the current business model is to make your gear obsolete like mk-12 weapons
make your ships obsolete like T-5 to T-6
Now I fear its to make our characters obsolete along with all there bound to character gear
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
the current business model is to make your gear obsolete like mk-12 weapons
make your ships obsolete like T-5 to T-6
Now I fear its to make our characters obsolete along with all there bound to character gear
Soon in the Cstore, for 1000zen, a token to upgrade your old character, but not as good as new ones. The complete character revamp token will follow after a few months, for only 2K zen.
How about you wait until the Delta Recruitment even blogs come out before deciding that the only use for them will be a "mule" as you put it.
I will be optimistic on what cryptic has planned.
I already knows that DR is so alt unfriendly I don't have fun playing the ones I created years ago. Unless they change this situation, a new character isn't going to be suddenly more fun because he have a bunch of free goodies. And some new dialogues on top of rather unchanged missions.
In fact, those old chars already had many free goodies over the years.
I know Eliot Ness, with the IKS Untouchable will be ready to play this event, before retiring and grinding contraband. I already have more than enough alts that I don't play thanks to the game unfriendliness toward them. If it was to change, they would be the first I'd play.
the current business model is to make your gear obsolete like mk-12 weapons
make your ships obsolete like T-5 to T-6
Now I fear its to make our characters obsolete along with all there bound to character gear
It would be financial suicide for Cryptic/PWE to make beloved toons obsolete. I, for one, would never spend another dime of real money.
Also, as it is, STO has a serious "referability" problem. As much as I love the game, I find it increasing difficult to recruit others in good consciousness. I just can't do it anymore. There is just too much grind, resource sinks, and money grabs. Fleets have some good gear but for solo players or small fleets it can take forever to get it (without shopping at other fleets). Delta Rising is great in some ways, but is ridiculously alt unfriendly. The amount of grinding to get 1 specialisation point is tiresome. I have no desire to do this on any toon but my main. And then there is the planned obsolescence of ships and gear. I may be willing to put up with this, but I'm not willing to subject others to it.
If Cryptic/PWE wants the game to grow they need to stop trying to monetise everything, address the valid concerns of their players (about bugs and stuff), and make the game both awesome and referable.
If Cryptic/PWE wants the game to grow they need to stop trying to monetise everything, address the valid concerns of their players (about bugs and stuff), and make the game both awesome and referable.
I think the main thing that should be setting off the alarms over at Cryptic is that the PvPers who put up with a LOT of TRIBBLE, grind, etc who managed to work around Cryptic up until DR have finally thrown in the towel. These are the people who can be expected to grind out almost anything to keep the field balanced and/or get the upperhand and even they have given up.
That's a lot of money going to waste here, which should get the alarms going and yet it isn't, this is warning enough to the players that Cryptic simply couldn't care less what the players want. All these events, handouts, etc are screaming desperation to get players to stay or start playing while doing anything except fixing the actual problems the players are having, in some cases doing the complete opposite.
how much of a kick in the pants is this going to be for all the players that have got, and opened the JHSS*, only to not now have it on the only type of toon cryptic will be advancing in the future.
I cant see non-delta toons having any love, i can see events having 2 sets of rewards, or old toons not having any rewards.
i can see delta toon only events, andi can also see what will happen if you dont grind a delta....your main will end up nerfed, or will not be able to keep up with the power creep.
I will grind one, but not because i want to, id rather rip off my middle leg, but cause if i dont, when my main, that has ships i cant get back, millions and millions of EC investment...millions and millions of dil investment, lobi investment, all bound becomes unplayable, at least ill have some kind of back up.
*not got the JHSS yet, but feel for all thos that have, and are getting ready to be {insert name of your preferred abuse here}
Thinking about it, heres a suggestion, allow 1 toon delta instruction officer status, and let that toon have the same rewards as a recruit, that will at least show us that you do care about keeping the player base, as i would really love to keep my fleet members. Thank you
It could be worse I suppose, I'm half expecting a non-"Delta Recruit" character wipe somewhere down the line, maybe it'll be a "system malfunction" or something...
Guys it's pretty obvious what this is. One part is creating more money sinks....new char new gear to get etc.
The big thing though is the metrics. Cryptic needs to show that people are running the content, all of it. Old or not, not just the new stuff. They are shoehorning ppl into running eps for metrics, pure and simple.
Which is why I'm playing WoW more since Cryptic can't put the fun back in the STO game like it was before DR. They're more interested in metrics then fun game play, balanced faction offerings, and bug free code.
