I'm enjoying the this. Our fleet has players from all over, so we rotate our project schedule so everyone has a chance to chip in. We have fleet events, not just grinding out the FM but also STFs and Dabo night and trivia night. I enjoy playing with a fleet who keeps it's members engaged.
This Starbase addition will just give us one more thing to do with our gaming together.
Nope the excitement has not gone for me and my fleet. Everyone is making huge contributions and enjoying it immensely. It has gotten people involved that were fairly quiet in the fleet before, it spurred us on into getting teamspeak too which is a brilliant addition to the game.
Seconded.
Right now, there are only a few people who are going full-tilt on the starbase projects, and others are checking in a bit here and there. However, toward the end of this week when our tier-1 base pops and more options open up, I'm predicting that the rest of my fleetmates are going to get fired up.
I think the excitement level is partly dependent upon how big your fleet is. If you have a huge fleet and you have big spenders, the majority probably aren't excited because they aren't seeing their own numbers go up but are seeing the Starbase getting projects done.
A smaller fleet may have a smaller pool of players to donate resources, but at least everyone has an opportunity to see numbers go up as there aren't as many big spenders proportional to a larger fleet. Similar to how a 4A high school has a higher chance of fielding more/better athletes than a smaller school.
The OP still has it right, its grind OR pay, not both.
The way it usually works is:
Want something free = Your gonna have to dump a LOT of playtime in.
Want something quickly = Cash please!
Expecting both is just plain greedy.
I don't see it as greedy, I see it as stupid.
There will be a certain amount of people who, for one reason or another won't want to do both, so they limit their purchase base there. They miss out on instant profit from the 'must have now' crowd. They give the customers too much time to think the purchase through, by the time their fleet gets there they may not even want that ship, (depending on how long it takes them to grind up their fleet that ship may not even be top tier anymore) it won't seem so 'new and shiny' by the time a big portion of their casual market gets to it. Finally they completely miss out on profits from people who aren't in fleets.
They made a clear decision that us customers are absolutely going to pay for these ships, so it makes no sense that they'd needlessly limit the amount of customers they can reach by requiring both grind and pay. All they're doing right now is placing limits on their ability to make money from this venture.
Their actions remind me of the quote "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Are you griping about people griping on the forums??? If "your" not happy with people griping, why don't "you" leave the forums or ignore posts about people griping.
Off topic pet peeve: Come on, if you're going to emphasis the word "your" could you at least spell it right?
I and a few of my also casual friends were hanging on to see Season 6. Unless you're a Star Trek fan, or long ago embraced the MMO grind model, there's literally nothing to do at end game. Grind STFs for... equipment to grind the STF some more? No thank you.
But communal projects could have saved the situation somewhat; something like the base model in City of Heroes would have been ideal. They already had the perfect design there; a percentage of your earned income from mobs goes into the community pool or, if you'd prefer, you can switch that off and donate what you want when you want. From there the leader builds the base, customized in both style, arrangement and individual furniture with what ever income comes in...
However, the reality in Star Trek Online turned out to be radically different. The claims of being accessible to small groups was simply a lie; in practice it takes months and months of huge resource donations to unlock the tiers. Tiers which, apart from the most basic visual unlocks, remain identical and fixed inside. And then? You still have to pay real life cash to get the improved ships. And any PvM content that was included around Star Bases is also locked out until after the huge communal grind.
I dropped ?16 on the game in points when I first came to it, but since that time I haven't seen a single thing that made me comfortable spending any more. They never even fixed the visual and door issues with the Odyssey bridge that I did buy, and the only truly professional pack I bought was the Original Series interior and ToS Enterprise, from years ago. I don't blame the Devs themselves; quite frankly I believe wholeheartedly now that Perfect World are simply "burning" the remaining available cash out of a product they've committed to downsizing rather than supporting. The lock box gambling mechanisms, the constant releasing of ships just that bit better than what went before... it's a horrible and emotionally draining gouge now.
