I should know better than to feed the troll, but the sig is about being Over-Powered, not Over-Paid. Sadly, it's the latter which will be required to become the former again.
Oh, I get it now... You're afraid Delta Rising will result in epeen shrinkage...
Type of exclusion. You're not arguing about its practical application, you're arguing about the principle. In no way is PWE or Cryptic asking that you spend money to play STO after delta rising. The cap on how much you can spend is effectively being increased (see. new tier) but for around 99% of this game's content that expense isn't necessary (direct experience with tribble). You have just ONE difficulty setting providing the motivation for people to max their ships out with Gold Mk XIV (without which that level of gear would be laughable) and only one of those PVE's (Battle of Whatever) seems to be elite exclusive.
That can't possibly be said to have a measurable effect on the player base. Its just a fact which you can interpret to mean "exclusion" despite the vast, vast majority of the game still being perfectly accommodating.
Now of course if DR was ONLY featuring elite content you'd have a point (and I'd certainly be with you arguing against cryptic's bastardry as I've been doing about some bad HP scaling), but that's not how this expansion is being handled.
If it just about i can't do just some stf if i don't have the gold gear i could deal with that, I'm not a big fan but i can let it go.
But tell me about the reward, because if i understand the reward of the new elite will be the reward of the actual elite, and the reward of the actual elite will be decrease no ?
I already play an space elite and add for reward only 240 dilithium so how much it will be lower now ?
That the bigest problem. And that what some of you don't een see it's a trap for reduce how much you earn and make you tired to farm and you start to pay.
Most people won't be able to play elite. Is that a bad thing? Its just a hyper-difficulty mode, not an integral part of STO's design. Sure, it'll probably offer up more shiny things than advanced and normal but its impossible to concieve that swag from successful elite runs will be made necessary for lower difficulty levels (which encompasses all but perhaps one or two PVE's).
Basically, Cryptic is raising the ceiling (both in terms of the level of play and how much people can spend on achieving it) without doing much to the foundation. Its still there, good luck to the people who want to go further than that, but I can't see this state as being at all reprehensible. Cryptic may want to add more depth to the money pit but as ever its your choice to throw anything into it (its just more space for whales to swim).
From what I hear elite isnt that elite after all. Its more like advanced +10% hp on everything. Or anything as harmless as that. They said it will be incredibly hard but guess what its not;)
So just relax you can still do even elite with T5 ships and normal gear. So sadly no worries for you and no fun for me^^
"STO is terrible and anyone in a type 8 shuttle with default gear can solo everything! Moar hard content!"
So they make 3 tiers of difficulty for the expansion and make elite really elite and...
"STO is terrible, hard content is too hard, I can't just solo it all in my type 8 shuttle with default gear, Geko is the devil QQQQQQQQQQQQ."
If you are a cheap scrub and can't do elite, then don't do it, sorry the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes, it just melts them and turns them into ordinary slush.
If you are a cheap scrub and can't do elite, then don't do it, sorry the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes, it just melts them and turns them into ordinary slush.
Gotta love all this grandstanding in these threads! Especially in your case, where the irony hasn't dawned on you, that, here, the 'special snowflakes' are that 1% that will be able to do the Elites. :P
And you're right, the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes: if you make a game only 1% of your playerbase can actually participate in, you're doing it wrong.
Gotta love all this grandstanding in these threads! Especially in your case, where the irony hasn't dawned on you, that, here, the 'special snowflakes' are that 1% that will be able to do the Elites. :P
And you're right, the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes: if you make a game only 1% of your playerbase can actually participate in, you're doing it wrong.
It does depend on two things. How well that content is designed and how well the rest of the content is designed. If the majority of the content is well designed then you can have parts of that rest of the game designed for a small proportion of the playerbase with no real problems.
I never once raided in another game or played arena, but that didn't make me feel as if I was missing anything as the content I did play was decently designed, general PvE and some BG PvP.
The same can't really be said here, the PvP side is just a complete mess that needs rebuilding from the ground up, and released as a "new" feature in some future large update. The PvE side needs a bit more variety.
It does depend on two things. How well that content is designed and how well the rest of the content is designed. If the majority of the content is well designed then you can have parts of that rest of the game designed for a small proportion of the playerbase with no real problems.
True enough. The mistake Cryptic is making here, though, is that they're slashing the rewards for the 99% in order to cater to that 1% Elite.
I guess the needs of the 1 really *do* outweigh the needs of the many. :P
That is indeed what they do. But there is also a "Buy zen, get dilithium with it, get gold gear" angle here.
Which comes from this : "How can we make a load of money with as little investment as we can?"
The answer is clear. Giant grind that needs a lot of dilithium, something that drops slowly and can be refined 8k a day.
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong... There is NO need to exchange zen for dilithium to utilise the upgrade system, as you can only upgrade 3 items (IIRC) at a time...
