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Nerfing Fun - The way of doing Business
bugshu
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
When this game started, Craig Z promised that the #1 goal would be to establish a fun game. He said that if they had a fun game that people would want to play it and that they could make money $15 per player per month and that for .50 cents a day Cryptic would provide solid entertainment value.
Then we went free to play and it seems that Cryptic only cares about enhancing revenues and not so much about providing a fun game that people want to play.
Lets discuss the many ways Cryptic is purposefully bending over backwards to nerf fun.
One of my biggest pet peeves is nerfs and respecs. In the early days of the game science was the best class and my fleet had some of the best science players in the game. Sci got nerfed from being the best class to being a Novelty class that many if not most universally ignored in pvp. I lost many fleetmates over this and they were the kind of players you wanted in the game. If something is unbalanced then you raise the abilities of the other classes to meet it rather than nerfing or destroying the hard work people put into their class or ship. Cryptic should have improved the merits of Eng and Tact rather than destroying Sci. They nerfed the fun of people who put hard work and effort into Sci. And they lost players over it. Good players. Players who played daily and spent money on the game. When Cryptic nerfs skills they nerf players fun.
Being stingy with respecs is a way to nerf fun. Respecs cost $5 and everytime you turn around Cryptic is changing with either new products or nerfs. I knew people who had tight fitting ships built around reverse shield polarity 3. Cryptic nerfed rsp3 and they just left the game. You could tell them all day that it only cost $5 to respec but they made the point that if they paid $5 and next week Cryptic did another nerf that it would cost $5 more. And that they would be rewarding Cryptic for ruining their characters. Everyone should be able to play their characters as much as they want and how they want. People cannot respec as fast as Cryptic nerfs or changes skills without spending tons of money. When Cryptic destroys players builds and then denies them the ability to respec for free they nerf players fun.
Cryptic has nerfed pvp. Player pvp matches are down and keep falling and its obvious that its only enjoyed by a small minority. I enjoy pvp and I like it. But PvP is pay to win now. I get nearly daily invites to pvp and some with good fleets like Spanish Inquisition or Fista Sistas. I just dont want to do it. I have not done pvp in over a year and do not see myself returning anytime soon. Even if I had all the top gear such as Jem Hadar ships and the best weapons and consoles; I just dont think it would be a challenge or fun to beat people that couldnt kit up like I could. I dont want to lose to someone because they have superior gear and I dont want to beat someone because they have inferior gear. In chess you sit down and both sides have the same number of pieces and ability to compete and fight. In STO, you better have spent $1000 on your ride because that person you are fighting probably did. 98% of the people dont pvp anymore and those that do are usually the "whales" that had big wallets. STO can hold pvp academies from not until forever trying to "rebuild" pvp but skilled players with "good" ships are going to lose to skilled players with great pay to win ships. Destroying pvp by catering to the pay to win crowd nerfs players fun.
Stealing from players nerfs players fun. Make no mistake Cryptic steals from its players. For instance, I bought a Tellarite. I know they are free now but I paid money for the right to play mine. It had a nice skill pig headed rage and lucky had a +5 bonus to crits. Cryptic nerfed pig headed range and reduced Lucky to +3 and took a toon that I invested real world money, time and effort in and made it less fun. People quit buying Tellarites so they made them free for anybody that wanted one. My Tellarite was "special" and Cryptic nerfed it. They stole it from me. Sure I still have it and play it but its less "special". Everyone probably could share a story of their own. I spent a good deal on prototype consoles. They were nerfed and I feel Cryptic "stole" them from me. I spent 5 million ec on a reverse shield polarity 3 bridge officer and watched it get nerfed. Ive lost untold amounts of marks, emblems, requisitions, salvage, etc.. when Cryptic decided to simplify things for us and "change" currency. I had Devs tell me that the only way to ever fly a Connie was to go to Gamestop and spend $50 and buy another copy of the game. I went to gamestop paid my $50. Now anyone can buy it in the zen store for less. Put simply, they lied. I could have saved $30 by waiting for it to go to the zen store and then buying it. I could write 100 paragraphs over the many ways Cryptic "steals from its players but theres more to address. When Cryptic lies to and steals from its customers they nerf players fun.
Then we went free to play and it seems that Cryptic only cares about enhancing revenues and not so much about providing a fun game that people want to play.
Lets discuss the many ways Cryptic is purposefully bending over backwards to nerf fun.
