It reminds me of the thought I had the other day and how it all relates to previous ideas and how I think STO used to operate:
As a franchise, Star Trek is a niche. It's big enough to sometimes look like it's mainstream, but it's not. It also has a fanbase that pays enough (and brings enough other people in on occasion) to make it appear to be bigger than it otherwise would. Financially, it has TV shows and movies which operate as the skeleton around which the merchandising, fan art, games, and everything else builds upon. And it's all that surrounding stuff that seems to be where the real money is. STO is part of that merchandising. But it is nonetheless catering to a stable but smallish fanbase that pays for it.
This raises the spectre of STO having a potential audience much smaller than anyone may expect, and every player who disappears due to these constant nerfings and mechanism changes and other such "lets stuff everyone around yet again to try to rescue DR" stunts, doesn't mean opening up space for an endless stream of potential new players. It may just mean more work to get back the same player base you always had.
The important thing here is: Star Trek will never be a huge mainstream thing. Push heavily and you bring in more people for a little while, at great cost... and when they've left, the same old profit-generating fanbase you started with, who you (hopefully) haven't annoyed so much they decide to punish you.
STO used to be a "blank slate" game, where you had some structure (the missions and endgame grind), but a lot of flexibility outside of that (explorations, foundry, patrols). You had people focusing on PvP, on PvE, on RP. New stuff would be released and people would play it, or attend it as a highlight to the foundational material that was always there. You could see a lot of forum discussion fit into two camps, being "making this or that even better" or "this game would be better if you closed off this thing I don't even use". For example, "force everyone to play PvP!" or "Close down PvP!" Some ideas were obviously unworkable or pointless, others were great: ship interiors based around an actual series of structured dailies could have worked while "if you build better interiors, then we'll visit our interiors all the time, honest!" which obviously wouldn't. Within the confines of this blank slate, build your own adventure-style game, we had people focusing on making realistic characters, or well-rounded characters, or minmaxing, or those building to get the highest DPS.
The gist is, we had various options and we each played a "choose your own adventure".
When it comes to the forums, and the discussions, yes some people are always negative, and some are always positive. Some would constantly complain, others would constantly praise (deservedly or not in both cases). Yet oddly, this isn't unusual: in politics/government, the use of surveys goes through this as a profiling exercise, where first what's looked at is "what" (is it paper, is it online? how much work was needed to make this happen?), and "who" (is this a bunch of people who always sign these things? Is this "Organic meat" survey signed by Joe Bloggs who signed "Ban Meat" yesterday and "Support the Meat Industry" the day before?).
STO should be doing the same thing: who's always negative, who's always positive, and what about the people in the middle? What are they saying? Individual posts aren't nearly as relevant as the big picture that is being generated. It's free market data... a lot of businesses would fall over themselves for an opportunity to gain insight into their customer base like this.
The upshot is that yes, the forums can be negative but that's no reason to dismiss it entirely, it just needs the information available to be sorted and managed. The reason to do this is because STO is a "choose your own adventure" with a range of people with different needs, and trying to force Joe Bloggs, a non-PvPer to PvP by lopping off any non PvP options isn't going to keep Joe here. Nor will cutting off everything but DR for the sake of boosting DR numbers for one last meeting at Cryptic where you get to pretend that DR didn't rake in the huge numbers (and presumably, the big bucks) you were hoping for.
And the reason you don't want to do that is because STO is a Star Trek franchise merchandise offering: you're not going to make it a big mainstream blockbuster for non-Star Trek fans, who will pay through the nose for it. The players who want to fight, or want to blow things up? They can get better offerings for themselves elsewhere. And once you've annoyed the Star Trek fans, by trying to force them to play a little narrow game thread, with the hope it'll appeal to a wider audience, all you'll be left with it that same Star Trek fanbase you had before. Who will be distrustful of you, and angry with you.
And no, I'm not going to just "Shut up and be grateful!" for fear that if STO gets shut down, nobody else will try. If I can't play "my own adventure", as is happening already... then to me, the game is already being blocked. It's shut down itself in all but formality for me.
Shutting out your customer base because of some lazy uninformed thought bubble masquerading as "strategy" or whatever is going on in the Cryptic offices is just stupid. Ignoring the forums because we're not stroking your egos is just stupid.
And that is just a stupid corner to paint yourself into.
It's actually Pay-4-Convenience. Just like buying Dilithium to speed up R&D or upgrades. As I said, I wouldn't mind a little work for it (reaching level 60 on one character, and any character besides that one has to be level 50 minimum if I want to buy skill points for them). I also don't mind restrictions; such as it's limited to buying 10 Skill points (5 max per character) per week.
I understand and want to sympathize with accepting Pay-4-Convience but there would be a disparity between players who can pay a huge amount of money for Pay-4-Convience and the people who can't. So, Pay-4-Convience will give you faster access to Tier-6 ships, skill and specializatoin points, boff, doffs, fleet gear and everything else in the game. Easily maxing out.
While the other players get kicked to the curve on a grind fest that will take years. Even if achieved outdated and another grind fest for years. Just because they don't have the money needed.
