As a side note those Romulan VR SROs can be purchased multiple times each but will be grayed out until the purchased one is Commissioned..
'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.'
I am going to do my best to not make this some sort of rant... I'll try.
Cryptic why do you go through the trouble of making new systems only to go full lazy mode ? (Ok I'll be nice now promise)
The current implementation is CONFUSING. Some traits upgrade, some don't. Oh it should work if there is a superior version in game... oh no never mind that isn't always true either. You guys released a product that may or may not do what you want it to do... how to find out ? I don't know try it I guess ?
Cryptic you are not going to sell these tokens because you guys went a little too lazy. You should have ensured that every possible non superior trait properly upgraded to a superior version. You did not and its a confusing mess of disappointment. I don't get it cause you did the hard part... why not go through your trait database and ensure that one little thing would actually work.
To make a killing on these... all you had to do was go through every Bridge officer trait in the game and create Ultra versions of every single trait. 25% or so better then the superior version... but with a few obvious tweaks here and there to a couple traits where it made sense. This would have 100% solved ALL confusion in the product. It would have also shifted tons of these tokens. As it is I'm afraid your sales on these are not going to be great. You guys missed a golden opportunity with these to give everyone something actually worth spending Zen. People would have ideally bought 5 tokens per toon... as it is, most people are going to use the freebie and forget they exist.
Given what they do, how much they cost, and the list of things that don't apply, i'd have to agree. This would have been a great time to update, balance, add, and improve traits across the game and they just... didn't? Had these been, maybe a dollar each, I could have seen them being more worth the price, but as they are currently, they seem more like something that will be getting tossed out as freebies for minor events and server issues, etc.
I think they're really underestimating just how many boffs people have and how each is set up for specific things/ships/loadouts and all that.
I like the idea of what these are, but i just feel like they could do a little work to improve the traits and unlocks to up the value of the tokens a bit more.
I am going to do my best to not make this some sort of rant... I'll try.
Cryptic why do you go through the trouble of making new systems only to go full lazy mode ? (Ok I'll be nice now promise)
The current implementation is CONFUSING. Some traits upgrade, some don't. Oh it should work if there is a superior version in game... oh no never mind that isn't always true either. You guys released a product that may or may not do what you want it to do... how to find out ? I don't know try it I guess ?
Cryptic you are not going to sell these tokens because you guys went a little too lazy. You should have ensured that every possible non superior trait properly upgraded to a superior version. You did not and its a confusing mess of disappointment. I don't get it cause you did the hard part... why not go through your trait database and ensure that one little thing would actually work.
To make a killing on these... all you had to do was go through every Bridge officer trait in the game and create Ultra versions of every single trait. 25% or so better then the superior version... but with a few obvious tweaks here and there to a couple traits where it made sense. This would have 100% solved ALL confusion in the product. It would have also shifted tons of these tokens. As it is I'm afraid your sales on these are not going to be great. You guys missed a golden opportunity with these to give everyone something actually worth spending Zen. People would have ideally bought 5 tokens per toon... as it is, most people are going to use the freebie and forget they exist.
Agreed with most what you said.
The whole thing has been a big disappointment for me. Though I guess it would actually have been a lot of work to make superior versions for all existing traits - but then again, if you're going to ask $5 per Boff, per toon for these tokens, that amount of work doesn't seem unreasonable. (It's basically the same with their reasoning as to why lockbox ships don't get unique, or even full faction-specific interiors: too much work, considering few players fly those ships. Yeah, so? You're also putting ludicrous price tags on them, Cryptic, so expecting a bit more effort isn't unreasonable I guess?)
They could indeed have expected to earn a lot more if they had gone through that effort. If they didn't want to, they should at least have put more effort into making clear that the tokens would in fact not upgrade many Boff traits at all (especially some of the more interesting ones that are found only on premium and rather expensive Boffs, like the Xindi's Impatient).
Taking this all together, it seems they really did go the easy way, by bundling only already existing features into a new token that they could sell, bringing in money without them having to actually add something new - despite the descriptions strongly suggesting that all traits would be upgraded.