One of my biggest pet peeves is nerfs and respecs. In the early days of the game science was the best class and my fleet had some of the best science players in the game. Sci got nerfed from being the best class to being a Novelty class that many if not most universally ignored in pvp. I lost many fleetmates over this and they were the kind of players you wanted in the game. If something is unbalanced then you raise the abilities of the other classes to meet it rather than nerfing or destroying the hard work people put into their class or ship. Cryptic should have improved the merits of Eng and Tact rather than destroying Sci. They nerfed the fun of people who put hard work and effort into Sci. And they lost players over it. Good players. Players who played daily and spent money on the game. When Cryptic nerfs skills they nerf players fun.
Being stingy with respecs is a way to nerf fun. Respecs cost $5 and everytime you turn around Cryptic is changing with either new products or nerfs. I knew people who had tight fitting ships built around reverse shield polarity 3. Cryptic nerfed rsp3 and they just left the game. You could tell them all day that it only cost $5 to respec but they made the point that if they paid $5 and next week Cryptic did another nerf that it would cost $5 more. And that they would be rewarding Cryptic for ruining their characters. Everyone should be able to play their characters as much as they want and how they want. People cannot respec as fast as Cryptic nerfs or changes skills without spending tons of money. When Cryptic destroys players builds and then denies them the ability to respec for free they nerf players fun.
Cryptic has nerfed pvp. Player pvp matches are down and keep falling and its obvious that its only enjoyed by a small minority. I enjoy pvp and I like it. But PvP is pay to win now. I get nearly daily invites to pvp and some with good fleets like Spanish Inquisition or Fista Sistas. I just dont want to do it. I have not done pvp in over a year and do not see myself returning anytime soon. Even if I had all the top gear such as Jem Hadar ships and the best weapons and consoles; I just dont think it would be a challenge or fun to beat people that couldnt kit up like I could. I dont want to lose to someone because they have superior gear and I dont want to beat someone because they have inferior gear. In chess you sit down and both sides have the same number of pieces and ability to compete and fight. In STO, you better have spent $1000 on your ride because that person you are fighting probably did. 98% of the people dont pvp anymore and those that do are usually the "whales" that had big wallets. STO can hold pvp academies from not until forever trying to "rebuild" pvp but skilled players with "good" ships are going to lose to skilled players with great pay to win ships. Destroying pvp by catering to the pay to win crowd nerfs players fun.
Stealing from players nerfs players fun. Make no mistake Cryptic steals from its players. For instance, I bought a Tellarite. I know they are free now but I paid money for the right to play mine. It had a nice skill pig headed rage and lucky had a +5 bonus to crits. Cryptic nerfed pig headed range and reduced Lucky to +3 and took a toon that I invested real world money, time and effort in and made it less fun. People quit buying Tellarites so they made them free for anybody that wanted one. My Tellarite was "special" and Cryptic nerfed it. They stole it from me. Sure I still have it and play it but its less "special". Everyone probably could share a story of their own. I spent a good deal on prototype consoles. They were nerfed and I feel Cryptic "stole" them from me. I spent 5 million ec on a reverse shield polarity 3 bridge officer and watched it get nerfed. Ive lost untold amounts of marks, emblems, requisitions, salvage, etc.. when Cryptic decided to simplify things for us and "change" currency. I had Devs tell me that the only way to ever fly a Connie was to go to Gamestop and spend $50 and buy another copy of the game. I went to gamestop paid my $50. Now anyone can buy it in the zen store for less. Put simply, they lied. I could have saved $30 by waiting for it to go to the zen store and then buying it. I could write 100 paragraphs over the many ways Cryptic "steals from its players but theres more to address. When Cryptic lies to and steals from its customers they nerf players fun.
Post edited by bugshu on
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There are now more missions bugged and unplayable than new missions to play. Half the trophy missions are problematic with Crystalline Entity being problematic, fluidic space fleet action removed, deep space 9 fleet action removed, starbase 24 ground removed, and problems with others. With diplomacy moving from 1300 points to 100,000 the diplomacy missions have not been updated to allow for the near 100 fold increase in need for points. Aid the planet pays 10 points and does not drop friendship rewards anymore. You have a 1 in 10 chance of getting an ATP mission so it would take you 100,000 missions to make ambassador with aid missions nowadays. Explo missions pay 10 diplomacy. Its stupid that they worked hard adding non violent content thats quite good but the rewards are so low its an utter waste of time to play any of it. I feel that every single mission should have a reason to play it at every level. The missions the game has are to level up and then ignore forever. If Cryptic would add rewards to the missions then people would play them. Instead they nerf the Efficient Impulse Engine so people dont have a reason to play them. There are 83 story missions in this game and 20 of them are featured episodes. Of the 63 story missions, I doubt 5 of them gives gear or rewards usable at hero endgame level 50. There is a batleth on the KDF side and Doomsday device gives a Torpedo Launcher but most of the 61 story missions are worthless except for levelling up. Patrol missions are now hard to find. Explore missions have had their rewards nerfed. Deep space encounters do not pay anything at all except for experience and accolade titles. The Undine STF has been broken forever. Cryptic could add 150 missions back into the game by fixing bugs and updating proper rewards. This game has lots to do but little of it is rewarding. Letting your missions break, lack rewards, and stagnate nerfs players fun.
