I believe I understand where you're coming from with this, but to the friends I am referring to, buying a ship that they didn't already own (regardless of Tier) is entirely different to them than buying a newer version of a ship they already own.
We've had many heated debates over this on chat while playing since DR was announced. Some of us see the T6 ships as new/upgraded ships and buying them is no different than buying any other ship. Others see them as being fleeced for paying again for an item they already own.
I suppose I can see both sides of the argument, the only difference on this occasion though, is price.
T5 ships are what, 2000 - 2500zen; most of them are anyway, think there might be a few exceptions? T6 ships are 3000zen, and it wouldn't come as a surprise to me if that price starts creeping up by 500zen when new dynamics are added to newer ships (seems inevitable). Then there's the additional cost of the extra fleet ship modules; whether they're purchased as a batch (skipping the c-store purchase) or as a supplement, used on top of a c-store purchase.
Either way, as stated, I guess it would depend on what is considered an upgrade. I work by tiers, not ships, so to me, a T6 ship is an upgrade of what the T5 are, some of your friends obviously don't look at it that way, but then that's their prerogative I guess.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I take back anything I said that might have come off as... aggressive. Unintentional.
Please no level increase. I mean I put actual money in this game. And what my ships become obsolete? Some players left the last time over this. And I will make the occasional investment in this game but that will be too much for me.If that happens I would have to consider playing another game.
For the time being, there's no timetable when or even a guarantee IF they're going to try that cheap-TRIBBLE$ stunt again. I'd love to say never but you can only take my word on it to the poker table, not to the bank.
they decided they're perfectly fine with rebuying their ships over and over again.
I don't personally see it as rebuying any more than buying a 2016 car is rebuying when you trade in a 2012 car....
You have a point. And the longer they wait until they start trying that scheme of T7s, the more they may get away with it. Buying a T7 when you had a T6 5 or 6 years down the road can be seen by some, not all but some, as trading in a 2016 Camry for a 2021 Camry. Year by year, tier by tier however, it's more like manufactured obsolescence and I am not going to be any part of it. That's more like buying a 2016 car, having it break down and stall on you in a year, finding out there's no warranty on it and having that same car company call you up trying to sell you a 2017 car. And you know that the 2017 is going to stall out on you again as the best indicator of past behavior is future behavior.
Once again, nothing wrong with your post. You have a good point. I just have one of my own as well.
Enh, it's an improved version of an existing product. So it's neither a new service or the same thing as the old product.
Please no level increase. I mean I put actual money in this game. And what my ships become obsolete? Some players left the last time over this. And I will make the occasional investment in this game but that will be too much for me.If that happens I would have to consider playing another game.
For the time being, there's no timetable when or even a guarantee IF they're going to try that cheap-TRIBBLE$ stunt again. I'd love to say never but you can only take my word on it to the poker table, not to the bank.
Shipboard poker nights went out of style on my ship when a betazoid BoFF joined my crew.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Please no level increase. I mean I put actual money in this game. And what my ships become obsolete? Some players left the last time over this. And I will make the occasional investment in this game but that will be too much for me.If that happens I would have to consider playing another game.
For the time being, there's no timetable when or even a guarantee IF they're going to try that cheap-TRIBBLE$ stunt again. I'd love to say never but you can only take my word on it to the poker table, not to the bank.
Shipboard poker nights went out of style on my ship when a betazoid BoFF joined my crew.
I would ditto that, I don't see any need to bring in T7 ships and I foresee many players being very peeved if they did and either just not bothering to upgrade further or at worst even quitting the game in disgust.
You know, I didn't see any need to bring in T6 ships either because content could be done just fine in T5 ships, or T5-U ships. The Scimitar is still one of the top performing ships from a pure damage standpoint in the game.
So no, there was never any necessity to T6 ships to begin with.