Despite that though, I don't think most people will forget about these tokens.
They did go through the effort of placing a 'lock' box for non-upgraded Boffs after all...
To constantly remind people that their Boffs aren't 'complete' or fully unlocked of course. Apparently, implementing that bit of nudging was worth their time and resources.
For (approximately) $5, they once created new uniforms that you bought once and could then use on all toons, for all characters and - in some cases - even all Boffs.
They once created new playable species like Caitians to sell them for that same amount of money.
Unique Boffs (now also usable on each toon)
Shuttles
And yes, a lot of single-use services.
Asking the same amount of money to upgrade a single, already existing Boff, only to have to find out (or, after initial disappointment, consult external sources of information to know) that most traits won't even be upgraded is, like I said, disappointing.
And of course, with any other product one might say to that: if you don't think it's worth it, don't buy it. In this case however, the misleading and incomplete descriptions led me to buy something that I wouldn't get.
And that's what really annoys me. The product was simply presented as being much better than it actually is.
And before anyone says again that it was just my own fault for not properly translating their blog post: first, that's still debatable. And second: the actual in-game information is also incomplete, as the screenshots show.
Third, they actually expanded the description in the 'short news' section here on the Forum so they in fact acknowledged that their original description wasn't clear enough.
How much more evidence do their customers need to provide to show that the product simply doesn't do what they promised it would do?
Other than the former Embassy Rare Tactical Boffs that had SRO (Now just RO) there are NO non-VR Boffs that have even RO that could be upgraded to SRO via these Tokens.
Post edited by ltminns on
'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.'
Another observation. If you are adding a new Ground Trait the system will ask you if you want to add to your Captain or a UR (upgraded) Boff.
'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.'
Another observation. If you are adding a new Ground Trait the system will ask you if you want to add to your Captain or a UR (upgraded) Boff.
Yes, this was in the blog.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Other than the former Embassy Rare Tactical Boffs that had SRO (Now just RO) there are NO non-VR Boffs yhat have even RO that could be upgraded to SRO via these Tokens.
My rare female Embassy boff went from 1.5% CritH to 2.0%, on the upgrade.
...it seems they really did go the easy way, by bundling only already existing features into a new token that they could sell, bringing in money without them having to actually add something new - despite the descriptions strongly suggesting that all traits would be upgraded.
Despite that though, I don't think most people will forget about these tokens. They did go through the effort of placing a 'lock' box for non-upgraded Boffs after all...
To constantly remind people that their Boffs aren't 'complete' or fully unlocked of course. Apparently, implementing that bit of nudging was worth their time and resources.
I think you nailed it. There's probably going to be enough players that will think that they should unlock it since there's a lock placed there. Then they will be amongst the elite
I am going to do my best to not make this some sort of rant... I'll try.
Cryptic why do you go through the trouble of making new systems only to go full lazy mode ? (Ok I'll be nice now promise)
The current implementation is CONFUSING. Some traits upgrade, some don't. Oh it should work if there is a superior version in game... oh no never mind that isn't always true either. You guys released a product that may or may not do what you want it to do... how to find out ? I don't know try it I guess ?
Cryptic you are not going to sell these tokens because you guys went a little too lazy. You should have ensured that every possible non superior trait properly upgraded to a superior version. You did not and its a confusing mess of disappointment. I don't get it cause you did the hard part... why not go through your trait database and ensure that one little thing would actually work.
To make a killing on these... all you had to do was go through every Bridge officer trait in the game and create Ultra versions of every single trait. 25% or so better then the superior version... but with a few obvious tweaks here and there to a couple traits where it made sense. This would have 100% solved ALL confusion in the product. It would have also shifted tons of these tokens. As it is I'm afraid your sales on these are not going to be great. You guys missed a golden opportunity with these to give everyone something actually worth spending Zen. People would have ideally bought 5 tokens per toon... as it is, most people are going to use the freebie and forget they exist.