When Cryptic is stingy with rewards and payouts it makes the game less fun. I understand that they feel that if they give players less that they can sell more in their store. But I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. Many hardcore players have given up playing their "alts". Obviously Cryptic is gating peoples time and "forcing" them to grind and work harder for gear for their toons. However, when people dont play their alts and quit caring about them then they really dont need to buy a ship for their alt toons or a new costume set. When someone says that they are only playing one toon now then Im pretty sure that I can guess how much they are buying and spending for the other 9 they dont play. Every fleet in the game has seen a sharp slowdown in fleet project advancement. 99% of fleets have no hope of ever seeing tier 5 and they know it. Many fleets are closing and most are frustrated. Many fleet leaders are kicking out inactive players and recruiting hard from the shrinking base of new players just to get active players contributing marks and dilithium. Players are frustrated at the grind for reputation and gear and new f2p players do not like the high cost of ships. I guarantee you that I can show you 10 dead players and inactive players in a fleet for every fan boy player that comes to this board talking about how easy and fun this game is. Making the game too hard to enjoy nerfs players fun.
We could go on for ages but nobody really thinks more grind equals more fun. Or that fleet projects you cant move forward and and tiers that you can never reach are fun. Nobody thinks that being limited to one alt that has time to reach Cryptics time gates is fun. Nobody likes stale content, broken, removed, and unrewarding missions; those are not fun. Nobody likes having to spend $1000 to be on a level playing field at pvp .. thats not fun. Nobody likes having their toons or skills nerfed and Cryptic thumbing their noses at us and saying pay $5 to adapt and respec after we ruined your toon; Thats not fun. Nobody likes Cryptic lying and stealing and ever changing currencies and economies which usually means you wake up one morning with less than you had the night before; its certainly not fun being the victim of theft.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Cryptic feels nerfing fun makes this a better game and more people will play it and spend more money on it. There needs to be a filter on every decision, "Will this change make the game more fun for players?". Cryptic is selling a product and its entertaiment and fun. Removing both from their game might someday become problematic for their revenue base and future....
I hope we do not see this game fail but I can show you fleets full of dead players that dont think this game is worth their time and this suggests it might.
Happy Gaming All,
Bugshu
That's how MMOs work. There is no obligation by the company to not do changes as they deem fit, and they don't need to hand out free respecs to people just because they change some skills around. Just because the Connie USED to be in a special copy of the game doesn't mean it MUST stay like that.
Actually, why do I even bother trying to counter all your points? You clearly just hate Cryptic, and nothing is going to change your mind over your perceived injustices at the hands of a corrupt company that does what every other company in the world does: it needs to make money. I don't know why people lie to themselves and think anything else matters.
Money is the first priority, always. You can make the world's most awesome and fun game, but unless it's making a lot of money, no one is going to bother publishing or hosting the thing.
By that logic, you shouldn't actually play any MMO at all. Whatever you do now, will be easier/obsolete in a month/year anyway. Better just wait until they stop changing anything or the game closes, right?
MMOs pretty much revolve around grinding, and undergo constant changes because players will always find ways to make something overpowered/broken that the devs never thought of.
so now cryptic just cuts the middle man out and releases content broken from the get go. I get it now!
Broken content is pretty much par for course for any MMO. You can never test how anything will work when you release to thousands of people at once, if not ten's. And in that grouping are people who will specifically find ways to break and exploit everything you've done.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way brings to mind a parable involving a bull, his son, and a herd of cows. But you go grind at it with all your might like it matters. I'll get all the same stuff without effort.
American car companies were great and they were the pride of the world. They got fat and lazy and started releasing cars that cost too much and broke too often and got bad gas mileage. In the 70s you couldnt even see a Toyota on the road. Today Toyota is the largest car company in the world and they dominate everywhere. Most cars on the road in Africa are Toyotas.
For much of my life, I swore Id never own a foreign car. Today I own a Camry and it has 165,000 miles on it and a mechanic told me last week it easily could go another 100K with low maintenence such as changing the oil. As an aside, it was made in America.
