I am most impressed by the thought and consideration the team has clearly put into this thing, with regard to vets versus noobs, etc.
I have a strong sense they are committed to STO and even with the bugs and annoyances and all the rest, I have always greatly enjoyed STO, feel that Cryptic is trying hard to keep it fresh and interesting, and I've not regretted my lifetime sub yet.
Developers don't throw truck loads and truck loads of stuff at their players, new or not, without a reason, and I can't really buy the whole "Too steep of a climb for new players" because after all, this is a F2P game, where new players are basically expected to "buy in" through items, services, etc.
So what's the motive here, to throw around all this loot?
This just seems way too good to be true, and I want to know why.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Developers don't throw truck loads and truck loads of stuff at their players, new or not, without a reason, and I can't really buy the whole "Too steep of a climb for new players" because after all, this is a F2P game, where new players are basically expected to "buy in" through items, services, etc.
So what's the motive here, to throw around all this loot?
This just seems way too good to be true, and I want to know why.
They get to the level where CStore ships are really valuable fast, and don't see a massive wall to climb to progress past that, and are thus more likely to grab a $30 ship and keep playing than to give up in frustration?
In other words... make money through offering a more enjoyable product. There's nothing terribly underhanded about that
Developers don't throw truck loads and truck loads of stuff at their players, new or not, without a reason, and I can't really buy the whole "Too steep of a climb for new players" because after all, this is a F2P game, where new players are basically expected to "buy in" through items, services, etc.
So what's the motive here, to throw around all this loot?
This just seems way too good to be true, and I want to know why.
Because you're only looking at the "long list", not it's "buying power"...
Between the account wide marks (theoretically claimable by the recruit as well) and the jump start pack, a new player (needing 1,200 marks just to complete enough dailies to reach T5) won't even be handed one complete reputation. Same with that Dilithium Voucher, not enough to score one complete reputation set part. On the "off reputations" that aren't selected with the level-ups, we're looking what, most of the way from start to tier 2?
That 200 marks per story arc and 500 from joining the fleet, along with that wad of fleet dilithium, looks nice on the surface, but again, even with that 55k dil of "vouchers", said player's barely going to have enough fleet credits to buy one of the "fleet credit only" ships - yeah, they could get a couple of T5Us, if they scored fleet modules...
And the 1 million or so EC granted from the event doesn't even do this.
As far as the crafting stuff goes, outside of that outlier "one crafting school of player's choice straight to L10", I think we got more crafting stuffs from the R&D introduction event.
Then there's the starship trait, the starship device, and the ground device.
Yeah, this is a nifty "jump start" for a new player, but it doesn't bring them anywhere near what a "veteran" has...
Personally, I'm seeing this as a big inducement to "bring back stray players who were here before with tons and tons of alts", and get these "smaller fleets" engaged in a bidding war for the wads of new marks that the Recruits wind up with to bring them "up to speed"...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Honestly, reading the rewards for the delta recruit I'm just stuck with a giant freaking "meh.", if not a little bit pissed/annoyed at the "They level an R&D school to level 5, instantly get a level 10 school of their choice."
Why? I have one char I'm leveling crafting on (for the second or third time since Cryptic wiped progress with the revamps of crafting system to my major annoyance, she could craft Aegis before but not now!), who is not a delta recruit. I won't be deleting/remaking her at all. I work reputations typically one per char, such as my romulan main got romulan maxed. Another has Omega force maxed. KDf main has dyson maxed, etc. Typically to suit their char/gear wants (or outfit for some like Dyson or Omega). I don't have Delta or 8472 reps maxed yet though. I don't plan on doing crafting on ANY other character really, I'll just trade the gear across my account bank if I make any of the level 15 crafting stuff.
