Space and ground STF items now cost dilithium in addition to the new STF grind currency (36000 dilithium for each Mk XII piece)
Dilithium prices for grinding Duty Officers up from one quality to the next are dramatically increased
All this shameless extra money-grubbing is beginning to take on unsavory forms. Seems PWE is solely fixated on milking us blind. Keep it up, and ere long I will be gone. Not that they'd give a sh*t (there's a sucker born every minute, right?). And maybe that's part of the problem.
No, it really isn't. Here's the numbers you're not seeing:
A full set of Mk XII Gear costs 3000 Marks, 15 Elite Marks, and ~100,000 Dilithium.
Attaining Tier 5 in Omega Rep costs 1,686 Marks, 0 Elite Marks, and ~80,000 Dilithium.
People that have already obtained a full set of the Mk XII gear of their choosing no longer have the need to spend the currency listed in above. In fact, along the way to obtaining that gear, it's incredibly likely that they've picked up a good chunk of EDCs, Salvage and Tech, all of which they have no use for (because they already have their desired gear), and will all be converted into Omega Marks which now have a purpose for them, should they choose to use them.
Their extra 'reward' is the fact that the system will cost them less. Considering the prices involved here, that's not something to be ignored.
With the current Dil to Zen conversion prices, aka buying, which is only going to get better with Season 7 (Not to be confused with Zen to Dil conversion prices which will get worse, aka Selling), EDCs, Common Salvage, Rare Salvage and Prototype Salvage all have pretty good value in the game.
5 EDCs is valued at 100k EC or 528 Dil or $0.0334 - 1 EDC being worth $0.00668 a piece
It is my opinion it is better to buy Retro STF gear with EDCs than Dil as the Dil conversion for other pieces if worth less EC, but worth more Dil.
Math to explain this
Master Keys are worth approx. 1.4m ECs about right now
Master Keys cost 125 Zen to purchase
125 Zen obtained through Dil conversion of EDCs would require a staggering 190 EDCs.
5 EDCs will let you purchase one piece of Retro STF gear priced at 200,000 EC and saleable for 100,000 EC.
To achieve 1,400,000 EC through the purchase and selling of Retro STF gear would only require a less staggering 70 EDC.
With this final point, this would put EDCs, through purchases of Master keys, at a value of $0.0178. A 261% increase in value.
1 Common Ship Piece is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Borg Salvage is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Ship Piece is valued at 50k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces is valued at 55k EC or 2304 Dil or $0.1458
All values are using 158 Dil to Zen ratio.
Edit: Here is the major point of this.
What you're are saying is that these items actually have no value and you're turning them into no value items when season 7 hits.
Encrypted Data Chips to Dil = 105.8 Dil = 0.668 Zen or $0.00668 | EDCs to Energy Credits = 25,000 EC | Master Key = 125 Zen or 1,4m EC | 190 EDCs = 126.9 Zen | 70 EDCs = 1,4m EC
I only have one character that has completed the 300 STFs, and do have a supply of EDCs and Salvage remaining, but not everyone does. And right now there are a ton of people on Holodeck scrambling to turn them in for Dilithium before the grand nerf.
But I think Borticus made a massive error with this new system. If the STFs were new, then this could've worked. Instead, it's mega punishing everyone that's worked hard for months trying to complete the accolades and get their MK12 Sets. And I know for a fact there is still pleny of people who been playing since December that has yet to complete a single set and didn't take a day off.
So I think for the sake of everyone in STO, he better go back to the drawing board and rethink this system.
Exactly. It's like a restaurant reheating leftovers and taking everyone's plate away while they're still eating to roll out the new menu with clearer pricing. Then saying, "Well, it's fair for everyone who wasn't here for the last meal and you still ate what you ate."
I wouldn't eat at a restaurant that did this. Nobody would.
I refuse to believe anybody internally at Cryptic finds this reasonable unless they have part of their brain turned off.
Methinks piecemeal teasers and reveals of this Reputation system ahead of a proper detailed dev post telling us exactly what to expect were not a good idea.
We have an incomplete image of how the Reputation system will function. Look at the damage it has caused. This thread is a sea of confusion, anger, and questions, with precious little understanding to balance things out. We have enough of a picture to be very rightfully upset over the conclusions we have drawn.
We should not be in a situation of drawing conclusions. That dev blog post with the details about this system had better arrive PDQ, or this is just going to bake onto the psyche of players more and more so that if there is any upside that we are unaware of as yet, it'll be overwhelmed in negative. Not saying that there's good news waiting to come, but questions and uncertainty in a vaccuum of straight and detailed answers breed distrust and animus. And if there's one thing a passionate STO community can generate as fast as anticipation, it's that.
So here we are again. Knowing too much, too soon, and yet not knowing enough to keep from panic.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010 "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
The game stopped being about alts the day character specific Lockbox ships hit the game. It was clearly the shape of things to come. Any lingering doubts died when the second ship was released. Really was anyone surprised at character bound fleet ships at all? They got what they wanted, no more account bound ships.
