Cryptic changes something, people complain.
Cryptic doesn't change something, people complain.
Cryptic EXISTS, people complain.
No matter what, there will be some group that is not happy with something in the game. Personally I just wish they wouldn't rage post on the forums so quickly with kneejerk reactions without ALL the information. Do we know how we're being compensated for the change to Bind on Pickup? No. We just know that we will get more, but no actual numbers.
Honestly people really should just wait and see how it turns out, then if you don't like it, be rational about it rather than attack the Devs, and anyone who doesn't agree.
STO is an MMO, constatly evolving. Everything changes. Some good, some bad... but that is a fact of life for an MMO. Constructive feedback is far more useful than ragepost attacks lashing out at anyone and everyone.
Right now the only real feedback that is being presented now is "I hate change!" and "I can't farm for my entire year's income because I don't want to actually play the game outside of 30 days out of the year!"
While that may not be what some of the angry posters are trying to say... that IS how it is coming across to many of us. And honestly... its irrational, and in some cases extending into fearmongering and attacks on anyone who doesn't agree.
The best course of action is to just wait and see how this change affects us rather than instantly cry DOOOOOM, then provide feedback based on gathered information. What works, what doesn't, what can be tweaked for next year's Anniversary, ect.
As one of the resident Voices of Reason, I feel that I need to at least say something. I fully expect to get attacked for basically saying "calm down and just wait and see what happens", but... goes with the territory I suppose. I still enjoy STO, even though my activity has kinda declined a bit due to event fatigue. But if you want something to change... its better to present concerns in a more constructive manner that actually gives useful information than it is to rant and attack.
Some people wonder why the Devs don't frequent the forums... well... this thread is kinda why. The vitriol that is being thrown around does not make for a good venue for discussion with the community. And trying to sort through the hate for useful information that can actually improve the game via feedback can be hard.
Now if you will excuse me, I'm gonna fortify my foxhole and prepare for the bombardment for daring to be reasonable. A friend keeps telling me I shouldn't even bother anymore, or that I should try to convince others to not "feed trolls", but maybe I just care too much at times or I'm just too stubborn for my own good.
I have to agree. STO is dynamic. Change is part of the game. I don't always like every change, but you can't play an MMO and not expect things to change. And you can't always have an absolute answer to your questions. It's best to relax and avoid pressing the rage button.
Despite taking a bit of a hit on this change myself, I'm satisfied with my theory that it is at least in part a way to address the dil/zen exchange. Also it definitely seems to fall in line with Cryptic trying to pump up their metrics by making people actually play the event while it's live. I can live with that.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Look, no one has compared the right thing yet, at least for me. I am never going to grind the mini-game for hours on end to get the omegas. It is way too much of a grind. The comparison that needs to be made is "Buying Omegas" vs "Buying Phoenix". I would always grind a few omegas while the event was active but I usually wait for the omegas to bottom out in price and then buy all that I need. This is no longer possible. THAT is a huge nerf for people like me. I will NOT ever grind omegas now and if I can't buy them, this removes a portion of the game for me that has kept me playing.
So, before I could buy the omegas and then use them on MK II VR to get to gold by VII or VIII. Much, much easier than "Buying Phoenix". There are many ways to get EC in this game that have not really been mentioned here. And, yes, I am probably considered a whale because I do spend money occasionally. But this is a major nerf for me and I will probable login long enough to do the daily for the T^ ship and logout. Pretty much what I have been doing for a while now. Changes like this are pushing long time players like me away, not retaining us. Regardless of the reason why they have done this, it is a bad move.
There is one universal truth that is always present in any MMO you play. Rather that MMO be a Space Oriented game like this one, fantasy RPG theme, super hero's and villians, it really doesn't matter. One universal truth remains..
Change is the only constant.
MMO's.. all of them.. are about adapting. There isn't an MMO out there where the 'meta' doesn't change, where the best money makers aren't altered, where the player doesn't have to adapt to find new ways to do what they need to do. STO is no different my friend, and this is yet another example.
You can still farm all the Omega's you personally need. If you don't want to do that.. it's fine, there are always alternatives. There is a new system in place where you can reduce the farming by combining the Omega's with other resources and you can always just shift your farming focus from EC to Dilithium and use Phoenix Kits. You can keep doing your EC thing and get your Dilithium through Admiralty.. there are other options.
You can't stick on one thing man.. when Cryptic changes things, you adapt. It's true of everything in this game. I have an entire bank full of Mark XV Epic gear that used to be fantastic and now isn't even worth slotting because they decided to 'balance' something. It's just a sad reality of playing an MMO. Roll with the punches man.. you'll be fine.