I'm all for new players, but with how Cryptic has been so hard on "CHARACTER BOUND" stuff, like event ships, event gear, event costumes/lobi costumes, I don't see why I should make yet another alt. Now if they actually made event gear, ships, costumes(lobi costumes, gear, and ships as well) account bound, so I could make a new alt and give him/her a kazon raider or Kobali cruiser, and use the undine bio-armor outfit, among other things, I'd be far more enticed.
edit: I'm probably more pissed at the R&D thing as it reminds me yet again how my character could make Aegis with the old crafting systems, but Cryptic wiped out all that progress with the crafting revamp.
Between the account wide marks (theoretically claimable by the recruit as well) and the jump start pack, a new player (needing 1,200 marks just to complete enough dailies to reach T5) won't even be handed one complete reputation. Same with that Dilithium Voucher, not enough to score one complete reputation set part. On the "off reputations" that aren't selected with the level-ups, we're looking what, most of the way from start to tier 2?
If you have already complete a reputation to tier 5 , you can make a sponsorship token for 100 marks that will reduces the requirement to go to tier 5 on the new character of 50%. So you'll need only 600 marks to reach tier 5.
Developers don't throw truck loads and truck loads of stuff at their players, new or not, without a reason, and I can't really buy the whole "Too steep of a climb for new players" because after all, this is a F2P game, where new players are basically expected to "buy in" through items, services, etc.
So what's the motive here, to throw around all this loot?
This just seems way too good to be true, and I want to know why.
The "catch" is that PWE's first and foremost measure of success as I understand it is number of players and average time spent per player, which is how they measure marketshare in F2P.
From there, the secondary goal is to make sure a minimum number of those players spend money, which I think is probably a target of around 5%, with more being better. But average time spent per player is their holy grail stat and the goal here is to get people in game. Shareholders basically care about number of players, average time per player, and bottom line revenue. Therefore that is what PWE cares about and hence what Cryptic shoots for.
So I am sure somebody will flame me for this, but why isn't there a reward for participating in pvp? I have not done much pvp in recent years, but I think there should be something in this event to reward those people who give it a try, maybe something for participating in 5-10 pvp matches?
Also, why not something for doing "x" number of spotlight foundry missions as well?
Just a couple of semi-major things that were completely forgotten here...
So I am sure somebody will flame me for this, but why isn't there a reward for participating in pvp? I have not done much pvp in recent years, but I think there should be something in this event to reward those people who give it a try, maybe something for participating in 5-10 pvp matches?
Also, why not something for doing "x" number of spotlight foundry missions as well?
Just a couple of semi-major things that were completely forgotten here...
Hmm 5-10 PVP Matches in ~8 weeks ... not sure if that's possible with the average Queue-Time :P
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
This event, while a nice little bonus for new characters made during the time frame, doesn't fulfill it's primary reason for existence - it does not really help or address the issues that new players struggle with, caused in large part by Delta Rising. It is also limited, so any players who join STO after May 21st (When the event ends) don't benefit from this, but all existing players will. I, personally, can only empathize with the problems many new players face, but I will outline the obvious ones if the anyone cares to hear/read a reasoned opinion on the subject.
1. Problem: No ship at 50. The last free ship a player receives is at 40 or during an event. This is an issue because the Hull, consoles, and even BOFF stations make the level 40 ships incapable of completing much of the Delta Rising content without significant difficulties. (Especially the Hull!)
Solution: Add a permanent event/questline that would allow new players/characters to earn a new T5U or T6 ship, like the Samsar, at lvl 50.
2. Problem: REFINED dilithium is hard to come by. It's great that these recruits get "Fleet" Dil and some Dil rewards, but they can only refine 8-9k per day. It will take a LONG time to earn the Dil they need to get the Reputation rewards that all those marks from Delta Recruit rewards are supposed to help them get, let alone upgrade them all to MK XIV.
Solution: Increase Dilithium refinement for all characters or reduce Dil costs of Reputation items and/or upgrades for everyone.
3. Problem: The XP gap between levels after level 50 is too large. The quests don't level you by themselves. You have to GRIND constantly to level up. And, that awesome 30 minute cooldown was placed on patrol missions, so now new players can't even do that to level.
