You ..., you mean bring back the balance to the Force ?
Well gosh Wally , I wish they could ... but gee wiz , whaddaya suggest ??
No , seriously .
I'm asking that because I'm considering two practical considerations :
1 - To put things back as they were , you (or rather they) would need to reconsider some basic stuff that their premise of "how things work in DR" relies upon , such as :
Ballance Advanced to MK 12 instead of MK 14 .
Scrap the idea that Normal plays at MK 12 / Lvl 50 , but Advance "boosts" you to Lvl 60 even if you are not there (that "boost" does not make you kill probes or assimilated bops like you killed them pre DR with your pre-DR equipment).
In short , can Cryptic live with the idea of Advanced being really like the old Elite (awards and all) instead of trying to get away with tweaking stuff until they have no players left ?
Because right now all the tweaking just means "yeah , we're not going to go back to the way things were because we really need you to upgrade your stuff and throw Dil & money at us" .
2 - The ppl you're asking them to "let go of" are the same ppl who presumably purchased one or several sets of Lobi consoles & rare Doff sets , and they are also the ones who pick up the next c-store / Lobi / lockbox ship not (only) because they may like the ship , but they gotta "test" it and see how much DEEPS they can squeeze out of it / and / or to try to squeeze moar DEEPS out of it then player X/Y/Z did .
In short , thems be spenders ... at least some of them ... , and they have created an environment (the DEEPS channels) that encourage spending as well ... -- because let's be honest , the latest vids from that crowd just proved that it really is about having a team that spends as much as you do , and not about skill ... :P)
And lastly , I'll put this out there -- and fair warning , it's DOOOOMMM --- what if they roll DR back in terms of NPC difficuly / XP / awards , and the queues remain empty ?
What if they have in fact fatally wounded STO ?
EDIT : it is a bit disturbing to find that most of my comments have been echoed by other regulars in previous posts ... :eek:
Here's the problem. What you describe is not an average joe.
What you describe is between 5-10% of players.
Here's the F2P trick.
Take a game with 100k active players cycling in and out, 50k in any given month, spending $15 a month. $750k a month.
Turn it into F2P. Get 300k+ players. 10% of them spend an average of $50 in any given month but the spread is wide, ranging from $5 to $500+ and the AVERAGE is $50. $1.5 million a month. Revenue has doubled and profits may be higher still if you've kept costs down. On a BAD month, revenue is back down to $750k. You can sustain the 30k cycling through spending easier because there's always fresh chum flowing through and the ones who stay are surrounded by people.
The smart move is not to be happy with just 5-10% spending and shoot for more people buying at smaller amounts. But it's a tempting (dumb) business model.
By average joe I don't mean spending average, I mean playstyle average. They don't care about being elite and just play for fun and occasionally spend a few bucks to get something they think is cool. Sometimes they get suckered into an impulse purchase because they just cashed their paycheck and saw a new bundle full of cool stuff then buy it without stopping to think they'll probably never actually use most of the stuff in it because they play Fed (or KDF) and 2/3 of the stuff is for KDF (or Fed) or Romulans, or the LTS just went on sale and they think it's a good deal and buy it without stopping to think that it's entirely likely they may quit the game within a couple months.
You misunderstand which 1% I'm referring to, I'm not talking about the ones that stick around PvPing between Content Releases, I'm talking about the ones who come back, buy up new ships and buy Zen for Dil to upgrade and gear up, do the new content, grind for marks (or whatever) to get the special gear, then leave until they hear about new content, I call them Content Tourists, they stop in, but don't stay, PWE/Cryptic wants them to stay, so they make everything they (and the rest of us) do as grindy as possible and encourage even more trips to the cash shop in the interim.
Oh, them. Yeah it's true those types also bring in a lot of money because there's a few of them spending a lot all at once instead of a lot spending a little bit here and there.
And then there's the few who play and have a lot of fun early on, spend a bunch of money, then get bored (or fed up) and quit in a couple months and never come back.
What Cryptic is assuming is that everyone who is playing, has been playing for a long time. So they think we all have level 50 gear, and we were at level 50 for a long time.
What they fail to realize is that new players do not have level 50 gear. Most players already have high-end gear, but not the new ones. New players probably have Solanae set or Jemhadar set from the FE's.
It is really easy for pre-DR players to level up through content, but us newer players are having the expectation that we should have been playing before DR.
It's another long standing problem, the game does a rubbish job of teaching players the basics of ship builds. The in game rewards can still be used for 50+ content.
Perhaps I've had an easier time of it because I have played STO for a while now, and I have a decent amount of know-how.
However I wiped the slate clean and started fresh when DR arrived, with the idea that I could take advantage of levelling seamlessly from the old content into the new. And it sort of worked, I think. I managed to get to level 52 when I first entered the Delta Quadrant.
I've been sticking to normal difficulty. I have also been using a stock T5 Kazon Raider and the now cheap blue mk xii gear. I've been having no problems in space, but I have died on ground a few times.
It was fine to begin with levelling wise, and I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. But now I've hit that wall myself face first. At level 56 and I have something like 100k points to earn before I can play the next mission.
The only other problem I have is the queues. Sticking to normal means I don't really experience the emptiness, my issue with it is all the OP Captains who really should be playing advanced are instead dominating the normal queues and ruining the fun for everyone else.
-
Now, about the OP. I was always under the impression that those top tier/PvP players were just as ignored as the rest of us. These are the players that point out how OP or broken some new gadget is at every release, and until recently have had requests for more challenging content fallen on deaf ears?
Players will always go for the path of least resistance, I'm not convinced it's just the min/maxers doing this. Everyone wants easy skill points, everyone wants easy marks. It's a stupid way to go about it yes, but these blanket changes are meant for everyone - not just the top 0.1%.
I completely agree, and I said as such when PWE came in. When PWE bought Cryptic I went and read up on their other games, Lockboxes, random boxes, lockbox currencies (lobi) all of it is par for the course for PWE, and I went around like Cassandra calling attention to it, trying to warn the playerbase, and nobody listened, everyone said I was crazy and paranoid..
I still don't think that was Cryptic's mandate from PWE. Among other things, they could have boiled Cryptic down to a glorified localization and art team. They didn't. They expanded Cryptic. Both in-house and in creating a second division called Cryptic North.
I think Cryptic's mandate is basically "Make it do things and bring us money."
And Cryptic is like, "lol, how we do that?"
And PWE is like, "Here is what we do. Make it do things and bring us money in your market. Change it up. Just make it do things and bring us money."
