There's nothing wrong with having a lot of different currencies, but in this case, there's a lot of redundant nonsense going on:
Expertise: Seriously, why does this even exist still? This is one of those things where, despite having nearly 10 50+ characters, I've never once thought to myself, "gee, I need to go grind expertise before I can obtain [blank]." It comes in such huge amounts that cryptic could cut it out of the game and, aside from having one less slider to crank up to max with every project, it wouldn't change the speed of gameplay for anyone.
Rep Marks: They make sense as a means of engaging players with content themed around a particular reputation. Unfortunately, they're also redundant because items like neural processors, datacores, etc also fill that role. One could argue that their primary focus is for gaining reputation, but in this case, why not just award, say, iconian reputation directly for engaging in iconian content? Anything that means more gameplay and less menu clicking has to be a good thing.
Fleet Marks/Credits: While I doubt it's intentional, this system seems to promote anti-teamwork behavior. A new project goes up and GOGOGO BE FIRST TO CASH OUT THOSE FLEET MARKS! I don't see why fleet marks need to even exist, as there's nothing "fleet oriented" about me queuing up for something with 4 other random (non-fleet) people, or stuffing a bunch of holiday epohhs/birds/monkeys into the meat grinder.
Currency "Items" such as Iconian Datacores: Now that we've pruned currencies, adding these items to the currency tab starts to look more reasonable because these are actually a meaningful currency. Or at the very least, they should get their own inventory tab, along with commodities and other bloat items.
The issue with the Iconian Datacores and such the rep currency is that they are the 'elite' currencies, an additional reward beyond the basic marks for completing more difficult or large group content over just farming basic queues over and over as well and used to unlock the best equipment from the reputation (look at Nukara and New Romulus reps mark costs on equipment compared to every other rep due to them not having elite currencies). And whilst the marks are primarily used to unlock tiers, the fact that they are a currency allows them to have a use beyond that.
Personally, I feel that some of the more vocal people are confusing "I want everything but don't want to do X" with "There are too many currencies" and forgetting that the currency purge just before F2P was to get rid of the completely useless level locked currencies that we had before by merging them into dilithium rather than simply reducing the amount of currencies availible.
If you take a watch to a pawn shop and get $100 for it, then you just bought dollars with a watch. That doesn't mean that watches are currency.
Watches are goods. They have intrinsic value. You can sell goods for currency, which is a voucher of a debt owed to you. What separates this from a pure barter system (goods/services for goods/services) is a medium of exchange. The medium of exchange has no intrinsic value. It's symbolic, and only has value based on what you can reasonably exchange it for (goods or services).
Marks are not a service. They are not something being done for you. They are not goods. You can't do anything with them except buy goods or buy access to a store from which you can, surprise surprise, buy goods (think of spending marks here like buying a Sam's Club membership).
So what does that make marks? Not goods. Not services. Possessed of value because of what you can trade them for. They are symbolic of a debt owed to you over invested time in various in-game activities. Thus... marks are a medium of exchange. They are a currency.
Currencies have to be liquid. Rep marks are not (you can't trade your gear to other players for rep marks). I would say that we only have 3 real currencies in STO: dil, zen, and EC, because the first two can be traded for each other (and then for gear) and the latter can be traded among players. Everything else is just a token of some sort.
You can't trade your gear to other players or even vendors for Zen nor Dilithium, so congratulations you have just disproved the idea of Zen and Dilithium being currencies, which are 2/3rds of your examples of what constitutes currencies in your own view.
Beyond which, marks are liquid because you can exchange them for Dilithium directly, and for gear which you can sell for EC. Liquidity does not need to run in both directions, you merely need to be able to quickly sell something without a huge loss of value for something to be liquid, that's what liquidity means in an economic sense.
Personally, I feel that some of the more vocal people are confusing "I want everything but don't want to do X" with "There are too many currencies" and forgetting that the currency purge just before F2P was to get rid of the completely useless level locked currencies that we had before by merging them into dilithium rather than simply reducing the amount of currencies availible.
This is incorrect. It will be lost in the forum changeover by now, filed under "Archived Post", but one of the stated reasons for streamlining the currencies wasn't just to remove redundancies, but to lower the bloat since it's daunting to newcomers, something which has a negative impact on attracting new players and retaining them.
If the idea was to simply removed redundant currencies we'd still have Merit and Honor, which were replaced in various places with EC, Expertise and Dilithium. And if the idea was to keep various content with specific currencies to encourage participation, which the new mark system supposedly does, we'd still have PvP Medals, which were the specific PvP-only currency with their own store... but they removed all that and folded it into the Dilithium store along with the old mark/emblem/badge stuff.
Also, I have all of the reputations maxed on the three characters I play, and have bought all of the reputation gear I want on those three characters. That does not change the fact that bloat is bad, and drives away players.
There is a difference between "currency bloat" and "currency uselessness". We're starting to experience "currency bloat", but we don't necessarily have "currency uselessness".
This entire post is filled with truths.
... you're right Bort, this game does have a massive problem with currency bloat. And again, bloat is bad, and drives away players.
