Many people who have been playing for a while have spent considerable resources in the reputation system. I have sepnt hundreds of thousands of refined dilithum over my toons to buy rep gear and weapons. Now the reputation system gives out this expensive store gear for the simple task of slotting a project. on my newestt reman toon, who I just got to level 50 right before this season came out, slotted a romulan rep project and was rewarded with the same mk xi romulan plasma cannon that I spent 17k dilithum, 3 days of refining, hours of collecting romulan marks (which is now given much easier) and time of my life to obtain! Now the gear is only MK XII in my other toons rom rep system, which is 24k dil when the mk XI was only 17k dil before, and I was perfectly happy and successful with the mkXI. So I am forced to spend many more of my resources for minimal improvement!
Well, if only the rep cost had actually gone down! Opened my still outstanding Tier V rep projects today, only to find out Cryptic had *added* a 40,000 EC requirement to each of them! Sure, they seem to have removed the Industrial Replicators + Shield Generators requirements, but I had alreasy filled those; so, I'm just forced to pay an extra 80,000 EC if I ever want to see those 2 projects finished.
As a long time STO player since beta, I cannot find anything wrong with Season 9. The changes to the kit system were years over due ever since Gecko teased them about two years ago. Some people may dislike the new trait system / reputation "nerf", but not everyone that plays this game took the time to grind out reputations. I always looked at the rep powers as an extension of sorts, to the accolade bonus system. Sure I could go grind away thousands of enemies of some particular species to gain 1% more phaser damage, and that would be the correct way to min/max in the long run, you also have to take into account that STO has never really relied on min/maxing to be truly successful. I mean in space combat, if you for example don't dps quite as much and might die, you just respawn and go back in. Ground combat, get a party member to rez you in a few mere seconds with no kind of respawn / death penalty. Hell, remember when there was really no death penalty at all in space and you could just respawn over and over? Beating a tough mob was potentially just a battle of attrition at that point.
While some of the rep powers did have good bonuses and might have shown tangible decreases to things once "taken away", it also kind of levels the playing field. People forget that prior to PWE, STO was not about grinding really. While you may have run STF's and hoped for a purple to drop, you also could have farmed emblems and simply turned those in for various top tier pieces of gear. Yet after PWE and after transitioning to a free to play model, moving to a more grind based system pretty much meant balance was always going to be skewed. Either from people who had a lot of money to burn (i.e. getting the Bug ship which for quite a while was the best tactical ship bar none in the game), or people who had a lot of time on their hands to grind each and every rep for each and every possible power (not to mention Starbases, and high tier Fleet level gear). While the minority of people who did grind all that out, or did shell out a lot of money, the majority of the player base did not. Many long time players, and I can name plenty, have not spent god knows how long to unlock each rep system, or billions of EC to buy a C-Store ship off the auction house (rather than spend money).
So for those players, this patch kind of levels the playing field. When the changes were mentioned last month, it made clear points as to how under powered a fresh max level toon was compared to one who had all this. Sure the max level toon probably wouldn't have a full set of purple max tier gear the minute they ding fifty but at the same time they also wouldn't have weeks or months spent grinding rep stuff at their finger tips either. There's always going to be a line between a fresh max character and one that's established, had time to gear out in the best gear etc The change was so that there wasn't so big a gap between them. A fresh 50 has a better chance at pugging STFs, or pugging a PvP map. Is a huge chance, eh that's debatable in itself but it is at least an increased chance. It doesn't solve all the problems of difference between a freshie and an established but it is a step in that direction.
You couple that with the ability to swap traits on the fly, which a lot of other modern mmo's (who have something similar to traits) already have and it's great. You can spec out some min/maxing as needed. Without the need to get a token (afaik). You can make custom kits, I can finally get rid of a kit ability I don't need (which is useful but doesnt fit my playing style). The new instanced content seems fun enough to me, new Featured Episode was fan-friggin-tastic in my opinion. So NGE? God no. NGE was a game-killer, literally. This is not NGE by a long shot.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
just my 2 cent but I do really hate what they have done to the new rep system and feel like it is a big slap in the face, they are trying to keep the gap between new players and vets as small as they can TO KEEP THINGS FAIR as they put it but why should it be fair? why should a player that's been playing 3 years be made to be on the same level as someone that's been playing 2 months?, the problem with this game is you can get to level 50 in 2 days, have all the rep's done in 2 months that's end game in a few months, there is no depth or feel to the game other games can take years to get to the top, aka eve and wow
That is from a player's point of view. Guess what sells these days. INSTANT GRATIFICATION. That is the hot money maker. Not a long endless grind to gratify a few.