Sounds like to me. Pay-2-Win.
I'm not agreeing and disagreeing. Just let's say it's okay that we disagree.
As to the huge nerf, Cryptic will do nothing about it and add another nerf in two weeks.
I think that's all incorrect. Players don't want anything. If Cryptic does A, players complain B, C, D, E, and F aren't addressed and they're evil for doing so. If Cryptic does B, they complain A, C, D, E, and F aren't addressed and they're dumb and evil for not knowing that from before. If Cryptic tries to half-TRIBBLE C, D, and E, then players think they're incompetent for half-assing C, D, and E, and then not addressing A, B, and F.
So on, and so forth. Compile that over 4 years and you have our current situation regarding their questionable decision making.
People probably want too much done, I'll grant you that. You can simply never accommodate them all. But Cryptic's 'questionable decision making', sorry to say, is all their own, really. And probably has very little to do with any of us to begin with. It's all trickling down from PWE headquarters, that they must transform into a Korean grinder. It may well be some Devs at Cryptic don't even like it themselves. And I highly doubt our Chinese Overlords (the ones actually in China) ever even read the forums here, or could even tell Star Trek apart from Star Wars.
People probably want too much done, I'll grant you that. You can simply never accommodate them all. But Cryptic's 'questionable decision making', sorry to say, is all their own, really. And probably has very little to do with any of us to begin with. It's all trickling down from PWE headquarters, that they must transform into a Korean grinder. It may well be some Devs at Cryptic don't even like it themselves. And I highly doubt our Chinese Overlords (the ones actually in China) ever even read the forums here, or could even tell Star Trek apart from Star Wars.
All Sinophobia aside, I think it does come from the very top. But I also think it comes from elsewhere in the industry.
At this very moment, I am playing 3 games (including STO). Each of the companies behind those games is TRIBBLE me over in some fashion, or attempting to TRIBBLE me over in some fashion.
Not unsurprisingly, the games that TRIBBLE me over the least are ones whose communities tend to keep the channels clear, police themselves, and provide constructive feedback through respectful communication.
Also, not unsurprisingly, these are small studios who decided to say "Eff it" to big name publishers and do their own thing.
While it is all on Cryptic's head to make questionable decisions, I still stand by my observation that the playerbase of STO have themselves partially to blame for their own headaches. Do I think double dipping with their new ships is awesome? No. I think it's morally reprehensible.
But just like the chanceboxes, I recognize this is something enough players wanted -- or at the very least said they were perfectly OK with happening to the point Cryptic thought it was a good idea to stay the course on it. And I'm going to have to play by those rules if I want to keep playing STO.
I recognize this is something enough players wanted -- or at the very least said they were perfectly OK with happening to the point Cryptic thought it was a good idea to stay the course on it..
No one said "please nerf XP" or "it's okay, you can nerf XP if you want to." No one even said they typical "Hey, please nerf XP for those *******s over there." Because nobody knew they were actually going to nerf XP. No one can give them proper feedback on anything, either. They don't give us time to, because they know certain things they do are going to TRIBBLE players off. They just crack their knuckles and do it. Hasty, stupid actions elicit hasty, stupid responses. They bring it on themselves, really. Every. Freaking. Time.
No one said "please nerf XP" or "it's okay, you can nerf XP if you want to." No one even said they typical "Hey, please nerf XP for those *******s over there." Because nobody knew they were actually going to nerf XP. No one can give them proper feedback on anything, either. They don't give us time to, because they know certain things they do are going to TRIBBLE players off. They just crack their knuckles and do it. Hasty, stupid actions elicit hasty, stupid responses. They bring it on themselves, really. Every. Freaking. Time.
No, they asked for that too. When everything is a battleground in the discussion of STO design decisions, nothing is a battleground. That is my point.
If players pick a fight over everything, then eventually Cryptic is going to think there is no breaking point to player tolerance. Some would say Delta Rising signified that there is, in fact, a breaking point.
But it still doesn't discount the fact that when a large enough percentage of the playerbase chooses to do nothing but complain about everything, then the distinction between legitimate negative feedback and whining becomes more and more blurred as time (years) go on.
i have to go to bed, i think there is a ghost in what looks like a bed sheet trying to poke me in the head with a stick, and i am suddenly puzzled. night everyone!
*hugs everyone and prays for an anti-nerf grenade to hit STO and goes to sleep*
This raises the spectre of STO having a potential audience much smaller than anyone may expect, and every player who disappears due to these constant nerfings and mechanism changes and other such "lets stuff everyone around yet again to try to rescue DR" stunts, doesn't mean opening up space for an endless stream of potential new players. It may just mean more work to get back the same player base you always had.
Well, I want to be clear that I have no innate mistrust of Chinese companies. I use Chinese companies. This isn't some "China Red Dawn" rant post like you sometimes see people get into.
