly it was some of the better content they've come up with to date . A frantic rush to push out a ineptly balanced R&D system; a XP issue that was warned about repeatedly and ignored on tribble, only to have the EP call us exploiters then promptly returned our 'ill gotten booty'. Add to that a reworking of the queue difficulty, and the too numerous to mention here issues with loadouts, and the sudden rise of the 'Everything is Awesome' meme.
If anything Delta Rising will be known for 2 things: the unfettered expansion of DPS over every other gaming mechanism, and the killing of the queues.
Delta Rising: The Culling might have been a more appropriate name.
Season Ten, or by whatever name it may be called is a 'rebuilding season' if you pardon the hockey parlance. The team is broken, the gameplay is outdated, the general manager has no clue what his current team can do, and the teams owners have all but thrown in the towel because they have bigger problems with their more 'successful' franchises.
Add to that the game attendance is it's lowest in 4 years.
Season Ten, or by whatever name it may be called is a 'rebuilding season' if you pardon the hockey parlance. The team is broken, the gameplay is outdated, the general manager has no clue what his current team can do, and the teams owners have all but thrown in the towel because they have bigger problems with their more 'successful' franchises.
Add to that the game attendance is it's lowest in 4 years.
If season 10 is to be a "rebuilding" season, what were seasons eight and nine?
Everything about Delta Rising has been to put forth as little effort/cost as possible and then to stave off the end until the next release by superficially extending grinds, lowering rewards, and raising costs.
Comments
I really don't care what season 10 brings. At this point I'm not even playing the game much. I think for now I'll just log in during special events to get free ships and any kinda giveaway event.
I'm just patiently waiting for 1 of 2 things to happen:
#1 Cryptic stops being such stubborn dicks and tries to find a way to be more flexible and make the game better.
#2 The game is sunsetted.
Remember not too long ago Cryptic left a post saying there was a bug with the amount of skill points awarded post level 50 from doff assignments and other parts of the game. They explained that they were fixing the bug while at the same time increasing the amount of skill points needed to level up and earn specialization points. In that same post they flat out said they wanted us to take the same amount of time to level up.
A lot of players asked "why even bother fixing the bug if it's gonna take the same amount of time to level up and earn spec points?" It made no sense to fix the bug if they're pretty adamant about it.
I can say I fall into that feeling myself. I LOVED STO pre S8. I've felt more alienated by the changes ever since. I'm more hanging around to see if they do anything about the player's concerns and/or drop the "balancing" nerfbat, at least for awhile. it's not been an enjoyable experience as of late with rules of play constantly being drastically altered.
*awaits someone to come along, spot this post and take my "players do love it" statement out-of-context* :rolleyes:
True enough.
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I don't think that works.
If the players leave (and the money dries up), the game will more than likely get shut down. The devs (who don't get transferred to other games) get to draw unemployment checks.
They won't like it, but I am of the opinion that at making at least some conciliatory gestures to the disgruntled players will go a long way in repairing the rift between Cryptic/PWE and the player base.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
It was just a...
https://twitter.com/jeffahamilton
...there was a message and like, wtf-moment took place sort of thing.
Seems he needs to update his linkedin profile.
That was kind of the weird thing, imho, about it. No update on Twitter of a new job, no update of LinkedIn, lol...it's like he quit Cryptic to go play the new WoW expansion. Yeah, maybe back in the day I might have taken time off from work (sad, eh?)...but lol, it's just a trip how that played out.
so now i put all my geekiness into FireFall - dynamic T/FPS MMO shooter with a much more living open world and a ton of stuff to do. also, BranFlakes is there...
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
You obviously haven't quite grasped the context of my initial post.
I understand that a lot of missions are universal, but there are some very good, very solid and very sound (unique) missions for both the KDF and Republic.
I know, but it seems more apparent as of late that they're not concerned with faction-specific, but more universal-fed-catered ones.
A new rep is a new grind, that ****s got old. New quenes are not the answer considering far too many current queues are empty (and it's not a bug - they are empty. Low expectations though, that's the way to go, then we can all be presently surprised if they do something right.