I admit I was only interested in seeing SRO percentage increased (which occurs); but yeah, overall, they likely could have given this a bit more attention. And I would have preferred a Space Trait, as they're bridge officers, after all -- but maybe things would have gotten too OP then.
I would also have liked to be able to choose and set all the boff Traits (from a pool of Traits boffs can have). More complex, of course, but these tokens aren't exactly cheap either.
Another observation. If you are adding a new Ground Trait the system will ask you if you want to add to your Captain or a UR (upgraded) Boff.
Yes, this was in the blog.
Yes, yes it does. Just making the point for people who TL;DNR..
'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.'
Other than the former Embassy Rare Tactical Boffs that had SRO (Now just RO) there are NO non-VR Boffs yhat have even RO that could be upgraded to SRO via these Tokens.
My rare female Embassy boff went from 1.5% CritH to 2.0%, on the upgrade.
Yes. What they added was a Female counterpart to the former Rare Tactical Boff that had the (formerly Superior) Romulan Operative Trait. So, other than Rare Tactical you cannot purchase any other below VR Embassy Boff that you will be able to upgrade to SRO.
I did go back to the Embassy and picked up that Rare Female Tac, another VR Sci, and another VR Engineering Boff. The net result will be 3 Tac, 2 Eng, and 5 Sci that will have SRO, which should cover any possible Ship build.
'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.'
They might also offer the tokens as red alert rewards, rare freebies like the Anniversary giveaways, and will probably include them in any new legendary ship bundles.
But no one "needs" these. Even for the 10 remaining PVP players, is there any PVP that includes your boffs?
Nope no BOFFs in PvP. The traits only affect Space PvP. I just don't see where the token has much utility outside of some one with a brand new account. Even then there are much better Zen investments in my opinion
I was actually hoping to use the tokens to upgrade my nausicaan pirate boffs to superior pirate boffs. (Tired of the SRO mono culture.) I'm on hold with that now after I saw what happened to my one ground Boff I tested my freebee on and then filed a bug report for. Hopefully things get fixed.
And getting the kit slot is kind of underwhelming, when that doesn't grant the kit module slots you automatically get on your captain when you equip a kit.
Oh, look, a shiny utility belt!...that I can't actually hang tools or weapons on. Meh.
The Muy Grande Elite Boff Upgrade Token, due next year, will upgrade a Boff to Epic. The brightness of the Gold Boff will force you to constantly avert your eyes. Kits will get three Module Slots, the Boff will get an alternate Weapon Slot, and the upgraded Boff will get a non-stacking Space Trait Slot. ALL Inherent Traits will be upgraded to Superior regardless.
'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.'
> @ltminns said: > The Muy Grande Elite Boff Upgrade Token, due next year, will upgrade a Boff to Epic. The brightness of the Gold Boff will force you to constantly avert your eyes. Kits will get three Module Slots, the Boff will get an alternate Weapon Slot, and the upgraded Boff will get a non-stacking Space Trait Slot. ALL Inherent Traits will be upgraded to Superior regardless.
Oh good! I will just hold out for that one then since the current token is kinda worthless.
I was being facetious, but with this lot you never know.
'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.'
It's also time for Cryptic to change any Lockbox mechanism or Mission Reward mechanism to allow you to select the type of Kit Frame (or Module) instead of awarding 'Career Appropriate' ones.
'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.'
It's also time for Cryptic to change any Lockbox mechanism or Mission Reward mechanism to allow you to select the type of Kit Frame (or Module) instead of awarding 'Career Appropriate' ones.
Yes, especially since I think the most of them are bound to character so you can't even have an alternate captain earn them then transfer with the account bank.
It's also time for Cryptic to change any Lockbox mechanism or Mission Reward mechanism to allow you to select the type of Kit Frame (or Module) instead of awarding 'Career Appropriate' ones.
Yes, especially since I think the most of them are bound to character so you can't even have an alternate captain earn them then transfer with the account bank.