And Cryptic is like, "Ha! You're so smart!"
Here's my take: Cryptic is supposed to be adapting PWE for western markets. Instead their approach is a slow introduction of PWE practices in western markets. Basically, they're supposed to figure out how to bring PWE into western markets and what to adapt and their approach is to try and terraform their corner of the market into a PWE market instead of adapting strategies and coming up with new ones.
I honestly don't think PWE would care which way Cryptic did it if it made money and hit the required rate of return on investment.
The problem is Cryptic, IMHO. They're infatuated with making games. They're always trying to keep games in development. They launch games in unfinished states. They treat launched games like they're still in development. So they don't want to focus on customer service or developing new ground up strategies. And PWE will tolerate that as long as it's profitable.
Thing is, really, I think a good MMO transitions from game development to service provider after launch; save the development for an expansion team. But Cryptic keeps prioritizing the game developer role over the service provider role because they are acting like a studio instead of a publisher. When I think they should be considering themselves a division of a publisher and not just a game maker. There are publisher functions that they slack on.
I'd trade a content developer for a few friendly hourly support techs doing phone support from 9-5 PST. I'd trade a systems developer for a bug fixer. I'd trade focus on the next big system or the next big lockbox for repeatable services. I'd trade a couple of Voyager cast members for empowered customer satisfaction R&D. I'd trade the prospect of more ships for more to do, more little things to pay for, and more balance focus with the existing ships.
And I don't think PWE would bat an eye if it got results.
And while that not be a short term improvement, I think all of that would be long term improvement. And at a certain point, PWE will shut down or demand that. But the lead time to know when to make that switch requires following leading indicators. Sales lag as a performance evaluation tool. Reported satisfaction leads as an evaluation tool.
So I think PWE would probably switch tracks to some of that IF they had the information to work with. But I don't think Cryptic is really holding up its end as a division of a publisher. They handle everything like a game development studio. And when all you are is a production house, you fall under the delusion that every problem can be solved with a design doc and a spreadsheet.
I think Cryptic needs to step up more as a co-publisher and I really think PWE could be persuaded of that if Cryptic even cared to persuade them. But they don't, generally.
The monetization designer job posting they added recently was some indication that Cryptic might be up for some of that. My hope is that it goes to some socialist entrepreneur in a turtleneck and sneakers, fresh from a TedTalk on how to engage customers with appealing product designs and world peace through better marketing. My fear is that it will go to some Randian ex-accountant at Zynga who cracks the whip and preaches shareholder value. That is assuming that our new "product manager" developer isn't actually the "monetization designer" retitled under a more friendly job name.
The "product manager" seems nice so far. Although he also seems to be hiding under his desk since the latest nerf patch. Granted, it can take a couple of months for a new dev to settle in but I think a good product manager would be taking notes on all this stuff and would call a meeting with D'Angelo and Geko to tell them they're making sales harder with this "all stick and no carrot" player morale busting. And that overly clever strategies are awful from a marketing perspective.
I can offer you a burger for 50 cents or 20% of $50, whichever is greater, calculated in Canadian dollars as adjusted for projected inflation in 2095 values, plus estimated equity risk premium associated with investments between now and 2095.
That would be about $1800 for that hamburger. Even though the average perceived cost would only be about $5.
But if I went around offering people that and collecting $1800 per hamburger, that doesn't make me clever. It makes me bad at business and awful at marketing.
The only other problem I have is the queues. Sticking to normal means I don't really experience the emptiness, my issue with it is all the OP Captains who really should be playing advanced are instead dominating the normal queues and ruining the fun for everyone else.
I can't speak for the others but I find myself WAY overpowered for normal STF's, yet most of the time Advanced just seems tedious. My main character is an engineer in a Mobius, I used to be able to run every elite STF in this game with no problem. Then Delta Rising hit. When I saw all the PR for it I was really excited. New content, more then just a feature episode, with some changes that seemed really good. Finally a new difficulty level for all the L33T players to go mutually pleasure each other over their DPS and leave those of us that just want to have a good time and maybe try different things on our ships for fun alone. Then I tried an advanced STF that was supposed to be the same as old elite and wow did I find myself feeling like a total new player with useless gear. I re-worked my ship, I can do well in the Advanced now, I can still out perform some Tac's but it just feels tedious and boring. Watching weapons strike for 30 and occasionally up to 48k in a Beam Overload (upgraded chroniton dual beam bank) do little to a target? Yeah I want to park behind something and pound away at it watching the health drop little by little, wow this is great. So where does that leave me?
I run some standard STF's just for some dilithium and marks, but overall the fun I had is gone. Dead queue's for all but basically 3 STF's. I'm guessing that this will be the excuse geko uses to cut the number of available STF's down. "Oh look nobody's playing these so we're just going to remove them from the game." I'm just curious as to where all these changes are going or what they are leading up to. I can't begin to imagine coming into this game now fresh with nothing and trying to get rep gear.
The problem is Cryptic has no idea how to make STO PvE work. All STO PvE is just a turkey shoot - Normal you just need to bring a ship with stuff equipped, Advanced you either need a Mk X or worse un doffed or traited build but knowing how to use it, or Mk XII-XIV if you don't, and Elite just takes longer.
It is just tediousness.
No one benefits from STO PvE right now - N00bs and trolls f**k it up because they are frakking idiots on purpose, newbies don't know what to do and get lost thinking WTF? at everything, most players feel trapped in a pointless and unrewarding grind, and Elite players get blamed for the whole f**ked up system.
When I say "let it go", I mean it in the sense Lily Sloane meant it when she said "blow up the ship" in First Contact. I feel like there's almost vendetta level focus here in slowing down fast progression.
Pretend the Borg are elite players and pretend Picard is a systems dev here.