For buisnesses and this is the cold hard truth, gotta stop thinking like a player and start thinking like a businessman. So what if you alienate the vets? They tend to spend less than new coming players who want all the shinies. Granted you try and strike the balance and keep players from all venues around but you gravitate where the money is.
Sorry to be blunt, but that's the blunt truth. To us as players this is a game. To PWE this is a business to make money. They don't care about anything but a nice quarterly earning statment.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
I think this was the summary of his post - he doesn't want to continuosly adapt to nerf after nerf. Your solution is for him to stop playing.
Well I have news for you, he is not the only one. S9 has pretty much pissed off the majority of veteran players that I play with (including me). Thats over 30 players out of about 50 that I know that pay their money into the game on a monthly basis.
Your solution is don't cry, don't moan, don't whine - just leave.
Well if everyone who felt that way did indeed just leave - how long do you think STO will last? Are you that naiive to think that the game is unsinkable, the money will keep rolling into the PWE coffers and the servers will stay switched on and devs will remain paid to 'improve' (/sarcasm off) STO?
The obvious answer is no. And there are a number of new games on the immediate horizon that huge swathes of this playerbase are itching to jump ship to when released.
The OP is not alone in his feelings and the more Cryptic/PWE ignores the general feedback of the paying playerbase, the more likly it is for that server status light to turn red forever.
my concern is not so much the change, but that it redefines the role, that now has very little it its place.
It has gone from being a complete extension of levelling (it still is, but now effectively stops at what you might call level 55 rather than 75) and is more for free gearing to mkXII, with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The question now is, what power creep are cryptic about to introduce to allow us to get back to the max level.
People attack power creep, and arguments can be made for when is enough enough, but ultimately without it, there is very little reason to do anything in this game. The game needs a hook to keep people interested, grinding for grinding sake is not and with a lack of what anyone would consider end game content (arguably the pre-s9 reputation system was end game content), that hook has now got a lot weaker.
The effective hard capping may have been better received if there were announcements to some other form of content to keep long term players interested, perhaps the next expansion is intended on delivering this, but people will likely need some morsel of information to say "maybe this will work out in the long run, maybe this is a way to ensure they can make challenging content in the future that people cant automatically steam roll in 5 minutes". Until this is heard though people who had ground everything will feel somewhat screwed over.
I think this was the summary of his post - he doesn't want to continuosly adapt to nerf after nerf. Your solution is for him to stop playing.
evolve or die, it's just part of life.
The obvious answer is no. And there are a number of new games on the immediate horizon that huge swathes of this playerbase are itching to jump ship to when released.
Which will be derided as suckitude a month afterwards. Especially that hype machine named Star Citizen....
Well, since they nerfed the rep and we're limited to use of only 4 rep traits, I think for people who grinded a metric **** ton of dil and marks should be refunded half of the dil required to complete all rep.
Thats right, refund us half the dil of a fully completed rep system.
They already did refund us since 50% of 0 dilithium is 0. The only reputation projects that cost dilithium is the equipment projects. The XP projects cost Marks, Expertise, and Energy Credits, but not dilithium. The devs have not touched any of the Reputation equipment except give a boost to some sets.
I think this was the summary of his post - he doesn't want to continuosly adapt to nerf after nerf. Your solution is for him to stop playing.
Well I have news for you, he is not the only one. S9 has pretty much pissed off the majority of veteran players that I play with (including me). Thats over 30 players out of about 50 that I know that pay their money into the game on a monthly basis.
Your solution is don't cry, don't moan, don't whine - just leave.
Well if everyone who felt that way did indeed just leave - how long do you think STO will last? Are you that naiive to think that the game is unsinkable, the money will keep rolling into the PWE coffers and the servers will stay switched on and devs will remain paid to 'improve' (/sarcasm off) STO?
The obvious answer is no. And there are a number of new games on the immediate horizon that huge swathes of this playerbase are itching to jump ship to when released.
The OP is not alone in his feelings and the more Cryptic/PWE ignores the general feedback of the paying playerbase, the more likly it is for that server status light to turn red forever.
And ya know what thats what 30-50 out of how many THOUSANDS who play the game? When you start talking people leaving in the thousands then PWE has an issue. Stop targeting me man. I'm merely pointing out we are mere blips on the rader.
