Actually, gear won't help being just BAD at the game. The problem is that the casuals need to play advanced to get the stuff for them to get their shinies. They REALLY need to make normal viable by having it drop rep materials and probably VR mats.
I concur, they need to have normal drop some of them rare items, but they likely wont do that cause they want everyone to grind and pay to get the gear to get into the advanced stuff to get those rare items.
I am a casual player, and I'd be quite happy with running XIV ultras. I've no desire for epic quality; by chance I have an epic XIII shield array, but that was just through a lucky upgrade. I couldn't care less whether I made an XIV shield, so long as I can get reasonable gear at a fair price (and that fair price is nowhere near what's on offer at the moment).
firstly its not a take a piece of crud system and make it epic system. Its a system to make good gear that you used at level 50 want to keep and use at level 60 usable at level 60.
Its not a crafting system its an "upgrade system" if you are using garbage gear you will upgrade from garbage to garbage guaranteed.
If your using it to upgrade purple gear a couple of levels from 50-60 it works well. People dont understand the system but it has been explained that you cannot take bad gear and suddenly make it good using this system it was not designed for that. It will award stats according to the type of gear you started with so if you got a white drop from a trash mob in a zone that you solo'd your going to waste your time it will never ever be anything else but slightly upgraded trash that might become purple along the way..
So dont upgrade gear that is not purple that you didnt work hard to get and you will find that the dilithium outlay isn't that bad. It can be a bit high but I dont consider it unreasonable. If your not willing to dish out the dilithium to create an epic and takes your chances then dont do it. Epic gear is for bragging rights only it has very little stat increase.
I am upgrading things like rep gear obtained from unlocking the rep that took quite a lot of time and effort to simply be able to obtain and so far I have not had much issue with the system. Weapons are more expensive then say shields but in all cases I have been able to keep the gear I like that I worked hard to get and make it more powerful then it was when I obtained it.
This is not entirely true. Apparently, it is far cheaper to upgrade a piece of Mk II equipment to epic than it is to take a Mk XII purple item to epic especially if you craft a purple Mk II item. After all, you have 12 chances to go from Mk II to Mk XIV and each upgrade gives you a chance to upgrade the rarity while going from Mk XII to Mk XIV gives only 2 chances to upgrade the rarity.
This is not entirely true. Apparently, it is far cheaper to upgrade a piece of Mk II equipment to epic than it is to take a Mk XII purple item to epic especially if you craft a purple Mk II item. After all, you have 12 chances to go from Mk II to Mk XIV and each upgrade gives you a chance to upgrade the rarity while going from Mk XII to Mk XIV gives only 2 chances to upgrade the rarity.
If you want epic with TRIBBLE stats then go for it but then dont come screaming on the boards about the cost.
The person i replied to is complaining about the cost of doing just as you describe so no its not cheaper and the stats are horrible.. there is a reason for that..
Did common to mark XII cost you 5 million, or were they free drops - back with un-nerfed vendor trash you could even earn EC.
Were common to mark XII released in an expansion as a new tier system?
Normally, when you release something, you well, release something.
The copy-paste text "upgrades" don't qualify as something and that's the whole point in that they don't have animations or models so they don't actually exist, they aren't anything, they are nothing.
When the weapons were made, the original weapon animations then those represent a value in developer resources.
A Common Issue Phaser Beam array has the exact same animation as a
- Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- Uncommon Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- ...
- Epic Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- Mark II Phaser Beam Array
- ...
- Epic Mark XIV Phaser Beam Array
It's a pretty consistent thing in this game. Why do you expect a particular mark to bring something new? I just don't get it.
When rep system or fleet gear was released with say new weapon skins or new animations, for example the v-ger torpedo or the elite ground weapons then that was fair.
My Fleet Phasers look exactly like my non-Fleet Phasers. My Undine Rep Phasers are green instead of orange, a color change that the game actually allowed before it was officially released (and removed because of the IP holder demands, IIRC).
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Personally, I keep my fingers crossed to go from VR to UR with the mod I want from Mk II through about Mk X...from Mk X through Mk XIV, I keep my fingers crossed it doesn't go UR.
Yes, you can have VR Mk II gear with three mods you want...
This is not entirely true. Apparently, it is far cheaper to upgrade a piece of Mk II equipment to epic than it is to take a Mk XII purple item to epic especially if you craft a purple Mk II item. After all, you have 12 chances to go from Mk II to Mk XIV and each upgrade gives you a chance to upgrade the rarity while going from Mk XII to Mk XIV gives only 2 chances to upgrade the rarity.