The problem is that Cryptic can't seem to decide if they want you to spend all your money on ONE character, or spread it around several, at least that's the feeling I get from their decisions. I think lately they are leaning toward "all your cash on one charater" though, mainly because of all the time ship's skin unlocks and console sets. Lets think about this... how many people would want a Wells and a Mobius on the same character? So to incentivize you to get both, the really nice Wells skin can fit the Mobius... which has mostly meh skins. Oh look, they also have consoles that make a set..... If the skins were account wide so your sci alt could at least use the Wells while your tac alt gets the mobius with a nicer skin I would think otherwise. But since its all character bound... i'm sure they want you to spend spend spend it all on one character!
And this is their mistake: they should actually entice folks to make alts . Why ? Because the more characters one has the bigger the likelihood it is to spend cash in the Z-store for at least ONE of those characters .
With the current Dil to Zen conversion prices, aka buying, which is only going to get better with Season 7 (Not to be confused with Zen to Dil conversion prices which will get worse, aka Selling), EDCs, Common Salvage, Rare Salvage and Prototype Salvage all have pretty good value in the game.
5 EDCs is valued at 100k EC or 528 Dil or $0.00334 - 1 EDC being worth $0.0066 a piece
It is my opinion it is better to buy Retro STF gear with EDCs than Dil as the Dil conversion for other pieces if worth less EC, but worth more Dil.
Math to explain this
Master Keys are worth approx. 1.4m ECs about right now
Master Keys cost 125 Zen to purchase
125 Zen obtained through Dil conversion of EDCs would require a staggering 190 EDCs.
5 EDCs will let you purchase one piece of Retro STF gear priced at 200,000 EC and saleable for 100,000 EC.
To achieve 1,400,000 EC through the purchase and selling of Retro STF gear would only require a less staggering 70 EDC.
With this final point, this would put EDCs, through purchases of Master keys, at a value of $0.0178.
A 261% increase in value.
1 Common Ship Piece is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Borg Salvage is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Ship Piece is valued at 50k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces is valued at 55k EC or 2304 Dil or $0.1458
All values are using 158 Dil to Zen ratio.
Edit: Here is the major point of this. What you're are saying is that these items actually have no value and you're turning them into no value items when season 7 hits.
I feel like Cryptic refuses to treat the monetary aspects of their game with any seriousness. By that standard, Lobi store weapons should be Mk XII purples at the minimum.
They hide behind the "We're artists, not accountants" approach when it's convenient for dodging consistency of value analysis. Then swap to "You gotta pay the bills somehow" when faced with artistic questions.
This all reminds me of the final ep of STOKED... but really, who didn't see this TRIBBLE coming?
I give STO maybe another year before it is dead due to PWE's greed.
They obviously have no intent in continuing the game beyond the short term milking period. A company serious about it's future would never make these choices.
>>>UniqueOne-Providing you with easy PVP kills since Feb 2012<<<
I feel like Cryptic refuses to treat the monetary aspects of their game with any seriousness. By that standard, Lobi store weapons should be Mk XII purples at the minimum.
They hide behind the "We're artists, not accountants" approach when it's convenient for dodging consistency of value analysis. Then swap to "You gotta pay the bills somehow" when faced with artistic questions.
I have 1 toon with 250 STF's - should I bother grinding the other 50 out before the switch?
I have 1 toon with 250 STF's - should I bother grinding the other 50 out before the switch?
You could be converting all Common Ship Salvage Pieces, Rare Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces and Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces to Dil.
Convert EDCs into energy credits through the buying and selling of Retro STF gear.
Wait for Season 7 and watch the Buying price of Zen go down. Because we're going to need more Dil with their new changes, which will make Dil more valuable.
Edit: Edit 2: Math at night, don't do it.
Encrypted Data Chips to Dil = 105.8 Dil = 0.668 Zen or $0.00668 | EDCs to Energy Credits = 25,000 EC | Master Key = 125 Zen or 1,4m EC | 190 EDCs = 126.9 Zen | 70 EDCs = 1,4m EC
You could be converting all Common Ship Salvage Pieces, Rare Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces and Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces to Dil.
Convert EDCs into energy credits through the buying and selling of Retro STF gear.
Wait for Season 7 and watch the Buying price of Zen go down. Because we're going to need more Dil with their new changes, which will make Dil more valuable.
Edit: I messed up on my math. One EDC is only worth $0.000668 a piece, making it a 2610% increase if you buy master keys with EC instead of with Dil to Zen.
Let me repeat that again. A 2610% increase in value of EDCs if you convert them to Energy Credits and buy Master Keys instead of converting them to Dil to buy Zen.
You should still be able to get it, I don't think they're getting rid of that.
It's way to late for me to be doing math...
Encrypted Data Chips to Dil = 105.8 Dil = 0.668 Zen or $0.00668 | EDCs to Energy Credits = 25,000 EC | Master Key = 125 Zen or 1,4m EC | 190 EDCs = 126.9 Zen | 70 EDCs = 1,4m EC
As a refugee from Perfect World, it pains me to see some of the same practices that ruined that game coming to Star Trek. For those of you complaining about how long it will take to grind gear (I think someone mentioned 22 days), allow me to reassure you that that is nothing. Back in Perfect World, if you didn't aggressively merchant or throw tons of money at the game it would take you months and months of grinding to get what you needed to make some of the best weapons and armor. For the top level stuff (Rank 9 gear) unless you were part of one of the four or five biggest factions (fleets) you had no hope of achieving it in-game. You had to pay for it with real $. Oh, and by real $ I do mean hundreds of dollars. Not $20 for a ship. My Rank 8 Weapon, Armor, and Reputation cost the equivalent of about $80.
