STFs are "Endgame Content", playable at level 45-50, and currently reward ZERO Dilithium
Fleet Actions can be played from Level 3 (Starbase 24), or already at Level 1(2) if you are a member of a fleet (Starbase Fleet Defense), and now reward 1440 Dilithium upon completion.
Now, you Cryptic defenders (not referring to you diogene0, just quoting your post);
Why should I as an "Endgame" player, run the Endgame content for ZERO rewards, when I could (and should) rather run through the Fleet Actions during the course of my normal leveling on a new alt character?
STFs could (and should) reward SOME currency, even if it's as low as 240 Dilithium for Normal, and 480 Dilithium for Elite. Rewarding ZERO, reduces the incentive that players will want to play the content.
My choices boil down to;
1. Run Fleet Actions, gain 1440 Dilithium and "random loot"
2. Run STFs, gain 0 Dilithium, and "NO random loot"
STFs are funner and more challenging, but reward less.
I said this elsewhere but have a feeling Brandon will pull most of his feedback from this thread, so here goes:
Make the STF rewards to EC. 250k for regular and 500k for Elite. It's actually better than the reward would have been before from dil-to-Zen-to-EC market conversions.
Then get around to the business of having worthwhile EC sinks to spend EC on. Swap the DOff grinder costs to EC. Sell in-game respecs and renames for EC. (These are transactions rather than assets so their production cost should be depreciated or amortized more over time.)
Focus on EC as the more consumable currency and dilithium as the social "big ticket" currency.
EC for transactions, exchange, and basic needs. Dilithium for more tangible stuff, ZEN exchange, endgame progression, and social stuff.
In a broad sense: EC is the verb currency and Dilithium is the noun currency. And have STFs award EC. Which, hey, is useful for hypos and critical components and stuff you need for STFs. And can buy you a lockbox ship or master key or C-Store BOff off the exchange.
"Prior to Season 7, the average amount of Dilithium refined by an active level 50 player was 3100 per session or 13,250 per week"
This kind of sums up my confusion.
Firstly, let's look at the term "Average" amount.
Say 1000 players log in over the course of a day. If 500 players make 8000 dil each in that time and actually play a lot of the content, and the other 500 make 0 dil, by logging in and do nothing, you get an average of 4000 dilithium. Using 'An Average' as a yardstick to compare ALL players is nuts. How about working on some realistic statistics rather than a simple Excel Spreadsheet function !?!
This.
It's not a coincidence that when statisticians look at economies they DO NOT USE arithmetic means. They use median earnings, quartiles and percentiles.
I will assure you that the median dilithium earnings are much lower than the mean, which makes the problem even worse and your solution EVEN MORE WRONG.
And now you fellow players understand perfectly WHY the Queue Numbers were REMOVED.
Devs knew perfectly why they were removing them but they gave us a false reasoning.
FACT: Queue Numbers for STF events and such ALWAYS were VERY ACCURATE even if they pretend they were not. There are too many evidences showing how they were accurate.
Now, knowing that they were lying to us and actually removing ALL Dilithium reward from such STF, they perfectly knew that Queue Numbers would soon be showing 0 almost all around ( which explain why a player can now wait over 30 minutes just to enter a Khitomer Ground STF ). And it will even get worst as players understand how STFs overall are now a waste of effort/time.
Devs had no interest in showing us such numbers. They knew damn well we would then call them up on these.
So i am just saying that there is a corelation with Queue Numbers being removed and Season 7 removal of rewards in STFs.
If you are unhappy with the behaviour of a company then stop giving them any money at all, this and only this will make the company rething their decisions!
No, that will give them the excuse to cash in one last time and then shut down the game due to "lack of interest."
Please sign! If we don't do something they will keep doing this TRIBBLE. It is time to show them we mean business and are tired of the lies and deceit and wallet pinching. 3 years later and still only 1 full fledged faction and a 1/2 faction with talks of putting another one in that will undoubtedly be worse than the klingons. Quit adding new stuff and fix what needs to be fixed and quit fixing TRIBBLE that doesn't need to be fixed.
P.S. 3 years later and still waiting to fight in this war that lured me in...
No, that will give them the excuse to cash in one last time and then shut down the game due to "lack of interest."
Well, if they continue to make HORRIBLE decisions based only on data-mined spreadsheets (without really playing the game itself like an actual player without using Dev commands and shourtcuts); and as a result create an environment that drives players away and makes the game not a fun pass time, but a boring repetitive grind....
The end result SHOULD be that PWE shuts the game (and yes I'm talking STO) down, plain and simple. Bad decisions and mismanagement SHOULD NOT be rewarded.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
As an employee, I work to make things make sense and perform at high quality. I stress more about my jobs than most people I know. I'm the guy who gets out the brasso and cleans the door hinges if I've got a spare minute, without waiting for the janitor.
As a customer, I'm generally pretty amiable. I'm polite on the phone with customer service. I make friends with cashiers and retail employees easily.
When I get irritable, it's as a product tester, journalist, or critic, particularly when information is withheld or misleading. If I come off as a jerk in these comments, it's acting from that capacity.
I'll never forget when I was in a product focus group one time. They had me take a survey on restaurant types to put in at a food court facility. I put that I wanted sushi. Then we had a focus group with associations and feedback. Turns out, probably half of us wanted sushi and half wanted burgers. They flat out came out and told us that their goal was to get support for a burrito chain or maybe pizza. I gave them holy heck for running a focus group like that and making me waste my survey when they told me that they weren't reading surveys. I told them that if they only had two choices, there should only be two choices on a survey and that you do NOT solicit feedback from customers that you're not willing to consider. If the choice was pizza vs. burritos, that's what they should have been asking me about.