When you get a big enough blip let me know or better yet let PWE know. Cuase guess what, it's simple economics. Who's more likely to spend money? A brand new player who doesn't really have all that much or a vet that basically has everything?
PWE is simply following the money. If you can't handle the simple cold truth door's that way ->
Sorry for being blunt but that's the honesty of the matter. Want to get PWE's attention gonna need a whole lot more than 50, or hell even 500 people. Get 5000+ then you might get PWE's attention.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Let me start by saying that I am not terribly active in posting to fourms, but I have been playing STO since day one. STO has been a large part of my free time activities; I have 6 level 50 toons, several with max reputation. I am a paying gold member, have been for a long time now. I dont purchase a lot of zen, maybe a couple hundred euros worth over the years. Now I have seen STO do some radical changes, and it is fair to say thay this is not the same game that was released, however I have not seen a season or a patch that has screwed over as many of the players as season 9.
Many people who have been playing for a while have spent considerable resources in the reputation system. I have sepnt hundreds of thousands of refined dilithum over my toons to buy rep gear and weapons. Now the reputation system gives out this expensive store gear for the simple task of slotting a project. on my newestt reman toon, who I just got to level 50 right before this season came out, slotted a romulan rep project and was rewarded with the same mk xi romulan plasma cannon that I spent 17k dilithum, 3 days of refining, hours of collecting romulan marks (which is now given much easier) and time of my life to obtain! Now the gear is only MK XII in my other toons rom rep system, which is 24k dil when the mk XI was only 17k dil before, and I was perfectly happy and successful with the mkXI. So I am forced to spend many more of my resources for minimal improvement!
The trait system is also unfair to us. We are forced to use four space traits, and four ground traits from the rep system, which again screws over us who have spent resources to unlock those traits, that we enjoyed use of, and now are denied. People who have spend resources on the retrain tokens are also screwed in this process. Why do we pay for a house and forced to live in a trailer?
You completely look over us who have played since early on in the games life. In the past I have not complained about the updates because there was an equal trade off. we lost something but we gained something. Here he have none of that! You take our resources and dont care about us. After all the time and money (about 200 more euro trying to get jem'hadar atrack ship this month) I am no longer having fun with STO if I only get screwed like this. Obviously you dont care, but I fully intend to cancel my subscription and go back to Blizzard. If this is the future of STO, maybe it is time for it to die.
Dude I am in fully agree with you. I've been playing for over two years now, I paid for a lifetime subscription and have put a lot of money toward the game to get a lot of the premium hulls, lock box hulls and special event hulls. I have put a lot of time to unlock all four of the reputation systems before the Species 8472 one cam e active. I've mentioned about this new reputation system (4 space, 4 ground and 4 active traits). A lot of people have complained about it sighting the same stance that both of us are using. We took the time to unlock 20 tiers of reputation. We should be able to use all the abilities/traits that we paid for. And these new PvE missions is way over powered. The "Bubbles" in Fluidic Space is way OP. I use a ship that has over 50,000 hull health and over 11,000 shield health, and those things kill me in under 2 seconds and none of my abilities can get me way from them and heal the damage that they done. We as a player should be able to fire at them if it is going to fire at us. I use to be able to take damage like this. I relate this drop in ship performance to the lack of being able to use all of my eight reputation space traits and the Quantum singularity power and the the 5th tier Nukara power. So ten total abilities/traits.
Don't get me wrong, the way that the Reputation system is now in the way of needing only Marks, Energy credits and expertise to pay for the projects is good. It is the fact that we can only use 4/10ths of the abilities/traits that we are paying for. Maybe boosting the 4 space, 4 ground, 4 active to 6 space, 6 ground and 6 active would be better or even 5 space, 5 ground and 5 active. I for one want a 10 space, 10 ground and 5 active back.
In plain simple words. I want what I am paying for.
Its Obvious Cryptic can do what ever they want, they have.
Many people in many disagree with them on what people want.
The concern is why is Cryptic so disconnected from the player base.
People think if Cryptic does this it this way it will equal more players and more money.
What players see is changes that discourage people from staying in the game.
People can they don't like this and that all they want.
Until threads are created that clearly state want the majority wants.
Someone will keep going with philosophy if we build it they will come.
The problem is that only works for baseball and movies.
What people want is ....
More STF like missions to farm dilithium like we use to have.
More ways to get dilithium
Fleet Colony build your own house
Fleet holdings
Shuttle Bays
Cargo Bays
Bigger Fleet Rosters
More Fleet banks slots
More fleet Ranks
Bug fixes
More costumes
More Cstore ships
Another player faction or playable race
And
The option to add a third breast to female characters.