Honestly? This looks like a lot of fun. Of course, I've always been someone who tended to run a lot of alts in the MMOs I play - STO is actually the first game, of about a dozen, that I've hit level cap in. I tend to play MMOs to a certain point then want to try a new character.
I've had character concepts for the three factions for a while but not gotten around to making/playing them. I'm looking forward to this; it gives me a push to do so!
Like practically everyone I meet in trying to recruit for my Fleet, I am a day one player who left for several years and has recently returned. (To be fair, I'd have returned a lot sooner if it was a Herculean difficulty getting my password reset and impossible to get a live person at Cryptic to help me reset it, but that's a rant for another topic.)
Compared to what the game looked like in Season 3, when I disappeared? It's night and day! There's the Duty Officer system, which did not exist. There's the Fleet Holdings system, which did not exist. The Foundry's still as clunky as ever and my old season 3 mission broke down a long time ago, but hey, it's still 0.8 Beta after five years so I'm still hoping that version 1.0 will save the day. But they've even linked some top quality Foundry missions TO THE MAIN MAP, which is the most beautiful recognition for good work I've seen on an MMO in... well, ever. Ship interiors come in multiple sizes now, and a vibrant community of roleplayers has more tools than ever. And all of that is 100%, completely free, to both new players and old alike.
Some of you seemed to need a reminder of how far we've come.
That said, yes, my voice will join the chorus of those who truly despair at seeing the new character get the special offer while the established one gets the shaft. To say nothing of the poor guy who joins up on May 22nd to find out, "Oh hey, you JUST missed..."
Delta Recruitment has the potential to be what I ASSUME it was pitched to be in the beginning - a great roleplay aid to explain the inherent discontinuity of joining the game in late 2410 and doing the missions from early 2409. A temporal dude inserting the new character into those events to "fix history" allows them to explain away any discontinuity to those of us who don't give a damn about Mk X versus Mk XII or frankly any of the mechanics of the thing and are 90+% in this just to be a part of the great Star Trek story. But it flies in the face of what MMOs are "supposed" to do - thank people for staying loyal. To be denied some great deal because you came late to the table sucks, but at least it's "fair", and easy to swallow because you're in it NOW and someday you'll be the one with the cool special thing that the people after you can't get. It's all about the bragging rights of seniority.
But now, the tables are turned! Now it's all about the newer, better stuff that the old, established characters will never have. To be fair, I can think of a few rational, good, essentially "in character" reasons why you might want to do this - perhaps you want to create the feel of time moving on, make it a sort of generational game where people end up rolling up their characters' kids and their kids' kids, which is canon and kinda good Star Trek in the Kirk -> Picard sort of way. It might even be cool to dust "grandpa" out and log him in, even though his T6 cruiser will never be as good as the T15s the new kids can get, and have him be brought forward in time or they go back in time or whatever. Really good stuff there.
But if that's the goal, well... we've only advanced one "in game" year in the last five, so we're nowhere near ready for that yet.
So, completely absent in that rant above is any sort of a point. Allow me to get there now - Cryptic, there is a way to have your cake and eat it too. And that way is to create a "RESET" option for existing characters. A character pushes the button (maybe even for a fee? I would most definitely pay for this), and they are taken to the character creation screen again, where they may recreate a new level 1 character - new race, new career, everything - but the new character keeps all existing ships and items (or the other faction's equivalent), remains in the same fleet (except when doing so is impossible, IE faction change), has all bridge officers shunted back into the cold storage under the Stations tab, and has all of their five years worth of personal logs, reputation marks, achievements, etc. preserved for them. Now of course they can't USE their more advanced items at Level 1 again - you simply make them unselectable until they re-earn their stripes, so to speak. But hey, know that Tier 1 ship that's been sitting in storage for five years collecting dust over nostalgia? Now you get to bring it out again to play!
By allowing this "soft reboot", you get to have it both ways - new low-level players going through the missions again, making new friends with people doing it for the "first" time, giving those missions some play, making it so we don't have 15 Admirals for every Lieutenant in these darn fleets, and at the same time, we get to be true collectors, it becomes possible to have a Delta Recruit who was created BEFORE 2015, it becomes possible to have a single character who's "done it all" - and you even get to make a bit of money for your troubles, Cryptic.
Honestly? This looks like a lot of fun. Of course, I've always been someone who tended to run a lot of alts in the MMOs I play - STO is actually the first game, of about a dozen, that I've hit level cap in. I tend to play MMOs to a certain point then want to try a new character.
I've had character concepts for the three factions for a while but not gotten around to making/playing them. I'm looking forward to this; it gives me a push to do so!