They had a survey that they were doing that they were trying to cook towards the highest profit operation. There is no point in conducting a survey when the outcome is decided... aside from the fact that NOT having a survey is arguably worse.
Don't tell me what I want. Even if you're right in the end, you'll wind up taking flack from me over it. It's not receptive. It's asking for feedback that isn't taken seriously and that is offensive to me. It's disingenuous.
I'll bet that so-called marketing team never forgot that focus group either.
Incidentally, that was a simple campus food service operation. And it should have been invisible. But they made a habit of doing marketing and focus grouping like that. And you know what happened? Students started making signs and protesting, lobbying for the college to terminate their food service contract. And I had zero involvement with that. Although I did get very vocal with them over the years and managed to get two of their better employees raises and reverse one firing.
That vendor is losing accounts left and right nationally now. And I chalk that up to them being institutional and internal loyalty focused over taking honest and well-meaning feedback. There is a problem when you start taking your co-workers' ideas too far above your customers', when you form in-groups. And I think Cryptic is unfortunately very susceptible to that kind of siege mentality in-group thinking.
And if some forum poster (who may have a good point) lashes out and either constructs a theory behind your motivations (which is fair if you aren't disclosing them) or calls your co-worker an idiot (which is unfair but the form negative reactions often take), then I think someone at Cryptic would be more likely to leap to the defense of a co-worker rather than honestly assess points on merits, where merits exist.
And I think that's a poor way to do business.
And, frankly, I wish we were all discussing this cordially over crullers and coffee but I'm on the outside here and when you're on the outside of a building with no windows and no phone line in, you either have to speak at a high volume or give up on communicating.
And I don't want to give up because, purely personally, I like you guys. And it hurts me a bit that your reaction sometimes is that you'd rather we give up on communicating. And I KNOW you've thought that.
Not only one of the more articulate and intellectual posts, but one wherein the poster has told Cryptic/PWE/"The Powers that Be" off, but in a cordial, non-derogatory, and yet meaningful way. Good job, mate!
The only downside is, of course, that it will fall on deaf ears...:(
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge (...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
I was going to go into a rant, out-calling Dan on his failed logic ("Active level 50 players are refining far less Dilithium than we expect..." so we're going to reduce dil availability...), the removal of STF Dilithium, and so on, but then I realized:
To sum it up: we expect it to take several months of playing the game regularly for several hours per session in order to outfit a captain and crew with the best gear in the game.
...for free. This is the unwritten line from that quote. And really all you need to know.
This "Free-to-Play" Game is very specifically being produced so that players are encouraged to buy Zen.
Not only do they raise Dilithium costs, but they reduce the supply. Even more heinous, they see that players "like" to play STFs, so they shift the Dil to Fleet Actions, some of the worse "content" in the game. They do not want you to enjoy grinding for Dilithium. Because when you stop enjoying it you look for short cuts, and isn't it convenient that you can buy Zen and trade it for Dil?
What's even better is that they want your Zen to have very little purchasing power so you have to buy lots of it. You'll notice the Dilithium you buy with Zen doesn't come from the Z-Store. It isn't created for your sale. Nope. It comes from the effort, and limited supply, of other players. They aim to keep Dilithium precious.
I've watched these last three seasons as more and more they tighten the thumbscrews on their playerbase, adjusting it here and there to see how much we can take. Fortunately for them (Unforunately for us), they have an IP with a dedicated (some would say zealous) fanbase to draw from. :rolleyes:
If you are unhappy with the behaviour of a company then stop giving them any money at all, this and only this will make the company rething their decisions!
/Quoted for Truth. This and, only this, has any possibility of changing PW/Cryptic's actions. Of course they're just as likely to close up shop if their methods stop working. It's their ball, they get to decide the rules. >shrug<
:cool:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
You may have some interesting ideas, some others are weird, but I think you could get more attention if you were more focused. The purpose here isn't to completely re-do the game, it's very unlikely to happen, considering how tedious it is here to get any kind of small feature or change. Here the topic is: getting rewards for STFs. It might be items, dilithium, credits, whatever, but we need a reason to step in again, because we all feel we've wasted our time when we see we've just got a borg processor and marks. This rewards should be at least competitive or overally superior to what we get from regular fleet actions. Marks do have some value, but not enough to our taste.
Dilihium would be the easiest reward to get since it's what we used to obtain with STFs.
I work in the auto parts business. I would rather sell 10 parts making only 1 dollar each vs selling 1 part and making 10 dollars. Which is the better business prospect? Selling 10 items and moving stock quickly for 1 dollar each or selling that 1 part for 10 dollars profit and let it sit on the shelf and collect dust. In the long run the customers are happy and we still make the same profit and dust don't collect on the parts. We just have to work a little harder to sell more.
So obviously cryptic wants to do very little for a larger reward.
Seems GREED is the only logical conclusion!
It is impossible to achieve anything within a reasonable amount of time with the new dilithium system. As previously stated if i wanted a time based level up type game, i would play EVE Online. By the time i reach T5, which will be what 6 months later, this game will be 6 months deader. Average life span of a MMO i would say would be 5-7 years. Yes i know some last longer, look at AC (Asheron's Call) still going after 12 years i think it is. But, 3 of them you have already wasted by pissing people off more than making them happy. By the time you have the game YOU want YOU will have killed it. WE are the ones that give you this job. Without us you have nothing. I think it's time to start listening...
P.S. Did i mention i would have to do this for 7 lvl 50's soon 8. multiply the above figures by that and whats the point of even playing? There isnt enough time in the day to achieve this for all my characters.
Already the announced and expected Season 7 was hard to swallow (nerfs and dil price raises throughout the Doff gaining system, STF system - now non existant - plague all I regularly did in this game), now you come with this...
