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Korath/KDF Timeship: Lockbox and C-Store?
gradstudent1
Member Posts: 633 Arc User
Dear Devs and Community,
I am pleased that the devs have decided to offer a truly Klingon science ship to us. The name, Korath, is charmingly canonical, even though Korath was an honorless Tod'Sah! I only hope that the ship's stats will live up to its very cool design and will truly give us a competitive science ship.
The only thing on my wishlist is that the ship could be offered both in the lockbox and in the C-store. I enjoy playing the lock boxes and anticipate that this particular box will be wildly successful, esp. given the other cool items being offered (great work devs!). But when it comes to ships, and especially one that I think the KDF really needs (a KDF science), I would also appreciate the option to just pay outright for it. Plus, from my perspective as a player, buying a KDF item directly seems to cast a stronger vote of support for the KDF than simply buy lockbox keys, which are faction neutral.
On a more personal note, Warrior's Way is also planning on doing some kind of ship review (exact format undetermined [radio interview on Priority 1, blog review, etc.?]). And I would very much like to fly the ship before I review it. If it were offered in C-Store, I could test it guaranteed; in lockbox, nothing is certain.
My Proposal: Offer the ship in both venues--C-Store and Lockbox for those of us who would rather not play the lottery.
What do my fellow KDF players think? Good idea? Bad idea?
I am pleased that the devs have decided to offer a truly Klingon science ship to us. The name, Korath, is charmingly canonical, even though Korath was an honorless Tod'Sah! I only hope that the ship's stats will live up to its very cool design and will truly give us a competitive science ship.
The only thing on my wishlist is that the ship could be offered both in the lockbox and in the C-store. I enjoy playing the lock boxes and anticipate that this particular box will be wildly successful, esp. given the other cool items being offered (great work devs!). But when it comes to ships, and especially one that I think the KDF really needs (a KDF science), I would also appreciate the option to just pay outright for it. Plus, from my perspective as a player, buying a KDF item directly seems to cast a stronger vote of support for the KDF than simply buy lockbox keys, which are faction neutral.
On a more personal note, Warrior's Way is also planning on doing some kind of ship review (exact format undetermined [radio interview on Priority 1, blog review, etc.?]). And I would very much like to fly the ship before I review it. If it were offered in C-Store, I could test it guaranteed; in lockbox, nothing is certain.
My Proposal: Offer the ship in both venues--C-Store and Lockbox for those of us who would rather not play the lottery.
What do my fellow KDF players think? Good idea? Bad idea?
Post edited by gradstudent1 on
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Comments
Really this was a missed opportunity to give the KDF 3 (including the 2 Lobi store ships), new c-store ships.
I'd much rather see account unlocks than simply character unlocks. Speaking of the ships, a science and an escort. I really have no need for those. I own the B'rel Retorfit, Guramba Destroyer (so there is an escort and a ship I can use for the nerffed science class).
I recently while gathering Lobi managed to get a Tholian Orb Weaver, after over 250+ lockboxes (including Cardassian and Ferengi ones mind you), just goes to show how against you the odds really are.
majesticmsfc: x250 boxes . . . oh my word! Dare I ask, was it worth the hard work?
The account-wide unlock, of course, is one way in which the C-Store ships would be different from the lockbox ships.
1- The ships have consoles.
2- There is more than 1 ship per side coming in lockboxes.
3- Each side received an = design ship (just different skin).
Now, what does that tell you? INDEED! That the Wells and Korath were originally z-store ships and the lockbox ships originally were to be the mirror universe versions... but since they want to push the idiotic gamble-for-stuff market they were ALL turned into lockbox ships.
Better yet, among the other stuff are items that further push people into gambling with the lockboxes: console set that not only give per-item bonus...but also a set bonus.. BUT GET THIS! Also gives BONUSES if you put them in one of the lockbox ships that was originally a z-store ship... AND it gets a boost if you also put the console that comes from the mirrror universe ship!
I see now this is the future of the game. New ship releases will be lockbox. Knowing that I logged in my char tonight, looked at the zen I had saved for my alleged new science ship .. and knew I would not buy a single key...ever... with that zen.
The fun of the game simply left me. Logged off without even playing.
I haven't had this feeling of utter disgust with a company since SOE released the NGE path in Star Wars Galaxies.
cmdrskyfaller (I love this name, by the way!):
I am not sure I entirely agree with your reasoning, esp. on the issue of consoles. If applied to the Tholian Orb Weaver, we would have to assume that it too was meant to be a C-Store ship, since it has a universal console as well. Alternatively, maybe we are simply seeing a new trend in ship selling, namely that consoles will no longer be C-Store only items. Or perhaps I am missing something?
Wells and Korath are quite faction specific. That alone says they should've and likely were supposed to be z-store ships.
The mirror universe variants while still faction specific would be mirror versions like the cruisers released earlier.
So perhaps we are seeing a new trend in lock box sales, one which may have been present from the very beginning of the deisng of the Wells/Korath. Or perhaps, as you suggest, they were originally C-store ships. We don't have enough evidence to say either way.