Compared to what the game looked like in Season 3, when I disappeared? It's night and day! There's the Duty Officer system, which did not exist. There's the Fleet Holdings system, which did not exist. The Foundry's still as clunky as ever and my old season 3 mission broke down a long time ago, but hey, it's still 0.8 Beta after five years so I'm still hoping that version 1.0 will save the day. But they've even linked some top quality Foundry missions TO THE MAIN MAP, which is the most beautiful recognition for good work I've seen on an MMO in... well, ever. Ship interiors come in multiple sizes now, and a vibrant community of roleplayers has more tools than ever. And all of that is 100%, completely free, to both new players and old alike.
Ohh so very true I tried this game on a referal during Season 2 or such I think abd ti me it was horrible. the Char i started at never got past LV5 before I gave up and was like "People pay to play this?". I returned when it because Free to Play as I heard it was better and was so much better and fun. Now I have 10 chars on my account and quite a few ships from the Z-Store now.
So, completely absent in that rant above is any sort of a point. Allow me to get there now - Cryptic, there is a way to have your cake and eat it too. And that way is to create a "RESET" option for existing characters. A character pushes the button (maybe even for a fee? I would most definitely pay for this), and they are taken to the character creation screen again, where they may recreate a new level 1 character - new race, new career, everything - but the new character keeps all existing ships and items (or the other faction's equivalent), remains in the same fleet (except when doing so is impossible, IE faction change), has all bridge officers shunted back into the cold storage under the Stations tab, and has all of their five years worth of personal logs, reputation marks, achievements, etc. preserved for them. Now of course they can't USE their more advanced items at Level 1 again - you simply make them unselectable until they re-earn their stripes, so to speak. But hey, know that Tier 1 ship that's been sitting in storage for five years collecting dust over nostalgia? Now you get to bring it out again to play!
By allowing this "soft reboot", you get to have it both ways - new low-level players going through the missions again, making new friends with people doing it for the "first" time, giving those missions some play, making it so we don't have 15 Admirals for every Lieutenant in these darn fleets, and at the same time, we get to be true collectors, it becomes possible to have a Delta Recruit who was created BEFORE 2015, it becomes possible to have a single character who's "done it all" - and you even get to make a bit of money for your troubles, Cryptic.
How win/win is that?
This would be awesome and a nice idea. Even if they allow that but you are still same career, species, and gender that would work out well, just reset the current char to LV1 and he keep all his Reps and all that so hes back to where he was at once he gets up there again.
This release will experience positive metrics due to reasons ranging from curiosity to enjoyment to farming forum ammo for the Cryptic critique.
I'm seeing the Delta release as the new method to introduce new content. A minor tweak of story dialogue based upon faction but the same mission for all.
I also see this as a testing ground for introducing new factions; introduce the Gamma Quadrant expansion with a zen store purchase to play a Cardassian or Vorta or Jem'Hadar; new faction free and cross factions ships; the list is endless.
Will we be seeing any new species added to the potential captain roster inline with this promotion?
It seems if you are wanting to encourage existing players to re-roll or redo the grind then it would be a good time to offer new playable species into the game so while yes you have to replay to get the new reward but you but there is the added advantage you get to do it as a Cardassian or Jem'Hadar to go with you nice new attack ship.
Honestly? This looks like a lot of fun. Of course, I've always been someone who tended to run a lot of alts in the MMOs I play - STO is actually the first game, of about a dozen, that I've hit level cap in. I tend to play MMOs to a certain point then want to try a new character.
I've had character concepts for the three factions for a while but not gotten around to making/playing them. I'm looking forward to this; it gives me a push to do so!
Yeah, back when I used to play Diablo 2, I tended to lose interest in characters once I got up to around level 56(of 100 or so). Progressing past there was increasingly painful the farther you went. You needed gear that was near impossible to find to keep winning fights against enemies of your level. So I'd skip story progression and grind dungeons for the loot. Which bored me enough that I'd make a new character.
Great... and now I can't unbox my Winter or Anniversary event ships for another month. Why? Simple.
If my current toon becomes obsolete, I want to use those ships on my main character (whatever toon that will be). And if I need to level a new main to get the Delta content and bonuses, I won't be able to use those ships once they are bound to my obsolete main.
Granted, I really hope those bonuses are transferable over to older characters, because we all put a lot of work into getting them where they are now.
Here's a solution, imperfect though it may be: Once a character has played through all the Delta Recruit content, give them a special account token. This token acts similarly to the Reputation system tokens for alts when the main toon has already completed the reputation- it would give all other characters on that account the Delta bonuses and opportunities- an "Updated Training Manual" so to speak.