Just one question:
How come the supposedly hardest missions in game with the exception of the No-win-scenario (elite STFs) provide no rewards whatsoever until you get to Tier 5 in the Omega Rep system, and even then, just a fraction of previous (or other easier current missions') rewards?
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 consider myself an even-keeled player: I can see benefits as well as drawbacks to changes in an MMO, and tend not to subscribe to making knee-jerk reactions.
I've read the forums over the past couple of days, as well as this Dev Diary. After thorough reading, I have to ask if there was an wisdom withholding this information from players, including those on Tribble, before launching Season 7.
Certainly, you are looking at the big picture: how long it takes a player to earn and refine Dilithium. However, I must argue on some points:
* It seems that you've created more Dilithium sinks while simultaneously reducing the amount of Dilithium players receive, especially for some of the hardest tasks in the game. Adding an embassy while simultaneously making Dilithium a requirement for Reputation projects, while not rewarding any Dilithium for missions required for these projects, is unwise IMPO. Especially when lower-end, less-difficult fleet actions do reward Dilithium.
* Why adjust the top two Starbase tiers? In my opinion, it would have been much more amicable to adjust the bottom three tiers, if your concern was to lower cost for starbases. IMO, higher tiers should be harder to achieve, but now that I must split Dilithium between personal gear, the starbase, and the new embassy (and other future holdings), that savings in the upper tiers isn't going to do small fleets much good at all, not to mention easier access to at least Tier 3 Fleet Ships.
* Ultimately, players are capped at refining 8-9k of Dilithium per day. Unless there was a small percentage pf players stockpiling it, I'm unsure why things that weren't exploits, like B'Tran, were changed. Personally, I have less incentive to play this mission (although with the other Dilithium changes, I may not have much choice if I am to maintain earnings).
* Fixing exploits such as the Academy Event aside, I think you've done a great disservice to your playerbase by not discussing this change before the release of Season 7. Also, I think you've done a great deal of harm in the trustworthiness placed upon you by the playerbase. Up until launch, STFs were rewarding at least some Dilithium, whereas they are not rewarding any Dilithium at launch. This was truly a stealth fix, in-broadcasted, not discussed with the playerbase, and not even hinted at or given warning as to this possible outcome. This is what truly has many players irritated at this action.
Certainly, playing a F2P game is about time or money, and should be balanced as such. Currently, it feels as if the balance has been tipped towards a grind. Although I'll reserve my final judgement for when I have more time to play, but I'm a lot less enthusiastic to play, as I feel I cannot trust the development of the game when such changes are placed into the game in such an disingenuous fashion.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
You may have some interesting ideas, some others are weird, but I think you could get more attention if you were more focused. The purpose here isn't to completely re-do the game, it's very unlikely to happen, considering how tedious it is here to get any kind of small feature or change. Here the topic is: getting rewards for STFs. It might be items, dilithium, credits, whatever, but we need a reason to step in again, because we all feel we've wasted our time when we see we've just got a borg processor and marks. This rewards should be at least competitive or overally superior to what we get from regular fleet actions. Marks do have some value, but not enough to our taste.
Dilihium would be the easiest reward to get since it's what we used to obtain with STFs.
I agree. I'm just saying if it's off the table, half a mil EC for an Elite sounds good and it doesn't preclude options like buying Contraband. As long as Cryptic sinks the EC in key ways, it becomes manageable. And there certainly must be services on the C-Store that underperform and could be repurposed as high ticket EC sinks.
Trying to "Make Dilithium more available to all level 50 players" *removes Di from direct STF loot and removes the B'Tran's 2880 Di (the single best Di reward in the game), then forces players to queue with 19 strangers for the best Di rewards* Cryptic... did you take stupid pills this morning? Or are you ALWAYS hypocrites?
Hurt them where they feel the most...LEAVE STO...I wont be the first one in this long train of exiled players
No, that will give them the excuse to cash in one last time and then shut down the game due to "lack of interest."
wrong, they'd only do that if they were incredibly stupid, stubborn and if they wanted to lose money. while the two former may be true, the latter obviously is not. they'd alter content and mechanics.
they have a strong player base, they have years of code, art, missions, and time invested. just shutting it down after one big cash in would cost them more than just altering what players hate. keeping the game going and adjusting makes them money, shutting down the servers they lose money.
common sense, i know difficult considering cryptics version of it, but it is useful to figure out all the angles.
Dr. Patricia Tanis ~ "Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest."
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Well, I had a post thought out but then I got distracted, so anyway...
To those who don't know why people still play despite all the complaining: do a quick search for Star Trek themed games (if there are any) that are remotely as in depth and social as this one. A large majority of players are fans of the Star Trek universe. PWE and Cryptic has us hooked and they know it.
Now, and I hate to say this, but the phrase "resistance is futile" rings a huge bell in this game. As has been stated, the forums are loaded with complaints. They never end, and unfortunately all this complaining about S7 is only going to fall on deaf ears, hence, the complaints that are never resolved.
I suggest flooding customer service (if there is such a thing here) with complaints or boycotting until something has been done to appease the angry customers.
I said this elsewhere but have a feeling Brandon will pull most of his feedback from this thread, so here goes:
Make the STF rewards to EC. 250k for regular and 500k for Elite. It's actually better than the reward would have been before from dil-to-Zen-to-EC market conversions.
Then get around to the business of having worthwhile EC sinks to spend EC on. Swap the DOff grinder costs to EC. Sell in-game respecs and renames for EC. (These are transactions rather than assets so their production cost should be depreciated or amortized more over time.)
Focus on EC as the more consumable currency and dilithium as the social "big ticket" currency.