The first thing I noticed when I came over to Star Trek was the lockboxes. These same items ruined the Perfect World economy driving prices through the roof when exchanging in-game coin for zen. The entire game and economy revolve around those boxes in Perfect World.
I hope that the developers of Star Trek will continue to add lots of great things to this game. I really really enjoy it so far. My wife and I have really only been playing it for a couple of months, but it's fun. Just, please don't start adding extra charges to items and gear already in the game. It's going to make a lot of people unhappy. Just look at this size of this thread that was only started yesterday. I know Perfect World is a pretty demanding company, but please realize that unlike their game, which is suffering from a drasticaly declining player-base, this game, Star Trek, cares about its players and its fans.
To sum up: No one here is opposed to you making profit from your game. We are perfectly willing to pay for content that is priced reasonably. Just don't take us for granted.
As a refugee from Perfect World, it pains me to see some of the same practices that ruined that game coming to Star Trek. For those of you complaining about how long it will take to grind gear (I think someone mentioned 22 days), allow me to reassure you that that is nothing. Back in Perfect World, if you didn't aggressively merchant or throw tons of money at the game it would take you months and months of grinding to get what you needed to make some of the best weapons and armor. For the top level stuff (Rank 9 gear) unless you were part of one of the four or five biggest factions (fleets) you had no hope of achieving it in-game. You had to pay for it with real $. Oh, and by real $ I do mean hundreds of dollars. Not $20 for a ship. My Rank 8 Weapon, Armor, and Reputation cost the equivalent of about $80.
The first thing I noticed when I came over to Star Trek was the lockboxes. These same items ruined the Perfect World economy driving prices through the roof when exchanging in-game coin for zen. The entire game and economy revolve around those boxes in Perfect World.
I hope that the developers of Star Trek will continue to add lots of great things to this game. I really really enjoy it so far. My wife and I have really only been playing it for a couple of months, but it's fun. Just, please don't start adding extra charges to items and gear already in the game. It's going to make a lot of people unhappy. Just look at this size of this thread that was only started yesterday. I know Perfect World is a pretty demanding company, but please realize that unlike their game, which is suffering from a drasticaly declining player-base, this game, Star Trek, cares about its players and its fans.
To sum up: No one here is opposed to you making profit from your game. We are perfectly willing to pay for content that is priced reasonably. Just don't take us for granted.
Much love,
Quinn
Thank you for that bit of input, Quinn.
I fear it may be easily overlooked here when there's so much cynicism flying. Though who knows? Maybe this thread's size may get the right eyes to see and consider. I remain an optimist. Someone has to be.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010 "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
I feel we got sold out with this new system which tells us that our STF time investment is worthless if we have to start back at square one with this tier-gated and time-gated store stuff for STF gear. It's not fair Cryptic.
All these replys for sure hurt some of the buzz going into Season 7. Considering this was the big update that was suposed to give us tons of stuff to do all we're seeing so far is more ways to take money out of our pocket.
I think we need alot more good news about season 7 so folks will calm a bit down. But I recomend everyone watch the updates to tribble to see how this season forms shapes up.
I know Perfect World is a pretty demanding company, but please realize that unlike their game, which is suffering from a drasticaly declining player-base, this game, Star Trek, cares about its players and its fans.
Are PWE's flagship games loosing players and the ones remaining spending less than before? I've heard that elsewhere but hadn't confirmed it. People say that the gambling and lockbox games work so well in asia because their cultures are different.... all I know is feeling ripped off crosses cultural and national borders!
I hope its true, the sooner self destructive behavior is noticed the sooner it can be stopped. I doubt PWE is the type of company to do that though... what I see happening is them trying to aggressively shift their games to new markets like the Americas and Europe. This may in fact be the reason why they bought Cryptic in the first place, to give them a foot in the door and help them figure out how to move their games over to new markets faster and with less hassle... I don't want to imagine what over monetized monstrosity NW could turn out to be. Ah well, wasn't going to get involved in any more PWE games anyway. I'm pretty sad lockboxes and "lobi" made it to CO already .
All these replys for sure hurt some of the buzz going into Season 7. Considering this was the big update that was suposed to give us tons of stuff to do all we're seeing so far is more ways to take money out of our pocket.
I think we need alot more good news about season 7 so folks will calm a bit down. But I recomend everyone watch the updates to tribble to see how this season forms shapes up.
S7 was when we finally got content and story again!... yay?... anything about the story or content mentioned so far? All i've heard are rumblings about repeatable maps for marks that are no better than what came in S6... and an STF to the heart of the Borg collective where players just magically appear a few corridors from the Borg Queen . Where's my epic space battle Cryptic??!!
No, it really isn't. Here's the numbers you're not seeing:
A full set of Mk XII Gear costs 3000 Marks, 15 Elite Marks, and ~100,000 Dilithium.
Attaining Tier 5 in Omega Rep costs 1,686 Marks, 0 Elite Marks, and ~80,000 Dilithium.