But if you start with a white common issue item, your chances are still bad. And to get to Mark XIV, this is the more expensive version, since you need more upgrade tokens. And Mark XIV is where the big gains are, not Gold.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
This, I have to reply to. your desire for a "skill ladder" of tasks and players with rewards everything that goes with that, it has nothing to do with what's been going on. What's going on has nothing to do with skill or knowledge or anything of the sort, it's a flat out paywall.
They paywalled access to the game past MK12. They paywalled access to the reputation system and rewards from that, you have to do advanced ques to get the tokens. And now, the crafting system is effectively paywalled as well because you have to get the better mats from advanced or elite ques or buy them from the zen store.
And quite frankly, a ton of people just said "no thanks" and took off. And a small number of people said "... ah, ok, I'll play along for a while" and they opened their wallets.
Apparently that's good enough for the owners of this game. But ingame, with those people missing. Well it's like the life just got bleed right out of it. Prior to DR there was a lot of value here, sure it wasn't a AAA title, but it was good, even worth a lifetime subscription. After DR? No way. The value here is completely gone. It's just one paywall after another.
And that's not even the worst of it.
The worst of this is that the game is no longer accessible to a new player. Do you know why they occasionally give free chars to people who start playing wow? It's part of an active discussion about what would it be like for new players in wow, is the game accessible to a new player, is the game too much, too complex? We ask that all the time. And here, now, in STO? It is no longer new player friendly. Nothing will kill a game faster than paywalls and no content. Just ask zynga.
This, I have to reply to. your desire for a "skill ladder" of tasks and players with rewards everything that goes with that, it has nothing to do with what's been going on. What's going on has nothing to do with skill or knowledge or anything of the sort, it's a flat out paywall.
They paywalled access to the game past MK12. They paywalled access to the reputation system and rewards from that, you have to do advanced ques to get the tokens. And now, the crafting system is effectively paywalled as well because you have to get the better mats from advanced or elite ques or buy them from the zen store.
And quite frankly, a ton of people just said "no thanks" and took off. And a small number of people said "... ah, ok, I'll play along for a while" and they opened their wallets.
Apparently that's good enough for the owners of this game. But ingame, with those people missing. Well it's like the life just got bleed right out of it. Prior to DR there was a lot of value here, sure it wasn't a AAA title, but it was good, even worth a lifetime subscription. After DR? No way. The value here is completely gone. It's just one paywall after another.
And that's not even the worst of it.
The worst of this is that the game is no longer accessible to a new player. Do you know why they occasionally give free chars to people who start playing wow? It's part of an active discussion about what would it be like for new players in wow, is the game accessible to a new player, is the game too much, too complex? We ask that all the time. And here, now, in STO? It is no longer new player friendly. Nothing will kill a game faster than paywalls and no content. Just ask zynga.
I spent $5 in 2012.
I spent $5 in 2013.
What is this paywall?
Sure, if I had zero patience and felt entitled to everything now - I'd likely have to dig the wallet out. But uh, I don't...so I don't. It happens when it happens...
Don't get me wrong, mind you - if it were not for all those impatient folks the game wouldn't be around like it is for me to have enjoyed it in the way I do.
.... And here, now, in STO? It is no longer new player friendly. Nothing will kill a game faster than paywalls and no content. Just ask zynga.
I do recall at one point Stahl himself worked for Zynga, probably adopted some of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised if he had shared those ideas with the Lizard and the rest of the staff over at Cryptic Studios.
I do recall at one point Stahl himself worked for Zynga, probably adopted some of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised if he had shared those ideas to the Lizard and the rest of the staff over at Cryptic Studios.
Sure, if I had zero patience and felt entitled to everything now - I'd likely have to dig the wallet out. But uh, I don't...so I don't. It happens when it happens...
Don't get me wrong, mind you - if it were not for all those impatient folks the game wouldn't be around like it is for me to have enjoyed it in the way I do.
t's 2014, it's 2014 and DR. that's what this topic and kerfuffle is all about. it's not about 2013, or 2012.
prior to DR there were more avenues to play and not spend $$. people who own and run the game I'm sure called them leaches, or untapped potential or ??. but whatever they were, they added life to the game and a bunch of them left.
today, It's just one big dilthium shaped funnel that we are all being crammed through, if you want to craft, participate in the rep system,e tc
if you don't, well then I guess you can go twiddle your thumbs somewhere ingame, dance on mailboxes or something
t's 2014, it's 2014 and DR. that's what this topic and kerfuffle is all about. it's not about 2013, or 2012.
prior to DR there were more avenues to play and not spend $$. people who own and run the game I'm sure called them leaches, or untapped potential or ??. but whatever they were, they added life to the game and a bunch of them left.
today, It's just one big dilthium shaped funnel that we are all being crammed through, if you want to craft, participate in the rep system,e tc
if you don't, well then I guess you can go twiddle your thumbs somewhere ingame, dance on mailboxes or something
I've spent more in 2014 than 2012 and 2013 combined...without having spent anything in 2014 compared to 2012 and 2013.