Don't want
More contested zones
Dilithium Nerfs
Trait Nerfs
No bug fixes
Watered down content
Revamps of old missions
Longer grinds
Bigger non popular changes
Its Obvious Cryptic can do what ever they want, they have.
Many people in many disagree with them on what people want.
The concern is why is Cryptic so disconnected from the player base.
People think if Cryptic does this it this way it will equal more players and more money.
What players see is changes that discourage people from staying in the game.
People can they don't like this and that all they want.
Until threads are created that clearly state want the majority wants.
Someone will keep going with philosophy if we build it they will come.
The problem is that only works for baseball and movies.
What people want is ....
More STF like missions to farm dilithium like we use to have.
More ways to get dilithium
Fleet Colony build your own house
Fleet holdings
Shuttle Bays
Cargo Bays
Bigger Fleet Rosters
More Fleet banks slots
More fleet Ranks
Bug fixes
More costumes
More Cstore ships
Another player faction or playable race
And
The option to add a third breast to female characters.
Don't want
More contested zones
Dilithium Nerfs
Trait Nerfs
No bug fixes
Watered down content
Revamps of old missions
Longer grinds
Bigger non popular changes
Level 51 to 60
10 Space, 10 Ground and 5 active abilities/traits
Ability to use more expertise to advance skills higher that the cap.
Ability to pay for higher bridge stations. Example:raise an ensign to a Lt. position, a Lt. to a Lt. Commander and Lt. Commander to a Commander position.
So here's my thoughts, for anyone interested. I really don't care either way about the traits. I was doing fine with very few ground traits, but now I can switch, if I remember or care enough before grinding in space of on ground.
However, the rep changes I am still on the fence about. There were a good chunk of the rep passives that I just kinda picked the least bad one, so loosing some of them doesn't really make a huge difference. Now though, with the ones that you kinda wanted both, you can get both. Yes, it's some picking a choosing, and you can't always get all the ones you want, but many of them make such a little difference, your not loosing out on that much.
Which brings me to my only real complaint about the rep changes. I am so tired of hearing about it helping stop the power creep. We gotta stop the power creep, it just out of control! So we are taking away some of your passives you earn in game, and instead introducing now ships, consoles and weapons that make the last OP weapons and consoles cry themselves to sleep.
Everyone knows where the real power creep is coming from, and these passives are the least of the problems. I understand the business model, and that the new stuff has to be better so people will buy it, but lets be honest and admit the changes to the rep system were not needed in the the power creep issue.
Any online game is subject to any change, at any time, for any reason, or lack of a reason. STO, BSGO, WoW, EVE, etc. You may feel that, as a paying customer, you're voice has some pull, but youd be wrong. Whatever you pay goes into allowing the devs to create and expand, or make changes based on the current game situation. And the situation right now is players are getting too much power out of their builds. The devs deemed it necessary to reduce the available power by limiting rep traits. Be happy they chose the smallest power increase in the game. I would've gone as far as needing equipment and ship stats. You may play the game, but its not your game. If you're so unhappy with how cryptic and pwe run it, and are threatening to leave, then please, do so. There are plenty of other potential players out there who don't have a skewed preconception based on what was.
Dude I am in fully agree with you. I've been playing for over two years now, I paid for a lifetime subscription and have put a lot of money toward the game to get a lot of the premium hulls, lock box hulls and special event hulls. I have put a lot of time to unlock all four of the reputation systems before the Species 8472 one cam e active. I've mentioned about this new reputation system (4 space, 4 ground and 4 active traits). A lot of people have complained about it sighting the same stance that both of us are using. We took the time to unlock 20 tiers of reputation. We should be able to use all the abilities/traits that we paid for. And these new PvE missions is way over powered. The "Bubbles" in Fluidic Space is way OP. I use a ship that has over 50,000 hull health and over 11,000 shield health, and those things kill me in under 2 seconds and none of my abilities can get me way from them and heal the damage that they done. We as a player should be able to fire at them if it is going to fire at us. I use to be able to take damage like this. I relate this drop in ship performance to the lack of being able to use all of my eight reputation space traits and the Quantum singularity power and the the 5th tier Nukara power. So ten total abilities/traits.
Don't get me wrong, the way that the Reputation system is now in the way of needing only Marks, Energy credits and expertise to pay for the projects is good. It is the fact that we can only use 4/10ths of the abilities/traits that we are paying for. Maybe boosting the 4 space, 4 ground, 4 active to 6 space, 6 ground and 6 active would be better or even 5 space, 5 ground and 5 active. I for one want a 10 space, 10 ground and 5 active back.
