Mudd's Market has continued to expand into the Phoenix Box's territory of old event ships and items, and while I don't think that's a bad thing (I like having them be account unlocks, even if the prices are ridiculous), it gives the Phoenix Box basically no draw. Sure, it has a few exclusives to it NOW, but eventually it'll all appear in Mudd's Market, save for the consumables which aren't exactly special. The prices on the box are potentially much cheaper, assuming you get lucky, but they're still only for that single character and require luck to ever obtain anything even slightly meaningful.
How do you all think they could change it to be useful once more?
you still have the phoenix upgrades which creates a permanently available dilithium sink for cheap upgrades. upgrades will always be valuable as they're almost always needed for something.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Mudd's Market has continued to expand into the Phoenix Box's territory of old event ships and items, and while I don't think that's a bad thing (I like having them be account unlocks, even if the prices are ridiculous), it gives the Phoenix Box basically no draw. Sure, it has a few exclusives to it NOW, but eventually it'll all appear in Mudd's Market, save for the consumables which aren't exactly special. The prices on the box are potentially much cheaper, assuming you get lucky, but they're still only for that single character and require luck to ever obtain anything even slightly meaningful.
How do you all think they could change it to be useful once more?
The prices in Mudd's Market are fine as long as you wait for the inevitable sales, which they even encourage you to do in every product description in that market.
Aside from the EMH BOff, there's no crossover between the offerings, and no indication that there ever will be. There are quite a few offerings to put in Mudd's from the last year or so, and several that were from other sources that could easily be made available there that aren't already in the Phoenix Prize Pack.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
Yep, as long as the Phoenix Box has Phoenix Upgrades it will be valuable.
For people like me that's always swapping things out and constantly in need of upgrades.. the Phoenix Box is currently one of the most valuable sinks the game offers.
As one of these new players that has just hit the start of "end game" (done all the episode content) I'm still finding uses for dil, just completed the Discovery rep shield/engine/core/deflector set and grinding for the Omega rep T6 discount for the honour guard gear. I have a full set of advanced fleet weapons and long term goal is to snag an Advanced Light Battlecruiser with the free token at the end of the mega-event then use the T6 rep fleet token project to get a fleet version.
After all that, I'll need to start looking at upgrading my kit and the phoenix packs seem the best option so my dil will be heading that way it seems.
If phoenix boxes need any change then it's past event stuff that's still missing. Off the top of my head it's still lacking the agony phaser torp and the tommy gun. I'm sure there's still more that's currently unobtainable.
P-upgrades for sure. Probably about a dozen or more useful unlocks for all new chars (or alts that you're starting to play more). Maybe two dozen depending on what your interests are.
I fairly strongly believe that if they made it so one P-token splits into two lower, or four of them could be traded for one higher, you'd see a lot of Phoenix sales just for people to 'build their own' higher tokens to cash in for ships.
If phoenix boxes need any change then it's past event stuff that's still missing. Off the top of my head it's still lacking the agony phaser torp and the tommy gun. I'm sure there's still more that's currently unobtainable.
The agony phaser torp is in there. It's a very rare (Tier III) reward.
If phoenix boxes need any change then it's past event stuff that's still missing. Off the top of my head it's still lacking the agony phaser torp and the tommy gun. I'm sure there's still more that's currently unobtainable.
The agony phaser torp is in there. It's a very rare (Tier III) reward.
Must have missed that the last time I looked, thanks for the info.
I don't so much mind whats in the boxes as there is a lot of helpful stuff as well as the guaranteed upgrades but holy f*** Cryptic can you increase the drop rate on the epic token?
I've NEVER seen one since inception of the Phoenix box, last week needing upgrades for a few toons and really wanting the Breen Carrier that I missed i blew away 5,000,000 dill on boxes and got 2 URs. 500 boxes, plus the hundreds I've already opened and I'm still opening about a 10 pack a day.
Insane how stupidly rare the epic tokens are for a CHARACTER unlock
I wish I could sell or gift my Epic tokens since I already have all of the T6 event ships.