Acknowledging we don't know the full story yet, I tried my hand at the math for a brand new VA with no current STF "currency" drops to get enough "currency" for a full set of Mk XII gear by running only 3 (successful) Elite STFs with optional per day (say one is adequately equipped from grinding to VA and does STFs with competent fleet members):
3k Marks / 60 Marks per run = 50 runs... 3 runs per day -> ~17 days.
15 Elite Marks / 1 Elite Mark per run = 15 runs... 3 runs per day -> 5 days... let's come back to this one.
100k Dil / 1.1k Dil per run = ~91 runs... 3 runs per day -> ~30 days...
BUT Elite Marks can also be traded in for Dil... since you currently get 2 EDCs per Elite run and 10 EDCs can be traded in for 1056 Dil, each Elite run is worth ~211 Dil... assuming an Elite Mark will be worth that made (big assumption), that makes each Elite run (after the 15th) worth 1.311k Dil, and would require ~64 runs ((100k Dil - 15 runs * 1.1k Dil/run) / 1.311k/run-after-15th-) + 15 runs = 79 runs... @ 3 per day -> ~26 days.
FWIW, if Elite Marks are worth 1.1k each, that reduces the # of runs to get the required Dil from 79 to 53... @ 3 runs per day -> ~18 days, roughly the same as the Mark requirement.
Of course, there is an opportunity cost to this new grind (lost time from doing other (STO) things, loss of use of Dil for other Dil/Zen purchases), but what I am seeing is this is the price to pay for "cost certainty": if you complete any combination of a certain amount of elite STFs (with optional), which looks to be 50 in the "maybe best" case and 90 in the "maybe typical" case, you get a full Mk XII set that today would take somewhere between 3 to infinity runs to obtain (with many people experiencing 100-150 runs before getting a full set and some doing 300+ and still don't have it).
Are PWE's flagship games loosing players and the ones remaining spending less than before? I've heard that elsewhere but hadn't confirmed it. People say that the gambling and lockbox games work so well in asia because their cultures are different.... all I know is feeling ripped off crosses cultural and national borders!
I think the real concern are the western ports of PW's flagship games.
And I've come to realize, it's not the cultures directly. It's the demographics.
The most common person in the world, demographically, is something like a 25 year old Chinese male. If that's your target, you can afford high churn.
To match that level of churn that's sustainable when targeting 25 year old Chinese males would require you to come up with the population of North America every 12 months.
Now where culture comes in is when you factor in education, income, and social networks.
In China, you get the education that the schools have pigeonholed you into. They have the best scores but they get the best scores by dropping the underperforming students and placing people with their aptitude. This has many negative affects but many positive ones as well and is a source of massive difference.
Another big difference is the social network factor. I think we're really much more connected in some ways here and bad word of mouth spreads. In China, there are many divisions between people based on ethnic group, class, and geography. It's easy to target something at a wide audience there while still relying on the idea that tanking with one group of people won't have a viral impact.
I think in the west, you need to hold onto the same customers MUCH longer and MUCH harder and keep the average audience member MUCH more satisfied to keep bad word of mouth from spreading.
I also think that due to differences in intellectual property, westerners are much more brand conscious (having a "monopoly" on the Star Trek license helps Cryptic here more whereas in China, everybody can make up their own IPs more) and much more detail/story oriented when it comes to story whereas a Chinese market will be more demanding regarding the systems/stability/polish/visual appeal.
That quote sorely reminds me of the recent LTS "upgrade" .
I don't think that Cryptic was altogether in the wrong there but I do think failing to anticipate or care what people's responses were IS part of the same problem.
It's the "What have you done for us lately?" effect. They always talk about new players, new players, new players. It makes me wonder what their turnover is.
A lot of MMOs have high turnover.
A little birdie told me once that WoW has massive turnover in 3-4 month cycles and that the 9/10/12 million figures were all "on a good month." Probably about a third of that are North American accounts too. But here's the trick I think Cryptic missed about that.
WoW is turning over the same 20 million people in cycles. It isn't actually "new players, new players, new players." It's juggling old players for the most part and has been since about 2006 or 2007. It does well when it juggles more. It does poorly when it juggles less.
Full on expansions generally add to the juggling pool and subtract from it. TBC and WotLK added to the juggling pool more than they subtracted. Cata and MoP subtracted more players than they've added. (And the year long sub deal for Diablo III exploited this trick to keep some of the juggling players steady to inflate the total numbers.)
Unless I am mistaken, Borticus and the rest of the team are banking on you having the EDCs, salvage and whatever else you have accumulated from those many STFs still, soon to be converted into Omega Marks. These marks you can then apply to your desire to the Reputation system in order to bump up your rep.
(snip)
So save that junk, boys and girls (and invited transgendered species)!
I interpreted this differently .
Consider that if have played a lot of STF's thus far and you have a large chunk of EDCs salvage and whatever , then you have two choices :
a) wait and have Season 7 converted it all for you into STF marks .
In this case you'll be ahead of the curve in the Omega Reputation system (you will not start out as a n00b) , yet at the end of the day you will still have to grind some to get all your STF Marks and on top of that you will still have to pay Dill to get ur stuff .
b) you can convert all your extra EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now .
In this case , you'll start in the Omega Rep system as a n00b and you will have to grind the full curve to get to the desired gear -- however , because you now have the Dill that you got for your stuff , you have to pay less Dill out of your own "pocket" toward the STF gear of your choice .
