If Cryptic needs to make these ships super expensive just to pay the bills, that can mean a few things:
1. They get less revenue from other sources.
- This can either mean that people on average spend less.
- Or that there are fewer people spending.
2. They were making losses for years until they started releasing promo ships - and they had to correct that.
3. They have higher costs.
- This can be due to various reasons. One important thing (probably) to include: they're making more other stuff.
The first thing of course might well be the result of changes they themselves have made. Fewer C-store ships means fewer people will spend. Players driven away by constant events and so on (as I've observed in my own fleet for example), means that the remaining players have to be drained more.
The second explanation is unlikely.
The third explanation would be great if it were true. The sad fact of course, is that everyone can see that it is not true. As I've just outlined: fewer lockbox items get released. Moreover, fewer unique missions (i.e., TFO's that are not recycled) are added, reputations are released less often, same for spec trees, bugs don't get fixed anymore or even picked up it seems...
We did receive more items through giveaways like vanity shields and the Platinum pack. While great and generous, it doesn't undo the trend that overall, less stuff gets designed.
There is of course one other major explanation why they suddenly need more money for each item / pack they're releasing despite almost nothing being in those packs. But I'll keep it friendly.
You forget a big thing there. The revenues arent counted for the company as STO revenues but as Cryptic revenues from the whole stable of titles. It did help them for example when NWO was extremely popular - a level of popularity STO never got to.
Also in the same light, you must consider that part of the increased expenses is developing a new game, which is pretty much on "crunch time" where it needs most manhours and money. I am talking for Magic Legends. Developing a new game is very costy nowadays.
That said, like you, I think they took a wrong approach on many things which may cost on long run. Both on monetization and on how low priority they give on the stability of the online service. Add to it they fake stats because they create downward spirals which obviously gives the wrong feedback. Lets take bridges for example:
They say they dont make new bridges cause their data shows not enough people buy them BUT the bridges out there:
1. Are old and most of STO fanbase been around for years so whoever wanted to buy them already bought them. The sales wont increase cause people wont make new accounts just to rebuy the (very) old ship bridges.
2. The quality in them is atrocious mostly due to things like npcs buried to floors, misplaced lightings, captains sits you cant sit anymore. You just can go look every deck on TOS bridge as an example. If someone buys one bridge pack with such quality, wouldnt he/she get discouraged to buy another?
So instead improve and fix them the solution was to stop making them and even if they make them for episodes, they dont make them for our ships anymore. The trend followed even the 200 euros worth ships from promo gambleboxes. So expensive ships dont even get a bridge to make the purchase somewhat more worth it.
I think in many ways they dont realise the gravity of some wrong decisions they make, especially their boss
True. I don't know other Cryptic games so I can't say much about that. This is as best an indication I can give.
What I'm observing (and what I hope others have been observing) is that they're designing less stuff and put premium prices on the (basically empty) packages. In this game, that is.
You may be right that STO players are basically footing the bill that comes with their other games that are in development.
Its been talked about how for a while the past several Promo Box ships have been ships that belonged in either the lobi store (Franklin, S31 Battlecruiser) or were more of a lockbox ship(The Jellyfish) and weren't really up to par. This also fits in with how there haven't been any new Lobi ships in over a year, the only lobi ships added to the game were T6 versions of older T5 ships, they stopped adding in "new" ships with every lockbox as had been previously done. In some cases like the Franklin and S31 BC, it would have filled in a hole that two lockboxes had for lobi ships, the Kelvin and Kelvin D7 lockbox, the S31 lockbox respectively.
Almost all Doff assignments can be obtained through the department heads.
This really isn't an argument. People have been saying for years they would love to have a functional holodeck in their ships to go to and load up missions, even if said missions were still instantly available via normal means like they are now, for the sake of immersion. DOFFing is no different.
They've been neglected for as long as I've been playing. New ones were designed for unique ships, but these were really just single rooms usually. That also no longer happens and full faction-specific interiors are also still not usable on these ships.
And I've been playing since the game went F2P, and all I've seen out of the general community is a complete disinterest in ship interiors from the majority of players, and a general push back on most ideas to make ship interiors "useful"(typically since they involve stripping functions out of other parts of the game to make ship interiors artificially more useful then they really are)
The problem is you have fallen into the trap of forum confirmation bias. Thinking that, just because a lot of people on the forums want something, that must mean most people who play the game do. This isn't the case, and doesn't apply to just STO either.
If you were to go on the Guild wars 2 forums you would think most of the playerbase wants more raids, given how often people complain about a lack of raids, yet Arena Net stopped making raids because something like 75-80% of the playerbase never played them, and so it wasn't financially viable to keep making them.