My recent background areas are folklore and marketing. When I talk about China, I'm talking demographics, values, culture, and Hoffstede analysis stuff. Also understand that we're talking huge generalities because China is not ONE country in many respects. Talking about China is like talking about Europe. Different regions may be as different as Greece and Germany, Czech Republic and UK. And individuals may exist within a set of norms but generalizations apply to groups not individuals.
Okay. Disclaimers made. Now...
The "world's most common person" according to National Geographic is a 26 year old Chinese male. What businesses target 26 year old Chinese males? Well, Perfect World would be one of them. There are strategies that work well when your demographic is that big and one of those is pressure sales and churn.
Now factor in some of the cultural concepts like the acceptability of distance-to-power (do not engage the masses), attitudes on gratuities paid to authorities for performing services or expediting their work (hello, crafting system), and the concept of face.
From Wikipedia:
Although Lin Yutang (1943:200) claimed "Face cannot be translated or defined", compare these definitions:
The term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self, delineated in terms of approved social attributes. (Goffman 1955:213)
Face is the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for himself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in his social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in that position as well as acceptably in his general conduct. (Ho 1975:883)
[Face] is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people cooperate (and assume each other's cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being based on the mutual vulnerability of face. (Brown and Levinson 1978:66)
Face is a sense of worth that comes from knowing one's status and reflecting concern with the congruency between one's performance or appearance and one's real worth. (Huang 1987:71)
"Face" means "sociodynamic valuation", a lexical hyponym of words meaning "prestige; dignity; honor; respect; status". (Carr 1993:90)
"Face" has more meaning based on Chinese culture context.
These things inform the PWE business models. Not necessarily deliberately. But they're there in much the same way left handed and right handed handwriting are different. Some do not apply very well in the west and I think Cryptic and PWE know this and it's partly why they bought Cryptic. The problem perhaps being that they probably want Cryptic to apply, adapt, and terraform western gaming markets for them rather than revising business models from the ground up, which would probably be more sustainably prudent.
Now, compare the potential size of PWE Chinese fandom to Star Trek fandom which is predominantly western and small. And I think you are correct in saying that its size is overestimated. It seems probable to me that Cryptic overestimates its size.
Because much of the content and systems work we see appeals to a small subset of Trek fans. I know plenty of people who would tattoo William Shatner or Patrick Stewart's faces on their body who would be clueless what is going on in some STO missions or what some of the technobabble here means.
On top of this, we forum posters and many of the players are an unusually involved subset and we constantly push Cryptic to deepen their connection to Star Trek which probably narrows their audience. Sometimes, we say this even when we don't mean it.
What would be prudent is probably not deeper connection with Trek but a BROADER connection with Trek, touching on more aspects of Trek that more people can relate to. Deep Trek is doing a complicated sequel to Yesterday's Enterprise, one off aliens, and second Harry Kim. Broad Trek is things like green women and rocking bridges with exploding consoles and having Harry Kim at all, although I'd wager that possibly even a majority of Trekkies would not be too familiar with characters from any one show. Probably would have been better to have representatives from each show rather than five from one, even with the loss of focus that would have resulted in.
But the Trek focus at all is somewhat offkilter with the business model. Trek is not big in China. And Chinese culture and attitudes are different. Not worse. Not better. Different. And approaches need to be different. And they are. But the philosophy and objectives need to be different too. You can't just vary the monetization strategy by a matter of degrees, ratchet the fit, and go for a sweet spot. You need a truly different philosophy.
I'd even suggest that people at PWE recognize that and wouldn't have bought Cryptic or kept it operating as a separate unit if they didn't think that. But the thing is, while Cryptic has an internal culture and some B2B philosophy, I don't think they have a philosophy when it comes to customers, service, etc. They're a studio, not a publisher. And that is a problem. Because they're cribbing PWE's philosophy or relying on them to handle customer service.
Here's Cryptic's mission statement:
"Cryptic Studios is a leading developer of massively multiplayer online role playing games, with a reputation for delivering profitable, on-time and on-budget titles."
Who is that targeted at? That's a mission statement oriented to publishers and maybe internally, not the public.
And here is Perfect World's:
"Perfect World Entertainment provides top-tier online games with superior quality and convenience."
Kinda flat.
Here's Blizzard's:
"Dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences...ever.
Blizzard Entertainments eight core values represent the principles and beliefs that have guided our company throughout the years. These values are reflected in employees' decisions and actions every day." (It goes on to name the 8 values.)
Who is that targeted at? A lot is targeted at customers.
Here's Bioware's:
"BioWare develops high-quality console, PC, and online role-playing games focused on rich stories, unforgettable characters, and vast worlds to discover."
Here's Disney's:
The Walt Disney Company's objective is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information, using its portfolio of brands to differentiate its content, services and consumer products. The company's primary financial goals are to maximize earnings and cash flow, and to allocate capital toward growth initiatives that will drive long-term shareholder value.
It's a bit more evil but divisions have more meaningful mission statements and you'll notice that they did focus on what they do for customers throughout the first half of that.
Oh. Wait. Disney changed it. Here's the new one:
"The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world."
Now, why is a mission statement important?