In short , if I'm correct , long time STF players (who still have EDCs salvage and whatever) will have a choice as to how they wish to proceed in completing their full sets .
Either convert your EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now and pay the Rep System less Dil later .
Or , have the system covert your EDCs salvage and whatever into STF Marks and pay more Dil later .
a) wait and have Season 7 converted it all for you into STF marks .
In this case you'll be ahead of the curve in the Omega Reputation system (you will not start out as a n00b) , yet at the end of the day you will still have to grind some to get all your STF Marks and on top of that you will still have to pay Dill to get ur stuff .
b) you can convert all your extra EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now .
In this case , you'll start in the Omega Rep system as a n00b and you will have to grind the full curve to get to the desired gear -- however , because you now have the Dill that you got for your stuff , you have to pay less Dill out of your own "pocket" toward the STF gear of your choice .
In short , if I'm correct , long time STF players (who still have EDCs salvage and whatever) will have a choice as to how they wish to proceed in completing their full sets .
Either convert your EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now and pay the rep System less Dil later .
Or , have the system covert your EDCs salvage and whatever into STF Marks and pay more Dil later .
Not going to matter if you are a "n00b", or a veteran who have freshly converted Marks. Because the Reputation system has a 1 day project time. Only grace is that you may not have to do any STFs on that character for a while.
Still it's awfully insulting of those people who not finished completing their MK12 sets, because they will have to wait months to unlock them and then pay tens of thousands of Dilithium to complete the sets and equip any MK12 weaponry they needed.
Got to love how Cryptic treats its supporters. Nothing spells business success than spitting on the customers. :rolleyes:
Either convert your EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now and pay the Rep System less Dil later .
Or , have the system covert your EDCs salvage and whatever into STF Marks and pay more Dil later .
Only problem is is that Cryptic is saying current STF currencies are worthless once you have your gear.
Again, Cryptic is saying your STF currency is WORTHLESS once you have acquired your gear. On page 35 of this thread, I showed how STF currency isn't worthless, but they're making it worthless.
I am forseeing the cost of Zen increasing when Season 7 comes out because of the increased Dil costs for several sections of the game. This means Cryptic will be turning your currently valuable STF currencies into valueless currencies.
Encrypted Data Chips to Dil = 105.8 Dil = 0.668 Zen or $0.00668 | EDCs to Energy Credits = 25,000 EC | Master Key = 125 Zen or 1,4m EC | 190 EDCs = 126.9 Zen | 70 EDCs = 1,4m EC
Only problem is is that Cryptic is saying current STF currencies are worthless once you have your gear.
Again, Cryptic is saying your STF currency is WORTHLESS once you have acquired your gear. On page 35 of this thread, I showed how STF currency isn't worthless, but they're making it worthless.
I am forseeing the cost of Zen increasing when Season 7 comes out because of the increased Dil costs for several sections of the game. This means Cryptic will be turning your currently valuable STF currencies into valueless currencies.
Are you factoring in the new purchasing power of Dil relative to ZEN?
It should be the cost of Dilithium that will go up, probably from about 1:158 to maybe 1:50.
That said, I expect a dramatic reduction in the volume of transactions, causing Cryptic to lose money even though it's more ZEN per dil.
As noted, the Dilithium prices have been increased, yes. Please leave your feedback on this in this thread or the Tribble forums.
Again, constructive feedback is welcome and the devs are watching this thread
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Ok so here's my feedback
The fact that crafting something decent costs around 15K dilithium, less of course if you wait till the magic hour, and you can only refine at most 8.5K a day is silly to me, especially when so much costs dilithium. Why not maybe increase the refinement cap to say 15k for silver, 20k for gold, and 30k for lifers. I don't even really consider it worth it to use the veteran refiner as it is, two days is a long time to wait for a measly 1000 dilithium
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
As a casual player (ok, a casual player with too much time on his hands), this looks like it won't be worth the hassle. I've got my 2 mkxii space sets, so why should I go through the whole hassle?
I'm thinking it might be best to buy some more mkxii energy types now, convert my other stuff into dil and watch people burn out all around me. Just like I've seen people, particularly in smaller fleets, burn out on starbases somewhere between tiers 1 and 3.
Also, considering what I see in other games, I'm starting to doubt whether I'm happy with the way MMO's are developing. I haven't played a whole lot, but it seems the entire market is going downhill, and any alternatives I'd consider seem to have similar systems in place, or are developing them. I considered Guild Wars 2, but seeing as they also turn out to have a lockbox-system, that doesn't bode well either, disappointingly.
I'm tempted to just keep my eye out for co-op-capable and single player games instead, where you just buy a game for 5-50 euro/dollar/pound play it for some time, then move on. And maybe get back to it after some time, seeing as you own it anyway.
In these game types, developers don't try to keep innovating their existing games, true. But what they do do, is make new games, which have to be good as well, or they won't make enough sales. The companies backing those developers are forced to choose for quality, or they'll lose their investments. In that system, the only tools for making money, longterm, are quality and PR/advertising, a opposed to grind-mechanisms and delayed gratification.
Then again, considering the sheer amount of time I've spent on Total War: Rome, I'll be set when Rome II launches anyway, and I suspect I won't be looking back on my MMO's with much more than nostalgia.