EC for transactions, exchange, and basic needs. Dilithium for more tangible stuff, ZEN exchange, endgame progression, and social stuff.
In a broad sense: EC is the verb currency and Dilithium is the noun currency. And have STFs award EC. Which, hey, is useful for hypos and critical components and stuff you need for STFs. And can buy you a lockbox ship or master key or C-Store BOff off the exchange.
Had to quote your entire post, since there is so much truth behind it. Energy Credits as is, is rather pointless, when all the stuff that "matters" is purchased via Dilithium/Zen. If you make content award 1 part EC, 1 part Dilithium, you have the added benefit of potentially "capping" Silver players EC limit, which would incentivize Silver players to purchase the EC cap increase.
For my part, i'd be fine with a reduction across the board in Dilithium acquisition, if I get something -besides- Dilithium as well. I don't want to run content, where the reward is ZERO, that much should be obvious for most players.
Fleet Actions (such as Starbase 24, Gorn Minefield, etc) now award between 960 and 1440 Dilithium (this will be in flux as we adjust rates) to ensure that the average level 50 player is earning more Dilithium by playing missions more accessible to the average player.
This may just win the prize for the dumbest thing anyone at Cryptic has ever said in the history of the game.
Fleet Actions are NOT more accessible than ESTFs. They are in fact the second least accessible content in the game. They are either intensely difficult or mind numbingly dull, and have a reward structure that ensures that anyone not running a top notch escort build gets shafted. But perhaps the worst part is that they are impossible to coordinate. They use a group that is larger than the maximum team size, which means that knowing where your groupmates are is difficult, supporting them is harder, and communicating with them effectively is all but impossible, especially now that all instances of a queued event share a single Zone chat.
In contrast, ESTFs require only that players pay attention to team chat, have a decent grasp of the strategy, and have an acceptable build for their ship type and the ability to use it. There are superb forum posts on both of the latter subjects (although Sivar?s thread on Sci Ship builds has become increasingly difficult to find, it?s currently here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=218722). What?s more, many ship types can contribute to success in an STF (while DPS builds are typically best, CC and Tank builds can be quite useful if used effectively).
Frankly, it is less of an insult to you to think that you are lying to us through your teeth than to think that you are so uninformed about the game you are in charge of that you consider that statement reasonable. So I prefer to think that you are simply trying to squeeze all the money you can out of the playerbase before ending the game.
I still have friends here, they will keep me tied to the game, but I?m not going to do what you want. I?m not going to pay money into this game, because I don?t have it to spend, and I?m not going to grind the simple Fleet Actions endlessly hoping to get a bad team so my reward will be good. I?ll do a few dailies, probably keep up with exploration and Tour, run the occasional ESTF, and help out fleetmates when I can, but I won?t be putting the effort into it that I used to, working so hard to strengthen my own skills and the playerbase as a whole. It?s just not worth it anymore.
Has anyone thought of the people with mutliple characters and how long it would take to get, in my case 7 lvl 50's soon 8, all of their characters up to par with the new system? For some there is literally not enough time in the day to achieve this for all characters. So now i am not only forced with this new system over my rep or my fleet and embassy, but im also forced to choose which character i want to invest the time in. Instead of playing all characters and achiveing a little here and there. Or running STFs on each character while the timer expires. Same goes with the fleet events. Most of us don't have the time to do this. We have jobs and families. We can't sit at the computer for 24 hours a day 7 days a week in order to enjoy all of our characters in this new system and still have a competitive edge.
I feel like all the time and money i have spent in the last 3 years has all gone in vain. I can no longer play the way i liked and or was used to. I am forced to play your way and i don't like it. :mad:
Has anyone thought of the people with mutliple characters and how long it would take to get, in my case 7 lvl 50's soon 8, all of their characters up to par with the new system?
Yeah, I play multiple characters. Now I will be forced to focus on just one or two, and even that is looking annoying now. It's just not really any... fun.
wrong, they'd only do that if they were incredibly stupid, stubborn and if they wanted to lose money. while the two former may be true, the latter obviously is not. they'd alter content and mechanics.
they have a strong player base, they have years of code, art, missions, and time invested. just shutting it down after one big cash in would cost them more than just altering what players hate. keeping the game going and adjusting makes them money, shutting down the servers they lose money.
common sense, i know difficult considering cryptics version of it, but it is useful to figure out all the angles.
Now while what I'm gonna mention is not a 'established' IP, it was a MMO that was 8 years old, still profitable and had a Development Studio still actively producing content and it was shut down because it didn't fit with the Korean Publisher's Grinders!!!: City of Heroes!!!
If there is enough dissent and dried up cash flow either CBS will yank the license or PWE will drop it. All that matters to our Grinder Overlord is the bottom line.
Now I like STO's core game play and the customization that is available. I have been growing less and less interested in nearly everything else since the F2P began, save for the DOff system.
I just can not put any real faith in the STO Devs at this time. My only hope is the the couple of Paragon Devs that are now part of the STO team will knock some sense into everyone else and we can see a game that can is enjoyable to all.
/Rant
Thank you for the time...
STO CBT Player - 400 day+ Vet, Currently Silver
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Full, Story-driven, select from start 1-50 Klingon Side
Scrap current Lock Box & Lobi system for something more reasonable
Expand Dil and Rep/Fleet Marks to regular story content
I like Al as a person but I think he tends to bogart design decisions away from the players, to get them playing how he wants. And I feel like Stahl just sort of shrugged at the change (with or without an internal debate: we'll never know) and decided to let him do it this time at the last minute without telling any of the testers.
So I retract my earlier point that it was a lie. It was a bloodless coupe by the systems team.
It's an interesting speculation based on the little info we have to go on.
Whether it's true or not, it still begs the question why they want us playing those old, terribly designed Fleet Actions and not STFs.
