For those who are upset with Season 7, I can only tell you this: You are not alone.
There's very little that can be done about it, because as long as Cryptic / PW make money on people dishing out cash for zen, there'll be little to no effect. IF however you would like to make a difference, you can.
No longer paying for any aspect of the game is the way to get the companies attention. Cancel your monthly gold membership, do not buy zen, and do not -use- the zen you have in game.
Zen, in game, is a by-product (whether we like it or not) of PW collecting on real life money made in one form or another. We stop giving them money, the company as a whole -will- look at what happened, and what made players stop giving them money to fix the error.
This is the hardest thing for some players (myself included as I have set aside roughly $50 / paycheck for my online gaming fun, which has primarily been STO only since I started playing). This is not impossible. This can be done if you want to see -change-, but only if you want to see change. If you like all aspect of S7, enjoy. Keep playing and paying if you like.
Personally, I'm very upset with the how hard it will be to get Dilithium, and that they've made it near impossible to actually obtain Dilithium without having Zen to buy it from the Exchange. As such, while I will still play, until I can see some changes myself, I will -not- be using a dime of my hard earned money until I personally see some changes. I won't use any zen left in my account, and honestly if there aren't more ways to get dilithium reintroduced into the game, I will personally probably leave the game altogether.
On average for the past 6 months, I've been giving the company $115 / month. $15 for the gold membership sub, and $100 that I've been using to buy Zen. Cryptic / PW has basically told me that they no longer want the money from me by totally ignoring the playerbase with the dilithium nerfs, and honestly, if that's their opinion, I'll take my cash to another game (at this rate that has nothing to do with Cryptic / PW).
I leave this post (and will see who agrees with me and doesn't out of curiosity), but the only way anyone can get through to Cryptic / PW is with money, and if you stop paying, they will notice.
It won't get their attention. All it will do is make them find ways to increase the amount of money they can get for stuff. Because they are perfect, They do not make mistakes. That being the case, the problem is with us, not anything they did.
Haven't you figured that out by now? They know what they are doing. And it's awesome!
At least, that is what they keep telling themselves.
They can think that, however when the money stops flowing like it was, then even they have to say "Ya know, we messed up."
Even if they were to conclude that, they will not reverse course. No. They will continue to plow ahead full speed until the hypothetical discontinuation of funds results in PWE's decision to pull the plug.
What makes me say that?
Consider SOE's response to the Star Wars Galaxies community's reaction to the NGE. In the space of 24 hours, they loast an estimated 75% of the remaining subscriber base. And after a year and a half they had not turned it around. But did they admit their mistake? Yes. They did. Did they do anything to correct the mistake? No they did not. Their decision was made. Their course was set. And they rode it to the end of the line, never once achieving the potential SWG had. All because of stupid corporate pride.
I see the same exact pattern here. Cryptic, under Perfect World, has become inflexible and single-minded and will not deviate from their course. They HAVE to be right, and to hell with anything any of us have to say about it.
Even though it won't make a difference, I have already chosen to take the OP's position. I refuse to spend a dime of my money on a single unit of Zen. I won't go so far as to refuse to trade Dilithium on the exchange for Zen. Those who posted their Zen on the exchange did so in good faith that someone would make use of it. The money was already spent, or else it was a donation of monthly stipend Zen. But I can honestly say that there are only a handfull of things that I want and they are strictly cosmetic. I won't buy ships to get the consoles. When the Relativity uniform goes on the lobi store, I'll use the Dilithium exchange to get the Zen needed to buy master keys. I'll Sell the loot items on the EC exchange, and will save up the lobi crystals until I can get the uniform.
But as for spending my own money... Not going to happen. So why do I bother to remain? As long is this game remains live, it still has potential. And while I will not hold my breath for Cryptic to actually give a damn about their product, I will hold out hope. It isn't costing me any money. And as to time? Well... I don't play nearly as much as I would if it wasn't a big grindfest.
I was one of those that left SW:G behind myself when they did their "Iconic" change. I as well see this game going that way and while I will keep playing (like you) my stance is the same, until they can get their head out of the collective behinds, no more of my money will be spent on the game.
That is the biggest thing I'm trying to get across here. Is that if the people that are upset with Season 7 stop using their cash on the game, the company as a whole will see that they have messed up and fix their mistake.