If you were to go on the Bethesda forums you would think people only play Bethesda games for mods, given who large the modding community seems to be. But, in reality, something like, again, 80% of the people who own the game never touch mods. Which is why Bethesda has been putting increasingly less effort into supporting the modding community.
Hell, even in STO, something like less then half of the PC user base ever actually used the Foundry. But with the way people talk about here you would assume everyone used it all the time.
The fact of the matter is things like raids, user generated content(mods/foundry missions), and Sims house building(ship interiors) are actually fairly unpopular things among most gamers, across all games. They are, and always have been, very niche subet matter, which is why most games never have, or have stopped, supporting them.
I mean as an example in SWTOR people complained for a long period of time that there were no new raids and demanded more, yes the raids had a smaller percentage of the playerbase doing them, but after around 2 or 3 years of no new raids or similar endgame content SWTOR lost a large chunk of its player base, the most loyal players who spent the most money were the ones who did raids, and many mmos can die without any good dedicated endgame content. Sure a small percentage did them, but that small percentage did far more than the large percentage that didn't.
Well, yes, if you force players to either obtain something now or spend ludicrous amounts of money for a single item later...
Except no one is being forced to do events, or get these items, either by playing, or paying. All of these items are 100% optional to playing, or even doing well, in the game.
The only thing that can force you to get them, paying or playing, is yourself.
If you take it that direction, playing is optional too
I mean as an example in SWTOR people complained for a long period of time that there were no new raids and demanded more, yes the raids had a smaller percentage of the playerbase doing them, but after around 2 or 3 years of no new raids or similar endgame content SWTOR lost a large chunk of its player base, the most loyal players who spent the most money were the ones who did raids, and many mmos can die without any good dedicated endgame content. Sure a small percentage did them, but that small percentage did far more than the large percentage that didn't.
SWTOR lost most of its playerbase because it received no new content updates, of any kind, for almost 3 years between the release of Knights of the Eternal Throne(December 2, 2016), to the release of Onslaught(October 22, 2019). The lack of raids, or similar "endgame content", had little to do with it.
Both GW2 and STO are frequently complained about to lack "endgame" content, yet manage to keep their playerbase through a steady stream of events, and story releases. SWTOR could have done the same.
STO has "endgame" content. Very much of it. All the STFs are considered endgame. Sure most of them are easy as hell, and ground combat is a complete joke on elite now thanks to the constant overpowered modules and gear they give out like candy, but its still endgame.
Swtor was designed from the ground up as a WoW clone(I don't know if the name of that mmo is still censored or not, there was a short period of time it was), and WoW's most dedicated players are the raiders. Similarly for Swtor it was the raiders. They were losing players before Knight of the Fallen Empire, and that update exacerbate the endgame content drought. No new raids, No new flashpoints(dungeons semi equivalent to STFs in STO), like one new pvp map(Though pvp in Swtor is a tiny minority), they made that expansion based purely on story content, and it did pretty terribly. It got even worse with Knight of the Eternal Throne, when not only was there still NO new endgame content, they removed the reason to even play ANY content with their terrible "Galactic Command System" which caused the game to hemorrage players very quickly. People constantly complained about the issues more and more and eventually months after Kotet, Bioware finally listened creating a new Raid, basically exterminating the Galactic command system, dubbing it Renown and making it even more pointless than before and adding in more flashpoints and the playerbase began to recover.
It showed that you need to listen to your players to an extent, even if it seems like a "small" amount, it can be indicative of a much larger issue that's brewing and ignoring it can end poorly.
I mean as an example in SWTOR people complained for a long period of time that there were no new raids and demanded more, yes the raids had a smaller percentage of the playerbase doing them, but after around 2 or 3 years of no new raids or similar endgame content SWTOR lost a large chunk of its player base, the most loyal players who spent the most money were the ones who did raids, and many mmos can die without any good dedicated endgame content. Sure a small percentage did them, but that small percentage did far more than the large percentage that didn't.
SWTOR lost most of its playerbase because it received no new content updates, of any kind, for almost 3 years between the release of Knights of the Eternal Throne(December 2, 2016), to the release of Onslaught(October 22, 2019). The lack of raids, or similar "endgame content", had little to do with it.
Both GW2 and STO are frequently complained about to lack "endgame" content, yet manage to keep their playerbase through a steady stream of events, and story releases. SWTOR could have done the same.
Do you play SWTOR? I play it as main game at the moment and its far more populated that this is. They had smaller content updates but not big enough during the time frame you mention. As an example they had Jedi Under Siege - Ossus. One could go through fast through that content though as in STO one can go fast the two episodes we get every time. What sets SWTOR apart is it has more fun repeatable loops and better polish and an online service that in the time I played I never felt much lag. Then again its not easy to find games with a worse lag than STO so yes, there is that.
