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T5, T6 rage my simple take.
jtmarsh
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
STO is more like real world earn and spend than some people may think. Let's say your real world job is the same as dill working in the mines. Beyond the vet reward refining you can only really earn 8000k per day. Just like in real life you can really earn only so much $$$ a day before you just can't work anymore because your tired. Now unless your really a rich guy in real life it will take you a while to save for that new car. Maybe you don't want that new car. That T5 ship "Ford" you have now works great!! But hey you made a choice by working "McD's working in the mines and saving for that new car. Or! Maybe you got a loan "spend real world money" that in the long run cost you more personally "taking real dollars away from you". Than if you just saved. Now you own that new Ford! "T5u ship" 8 months later and what did those money hungry "for profit company" do?? They made a new ford!! How dare they make a new and improved ford!! This new ford "T6 ship" has a better safety rating "better hull points"! Built in entertainment pkg! "More fun to fly" Even makes less sound on the road! "Cloaking device". Ford! "Cryptic" should give it to me for free!! I invested in the older other model!!! I even bought a bunch of optional equipment with my ford! Made it almost like the new ford! "T5U" So I should get the new ford for free "T6". If not then I'm bailing or I'm raging if you dare put this new ford out.
Look guys there "with my hope that the game last" is going to be T7, T8, and very soon I hope T6 fleet ships. Cryptic was very nice letting you all upgrade to T5U. My business mind I would of made that little bug ship and your other ships obsolete to make more money from you! Hell I would of never gone FTP or I would of charged $$$ for the expansions lol. Before you think I don't have any business skills I do have one of 14 years. It steams me that you all complain about progress!! I want new ranks, new ships!
Look guys there "with my hope that the game last" is going to be T7, T8, and very soon I hope T6 fleet ships. Cryptic was very nice letting you all upgrade to T5U. My business mind I would of made that little bug ship and your other ships obsolete to make more money from you! Hell I would of never gone FTP or I would of charged $$$ for the expansions lol. Before you think I don't have any business skills I do have one of 14 years. It steams me that you all complain about progress!! I want new ranks, new ships!
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True, because NOW, people have to work STO as if they were working a real world job just to stay afloat.
And since they were purchased with actual money, you could argue that this is a bait and switch. Them allowing you to pay for the privilege to 'upgrade' an endgame hull to T6'ish' is not exactly good business practice when the entire expectation from the birth of the game was that T5 was it as far as ship advancement. A good developer would have simply reworked all current ships into the new mechanics instead of hiding them behind a pay wall and shenanigan grinding.
But, this is PWE living down to its name, so those of us who said this would happen when they acquired Cryptic were just waiting for it.
Heck, I will copy and paste the answer here anyway:
The only thing that has changed in Cryptic's original long-term plans is that the FTP conversion set them back a year. Other then that they have always planned on having T6 ships - and we were always going to need to re-buy everything we had already purchased at some point.
This makes sense. TANSTAAFL and all.
Everything is made to fail, never to last as long as possible.
Indeed, it's not so much as there was "no indication" as people are shocked that the "end game" ships tehy bought having tiers over them now; because they are completely side-swiped by a level cap increase in a MMO[which is very much like being side-swiped by toothpaste coming out of a toothpaste tube when you squeeze it).
To be fair I didn't even realize we were supposed to believe anything what he says. Fool me once, shame on him...
No one should expect T6 versions of their current ships to be free. Seriously, that's the point of a company: to make money.
But I don't hate him. I even miss his engineering reports.
No indications? I would sat T1, T2, T3, T4, Fleet, Was all indications that I needed that we were going to get another ship class.
The point is we SHOULD be able to 'upgrade' our current ships to T6. Not for free. For dil or zen or EC or someother godforsaken grind/RL currency.
The point is we are now being told that we have to change our characters (yes because a ship is an extension of the character - it is NOT a piece of gear or a mount) that we have spent over 4 years building up to fly some generic sci-fi monstrosity rather than the iconic ships we have come to love.
With DR we went from an offering that had 180 choices at endgame to an offering that has 11 (and in 2 days will be 12).
This is an awful AWFUL DISASTEROUS way to 'update/expand' a game. This game is truely being run by monkeys.
...#LLAP...
That was also when 'T6' ships were supposed to be what the Bort/Oddy/Scim eventually became, and only be available to players of what was then considered a special rank for Fleet leaders. Those T6 ships weren't going to be a newline for the entire playerbase.
Instead we got Starbase grinds in turn obsoleted by an expansion that brought Asian grindfesting to STO and ships that don't bring anything to the game except a gamey mechanic that has no reason to be exclusive to one ship or another. Limiting Intel powers to certain ships is as blatant a pay wall as we've gotten to date. Next thing you know, you'll have to pay to R&D.