Meanwhile, American companies have gone through bailouts, sales to foreign companies, closures of product lines like Saturn and Pontiac and more.
American car companies took their customers for granted and sold low quality products.
Its not ok to expect broken missions from an MMO as just another day in the game. Its not ok to assume that the customer that walked through your door yesterday will be back tomorrow.
I want Cryptic to succeed but they aint doing it. In fact moving this to a forum thread where people dont visit just shows how little respect they give customers or criticism.
These people are full of themselves and not paying attention to what their customers are telling them.
Cryptics attitude right now is that if we give them money then they will tell us how we should use our time and they will gate it for us.
Thats TRIBBLE poor customer service and they darn well know it.
It's also a feeling that a lot of smaller changes in the right places could go a long way, a lot of things that wouldn't require much of them outside common sense.
I am sure that list would be longer than the OP's text...
My time here they released more content than I expected, especially for a f2p game, so I can't fault them there, though I don't personal like what they come up with, at least they are doing something.
To me it looks like they are in a rebuilding phase and it means expect things to get better and don't hold them hostage over the past.
It's new people doing boot camp at the buttom of the mountain.
I think the reputation system changes that were made goes to show that they do listen and they are trying.
Ford, GM, and Chrysler didnt listen when people said we want affordable, high gas mileage, high quality cars. And we had to have the goverment bail them out to save them. I cant even count how many times Chrysler has been bailed out.
We want a fun, easy to play, affordable game.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
I lasted in SWTOR for 6 months before realizing how shotty that game actually was for all its bugs and glitches, and I even gave the devs time to fix alot of stuff, however, like this game..many bugs from beta and broken missions carried over to live and stayed there..level 50 was boring with nothing to do, and new content for them was a new speeder...
I feel that this game is going the same direction
Your thread isn't discussing anything about the game itself, you are instead discussing the company - you are providing FEEDBACK.
And frankly, if devs actually listed to all the feedback people posted, you may as well make a game that had one button that gave you everything, because honestly it's what some people want. They don't want to play games, they just want everything.
Then I started this second toon and had the intention of getting the MACO gear (as I only had Borg on my other toon) from the STF then the Reputation System appeared and I felt like Cryptic has robbed me of my end game want, 40 hours for this 40 hours for that a heap load of Dilithium and I was thinking people could get this for free before S7 so why do I have to pay all this in game currency. Then after a few weeks changes that I wanted started to appear and they restored my faith, especially when they dropped the XP project times from 40 ? 20 and same with the rest of the projects 40 ? 2minuets was a big jaw drop for me I was expecting something 1hour or something.
There are bugs in this game way too many I think. Bottom line is if cryptic would pull their fingers out and add new content and fix bugs I would be a happy Star Trek fan and even if they had to put the game back to a subscription fee for some time I would pay
As someone who works at an American car manufacturer, I disagree with the characterization that they all produce shoddy cars. I recognize that all of them have had that kind of mentality in the past, but I firmly believe that mentality has changed and at least some of those manufacturers recognize they have to be better than their competition.
Along the same lines, I think Cryptic recognizes that they need to change how they do things and I think they're trying. In many ways, they have changed and are successfully still changing. It shouldn't be a surprise that they have a lot more to do.
Feedback is part of that. But "feedback" over and over about what Cryptic did two years ago -- or even six months ago -- doesn't help change things. Let's talk about what Cryptic is doing now, right or wrong. That's the kind of feedback STO really needs.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Cryptic can only shift as far was PWE lets them. And honestly, PWE does not understand the western market at all.
Just as its not unfair to note that I come from a viewpoint of representing my fleet, and friends, and actually want to enjoy my toons and alts that I bought.
I didnt say that American companies make shoddy cars. But I will say that they did in the 80s. And they didnt care.
I owned a car with a star bold on it. The only place you could buy a star wrench was from Ford Motor Company. It cost $500 to buy a star wrench. It cost $500 to replace an alternator which was a job that involved removing one bolt and took about 5 minutes. I wrote Ford a letter about it they could have cared less.
I told myself that Id never buy another Ford again new or used.
Does this pertain to STO. Maybe not. But here I am writing posts and saying this is what I believe is fun. This is what I want to spend my time and money on. Are you listening to my posts. Does anyone at Cryptic care? Well lets be honest - probably not. Is anything Im saying worthy of attention or does it get tossed in the can like my Ford letter.
Ford can wonder forever why people like me arent buying their cars. Will Cryptic wonder why a person that spent a lot no longer plays ? Sure churn me - burn me - get a new customer to replace me.