This mistake at least, isn't as huge a game-changer as the shift to Iconic classes was in Galaxies, but this is still a pretty big F-up as far as the game goes.
It's obvious the community as a whole hates it, but the question becomes does the community as a whole have the guts to stop paying cash for the game in hopes that the upper management takes a look and goes "Woah, what the hell happened?!"
It's obvious the community as a whole hates it, but the question becomes does the community as a whole have the guts to stop paying cash for the game in hopes that the upper management takes a look and goes "Woah, what the hell happened?!"
And the answer to your question is... no. I've already read several posts how the people hate the new season, the changes in Dilithium rewards, more grinding and less fun. Only one post contained the idea lets stop paying... You don't want to see the responses. It was awful. Some people complain, other reply: If you don't like it, quit playing. or something like Oh, you are quitting, can I have your gear?. There is no unity in the STO community. Unfortunately
Why on earth do I have to buy additional commodities like Regenerators, shield charges and stuff if I already grinded the hell out of STF's? General XP I can understand since you get XP from STF's - as well as Omega Marks of course. But the other stuff is just a ripoff if there are no according drops during STF missions.
The cooldown times on rep. projects are a bad joke - even T3 Fleet Starbase projects have less cooldown time than the first T1 projects. Makes me wonder whether they want us to give up ... or if they are trying to intentionally run STO into the ground.
And what happened to my STF stuff that I already worked hard for? A nice stash of Mk XII requisition marks and all my EDC's have been converted into some lockbox that I can't even open because I have to grind all the way to rep. T5 to be able to get the stuff I already worked hard for? Sorry guys - no joy.
Buggy new STF's:
I did a run of "Hive Space (Normal)" yesterday and was very impressed how a Sphere can hide itself into the structural beams and still fire away at your ship while you, on the other hand, are unable to target the damn thing. Well done guys! Oh, I also like the fact that Regeneration Spheres are able to instantly regenerate Plasma Lightning Balls from the Unimatrix which makes shooting these things kinda useless. It's nice to be on the run when you are on the clock and your team depends on you.
Oh, and an optional mission achievement where nobody gets destroyed is nice and all - BUT NOT IF OPPONENTS CAN ONE-SHOT-KILL YOU EVEN IF YOUR HULL EXCEEDS 40K HP!
I ask myself if Cryptic has realized that there are ship builds that have to get close to the enemy to be effective and that these ship builds also get destroyed once in a while.
Oh, and why didn't you take the opportunity to punish those teammembers who are passive and are just lurking for the reward? As far as I have seen, everyone still gets the same amount of reward regardless of their team performance. In KASE, I even ecountered the same "who clicks fastest" loot routine that annoyed most players during S6.
The dilithium changes:
There is only one reason for nerfing the Dilithium stuff: to make people buy more ZEN. My advice: don't. The 8k refinement limit is a joke and until this has been resolved (at least for paying members), I won't spend a dime on ZEN (but might get some free ZEN for surveys and stuff, though).
At the moment, C-Store has nothing great to offer except some goodies like the Borg BO. As an example: stats-wise (turn rate, weapon slots, hull HP), the new Vesta that everyone raves about basically is a repainted Armitage without a Hangar and some console toys that are of limited value due to the 3 min. cooldown anyway. The flexibility with BO's is nice but once you got a build you are comfortable with, you'll stick with it. Bottomline: no one needs this ship. Then again, no one needs the ugly-as-hell Chimera either ...
My advice for the next time: keep your working system in place and add real, creatively written content instead because most players want story instead of grinding events (although grinding and story do not exclude each other).
110% with praxian, in the past year i think me and my lass have easily spent about 1000 GBP. Not another penny now they have removed any reason to PvE together and added more major grinds all over the boards. This product is now not what we paid for and what do you do when a product no longer does what it says on the tin, you stop buying it. L4D, sins of a solar empire and company of heros once again for us until they decide to to bring back a reason to play together. Our ST...Offline.
Can't really fault what's been said and agree 100%. A lot of people will wake up and realise what's happened, that Cryptic/PW are milking us dry, offering content which is buggy at best, and making us grind for items we already have. A recipe for keeping players? I think not.