Dilithium is also shockingly easy to obtain without running a single STF, despite all the ******** about the reward changes...
I've just recently leveled 2 new 50's... The newest had over 50k refined dilithium, the older had over 100k refined dilithium when hitting 50... This does not include the massive windfall they will each receive within 3 weeks as a result of hitting T5 with all existing Rep Factions...
If you are not doing the stupidly impatient thing and rush-buying your way through the upgrade time, it will cost you about 3k dilithium per day, if setting your upgrades over night when using the Superior Tokens...
Sure, you won't have the best gear right now, but you will be able to more than keep up with the dilithium costs if that's your concern...
As it is, the difference between Mk XII and Mk XIV is not going to be so significant that you MUST upgrade... I would say more than a few people will not bother upgrading, and the majority will only upgrade gear on their main characters (as I plan to)...
Those who feel compelled to upgrade EVERY character will be in the minority I suspect...
Please stop pretending that the upgrade system is some massive money sink... Though it will undoubtedly generate revenue for Cryptic from those people who are too impatient in their epeenery and must have everything right now like any typical Me Generation kid...
For the most part, the system is perfectly fair and little different to what it likely would have taken to replace your gear anyway with Mk XIV...
Sooner or later people will need to drop the hyperbole, though, they'll more than likely find something else to rage and whinge over first...
As was stated with the opening post I too doubt I will really be able to keep up with the cost on one character; let alone alts. As such I am already having a cull. Butchered several last night. Have a genuine main now, keeping one or two alts, mostly because I started other crafting trees on them, so I will keep them for that ability alone. Dilithium costs are something I will be unable to keep up with, but then again I am a casual player, not a hard-core grinder.
I am really looking forward to how I will fair in upcoming missions. Missions against races that became stronger than the Borg in 30 years and so on ( I do actually like the Dragons Teeth race though). Cant wait to have my ship blown to bits and get mocked for being under-powered!!! Might end up being fun....for abit. Nonetheless I hope people find enjoyment in the game.
As was stated with the opening post I too doubt I will really be able to keep up with the cost on one character; let alone alts. As such I am already having a cull. Butchered several last night. Have a genuine main now, keeping one or two alts, mostly because I started other crafting trees on them, so I will keep them for that ability alone. Dilithium costs are something I will be unable to keep up with, but then again I am a casual player, not a hard-core grinder.
I am really looking forward to how I will fair in upcoming missions. Missions against races that became stronger than the Borg in 30 years and so on ( I do actually like the Dragons Teeth race though). Cant wait to have my ship blown to bits and get mocked for being under-powered!!! Might end up being fun....for abit. Nonetheless I hope people find enjoyment in the game.
I cant really think of any modest way to say this so: I have pretty much everything in the game. I have ships and weapons, and toys spread across 5 characters that I play, and it wasnt really that hard to get them there, but the idea that I will be able to take all 5 of those toons to the next bar when it rises in DR is completely unrealistic, even for me.
And I am totally okay with this.
What you call an epic cost, I call an the epic path of gear progression this game sorely needed, and I dearly hope that these epic ques everyone is crying about not being able to play are even harder then people think they will be because rolling a new character and curbstomping the hardest content available a week later just isnt my idea of fun.
It will be an epic cost, or an epic timegate, or anything in between at whatever pace you are willing to go, and with whatever investment you are willing to make.
"STO is terrible and anyone in a type 8 shuttle with default gear can solo everything! Moar hard content!"
So they make 3 tiers of difficulty for the expansion and make elite really elite and...
Dont care about dil cost or whatever, thats just a question of how long it takes. But after what I hear the elite stuff isnt really elite at all, barely harder than advanced. So where is the point of all the changes, T6 ships, upgrades, epic weapons and what not if there still is no content that needs all that. After all, it probably will be even worse after DR as the dps/surviveability increase much further that the difficulty of the new elite missions.
I don't understand? What else are you suppossed to do with Dil?
I was more baffled by why someone who seems to think the game will no longer be playable would then bet someone for an LTS. Nothing in this entire thread has screamed "Derp!" to me quite as much as (apparently) wanting a lifetime subscription to an "unplayable" game.
And therein precisely lies the problem: for now people think it's okay not to upgrade anything; but ere long they will begin to realize that a game you can no longer fully participate in, is a game no longer worth playing.
Short of the Guardian Cruiser, there is nothing within DR that appeals to me. Why am I not making the purchase of the Guardian though? Because I've been waiting for them to complete the Galaxy (Dreadnought) and Nebula for as long as I can remember, and quite frankly, I tire of their laziness. If Cryptic can't put time and effort into existing ships, then it's unlikely they're going to care about new ones once they've filled their pockets. The Guardian comes with two skins, the second of which (minus the nacelles) looks horrid. I like customizing my starships; and the Guardian doesn't offer that.