They intend to pretend player dissatisfaction doesn't exist, of course. What else does one imagine they are even capable of doing?
The forums here are well on their way to being without content already. All those nasty players, actually caring about the game. How dare they?! Time to silence them.
They intend to pretend player dissatisfaction doesn't exist, of course. What else does one imagine they are even capable of doing?
The forums here are well on their way to being without content already. All those nasty players, actually caring about the game. How dare they?! Time to silence them.
The one thing they keep throwing back at us: "forum posters are the vocal minority' and that we don't represent the silent majority.....but Cryptic does?
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
The one thing they keep throwing back at us: "forum posters are the vocal minority' and that we don't represent the silent majority.....but Cryptic does?
That's a load of bull.
For every person that's vocal, there's going to be at least one other person that isn't who thinks the same. Take a protest for example, those in attendance are the vocal ones, yet there are usually many people who agree with said protest who are not in attendance at that protest for various reasons.
well then, DR is the best expansion ever, and the players love it!
Not quite sure how you got from anything I've said to that. It's a typical kind of response though, somebody can outline 99 out of 100 things they think is TRIBBLE...but because they don't think that 1 out of 100 things is TRIBBLE too, wham - bam - suddenly everything is all perfect to them and they're some sort of White Knight, Cryptic Defender, whatever one wants to call it.
Though, as an aside - there's only one expansion to compare Delta Rising with and that's Legacy of Romulus. So it kind of gets into comparing a pile of TRIBBLE in a paper bag vs. a pile of TRIBBLE in a plastic bag...lol, but we also know the meme that's been going around massively took things out of context. DR generated more revenue than LoR on launch...go figure, an expansion with something for everybody vs. an expansion for Romulans. That should have been obvious that it would have been the better of the two expansion launches. The players love it? Some do. Some definitely don't...heh, I figure once I stop laughing I'll manage to get around to that not loving it angle. It's just such a bug ridden mess of gobbledygook it's too hard not to laugh.
But none of that changes I don't expect to have everything now, that I've got no issue with it taking weeks or months to get stuff, that I haven't spent any real money since Fed 2013 but I've spent more ZEN in 2014 than 2012-2013 combined, etc, etc, etc.
I think I mentioned in one thread, that a tolerance starts to develop from some of the nutty things Cryptic keeps doing...
The missions actually don't work as a Fed either--though in our case it's the patrols that are broken rather than the storyline missions. I should have been able to solve a LOT of what we see in the patrols in other ways (or at least had more options AND not had to risk massive XP ripoff for taking them) instead of being forced to solve every problem with "Kill 5 Waves." And then getting led by the nose by an untrustworthy possible Tal Shiar plant of a Romulan commander? As if Section 31 isn't enough I am now being expected to take orders from Commander Putina? I don't think so.
That is actually very unfortunate that even the Fed experience was so far off due to a different part of the storyline than what the KDF is complaining about.
As far as the Klingons "being first," though--they're not the ones that had a show about their ship for seven years. But because of the split personality induced by the storyline we all end up coming across, however, as just as inconsistent and scattered in our decision-making as Janeway, regardless of faction.
I think there IS good in the storyline. But no matter what faction you play, you inevitably get forced out of character at one point or another.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Except that this game is the devs' job to fix, PWE's to oversee, and CBS's to command. The players are consumers and therefore have ZERO power to make any sort of changes to the game, good or bad. Get over it.
We post because we care
PWE has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a **** one way or another about our opinions, only how much money we're willing to spend on the game. Trying to get their attention to make the game better is a losing battle.
As things stand, the gap between casual level content, and the rewards that allow players to level and gear up at a reasonable rate, is just too wide. (WORDS)
OLD NEWS. If any of this was going to change it would have by now. Instead we have powercreep and shinys for battle for. Endless grinding is a means by which we reach our goals, which is untimately to get the newest and OP ship possible.
I'd shell out some cash to trade zen for dilithium, if I felt like I was making reasonable progress toward a goal... if I felt like I could take my new upgrades into battles that are new and interesting...