Whatever the case may be, the goal of this thread is to advocate for both the lock box and C-store to be used as selling platforms for the KDF Science ship, since KDF clearly has a dearth of viable science ships. I think it would be good for the devs to know that we would like better options when it comes to acquiring the Korath ship.
If Cryptic pulls a gecko out of their aft docking bay and does release a C-store ship alongside the Vesta for you guys, well, consider the above comment null and void.
No not really, I wasn't even after the Tholian ship, was collecting the Lobi to buy some Lobi store items. Which it in itself are overpriced, but since I had grinded up over 9,000 Zen and nothing to spend it on I thought why not. It's not like I can't get that 9,000 again. I usually can grind 2,000 a week with my 16 characters, just doing dailies that don't take long. Now if the KDF had some decent C-store items like costumes and such I would've spent it on them in a heart beat. Ultimately the sale on Keys encouraged me to spend the money, a lot of junk are still in those boxes, such as those pointless Fleet Credit boosts.
Point of the thing is, I have the Galor and D'Kora both bought from the Exchange and is a much better way to get these lock box ships if one is interested in them. Let another player waste the money and you can just buy it off him for 50-100 million EC depending on the price they are asking.
It's a bit weird to put 4 ships at the same time in the lockbox system. Now I'm a bit worried about the game's financial health. Is it that bad?
You know, these lockbox ships aren't that expensive if you play smart. I'm going to give you a way to get them without spending tons of money on it, and this advice is given by someone owning more than 600-700M ECs (currency and investments) and who didn't sell any c-store item. Buy 20-30 keys from the store today, there's a sale. The day the lockboxes will be released these keys should be worth 2M or so. Post them a few hours after the update (US prime time if possible, because you guys are far less reasonable than us europeans about gambling), you should be able to sell them at this price, but don't wait if you see that the price doesn't go above 1.8 or 1.9M, it's a single shot opportunity. Wait a few weeks. Since the lockbox ship is a science one, and since the previous ship was a science one too, the prices should be between 40-60M, depending on the stats. You should have the money to buy it, for the price of a regular c-store ship. The box is cross-faction, so you won't have a ridiculous KDF price.
Now if you do this please don't tell your friends, fleet, etc. I'm ok to share some exchange tricks with a handfull of forum-addicts but if you share it people will start doing this massively and you'll never be able to buy it for the price I mentionned. One of the rules of acquisition should be: never share your knowledge because it's the source of the biggest profits.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
I dropped $60 for the BortasQu set without a second thought, so doing the same for all the KDF timeships would not be a stretch.
R.I.P
Thanks for these investment strategies, diogene0.=) I will consider this approach.
Like Roach, I would still prefer the C-Store approach however.
I agree lockboxes are rip off.
And we arent feds that got the luxury of buying many ships from Z store.
We miss many many ships and this ship should be availiable in Z store along with lockboxes.
Sounds about right. After the lockbox update, I emptied out my Account bank (with an extra 10 slots) of full stacks of various lockboxes to Lobi farm and equip my freighter (purchased with EC) with a Ferengi set... and got 3 or 4 Mirror Battlecruisers, but no rare ships.
I have to add - I only got four boxes with large Lobi contents (I think they were each 30?), the rest were either 4 or 5, about 4.5 on average not including the 4 outliers.
So when looking at the Mirror Timeship on the Lobi store, divide any item in there by 4.5 to get an idea of just how many boxes you will have to open to get it... unless you are very lucky.
Here's hoping it isn't an 800 Lobi ship.
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
I find it highly unlikely they will go this route, but I'd much prefer getting the Mirror Timeship on a $60 C-Store buy than seeing it appear as a 400 Lobi ship I need to open 50-100 boxes to obtain... at $1 a box!
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
It is not hard to deconstruct what happened given the evidence present.
What sold the Tholian boxes: Set combo. The rush to get the web console into the ship that best made use of it: recluse. Double set combo: Recluse combo with its fighters works best when the web is active.
The timeships were already planned and being worked on before the tholian stuff came out. Its a basic part of any development cycle.
Seeing the unique console and the faction-specific of the timeships puts them right on into them having been slotted as store ships from the start. Stahl in interviews mentioned new ships coming to the store when he was discussing the Wells class.
The mirror variants show all the elements of a lockbox ship. The previous mirror ships were rather popular albeit not highly valued since they weren't any better than existing ships however so for the timeships they were given uniqueness via being alternatives to the main store ships (wells/korath). A real reason to get them via lockbox.
It is clear that seeing the success of the tholian 'set' frenzy running up the sale of keys they decided to move all these ships into lockbox and ride the cash wave. They added the extra 'set' powers of combining the mirror and the real ships plus the lobi items combo set to drive up the sales.
Furthermore, there were only two other ships the devs have mentioned in the past as 'coming up' : the andorian warship and the Vesta.
The Andorian as mentioned long ago was to be a store ship. Now however it very likely will be another lockbox ship. Vesta we were not told yet what it would be but given the mythos and hype surrounding it being 'special' its likely slotted to be the 1000 day vet reward.