The guy you quote is also right, most people do not bother with raids, they instead do heroic quests, flashpoints, re-run chapters on higher difficulty, decorate and/or RP at houses, conquest and a lower number PVPs. There is space combat too but its not too advanced. The avoidance of raids by the majority isnt only due to difficulty and elitism(which are existent), but also due to dedicated time needed. Most people who could raid when younger do not have the time with family and kids and jobs
Almost all Doff assignments can be obtained through the department heads.
This really isn't an argument. People have been saying for years they would love to have a functional holodeck in their ships to go to and load up missions, even if said missions were still instantly available via normal means like they are now, for the sake of immersion. DOFFing is no different.
They've been neglected for as long as I've been playing. New ones were designed for unique ships, but these were really just single rooms usually. That also no longer happens and full faction-specific interiors are also still not usable on these ships.
And I've been playing since the game went F2P, and all I've seen out of the general community is a complete disinterest in ship interiors from the majority of players, and a general push back on most ideas to make ship interiors "useful"(typically since they involve stripping functions out of other parts of the game to make ship interiors artificially more useful then they really are)
The problem is you have fallen into the trap of forum confirmation bias. Thinking that, just because a lot of people on the forums want something, that must mean most people who play the game do. This isn't the case, and doesn't apply to just STO either.
If you were to go on the Guild wars 2 forums you would think most of the playerbase wants more raids, given how often people complain about a lack of raids, yet Arena Net stopped making raids because something like 75-80% of the playerbase never played them, and so it wasn't financially viable to keep making them.
If you were to go on the Bethesda forums you would think people only play Bethesda games for mods, given who large the modding community seems to be. But, in reality, something like, again, 80% of the people who own the game never touch mods. Which is why Bethesda has been putting increasingly less effort into supporting the modding community.
Hell, even in STO, something like less then half of the PC user base ever actually used the Foundry. But with the way people talk about here you would assume everyone used it all the time.
The fact of the matter is things like raids, user generated content(mods/foundry missions), and Sims house building(ship interiors) are actually fairly unpopular things among most gamers, across all games. They are, and always have been, very niche subet matter, which is why most games never have, or have stopped, supporting them.
Yes, Doffing is gameplay. But most people don't play this game because they love Doffing.
The disinterestedness stems from the fact that no true purpose was ever found for interiors. Doffing doesn't require an interior and I doubt many people still use interiors for that as the most rewarding assignments are found elsewhere.
I don't need a forum to determine these things so I'll just ignore the rest of your post that also seems to be entirely built on assumptions.
Anyway, whether bridges would be interesting to players or not, isn't the point here.
The point was that bridges are just another example of how less effort is put into ship design, yet prices are raised on average for the ship that are still designed.
That, and how monetisation of these ever more expensive ships seems to be more important than assuring some quality of underused parts of the game.
STO has "endgame" content. Very much of it. All the STFs are considered endgame. Sure most of them are easy as hell, and ground combat is a complete joke on elite now thanks to the constant overpowered modules and gear they give out like candy, but its still endgame.
Sure, and Guild Wars 2 has 8 dungeons, like 30 fractals, 6 raid wings, and I think 10 strike missions, and people complain about a "lack" of endgame content there because they expect devs to put out this sort of content at the same pace as they do story content. Even though thats not feasible.
The "dedication" of the player base really doesn't mean anything since that portion of the playerbase doesn't typically account for much, and as such, game devs generally don't build the game for them. I know Cryptic has talked about how the average STO player plays for like 2 hours total, over the course of 3 days a week. And thats who most of the content is targeted toward.
It showed that you need to listen to your players to an extent, even if it seems like a "small" amount, it can be indicative of a much larger issue that's brewing and ignoring it can end poorly.
Sure, but listening to your players doesn't mean listening to your forums. Forums in general are often the worst place to go to for an opinion on a game, and this also applies beyond STO. There's been many articles where game devs explain why they don't go to their own game forums, and generally don't pay much attention to whats going on there. Regardless of what anyone on the forums say one way or another, the most non-biased metric on what people want is always the hard in-game data on what people are playing, or what people are not playing, or getting hung up on.
Even if you don't agree with many of the things Cryptic has done recently, it is very obvious that they are listening to the players. The number of updates that fix many of the game's biggest QoL issues we have gotten in the last two years don't come from nowhere.
(emphasis added)
You can keep pretending that the things people mention here (criticism regarding this decision, event fatigue, visual spam and so on, which are all 'brewing and ignored' issues) is just the opinion of a select group of Forumites, but that is not true.
