Originally Posted by sekritagent
Dilithium prices for grinding Duty Officers up from one quality to the next are dramatically increased| Free Academy recruitment Duty Officer packs eliminated and replaced with one that costs dilithium
As noted, the Dilithium prices have been increased, yes. Please leave your feedback on this in this thread or the Tribble forums.
This change, I do not like or agree with. Does this mean that there won't be any way to recruit additional DOFF's for free? What will this do to fleet projects that consume DOFF's?
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The problem is something as huge as a Dilithium increase on Doff Grinding wasn't even listed as part of the Season 7 update and yet we now have confirmation that it an expected change to the game.
That isn't bad communication. That is deception, willfully not informing us of a planned change that important in the notes and just dumping it on us in Tribble.
Thanks Brandon for keeping on top of this. I notced you did not bring up the Investigate Officer report and the "Console Clicking" Issue. Some more info would be appreciated.
Hate to repeat myself Brandon - you could be investigating(no pun intended) this or you might have missed my question in all this - well - confusion.
I know that you were a player and podcaster first and everyone here should know that, so at least for you this game really matters a lot.
im suprised that cryptic can affor to loose more players, suirely it would be better to promote and attract new players than drive away the old eones ? and witht he likes of planetside 2 out in november, these monetizing money grabbing changes for s7 make no sense ?
The problem is something as huge as a Dilithium increase on Doff Grinding wasn't even listed as part of the Season 7 update and yet we now have confirmation that it an expected change to the game.
That isn't bad communication. That is deception, willfully not informing us of a planned change that important in the notes and just dumping it on us in Tribble.
Dilithium increase on DOFF grinding would have been nice to know about and i think the new prices are way to steep
Old one may have been a bit low, but i think probably fair prices would be to drop a '0' from the new prices. Then its still more than what it used to be but a lot less than the way overpriced price that is there.
Basically drop a 0 from the end of these prices here. (perfered new prices in brackets)
Common - 500 (600 at race specific vendor) [50/60]
Uncommon - 2500 (3000 at race specific vendor) [250/300]
Rare - 5000 (6000 at race specific vendor) [500/600]
Someone needs to win the lottery fast and buy Cryptic from PWE, fire the entire staff of Cryptic. Because right now this game is going to hell in a hand basket.
Recruiting doffs at the academy will cost morbid amounts of dilithium. STFs will give a feeble reward. Just great. The double team of costing more and getting less to pay for it will just crash this altogether. Dan said S7 would be the biggest update since launch, oh yeah it sure looks like it will be. But not in a very good way.
The Next Generation ended with seven seasons. Deep Space Nine ended with seven seasons. Voyager ended with seven seasons. And isn't just too funny that from the way this is looking STO might end at seven seasons? Hopefully S7 isn't all doom and gloom and it will live to see S8.
I'm not even going to begin to try and imagine the inevitable crash of the dilithium exchange. And all the items bought with dilithium that help support the regular exchange, S7 may just undermine the entire economy of STO but with any luck it will remain semi-intact.
The guys at Cryptic had better have something really good in mind for new ways of getting dilithium, or changing dilithium bought items to something else that is easier to obtain.
However, the problem is not necessarily that they are monetizing, per se. It is more along the lines of pushing it to extremes. The staggering number of DOffs required, combined with the skyrocketing cost of DOffs, combined with the grind-to-grind-to-pay-to-grind ad nauseum...
Well, it adds up. It's true that converting from subs to F2P is difficult as people accustomed to this sort of thing. However, there are limits as to how far you can push people.
If they REALLY need this kind of income, there is one solution that they should consider - having a lot of these features be free for subscribers. Give more, solid value to a subscription. Those who will tend towards F2P practices will likely lean towards F2P behavior. Those who want a bargain but will still put cash in will go for subs. Those who want to play but are disgusted with F2P stuff will also sub. Combined, you may have better income and better retention all in one.
That said, that's just me. All I know is that this just has me shaking my head and wondering how we're supposed to do anything with this. I do not want to join in the "we're entitled to XYZ crowd," and I realize Cryptic needs to make the dough, as does PWE. But something like this is just too much for a lot of people, and while it may be premature for me to say so, I can't imagine starting a new starbase, or even a new toon, under these circumstances.