It may not be perfect, but, it's an idea. This way, all old toons stay relevant, but the content gets played. We keep our toons, you get your metrics. Win-win.
Great... and now I can't unbox my Winter or Anniversary event ships for another month. Why? Simple.
If my current toon becomes obsolete, I want to use those ships on my main character (whatever toon that will be). And if I need to level a new main to get the Delta content and bonuses, I won't be able to use those ships once they are bound to my obsolete main.
Those ship boxes are bound o character anyway so doesn't matter if you open them or not, your new Delta recruit is not going to use them.
So Delta Recruitment was the Exploration that the players voted on?!? -- hmmmmm
Yes, we get to explore the same missions we've played dozens of times, but with a 'fog of war' effect so we have to 'explore' our way around the maps. :P
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Comments
I sure hope everyone makes a kewl new Delta Dave toon too.
Also, even in fields that allow non-alphanumerics (such as the biography field), copypasting a ∆ will display it as a question mark.
So no, you can't add a ∆ to your name. :rolleyes:
If they were selling the delta recruit token, everything would be fine. Restricting it to new toons...worries me.
make your ships obsolete like T-5 to T-6
Now I fear its to make our characters obsolete along with all there bound to character gear
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The ONLY saving grace is that the bonuses (though we don't exactly know all of them) are account-wide.
At best, I have a feeling my Delta Recruit will be retgone from reality after outliving its usefulness.
I already knows that DR is so alt unfriendly I don't have fun playing the ones I created years ago. Unless they change this situation, a new character isn't going to be suddenly more fun because he have a bunch of free goodies. And some new dialogues on top of rather unchanged missions.
In fact, those old chars already had many free goodies over the years.
I know Eliot Ness, with the IKS Untouchable will be ready to play this event, before retiring and grinding contraband. I already have more than enough alts that I don't play thanks to the game unfriendliness toward them. If it was to change, they would be the first I'd play.
It would be financial suicide for Cryptic/PWE to make beloved toons obsolete. I, for one, would never spend another dime of real money.
Also, as it is, STO has a serious "referability" problem. As much as I love the game, I find it increasing difficult to recruit others in good consciousness. I just can't do it anymore. There is just too much grind, resource sinks, and money grabs. Fleets have some good gear but for solo players or small fleets it can take forever to get it (without shopping at other fleets). Delta Rising is great in some ways, but is ridiculously alt unfriendly. The amount of grinding to get 1 specialisation point is tiresome. I have no desire to do this on any toon but my main. And then there is the planned obsolescence of ships and gear. I may be willing to put up with this, but I'm not willing to subject others to it.
If Cryptic/PWE wants the game to grow they need to stop trying to monetise everything, address the valid concerns of their players (about bugs and stuff), and make the game both awesome and referable.
I think the main thing that should be setting off the alarms over at Cryptic is that the PvPers who put up with a LOT of TRIBBLE, grind, etc who managed to work around Cryptic up until DR have finally thrown in the towel. These are the people who can be expected to grind out almost anything to keep the field balanced and/or get the upperhand and even they have given up.
That's a lot of money going to waste here, which should get the alarms going and yet it isn't, this is warning enough to the players that Cryptic simply couldn't care less what the players want. All these events, handouts, etc are screaming desperation to get players to stay or start playing while doing anything except fixing the actual problems the players are having, in some cases doing the complete opposite.
I cant see non-delta toons having any love, i can see events having 2 sets of rewards, or old toons not having any rewards.
i can see delta toon only events, andi can also see what will happen if you dont grind a delta....your main will end up nerfed, or will not be able to keep up with the power creep.
I will grind one, but not because i want to, id rather rip off my middle leg, but cause if i dont, when my main, that has ships i cant get back, millions and millions of EC investment...millions and millions of dil investment, lobi investment, all bound becomes unplayable, at least ill have some kind of back up.
*not got the JHSS yet, but feel for all thos that have, and are getting ready to be {insert name of your preferred abuse here}
It could be worse I suppose, I'm half expecting a non-"Delta Recruit" character wipe somewhere down the line, maybe it'll be a "system malfunction" or something...
Which is why I'm playing WoW more since Cryptic can't put the fun back in the STO game like it was before DR. They're more interested in metrics then fun game play, balanced faction offerings, and bug free code.
I've had character concepts for the three factions for a while but not gotten around to making/playing them. I'm looking forward to this; it gives me a push to do so!
