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So, its time for a serious question.
js26568
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I'm going to ask a straightforward question: why does Cryptic want us to level up slowly?
Do they think we will all leave the game when we max out? That's the only reason I can think of that doesn't come with a tinfoil hat.
Of course, people maxed out at 50 and have kept playing, so that undermines that reason completely.
Thoughts?
Do they think we will all leave the game when we max out? That's the only reason I can think of that doesn't come with a tinfoil hat.
Of course, people maxed out at 50 and have kept playing, so that undermines that reason completely.
Thoughts?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Free Tibet!
Free Tibet!
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However the question is not simply why they want to level so slowly but,
Why would they put in mechanics which effectively kill the use of Alts?
Why would they put in mechanics which discourage people from buying ships pre-level 50-60.
Why would they put in mechanics which discourages trying out new gear?
Why would they put in mechanics that require so much dil in one area (Upgrades) as to completely negate the possibility to spend dil in any other (Fleet systems, Rep systems, Dil to Zen conversions)?
Why would the put in mechanics that make end game or even finishing the game seem impossible for a new player?
Why would they put in mechanics that devalue all existing ships and gear, thereby effectively discouraging people from buy new ships and gear for fear of them be devalued as well?
Why would they take away what a player has already earned/purchased...ever?
Why would they put in a system that so effectively divides the player base to the point that friends can no longer play together?
Why would they put T5 ships that could not be upgraded on sale days before the launch of a new Tier of ships, when this could only leave those unsuspecting buyers with remorse and effectively destroy those players faith in their company?
Why do they consistently sell power?
Why would they put in mechanics that actually discourages users from spending money?
Why would they ever mislead or lie to the players? (Your existing T5 ships will still be competitive.)
I'm honestly to the point that I think it's one of three things:
1. Some how they have discovered that they will make more money (or save money) by having a smaller player base.
2. They are aware that the game is coming to the end of its lifespan and this is all a last minute cash grab attempt. And instead of using the going out of business sell everything cheap approach they're going the opposite direction.
3. Someone at Cryptic/PWE has actually decided they don't want people playing this game.
At this point in time I'm leaning toward #3 myself. But I'm willing to bet we will never know the real reasons. So on with the speculation!
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
KP planet if you did the The Thin Line and Time on Target both would push you over but guess again nope! What I've notice on these two they will pull out the heavy weight enemy and that crawling spider tank both in that lake an on the land. Don't know how it gets there so quickly in such a tight spot. V-overseers are tougher to take down. I am not saying what I am using because as soon as I say it! Next time it's harder and I have to drop that favorite pistol for another one.
I'll keep at from space and ground..
Time will only tell!
I believe they have research that says that if X number of players are in game on a given day for Y hours, Z revenue will result because N% of those X players will spend. So they're trying to make sure that happens. They have an equation that basically says time should equal money and so their target is getting people's time.
I've just oversimplified the model but I think the premise of it, while it probably has research behind it that SEEMS to back it up and while it probably has held so far, is a weak premise that will lose effectiveness under certain conditions.
My guess is to hinder us from reaching endgame. There is hardly any available in the first place but ok. Nothing new and always was enough.
With DR Cryptic introduced some well thought out mechanisms to hinder new/inexperienced players to play with veterans. You mostly notice it through not challenging but only hindering and annoying fail criteria in PvE.
The queue lists are as deserted as ever with just some very few exceptions, leaving a important social hub to build and expand communities unused.
Its a total mess from my perspective.
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First, the understand there is a core group of people who will play this game regardless of how much the squeeze. It's Star Trek® and the only Star Trek® game in existance.
Second, they have metrics from a dozen other games in terms of monetization and the impact of changes on the player base. How far they can change things, and how it impacts the player base with a good sense of the outcome.
Third, and most importantly they understand and are willing to lose players who don't actually pay.
Herein I believe is the problem. They're too willing to lose players.
The overriding element that's kept me in the game are the relationships. I could not give a TRIBBLE about DPS, but I'll work hard to maintain the curve just to hang out with my teammates. I don't need another set of gear, or for that matter yet another frakking reputation and gear set to try. But I'll race to try the new thing.
