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Here's the thing that offsets my interest in gaining new ships;
momaw
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
So, new lockbox and new ships. They come hand in hand. Representing rather steep investments in resources to acquire, unique and powerful, there's just one small problem.
Bound. To. Character.
Much of the most "expensive" content is tied to single characters, which forces people who want to participate to choose only one character to participate with. I like the looks of the new dreadnaught carrier, but the question.... What character should get it? I have 3 characters I play heavily so that's 2 chances to regret my decision. Plus, what if I ever wanted to add more characters?
Lockbox ships and lobi ships are far far more expensive than any Z-store ship, and yet, you functionally get a lot less for your money. Z-store ships can be used by any character you have without restriction. You can discard them, bring them back, it doesn't matter. Once you buy the ship it's yours. Lockbox ships? Forget it. You spend more, to get a ship that can only be used by a single character, and can never be retrieved if discarded. Why? Surely lockbox type ships should be cheaper, since you are effectively buying one single copy of one single ship, while buying things from Z-store comes with a service agreement of sorts.
I don't get it.
It's frustrating and depressing and tempers my enthusiasm for gaining new ships.
And I'm not alone in this either. My fleet leader has boxed ships that he's had for months, paralyzed by indecision about which of his characters the ships should be irrevocably bound to.
All of this goes for fleet ships, as well. Fleet ships cost more than Z-store ships once you account for the oceans of material that goes into upgrading your shipyard, and yet they are also bound to a single character and cannot be retrieved.
I thought at first that the character bound ships was to limit the proliferation of ships that don't actually belong to the Federation or the KDF, a line of reasoning often put forward, but this immediately fails when you consider that fleet ships which are by definition "faction correct" are also penalized in the same way.
One might be tempted to think that this is a crass and transparent attempt by Cryptic to squeeze more cash out of the players. Character-bound ships across multiple characters requires multiple purchases. But that also breaks down when you consider that recent Z-store offerings like the Vesta offer the same very high level of performance that the lockbox and fleet ships do. You don't NEED a lockbox or fleet ship as opposed to Z-store ships that do their jobs perfectly well, nor is there even a strong drive to WANT one, from a performance standpoint. So it's a master of taste and style, and not necessarily "pay to win". It's just.... pay to pay?
I just don't get it. I don't understand Cryptic's strategy. All I can see is my options being limited by insanely high resource costs for no apparent reason. I wish we could have a nice civil conversation about this with people that matter.
Bound. To. Character.
Much of the most "expensive" content is tied to single characters, which forces people who want to participate to choose only one character to participate with. I like the looks of the new dreadnaught carrier, but the question.... What character should get it? I have 3 characters I play heavily so that's 2 chances to regret my decision. Plus, what if I ever wanted to add more characters?
Lockbox ships and lobi ships are far far more expensive than any Z-store ship, and yet, you functionally get a lot less for your money. Z-store ships can be used by any character you have without restriction. You can discard them, bring them back, it doesn't matter. Once you buy the ship it's yours. Lockbox ships? Forget it. You spend more, to get a ship that can only be used by a single character, and can never be retrieved if discarded. Why? Surely lockbox type ships should be cheaper, since you are effectively buying one single copy of one single ship, while buying things from Z-store comes with a service agreement of sorts.
I don't get it.
It's frustrating and depressing and tempers my enthusiasm for gaining new ships.
And I'm not alone in this either. My fleet leader has boxed ships that he's had for months, paralyzed by indecision about which of his characters the ships should be irrevocably bound to.
All of this goes for fleet ships, as well. Fleet ships cost more than Z-store ships once you account for the oceans of material that goes into upgrading your shipyard, and yet they are also bound to a single character and cannot be retrieved.
I thought at first that the character bound ships was to limit the proliferation of ships that don't actually belong to the Federation or the KDF, a line of reasoning often put forward, but this immediately fails when you consider that fleet ships which are by definition "faction correct" are also penalized in the same way.
One might be tempted to think that this is a crass and transparent attempt by Cryptic to squeeze more cash out of the players. Character-bound ships across multiple characters requires multiple purchases. But that also breaks down when you consider that recent Z-store offerings like the Vesta offer the same very high level of performance that the lockbox and fleet ships do. You don't NEED a lockbox or fleet ship as opposed to Z-store ships that do their jobs perfectly well, nor is there even a strong drive to WANT one, from a performance standpoint. So it's a master of taste and style, and not necessarily "pay to win". It's just.... pay to pay?