The drop rate is definitely crazy low since I got my epics during the first 2-3 events, and haven't gotten any more in the years since then despite opening at least another 1,000 boxes.
If phoenix boxes need any change then it's past event stuff that's still missing. Off the top of my head it's still lacking the agony phaser torp and the tommy gun. I'm sure there's still more that's currently unobtainable.
The Thompson was later than everything that's been added to Mudd's Market, so it will almost certainly go there, rather than the Phoenix Pack. I think it was the next event reward after the Terran Guerrilla Armor, so that would likely put it in the next batch of things for Mudd's Market.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
I certainly do hope that new items will be added to the Phoenix boxes too.
That way players can decide whether they want to pay a large sum of Zen for all characters, or some dilithium if they only want one item for one character.
I've only worn the Kelvin admiral uniform on one character. I certainly would not have bought it from the C-store, but would have bought a token to get it on that one character. To give just one example.
I certainly do hope that new items will be added to the Phoenix boxes too.
That way players can decide whether they want to pay a large sum of Zen for all characters, or some dilithium if they only want one item for one character.
I've only worn the Kelvin admiral uniform on one character. I certainly would not have bought it from the C-store, but would have bought a token to get it on that one character. To give just one example.
Even on sale Mudd's prices are too high to consider for a lot of FtP players. Making that split and putting new things in both, as a single character item in the phoenix boxs and and an account unlock in Mudd's would probably help the economy in two ways, the direct cash input from Mudd's, along with FtP's spending dil to get the single unlocks over time to help keep the dil exchange ratio reasonable.
Yeah, the tech upgrades are the only truly beneficial thing from those boxes. The admiralty cards after that, but for the most part the duty officers are less valuable than other ones that will actually help you depending upon your build. I do admit to liking that Orion medical hologram for my KDF toons. The Voyager Doctor, not so much.
If phoenix boxes need any change then it's past event stuff that's still missing. Off the top of my head it's still lacking the agony phaser torp and the tommy gun. I'm sure there's still more that's currently unobtainable.
The Thompson was later than everything that's been added to Mudd's Market, so it will almost certainly go there, rather than the Phoenix Pack. I think it was the next event reward after the Terran Guerrilla Armor, so that would likely put it in the next batch of things for Mudd's Market.
It was the First Contact day reward either last year or the year before.
P-upgrades for sure. Probably about a dozen or more useful unlocks for all new chars (or alts that you're starting to play more). Maybe two dozen depending on what your interests are.
I fairly strongly believe that if they made it so one P-token splits into two lower, or four of them could be traded for one higher, you'd see a lot of Phoenix sales just for people to 'build their own' higher tokens to cash in for ships.
It already does, it's one of the options when redeeming a token. I had a few UR & Epic tokens drop but nothing to spend them on and downgrading them would be a waste, from the numbers of packs I opened relative to the number of tokens, UR seems to be 1 in 500 while Epic is closer to 1 in 2,500.
Sorry, I phrased that badly. I'm aware they split down-2. I should have emphasized I meant "split for 2 lower like they already do, AND add a new option where 4 tokens of one rarity could be combined into one token of the next higher rarity".
That would solve a number of issues. People complaining about the poor drop rates would have an option to obtain higher tokens at a known cost. People who say "I've got 300 common P-tokens and nothing to do with them, I don't need that many P-upgrades and trading 10 of them for 1 box is a stupidly expensive option". It would address the huge thread on "making P-unlocks account wide" etc. - people would have a method to unlock whichever ship for whichever character simply by opening P-boxes until they had sufficient tokens. And finally it would magnify Phoenix's dil-sink effect by quite a bit, IMO.
If they are stupidly charging 10 Uncommon for a new Phoenix Box, that gives a pretty good indication that 4 for 1 higher would never cut it in their mind. More like 10 for 1.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Well with Dil/Zen at roughly 400 Dil per Zen, that makes a pack of 10 P-boxes neatly come to 100 Zen or $1.