Solution: Increase XP gain for quests in Delta rising significantly AND/OR significantly reduce the XP required to level from 50 to 60. (If the XP required to level AFTER 60 for specialization points doesn't change, at least take it easy on new players and give them a break when trying to level up so they can join Fleetmates in advanced queues.)
WTB T6 ship, for $30 of hard-earned money, with the following:
1. 8 Weapons, Battle Cloak, and 11 consoles (5 Tac/4 Sci)
2. At least 39,000 Hull at lvl 50 and at least 1.25 Shield mod
3. Commander Tac/Int BOFF and Uni Lt Comm BOFF stations
It could have 5 turn rate and look like a box, but I'd buy it ASAP!
So I am sure somebody will flame me for this, but why isn't there a reward for participating in pvp? I have not done much pvp in recent years, but I think there should be something in this event to reward those people who give it a try, maybe something for participating in 5-10 pvp matches?
Also, why not something for doing "x" number of spotlight foundry missions as well?
Just a couple of semi-major things that were completely forgotten here...
*Sticks matches between your toes and lights them*
Cryptic loves PvP as much as the love the KDF....they dont
but the real question is which do they hate more PvP or KDF
I believe the whole motivation behind this is the thought its easier to recruit new players than win back the old ones you kissed off with DR. As to the rewards for new players its a great boon for anyone who is new but to an established player in a well stocked fleet its a pathetic joke. I just have one question in all these rewards. WHERE"S THE XP!!!!!! I have been working on 55-60 for a month on my main and am just almost to 59. It will boost player levels till they reach 55 or so and then they will flame out on the xp grind before they hit 60.
WHERE"S THE XP!!!!!! I have been working on 55-60 for a month on my main and am just almost to 59. It will boost player levels till they reach 55 or so and then they will flame out on the xp grind before they hit 60.
XP-Boosts are supposed to be "Server-Wide" Goals / Unlocks (probably only lasting for weeks) ... maybe in the next Blog (or not, depending how it'll work)
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Honestly, reading the rewards for the delta recruit I'm just stuck with a giant freaking "meh."...
I had a similar underwhelmed reaction. The traits seem like they could be nice but I would have liked more and larger account and fleet rewards. Outside of the traits there is not a lot of incentive for me to create an alt, and I've very alt-adverse.
Some low,mid, and high level Delta Recruitment crafting items would have sweetened the incentive to get me out of staying with my main and play an alt.
Someone mentioned the sponsorship token so I may do that.
I had a similar underwhelmed reaction. The traits seem like they could be nice but I would have liked more and larger account and fleet rewards. Outside of the traits there is not a lot of incentive for me to create an alt, and I've very alt-adverse.
Some low,mid, and high level Delta Recruitment crafting items would have sweetened the incentive to get me out of staying with my main and play an alt.
Someone mentioned the sponsorship token so I may do that.
I love my alt chars, but STO is a game I see no reason to focus on them. Heck, I had an idea for an alt, visually they'd use the Omega force set. But then I went "Nah, it'd be a chunk of effort to reach level 50, then even more effort/time to get them to tier 5 rep (even with sponship tokens I can make on two of my level 50+ chars), then even MORE effort to get the ground set and outfits...
In the end? The idea got thrown into a storage shelf because it wasn't worth it.
Sure, the char idea being based around omega force outfit is a little expensive, but it's the same idea. I come up with an alt, even something basic like "Reman engineer", and just don't get any unf to actually play them. My reman is level 50 ONLY because of Q double xp weekends.
I love my alt chars, but STO is a game I see no reason to focus on them. Heck, I had an idea for an alt, visually they'd use the Omega force set. But then I went "Nah, it'd be a chunk of effort to reach level 50, then even more effort/time to get them to tier 5 rep (even with sponship tokens I can make on two of my level 50+ chars), then even MORE effort to get the ground set and outfits...
In the end? The idea got thrown into a storage shelf because it wasn't worth it.
Sure, the char idea being based around omega force outfit is a little expensive, but it's the same idea. I come up with an alt, even something basic like "Reman engineer", and just don't get any unf to actually play them. My reman is level 50 ONLY because of Q double xp weekends.
