Just a small suggestion in regards to grind :)

drkfrontiers · February 2014

Hi Cryptic,

Fanboy here.

Just wanted to say that ever since Legacy of Romulus I've been having a ball of a good time. Don't mind the grind, understand the principle of it, and believe that its the future of most MMOs.

[EpicBillboard]B - U - T[/EpicBillboard]

Timelimits. Hate them. They are dead to me. Bullies, the lot of them! LOL

I want to enjoy the content AT MY LEISURE. I don't mind the grind really. But when I have x-days to complete something I feel rushed and most of the time cannot make it because of work.

My fault. Real life weekend warrior, and all that.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaa.....{cryin'on'ground'begging now}...se can you consider another possibility.

1.) Why not use a time-played approach?

How about a "played" time limit on the account. So you give x-days for a special event etc, and a player logs in and can played x-hours and when they log off, the timer stops.

I would probably want to play MORE if I knew there were cool "projects" waiting to be finished!

It encourages diversity as multiple missions will have timers, and players can jump around. "Life is like a box of chocolates. Its nice to not know what the next one is going to be."

Love the work. Storylines are epic.

But please step back from the commercial aspect for a moment, and try and see that players want to explore, and boldly seek out. We can't do that when we are rushing to fit in the next project

2.) When there is a special event giving out tokens like Qmendations etc, why not allow all FE to award Qmendations for the duration of the event.

It allows players to go back and play some old missions and does not force players to replay the same mission a dozen times.

And no... I must haz all the stuffz.

thlaylierah · February 2014

Seriously!

Who ever came up with the idea that we need to be told when to play?

Remove all time limits and play time restraints please.

duncanidaho11 · February 2014

Here here!

A grind is bad enough in itself but with something like a reputation system you can approach it at your leisure. Feeling burned out? Don't worry just go do something else for a while.

But this timed approach forces your nose into the grind stone to be scrapped away like the outer layer of cheese against a grater. It's not fun, it's not encouraging, it's just forced tedium (if you want to have the "full" experience on the c-store dyson ships, and hey why wouldn't you?)

Crytpic, do try harder NOT to be a jerk during the next event. We are ostensibly celebrating the game and that's hard to do when we have to cover at least one shift in the Chinese sweatshop making our own gifts.

kublahkan · February 2014

That is how the F2P system works gentlemen.
We work, we can't play to get the freebies, we take out our wallets and buy the C-store or Lobi version.

Put 10$ for a movie in a theater and live the experience for less than 3 hours.
Put 10$ in a ship (ok little less than half a c-store ship) and it lasts for as long as you wish.

thlaylierah · February 2014

In that case can we get rid of the F2P and go back to Subscription only please.

therealmt · February 2014

Really, grind and the model most MMOs use do not have to be the future of MMO's. Look at Star Citizen, that proves to be a totally different model yet its going to be a massive multiplayer online game.

I dont see how all MMO's have to look so much alike, just copy pasting the mechanic model and pay2win model.

Look at this game, so much pay2win yet most people don't care about powercreep that much, they like to fly new ships, have new abilities. Does it have to be so 'effective' in order to be sold? I think not.

I for one never asked for this free2play model. I was a happy Subber for years, then lifer at some point. I guess it was the only option to keep this game alive.

Oh well. Sorry for going off topic

drkfrontiers · February 2014

kublahkan wrote: »

That is how the F2P system works gentlemen.
We work, we can't play to get the freebies, we take out our wallets and buy the C-store or Lobi version.

Put 10$ for a movie in a theater and live the experience for less than 3 hours.
Put 10$ in a ship (ok little less than half a c-store ship) and it lasts for as long as you wish.

It does not need to be an all or nothing situation.

F2P can be a pleasant experience. I am not suggesting that they remove the cost. I am merely asking that they allow me the time to unlock access to that cost when I am able to. Else its just something I avoid. No-one wins.

duncanidaho11 · February 2014

kublahkan wrote: »

That is how the F2P system works gentlemen.
We work, we can't play to get the freebies, we take out our wallets and buy the C-store or Lobi version..

There's a problem with this however.

Look at sphere's of influence. Look at the second anniversary. F2P by no means obligates cryptic to arbitrarily lengthen the time it takes to unlock basic content (when there is no alternative available to the majority of the player base, as "lobi" is a horrendously expensive system that can only be truly utilized by the small fraction of big spenders in this population. It shouldn't be considered to be a significant part of the game.) as the practical effect of that grindy system is simply to arbitrarily lengthen playtime using something which hardly qualifies as gameplay (ie. it's one of the worst aspects of the MMO format which shouldn't be encouraged or even excused. As we can see from, say, the featured episode or the various PVE additions over the past few years more substantial content has a LOT more potential to support the game. Putting the focus around grindable minigames just makes STO worse.)