I'm also of the opinion that i shall no longer contribute financially to the wealth of Cryptic, as it has clearly lost perspective with regards to the needs of the playerbase, (read that as ignored totally), given us buggy impossible to complete new STF's, the ones we can complete with hardly a reward in sight, and more grind than a pit pony working in a mine.
Why do i stay i hear the fanboys cry? Because a lot of my friends are here is the simple answer, even if Cryptic are trying to kill all of us with the new grinding requirements on offer in S7
Founder of the 3rd Foot & Mouth Federation Fleet. Join today!
The Khasi of Kalabar: They will die the death of a thousand cuts! Princess Jelhi: Oh! But that's horrible! The Khasi of Kalabar: Not at all my little desert flower, the British are used to cuts!
I'm glad to see that many people are just now realizing that Cryptic has set out to basically steal your cash whether your happy about the changes or not. However, with that in mind, I would still reccoment -not- doing the surveys for zen.
Reason being, the company -still- makes money when you do a survey. It's hard to -not- do the "free" ways to get zen, but we as a community (at least the community who wants to stick together) has to.
If the company does something like surveys for zen, you can gurantee that the company gets paid for every survey you do.
And what happened to my STF stuff that I already worked hard for? A nice stash of Mk XII requisition marks and all my EDC's have been converted into some lockbox that I can't even open because I have to grind all the way to rep. T5 to be able to get the stuff I already worked hard for? Sorry guys - no joy.
Have you looked at the "info" as to what's in the box yet? With a change to a whole new system, I'm not particularly annoyed at locking things away until a future date when we can use them again. What I AM ticked off about nearly to the point of apoplexy is the exchange rate they decided on for my accumulated loot.
400 EDC's, 40 prototype salvage, 5 prototype tech, and a few sundry rare bits
/=
3600 omega marks, 16 neural processors, 8000 dilithium
Give me back my hard earned loot, or an honestly assessed equivalent in the new systems, or you will NEVER get another cent from me.
Buggy new STF's:
I did a run of "Hive Space (Normal)" yesterday and was very impressed how a Sphere can hide itself into the structural beams and still fire away at your ship while you, on the other hand, are unable to target the damn thing. Well done guys!
Yet another instance of an extremely long standing clipping bug. Spheres and probes have been doing this pretty much forever in the space warzone. The only reason the cubes that get stuck can still be targeted is they're bigger than the structural items they get stuck on. Maybe now that it's front and center, it'll actually get fixed (in a month or two, when they get around to it).
A side note to those who will still use the dilithium exchange to get zen but not spend their own money on it: you're still contributing to the profitability of the game. As long as the exchange rate remains relatively high (and yes, other than the late season 5 bubble 150 is still high), people will buy zen for money to sell to you, and our "not gonna pay" campaign is rather pointless.
Well. . I know this much for sure, I am not dropping another dollar into this game, and I am not playing this game for a long time until I start seeing Loot and Dilithium rewards in STF's once again. Thus I am not quiting the game entirely, I will just be checking back from time to time to see what's going on. Unfortunately this is what Crypitc/PWE has forced me to do.
A side note to those who will still use the dilithium exchange to get zen but not spend their own money on it: you're still contributing to the profitability of the game. As long as the exchange rate remains relatively high (and yes, other than the late season 5 bubble 150 is still high), people will buy zen for money to sell to you, and our "not gonna pay" campaign is rather pointless.
I am upset that the same ritual of breaking the game with a new update is still alive and well; cannot use my new Vesta because of the broken autofire toggle. Other than that, not much difference than usual game rage... play a couple of STFs and get it out of your system.
I dont even want to play anymore, ive been sitting here now staring at my sto screen for 1 hour and ive done nothing, season 7 sucks its just another way to get everything off us twice as fast as the season 6 stuff, we usually have a average active fleet roster of 20 players online at any one time, since this launch of season 7 theres now 3 players online,, this sucks everyones been put off, im not spending anything , as far as im concerned im done,,im off to play black op's 2 adios craptic
I am upset that the same ritual of breaking the game with a new update is still alive and well; cannot use my new Vesta because of the broken autofire toggle. Other than that, not much difference than usual game rage... play a couple of STFs and get it out of your system.