There's nothing wrong with having a lot of different currencies, but in this case, there's a lot of redundant nonsense going on:
Expertise: Seriously, why does this even exist still? This is one of those things where, despite having nearly 10 50+ characters, I've never once thought to myself, "gee, I need to go grind expertise before I can obtain [blank]." It comes in such huge amounts that cryptic could cut it out of the game and, aside from having one less slider to crank up to max with every project, it wouldn't change the speed of gameplay for anyone.
It's become a vestigial limb to be sure. It used to be Starfleet Merits. It was once something you actually had a reason to grind. But several of it's former functions are gone completely. Boffs are now purchased with dil, I don't think you actually need to pay to rename things now. Respecs require zen tokens(unless you're a paying player, but those are limited). Promoting Boffs, and training Boffs in new skills are the only things left from what it was originally used for. And those might as well be free since they use such a tiny amount. they could merge this with EC for all it is really used for.
Rep Marks: They make sense as a means of engaging players with content themed around a particular reputation. Unfortunately, they're also redundant because items like neural processors, datacores, etc also fill that role. One could argue that their primary focus is for gaining reputation, but in this case, why not just award, say, iconian reputation directly for engaging in iconian content? Anything that means more gameplay and less menu clicking has to be a good thing.
Champs has a system where they are exchangeable for other marks, but... it uses a hierarchy system where the most recent rep only trades down.
Champs has a system where they are exchangeable for other marks, but... it uses a hierarchy system where the most recent rep only trades down.
Champ's system is also level locked but you're allowed to trade down because they did the sensible thing of putting travel power and costume unlocks in lower tiers so there's still a reason to use the lower level marks.
The issue with the Iconian Datacores and such the rep currency is that they are the 'elite' currencies, an additional reward beyond the basic marks for completing more difficult or large group content over just farming basic queues over and over as well and used to unlock the best equipment from the reputation (look at Nukara and New Romulus reps mark costs on equipment compared to every other rep due to them not having elite currencies). And whilst the marks are primarily used to unlock tiers, the fact that they are a currency allows them to have a use beyond that.
Personally, I feel that some of the more vocal people are confusing "I want everything but don't want to do X" with "There are too many currencies" and forgetting that the currency purge just before F2P was to get rid of the completely useless level locked currencies that we had before by merging them into dilithium rather than simply reducing the amount of currencies availible.
But hey, what else is new around here?
This can be easily rectified by rewarding more of these elite currencies depending on the level of difficulty.
1 Iconian Datacore for Normal
2 Iconian Datacores for Advanced
3 Iconian Datacores for Elite
on the face of it your point seems to make sense until you take into account that a lot of the things you list are not true currency`s.
all of the reputation marks are more akin to loyalty tokens then actual currency`s the idea being by taking the reputation based missions you are rewarded with a certain amount of these marks that are used to unlock access to selected items that are also connected to the same reputation.
I am sure you would prefer players were allowed to buy stf gear without ever playing any of the stf content for example however the devs have made it so to get the gear you want you need to play the content to earn the marks that unlock access to these special items and rightly so in my opinion.
if you remove all of these reputation marks from your list you will see its not such a long list after all.
by the by if you are going to list reputation marks as currency I am surprised you did not include event currency like the shards we get for playing the current CE event and the similar loyalty tokens we get for the mirror event and the seasonal events.
Agreed, I don't really consider the marks as 'currency' even though they technically are. They're specific to the reputation system they belong to, which is actually a system I like.
Personally, I have always liked the Reputation System in STO. I like the way I can pick what items I want and just focus specificially on those marks (Even though I maxed them all.) They made going up in Reputation really easy as well so it feels like a system that's very accessible to all players.
Of all of them, the only currency I would like to see changed is the Fleet Mark/Credits. I don't really like the way that system works, it can be so hard to exchange Marks for Credit that it often feels like I'm going against the other members of my fleet to try and cash in before they can. I would really like to see a revamped system for earning Fleet Gear. I also think that Latinum is probably something we can get rid of at this point. I have been playing this game for years and have never purchased a single item with Latinum. I don't even know how to get it outside of Dabo which I never play.
The whole Zen/Dilithium/EC system works for me. I can usually find a way to get anything I need. It's not like most MMO's where there are always items that I feel are just beyond my reach no matter what. I can usually find a way that works for me.
Totally agree with you on the fleet marks part... we should have more fleet mark requirements and fewer doffs/consumables. I can cover all the fleet mark requirements by myself for all our fleet projects... it should not be like that
If you take a watch to a pawn shop and get $100 for it, then you just bought dollars with a watch. That doesn't mean that watches are currency.
Currencies have to be liquid. Rep marks are not (you can't trade your gear to other players for rep marks). I would say that we only have 3 real currencies in STO: dil, zen, and EC, because the first two can be traded for each other (and then for gear) and the latter can be traded among players. Everything else is just a token of some sort.
ERR no mate, you just "sold" something for money, which is not what were talking about on this post.... Not really sure what you been reading.
If you take a watch to a pawn shop and get $100 for it, then you just bought dollars with a watch. That doesn't mean that watches are currency.
Currencies have to be liquid. Rep marks are not (you can't trade your gear to other players for rep marks). I would say that we only have 3 real currencies in STO: dil, zen, and EC, because the first two can be traded for each other (and then for gear) and the latter can be traded among players. Everything else is just a token of some sort.
