This game has taken a massive blow since DR. Everything they've been doing since has been artificially inflating metrics to impress the top brass. "The new DR content is successful because look how many are playing it?!" You know they kept it dead quiet we're all playing DR content/grinding Argala because they nerfed to oblivion every other single aspect of the game, making it all a pointless diversion.
Back of envelope calculations suggest there are plenty of players.
Actual sources of figures...not so much. Though even those don't reflect a dramatic dropoff in player numbers.
Truly, it's hard to tell when the studio and its parent company both work hard to hide such metrics. AFAIK, there's no activity tracking built into the ARC platform; anyone moving from Steam to ARC essentially gets lost as far as 3rd party activity tracking goes, and that consequence is probably a major attraction to PWE.
But as to the events; use them as best you can. It may even be worthwhile to you to minimize your time spent in-game when an event isn't running.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
"Why a non-stop bombardment of 'special events', Cryptic?"
Because the folks at Cryptic are really ______ who are secretly trying to take over the world.
1) Catholics
2) Jews
3) Islamists
4) Protestants
5) Buddhists
6) Freemasons
7) Skull and Bones
8) Hydra
9) Minons of Ba'al
10) George Lucas
11) JJ Abrams
12) Disney
13) The CIA
14) Atheists
15) Agnostics
16) ALL of the Above. At the exact same time. As part of a vast underground consortium.
Because the conspiracy theorists needed something new to obsess over.
Because Scully and Mulder finally found out which truth is out there.
Because all game companies encourage paranoia and mistrust among their customers as a Standard Operational Procedure.
Because the Dev Team has gone to the Dark Side.
Because Darkseid got bored with TRIBBLE around with Superman.
Because Cryptic were highly PO'd they did not make it onto James Spader's Blacklist.
Because their dog ate their homework.
Because other nefarious reasons which are too terrible to print here.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
oh, thunderfoot, that is so true, if Chicken Little wasn't yelling about the sky falling, he wouldn't know what to do with his life...
it's like all the doom & gloomers that were displeased with DR are trying to find reasons for their claims of doom... but, like one poster stated above, there is very little different between this years event schedule and last years, other than Mirror Incursion last year and Crystalline this year... i find it fascinating how conspiracy theorists can draw some of the lines and conclusions out of thin air and be totally convinced of it despite the facts placed before them, if confronted with facts they'll find some way to claim they're fraudulent...
remember to keep those tin foil hats on tight so the government doesn't read your thought and aliens can't control your brain...
Is it just me, or does the rapid pace of 'special events' worry anyone else? Like Cryptic/PWE is trying too hard.
Also, imo, the release of the Command Ships was poorly timed. You already had a bunch of people grinding out the Anniversary ship and before the average player even got the 1000 Qmmendations that ship was overshadowed (outclassed?) by the new bundle of ships. Kinda like stepping on your customers' toes. They don't even get to enjoy their new ship before you throw 9 more in their faces.
We're all guessing in this thread about why there are so many, but I just wanted to say that, no, you are not alone. I barely did the year-5 anniversary stuff, and this one I may do just because I usually do CCA a bunch anyway. But, seriously? They need to fix stuff like lag and the power tray more than they need to think of new events.
We've had Winter event --> anniversary -->some rerun/get50k dilithium grind -> Summer event -> rerun/get50k dil grind -> winter event for years now.
In fact, in November they didn't do the FE rerun, so we actually had one LESS grind event than usual.
You don't have to do them anyway. I usually pass on the anniversary. I slotted the project for the Samsar on the one char that could use the ship, got my 400 Qs from the mission and now wait for next year for the next 400 Qs to get. The remaining 200 will be a very short grind.
I have patience. I can wait.
Some of this is just your perception. Previously you were having fun in the game, now you aren't and are looking at things more sceptically. You just happen to notice there are a lot of events, but they've mostly always been there.
However, they have been slowly adding in more filler between major events and stretching the events out in grind. This is definitely a metric thing, and it works. Its pretty sick, but people are greedy (as well as not too smart) and if they can get something "free" they'll stick around even if they aren't having fun anymore. Greed trumps common sense.
How many people do you know that are unhappy in the game? How many have said as soon as I get this ship, I'm gone? Why are they getting the ship if they aren't going to use it or play after?
On the other side, things definitely smell of desperation lately too. They've never released new ships, then had a ship sale and discount them, its unheard of.
This is one of the things that I mentioned a while back. The number of players in the game was on a steep decline.
Since the hourly events were removed, the amount of players leaving the game happened quick. They promised weekend events to make up for it, but those only came every other weekend.
This meant that every other weekend, there were enough numbers in the game to get by.