LILY: You stealth nerfed us. PICARD: This really isn't the time. LILY: Okay. I don't know jack about game development systems design but everybody out there thinks that staying here and following this content grind strategy is suicide. They're just afraid to come in here and say it. PICARD: The players are accustomed to adapting to my patches. LILY: They're probably accustomed to your patches making sense. PICARD: None of them understand the grind as I do. ...No one does. No one can. LILY: What is that supposed to mean? PICARD: Six years ago, I was invited to play a game called 'Farmville'. I had their app implanted throughout my social media profiles. My credit card was linked to my account, every trace of disposable income erased. I was one of them. So you can imagine, my dear, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the grind and I know how to implement strategy. Now if you will excuse me I have work to do. LILY: I am such an idiot. ...It's so simple. The elite players hurt you, and now you're going to milk them dry. PICARD: At my company we don't succumb to monetization. We have a more evolved sensibility. LILY: Bull...! I saw the look on your face when you lowered those numbers on the spreadsheet. You were almost enjoying it! PICARD: How dare you!? LILY: Oh, come on, Captain. You're not the first man to get a thrill from nerfing someone. I see it all the time. PICARD: Get out! LILY: Or what? You'll nerfl me, like you nerfed the players who ground STFs after launch? PICARD: There was no way to distinguish them from exploiters. LILY: You didn't even try. Where was your evolved sensibility then? PICARD: I don't have time for this. LILY: Oh! Hey! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your little quest. Captain Zynga has to go hunt his whales. PICARD: What? LILY: You do have facebook in the twenty-fourth century? PICARD: This is not about monetization. LILY: Liar! PICARD: This is about saving the future of free-to-play gaming. LILY: Jean-Luc, delete the friggin' spreadsheets! PICARD: No! ...No!
(Picard breaks the starship display cabinet with his phaser rifle) PICARD: No! ...I will not sacrifice the systems design. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space patrols and we fall back. They assimilate entire keybind systems, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here, ...this far, no further! And I will make them pay for their dilithium. LILY: You broke your little ships. ...See you around, Zynga.
First off, LOVE this! Perfect LOL
Secondly, STOP is essentially a full PVE game now. Nothing will fix the PvP other than actually FIXING the PvP. Which leaves the question, what does it matter in a PVE game that anyone else has higher/lower dps than I?
The rewards, if any, for out-dpsing other players in a PVE queue is negligible.
The way i see it there are two schools here: those who focus on maximizing their dps output and then demanding the game is "too easy", and those who are more average players who are finding the game, in part, too challenging.
Cryptic can not please both of them. Increase the difficulty for the high dpsers and the rest of the players get frustrated. Lower the dififculty for them and the high dpsers (and, consequentially, high zen purchasers) threaten to walk.
They tried to create a three-tiered difficulty setting to appears to both sides but failed. The only way they can hope to actually succeed is to create a high DPS server and a "normal" server with their own system of difficulty settings and rewards.
Secondly, STOP is essentially a full PVE game now. Nothing will fix the PvP other than actually FIXING the PvP. Which leaves the question, what does it matter in a PVE game that anyone else has higher/lower dps than I?
The rewards, if any, for out-dpsing other players in a PVE queue is negligible.
The way i see it there are two schools here: those who focus on maximizing their dps output and then demanding the game is "too easy", and those who are more average players who are finding the game, in part, too challenging.
Cryptic can not please both of them. Increase the difficulty for the high dpsers and the rest of the players get frustrated. Lower the dififculty for them and the high dpsers (and, consequentially, high zen purchasers) threaten to walk.
They tried to create a three-tiered difficulty setting to appears to both sides but failed. The only way they can hope to actually succeed is to create a high DPS server and a "normal" server with their own system of difficulty settings and rewards.
Actually, that is the last thing to do - the answer is to make NPCs equal to players so on Normal NPCs are equal to Normal players, Advanced NPCs are equal to Advanced Players and Elite NPCs are equal to Elite players.
NOT just whack hitpoints up as if that made stuff difficult.
Actually, that is the last thing to do - the answer is to make NPCs equal to players so on Normal NPCs are equal to Normal players, Advanced NPCs are equal to Advanced Players and Elite NPCs are equal to Elite players.
NOT just whack hitpoints up as if that made stuff difficult.
I thought it was telling when Rinzler -- I mean Tron -- I mean Borticus -- said that the end result of increasing hitpoints was the same as increasing enemy AI: longer fights.
Well, yes, the result is the same if you're simply concerned with rate of player progression. If that's the concern, you could simply pause the whole map for 20 seconds every time a weapon gets fired and call that a challenge.
What would be different is what happens between engaging the enemy and the time they blow up: and that's gameplay. You know, the whole reason that people played games to begin with.
Saying that larger HP is effectively the same as smarter enemies says that your focus is on the time gate and the gear level. It's effectively the same FOR CRYPTIC. It's different for the players.
If they can't provide challenge (and I am not a challenge junkie; I play select ground on Elite and all space on Normal), it would be better if they simply said they couldn't do it than to equate time spent pummeling against massive hull with time spent using defensive tactics to stay alive and having NPCs heal themselves.
Equating the two is waving the white flag on gameplay.
I mean, by that standard, it's effectively the same if I rob a bank and get away with it or if I win the lottery. Or if I marry the woman of my dreams tomorrow and spend fifty years together or if I meet her in a nursing home. Final result is the same. The final result isn't what matters.
After all...
"I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived."
Actually, that is the last thing to do - the answer is to make NPCs equal to players so on Normal NPCs are equal to Normal players, Advanced NPCs are equal to Advanced Players and Elite NPCs are equal to Elite players.
NOT just whack hitpoints up as if that made stuff difficult.
That would be ideal but, apparently, too difficult to program =/
Well there are 128 people in the open queues playing right now...way to go Cryptic!! Your new content is busting!!
You used to have that playing just one STF...
I must admit I'm really struggling to see what Cryptics business plan is. As far as I can tell its as follows:
1: Release half as much content as is needed, but level gate it to make it seem like there's more.
2: Annoy your player base when they find a way to play the limited content faster.
3: Make the top level gear unreachable by the majority of your player base
4: Destroy the most popular content type for your game
5: Something
6: Profits!
The only answer I can come up with (aside from dropping a clanger of galactic proportions) is that they've looked elsewhere in the market and seen that within two months or so there's two new Sci-Fi MMO's releasing, one of which has a moderatly sized fan base and that within 8-12 months there's another two releasing, one of which has possibly a larger fan base than Star trek.
Upon seeing that they walked the game into a milking shed and are trying to rip as much cash out of it in the time that the game will remain alive.
I do hope that I'm very wrong on the last point, but its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when every pronouncement that the Dev's make seems to be designed to make Player relations worse.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
I must admit I'm really struggling to see what Cryptics business plan is. As far as I can tell its as follows:
1: Release half as much content as is needed, but level gate it to make it seem like there's more.
2: Annoy your player base when they find a way to play the limited content faster.
3: Make the top level gear unreachable by the majority of your player base
4: Destroy the most popular content type for your game
5: Something
6: Profits!
The only answer I can come up with (aside from dropping a clanger of galactic proportions) is that they've looked elsewhere in the market and seen that within two months or so there's two new Sci-Fi MMO's releasing, one of which has a moderatly sized fan base and that within 8-12 months there's another two releasing, one of which has possibly a larger fan base than Star trek.