ERR no mate, you just "sold" something for money, which is not what were talking about on this post.... Not really sure what you been reading.
You can "sell" your gear in a vendor as they all have an E/C value displayed in the bottem right corner of the item discription. Also the discription of the marks is "used to buy items from the reputaion store" implying that it is in fact a currency.
I still haven't seen anyone explain what would be confusing about 10,000 currencies as long as there's adequate reference for what to do with them and most core activity in the game uses one or two while the others have specialized purposes.
And if sorting out their use bugs you so much, let's just make all gear Bind on Equip so that people who DO care about rep can sell it to you for EC on the exchange. Granted, you'll end up compensating them for playtime.
Better still, let's just have everything regardless of source (except for C-Store account unlocks) be Bind to ACCOUNT on EQUIP.
Then it doesn't matter how many currencies there are because EC will always be a means for you to get an item if you can't be persuaded to research how to get it. But if you want to get something directly, you research how to get it and participate in thematic activity because it is an RPG. But if you NEED absolute simplicity, awesome, they should just make it so that you can buy it off someone who did the activity. As a consequence, more queues get played because there's money selling Nukara rep gear, which prompts some people to "specialize" in it, play it, farm it, and sell the rewards. But the more YOU don't want to play that content, the more the farmers will charge you in EC for doing it for them.
I still haven't seen anyone explain what would be confusing about 10,000 currencies as long as there's adequate reference for what to do with them and most core activity in the game uses one or two while the others have specialized purposes.
Agreed. Marks are largely ignorable unless you want to do the associated rep. And if you take out that, there are very few currencies left.
I still haven't seen anyone explain what would be confusing about 10,000 currencies as long as there's adequate reference for what to do with them and most core activity in the game uses one or two while the others have specialized purposes.
Because it's new-player-repellent.
When you have a list of currencies a mile long it makes people who decide to try the game not want to stick around for it. It's a mess, and people don't like messes.
Picture it; You're brand new, don't know a lot about the game. You see some people around and notice all their cool stuff. You decide you want to get some of that cool stuff for yourself. Thing is, you have to figure out where all that cool stuff is, because there are several different stores, some within menus and some not. Most have their own specific currencies, all of which have to be earned through very specific and limited content. Those specific ones all need their stores to be unlocked through even more of that currency. Which means for each piece you need to figure out where it's bought, what it's bought for, where to earn that currency content-wise, when you can unlock that content, when you can unlock that tier of gear from the store... and that's just figuring out how to get it...then you have to actually grind out the marks for each appropriate store tier, waiting for all the timers to countdown, and for the daily bonuses since those are the only mark rewards of any reasonable amount, then grind the marks and dilithium (yet another currency) for each individual piece of gear.
For someone who's been around awhile that's not bad. You get to know each reputation and what they hold as they release. You get to grind them all out as they come. For a newcomer considering joining STO? Someone who has little-to-no current investment in the game... that's too a high a bar for entry. It's why I'm not playing Neverwinter, and won't until they cull the currency bloat there. When Neverwinter released I swore I wouldn't play it until they released a Paladin, and now they have but... no chance I'm touching it with that much garbage I have to grind out through narrow, narrow swatches of content and really, STO isn't much different at this point. If I weren't invested I'd have taken one look and walked away.
Currency bloat is basically a death sentence to a lot of peoples' motivation to join a game. It might not be so bad if there were content to match said bloat, but there isn't not even ****ing close. There's only ever a tiny amount of applicable content to earn most marks, and those numbers almost never change as more and more currencies are piled on top. If Cryptic kept adding new ways to earn old currencies, instead of just new currencies, that might help alleviate the issue (when you direct new players to grind a set of content a few hundred or so times it's a bit easier for them to swallow if you can point at dozens of things to play, then when you can just point at five)... but that just isn't the case.
I still haven't seen anyone explain what would be confusing about 10,000 currencies as long as there's adequate reference for what to do with them and most core activity in the game uses one or two while the others have specialized purposes.
Because it's new-player-repellent.
When you have a list of currencies a mile long it makes people who decide to try the game not want to stick around for it. It's a mess, and people don't like messes.
Disagree. It might be true if reps started at level 1 but they don't start until level 50+.
And that's like saying continuity turns new readers away from comic books. It's the opposite. Continuity is the suction that gets them in. It'd old readers who want reboots. The Ultimate Marvel line appealed more to old readers than new. DC's New 52 reboot, according to Nielsen research, did more for existing and lapsed longtime readers and nothing for new readers. You know what attracts new readers, by the numbers? Continuity wankfests. JSA. Blackest Night.
The risk of continuity or complexity is always the risk that existing customers will have too much accumulation of things that they dislike or feel tired of cataloguing. New customers don't have that fatigue and continuity/complexity is how you attract them. And I'll be dollars to donuts that people turned off by complexity, especially optional complexity, more often than not are using that as an excuse for something else that turned them off.
Now, the *prospect* of reps might be new player repellent if VETERAN players try to force endgame concepts on them before they're ready for it (rather than let them be drawn into it, as needed) but by the time someone encounters a rep, they're converted anyway. You know what else is considerably more repellent:
Pilot controls. Science stats. Power level management. Those are what new players are dealing with, not reps. Power level management ALONE has been something I've personally seen people quit over because they didn't get, even if you don't need to get it. Because looking at it isn't optional.