Therefore, if Cryptic is successful at selling ships that aren't necessary to gameplay now (they are, since they keep doing it), then there is absolutely nothing stopping them from releasing T7 ships in the future. Because even if the gameplay doesn't require it, players will buy it anyway. It's new, it's shiny, it has bells and whistles and special snowflake abilities.
Sure, what you currently use does the job just fine (in some cases better), but that doesn't matter to the players buying T6 ships.
and what about the pledge cryptic made about T5 ships when the T6 upgrades happened.
quote :- "Players have been invested in this tier of ships for 4 years and we wanted to avoid devaluing the time and money spent in obtaining them."
well to some extent they kept this pledge even tough it was at a price, how are they going to maintain the T5 ship from devaluing in the face of T7 ships.
I see no reason they cant just add more specializations but in my opinion they need to leave the level cap at 60 and avoid introducing T7 ships at all costs.
I agree on the specialization thing. I don't see the level cap increasing at all, I simply see more alternate advancement mechanics (like specializations), rather than a linear level increase.
As far as Cryptic keeping their pledge (which is dubious in of itself as they tend not to make pledges, and the pledges they do make end up getting edited in dev blogs long after the fact it's pointed out multiple times because we got a new EP)?
They could have easily given us discounts on T6 ships if we owned previous versions (or rather paid for previous versions, not freebie ships). But they didn't.
Hey, did you buy an Intrepid at Vice Admiral? Awesome! You really love that ship.
Oh, hey... here's a T4 version of it, with a new skin and console... you can buy that too!
Oh, did you get your fleet to T5? Oh, well now you can get a Fleet T5 ship! Congratulations on all your hard work! You've earned it! That'll be one Fleet Module, please.
Oh, what do you know... Delta Rising is coming. You can get an upgrade token for your Fleet Intrepid! Now your ship really is top of the line!
Yeah... about that. Well, now we have the Pathfinder. Oh, you bought all those things before? We don't care. That's $30.
They simply don't care about devaluing your ships. It's part of their business strategy. Once you buy a ship, that money you spent goes somewhere and eventually it's just gone. They could have gone any other number of routes to make it not seem as shady, but they made the conscious decision not to. I'm sure there was some dissent in their meetings, but at the end of the day the decision was made to double dip on spaceships simply because they could, and not enough people would care if they did.
I said back when the Fleet Patrol Escort was being retired that this was a slippery slope and it was a test bed to see if players really would rebuy their ships at the end-game. I was right. And you know what? That slope isn't going to end. We're still going to go down it.
If Cryptic has gotten this far without massive backlash, there is nothing stopping them from pushing it further.
and what about the pledge cryptic made about T5 ships when the T6 upgrades happened.
quote :- "Players have been invested in this tier of ships for 4 years and we wanted to avoid devaluing the time and money spent in obtaining them."
well to some extent they kept this pledge even tough it was at a price, how are they going to maintain the T5 ship from devaluing in the face of T7 ships.
T5-U2 (?) ships as well as T6-U ships could always scale all the way to match the new T7 TRIBBLE. Not that I advocate the implementation of a cap increase and resulting T7 ships at all, because I don't.
I see no reason they cant just add more specializations but in my opinion they need to leave the level cap at 60 and avoid introducing T7 ships at all costs.
Specializations could be an interesting way to do it, provided each one was better than the last. However:
1) How would newer players know which one was "the best specialization" for the given expansion?
2) Would Cryptic really be able to ensure that the newer specialization (such as command) was better than the older ones (such as intel)? (Hint, command is pretty much inferior to intel, even though it came later)
3) T7 ships aren't even the only problem a cap increase would bring. Imagine having to upgrade all of your gear to Mk XVI, especially considering how much greater the upgrade cost of XIII -> XIV is compared to XII -> XIII.
They simply don't care about devaluing your ships. It's part of their business strategy. Once you buy a ship, that money you spent goes somewhere and eventually it's just gone. They could have gone any other number of routes to make it not seem as shady, but they made the conscious decision not to. I'm sure there was some dissent in their meetings, but at the end of the day the decision was made to double dip on spaceships simply because they could, and not enough people would care if they did.