Wouldn't the systems team be in charge of the powers and the rep system?
Why make a new system and then very specifically kill off the content used to advance in that system?
Why make New Romulus at all, if the average player only playing 4 hours a night and needs to spend most of those 4 hours earning dilithium in content that IS NOT NEW ROMULUS?
And, frankly, I wish we were all discussing this cordially over crullers and coffee but I'm on the outside here and when you're on the outside of a building with no windows and no phone line in, you either have to speak at a high volume or give up on communicating.
No it wasn't the systems team. This design is all Geko's. Geko is if nothing else very predictable. He has a very particular view in regards to designs. Even before you posted Daniel Stahl's quotes, I had a suspicious that Geko was involved in it. But I was dismissive it because he was over Systems. But that suspicious didn't go away.
So far it's nothing but our speculation, and it might very well remain that way.
Oh complaining won't work? Lets hope we see some real attempt to ameliorate our concerns.
(though I don't think it's our complaints more the total drop off in play time and death of STF queues)
Warriors!
The battle is turning in our favor! But remain vigilant! We know not what they intend to do, only that they intend to do something. Stay the course! Raise a mighty noise if you are still unsatisfied!
But most importantly, let this stand as proof! Proof that when a community's opinion is truly united, we can force change!
Well Stahl, the Grand Nagus' is on his knees worshiping you wishing HE could of stuck it to us so good. He thought you were a hyoo-mon and not part Ferengi. You must of excelled in the government school of economics because they only keep one hand in our pockets fishing for all our change. When I take out my wallet and open it all I see is your legs sticking out as you try to steel my last dollar.
I originally bought the game knowing I would need to pay a monthly fee or get a lifetime subscription. Not a problem generating some revenue. I could enjoy the game and relax from the hard day. If I wanted something extra from the C-Store it was a little extra, no problem. Then the game goes free to play and download is free. The $50 I spent to buy the game when it first came out was the first slap in the face. Now it's the same thing grinding everyday just to get things accomplished so you can get the gear to play the same missions again and again. A first there was crafting. A good way to make better gear but needed to grind for samples. Then you added the common and un common unreplicateable stuff to make us buy it with dilithium and that started the grind for dilithium. Then came the dilithium store and the exchange.
Now almost everything needs dilithium at hyper-inflated prices that is ludicrous, and then to give so little in dilithium payouts hoping to force us to spend even more real money to buy zen to convert to dilithium. Do you really think we would blindly do 5 missions to equal a bit less of the same payout that we use to get for one mission? People haven't even realized yet how you even upped the cost to trade up your doff officers. Inside at the personnel officer where it was the cheapest (because we needed to save our dilithium for those outrageously priced star base missions) now its 500 dilithium for white, 2500 dilithium for green, and 5000 dilithium for blue. Can we say a bit excessive when it was 10,50, and I think 100? It's been said that we were not refining enough dilithium but my fleet now has 4 players and only one real active player in it and we are at tier 2. Do you want to try and say we didn't refine enough dilithium to keep you happy? Thanks for that slap in the face again.
Then there is the ships we want like the Jem'Hadar. Why don't you all make it so Rom on DS9 is now a ship trader and you can get a token and pick your ship? Or doff missions where you get parts to assemble the ship and if you get the 3% critical chance you get the unmanned Jem'Hadar warship? Like everybody has 200+ million to buy one on the exchange because they are not given out as freely as the others, or expect us to pay $100+ to try to get one out of the reinforcement packs and end up with leaves and incense, oh and 10 lobi crystals. Ridiculous!
When you all started the bases it became a grind and some could even argue a second job. It was tolerable, (barely). Now you made it 10X worse. It's not a game anymore, It's not any fun. It feels like we grind and grind to get nowhere and then you all change things and throw us further behind so we would pay real money to make some headway in the game lining your pockets even more. You can check, I've spent my fare share in the C-Store and TWO lifetime accounts. This piggy bank is now empty and closed. You all have put the proverbial gun to STO's head and are squeezing the trigger real hard. In this economy now days we need gas for work and to put a roof over our family and food on our tables, NOT all in your pockets for a game that is a grind/job and not entertainment/fun. If you don't get a clue from all these posts and really listen to the players/payers, STO will die and it will have been by your hands all in the name of greed.
Decently well put....just one thing.
Ferengi refer to humans as "hew-mon", not "hyoo-mon"
Post above: You guys are lucky though. STO has its devs in NA and can quickly react to player feedback. Most other PWE games have their dev teams in China and it takes multiple pokings with a sharp stick to get even one idea changed...
At least change is forthcoming, if the above twitter post is to be believed. Now, exactly WHAT direction that change is, or how much may be changed, is yet to be seen.
Oh complaining won't work? Lets hope we see some real attempt to ameliorate our concerns.
(though I don't think it's our complaints more the total drop off in play time and death of STF queues)
I really hope it helps turn around what has become a fiasco. Putting come of these changes in was bad enough, given the additional Dilithium sinks with Season 7. Not telling the players about it beforehand was just plain insincere, and I think the biggest insult to many players; especially in a game that touts more transparency than other MMOs.
Even if they do reverse some of the changes, especially in regards to STFs, their reputation with current players will certainly be tarnished with what many can honestly say without a terrible amount of hyperbole was a "stealth nerf".
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Comments
I said this elsewhere but have a feeling Brandon will pull most of his feedback from this thread, so here goes:
Make the STF rewards to EC. 250k for regular and 500k for Elite. It's actually better than the reward would have been before from dil-to-Zen-to-EC market conversions.