I don't want to imagine what over monetized monstrosity NW could turn out to be.
If it's not like that from the get-go , it will get there eventually .
I mean they won't want to sour the milk at the get-go ... , on the long term however ... (/takes a look at STO's last 3 seasons/) .
Yeah ... .
an STF to the heart of the Borg collective where players just magically appear a few corridors from the Borg Queen . Where's my epic space battle Cryptic??!!
Not going to matter if you are a "n00b", or a veteran who have freshly converted Marks.
But ... being a "veteran" who has have freshly converted Marks (from EDCs salvage and whatever) -- does that not supposedly put you closer to whatever your goal is (most likely some gear piece) ?
Are you saying that ppl who have had EDCs salvage and whatever converted into STF Marks and ppl who have not will start at the same point in the new Rep Sysem ?
That just does not make any sense .
Comments
All this shameless extra money-grubbing is beginning to take on unsavory forms. Seems PWE is solely fixated on milking us blind. Keep it up, and ere long I will be gone. Not that they'd give a sh*t (there's a sucker born every minute, right?). And maybe that's part of the problem.
With the current Dil to Zen conversion prices, aka buying, which is only going to get better with Season 7 (Not to be confused with Zen to Dil conversion prices which will get worse, aka Selling), EDCs, Common Salvage, Rare Salvage and Prototype Salvage all have pretty good value in the game.
5 EDCs is valued at 100k EC or 528 Dil or $0.0334 - 1 EDC being worth $0.00668 a piece
It is my opinion it is better to buy Retro STF gear with EDCs than Dil as the Dil conversion for other pieces if worth less EC, but worth more Dil.
Math to explain this
Master Keys are worth approx. 1.4m ECs about right now
Master Keys cost 125 Zen to purchase
125 Zen obtained through Dil conversion of EDCs would require a staggering 190 EDCs.
5 EDCs will let you purchase one piece of Retro STF gear priced at 200,000 EC and saleable for 100,000 EC.
To achieve 1,400,000 EC through the purchase and selling of Retro STF gear would only require a less staggering 70 EDC.
With this final point, this would put EDCs, through purchases of Master keys, at a value of $0.0178.
A 261% increase in value.
1 Common Ship Piece is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Borg Salvage is valued at 45k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Rare Ship Piece is valued at 50k EC or 1056 Dil or $0.0668
1 Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces is valued at 55k EC or 2304 Dil or $0.1458
All values are using 158 Dil to Zen ratio.
Edit: Here is the major point of this.
Exactly. It's like a restaurant reheating leftovers and taking everyone's plate away while they're still eating to roll out the new menu with clearer pricing. Then saying, "Well, it's fair for everyone who wasn't here for the last meal and you still ate what you ate."
I wouldn't eat at a restaurant that did this. Nobody would.
I refuse to believe anybody internally at Cryptic finds this reasonable unless they have part of their brain turned off.
We have an incomplete image of how the Reputation system will function. Look at the damage it has caused. This thread is a sea of confusion, anger, and questions, with precious little understanding to balance things out. We have enough of a picture to be very rightfully upset over the conclusions we have drawn.
We should not be in a situation of drawing conclusions. That dev blog post with the details about this system had better arrive PDQ, or this is just going to bake onto the psyche of players more and more so that if there is any upside that we are unaware of as yet, it'll be overwhelmed in negative. Not saying that there's good news waiting to come, but questions and uncertainty in a vaccuum of straight and detailed answers breed distrust and animus. And if there's one thing a passionate STO community can generate as fast as anticipation, it's that.
So here we are again. Knowing too much, too soon, and yet not knowing enough to keep from panic.
The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010
"Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
And this is their mistake: they should actually entice folks to make alts . Why ? Because the more characters one has the bigger the likelihood it is to spend cash in the Z-store for at least ONE of those characters .
I feel like Cryptic refuses to treat the monetary aspects of their game with any seriousness. By that standard, Lobi store weapons should be Mk XII purples at the minimum.
They hide behind the "We're artists, not accountants" approach when it's convenient for dodging consistency of value analysis. Then swap to "You gotta pay the bills somehow" when faced with artistic questions.
I give STO maybe another year before it is dead due to PWE's greed.
They obviously have no intent in continuing the game beyond the short term milking period. A company serious about it's future would never make these choices.
I have 1 toon with 250 STF's - should I bother grinding the other 50 out before the switch?
You could be converting all Common Ship Salvage Pieces, Rare Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces and Prototype Borg Salvage/Ship Pieces to Dil.
Convert EDCs into energy credits through the buying and selling of Retro STF gear.
Wait for Season 7 and watch the Buying price of Zen go down. Because we're going to need more Dil with their new changes, which will make Dil more valuable.
Edit: Edit 2: Math at night, don't do it.
I was actually talking about the 300 STF accolade
You should still be able to get it, I don't think they're getting rid of that.
It's way to late for me to be doing math...
The first thing I noticed when I came over to Star Trek was the lockboxes. These same items ruined the Perfect World economy driving prices through the roof when exchanging in-game coin for zen. The entire game and economy revolve around those boxes in Perfect World.