Why?
'Cause we talked about it. Shared results. Tried new builds all the while we tested our new 'leetness' in STF's we could do blindfolded. That was a grind, but it was palatable. You could pug CSE, and even if you have 2 complete idiots, you could still grind your way out of it and have a story or two to share.
I was excited about Delta Rising. Bought the Operations Pack. Dropped another $100 on dil.
I so was looking forward to playing with my friends.
Delta Rising changed that. It was too hard. Too boring. Too long. And sooo broken.
Not to mention the cost to upgrading my 70+ ships was not only unrealistic, but unattainable.
The F2P players dried up in a few weeks. Anger was the emotion of the day.
Yes, the content was compelling. A great story line peppered by unremarkable, but welcome voices. I'm not a fan of Voyager, but hey it was fun
SO we found a way to level quickly. I thought I over used it, but there were others who went much farther.
Then the Management called us exploiters. They penalized us. Then they rewarded us. S&M&STO
But it was too late.
I've only done DR once. Not interested in running all my alts through it. Can't stomach doing 'Talaxian Personnel Management 101'. It was interesting once, but about as repeatable as mixing nerve tonics.
DR rep is a non-starter. Not running all my alts through it. Thankfully they haven't nerfed the sponsorship.
And I sure as hell will not recommend this game to anyone, because while the content and game mechanics are pretty decent, the pelpe I've played with have left enmass.
---
So after 4 weeks they started to listen. Some small changes working their way back.
Maybe by the winter event they'll get their act together.
Pre Delta I would complete a ton of stuff on one toon then I would end up playing 1 of my many alts and before I knew it I had sat there for 6 hours playing STO.
Now I don't bother... F it frankly. I'm not going to play for 8 hours on one toon and feel like I got no where at all..
The old system made us actually enjoy playing our alts. Sure I will admit now and then I would log a few and just run contraband on them or something. However they where ALL geared up to go do infected or CEE... and oh my help me I had a few toons even all setup to do ground. (legit ground not just taggin dinos wit lazors).
At this point I'm so turned off I haven't logged in in days... I have resubed to EVE and TOR... which ever one putts out the better expansion/feature patches next month will likely earn my game bucks for a year or so anyway.
All the grinds they have been adding... the extra grind of DR was just the straw. They broke my back... I'll lurk around here... and heck I may even keep the game patched up in case they get some sense. All indications are though that at some point it will just be logical to save the hard drive space.
Yea those thoughts indeed come to mind.
But if u take into consideration what deep changes to game difficulty/balance/reward system they are forced to implement lately and that after a moth of a major expansion was released it could also be that they have people of the same qualification in their marketing department.
The first is just a total embarrassment the second one could be fatal. I have the slim hope that they try to sort things out to the satisfaction of most customers and just struggling for a way to repair.
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Those that hate will not go with it . Those that love it will go with it.
In any business sometimes the new business model makes no sense in the short term but in the long term it will bear fruits.
I disagree with the expenses of the upgrading and some of the new aspects of the model of their business. But.
I loved Voyager and the new content. Hated the patrol system. I recall falling asleep doing one with my finger on the turn button and the other one just firing randomly every now and then.
Will i keep playing.
Yes.
Will i moan. Not so much, but i will ride out the storm. My business instincts is tingling and I can see how this will expand the life of the game. (Despit those that say otherwise.)
I run businesses real life and i definately wish that devs would communicate more here on the forums. After all, you customers bring you cashflow, not your employees.
Anyways. See the xp grind as a highway speed limit control. If everyone speeds through content there is no way that they enjoy the scenery.
I want to bring into thought here that wine ages with time, playing (grindin) the game slowly, give you time to enjoy the little things. Why rush? At the end of the road- Death awaits.
The sign says go that speed to lvl 60. Some will follow it, some wont. Its just a sign. What you choose to do with it defines who you are.
Joined January 2009
Why do you think there is any type of "grind" content in MMOs?
Oh, and of course, the other reason are the Overlord Control Radiation they transmit via your monitor. It takes monthsfor them to take over the average Capitalistic brain. Direct X11 was not much of an improvement there, unfortunately.