Actually, Rattler and others have dismissed a voice that myself and others have put in here several times, somehow conflating it all with farmers and EC hoarders.
That voice is the one that says: "I want to have Omega upgrades available, and I am willing to pay EC on the exchange for the privilege. I am either so bad at the mini-game, or busy during the one period per year when they are available, or just hate the grind of it, that gathering my own Omegas is not an option. If I want to buy some Omegas, and someone else wants to sell them, why shouldn't we?"
It is an assumption that this new binding has anything to do with lag, bots, or farmers. For one thing, since the event only occurs once per year, it only affects lag or botting once per year. Personally, I see lag and bots on a daily basis, so not sure how this one event is supposed to fix those.
My own belief is that, as has been mentioned before, Cryptic somehow feels it is good for the game to force as many people to do as many activities themselves as possible. That is still only an assumption based on past Cryptic changes, however.
While the reasons why and wherefore are open to conjecture, the fact of binding is not. If you are unavailable, unable or unwilling to grind your Omega particles during the annual event, then you will do without for the rest of the year. This does not seem to be a 'positive' change to me.
If farming them needs to be addressed, it seems a daily limit on the number of particles earned would have been a better solution. The point of an MMO is to interact with other players to accomplish things you couldn't do yourself, not to force us all to complete every activity on our own.
For what little my opinion is worth, I have always used the Omega for quality and the Phoenix for levels.
I grind out the Omega myself for hours trying to get tens of thousand for each event. If I could not I would also buy them but in the last two events I did not bother because the cost was so crazy high (as with everything in the game because it is stupid F2P).
I save up all my dil for the Phoenix events and usually drop a couple million and go from there becuause there really is nothing I want to buy due to the abject greed in the game.
In general I really hate the grind (F2P mech BS)and between that and Cryptic blocking me from playing most of the time, my time in game is very minimal in recent years. Nonetheless last year I spent over $1,000 dollars support STO despite not being able to log in much of the time last year because my current geographic location is China.
Speaking of which those of you that talk about Chinese farmers are talking smack. Between the government blocking 90% of the Internet here and companies there blocking here just as much, it sucks to be an expat here working to say the least but I digress...
I really wish STO would go back to a subscription model or at least run a separate version for subs only and all this gamblebox BS and related mechanics could go away.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Actually, Rattler and others have dismissed a voice that myself and others have put in here several times, somehow conflating it all with farmers and EC hoarders.
I haven't dismissed that actually. My overall point was that we should wait and see how this affects us. I was calling out the rageposting more than anything.
I'm not dismissing any legit concerns. Economy wise being able to trade Omega traces and stuff got ECs to move around more. However on the other hand there were elements that were abusing the system, probably to the detriment of us all in the form of lag.
We just don't have the data Cryptic has. So it is pretty hard to try and say one way or the other if this is a bad move or not. Its not all black and white like some people like to believe it is. Its all shades of grey, with players falling in all over the spectrum. We have the hardcore on one end, the casual on the other, and everyone else in between. Its not one or the other exclusively.
Once we actually can see how this change affects us, then we can start to discuss what worked and what didn't work. At the end of the day, we all care about STO in one way or another.
Also you wanna talk currency hoarding... we can talk about the state of GPL in another thread.
I too like it where most people stay constructive, as often Cryptic is very fair in watching out for all players, across a wide spectrum of the player base. I also agree with rattler2's comment about the game, and recognize it has players from a wide spectrum, who mostly love Star Trek! So in similar fashion to him I do 'hope' this will benefit those who need the upgrades, it just requires a bit of time to invest earning them.
I believe in the post 'above' the quoted one, mentions making phoenix boxes constantly available, and the result being the same. I hope this action was mostly an extension of this to help balance the DZE exchange a bit more. This will continue to ensure new players are bit more engaged as new Captain's, when someone sells DIL they really forgo upgrading a lot of gear or earning other valuable items.
So I'm certainly more optimistic toward this change. As for the reference to GPL, many have wished for more options, having purchased trophies, holograms, or disco balls as well as the club outfit.
It would be nice to know the justification for this change. The speculation doesn't help anyone understand the issue.
I for one do not take farmers or lag as sensible reasons. The fact is we have RL farmers so that we don't have to farm ourselves. That is what economies are for. Someone produces something other people want and sells it to them. Destroying that market just makes things all the more primitive, and in doing so likely increases lag, just as doing it IRL would dramatically reduce overall productivity.
Consider a bot farmer farming 24/7. This person is farming through peak hours and off hours the same, but if they sell bits to people who typically play in the peak hours, then these peak hour players do not have to farm during peak hours, they can hit up the exchange and be on their way.
With no ability to sell them, then those peak hour players have to farm during peak hours, they have no choice. How is that good for lag if you can no longer distribute the load that is the omega demand onto the off hours?
As someone else mentioned, this smacks of a very disturbing trend Cryptic has been doing to force people to play things when they want us to play things, else we don't get our toys.
Botting is against the ToS, and botters will be dealt with when discovered. That said, there's been no announcement that this change was due to botting, that's speculation.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Someone above mentioned Phoenix Upgrades are always available, so made me think...
IF Cryptic thought that Omegas were too overshadowed by Phoenix, they could make Omegas better & relatively easy to get. But that better-ness and ease of collecting is balanced by their limited time availability & BOA to make them different from Phoenix Upgrades.
But I doubt they put that much thought into it. Probalby just gonna be +1 drop rate over last year and all is BOA.
Glad I didn't have a pile of mats waiting to be sold that will soon be worthless.
Actually, Rattler and others have dismissed a voice that myself and others have put in here several times, somehow conflating it all with farmers and EC hoarders.
That voice is the one that says: "I want to have Omega upgrades available, and I am willing to pay EC on the exchange for the privilege. I am either so bad at the mini-game, or busy during the one period per year when they are available, or just hate the grind of it, that gathering my own Omegas is not an option. If I want to buy some Omegas, and someone else wants to sell them, why shouldn't we?"
It is an assumption that this new binding has anything to do with lag, bots, or farmers. For one thing, since the event only occurs once per year, it only affects lag or botting once per year. Personally, I see lag and bots on a daily basis, so not sure how this one event is supposed to fix those.
My own belief is that, as has been mentioned before, Cryptic somehow feels it is good for the game to force as many people to do as many activities themselves as possible. That is still only an assumption based on past Cryptic changes, however.
While the reasons why and wherefore are open to conjecture, the fact of binding is not. If you are unavailable, unable or unwilling to grind your Omega particles during the annual event, then you will do without for the rest of the year. This does not seem to be a 'positive' change to me.
If farming them needs to be addressed, it seems a daily limit on the number of particles earned would have been a better solution. The point of an MMO is to interact with other players to accomplish things you couldn't do yourself, not to force us all to complete every activity on our own.
Wonderfully put. As usual, Cryptic's inability of communicating properly with their playerbase - and really, if anyone here thinks that on Reddit things are better than on this forum, they're just kidding themselves - is resulting in an uproar that could've easily been avoided had they provided clear and complete information on the changes to come.
They want to favor the "average" player? Cool, I'm all for it, actually!
Explain how making it impossible for people to trade and sell omega sliver/particles/whatever is gonna help those same "average" players that don't have the time to farm them for themselves.
They want to push for people to buy Phoenix Upgrades instead of farming for Omega? I can get behind that, if only because the DilEx - which had been driven up to the point of madness because of constant sales - had begun to slowly come back down to something more affordable for the "average" player. And if that's the case, very nice! Just come out and say it.
If they don't give us enough information to work with, they cannot be surprised if people starts to speculate and while I highly doubt this change - however inconvenient it will be to many - is worthy of crying "DOOOOM", it does feels more and more like they're pushing us to play the game how *they* want us to play it, instead of how *we* want to.
And provided you play within the rule, I think it shouldn't be anybody's business if player X wants to level his toons with patrols while player Y wants to do it playing episodes - just an example, of course.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
^This will NOT help botting, as now everyone will have to Omega farm because you can only get them once a year. This literally is just punishing actual players into hoarding for an entire year worth of Omegas or be screwed for upgrades.
Why would anyone need to farm Omegas when the Phoenix box now runs 365 days a year, and Phoenix upgrades are better?
Really, at this point, Omega upgrades aren't worth it.
Omega upgrades provide 4x the chance of quality improvement, Phoenix do not.
Botting is against the ToS, and botters will be dealt with when discovered. That said, there's been no announcement that this change was due to botting, that's speculation.
If it wasn't botting then the change makes zero sense. It's still a bad change for casuals and people with irregular playing schedules if it was, but at least that would be understandable. If not... it makes absolutely no sense at all unless they're interested in driving away casuals that is. Because that's the only alternate explanation I can see.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
Someone above mentioned Phoenix Upgrades are always available, so made me think...
IF Cryptic thought that Omegas were too overshadowed by Phoenix, they could make Omegas better & relatively easy to get. But that better-ness and ease of collecting is balanced by their limited time availability & BOA to make them different from Phoenix Upgrades.
But I doubt they put that much thought into it. Probalby just gonna be +1 drop rate over last year and all is BOA.
Glad I didn't have a pile of mats waiting to be sold that will soon be worthless.