Upon seeing that they walked the game into a milking shed and are trying to rip as much cash out of it in the time that the game will remain alive.
I do hope that I'm very wrong on the last point, but its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when every pronouncement that the Dev's make seems to be designed to make Player relations worse.
I can't agree with the OP on this one, yes the game has been made worse and it has hurt players to the point of absurdity. However I would like to put this in another light as someone who is in that top tier of players.
The perception that this has hurt everyone except the top tier, although not entirely wrong, is a misconception. The top tier as I see it is anyone who excels at a given aspect of the game, as there isn't anyone who is the best at everything. That includes everyone from the space jockeys to the ground raiders to the crafters to even the foundry authors, because after all the game isn't just about combat.
Now truth be told there are top people who have been hit by the changes, prime example you lot will probably care about is the joke of supposed space difficulty increases. That hurt the top tier who run anything aside from DPS ships, so that is anything like tanks and drain ships or anything else that isn't built for pure DPS.
From a ground point of view it is a lot more balanced, and truth is the vast majority don't know how to do ground, I mean many people think they can but in all honesty I know people who can run ground better than ~85-95% of the player base while drunk, that isn't even me making a sarcastic comment, that's fact.
Ground isn't hard, and it is actually more about skill and experience on ground and knowing your stuff than it is about the gear, and in this case gear helps and is far from the deciding factor.
Crafters got it hard because of the upgrade system, the costs of upgrading gear is incredibly expensive so the crafters role is kinda voided, because unless folks have a shed load of ec to pay for it the high grade items are unnecessarily expensive and that makes having good gear for advanced level for a fresh 50 more awkward than it already is. If the costs were less crafters could sell for less and that means more people can compete a bit easier.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that this update hit near enough everyone, and blaming us top-tier folk isn't going to solve anything. When I was testing with others we did try to point out to Cryptic that this update was unfair on the vast majority but they didn't listen, so who's fault is it really?
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
This is my VPvP+ spec Mirror Star Cruiser in PvE trim. I get 10k DPS out of it if I can be bothered. Now, lets rip it apart. I can tell you why I use any part of that build, and what I use it for. Could a dev do that? No. Should they be able to? Yes, they should know better than me why I put it together that way.
Now, I could go into massive detail, but I wont, just a little, only for Tac boff slots.
So, why do I use BFAW1, APB1 for Tacs? Simple, I want to use BFAW1 to spread APB1 around. Why do I want to spread APB1 around? Because it is a debuff that lowers damage resistance. Why do I want that? Because it increases damage. Why do I want that? because damage means stuff dies. Quite important for content that requires stuff to die.
So, that is why BFAW1, APB1 works. However, wouldn't TT1, BFAW2 be better? Or, why APB1 and not APD1? Or why not BFAW1, BFAW2?
That is just 2 boff abilities, out of 12, and by implication, 8 pieces of gear out of 25. It would take forever to cover the lot, and as said, this is a very basic build, no doffs used, only VR Mk X gear and no Rep stuff - you could devote a small dissertation to analysing a build.
BUT, a Dev should be able to do it - and this level of analysis (not build - NPCs have a different set of constraints to what I had when making this) is what NPCs deserve in order to take PvE from turkey shoot to actually being decent.
ETA - if anyone would like the full essay, just say so; I have time.
TL;DR - Work out how player builds work and give NPCs the same level of care.
This is my VPvP+ spec Mirror Star Cruiser in PvE trim. I get 10k DPS out of it if I can be bothered. Now, lets rip it apart. I can tell you why I use any part of that build, and what I use it for. Could a dev do that? No. Should they be able to? Yes, they should know better than me why I put it together that way.
OT Thanks for this fit.. I've been looking for one.. Looks good.
OT Thanks for this fit.. I've been looking for one.. Looks good.
As far as PvE is concerned, treat it as a starting point - remember it is an adaptation of a player created PvP series made PvE passable, not a PvE fit in its own right.
If you were looking for a VPvP ship, keep in mind I use an (almost) completely different suite of boffs for that as I use it as a healboat there. And the ones that are common are all of different ranks...
Figure out what makes it work, take that information and use it to make your own build better, you should never just copy what someone else does without looking to understand why did they do it that way.
Lots of points in this thread that I agree with so I'll not repeat.
I'm in a good fleet with good people and that's a major reason for me still being here... but even so I'm reaching the stage where I can't face the game at times. I simply facepalm, stop what I'm doing, mouth a profanity, and log off.
Click this, click that, click click click... constant hunt for a pitiable and restricted quantity of dilithium that was not intended to fulfil the new craft/upgrade needs... woeful DQ content... incredibly materials-expensive and ludicrous (I mean really) craft grind (more disconnected and tedious clicking... for months) in order to craft a handful of arguably uncompetitive equipment... an horrendous 'specialisation' grind that is tough to face with one character, let alone 8... with the necessity... the NECESSITY... and BY DESIGN... to repeat the same stuff over and over and over to progess... made even worse now with this insane reward nerf.
Perfect storm.
Curves are skewwiff all over the place, particularly those that lead to fun and enjoyment.
The mask is well and truly off... STO is nothing more than a time-sink with incentives to spend cash. I know all MMOs are like this... but some are covered in an appealing flesh that hides the profitprofitprofit mouse-wheel control philosophy.
Make it enjoyable. Fun. Make your profits from that. This is an entertainment product, after all.
Leonard congratulating me when I level. This I like.
STO doesn't exist in a vacuum, Mr Cryptic... there are plenty of alternatives out there in MMOland and plenty of new games on the horizon.
As for the perception of a necessity to slow down the few... well... recent changes hurt even the few... but what about the needs of the many? Eh? Or do I have to commit radiation suicide to make that point?
I thought it was telling when Rinzler -- I mean Tron -- I mean Borticus -- said that the end result of increasing hitpoints was the same as increasing enemy AI: longer fights.
Well, yes, the result is the same if you're simply concerned with rate of player progression. If that's the concern, you could simply pause the whole map for 20 seconds every time a weapon gets fired and call that a challenge.
What would be different is what happens between engaging the enemy and the time they blow up: and that's gameplay. You know, the whole reason that people played games to begin with.
Saying that larger HP is effectively the same as smarter enemies says that your focus is on the time gate and the gear level. It's effectively the same FOR CRYPTIC. It's different for the players.