I just don't get it. I don't understand Cryptic's strategy. All I can see is my options being limited by insanely high resource costs for no apparent reason. I wish we could have a nice civil conversation about this with people that matter.
Post edited by momaw on
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Lockbox, lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,Lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,grind update,Lockbox, lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,Lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox,lockbox. lol
And if the majority of the present STO player base are happy buying the keys and PW/Cryptic are making tons of cash from them, then why should they alter that course, or not refine the lockbox thing to get even more profit from willing buyers.......and i doubt that will change now at this stage......the game will simply continue along on lockboxes now until the player base gets so low that lockbox sales no longer make a profit for PW.......then the dead horse will stop twitching at last.
there is only one setup i really like to play in PVP/PVE - so i have 2 toons with almost identical setups.. (for the 8k daily dill on both through PVP)
FEDS:
sci - wells (love the ship)
tac - defiant
engi - constitution enterprise (iconic)
KDF
engi - d'kora (imho the best lockbox ship)
2xsci in b'Rel (the best ship ingame)
sci - Kar'fi
sci - Jem'Hadar Dreadnough Carrier
sci - Tholian Orb Weaver (slightly better than wells)
tac - Scourge
tac - Fleet Somraw Raptor (a very nice fleet ship)
tac - Breen Ship (didn't really test this one)
and i am ok with that
I'm not sure about fleet ships. They are some sort of fleet achievements. But anyway, why not.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
The fleet ships that cost 4x modules and thus $20 should be treated exactly like zen bought ships, because they functionally are.
All quoted for truth. I'm not putting another RL dollar into this scam.
Despite the fact that it supports the game, it's both funny and sad that so many people still put hundreds of dollars into lockboxes after being burned so many times.
Technically, it's not a scam, as you know precisly what you are getting into. It's just that people constantly feeding into it isn't going to break the cycle of lockboxes substituting for content updates (although I am guilty of opening boxes for lobi at irregular intervals and selling unwanted stuff).
In regards to darn near everything being bound to character, I've always suspected that Cryptic is counting on those OCD people that must have everything on every one of their toons.
When it comes to one time only stuff like the Breen cruiser, I can't really understand that being bound to character. As it stands I have three extra of those things (I had nothing else better to do but run the race, 5 minutes isn't that much) in the hope that one day the devs will make them account bound, or (to really make my day) letting me put them on the exchange, as I can only see me keeping one of them.
Another one of those wierd design decisions; they should change the title to Restrictions: Online given the amount of stop signs you run into.. I would love to dump my extra dilithium into my one toon that has reached Omega Tier 5 and have him craft for the rest of my toons (you know, like an any other MMO known to man), but again, bound to character.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
I'm like your fleet leader in that I have all the lockbox ships (except the JHAS) still in their original packaging as a collection, but I just can't bring myself to open, bind, and use them. I'd really like to take a shot with a Recluse on a fed engineer, but I just can't justify dropping 80 million ec on one character. If it were account-wide sure, but one toon, just makes me nervous.
As for fleet ships, I'm mixed. I completely splurged on a KDF tac with a Fleet Vorcha with fleet weapons, and it is an absolute monster, but doing that on my other 6 toons just isn't in the cards. Ships where a discount is possible though changes the equation, because then I get the base ship available for everyone, plus the fancy fleet one for only 5 million more. Since everyone gets something out of the buy and its 'only' 5m for the upgrade, its okay. (Unfortunately that completely screws my KDF toons, but thats off-topic.)
If this stuff was account unlock I'd have to buy more ship storage slots. But high-priced single unlocks just feels too much like a full-on ripoff instead of merely self-indulgence.
Anyway I completely agree about the fleet ships (but I likely won't buy Fleet Weapons, I got loads of Borg Mk XII items before the S7 conversion). I would buy a few more of those if they weren't such pricey per-character unlocks.
Well I never said I was sensible, more like OCD. That said, still in the box if I ever settle on a character I can transfer them, or if I get bored resell them. Once unpacked though, that ship is bound to that character forever, and that is a large and expensive commitment for something so absolutely permanent, the point I was trying to make. Not that I'm sensible (far from it), but that once done its done, and I can never delete and reroll or change my mind and put it on a different character or anything like that ever again. If they were 80 million but account-bound, say I still only get one Recluse but I can trade around who's using it at the time, then it would be a different story.
PS
Not to sound like I'm whining or anything, more like 'wouldn't it be cool if things weren't quite so permanent for such an expensive investment?'