Off topic. Where are they? I can't find them anywhere where they would usually appear when they were in the Phoenix event. Sorry for the derail but I've seen it mentioned several times and I've yet to find them in the game.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
Someone above mentioned Phoenix Upgrades are always available, so made me think...
IF Cryptic thought that Omegas were too overshadowed by Phoenix, they could make Omegas better & relatively easy to get. But that better-ness and ease of collecting is balanced by their limited time availability & BOA to make them different from Phoenix Upgrades.
But I doubt they put that much thought into it. Probalby just gonna be +1 drop rate over last year and all is BOA.
Glad I didn't have a pile of mats waiting to be sold that will soon be worthless.
Off topic. Where are they? I can't find them anywhere where they would usually appear when they were in the Phoenix event. Sorry for the derail but I've seen it mentioned several times and I've yet to find them in the game.
PC only, in the Dil store. PS4 is supposed to get them today, Xbox soon.
Someone above mentioned Phoenix Upgrades are always available, so made me think...
IF Cryptic thought that Omegas were too overshadowed by Phoenix, they could make Omegas better & relatively easy to get. But that better-ness and ease of collecting is balanced by their limited time availability & BOA to make them different from Phoenix Upgrades.
But I doubt they put that much thought into it. Probalby just gonna be +1 drop rate over last year and all is BOA.
Glad I didn't have a pile of mats waiting to be sold that will soon be worthless.
Off topic. Where are they? I can't find them anywhere where they would usually appear when they were in the Phoenix event. Sorry for the derail but I've seen it mentioned several times and I've yet to find them in the game.
In the Dilithium store, under the Special Items tab (top tab). 40k for ten boxes or just over 4k for one box.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
It might be annoying, but they change it no matter what the players say or feel about it.
They have one server and blame other compannies for lagg. Lagg the final fronteer, these are the bugg coders of cryptic to boldly test nothing, to let the Coma say things which he cannot remember....
Friend of mine has no time to farm omega's. Some friends take advantage and spend more time during anniversairy's and collect omega particles. They sell them to him. He buys keys, grabs the ultimate upgrade and sells the key for ec.
He can avoid this now. He has acces like the others to phoenix. Instead of the long grind, they can all play.
EC and Dil are both f2p currencies. Now 1 isn't needed to p(l)ay the game. Probally we can run instead of spend pointless hours on grind.
Those affected will feel it this year, next year they find some other ways to earn ec.
They created more acc wide unlocks, add some stuff into a ripoff shop instead of phoenix box, but they made it available non theless.
There mining metrics for the follow up of the lockboxes, and when that happens, people will complain about unable being to sell keys into auction.
Keep in mind, Cryptic can change the game and statts they want. Its in the ToS.
They know players keep playing this game. Not because their fans of Cryptic, no because they are fans of star trek.
Game is free, market and people will adept. If this annoys you, take a break and play another game, though unlock the ship for admirality and account wide unlock. Cryptic doesn't care about metrics because we keep playing our favourite fan show game.
Actually, Rattler and others have dismissed a voice that myself and others have put in here several times, somehow conflating it all with farmers and EC hoarders.
I haven't dismissed that actually. My overall point was that we should wait and see how this affects us. I was calling out the rageposting more than anything.
Haven't seen much rageposting myself, tbh. And for many things goes: ppl already know how it's going to affect them. One day they were able to trade Omega traces, the next day Cryptic decided to make those account-bound. Simple as that.
I'm not dismissing any legit concerns. Economy wise being able to trade Omega traces and stuff got ECs to move around more. However on the other hand there were elements that were abusing the system, probably to the detriment of us all in the form of lag.
But you don't know that for certain either. We're all just speculating (as BMR loves to keep pointing out) as to the why of it.
We just don't have the data Cryptic has. So it is pretty hard to try and say one way or the other if this is a bad move or not. Its not all black and white like some people like to believe it is. Its all shades of grey, with players falling in all over the spectrum. We have the hardcore on one end, the casual on the other, and everyone else in between. Its not one or the other exclusively.
See, this is why I don't like this type of 'voice of reason' posts. It all sounds entirely reasonable, but, no offense, they're just generic truths that can be applied to most aspects of pretty much any game, at any time.
This change is definitely going to affect ppl in obvious ways (and perhaps in not-so-obvious ways too). As to why Cryptic did this, we don't know. Would be nice if they told us, but Cryptic are not exactly the telling kind. I do know that silence breeds speculation, though. Q.E.D.
it makes absolutely no sense at all unless they're interested in driving away casuals that is. Because that's the only alternate explanation I can see.
So the event that gives away 100% free upgrade kits and a free T6 Star Ship for doing next to nothing is somehow still not 'casual' enough for you?