I agree for me there is far to much grind and far lees fun to be had and tbh im burnt out on this game due to the incesive grind lately i ahvent even bothered setting my daily queues and do those every other day.
if everything in this game wasnt such a power grind i might find the game fun enouhg to log in more then a few minutes every other day....i spend more time on the forum then the actual game.
I'm glad that there's no time limit for completing anything after the tutorial. I was a little concerned that I would only be able to make one Delta Recruit, but since I saw that bit of info, I'm totally making one for each faction. Fed-side engie, KDF either engie or tac, and I'll reroll a low level rommie tac that I have.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
hey Bort got a question can i still get the tutorial trait if i skip it since the sto intro movies for all 3 factions and the intro for eltra rising movie freeze and crash my sto since delta risings launch yes i had put in tickets but so far nothing?
hey Bort got a question can i still get the tutorial trait if i skip it since the sto intro movies for all 3 factions and the intro for eltra rising movie freeze and crash my sto since delta risings launch yes i had put in tickets but so far nothing?
A friend of mine has have the same problem. Since Delta came out, he has been unable to play his Romulan due to the opening cutscene crashes his game to his desktop.
He has put in tickets by the truck ton, and yet his problem has yet to be fixed.
Bort, when will the player's game bugs and crashes be answered and fixed before any new content is released?
There are two new Titles that can only be earned by Recruits, and are not account-wide. Other than that, I don't believe any new Accolades were added.
All rewards granted to the Delta Recruit will be Bind-on-Acquire, including this Duty Officer.
This is not a Lock Box promo/event. We have no cross-feature mechanics planned at this time.
Will you finally add a reasonable way for existing characters to acquire the Aegis Doff then? As it is, delta recruits get one practically for free, and people who mastered the old crafting system got one, but everyone else gets to play the RNG for months and hope for the best. My crafting main has been at level 15 shields for months and still can't craft Aegis pieces because of the stupid doff.
So we get a tessaract? does this mean that Loki will suddenly appear on our ships to take our tesseracts, with Thor being right on his tail to stop him, only to get jumped by iron man who is chasing thor for helping loki escape from iron man who will then get into an epic battle on our ships bridge and right about the time the ship is about to explode, captain america shows up to get them all to stop fighting, only to have thor attack cap and with that blow, bring our ships to the brink of destruction?
Will you finally add a reasonable way for existing characters to acquire the Aegis Doff then? As it is, delta recruits get one practically for free, and people who mastered the old crafting system got one, but everyone else gets to play the RNG for months and hope for the best. My crafting main has been at level 15 shields for months and still can't craft Aegis pieces because of the stupid doff.
i Feel ya, i got level 15 beams and because i seem to lack some certain doff, I cant craft omni-directional beam arrays. and I got doffs for literally EVERY profession that can be traded on the exchange.
i Feel ya, i got level 15 beams and because i seem to lack some certain doff, I cant craft omni-directional beam arrays. and I got doffs for literally EVERY profession that can be traded on the exchange.
you can look up which doff you have to buy, thats what i did. got him off the exchange
Comments
I have a strong sense they are committed to STO and even with the bugs and annoyances and all the rest, I have always greatly enjoyed STO, feel that Cryptic is trying hard to keep it fresh and interesting, and I've not regretted my lifetime sub yet.
WHAT'S THE CATCH?
Developers don't throw truck loads and truck loads of stuff at their players, new or not, without a reason, and I can't really buy the whole "Too steep of a climb for new players" because after all, this is a F2P game, where new players are basically expected to "buy in" through items, services, etc.
So what's the motive here, to throw around all this loot?
This just seems way too good to be true, and I want to know why.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
If the faction missions are enhanced, will I see the changes when replaying them on a character created before Delta recruitment?
They get to the level where CStore ships are really valuable fast, and don't see a massive wall to climb to progress past that, and are thus more likely to grab a $30 ship and keep playing than to give up in frustration?