In plain simple words. I want what I am paying for.
Other people (not played any S9 content yet myself) seem to be able to knock it out of the park. You just need to think about stuff now. Enemies seem to be using hold powers, for example. Well, use a hold counter. Have a think, see what you can come up with. In other words: play and enjoy the game.
Also: you didn't pay jack stab for your rep passives, apart from time where you were playing a game you would probably have been playing anyway.
He doesn't like the change, hell I think they went a TAD overboard with 4/4/4, and he is calm, collected and offers another solution instead of just ranting.
I think many on this thread could stand to learn something from this writer.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
The option to add a third breast to female characters.
^^^ This especially. I have wanted this option from day 1. Then add large amounts of bacon to the commodity freighter and my STO life will be complete. ...lol
The OP has a point, he got taken away what he really acquired by just playing the game.
BUT, Many of you know these scimitars that can do 40K DPS and do an infected run in 2.5 minutes. With a 60 min cooldown.
This is all for balancing purposes, when they made the new STF's (the old ones don't apply!) they meant -and it says in the description- a 15 minutes mission. Oh, wait with all this power creep and buffs and this/that I can do that in 2 minutes.
I guess the fun has gone and it's just a job now, which is ok for those people, so All 3 Borg STFs in 8 minutes. You can take 52 minutes off and go eat or whatever.
Personally, I put my reps in yesterday chose carefully and found that I am doing the same DPS, while a fleetmate of mine said his was lower. (good for him, right!?) I stopped chasing the DPS rainbow months ago.
And if you really want to talk things that are missing, and I haven't complained about this either, when we bought a lifetime sub, we were supposed to get 500 zen and that hasn't happened in a while either.
Like many people said in this thread, changes will happen. What you can do to succeed after change is a plus for you. Complaining MAY bend the ear of Cryptic, but it may take a long time to influence them to make any changes since all effort went into this for months.
When you have Tier 5 on all your reps, you have quite a few toys and tricks to play with and you can always change to match your enemies or team playstyle. They have given you OPTIONS, not crashed your starship on a remote planet in the Gamma Quadrant.
Maybe this change will make someone say "OOOH, I want THIS trait instead of that one " one day.
And ya know what? I've seen far more praise for things they did RIGHT. Yeah the rep thing probably wasn't handled in the best way, but they did do something about power creep. Frankly I'm shocked they even did this.
Frankly PWE could shut this game down and it wouldn't hur them all that much. You do know this is one of what 7-8 games they got going right now ALL of them making money.
And push them far enough they could always pull what was done with City of Heros. They could just say "TRIBBLE it, don't like what we are doing, fine game over! You all get nothing, you all lose good day!"
Good rule of thumb, don't rock the boat, not when you're sitting in it. Offering constructive criticism and MEANINGFUL feedback is one thing. Venting your spleen, quite another.
Offer constructive criticism? That is what we have been doing. We told them what makes us unhappy, how we feel we were wronged and how we want them to fix it before we recommit to this game.
You are the one who comes in and calls us children and say we throw "temper tantrums", that we need to accept that these changes are set in stone or get the heck out. How is that constructive?
Look, its important to consider that just last year Disney bought Star Wars and killed off Lucas Arts. We have all heard the rumors that they are coming for Star Trek too at some point, hence J.J. Abrams directing the Star Wars movie. What is to say that they dont come in and buy Star Trek and kill of imperfect world? There is obviously an end date to STO, this is not EVE Online.
So its is not out of the question for us to ask that what we earned and paid for is what we get until doomsday.
Offer constructive criticism? That is what we have been doing. We told them what makes us unhappy, how we feel we were wronged and how we want them to fix it before we recommit to this game.
Yeah, that's pretty much the opposite of constructive criticism.... that's an angry demand.
Very big let down with season 9. Maybe they forgot how long it takes to finish the trait system, and how repetitive the whole process was but if you tweak your ship just a little more its worth it.
I for one am not sticking around for season 10 nor sinking another dime into pwe.
Why not fix things that are actually broken in the game for instance getting stuck in walls , or make the ships more realistic in terms of graphics when you fire a weapon forget leveling the playing field for weaker players let them do the grinding i did to get were Im at. That's really the only driving force in this game the strong are suppose to win through accomplishment while a lazier player doesn't deserve it.
Removing something you spent time on like this is real low.