Ford did
Nobody cares when customers leave until they dont have them anymore
I dont want Ford to fail but Im never giving them another chance to charge $500 for a 5 minute alternator replacement.
Doesnt take a lot to lose your customers you know....
Not when there are other games and cars with good products
Guess how much I spent with Ford and its dealers....
Even if people are playing it doesnt mean they will be paying...
Think about it
That's a good deal of money right there. The other crowd will come and go as they please, but their profits don't quite compare. It's a truth of MMO's, as far as I've seen.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the money issues. There's plenty to go around, even if some of us just left right now. But I'll stay regardless, as though grind is merely 'meh' to me, I think this game IS fun
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
To get back on topic, what do you want Cryptic and PWE to do differently starting today that would earn your business...? and by that I do definitely mean what can they do with STO that would persuade you to give them money?
That is exactly the feedback they need to hear.
The whole broken promises meme might well have been true, but it's beside the point. You can't change history. You can choose to be a bitter ex-customer or you can decide to make them work for your business.
What are they doing or not doing now that they need to change in order to earn your business?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
First of all, Id like to see everyone that spends time in game welcomed and rewarded. If you come here daily instead of playing a different game we will give you a bonus. And we will do it with everyone of your alts. People should feel welcome, valued, and cherished when they choose this game over another.
Secondly, Id like for everyone that plays get to enjoy their character as much as they want to. And the first step in the process is better explanations of the skill tree and the second step on the ladder is free respecs. It makes people angry to do a build and then something gets nerfed and they have to pay $5 to "fix" their character they didnt break. People would be a lot happier if they could fiddle with their characters and change things so they could fine tune them and improve them.
Thirdly, I think that every mission in the game should be rewarding in some shape form or another. I think that explore missions should pay more than they do. 10 diplomacy points for a diplomacy mission is nothing when you need 100,000 of them. You should get at least 1000. And, it could be spread outward so that you might get 1000 military points for a combat explore mission. I think that patrol missions should be reintroduced and the rewards boosted. There are some fun patrol missions but nobody played them because they offered lame or no rewards. I think every story mission should have one top tier reward like the featured episodes do. The nerfed rewards like the Breen Thermal Dampener that now does nothing should be fixed so that they have value. The efficient impulse engine should be unnerfed and fixed so that at end game content it has value again. The HarghPengh torpedo launcher should have value again. There are lots of things people want and enjoy and would enjoy having access to in the game. Nobody would complain about doing cage of fire if they could get a mk xi purple phaser relay out of the deal. A mk ix blue kit isnt so special. Id like to see the trophy missions fixed and perhaps a costume piece added to the game that showed that you beat it. People would enjoy beating the big dig if they got digger boots that they could wear and everyone could see. Sure you get a trophy for your ship but why not a costume piece as well. Id like to see more raid/stf missions put back into the game. Id like to see the old school stfs put back into the game. If a team could pull off ground/space cure before they got split then they should be allowed to try and be rewarded for it. Id like to see stfs feature different rewards like they used to so that people didnt only want to run ISE because its the easiest one. Id like to see deep space encounters offer reasons to do them with better rewards. Id like to see the non combat diplomacy missions brought back and made relevant again and Id like to see more of them. If someone does everything is old again and gains the accolade then they should get rewarded for it. How hard would it be to give them 1000 diplomacy points or a special duty officer?
For missions across the board, Id like to see more sandbox and less grind. Id like to see players choosing the missions they would like to do and want to do rather than "end game" missions they have to do over and over and over again. I think there should be one currency for mission rewards and every mission should pay some of it. Heres a thousand STO points and you can use it for dilithium projects, fleet mark projects, Omega mark projects, Lobi store purchases, Romulan mark projects, trade them on the exchange or whatever.
None of them AAA and one of which is a much grindier rip off of ******** itself.
(edit: lol, really? The word w4rcr4f7 is censored??)
Ok, you believe people should get a reward just for logging in, then? I disagree with that particular idea, but I'm on board with everything else you just said.
I agree. They ought to give out free respecs when they make major changes to skills, or how skills interact with powers. Everything else is really just a matter of being careful to rebalance powers and items as needed.
I wholeheartedly agree that people should be reasonably rewarded for pretty much everything they do in this game, except for "housekeeping" tasks. Every mission should reward at least a little Dilithium and CXP's from at least one Commendation category, in addition to other drops and rewards. As they introduce new Reputations, they should definitely add marks to every mission in the game that Reputation should apply to.