I bought 1 2K zen B'rel
2,000/8=250 zen per toon
I DOUBT, that I would get a lockbox ship, with 2.5 masterkeys on average, that's not even considering the B'Rel can be disbanded and reclaimed.
needless to say.... I don't do lockboxes for ships.
___________
what I would like to see s a lobi for Dill, or lob for Zen, if I could buy lobi with Zen and NOT have to frak with the lockboxes at all, I would do that.
but *shrugs* that would simply turn lobi store into a Zen store, might as wel offer all lobi store stuff in zen store,
till boxes drop more lobi I'm not going to open any with keys I bought from Zen store, 4 lobi + some useless feldercarb for 100 zen is NOT enough lobi.
not opening 200 boxes for enough lobi to get a lobi ship that requires a lockbox ship from a lockbox that doesn't even drop to work proplerly. simply NOT HAPPENING!!! (not even if it's with my 500 a month Zen.. that BTW would take a year to add up to enough Zen to buy 200 keys.
More general binding would be better, and make you feel more like you own what you've paid for, I agree.
I open a lockbox because it provides certain rewards (like DOFFs) as cheap or cheaper than I can obtain them in other ways, and because there is potential for something much more valuable.
If I don't like a certain type of lockbox as a whole, I'm less enthusiastic about opening it. I could care less about the ships in the Dominion lockbox, but some of the other rewards are a bit more tempting.
Right now I'm saving up Zen for a Vesta bundle and not likely to buy anything else until I get it. The only lockbox ships I really want are the Wells and the D'Kora, but I can sit on the lockboxes in my cargo bay indefinitely and Master Keys are generally better used to generate EC on the Exchange.
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Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I have just come back after a 6 month break and everything has changed, not sure i like it yet.
The last ship i bought on the C-store was the multivector and its like they haven't put anything better in the store.
I like to get new ships but i don't agree with the lockboxes its just gambling nothing more and not for me.
And they have changed the way you collect stuff to get weapons so now its going to take ages to get anything, as i used to like logging in playing a few STFs and messing with my weapons but i can no longer do that which kinda writes the game off for me shame as i like the space combat again! much preferred the old way and random drops.
Once you open the ship pack, it's bound to the toon forever. So you're screwed down in the road if you changed your mind about having the ship on *that* toon.
Do I have to open the boxes on another fully leveled toon? is there a disadvantage to opening the boxes when you're not level 50?
Bolded for great truth and justice.
Seriously, i've come to the conclusion that buying Keys with Dilith and then selling them is a much more viable method of obtaining lockbox or Lobi ships. For example, take the new Jem'Hadar Dreadnought. It costs 800 lobi crystals, right? So at a minimum of four Lobi per box, you need a minimum of 200 keys.
However, at this point they're now around 80 million EC - pretty much par for the course for the other Lobi ships. If you can sell them at 1.5 million EC, you only need approximately 53.33 reccurring keys.
So if all you want is that ship, dump those boxes and buy one off the Ex.
I open lockboxes to get Lobi and to get stuff to sell. I plan on using either the Lobi or the EC to buy the ship I want. If I happen to randomly get the ship along the way, then cool; I got it quicker. I do not expect to ever get the ship from the boxes.
Not exactly.
If you open a box of equipment -- say for example a deflector/shield box -- the item you get will match the Mark level you should get for your character's level. Generally why you should wait until max level to open these if you can.
Mark level gear does not scale with level and remains the same as when you opened it.
Some of the rewards, like DOFFs and special consoles, are "levelless". Technically they don't scale either, but they remain effective no matter what level you are.
Lockbox ships are generally VA-level ships, meaning you have to be a Vice Admiral to claim one. They don't scale, but they don't need to.
It's possible that a lockbox might contain auto-scaling gear (that would ordinarily be Mk-something), but I don't recall them ever doing that in any lockbox so far.
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Yet. If Cryptic are serious about raising the level cap, are these ships going to remain VA ships or will we get new, Fleet Admiral/Dahar Master (or w/e) versions of the lockbox ships that we'll then have to open lockboxes to get a top-tier version of a ship we already own?
Remember, this is Cryptic we're talking about here.
Well yeah. I was hoping to float that idea right now to get people thinking about it before that oh-so-inevitable announcement is made.
Why do you think I buy them? :P
Well, did we have to buy lockboxes to get an 10-console version of the JHAS?
Although, honestly, I suspect that the 10-console ships are going to be the ships we get to use Fleet Admiral/etc. In part because of the lockbox ships, and what happened with the JHAS.
It won't let me post a new thread, so I thought I'd piggy back this one if it's ok?