Comments
Well, if only the rep cost had actually gone down! Opened my still outstanding Tier V rep projects today, only to find out Cryptic had *added* a 40,000 EC requirement to each of them! Sure, they seem to have removed the Industrial Replicators + Shield Generators requirements, but I had alreasy filled those; so, I'm just forced to pay an extra 80,000 EC if I ever want to see those 2 projects finished.
While some of the rep powers did have good bonuses and might have shown tangible decreases to things once "taken away", it also kind of levels the playing field. People forget that prior to PWE, STO was not about grinding really. While you may have run STF's and hoped for a purple to drop, you also could have farmed emblems and simply turned those in for various top tier pieces of gear. Yet after PWE and after transitioning to a free to play model, moving to a more grind based system pretty much meant balance was always going to be skewed. Either from people who had a lot of money to burn (i.e. getting the Bug ship which for quite a while was the best tactical ship bar none in the game), or people who had a lot of time on their hands to grind each and every rep for each and every possible power (not to mention Starbases, and high tier Fleet level gear). While the minority of people who did grind all that out, or did shell out a lot of money, the majority of the player base did not. Many long time players, and I can name plenty, have not spent god knows how long to unlock each rep system, or billions of EC to buy a C-Store ship off the auction house (rather than spend money).
So for those players, this patch kind of levels the playing field. When the changes were mentioned last month, it made clear points as to how under powered a fresh max level toon was compared to one who had all this. Sure the max level toon probably wouldn't have a full set of purple max tier gear the minute they ding fifty but at the same time they also wouldn't have weeks or months spent grinding rep stuff at their finger tips either. There's always going to be a line between a fresh max character and one that's established, had time to gear out in the best gear etc The change was so that there wasn't so big a gap between them. A fresh 50 has a better chance at pugging STFs, or pugging a PvP map. Is a huge chance, eh that's debatable in itself but it is at least an increased chance. It doesn't solve all the problems of difference between a freshie and an established but it is a step in that direction.
You couple that with the ability to swap traits on the fly, which a lot of other modern mmo's (who have something similar to traits) already have and it's great. You can spec out some min/maxing as needed. Without the need to get a token (afaik). You can make custom kits, I can finally get rid of a kit ability I don't need (which is useful but doesnt fit my playing style). The new instanced content seems fun enough to me, new Featured Episode was fan-friggin-tastic in my opinion. So NGE? God no. NGE was a game-killer, literally. This is not NGE by a long shot.
redshirtarmy.com - RedShirtArmy Podcast
STO / Cryptic member since 2009 (mavgeek)
That is from a player's point of view. Guess what sells these days. INSTANT GRATIFICATION. That is the hot money maker. Not a long endless grind to gratify a few.
For buisnesses and this is the cold hard truth, gotta stop thinking like a player and start thinking like a businessman. So what if you alienate the vets? They tend to spend less than new coming players who want all the shinies. Granted you try and strike the balance and keep players from all venues around but you gravitate where the money is.
Sorry to be blunt, but that's the blunt truth. To us as players this is a game. To PWE this is a business to make money. They don't care about anything but a nice quarterly earning statment.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
I think this was the summary of his post - he doesn't want to continuosly adapt to nerf after nerf. Your solution is for him to stop playing.
Well I have news for you, he is not the only one. S9 has pretty much pissed off the majority of veteran players that I play with (including me). Thats over 30 players out of about 50 that I know that pay their money into the game on a monthly basis.
Your solution is don't cry, don't moan, don't whine - just leave.
Well if everyone who felt that way did indeed just leave - how long do you think STO will last? Are you that naiive to think that the game is unsinkable, the money will keep rolling into the PWE coffers and the servers will stay switched on and devs will remain paid to 'improve' (/sarcasm off) STO?
The obvious answer is no. And there are a number of new games on the immediate horizon that huge swathes of this playerbase are itching to jump ship to when released.
The OP is not alone in his feelings and the more Cryptic/PWE ignores the general feedback of the paying playerbase, the more likly it is for that server status light to turn red forever.
...#LLAP...
My character Tsin'xing
It has gone from being a complete extension of levelling (it still is, but now effectively stops at what you might call level 55 rather than 75) and is more for free gearing to mkXII, with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The question now is, what power creep are cryptic about to introduce to allow us to get back to the max level.
People attack power creep, and arguments can be made for when is enough enough, but ultimately without it, there is very little reason to do anything in this game. The game needs a hook to keep people interested, grinding for grinding sake is not and with a lack of what anyone would consider end game content (arguably the pre-s9 reputation system was end game content), that hook has now got a lot weaker.
