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500 emblems as a new way to get additional VA retrofit ships

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
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...
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    how about making them cost Latnium? not like it's useful for anything other than the holoemitters, although i will admit to wanting the tin man one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Well it should be hard to earn it in the game. the way I see if you can pay money for it, or you can work for it. if you paid money then you get the ship. if you work for it then you get the ship, and the honor to say you wasted... I mean invested your time in your captain. it will be a form of bragging rights if they tie it in to accolades.

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Agreed, it's little more than Cryptic pushing their store. Prohibitive amount of Emblems required after the first purchase will make most everyone who wants another refit buy it through the C-Store, since they'll be saving their Emblems for other things like, oh.. I don't know. Gearing out your ship? I guess it's an open for later when you've got nothing else to spend them on.

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Venatici wrote:
    finally some players are totally happy with this decision

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Agreed, it's little more than Cryptic pushing their store. Prohibitive amount of Emblems required after the first purchase will make most everyone who wants another refit buy it through the C-Store, since they'll be saving their Emblems for other things like, oh.. I don't know. Gearing out your ship? I guess it's an open for later when you've got nothing else to spend them on.

    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.

    It wouldn't be so hard if there were more ways to get emblems.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    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.

    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.
    dstahl wrote: »
    Yes you will get a FREE TOKEN when you rank up to VA as your reward.

    Then if you really MUST have the other 2 ships you can get them for Emblems

    Then if you really really don't like that you can buy an account wide unlock that gets you the ship for all your characters at VA.

    This is all part of the initiative I've been pushing for where you'll be able to get things in game as well as in the c-store (instead of only in the C-store)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I forgot a part of my math. The regular exploration of B'Tran Elite (the non-daily) grants 1 emblem for each time you complete it. It respawns every half hour. So the math has some variable movement in it since you can, at a small clip of 1 emblem per half hour, do a little more than 9 a day depending on how much time you spend in-game doing this.

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Personally I think this is the great way of getting the C-store stuff ingame, the ammount may be a bit high but the base idea behind it all is solid in my opinion. Admitedly though doing this for every new ship comming out is probably not a good idea. some maybe but not all.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I'm another one who is happy with these methods. It suits all types of players.
    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    There are two things bugging me about this:

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    for those people that want all 3 ships it would probably be quicker to roll alts and just get the 3 ships on 3 different characters

    i do like the idea that embalms should also be tied to episode replay when its here
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    superchum wrote: »
    I forgot a part of my math. The regular exploration of B'Tran Elite (the non-daily) grants 1 emblem for each time you complete it. It respawns every half hour. So the math has some variable movement in it since you can, at a small clip of 1 emblem per half hour, do a little more than 9 a day depending on how much time you spend in-game doing this.

    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.
    i'll be interested to see how this all works in comparrison to the currently established b'tran daily/exploration mission. on account of i don't do any stf's/pvp/fleet action. if that results in my only getting one emblem per day then i'm not going to be a happy camper.
    Maledicus wrote:
    There are two things bugging me about this:

    Retrofit ships should be available at rear admiral 1 just like any other T5 ship

    /snip
    what they need to change is the dreadnaught being available at lvl45, thats just stupid.

    it will be confusing for new players to have the ships available at 41, 45 and 51.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    MDK-187 wrote:
    what they need to change is the dreadnaught being available at lvl45, thats just stupid.

    it will be confusing for new players to have the ships available at 41, 45 and 51.

    dreadnought is available at 41
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    dreadnought is available at 41

    i stand corrected :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    500 is ok, grind is good and easy.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I like the idea of emblems for the retrofit ships. These are special items and should be harder to get than the T5's. They have special abilities just getting access to all three at level cap wouldn't make them special. It gives the players the option to earn them in game or get them quickly from c-store.

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    500 might be a bit high, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

    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).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Maledicus wrote:
    BUT for now i want to see more interesting ways than b'tran explore missions to get those emblems.

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Just what we needed, another form of currency in the game. There are already like 8 or more different forms already, do we need to add another one? Come on Cryptic, NO MORE FORMS OF CURRENCY!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Talonsin wrote: »
    Just what we needed, another form of currency in the game. There are already like 8 or more different forms already, do we need to add another one? Come on Cryptic, NO MORE FORMS OF CURRENCY!

    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.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    I love the concept, but quibble over the exact execution. I think Gold Pressed Latinum could have been a better currency (with some Ferengi somewhere doing conversions of EC to GPL). The prices are a bit too high, too, but that's more easily alleviated if there's a way to convert EC to something usable for ships.
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