The c-store variants, however, are covered by the F2P model (and they are a very reasonable compromise), but cryptic's utter bastardry here is all of their own devising.

kublahkan · February 2014

Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to excuse them, their F2P model (which should read Free to Pay) nor their events.

Looking the other way around, this gives people and students with low salary jobs a way to acquire the ship without opening their wallets.

Options were:
1- Give the ship to everyone (like the Odyssey but I was not there at that time) and a chance to improve the model with c-store version
2- Sell the ship through c-store or Lobi (like any other new ships)
3- Give a mind-numbing grind event to get the free ship but sell it through c-store for those who can't bear the event or can't log often enough.

They chose option 3 because of the higher potential revenue. Simple as that.

When I go to work at the office, I can chose between a toll bridge or a 30 min detour. Simple as that.

duncanidaho11 · February 2014

kublahkan wrote: »

3- Give a mind-numbing grind event to get the free ship but sell it through c-store for those who can't bear the event or can't log often enough.

They chose option 3 because of the higher potential revenue. Simple as that.

When I go to work at the office, I can chose between a toll bridge or a 30 min detour. Simple as that.

Well...I don't see that. Because lobi (undoubtably) isn't a viable option the VAST majority of the player base AND that the free version of the ship contains a very necessary warp-core to the full Dyson ship space set the grind DOES NOT serve in any way to force the player into a course of action that leads to more money (outside of the rare-event of a mad person dropping it on Lobi, but with the Hirogen Lock Box that simply amounts to within game competition for a single, small pool of mad people. Again it's not something worth considering.) It just amounts to more playtime, ie. this grind has absolutely nothing to do with ANY ASPECT of F2P but rather of the worst aspects of the MMO (which under no circumstances should you be trying to find excuses for (ex. games just do this) because it is very directly impacting the quality of the game during this event.) There's a toll AND a 30 minute detour, because the two are independent entities acting together (in a non-linear fashion, that's one to my bio-science hommies) to undermine this "anniversary."

It's bad game design, simple as that.

twam · February 2014

Except that, in your example, games also have the equivalent option of just finding a different job altogether - when the total picture is not appealing enough either way, or you're urged to do both (looking at you, 4-piece boni), people might just figure there might be greener pastures elsewhere...

Not saying I'm quite at that point myself, but as someone inclined to play alts, first the rep systems and now the event rep systems are making me rather exasperated, while also making me feel pushed into only playing very select parts of the game, over and over again.

kublahkan · February 2014

I had the impression that the $ version has that warp core.

Honestly, it all comes out on how much you want to pay for something. My living room is big enough for a 60 in TV but I have a 42 and that suits me fine.

I'd like to fly that Tal Shiar Adapted Battlecruiser just for the Rule of Cool but I don't want to put the effort nor the $ to get it, whatever the means. Whatever is in that Lobi store I won't touch it because I don't want to put the $ for it.

So if you don't want to grind nor pay the price, fly something else. I surely will. If you desperately want that Warp Core, grind or pay. At least you have a grind option.

duncanidaho11 · February 2014

kublahkan wrote: »

So if you don't want to grind nor pay the price, fly something else. I surely will. If you desperately want that Warp Core, grind or pay. At least you have a grind option.

As established lobi isn't worth considering as an option. You can't grind or pay (unless your insane/have more money than sense which isn't an adequate justification for a business's pricing policies as NEITHER can be assumed), you're put in a position to do both if you want the new content.

And sure, I can still choose not to buy into that scheme (and it is a scheme) but again that in no way excuses what cryptic is doing as there are easily other options (see. the Second anniversary and the Oddy) that can stimulate my business without counter-productively aggravating me at the same time.

Again, the way Cryptic has implemented the dyson ships is simply a badly thought out fusion of two "drivers" of online games. On the one hand you have arbitrary grinding, which keeps servers stock, and on the other you have a F2P duality of lesser free ship or paid version. And though each has drawbacks, neither in and of themselves is necessarily a deal breaker. But in combination they have a lot more destructive potential because the interaction between the two elements amounts to a bit more than simply 1+1=2 (16 is more likely.)

Just a small suggestion in regards to grind :)

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