But we need to keep in mind that this is no longer a subscription-based game. They need to bring in money somehow. They can't just hand over everything. You've said what would make you happy... but what would you actually pay for?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Fourthly, I think the game needs a real crafting system. I think that people should be able to custom design consoles, ship weapons, pets, kits, consumables etc. If someone wants a console that lets them add a phaser relay boost along with tricobalt torpedo boost they should be able to make it. It wouldnt hurt to have +8 torpedos and +8 tricobalt if you wanted to make something like that. I think that people should be able to make new and unique items if they craft that you cant get anywhere else in the game. Right now, its mostly the Aegis set and done. Crafting needs to be fun and it needs to be cheaper so people can do it without the dilithium tax.
Fifthly, I think there needs to be more ability to explore. This can be done with a random mission generator. People should be able to do random missions and get random rewards. It would be great fun to log on and rather be required to do this for a grind to just explore and see what comes up and maybe you get a random loot drop like you used to get with prototype salvage. If you do offer this then I think it needs to have higher drop rates. Nobody hated the fact that they got random drops with salvage, they just hated that the drop rates for prototype salvage was so low.
Sixthly, I think there needs to be more respect for people that spend money with the company. If you bought a best buy tribble like I did and spent $50 for it then that and the Targ should be as good as any Tribble or Pet in the game. The Targ should be a combat pet and the best buy tribble should have special stats. People should get to use their Connies they spent $50 on at tier 5. If someone has a neodymium deflector dish they should be able to use it at tier 5. It would be fun if you could craft it up to have similar stats as a mk xii defelctor dish with the aux bonus. I think $10 of zen should buy 500,000 dilithium. You would sell more zen if you gave more value for the money. I think that every ship should be able to advance to fleet level tier 5 with no more than one fleet module. KDF ships do not get the bonus that fed ships get. If you bought the ship then you shouldnt have to pay $20 for a fleet version of it. You already paid for the ship. I think everything in the zen store should be account wide unlocks. I think more people would buy crystalline hortas if they were account wide unlocks. Everything for sale in the zen shop could and should have enhanced value. I think lockboxes should go away and that Cryptic should just sell us the ships we want. I think that Cryptic should return races to pay to play and that they should update their skills and traits. If someone wants a Tellarite they should have to pay for it like I did but it should have upgraded luck and pig headed rage. I played my Tellarite daily for 2 years and not a single person told me that it was overpowered and then cryptic nerfed it anyway. If you buy something it should scale up with level and be usable until the day they unplug the game.
In other words, Id like to see the zen store have a higher quality product.
I have too much patience and self-control for PWE's schemes, so they already don't make money off me for their scams like lockboxes or buying dilithium. What I would buy? I like the content packs (the TOS ship package, the DS9 package) and c-store items that have an attractive ROI in function or looks. I typically wait for a 20% sale though since the c-store prices were jacked up after it went f2p.
People want to join fleets that are at tier 4 but they sure dont want to join at tier 2 and donate lots of dilithium to get them there. Lots of fleets can no longer afford the dilithium requirements to stock their stores and small fleets are in disappointment with medium fleets in chaos. Fleets are fighting a lot about who gets what from which store. Its problematic. Give people some extra dilithium, let fleets stock up on fleet ships, and see if the company cant sell a few more fleet modules.
Its win/win to let fleets grow and improve.
PvP needs a major revamp. It wouldnt even be that hard to do. Put some pvp caps into place and even things out a bit. No escort should have a hull greater than what a MVam has and no Cruiser should have more hull in pvp than a Star Cruiser. If Hulls, turn rates, Shields, and Crew were standardized for pvp then the only thing that would separate ships for pvp would be consoles, and bridge officer abilities.
There needs to be a 4th class. I dont care if they create it and charge for it but there needs to be a 4th class. Ive proposed a Hirogen class. You could charge $50 for a Hirogen Hunter and he would have one ship ever with no ability to fly another ship. The ship should have the hull of a cruiser, shields like a sci, and firepower and turn like a BOP however it would be limited to 3 consoles and 3 ensign bridge officer slots. A bounty hunter ship and class would be great. It could level up fast and hold its own at end game and new players would not need to buy a lot of gear. Make it simple and different.
Overall, players should be made to feel welcomed and valued for showing up. They should be given more missions and things to do and they should be allowed to choose what they want to do. There should be more sandbox and less grind. People should be able to craft gear and if they buy something in the Zen store it should be something great and a lot of fun. There shouldnt be missions or progression held arms length away where players will never get there and just get frustrated trying wheter it be low drop rates on salvage or fleet projects that nobody will get close to in the future. PvP should be fun accessible to all and on an even playing field. And there needs to be more variety beyond having a billion ships to buy and few missions to play. Adding another class to the game would do for STO what Pandas did for WoW.