In other words... make money through offering a more enjoyable product. There's nothing terribly underhanded about that
Because you're only looking at the "long list", not it's "buying power"...
Between the account wide marks (theoretically claimable by the recruit as well) and the jump start pack, a new player (needing 1,200 marks just to complete enough dailies to reach T5) won't even be handed one complete reputation. Same with that Dilithium Voucher, not enough to score one complete reputation set part. On the "off reputations" that aren't selected with the level-ups, we're looking what, most of the way from start to tier 2?
That 200 marks per story arc and 500 from joining the fleet, along with that wad of fleet dilithium, looks nice on the surface, but again, even with that 55k dil of "vouchers", said player's barely going to have enough fleet credits to buy one of the "fleet credit only" ships - yeah, they could get a couple of T5Us, if they scored fleet modules...
And the 1 million or so EC granted from the event doesn't even do this.
As far as the crafting stuff goes, outside of that outlier "one crafting school of player's choice straight to L10", I think we got more crafting stuffs from the R&D introduction event.
Then there's the starship trait, the starship device, and the ground device.
Yeah, this is a nifty "jump start" for a new player, but it doesn't bring them anywhere near what a "veteran" has...
Personally, I'm seeing this as a big inducement to "bring back stray players who were here before with tons and tons of alts", and get these "smaller fleets" engaged in a bidding war for the wads of new marks that the Recruits wind up with to bring them "up to speed"...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Why? I have one char I'm leveling crafting on (for the second or third time since Cryptic wiped progress with the revamps of crafting system to my major annoyance, she could craft Aegis before but not now!), who is not a delta recruit. I won't be deleting/remaking her at all. I work reputations typically one per char, such as my romulan main got romulan maxed. Another has Omega force maxed. KDf main has dyson maxed, etc. Typically to suit their char/gear wants (or outfit for some like Dyson or Omega). I don't have Delta or 8472 reps maxed yet though. I don't plan on doing crafting on ANY other character really, I'll just trade the gear across my account bank if I make any of the level 15 crafting stuff.
I'm all for new players, but with how Cryptic has been so hard on "CHARACTER BOUND" stuff, like event ships, event gear, event costumes/lobi costumes, I don't see why I should make yet another alt. Now if they actually made event gear, ships, costumes(lobi costumes, gear, and ships as well) account bound, so I could make a new alt and give him/her a kazon raider or Kobali cruiser, and use the undine bio-armor outfit, among other things, I'd be far more enticed.
edit: I'm probably more pissed at the R&D thing as it reminds me yet again how my character could make Aegis with the old crafting systems, but Cryptic wiped out all that progress with the crafting revamp.
If you have already complete a reputation to tier 5 , you can make a sponsorship token for 100 marks that will reduces the requirement to go to tier 5 on the new character of 50%. So you'll need only 600 marks to reach tier 5.
My Wordpress Blog - Blogger
In Space, drinking or piloting, you must choose ! If you drink, put on the autopilot
Boohoo! I am sure you can turn in into dil and make that sacrifice.
The "catch" is that PWE's first and foremost measure of success as I understand it is number of players and average time spent per player, which is how they measure marketshare in F2P.
From there, the secondary goal is to make sure a minimum number of those players spend money, which I think is probably a target of around 5%, with more being better. But average time spent per player is their holy grail stat and the goal here is to get people in game. Shareholders basically care about number of players, average time per player, and bottom line revenue. Therefore that is what PWE cares about and hence what Cryptic shoots for.
I am a big fan of these changes.
thanks you for doing something alt friendly. Like really alt friendly.
Also, why not something for doing "x" number of spotlight foundry missions as well?
Just a couple of semi-major things that were completely forgotten here...
Hmm 5-10 PVP Matches in ~8 weeks ... not sure if that's possible with the average Queue-Time :P
1. Problem: No ship at 50. The last free ship a player receives is at 40 or during an event. This is an issue because the Hull, consoles, and even BOFF stations make the level 40 ships incapable of completing much of the Delta Rising content without significant difficulties. (Especially the Hull!)