Most of them are indeed. Which is silly, because everything that can be obtained from them is free to trade until equipped.
So basically you can't transfer a package between your own characters - but you can trade all their contents, even with other players. Which serves no good purpose as far as I can see.
As for removing the double-random thing altogether and allowing players to select what they want from, say, a kit module pack: this kind of make sense. And it already works that way with personal and ship traits from infinity boxes, as well as consoles.
Of course, those other things have no modifiers so that may be why they did it differently - or else everyone would only be using max Kperf or CritD kits, making the rest mostly useless.
Then again, it'd make more sense to tackle that issue directly (for example, through re-engineering those items so that they become more useful), instead of forcing less useful gear upon players.
The one thing I am concerned about though, is that any of those changes would likely make the current best kit frames less rare and, hence, devalue them significantly. Meaning that even fewer things from lockboxes are going to be worth the keys, meaning fewer people opening boxes. Resulting in reduced supply of and even higher prices for things like ships.
Comments
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.'
Cryptic why do you go through the trouble of making new systems only to go full lazy mode ? (Ok I'll be nice now promise)
The current implementation is CONFUSING. Some traits upgrade, some don't. Oh it should work if there is a superior version in game... oh no never mind that isn't always true either. You guys released a product that may or may not do what you want it to do... how to find out ? I don't know try it I guess ?
Cryptic you are not going to sell these tokens because you guys went a little too lazy. You should have ensured that every possible non superior trait properly upgraded to a superior version. You did not and its a confusing mess of disappointment. I don't get it cause you did the hard part... why not go through your trait database and ensure that one little thing would actually work.
To make a killing on these... all you had to do was go through every Bridge officer trait in the game and create Ultra versions of every single trait. 25% or so better then the superior version... but with a few obvious tweaks here and there to a couple traits where it made sense. This would have 100% solved ALL confusion in the product. It would have also shifted tons of these tokens. As it is I'm afraid your sales on these are not going to be great. You guys missed a golden opportunity with these to give everyone something actually worth spending Zen. People would have ideally bought 5 tokens per toon... as it is, most people are going to use the freebie and forget they exist.
I think they're really underestimating just how many boffs people have and how each is set up for specific things/ships/loadouts and all that.
I like the idea of what these are, but i just feel like they could do a little work to improve the traits and unlocks to up the value of the tokens a bit more.
Agreed with most what you said.
The whole thing has been a big disappointment for me. Though I guess it would actually have been a lot of work to make superior versions for all existing traits - but then again, if you're going to ask $5 per Boff, per toon for these tokens, that amount of work doesn't seem unreasonable. (It's basically the same with their reasoning as to why lockbox ships don't get unique, or even full faction-specific interiors: too much work, considering few players fly those ships. Yeah, so? You're also putting ludicrous price tags on them, Cryptic, so expecting a bit more effort isn't unreasonable I guess?)
They could indeed have expected to earn a lot more if they had gone through that effort. If they didn't want to, they should at least have put more effort into making clear that the tokens would in fact not upgrade many Boff traits at all (especially some of the more interesting ones that are found only on premium and rather expensive Boffs, like the Xindi's Impatient).
Taking this all together, it seems they really did go the easy way, by bundling only already existing features into a new token that they could sell, bringing in money without them having to actually add something new - despite the descriptions strongly suggesting that all traits would be upgraded.
Despite that though, I don't think most people will forget about these tokens.
They did go through the effort of placing a 'lock' box for non-upgraded Boffs after all...
To constantly remind people that their Boffs aren't 'complete' or fully unlocked of course. Apparently, implementing that bit of nudging was worth their time and resources.
For (approximately) $5, they once created new uniforms that you bought once and could then use on all toons, for all characters and - in some cases - even all Boffs.
They once created new playable species like Caitians to sell them for that same amount of money.
Unique Boffs (now also usable on each toon)
Shuttles
And yes, a lot of single-use services.
Asking the same amount of money to upgrade a single, already existing Boff, only to have to find out (or, after initial disappointment, consult external sources of information to know) that most traits won't even be upgraded is, like I said, disappointing.