It doesn't have to be interesting to be engrossing. Getting you stuck in grind mode is a way to coerce you into spending money. Spend literal YEARS on the crafting system, or buy your way out in a more reasonable few months. They make it look like it's your choice, when it really isn't. Not if you want endgame gear before this game is shut down by CBS. Just stop a sec and think about that for a while.
One thing we're seeing is the death of the PUG.
PUGs have always sucked. Where have you been? Really, though. No one does them now because of the ****ty rewards. DIL was nerfed into oblivion. Marks are pitiful for the time taken. Even the rewards from the Winter Wonderland events are crappy. NO ONE cares about player experience. ONLY the above mentioned stated money venture. If you can't buy it, it isn't worth having. PUGs...don't matter.
Alts.
Again, old news. Game is not alt friendly. Everything is a per-character unlock. No normal working person has the time in their lives to log in multiple times every day on multiple characters to do the same tedious grinding. PWE ISN'T INTERESTED IN YOUR LIFE. They don't think you have anything to do outside of this game. All they want you to do is get pissed off at the lack of progress your characters make and make massive per-character purchases to ease that burden. ****.
Pretty much everything you said is beating a dead horse. NO, PWE doesn't want you to "win" this game. If you did you wouldn't have any reason to line their pockets. Player quality is at an all time low. By this I mean the Las Vegas-style F2P transience they obviously favor. No sane person would stay consistently and spend money forever. This game simply isn't that good anymore. They want you to have alts, but having them is FAR too expensive for anyone with an average income. Hell, even whales have complained about that. I guess what I'm saying is when it comes to this game what you see is hat you get. The payerbase basically doesn't exist. Bugs pointed out multiple times on the Tribble forum still make it into Holodeck. OLD bugs that have been there since ****ing always have been ignored in favor of more lucrative ventures. Face it -- our opinions are WORTHLESS to the PWE overlords. The sooner you accept that the sooner you'll stop hoping for things in game to improve. Because they seriously won't.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
Patrick--I tend to think of some of the "kills" as stuns or disables, in certain missions--it's handled similarly in certain Foundry missions where despite the animation, you are outright told by the author to imagine that your weapon was set to stun instead. I don't *always* think that because to be honest I prefer Starfleet to remember it should be a military first and exploration force second. But the thing is "stun substitution" only works if you are give enough story for your imagination to work for you that way. You really can't in a patrol where there is almost *no* story whatsoever.
As far as Divide et Impera, even I as a Fed-only player can tell you that mission sucks. I tend to think the explanation seen in the Foundry is correct though, that the captain and senior officers on that crew fell to Undine influence--which should have been illustrated FAR better than it was (Mind Games and Mindscape each do far better at presenting you as the player with your toon being in altered mental states, showing it can be done).
As far as my characters' headcanon, it's a mix of STO missions, Foundry, and fanfic with a heavy bias towards the latter as the corpus of my fanfic grows. "Divide et Impera" actually cannot be part of my characters' canon due to their species. An Undine trying to mentally sabotage a Cardassian walks a fine line between being ineffective, being detected and resisted, and destroying his or her subject's mind or causing death before getting anything useful. An Undine would also run a huge risk trying to go up against a Devidian captain and Aenar first officer because the likely result of that is an immediate, risky fight before actually accomplishing anything.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
nice post, very well thought out, to the point and pretty much sums up the state of everything going on..
to answer your question, what will cryptic do, well that is easy.. nothing..
without sounding like a flamer or what not, I have noticed that cryptic as a hole acts a lot like a child. they do what they do, then they sit back and silently waite. if it goes well, they jump up and accept the applause and praise.. if it goes bad, they seal themselves up and try to sit in the corner un seen.
this is one of those isntances, they have been relatively silent, and the only time a dev does speak up, he either has bad news, or is rambling on about something no one cares about, kind of like the club 4 opening, yeah, in the vast picture of all the problems with dr, no one cared about a social zone that no one uses anyways. lol.
I myself have gone silent for about amonth on the forums, because I have seen this behavioral pattern from cryptic before, and it just isn't worth the time and effort of saying it, if they are not going to listen to it.
False. Legacy of Romulus had a lot more for non-Romulans than Delta had for non-Federation.
It had:
Levels 1-20 KDF missions
That's deceptive. They didn't actually add Level 1-20 KDF missions. They added Level 1-20 for KDF with less than a handful of missions while shuffling other missions around.
yeah, it didn't feature a bunch of new ships for anyone but Romulans, but it included a bunch of stuff for KDF that had been sitting in the 'delay' box for three years or so.
The KDF tutorial and less than a handful of Fed missions?
