There s a discussion in the Tribble forums about the way to get the additional retrofit ships at VA level. Since not everyone can express their point of view on the Tribble forum and this is going to hit Holodeck pretty soon(i don t think there are going to change it between now and then...) it might be a good thing to discus about it over here.
to summarize we get one of the 3 refit ships(galaxy with saucer separation or intrepid with ablative armor or the Defiant with cloak) for free when we reach VA but the 2 other ones are going to cost us
1) 500 emblems through out hours of grinding ( and will be available for one character from my understanding) which is about 55 days( from Superchum calculation) for someone playing few hours everyday .
2) a lump of C store points to unlock them account wide
FYI it seems that Emblem is the new currency for doing PVP, STF, exploration etc when reaching VA...so no way to save them in advance...nicely done, very ingenious.
some people realized this is a way different approach to get additional ships...as every others until now only cost Energy Credits...
some others will not be able to play enough to obtain them as they are casual players
finally some players are totally happy with this decision.
I personally share the point of view of Spectre22...this variation to obtain new ships at VA level is just another way to push people to buy through the C store...
While i m there...
Mr Stahl also stated when asked if the Nebula/Excelsior ships will follow the same path
.....And re: optional pricing for Nebula/Excelsior - it is something that is being considered. We'll be looking at player reaction to the VA ships first.
Let me guess you are going to wait and see how many VA ships you can sell in the C store first...then if they don t obtain enough revenue because people rather grind them via hours of game play, they (nebula/excelsior) will be C store only...
i just hope i see a glass half empty here...but business is business...
i ve got much more to say but let s stay focus on this topic...
Comments
you have to remember the accountants are looking for one thing, and one thing only. your money. both ways are a way to get it. you can pay for it on the C-store, or you can work for it. no matter what you do you are still going to spend your money on the game.
personally I like it. it gives me something to work for, and it gives us a way to earn the stuff in the C-store in game.
dstahl commented that this is part of his initiative to get us an in-game price for C-Store purchases, but I find it very odd. For one... originally this was planned you can only have 1 refit and you're SOL unless you buy a new token from the C-Store? Well, that's great to know. It's also indicates that we can expect future things like this to cost a whole lot of Emblems.
Frankly I don't want the C-Store to keep invading the game's level up process. Up until now we've been able to purchase any ship we've earned through rank with Energy Credits; why the sudden change? To promote C-Store sales, of course. It's similar to how we no longer receive extra Bridge Officer slots as we level, we now have to pay for it through the C-Store. It's also per character, just like how this is going to be. You won't be unlocking "Galaxy Refit" option for your account when you buy it on the C-Store, just that one character.
Refits shouldn't cost Emblems and access to more than one shouldn't be domain of the C-Store.
I'm one of those players. We get one free (which I admit, is all I want) and they aren't that different from the RA tier ships anyway, so you're not any worse off ship performance wise if you want the one captain to use multiple classes of ships. I'm also not surprised that something that is available through the cstore or in game, would have the in game way to get it be a grind. It could do with being less of a grind but it's always going to be one.
It wouldn't be so hard if there were more ways to get emblems.
I could be mistaken but I believe Dstahl also said that the C-store purchase option would make the ship account wide.
Edit: In fact here is the post.
There's travel time involved too. And the time it takes to complete the Daily, the STF, the PVP and the Fleet Action.
But I'd say 50 days is a decent enough estimate as to how long it will take a hardcore player. And I'm NOT going to do that type of grind in 50 days and I think I'm more hardcore than casual. It's a long grind for it in-game.
Which I think is on purpose.
If something is too easy to get, then frankly it isn't worth getting. I like the idea of tying it in with an acolade so people would know that you earned a ship through time and effort rather than just paying for it.
I am very happy though that I won't have to PvP to get the new ships.
1
Retrofit ships should be available at rear admiral 1 just like any other T5 ship
2
First i want to say:"I don't mind the grind" it will as long be a part of MMORPG gameplay until the server-engines are able to produce new-big-interesting quests with real stories by itself. BUT for now i want to see more interesting ways than b'tran explore missions to get those emblems. Simple and short random generated missions cannot be the answer to all endgame questions.
I suggest Cryptic to implement a feature that makes all "story" (not patrols) quests from sirius sector block to gamma orionis repeatable at vice admiral 1 and as a reward they give those emblems. The problem of this game is .. it is mission based, there are no persistent systems and planets to explore (the devs should consider implementing some persistent systems/panets), so STO needs a huge mass of new missions to stay interesting. I doubt a weekly mission can fullfill this, i think STO needs more. A first step would be the repeatable story-mission-thing.
i do like the idea that embalms should also be tied to episode replay when its here
it will be confusing for new players to have the ships available at 41, 45 and 51.
dreadnought is available at 41
i stand corrected
It suits more play styles the casual player may choose to buy them because he only plays a couple of hours a day. Or some players may only get to play on weekends. A PVP player may choose to buy them for instant action in PVP and hard core players would probably choose to grind them out. I like the idea.
Now if they make it so that 1 emblem = 1 c-store point, they are on to something. They will make probably make tons of profit from people who only need a few hundred c-store points to get a great item.
Of course, there should be different ways to earn them, "end game" content is good, maybe points for certain levels of accolades completed (every 20 or 50 or whatever accolades completed earns a c-store point).
You get the emblems from a daily set of B'Trans ... a daily PVP ... a daily Fleet action and if I recall correctly ... a daily STF.
As well as any B'Tran Elite explore three that you spawn once per half hour.
It is more than just B'Tran explore missions already. So while I'm not going to say it's a bad idea to add even more ways to obtain emblems, I did want to let you know that it already is more than just the B'Tran. Just to share the info and keep everyone from getting confused.
Badges, Marks, Emblems they're basically the same currency at differing levels of gameplay.
So they really just count as one.
Beyond that there's Merits. Energy Credits. And Latinum.
It's not that hard to keep track of.