Reps are considerably more under the hood. No new player needs to know anything specific about reps.
It might be true if reps started at level 1 but they don't start until level 50+.
[...]
Now, the *prospect* of reps might be new player repellent if VETERAN players try to force endgame concepts on them before they're ready for it (rather than let them be drawn into it, as needed) but by the time someone encounters a rep, they're converted anyway.
The problem is all of them drop at level 50. Having them all drop on you at level 1 or at level 50 doesn't change the fact that it's all dropped on you at once. It doesn't change the fact that you're going to be level 50 in, oh, about three days or less unless you are so incredibly "casual" you will never be taking part in any "endgame" anyway. Doesn't change the fact that people will be seeing all the shinies the moment they reach ESD after the tutorial, and seeing them more so in those three-or-so days after which they'll be playing STFs and being told to get with the program. At one of these two points they'll take a brief glance at how to get the shinies and be turned off by a laundry list of stores, currencies, and a tiny, tiny patch of content from which to draw each currency, compounded by timers, including on how said currency is accrued.
And that's like saying continuity turns new readers away from comic books. It's the opposite. Continuity is the suction that gets them in. It'd old readers who want reboots. The Ultimate Marvel line appealed more to old readers than new. DC's New 52 reboot, according to Nielsen research, did more for existing and lapsed longtime readers and nothing for new readers. You know what attracts new readers, by the numbers? Continuity wankfests. JSA. Blackest Night.
First, that's apples and oranges.
We aren't talking about continuity, we're talking about a wall you have to push past to play. Old timers like me are already past it, newcomers aren't. Hence why I'm playing STO, since I've been here since closed beta and was able to scale the wall one brick at a time as it was being built, and not playing NWN because the whole wall is just right there and I'm not real eager to scale it from all the way down here on the ground. I'm not ready to figure out which stores, which currencies, which content, then grind it all out all those currencies from three or four missions apiece.
Second, continuity definitely turns away new readers. You know what draws them in by the bushel? Events. Ones like Blackest Night. They get everyone buying more comics because, zomg Wolverine is fighting Iron Man and now Squirrel Girl is dead! I'm gonna need to pick up The Marvel Universe Kills Squirrel Girl #4 now despite the fact that I usually just read Avengers because OMG Bucky just shot Slackstick in the face!That's why Marvel is always tossing new events out, because they know it will sell a few extra issues when they start one up. Thing is, those readers, the new ones drawn in by the event (or because they saw a movie) don't stick around because of continuity... well, that and the general perception that comics are lame, and the reality that most are poorly written. Which is why we see so many reboots. Heck, there was an entire comics line devoted to low-continuity, the Ultimate Marvel line... and you know what? It sold really well until it got its own convoluted continuity at which point everyone stopped reading it since, hey, you were screwed either way so may as well read 616.
And no, old timers tend not to like reboots. They'll often grab a couple issues to see how much they hate it, which is usually a lot, and some will remain subscribed because, well Hell, when you've read something for years it's difficult to just stop since you have an investment, for many it's sometimes just easier to buckle down and hope things get better. Reboots are giant-sized retcons, and old timers don't like that. Ask an old timer how they feel about OMD/BND or Magneto's current status with Pietro and the Witch, or The Other, or any other number of retcons.
There is a better way of doing it, Why not use an XP based system, where is you do an easy STF you get less XP than what you would get for an Elite STF. You don't need the marks as you can still spend a bucket load of Dilithium and E/C on the item you wish to buy from the rep store any way. As for the Eliet rewards like the nural prosesor you could get away with not havingthose aswel. XP would be require you to play the content to get the XP required for that
The issue with the Iconian Datacores and such the rep currency is that they are the 'elite' currencies, an additional reward beyond the basic marks for completing more difficult or large group content over just farming basic queues over and over as well and used to unlock the best equipment from the reputation (look at Nukara and New Romulus reps mark costs on equipment compared to every other rep due to them not having elite currencies). And whilst the marks are primarily used to unlock tiers, the fact that they are a currency allows them to have a use beyond that.
Personally, I feel that some of the more vocal people are confusing "I want everything but don't want to do X" with "There are too many currencies" and forgetting that the currency purge just before F2P was to get rid of the completely useless level locked currencies that we had before by merging them into dilithium rather than simply reducing the amount of currencies availible.
But hey, what else is new around here?
Yeah the Data cores I can understand slightly as its more a component as such. Like buying bunch of stuff from replicator to fill a project on star base. It's an elite award.
Right now we have Task Force Omega, Nukara Strikeforce, New Romulus, Dyson Joint Command, 8472 Counter-Command, Delta Alliance and Iconian Resistance Repuations, all with their own specific currency.
Thats 7 Reputation tracks and this is now, Season 11 will bring another ... assuming 15 minutes per Reputation track that would be 2 hours, even at best we are looking at 1 hour per character just to unlock the Reputation tiers.
So please tell me, when is enough is enough ... 4 hours? 10 hours?
Never. WoW has 60 reputations and that's not counting PERSONAL reputations with individual NPCs. Some games have hundreds.