A lot of Delta Rising's sales were probably predicated on the sort of things we saw with Legacy of Romulus-that is, there was an expectation that DR would be as comprehensive, complete, and varied, that it would add significantly to the things for people to actually do.
9 missions total, plus a bunch of "You must repeat endlessly" patrols, some administrative fiddling, and a bunch of players being accused of cheating because of a mistake on Cryptic's part.
What a crock of TRIBBLE...lol. 18 missions not including the sector contact missions nor the Kobali Prime missions...
None of the missions were explicitly faction-specific, but all of them explicitly featured behaviours that only make sense if you're playing a Federation Starfleet Officer in a Federation/Starfleet Ship.
What do I, as a KDF, care about the Prime Directive? I could end the Vad's war against the Kobali in, like, five minutes by turning the cannisters over to them, and what the **** are we doing allied to these guys in the first place?
Legacy of Romulus, at least, made some cosmetic effort to be playable without kowtowing to a single faction, and provided content for players that weren't in Starfleet.
I actually slogged through Voyager. It took forever to go through that pile of dren, but there's something ELSE to note that Devs (and everyone else) is missing;
The Klingons were there (in the Delta Quadrant) First.
Perhaps watching Voyager adversely affected your view of Delta Rising...lol, Voyager has been known to adversely affect folks in all sorts of ways. It's painful that folks apparently wanted STO to go VOY. Then again, STO had been DS9...so it wasn't really any worse.
First part of 2012, I mainly played KDF and only had the Fed needed to unlock KDF. Yes, he was a Ferengi named Token...my token Fed needed to unlock KDF.
S7 through LoR, I played an even split of KDF/Fed.
With LoR, I mainly played KDF but still had my Fed toons.
End of 2013, I deleted all of my toons except my KDF-aligned Reman Sci and rolled all KDF.
Prior to Delta Rising, I deleted all my toons and rolled a single Fed with the other ten toons becoming members of the Klingon Dilithium Force to feed my Fed Klingon's Dil needs.
Then again, STO had been DS9...so it wasn't really any worse.
.
Quote out of context, In the defense of DS9. The episodes "Sacrifice of Angels 1-2". I waited so long to see FLEETS in action. This was my fanboy moment.
Except that this game is the devs' job to fix, PWE's to oversee, and CBS's to command. The players are consumers and therefore have ZERO power to make any sort of changes to the game, good or bad. Get over it.
PWE has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a **** one way or another about our opinions, only how much money we're willing to spend on the game. Trying to get their attention to make the game better is a losing battle.
OLD NEWS. If any of this was going to change it would have by now. Instead we have powercreep and shinys for battle for. Endless grinding is a means by which we reach our goals, which is untimately to get the newest and OP ship possible.
It doesn't have to be interesting to be engrossing. Getting you stuck in grind mode is a way to coerce you into spending money. Spend literal YEARS on the crafting system, or buy your way out in a more reasonable few months. They make it look like it's your choice, when it really isn't. Not if you want endgame gear before this game is shut down by CBS. Just stop a sec and think about that for a while.
PUGs have always sucked. Where have you been? Really, though. No one does them now because of the ****ty rewards. DIL was nerfed into oblivion. Marks are pitiful for the time taken. Even the rewards from the Winter Wonderland events are crappy. NO ONE cares about player experience. ONLY the above mentioned stated money venture. If you can't buy it, it isn't worth having. PUGs...don't matter.
Again, old news. Game is not alt friendly. Everything is a per-character unlock. No normal working person has the time in their lives to log in multiple times every day on multiple characters to do the same tedious grinding. PWE ISN'T INTERESTED IN YOUR LIFE. They don't think you have anything to do outside of this game. All they want you to do is get pissed off at the lack of progress your characters make and make massive per-character purchases to ease that burden. ****.
Pretty much everything you said is beating a dead horse. NO, PWE doesn't want you to "win" this game. If you did you wouldn't have any reason to line their pockets. Player quality is at an all time low. By this I mean the Las Vegas-style F2P transience they obviously favor. No sane person would stay consistently and spend money forever. This game simply isn't that good anymore. They want you to have alts, but having them is FAR too expensive for anyone with an average income. Hell, even whales have complained about that. I guess what I'm saying is when it comes to this game what you see is hat you get. The payerbase basically doesn't exist. Bugs pointed out multiple times on the Tribble forum still make it into Holodeck. OLD bugs that have been there since ****ing always have been ignored in favor of more lucrative ventures. Face it -- our opinions are WORTHLESS to the PWE overlords. The sooner you accept that the sooner you'll stop hoping for things in game to improve. Because they seriously won't.