Well, basically, a corporate mission statement is the hedge against doing everything for the shareholders and to maximize profits.
Basically, a company is generally expected to maximize shareholder value but the mission statement provides the context. They maximize shareholder value "by doing" (insert mission statement) or maximize shareholder value "unless it interferes with" (insert mission statement). What you set out in your mission statement is supposed to be both how you plan to maximize shareholder value and what you won't compromise in pursuit of profits, particularly short term profits. It's sort of a contract or promise made to all parties including the customers.
That's why it's actually more than fluff and why having a vivid one that can be interpreted generously by management is important. And I think you can see, for most western companies, there are actually values and customer relationships they outline as coming ahead of short term profits. Disney will pursue profits ruthlessly but it's on the condition that they do it as "one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information" and while "seeking to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world". If a short term profit goal undermines one of these things, management will be expected to pass it up. Shareholders are expected to invest with an understanding that this mission statement outlines the methods for profit and the tradeoffs that profit may be passed up under... and most serious shareholders who are long term will respect these kinds of mission statements and resist efforts from speculative shareholders to subvert a mission statement. Because the long term guys will point to a mission statement and say "This is why I invested in this company. This is where the value comes from. Mess with this and you mess with my retirement prospects from this stock." If profit (particularly long term) can be made by doing one of these things, Disney will invest extra effort into doing it.
All Sinophobia aside, I think it does come from the very top.
There's no Sinophobia on my end, to be clear. China is far away, though. To PWE (in China) STO is just a way to try and get a foothold in the Western gaming market. I doubt a company in Russia would know more about the actual game. To them, it's just (equally far away) business.
If you take the XP required to go from 50-60 with these (actually correct) figures, where the old ones totalled 366,000 (732,000 - 366,000), and the new ones are 1,132,620 (1498620 - 366000), the total needed to level 50-60 is 3.09 times what it was before the patch, not 2.79.
(I'm actually assuming the sum 717,000 is correct. I would actually like to know if anyone remembers what level 60 skill points required were previous to this patch, because I don't, I just summed up the chart we were just given.)
(EDIT: stowiki says 732,000. Gonna go with that for now.)
I have a screenshot from October 16, 2014, that says
That's nuts. I hope players playing realize hitting level 60 leveling for captain specialization and ships traits becames like a marble trying to roll out of a mug.
if it is a new toon it is great while the vets get the flogging, trust me i know it is not bad ... untill you play reruns and start, patrolling, doffing, queing the wtf's lol
All I can say is that I'm very disappointed with this nerf. I leveled 3 of my main toons to 60 and I'm stuck with 4 of them on 54-56 and stopped leveling. I was running Argala on Elite and got increase in points roughly around 30% after leveling scale readjustment. I cannot maintain leveling pace as before with this and I'm not sure where is this game heading.
I just don't to see the logic behind all these actions. I don't understand actions irritating customer core base. Leveling more characters increases purchases and your income as those toons need ships and gear.
Extract from "How Your Business Can Profit from the Insights of Positive Psychology":
"Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return again and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers needs and preferences. Drawing on the latest research in the exploding field of positive psychology, Columbia Business School professor Bernd Schmitt offers three unique approaches any business can use to turning a casual customer into a committed fan."
Guys, pls think about this and we're all gonna be happy campers.
well, DR is when i picked up my first torch, funny thing it, i like REALLY like Voyager, why would i be here saying bad stuff about something i was really looking forward to and was really happy about? ask a dev... lol
People aren't in the queues, and everyone says its because they don't reward enough dil or because they're too hard. I just assumed no one was in the queues because they we're giving people what they want at the moment - skill points. Get more skill points more consistently by constantly patrolling DQ systems with next to no risk of failure than you'd ever get in an stf. So everyone was there.
Now there's half has much level progression for paroling and even less for doffing, so everyone is nowhere.
Dyson sphere, good dilithuim, 2 completes for a fill up per toon, ques, except some of the maps, are mostly easy/med and not many fails on them, XP, hell on earth.
Once the first runs are done, welcome to hell, if your toon carries over from DR fully done with stories and what not, all you will ever get is the first story run bling XP, currently one of my only guffs, personally i loved the stories, and was not to worried about the patrols.
This is why i "also" grabbed a torch... not to say "ZOMG!!! THEY KILLLED THE GAME!!!" lol, because we thought maybe someone would care when they say it.
At this point almost all i personally could say has been said, and they can ether see what everyone wants and why they are peeling off or not.
Personally i am tired of giving textile repetition, on the other end, if i didn't would they give a rip?
Extract from "How Your Business Can Profit from the Insights of Positive Psychology":
"Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return again and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers needs and preferences."
*nods*
Cryptic seems to be working under a different, and dangerous paradigm, though: that of the discardable customer. The idea is simple: get a *lot* of casual players interested to spend, maybe, $30 bucks a month, but make no efforts to keep them. If they leave, f* them! 10 others will soon take their place. In fact, they're pretty much counting on them leaving (they know the grind and outrageous upgrade cost is simply too much for the casual player to stay).