I said it on the Steamrunner Bug thread, but auto fire is working for me, however, it's bc I use the separate weapons box, not the single ability box. All of the screen shots I've seen w/ this issue had that single box for Boff abilities, weapons, capt powers and console effects. Try redoing your UI until the fix is in.
Even if they were to conclude that, they will not reverse course. No. They will continue to plow ahead full speed until the hypothetical discontinuation of funds results in PWE's decision to pull the plug.
What makes me say that?
Consider SOE's response to the Star Wars Galaxies community's reaction to the NGE. In the space of 24 hours, they loast an estimated 75% of the remaining subscriber base. And after a year and a half they had not turned it around. But did they admit their mistake? Yes. They did. Did they do anything to correct the mistake? No they did not. Their decision was made. Their course was set. And they rode it to the end of the line, never once achieving the potential SWG had. All because of stupid corporate pride.
I see the same exact pattern here. Cryptic, under Perfect World, has become inflexible and single-minded and will not deviate from their course. They HAVE to be right, and to hell with anything any of us have to say about it.
Even though it won't make a difference, I have already chosen to take the OP's position. I refuse to spend a dime of my money on a single unit of Zen. I won't go so far as to refuse to trade Dilithium on the exchange for Zen. Those who posted their Zen on the exchange did so in good faith that someone would make use of it. The money was already spent, or else it was a donation of monthly stipend Zen. But I can honestly say that there are only a handfull of things that I want and they are strictly cosmetic. I won't buy ships to get the consoles. When the Relativity uniform goes on the lobi store, I'll use the Dilithium exchange to get the Zen needed to buy master keys. I'll Sell the loot items on the EC exchange, and will save up the lobi crystals until I can get the uniform.
But as for spending my own money... Not going to happen. So why do I bother to remain? As long is this game remains live, it still has potential. And while I will not hold my breath for Cryptic to actually give a damn about their product, I will hold out hope. It isn't costing me any money. And as to time? Well... I don't play nearly as much as I would if it wasn't a big grindfest.
I remember SWG. SOE and the player base pretty much shot themselves in the foot. With an atomic grenade. As proof, just look at what we have now for an SW based game: TOR.
All the drama, posturing and arguments did nothing, absolutely nothing, for the players in the end. SWG is gone.
Make the most of what you got, folks. Or it will be gone like SWG.
How did the player base shoot itself in the foot? The ones that remained kept the game afloat for six years after the NGE. A shame it never really regained its footing.
Make the most of what you got, folks. Or it will be gone like SWG.
Too bad that when you strip away the grindfests, there's not all that much to make the most of...
SWG is running F2P on emulators since the server soft went open source early this year. (pre-NGE)
They do not care if you are upset. They care if you give them money, and if you stop giving them money, it's not because they've done something stupid to ruin your enjoyment. It's because you're just too dumb to appreciate the quality experience they have created for you.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
I remember SWG. SOE and the player base pretty much shot themselves in the foot. With an atomic grenade. As proof, just look at what we have now for an SW based game: TOR.
All the drama, posturing and arguments did nothing, absolutely nothing, for the players in the end. SWG is gone.
Make the most of what you got, folks. Or it will be gone like SWG.
Player Base did not shoot itself in the foot. It saw what Sony was doing and took a stand and said "No more." SW:G imo deserves to be gone. Sony had plenty of time (6 years in fact) to fix their TRIBBLE up, and honestly, if say 5 years after the fact they had reopened a Pre-Iconic server, I'd a gone back in a heart beat and played on it.
They do not care if you are upset. They care if you give them money, and if you stop giving them money, it's not because they've done something stupid to ruin your enjoyment. It's because you're just too dumb to appreciate the quality experience they have created for you.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
You're right on one point, they -do- care if I give them money. If you've come to this thread to insult those of us who are feeling screwed over by Cryptic because of the change however, you can go away. This thread is meant to be informative, and explain how an individual can get a company's attention.
If you like the changes, I'm happy for you. Go join the other Lemmings as they charge off the cliff. However please don't post your "you're just too dumb to appreciate" TRIBBLE in a thread that's being civil again.
Comments
Have you adjusted for the price inflation of dilithium? You'll pay more now.