As a result, the player I knew who was logging in every day in the hopes of setting up a small fleet of all of us friends has since uninstalled STO and gone back to EvE. The other 3 gave up months ago, although they were promising to make the numbers up to form a fleet and keep their options open... but they've gone for good now too, because nothing else held them here. And I'm close behind them too; I just hang on to complete one character's DOFF experience bars, for old time's sake. Where as every few months I still take out a subscription and pop back into City of Heroes.... Such a pity.
At least when it went live all they wanted was your money once a month for subscription. Now they want it every 2 minutes.
They launched pay to play with a cash store, that's wanting more than just wanting money once a month. PWE has done nothing Cryptic weren't having wet dreams about from the second they launched STO. They're not the innocent victims many like to paint them as.
the Fleet starbases suck!! it is just a doff system and the only ones who benefit from it are fleet leaders which can be seen in any leader board! might be enjoying it more is was your own personal starbase and you build it yourself! but i don't think anyone is too interested in fleet starbase its more getting access to fleet starships which can only be discribed as a rip off!
At least when it went live all they wanted was your money once a month for subscription. Now they want it every 2 minutes.
this coming from the guy with an Odyssey as his Signature... lol.
and pertaining to the topic, yes, the progression in my opinion is taking far too long per development, a whole day for 1K exp in my opinion is an eternity, i think the time for development should be relative to the Exp returned, not indefinite, so for 10K Exp i think it should take a day, and for 500 Exp it should take an Hour... that way it equals about the same, but more people can contribute at a time. If not like that, then maybe while a development is developing, why not hide it and start another? maybe a max of 5 per page? i'm just looking for ways to do more at once so people aren't upset over having missed a development donation period, several members are already considering leaving the fleet because they are barred from donating they feel.
I was all excited about the fleet getting together and building a starbase. That was until I see how it's executed...
1.) You have to race your fellow Fleeties to contribute materials to projects. And it's an unfair race.
2.) The fleet ships require you to spend $20 after loads of mats spent on projects and grinding thousands of Fleet Marks. Come on, Cryptic. It's GRIND or PAY, not both.
3.) Fleet ships are just rehashes of OLD models with a barely noticeable new skin; & did I mention you have to spend $20 for them?
So for much grinding, maybe getting lucky to hit the project time just right to contribute something 'easy', & paying $20; I get the honor of running a re-skinned old ship model that has an extra console slot over other T5 ships. Did I miss anything?
i have never been a "gamer" but i have seen gamers spend a LOT of money on consoles, games, controls, etc. i spend very little on this game in comparison to say buying an xbox or playstation and a bunch of expensive games. $20 for a ship seems like nothing.
i have learned what a grind is by playing the vault over 100 times, but i break it up by working for accolades, exploring, doing rerun missions, etc. i don't feel compelled to race through season 6 all at once to make it another grind. savor the game.
some of these fleet missions require vast amounts of things like dilithium. everyone will get a chance to contribute eventually.
My guess is that Cryptic was worried that players might just skip store-bought ships and go for the fleet version and that?s why they made them so expensive. :cool:
Of course only new players could have done that, veteran players probably already bought a lot of store ships. :rolleyes:
The only non-special project I could contribute to so far have been in our KDF Fleet. Due to fewer people playing the KDF side (rather grinding fleet marks for their feds), the KDF base is a bit behind our fed base.
The cost of some special projects is ridiculous, one asked for 35 common Refugees. :eek:
A week before S6 launch my fleet had already pre-acquired resources and "FCA" qualified personnel to pen down a starbase management plan.
With loads of pre-positioned supplies and a steady influx of ongoing material, funds and duty officer supply my fleet is having a lot of fun using this as a form of corporate management practise... not for our benefit, but coaching new STO players to be effective project leaders as well.
The challenge of massive project cost is not really felt when there is economy of scale. It's also possible to foster very strong community support through abovesaid pre-emptive acquisition tactics by sharing "FCA" exchange tactics, joint inventory reviews/management, and well stocked veteran players helping out newer pilots by rigging special projects for mass conversion of stocks into Fleet Credits. Everyone learns, everyone benefits, the organization evolves from just a bunch of random barnstormers, into something resembling the organization of a fictional Colonial Navy.