The claim is that they are devaluing their old ship - but I think that's not entirely true.
See, let's pretend there was no level cap increase, and they released a new Science Vessel, called Scryer. The Scryer is completely new. It's a new ship mode, some new stat tweaks, whatever. If I buy that and move from my old Intrepid to the Scryer - well, everything about that Intrepid is now useless. I can't use its skin. I can't even use its console. All I have from it is are the nice memories of flying it.
But let's say they make another Science Vessel, the Pathfinder. It's a variant of the Intrepid, with some altered (but not better) stats. if I buy that, I can use the new costume parts with the old, mix & match. Now my old purchase still has value, because I can actaully use parts of it on the new ship I bought.
But there was a level cap increase. And the result is that the Pathfinder is not just a new skin with a few stat differences. It also gives me a stat boost. There is basically a synergy between the two purchases that I wouldn't have had if I had bought two completely different ships.
And from Cryptic's perspective - making a new costume is always similar effort, whether you make a ship variant or a completely new ship. Why should the one that has synergy effects for the player be cheaper? Making new stats will also always be the same effort, vs. they are equal or better to another ship makes no difference.
Of course, maybe you don't care for new costume parts, stat boosts or small mechanical differences. Maybe you actually would only want something comletely new, a completely different gameplay. Then of course "upgrading" a Tier 5 ship by buying the Tier 6 retrofit isn't a good idea. But the Tier 6 thing doesn't really change things for you here. If you want to go from Intrepid to Defiant, you can just do that. Just the Intrepid stays tat Tier 5, and the Defiant can be Tier 6.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
You mention about the creation of new ship variants and new ship designs; I believe it's easier to make a brand new ship (with brand new designs) than it is to make a new skin/design for an existing ship.
When making a brand new ship, they've got free reign with their design. When they're creating a new skin/ship for an existing design, they've got to design and configure that new ship around the one one(s) and make sure everything fits with all the configurations.
A lot more work goes into the creation of a new skin compared to a new ship. If you didn't already know...
Anyway, T7 and a level cap inrease would be welcome if we get a better game. Did we get a better game with T6 and level 60. I say no, not because of the extra levels, not because the extra tier. New missions, new reputation, specializations, new ships, everything can be added without putting it into higher tiers or levels.
You also see, they bring out old ships as new tiers, Defiant, Garumba, T'Varo. You can use those at level 50. Who buys the former endgame ships. the T5 versions? They will probably end up as free give aways.
If you want to fly a Federation or Imperial ship at high tier, play as a Federation or Imperial. The Republic are their own (semi) faction. They shouldn't have any of the other ships.
If rommies were able to use t5 ships of their allied faction, feds and klingons wouldn't be any useful, also, imagine a rommie sitting in an oddy or a vesta...looks strange and would make fed and kdf players sad
and what about the pledge cryptic made about T5 ships when the T6 upgrades happened.
quote :- "Players have been invested in this tier of ships for 4 years and we wanted to avoid devaluing the time and money spent in obtaining them."
well to some extent they kept this pledge even tough it was at a price, how are they going to maintain the T5 ship from devaluing in the face of T7 ships.
T5-U2 (?) ships as well as T6-U ships could always scale all the way to match the new T7 TRIBBLE. Not that I advocate the implementation of a cap increase and resulting T7 ships at all, because I don't.
I see no reason they cant just add more specializations but in my opinion they need to leave the level cap at 60 and avoid introducing T7 ships at all costs.
Specializations could be an interesting way to do it, provided each one was better than the last. However:
1) How would newer players know which one was "the best specialization" for the given expansion?