Maybe next year they can just have the ship be a pinata and you can click on it once and it will drop a billion EC in your bank.. is that STILL too much work for ya?
Insert witty signature line here.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,667Community Moderator
Haven't seen much rageposting myself, tbh. And for many things goes: ppl already know how it's going to affect them. One day they were able to trade Omega traces, the next day Cryptic decided to make those account-bound. Simple as that.
*points at the opening post and a few subsequent posts*
Calling it the end of STO? Saying they're driving players away?
I'd call that rageposting.
As for how it will affect us, bottom line what you said sums it up. However we don't know the full extent, such as just how much are we getting now vs. what we got last year, let alone are we going to be able to do more than just Catch a Particle for progress like they did with the Winter Event.
Rather than ragepost over an announcement thread, frickin' wait and see the FULL changes.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
It might be annoying, but they change it no matter what the players say or feel about it.
They have one server and blame other compannies for lagg. Lagg the final fronteer, these are the bugg coders of cryptic to boldly test nothing, to let the Coma say things which he cannot remember....
Actually they have what is often called a "megaserver", which is actually a whole bunch of servers virtualized together. While there is some overhead doing it that way it is also usually so much more efficient being able to shift things around as needed that the extra overhead is often trivial in comparison. The extremely rough startup of Archeage Unchained, where some servers got crushed, with long waiting lines while others were practically idle illustrates the advantage a virtualized "single" megaserver arrangement has over the traditional multiple named servers one.
A couple of people above talked about "regular players" and "farmers". I don't know what you mean by these terms, because I thought all regular players had to do at least some farming. Having a personal economy is part of an MMO. Either you pay real money or you farm, or both. Things like Tour the Galaxy, DOFFing and even admiralty with a good fleet do not get the EC needed within a reasonable amount of time. So players get creative. Then Cryptic nerfs their creative solutions. Personally, I've seen my economy in this game get nerfed several times. It's not fun.
A couple of people above talked about "regular players" and "farmers". I don't know what you mean by these terms, because I thought all regular players had to do at least some farming.
Most all players do some farming. "Farmers", on the other tentacle, are people who don't do anything else - they only play TFOs whose rewards are "good enough", and if that's not available they log in just to do the DOff grind. They're not playing for fun, they're playing to win, and their definition of "winning" involves having more EC and dil than anyone else.
I understand these people are out there. I don't understand why, but then they don't understand how I can enjoy the (relatively minor) variations of playing through the content repeatedly with different characters, so we're even.
A couple of people above talked about "regular players" and "farmers". I don't know what you mean by these terms, because I thought all regular players had to do at least some farming. Having a personal economy is part of an MMO. Either you pay real money or you farm, or both. Things like Tour the Galaxy, DOFFing and even admiralty with a good fleet do not get the EC needed within a reasonable amount of time. So players get creative. Then Cryptic nerfs their creative solutions. Personally, I've seen my economy in this game get nerfed several times. It's not fun.
My opinion:
Whales open their wallets and buy everything that catches their eye with real world cash monies, because time and bragging rights are more important to them than money. Some might also do it because they really love Trek and want to support the best Trek game currently available.
Minnows like me spend cash now and then, and would rather spend $100 on Zen if there is a great new ship pack then spend months farming for it. I have a high enough income that I could be a whale, but I'm too cheap
Casuals might buy a ship or two over the years and buy keys now and then, but mostly get free event ships and free gear. They don't really farm for EC or dil except from events and as a side effect of playing the game (including Admiralty)
Farmers spend hours repeating content over and over even if they don't really enjoy the content itself. To some of them their fun is partly the enjoyment of earning zen purchases through their endless grinding efforts. Some farmers resort to exploits like botting, some are even gold farmers that grind out the gear and EC that the chat spammers are trying to sell.
Also, it's a spectrum from "I spend $1,000 a month" to "I grind EC and dil 8 hours a day" with everything in between.
A couple of people above talked about "regular players" and "farmers". I don't know what you mean by these terms, because I thought all regular players had to do at least some farming.
Most all players do some farming. "Farmers", on the other tentacle, are people who don't do anything else - they only play TFOs whose rewards are "good enough", and if that's not available they log in just to do the DOff grind. They're not playing for fun, they're playing to win, and their definition of "winning" involves having more EC and dil than anyone else.
I understand these people are out there. I don't understand why, but then they don't understand how I can enjoy the (relatively minor) variations of playing through the content repeatedly with different characters, so we're even.
I know several players like that who question my sanity at wanting to play x which has a lower payout than y ...I find the best thing is to smile, nod...then continue as is
As to the Omega issue... I will admit I used to sell a lot of the particles to top up my bank balance as needed but really...I'm not bothered by this change although I know several of the aforementioned likely are not happy as selling stacks of particles was very lucrative when there was now supply readily available - Personally, I think the game is a huge waste of time and more importantly...it is mind numbing.
Cryptic when it comes to stuff like this seems to forget sto is a game, not a job - lets say 1.5 mins a run (taking into account stuff like chasing the particles as well), average 2 particles each time - assuming you are trying to do well and not just afking it (for ease, I'll be ignoring travel time to the next area as you need three flavours)
1 kit = 81 particles, so thats 54 minutes (approx) of this monotomous, mind numbing game just to get one kit...is it any wonder many I know used nefarious means to get them considering people have a life outside the server? I digress however (and yes I'm aware rewards have an rng element but relying on rng to speed up collection is a fools errand) - the time invested to reward ratio was awful then but kitwise, they were the best as they were free.
Due to phoenix now however, I'm truely not bothered by this change as if I put the same time earning one kit to earning dilithium, I'll come out far better due to mark tradein and the dil rewards from rtfos - In fact I'm grateful for this change as now I can't be tempted by my peers to waste/invest more time in the omega hell grind beyond the daily for the ship/dil (not that the ships my cup of earl grey; hot - but a free ship is a free ship)
Most all players do some farming. "Farmers", on the other tentacle, are people who don't do anything else - they only play TFOs whose rewards are "good enough", and if that's not available they log in just to do the DOff grind. They're not playing for fun, they're playing to win, and their definition of "winning" involves having more EC and dil than anyone else.
I understand these people are out there. I don't understand why, but then they don't understand how I can enjoy the (relatively minor) variations of playing through the content repeatedly with different characters, so we're even.
You have no idea how or why other people play. Save the speculation and stop embarrassing yourself.
The thing here is, they said they'd make it worth it to do farm this setup.
My though here is, since you can only make 1-5 at a time. Which it takes 5 days to make 5. Unless doing each color once gives me enough to make 5 upgrades, it's not going to be worth it.
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I have to agree. STO is dynamic. Change is part of the game. I don't always like every change, but you can't play an MMO and not expect things to change. And you can't always have an absolute answer to your questions. It's best to relax and avoid pressing the rage button.
Despite taking a bit of a hit on this change myself, I'm satisfied with my theory that it is at least in part a way to address the dil/zen exchange. Also it definitely seems to fall in line with Cryptic trying to pump up their metrics by making people actually play the event while it's live. I can live with that.
There is one universal truth that is always present in any MMO you play. Rather that MMO be a Space Oriented game like this one, fantasy RPG theme, super hero's and villians, it really doesn't matter. One universal truth remains..
Change is the only constant.
MMO's.. all of them.. are about adapting. There isn't an MMO out there where the 'meta' doesn't change, where the best money makers aren't altered, where the player doesn't have to adapt to find new ways to do what they need to do. STO is no different my friend, and this is yet another example.
You can still farm all the Omega's you personally need. If you don't want to do that.. it's fine, there are always alternatives. There is a new system in place where you can reduce the farming by combining the Omega's with other resources and you can always just shift your farming focus from EC to Dilithium and use Phoenix Kits. You can keep doing your EC thing and get your Dilithium through Admiralty.. there are other options.
You can't stick on one thing man.. when Cryptic changes things, you adapt. It's true of everything in this game. I have an entire bank full of Mark XV Epic gear that used to be fantastic and now isn't even worth slotting because they decided to 'balance' something. It's just a sad reality of playing an MMO. Roll with the punches man.. you'll be fine.
Thank you, tribbulater.
I grind out the Omega myself for hours trying to get tens of thousand for each event. If I could not I would also buy them but in the last two events I did not bother because the cost was so crazy high (as with everything in the game because it is stupid F2P).
I save up all my dil for the Phoenix events and usually drop a couple million and go from there becuause there really is nothing I want to buy due to the abject greed in the game.
In general I really hate the grind (F2P mech BS)and between that and Cryptic blocking me from playing most of the time, my time in game is very minimal in recent years. Nonetheless last year I spent over $1,000 dollars support STO despite not being able to log in much of the time last year because my current geographic location is China.
Speaking of which those of you that talk about Chinese farmers are talking smack. Between the government blocking 90% of the Internet here and companies there blocking here just as much, it sucks to be an expat here working to say the least but I digress...
I really wish STO would go back to a subscription model or at least run a separate version for subs only and all this gamblebox BS and related mechanics could go away.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
I too like it where most people stay constructive, as often Cryptic is very fair in watching out for all players, across a wide spectrum of the player base. I also agree with rattler2's comment about the game, and recognize it has players from a wide spectrum, who mostly love Star Trek! So in similar fashion to him I do 'hope' this will benefit those who need the upgrades, it just requires a bit of time to invest earning them.
