I tried to have fun with it, but I am completely earnest here. I... would... pay... for... it.
Every time I've thrown money at the game, it's been in response to a bug fix.
Oh, to be fair - any contact I've had with support has been on the up and up - no complaints. Being told I have to have cookies enabled to use the support on the website just makes me laugh.
Nah. In this case, the sarcasm is a welcome bit of levity.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,521Community Moderator
edited August 2021
The problem is that it didn't come across as levity, as shown by my response. It came across more trollish. If that's how it looked to me, odds are others would see it in a similar light as well, and may result in people reporting that post for mod review.
The main thing was putting emphesis on "making the game FUNCTIONAL" as if it is unplayable broken in some form, which some have used as a form of attack on the Devs.
The intent may have been to lighten the mood, but the delivery felt a bit more like an attack at worst, and being a troll at best.
I think anyone who enjoys the game would want more server stability or things to work better. I won't dispute that. But again... intent doesn't always translate well with text alone.
I know I have brought this up years ago, but there is still the option to increase the Fleet Credit payout for donating dilithium for fleet projects. The current ratio is 1:1, 1 Fleet Credit for every Refined Dilithium Ore donated but I still believe that people will be more inclined to donate dilithium if the return on their donation was worth more... say 3:1 or 5:1
Obviously, since dil can be converted to zen, and many things can be purchased with dilithium, the impact of this change will not be as "big", but it is one way to making a long-term change to an already existing dil-sink and make it more viable.
1 Fleet Credit per Refined Dilithium donated.
50 Fleet Credits per Fleet Mark donated.
250 Fleet Credits for a Common Doff donated.
In the long run, though, the solution to the problem is simply to limit the sources of dilthium in the game, thus making it worth more. Spamming us with Events with 25k dil payouts and another mass payout of 8k+ dil per day afterwards does nothing but contribute to an already escalating problem with the dilex and Cryptic loses their ability to "monetize" (their favorite word, mind you) because people will be less inclined to pay money when they can do weekly, bi-weekley, monthly, etc. event grinding and feel less of a need to pay actual money into the game as a result of al these sources of dilithium.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I don't think that's the solution at all. The problem isn't the supply of dilithium; it's a shortage of zen sellers, caused by a shortage of things that the zen sellers can spend dilithium on that they do not already have.
It's a combination of both. The reason they don't have anything to spend dilithium on is two fold, first because there aren't enough valuable items that cost dilithium, and second is the fact that supply is so high that what little there is they already have from just doing all these non stop events.
You're right on everything you said, but the Dilithium Supply is also WAY too high. It won't change though because Cryptic has shown that under no circumstances will they relent from this constant barrage of events. They continue to claim that they're so people have 'something to do' even though people are asking over and over for a break, even a short one.
Nothing you said is wrong, but Dilithium Supply is way too high. In the event that a potential Zen seller does need Dilithium for something, they more then likely already have it.
Kael will probably never see this but eh - maybe someone else will and like it - many ripples can make great waves after all.
SHIP UPGRADES
Spend Dil to upgrade a specific stat on a ship with diminishing returns on each attempt. Make the caps modest (e.g. Max 20-30% boost) but the diminishing returns leading to very large investment required to do so (possibly into millions to achieve). As it is per ship, it could be a near limitless sink and provides something useful for min/maxers. It also is a tangible reward for continuing to play the game. I know I change ships according to mood, so I'd be forever spending to upgrade various ships I prefer to use.
BOOSTS
Temporarily stat boosters. E.g. 10000 dil for 10% Beam damage boost for 24 hours. It then becomes another throw away for min/maxers. Although personally I'm not sure I'd use this one but it certainly is another sink.
The problem with the Phoenix packs is that making them permanently available was a mistake. When they were only around at certain times they created a noticeable drop in the dil:zen exchange rates because they caused a spike in demand for dilithium, by making them available all the time that effect goes away.
Now, hear me out. What does the game benefit the most from? People spending money to get keys to open lockboxes. Okay, but why not leave them as zen-store exclusives? Because it is of high value. People will trade copious amounts of dilithium to get zen. Zen then buys keys to get the new and shiny ships. But WHAT IF there was a Lockbox key weekend event? Buy as many keys as you want with dilithium for one weekend only.