I really hate to jump on this bandwagon, but that's the way it sure seems to me.
I lived through the F2P conversion and had very little problem with what came out "the other end"...
I freely admit to a bit of "indigestion" during that time period, but I managed to "burp" out most of my concerns once we had a chance to actually "devour" the changes...
Granted parts of what changed became an anathema to my gaming diet, but one learns rather quickly how to avoid things that turns ones stomach.
What we are seeing now though, appears to be the preparation of a Buffet the likes of which haven't been seen since the 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' dinner sequence.
:eek:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Well, I honestly think that my thoughts of STO being dead inside the next year is quickly becoming a reality. They ran/are running the LTS sale for no other purpose in my mind than to grab as much cash as they can before they destroy the game. The things I'm seeing about S7 just seems to be opening the coffin. Personally, IF i had the money i'd buy back cryptic (or just STO), and gut the place. Fire ALL of them, or make them prove their worth. Hire a group of folks who enjoy their work, know wtf they are doing, disclose all proposed changes (yes ALL), and care enough about the game to actually LISTEN to the players. Oh to be a rich man and have that option. Unfortunately I'm not a rich man so I'll contiue to ***** about the bs changes and applaude the decent changes until they destroy STO in the not far off future.
As the head of a smaller fleet in game, 9 members, what I've read about the upcoming changes to the Academy Doff recruitment has me troubled. Specifically, I am referring to the added dilithum cost of the general recruitment pack and the upgrading of Doffs. It is my belief that the new/increased dilithum costs will essentially bring an end to our fleet starbase project.
Our fleet starbase is currently sitting about one-third of the way between tier 2 and 3 on the Tac, Sci, and Eng progress bars. Unfortunately it's moving at a snail's pace as is because we have a shortage of the following Doffs:
Security
Medical
Operations
The C-store Doff packs, and the exchange are cost prohibitive for us. Our only realistically accessible Doff recruitment is though the missions at Starfleet Academy. Adding a dilithum cost to the general recruitment mission will significantly reduce the amount of Doffs we are able to recruit as we will be unable to buy them due to cost.
For some reason the Doffs in the categories I've listed above are next to impossible to get via the recruitment missions, also by purchasing Doffs from the Doff-In-a-Box vendor on the fleet starbase. As a result we have a glut of Tactical, Engineering, and Science Doffs with nowhere to use them. Our best course of action was to upgrade these extra Doffs to green quality and then downgrade them back to white and hope they fall into the categories we need. The success rate with this hasn't been great, but it's better than nothing. Increasing the upgrade costs will mean that we will be forced to utilize this already limited success process even less.
As a small fleet already struggling with the starbase, we were really holding out hope for some relief with the base projects and Doff recruitment ratios for the three categories we desperately need. The reported recruitment changes on Tribble, instead of relief, appear to make the starbase project even more difficult and no longer worth the effort. I humbly ask that these changes be reconsidered.
Kind regards,
Brian
I am sorry that I may have inadvertatly caused some at Cyptic to believe that progression at least to Tier 3 starbase was pretty easy. Being the first to solo a Tier 3 starbase(all components) several days ago with $0 real dollars other than my monthly Gold Sub Stipend may have given some the impression that it's not to hard. It was very hard and took a negative toll on me - which was reflected in many of my posts since season 6 - pretty burnt out.
I know it was never in Cryptic's plan for someone to solo a starbase, but it did keep me and many others out there to remain in the game. These new changes if implemented will make soloing next to impossible. I did it purely to see if it could be done - but have recommended that others who have not started one - to don't even bother - it's just not worth the effort. It seems that from now on starbases will be the realm of super fleets.
Someone needs to win the lottery fast and buy Cryptic from PWE, fire the entire staff of Cryptic. Because right now this game is going to hell in a hand basket.
Don't be so quick to judge Cryptic employees - they are after all - employees and do what their employer tells them. If I bought Cryptic you can bet I would change things but would not fire anyone. They are just doing the jobs they are told to do.