I believe in the post 'above' the quoted one, mentions making phoenix boxes constantly available, and the result being the same. I hope this action was mostly an extension of this to help balance the DZE exchange a bit more. This will continue to ensure new players are bit more engaged as new Captain's, when someone sells DIL they really forgo upgrading a lot of gear or earning other valuable items.
So I'm certainly more optimistic toward this change. As for the reference to GPL, many have wished for more options, having purchased trophies, holograms, or disco balls as well as the club outfit.
I for one do not take farmers or lag as sensible reasons. The fact is we have RL farmers so that we don't have to farm ourselves. That is what economies are for. Someone produces something other people want and sells it to them. Destroying that market just makes things all the more primitive, and in doing so likely increases lag, just as doing it IRL would dramatically reduce overall productivity.
Consider a bot farmer farming 24/7. This person is farming through peak hours and off hours the same, but if they sell bits to people who typically play in the peak hours, then these peak hour players do not have to farm during peak hours, they can hit up the exchange and be on their way.
With no ability to sell them, then those peak hour players have to farm during peak hours, they have no choice. How is that good for lag if you can no longer distribute the load that is the omega demand onto the off hours?
As someone else mentioned, this smacks of a very disturbing trend Cryptic has been doing to force people to play things when they want us to play things, else we don't get our toys.
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IF Cryptic thought that Omegas were too overshadowed by Phoenix, they could make Omegas better & relatively easy to get. But that better-ness and ease of collecting is balanced by their limited time availability & BOA to make them different from Phoenix Upgrades.
But I doubt they put that much thought into it. Probalby just gonna be +1 drop rate over last year and all is BOA.
Glad I didn't have a pile of mats waiting to be sold that will soon be worthless.
They want to favor the "average" player? Cool, I'm all for it, actually!
Explain how making it impossible for people to trade and sell omega sliver/particles/whatever is gonna help those same "average" players that don't have the time to farm them for themselves.
They want to push for people to buy Phoenix Upgrades instead of farming for Omega? I can get behind that, if only because the DilEx - which had been driven up to the point of madness because of constant sales - had begun to slowly come back down to something more affordable for the "average" player. And if that's the case, very nice! Just come out and say it.
If they don't give us enough information to work with, they cannot be surprised if people starts to speculate and while I highly doubt this change - however inconvenient it will be to many - is worthy of crying "DOOOOM", it does feels more and more like they're pushing us to play the game how *they* want us to play it, instead of how *we* want to.
And provided you play within the rule, I think it shouldn't be anybody's business if player X wants to level his toons with patrols while player Y wants to do it playing episodes - just an example, of course.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
Omega upgrades provide 4x the chance of quality improvement, Phoenix do not.
If it wasn't botting then the change makes zero sense. It's still a bad change for casuals and people with irregular playing schedules if it was, but at least that would be understandable. If not... it makes absolutely no sense at all unless they're interested in driving away casuals that is. Because that's the only alternate explanation I can see.
Off topic. Where are they? I can't find them anywhere where they would usually appear when they were in the Phoenix event. Sorry for the derail but I've seen it mentioned several times and I've yet to find them in the game.
PC only, in the Dil store. PS4 is supposed to get them today, Xbox soon.
In the Dilithium store, under the Special Items tab (top tab). 40k for ten boxes or just over 4k for one box.
They have one server and blame other compannies for lagg. Lagg the final fronteer, these are the bugg coders of cryptic to boldly test nothing, to let the Coma say things which he cannot remember....
Friend of mine has no time to farm omega's. Some friends take advantage and spend more time during anniversairy's and collect omega particles. They sell them to him. He buys keys, grabs the ultimate upgrade and sells the key for ec.
He can avoid this now. He has acces like the others to phoenix. Instead of the long grind, they can all play.
EC and Dil are both f2p currencies. Now 1 isn't needed to p(l)ay the game. Probally we can run instead of spend pointless hours on grind.
Those affected will feel it this year, next year they find some other ways to earn ec.
They created more acc wide unlocks, add some stuff into a ripoff shop instead of phoenix box, but they made it available non theless.
There mining metrics for the follow up of the lockboxes, and when that happens, people will complain about unable being to sell keys into auction.
Keep in mind, Cryptic can change the game and statts they want. Its in the ToS.
They know players keep playing this game. Not because their fans of Cryptic, no because they are fans of star trek.
Game is free, market and people will adept. If this annoys you, take a break and play another game, though unlock the ship for admirality and account wide unlock. Cryptic doesn't care about metrics because we keep playing our favourite fan show game.