If they can't provide challenge (and I am not a challenge junkie; I play select ground on Elite and all space on Normal), it would be better if they simply said they couldn't do it than to equate time spent pummeling against massive hull with time spent using defensive tactics to stay alive and having NPCs heal themselves.
Equating the two is waving the white flag on gameplay.
I mean, by that standard, it's effectively the same if I rob a bank and get away with it or if I win the lottery. Or if I marry the woman of my dreams tomorrow and spend fifty years together or if I meet her in a nursing home. Final result is the same. The final result isn't what matters.
After all...
"I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived."
I do think this has to be addressed at some point.
TBH if people want to do the whole 100k dps then I have no problem with that. Main problem I do have now, however, is that I am stuck with one character now because I can't face levelling my other 4 level 50s.
Before I'd flick between alts but now I find I am investing all my time in my main tac.
They never have and IMO they never will. There's no money in it for them.
Not actually true, only superficially true - you need to have an actual game to conduct your money grabbing on.
A decent AI is part of what makes a game work, which means you actually have players, some of whom have money to spend and will spend still spend it to improve, but rather than doing due to frustration they will be doing it due to enjoyment - and happy people pay more for stuff, and are more willing to pay for stuff, than people doing it to lessen a frustrating point.
You reward people for playing which makes them happy and they pay. That means people say "Oooo, isn't STO good, for..." whatever reason - not grind, grind, grind, and surrender wallet to stop it, as that makes people frustrated and complain.
And people will spend money to upgrade gear anyway - all you actually need for ASTF ability is a lvl 40 ship on mission reward gear, and almost everyone has better stuff than that. Or pre-DR, when you could take a ship on equipment it left the shipyard with through ESTFs.
So we are the root of all evil without doing anything wrong. I like that. We are so godly, the "world" of STO shakes as collateral damage. I reeeeeally like that image.
So we are the root of all evil without doing anything wrong. I like that. We are so godly, the "world" of STO shakes as collateral damage. I reeeeeally like that image.
"Shut up evil 69k DPSer!"
Being serious, the OP is trying to say Cryptic should stop wasting time trying to slow our progress, not that we are the root of all evil.
That probably isn't what the rest are thinking of course...
Personally I liked things how they were before Delta Rising. People were doing their own things, I'd maxed out and I was working on improving my gear slowly while working on my build to improve my damage output. I didn't care that people were doing crazy DPS and I was spending far more on the game than I was prepared to admit to my girlfriend.
If Cryptic really have adjusted the leveling speed to suit the top 1% of players then I think they will soon realise that those players will spend all their cash getting the best gear and then stop. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending THEIR cash trying to catch up - that's a stupid premise. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending their cash or their time in STO at all because the grind is mind numbing.
Personally I liked things how they were before Delta Rising. People were doing their own things, I'd maxed out and I was working on improving my gear slowly while working on my build to improve my damage output. I didn't care that people were doing crazy DPS and I was spending far more on the game than I was prepared to admit to my girlfriend.
If Cryptic really have adjusted the leveling speed to suit the top 1% of players then I think they will soon realize that those players will spend all their cash getting the best gear and then stop. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending THEIR cash trying to catch up - that's a stupid premise. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending their cash or their time in STO at all because the grind is mind numbing.
No you can't possibly be correct...what you're saying is...what's that called? Common Sense??
Being serious, the OP is trying to say Cryptic should stop wasting time trying to slow our progress, not that we are the root of all evil.
That probably isn't what the rest are thinking of course...
While I am sure that some are hating on top DPS monsters like yourself, and that some who have complained the game was 'too easy' in the past may have left to a few of these changes, I have to say the problem is more with whales such as myself.
We made this mess possible, by continuing to snap up every tidbit thrown our way, by not punishing Cryptic for sloppy code, bugs, and shallow additions with our wallets but continuing to throw cash at them.
Is there any surprise Cryptic is acting this way when the biggest spenders continue to buy even when they shovel out whatever and we pay at the same rate?
The OP is exactly on target. The best players can skill through this new mess. The whales can throw money at it until the entire ship is gold and power through it. The people in good fleets with good team work can make it through.
Everyone else is left in the cold, and that sucks.
While I am sure that some are hating on top DPS monsters like yourself, and that some who have complained the game was 'too easy' in the past may have left to a few of these changes, I have to say the problem is more with whales such as myself.
We made this mess possible, by continuing to snap up every tidbit thrown our way, by not punishing Cryptic for sloppy code, bugs, and shallow additions with our wallets but continuing to throw cash at them.
Is there any surprise Cryptic is acting this way when the biggest spenders continue to buy even when they shovel out whatever and we pay at the same rate?
The OP is exactly on target. The best players can skill through this new mess. The whales can throw money at it until the entire ship is gold and power through it. The people in good fleets with good team work can make it through.
Everyone else is left in the cold, and that sucks.
I'm afraid this is a fairly accurate assessment. There are only 142 people total playing in the PVE queues right now and both battlezones are deserted.
Argala doesn't have a crowd next to it, and there are only a few people around each planet in the Delta Quadrant. Every other system is a ghost town.
I don't understand anymore how anyone could think this expansion was good at ALL. I can't find anyone to play PvE queue content with anymore. I literally cannot play due to lack of interest in the playerbase.
Comments
You ..., you mean bring back the balance to the Force ?
Well gosh Wally , I wish they could ... but gee wiz , whaddaya suggest ??
No , seriously .
I'm asking that because I'm considering two practical considerations :
1 - To put things back as they were , you (or rather they) would need to reconsider some basic stuff that their premise of "how things work in DR" relies upon , such as :
Ballance Advanced to MK 12 instead of MK 14 .
Scrap the idea that Normal plays at MK 12 / Lvl 50 , but Advance "boosts" you to Lvl 60 even if you are not there (that "boost" does not make you kill probes or assimilated bops like you killed them pre DR with your pre-DR equipment).
In short , can Cryptic live with the idea of Advanced being really like the old Elite (awards and all) instead of trying to get away with tweaking stuff until they have no players left ?
Because right now all the tweaking just means "yeah , we're not going to go back to the way things were because we really need you to upgrade your stuff and throw Dil & money at us" .
2 - The ppl you're asking them to "let go of" are the same ppl who presumably purchased one or several sets of Lobi consoles & rare Doff sets , and they are also the ones who pick up the next c-store / Lobi / lockbox ship not (only) because they may like the ship , but they gotta "test" it and see how much DEEPS they can squeeze out of it / and / or to try to squeeze moar DEEPS out of it then player X/Y/Z did .