It was changed to make it seem like the list of S7 changes was somehow false speculation when almost the entire list was confirmed in branflakes' post so I've clarified the points Brandon misunderstood me saying (i.e. Borg Salvage and Tech are going away, so can't be converted to dilithium).
No matter how you slice it, the bottom line is: more grind, higher costs, fewer rewards.
This is not a positive development for Star Trek Online. I'd think you couldn't afford to lose any more players. We are clearly communicating to you that this is the limit.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
Yes, this is part of the reputation system, but the items cost significantly less in time than how they are currently obtained. I have only one complete XII ground set, among all my characters who run STFs, and looking at this new system, I couldn't be more excited. Watch for Tribble patch notes for when this goes to testing, and make sure to leave your feedback in the official feedback thread that gets created. As a player, I'm very happy with what I've seen.
Again, this is false. You can earn Dilithium from STFs if you play on Elite (among other rewards).
I can't not realize that discrepancy:
Currently, we get dilithium from STFs plus rewards that can be converted to dilithium.
Soon, apparently, it is planned for us to have "a way" of getting dilithium "if you play on elite".
Currently, we can get at least Mk XI gear with the rewards independently of the dilithium we get.
Soon, we'll have to shell out dilithium (that we'll get far less easily) for that gear.
How is it possible we're getting more and more sinks (very apparent in case of dilithium), while we actually get less sources?
This trend has started quite a while ago, and is more and more pronounced with every new season (Fleet Starbase system is a massive dil sink and now STFs that, I dare say, were mostly sources for dil, seemingly also become a sink.
This system is flawed and unsustainable. If you are to add sinks and more sinks for ressources, you have to balance them out with new sources for said ressources.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
I am sorry that I may have inadvertently caused some at Cyptic to believe that progression at least to Tier 3 starbase was pretty easy. Being the first to solo a Tier 3 starbase(all components) several days ago with $0 real dollars other than my monthly Gold Sub Stipend may have given some the impression that it's not to hard. It was very hard and took a negative toll on me - which was reflected in many of my posts since season 6 - pretty burnt out.
I know it was never in Cryptic's plan for someone to solo a starbase, but it did keep me and many others out there to remain in the game. These new changes if implemented will make soloing next to impossible. I did it purely to see if it could be done - but have recommended that others who have not started one - to don't even bother - it's just not worth the effort. It seems that from now on starbases will be the realm of super fleets.
Beginning a Star Base isn't a complete loss at this point...
You still get the Fleet Bank, which is quite handy even with the Account Wide Bank being available.
(and you can get more Fleet Bank slots with EC's rather than Zen/Dilithium)
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Oh well i see what the issue is: the size of the team has doubled and there aren't more players to fund the game. So they're trying to get more from the existing one. But I really think that season 6 is already our limit. At least it's mine and it's the limit of many players I know.
I see them coming with a buff of the academy doff pack. Of course it would be a complete misunderstanding of what we want. I also see them coming with reduced dil rewards for STFs with some vague justification. Of course it's something no one wants.
But I see that coming anyway and I think they should learn valuable psycholigical lessons: what you give for free, keep it free forever, otherwise you'll just upset people for very little gain, since upset people are unlileky to pay. Instead provide new content if you want to charge for it, no one will ever tell you that it's unfair or whatever, as long as the system isn't unbalanced.
That's the major issue here: you're charging (more) for OLD content that used to be free or almost free. I feel that you broke your part of a moral agreement since you're changing the rules. Many people will feel betrayed. This is normal.
So here are some free advices:
You want to charge more for doffs. Fine. Create another doff assignment for 1k or a bit more dil, and reward an "enhanced academy pack" with some better stuff than the free one in it. This could be very well accepted by the playerbase, since it will solve a part of the doff issue for a reasonable price. Give it a shared CD with the free academy one so that it doesn't introduce more doffs in game.
You want people to pay for sets. Fine. Create brand new ones and charge dil with your new reputation system. No one will ever complain about new sets as long as they are in par with the existing ones, or as long as there are free ones in par with them if the new sets are better. If they cost dil only people will be willing to get them since dil isn't seen as "irl money". 50k dil seems less than its irl equivalent.