I tossed out '4 tokens combine to make a higher token' just as a rough notion. The math actually puts 5 combining into one higher as a fairly reasonable number. Assuming 10 boxes normally comes to 7 Commons, 2 Uncommon, 1 Rare (a fairly generous estimate in my experience), that would make an 'Ultra Rare' token cost roughly $5 for a single char ship unlock.
$20 would get you enough tokens for approx. 1 Epic ship unlock and 1 UR ship unlock and some smaller tokens left over. As these were originally 'free, event participation' ships I think a single-char UR unlock for $5 and an Epic +UR for $20 is competitive with other ship pricing. It's not like any of them are OP.
At "combine 6 tokens to get 1 higher" it becomes roughly $25 to unlock an Epic and almost a UR. Probably works out to about $28 on average for an Epic + UR token. Again, as single char unlocks of not-OP ships that were previously available free, it seems in the range.
At 7 tokens and higher the cost becomes something that I think very few people would pay.
I'd expect the zen equivalent cost to be $30+, since dil is free and Cryptic would rather have you buy a C-Store ship.
"But it's a single character unlock" -- yes, but most people only have 1 or 2 characters.
I don't think so, I don't know the exact numbers but there are many, many players with more characters than that.
I would support combining for higher, it's already a thing with duty officers after all. Why would anyone would trade 10 uncommon tokens for another box though? Only an epic token would be worth more than the 10 uncommon ones, and the chances of that are about the same as getting a ship out of a lockbox.
I'd expect the zen equivalent cost to be $30+, since dil is free and Cryptic would rather have you buy a C-Store ship.
"But it's a single character unlock" -- yes, but most people only have 1 or 2 characters.
I don't think so, I don't know the exact numbers but there are many, many players with more characters than that.
I would support combining for higher, it's already a thing with duty officers after all. Why would anyone would trade 10 uncommon tokens for another box though? Only an epic token would be worth more than the 10 uncommon ones, and the chances of that are about the same as getting a ship out of a lockbox.
Let me fix that. There are many players, with many characters. I personally have 16, 10 I do the alt and doff with, 3 that are low levels for opens gear/kit boxes to get Mk II stuff, for kits one of each career, a Rom Delta Recruit I need to work on for rewards, and the 2 that I main.
There are a lot like this, with varying numbers in characters they actually play. Some play one, some play two, and some just kind of no life it and try to play them all.
So UR and Epic Phoenix tokens becomes a debate as to which character they want to use them on.
I'd expect the zen equivalent cost to be $30+, since dil is free and Cryptic would rather have you buy a C-Store ship.
"But it's a single character unlock" -- yes, but most people only have 1 or 2 characters.
I don't think so, I don't know the exact numbers but there are many, many players with more characters than that.
I would support combining for higher, it's already a thing with duty officers after all. Why would anyone would trade 10 uncommon tokens for another box though? Only an epic token would be worth more than the 10 uncommon ones, and the chances of that are about the same as getting a ship out of a lockbox.
There are many players with alts, but Cryptic posted an infographic (7th anniversary?) showing the average characters per player was either 1.9 or 2.9. I can't find it with a quick Google search but maybe someone else can.
The average number is bumped up by the minority of us with more -- for example if the number was 1.9 then my 12+ characters mean 11 other people have only 1 captain. If it's 2.9 then it's still 5 other people to my 1 person. (me x 12 + 5 x 1 = 17)
I don't have time for more than my one KDF and despite getting two good fed freebies I have no inclination to advance my fed alt.
Maybe, just maybe, when I have maxed out reps and fully kitted out 3 or 4 ships I may do an alt but considering I'm a casual that will take a damned long time. Once I've got all the honour guard stuff I need I'll be dumping dil into phoenix boxes just for the upgrade stuff.
I don't have time for more than my one KDF and despite getting two good fed freebies I have no inclination to advance my fed alt.
Maybe, just maybe, when I have maxed out reps and fully kitted out 3 or 4 ships I may do an alt but considering I'm a casual that will take a damned long time. Once I've got all the honour guard stuff I need I'll be dumping dil into phoenix boxes just for the upgrade stuff.