In short , thems be spenders ... at least some of them ... , and they have created an environment (the DEEPS channels) that encourage spending as well ... -- because let's be honest , the latest vids from that crowd just proved that it really is about having a team that spends as much as you do , and not about skill ... :P)
And lastly , I'll put this out there -- and fair warning , it's DOOOOMMM --- what if they roll DR back in terms of NPC difficuly / XP / awards , and the queues remain empty ?
What if they have in fact fatally wounded STO ?
EDIT : it is a bit disturbing to find that most of my comments have been echoed by other regulars in previous posts ... :eek:
By average joe I don't mean spending average, I mean playstyle average. They don't care about being elite and just play for fun and occasionally spend a few bucks to get something they think is cool. Sometimes they get suckered into an impulse purchase because they just cashed their paycheck and saw a new bundle full of cool stuff then buy it without stopping to think they'll probably never actually use most of the stuff in it because they play Fed (or KDF) and 2/3 of the stuff is for KDF (or Fed) or Romulans, or the LTS just went on sale and they think it's a good deal and buy it without stopping to think that it's entirely likely they may quit the game within a couple months.
Oh, them. Yeah it's true those types also bring in a lot of money because there's a few of them spending a lot all at once instead of a lot spending a little bit here and there.
And then there's the few who play and have a lot of fun early on, spend a bunch of money, then get bored (or fed up) and quit in a couple months and never come back.
It's another long standing problem, the game does a rubbish job of teaching players the basics of ship builds. The in game rewards can still be used for 50+ content.
Perhaps I've had an easier time of it because I have played STO for a while now, and I have a decent amount of know-how.
However I wiped the slate clean and started fresh when DR arrived, with the idea that I could take advantage of levelling seamlessly from the old content into the new. And it sort of worked, I think. I managed to get to level 52 when I first entered the Delta Quadrant.
I've been sticking to normal difficulty. I have also been using a stock T5 Kazon Raider and the now cheap blue mk xii gear. I've been having no problems in space, but I have died on ground a few times.
It was fine to begin with levelling wise, and I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. But now I've hit that wall myself face first. At level 56 and I have something like 100k points to earn before I can play the next mission.
The only other problem I have is the queues. Sticking to normal means I don't really experience the emptiness, my issue with it is all the OP Captains who really should be playing advanced are instead dominating the normal queues and ruining the fun for everyone else.
-
Now, about the OP. I was always under the impression that those top tier/PvP players were just as ignored as the rest of us. These are the players that point out how OP or broken some new gadget is at every release, and until recently have had requests for more challenging content fallen on deaf ears?
Players will always go for the path of least resistance, I'm not convinced it's just the min/maxers doing this. Everyone wants easy skill points, everyone wants easy marks. It's a stupid way to go about it yes, but these blanket changes are meant for everyone - not just the top 0.1%.
I still don't think that was Cryptic's mandate from PWE. Among other things, they could have boiled Cryptic down to a glorified localization and art team. They didn't. They expanded Cryptic. Both in-house and in creating a second division called Cryptic North.
I think Cryptic's mandate is basically "Make it do things and bring us money."
And Cryptic is like, "lol, how we do that?"
And PWE is like, "Here is what we do. Make it do things and bring us money in your market. Change it up. Just make it do things and bring us money."
And Cryptic is like, "Ha! You're so smart!"
Here's my take: Cryptic is supposed to be adapting PWE for western markets. Instead their approach is a slow introduction of PWE practices in western markets. Basically, they're supposed to figure out how to bring PWE into western markets and what to adapt and their approach is to try and terraform their corner of the market into a PWE market instead of adapting strategies and coming up with new ones.
I honestly don't think PWE would care which way Cryptic did it if it made money and hit the required rate of return on investment.
The problem is Cryptic, IMHO. They're infatuated with making games. They're always trying to keep games in development. They launch games in unfinished states. They treat launched games like they're still in development. So they don't want to focus on customer service or developing new ground up strategies. And PWE will tolerate that as long as it's profitable.
Thing is, really, I think a good MMO transitions from game development to service provider after launch; save the development for an expansion team. But Cryptic keeps prioritizing the game developer role over the service provider role because they are acting like a studio instead of a publisher. When I think they should be considering themselves a division of a publisher and not just a game maker. There are publisher functions that they slack on.
I'd trade a content developer for a few friendly hourly support techs doing phone support from 9-5 PST. I'd trade a systems developer for a bug fixer. I'd trade focus on the next big system or the next big lockbox for repeatable services. I'd trade a couple of Voyager cast members for empowered customer satisfaction R&D. I'd trade the prospect of more ships for more to do, more little things to pay for, and more balance focus with the existing ships.
And I don't think PWE would bat an eye if it got results.
And while that not be a short term improvement, I think all of that would be long term improvement. And at a certain point, PWE will shut down or demand that. But the lead time to know when to make that switch requires following leading indicators. Sales lag as a performance evaluation tool. Reported satisfaction leads as an evaluation tool.
So I think PWE would probably switch tracks to some of that IF they had the information to work with. But I don't think Cryptic is really holding up its end as a division of a publisher. They handle everything like a game development studio. And when all you are is a production house, you fall under the delusion that every problem can be solved with a design doc and a spreadsheet.
I think Cryptic needs to step up more as a co-publisher and I really think PWE could be persuaded of that if Cryptic even cared to persuade them. But they don't, generally.
The monetization designer job posting they added recently was some indication that Cryptic might be up for some of that. My hope is that it goes to some socialist entrepreneur in a turtleneck and sneakers, fresh from a TedTalk on how to engage customers with appealing product designs and world peace through better marketing. My fear is that it will go to some Randian ex-accountant at Zynga who cracks the whip and preaches shareholder value. That is assuming that our new "product manager" developer isn't actually the "monetization designer" retitled under a more friendly job name.
The "product manager" seems nice so far. Although he also seems to be hiding under his desk since the latest nerf patch. Granted, it can take a couple of months for a new dev to settle in but I think a good product manager would be taking notes on all this stuff and would call a meeting with D'Angelo and Geko to tell them they're making sales harder with this "all stick and no carrot" player morale busting. And that overly clever strategies are awful from a marketing perspective.
I can offer you a burger for 50 cents or 20% of $50, whichever is greater, calculated in Canadian dollars as adjusted for projected inflation in 2095 values, plus estimated equity risk premium associated with investments between now and 2095.
That would be about $1800 for that hamburger. Even though the average perceived cost would only be about $5.
But if I went around offering people that and collecting $1800 per hamburger, that doesn't make me clever. It makes me bad at business and awful at marketing.