A harsh truth.
It might be prudent to take into account that it isn't always the Devs that close threads, it's sometimes (and more often than not) the Mods - and they wont work for Cryptic. They're exactly the same as us, just ya'know, a little more powerful here.
Also, that thread seems to have gone nowhere after he left, barring Borticus' post about Adjuticatorhawk leaving over a month ago.
This will help.... http://sto.gamepedia.com/Release_notes
:cool:
The game survived its own launch. Where you around then? I wasn't even there from the start, and it was a mess still weeks later. And there were so many issues, so many shortcomings.
But improvements were made.
Lots of people left. But enough stayed for the game to survive until Atari sold it off to PWE. Which probably rescued it. But at no point do I really remember any long periods of people on the forum being overjoyed by what was happening in the game.
Yet the game survives. It's not the greatest Star Trek MMO I could imagine. But... it's doing okay. There are so many things I would wish it to improve on. I used to be an avid PvPer, but all those lockbox ships and special console powers and special mission rewards (OMG, People - including me - joked about making Tractor Beam Mines available to players and that's EXACTLY WHAT CRYPTIC DID!") ruined a lot of the fun of the game, and reputation sets and reputation abilities added another barrier of entry.
But while that made me give up on PvP (more than that - I left the game entirely for 2 years), there are apparently still people around still PvPing.
I think Cryptic managed to always add just enough content and features to keep players playing. They also added stuff that helped turn the game make a profit. And I think it took them a while to figure this out. They had a noble aspiration once - featured episodes, weekly or monthly or whatever. It didn't work out - it didn't create a business model that would make them enough money. Not for subscriptions, not for F2P. But a mix of ships, lockboxes, and "grind" for resources like Dilithium provided what they needed. People buy Zen for master keys, get ships, or to get Dilithium they didn't want to grind themselves.
But that will mean they will have to always add new dilithium sinks, and ways to make us want lockbox ships. For C-Store ships, I think for a long time they could rely on simply selling the next canon (or other fan favorite) ship to the game. But they reached an end there. A tier increase was an obvious move here, I think.
Reputations and Fleets (including FLeet Gear) was a major dilithium sink - but many people still managed to get "geared out". In fact, despite 2 years of absence, I had VR or several characters, and had completed most reps. I probably am not quite casual, playing about daily for 1 to 2 hours, but still - it shows me that for many people, they were starting to accumulate wealth with no purpose or pure luxury stuff ("hey, how about I get this other rep set to have that one, too.", or "today I am trying a Disruptor build). They'd risk losing players that had no longer any goals to work for.
And so, they added an new gear tier.
It's a "cheap" method to do it, but if has to be cheap, because it's a measure that exists to keep the game afloat - it's not something that already allows to make any big investment. (In a way it's maintenance to keep the game alive.) It isn't bound to excite people, of course. It's just another number added to everything. It may TRIBBLE some off, people that believed there would be an end to the hamster wheel - but the hamster wheel is what powers the game. Wishing it to stop is the same thing as wishing the game to stop. If not for everyone, than at least for yourself.
And we were all pretty much wrong 50% of the time.
Delta Rising should have been an epic release with the level of voice talent they secured, and frankly it was some of the better content they've come up with to date
If anything Delta Rising will be known for 2 things: the unfettered expansion of DPS over every other gaming mechanism, and the killing of the queues.
Delta Rising: The Culling might have been a more appropriate name.
Season Ten, or by whatever name it may be called is a 'rebuilding season' if you pardon the hockey parlance. The team is broken, the gameplay is outdated, the general manager has no clue what his current team can do, and the teams owners have all but thrown in the towel because they have bigger problems with their more 'successful' franchises.
Add to that the game attendance is it's lowest in 4 years.
Rebuild. Test. Restart.
My Two Bits
Admiral Thrax
If season 10 is to be a "rebuilding" season, what were seasons eight and nine?
Everything about Delta Rising has been to put forth as little effort/cost as possible and then to stave off the end until the next release by superficially extending grinds, lowering rewards, and raising costs.
That is true but the reaction on DR was quite negative.