Sadly, this tactic does indeed seem to increase revenue. It's no different, really, from bankers artificially pumping up sales; doesn't matter that it hurts the business in the long run: by that time you simply scuttle what you just bled dry, and parachute out with a huge bonus. That is why a certain universally disliked lead Dev is probably the most destructive force within Cryptic, and why he will most certainly stay, and, internally, be cheered on for making everyone rich.
I pay close attention to my Skill Point totals so yeah it seems to go up but not 100% I still see lower numbers too. So everything in the game should be running balance in scoring shouldn't have gaps.
Nimbus 3 Ground Battlezone - Take out the 6x BOSS bonus targets the most the give you was 60 and it's till 60 DIL
Dyson Ground Battlezone - Taking out the 3x large T-Rex, if you do a good job the skill point is higher and there is usually a blue or green award waiting under him if you did so?
Kobal Prime Ground Battlezone - The Thin Blue Line and Strength in the Shadows seems the points here are really good. Top of the hill where the landed space ship is if you don't do the mission and just run up there. You'll be in for a surprise. Bring friends do a team effort and most of all powerful weapons and shields.
Personally i am tired of giving textile repetition, on the other end, if i didn't would they give a rip?
I don't care anymore
Nope, they don't give a rip. You, however, judging by your emoticon here, still do. And, on a personal note, I really like your presence here on the forums: you still have a kinda bubbly naivity about you that instills hope in many.
'Giving textile repetition' is sadly *exactly* what will be required, lest this game dies a tragic, unglorious death. Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
Nope, they don't give a rip. You, however, judging by your emoticon here, still do. And, on a personal note, I really like your presence here on the forums: you still have a kinda bubbly naivity about you that instills hope in many.
'Giving textile repetition' is sadly *exactly* what will be required, lest this game dies a tragic, unglorious death. Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
but i no wanna work on typing these, my fingers hurt! lol
"Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return again and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers needs and preferences. Drawing on the latest research in the exploding field of positive psychology, Columbia Business School professor Bernd Schmitt offers three unique approaches any business can use to turning a casual customer into a committed fan."
The thing that throws that out of whack is the IP has a huge loyal fan base not so much the company providing the game. so they know no matter what they do all it takes os a person to search star trek and the game will pop up someplace.
i was out of country and did not even know star trek online was up and running for a long time. but as soon as i got back into a country where searches whould return results i tried to find star trek episodes and this game popped up i joined up and started playing 2 days before it went FTP because i didnt know it was even such a game prior to then.
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
Comments
As a franchise, Star Trek is a niche. It's big enough to sometimes look like it's mainstream, but it's not. It also has a fanbase that pays enough (and brings enough other people in on occasion) to make it appear to be bigger than it otherwise would. Financially, it has TV shows and movies which operate as the skeleton around which the merchandising, fan art, games, and everything else builds upon. And it's all that surrounding stuff that seems to be where the real money is. STO is part of that merchandising. But it is nonetheless catering to a stable but smallish fanbase that pays for it.
This raises the spectre of STO having a potential audience much smaller than anyone may expect, and every player who disappears due to these constant nerfings and mechanism changes and other such "lets stuff everyone around yet again to try to rescue DR" stunts, doesn't mean opening up space for an endless stream of potential new players. It may just mean more work to get back the same player base you always had.
The important thing here is: Star Trek will never be a huge mainstream thing. Push heavily and you bring in more people for a little while, at great cost... and when they've left, the same old profit-generating fanbase you started with, who you (hopefully) haven't annoyed so much they decide to punish you.
STO used to be a "blank slate" game, where you had some structure (the missions and endgame grind), but a lot of flexibility outside of that (explorations, foundry, patrols). You had people focusing on PvP, on PvE, on RP. New stuff would be released and people would play it, or attend it as a highlight to the foundational material that was always there. You could see a lot of forum discussion fit into two camps, being "making this or that even better" or "this game would be better if you closed off this thing I don't even use". For example, "force everyone to play PvP!" or "Close down PvP!" Some ideas were obviously unworkable or pointless, others were great: ship interiors based around an actual series of structured dailies could have worked while "if you build better interiors, then we'll visit our interiors all the time, honest!" which obviously wouldn't. Within the confines of this blank slate, build your own adventure-style game, we had people focusing on making realistic characters, or well-rounded characters, or minmaxing, or those building to get the highest DPS.
The gist is, we had various options and we each played a "choose your own adventure".
When it comes to the forums, and the discussions, yes some people are always negative, and some are always positive. Some would constantly complain, others would constantly praise (deservedly or not in both cases). Yet oddly, this isn't unusual: in politics/government, the use of surveys goes through this as a profiling exercise, where first what's looked at is "what" (is it paper, is it online? how much work was needed to make this happen?), and "who" (is this a bunch of people who always sign these things? Is this "Organic meat" survey signed by Joe Bloggs who signed "Ban Meat" yesterday and "Support the Meat Industry" the day before?).