But also leave keys on the zen store as well, so people can get them more easily as part of the key-ring bundle in the zen store, or 1, 5 and 10 packs in the dilithium store. This will both increase the value of dilithium to the playerbase and reduce the overall hoarding of dilithium and zen that tends to happen. I, myself would be more inclined to buy keys with surplus dilithium rather than zen because dilithium cannot buy the legendary bundles and account-unlockable ships.
I think adding some sort of fleet refiting system to the game allowing one to get alternate seating on existing ships, would be a great way to sink dilithium. Even more so if you could change the ships subtype. Say making a dreadnought, into a flightdeck cruiser or battlecruiser.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,521Community Moderator
I think adding some sort of fleet refiting system to the game allowing one to get alternate seating on existing ships, would be a great way to sink dilithium. Even more so if you could change the ships subtype. Say making a dreadnought, into a flightdeck cruiser or battlecruiser.
Would cut directly into Cryptic's income as one of their primary sources is selling ships. If people could refit existing ships to their personal playstyles, they'd never be able to sell any new ships.
I think adding some sort of fleet refiting system to the game allowing one to get alternate seating on existing ships, would be a great way to sink dilithium. Even more so if you could change the ships subtype. Say making a dreadnought, into a flightdeck cruiser or battlecruiser.
Would cut directly into Cryptic's income as one of their primary sources is selling ships. If people could refit existing ships to their personal playstyles, they'd never be able to sell any new ships.
They would be cryptic chosen seating and changing subtype. It wouldn't be that freeform. Also you could sell refit tokens with it as a zen tax, like fleet modules.
I think adding some sort of fleet refiting system to the game allowing one to get alternate seating on existing ships, would be a great way to sink dilithium. Even more so if you could change the ships subtype. Say making a dreadnought, into a flightdeck cruiser or battlecruiser.
Would cut directly into Cryptic's income as one of their primary sources is selling ships. If people could refit existing ships to their personal playstyles, they'd never be able to sell any new ships.
They would be cryptic chosen seating and changing subtype. It wouldn't be that freeform. Also you could sell refit tokens with it as a zen tax, like fleet modules.
Yes, but if you can change a ship that you already have into being "perfect" for whatever build you want... then you have no reason to ever buy another ship unless you need the trait or the console off of it.
There's a reason that people have been asking for this since the game launched, and there's also a reason that it will never ever happen.
I disagree somewhat as it wouldn't be free form say you have lt com command seating well now you can with the new zen charged refit token and a bunch of dilithium, make it Lt. com intel or temporal. Your ships base stats would stay about the same unless they allowed your ship to change subtypes then they would have chosen the alternate stats, which would likely cost more tokens and dilithium.
Many people buy ships or even gamble for ships just for their traits alone it's been that way since Teir 6 ships have come.
If it were design your ship and trait, yah that would cut into their profits. I think this would just be a way for people to get the look of ship they want with a slightly better layout to the style of play they want.
But to say people don't buy ships based on looks and nostalgia only, or a new skin for their ship of choose, would be wrong.
Now, hear me out. What does the game benefit the most from? People spending money to get keys to open lockboxes. Okay, but why not leave them as zen-store exclusives? Because it is of high value. People will trade copious amounts of dilithium to get zen. Zen then buys keys to get the new and shiny ships. But WHAT IF there was a Lockbox key weekend event? Buy as many keys as you want with dilithium for one weekend only.
But also leave keys on the zen store as well, so people can get them more easily as part of the key-ring bundle in the zen store, or 1, 5 and 10 packs in the dilithium store. This will both increase the value of dilithium to the playerbase and reduce the overall hoarding of dilithium and zen that tends to happen. I, myself would be more inclined to buy keys with surplus dilithium rather than zen because dilithium cannot buy the legendary bundles and account-unlockable ships.
Lockbox contents aren't bound. All this idea would encourage is the creation of lots of dilithium farmer accounts, which would *INCREASE* the supply of dilithium, completely undermining any increase in demand for dilithium.
In other words, how 'bout no.
The dil keys can be bound tho. We already have those in the game.
That changes nothing. If the contents aren't bound, they can farmed en mass and sold/traded. The only way to stop loot farming is to stop what gets farmed from *leaving* the account farming it in the first place. It's the same reason why you can only trade dilithium for zen, and almost nothing you can buy with dilithium can be traded. Whatever dilithium sinks they come up with, the only way it works is if the dilithium being spent is tied to the account of captain.