You want people to play the game longer to get the same amounts of rewards. Fine. Create brand new far more appealing content with lesser rewards. If it's really better people will switch to it. That's a bit abstract but I'm not a game designer so that's not my job, sorry.
In other words, if you see your job as recycling old free content to charge for it with some cosmetic updates then you're doing it wrong. That's half of what season 7 is about, and this time could have been used to create brand new content you could charge for. Maybe less but at least it could have been better accepted than what you're trying to do.
Yes, this is part of the reputation system, but the items cost significantly less in time than how they are currently obtained. I have only one complete XII ground set, among all my characters who run STFs, and looking at this new system, I couldn't be more excited. Watch for Tribble patch notes for when this goes to testing, and make sure to leave your feedback in the official feedback thread that gets created. As a player, I'm very happy with what I've seen.
Why is it that all of the new features have dilithium costs appended to them? Omega Force has never been about dilithium profit. The NPC currently granting STF requisitions even states that "Omega Force is a fighting organization, Admiral. We aren't overly concerned with how much dilithium you have... Stopping the borg is all that matters". Well apparently D'Vak and Roxy went on vacation and put Quark in charge of requisitions!
Pre-season 7, it is theoretically possible to obtain an entire Mk XII space set with 8 Mk XII weapons in one day if you were heavily grinding STF content. I got the entire MACO Mk XII ground set for my science character in under 15 elite ground missions. Post-season 7 with these new dilithium costs, which I am assuming will be at least 10,000 dilithium for one piece of Mk XII gear, it will take at least a month just to get the needed dilithium. At that price you could almost buy a whole new starship for the price that you would pay. By doing this you are dual gating the STF gear. Not only do we have an hour cooldown on any given STF, but now we must also grind dilithium in order to get rewards from doing STF content.
This is the worst addition since the fleet ship modules and fleet gear. Only for that we first had to grind for weeks and then pay staggering amounts of dilithium AND fleet credits when we have already payed through the nose in resources (including dilithium) obtaining the fleet gear provisions. And for fleet ships we get to pay $20 or 21,000,000 EC per character after grinding the Starbase up military tiers.
The game is coming to a point where the rewards for grinding aren't worth the effort put into it. Through the current system I have no problem doing STF after STF for a shot at the Mk XII gear. When most players get a prototype drop in the current system, most players are very happy that their hard work has paid off. The new system has no such joy. They have to divert a month's worth of dilithium in order to obtain the gear. Dilithium that could have otherwise gone toward advancing their starbase. Giving fleet members an incentive to donate hard earned dilithium is hard enough. This change will just make this even harder. It's a shame that such a great system is going to become a worthless grind.
I am reluctant to believe anything will come from the devs reading this, but I sincerely hope the devs will reconsider their plans to add dilithium costs to STF gear and duty officers. More than likely though, there won't even be a second thought before this is released. And when it is released there will be enough people that buy into the new shiny gear that cryptic will just throw the cries to the wind. Here's to hoping that the devs take these concerns to heart before the launch of S7.
How is it possible we're getting more and more sinks (very apparent in case of dilithium), while we actually get less sources?
Has anyone considered that they will eventually make dilithium a c-store purchase? Honestly it wouldn't surprise me one little bit to find that it's already written down in an outline for future changes somewhere.
The problem is something as huge as a Dilithium increase on Doff Grinding wasn't even listed as part of the Season 7 update and yet we now have confirmation that it an expected change to the game.
That isn't bad communication. That is deception, willfully not informing us of a planned change that important in the notes and just dumping it on us in Tribble.
I think we'll have to disagree on this, the change is on tribble right now, but it's not like this is being pushed live tomorrow. There is plenty of time to digest the change and decide, and document the thought process behind it.
They *should* have it in the documentation on tribble however. Deception would imply they thought no one would notice when they put it on the test server and then asked people to go play on the test server. That seems highly unlikely.
Has anyone considered that they will eventually make dilithium a c-store purchase? Honestly it wouldn't surprise me one little bit to find that it's already written down in an outline for future changes somewhere.
Oh, without a doubt we will eventually see '50,000 dilithium ore package' in the C store.
First, normal STFS should still give dilithium. There was nothing wrong with that.
Second.... really, the common duty officer recruitmant pack should not cost dilithium.