Now, what you may see is some older currencies being folded together or the XP requirement for some older reps get shrunk at a certain point. Maybe some new reps could be designed to be shorter. Or longer. A shorter rep could be a gateway into doing rep content and a means of distributing something Cryptic wants to be common. A longer rep could be there to provide a cosmetic or marginal benefit to keep hardcore players occupied.
It might be true if reps started at level 1 but they don't start until level 50+.
[...]
Now, the *prospect* of reps might be new player repellent if VETERAN players try to force endgame concepts on them before they're ready for it (rather than let them be drawn into it, as needed) but by the time someone encounters a rep, they're converted anyway.
The problem is all of them drop at level 50. Having them all drop on you at level 1 or at level 50 doesn't change the fact that it's all dropped on you at once. It doesn't change the fact that you're going to be level 50 in, oh, about three days or less unless you are so incredibly "casual" you will never be taking part in any "endgame" anyway. Doesn't change the fact that people will be seeing all the shinies the moment they reach ESD after the tutorial, and seeing them more so in those three-or-so days after which they'll be playing STFs and being told to get with the program. At one of these two points they'll take a brief glance at how to get the shinies and be turned off by a laundry list of stores, currencies, and a tiny, tiny patch of content from which to draw each currency, compounded by timers, including on how said currency is accrued.
The last I heard, most of the attrition was around level 15 for much of the game's earlier life. I think I heard it's more like 35 or 40 now. Somebody who hits 50 isn't going to quit at the first sign of frustration and if they quit at the first sign of frustration, they don't sound like somebody who would drop a lot of money on lockboxes, who would stick around after a ship nerf, or who would put time productivity into the game in a way that drives the economy.
If somebody gets frustrated by having to run specific content for specific rewards and having a neverending supply of tasks needed to do, the cost of keeping them here probably exceeds their productive value to the game.
Because I can't imagine that person taking it in stride if they spend $50 on lockboxes and don't get a ship. I can't imagine that person pumping tens of thousands of dilithium into the economy. And I kind of DO imagine that person making other people feel bad about their time investment or purchases. "You spent what on WHAT? That's insane." "You spent how long maxing your Duty Officer commendations? That's insane."
I think a lot of new player "unfriendly" things, particularly skills and power management and bugs, could use addressing. The thing you want fixed seems like it's kind of an entry bar litmus test for whether someone really has a place contributing to the game. I'm not going to say it's without frustration. I will say that sometimes Cryptic needs to carefully stretch the elasticity out of people's expectations and that people who can't be moved to spend more time or money or do specific things at specific times, well...
Maybe they need to take a break and only come back when and if they're prepared to do that. And if that break is long, more power to them. And if they don't come back, nobody's at fault there. The game doesn't need to appeal to everyone, every Star Trek fan, every gamer, or every gamer who's a Star Trek fan.
I think there should be some sensible limits on herding or time expectations but if you don't want to be herded or have some expectations on your time, this may not be the game for you. And maybe Cryptic bending to keep those people would hurt the game more than it would help it.
Second, continuity definitely turns away new readers. You know what draws them in by the bushel? Events. Ones like Blackest Night. They get everyone buying more comics because, zomg Wolverine is fighting Iron Man and now Squirrel Girl is dead! I'm gonna need to pick up The Marvel Universe Kills Squirrel Girl #4 now despite the fact that I usually just read Avengers because OMG Bucky just shot Slackstick in the face!That's why Marvel is always tossing new events out, because they know it will sell a few extra issues when they start one up. Thing is, those readers, the new ones drawn in by the event (or because they saw a movie) don't stick around because of continuity... well, that and the general perception that comics are lame, and the reality that most are poorly written. Which is why we see so many reboots. Heck, there was an entire comics line devoted to low-continuity, the Ultimate Marvel line... and you know what? It sold really well until it got its own convoluted continuity at which point everyone stopped reading it since, hey, you were screwed either way so may as well read 616.
All of that is continuity.
And no, old timers tend not to like reboots. They'll often grab a couple issues to see how much they hate it, which is usually a lot, and some will remain subscribed because, well Hell, when you've read something for years it's difficult to just stop since you have an investment, for many it's sometimes just easier to buckle down and hope things get better. Reboots are giant-sized retcons, and old timers don't like that. Ask an old timer how they feel about OMD/BND or Magneto's current status with Pietro and the Witch, or The Other, or any other number of retcons.
And that's bull. The popular wisdom on this subject is fully the opposite of the truth. Fans lie about this but the stats bear it out. The VAST majority of people drawn to a reboot are people who were aware (often in detail) of what preceded the reboot. There is Nielsen data on this.
You know who doesn't care about a reboot? New readers. Because they quite literally don't know and don't care what they missed and a lack of continuity gives them less to latch onto and less of a community to integrate with.
It is by and large a fabrication, a misunderstanding, or a delusion that reboots are done for new readers.
Yes, the 2009 Star Trek attracted new fans. Because it had sexy people in various states of dress, cars going off cliffs, and people fighting with swords while skydiving. You could do a TNG movie with that and it would work just as well. (Also, little trick: its Return on Investment -- return per dollar invested -- is about the same as First Contact but a bigger budget with the same ROI sounds better and generates more buzz.)