I wonder if phoenix box rewards became tradable would this increase dilithium demand ?
It would be a net negative for the game. Unless you want to encourage sweat-farmer accounts to swoop in.
You know there is already a function ingame where lockbox contents obtained through 'tainted' (I. E, keys bought with zen from an account that is under review for having just recently purchased it, usually from non-ARC sources) keys becomes bound to the account - that same function can just be applied to dilithium-purchased keys.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Pay a million dilithium, and get server priority for a week.
Your BOFF's will activate on the first try, every time!
Fleet holdings will load instantly!
Doff screens will populate instantly!
Episodes, queues, and patrols will load instantly!
The exchange will be lightning fast - descriptions will be accurate right away, and the "searching..." bug won't appear no matter how many times you switch screens! You can search as many times as you want with no waiting!
No rubber banding!
Your batteries and devices won't fall off your ship!
Your traits won't run away!
All cut scenes and dialog prompts will automatically be disabled!
Your ship will only decloak if you tell it to!
All episodes will complete on the FIRST try!
If you're stuck, and type "/stuck", it will actually move you to a valid location!
If an admiralty mission has a 99% success rate, it will ONLY fail 1% of the time!
Hitting an attack key will actually auto target an enemy in your field of vision!
Auto attack will select a target in the largest cluster of enemies (not the single guy on the periphery)!
Clicking on a small target that is in front of a much larger one will actually select that target!
If you craft a weapon, you can CHOOSE the traits! (Hmm, this might be a great dil standalone...)
If you click on the help button, a kind and caring individual will immediately help you with your problems regardless of whether you have cookies enabled on your browser!
That's right! For a mere 1 million dilithium, you can make the game more fun... to... play!
Well, re-engineering does have a dilithium cost...
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,521Community Moderator
Yea... it won't happen. Being able to "glamor" your ship to look like another ship is a whole other can of worms that also would lead to cutting into the income stream. We already have a way to customize our ships, at least with parts related to each ship's respective lines. Being able to make a Defiant look like a Connie would be all kinds of bad. Not only would it confuse players as to what they're either fighting against or flying alongside, it would cause all kinds of chaos even for the people who update the wiki at the very least.
Not only that... it would mean you could make your favorite layout ship look like your favorite design ship. And no one would buy any new ships, thus harming income for the game.
While there's already a means to kinda do this in the form of holoemitters, which are consumable and temporary, there's only a few ships you can holo cloak into. If you expand it to pretty much the entire roster, even if you throw in some restrictions... you're going to have people raising hell over "well if we can holo cloak into X, why can't we holo cloak into Y?"
Also... can you imagine someone using this on a Pilot Escort to make it look like a Vaadwaur Juggernaught or something equally as big? CHAOS REIGNS!
I think adding some sort of fleet refiting system to the game allowing one to get alternate seating on existing ships, would be a great way to sink dilithium. Even more so if you could change the ships subtype. Say making a dreadnought, into a flightdeck cruiser or battlecruiser.
Would cut directly into Cryptic's income as one of their primary sources is selling ships. If people could refit existing ships to their personal playstyles, they'd never be able to sell any new ships.
They would be cryptic chosen seating and changing subtype. It wouldn't be that freeform. Also you could sell refit tokens with it as a zen tax, like fleet modules.
Yes, but if you can change a ship that you already have into being "perfect" for whatever build you want... then you have no reason to ever buy another ship unless you need the trait or the console off of it.
There's a reason that people have been asking for this since the game launched, and there's also a reason that it will never ever happen.
I've kind of done that though on 9/10 characters. Have been using the same ship for years for all of them and all are very different and what I want them to be. The last character will get the disco during the next event. I haven't bought a ship since the temporal dreadnoughts came out. Eh, I'm a miser though so maybe not a fair measure.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
You come off as someone very creative! Still I don't blame Cryptic for wanting to differentiate between various ships, and you're still limited by any specialist abilities of that ship itself.
So I understand why Cryptic wants to differentiate between different offerings. My only Constructive Criticism is that as I stated in another thread, if they enhanced more of the older T5 Consoles on Legendary Ships, with a 1-2 smaller passive abilities as well many be more included to use those consoles...