If PWE/Cryptic wants more duty officer packs to sell, just make them give blue/purple duty officers.
Also... Z-store items are a good way to get people to buy money.
Like new costumes.... new weapons, like Antiproton quad cannons or a Mark XII sniper rifle from that DS9 episode.
Or a new vanity pet or a new uniform.
So you can buy more with Z points then just ships and Dilithium and ship modules.
I know that the game needs money to run, though I love the daily report mission, I'm too lame and slow to do the mining dilithium event, my reflexes are too slow.
I can do the Exploration and the Daily report mission ones, which is 2800 dilithium at all.
We all want playable romulans, as a new faction or at least as a Federation race unlock.
But these changes are so radical that we'll just need to hope the game actually lasts until Season 8.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
I think we'll have to disagree on this, the change is on tribble right now, but it's not like this is being pushed live tomorrow. There is plenty of time to digest the change and decide, and document the thought process behind it.
They *should* have it in the documentation on tribble however. Deception would imply they thought no one would notice when they put it on the test server and then asked people to go play on the test server. That seems highly unlikely.
So why omit such a change from the notes, I doubt it was pure incompetence alone. Maybe they omitted it and wanted to see what the reaction to it would be on the test server...
I don't know either way it's been confirmed that they were planning to do this, and that they did not inform us.
Seems like deception to me.
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand, and well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith.
I know it was never in Cryptic's plan for someone to solo a starbase, but it did keep me and many others out there to remain in the game. These new changes if implemented will make soloing next to impossible. I did it purely to see if it could be done - but have recommended that others who have not started one - to don't even bother - it's just not worth the effort. It seems that from now on starbases will be the realm of super fleets.
I'll fully give you that you shouldn't have been able to solo a T3 base, maybe make T2 the max for solo fleets. But there has to be a better way to limit that than raising prices for the 99% of the playerbase who aren't doing that.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
Comments
This change, I do not like or agree with. Does this mean that there won't be any way to recruit additional DOFF's for free? What will this do to fleet projects that consume DOFF's?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The problem is something as huge as a Dilithium increase on Doff Grinding wasn't even listed as part of the Season 7 update and yet we now have confirmation that it an expected change to the game.
That isn't bad communication. That is deception, willfully not informing us of a planned change that important in the notes and just dumping it on us in Tribble.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
Hate to repeat myself Brandon - you could be investigating(no pun intended) this or you might have missed my question in all this - well - confusion.
I know that you were a player and podcaster first and everyone here should know that, so at least for you this game really matters a lot.
Dilithium increase on DOFF grinding would have been nice to know about and i think the new prices are way to steep
Old one may have been a bit low, but i think probably fair prices would be to drop a '0' from the new prices. Then its still more than what it used to be but a lot less than the way overpriced price that is there.
Basically drop a 0 from the end of these prices here. (perfered new prices in brackets)
Common - 500 (600 at race specific vendor) [50/60]
Uncommon - 2500 (3000 at race specific vendor) [250/300]
Rare - 5000 (6000 at race specific vendor) [500/600]
The Next Generation ended with seven seasons. Deep Space Nine ended with seven seasons. Voyager ended with seven seasons. And isn't just too funny that from the way this is looking STO might end at seven seasons? Hopefully S7 isn't all doom and gloom and it will live to see S8.
I'm not even going to begin to try and imagine the inevitable crash of the dilithium exchange. And all the items bought with dilithium that help support the regular exchange, S7 may just undermine the entire economy of STO but with any luck it will remain semi-intact.
The guys at Cryptic had better have something really good in mind for new ways of getting dilithium, or changing dilithium bought items to something else that is easier to obtain.
I lived through the F2P conversion and had very little problem with what came out "the other end"...
I freely admit to a bit of "indigestion" during that time period, but I managed to "burp" out most of my concerns once we had a chance to actually "devour" the changes...
Granted parts of what changed became an anathema to my gaming diet, but one learns rather quickly how to avoid things that turns ones stomach.
What we are seeing now though, appears to be the preparation of a Buffet the likes of which haven't been seen since the 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' dinner sequence.