There is seemingly no point me upgrading a single ship either, for I do not feel the benefits worthy enough for the cost. Some people run current gameplay in the T4 ships, and do so perfectly well, so I should be able to run T6 gameplay in a Fleet T5.
If/When Cryptic (re)releases a T6 Galaxy Pack, then I might invest. Said investment would only be if the Venture and Monarch skin were both enabled for the Dreadnought, and the third nacelle was separate to the structure below.
I get that Cryptic need to fund the game, but they've got to make me care, and show that they're listening if they want anymore investment out of me.
Whoa there, a developer apologist flaming LTS I think you just broke character.
8 months of progress towards forum moderator right out the window like "CookieCake" in las vegas.
It's the no.1 cliche about kids with no friends becoming the hall monitor but in your case nothing rings more true.
Anyway, one thing I got to thinking was tacofangs' post about how they "no longer include the players" and when they read negative posts they can't really handle it because they "are humans" too, how much of it comes from bitterness and resentfulness?
Like if everyone had played the developer apologist angle, put on their best lipstick and went down for a frenchie, would the developers have been more inclined to not penalize the players?
I mean when a developer comes out and says they decided to distance themselves from the players there is problems right.
Is it a reaction to people flaming their work for years on end or are they victims like us of some high-up suits demanding more revenue.
The players whiping the developers and the developers whiping the players, isn't that the cycle we are in?
As uncle ben as developer apologism is, maybe that's the way to go?
If/When Cryptic (re)releases a T6 Galaxy Pack, then I might invest. Said investment would only be if the Venture and Monarch skin were both enabled for the Dreadnought, and the third nacelle was separate to the structure below.
Good luck
as long as people play the game, then Cryptic has exactly what they want - people to spend time playing their game before other games. Based on the actions of the mighty few that pump money in the game to be elite/uber, then the rest of us can just sit by and enjoy what is there, without having to spend a dime. Otherwise, it's just ******** about code.
Whoa there, a developer apologist flaming LTS I think you just broke character. 8 months of progress towards forum moderator right out the window like "CookieCake" in las vegas. It's the no.1 cliche about kids with no friends becoming the hall monitor but in your case nothing rings more true.
I never said I was optimistic about it. I've said before in other posts, but everything is about the push, and the new, with little care for the existing and the old. This game has factions, though you'd not think it from playing your way up the rep system.
as long as people play the game, then Cryptic has exactly what they want - people to spend time playing their game before other games. Based on the actions of the mighty few that pump money in the game to be elite/uber, then the rest of us can just sit by and enjoy what is there, without having to spend a dime. Otherwise, it's just ******** about code.
I get that, but honestly, I wouldn't mind paying if the content was worth paying for. I truly believe there is so much more they could do with this game, if only they cared a little more about content than cash.
I understand that point of view and it makes sense. Doesn't it make sense for a game company to focus on new "stuff"? I understand revisiting older things and tidying up the corners though.
Yet, I'm hard pressed to believe Cryptic doesn't care about the content, that's their job. Yet, I am more convinced the parent company is making top-level decisions that forces Cryptic to take action on those decisions.
OK, read the first 6 pages and got tired of reading the same "points' just stated in different ways. Rather than respond to everything allow me to sum up.
Its a game. Play it to have fun. If the new content is not fun for whatever reason then don't bother with it. I assume you were having fun with the old content, because you are still here, so keep playing that and have fun with it. If you like the new content and want to pay and/or grind to have new stuff that's ok too.
NEITHER point of veiw is inherently wrong. Where we all get into arguments is when you try to inflict your own personal preferences on everyone else.
OK, read the first 6 pages and got tired of reading the same "points' just stated in different ways. Rather than respond to everything allow me to sum up.
Its a game. Play it to have fun. If the new content is not fun for whatever reason then don't bother with it. I assume you were having fun with the old content, because you are still here, so keep playing that and have fun with it. If you like the new content and want to pay and/or grind to have new stuff that's ok too.
NEITHER point of veiw is inherently wrong. Where we all get into arguments is when you try to inflict your own personal preferences on everyone else.
Stop that.
Look DR has become PC. All joking aside, he is right, and there is going to be little we can do until we see it live on holo deck. If you don't like the way the game direction is going stop playing. Most of the players playing right now and the one in the forums are the hardcore players. If enough people leave because of the choice Cryptic and PWE has made they will change it to get people back.
I understand that point of view and it makes sense. Doesn't it make sense for a game company to focus on new "stuff"? I understand revisiting older things and tidying up the corners though.
I would agree that new content is needed to keep any game alive for the long term, but it's rare we'll see Cryptic go back and fix or update the old. They revamped the KDF a little while ago, and it was great. They also gave us a new FED tutorial, and tweaked some of the earlier FED missions, but that's all.