You come off as someone very creative! Still I don't blame Cryptic for wanting to differentiate between various ships, and you're still limited by any specialist abilities of that ship itself.
So I understand why Cryptic wants to differentiate between different offerings. My only Constructive Criticism is that as I stated in another thread, if they enhanced more of the older T5 Consoles on Legendary Ships, with a 1-2 smaller passive abilities as well many be more included to use those consoles...
Food for thought, hope they consider that!
I had insane thought today, just update the legendary ships to have T5 and less consoles baked in... I know this will never happen, even though I think it would hardly make any of them OP. I'd pay a lot of dilithium for this and or enhanced versions of these consoles. The dilithium store isn't used enough, so it be great place for them.
I also think some sort of dilithium exchange to customize boff space and ground traits, would be nice. Maybe you could unlock the traits for customizationby burning boffs like you do for manuals.
If you craft a weapon, you can CHOOSE the traits! (Hmm, this might be a great dil standalone...)
Well, re-engineering does have a dilithium cost...
Well, you can choose *some* traits with re-engineering. Still gotta go to R&D or the exchange for [over], [pen], [rapid], etc. I see being able to pay dilithium to just make those happen being fairly beneficial. I think they intended higher dilithium costs when they made the R&D system, but we all just bypass it by crafting mk ii's all day long. If I can choose to have [over] on my beam, then I either do it at mk ii and pay the dil to upgrade, or do it at higher level and pay the dil to craft it. The only exception may be the special stuff like omni's - they would probably have to be exempt since a lot of dilithium would actually be saved by crafting fewer of them.
In any case, higher quality of life with no downside seems like a win.
Comments
Every time I've thrown money at the game, it's been in response to a bug fix.
Oh, to be fair - any contact I've had with support has been on the up and up - no complaints. Being told I have to have cookies enabled to use the support on the website just makes me laugh.
The main thing was putting emphesis on "making the game FUNCTIONAL" as if it is unplayable broken in some form, which some have used as a form of attack on the Devs.
The intent may have been to lighten the mood, but the delivery felt a bit more like an attack at worst, and being a troll at best.
I think anyone who enjoys the game would want more server stability or things to work better. I won't dispute that. But again... intent doesn't always translate well with text alone.
Believe it or not they've been here longer than you, but just haven't posted as much
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Thanks for a good laugh. I really enjoyed the humor in your post
Obviously, since dil can be converted to zen, and many things can be purchased with dilithium, the impact of this change will not be as "big", but it is one way to making a long-term change to an already existing dil-sink and make it more viable.
1 Fleet Credit per Refined Dilithium donated.
50 Fleet Credits per Fleet Mark donated.
250 Fleet Credits for a Common Doff donated.
In the long run, though, the solution to the problem is simply to limit the sources of dilthium in the game, thus making it worth more. Spamming us with Events with 25k dil payouts and another mass payout of 8k+ dil per day afterwards does nothing but contribute to an already escalating problem with the dilex and Cryptic loses their ability to "monetize" (their favorite word, mind you) because people will be less inclined to pay money when they can do weekly, bi-weekley, monthly, etc. event grinding and feel less of a need to pay actual money into the game as a result of al these sources of dilithium.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
It's a combination of both. The reason they don't have anything to spend dilithium on is two fold, first because there aren't enough valuable items that cost dilithium, and second is the fact that supply is so high that what little there is they already have from just doing all these non stop events.
You're right on everything you said, but the Dilithium Supply is also WAY too high. It won't change though because Cryptic has shown that under no circumstances will they relent from this constant barrage of events. They continue to claim that they're so people have 'something to do' even though people are asking over and over for a break, even a short one.
Nothing you said is wrong, but Dilithium Supply is way too high. In the event that a potential Zen seller does need Dilithium for something, they more then likely already have it.
SHIP UPGRADES
Spend Dil to upgrade a specific stat on a ship with diminishing returns on each attempt. Make the caps modest (e.g. Max 20-30% boost) but the diminishing returns leading to very large investment required to do so (possibly into millions to achieve). As it is per ship, it could be a near limitless sink and provides something useful for min/maxers. It also is a tangible reward for continuing to play the game. I know I change ships according to mood, so I'd be forever spending to upgrade various ships I prefer to use.