Then get around to the business of having worthwhile EC sinks to spend EC on. Swap the DOff grinder costs to EC. Sell in-game respecs and renames for EC. (These are transactions rather than assets so their production cost should be depreciated or amortized more over time.)
Focus on EC as the more consumable currency and dilithium as the social "big ticket" currency.
EC for transactions, exchange, and basic needs. Dilithium for more tangible stuff, ZEN exchange, endgame progression, and social stuff.
In a broad sense: EC is the verb currency and Dilithium is the noun currency. And have STFs award EC. Which, hey, is useful for hypos and critical components and stuff you need for STFs. And can buy you a lockbox ship or master key or C-Store BOff off the exchange.
This.
It's not a coincidence that when statisticians look at economies they DO NOT USE arithmetic means. They use median earnings, quartiles and percentiles.
I will assure you that the median dilithium earnings are much lower than the mean, which makes the problem even worse and your solution EVEN MORE WRONG.
...#LLAP...
Devs knew perfectly why they were removing them but they gave us a false reasoning.
FACT: Queue Numbers for STF events and such ALWAYS were VERY ACCURATE even if they pretend they were not. There are too many evidences showing how they were accurate.
Now, knowing that they were lying to us and actually removing ALL Dilithium reward from such STF, they perfectly knew that Queue Numbers would soon be showing 0 almost all around ( which explain why a player can now wait over 30 minutes just to enter a Khitomer Ground STF ). And it will even get worst as players understand how STFs overall are now a waste of effort/time.
Devs had no interest in showing us such numbers. They knew damn well we would then call them up on these.
So i am just saying that there is a corelation with Queue Numbers being removed and Season 7 removal of rewards in STFs.
Just another way to hide an inconvenient truth.
No, that will give them the excuse to cash in one last time and then shut down the game due to "lack of interest."
Please sign! If we don't do something they will keep doing this TRIBBLE. It is time to show them we mean business and are tired of the lies and deceit and wallet pinching. 3 years later and still only 1 full fledged faction and a 1/2 faction with talks of putting another one in that will undoubtedly be worse than the klingons. Quit adding new stuff and fix what needs to be fixed and quit fixing TRIBBLE that doesn't need to be fixed.
P.S. 3 years later and still waiting to fight in this war that lured me in...
Dorlin: Level 65 GF/2nd Account: Calias/62
Elkysium: Level 65 CW/2nd Account: Krystalyn/62
Artemis: Level 65 TR/2nd Account: Fayne/62
Zantoth: Level 65 DC/2nd Account: Nemea/62
Kryndar: Level 65 HR/2nd Account: Lilith/62
Goreb: Level 65 GWF/2nd Account: Tysha/62
Bamidor: Level 65 OP/2nd Account: Valindra/62
Well, if they continue to make HORRIBLE decisions based only on data-mined spreadsheets (without really playing the game itself like an actual player without using Dev commands and shourtcuts); and as a result create an environment that drives players away and makes the game not a fun pass time, but a boring repetitive grind....
The end result SHOULD be that PWE shuts the game (and yes I'm talking STO) down, plain and simple. Bad decisions and mismanagement SHOULD NOT be rewarded.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Not only one of the more articulate and intellectual posts, but one wherein the poster has told Cryptic/PWE/"The Powers that Be" off, but in a cordial, non-derogatory, and yet meaningful way. Good job, mate!
The only downside is, of course, that it will fall on deaf ears...:(
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge
(...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
...for free. This is the unwritten line from that quote. And really all you need to know.
This "Free-to-Play" Game is very specifically being produced so that players are encouraged to buy Zen.
Not only do they raise Dilithium costs, but they reduce the supply. Even more heinous, they see that players "like" to play STFs, so they shift the Dil to Fleet Actions, some of the worse "content" in the game. They do not want you to enjoy grinding for Dilithium. Because when you stop enjoying it you look for short cuts, and isn't it convenient that you can buy Zen and trade it for Dil?
What's even better is that they want your Zen to have very little purchasing power so you have to buy lots of it. You'll notice the Dilithium you buy with Zen doesn't come from the Z-Store. It isn't created for your sale. Nope. It comes from the effort, and limited supply, of other players. They aim to keep Dilithium precious.
I've watched these last three seasons as more and more they tighten the thumbscrews on their playerbase, adjusting it here and there to see how much we can take. Fortunately for them (Unforunately for us), they have an IP with a dedicated (some would say zealous) fanbase to draw from. :rolleyes:
/Quoted for Truth. This and, only this, has any possibility of changing PW/Cryptic's actions. Of course they're just as likely to close up shop if their methods stop working. It's their ball, they get to decide the rules. >shrug<
:cool:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
You may have some interesting ideas, some others are weird, but I think you could get more attention if you were more focused. The purpose here isn't to completely re-do the game, it's very unlikely to happen, considering how tedious it is here to get any kind of small feature or change. Here the topic is: getting rewards for STFs. It might be items, dilithium, credits, whatever, but we need a reason to step in again, because we all feel we've wasted our time when we see we've just got a borg processor and marks. This rewards should be at least competitive or overally superior to what we get from regular fleet actions. Marks do have some value, but not enough to our taste.
Dilihium would be the easiest reward to get since it's what we used to obtain with STFs.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
I work in the auto parts business. I would rather sell 10 parts making only 1 dollar each vs selling 1 part and making 10 dollars. Which is the better business prospect? Selling 10 items and moving stock quickly for 1 dollar each or selling that 1 part for 10 dollars profit and let it sit on the shelf and collect dust. In the long run the customers are happy and we still make the same profit and dust don't collect on the parts. We just have to work a little harder to sell more.
So obviously cryptic wants to do very little for a larger reward.
Seems GREED is the only logical conclusion!