When was the last time an STF was touched up, or made more significant? People have been running the same KSE or ISE for years, and the missions play exactly the same. Likewise, as I've also stated, we've actually got factions in this game, yet for the most part, once the story mode has been completed, we're very much playing through one faction. There is no uniqueness between the Rep System stories, nor the latter content. If I sign in to my KDF, I want to feel like a KDF, not a FED. This, I feel, is what they need to work toward. It would take some doing sure, but I believe the end result to be of some brilliance.
Leveling up New Romulus should not be the same for FED, KDF and Republic players, it should be different. The same goes for the Dyson advance. The only Rep System that works, universally, is the Omega Stuff, because it's a continual struggle against the Borg, but then even some of the Borg Missions (story mode) are tweaked versions of FED missions, and that doesn't cut it.
Yet, I'm hard pressed to believe Cryptic doesn't care about the content, that's their job. Yet, I am more convinced the parent company is making top-level decisions that forces Cryptic to take action on those decisions.
I refuse to believe that the parent company has that much say and/or influence over what Cryptic does. The parent company doesn't know the game, and sure as hell doesn't know us, Cryptic do. They should be fighting in our corner.
I cant really think of any modest way to say this so: I have pretty much everything in the game. I have ships and weapons, and toys spread across 5 characters that I play, and it wasnt really that hard to get them there, but the idea that I will be able to take all 5 of those toons to the next bar when it rises in DR is completely unrealistic, even for me.
And I am totally okay with this.
What you call an epic cost, I call an the epic path of gear progression this game sorely needed, and I dearly hope that these epic ques everyone is crying about not being able to play are even harder then people think they will be because rolling a new character and curbstomping the hardest content available a week later just isnt my idea of fun.
It will be an epic cost, or an epic timegate, or anything in between at whatever pace you are willing to go, and with whatever investment you are willing to make.
yeah, I've been working on preparations myself. Many of my characters have needed to upgrade some of their gear anyways. I have plenty of materials to work with, and unlike some people, I'm not going to try to upgrade everything on all 12 characters overnight. But I'll get there eventually. After all, I didn't get them to where they are now overnight.
Short of the Guardian Cruiser, there is nothing within DR that appeals to me. Why am I not making the purchase of the Guardian though? Because I've been waiting for them to complete the Galaxy (Dreadnought) and Nebula for as long as I can remember, and quite frankly, I tire of their laziness. If Cryptic can't put time and effort into existing ships, then it's unlikely they're going to care about new ones once they've filled their pockets. The Guardian comes with two skins, the second of which (minus the nacelles) looks horrid. I like customizing my starships; and the Guardian doesn't offer that.
There is seemingly no point me upgrading a single ship either, for I do not feel the benefits worthy enough for the cost. Some people run current gameplay in the T4 ships, and do so perfectly well, so I should be able to run T6 gameplay in a Fleet T5.
If/When Cryptic (re)releases a T6 Galaxy Pack, then I might invest. Said investment would only be if the Venture and Monarch skin were both enabled for the Dreadnought, and the third nacelle was separate to the structure below.
I get that Cryptic need to fund the game, but they've got to make me care, and show that they're listening if they want anymore investment out of me.
"Flash" above has got it dead on in my view...
Its not that I agree with all items commented on. Just that if I read the post right, an assessment has been made, and the actions taken reflect this decision...
The game "as is" (Ships/Content/Missions), will do nicely, but if Cryptic/PWE wants more of my money for this new expansion, they've some work to do (including the specifics). Can one get more sensible?
Seems a far better approach to get changes from Cryptic/PWE than all the levels of grief expressed throughout. After all, as a business, in the end Cryptic/PWE will have to remedy such things if they wish to keep the money flowing. If you don't like something, don't buy it.
It's not just the ship issue that's bothering me lately. Think of the current STF's, everyone runs, and can complete an Omega STF (okay, maybe not Hive, but all the others). In the Elite STF Channel, it's quite common to see people running Omega Runs. It's quite rare that I see people asking for an Undine or Voth run, because those STF's are obviously not working very well. Do Cryptic look into that and change/replace them? No. They've ignored the apparent problem and have released something else. They don't seem to fix the problems that persist within the game, instead they try to paint over it with something else.
There's also the whole faction thing (I needn't get into that again, I've said enough about it already), the unique boff costume/morph locks (their logic fails here) and the many ship bugs that still persist to this day. How long did it take them to fix the KDF marauding costume again? Heck, the Benzite still don't have the choice of bridge officers for christ sake, and that's been a problem since launch. I mean, is it any wonder people lose faith?
I would agree that new content is needed to keep any game alive for the long term, but it's rare we'll see Cryptic go back and fix or update the old. They revamped the KDF a little while ago, and it was great. They also gave us a new FED tutorial, and tweaked some of the earlier FED missions, but that's all.