2) Would Cryptic really be able to ensure that the newer specialization (such as command) was better than the older ones (such as intel)? (Hint, command is pretty much inferior to intel, even though it came later)
3) T7 ships aren't even the only problem a cap increase would bring. Imagine having to upgrade all of your gear to Mk XVI, especially considering how much greater the upgrade cost of XIII -> XIV is compared to XII -> XIII.
this is true, they will do what they will do and we will just go with the flow though I guess some will not, if they do everything the same as they did with T6 I guess it wont be so bad for me.
maybe free T5-U2 upgrades for event ships and veteran ships, free T7 event ships and maybe free T7 veteran ships further down the line, I can live with that.
I very much doubt I will buy any T7 ships though unless.......if they have a large bundle at a reasonable price and I have plenty of stipend saved and can convert some dilithium to make up the difference I might be tempted.
as for upgrading gear I will perhaps upgrade it further on one ship from each of my mains, I upgraded 4 ships to MKXIV on each of my mains but I don't think theres any need to upgrade that much if they raise the level.
yet again it depends how much dilithium I have at the time.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Comments
T5 ships are what, 2000 - 2500zen; most of them are anyway, think there might be a few exceptions? T6 ships are 3000zen, and it wouldn't come as a surprise to me if that price starts creeping up by 500zen when new dynamics are added to newer ships (seems inevitable). Then there's the additional cost of the extra fleet ship modules; whether they're purchased as a batch (skipping the c-store purchase) or as a supplement, used on top of a c-store purchase.
Either way, as stated, I guess it would depend on what is considered an upgrade. I work by tiers, not ships, so to me, a T6 ship is an upgrade of what the T5 are, some of your friends obviously don't look at it that way, but then that's their prerogative I guess.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I take back anything I said that might have come off as... aggressive. Unintentional.
For the time being, there's no timetable when or even a guarantee IF they're going to try that cheap-TRIBBLE$ stunt again. I'd love to say never but you can only take my word on it to the poker table, not to the bank.
My character Tsin'xing
Shipboard poker nights went out of style on my ship when a betazoid BoFF joined my crew.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
You know, I didn't see any need to bring in T6 ships either because content could be done just fine in T5 ships, or T5-U ships. The Scimitar is still one of the top performing ships from a pure damage standpoint in the game.
So no, there was never any necessity to T6 ships to begin with.
Therefore, if Cryptic is successful at selling ships that aren't necessary to gameplay now (they are, since they keep doing it), then there is absolutely nothing stopping them from releasing T7 ships in the future. Because even if the gameplay doesn't require it, players will buy it anyway. It's new, it's shiny, it has bells and whistles and special snowflake abilities.
Sure, what you currently use does the job just fine (in some cases better), but that doesn't matter to the players buying T6 ships.
I agree on the specialization thing. I don't see the level cap increasing at all, I simply see more alternate advancement mechanics (like specializations), rather than a linear level increase.
As far as Cryptic keeping their pledge (which is dubious in of itself as they tend not to make pledges, and the pledges they do make end up getting edited in dev blogs long after the fact it's pointed out multiple times because we got a new EP)?
They could have easily given us discounts on T6 ships if we owned previous versions (or rather paid for previous versions, not freebie ships). But they didn't.
Hey, did you buy an Intrepid at Vice Admiral? Awesome! You really love that ship.
Oh, hey... here's a T4 version of it, with a new skin and console... you can buy that too!
Oh, did you get your fleet to T5? Oh, well now you can get a Fleet T5 ship! Congratulations on all your hard work! You've earned it! That'll be one Fleet Module, please.
Oh, what do you know... Delta Rising is coming. You can get an upgrade token for your Fleet Intrepid! Now your ship really is top of the line!
Yeah... about that. Well, now we have the Pathfinder. Oh, you bought all those things before? We don't care. That's $30.
They simply don't care about devaluing your ships. It's part of their business strategy. Once you buy a ship, that money you spent goes somewhere and eventually it's just gone. They could have gone any other number of routes to make it not seem as shady, but they made the conscious decision not to. I'm sure there was some dissent in their meetings, but at the end of the day the decision was made to double dip on spaceships simply because they could, and not enough people would care if they did.