STO should be doing the same thing: who's always negative, who's always positive, and what about the people in the middle? What are they saying? Individual posts aren't nearly as relevant as the big picture that is being generated. It's free market data... a lot of businesses would fall over themselves for an opportunity to gain insight into their customer base like this.
The upshot is that yes, the forums can be negative but that's no reason to dismiss it entirely, it just needs the information available to be sorted and managed. The reason to do this is because STO is a "choose your own adventure" with a range of people with different needs, and trying to force Joe Bloggs, a non-PvPer to PvP by lopping off any non PvP options isn't going to keep Joe here. Nor will cutting off everything but DR for the sake of boosting DR numbers for one last meeting at Cryptic where you get to pretend that DR didn't rake in the huge numbers (and presumably, the big bucks) you were hoping for.
And the reason you don't want to do that is because STO is a Star Trek franchise merchandise offering: you're not going to make it a big mainstream blockbuster for non-Star Trek fans, who will pay through the nose for it. The players who want to fight, or want to blow things up? They can get better offerings for themselves elsewhere. And once you've annoyed the Star Trek fans, by trying to force them to play a little narrow game thread, with the hope it'll appeal to a wider audience, all you'll be left with it that same Star Trek fanbase you had before. Who will be distrustful of you, and angry with you.
And no, I'm not going to just "Shut up and be grateful!" for fear that if STO gets shut down, nobody else will try. If I can't play "my own adventure", as is happening already... then to me, the game is already being blocked. It's shut down itself in all but formality for me.
Shutting out your customer base because of some lazy uninformed thought bubble masquerading as "strategy" or whatever is going on in the Cryptic offices is just stupid. Ignoring the forums because we're not stroking your egos is just stupid.
And that is just a stupid corner to paint yourself into.
I understand and want to sympathize with accepting Pay-4-Convience but there would be a disparity between players who can pay a huge amount of money for Pay-4-Convience and the people who can't. So, Pay-4-Convience will give you faster access to Tier-6 ships, skill and specializatoin points, boff, doffs, fleet gear and everything else in the game. Easily maxing out.
While the other players get kicked to the curve on a grind fest that will take years. Even if achieved outdated and another grind fest for years. Just because they don't have the money needed.
Sounds like to me. Pay-2-Win.
I'm not agreeing and disagreeing. Just let's say it's okay that we disagree.
As to the huge nerf, Cryptic will do nothing about it and add another nerf in two weeks.
People probably want too much done, I'll grant you that. You can simply never accommodate them all. But Cryptic's 'questionable decision making', sorry to say, is all their own, really. And probably has very little to do with any of us to begin with. It's all trickling down from PWE headquarters, that they must transform into a Korean grinder. It may well be some Devs at Cryptic don't even like it themselves. And I highly doubt our Chinese Overlords (the ones actually in China) ever even read the forums here, or could even tell Star Trek apart from Star Wars.
All Sinophobia aside, I think it does come from the very top. But I also think it comes from elsewhere in the industry.
At this very moment, I am playing 3 games (including STO). Each of the companies behind those games is TRIBBLE me over in some fashion, or attempting to TRIBBLE me over in some fashion.
Not unsurprisingly, the games that TRIBBLE me over the least are ones whose communities tend to keep the channels clear, police themselves, and provide constructive feedback through respectful communication.
Also, not unsurprisingly, these are small studios who decided to say "Eff it" to big name publishers and do their own thing.
While it is all on Cryptic's head to make questionable decisions, I still stand by my observation that the playerbase of STO have themselves partially to blame for their own headaches. Do I think double dipping with their new ships is awesome? No. I think it's morally reprehensible.
But just like the chanceboxes, I recognize this is something enough players wanted -- or at the very least said they were perfectly OK with happening to the point Cryptic thought it was a good idea to stay the course on it. And I'm going to have to play by those rules if I want to keep playing STO.
No one said "please nerf XP" or "it's okay, you can nerf XP if you want to." No one even said they typical "Hey, please nerf XP for those *******s over there." Because nobody knew they were actually going to nerf XP. No one can give them proper feedback on anything, either. They don't give us time to, because they know certain things they do are going to TRIBBLE players off. They just crack their knuckles and do it. Hasty, stupid actions elicit hasty, stupid responses. They bring it on themselves, really. Every. Freaking. Time.
No, they asked for that too. When everything is a battleground in the discussion of STO design decisions, nothing is a battleground. That is my point.
If players pick a fight over everything, then eventually Cryptic is going to think there is no breaking point to player tolerance. Some would say Delta Rising signified that there is, in fact, a breaking point.
But it still doesn't discount the fact that when a large enough percentage of the playerbase chooses to do nothing but complain about everything, then the distinction between legitimate negative feedback and whining becomes more and more blurred as time (years) go on.
1st - Its only 3 days old.
2nd - Over 46'000+ views.
3rd - 73 pages as of this reply.
To any Devs reading this, take your thumb our of your A-hole and tell GEKO to flush himself out the nearest airlock.
D,
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Please keep the QQ to a minimum.