It is impossible to achieve anything within a reasonable amount of time with the new dilithium system. As previously stated if i wanted a time based level up type game, i would play EVE Online. By the time i reach T5, which will be what 6 months later, this game will be 6 months deader. Average life span of a MMO i would say would be 5-7 years. Yes i know some last longer, look at AC (Asheron's Call) still going after 12 years i think it is. But, 3 of them you have already wasted by pissing people off more than making them happy. By the time you have the game YOU want YOU will have killed it. WE are the ones that give you this job. Without us you have nothing. I think it's time to start listening...
P.S. Did i mention i would have to do this for 7 lvl 50's soon 8. multiply the above figures by that and whats the point of even playing? There isnt enough time in the day to achieve this for all my characters.
Dorlin: Level 65 GF/2nd Account: Calias/62
Elkysium: Level 65 CW/2nd Account: Krystalyn/62
Artemis: Level 65 TR/2nd Account: Fayne/62
Zantoth: Level 65 DC/2nd Account: Nemea/62
Kryndar: Level 65 HR/2nd Account: Lilith/62
Goreb: Level 65 GWF/2nd Account: Tysha/62
Bamidor: Level 65 OP/2nd Account: Valindra/62
Already the announced and expected Season 7 was hard to swallow (nerfs and dil price raises throughout the Doff gaining system, STF system - now non existant - plague all I regularly did in this game), now you come with this...
Just one question:
How come the supposedly hardest missions in game with the exception of the No-win-scenario (elite STFs) provide no rewards whatsoever until you get to Tier 5 in the Omega Rep system, and even then, just a fraction of previous (or other easier current missions') rewards?
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!
I've read the forums over the past couple of days, as well as this Dev Diary. After thorough reading, I have to ask if there was an wisdom withholding this information from players, including those on Tribble, before launching Season 7.
Certainly, you are looking at the big picture: how long it takes a player to earn and refine Dilithium. However, I must argue on some points:
* It seems that you've created more Dilithium sinks while simultaneously reducing the amount of Dilithium players receive, especially for some of the hardest tasks in the game. Adding an embassy while simultaneously making Dilithium a requirement for Reputation projects, while not rewarding any Dilithium for missions required for these projects, is unwise IMPO. Especially when lower-end, less-difficult fleet actions do reward Dilithium.
* Why adjust the top two Starbase tiers? In my opinion, it would have been much more amicable to adjust the bottom three tiers, if your concern was to lower cost for starbases. IMO, higher tiers should be harder to achieve, but now that I must split Dilithium between personal gear, the starbase, and the new embassy (and other future holdings), that savings in the upper tiers isn't going to do small fleets much good at all, not to mention easier access to at least Tier 3 Fleet Ships.
* Ultimately, players are capped at refining 8-9k of Dilithium per day. Unless there was a small percentage pf players stockpiling it, I'm unsure why things that weren't exploits, like B'Tran, were changed. Personally, I have less incentive to play this mission (although with the other Dilithium changes, I may not have much choice if I am to maintain earnings).
* Fixing exploits such as the Academy Event aside, I think you've done a great disservice to your playerbase by not discussing this change before the release of Season 7. Also, I think you've done a great deal of harm in the trustworthiness placed upon you by the playerbase. Up until launch, STFs were rewarding at least some Dilithium, whereas they are not rewarding any Dilithium at launch. This was truly a stealth fix, in-broadcasted, not discussed with the playerbase, and not even hinted at or given warning as to this possible outcome. This is what truly has many players irritated at this action.
Certainly, playing a F2P game is about time or money, and should be balanced as such. Currently, it feels as if the balance has been tipped towards a grind. Although I'll reserve my final judgement for when I have more time to play, but I'm a lot less enthusiastic to play, as I feel I cannot trust the development of the game when such changes are placed into the game in such an disingenuous fashion.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I agree. I'm just saying if it's off the table, half a mil EC for an Elite sounds good and it doesn't preclude options like buying Contraband. As long as Cryptic sinks the EC in key ways, it becomes manageable. And there certainly must be services on the C-Store that underperform and could be repurposed as high ticket EC sinks.
Trying to "Make Dilithium more available to all level 50 players" *removes Di from direct STF loot and removes the B'Tran's 2880 Di (the single best Di reward in the game), then forces players to queue with 19 strangers for the best Di rewards* Cryptic... did you take stupid pills this morning? Or are you ALWAYS hypocrites?
Hurt them where they feel the most...LEAVE STO...I wont be the first one in this long train of exiled players
wrong, they'd only do that if they were incredibly stupid, stubborn and if they wanted to lose money. while the two former may be true, the latter obviously is not. they'd alter content and mechanics.
they have a strong player base, they have years of code, art, missions, and time invested. just shutting it down after one big cash in would cost them more than just altering what players hate. keeping the game going and adjusting makes them money, shutting down the servers they lose money.
common sense, i know difficult considering cryptics version of it, but it is useful to figure out all the angles.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
To those who don't know why people still play despite all the complaining: do a quick search for Star Trek themed games (if there are any) that are remotely as in depth and social as this one. A large majority of players are fans of the Star Trek universe. PWE and Cryptic has us hooked and they know it.
Now, and I hate to say this, but the phrase "resistance is futile" rings a huge bell in this game. As has been stated, the forums are loaded with complaints. They never end, and unfortunately all this complaining about S7 is only going to fall on deaf ears, hence, the complaints that are never resolved.
I suggest flooding customer service (if there is such a thing here) with complaints or boycotting until something has been done to appease the angry customers.
Had to quote your entire post, since there is so much truth behind it. Energy Credits as is, is rather pointless, when all the stuff that "matters" is purchased via Dilithium/Zen. If you make content award 1 part EC, 1 part Dilithium, you have the added benefit of potentially "capping" Silver players EC limit, which would incentivize Silver players to purchase the EC cap increase.
For my part, i'd be fine with a reduction across the board in Dilithium acquisition, if I get something -besides- Dilithium as well. I don't want to run content, where the reward is ZERO, that much should be obvious for most players.
This may just win the prize for the dumbest thing anyone at Cryptic has ever said in the history of the game.
Fleet Actions are NOT more accessible than ESTFs. They are in fact the second least accessible content in the game. They are either intensely difficult or mind numbingly dull, and have a reward structure that ensures that anyone not running a top notch escort build gets shafted. But perhaps the worst part is that they are impossible to coordinate. They use a group that is larger than the maximum team size, which means that knowing where your groupmates are is difficult, supporting them is harder, and communicating with them effectively is all but impossible, especially now that all instances of a queued event share a single Zone chat.
In contrast, ESTFs require only that players pay attention to team chat, have a decent grasp of the strategy, and have an acceptable build for their ship type and the ability to use it. There are superb forum posts on both of the latter subjects (although Sivar?s thread on Sci Ship builds has become increasingly difficult to find, it?s currently here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=218722). What?s more, many ship types can contribute to success in an STF (while DPS builds are typically best, CC and Tank builds can be quite useful if used effectively).
Frankly, it is less of an insult to you to think that you are lying to us through your teeth than to think that you are so uninformed about the game you are in charge of that you consider that statement reasonable. So I prefer to think that you are simply trying to squeeze all the money you can out of the playerbase before ending the game.
I still have friends here, they will keep me tied to the game, but I?m not going to do what you want. I?m not going to pay money into this game, because I don?t have it to spend, and I?m not going to grind the simple Fleet Actions endlessly hoping to get a bad team so my reward will be good. I?ll do a few dailies, probably keep up with exploration and Tour, run the occasional ESTF, and help out fleetmates when I can, but I won?t be putting the effort into it that I used to, working so hard to strengthen my own skills and the playerbase as a whole. It?s just not worth it anymore.
I feel like all the time and money i have spent in the last 3 years has all gone in vain. I can no longer play the way i liked and or was used to. I am forced to play your way and i don't like it. :mad:
Dorlin: Level 65 GF/2nd Account: Calias/62
Elkysium: Level 65 CW/2nd Account: Krystalyn/62
Artemis: Level 65 TR/2nd Account: Fayne/62
Zantoth: Level 65 DC/2nd Account: Nemea/62
Kryndar: Level 65 HR/2nd Account: Lilith/62
Goreb: Level 65 GWF/2nd Account: Tysha/62
Bamidor: Level 65 OP/2nd Account: Valindra/62
Yeah, I play multiple characters. Now I will be forced to focus on just one or two, and even that is looking annoying now. It's just not really any... fun.
Now while what I'm gonna mention is not a 'established' IP, it was a MMO that was 8 years old, still profitable and had a Development Studio still actively producing content and it was shut down because it didn't fit with the Korean Publisher's Grinders!!!: City of Heroes!!!
If there is enough dissent and dried up cash flow either CBS will yank the license or PWE will drop it. All that matters to our Grinder Overlord is the bottom line.
Now I like STO's core game play and the customization that is available. I have been growing less and less interested in nearly everything else since the F2P began, save for the DOff system.
I just can not put any real faith in the STO Devs at this time. My only hope is the the couple of Paragon Devs that are now part of the STO team will knock some sense into everyone else and we can see a game that can is enjoyable to all.
/Rant
Thank you for the time...
Cryptic, would you actulaly like me to spend actual Money? It's Simple:
Oh complaining won't work? Lets hope we see some real attempt to ameliorate our concerns.
(though I don't think it's our complaints more the total drop off in play time and death of STF queues)
#2311#2700#2316#2500
It's an interesting speculation based on the little info we have to go on.
Whether it's true or not, it still begs the question why they want us playing those old, terribly designed Fleet Actions and not STFs.
Wouldn't the systems team be in charge of the powers and the rep system?
Why make a new system and then very specifically kill off the content used to advance in that system?
Why make New Romulus at all, if the average player only playing 4 hours a night and needs to spend most of those 4 hours earning dilithium in content that IS NOT NEW ROMULUS?
I just wanted to emphasize that.
So far it's nothing but our speculation, and it might very well remain that way.
We'll have to wait and see what happens and if it's just lip service. I was going to leave but my best friend pleaded paitence.
I think above all else there needs to be an apology by the Dev team not just dStahl.
We thought we were making progress on tribble then between 9th and the 13th the changes we're all railing about happened.
Warriors!
The battle is turning in our favor! But remain vigilant! We know not what they intend to do, only that they intend to do something. Stay the course! Raise a mighty noise if you are still unsatisfied!
But most importantly, let this stand as proof! Proof that when a community's opinion is truly united, we can force change!
Well fought! Now fight on! Qapla'!
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Decently well put....just one thing.
Ferengi refer to humans as "hew-mon", not "hyoo-mon"
Post above: You guys are lucky though. STO has its devs in NA and can quickly react to player feedback. Most other PWE games have their dev teams in China and it takes multiple pokings with a sharp stick to get even one idea changed...
ROLL TIDE ROLL
The winner of the 2012 NERF BAT award goes to....
The DEVS and Perfectworld...
You really out did yourselves in ruining STO.
:mad::(
At least change is forthcoming, if the above twitter post is to be believed. Now, exactly WHAT direction that change is, or how much may be changed, is yet to be seen.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at dev meetings.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Even if they do reverse some of the changes, especially in regards to STFs, their reputation with current players will certainly be tarnished with what many can honestly say without a terrible amount of hyperbole was a "stealth nerf".
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.