mf that's depressing, yet also liberating
I think I'm close to my last dollars being spent on this game
If I only play one character, I believe I can get by with true f2p
I do recall at one point Stahl himself worked for Zynga, probably adopted some of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised if he had shared those ideas with the Lizard and the rest of the staff over at Cryptic Studios.
huh, that's funny/ironic/awful, I just threw in the zynga comment because some parts of it have been reminiscent
but given how DR has unfolded, who knows, possibly true
EDIT: unless there's some reasonable way to play and setup and gear an alt, demand is heading for the crapper at some point, that's a fact
Quote out of context, In the defense of DS9. The episodes "Sacrifice of Angels 1-2". I waited so long to see FLEETS in action. This was my fanboy moment.
Have to admit, I enjoyed the interplay between Bashir and Garak as well as between Bashir and O'Brien. Based on that, I'd put DS9 ahead of VOY.
Comments
I am a casual player, and I'd be quite happy with running XIV ultras. I've no desire for epic quality; by chance I have an epic XIII shield array, but that was just through a lucky upgrade. I couldn't care less whether I made an XIV shield, so long as I can get reasonable gear at a fair price (and that fair price is nowhere near what's on offer at the moment).
This is not entirely true. Apparently, it is far cheaper to upgrade a piece of Mk II equipment to epic than it is to take a Mk XII purple item to epic especially if you craft a purple Mk II item. After all, you have 12 chances to go from Mk II to Mk XIV and each upgrade gives you a chance to upgrade the rarity while going from Mk XII to Mk XIV gives only 2 chances to upgrade the rarity.
If you want epic with TRIBBLE stats then go for it but then dont come screaming on the boards about the cost.
The person i replied to is complaining about the cost of doing just as you describe so no its not cheaper and the stats are horrible.. there is a reason for that..
A Common Issue Phaser Beam array has the exact same animation as a
- Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- Uncommon Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- ...
- Epic Mark I Phaser Beam Array
- Mark II Phaser Beam Array
- ...
- Epic Mark XIV Phaser Beam Array
It's a pretty consistent thing in this game. Why do you expect a particular mark to bring something new? I just don't get it.
My Fleet Phasers look exactly like my non-Fleet Phasers. My Undine Rep Phasers are green instead of orange, a color change that the game actually allowed before it was officially released (and removed because of the IP holder demands, IIRC).
Yes, you can have VR Mk II gear with three mods you want...
But if you start with a white common issue item, your chances are still bad. And to get to Mark XIV, this is the more expensive version, since you need more upgrade tokens. And Mark XIV is where the big gains are, not Gold.
This, I have to reply to. your desire for a "skill ladder" of tasks and players with rewards everything that goes with that, it has nothing to do with what's been going on. What's going on has nothing to do with skill or knowledge or anything of the sort, it's a flat out paywall.
They paywalled access to the game past MK12. They paywalled access to the reputation system and rewards from that, you have to do advanced ques to get the tokens. And now, the crafting system is effectively paywalled as well because you have to get the better mats from advanced or elite ques or buy them from the zen store.
And quite frankly, a ton of people just said "no thanks" and took off. And a small number of people said "... ah, ok, I'll play along for a while" and they opened their wallets.
Apparently that's good enough for the owners of this game. But ingame, with those people missing. Well it's like the life just got bleed right out of it. Prior to DR there was a lot of value here, sure it wasn't a AAA title, but it was good, even worth a lifetime subscription. After DR? No way. The value here is completely gone. It's just one paywall after another.
And that's not even the worst of it.
The worst of this is that the game is no longer accessible to a new player. Do you know why they occasionally give free chars to people who start playing wow? It's part of an active discussion about what would it be like for new players in wow, is the game accessible to a new player, is the game too much, too complex? We ask that all the time. And here, now, in STO? It is no longer new player friendly. Nothing will kill a game faster than paywalls and no content. Just ask zynga.
I spent $5 in 2012.
I spent $5 in 2013.
What is this paywall?
Sure, if I had zero patience and felt entitled to everything now - I'd likely have to dig the wallet out. But uh, I don't...so I don't. It happens when it happens...
Don't get me wrong, mind you - if it were not for all those impatient folks the game wouldn't be around like it is for me to have enjoyed it in the way I do.