The ongoing strategy is that the Fleet Starbase is a retreat and not a primary mode of gameplay. It's a place we can all call home and will be built gradually over a year or two....
But in actual fact this tiny fleet of under 20 is maxing out both normal and special projects running everything back to back with minimal delay thanks to strategic prepositioning methods.
It's a time sink, alright, but most of the resources are generally easy to procure and grind for. Some are indeed rather costly for the average player... but that's why we have FCA attaches in our ranks.
STF Flight Instructor since Early 2012. Newbies are the reason why STO lives and breathes today. Do not discriminate.
The OP still has it right, its grind OR pay, not both.
The way it usually works is:
Want something free = Your gonna have to dump a LOT of playtime in.
Want something quickly = Cash please!
Expecting both is just plain greedy.
I agree with this statement has well.
PWE is just being super greedy with the way they had Cryptic setup the Fleet Ship system.
They want us to grind for days to build up the mats that are required to earn the right to construct the Fleet Vessel that we want and then they want us to fork over $20.00 to them has a thank you for letting us grind out the Fleet Vessel that we want!
I see now why my Fleets SB is pretty much empty whenever I log on; the obvious PWE/Cryptic cash grab is just driving them away.
the huge numbers of duty officers required is a bit of a pain (As you can't GET white officers other than by buying hundreds of reinforcement packs)
the accad missions DO NOT START
Yes they do.
You have to start them twice to get them to work, though.
Comments
This Starbase addition will just give us one more thing to do with our gaming together.
Seconded.
Right now, there are only a few people who are going full-tilt on the starbase projects, and others are checking in a bit here and there. However, toward the end of this week when our tier-1 base pops and more options open up, I'm predicting that the rest of my fleetmates are going to get fired up.
A smaller fleet may have a smaller pool of players to donate resources, but at least everyone has an opportunity to see numbers go up as there aren't as many big spenders proportional to a larger fleet. Similar to how a 4A high school has a higher chance of fielding more/better athletes than a smaller school.
Division Hispana
www.divisionhispana.com
I don't see it as greedy, I see it as stupid.
There will be a certain amount of people who, for one reason or another won't want to do both, so they limit their purchase base there. They miss out on instant profit from the 'must have now' crowd. They give the customers too much time to think the purchase through, by the time their fleet gets there they may not even want that ship, (depending on how long it takes them to grind up their fleet that ship may not even be top tier anymore) it won't seem so 'new and shiny' by the time a big portion of their casual market gets to it. Finally they completely miss out on profits from people who aren't in fleets.
They made a clear decision that us customers are absolutely going to pay for these ships, so it makes no sense that they'd needlessly limit the amount of customers they can reach by requiring both grind and pay. All they're doing right now is placing limits on their ability to make money from this venture.
Their actions remind me of the quote "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Off topic pet peeve: Come on, if you're going to emphasis the word "your" could you at least spell it right?
But communal projects could have saved the situation somewhat; something like the base model in City of Heroes would have been ideal. They already had the perfect design there; a percentage of your earned income from mobs goes into the community pool or, if you'd prefer, you can switch that off and donate what you want when you want. From there the leader builds the base, customized in both style, arrangement and individual furniture with what ever income comes in...
However, the reality in Star Trek Online turned out to be radically different. The claims of being accessible to small groups was simply a lie; in practice it takes months and months of huge resource donations to unlock the tiers. Tiers which, apart from the most basic visual unlocks, remain identical and fixed inside. And then? You still have to pay real life cash to get the improved ships. And any PvM content that was included around Star Bases is also locked out until after the huge communal grind.
I dropped ?16 on the game in points when I first came to it, but since that time I haven't seen a single thing that made me comfortable spending any more. They never even fixed the visual and door issues with the Odyssey bridge that I did buy, and the only truly professional pack I bought was the Original Series interior and ToS Enterprise, from years ago. I don't blame the Devs themselves; quite frankly I believe wholeheartedly now that Perfect World are simply "burning" the remaining available cash out of a product they've committed to downsizing rather than supporting. The lock box gambling mechanisms, the constant releasing of ships just that bit better than what went before... it's a horrible and emotionally draining gouge now.