It is noticeable in the game. People are complaining on other social media. Even if you want to focus on the forum: the most ardent players on here are even getting tired of at least some of the mentioned things.
Or did you see a lot of praise for the visual spam, this decision and the announcement of yet another event to bridge the gap between two other ones?
Regarding the game metrics: those don't say a thing. Yes, it tells them how many people are active. But it doesn't say a thing about actual player experience and level of enjoyment. No actual human being enjoys repeating the same tasks, working through a dozen different clicky systems or doing what basically boils down to managing something.
I played it a bit when it went free to play. Dropped it because it had one of the worst, most restrictive, F2P systems Ive seen in a western MMO. That and there wasn't much to do, the characters were dull, the animations were like Mass Effect Androemda levels bad, all the VA sounded like the generic guys STO get for its low importance NPCs, with none of the higher quality VA we have in STO from the actors.
It was a post Dragon Age: Origins Bioware game, generally awful.
Ok from your answers I am sure you didnt play, more like heard from someone and you added a bit of spice. VA on SWTOR is far more clear and natural in SWTOR and approaches ESO levels. NPCs had far more backstory and interaction options and a number become permanent or temporary companions. In most cases what you choose as dialogue option does matter and has a result unlike STO where it is often flavor. The F2P system was a non-ending trial years ago but changed heavily a year ago. Animations, especially on ground on STO are clunky and cant compare with many games - which is ok since ground is secondary and we got to understand its a 10 year old game but to accept is different than lieing to our self like you do there.
An easy no content way STO can improve is simply polishing it - its among the least polished games among those with over 10k fanbase and that can change over time. No I dont say its easy, but I would prefer them slow content, fix bugs, polish animations and visual bugs etc. Lets not forget old dominion arc voice cutscenes are still broken with 2 voice playing when the Vorta and the Cardassian npc changed to match the newer arcs - its been removed from main log since ages.
Either way all we discuss are too much off topic even if having some connection to how they chose to market ships lately, so to the matter at hand, I am sure their finances are problematic cause they knew people would react. We arent underestimating their intelligence - my guess is they had to do it as last resort, but often panic is a bad advisor and I think they do more damage than solving their financial problems with these moves
The problem is you have fallen into the trap of forum confirmation bias. Thinking that, just because a lot of people on the forums want something, that must mean most people who play the game do. This isn't the case, and doesn't apply to just STO either.
If you were to go on the Guild wars 2 forums you would think most of the playerbase wants more raids, given how often people complain about a lack of raids, yet Arena Net stopped making raids because something like 75-80% of the playerbase never played them, and so it wasn't financially viable to keep making them.
If you were to go on the Bethesda forums you would think people only play Bethesda games for mods, given who large the modding community seems to be. But, in reality, something like, again, 80% of the people who own the game never touch mods. Which is why Bethesda has been putting increasingly less effort into supporting the modding community.
Hell, even in STO, something like less then half of the PC user base ever actually used the Foundry. But with the way people talk about here you would assume everyone used it all the time.
The fact of the matter is things like raids, user generated content(mods/foundry missions), and Sims house building(ship interiors) are actually fairly unpopular things among most gamers, across all games. They are, and always have been, very niche subet matter, which is why most games never have, or have stopped, supporting them.
I don't think engagement with a single content even with in game numbers, should be taken at face value. Especially in highly social games like MMOs. Even though I never engaged in raiding in EQ. The end game existing and people talking about how awesome it was what kept a rather casual player like me playing for years longer then I would otherwise.
I can only speak for my experience, but even if I never do endgame in games like these. Community is important, that means even top end players are important in driving engagement with at least a portion of its population. The same thing goes with mods, continued engagement with the most dedicated fans has influenced me to revisit skyrim more often then I would without mods existing even if I don't play them myself. I believe looking at numbers alone and then drawing conclusions based on them without looking at the bigger picture social significance, is not very objective or representative of human behavior.
Either way all we discuss are too much off topic even if having some connection to how they chose to market ships lately, so to the matter at hand, I am sure their finances are problematic cause they knew people would react. We arent underestimating their intelligence - my guess is they had to do it as last resort, but often panic is a bad advisor and I think they do more damage than solving their financial problems with these moves
Given that everything we have heard from Cryptic is that the Discovery content has broken records of even Victory is Life, and that the last two years have been STO's best, I doubt their finances are in a panic.
The fact that we have gotten more missions, more TFOs, more patrols, more revamps to old content, and more new big system updates, as well as several new devs being hired, in these last two years then we did in the years before it would suggest so as well. A game thats hurting financially wouldn't be spending money doing something like the Year of Klingon revamp.