:eek:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I am sorry that I may have inadvertatly caused some at Cyptic to believe that progression at least to Tier 3 starbase was pretty easy. Being the first to solo a Tier 3 starbase(all components) several days ago with $0 real dollars other than my monthly Gold Sub Stipend may have given some the impression that it's not to hard. It was very hard and took a negative toll on me - which was reflected in many of my posts since season 6 - pretty burnt out.
I know it was never in Cryptic's plan for someone to solo a starbase, but it did keep me and many others out there to remain in the game. These new changes if implemented will make soloing next to impossible. I did it purely to see if it could be done - but have recommended that others who have not started one - to don't even bother - it's just not worth the effort. It seems that from now on starbases will be the realm of super fleets.
Don't be so quick to judge Cryptic employees - they are after all - employees and do what their employer tells them. If I bought Cryptic you can bet I would change things but would not fire anyone. They are just doing the jobs they are told to do.
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It was changed to make it seem like the list of S7 changes was somehow false speculation when almost the entire list was confirmed in branflakes' post so I've clarified the points Brandon misunderstood me saying (i.e. Borg Salvage and Tech are going away, so can't be converted to dilithium).
No matter how you slice it, the bottom line is: more grind, higher costs, fewer rewards.
This is not a positive development for Star Trek Online. I'd think you couldn't afford to lose any more players. We are clearly communicating to you that this is the limit.
I can't not realize that discrepancy:
How is it possible we're getting more and more sinks (very apparent in case of dilithium), while we actually get less sources?
This trend has started quite a while ago, and is more and more pronounced with every new season (Fleet Starbase system is a massive dil sink and now STFs that, I dare say, were mostly sources for dil, seemingly also become a sink.
This system is flawed and unsustainable. If you are to add sinks and more sinks for ressources, you have to balance them out with new sources for said ressources.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Beginning a Star Base isn't a complete loss at this point...
You still get the Fleet Bank, which is quite handy even with the Account Wide Bank being available.
(and you can get more Fleet Bank slots with EC's rather than Zen/Dilithium)
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I see them coming with a buff of the academy doff pack. Of course it would be a complete misunderstanding of what we want. I also see them coming with reduced dil rewards for STFs with some vague justification. Of course it's something no one wants.
But I see that coming anyway and I think they should learn valuable psycholigical lessons: what you give for free, keep it free forever, otherwise you'll just upset people for very little gain, since upset people are unlileky to pay. Instead provide new content if you want to charge for it, no one will ever tell you that it's unfair or whatever, as long as the system isn't unbalanced.
That's the major issue here: you're charging (more) for OLD content that used to be free or almost free. I feel that you broke your part of a moral agreement since you're changing the rules. Many people will feel betrayed. This is normal.
So here are some free advices:
You want to charge more for doffs. Fine. Create another doff assignment for 1k or a bit more dil, and reward an "enhanced academy pack" with some better stuff than the free one in it. This could be very well accepted by the playerbase, since it will solve a part of the doff issue for a reasonable price. Give it a shared CD with the free academy one so that it doesn't introduce more doffs in game.
You want people to pay for sets. Fine. Create brand new ones and charge dil with your new reputation system. No one will ever complain about new sets as long as they are in par with the existing ones, or as long as there are free ones in par with them if the new sets are better. If they cost dil only people will be willing to get them since dil isn't seen as "irl money". 50k dil seems less than its irl equivalent.
You want people to play the game longer to get the same amounts of rewards. Fine. Create brand new far more appealing content with lesser rewards. If it's really better people will switch to it. That's a bit abstract but I'm not a game designer so that's not my job, sorry.
In other words, if you see your job as recycling old free content to charge for it with some cosmetic updates then you're doing it wrong. That's half of what season 7 is about, and this time could have been used to create brand new content you could charge for. Maybe less but at least it could have been better accepted than what you're trying to do.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Yes, through the Marks / Rep system
#2311#2700#2316#2500
Why is it that all of the new features have dilithium costs appended to them? Omega Force has never been about dilithium profit. The NPC currently granting STF requisitions even states that "Omega Force is a fighting organization, Admiral. We aren't overly concerned with how much dilithium you have... Stopping the borg is all that matters". Well apparently D'Vak and Roxy went on vacation and put Quark in charge of requisitions!