They did a reboot to appeal to the demographic of people who care or at least recognize who Kirk and Spock are and were willing to tolerate some loose science and flashy visuals, which is what was done for the new fans, not Kirk and Spock. If you knew who Kirk and Spock were and that made you at all interested in seeing the film, you're not a new fan. People who had seen several Star Trek movies before and hated them all aren't new either and those people had more to gain from a reboot than people who were totally new to the franchise.
Now, looping this back around to games:
Continuity is just another term for a special case of adoption complexity. Adoption complexity will drive away some users. It will drive higher level of commitment for those who do adopt. And it's always going to be more of an ongoing hassle for older adopters who never fully liked it than it is for new adopters, who NEED to be filtered for commitment level.
I still haven't seen anyone explain what would be confusing about 10,000 currencies as long as there's adequate reference for what to do with them and most core activity in the game uses one or two while the others have specialized purposes.
Because it's new-player-repellent.
Yes, exactly what I am trying to get at. I can kick 100 people from my fleet a month from them just not coming back. When asked on the Forum (Flet Forum) they say, way to much to keep track of arounf currencies and reputaions, the R&D system was also a killer and by far the worst thing they ever did.
Comments
+1 Completely agree... (emphasis added)
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
Personally, I feel that some of the more vocal people are confusing "I want everything but don't want to do X" with "There are too many currencies" and forgetting that the currency purge just before F2P was to get rid of the completely useless level locked currencies that we had before by merging them into dilithium rather than simply reducing the amount of currencies availible.
But hey, what else is new around here?
Watches are goods. They have intrinsic value. You can sell goods for currency, which is a voucher of a debt owed to you. What separates this from a pure barter system (goods/services for goods/services) is a medium of exchange. The medium of exchange has no intrinsic value. It's symbolic, and only has value based on what you can reasonably exchange it for (goods or services).
Marks are not a service. They are not something being done for you. They are not goods. You can't do anything with them except buy goods or buy access to a store from which you can, surprise surprise, buy goods (think of spending marks here like buying a Sam's Club membership).
So what does that make marks? Not goods. Not services. Possessed of value because of what you can trade them for. They are symbolic of a debt owed to you over invested time in various in-game activities. Thus... marks are a medium of exchange. They are a currency.
You can't trade your gear to other players or even vendors for Zen nor Dilithium, so congratulations you have just disproved the idea of Zen and Dilithium being currencies, which are 2/3rds of your examples of what constitutes currencies in your own view.
Beyond which, marks are liquid because you can exchange them for Dilithium directly, and for gear which you can sell for EC. Liquidity does not need to run in both directions, you merely need to be able to quickly sell something without a huge loss of value for something to be liquid, that's what liquidity means in an economic sense.
This is incorrect. It will be lost in the forum changeover by now, filed under "Archived Post", but one of the stated reasons for streamlining the currencies wasn't just to remove redundancies, but to lower the bloat since it's daunting to newcomers, something which has a negative impact on attracting new players and retaining them.
If the idea was to simply removed redundant currencies we'd still have Merit and Honor, which were replaced in various places with EC, Expertise and Dilithium. And if the idea was to keep various content with specific currencies to encourage participation, which the new mark system supposedly does, we'd still have PvP Medals, which were the specific PvP-only currency with their own store... but they removed all that and folded it into the Dilithium store along with the old mark/emblem/badge stuff.
Also, I have all of the reputations maxed on the three characters I play, and have bought all of the reputation gear I want on those three characters. That does not change the fact that bloat is bad, and drives away players.
And on that note...
... you're right Bort, this game does have a massive problem with currency bloat. And again, bloat is bad, and drives away players.
My character Tsin'xing
Champ's system is also level locked but you're allowed to trade down because they did the sensible thing of putting travel power and costume unlocks in lower tiers so there's still a reason to use the lower level marks.
My character Tsin'xing
This can be easily rectified by rewarding more of these elite currencies depending on the level of difficulty.
1 Iconian Datacore for Normal
2 Iconian Datacores for Advanced
3 Iconian Datacores for Elite
Totally agree with you on the fleet marks part... we should have more fleet mark requirements and fewer doffs/consumables. I can cover all the fleet mark requirements by myself for all our fleet projects... it should not be like that
ERR no mate, you just "sold" something for money, which is not what were talking about on this post.... Not really sure what you been reading.
You can "sell" your gear in a vendor as they all have an E/C value displayed in the bottem right corner of the item discription. Also the discription of the marks is "used to buy items from the reputaion store" implying that it is in fact a currency.
And if sorting out their use bugs you so much, let's just make all gear Bind on Equip so that people who DO care about rep can sell it to you for EC on the exchange. Granted, you'll end up compensating them for playtime.
Better still, let's just have everything regardless of source (except for C-Store account unlocks) be Bind to ACCOUNT on EQUIP.
Then it doesn't matter how many currencies there are because EC will always be a means for you to get an item if you can't be persuaded to research how to get it. But if you want to get something directly, you research how to get it and participate in thematic activity because it is an RPG. But if you NEED absolute simplicity, awesome, they should just make it so that you can buy it off someone who did the activity. As a consequence, more queues get played because there's money selling Nukara rep gear, which prompts some people to "specialize" in it, play it, farm it, and sell the rewards. But the more YOU don't want to play that content, the more the farmers will charge you in EC for doing it for them.