As a result, the player I knew who was logging in every day in the hopes of setting up a small fleet of all of us friends has since uninstalled STO and gone back to EvE. The other 3 gave up months ago, although they were promising to make the numbers up to form a fleet and keep their options open... but they've gone for good now too, because nothing else held them here. And I'm close behind them too; I just hang on to complete one character's DOFF experience bars, for old time's sake. Where as every few months I still take out a subscription and pop back into City of Heroes.... Such a pity.
No need for a welcome, we've seen that sort of thing since STO went live.
At least when it went live all they wanted was your money once a month for subscription. Now they want it every 2 minutes.
this coming from the guy with an Odyssey as his Signature... lol.
and pertaining to the topic, yes, the progression in my opinion is taking far too long per development, a whole day for 1K exp in my opinion is an eternity, i think the time for development should be relative to the Exp returned, not indefinite, so for 10K Exp i think it should take a day, and for 500 Exp it should take an Hour... that way it equals about the same, but more people can contribute at a time. If not like that, then maybe while a development is developing, why not hide it and start another? maybe a max of 5 per page? i'm just looking for ways to do more at once so people aren't upset over having missed a development donation period, several members are already considering leaving the fleet because they are barred from donating they feel.
It's what we've become used to...it pretty much met expectations, IMOHPO...
KBF CO
We are the Dead
join date Aug 2008
i have never been a "gamer" but i have seen gamers spend a LOT of money on consoles, games, controls, etc. i spend very little on this game in comparison to say buying an xbox or playstation and a bunch of expensive games. $20 for a ship seems like nothing.
i have learned what a grind is by playing the vault over 100 times, but i break it up by working for accolades, exploring, doing rerun missions, etc. i don't feel compelled to race through season 6 all at once to make it another grind. savor the game.
some of these fleet missions require vast amounts of things like dilithium. everyone will get a chance to contribute eventually.
Of course only new players could have done that, veteran players probably already bought a lot of store ships. :rolleyes:
The only non-special project I could contribute to so far have been in our KDF Fleet. Due to fewer people playing the KDF side (rather grinding fleet marks for their feds), the KDF base is a bit behind our fed base.
The cost of some special projects is ridiculous, one asked for 35 common Refugees. :eek:
With loads of pre-positioned supplies and a steady influx of ongoing material, funds and duty officer supply my fleet is having a lot of fun using this as a form of corporate management practise... not for our benefit, but coaching new STO players to be effective project leaders as well.
The challenge of massive project cost is not really felt when there is economy of scale. It's also possible to foster very strong community support through abovesaid pre-emptive acquisition tactics by sharing "FCA" exchange tactics, joint inventory reviews/management, and well stocked veteran players helping out newer pilots by rigging special projects for mass conversion of stocks into Fleet Credits. Everyone learns, everyone benefits, the organization evolves from just a bunch of random barnstormers, into something resembling the organization of a fictional Colonial Navy.
The ongoing strategy is that the Fleet Starbase is a retreat and not a primary mode of gameplay. It's a place we can all call home and will be built gradually over a year or two....
But in actual fact this tiny fleet of under 20 is maxing out both normal and special projects running everything back to back with minimal delay thanks to strategic prepositioning methods.
It's a time sink, alright, but most of the resources are generally easy to procure and grind for. Some are indeed rather costly for the average player... but that's why we have FCA attaches in our ranks.
My Youtube Channel
I agree with this statement has well.
PWE is just being super greedy with the way they had Cryptic setup the Fleet Ship system.
They want us to grind for days to build up the mats that are required to earn the right to construct the Fleet Vessel that we want and then they want us to fork over $20.00 to them has a thank you for letting us grind out the Fleet Vessel that we want!
I see now why my Fleets SB is pretty much empty whenever I log on; the obvious PWE/Cryptic cash grab is just driving them away.
Yes they do.
You have to start them twice to get them to work, though.
Technically the cooldown is just 24 hours. However, the missions take 2 days to run. So it's 3 days in between when it can be picked up.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick."