There's been a ton of talk about the dilithium economy, as well as preventing dilithium exploits. Personally, I don't mind the changes that have been made so far, but there's been a lot of backlash against anything that makes it take longer to earn your daily dilithium.
My question is this: Would you be willing to accept an account-wide daily dilithium-refining cap if it meant that they could loosen up the restrictions a bit?
What number would you be willing to accept as the limit?
Go for it... I still won't spend a dime of real money on this game. You people simply do not get it, you can nerf every single source of dilithium possible and it will not change the real world monetary outcome for PWE.
STO is F2P for a reason... it failed as a game 2 years ago and was unable to support a post-paid subscription model. Spare me the nonsense about F2P being the wave of the future, institutional investors are not going to toss money at these developers based on a what if or unproven potential revenue streams.
I hope you're a professional gymnast. Because if you're not, it's going to be really hard for you to stamp on yourself without that amount of flexibility.
i think having huge amount of characters per account, farming dilithium is exploit plain and simple and one big reason why cryptic and pwe made huge fails of trying to cut dilithium from other sources. so i think somekinda cap would be in order.
When did using the in-game mechanics suddenly become "exploitation"?
If someone has the time/energy to log in to the game and play 10 characters in 1 session, PWE should be thanking them.
Not to mention 5 players with the free 2 character slots will make the same amount of dilithium (per character) as the guy who PAID for the 8 extra slots.
Farming dilithium is the norm now thanks to PWE and Season 7.
If they're trying to increase revenue, THEY'RE DOING IT WRONG.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
the OP is asking, would you accept having the per character cap raised to say 10'000 or 12'000 but having a total cap per account of say 20'000 or 30'000. changing the restrictions by giving us something on one end and taking away on the other. its just an idea.
you dont have to agree with the idea (and neither do i) but just because someone suggests an idea does not mean it some pwe employee.
people with less characters (who the Op probably falls under) would benefit but people who have multiple characters or grind a lot would not benefit. if everyone hates the idea then fine, but there is no harm in asking a question of people thoughts. you dont have to go all conspiracy theory on everyone.
hmm, i have 12 chars now (3FED, 9 KDF), actively playing 3 or 4. somehow i hit the cap pretty fast on 2 of them, and i get the 2k from contraband on 9 of them. ( i really do like experimenting with builds, traits, etc)
that is 18k + 18k dill daily on account - 4 . 32k
analysis - if they introduce a per account dill of.. whatever ... 30k, ill be OK with that, leaves me more time to do foundry, or just jerk around.
on the other hand, there may be people who need the Dill for fleet stuff, which will just overcome the obstacle by creating 3 accounts.
for me, it would mean playing only my 2 main toons and doing a hell more of PVP, cause that is the thing i like here most. after that comes foundry. i would not create new accounts.
would also like to have the 30k limit set per account, so i do not have to switch toons.
analysis - if they introduce a per account dill of.. whatever ... 30k, ill be OK with that, leaves me more time to do foundry, or just jerk around.
Yeah, TRIBBLE playing the game! Let's just give PWE our money and log off!
And while we're at it, let's post in green, to make our posts stand out so PWE's ideas sound like they actually came from the playerbase and not paid posters!
The real player BEGGING to give PWE money doesn't exist. The only way this suggestion could come from a real player is under the condition already suggested, which is that the accountwide cap = 8k x number of character slots. Obviously, that isn't the case, what is really going on is forum workers are trying to convince the playerbase to accept what PWE has already decided to do.
Yelling EXPLOIT EXPLOIT EXPLOIT doesn't make that real either. PWE pounded Dil earnings into the ground and vastly raised costs because that was what they were looking to do, bleed players' earnings to get them to spend $$$. Anyone throwing that word around is doing nothing but trying to justify PWE's cash grab and is just another forum worker.
In particular, players who game the dilithium system by having a bajillion alts are the reason for things like adding dilithium costs to Doffs, reducing easy dilithium sources, reducing dilithium faucets, increasing dilithium sinks, and the devaluing of dilithium in general.
As Mr. Stahl told us himself the average player was refining less than 2000 a day. Clearly, hardcore farmers are an extreme minority.
The basic problem here is that dilithium is time-gated and nothing else really is. If you give me a choice between working on a reward that I can ONLY earn now, and one that's available any time, guess which one I'm going to max out? Making dil easy to get means I then have more time, once I've got my dilithium, to play everything else which doesn't give dilithium. Easy dil = more variety. The obvious solution to my mind is to make everything give a relevant amount of dil, but apparently they do not feel that way.
Yeah, TRIBBLE playing the game! Let's just give PWE our money and log off!
And while we're at it, let's post in green, to make our posts stand out so PWE's ideas sound like they actually came from the playerbase and not paid posters!
The real player BEGGING to give PWE money doesn't exist. The only way this suggestion could come from a real player is under the condition already suggested, which is that the accountwide cap = 8k x number of character slots. Obviously, that isn't the case, what is really going on is forum workers are trying to convince the playerbase to accept what PWE has already decided to do.
Yelling EXPLOIT EXPLOIT EXPLOIT doesn't make that real either. PWE pounded Dil earnings into the ground and vastly raised costs because that was what they were looking to do, bleed players' earnings to get them to spend $$$. Anyone throwing that word around is doing nothing but trying to justify PWE's cash grab and is just another forum worker.
- i like green
- do not fck with me, im blond (this is a threat)
- you see, cryptic made an error by allowing 46 (have read this) toons per account.
so you can just get 46* 2480 Dill for a daily lore and contraband. EVEN if this OP post is a paid post/customer research, everybody does see the exploit in this. you don't?
i understand there are people which are ABLE to play 10 hours a day, but this is not healthy and these people are not working. They are also getting everything for free.
Stating a daily limit does not take this opportunity away from them , cause they can create more accounts and still get their fleet going.. or it just slows them down.
Which is a good thing. Why?
Because people which do not have the dollar and are in DESPERATE need of dill ( like you seem to be) do not pay this game to stay alive. People like me do.
I am a 930 days veteran, played from day 1. Bought Zen Ships, Zen stuff, costumes for my FED's even I do not play them, buying almost everything KDF ship has to offer just to show DEV's that we, KDF players CARE. Having 12 toons is not the grind for me, but the opportunities. I plan on buying a lifetime the next time a offer will be around.
Yes, now, after S7 hit us.
Because i think the changes are for good. Systematic. Yes, they hurt an average grinder. But the 21st / yesterday's patch changes have justified this for me. The game has system now, a focus, to build on.
Go grind while you can.
EDIT: and this is this kind of green i use
This is a proposal by a PWE employee to further squeeze players for cash. Simple as that.
Either that, or you just got trolled.
Ridiculous conclusions aside, I can actually see Cryptic implement a daily account refinement cap at some point. However, a lot of people bought extra character slots in part (or entirely) to farm more dilithium, and be able to refine more of it each day. However, with the console clickies rendered ineffective, this isn't nearly as much of a 'problem' as it used to be.
- you see, cryptic made an error by allowing 46 (have read this) toons per account.
so you can just get 46* 2480 Dill for a daily lore and contraband. EVEN if this OP post is a paid post/customer research, everybody does see the exploit in this. you don't?
i understand there are people which are ABLE to play 10 hours a day, but this is not healthy and these people are not working. They are also getting everything for free.
46 character slots is not free. 46 character slots (six free, ten four-slot upgrades @ 1065 Zen ea.) has a book value of over $600.
$600 is not "free", and trying to argue it is, is just PWE trying to devalue the customer's money.
Because people which do not have the dollar and are in DESPERATE need of dill ( like you seem to be) do not pay this game to stay alive. People like me do.
So it's your argument that only people with no lives refuse to feed PWE money for Zen. Lawl.
As Mr. Stahl told us himself the average player was refining less than 2000 a day. Clearly, hardcore farmers are an extreme minority.
The basic problem here is that dilithium is time-gated and nothing else really is. If you give me a choice between working on a reward that I can ONLY earn now, and one that's available any time, guess which one I'm going to max out? Making dil easy to get means I then have more time, once I've got my dilithium, to play everything else which doesn't give dilithium. Easy dil = more variety. The obvious solution to my mind is to make everything give a relevant amount of dil, but apparently they do not feel that way.
And then they turned around and said that the reason they removed a lot of the dilithium generation methods was because of exactly the reason I said.
And then they turned around and said that the reason they removed a lot of the dilithium generation methods was because of exactly the reason I said.
The reason they removed Dil gen methods was the same reason they added more sinks and the same reason the Dil exchange is plummeting which was to sell more Zen and make more $$$ right now.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the logic behind eliminating Dilithium "Exploits" while complaining that players aren't refining enough Dilithium. adding any more caps let alone an account wide one seems counterproductive to me if they actually want players to refine more.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
This thread is a BS argument by someone who prefers to run one character and wants to punish anyone who runs more because that's not to his personal taste. Anything NOT to his taste of course, must be stopped. A lot of these sort of "arguments" crop up by they never have any rational behind them other than "I don't like that, you can't have it."
There is already a dilithium cap of 8K per character and you have to grind that character for a couple of hours to get it. More than 3 or so and you are doing nothing else with you play time that day and, if that's what you want to do--fine. Your business.
People who play multiple characters aren't hurting you; they aren't getting free and unfair advantages over you. Don't be so narcissistic that you think you have a right and responsibility to police they way everybody else does things just for the sake of doing it.
I know that you will not get banned for saying this and that completely proves my initial contention.
46 character slots is not free. 46 character slots (six free, ten four-slot upgrades @ 1065 Zen ea.) has a book value of over $600.
$600 is not "free", and trying to argue it is, is just PWE trying to devalue the customer's money.
So it's your argument that only people with no lives refuse to feed PWE money for Zen. Lawl.
for what should i be banned? threatening you with me being blond?
46 char slots. Noone who PLAYS the game for what it is = a Star Trek game = would USE 46 slots anyway..
someone once calculated that the slots can be earned for free in some <40 days of playing.
Does Zen bought through Dill has a book value? Now this is an interesting question.
Because the Zen EARNED ingame has no book value.
Then there is Zen given out freely for Lifers and Golds.. Some's Lifers Zen is "free" too.
Only the Zen acquired with CASH has value.
A GAMER with a job and family which plays 5 toons and is actively participating in a fleet buys some stuff from the store, buys Zen, convert to dill, and then gives earned/buyed dill to fleet projects/equipment.
A GRINDER does grind Dill, converts, buys stuff from store "for free", exploits the system, grinds for lockbox ships, sells them on e-bay... etc.. that is why he needs 46 toons.
Yes, there is a thin line between these 2, but where is it exactly?
We need all types of players ingame - f2p grinders, lottery lovers, trekkies, hard-workers,... ,but let's not go into extremes. Grinding daily 46 toons of is an extreme.
I do not say the 30k is the optimal limit, but it is a number I personally could live with.
People who play multiple characters aren't hurting you; they aren't getting free and unfair advantages over you. Don't be so narcissistic that you think you have a right and responsibility to police they way everybody else does things just for the sake of doing it.
IMHO it is not a question of playing multiple toons, but the problem of grinders grinding for free dill.
i do play multiple toons too, and still, if the dill refine limit was nicely set - let's say
16k pro account with 2 slots - now in place,
32k for accounts with 4 slots - now in place,
40k for 6 slots - now 8x6 = 48k,
58k for 8 slots - now 8x8=64k,
64k for account with more than 8 slots - now maximum 8x46 k ??? for contraband mission ??? FAIR ???,
and you could earn that amount on ANY toon... would it not be nice?
...... ,but let's not go into extremes. Grinding daily 46 toons of is an extreme.
I do not think Cryptic shares your opinion on "extremes" being bad, how many boxes was it you had to open on average to get a Lockbox ship? How much was the average cost of those ships? Those values seem pretty extreme to me.....
Sadly, in Cryptic's new single character centric revenue model I do see them making alts even less desirable. As for those claiming having several alts as "exploitive" lets not forget Cryptic itself took advantage of the clickies to prop up interest in Starbases by adding FMs to the Foundry wrapper. In effect all but giving it a stamp of approval. For them to now say they hoped players would police themselves sounds.... deceptive and duplicitous at best.
I do not think Cryptic shares your opinion on "extremes" being bad, how many boxes was it you had to open on average to get a Lockbox ship? How much was the average cost of those ships? Those values seem pretty extreme to me......
- i didn't open boxes to buy ships. i did open boxes to get lobi for the 2 KDF skirts though
- bought the keys off the exchange for EC's, ships the same.
Sadly, in Cryptic's new single character centric revenue model I do see them making alts even less desirable. As for those claiming having several alts as "exploitive" lets not forget Cryptic itself took advantage of the clickies to prop up interest in Starbases by adding FMs to the Foundry wrapper. In effect all but giving it a stamp of approval. For them to now say they hoped players would police themselves sounds.... deceptive and duplicitous at best.
Deceptive?
Cryptic's revenue model and their strategy is IMO basically non existent or ever evolving (choose what suits you).
The basic rule is to make money.
I do not care about Dill, because i do not have a problem with occasionally buying some 2k Zen, and i already have all "have to have" stuff i need.
But FM's are BIG issue, cause with removing the free 50 FM's pro toon they are causing the small fleets to selfdestruct and to be assimilated by bigger fleets.
Which in fact is a loss of revenue for them because there are not so many sinks pro toon in a bigger fleet. That is why i supposed to give us FREE 50 FM's pro toon just for a daily log-in.
And because i really wanted to build a fleet starbase just with a friend of mine Now this idea is gone with the wind and i am back in business - in the small time window i do have for my daily game.
Pre-Season 7, there would've been something to say for an accountwide dilithium cap instead of (not in addition to) a per character cap, even if the new total ended up being a little less overall than the old total, for players like me, who do do the alt-hopping thing. Just cause I get more of a choice this way.
Post-Season 7, that benefit has been greatly diminished by the average time it takes to accumulate dilithium having been nerfed considerably. We've lost the clicker and B'Tran (okay), we've reduced income from STFs (ESTFs down 140 dilithium, no more exchangable EDC, tech or salvage (the BNPs compensate only the lost EDCs), and no more boosted wednesdays.), FAs might've replaced them but were slashed, the PvE dailies lost their Dilithium, even the Mirror Event is now marked as awarding XP only, if I recall right, and we've no reason to believe they're done.
So while before season 7, I would've gladly accepted say 20,000 accountwide (standard subscription 3-char account) + 4,000 for every additional character slot in use, now those numbers are no longer reasonably achievable, and I would not quietly tolerate any conversion from character-based to account-wide refinement caps where the total amount of dilithium that could be refined by an account is reduced in any way whatsoever.
IE, with my 15 character slots, I'd expect to see my account cap be 120,000 dilithium, or your (figurative) lawn on fire. Add a reduced account cap and maintain the per-character limits, and there'll be (figurative) people rolling around in the (figurative) flames. :mad:
Do I make that 120,000 cap? Not by a long shot. Halfway? Not even close. So why can't we slash it? Cause it's a matter of principle now, and before you ask.
prin-ci-ple [prin-suh-puhl]
noun
guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct: a person of principle.
So they made a mistake. Big whoop. Tell me when they don't make a mistake. It seems to be the one thing they are truly capable excelling at. But if we're going to keep idly letting them TRIBBLE us over time and again to compensate for their own ineptitudes and lack of foresight, what motivation could they possibly have to invest some time, thought and effort into avoiding making any more mistakes? Only when it hurts them do they have a real reason to do better. These are supposed to be the professionals. They're not asked to do this for free. Not phoning it in, isn't an outrageous expectation for us to hold.
So in short:
This isn't little league. You lost, Timmy. Now quit crying, and do better next time.
The suggestion for an account wide dilithium limit is the most rediculous thing I've ever heard of. The reduction in dilithium availability has already made alt dilithium farming hard for people. To place a cap on it would be sublimely absurd.
People who read the forums would see that I have been a HUGE supporter of Season 7. I've believed that Season 7 has been a big plus for STO as a whole.
PWE, if this suggestion was made by a ghost account then shame on you. If such a change was implemented then you'd be slitting your own throat. You've already lost the support of many over Season 7. This would make you lose the support of those left. People like me.
First off: wow, internet... just... wow... it's good to see that there's still a refuge for for petty name-calling and fear-mongering...
I'm amazed Cryptic gives any feedback to fans at all, given how people react to simple questions / idea.
Now aside from that, I think a lot of the people misunderstood the purpose of my post so completely that it actually makes me a little bit sad for humanity...
My question is this: Would you be willing to accept an account-wide daily dilithium-refining cap if it meant that they could loosen up the restrictions a bit?
My point is this: In order to prevent people from raking in more dilithium than was theoretically "intended", they've just made it harder to get dilithium in general. As a result of this, people have gone totally bat-**** ****ing crazy, and started a table-flipping ultimatum-delivering ****-fest of idiocy and rage.
An alternative method for them to attempt to achieve this same result would be for them to add an account limit for daily dilithium refining. I thought that this might be more agreeable to some players.
As Mr. Stahl told us himself the average player was refining less than 2000 a day. Clearly, hardcore farmers are an extreme minority.
The basic problem here is that dilithium is time-gated and nothing else really is. If you give me a choice between working on a reward that I can ONLY earn now, and one that's available any time, guess which one I'm going to max out? Making dil easy to get means I then have more time, once I've got my dilithium, to play everything else which doesn't give dilithium. Easy dil = more variety. The obvious solution to my mind is to make everything give a relevant amount of dil, but apparently they do not feel that way.
I agree with this 100%. This would be the best and most permanent solution. I'm not entirely sure why this isn't what's being done already, although I suspect it has something to do with 'exploits', since it's hard to tell the difference between somebody who's left their session idle while they surf the web, and somebody who's taking the time to explore all the dialogue of a well-crafted foundry mission.
Since it isn't being done yet, though, I thought I'd try floating another idea.
Oh, and to the totally delusional paranoid out there: no, I have no affiliation with Cryptic or PWE, aside from having purchased a LTS a while back (I stopped showing up as a 'Cereer Officer' in the forums at one point, probably around the time of the PWE purchase, and I've never bothered to figure out how to get it back, in case you're wondering). I'm not terribly active on the forums, although I read them reasonably frequently... But the illuminati is TOTALLY trying to TRIBBLE you over.
- LTS since shortly before the F2P announcement, and very happy about it.
First off: wow, internet... just... wow... it's good to see that there's still a refuge for for petty name-calling and fear-mongering...
I'm amazed Cryptic gives any feedback to fans at all, given how people react to simple questions / idea.
Now aside from that, I think a lot of the people misunderstood the purpose of my post so completely that it actually makes me a little bit sad for humanity...
My point is this: In order to prevent people from raking in more dilithium than was theoretically "intended", they've just made it harder to get dilithium in general. As a result of this, people have gone totally bat-**** ****ing crazy, and started a table-flipping ultimatum-delivering ****-fest of idiocy and rage.
An alternative method for them to attempt to achieve this same result would be for them to add an account limit for daily dilithium refining. I thought that this might be more agreeable to some players.
I agree with this 100%. This would be the best and most permanent solution. I'm not entirely sure why this isn't what's being done already, although I suspect it has something to do with 'exploits', since it's hard to tell the difference between somebody who's left their session idle while they surf the web, and somebody who's taking the time to explore all the dialogue of a well-crafted foundry mission.
Since it isn't being done yet, though, I thought I'd try floating another idea.
Oh, and to the totally delusional paranoid out there: no, I have no affiliation with Cryptic or PWE, aside from having purchased a LTS a while back (I stopped showing up as a 'Cereer Officer' in the forums at one point, probably around the time of the PWE purchase, and I've never bothered to figure out how to get it back, in case you're wondering). I'm not terribly active on the forums, although I read them reasonably frequently... But the illuminati is TOTALLY trying to TRIBBLE you over.
Honestly, this thread went cuckoo for cocoa puffs at the suggestion that the OP was really a PWE employee.
I've played PWE games a long time. They've done some stuff that's made me scratch my head....but sock puppets aren't their thing.
Comments
Go for it... I still won't spend a dime of real money on this game. You people simply do not get it, you can nerf every single source of dilithium possible and it will not change the real world monetary outcome for PWE.
STO is F2P for a reason... it failed as a game 2 years ago and was unable to support a post-paid subscription model. Spare me the nonsense about F2P being the wave of the future, institutional investors are not going to toss money at these developers based on a what if or unproven potential revenue streams.
F2P = being on LIFE SUPPORT for an MMO, period.
Ever heard of World of Tanks?
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-19-world-of-tanks-monthly-profits-hitting-double-digit-millions
Current holder of the Best MMO Golden Joystick.
40 million registered users.
Record-breaking 500,000 concurrent users.
Free to play since launch.
When did using the in-game mechanics suddenly become "exploitation"?
If someone has the time/energy to log in to the game and play 10 characters in 1 session, PWE should be thanking them.
Not to mention 5 players with the free 2 character slots will make the same amount of dilithium (per character) as the guy who PAID for the 8 extra slots.
Farming dilithium is the norm now thanks to PWE and Season 7.
If they're trying to increase revenue, THEY'RE DOING IT WRONG.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
hmm, i have 12 chars now (3FED, 9 KDF), actively playing 3 or 4. somehow i hit the cap pretty fast on 2 of them, and i get the 2k from contraband on 9 of them. ( i really do like experimenting with builds, traits, etc)
that is 18k + 18k dill daily on account - 4 . 32k
analysis - if they introduce a per account dill of.. whatever ... 30k, ill be OK with that, leaves me more time to do foundry, or just jerk around.
on the other hand, there may be people who need the Dill for fleet stuff, which will just overcome the obstacle by creating 3 accounts.
for me, it would mean playing only my 2 main toons and doing a hell more of PVP, cause that is the thing i like here most. after that comes foundry. i would not create new accounts.
would also like to have the 30k limit set per account, so i do not have to switch toons.
BRING IT!
Yeah, TRIBBLE playing the game! Let's just give PWE our money and log off!
And while we're at it, let's post in green, to make our posts stand out so PWE's ideas sound like they actually came from the playerbase and not paid posters!
The real player BEGGING to give PWE money doesn't exist. The only way this suggestion could come from a real player is under the condition already suggested, which is that the accountwide cap = 8k x number of character slots. Obviously, that isn't the case, what is really going on is forum workers are trying to convince the playerbase to accept what PWE has already decided to do.
Yelling EXPLOIT EXPLOIT EXPLOIT doesn't make that real either. PWE pounded Dil earnings into the ground and vastly raised costs because that was what they were looking to do, bleed players' earnings to get them to spend $$$. Anyone throwing that word around is doing nothing but trying to justify PWE's cash grab and is just another forum worker.
As Mr. Stahl told us himself the average player was refining less than 2000 a day. Clearly, hardcore farmers are an extreme minority.
The basic problem here is that dilithium is time-gated and nothing else really is. If you give me a choice between working on a reward that I can ONLY earn now, and one that's available any time, guess which one I'm going to max out? Making dil easy to get means I then have more time, once I've got my dilithium, to play everything else which doesn't give dilithium. Easy dil = more variety. The obvious solution to my mind is to make everything give a relevant amount of dil, but apparently they do not feel that way.
- i like green
- do not fck with me, im blond (this is a threat)
- you see, cryptic made an error by allowing 46 (have read this) toons per account.
so you can just get 46* 2480 Dill for a daily lore and contraband. EVEN if this OP post is a paid post/customer research, everybody does see the exploit in this. you don't?
i understand there are people which are ABLE to play 10 hours a day, but this is not healthy and these people are not working. They are also getting everything for free.
Stating a daily limit does not take this opportunity away from them , cause they can create more accounts and still get their fleet going.. or it just slows them down.
Which is a good thing. Why?
Because people which do not have the dollar and are in DESPERATE need of dill ( like you seem to be) do not pay this game to stay alive. People like me do.
I am a 930 days veteran, played from day 1. Bought Zen Ships, Zen stuff, costumes for my FED's even I do not play them, buying almost everything KDF ship has to offer just to show DEV's that we, KDF players CARE. Having 12 toons is not the grind for me, but the opportunities. I plan on buying a lifetime the next time a offer will be around.
Yes, now, after S7 hit us.
Because i think the changes are for good. Systematic. Yes, they hurt an average grinder. But the 21st / yesterday's patch changes have justified this for me. The game has system now, a focus, to build on.
Go grind while you can.
EDIT: and this is this kind of green i use
Ridiculous conclusions aside, I can actually see Cryptic implement a daily account refinement cap at some point. However, a lot of people bought extra character slots in part (or entirely) to farm more dilithium, and be able to refine more of it each day. However, with the console clickies rendered ineffective, this isn't nearly as much of a 'problem' as it used to be.
I know that you will not get banned for saying this and that completely proves my initial contention.
46 character slots is not free. 46 character slots (six free, ten four-slot upgrades @ 1065 Zen ea.) has a book value of over $600.
$600 is not "free", and trying to argue it is, is just PWE trying to devalue the customer's money.
So it's your argument that only people with no lives refuse to feed PWE money for Zen. Lawl.
And then they turned around and said that the reason they removed a lot of the dilithium generation methods was because of exactly the reason I said.
The reason they removed Dil gen methods was the same reason they added more sinks and the same reason the Dil exchange is plummeting which was to sell more Zen and make more $$$ right now.
Insulting other posters doesn't change that.
There is already a dilithium cap of 8K per character and you have to grind that character for a couple of hours to get it. More than 3 or so and you are doing nothing else with you play time that day and, if that's what you want to do--fine. Your business.
People who play multiple characters aren't hurting you; they aren't getting free and unfair advantages over you. Don't be so narcissistic that you think you have a right and responsibility to police they way everybody else does things just for the sake of doing it.
for what should i be banned? threatening you with me being blond?
46 char slots. Noone who PLAYS the game for what it is = a Star Trek game = would USE 46 slots anyway..
someone once calculated that the slots can be earned for free in some <40 days of playing.
Does Zen bought through Dill has a book value? Now this is an interesting question.
Because the Zen EARNED ingame has no book value.
Then there is Zen given out freely for Lifers and Golds.. Some's Lifers Zen is "free" too.
Only the Zen acquired with CASH has value.
A GAMER with a job and family which plays 5 toons and is actively participating in a fleet buys some stuff from the store, buys Zen, convert to dill, and then gives earned/buyed dill to fleet projects/equipment.
A GRINDER does grind Dill, converts, buys stuff from store "for free", exploits the system, grinds for lockbox ships, sells them on e-bay... etc.. that is why he needs 46 toons.
Yes, there is a thin line between these 2, but where is it exactly?
We need all types of players ingame - f2p grinders, lottery lovers, trekkies, hard-workers,... ,but let's not go into extremes. Grinding daily 46 toons of is an extreme.
I do not say the 30k is the optimal limit, but it is a number I personally could live with.
edit:
IMHO it is not a question of playing multiple toons, but the problem of grinders grinding for free dill.
i do play multiple toons too, and still, if the dill refine limit was nicely set - let's say
16k pro account with 2 slots - now in place,
32k for accounts with 4 slots - now in place,
40k for 6 slots - now 8x6 = 48k,
58k for 8 slots - now 8x8=64k,
64k for account with more than 8 slots - now maximum 8x46 k ??? for contraband mission ??? FAIR ???,
and you could earn that amount on ANY toon... would it not be nice?
I do not think Cryptic shares your opinion on "extremes" being bad, how many boxes was it you had to open on average to get a Lockbox ship? How much was the average cost of those ships? Those values seem pretty extreme to me.....
Sadly, in Cryptic's new single character centric revenue model I do see them making alts even less desirable. As for those claiming having several alts as "exploitive" lets not forget Cryptic itself took advantage of the clickies to prop up interest in Starbases by adding FMs to the Foundry wrapper. In effect all but giving it a stamp of approval. For them to now say they hoped players would police themselves sounds.... deceptive and duplicitous at best.
- i didn't open boxes to buy ships. i did open boxes to get lobi for the 2 KDF skirts though
- bought the keys off the exchange for EC's, ships the same.
Deceptive?
Cryptic's revenue model and their strategy is IMO basically non existent or ever evolving (choose what suits you).
The basic rule is to make money.
I do not care about Dill, because i do not have a problem with occasionally buying some 2k Zen, and i already have all "have to have" stuff i need.
But FM's are BIG issue, cause with removing the free 50 FM's pro toon they are causing the small fleets to selfdestruct and to be assimilated by bigger fleets.
Which in fact is a loss of revenue for them because there are not so many sinks pro toon in a bigger fleet. That is why i supposed to give us FREE 50 FM's pro toon just for a daily log-in.
And because i really wanted to build a fleet starbase just with a friend of mine
Post-Season 7, that benefit has been greatly diminished by the average time it takes to accumulate dilithium having been nerfed considerably. We've lost the clicker and B'Tran (okay), we've reduced income from STFs (ESTFs down 140 dilithium, no more exchangable EDC, tech or salvage (the BNPs compensate only the lost EDCs), and no more boosted wednesdays.), FAs might've replaced them but were slashed, the PvE dailies lost their Dilithium, even the Mirror Event is now marked as awarding XP only, if I recall right, and we've no reason to believe they're done.
So while before season 7, I would've gladly accepted say 20,000 accountwide (standard subscription 3-char account) + 4,000 for every additional character slot in use, now those numbers are no longer reasonably achievable, and I would not quietly tolerate any conversion from character-based to account-wide refinement caps where the total amount of dilithium that could be refined by an account is reduced in any way whatsoever.
IE, with my 15 character slots, I'd expect to see my account cap be 120,000 dilithium, or your (figurative) lawn on fire. Add a reduced account cap and maintain the per-character limits, and there'll be (figurative) people rolling around in the (figurative) flames. :mad:
Do I make that 120,000 cap? Not by a long shot. Halfway? Not even close. So why can't we slash it? Cause it's a matter of principle now, and before you ask.
noun
guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct: a person of principle.
So they made a mistake. Big whoop. Tell me when they don't make a mistake. It seems to be the one thing they are truly capable excelling at. But if we're going to keep idly letting them TRIBBLE us over time and again to compensate for their own ineptitudes and lack of foresight, what motivation could they possibly have to invest some time, thought and effort into avoiding making any more mistakes? Only when it hurts them do they have a real reason to do better. These are supposed to be the professionals. They're not asked to do this for free. Not phoning it in, isn't an outrageous expectation for us to hold.
So in short:
This isn't little league. You lost, Timmy. Now quit crying, and do better next time.
People who read the forums would see that I have been a HUGE supporter of Season 7. I've believed that Season 7 has been a big plus for STO as a whole.
PWE, if this suggestion was made by a ghost account then shame on you. If such a change was implemented then you'd be slitting your own throat. You've already lost the support of many over Season 7. This would make you lose the support of those left. People like me.
I'm amazed Cryptic gives any feedback to fans at all, given how people react to simple questions / idea.
Now aside from that, I think a lot of the people misunderstood the purpose of my post so completely that it actually makes me a little bit sad for humanity...
My point is this: In order to prevent people from raking in more dilithium than was theoretically "intended", they've just made it harder to get dilithium in general. As a result of this, people have gone totally bat-**** ****ing crazy, and started a table-flipping ultimatum-delivering ****-fest of idiocy and rage.
An alternative method for them to attempt to achieve this same result would be for them to add an account limit for daily dilithium refining. I thought that this might be more agreeable to some players.
I agree with this 100%. This would be the best and most permanent solution. I'm not entirely sure why this isn't what's being done already, although I suspect it has something to do with 'exploits', since it's hard to tell the difference between somebody who's left their session idle while they surf the web, and somebody who's taking the time to explore all the dialogue of a well-crafted foundry mission.
Since it isn't being done yet, though, I thought I'd try floating another idea.
Oh, and to the totally delusional paranoid out there: no, I have no affiliation with Cryptic or PWE, aside from having purchased a LTS a while back (I stopped showing up as a 'Cereer Officer' in the forums at one point, probably around the time of the PWE purchase, and I've never bothered to figure out how to get it back, in case you're wondering). I'm not terribly active on the forums, although I read them reasonably frequently... But the illuminati is TOTALLY trying to TRIBBLE you over.
Honestly, this thread went cuckoo for cocoa puffs at the suggestion that the OP was really a PWE employee.
I've played PWE games a long time. They've done some stuff that's made me scratch my head....but sock puppets aren't their thing.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
The key portion here is PEOPLE WHO HAVE BOUGHT CHARACTER SLOTS
They paid for a service/upgrade. Why should they not benefit from it? Are you barred from doing the same?
Maybe, instead of being jealous and tear the game down for others, shell out the cash for more slots!