I would suspect they did it either due to some directive from CBS, or they just thought people wouldn't care.
While steam cant give you data for entire playerbase it can show you trends:
Also keep in mind that its a multi-game company and they had to manage developments costs(and still have - its on beta) of Magic Legends so a lot of the profit of the other games was funneled into development costs there
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
Steam is really only 1/3 of the playerbase at best. And that's just on PC. There are people who do use ARC, and others who still use the stand alone launcher.
I think that's why steam charts are generally disregarded, because it doesn't provide a FULL picture. Some people have tried to use Steam charts as proof positive the game is dying, only to be proven wrong. Hell... I think citing steam charts as the end all answer to things started to become a problem that the mods had to crack down on for a while.
While you're right and it can show some trends, you only see trends through steam alone. Its like trying to say that the forums represent the entire playerbase when the truth is it only represents those who actually use the forums, probably a small percentage of players.
Steam is really only 1/3 of the playerbase at best. And that's just on PC. There are people who do use ARC, and others who still use the stand alone launcher.
I think that's why steam charts are generally disregarded, because it doesn't provide a FULL picture. Some people have tried to use Steam charts as proof positive the game is dying, only to be proven wrong. Hell... I think citing steam charts as the end all answer to things started to become a problem that the mods had to crack down on for a while.
While you're right and it can show some trends, you only see trends through steam alone. Its like trying to say that the forums represent the entire playerbase when the truth is it only represents those who actually use the forums, probably a small percentage of players.
You can understand if the game is on upwards or downwards trajectory though. For example you may see at some point in 2018 there was a big player surge and yes we had felt that ingame
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
Steam is really only 1/3 of the playerbase at best. And that's just on PC. There are people who do use ARC, and others who still use the stand alone launcher.
I think that's why steam charts are generally disregarded, because it doesn't provide a FULL picture. Some people have tried to use Steam charts as proof positive the game is dying, only to be proven wrong. Hell... I think citing steam charts as the end all answer to things started to become a problem that the mods had to crack down on for a while.
While you're right and it can show some trends, you only see trends through steam alone. Its like trying to say that the forums represent the entire playerbase when the truth is it only represents those who actually use the forums, probably a small percentage of players.
This argument gets brought up often. It somewhat misses the point. What really matters is not how big a part of the playerbase Steam-users represent, but how representative they are.
If there's like a 20% decline in Steam-users and they're representative of the average STO-player, then it doesn't matter that they're only 1/3 of total players. The very fact that they make up that rather big share, indicates that what happens amongst Steam-players will likely also be happening amongst the overall playerbase and that it's not limited to Steam-users.
Moreover, as noted, there is evidence from inside the game to corraborate possible declining Steam-users activity.
Or did you see a lot of praise for the visual spam,
No, on the other hand, Ive never actually seen anyone in-game complain about it. Most people just don't care.
Literally the exact same issue has been a "problem" on the Guild Wars 2 forums(if you think STO's visual spam is bad ohh boy) and ArenaNet has done literally nothing to fix it for years. So far its had zero appreciable effect on how many people play the game because its not actually an issue for the vast majority of people playing the game, and a problem only among the forum goers.
Heres what most large boss fights in GW 2 look like
this decision and the announcement of yet another event to bridge the gap between two other ones?
I recall seeing more complaints about there never being anything to do, and people asking for more events, before this constant event chain started then I have seen of people complaining about the constant events. Again, this is a huge forum confirmation bias. People in GW2 complains on the forums about constant events, or super long grindy achviements, but in-game the general reaction is what I tend to see in STO, most people are just glad to have a reason to log in for the 10-15 minutes a day it takes to do the TFO for the event.
No actual human being enjoys repeating the same tasks, working through a dozen different clicky systems or doing what basically boils down to managing something.
And yet MMOs have been based around such tasks for over a decade, and succeed in the process.
How many times do I have to repeat that other games not doing anything about serious issues isn't an excuse for this game not to do it? This is not an argument, it's an excuse.
I have no idea what this Guild Wars is. Is it also based on a television series that's rather famous for its tranquil (some would say archaic) sets and presentation of events?
but in-game the general reaction is what I tend to see in STO, most people are just glad to have a reason to log in for the 10-15 minutes a day it takes to do the TFO for the event.
Most people don't tread this game like a job, nor do they want to.
Also, I'm seeing the opposite. Most of the most enthusiastic players in our fleet have left long ago because (amongst other things) they grew tired of the constant expectations to log on daily and go from one event to the other.
And yet MMOs have been based around such tasks for over a decade, and succeed in the process.
Once again you're replying to one specific sentence while ignoring the point.
What I said was:
Regarding the game metrics: those don't say a thing. Yes, it tells them how many people are active. But it doesn't say a thing about actual player experience and level of enjoyment. No actual human being enjoys repeating the same tasks, working through a dozen different clicky systems or doing what basically boils down to managing something.
The fact that people are doing it, doesn't mean they enjoy the task itself. Just like people go to work, not because they necessarily enjoy working, but because they like having money (or Zen, or dilithium, or a reward, or whatever). But a game shouldn't feel like a job.
That was the point: the fact that tasks get carried out, doesn't mean that players enjoy the game.
and they're representative of the average STO-player
They really aren't though, and thats the problem. Steam users are representative of Steam users, people who generally have 100+ games, and are always hopping between the big new releases/sales.
They aren't generally representative of the average STO player, or even the average MMO player, who are typically playing that one game in a more dedicated manner.
Well, judging by your posts, hopping between games isn't restricted to Steam players.
It's also a rather crude assumption. I have steam, yet I play STO through ARC and I play this game more than the other games I have there.
There was quite some opposition to ARC being (presumably and falsely) made mandatory and such.
and they're representative of the average STO-player
They really aren't though, and thats the problem. Steam users are representative of Steam users, people who generally have 100+ games, and are always hopping between the big new releases/sales.
They aren't generally representative of the average STO player, or even the average MMO player, who are typically playing that one game in a more dedicated manner.
I am a Steam player. But while i have many games i barely play any. STO is my primary (and at the moment, only one or two games i play in my steam library). So i am kinda of a outcast of the typical Steam player
Besides, you're once again ignoring the rest of the argument.
I'll just repeat it.
If there's like a 20% decline in Steam-users and they're representative of the average STO-player, then it doesn't matter that they're only 1/3 of total players. The very fact that they make up that rather big share, indicates that what happens amongst Steam-players will likely also be happening amongst the overall playerbase and that it's not limited to Steam-users.
A 20% drop or so doesn't just occur somewhere without reason. If that happens, it is far more likely to indicate a trend within the overall playerbase than it is reasonable to just say 'ah well, but that's just Steam'.
That's not an explanation as to why you see such a large drop. It is ignorance at best. Certainly when, once again, combined with all the other evidence one can see in the game itself. Just another example: even ISA and Crystalline Entity take noticeably longer to begin.
Since the other thread where I posted about this is gone, I'll mention this here: The Inquiry (and the Arbiter/Avenger) is based on concept art made by John Eaves for the original STO, so it predates the STO we play. Personally I'm more interested in this ship then I was in Arbiter/Avenger, but if I'm lucky enough to get an Inquiry, then I'll probably end up buying the others. (Not going to try and buy $200 worth of promo packs for it though.)
Also, someone in the other thread said that this is a promo ship because it's duel spec. It has both a Miracle Worker and Intel boff station. Not sure myself if it's true that duel spec ships are normally pomo pack ships.
OK, i think we are diverging away from the main topic of this thread. Which is the Inquiry class. Lets get back to discussing that shall we?
One thing that has disappointed me is some peoples vicious response to the ship being in Promo. OK, deliver your feedback that you dont like the method but good god what I have seen in the last few days. Case in point. One person tied the Inquiry class being in a Promo box as being a slap in the face to the medical professionals on the front line at the moment.
Note, while i am not a medical professional, I work in ICT working alongside our medical professionals. Sometimes being in the same frontline post as they are.
Now, I did raise my eyebrows about the Inquiry being Promo and did shake my head slightly. But the venom i am seeing from some, is not called for. Give your feedback you are not happy, angry yes. But be respectful about it please.
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Its been talked about how for a while the past several Promo Box ships have been ships that belonged in either the lobi store (Franklin, S31 Battlecruiser) or were more of a lockbox ship(The Jellyfish) and weren't really up to par. This also fits in with how there haven't been any new Lobi ships in over a year, the only lobi ships added to the game were T6 versions of older T5 ships, they stopped adding in "new" ships with every lockbox as had been previously done. In some cases like the Franklin and S31 BC, it would have filled in a hole that two lockboxes had for lobi ships, the Kelvin and Kelvin D7 lockbox, the S31 lockbox respectively.
I mean as an example in SWTOR people complained for a long period of time that there were no new raids and demanded more, yes the raids had a smaller percentage of the playerbase doing them, but after around 2 or 3 years of no new raids or similar endgame content SWTOR lost a large chunk of its player base, the most loyal players who spent the most money were the ones who did raids, and many mmos can die without any good dedicated endgame content. Sure a small percentage did them, but that small percentage did far more than the large percentage that didn't.
If you take it that direction, playing is optional too
STO has "endgame" content. Very much of it. All the STFs are considered endgame. Sure most of them are easy as hell, and ground combat is a complete joke on elite now thanks to the constant overpowered modules and gear they give out like candy, but its still endgame.
Swtor was designed from the ground up as a WoW clone(I don't know if the name of that mmo is still censored or not, there was a short period of time it was), and WoW's most dedicated players are the raiders. Similarly for Swtor it was the raiders. They were losing players before Knight of the Fallen Empire, and that update exacerbate the endgame content drought. No new raids, No new flashpoints(dungeons semi equivalent to STFs in STO), like one new pvp map(Though pvp in Swtor is a tiny minority), they made that expansion based purely on story content, and it did pretty terribly. It got even worse with Knight of the Eternal Throne, when not only was there still NO new endgame content, they removed the reason to even play ANY content with their terrible "Galactic Command System" which caused the game to hemorrage players very quickly. People constantly complained about the issues more and more and eventually months after Kotet, Bioware finally listened creating a new Raid, basically exterminating the Galactic command system, dubbing it Renown and making it even more pointless than before and adding in more flashpoints and the playerbase began to recover.
It showed that you need to listen to your players to an extent, even if it seems like a "small" amount, it can be indicative of a much larger issue that's brewing and ignoring it can end poorly.
Do you play SWTOR? I play it as main game at the moment and its far more populated that this is. They had smaller content updates but not big enough during the time frame you mention. As an example they had Jedi Under Siege - Ossus. One could go through fast through that content though as in STO one can go fast the two episodes we get every time. What sets SWTOR apart is it has more fun repeatable loops and better polish and an online service that in the time I played I never felt much lag. Then again its not easy to find games with a worse lag than STO so yes, there is that.
The guy you quote is also right, most people do not bother with raids, they instead do heroic quests, flashpoints, re-run chapters on higher difficulty, decorate and/or RP at houses, conquest and a lower number PVPs. There is space combat too but its not too advanced. The avoidance of raids by the majority isnt only due to difficulty and elitism(which are existent), but also due to dedicated time needed. Most people who could raid when younger do not have the time with family and kids and jobs
Yes, Doffing is gameplay. But most people don't play this game because they love Doffing.
The disinterestedness stems from the fact that no true purpose was ever found for interiors. Doffing doesn't require an interior and I doubt many people still use interiors for that as the most rewarding assignments are found elsewhere.
I don't need a forum to determine these things so I'll just ignore the rest of your post that also seems to be entirely built on assumptions.
The point was that bridges are just another example of how less effort is put into ship design, yet prices are raised on average for the ship that are still designed.
That, and how monetisation of these ever more expensive ships seems to be more important than assuring some quality of underused parts of the game.
(emphasis added)
You can keep pretending that the things people mention here (criticism regarding this decision, event fatigue, visual spam and so on, which are all 'brewing and ignored' issues) is just the opinion of a select group of Forumites, but that is not true.
It is noticeable in the game. People are complaining on other social media. Even if you want to focus on the forum: the most ardent players on here are even getting tired of at least some of the mentioned things.
Or did you see a lot of praise for the visual spam, this decision and the announcement of yet another event to bridge the gap between two other ones?
Regarding the game metrics: those don't say a thing. Yes, it tells them how many people are active. But it doesn't say a thing about actual player experience and level of enjoyment. No actual human being enjoys repeating the same tasks, working through a dozen different clicky systems or doing what basically boils down to managing something.
Ok from your answers I am sure you didnt play, more like heard from someone and you added a bit of spice. VA on SWTOR is far more clear and natural in SWTOR and approaches ESO levels. NPCs had far more backstory and interaction options and a number become permanent or temporary companions. In most cases what you choose as dialogue option does matter and has a result unlike STO where it is often flavor. The F2P system was a non-ending trial years ago but changed heavily a year ago. Animations, especially on ground on STO are clunky and cant compare with many games - which is ok since ground is secondary and we got to understand its a 10 year old game but to accept is different than lieing to our self like you do there.
An easy no content way STO can improve is simply polishing it - its among the least polished games among those with over 10k fanbase and that can change over time. No I dont say its easy, but I would prefer them slow content, fix bugs, polish animations and visual bugs etc. Lets not forget old dominion arc voice cutscenes are still broken with 2 voice playing when the Vorta and the Cardassian npc changed to match the newer arcs - its been removed from main log since ages.
Either way all we discuss are too much off topic even if having some connection to how they chose to market ships lately, so to the matter at hand, I am sure their finances are problematic cause they knew people would react. We arent underestimating their intelligence - my guess is they had to do it as last resort, but often panic is a bad advisor and I think they do more damage than solving their financial problems with these moves
I don't think engagement with a single content even with in game numbers, should be taken at face value. Especially in highly social games like MMOs. Even though I never engaged in raiding in EQ. The end game existing and people talking about how awesome it was what kept a rather casual player like me playing for years longer then I would otherwise.