I do recall at one point Stahl himself worked for Zynga, probably adopted some of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised if he had shared those ideas with the Lizard and the rest of the staff over at Cryptic Studios.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-stahl/4/293/462
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alrivera
Might as well add D'Angelo in to that with him being the guy instead of Stahl now...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdangelo
My character Tsin'xing
t's 2014, it's 2014 and DR. that's what this topic and kerfuffle is all about. it's not about 2013, or 2012.
prior to DR there were more avenues to play and not spend $$. people who own and run the game I'm sure called them leaches, or untapped potential or ??. but whatever they were, they added life to the game and a bunch of them left.
today, It's just one big dilthium shaped funnel that we are all being crammed through, if you want to craft, participate in the rep system,e tc
if you don't, well then I guess you can go twiddle your thumbs somewhere ingame, dance on mailboxes or something
I've spent more in 2014 than 2012 and 2013 combined...without having spent anything in 2014 compared to 2012 and 2013.
The forums here are well on their way to being without content already. All those nasty players, actually caring about the game. How dare they?! Time to silence them.
well then, DR is the best expansion ever, and the players love it!
The one thing they keep throwing back at us: "forum posters are the vocal minority' and that we don't represent the silent majority.....but Cryptic does?
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
For every person that's vocal, there's going to be at least one other person that isn't who thinks the same. Take a protest for example, those in attendance are the vocal ones, yet there are usually many people who agree with said protest who are not in attendance at that protest for various reasons.
Exactly the same applies here.
Not quite sure how you got from anything I've said to that. It's a typical kind of response though, somebody can outline 99 out of 100 things they think is TRIBBLE...but because they don't think that 1 out of 100 things is TRIBBLE too, wham - bam - suddenly everything is all perfect to them and they're some sort of White Knight, Cryptic Defender, whatever one wants to call it.
Though, as an aside - there's only one expansion to compare Delta Rising with and that's Legacy of Romulus. So it kind of gets into comparing a pile of TRIBBLE in a paper bag vs. a pile of TRIBBLE in a plastic bag...lol, but we also know the meme that's been going around massively took things out of context. DR generated more revenue than LoR on launch...go figure, an expansion with something for everybody vs. an expansion for Romulans. That should have been obvious that it would have been the better of the two expansion launches. The players love it? Some do. Some definitely don't...heh, I figure once I stop laughing I'll manage to get around to that not loving it angle. It's just such a bug ridden mess of gobbledygook it's too hard not to laugh.
But none of that changes I don't expect to have everything now, that I've got no issue with it taking weeks or months to get stuff, that I haven't spent any real money since Fed 2013 but I've spent more ZEN in 2014 than 2012-2013 combined, etc, etc, etc.
I think I mentioned in one thread, that a tolerance starts to develop from some of the nutty things Cryptic keeps doing...
That is actually very unfortunate that even the Fed experience was so far off due to a different part of the storyline than what the KDF is complaining about.
As far as the Klingons "being first," though--they're not the ones that had a show about their ship for seven years. But because of the split personality induced by the storyline we all end up coming across, however, as just as inconsistent and scattered in our decision-making as Janeway, regardless of faction.
I think there IS good in the storyline. But no matter what faction you play, you inevitably get forced out of character at one point or another.
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PWE has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a **** one way or another about our opinions, only how much money we're willing to spend on the game. Trying to get their attention to make the game better is a losing battle.
OLD NEWS. If any of this was going to change it would have by now. Instead we have powercreep and shinys for battle for. Endless grinding is a means by which we reach our goals, which is untimately to get the newest and OP ship possible.
It doesn't have to be interesting to be engrossing. Getting you stuck in grind mode is a way to coerce you into spending money. Spend literal YEARS on the crafting system, or buy your way out in a more reasonable few months. They make it look like it's your choice, when it really isn't. Not if you want endgame gear before this game is shut down by CBS. Just stop a sec and think about that for a while.
PUGs have always sucked. Where have you been? Really, though. No one does them now because of the ****ty rewards. DIL was nerfed into oblivion. Marks are pitiful for the time taken. Even the rewards from the Winter Wonderland events are crappy. NO ONE cares about player experience. ONLY the above mentioned stated money venture. If you can't buy it, it isn't worth having. PUGs...don't matter.
Again, old news. Game is not alt friendly. Everything is a per-character unlock. No normal working person has the time in their lives to log in multiple times every day on multiple characters to do the same tedious grinding. PWE ISN'T INTERESTED IN YOUR LIFE. They don't think you have anything to do outside of this game. All they want you to do is get pissed off at the lack of progress your characters make and make massive per-character purchases to ease that burden. ****.
