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Let's put the "micro" back in microtransactions.
praxi5
Member Posts: 1,562 Arc User
Ships cost a whopping $30. That's enough for a whole game right there.
Then Cryptic tries to upsell us on packs, by coupling desirable traits or consoles with ships with less desirable BOff loadouts. Not always, but sometimes. The "encouragement" for the packs happens regardless, thanks to set bonuses. $60.
Lobi ships costs 800 Lobi. At an average of 5 Lobi per box, that's 40 keys worth of boxes. Each key is $1.25. That's $50 for a Lobi ship. For a ship on a single toon, not an account unlock.
The chances of getting a ship out of a box is laughably low. But let's say people spend about $50 on average there. Though it's likely significantly higher for people who are determined to get a ship. Again, not an account unlock.
Player reports put it around 1.3 million Dil to upgrade the gear on a single toon. At the current exchange rate of 243 Dil:1 Zen, that's around 5350 Zen - a little over $50. Per toon, not even an account unlock.
These prices are a bit high, no? You can easily afford multiple games for the cost of getting yourself a nice ship and decent gear for a single toon - and Cryptic wants us to do this every other month.
Sure, you don't have to upgrade or get a new ship - but then, what's the point? Content is few and far in between, and it looks like ship releases seem to be taking the place of new content. Yes, you can complete everything with Mk XII gear, but the scaling (both bonuses to damage/stats and enemy health) is so skewed towards the high end that it heavily encourages upgrading.
@spencerb96in-game has provided a table showing upgrade costs. Original posting here.
EDIT: To make my point more clear; No, you don't have to buy every ship. But when you do plop down $30 for a ship, are you really getting $30 worth out of it? Is that ship worth a whole game?
Then Cryptic tries to upsell us on packs, by coupling desirable traits or consoles with ships with less desirable BOff loadouts. Not always, but sometimes. The "encouragement" for the packs happens regardless, thanks to set bonuses. $60.
Lobi ships costs 800 Lobi. At an average of 5 Lobi per box, that's 40 keys worth of boxes. Each key is $1.25. That's $50 for a Lobi ship. For a ship on a single toon, not an account unlock.
The chances of getting a ship out of a box is laughably low. But let's say people spend about $50 on average there. Though it's likely significantly higher for people who are determined to get a ship. Again, not an account unlock.
Player reports put it around 1.3 million Dil to upgrade the gear on a single toon. At the current exchange rate of 243 Dil:1 Zen, that's around 5350 Zen - a little over $50. Per toon, not even an account unlock.
These prices are a bit high, no? You can easily afford multiple games for the cost of getting yourself a nice ship and decent gear for a single toon - and Cryptic wants us to do this every other month.
Sure, you don't have to upgrade or get a new ship - but then, what's the point? Content is few and far in between, and it looks like ship releases seem to be taking the place of new content. Yes, you can complete everything with Mk XII gear, but the scaling (both bonuses to damage/stats and enemy health) is so skewed towards the high end that it heavily encourages upgrading.
@spencerb96in-game has provided a table showing upgrade costs. Original posting here.
EDIT: To make my point more clear; No, you don't have to buy every ship. But when you do plop down $30 for a ship, are you really getting $30 worth out of it? Is that ship worth a whole game?
Post edited by praxi5 on
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The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
C-Store ships, even at the price of $30 dollars each, are account wide unlocks.
So? Usually a 30 buck game gives you everything as well doesnt it? If we exclude games with DLC.
Also, lol. This game is so alt-friendly these days isnt it? Also lockbox ships are not account wide and usually cost even more.
$30 for a ship every (other) month.
While it may have some new mechanics (Pilot maneuvers, Inspiration) the novelty wears off quickly and you find yourself doing the same exact content over and over again, only this time with a different 'avatar' and a new ability or two. And unfortunately that only applies to C-Store ships. Lockbox and Lobi ships are single-toon only, furthering driving alts into the ground. Luckily, though, they have reversed this policy on Event ships.
With those same $30, you could get a whole new game.
Lowering the price would be nice step. "Micro"transactions really aren't so micro when you're forking over the cost of a whole game for very little in the way of something new.
There have been 39 T6 ships that were not "free"...doesn't mean somebody needed to buy them all.