However, when DR hit, and it made the game nothing but a endless grinding, DPS beast, it caused a lot of loyal players to realize that money trumps quality for the ones in charge.
This means that the only way to get players back into the game is to throw more events out there at record breaking numbers, and also make more ships to sell more DPS.
The ones in charge screwed up royally, and instead of admitting they did, and fixing it, they prefer to cover it up with their metrics. They throw events at us constantly now to get numbers up, the nerf rewards in the stuff players are playing, to herd them to where they want them, and they buff ships so they do more DPS so they will sell. They even buffed Tach Beam so that they could sell the ships.
It is a sad attempt at trying to cover a royal mess, by acting like it doesn't exist.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Is it just me, or does the rapid pace of 'special events' worry anyone else? Like Cryptic/PWE is trying too hard.
Also, imo, the release of the Command Ships was poorly timed. You already had a bunch of people grinding out the Anniversary ship and before the average player even got the 1000 Qmmendations that ship was overshadowed (outclassed?) by the new bundle of ships. Kinda like stepping on your customers' toes. They don't even get to enjoy their new ship before you throw 9 more in their faces.
It's probably not just you, but it is odd to see folks would complain about too much in a game where it's generally been a complaint of nothing...but yeah, it's not the first thread to pop up like this.
And I'm not sure where the confusion with the Samsar and CBCs is...cause you know, the Samsar offers the 4th piece for the 4pc and all. Kind of like the DSD offered bits for the ADSDs.
But I'm sure folks have gone on for pages about how it's all doom and gloom...
The command ships were meant to be released at the same time as the freebie event ship I believe because all their consoles form a set. Also the command powers needed more than just 1 ship that would become unavailable after the event.
Back to back events. The winter event happens every winter so that wasn't artificially added just recently. The 5 year anniversary event happened because it was sto's 5 year anniversary. It was just coincidental timing.
There used to be hourly events. Then they turned it into events that happen over time over the course of a month. The weekend events are the same events as before, just structured differently.
Sto having lots of events is not a bad thing. It shows that cryptic is putting a lot of effort into the game. There are updates with bug fixes and added content every week on Thursday. If cryptic really was failing, would they have the resources to do all that? Probably not.
The real story here is that these events are on the same schedule as they were last year but people's biases and prejudices make them accept without question the lie that "they are heaping events on us" because of the lie "the game is dying."
Get a grip people.
Didn't you learn to do your homework back when you were in school?
You are correct about the winter, and anniversary grind events. But the other events never happened at this pace. The weekend events were only once every other weekend, if we got them. And the CC and Mirror grind never came this close to the anniversary grind.
So, you are only partly right.
I don't think the game is dying, because there are enough people buying the next power creep. That is keeping the game alive.
But to say pretend that if this many players would still log in without the events is just pretending that the game is perfect. And that IS a lie.
You may want to do your homework about the weekend events. Before recently, those weekend events were only every other weekend. Now, they are coming with more frequency.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Bread and circus, bread and circus... They may not have the resources to deliver a quality product in a decent time frame, but if they artificially extend play time with grinding for Reputation, XP, Spec Points, and other things, distract the majority of the playerbase with weekend events and keep adding shinies for them to buy, nothing bad will happen anyway.
It's probably not just you, but it is odd to see folks would complain about too much in a game where it's generally been a complaint of nothing...but yeah, it's not the first thread to pop up like this.
And I'm not sure where the confusion with the Samsar and CBCs is...cause you know, the Samsar offers the 4th piece for the 4pc and all. Kind of like the DSD offered bits for the ADSDs.
Glad I read through the thread before posting. Agreed on all points there.
Apparently, if players are bored with complaining about how supposedly little Cryptic does, it's time to start complaining that they're doing too much of something. Because... reasons? :rolleyes:
Cryptic has, over the past years, constantly expanded their repertoire of events. So I think it has always been the plan to have enough events to practically run them back-to-back. It's not a sign of the game failing, it's a sign of Cryptic having a strategy to keep playerbusy in the game.
I think it's neat to log in and have something new to aim for. Every couple weeks, there's a new goal - if I'm interested in the reward. In this case I'm not, 'cause I run a plasma build and the antiproton torp isn't useful to me. But that's fine, because there have been recent events that interested me, and I know there are more coming around the corner that will.
The events make sure that everyone has something fun to aim for. And they rarely take more than a few minutes per day, so the amount of "grind" required is minimal.
Then we had DR's release which we knew was going to happen November 2014.
Then there's the stuff that was expected to happen:
- Winter Event - For winter 2014, duh
- Anniversary Event - Because STO released in the 1st Qtr of 2010 and you don't have STO's Anniversary Event in say... JULY..