>>>PUNISH THE FEDs<<<
>>>Positive Feedback from a PvE HERO<<<
*hugs everyone and prays for an anti-nerf grenade to hit STO and goes to sleep*
Well, I want to be clear that I have no innate mistrust of Chinese companies. I use Chinese companies. This isn't some "China Red Dawn" rant post like you sometimes see people get into.
My recent background areas are folklore and marketing. When I talk about China, I'm talking demographics, values, culture, and Hoffstede analysis stuff. Also understand that we're talking huge generalities because China is not ONE country in many respects. Talking about China is like talking about Europe. Different regions may be as different as Greece and Germany, Czech Republic and UK. And individuals may exist within a set of norms but generalizations apply to groups not individuals.
Okay. Disclaimers made. Now...
The "world's most common person" according to National Geographic is a 26 year old Chinese male. What businesses target 26 year old Chinese males? Well, Perfect World would be one of them. There are strategies that work well when your demographic is that big and one of those is pressure sales and churn.
Now factor in some of the cultural concepts like the acceptability of distance-to-power (do not engage the masses), attitudes on gratuities paid to authorities for performing services or expediting their work (hello, crafting system), and the concept of face.
From Wikipedia:
Although Lin Yutang (1943:200) claimed "Face cannot be translated or defined", compare these definitions:
These things inform the PWE business models. Not necessarily deliberately. But they're there in much the same way left handed and right handed handwriting are different. Some do not apply very well in the west and I think Cryptic and PWE know this and it's partly why they bought Cryptic. The problem perhaps being that they probably want Cryptic to apply, adapt, and terraform western gaming markets for them rather than revising business models from the ground up, which would probably be more sustainably prudent.
Now, compare the potential size of PWE Chinese fandom to Star Trek fandom which is predominantly western and small. And I think you are correct in saying that its size is overestimated. It seems probable to me that Cryptic overestimates its size.
Because much of the content and systems work we see appeals to a small subset of Trek fans. I know plenty of people who would tattoo William Shatner or Patrick Stewart's faces on their body who would be clueless what is going on in some STO missions or what some of the technobabble here means.
On top of this, we forum posters and many of the players are an unusually involved subset and we constantly push Cryptic to deepen their connection to Star Trek which probably narrows their audience. Sometimes, we say this even when we don't mean it.
What would be prudent is probably not deeper connection with Trek but a BROADER connection with Trek, touching on more aspects of Trek that more people can relate to. Deep Trek is doing a complicated sequel to Yesterday's Enterprise, one off aliens, and second Harry Kim. Broad Trek is things like green women and rocking bridges with exploding consoles and having Harry Kim at all, although I'd wager that possibly even a majority of Trekkies would not be too familiar with characters from any one show. Probably would have been better to have representatives from each show rather than five from one, even with the loss of focus that would have resulted in.
But the Trek focus at all is somewhat offkilter with the business model. Trek is not big in China. And Chinese culture and attitudes are different. Not worse. Not better. Different. And approaches need to be different. And they are. But the philosophy and objectives need to be different too. You can't just vary the monetization strategy by a matter of degrees, ratchet the fit, and go for a sweet spot. You need a truly different philosophy.
I'd even suggest that people at PWE recognize that and wouldn't have bought Cryptic or kept it operating as a separate unit if they didn't think that. But the thing is, while Cryptic has an internal culture and some B2B philosophy, I don't think they have a philosophy when it comes to customers, service, etc. They're a studio, not a publisher. And that is a problem. Because they're cribbing PWE's philosophy or relying on them to handle customer service.
Here's Cryptic's mission statement:
"Cryptic Studios is a leading developer of massively multiplayer online role playing games, with a reputation for delivering profitable, on-time and on-budget titles."
Who is that targeted at? That's a mission statement oriented to publishers and maybe internally, not the public.
And here is Perfect World's:
"Perfect World Entertainment provides top-tier online games with superior quality and convenience."
Kinda flat.
Here's Blizzard's:
"Dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences...ever.
Blizzard Entertainments eight core values represent the principles and beliefs that have guided our company throughout the years. These values are reflected in employees' decisions and actions every day." (It goes on to name the 8 values.)
Who is that targeted at? A lot is targeted at customers.
Here's Bioware's:
"BioWare develops high-quality console, PC, and online role-playing games focused on rich stories, unforgettable characters, and vast worlds to discover."
Here's Disney's:
The Walt Disney Company's objective is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information, using its portfolio of brands to differentiate its content, services and consumer products. The company's primary financial goals are to maximize earnings and cash flow, and to allocate capital toward growth initiatives that will drive long-term shareholder value.
It's a bit more evil but divisions have more meaningful mission statements and you'll notice that they did focus on what they do for customers throughout the first half of that.
Oh. Wait. Disney changed it. Here's the new one:
"The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world."
Now, why is a mission statement important?
Well, basically, a corporate mission statement is the hedge against doing everything for the shareholders and to maximize profits.