Yes it does lose effectiveness. In fact it breaks down real fast. Because it makes no allowance at all, for economic factors such as global depression, inflation, etc....those do have impacts on the individual, and thus also on the amounts of disposable income players can in turn use to "invest" in their product. IF that's the model they follow it does make recent developments in the game make sense.
But on the other hand it's also a recipe for disaster. Personally if it were my own company, I'd throw that model out the window real fast like. Before the global markets can make yet another (predicted) downturn. And crash my business.
Moving the carrot a bit is one thing but we now need the damn hubble telescope to even see the carrot.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
Not this entirely. Some things still have value (leech, insp leader, sup rom op boffs) but agree to a point that alot of things earned/purchased loose the majority of their value far too often (mk 12 Jem Set anyone?!)
This. So much this.
This.
No really this. I don't think they are selling power. I honestly think they don't know what they are selling. They are so BAD at balancing things that its pretty much hit and miss the whole time.
Not really this, at least until you describe what it is you are referring to? I get all the discouragement that I need from the antagonistic nature of our 'beloved' EP.
This.
...#LLAP...
Originally Posted by fuglass View Post
Why would they put in mechanics that actually discourages users from spending money?
Quote:
jackal1701apw
Not really this, at least until you describe what it is you are referring to? I get all the discouragement that I need from the antagonistic nature of our 'beloved' EP.
Actually I meant to delete that line as it was moved up in my post where I was referring to the devaluing of our ships and gear.
So it was a typo/mistake/should have been removed. My apologies for any confusion.
See Cryptic, it is possible to make a mistake, admit it, fix it and move on...and guess what it didn't even hurt, not even a little bit...seriously I'm fine; and I'm willing to bet jackal1701apw will understand. Yall should try it sometime!!
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
the EXACT opposite is happening for me
im angry and im only palyn 1 TOON
means LESS tiem in the game
a couple things i think.
1. long term players have spent their money so what they think is of little concern.
2. alt toons after looking at metrics harder ( check help want adds they been spamming need for monetizing experts) but anyway they have found out that alts are costing them money NOT making them Money. as the C-store ships are account unlocks not char. so if you have 10 alts all the same faction and buy that c store ship its good for all of them. like this recent mirror event i rant it with all 10 of my Klingons all are maxed rep already and every bit of the rewards went into dil and was converted and allot of others did as well as the dil exchange rate dropped like a rock near the end of event as people had a flood of dil. all that dil cost them money.
now that would tell me that they should work on the other faction more and get to more fractions to increase player base . but it seems they want the new players with the largest fan base FEDERATION and don't care for a high turnover rate.
But what i think makes this game different as far as players are concerned from all the other MMos out there is the IP. right now this is the ONLY place i play as a Klingon and call it a Klingon.
Well, my big complaint is too much stick and not enough carrot.
DCUO's solution was simply to have a daily loot pinata (Joker's Funhouse) where, if you don't login, you miss out on a mix of cosmetic swag and vendor items. It's a loot shopping spree. You get pieces of costumes randomly (not full costumes), currency, and vendor trash.consumables. A lot of it though. All you can grab for 3 minutes.
And they simply sell extras for 80 cents a piece.
It's like getting a free master key a day plus a bunch of vendor trash in terms of value but more active/fun because it's a shopping spree on a 1 minute timer or so.
If you miss out on a shopping spree, you buy 5 more shopping sprees for $4. You're collecting pieces of things like costumes which can generally also be bought in a slightly different form for a flat $5 or something like that.
And they periodically toss new things in as prizes, I think.
That rewards you FOR logging in daily and provides you a reasonable alternative if you don't.
They are trying to make the game more friendly to casual players. The new system is great for us casual! We log in for 10 min, set up DO assignments, spend our dil on upgrades and get that clock to start its long, long, long countdown so we can have our item back, and then set up a 24 hour crafting project and log out. With no functional STF -- some 75% or more of them fail now --- and no xp or usable gear from missions, no rep worth working on (the new one is just a sit & wait currently, use your mirror marks daily to get it to tick down 24 hour timer) ... its great! Casual players can keep up with hard core players because the hard core players, spending a few hours in game daily, are not getting anything really for the time spent, making it much, much easier to keep up with a quick login / logout timer rest "game play' session.