Yep, that right there just shows that it's been a big year for STO. So big in fact, that we're used to having regular events and releases. Apparently so used to it that players are now complaining about it. Here we have the high tide of the Great Content Flood of 2014/15 :rolleyes:
Funny thing is, now that DR and two specialization trees have been released, and that the Winter and Anniversary events are over, there will be a minor gap in big-ticket events until the Summer Event. Plenty of time for players to go back to blaming Cryptic for not introducing enough variety, or running enough events again
You are correct about the winter, and anniversary grind events. But the other events never happened at this pace.
Not mentioning the "Promo Ships" ... the old Bug lasted for Years ... now we got 2 Alien-Uber-T6 Ships & 2 Crafting Promos within 3 months ... reeks of desperation ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
They are doing crystal event one week earlier than they did mirror event last year. One week.
Please, do your homework!
I did do my homework. You are focusing only on one thing people say to try to defend the game. Try looking at all I said. Okay, it is 7 days earlier, but look at all the other events. Or did you forget that the weekend events are actual events also.
Aside from the winter, and anniversary grind events, we have had a lot of other events hitting back to back more than before. And CC is just one of them. If you are not able to see that, then that is on you, not me.
Homework done. Your welcome for the schooling.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
I haven't noticed this because I haven't hardly been playing like I used to. After DR launched I deleted 3 alts focused on 3 remaining characters. Even then the grind to get one character up to full upgrades burned me out nicely and I didn't even finish it entirely.
I even took the money I'd use for fleet modules for fleet T6 ships and re-upped my WoW subscription. They got a garrison thing going on over there with garrison missions or duty officer assignments. So I'm getting my fix on a mage for ordering midevil doffs around. :P
Maybe when Cryptic gets around to finally releasing T6 fleet ships I'll start playing more. Might be a while since they're on a binge to release high priced command ships last I saw. :rolleyes:
Not mentioning the "Promo Ships" ... the old Bug lasted for Years ... now we got 2 Alien-Uber-T6 Ships within 3 months ... reeks of desperation ...
Sadly, many just can't see this. They want to pretend that STO is the perfect game. It isn't dying because they are throwing more power creep and events out there to keep it alive.
Stop the increased flow of events, and the increased ships sells, and see how many players log in then. The numbers will drop down again to very low numbers.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Yep, that right there just shows that it's been a big year for STO. So big in fact, that we're used to having regular events and releases. Apparently so used to it that players are now complaining about it. Here we have the high tide of the Great Content Flood of 2014/15 :rolleyes:
Funny thing is, now that DR and two specialization trees have been released, and that the Winter and Anniversary events are over, there will be a minor gap in big-ticket events until the Summer Event. Plenty of time for players to go back to blaming Cryptic for not introducing enough variety, or running enough events again
I dunno, I wouldn't really call it a 'Great Content Flood', at least I wouldn't call it 'content' in how I consider that word. I feel a more appropriate word instead would be 'Event' over 'Content'. I say that as to me, STO hasn't really gotten much 'content' since DR hit. We've had events, sure, but 'content' how I feel, not so much.
Now yes, the Winter Event followed almost right up by the Anniversary event was expected. Now there's the CE event as well starting tomorrow.
Personally I don't mind the back-to-back events, as I actually don't mind having a REASON TO DO SOMETHING. It doesn't make the problems and issues I have with the game go away, but at least I feel like STO is worth doing and actually feel rewarding.
That said, something tells me that we might end up seeing Season 10 before the Summer event. Probably around April or May.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
personally i enjoy all the events from the winter to anniversary to summer to crystaline to mirror.
thats only 5 events a year or 7 if they double up on mirror and crystaline.
i dont include the weekend events in this list as they are only bonus weekends for marks dil ect. to replace the hourly events they used to run all the time 24hrs a day and i also dont include the Hearts and Minds mission event as it only takes 3 minutes to complete it when it comes up and that does not count as an event in my eyes.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Comments
This game has taken a massive blow since DR. Everything they've been doing since has been artificially inflating metrics to impress the top brass. "The new DR content is successful because look how many are playing it?!" You know they kept it dead quiet we're all playing DR content/grinding Argala because they nerfed to oblivion every other single aspect of the game, making it all a pointless diversion.
Actual sources of figures...not so much. Though even those don't reflect a dramatic dropoff in player numbers.
Truly, it's hard to tell when the studio and its parent company both work hard to hide such metrics. AFAIK, there's no activity tracking built into the ARC platform; anyone moving from Steam to ARC essentially gets lost as far as 3rd party activity tracking goes, and that consequence is probably a major attraction to PWE.