...unless of course that (and it is now HIGHLY likely) that seeing how they now turned cstore ships into lockboxes the devs may instead give another TRIBBLE-flinging monkey pet as the 1000 day reward (will this one just be BIG and cover the entire hallway of DS9?) and put the Vesta as a super-low chance lockbox ship. After all, they make more money out of a single ship being lockbox than out of the few hundred people that still pay for this game 3 years straight..or had the misfortune of buying the lifetime offer right before F2P patch.
Unknown what the KDF version of that reward might be.
These plus the 1000-day variants, if it is not the Andorian broadside ship.
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
Every Lockbox ship seems more insanely "must have" for PvP competitiveness, that I just shake my head.
Hm not really. The Galor and the D'kora remain pretty good pvp ships. They might have no special console but a good photonic displacement (currently worth 2m on the exchange) is enough and will turn any KDF ship into a deadly stealth machine. That's simple, I've bought a pack for every single char I have.
The Orb and the Recluse are also decent pvp ships but their consoles are pretty disappointing. I've tested both and they aren't really pvp oriented.
Now i'm not sure how these timeships work. There are still many unknown factors: Cooldowns, durations, AoE, etc. They might not be a "must have" either. They'll be great pvp ships but I'm not sure any other lockbox ship can't be competitive if it's properly fitted.
Anyway, the most interesting ship is the lobi one, and cryptic said lobi ships should stay forever (forever = at least 3-4 months here), so you'll have plenty of time to earn some energy credits, even without farming them. Anyone can make 60-70M in 4-5 months selling STF loots, prosthetics from defera, reward boxes from nukara, etc. Just sell everything you find, I made my very first millions this way and got a galor while I was still a noob about EC grabbing a few months ago. Keep hope! You CAN get these ships without spending any real money in the game if you don't want to, it just takes time. But at least it'll give you a goal to play the game.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
WTF happened to just making something C-store accessible, with an ESTABLISHED price tag that everyone could work for and access on their own time (2k zen for a B'rel retro, etc)? This lockbox gimmick is just annoying, and a method of luring people into spending more and more money on digital property that really isn't worth the money.
While I agree with you from a customer persepctive, it's hard to fault them from a business perspective as well. It is a business venture after all, and while people are still willing to pay these ridiculous premiums for a very moderate at best increase in performance there is no incentive for them to change their business procedures.
Rrezeth, Gorn Tactical, primary alt
Nari, Orion Science, secondary alt
If they were smart, these new ships should become available in the C-store for Gold and Lifetime members, to encourage more people to buy a subscription or lifetime. Perhaps have the lock box there still but gold and lifetimers can instead go and buy it as an account unlock. Or if they want, they can go the F2P way and play the lock box lottery.
That way both parties win. If a F2P player like my son wants it, then they need to at least take out a subscription. Now the only thing they need to figure out is how to stop people taking out the sub, getting the ship and then cancelling it. Perhaps an auto refund of Zen in the case a member cancels their sub. They still get their Zen back so aren't being ripped off, but can't take advantage of a gold only feature.
This is actually a really interesting idea, and one that gives a nice little nod to the subscription folks. Good suggestion.
Thanks mate, undoubtedly Stahl and Cryptic will come up with some reason not to implement it, unfairness to F2P players or something. Like they did with the KDF Fleet ships not getting a discount, also like the Kar'fi, B'rel and Gorn ship not being included.
One day I'd love for Cryptic to prove me wrong and pleasantly surprise me. :P
I like it!!!! and would support such an aproach with my wallet wide open.
R.I.P
And on this matter, let's hope you are wrong!!!=)
But really, I think it is a fantastic idea. And I think it would be a nice policy overall: All lockbox ships should be purchasable by subscription people from the C-store. In fact, so that the idea gets exposure, I will start a new thread in the KDF General forum. Perhaps you can just put your vote of confidence there to give it legitimation. And perhaps you too, Roach, since you seem to like his idea.
here is the link: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=5848011#post5848011
Great trolling on the KDF btw, offer a KDF ship after a long drought but instead of a Cstore it'll be a lockbox one. Taking cues from EA?
Thanks, yeah I hope I am wrong, but I just have so my negativity towards Cryptic and PWE due to their actions, broken promised and the like that I doubt they will do anything for their Customers. It's all take, take and take. When was the last time a free ship or mission hit the game? April for the mission Alpha and god knows when for the ship. It's all about greed and exploiting their customers.
Yeah it seems breaking promises is their new motto. And they wonder why the community has so much negativeness towards them. Cancel subscriptions and just simply leave and not come back. We are sick of being exploited by these money hungry greedy Ferengi. Damn greedy little big eared trolls!
I'll spend less on it in the Exchange after grinding DL to convert to EC.
Majestics idea is a good one and would show some love to those who risk subscribing to STO.
Price the new Ships at $25 a piece, make them character restricted and if you drop one you must rebuy it. Seems fair to me and Cryptic still makes thier money.
R.I.P