Got it, now I understand, you wish the prices lowered.
100% agree. Sure, Cryptic would probably *like* us to buy every single ship they release, but that is extremely unrealistic. This is really no different than anything else in life; there are an infinite number of things you could find on the internet that you "want". But if you think you should actually buy them all, you have a serious problem.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
My Driver Coil skill isn't high enough to have that level of impulse control!
That's why we have whales in the game
You're right, you don't have to buy all the ships. But my point is that when you DO buy a ship, there's such little value compared to it's cost. Yes, work goes into the art and design of the ship. But for $30, am I really getting an entire game's worth of utility/fun out of a ship that I'm using to do the same stuff over and over again that I could/was with my older ships?
I think they actually know most of us are not going to buy them all...they only expect that we'll buy the ships we want, and they know that not everybody wants the same type of ship - so - voila, a whole bunch of ships.
Out of the 39 ships mentioned earlier, I've picked up Phantom - 3pack Fed CBCs (buy 2 get 1 free) - Benthan - Hazari...that's it. Nothing else has interested me.
And well, none of it involved cash on my part...so there wasn't any microtransaction on my part. I just used in-game currency that I pick up through the normal course of play to folks that had some Zen to sell...
You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. That $30 you pay is not just for that ship, but for every single mission in the game you get to play. Since Cryptic *doesn't* charge you for content, then everything *do* charge you for helps pay not just for that one item, but for all of the content they make.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Value is going to vary from person to person...and if somebody does not think it is a good value, then they should not buy it, eh? That's a personal decision, yeah? Tom might not think twice about it, Jerry might say TRIBBLE it and skip it.
I gave up on other forms of gaming long ago, because with a MMO that $15 a month offered me a Hell of a lot more value. Were somebody to spend $30 every two months, equivalent to $15 a month...to me that would still be an awesome value.
That's totally valid and a good way of looking at it.
But here's the way I see it; if I pay $30 for a ship, am I getting two months ($15/month x2) worth of new content to play it with?
For a new player, your point is 100% spot on. But for veterans who have been here for a while (let alone launch), we've already 'paid' (either via subs or C-Store purchases) for the content, most likely.
I'd be inclined to think the same - but with that $30 every 2 months, is there enough new content (FEs, STFs, etc) to make it worth it? We often go 2 months without seeing any new released, which is why, to me, it's not worth it at all. Even if we were to get a few new things, it's not enough to outweigh the utility of a whole new game.
Now, if the price were something like $10-15, that would change a lot.
That answer depends completely on how often you are buying ships. If you only buy one every few months(or quarterly), then you are buying about 4 ships a year, which is about $120. So the question then becomes, has this game offered me $120 worth of entertainment in a year? I spent $25 at the theater last night for 2 hours of entertainment. So for me, the answer is obvious.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
OP: prices are a little high.
Rest of thread: rabble rabble semantics rabble entitlement rabble.
All messages sent and received captain.
Which is the basic gist of it...the value is subjective. If one doesn't think it worth it, then they won't spend it. Heh, like I wouldn't spend $25 to go to the theater...it's not worth it to me...so I go without, waiting for it to come to Netflix or RedBox or whatever...
As an aside, I just started playing Elite:Dangerous. I paid the purchase price of the game and that's it. New ships ships are bought with in-game currency and the micro-transactions are for things like ship skins. Feels so good not to be subjected to P2W. Liberating, even.
I'm seeing a trend in other MMOs I play. Less content, quicker releases, and lower cost. They're doing it in DDO, LOTRO, and DCUO. IDK if that would fit with STO though.
Um an MMO is nothing but DLC - so it's interesting that in your argument you basically dismiss the nature of DLC.
And the thing with STO is, you have access to the entire game for free, and can even get free T6 ships during yearly events that occur on multiple occasions. You can do any/all existing game content in these free ships and successfully complete it.
They(PWE/Cryptic) need to make money somewhere(The server hardware, rack space, internet bandwidth, office space, and developer salaries so they continue to add free DLC all cost money as well) and they do it by offering more (and often with slightly better stats/layouts) Ships and items for real money (via Zen) in their RMT store.