But as to the events; use them as best you can. It may even be worthwhile to you to minimize your time spent in-game when an event isn't running.
Because the folks at Cryptic are really ______ who are secretly trying to take over the world.
1) Catholics
2) Jews
3) Islamists
4) Protestants
5) Buddhists
6) Freemasons
7) Skull and Bones
8) Hydra
9) Minons of Ba'al
10) George Lucas
11) JJ Abrams
12) Disney
13) The CIA
14) Atheists
15) Agnostics
16) ALL of the Above. At the exact same time. As part of a vast underground consortium.
Because the conspiracy theorists needed something new to obsess over.
Because Scully and Mulder finally found out which truth is out there.
Because all game companies encourage paranoia and mistrust among their customers as a Standard Operational Procedure.
Because the Dev Team has gone to the Dark Side.
Because Darkseid got bored with TRIBBLE around with Superman.
Because Cryptic were highly PO'd they did not make it onto James Spader's Blacklist.
Because their dog ate their homework.
Because other nefarious reasons which are too terrible to print here.
it's like all the doom & gloomers that were displeased with DR are trying to find reasons for their claims of doom... but, like one poster stated above, there is very little different between this years event schedule and last years, other than Mirror Incursion last year and Crystalline this year... i find it fascinating how conspiracy theorists can draw some of the lines and conclusions out of thin air and be totally convinced of it despite the facts placed before them, if confronted with facts they'll find some way to claim they're fraudulent...
remember to keep those tin foil hats on tight so the government doesn't read your thought and aliens can't control your brain...
We're all guessing in this thread about why there are so many, but I just wanted to say that, no, you are not alone. I barely did the year-5 anniversary stuff, and this one I may do just because I usually do CCA a bunch anyway. But, seriously? They need to fix stuff like lag and the power tray more than they need to think of new events.
We've had Winter event --> anniversary -->some rerun/get50k dilithium grind -> Summer event -> rerun/get50k dil grind -> winter event for years now.
In fact, in November they didn't do the FE rerun, so we actually had one LESS grind event than usual.
You don't have to do them anyway. I usually pass on the anniversary. I slotted the project for the Samsar on the one char that could use the ship, got my 400 Qs from the mission and now wait for next year for the next 400 Qs to get. The remaining 200 will be a very short grind.
I have patience. I can wait.
because the giveaways are keeping the login numbers up
look at the falloff at the end of the last giveaway -- http://steamcharts.com/app/9900#All
Some of this is just your perception. Previously you were having fun in the game, now you aren't and are looking at things more sceptically. You just happen to notice there are a lot of events, but they've mostly always been there.
However, they have been slowly adding in more filler between major events and stretching the events out in grind. This is definitely a metric thing, and it works. Its pretty sick, but people are greedy (as well as not too smart) and if they can get something "free" they'll stick around even if they aren't having fun anymore. Greed trumps common sense.
How many people do you know that are unhappy in the game? How many have said as soon as I get this ship, I'm gone? Why are they getting the ship if they aren't going to use it or play after?
On the other side, things definitely smell of desperation lately too. They've never released new ships, then had a ship sale and discount them, its unheard of.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
And this only works because we think the game may return to a game in the future instead of this money grinding mill that Cryptic has made it.
It will be revealed that the Iconians were being manipulated by the true puppetmasters, tribbles.
Since the hourly events were removed, the amount of players leaving the game happened quick. They promised weekend events to make up for it, but those only came every other weekend.
This meant that every other weekend, there were enough numbers in the game to get by.
However, when DR hit, and it made the game nothing but a endless grinding, DPS beast, it caused a lot of loyal players to realize that money trumps quality for the ones in charge.
This means that the only way to get players back into the game is to throw more events out there at record breaking numbers, and also make more ships to sell more DPS.
The ones in charge screwed up royally, and instead of admitting they did, and fixing it, they prefer to cover it up with their metrics. They throw events at us constantly now to get numbers up, the nerf rewards in the stuff players are playing, to herd them to where they want them, and they buff ships so they do more DPS so they will sell. They even buffed Tach Beam so that they could sell the ships.
It is a sad attempt at trying to cover a royal mess, by acting like it doesn't exist.
It's probably not just you, but it is odd to see folks would complain about too much in a game where it's generally been a complaint of nothing...but yeah, it's not the first thread to pop up like this.
And I'm not sure where the confusion with the Samsar and CBCs is...cause you know, the Samsar offers the 4th piece for the 4pc and all. Kind of like the DSD offered bits for the ADSDs.