You dished out 100 smackers a month to buy zen? Did that unlock a new accolade and title, "Sucker"?
LOL...great accolade
I payed that much because I could. I can afford to spend that much per month on a game and if I want to I will.
However, with that being said, when a game company wants to blatantly NOT listen to their player-base I'm -Not- going to keep giving them my money.
I just feel that I should let players know who are upset with S7 how to get Cryptic / PW's attention and say "Hey, we don't approve of your changes".
You like S7, I'm glad your happy. I however, am not though. And I know of a lot of others who aren't either.
They can think that, however when the money stops flowing like it was, then even they have to say "Ya know, we messed up."
I was one of those that left SW:G behind myself when they did their "Iconic" change. I as well see this game going that way and while I will keep playing (like you) my stance is the same, until they can get their head out of the collective behinds, no more of my money will be spent on the game.
That is the biggest thing I'm trying to get across here. Is that if the people that are upset with Season 7 stop using their cash on the game, the company as a whole will see that they have messed up and fix their mistake.
This mistake at least, isn't as huge a game-changer as the shift to Iconic classes was in Galaxies, but this is still a pretty big F-up as far as the game goes.
It's obvious the community as a whole hates it, but the question becomes does the community as a whole have the guts to stop paying cash for the game in hopes that the upper management takes a look and goes "Woah, what the hell happened?!"
And the answer to your question is... no. I've already read several posts how the people hate the new season, the changes in Dilithium rewards, more grinding and less fun. Only one post contained the idea lets stop paying... You don't want to see the responses. It was awful. Some people complain, other reply: If you don't like it, quit playing. or something like Oh, you are quitting, can I have your gear?. There is no unity in the STO community. Unfortunately
Reputation projects:
Why on earth do I have to buy additional commodities like Regenerators, shield charges and stuff if I already grinded the hell out of STF's? General XP I can understand since you get XP from STF's - as well as Omega Marks of course. But the other stuff is just a ripoff if there are no according drops during STF missions.
The cooldown times on rep. projects are a bad joke - even T3 Fleet Starbase projects have less cooldown time than the first T1 projects. Makes me wonder whether they want us to give up ... or if they are trying to intentionally run STO into the ground.
And what happened to my STF stuff that I already worked hard for? A nice stash of Mk XII requisition marks and all my EDC's have been converted into some lockbox that I can't even open because I have to grind all the way to rep. T5 to be able to get the stuff I already worked hard for? Sorry guys - no joy.
Buggy new STF's:
I did a run of "Hive Space (Normal)" yesterday and was very impressed how a Sphere can hide itself into the structural beams and still fire away at your ship while you, on the other hand, are unable to target the damn thing. Well done guys! Oh, I also like the fact that Regeneration Spheres are able to instantly regenerate Plasma Lightning Balls from the Unimatrix which makes shooting these things kinda useless. It's nice to be on the run when you are on the clock and your team depends on you.
Oh, and an optional mission achievement where nobody gets destroyed is nice and all - BUT NOT IF OPPONENTS CAN ONE-SHOT-KILL YOU EVEN IF YOUR HULL EXCEEDS 40K HP!
I ask myself if Cryptic has realized that there are ship builds that have to get close to the enemy to be effective and that these ship builds also get destroyed once in a while.
Oh, and why didn't you take the opportunity to punish those teammembers who are passive and are just lurking for the reward? As far as I have seen, everyone still gets the same amount of reward regardless of their team performance. In KASE, I even ecountered the same "who clicks fastest" loot routine that annoyed most players during S6.
The dilithium changes:
There is only one reason for nerfing the Dilithium stuff: to make people buy more ZEN. My advice: don't. The 8k refinement limit is a joke and until this has been resolved (at least for paying members), I won't spend a dime on ZEN (but might get some free ZEN for surveys and stuff, though).
At the moment, C-Store has nothing great to offer except some goodies like the Borg BO. As an example: stats-wise (turn rate, weapon slots, hull HP), the new Vesta that everyone raves about basically is a repainted Armitage without a Hangar and some console toys that are of limited value due to the 3 min. cooldown anyway. The flexibility with BO's is nice but once you got a build you are comfortable with, you'll stick with it. Bottomline: no one needs this ship. Then again, no one needs the ugly-as-hell Chimera either ...