Pre-season 7, it is theoretically possible to obtain an entire Mk XII space set with 8 Mk XII weapons in one day if you were heavily grinding STF content. I got the entire MACO Mk XII ground set for my science character in under 15 elite ground missions. Post-season 7 with these new dilithium costs, which I am assuming will be at least 10,000 dilithium for one piece of Mk XII gear, it will take at least a month just to get the needed dilithium. At that price you could almost buy a whole new starship for the price that you would pay. By doing this you are dual gating the STF gear. Not only do we have an hour cooldown on any given STF, but now we must also grind dilithium in order to get rewards from doing STF content.
This is the worst addition since the fleet ship modules and fleet gear. Only for that we first had to grind for weeks and then pay staggering amounts of dilithium AND fleet credits when we have already payed through the nose in resources (including dilithium) obtaining the fleet gear provisions. And for fleet ships we get to pay $20 or 21,000,000 EC per character after grinding the Starbase up military tiers.
The game is coming to a point where the rewards for grinding aren't worth the effort put into it. Through the current system I have no problem doing STF after STF for a shot at the Mk XII gear. When most players get a prototype drop in the current system, most players are very happy that their hard work has paid off. The new system has no such joy. They have to divert a month's worth of dilithium in order to obtain the gear. Dilithium that could have otherwise gone toward advancing their starbase. Giving fleet members an incentive to donate hard earned dilithium is hard enough. This change will just make this even harder. It's a shame that such a great system is going to become a worthless grind.
I am reluctant to believe anything will come from the devs reading this, but I sincerely hope the devs will reconsider their plans to add dilithium costs to STF gear and duty officers. More than likely though, there won't even be a second thought before this is released. And when it is released there will be enough people that buy into the new shiny gear that cryptic will just throw the cries to the wind. Here's to hoping that the devs take these concerns to heart before the launch of S7.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Oh, I'm sure you will. But how you get it and how much it will cost is what the problem is.
You'll be able to get them from rep grinding Omega Fleet rep as far as we can surmise.
Has anyone considered that they will eventually make dilithium a c-store purchase? Honestly it wouldn't surprise me one little bit to find that it's already written down in an outline for future changes somewhere.
I think we'll have to disagree on this, the change is on tribble right now, but it's not like this is being pushed live tomorrow. There is plenty of time to digest the change and decide, and document the thought process behind it.
They *should* have it in the documentation on tribble however. Deception would imply they thought no one would notice when they put it on the test server and then asked people to go play on the test server. That seems highly unlikely.
Oh, without a doubt we will eventually see '50,000 dilithium ore package' in the C store.
What happend to "Gold members lose nothing in the F2P conversoin"
Anyone else remember that line?
First, normal STFS should still give dilithium. There was nothing wrong with that.
Second.... really, the common duty officer recruitmant pack should not cost dilithium.
If PWE/Cryptic wants more duty officer packs to sell, just make them give blue/purple duty officers.
Also... Z-store items are a good way to get people to buy money.
Like new costumes.... new weapons, like Antiproton quad cannons or a Mark XII sniper rifle from that DS9 episode.
Or a new vanity pet or a new uniform.
So you can buy more with Z points then just ships and Dilithium and ship modules.
I know that the game needs money to run, though I love the daily report mission, I'm too lame and slow to do the mining dilithium event, my reflexes are too slow.
I can do the Exploration and the Daily report mission ones, which is 2800 dilithium at all.
We all want playable romulans, as a new faction or at least as a Federation race unlock.
But these changes are so radical that we'll just need to hope the game actually lasts until Season 8.
So why omit such a change from the notes, I doubt it was pure incompetence alone. Maybe they omitted it and wanted to see what the reaction to it would be on the test server...
I don't know either way it's been confirmed that they were planning to do this, and that they did not inform us.
Seems like deception to me.
:rolleyes:
#2311#2700#2316#2500
I'll fully give you that you shouldn't have been able to solo a T3 base, maybe make T2 the max for solo fleets. But there has to be a better way to limit that than raising prices for the 99% of the playerbase who aren't doing that.