And of course, with any other product one might say to that: if you don't think it's worth it, don't buy it. In this case however, the misleading and incomplete descriptions led me to buy something that I wouldn't get.
And that's what really annoys me. The product was simply presented as being much better than it actually is.
And before anyone says again that it was just my own fault for not properly translating their blog post: first, that's still debatable. And second: the actual in-game information is also incomplete, as the screenshots show.
Third, they actually expanded the description in the 'short news' section here on the Forum so they in fact acknowledged that their original description wasn't clear enough.
How much more evidence do their customers need to provide to show that the product simply doesn't do what they promised it would do?
Other than the former Embassy Rare Tactical Boffs that had SRO (Now just RO) there are NO non-VR Boffs that have even RO that could be upgraded to SRO via these Tokens.
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.'
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.'
Yes, this was in the blog.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
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My rare female Embassy boff went from 1.5% CritH to 2.0%, on the upgrade.
I think you nailed it. There's probably going to be enough players that will think that they should unlock it since there's a lock placed there. Then they will be amongst the elite
I admit I was only interested in seeing SRO percentage increased (which occurs); but yeah, overall, they likely could have given this a bit more attention. And I would have preferred a Space Trait, as they're bridge officers, after all -- but maybe things would have gotten too OP then.
I would also have liked to be able to choose and set all the boff Traits (from a pool of Traits boffs can have). More complex, of course, but these tokens aren't exactly cheap either.
Yes, yes it does. Just making the point for people who TL;DNR..
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.'
Yes. What they added was a Female counterpart to the former Rare Tactical Boff that had the (formerly Superior) Romulan Operative Trait. So, other than Rare Tactical you cannot purchase any other below VR Embassy Boff that you will be able to upgrade to SRO.
I did go back to the Embassy and picked up that Rare Female Tac, another VR Sci, and another VR Engineering Boff. The net result will be 3 Tac, 2 Eng, and 5 Sci that will have SRO, which should cover any possible Ship build.
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.'
Nope no BOFFs in PvP. The traits only affect Space PvP. I just don't see where the token has much utility outside of some one with a brand new account. Even then there are much better Zen investments in my opinion
Oh, look, a shiny utility belt!...that I can't actually hang tools or weapons on. Meh.
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.'
> The Muy Grande Elite Boff Upgrade Token, due next year, will upgrade a Boff to Epic. The brightness of the Gold Boff will force you to constantly avert your eyes. Kits will get three Module Slots, the Boff will get an alternate Weapon Slot, and the upgraded Boff will get a non-stacking Space Trait Slot. ALL Inherent Traits will be upgraded to Superior regardless.
Oh good! I will just hold out for that one then since the current token is kinda worthless.
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, I got it at least lol. I would have said something but it was such a good mic drop moment, I was too busy smiling and laughing to do so...
Peace...
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.'
Yes, especially since I think the most of them are bound to character so you can't even have an alternate captain earn them then transfer with the account bank.
Most of them are indeed. Which is silly, because everything that can be obtained from them is free to trade until equipped.
So basically you can't transfer a package between your own characters - but you can trade all their contents, even with other players. Which serves no good purpose as far as I can see.
As for removing the double-random thing altogether and allowing players to select what they want from, say, a kit module pack: this kind of make sense. And it already works that way with personal and ship traits from infinity boxes, as well as consoles.
Of course, those other things have no modifiers so that may be why they did it differently - or else everyone would only be using max Kperf or CritD kits, making the rest mostly useless.
Then again, it'd make more sense to tackle that issue directly (for example, through re-engineering those items so that they become more useful), instead of forcing less useful gear upon players.
The one thing I am concerned about though, is that any of those changes would likely make the current best kit frames less rare and, hence, devalue them significantly. Meaning that even fewer things from lockboxes are going to be worth the keys, meaning fewer people opening boxes. Resulting in reduced supply of and even higher prices for things like ships.