"The galaxy continues to turn, the Khitomer Alliance endures challenge after challenge, and in the adversity grows stronger than any had dared dream. Learning from each other has accelerated development everywhere, but not all development is technology. Doctrine is often just as important, advances in training and new ways of thinking provide the changes we need to endure turbulent times. The new Elite Captain training program has likewise expanded to include promising Elite Bridge Officer candidates. Taught by the greatest minds of the Alliance, Elite Bridge Officers are able to leverage gear and traits from peoples across the quadrant, breaking free from the limiting training of a single culture and a single people. Working together and learning from one another, these disparate groups are becoming something far more than they ever were apart.
You can take advantage of this, too, Captains, with the Elite Bridge Officer Boost token. Purchase one of these tokens to upgrade one of the Bridge Officers on your account, similar to the Elite Captain Upgrades for Captains. Applying a token to your Bridge Officer will instantly add:
Upgrade to Ultra Rare, upgrading all Inherent Traits to maximum rank for their respective types
Learn all standard Bridge Officer abilities (see the Upgrade Token details for a complete list)
1 Kit Frame Slot
1 Person Ground Trait Slot
1 Device Slot
The Elite Bridge Officer Upgrade Token retails for 500 Zen for a single token, or you can buy a bundle of four for 1200 Zen. However! From 8 AM on 9/13 to 10 AM on 9/19, both the bundle of four and the single tokens will be 20% off! Grab them at a discount while you can!"
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11525783-elite-bridge-officer-training!
Comments
I'm not really interested. I might buy a single one if I can't think of anything else to spend my Zen on, to upgrade a single first officer that I later made into a captain - but that'll probably be it.
I don't see this becoming a very popular thing at these prices and given how little use there is for Boffs on the ground - where most of the bonuses will apply to.
I am interested in this. Finally, a way to use all of the kits that each toon has accumulated over the years.
I imagine my primary toons will do this for min 2 boffs each.
Closer? we have been there for years xD
Truth... this seems like something that should have been a dilithium purchase instead of a zen purchase. BOFFs are 15x more common than characters (and probably more, considering my main has 32). Thats a ton of potential to drain some dilithium.
Its somewhat annoying, as far as dilithium goes, that there aren't things that I'm interested in buying with it... the experimental ship upgrades, captain upgrades, and now boff upgrades would have been incredible dilithium sinks, and still could be. Not every new feature needs to be or should be automatically put in the cash shop, and only the cash shop.
Nah since there is no competition I don't see a pay to win here. All I see is a useless token where some of the DPS guys might get hard for the extra crit stuff from the Boffs but lets be honest here. I can play everything on elite the way these guys are now why would I go the extra 1200 or more zen to make them stronger when I alone can wipe these groups lol.
With regards to pay to win comments, there is no such thing as pay to win in STO. As another has already pointed out, there is no competition thus nothing to win. You don't get anything extra for having the top DPS in a TFO, and you're not winning anything if you have top DPS in a TFO either. Only thing you can "win" is potential bragging rights that you obliterated some NPCs in a video game and posted something on a 3rd party leader board. Congrats if that's what you enjoy but seriously, if these things are making or breaking people, you have much bigger issues to worry about.
Pay to win is something like what EA wanted to with the first modern Battlefront game. In that game there actually is competition and things to be won against other people. If you wanted the best of the best gear initially you had to buy lootboxes as you couldn't get them any other way unless you wanted to spend 40+ literal years unlocking everything. THAT is pay to win. With STO you're paying to skip grind it takes to unlock things by converting dilithium to zen. No pay to win at all.
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But no one "needs" these. Even for the 10 remaining PVP players, is there any PVP that includes your boffs?
You're free to come up with your own definitions, and you might even be able to find an UrbanDictionary entry or blog that agrees with you.
We're free to disagree with you.
There is nothing to "win" in STO outside of in the remaining sliver of PVP.
There is no content that is walled off without payment, unlike those mobile games that use oil, energy, quatloos, whatever to limit access to content or restrict play time unless you spend cash. You can play all STO content 24x7x365 for free.
And "sell *POWER*"? Power to do what, pray tell? How is someone with four Elite BOffs "superior" to me with my absolute freebie character over here? I'm not gonna PvP, so that's out. What other "superiority" is available?