My character Tsin'xing
Because it's new-player-repellent.
When you have a list of currencies a mile long it makes people who decide to try the game not want to stick around for it. It's a mess, and people don't like messes.
Picture it; You're brand new, don't know a lot about the game. You see some people around and notice all their cool stuff. You decide you want to get some of that cool stuff for yourself. Thing is, you have to figure out where all that cool stuff is, because there are several different stores, some within menus and some not. Most have their own specific currencies, all of which have to be earned through very specific and limited content. Those specific ones all need their stores to be unlocked through even more of that currency. Which means for each piece you need to figure out where it's bought, what it's bought for, where to earn that currency content-wise, when you can unlock that content, when you can unlock that tier of gear from the store... and that's just figuring out how to get it...then you have to actually grind out the marks for each appropriate store tier, waiting for all the timers to countdown, and for the daily bonuses since those are the only mark rewards of any reasonable amount, then grind the marks and dilithium (yet another currency) for each individual piece of gear.
For someone who's been around awhile that's not bad. You get to know each reputation and what they hold as they release. You get to grind them all out as they come. For a newcomer considering joining STO? Someone who has little-to-no current investment in the game... that's too a high a bar for entry. It's why I'm not playing Neverwinter, and won't until they cull the currency bloat there. When Neverwinter released I swore I wouldn't play it until they released a Paladin, and now they have but... no chance I'm touching it with that much garbage I have to grind out through narrow, narrow swatches of content and really, STO isn't much different at this point. If I weren't invested I'd have taken one look and walked away.
Currency bloat is basically a death sentence to a lot of peoples' motivation to join a game. It might not be so bad if there were content to match said bloat, but there isn't not even ****ing close. There's only ever a tiny amount of applicable content to earn most marks, and those numbers almost never change as more and more currencies are piled on top. If Cryptic kept adding new ways to earn old currencies, instead of just new currencies, that might help alleviate the issue (when you direct new players to grind a set of content a few hundred or so times it's a bit easier for them to swallow if you can point at dozens of things to play, then when you can just point at five)... but that just isn't the case.
The system in place is poison.
Disagree. It might be true if reps started at level 1 but they don't start until level 50+.
And that's like saying continuity turns new readers away from comic books. It's the opposite. Continuity is the suction that gets them in. It'd old readers who want reboots. The Ultimate Marvel line appealed more to old readers than new. DC's New 52 reboot, according to Nielsen research, did more for existing and lapsed longtime readers and nothing for new readers. You know what attracts new readers, by the numbers? Continuity wankfests. JSA. Blackest Night.
The risk of continuity or complexity is always the risk that existing customers will have too much accumulation of things that they dislike or feel tired of cataloguing. New customers don't have that fatigue and continuity/complexity is how you attract them. And I'll be dollars to donuts that people turned off by complexity, especially optional complexity, more often than not are using that as an excuse for something else that turned them off.
Now, the *prospect* of reps might be new player repellent if VETERAN players try to force endgame concepts on them before they're ready for it (rather than let them be drawn into it, as needed) but by the time someone encounters a rep, they're converted anyway. You know what else is considerably more repellent:
Pilot controls. Science stats. Power level management. Those are what new players are dealing with, not reps. Power level management ALONE has been something I've personally seen people quit over because they didn't get, even if you don't need to get it. Because looking at it isn't optional.
Reps are considerably more under the hood. No new player needs to know anything specific about reps.
You can disagree all you want, but the fact is for some people it is true. That's a fact, and I can attest to it as I am in fact one of those people.
The problem is all of them drop at level 50. Having them all drop on you at level 1 or at level 50 doesn't change the fact that it's all dropped on you at once. It doesn't change the fact that you're going to be level 50 in, oh, about three days or less unless you are so incredibly "casual" you will never be taking part in any "endgame" anyway. Doesn't change the fact that people will be seeing all the shinies the moment they reach ESD after the tutorial, and seeing them more so in those three-or-so days after which they'll be playing STFs and being told to get with the program. At one of these two points they'll take a brief glance at how to get the shinies and be turned off by a laundry list of stores, currencies, and a tiny, tiny patch of content from which to draw each currency, compounded by timers, including on how said currency is accrued.
First, that's apples and oranges.
We aren't talking about continuity, we're talking about a wall you have to push past to play. Old timers like me are already past it, newcomers aren't. Hence why I'm playing STO, since I've been here since closed beta and was able to scale the wall one brick at a time as it was being built, and not playing NWN because the whole wall is just right there and I'm not real eager to scale it from all the way down here on the ground. I'm not ready to figure out which stores, which currencies, which content, then grind it all out all those currencies from three or four missions apiece.