Hopefully by this time next year, the game will be more like swordsman or progress quest, where we can have our characters play for us out of game.
Be careful what you wish for.
It seems to be a reminder that that the forum does only show us which people are disappointed, but not how many of them exist and how many things actually like how things are.
True but then just as with the vocal minorities, there are just as many who are just apathetic and won't announce their displeasure, the only noticeable event is the Server noting a lack of continued logins from that player.
Just as there are the White Knights of Crypticus, and the whales who'll always be there either vehemently defending every action by Cryptic/PWE and in the case of the whales just consuming all the plankton that gets thrown in their direction.
I've seen a few forums where positivity held true but recent conditioning from a few decades of TV, annoying US lawsuits and so on have created an internet community known more for it's criticism of everything than for extolling the virtues of anything. Criticism however can be used to improve things, whereas virtuous extollation just gives a few people a warm fuzzy feeling.
We all need some of the warm fuzzy feeling, but a lot of the time critical thinking is more important for survival and improvement of oneself.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Because everything costs dilithium. Alts grind more dilithium, so if you're disinclined to use your alts you're disinclined to get more dilithium. But you still need that dil...hmm...oh look at that, you can buy it for zen, which is conveniently available for real money!
So they only have to "balance" the Tier 5 and better ships, while still claiming they have a wider ship variety.
Because it's easier and cheaper to work with what is already in place.
Because they want you to needs tons of dilithium, more than you can possibly produce on your own. Unless...hmm...oh look at that, you can buy it for zen, which is conveniently available for real money!
Because they want that player to invest enough time to want to get something out of it, but to feel hopeless at ever achieving it on their own, so they go and spend real money. Then, ideally, they leave, so they're not causing server strain and never get much use out of the impulse buys they made.
Odd as it may sound, they actually want their player base to feel hopeless and incapable.
Because if you current stuff is devalued, never fear, there are shiny new ships and gear upgrades available! Of course the ships cost real money and the gear costs loads of dilithium, unless...hmm...oh look at that, you can buy it for zen, which is conveniently available for real money!
Because then you buy new ones. I know you don't believe me on this, but the company isn't going to keep doing anything that's costing it money. Therefore if they keep doing something even after people throw a fit about it, it's because they're still making a profit on it.
Because multiple people working on something together may feel like they can achieve it. They no longer feel quite as hopeless and alone, and therefore are less inclined to spend money on impulse buys.
Because if those players leave, they already spent their money, and the next crop of players following them missed the controversy and so there's really no reason not to.
Because if the best way to become the best player is to spend real money on it, then players will.
They don't, you just are reading the situation wrong.
Because then players stick around in their T5 ships and try out the new content because they were told they could. Then they realize they can't, they start feeling hopeless...see above.
If the game endures then I will continue playing, if it doesn't then I will look elsewhere, but I will be sad to see the demise of a unique gaming platform.
Of course, that isn't the case with every game. Another game I play the devs talk on the forums constantly, and the players love them. Hmm.
So, I have to wonder, and anyone receiving that sort of a reception would ideally also wonder...what have they done to so thoroughly poison their relationship with the players?
Yeah, I hear you. I used to buy a 10 pack of lockbox keys from time to time. Initially, I felt pretty badly about it, spending money on such empty stuff. But, I have to say, opening those boxes was fun. Sometimes, really fun.
You know what's not fun? Spending money on dilithium. It's like the complete opposite of fun.
You know, I'll bet, that in SOE business meetings about NGE in SWG, stuff like that was said to defend the changes that ended up killing the game.
That's why we have you and say cosmic to spam hundreds of posts per day to enlighten us poor slobs, meanwhile game is getting emptier by the day.
Must be all that fun that majority enjoys, pray tell where are they hiding?
Not in pve ques, not in pvp que, not on ESD, New Romulus or the First City, hillarious part is even Delta Quadrant is far from beign crowded.