But I'm sure folks have gone on for pages about how it's all doom and gloom...
The tall and short of it, but can't admit to.
Back to back events. The winter event happens every winter so that wasn't artificially added just recently. The 5 year anniversary event happened because it was sto's 5 year anniversary. It was just coincidental timing.
There used to be hourly events. Then they turned it into events that happen over time over the course of a month. The weekend events are the same events as before, just structured differently.
Sto having lots of events is not a bad thing. It shows that cryptic is putting a lot of effort into the game. There are updates with bug fixes and added content every week on Thursday. If cryptic really was failing, would they have the resources to do all that? Probably not.
You are correct about the winter, and anniversary grind events. But the other events never happened at this pace. The weekend events were only once every other weekend, if we got them. And the CC and Mirror grind never came this close to the anniversary grind.
So, you are only partly right.
I don't think the game is dying, because there are enough people buying the next power creep. That is keeping the game alive.
But to say pretend that if this many players would still log in without the events is just pretending that the game is perfect. And that IS a lie.
You may want to do your homework about the weekend events. Before recently, those weekend events were only every other weekend. Now, they are coming with more frequency.
Glad I read through the thread before posting. Agreed on all points there.
Apparently, if players are bored with complaining about how supposedly little Cryptic does, it's time to start complaining that they're doing too much of something. Because... reasons? :rolleyes:
I think it's neat to log in and have something new to aim for. Every couple weeks, there's a new goal - if I'm interested in the reward. In this case I'm not, 'cause I run a plasma build and the antiproton torp isn't useful to me. But that's fine, because there have been recent events that interested me, and I know there are more coming around the corner that will.
The events make sure that everyone has something fun to aim for. And they rarely take more than a few minutes per day, so the amount of "grind" required is minimal.
Yep, that right there just shows that it's been a big year for STO. So big in fact, that we're used to having regular events and releases. Apparently so used to it that players are now complaining about it. Here we have the high tide of the Great Content Flood of 2014/15 :rolleyes:
Funny thing is, now that DR and two specialization trees have been released, and that the Winter and Anniversary events are over, there will be a minor gap in big-ticket events until the Summer Event. Plenty of time for players to go back to blaming Cryptic for not introducing enough variety, or running enough events again
Not mentioning the "Promo Ships" ... the old Bug lasted for Years ... now we got 2 Alien-Uber-T6 Ships & 2 Crafting Promos within 3 months ... reeks of desperation ...
I did do my homework. You are focusing only on one thing people say to try to defend the game. Try looking at all I said. Okay, it is 7 days earlier, but look at all the other events. Or did you forget that the weekend events are actual events also.
Aside from the winter, and anniversary grind events, we have had a lot of other events hitting back to back more than before. And CC is just one of them. If you are not able to see that, then that is on you, not me.
Homework done. Your welcome for the schooling.
I even took the money I'd use for fleet modules for fleet T6 ships and re-upped my WoW subscription. They got a garrison thing going on over there with garrison missions or duty officer assignments. So I'm getting my fix on a mage for ordering midevil doffs around. :P
Maybe when Cryptic gets around to finally releasing T6 fleet ships I'll start playing more. Might be a while since they're on a binge to release high priced command ships last I saw. :rolleyes:
Sadly, many just can't see this. They want to pretend that STO is the perfect game. It isn't dying because they are throwing more power creep and events out there to keep it alive.
Stop the increased flow of events, and the increased ships sells, and see how many players log in then. The numbers will drop down again to very low numbers.
Yuppp .
True story !
... considering how many plain Tribbles were named for past and current Devs ...
I dunno, I wouldn't really call it a 'Great Content Flood', at least I wouldn't call it 'content' in how I consider that word. I feel a more appropriate word instead would be 'Event' over 'Content'. I say that as to me, STO hasn't really gotten much 'content' since DR hit. We've had events, sure, but 'content' how I feel, not so much.
Now yes, the Winter Event followed almost right up by the Anniversary event was expected. Now there's the CE event as well starting tomorrow.
Personally I don't mind the back-to-back events, as I actually don't mind having a REASON TO DO SOMETHING. It doesn't make the problems and issues I have with the game go away, but at least I feel like STO is worth doing and actually feel rewarding.
That said, something tells me that we might end up seeing Season 10 before the Summer event. Probably around April or May.
thats only 5 events a year or 7 if they double up on mirror and crystaline.
i dont include the weekend events in this list as they are only bonus weekends for marks dil ect. to replace the hourly events they used to run all the time 24hrs a day and i also dont include the Hearts and Minds mission event as it only takes 3 minutes to complete it when it comes up and that does not count as an event in my eyes.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.