tired, sleepy and writing in a foreign language: there's no better moment to write some random thoughts.
i'm reading through the forums a lot of people complaining about lack of content and end game stuff. well, can't blame them, even if i have 4 admirals already (and more coming, but boredom is beginning to strike hard) they're right.
i've seen many similarity between sto and guild wars structures, i'm going to compare some of their aspects.
what keeps people stuck on a game? goals, amassing stuff and e-peen both aestethic or in pvp are the first reasons which come to mind.
what has kept people stuck on guild wars for so long, and going?
- goals, be them a new skin (farming), the equivalent of accolades (farming)(still don't know why they've been deactivated, in beta they looked to me to be working just fine) or renown in pvp (farming pvp matches)
- amassing as many weapons and armors they can (farming)
- trying out new builds
now let's try to traslate those qualities in sto.
- skins are out of question. they're being sold on the c-store (instant gratification, sure, but also instant boredom) regarding ships and bridges. what about selling them also for "1m credits + 50k merits" (indicative) price? it's an awful lot, but still i'm sure a lot of people would be willing to sacrifice 10$ worth of subscription to not pay 5$ on the spot.
- accolades are going to return. very little very late but still better than nothing. it took years to gw to get them.
- some sort of pvp ladder. even if it's going to be only "best damage dealers", "best damage healers", "best fought/won ratio" it's still a lot, something to aspire to, even something to browse from time to time just to see the coolest kids on the block. it's not that hard to keep track of some numbers.
- new builds. ok, sure, there's a good amount of bo skills already (and some of them are broken/too powerful, but nobody's perfect) but more and more aren't going to hurt much. there's no game without a flavor of the month build, no way to escape it, but with more and more skills (and sto structure could potentially support an unlimited amount) people will spend more time finding them and even once fixed they'll spend time trying new combinations.
could be a difficult process inventing something, could be not. "buff croniton attack": your next croniton attack will deal 25-33-50% more damage; 3 minutes cooldown. "buff polaron attack": you deal 10-15-20% more polaron damage for the next 15 seconds; 3 minutes cooldown. "buff shields subsystems": your next shield subsystems skill has a +10-15-20 bonus. there'd be a lot of skills like these, forcing people to chose between flexibility or focus. these skills could go on (or put on) a 15 seconds shared cooldown on any skill of the same class skills, so they couldn't be used as openers (or only in rare cases and only by the most capable captains).
you have to keep them occupied: long term goals.
other than bridges and ships skins for an ungodly amount of credits and merits... bo lottery? 10k +1k merits for a completely random common officer. x2 if uncommon, x5 rare, x10 very rare. x2 if you want to choose its race. x2 if class too. x1.5 if you want it "alien" (because it can be shaped like anything and has a chance of less strict traits). 400k credits and 40k merits for a shiny new very rare officer which could NOT have the skills i'm looking for? i'd totally spend my day spinning the wheel!!! well, actually i could spin it just once or twice, then it's a month of work to spin it again, but still i'd try, and i'd be busy waiting for it.
with such prices you're also controlling the eventual flood on the market by giving a minimum.
weapons skins. they're exactly the same as the others, but look cooler/different. stuff like this isn't appreciated only by asians, you know. also don't think it's going to take that long to draw some new guns.
make them EXPENSIVE.
or even make them craftable only: more happy farming involved in the process. a crafting ladder? every week, the first 5 who spent more anomalies (after all you're already keeping track of these numbers) will get a bonus. be it money, merits, both, an unique named weapon, a dancing tribble... people WILL fight for it.
i've been writing here for more than an hour about how to add content without adding real new content, a principle on which some of the most succesful games have been living for years: i know you can do better than me. and them.
0