Second, continuity definitely turns away new readers. You know what draws them in by the bushel? Events. Ones like Blackest Night. They get everyone buying more comics because, zomg Wolverine is fighting Iron Man and now Squirrel Girl is dead! I'm gonna need to pick up The Marvel Universe Kills Squirrel Girl #4 now despite the fact that I usually just read Avengers because OMG Bucky just shot Slackstick in the face!That's why Marvel is always tossing new events out, because they know it will sell a few extra issues when they start one up. Thing is, those readers, the new ones drawn in by the event (or because they saw a movie) don't stick around because of continuity... well, that and the general perception that comics are lame, and the reality that most are poorly written. Which is why we see so many reboots. Heck, there was an entire comics line devoted to low-continuity, the Ultimate Marvel line... and you know what? It sold really well until it got its own convoluted continuity at which point everyone stopped reading it since, hey, you were screwed either way so may as well read 616.
And no, old timers tend not to like reboots. They'll often grab a couple issues to see how much they hate it, which is usually a lot, and some will remain subscribed because, well Hell, when you've read something for years it's difficult to just stop since you have an investment, for many it's sometimes just easier to buckle down and hope things get better. Reboots are giant-sized retcons, and old timers don't like that. Ask an old timer how they feel about OMD/BND or Magneto's current status with Pietro and the Witch, or The Other, or any other number of retcons.
My character Tsin'xing
Yeah the Data cores I can understand slightly as its more a component as such. Like buying bunch of stuff from replicator to fill a project on star base. It's an elite award.
Never. WoW has 60 reputations and that's not counting PERSONAL reputations with individual NPCs. Some games have hundreds.
Now, what you may see is some older currencies being folded together or the XP requirement for some older reps get shrunk at a certain point. Maybe some new reps could be designed to be shorter. Or longer. A shorter rep could be a gateway into doing rep content and a means of distributing something Cryptic wants to be common. A longer rep could be there to provide a cosmetic or marginal benefit to keep hardcore players occupied.
The last I heard, most of the attrition was around level 15 for much of the game's earlier life. I think I heard it's more like 35 or 40 now. Somebody who hits 50 isn't going to quit at the first sign of frustration and if they quit at the first sign of frustration, they don't sound like somebody who would drop a lot of money on lockboxes, who would stick around after a ship nerf, or who would put time productivity into the game in a way that drives the economy.
If somebody gets frustrated by having to run specific content for specific rewards and having a neverending supply of tasks needed to do, the cost of keeping them here probably exceeds their productive value to the game.
Because I can't imagine that person taking it in stride if they spend $50 on lockboxes and don't get a ship. I can't imagine that person pumping tens of thousands of dilithium into the economy. And I kind of DO imagine that person making other people feel bad about their time investment or purchases. "You spent what on WHAT? That's insane." "You spent how long maxing your Duty Officer commendations? That's insane."
I think a lot of new player "unfriendly" things, particularly skills and power management and bugs, could use addressing. The thing you want fixed seems like it's kind of an entry bar litmus test for whether someone really has a place contributing to the game. I'm not going to say it's without frustration. I will say that sometimes Cryptic needs to carefully stretch the elasticity out of people's expectations and that people who can't be moved to spend more time or money or do specific things at specific times, well...
Maybe they need to take a break and only come back when and if they're prepared to do that. And if that break is long, more power to them. And if they don't come back, nobody's at fault there. The game doesn't need to appeal to everyone, every Star Trek fan, every gamer, or every gamer who's a Star Trek fan.
I think there should be some sensible limits on herding or time expectations but if you don't want to be herded or have some expectations on your time, this may not be the game for you. And maybe Cryptic bending to keep those people would hurt the game more than it would help it.
All of that is continuity.
And that's bull. The popular wisdom on this subject is fully the opposite of the truth. Fans lie about this but the stats bear it out. The VAST majority of people drawn to a reboot are people who were aware (often in detail) of what preceded the reboot. There is Nielsen data on this.
You know who doesn't care about a reboot? New readers. Because they quite literally don't know and don't care what they missed and a lack of continuity gives them less to latch onto and less of a community to integrate with.
It is by and large a fabrication, a misunderstanding, or a delusion that reboots are done for new readers.
Yes, the 2009 Star Trek attracted new fans. Because it had sexy people in various states of dress, cars going off cliffs, and people fighting with swords while skydiving. You could do a TNG movie with that and it would work just as well. (Also, little trick: its Return on Investment -- return per dollar invested -- is about the same as First Contact but a bigger budget with the same ROI sounds better and generates more buzz.)
They did a reboot to appeal to the demographic of people who care or at least recognize who Kirk and Spock are and were willing to tolerate some loose science and flashy visuals, which is what was done for the new fans, not Kirk and Spock. If you knew who Kirk and Spock were and that made you at all interested in seeing the film, you're not a new fan. People who had seen several Star Trek movies before and hated them all aren't new either and those people had more to gain from a reboot than people who were totally new to the franchise.
Now, looping this back around to games:
Continuity is just another term for a special case of adoption complexity. Adoption complexity will drive away some users. It will drive higher level of commitment for those who do adopt. And it's always going to be more of an ongoing hassle for older adopters who never fully liked it than it is for new adopters, who NEED to be filtered for commitment level.
Yes, exactly what I am trying to get at. I can kick 100 people from my fleet a month from them just not coming back. When asked on the Forum (Flet Forum) they say, way to much to keep track of arounf currencies and reputaions, the R&D system was also a killer and by far the worst thing they ever did.