I hope that the developers of Star Trek will continue to add lots of great things to this game. I really really enjoy it so far. My wife and I have really only been playing it for a couple of months, but it's fun. Just, please don't start adding extra charges to items and gear already in the game. It's going to make a lot of people unhappy. Just look at this size of this thread that was only started yesterday. I know Perfect World is a pretty demanding company, but please realize that unlike their game, which is suffering from a drasticaly declining player-base, this game, Star Trek, cares about its players and its fans.
To sum up: No one here is opposed to you making profit from your game. We are perfectly willing to pay for content that is priced reasonably. Just don't take us for granted.
Much love,
Quinn
Thank you for that bit of input, Quinn.
I fear it may be easily overlooked here when there's so much cynicism flying. Though who knows? Maybe this thread's size may get the right eyes to see and consider. I remain an optimist. Someone has to be.
The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010
"Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
I think we need alot more good news about season 7 so folks will calm a bit down. But I recomend everyone watch the updates to tribble to see how this season forms shapes up.
Are PWE's flagship games loosing players and the ones remaining spending less than before? I've heard that elsewhere but hadn't confirmed it. People say that the gambling and lockbox games work so well in asia because their cultures are different.... all I know is feeling ripped off crosses cultural and national borders!
I hope its true, the sooner self destructive behavior is noticed the sooner it can be stopped. I doubt PWE is the type of company to do that though... what I see happening is them trying to aggressively shift their games to new markets like the Americas and Europe. This may in fact be the reason why they bought Cryptic in the first place, to give them a foot in the door and help them figure out how to move their games over to new markets faster and with less hassle... I don't want to imagine what over monetized monstrosity NW could turn out to be. Ah well, wasn't going to get involved in any more PWE games anyway. I'm pretty sad lockboxes and "lobi" made it to CO already
S7 was when we finally got content and story again!... yay?... anything about the story or content mentioned so far? All i've heard are rumblings about repeatable maps for marks that are no better than what came in S6... and an STF to the heart of the Borg collective where players just magically appear a few corridors from the Borg Queen
3k Marks / 60 Marks per run = 50 runs... 3 runs per day -> ~17 days.
15 Elite Marks / 1 Elite Mark per run = 15 runs... 3 runs per day -> 5 days... let's come back to this one.
100k Dil / 1.1k Dil per run = ~91 runs... 3 runs per day -> ~30 days...
BUT Elite Marks can also be traded in for Dil... since you currently get 2 EDCs per Elite run and 10 EDCs can be traded in for 1056 Dil, each Elite run is worth ~211 Dil... assuming an Elite Mark will be worth that made (big assumption), that makes each Elite run (after the 15th) worth 1.311k Dil, and would require ~64 runs ((100k Dil - 15 runs * 1.1k Dil/run) / 1.311k/run-after-15th-) + 15 runs = 79 runs... @ 3 per day -> ~26 days.
FWIW, if Elite Marks are worth 1.1k each, that reduces the # of runs to get the required Dil from 79 to 53... @ 3 runs per day -> ~18 days, roughly the same as the Mark requirement.
Of course, there is an opportunity cost to this new grind (lost time from doing other (STO) things, loss of use of Dil for other Dil/Zen purchases), but what I am seeing is this is the price to pay for "cost certainty": if you complete any combination of a certain amount of elite STFs (with optional), which looks to be 50 in the "maybe best" case and 90 in the "maybe typical" case, you get a full Mk XII set that today would take somewhere between 3 to infinity runs to obtain (with many people experiencing 100-150 runs before getting a full set and some doing 300+ and still don't have it).
Cmdr @Intricated
Medical Division, Alpha Squad
12th Fleet
That quote sorely reminds me of the recent LTS "upgrade" .
I think the real concern are the western ports of PW's flagship games.
And I've come to realize, it's not the cultures directly. It's the demographics.
The most common person in the world, demographically, is something like a 25 year old Chinese male. If that's your target, you can afford high churn.
To match that level of churn that's sustainable when targeting 25 year old Chinese males would require you to come up with the population of North America every 12 months.
Now where culture comes in is when you factor in education, income, and social networks.
In China, you get the education that the schools have pigeonholed you into. They have the best scores but they get the best scores by dropping the underperforming students and placing people with their aptitude. This has many negative affects but many positive ones as well and is a source of massive difference.
Another big difference is the social network factor. I think we're really much more connected in some ways here and bad word of mouth spreads. In China, there are many divisions between people based on ethnic group, class, and geography. It's easy to target something at a wide audience there while still relying on the idea that tanking with one group of people won't have a viral impact.
I think in the west, you need to hold onto the same customers MUCH longer and MUCH harder and keep the average audience member MUCH more satisfied to keep bad word of mouth from spreading.
I also think that due to differences in intellectual property, westerners are much more brand conscious (having a "monopoly" on the Star Trek license helps Cryptic here more whereas in China, everybody can make up their own IPs more) and much more detail/story oriented when it comes to story whereas a Chinese market will be more demanding regarding the systems/stability/polish/visual appeal.
I don't think that Cryptic was altogether in the wrong there but I do think failing to anticipate or care what people's responses were IS part of the same problem.
It's the "What have you done for us lately?" effect. They always talk about new players, new players, new players. It makes me wonder what their turnover is.
A lot of MMOs have high turnover.