Don't count said alts out. Look through the episodes, especially Delta onward where it gives VR basic gear as the reward. Playing these, while working on your main, allows you to outfit you alts decently enough to play. You can also craft or buy said gear off the exchange. Most times it's pretty cheap.
Then while your working on your main, just get the alts to level 11 and get their doffs, and level via doffing. It's slow to do it this way. But you can level up an alt to max with doffing, and then adm when you unlock it at 52. Plus with this, it starts build up more dil for you to use in getting said phoenix boxes for upgrading.
Agree with previous comments. The Phoenix upgrades are the only thing I care about in the box, and I can't applaud the Devs enough for making them available. Particularly since I am of the opinion that the craftable upgrades are a waste of time, with terrible return for what is invested in them.
Crafting cost never bothered me about them, it's the dilithium cost per use is what makes them worthless IMO...may as well just buy phoenix boxes with the dilithium.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Agree with previous comments. The Phoenix upgrades are the only thing I care about in the box, and I can't applaud the Devs enough for making them available. Particularly since I am of the opinion that the craftable upgrades are a waste of time, with terrible return for what is invested in them.
Crafting cost never bothered me about them, it's the dilithium cost per use is what makes them worthless IMO...may as well just buy phoenix boxes with the dilithium.
I wasn't talking about the R&D upgrades. I was talking about VR R&D gear to give to alts. When I make an alt, I make them a full set of VR MkII gear. If I have them, or have the dil to get enough, I'll toss giving phoenix upgrades to it as well. At Mk II one phoenix upgrade per piece should get that gear into the Mk XI or XII range.
So, all I'm hearing is that the Phoenix Box is only worth the upgrades? That.still asks my original question, what do we do with the things now that 99% of their contents is redundant in the face of an account unlock store that will probably take most of those away anyway?
What's the draw to get people to spend more dilithium than we already do?
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The admiralty cards and event gear are great for new players.
The doffs and Red Matter Capacitor are useful to new characters.
The prices in Mudd's Market are fine as long as you wait for the inevitable sales, which they even encourage you to do in every product description in that market.
Aside from the EMH BOff, there's no crossover between the offerings, and no indication that there ever will be. There are quite a few offerings to put in Mudd's from the last year or so, and several that were from other sources that could easily be made available there that aren't already in the Phoenix Prize Pack.
For people like me that's always swapping things out and constantly in need of upgrades.. the Phoenix Box is currently one of the most valuable sinks the game offers.
After all that, I'll need to start looking at upgrading my kit and the phoenix packs seem the best option so my dil will be heading that way it seems.
I fairly strongly believe that if they made it so one P-token splits into two lower, or four of them could be traded for one higher, you'd see a lot of Phoenix sales just for people to 'build their own' higher tokens to cash in for ships.
The agony phaser torp is in there. It's a very rare (Tier III) reward.
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Must have missed that the last time I looked, thanks for the info.
I've NEVER seen one since inception of the Phoenix box, last week needing upgrades for a few toons and really wanting the Breen Carrier that I missed i blew away 5,000,000 dill on boxes and got 2 URs. 500 boxes, plus the hundreds I've already opened and I'm still opening about a 10 pack a day.
Insane how stupidly rare the epic tokens are for a CHARACTER unlock
The drop rate is definitely crazy low since I got my epics during the first 2-3 events, and haven't gotten any more in the years since then despite opening at least another 1,000 boxes.
The Thompson was later than everything that's been added to Mudd's Market, so it will almost certainly go there, rather than the Phoenix Pack. I think it was the next event reward after the Terran Guerrilla Armor, so that would likely put it in the next batch of things for Mudd's Market.
That way players can decide whether they want to pay a large sum of Zen for all characters, or some dilithium if they only want one item for one character.
I've only worn the Kelvin admiral uniform on one character. I certainly would not have bought it from the C-store, but would have bought a token to get it on that one character. To give just one example.
Even on sale Mudd's prices are too high to consider for a lot of FtP players. Making that split and putting new things in both, as a single character item in the phoenix boxs and and an account unlock in Mudd's would probably help the economy in two ways, the direct cash input from Mudd's, along with FtP's spending dil to get the single unlocks over time to help keep the dil exchange ratio reasonable.