Most of all quit gating peoples time. People are spending their free time here and they want to pick and choose what is fun for them and what is not. Always, Always, Always respect your customers and players and the people keeping you in business. Cryptic is too busy telling us how to enjoy the game rather than letting us tell them what might be fun for us. People game to find respect and social interaction that they miss out on in real life and the rats race of the world. Treat people nice and they will buy your products. Tell them that you are smarter than them and want to gate their time and its Hasta La Vista baby.
I have more but this would be a good start
For me, if its fun - thats all the reward it needs. I did Borg PuG STF's constantly at season 6's release, partly for the grind but even after getting the gear I wanted simply because they were fun. If there were Afkers or players I simply didn't like/wasn't willing to tolerate I would endure it maybe to avoid being penalised for dropping or if I could just drop when I had enough, the loot became unimportant. The stuff in the C Store and the exchange are usually either requirements/gating or optional extra's. The monetisation of the game is simply a necessity of operation, I am lifer however and simply put there is no reason force me to pay more to enjoy the game. Which is why I rarely play STO or even have it installed.
If the game isn't fun, it will die. period.
That is Cryptic/Perfect World's problem not mine. Even as a Lifer I can say that I have no reason to 'expect' anything and every reason to complain since I'm still technically a subscriber with a paid-for-right to one about STO.
I understand your sentiments, the recent Winter Event - Snowmen event was one of the recent things I enjoyed in STO (until today's patch) because I was a zone hopper and effectively part of the Horde that some players hated but a lot of players liked. I wasn't doing it to farm for materials for winter event items (though that is why I started doing it), I was doing it because I enjoyed the community activity which is rare in STO - Fleets might have it but I simply haven't found a Fleet that I like or even seems remotely fun - thats not something Cryptic controls or can control, its just the members of the community and how they play.
I get along with plenty of players despite being a non-Trekkie (I supported STO since Beta because I felt ST deserved to have an MMO even if I wasn't a diehard fan - I wouldn't have subbed so I just bought a Lifetime sub and have played it on an off since - as a Lifer I can always do that which is nice when there is something worth doing even if its hanging out on Tribble helping the Devs refine and/or test something : I haven't been keeping track of the Dev changes but can tell theres been a lot since I haven't helped on Tribble since the Shooter mode was being tested on it).
I find that simply put most of the players are either farming for something or doing stuff that I just don't get (figure because I'm not a trekkie). I play KDF mostly and simply put there isn't much reason to play unless someone decides to 'create'/organise an activity which I won't even be aware of unless I in-game looking for something to do (only happens moving between other games/MMO's I would play). Me personally I liked the zone hopping in the Snowmen/winter event because it was like a community wide raid activity with tons of people (most you wouldn't see but could see the effect of their actions and we could 'hear' each other in Zone & Custom Chat channels). When they patched they effectively destroyed the zone hopping activity (it wasn't a supported or designed activity so can't blame for it regardless of whether I'm happy/unhappy about it). I see a lot UI improvements and a lot of grind removed and replaced with time sink gates but very little 'Fun', mostly activities to farm for new/different loots. Simply put, I don't get it and can't seem to have 'Fun' playing so I'm shopping around for the next game and trolling the forums a bit.
My advice is (based on my experience working with the STO Dev's) figure out a way thats flexible and talk with the community about it to FIX IT. They can't give you something unless they know what it is you want and that would include HOW it works more than just a vague description. Describe features/positive elements but also expect and try to adapt/accomadate others preferances as much as possible because they supply content to ALL the players not just you and by necessity they have to get the 'biggest bang for their buck' which means any playerbase minority is going to feel ignored unless they can do their requests with minimal/efficient/existing investment/work. Them being owned by Perfect World and being more under the financial 'gun' now than before (they owned themselves and had the luxury of making their own mistakes) will only make that worse.
From I've seen in the past, the Dev's do deliver what content to you that they can as best as they can, whether you think thats good or not. IE. help the Devs help you or simply learn to accept what they give you. Also the Dev's don't have quite as much Engineering knowledge as you may think they do, so try not to go overboard with the technicals unless you can explain the Theory and practice of it fairly well (thats a lot what I did with the Dev's and they usually are doing work to spend time talking/discussing things with me and vice versus - I'm far from the only member of the community 'helping' them like that).
I'd like to tackle this part of your post, because it's the one that deals with the money.