You're forgetting that they also revamped the borg and undine arcs to better fit the recent developments.
The Devs have stated that the Romulan arc for feds, the Klingon Fek'lhri arc and the cardassian arc are all on schedule to be polished up.
When was the last time an STF was touched up, or made more significant? People have been running the same KSE or ISE for years, and the missions play exactly the same. Likewise, as I've also stated, we've actually got factions in this game, yet for the most part, once the story mode has been completed, we're very much playing through one faction. There is no uniqueness between the Rep System stories, nor the latter content. If I sign in to my KDF, I want to feel like a KDF, not a FED. This, I feel, is what they need to work toward. It would take some doing sure, but I believe the end result to be of some brilliance.
Leveling up New Romulus should not be the same for FED, KDF and Republic players, it should be different. The same goes for the Dyson advance. The only Rep System that works, universally, is the Omega Stuff, because it's a continual struggle against the Borg, but then even some of the Borg Missions (story mode) are tweaked versions of FED missions, and that doesn't cut it.
Here's how I see the later missions after the Romulan featured episodes. We know that the story goes mostly from 3 factions down to two when we get to the cardassian arc since the Devs only really had enough time to tweak the missions so that they could be played through with cloaked ships.
The Omega force as you mentioned works because the borg are a threat to any species that wants to keep their free will. Nukara actually needs a tweak to the storyline since we know that the feds and Klingons are both on the planet, but aren't working jointly. I'd like to know why the Klingons are even on the planet in the first place.
As for the Romulan reputation, I'd like to think of this as the start to them patching up the rift that formed over everything that's happened as they help a common ally in the Romulans. This of course continues on with the Dyson sphere storyline and Reputation where all three factions realize they have a common enemy in the voth. When the Undine take over once again in the story, we know that there's yet another reputation that is set up to deal with them.
I think the justification for this single faction feeling that you have with the late game content is because the factions are uniting against a common enemy. The Voth are trying to claim the Solanae Dyson sphere for themselves and we know that the Undine are being used by the Iconians to try and wipe out the alliance. If you were faced with an enemy that wanted to wipe out everything, would you not set aside differences to face a common threat?
I refuse to believe that the parent company has that much say and/or influence over what Cryptic does. The parent company doesn't know the game, and sure as hell doesn't know us, Cryptic do. They should be fighting in our corner.
If Perfect World didn't know anything about the game or the franchise, do you think they would have bothered to have purchased Cryptic in the first place? If Perfect world didn't do so, we wouldn't have the free to play model we have now, we wouldn't have free expansions, and a lot of content would probably be restricted under a different f2p model.
If you don't like they way they brought out upgrading gear, don't do it. If you don't want to pay to upgrade your ship or to get a new ship no matter how different they look from classic ships, by all means, don't spend your money. No one is forcing you to do anything you don't want.
In my opinion, the systems were put in place so that this could be a long term investment for players. Some will want to upgrade their gear to epic Mark XIV, their ships to Tier 6 and use these to keep their dominance in PvP. Some will just upgrade just to ultra rare and use it in whatever way they want.
The point I'm trying to make is that there is not one player type in STO and the devs are doing what they can to satisfy the whole playerbase. If you don't like it, you know what to do.
You're forgetting that they also revamped the borg and undine arcs to better fit the recent developments.
I haven't (re)played them yet, but yes, I did forget about them, however, and I think I know the answer to this, but are those missions faction specific, or are they (as I suspect) catered to the FED and tweaked for the KDF?
Here's how I see the later missions after the Romulan featured episodes. We know that the story goes mostly from 3 factions down to two when we get to the cardassian arc since the Devs only really had enough time to tweak the missions so that they could be played through with cloaked ships.
The Omega force as you mentioned works because the borg are a threat to any species that wants to keep their free will. Nukara actually needs a tweak to the storyline since we know that the feds and Klingons are both on the planet, but aren't working jointly. I'd like to know why the Klingons are even on the planet in the first place.
This ie exactly my point; the game should have always remained two factions, and the involvement of those two factions should be unique. Indeed, why are the KDF on Nukara? They're not, the FED are, and the KDF are copying them.
As for the Romulan reputation, I'd like to think of this as the start to them patching up the rift that formed over everything that's happened as they help a common ally in the Romulans. This of course continues on with the Dyson sphere storyline and Reputation where all three factions realize they have a common enemy in the voth. When the Undine take over once again in the story, we know that there's yet another reputation that is set up to deal with them.
I think the justification for this single faction feeling that you have with the late game content is because the factions are uniting against a common enemy. The Voth are trying to claim the Solanae Dyson sphere for themselves and we know that the Undine are being used by the Iconians to try and wipe out the alliance. If you were faced with an enemy that wanted to wipe out everything, would you not set aside differences to face a common threat?