Not to mention that the error in your logic is that if the Oddy and Bort were meant to usher in the new T6 line that still would have made all existing T5 ships obsolete, and we would be left with the same option we currently have: buy non-famous Cryptic ships or them reselling all the famous T5s as a T6 and us having to buy them all over again, like the new Intrepid.
And I'll only be using free ships and not buying another zen. So they'll be making loads of money from me 'cause I'm soooooooooo into renting ships I've already paid money for.
Cryptic hasnt just been stepping on a landmines, they made the damn things, went out and laid them, then ran full speed into the minefield. Then sit there staring at the players with their legs blown out from under them blaming us for not stopping them from doing all that.
They at every turn created these issues while the community voiced their strong disapproval of the actions they were taking, and at every turn they ignored us.
Are they out to self destruct the game? I highly doubt it. Are they blind to what they are doing to their customer relations? I have to said their vision is at least far from 20/20. For a long time now the devs have rather look to twitter or facebook or anywhere but their own company website and forums for answers.
They wrote off the forums users responses. Sad, if you give the testers the proper tools and time to test things a lot more issues would be caught, note i said caught not fixed, why? Because time and time again the testers report bugs to the forums and in tickets and still they push game breaking/balance busting bugs live.
This team doesnt have the care, or talent to service their own product properly.
And its pretty clear they don't care about their customers satisfaction. Its been dropping for a long time and they keep steamrolling right over them. Not a wise way to do business.
You might have missed all the promotion and podcast interviews about the how's and why's of the T5-U system , but let me assure you that it had nothing in it talking about becoming obsolete one month after it's debut on ANY ship ... -- which has lead to the concern that it will become obsolete on EVERY ship .
Normal companies have an open to the public release schedule , and they don't have to resort to monthly bait & switch tactics .
Add to that that this is coming at a point when large chunks of the game are in flux (or just unplayable for various reasons) plus the low number of players in the public & private queues, and the paranoid person might wonder where this game was heading ?
besides which they are still selling some without the bumper sticker and charging the extra for the half sticker and selling the cars with the whole sticker for the same overall price.
so you have >
T5 2500zen no bumper sticker
T5u 2500zen+500zen=3000zen half bumper sticker
T6 3000zen full bumper sticker
because at the end of the day the design (the bit you see on screen when flying) could have been designed to be a t5 just as easy as it was designed to be t6, the important bit the makes the difference is just stats and we can all see how easy they can be changed every time we upgrade our weapons and consoles.
but this is the way cryptic chose to do things and we just have to go along with it.
that's why in some ways I would have preferred they never had an upgrade at all and I will never buy an upgrade, I will take any free upgrades I can get because they are there but to pay zen for a half upgrade is a big no no even if it was only 1zen.
how it should have been done >
(A) T5 & T6 that's it.
or
(B)T5 , T5U free upgrade , T5 to full T6 upgrade 500zen , T6
I could also add
(C) as (B) without the full upgrade
any of these would be more acceptable IMO.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
There's a serious flaw with your "business" thinking. This is Star Trek. Surely that fact hasn't escaped you. The Star Trek Universe has iconic ships that make it Star Trek. The T6 ships that were just released bear little resemblance to the iconic ships that make Star Trek what it is. To abandon what makes Star Trek recognizable as Star Trek would be "business foolish" because the fan base are predominately Star Trek fans.
The best thing that can possibly happen for this game, its creators and developers, and the player community...is if they start taking some of the iconic ships and offering T6 variants of them. That would be a win-win scenario for the developers and the players/fan base.
New ships are great...but when they start to get too far away from what makes Star Trek what it is...they're going to start losing business.
Either way --- you eventually will want to buy new stuff.
By nature, to sell new stuff, it needs to be better than old stuff.
Eventually, either way, your ship that you paid for WILL become obsolete. It is already happening .... the xinid and undine box ships made many an old boat obsolete, and this new battle cruiser is far better than many of the old hulks that lack damage.
Anyone who thinks they can buy ONE ship that will be good for the 20 years or more lifespan of a MMO is .... mistaken. There was no bait and switch. If you think thought there would never be an upgrade and your gear would never be obsolete... you were fooling yourself. MMOS been out for how long? And how many of those can you use 2-3 year old gear and be competitive ?? None.
The grind for F2P should not be thrown on people who paid.