Clever = bad. Confusing = bad. Stealth positioning = bad.
I can't speak for the others but I find myself WAY overpowered for normal STF's, yet most of the time Advanced just seems tedious. My main character is an engineer in a Mobius, I used to be able to run every elite STF in this game with no problem. Then Delta Rising hit. When I saw all the PR for it I was really excited. New content, more then just a feature episode, with some changes that seemed really good. Finally a new difficulty level for all the L33T players to go mutually pleasure each other over their DPS and leave those of us that just want to have a good time and maybe try different things on our ships for fun alone. Then I tried an advanced STF that was supposed to be the same as old elite and wow did I find myself feeling like a total new player with useless gear. I re-worked my ship, I can do well in the Advanced now, I can still out perform some Tac's but it just feels tedious and boring. Watching weapons strike for 30 and occasionally up to 48k in a Beam Overload (upgraded chroniton dual beam bank) do little to a target? Yeah I want to park behind something and pound away at it watching the health drop little by little, wow this is great. So where does that leave me?
I run some standard STF's just for some dilithium and marks, but overall the fun I had is gone. Dead queue's for all but basically 3 STF's. I'm guessing that this will be the excuse geko uses to cut the number of available STF's down. "Oh look nobody's playing these so we're just going to remove them from the game." I'm just curious as to where all these changes are going or what they are leading up to. I can't begin to imagine coming into this game now fresh with nothing and trying to get rep gear.
In game handle @darthvrooks
It is just tediousness.
No one benefits from STO PvE right now - N00bs and trolls f**k it up because they are frakking idiots on purpose, newbies don't know what to do and get lost thinking WTF? at everything, most players feel trapped in a pointless and unrewarding grind, and Elite players get blamed for the whole f**ked up system.
First off, LOVE this! Perfect LOL
Secondly, STOP is essentially a full PVE game now. Nothing will fix the PvP other than actually FIXING the PvP. Which leaves the question, what does it matter in a PVE game that anyone else has higher/lower dps than I?
The rewards, if any, for out-dpsing other players in a PVE queue is negligible.
The way i see it there are two schools here: those who focus on maximizing their dps output and then demanding the game is "too easy", and those who are more average players who are finding the game, in part, too challenging.
Cryptic can not please both of them. Increase the difficulty for the high dpsers and the rest of the players get frustrated. Lower the dififculty for them and the high dpsers (and, consequentially, high zen purchasers) threaten to walk.
They tried to create a three-tiered difficulty setting to appears to both sides but failed. The only way they can hope to actually succeed is to create a high DPS server and a "normal" server with their own system of difficulty settings and rewards.
Actually, that is the last thing to do - the answer is to make NPCs equal to players so on Normal NPCs are equal to Normal players, Advanced NPCs are equal to Advanced Players and Elite NPCs are equal to Elite players.
NOT just whack hitpoints up as if that made stuff difficult.
I thought it was telling when Rinzler -- I mean Tron -- I mean Borticus -- said that the end result of increasing hitpoints was the same as increasing enemy AI: longer fights.
Well, yes, the result is the same if you're simply concerned with rate of player progression. If that's the concern, you could simply pause the whole map for 20 seconds every time a weapon gets fired and call that a challenge.
What would be different is what happens between engaging the enemy and the time they blow up: and that's gameplay. You know, the whole reason that people played games to begin with.
Saying that larger HP is effectively the same as smarter enemies says that your focus is on the time gate and the gear level. It's effectively the same FOR CRYPTIC. It's different for the players.
If they can't provide challenge (and I am not a challenge junkie; I play select ground on Elite and all space on Normal), it would be better if they simply said they couldn't do it than to equate time spent pummeling against massive hull with time spent using defensive tactics to stay alive and having NPCs heal themselves.
Equating the two is waving the white flag on gameplay.
I mean, by that standard, it's effectively the same if I rob a bank and get away with it or if I win the lottery. Or if I marry the woman of my dreams tomorrow and spend fifty years together or if I meet her in a nursing home. Final result is the same. The final result isn't what matters.
After all...
"I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived."
That would be ideal but, apparently, too difficult to program =/
You used to have that playing just one STF...
I must admit I'm really struggling to see what Cryptics business plan is. As far as I can tell its as follows:
1: Release half as much content as is needed, but level gate it to make it seem like there's more.
2: Annoy your player base when they find a way to play the limited content faster.
3: Make the top level gear unreachable by the majority of your player base
4: Destroy the most popular content type for your game
5: Something
6: Profits!
The only answer I can come up with (aside from dropping a clanger of galactic proportions) is that they've looked elsewhere in the market and seen that within two months or so there's two new Sci-Fi MMO's releasing, one of which has a moderatly sized fan base and that within 8-12 months there's another two releasing, one of which has possibly a larger fan base than Star trek.
Upon seeing that they walked the game into a milking shed and are trying to rip as much cash out of it in the time that the game will remain alive.
I do hope that I'm very wrong on the last point, but its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when every pronouncement that the Dev's make seems to be designed to make Player relations worse.
Lol that was brilliant.
Joined January 2009
/coughFireflyOnlinecough/
Had to apply a healthy dose of Google there and ok so that 5, not 4 Sci-fi games in my original post.
The perception that this has hurt everyone except the top tier, although not entirely wrong, is a misconception. The top tier as I see it is anyone who excels at a given aspect of the game, as there isn't anyone who is the best at everything. That includes everyone from the space jockeys to the ground raiders to the crafters to even the foundry authors, because after all the game isn't just about combat.
Now truth be told there are top people who have been hit by the changes, prime example you lot will probably care about is the joke of supposed space difficulty increases. That hurt the top tier who run anything aside from DPS ships, so that is anything like tanks and drain ships or anything else that isn't built for pure DPS.
From a ground point of view it is a lot more balanced, and truth is the vast majority don't know how to do ground, I mean many people think they can but in all honesty I know people who can run ground better than ~85-95% of the player base while drunk, that isn't even me making a sarcastic comment, that's fact.
Ground isn't hard, and it is actually more about skill and experience on ground and knowing your stuff than it is about the gear, and in this case gear helps and is far from the deciding factor.
Crafters got it hard because of the upgrade system, the costs of upgrading gear is incredibly expensive so the crafters role is kinda voided, because unless folks have a shed load of ec to pay for it the high grade items are unnecessarily expensive and that makes having good gear for advanced level for a fresh 50 more awkward than it already is. If the costs were less crafters could sell for less and that means more people can compete a bit easier.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that this update hit near enough everyone, and blaming us top-tier folk isn't going to solve anything. When I was testing with others we did try to point out to Cryptic that this update was unfair on the vast majority but they didn't listen, so who's fault is it really?