Solution: Add a permanent event/questline that would allow new players/characters to earn a new T5U or T6 ship, like the Samsar, at lvl 50.
2. Problem: REFINED dilithium is hard to come by. It's great that these recruits get "Fleet" Dil and some Dil rewards, but they can only refine 8-9k per day. It will take a LONG time to earn the Dil they need to get the Reputation rewards that all those marks from Delta Recruit rewards are supposed to help them get, let alone upgrade them all to MK XIV.
Solution: Increase Dilithium refinement for all characters or reduce Dil costs of Reputation items and/or upgrades for everyone.
3. Problem: The XP gap between levels after level 50 is too large. The quests don't level you by themselves. You have to GRIND constantly to level up. And, that awesome 30 minute cooldown was placed on patrol missions, so now new players can't even do that to level.
Solution: Increase XP gain for quests in Delta rising significantly AND/OR significantly reduce the XP required to level from 50 to 60. (If the XP required to level AFTER 60 for specialization points doesn't change, at least take it easy on new players and give them a break when trying to level up so they can join Fleetmates in advanced queues.)
1. 8 Weapons, Battle Cloak, and 11 consoles (5 Tac/4 Sci)
2. At least 39,000 Hull at lvl 50 and at least 1.25 Shield mod
3. Commander Tac/Int BOFF and Uni Lt Comm BOFF stations
It could have 5 turn rate and look like a box, but I'd buy it ASAP!
*Sticks matches between your toes and lights them*
Cryptic loves PvP as much as the love the KDF....they dont
but the real question is which do they hate more PvP or KDF
XP-Boosts are supposed to be "Server-Wide" Goals / Unlocks (probably only lasting for weeks) ... maybe in the next Blog (or not, depending how it'll work)
I had a similar underwhelmed reaction. The traits seem like they could be nice but I would have liked more and larger account and fleet rewards. Outside of the traits there is not a lot of incentive for me to create an alt, and I've very alt-adverse.
Some low,mid, and high level Delta Recruitment crafting items would have sweetened the incentive to get me out of staying with my main and play an alt.
Someone mentioned the sponsorship token so I may do that.
I love my alt chars, but STO is a game I see no reason to focus on them. Heck, I had an idea for an alt, visually they'd use the Omega force set. But then I went "Nah, it'd be a chunk of effort to reach level 50, then even more effort/time to get them to tier 5 rep (even with sponship tokens I can make on two of my level 50+ chars), then even MORE effort to get the ground set and outfits...
In the end? The idea got thrown into a storage shelf because it wasn't worth it.
Sure, the char idea being based around omega force outfit is a little expensive, but it's the same idea. I come up with an alt, even something basic like "Reman engineer", and just don't get any unf to actually play them. My reman is level 50 ONLY because of Q double xp weekends.
I agree for me there is far to much grind and far lees fun to be had and tbh im burnt out on this game due to the incesive grind lately i ahvent even bothered setting my daily queues and do those every other day.
if everything in this game wasnt such a power grind i might find the game fun enouhg to log in more then a few minutes every other day....i spend more time on the forum then the actual game.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
A friend of mine has have the same problem. Since Delta came out, he has been unable to play his Romulan due to the opening cutscene crashes his game to his desktop.
He has put in tickets by the truck ton, and yet his problem has yet to be fixed.
Bort, when will the player's game bugs and crashes be answered and fixed before any new content is released?
Will you finally add a reasonable way for existing characters to acquire the Aegis Doff then? As it is, delta recruits get one practically for free, and people who mastered the old crafting system got one, but everyone else gets to play the RNG for months and hope for the best. My crafting main has been at level 15 shields for months and still can't craft Aegis pieces because of the stupid doff.
Because that would be AWESOME
i Feel ya, i got level 15 beams and because i seem to lack some certain doff, I cant craft omni-directional beam arrays. and I got doffs for literally EVERY profession that can be traded on the exchange.
you can look up which doff you have to buy, thats what i did. got him off the exchange