It's not so much their joint operations, it's the dialogue and actives undertaken when I'm playing my KDF.
If you don't like they way they brought out upgrading gear, don't do it. If you don't want to pay to upgrade your ship or to get a new ship no matter how different they look from classic ships, by all means, don't spend your money. No one is forcing you to do anything you don't want.
Believe me, I don't intend too. I'll be upgrading (less likely gear) if/when such a time comes that I feel I need too. I'm not going to upgrade just because a new expansion is out.
The point I'm trying to make is that there is not one player type in STO and the devs are doing what they can to satisfy the whole playerbase. If you don't like it, you know what to do.
Comments
Oh, I get it now... You're afraid Delta Rising will result in epeen shrinkage...
If it just about i can't do just some stf if i don't have the gold gear i could deal with that, I'm not a big fan but i can let it go.
But tell me about the reward, because if i understand the reward of the new elite will be the reward of the actual elite, and the reward of the actual elite will be decrease no ?
I already play an space elite and add for reward only 240 dilithium so how much it will be lower now ?
That the bigest problem. And that what some of you don't een see it's a trap for reduce how much you earn and make you tired to farm and you start to pay.
From what I hear elite isnt that elite after all. Its more like advanced +10% hp on everything. Or anything as harmless as that. They said it will be incredibly hard but guess what its not;)
So just relax you can still do even elite with T5 ships and normal gear. So sadly no worries for you and no fun for me^^
"STO is terrible and anyone in a type 8 shuttle with default gear can solo everything! Moar hard content!"
So they make 3 tiers of difficulty for the expansion and make elite really elite and...
"STO is terrible, hard content is too hard, I can't just solo it all in my type 8 shuttle with default gear, Geko is the devil QQQQQQQQQQQQ."
If you are a cheap scrub and can't do elite, then don't do it, sorry the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes, it just melts them and turns them into ordinary slush.
Gotta love all this grandstanding in these threads! Especially in your case, where the irony hasn't dawned on you, that, here, the 'special snowflakes' are that 1% that will be able to do the Elites. :P
And you're right, the world doesn't revolve around special snowflakes: if you make a game only 1% of your playerbase can actually participate in, you're doing it wrong.
It does depend on two things. How well that content is designed and how well the rest of the content is designed. If the majority of the content is well designed then you can have parts of that rest of the game designed for a small proportion of the playerbase with no real problems.
I never once raided in another game or played arena, but that didn't make me feel as if I was missing anything as the content I did play was decently designed, general PvE and some BG PvP.
The same can't really be said here, the PvP side is just a complete mess that needs rebuilding from the ground up, and released as a "new" feature in some future large update. The PvE side needs a bit more variety.
True enough. The mistake Cryptic is making here, though, is that they're slashing the rewards for the 99% in order to cater to that 1% Elite.
I guess the needs of the 1 really *do* outweigh the needs of the many. :P
Oh I do agree that they are making mistakes, and that they need to do some work on the rest of the game too.
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
That is indeed what they do. But there is also a "Buy zen, get dilithium with it, get gold gear" angle here.
Which comes from this : "How can we make a load of money with as little investment as we can?"
The answer is clear. Giant grind that needs a lot of dilithium, something that drops slowly and can be refined 8k a day.
I doubt it... All a part of the F2P cycle, without something new, numbers will naturally drop away anyway and new people will come along...
If anything, this will be better for Cryptic, as there will be fewer people who remember the old rewards...
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong... There is NO need to exchange zen for dilithium to utilise the upgrade system, as you can only upgrade 3 items (IIRC) at a time...
Dilithium is also shockingly easy to obtain without running a single STF, despite all the ******** about the reward changes...
I've just recently leveled 2 new 50's... The newest had over 50k refined dilithium, the older had over 100k refined dilithium when hitting 50... This does not include the massive windfall they will each receive within 3 weeks as a result of hitting T5 with all existing Rep Factions...
If you are not doing the stupidly impatient thing and rush-buying your way through the upgrade time, it will cost you about 3k dilithium per day, if setting your upgrades over night when using the Superior Tokens...
Sure, you won't have the best gear right now, but you will be able to more than keep up with the dilithium costs if that's your concern...
As it is, the difference between Mk XII and Mk XIV is not going to be so significant that you MUST upgrade... I would say more than a few people will not bother upgrading, and the majority will only upgrade gear on their main characters (as I plan to)...
Those who feel compelled to upgrade EVERY character will be in the minority I suspect...
Please stop pretending that the upgrade system is some massive money sink... Though it will undoubtedly generate revenue for Cryptic from those people who are too impatient in their epeenery and must have everything right now like any typical Me Generation kid...
For the most part, the system is perfectly fair and little different to what it likely would have taken to replace your gear anyway with Mk XIV...
Sooner or later people will need to drop the hyperbole, though, they'll more than likely find something else to rage and whinge over first...