Yeah, I'm thinking the same. Contrary to captain upgrade tokens, this seems to be a thing they could potentially offer as rewards for a while. Players who wouldn't buy them with Zen, might just be interested enough to collect them by participating in some event.
It's a lot of things...but pay to win it's not.
ok... first off... if that is your definition of Pay to Win... that basically says anything but a pure charity is pay to win.
Second... you're actually wrong about FF14. What made that game have to end the world and start over was not monetization. It was the fact that it literally PUNISHED you for playing too long because there was a phase in Japan where playing games a long time was looked down upon, and thus the game was built around encouraging you not to play all day. Diminishing returns and inexperience with MMOs or something like that was what caused the Umbral Calamity. Not P2W. It was literally everything BUT P2W that brought FF14 1.0 down.
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Pay to win by definition implies that there exists an item or items that are locked behind a paywall, that you can't get any other way that allow you a significant advantage over other people you're competing against in game. Meaning there are two components to this. First being you can't get these items any other way than to pay for them. Second being that you're actively in competition with other people to win some kind of objective or match.
For the first component, there is nothing in this game with the exception of the lifetime ships that you can't earn through free to play means. There are less than 10 ships I don't own in this game. Some of them I have ground out dilithium for, some I paid to get. Everything I have now a person starting tomorrow could eventually have themselves by flipping dilithium to zen. The items are gated behind either investing your time or some cash to get it early. You can either grind it out and flip dilithium to zen, or you can use a credit card and get it early.
For the second component, you're not competing against anyone in the game. This isn't Call of Duty multiplayer where there are clearly defined winners and losers in a match. PVP in this game is non-existent outside of voluntary encounters players themselves setup. Thus no official competition save in their own circles. Even the so called DPS race is not an official part of the game and is done through 3rd party leaderboards that have no bearing on the game at all. The only thing you're "winning" are bragging rights at best. So I will ask, who are you competing against and what are you winning in STO? Be specific.
STO at best is pay to skip the grind. If you want true pay to win, go play modern Call of Duty games and some of the Star Trek Mobile games. Those are where your true pay to win is.
As to the "buying power" argument. You have just as much buying power as anyone else in this game. You can either grind out dilithium and flip to zen, or you can use a credit card. You are on an equal playing field with everyone else. People having more free income than you may to make credit card purchases doesn't make it pay to win, nor does the dilithium exchange being bogged down make it pay to win either.
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However,
Pay to Curb-stomp things faster on the ground, this is.
Having said that, though, getting through ground content with these Elite Boff tokens could be seen as a "win".
It all comes down to perception.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I think you mean 'Pay-For-Instant-Gratification' perhaps!
Yes 'buying power' helps, and you have the choice of whether to do so instantly with real money or play the long game and do it via collected in-game resources. Or choose not to buy it at all. All three options are perfectly viable for an enjoyable experience.
Agreed 100%!
Also, discussing/advising why/how this should be for dil instead of zen (and for how much dil), and how this would fix the broken dil exchange would be a much more useful dialogue than quibbling over definitions of PTW and escalating it into flame wars.
Pricing it at a quarter million dil would be the same as 500 Zen (at max exchange rates), but would also actually get the dil exchange moving again. Win/win (and the first person to say Pay-to-Win/Pay-to-Win wins a free destabilized plasma torpedo up their impule engine!)
Just my 2 ... dil.
As for the pay to win aspect, i wouldn't have thought that, but i suppose it's entirely valid in regards to certain boffs like those with the Romulan operative trait. Going from NO operatives to having the full seating of ULTRA RARE operatives with the superior version of the currently available version of said trait... Yeah, it might be pay to win but that is a VERY specific instance. And even that VERY specific instance is all the more specific when it would only really apply to PvP. Are there any other Boff traits that really sway things so much?
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time. you finish off mobs faster you move on to the next task to do or log off and do something else. time is money and your winning your time... maybe not a sizable amount of time... really depends on your build, kit, gear etc. also it effects space as well... space traits going in to superior traits. maybe you do do pvp in this game... no idea why but hey that's you. this game was p2w from the day you had lock box ships/gear/traits. regardless folks still come back and play cause this is THE only mmo? ST game on market. buy the boost if you like or skip if you dont like/afford. these days I come on to do events and bugger off once done so I'm skipping this. still hoping for sto2 with unreal 5