I'm going to agree in general that stuff you can buy with cold, hard cash had better be at least as good if not better than anything you can get for free.
The problem with 'better' is that it carries a strong taint of Pay-To-Win that a lot of players simply don't like, especially if they're into PvP. So Cryptic needs to tread carefully here... if the Silver players grinding Dilithium into Zen feel that the deck is stacked too much against them, they'll stop playing.
The legacy unlocks, like the preorder tribble are what they are, and I'm afraid that isn't going to change. The advantage to these is that they are all, to the best of my knowledge, account-wide unlocks you can claim on as many alts as you have. In that sense, they are better than what you can buy otherwise.
I like account-wide unlocks because I like playing alts. I'm really not in favor of any per-character unlocks in the C-Store, except for certain consumable items and item slots. I don't want Cryptic to stock the C-Store with stuff to sell on the Energy Credit Exchange... I want them to stock stuff I can use on all of my alts.
The TOS Connies, well, I don't see CBS and Cryptic changing their minds on that one. What they could do is make sure that the level-scaling phasers are very nearly the best possible gear that you can have... but then that's not quite fair to the KDF, who don't have that option.
(I'd like to see the TOS Connies come with an M-5 console that you can equip on any Starfleet vessel... I'd buy that one! I'll leave what that console might do to your imaginations
Same deal with the Lockbox ships... CBS and Cryptic aren't likely to change their minds. As bad as I want a D'Kora for my Ferengi, I'm resigned to the idea that I'll probably never get it. I'm hopeful that I can eventually stockpile EC's toward a Tuffli, but that's about it.
Direct sale of Dilithium in the C-Store has been suggested before, but I don't see it happening, ever. It's counter to their whole F2P model. Likewise, like it or not, I don't think lockboxes are going to go away either.
I do agree that every C-Store purchase should have some special value add that you can't get just by grinding (except being able to exchange Dilithium for Zen). When they gave 10 Lobi with every purchase of a special DOFF pack, that was the kind of thing I thought added value and made me want to buy.
The value add could be extra Lobi, or special commodities, or level-scaling, or account-wide unlocks, or what have you.
On the subject of a "login bonus", I think it would be doable ... as a Gold subscription perk. Otherwise, Cryptic is just giving away money and cutting into their profits. Their Free-to-play model is pinned to the idea of rewarding play time over the long term, not just logging in.
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A good example is my one time adventure to open lock boxes to try for a ship..
I acquired 200 Ferengi Boxes, 150 Tholian, 250 Temporal boxes. I then bought enough ZEN to purchase 600 keys...roughly 67,500 zen within the last month or two.
Anyways, I did NOT win a single special ship, was awarded maybe on average 4-5 lobi per box, and 2 or 3 mirror universe outdated garbage ships and some general garbage to try and sell on the exchange, in which i earned around 8 mil EC.
The lock boxes are a great idea in the eyes of PWE because of the above adventure I put myself into, and Im sure others do as well. 700 dollars worth of ZEN to PWE and not ONE single special ship.
So would the OP's idea cut into PWE profits? NO they would most certainly NOT. PWE, like any other company now days are full of greed. The customer is NOT first priority, even though we sustain their existence..quite frankly it is sad, and I will no longer be buying anything.
(begin sarcasm) Thanks PWE, for the FUN experience! (end sarcasm)
My experience with certain lockboxes was that they rewarded DOFF packs more often than not, and therefore buying a key was less expensive than buying a pack.
I'm not saying that it's a great value, just that it ended up being slightly less expensive than buying DOFF packs... assuming you want DOFF's (I did).
I'm saving stacks of certain lockboxes which I will open at my leisure, when it suits me to buy a key. I'm in no hurry. I have no illusions that I will win a ship. If I ever do, I'll probably try to trade it in for a ship I do want.
The lockbox values got better when they revamped the older reward tables and dropped most of the junk rewards (or moved them into the Lobi store). Proof that they do actually listen to feedback, though they don't necessarily do what the players are asking for and I'm sure every gram of feedback is taken with a liter of profit margin. But they pretty much have to make a profit somehow, so I can't get too mad about it.
What I have to do is budget my time and my spending on this game, which I do.
If you don't like something in the game, don't give it your time... they will have to decide how and whether to make it more attractive to more players. If you don't like something in the store, don't buy it... same thing.
They will do whatever necessary to draw in players and get them playing the game. They have to. The question is whether the messages we're sending PWE have dollar signs on them or not. I'm convinced the Devs have a love for Trek... and I'm equally convinced they have a greater love for their paycheck, just like I have for my paycheck. We have to appeal to both to get what we want.
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