My advice for the next time: keep your working system in place and add real, creatively written content instead because most players want story instead of grinding events (although grinding and story do not exclude each other).
I'm also of the opinion that i shall no longer contribute financially to the wealth of Cryptic, as it has clearly lost perspective with regards to the needs of the playerbase, (read that as ignored totally), given us buggy impossible to complete new STF's, the ones we can complete with hardly a reward in sight, and more grind than a pit pony working in a mine.
Why do i stay i hear the fanboys cry? Because a lot of my friends are here is the simple answer, even if Cryptic are trying to kill all of us with the new grinding requirements on offer in S7
The Khasi of Kalabar: They will die the death of a thousand cuts!
Princess Jelhi: Oh! But that's horrible!
The Khasi of Kalabar: Not at all my little desert flower, the British are used to cuts!
Reason being, the company -still- makes money when you do a survey. It's hard to -not- do the "free" ways to get zen, but we as a community (at least the community who wants to stick together) has to.
If the company does something like surveys for zen, you can gurantee that the company gets paid for every survey you do.
Have you looked at the "info" as to what's in the box yet? With a change to a whole new system, I'm not particularly annoyed at locking things away until a future date when we can use them again. What I AM ticked off about nearly to the point of apoplexy is the exchange rate they decided on for my accumulated loot.
400 EDC's, 40 prototype salvage, 5 prototype tech, and a few sundry rare bits
/=
3600 omega marks, 16 neural processors, 8000 dilithium
Give me back my hard earned loot, or an honestly assessed equivalent in the new systems, or you will NEVER get another cent from me.
Yet another instance of an extremely long standing clipping bug. Spheres and probes have been doing this pretty much forever in the space warzone. The only reason the cubes that get stuck can still be targeted is they're bigger than the structural items they get stuck on. Maybe now that it's front and center, it'll actually get fixed (in a month or two, when they get around to it).
A side note to those who will still use the dilithium exchange to get zen but not spend their own money on it: you're still contributing to the profitability of the game. As long as the exchange rate remains relatively high (and yes, other than the late season 5 bubble 150 is still high), people will buy zen for money to sell to you, and our "not gonna pay" campaign is rather pointless.
Unless they pump dilithium into the system!
This is nothing talk to the lock box crowd.
Sign This.
I said it on the Steamrunner Bug thread, but auto fire is working for me, however, it's bc I use the separate weapons box, not the single ability box. All of the screen shots I've seen w/ this issue had that single box for Boff abilities, weapons, capt powers and console effects. Try redoing your UI until the fix is in.
I remember SWG. SOE and the player base pretty much shot themselves in the foot. With an atomic grenade. As proof, just look at what we have now for an SW based game: TOR.
All the drama, posturing and arguments did nothing, absolutely nothing, for the players in the end. SWG is gone.
Make the most of what you got, folks. Or it will be gone like SWG.
SWG is running F2P on emulators since the server soft went open source early this year. (pre-NGE)
Google it.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Season 7 Dev Blog 17 was a bunch of EPIC fail.
apparently lvl 50s are grinding less dilithum then expected...I call not true on that
especially if you say in the very next paragraph that some missions are dropping TOO much dilithium
not to mention you take dilitium out of content which further gives LESS places to grind to your said limit of dilitium
im fed up with Cryptic and PWE ruining STO.
Player Base did not shoot itself in the foot. It saw what Sony was doing and took a stand and said "No more." SW:G imo deserves to be gone. Sony had plenty of time (6 years in fact) to fix their TRIBBLE up, and honestly, if say 5 years after the fact they had reopened a Pre-Iconic server, I'd a gone back in a heart beat and played on it.
And I can guarantee people I know would have too.
You're right on one point, they -do- care if I give them money. If you've come to this thread to insult those of us who are feeling screwed over by Cryptic because of the change however, you can go away. This thread is meant to be informative, and explain how an individual can get a company's attention.
If you like the changes, I'm happy for you. Go join the other Lemmings as they charge off the cliff. However please don't post your "you're just too dumb to appreciate" TRIBBLE in a thread that's being civil again.
/ignored from here on