I am really looking forward to how I will fair in upcoming missions. Missions against races that became stronger than the Borg in 30 years and so on ( I do actually like the Dragons Teeth race though). Cant wait to have my ship blown to bits and get mocked for being under-powered!!! Might end up being fun....for abit. Nonetheless I hope people find enjoyment in the game.
My character Tsin'xing
I cant really think of any modest way to say this so: I have pretty much everything in the game. I have ships and weapons, and toys spread across 5 characters that I play, and it wasnt really that hard to get them there, but the idea that I will be able to take all 5 of those toons to the next bar when it rises in DR is completely unrealistic, even for me.
And I am totally okay with this.
What you call an epic cost, I call an the epic path of gear progression this game sorely needed, and I dearly hope that these epic ques everyone is crying about not being able to play are even harder then people think they will be because rolling a new character and curbstomping the hardest content available a week later just isnt my idea of fun.
It will be an epic cost, or an epic timegate, or anything in between at whatever pace you are willing to go, and with whatever investment you are willing to make.
Dont care about dil cost or whatever, thats just a question of how long it takes. But after what I hear the elite stuff isnt really elite at all, barely harder than advanced. So where is the point of all the changes, T6 ships, upgrades, epic weapons and what not if there still is no content that needs all that. After all, it probably will be even worse after DR as the dps/surviveability increase much further that the difficulty of the new elite missions.
There is seemingly no point me upgrading a single ship either, for I do not feel the benefits worthy enough for the cost. Some people run current gameplay in the T4 ships, and do so perfectly well, so I should be able to run T6 gameplay in a Fleet T5.
If/When Cryptic (re)releases a T6 Galaxy Pack, then I might invest. Said investment would only be if the Venture and Monarch skin were both enabled for the Dreadnought, and the third nacelle was separate to the structure below.
I get that Cryptic need to fund the game, but they've got to make me care, and show that they're listening if they want anymore investment out of me.
8 months of progress towards forum moderator right out the window like "CookieCake" in las vegas.
It's the no.1 cliche about kids with no friends becoming the hall monitor but in your case nothing rings more true.
Anyway, one thing I got to thinking was tacofangs' post about how they "no longer include the players" and when they read negative posts they can't really handle it because they "are humans" too, how much of it comes from bitterness and resentfulness?
Like if everyone had played the developer apologist angle, put on their best lipstick and went down for a frenchie, would the developers have been more inclined to not penalize the players?
I mean when a developer comes out and says they decided to distance themselves from the players there is problems right.
Is it a reaction to people flaming their work for years on end or are they victims like us of some high-up suits demanding more revenue.
The players whiping the developers and the developers whiping the players, isn't that the cycle we are in?
As uncle ben as developer apologism is, maybe that's the way to go?
Good luck
as long as people play the game, then Cryptic has exactly what they want - people to spend time playing their game before other games. Based on the actions of the mighty few that pump money in the game to be elite/uber, then the rest of us can just sit by and enjoy what is there, without having to spend a dime. Otherwise, it's just ******** about code.
I never said I was optimistic about it. I've said before in other posts, but everything is about the push, and the new, with little care for the existing and the old. This game has factions, though you'd not think it from playing your way up the rep system.
I get that, but honestly, I wouldn't mind paying if the content was worth paying for. I truly believe there is so much more they could do with this game, if only they cared a little more about content than cash.
Yet, I'm hard pressed to believe Cryptic doesn't care about the content, that's their job. Yet, I am more convinced the parent company is making top-level decisions that forces Cryptic to take action on those decisions.
Its a game. Play it to have fun. If the new content is not fun for whatever reason then don't bother with it. I assume you were having fun with the old content, because you are still here, so keep playing that and have fun with it. If you like the new content and want to pay and/or grind to have new stuff that's ok too.
NEITHER point of veiw is inherently wrong. Where we all get into arguments is when you try to inflict your own personal preferences on everyone else.
Stop that.
Look DR has become PC. All joking aside, he is right, and there is going to be little we can do until we see it live on holo deck. If you don't like the way the game direction is going stop playing. Most of the players playing right now and the one in the forums are the hardcore players. If enough people leave because of the choice Cryptic and PWE has made they will change it to get people back.
When was the last time an STF was touched up, or made more significant? People have been running the same KSE or ISE for years, and the missions play exactly the same. Likewise, as I've also stated, we've actually got factions in this game, yet for the most part, once the story mode has been completed, we're very much playing through one faction. There is no uniqueness between the Rep System stories, nor the latter content. If I sign in to my KDF, I want to feel like a KDF, not a FED. This, I feel, is what they need to work toward. It would take some doing sure, but I believe the end result to be of some brilliance.