I can only speak for my experience, but even if I never do endgame in games like these. Community is important, that means even top end players are important in driving engagement with at least a portion of its population. The same thing goes with mods, continued engagement with the most dedicated fans has influenced me to revisit skyrim more often then I would without mods existing even if I don't play them myself. I believe looking at numbers alone and then drawing conclusions based on them without looking at the bigger picture social significance, is not very objective or representative of human behavior.
While steam cant give you data for entire playerbase it can show you trends:
https://steamcharts.com/app/9900
Also keep in mind that its a multi-game company and they had to manage developments costs(and still have - its on beta) of Magic Legends so a lot of the profit of the other games was funneled into development costs there
I think that's why steam charts are generally disregarded, because it doesn't provide a FULL picture. Some people have tried to use Steam charts as proof positive the game is dying, only to be proven wrong. Hell... I think citing steam charts as the end all answer to things started to become a problem that the mods had to crack down on for a while.
While you're right and it can show some trends, you only see trends through steam alone. Its like trying to say that the forums represent the entire playerbase when the truth is it only represents those who actually use the forums, probably a small percentage of players.
You can understand if the game is on upwards or downwards trajectory though. For example you may see at some point in 2018 there was a big player surge and yes we had felt that ingame
Sounds familiar.
This argument gets brought up often. It somewhat misses the point. What really matters is not how big a part of the playerbase Steam-users represent, but how representative they are.
If there's like a 20% decline in Steam-users and they're representative of the average STO-player, then it doesn't matter that they're only 1/3 of total players. The very fact that they make up that rather big share, indicates that what happens amongst Steam-players will likely also be happening amongst the overall playerbase and that it's not limited to Steam-users.
Moreover, as noted, there is evidence from inside the game to corraborate possible declining Steam-users activity.
How many times do I have to repeat that other games not doing anything about serious issues isn't an excuse for this game not to do it? This is not an argument, it's an excuse.
I have no idea what this Guild Wars is. Is it also based on a television series that's rather famous for its tranquil (some would say archaic) sets and presentation of events?
Most people don't tread this game like a job, nor do they want to.
Also, I'm seeing the opposite. Most of the most enthusiastic players in our fleet have left long ago because (amongst other things) they grew tired of the constant expectations to log on daily and go from one event to the other.
Once again you're replying to one specific sentence while ignoring the point.
What I said was:
The fact that people are doing it, doesn't mean they enjoy the task itself. Just like people go to work, not because they necessarily enjoy working, but because they like having money (or Zen, or dilithium, or a reward, or whatever). But a game shouldn't feel like a job.
That was the point: the fact that tasks get carried out, doesn't mean that players enjoy the game.
Well, judging by your posts, hopping between games isn't restricted to Steam players.
It's also a rather crude assumption. I have steam, yet I play STO through ARC and I play this game more than the other games I have there.
There was quite some opposition to ARC being (presumably and falsely) made mandatory and such.
I am a Steam player. But while i have many games i barely play any. STO is my primary (and at the moment, only one or two games i play in my steam library). So i am kinda of a outcast of the typical Steam player
I'll just repeat it.
A 20% drop or so doesn't just occur somewhere without reason. If that happens, it is far more likely to indicate a trend within the overall playerbase than it is reasonable to just say 'ah well, but that's just Steam'.
That's not an explanation as to why you see such a large drop. It is ignorance at best. Certainly when, once again, combined with all the other evidence one can see in the game itself. Just another example: even ISA and Crystalline Entity take noticeably longer to begin.
Also, someone in the other thread said that this is a promo ship because it's duel spec. It has both a Miracle Worker and Intel boff station. Not sure myself if it's true that duel spec ships are normally pomo pack ships.
One thing that has disappointed me is some peoples vicious response to the ship being in Promo. OK, deliver your feedback that you dont like the method but good god what I have seen in the last few days. Case in point. One person tied the Inquiry class being in a Promo box as being a slap in the face to the medical professionals on the front line at the moment.
If you dont believe me, I present the following.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/imwgb2/april_heres_a_medical_pack_giveaway_because_we/
Note, while i am not a medical professional, I work in ICT working alongside our medical professionals. Sometimes being in the same frontline post as they are.
Now, I did raise my eyebrows about the Inquiry being Promo and did shake my head slightly. But the venom i am seeing from some, is not called for. Give your feedback you are not happy, angry yes. But be respectful about it please.