The effective hard capping may have been better received if there were announcements to some other form of content to keep long term players interested, perhaps the next expansion is intended on delivering this, but people will likely need some morsel of information to say "maybe this will work out in the long run, maybe this is a way to ensure they can make challenging content in the future that people cant automatically steam roll in 5 minutes". Until this is heard though people who had ground everything will feel somewhat screwed over.
My character Tsin'xing
LOL! Now with certain builds and combos you can be deadlier or sturdier than before. But no longer OP in both.
They already did refund us since 50% of 0 dilithium is 0. The only reputation projects that cost dilithium is the equipment projects. The XP projects cost Marks, Expertise, and Energy Credits, but not dilithium. The devs have not touched any of the Reputation equipment except give a boost to some sets.
And ya know what thats what 30-50 out of how many THOUSANDS who play the game? When you start talking people leaving in the thousands then PWE has an issue. Stop targeting me man. I'm merely pointing out we are mere blips on the rader.
When you get a big enough blip let me know or better yet let PWE know. Cuase guess what, it's simple economics. Who's more likely to spend money? A brand new player who doesn't really have all that much or a vet that basically has everything?
PWE is simply following the money. If you can't handle the simple cold truth door's that way ->
Sorry for being blunt but that's the honesty of the matter. Want to get PWE's attention gonna need a whole lot more than 50, or hell even 500 people. Get 5000+ then you might get PWE's attention.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Dude I am in fully agree with you. I've been playing for over two years now, I paid for a lifetime subscription and have put a lot of money toward the game to get a lot of the premium hulls, lock box hulls and special event hulls. I have put a lot of time to unlock all four of the reputation systems before the Species 8472 one cam e active. I've mentioned about this new reputation system (4 space, 4 ground and 4 active traits). A lot of people have complained about it sighting the same stance that both of us are using. We took the time to unlock 20 tiers of reputation. We should be able to use all the abilities/traits that we paid for. And these new PvE missions is way over powered. The "Bubbles" in Fluidic Space is way OP. I use a ship that has over 50,000 hull health and over 11,000 shield health, and those things kill me in under 2 seconds and none of my abilities can get me way from them and heal the damage that they done. We as a player should be able to fire at them if it is going to fire at us. I use to be able to take damage like this. I relate this drop in ship performance to the lack of being able to use all of my eight reputation space traits and the Quantum singularity power and the the 5th tier Nukara power. So ten total abilities/traits.
Don't get me wrong, the way that the Reputation system is now in the way of needing only Marks, Energy credits and expertise to pay for the projects is good. It is the fact that we can only use 4/10ths of the abilities/traits that we are paying for. Maybe boosting the 4 space, 4 ground, 4 active to 6 space, 6 ground and 6 active would be better or even 5 space, 5 ground and 5 active. I for one want a 10 space, 10 ground and 5 active back.
In plain simple words. I want what I am paying for.
Many people in many disagree with them on what people want.
The concern is why is Cryptic so disconnected from the player base.
People think if Cryptic does this it this way it will equal more players and more money.
What players see is changes that discourage people from staying in the game.
People can they don't like this and that all they want.
Until threads are created that clearly state want the majority wants.
Someone will keep going with philosophy if we build it they will come.
The problem is that only works for baseball and movies.
What people want is ....
More STF like missions to farm dilithium like we use to have.
More ways to get dilithium
Fleet Colony build your own house
Fleet holdings
Shuttle Bays
Cargo Bays
Bigger Fleet Rosters
More Fleet banks slots
More fleet Ranks
Bug fixes
More costumes
More Cstore ships
Another player faction or playable race
And
The option to add a third breast to female characters.
Don't want
More contested zones
Dilithium Nerfs
Trait Nerfs
No bug fixes
Watered down content
Revamps of old missions
Longer grinds
Bigger non popular changes
I was quite disappointed when I found out Terradome wasn't included in the Undine-central story season.
So are we ever going to get Terradome back? Most of the developers seem hesitant to comment on its status.
Level 51 to 60
10 Space, 10 Ground and 5 active abilities/traits
Ability to use more expertise to advance skills higher that the cap.
Ability to pay for higher bridge stations. Example:raise an ensign to a Lt. position, a Lt. to a Lt. Commander and Lt. Commander to a Commander position.