BOOSTS
Temporarily stat boosters. E.g. 10000 dil for 10% Beam damage boost for 24 hours. It then becomes another throw away for min/maxers. Although personally I'm not sure I'd use this one but it certainly is another sink.
Now, hear me out. What does the game benefit the most from? People spending money to get keys to open lockboxes. Okay, but why not leave them as zen-store exclusives? Because it is of high value. People will trade copious amounts of dilithium to get zen. Zen then buys keys to get the new and shiny ships. But WHAT IF there was a Lockbox key weekend event? Buy as many keys as you want with dilithium for one weekend only.
You could package them as bundles:
1 key = 65,000 dilithium
5 keys = 280,000 dilithium
10 keys = 550,000 dilithium
But also leave keys on the zen store as well, so people can get them more easily as part of the key-ring bundle in the zen store, or 1, 5 and 10 packs in the dilithium store. This will both increase the value of dilithium to the playerbase and reduce the overall hoarding of dilithium and zen that tends to happen. I, myself would be more inclined to buy keys with surplus dilithium rather than zen because dilithium cannot buy the legendary bundles and account-unlockable ships.
I fairly sure sto already has those. But maybe your right.
Would cut directly into Cryptic's income as one of their primary sources is selling ships. If people could refit existing ships to their personal playstyles, they'd never be able to sell any new ships.
I disagree somewhat as it wouldn't be free form say you have lt com command seating well now you can with the new zen charged refit token and a bunch of dilithium, make it Lt. com intel or temporal. Your ships base stats would stay about the same unless they allowed your ship to change subtypes then they would have chosen the alternate stats, which would likely cost more tokens and dilithium.
Many people buy ships or even gamble for ships just for their traits alone it's been that way since Teir 6 ships have come.
If it were design your ship and trait, yah that would cut into their profits. I think this would just be a way for people to get the look of ship they want with a slightly better layout to the style of play they want.
But to say people don't buy ships based on looks and nostalgia only, or a new skin for their ship of choose, would be wrong.
You know there is already a function ingame where lockbox contents obtained through 'tainted' (I. E, keys bought with zen from an account that is under review for having just recently purchased it, usually from non-ARC sources) keys becomes bound to the account - that same function can just be applied to dilithium-purchased keys.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Lock Box Keys
Not only that... it would mean you could make your favorite layout ship look like your favorite design ship. And no one would buy any new ships, thus harming income for the game.
While there's already a means to kinda do this in the form of holoemitters, which are consumable and temporary, there's only a few ships you can holo cloak into. If you expand it to pretty much the entire roster, even if you throw in some restrictions... you're going to have people raising hell over "well if we can holo cloak into X, why can't we holo cloak into Y?"
Also... can you imagine someone using this on a Pilot Escort to make it look like a Vaadwaur Juggernaught or something equally as big? CHAOS REIGNS!
I've kind of done that though on 9/10 characters. Have been using the same ship for years for all of them and all are very different and what I want them to be. The last character will get the disco during the next event. I haven't bought a ship since the temporal dreadnoughts came out. Eh, I'm a miser though so maybe not a fair measure.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
So I understand why Cryptic wants to differentiate between different offerings. My only Constructive Criticism is that as I stated in another thread, if they enhanced more of the older T5 Consoles on Legendary Ships, with a 1-2 smaller passive abilities as well many be more included to use those consoles...
Food for thought, hope they consider that!
I also think some sort of dilithium exchange to customize boff space and ground traits, would be nice. Maybe you could unlock the traits for customizationby burning boffs like you do for manuals.
Well, you can choose *some* traits with re-engineering. Still gotta go to R&D or the exchange for [over], [pen], [rapid], etc. I see being able to pay dilithium to just make those happen being fairly beneficial. I think they intended higher dilithium costs when they made the R&D system, but we all just bypass it by crafting mk ii's all day long. If I can choose to have [over] on my beam, then I either do it at mk ii and pay the dil to upgrade, or do it at higher level and pay the dil to craft it. The only exception may be the special stuff like omni's - they would probably have to be exempt since a lot of dilithium would actually be saved by crafting fewer of them.
In any case, higher quality of life with no downside seems like a win.
I like this idea.