Look at the nomenclature of the M1 Abrams MBT. The M1 was initially fieldedin the early 80s and had a 105mm main gun. A few years later the M1A1 came out. Same tank but hwas upgraded to the 120MM smooth Bore cannon and had upgrades to the drivetrain and fire control system. Then a few years later the M1A2 came out with more upgrades. Wile the tank was upgraded the Army did not pay for a brand new tank, they paid for the upgrades.
Cryptic/PWE should have taken the same approach with the Intrepid. Now I have no problem with the cost of the T6 being 3000 zen but that should be only for people that DID NOT buy the T5. Those that bought the T5 should pay 500 for the upgrade and another 500 when the Fleet version comes out for the FSM. If they wanted to go from T5 to Fleet T6 then it is 2 FSMs or 1000 Zen.
Common sense says that 20 people getting the 5 and 10 dollar upgrade is more profitable than 2 people buying the $30 ship. If PWE wants to take the Micro out of microtransaction so be it. My advice would be to go to a subscription based game because all they are doing is slowly driving off the player base. I know I won't buy sh** else until they drop the fleet T6 Avenger.
so earn it. It would be nice if there were some unique rewards for group content, I get you, but the best stuff in the game can all be earned if you prefer that to buying it.
You really hit the nail! When the new rank was introduced I head equal amount rage from MACO people! People moaning about "what happens to my grind gear!!" GRIND! What is grind!?!? What you call grind I call playing a game I enjoy. Because you have to do select STF's over and over again is grind?? Of course you have to run some over and over! No game gives you that much content to earn the armor on one time missions. Unless they are giving you the gear after 5-10 missions.
There is such a thing as trade-ins in the automobile sales world or did you just conveniently forget that you can get credit from a traded vehicle towards a new car purchase? A lot of people in the U.S. actually lease vehicles and then just trade them in before the factor warranty is up since the cost of repairing a vehicle after that has expired isn't worth it anymore. I know, trading in something older for something new is a tough concept to grasp but eventually you'll get there.
Then, you start a rant about grind gear, which is FREE.
I'm lost. Is that some kind of venting your rage at everything ? And whine about whiner ?
TANSTAAFL
I have the perception that users are upset at the continued cost to play, that the T6 Intrepid is a herald to more spending. Its only true when the players pay for it.
T6 does not make T5U "obsolete". T6 is just an improved version, but not necessary or required to play the game or even have fun.
I was angry that in order to get current ships that didn't suck, I basically paid $125. Actually, I paid $155 because I stupidly bought the eclipse tactical ship first and then bought the bundle (mainly because I didn't have $125 at the time I wanted to actually play with a new ship). It pained me to do it, but I did it.
For me, if I was to be "happy" with the state of the game, that $155 I spent should have been all that I would have to spend on this game for quite some time, and I should be getting serious benefits from where I am right now. Instead, they release more ships at T6 and basically want me to pay for those, too. That's pretty much my straw. Yeah, I know they can do that, and I know that they were probably going to do that, but it leaves me thinking that somehow I got screwed.
How would I not feel that way? If they made that $125 I spent actually give me the benefit of ALL T6 ships going forward, because that was a massive amount of money for a game that essentially is free to play. Yeah, I know they need to make some money back, but the amount they're making back off of people like me is outrageous. If I was playing WoW, I'd be paying $15 a month, and it would take quite a few months before I'd ever have hit $155. When looking at the cost benefit analysis direction of this game, it really drives me nuts.
Yeah, my choice. I understand that. But as I was playing through last week, just trying to finish the Mirror missions to get my shotgun, it started to dawn on me how unfair they've balanced this system of paying so that people like me are basically funding the game for people who aren't paying anything for it. Sure, I could have gone that direction, but I don't have the time to invest to do that, so it leaves me thinking that because of my love for Star Trek, I'm shelling out money that is far more than one should pay just to play a game.
It's been a few days since I've signed in, mainly because each time I've signed on it's made me feel that I'm doing work in the game and not really enjoying anything Star Trek related. And it's only been the realization of how much money I'm spending that's caused me to start thinking that way.
Look, I understand if everyone is happy with things as they are, but I'm not. I'm not the sort to rage quit, and I love Star Trek immensely. I may just take some time and do something else for awhile, and who knows, maybe one day I'll come back (after all I have had a lifetime membership for some time now). But it's like the Ferengi Consortium bought the game and is trying to get me to play it under new rules.
The sad thing is I don't have anything else to play these days. So I may spend quite a few evenings just staring at the wall, thinking there might be a great space game out there somewhere.
Fleet Admiral Ventaxa Proxmire, U.S.S. Shaka Walls Fell
Blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/?page_id=1990
Foundry series: Bob From Accounting & For the Sake of the Empire