It was the First Contact day reward either last year or the year before.
That would solve a number of issues. People complaining about the poor drop rates would have an option to obtain higher tokens at a known cost. People who say "I've got 300 common P-tokens and nothing to do with them, I don't need that many P-upgrades and trading 10 of them for 1 box is a stupidly expensive option". It would address the huge thread on "making P-unlocks account wide" etc. - people would have a method to unlock whichever ship for whichever character simply by opening P-boxes until they had sufficient tokens. And finally it would magnify Phoenix's dil-sink effect by quite a bit, IMO.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I tossed out '4 tokens combine to make a higher token' just as a rough notion. The math actually puts 5 combining into one higher as a fairly reasonable number. Assuming 10 boxes normally comes to 7 Commons, 2 Uncommon, 1 Rare (a fairly generous estimate in my experience), that would make an 'Ultra Rare' token cost roughly $5 for a single char ship unlock.
$20 would get you enough tokens for approx. 1 Epic ship unlock and 1 UR ship unlock and some smaller tokens left over. As these were originally 'free, event participation' ships I think a single-char UR unlock for $5 and an Epic +UR for $20 is competitive with other ship pricing. It's not like any of them are OP.
At "combine 6 tokens to get 1 higher" it becomes roughly $25 to unlock an Epic and almost a UR. Probably works out to about $28 on average for an Epic + UR token. Again, as single char unlocks of not-OP ships that were previously available free, it seems in the range.
At 7 tokens and higher the cost becomes something that I think very few people would pay.
"But it's a single character unlock" -- yes, but most people only have 1 or 2 characters.
I would support combining for higher, it's already a thing with duty officers after all. Why would anyone would trade 10 uncommon tokens for another box though? Only an epic token would be worth more than the 10 uncommon ones, and the chances of that are about the same as getting a ship out of a lockbox.
Let me fix that. There are many players, with many characters. I personally have 16, 10 I do the alt and doff with, 3 that are low levels for opens gear/kit boxes to get Mk II stuff, for kits one of each career, a Rom Delta Recruit I need to work on for rewards, and the 2 that I main.
There are a lot like this, with varying numbers in characters they actually play. Some play one, some play two, and some just kind of no life it and try to play them all.
So UR and Epic Phoenix tokens becomes a debate as to which character they want to use them on.
There are many players with alts, but Cryptic posted an infographic (7th anniversary?) showing the average characters per player was either 1.9 or 2.9. I can't find it with a quick Google search but maybe someone else can.
The average number is bumped up by the minority of us with more -- for example if the number was 1.9 then my 12+ characters mean 11 other people have only 1 captain. If it's 2.9 then it's still 5 other people to my 1 person. (me x 12 + 5 x 1 = 17)
Maybe, just maybe, when I have maxed out reps and fully kitted out 3 or 4 ships I may do an alt but considering I'm a casual that will take a damned long time. Once I've got all the honour guard stuff I need I'll be dumping dil into phoenix boxes just for the upgrade stuff.
Don't count said alts out. Look through the episodes, especially Delta onward where it gives VR basic gear as the reward. Playing these, while working on your main, allows you to outfit you alts decently enough to play. You can also craft or buy said gear off the exchange. Most times it's pretty cheap.
Then while your working on your main, just get the alts to level 11 and get their doffs, and level via doffing. It's slow to do it this way. But you can level up an alt to max with doffing, and then adm when you unlock it at 52. Plus with this, it starts build up more dil for you to use in getting said phoenix boxes for upgrading.
Crafting cost never bothered me about them, it's the dilithium cost per use is what makes them worthless IMO...may as well just buy phoenix boxes with the dilithium.
I wasn't talking about the R&D upgrades. I was talking about VR R&D gear to give to alts. When I make an alt, I make them a full set of VR MkII gear. If I have them, or have the dil to get enough, I'll toss giving phoenix upgrades to it as well. At Mk II one phoenix upgrade per piece should get that gear into the Mk XI or XII range.
What's the draw to get people to spend more dilithium than we already do?