I said back when the Fleet Patrol Escort was being retired that this was a slippery slope and it was a test bed to see if players really would rebuy their ships at the end-game. I was right. And you know what? That slope isn't going to end. We're still going to go down it.
If Cryptic has gotten this far without massive backlash, there is nothing stopping them from pushing it further.
Specializations could be an interesting way to do it, provided each one was better than the last. However:
1) How would newer players know which one was "the best specialization" for the given expansion?
2) Would Cryptic really be able to ensure that the newer specialization (such as command) was better than the older ones (such as intel)? (Hint, command is pretty much inferior to intel, even though it came later)
3) T7 ships aren't even the only problem a cap increase would bring. Imagine having to upgrade all of your gear to Mk XVI, especially considering how much greater the upgrade cost of XIII -> XIV is compared to XII -> XIII.
See, let's pretend there was no level cap increase, and they released a new Science Vessel, called Scryer. The Scryer is completely new. It's a new ship mode, some new stat tweaks, whatever. If I buy that and move from my old Intrepid to the Scryer - well, everything about that Intrepid is now useless. I can't use its skin. I can't even use its console. All I have from it is are the nice memories of flying it.
But let's say they make another Science Vessel, the Pathfinder. It's a variant of the Intrepid, with some altered (but not better) stats. if I buy that, I can use the new costume parts with the old, mix & match. Now my old purchase still has value, because I can actaully use parts of it on the new ship I bought.
But there was a level cap increase. And the result is that the Pathfinder is not just a new skin with a few stat differences. It also gives me a stat boost. There is basically a synergy between the two purchases that I wouldn't have had if I had bought two completely different ships.
And from Cryptic's perspective - making a new costume is always similar effort, whether you make a ship variant or a completely new ship. Why should the one that has synergy effects for the player be cheaper? Making new stats will also always be the same effort, vs. they are equal or better to another ship makes no difference.
Of course, maybe you don't care for new costume parts, stat boosts or small mechanical differences. Maybe you actually would only want something comletely new, a completely different gameplay. Then of course "upgrading" a Tier 5 ship by buying the Tier 6 retrofit isn't a good idea. But the Tier 6 thing doesn't really change things for you here. If you want to go from Intrepid to Defiant, you can just do that. Just the Intrepid stays tat Tier 5, and the Defiant can be Tier 6.
You mention about the creation of new ship variants and new ship designs; I believe it's easier to make a brand new ship (with brand new designs) than it is to make a new skin/design for an existing ship.
When making a brand new ship, they've got free reign with their design. When they're creating a new skin/ship for an existing design, they've got to design and configure that new ship around the one one(s) and make sure everything fits with all the configurations.
A lot more work goes into the creation of a new skin compared to a new ship. If you didn't already know...
You also see, they bring out old ships as new tiers, Defiant, Garumba, T'Varo. You can use those at level 50. Who buys the former endgame ships. the T5 versions? They will probably end up as free give aways.
now that we have T6, WHEN can Rommies have access to T5 starfleet/kling ships?
If you want to fly a Federation or Imperial ship at high tier, play as a Federation or Imperial. The Republic are their own (semi) faction. They shouldn't have any of the other ships.
this is true, they will do what they will do and we will just go with the flow though I guess some will not, if they do everything the same as they did with T6 I guess it wont be so bad for me.
maybe free T5-U2 upgrades for event ships and veteran ships, free T7 event ships and maybe free T7 veteran ships further down the line, I can live with that.
I very much doubt I will buy any T7 ships though unless.......if they have a large bundle at a reasonable price and I have plenty of stipend saved and can convert some dilithium to make up the difference I might be tempted.
as for upgrading gear I will perhaps upgrade it further on one ship from each of my mains, I upgraded 4 ships to MKXIV on each of my mains but I don't think theres any need to upgrade that much if they raise the level.
yet again it depends how much dilithium I have at the time.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.