That is the thing - it isn't too difficult. You just work out what players run and why they use it. Take this:
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=vpvpliberty_0
This is my VPvP+ spec Mirror Star Cruiser in PvE trim. I get 10k DPS out of it if I can be bothered. Now, lets rip it apart. I can tell you why I use any part of that build, and what I use it for. Could a dev do that? No. Should they be able to? Yes, they should know better than me why I put it together that way.
Now, I could go into massive detail, but I wont, just a little, only for Tac boff slots.
So, why do I use BFAW1, APB1 for Tacs? Simple, I want to use BFAW1 to spread APB1 around. Why do I want to spread APB1 around? Because it is a debuff that lowers damage resistance. Why do I want that? Because it increases damage. Why do I want that? because damage means stuff dies. Quite important for content that requires stuff to die.
So, that is why BFAW1, APB1 works. However, wouldn't TT1, BFAW2 be better? Or, why APB1 and not APD1? Or why not BFAW1, BFAW2?
That is just 2 boff abilities, out of 12, and by implication, 8 pieces of gear out of 25. It would take forever to cover the lot, and as said, this is a very basic build, no doffs used, only VR Mk X gear and no Rep stuff - you could devote a small dissertation to analysing a build.
BUT, a Dev should be able to do it - and this level of analysis (not build - NPCs have a different set of constraints to what I had when making this) is what NPCs deserve in order to take PvE from turkey shoot to actually being decent.
ETA - if anyone would like the full essay, just say so; I have time.
TL;DR - Work out how player builds work and give NPCs the same level of care.
As far as PvE is concerned, treat it as a starting point - remember it is an adaptation of a player created PvP series made PvE passable, not a PvE fit in its own right.
If you were looking for a VPvP ship, keep in mind I use an (almost) completely different suite of boffs for that as I use it as a healboat there. And the ones that are common are all of different ranks...
Figure out what makes it work, take that information and use it to make your own build better, you should never just copy what someone else does without looking to understand why did they do it that way.
I'm in a good fleet with good people and that's a major reason for me still being here... but even so I'm reaching the stage where I can't face the game at times. I simply facepalm, stop what I'm doing, mouth a profanity, and log off.
Click this, click that, click click click... constant hunt for a pitiable and restricted quantity of dilithium that was not intended to fulfil the new craft/upgrade needs... woeful DQ content... incredibly materials-expensive and ludicrous (I mean really) craft grind (more disconnected and tedious clicking... for months) in order to craft a handful of arguably uncompetitive equipment... an horrendous 'specialisation' grind that is tough to face with one character, let alone 8... with the necessity... the NECESSITY... and BY DESIGN... to repeat the same stuff over and over and over to progess... made even worse now with this insane reward nerf.
Perfect storm.
Curves are skewwiff all over the place, particularly those that lead to fun and enjoyment.
The mask is well and truly off... STO is nothing more than a time-sink with incentives to spend cash. I know all MMOs are like this... but some are covered in an appealing flesh that hides the profitprofitprofit mouse-wheel control philosophy.
Make it enjoyable. Fun. Make your profits from that. This is an entertainment product, after all.
Leonard congratulating me when I level. This I like.
STO doesn't exist in a vacuum, Mr Cryptic... there are plenty of alternatives out there in MMOland and plenty of new games on the horizon.
As for the perception of a necessity to slow down the few... well... recent changes hurt even the few... but what about the needs of the many? Eh? Or do I have to commit radiation suicide to make that point?
Ship? Out of danger?
Not quite yet.
Absolutely.
TBH if people want to do the whole 100k dps then I have no problem with that. Main problem I do have now, however, is that I am stuck with one character now because I can't face levelling my other 4 level 50s.
Before I'd flick between alts but now I find I am investing all my time in my main tac.
It's boring.
Not actually true, only superficially true - you need to have an actual game to conduct your money grabbing on.
A decent AI is part of what makes a game work, which means you actually have players, some of whom have money to spend and will spend still spend it to improve, but rather than doing due to frustration they will be doing it due to enjoyment - and happy people pay more for stuff, and are more willing to pay for stuff, than people doing it to lessen a frustrating point.
You reward people for playing which makes them happy and they pay. That means people say "Oooo, isn't STO good, for..." whatever reason - not grind, grind, grind, and surrender wallet to stop it, as that makes people frustrated and complain.
And people will spend money to upgrade gear anyway - all you actually need for ASTF ability is a lvl 40 ship on mission reward gear, and almost everyone has better stuff than that. Or pre-DR, when you could take a ship on equipment it left the shipyard with through ESTFs.
"Shut up evil 69k DPSer!"
Being serious, the OP is trying to say Cryptic should stop wasting time trying to slow our progress, not that we are the root of all evil.
That probably isn't what the rest are thinking of course...
If Cryptic really have adjusted the leveling speed to suit the top 1% of players then I think they will soon realise that those players will spend all their cash getting the best gear and then stop. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending THEIR cash trying to catch up - that's a stupid premise. The rest of the players aren't going to be spending their cash or their time in STO at all because the grind is mind numbing.
Free Tibet!
No you can't possibly be correct...what you're saying is...what's that called? Common Sense??
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
While I am sure that some are hating on top DPS monsters like yourself, and that some who have complained the game was 'too easy' in the past may have left to a few of these changes, I have to say the problem is more with whales such as myself.
We made this mess possible, by continuing to snap up every tidbit thrown our way, by not punishing Cryptic for sloppy code, bugs, and shallow additions with our wallets but continuing to throw cash at them.
Is there any surprise Cryptic is acting this way when the biggest spenders continue to buy even when they shovel out whatever and we pay at the same rate?
The OP is exactly on target. The best players can skill through this new mess. The whales can throw money at it until the entire ship is gold and power through it. The people in good fleets with good team work can make it through.
Everyone else is left in the cold, and that sucks.
I'm afraid this is a fairly accurate assessment. There are only 142 people total playing in the PVE queues right now and both battlezones are deserted.
Argala doesn't have a crowd next to it, and there are only a few people around each planet in the Delta Quadrant. Every other system is a ghost town.
I don't understand anymore how anyone could think this expansion was good at ALL. I can't find anyone to play PvE queue content with anymore. I literally cannot play due to lack of interest in the playerbase.
My last question; where is everyone?