Basically, a company is generally expected to maximize shareholder value but the mission statement provides the context. They maximize shareholder value "by doing" (insert mission statement) or maximize shareholder value "unless it interferes with" (insert mission statement). What you set out in your mission statement is supposed to be both how you plan to maximize shareholder value and what you won't compromise in pursuit of profits, particularly short term profits. It's sort of a contract or promise made to all parties including the customers.
That's why it's actually more than fluff and why having a vivid one that can be interpreted generously by management is important. And I think you can see, for most western companies, there are actually values and customer relationships they outline as coming ahead of short term profits. Disney will pursue profits ruthlessly but it's on the condition that they do it as "one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information" and while "seeking to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world". If a short term profit goal undermines one of these things, management will be expected to pass it up. Shareholders are expected to invest with an understanding that this mission statement outlines the methods for profit and the tradeoffs that profit may be passed up under... and most serious shareholders who are long term will respect these kinds of mission statements and resist efforts from speculative shareholders to subvert a mission statement. Because the long term guys will point to a mission statement and say "This is why I invested in this company. This is where the value comes from. Mess with this and you mess with my retirement prospects from this stock." If profit (particularly long term) can be made by doing one of these things, Disney will invest extra effort into doing it.
There's no Sinophobia on my end, to be clear. China is far away, though. To PWE (in China) STO is just a way to try and get a foothold in the Western gaming market. I doubt a company in Russia would know more about the actual game. To them, it's just (equally far away) business.
I have a screenshot from October 16, 2014, that says
60 * Starfleet Fleet Admiral (Gain 758,000 Skill Points)
Hooray! Thanks!
That makes the correct ratio 2.89 for the entire sum 50-60.
Now I just have to go back and find the post I made to edit that in...
That's nuts. I hope players playing realize hitting level 60 leveling for captain specialization and ships traits becames like a marble trying to roll out of a mug.
I just don't to see the logic behind all these actions. I don't understand actions irritating customer core base. Leveling more characters increases purchases and your income as those toons need ships and gear.
Extract from "How Your Business Can Profit from the Insights of Positive Psychology":
"Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return again and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers needs and preferences. Drawing on the latest research in the exploding field of positive psychology, Columbia Business School professor Bernd Schmitt offers three unique approaches any business can use to turning a casual customer into a committed fan."
Guys, pls think about this and we're all gonna be happy campers.
People aren't in the queues, and everyone says its because they don't reward enough dil or because they're too hard. I just assumed no one was in the queues because they we're giving people what they want at the moment - skill points. Get more skill points more consistently by constantly patrolling DQ systems with next to no risk of failure than you'd ever get in an stf. So everyone was there.
Now there's half has much level progression for paroling and even less for doffing, so everyone is nowhere.
Once the first runs are done, welcome to hell, if your toon carries over from DR fully done with stories and what not, all you will ever get is the first story run bling XP, currently one of my only guffs, personally i loved the stories, and was not to worried about the patrols.
This is why i "also" grabbed a torch... not to say "ZOMG!!! THEY KILLLED THE GAME!!!" lol, because we thought maybe someone would care when they say it.
At this point almost all i personally could say has been said, and they can ether see what everyone wants and why they are peeling off or not.
Personally i am tired of giving textile repetition, on the other end, if i didn't would they give a rip?
I don't care anymore
*nods*
Cryptic seems to be working under a different, and dangerous paradigm, though: that of the discardable customer. The idea is simple: get a *lot* of casual players interested to spend, maybe, $30 bucks a month, but make no efforts to keep them. If they leave, f* them! 10 others will soon take their place. In fact, they're pretty much counting on them leaving (they know the grind and outrageous upgrade cost is simply too much for the casual player to stay).
Sadly, this tactic does indeed seem to increase revenue.
Nimbus 3 Ground Battlezone - Take out the 6x BOSS bonus targets the most the give you was 60 and it's till 60 DIL
Dyson Ground Battlezone - Taking out the 3x large T-Rex, if you do a good job the skill point is higher and there is usually a blue or green award waiting under him if you did so?
Kobal Prime Ground Battlezone - The Thin Blue Line and Strength in the Shadows seems the points here are really good. Top of the hill where the landed space ship is if you don't do the mission and just run up there. You'll be in for a surprise. Bring friends do a team effort and most of all powerful weapons and shields.
Time will only tell!
Nope, they don't give a rip. You, however, judging by your emoticon here, still do.
'Giving textile repetition' is sadly *exactly* what will be required, lest this game dies a tragic, unglorious death. Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
but i no wanna work on typing these, my fingers hurt!
*giggles*
Well, that is what 'Copy & Paste' is for.
The thing that throws that out of whack is the IP has a huge loyal fan base not so much the company providing the game. so they know no matter what they do all it takes os a person to search star trek and the game will pop up someplace.
i was out of country and did not even know star trek online was up and running for a long time. but as soon as i got back into a country where searches whould return results i tried to find star trek episodes and this game popped up i joined up and started playing 2 days before it went FTP because i didnt know it was even such a game prior to then.
I saw this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfFnTt2UT0 and thought it might be time to go back. Ill continue to support my fleets.