Leveling up New Romulus should not be the same for FED, KDF and Republic players, it should be different. The same goes for the Dyson advance. The only Rep System that works, universally, is the Omega Stuff, because it's a continual struggle against the Borg, but then even some of the Borg Missions (story mode) are tweaked versions of FED missions, and that doesn't cut it.
I refuse to believe that the parent company has that much say and/or influence over what Cryptic does. The parent company doesn't know the game, and sure as hell doesn't know us, Cryptic do. They should be fighting in our corner.
My character Tsin'xing
You don't seem like an apologist to me and sorry but I think you lost your chance at forum moderator
Especially with that last one "I am not buying the t6 ships!" post
Hilarious post though
"Flash" above has got it dead on in my view...
Its not that I agree with all items commented on. Just that if I read the post right, an assessment has been made, and the actions taken reflect this decision...
The game "as is" (Ships/Content/Missions), will do nicely, but if Cryptic/PWE wants more of my money for this new expansion, they've some work to do (including the specifics). Can one get more sensible?
Seems a far better approach to get changes from Cryptic/PWE than all the levels of grief expressed throughout. After all, as a business, in the end Cryptic/PWE will have to remedy such things if they wish to keep the money flowing. If you don't like something, don't buy it.
BCW.
You have a point here.
It's not just the ship issue that's bothering me lately. Think of the current STF's, everyone runs, and can complete an Omega STF (okay, maybe not Hive, but all the others). In the Elite STF Channel, it's quite common to see people running Omega Runs. It's quite rare that I see people asking for an Undine or Voth run, because those STF's are obviously not working very well. Do Cryptic look into that and change/replace them? No. They've ignored the apparent problem and have released something else. They don't seem to fix the problems that persist within the game, instead they try to paint over it with something else.
There's also the whole faction thing (I needn't get into that again, I've said enough about it already), the unique boff costume/morph locks (their logic fails here) and the many ship bugs that still persist to this day. How long did it take them to fix the KDF marauding costume again? Heck, the Benzite still don't have the choice of bridge officers for christ sake, and that's been a problem since launch. I mean, is it any wonder people lose faith?
You're forgetting that they also revamped the borg and undine arcs to better fit the recent developments.
The Devs have stated that the Romulan arc for feds, the Klingon Fek'lhri arc and the cardassian arc are all on schedule to be polished up.
Here's how I see the later missions after the Romulan featured episodes. We know that the story goes mostly from 3 factions down to two when we get to the cardassian arc since the Devs only really had enough time to tweak the missions so that they could be played through with cloaked ships.
The Omega force as you mentioned works because the borg are a threat to any species that wants to keep their free will. Nukara actually needs a tweak to the storyline since we know that the feds and Klingons are both on the planet, but aren't working jointly. I'd like to know why the Klingons are even on the planet in the first place.
As for the Romulan reputation, I'd like to think of this as the start to them patching up the rift that formed over everything that's happened as they help a common ally in the Romulans. This of course continues on with the Dyson sphere storyline and Reputation where all three factions realize they have a common enemy in the voth. When the Undine take over once again in the story, we know that there's yet another reputation that is set up to deal with them.
I think the justification for this single faction feeling that you have with the late game content is because the factions are uniting against a common enemy. The Voth are trying to claim the Solanae Dyson sphere for themselves and we know that the Undine are being used by the Iconians to try and wipe out the alliance. If you were faced with an enemy that wanted to wipe out everything, would you not set aside differences to face a common threat?
If Perfect World didn't know anything about the game or the franchise, do you think they would have bothered to have purchased Cryptic in the first place? If Perfect world didn't do so, we wouldn't have the free to play model we have now, we wouldn't have free expansions, and a lot of content would probably be restricted under a different f2p model.
If you don't like they way they brought out upgrading gear, don't do it. If you don't want to pay to upgrade your ship or to get a new ship no matter how different they look from classic ships, by all means, don't spend your money. No one is forcing you to do anything you don't want.
In my opinion, the systems were put in place so that this could be a long term investment for players. Some will want to upgrade their gear to epic Mark XIV, their ships to Tier 6 and use these to keep their dominance in PvP. Some will just upgrade just to ultra rare and use it in whatever way they want.
The point I'm trying to make is that there is not one player type in STO and the devs are doing what they can to satisfy the whole playerbase. If you don't like it, you know what to do.
I look forward to that day, all whilst remembering how long other promises of theirs have taken to fulfill. KDF Marauding Bug?
This ie exactly my point; the game should have always remained two factions, and the involvement of those two factions should be unique. Indeed, why are the KDF on Nukara? They're not, the FED are, and the KDF are copying them.
It's not so much their joint operations, it's the dialogue and actives undertaken when I'm playing my KDF.
Believe me, I don't intend too. I'll be upgrading (less likely gear) if/when such a time comes that I feel I need too. I'm not going to upgrade just because a new expansion is out.
Complain? :P