However, the rep changes I am still on the fence about. There were a good chunk of the rep passives that I just kinda picked the least bad one, so loosing some of them doesn't really make a huge difference. Now though, with the ones that you kinda wanted both, you can get both. Yes, it's some picking a choosing, and you can't always get all the ones you want, but many of them make such a little difference, your not loosing out on that much.
Which brings me to my only real complaint about the rep changes. I am so tired of hearing about it helping stop the power creep. We gotta stop the power creep, it just out of control! So we are taking away some of your passives you earn in game, and instead introducing now ships, consoles and weapons that make the last OP weapons and consoles cry themselves to sleep.
Everyone knows where the real power creep is coming from, and these passives are the least of the problems. I understand the business model, and that the new stuff has to be better so people will buy it, but lets be honest and admit the changes to the rep system were not needed in the the power creep issue.
My DPS is up. On both ground and space...
This is the worst nerf ever, I say!
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
Slap in the face is OP. Plz nerf.
I support the Star Trek Battles channel.
Other people (not played any S9 content yet myself) seem to be able to knock it out of the park. You just need to think about stuff now. Enemies seem to be using hold powers, for example. Well, use a hold counter. Have a think, see what you can come up with. In other words: play and enjoy the game.
Also: you didn't pay jack stab for your rep passives, apart from time where you were playing a game you would probably have been playing anyway.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1092791
He doesn't like the change, hell I think they went a TAD overboard with 4/4/4, and he is calm, collected and offers another solution instead of just ranting.
I think many on this thread could stand to learn something from this writer.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
I'd still be in SWG...
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
this is just a theory of course not a claim.
^^^ This especially. I have wanted this option from day 1. Then add large amounts of bacon to the commodity freighter and my STO life will be complete. ...lol
BUT, Many of you know these scimitars that can do 40K DPS and do an infected run in 2.5 minutes. With a 60 min cooldown.
This is all for balancing purposes, when they made the new STF's (the old ones don't apply!) they meant -and it says in the description- a 15 minutes mission. Oh, wait with all this power creep and buffs and this/that I can do that in 2 minutes.
I guess the fun has gone and it's just a job now, which is ok for those people, so All 3 Borg STFs in 8 minutes. You can take 52 minutes off and go eat or whatever.
Personally, I put my reps in yesterday chose carefully and found that I am doing the same DPS, while a fleetmate of mine said his was lower. (good for him, right!?) I stopped chasing the DPS rainbow months ago.
And if you really want to talk things that are missing, and I haven't complained about this either, when we bought a lifetime sub, we were supposed to get 500 zen and that hasn't happened in a while either.
Like many people said in this thread, changes will happen. What you can do to succeed after change is a plus for you. Complaining MAY bend the ear of Cryptic, but it may take a long time to influence them to make any changes since all effort went into this for months.
When you have Tier 5 on all your reps, you have quite a few toys and tricks to play with and you can always change to match your enemies or team playstyle. They have given you OPTIONS, not crashed your starship on a remote planet in the Gamma Quadrant.
Maybe this change will make someone say "OOOH, I want THIS trait instead of that one " one day.
Anyway I completed all reps prior to season 9 now I cant access anything no passives nothing! according to the last patch it's not even a known issue.
So come on guys defend them
leave them all on and just nerf them.
like any other company/server/gamedev does.
all skills are mostly "%" of this or "%" of chance of doing "X" that...
Nerf "%" or "X" or both. But leave them all on.
Offer constructive criticism? That is what we have been doing. We told them what makes us unhappy, how we feel we were wronged and how we want them to fix it before we recommit to this game.
You are the one who comes in and calls us children and say we throw "temper tantrums", that we need to accept that these changes are set in stone or get the heck out. How is that constructive?
Look, its important to consider that just last year Disney bought Star Wars and killed off Lucas Arts. We have all heard the rumors that they are coming for Star Trek too at some point, hence J.J. Abrams directing the Star Wars movie. What is to say that they dont come in and buy Star Trek and kill of imperfect world? There is obviously an end date to STO, this is not EVE Online.
So its is not out of the question for us to ask that what we earned and paid for is what we get until doomsday.
My character Tsin'xing
I for one am not sticking around for season 10 nor sinking another dime into pwe.
Why not fix things that are actually broken in the game for instance getting stuck in walls , or make the ships more realistic in terms of graphics when you fire a weapon forget leveling the playing field for weaker players let them do the grinding i did to get were Im at. That's really the only driving force in this game the strong are suppose to win through accomplishment while a lazier player doesn't deserve it.
Removing something you spent time on like this is real low.