Haven't seen much rageposting myself, tbh. And for many things goes: ppl already know how it's going to affect them. One day they were able to trade Omega traces, the next day Cryptic decided to make those account-bound. Simple as that.
But you don't know that for certain either. We're all just speculating (as BMR loves to keep pointing out) as to the why of it.
See, this is why I don't like this type of 'voice of reason' posts. It all sounds entirely reasonable, but, no offense, they're just generic truths that can be applied to most aspects of pretty much any game, at any time.
This change is definitely going to affect ppl in obvious ways (and perhaps in not-so-obvious ways too). As to why Cryptic did this, we don't know. Would be nice if they told us, but Cryptic are not exactly the telling kind. I do know that silence breeds speculation, though. Q.E.D.
So the event that gives away 100% free upgrade kits and a free T6 Star Ship for doing next to nothing is somehow still not 'casual' enough for you?
Maybe next year they can just have the ship be a pinata and you can click on it once and it will drop a billion EC in your bank.. is that STILL too much work for ya?
*points at the opening post and a few subsequent posts*
Calling it the end of STO? Saying they're driving players away?
I'd call that rageposting.
As for how it will affect us, bottom line what you said sums it up. However we don't know the full extent, such as just how much are we getting now vs. what we got last year, let alone are we going to be able to do more than just Catch a Particle for progress like they did with the Winter Event.
Rather than ragepost over an announcement thread, frickin' wait and see the FULL changes.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Actually they have what is often called a "megaserver", which is actually a whole bunch of servers virtualized together. While there is some overhead doing it that way it is also usually so much more efficient being able to shift things around as needed that the extra overhead is often trivial in comparison. The extremely rough startup of Archeage Unchained, where some servers got crushed, with long waiting lines while others were practically idle illustrates the advantage a virtualized "single" megaserver arrangement has over the traditional multiple named servers one.
I understand these people are out there. I don't understand why, but then they don't understand how I can enjoy the (relatively minor) variations of playing through the content repeatedly with different characters, so we're even.
My opinion:
Whales open their wallets and buy everything that catches their eye with real world cash monies, because time and bragging rights are more important to them than money. Some might also do it because they really love Trek and want to support the best Trek game currently available.
Minnows like me spend cash now and then, and would rather spend $100 on Zen if there is a great new ship pack then spend months farming for it. I have a high enough income that I could be a whale, but I'm too cheap
Casuals might buy a ship or two over the years and buy keys now and then, but mostly get free event ships and free gear. They don't really farm for EC or dil except from events and as a side effect of playing the game (including Admiralty)
Farmers spend hours repeating content over and over even if they don't really enjoy the content itself. To some of them their fun is partly the enjoyment of earning zen purchases through their endless grinding efforts. Some farmers resort to exploits like botting, some are even gold farmers that grind out the gear and EC that the chat spammers are trying to sell.
Also, it's a spectrum from "I spend $1,000 a month" to "I grind EC and dil 8 hours a day" with everything in between.
I know several players like that who question my sanity at wanting to play x which has a lower payout than y ...I find the best thing is to smile, nod...then continue as is
As to the Omega issue... I will admit I used to sell a lot of the particles to top up my bank balance as needed but really...I'm not bothered by this change although I know several of the aforementioned likely are not happy as selling stacks of particles was very lucrative when there was now supply readily available - Personally, I think the game is a huge waste of time and more importantly...it is mind numbing.
Cryptic when it comes to stuff like this seems to forget sto is a game, not a job - lets say 1.5 mins a run (taking into account stuff like chasing the particles as well), average 2 particles each time - assuming you are trying to do well and not just afking it (for ease, I'll be ignoring travel time to the next area as you need three flavours)
1 kit = 81 particles, so thats 54 minutes (approx) of this monotomous, mind numbing game just to get one kit...is it any wonder many I know used nefarious means to get them considering people have a life outside the server? I digress however (and yes I'm aware rewards have an rng element but relying on rng to speed up collection is a fools errand) - the time invested to reward ratio was awful then but kitwise, they were the best as they were free.
Due to phoenix now however, I'm truely not bothered by this change as if I put the same time earning one kit to earning dilithium, I'll come out far better due to mark tradein and the dil rewards from rtfos - In fact I'm grateful for this change as now I can't be tempted by my peers to waste/invest more time in the omega hell grind beyond the daily for the ship/dil (not that the ships my cup of earl grey; hot - but a free ship is a free ship)
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You have no idea how or why other people play. Save the speculation and stop embarrassing yourself.
My though here is, since you can only make 1-5 at a time. Which it takes 5 days to make 5. Unless doing each color once gives me enough to make 5 upgrades, it's not going to be worth it.