Pretty much everything you said is beating a dead horse. NO, PWE doesn't want you to "win" this game. If you did you wouldn't have any reason to line their pockets. Player quality is at an all time low. By this I mean the Las Vegas-style F2P transience they obviously favor. No sane person would stay consistently and spend money forever. This game simply isn't that good anymore. They want you to have alts, but having them is FAR too expensive for anyone with an average income. Hell, even whales have complained about that. I guess what I'm saying is when it comes to this game what you see is hat you get. The payerbase basically doesn't exist. Bugs pointed out multiple times on the Tribble forum still make it into Holodeck. OLD bugs that have been there since ****ing always have been ignored in favor of more lucrative ventures. Face it -- our opinions are WORTHLESS to the PWE overlords. The sooner you accept that the sooner you'll stop hoping for things in game to improve. Because they seriously won't.
As far as Divide et Impera, even I as a Fed-only player can tell you that mission sucks. I tend to think the explanation seen in the Foundry is correct though, that the captain and senior officers on that crew fell to Undine influence--which should have been illustrated FAR better than it was (Mind Games and Mindscape each do far better at presenting you as the player with your toon being in altered mental states, showing it can be done).
As far as my characters' headcanon, it's a mix of STO missions, Foundry, and fanfic with a heavy bias towards the latter as the corpus of my fanfic grows. "Divide et Impera" actually cannot be part of my characters' canon due to their species. An Undine trying to mentally sabotage a Cardassian walks a fine line between being ineffective, being detected and resisted, and destroying his or her subject's mind or causing death before getting anything useful. An Undine would also run a huge risk trying to go up against a Devidian captain and Aenar first officer because the likely result of that is an immediate, risky fight before actually accomplishing anything.
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to answer your question, what will cryptic do, well that is easy.. nothing..
without sounding like a flamer or what not, I have noticed that cryptic as a hole acts a lot like a child. they do what they do, then they sit back and silently waite. if it goes well, they jump up and accept the applause and praise.. if it goes bad, they seal themselves up and try to sit in the corner un seen.
this is one of those isntances, they have been relatively silent, and the only time a dev does speak up, he either has bad news, or is rambling on about something no one cares about, kind of like the club 4 opening, yeah, in the vast picture of all the problems with dr, no one cared about a social zone that no one uses anyways. lol.
I myself have gone silent for about amonth on the forums, because I have seen this behavioral pattern from cryptic before, and it just isn't worth the time and effort of saying it, if they are not going to listen to it.
that's my 2 cents anyways.
/thread in the second paragraph. The rest is irrelevant.
That's deceptive. They didn't actually add Level 1-20 KDF missions. They added Level 1-20 for KDF with less than a handful of missions while shuffling other missions around.
Um...er...um...er...
I've got no idea where you get that number from...
The KDF tutorial and less than a handful of Fed missions?
They were upfront about what it would have...
What a crock of TRIBBLE...lol. 18 missions not including the sector contact missions nor the Kobali Prime missions...
It's Star Trek. Yeah, it's Cryptic's fault for doing the KDF and Romulans...then doing not even a half-assed job with them...but it's still Star Trek.
I didn't get that feeling.
Not all KDF ships cloak...
Part of alliance...
Alliance...
Alliance...
Alliance...
Alliance-centric...
Romulans...
Perhaps watching Voyager adversely affected your view of Delta Rising...lol, Voyager has been known to adversely affect folks in all sorts of ways. It's painful that folks apparently wanted STO to go VOY. Then again, STO had been DS9...so it wasn't really any worse.
First part of 2012, I mainly played KDF and only had the Fed needed to unlock KDF. Yes, he was a Ferengi named Token...my token Fed needed to unlock KDF.
S7 through LoR, I played an even split of KDF/Fed.
With LoR, I mainly played KDF but still had my Fed toons.
End of 2013, I deleted all of my toons except my KDF-aligned Reman Sci and rolled all KDF.
Prior to Delta Rising, I deleted all my toons and rolled a single Fed with the other ten toons becoming members of the Klingon Dilithium Force to feed my Fed Klingon's Dil needs.
Quote out of context, In the defense of DS9. The episodes "Sacrifice of Angels 1-2". I waited so long to see FLEETS in action. This was my fanboy moment.
mf that's depressing, yet also liberating
I think I'm close to my last dollars being spent on this game
If I only play one character, I believe I can get by with true f2p
huh, that's funny/ironic/awful, I just threw in the zynga comment because some parts of it have been reminiscent
but given how DR has unfolded, who knows, possibly true
EDIT: unless there's some reasonable way to play and setup and gear an alt, demand is heading for the crapper at some point, that's a fact
Have to admit, I enjoyed the interplay between Bashir and Garak as well as between Bashir and O'Brien. Based on that, I'd put DS9 ahead of VOY.