A little birdie told me once that WoW has massive turnover in 3-4 month cycles and that the 9/10/12 million figures were all "on a good month." Probably about a third of that are North American accounts too. But here's the trick I think Cryptic missed about that.
WoW is turning over the same 20 million people in cycles. It isn't actually "new players, new players, new players." It's juggling old players for the most part and has been since about 2006 or 2007. It does well when it juggles more. It does poorly when it juggles less.
Full on expansions generally add to the juggling pool and subtract from it. TBC and WotLK added to the juggling pool more than they subtracted. Cata and MoP subtracted more players than they've added. (And the year long sub deal for Diablo III exploited this trick to keep some of the juggling players steady to inflate the total numbers.)
I interpreted this differently .
Consider that if have played a lot of STF's thus far and you have a large chunk of EDCs salvage and whatever , then you have two choices :
a) wait and have Season 7 converted it all for you into STF marks .
In this case you'll be ahead of the curve in the Omega Reputation system (you will not start out as a n00b) , yet at the end of the day you will still have to grind some to get all your STF Marks and on top of that you will still have to pay Dill to get ur stuff .
b) you can convert all your extra EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now .
In this case , you'll start in the Omega Rep system as a n00b and you will have to grind the full curve to get to the desired gear -- however , because you now have the Dill that you got for your stuff , you have to pay less Dill out of your own "pocket" toward the STF gear of your choice .
In short , if I'm correct , long time STF players (who still have EDCs salvage and whatever) will have a choice as to how they wish to proceed in completing their full sets .
Either convert your EDCs salvage and whatever into Dil now and pay the Rep System less Dil later .
Or , have the system covert your EDCs salvage and whatever into STF Marks and pay more Dil later .
Not going to matter if you are a "n00b", or a veteran who have freshly converted Marks. Because the Reputation system has a 1 day project time. Only grace is that you may not have to do any STFs on that character for a while.
Still it's awfully insulting of those people who not finished completing their MK12 sets, because they will have to wait months to unlock them and then pay tens of thousands of Dilithium to complete the sets and equip any MK12 weaponry they needed.
Got to love how Cryptic treats its supporters. Nothing spells business success than spitting on the customers. :rolleyes:
Only problem is is that Cryptic is saying current STF currencies are worthless once you have your gear.
Again, Cryptic is saying your STF currency is WORTHLESS once you have acquired your gear. On page 35 of this thread, I showed how STF currency isn't worthless, but they're making it worthless.
I am forseeing the cost of Zen increasing when Season 7 comes out because of the increased Dil costs for several sections of the game. This means Cryptic will be turning your currently valuable STF currencies into valueless currencies.
Are you factoring in the new purchasing power of Dil relative to ZEN?
It should be the cost of Dilithium that will go up, probably from about 1:158 to maybe 1:50.
That said, I expect a dramatic reduction in the volume of transactions, causing Cryptic to lose money even though it's more ZEN per dil.
Ok so here's my feedback
The fact that crafting something decent costs around 15K dilithium, less of course if you wait till the magic hour, and you can only refine at most 8.5K a day is silly to me, especially when so much costs dilithium. Why not maybe increase the refinement cap to say 15k for silver, 20k for gold, and 30k for lifers. I don't even really consider it worth it to use the veteran refiner as it is, two days is a long time to wait for a measly 1000 dilithium
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
IF YOU ARE READING MY SIG - THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG
I'm thinking it might be best to buy some more mkxii energy types now, convert my other stuff into dil and watch people burn out all around me. Just like I've seen people, particularly in smaller fleets, burn out on starbases somewhere between tiers 1 and 3.
Also, considering what I see in other games, I'm starting to doubt whether I'm happy with the way MMO's are developing. I haven't played a whole lot, but it seems the entire market is going downhill, and any alternatives I'd consider seem to have similar systems in place, or are developing them. I considered Guild Wars 2, but seeing as they also turn out to have a lockbox-system, that doesn't bode well either, disappointingly.
I'm tempted to just keep my eye out for co-op-capable and single player games instead, where you just buy a game for 5-50 euro/dollar/pound play it for some time, then move on. And maybe get back to it after some time, seeing as you own it anyway.
In these game types, developers don't try to keep innovating their existing games, true. But what they do do, is make new games, which have to be good as well, or they won't make enough sales. The companies backing those developers are forced to choose for quality, or they'll lose their investments. In that system, the only tools for making money, longterm, are quality and PR/advertising, a opposed to grind-mechanisms and delayed gratification.
Then again, considering the sheer amount of time I've spent on Total War: Rome, I'll be set when Rome II launches anyway, and I suspect I won't be looking back on my MMO's with much more than nostalgia.
If it's not like that from the get-go , it will get there eventually .
I mean they won't want to sour the milk at the get-go ... , on the long term however ... (/takes a look at STO's last 3 seasons/) .
Yeah ... .
Gone with the Goz ... .
But ... being a "veteran" who has have freshly converted Marks (from EDCs salvage and whatever) -- does that not supposedly put you closer to whatever your goal is (most likely some gear piece) ?
Are you saying that ppl who have had EDCs salvage and whatever converted into STF Marks and ppl who have not will start at the same point in the new Rep Sysem ?
That just does not make any sense .