You (as a player) have the option of paying with 100% real case for Zen or a combination of spending real cash and converting refined Dilithium you earn by playing into Zen via an in game Exchange; or if you're REALLY patient and work for it - can get Zen just from that Exchange (Yes, SOMEONE paid real money for that Zen, but they want refined Dilithium for it - so in the end you didn't pay any real money for Zen acquired from the Exchange.
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..."
But er...those are pretty decent examples of games that are outright P2W...no?
Other games like SWTOR charge $20+ for new episodes even if you are a subscriber.
In STO, you can play the new content with your existing ships, including any free T6 event ships you have. I've used the T6 Breen carrier as my main ship on several alts.
In SWTOR, pay $20 or only play the old content.
Personally, I prefer the STO model. I've spent $0 on the recent command ships and pilot ships and have still gotten to play season 10. It doesn't get more micro than $0. Thanks Cryptic.
Of course, a veteran who has been here awhile would 1. have a number of ships already unlocked (less need to buy new ships) and 2. know how the game systems work/have plenty of dil/know how to work the exchange, therefore being able to get ships without spending $.
Personally, I've "bought" - with exchanged dil - two T6 ships. Eclipse and Mat'Ha. Those join the other three ships I've gotten with dil since I started several years ago - escort carrier, T2 fed sci, T3 kdf sci. Meanwhile, I have 5 holiday ships, 2-3 c-store giveaway ships, and a couple event ships; spread among my 8 alts. Oh, and a couple Lobi ships. I didn't get anything this past ship sale, even though I had 3k+ zen saved up.... nothing seemed particularly "gotta have it!" /shrug
If I recall correctly, I spent about $40-50 when I started playing in 2012. One month sub, plus some zen (which I mostly spent on things like character slots & account bank.)
The get it by grinding stuff to sell to other players in the game stuff... only works as long as it is a reasonable amount of in game work.
I mean if we where talking... play for 3-4 hours or spend 20 bucks... most people would call that reasonable. That is around where the game was for a long time if you had a modest (7-10) number of alts and a willingness to toon flip for a few hours and earn some D. (4-5 days of that and you could afford a basic ship pack)
At this point it has gotten to the point where they are driving away players... which further drives up exchange rates as fewer people find themselves willing to work for other players $ as the exchange rate drifts up.
At 150-200 per D... I am willing to log through 10 or so toons each day for 400-500 zen... However when that same amount of work starts = 250-300 zen. Well TRIBBLE that, which then brings me to spending my own $, and at that point I'll spend it on a game that isn't run by a company like Cryptic.
Cryptics price jumps the last 6-8 months (since t6 price bumps) has been costing them Farm Style players... if it ends up costing them to many of those players there system falls apart. They have a good F2P system and I would love for them to remove the cheeks that currently seem to be snugly wrapped around there ear holes. Setting prices properly would et the game get back to the very health and stable place the STO economy had been for over a year. Without some changes things will only slip further, as more D Farmers slow or stop selling D altogether. that 240-250 price will likely slip to 275-290 by mid summer when even fewer people will be spending 2-3 hours every day swapping toons and running Rich D tickets ect.
LOL, no. If you could get $20 worth of zen for only playing 3-4 hours, Cryptic would make no money. Ok, not "no", but very little.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
If you don't make 2000 zen in 3-4 hours at an exchange rate around 175... your doing something very very wrong.
At 175 that used to be around 350,000 D... 20 toons, log through with a rich D ticket each takes around one hour... do that for 3 days... you have 300,000 D throw in a few quick click doff missions for another 50k or so... and ya. That is $20 worth of zen.
Now for the same 1 hour of BS each day 3-4 days will net you half of that... and at that point no one is doing it..
Which is 90% of the reason the exchange rate is now closer to 250.
Yes, you can get up to the point where saying "Oh hey you can start the launcher for free" or you can get to the character screen for free. Why is this game and endless grind for more power? There is no competition anywhere except in PvP or a few select "DPS" groups.
Er...I'm confused as to what your 90% of the reason the Dil/Zen exchange rate is what it is.
Because it's an extremely casual game. Can take the same gear that's going to take somebody over 100k and give it to another player and they're not going to pass 10k if they get anywhere near 10k.
Do I get value out of the money I do spend on this game? Yes, yes I do. I get every penny of value because the game entertains me. That's what games are for. If you are expecting anything more than entertainment then YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.