Compared to what the game looked like in Season 3, when I disappeared? It's night and day! There's the Duty Officer system, which did not exist. There's the Fleet Holdings system, which did not exist. The Foundry's still as clunky as ever and my old season 3 mission broke down a long time ago, but hey, it's still 0.8 Beta after five years so I'm still hoping that version 1.0 will save the day. But they've even linked some top quality Foundry missions TO THE MAIN MAP, which is the most beautiful recognition for good work I've seen on an MMO in... well, ever. Ship interiors come in multiple sizes now, and a vibrant community of roleplayers has more tools than ever. And all of that is 100%, completely free, to both new players and old alike.
Some of you seemed to need a reminder of how far we've come.
That said, yes, my voice will join the chorus of those who truly despair at seeing the new character get the special offer while the established one gets the shaft. To say nothing of the poor guy who joins up on May 22nd to find out, "Oh hey, you JUST missed..."
Delta Recruitment has the potential to be what I ASSUME it was pitched to be in the beginning - a great roleplay aid to explain the inherent discontinuity of joining the game in late 2410 and doing the missions from early 2409. A temporal dude inserting the new character into those events to "fix history" allows them to explain away any discontinuity to those of us who don't give a damn about Mk X versus Mk XII or frankly any of the mechanics of the thing and are 90+% in this just to be a part of the great Star Trek story. But it flies in the face of what MMOs are "supposed" to do - thank people for staying loyal. To be denied some great deal because you came late to the table sucks, but at least it's "fair", and easy to swallow because you're in it NOW and someday you'll be the one with the cool special thing that the people after you can't get. It's all about the bragging rights of seniority.
But now, the tables are turned! Now it's all about the newer, better stuff that the old, established characters will never have. To be fair, I can think of a few rational, good, essentially "in character" reasons why you might want to do this - perhaps you want to create the feel of time moving on, make it a sort of generational game where people end up rolling up their characters' kids and their kids' kids, which is canon and kinda good Star Trek in the Kirk -> Picard sort of way. It might even be cool to dust "grandpa" out and log him in, even though his T6 cruiser will never be as good as the T15s the new kids can get, and have him be brought forward in time or they go back in time or whatever. Really good stuff there.
But if that's the goal, well... we've only advanced one "in game" year in the last five, so we're nowhere near ready for that yet.
So, completely absent in that rant above is any sort of a point. Allow me to get there now - Cryptic, there is a way to have your cake and eat it too. And that way is to create a "RESET" option for existing characters. A character pushes the button (maybe even for a fee? I would most definitely pay for this), and they are taken to the character creation screen again, where they may recreate a new level 1 character - new race, new career, everything - but the new character keeps all existing ships and items (or the other faction's equivalent), remains in the same fleet (except when doing so is impossible, IE faction change), has all bridge officers shunted back into the cold storage under the Stations tab, and has all of their five years worth of personal logs, reputation marks, achievements, etc. preserved for them. Now of course they can't USE their more advanced items at Level 1 again - you simply make them unselectable until they re-earn their stripes, so to speak. But hey, know that Tier 1 ship that's been sitting in storage for five years collecting dust over nostalgia? Now you get to bring it out again to play!
By allowing this "soft reboot", you get to have it both ways - new low-level players going through the missions again, making new friends with people doing it for the "first" time, giving those missions some play, making it so we don't have 15 Admirals for every Lieutenant in these darn fleets, and at the same time, we get to be true collectors, it becomes possible to have a Delta Recruit who was created BEFORE 2015, it becomes possible to have a single character who's "done it all" - and you even get to make a bit of money for your troubles, Cryptic.
How win/win is that?
Just like I 'headcanon' that my toons were never promoted past Captain. Makes things easier for the most part.
Me too!
See you in game!
no no, You will be upgraded to T5U but they will assure you its comparable
This would be awesome and a nice idea. Even if they allow that but you are still same career, species, and gender that would work out well, just reset the current char to LV1 and he keep all his Reps and all that so hes back to where he was at once he gets up there again.
I'm seeing the Delta release as the new method to introduce new content. A minor tweak of story dialogue based upon faction but the same mission for all.
I also see this as a testing ground for introducing new factions; introduce the Gamma Quadrant expansion with a zen store purchase to play a Cardassian or Vorta or Jem'Hadar; new faction free and cross factions ships; the list is endless.
It seems if you are wanting to encourage existing players to re-roll or redo the grind then it would be a good time to offer new playable species into the game so while yes you have to replay to get the new reward but you but there is the added advantage you get to do it as a Cardassian or Jem'Hadar to go with you nice new attack ship.
My character Tsin'xing
If my current toon becomes obsolete, I want to use those ships on my main character (whatever toon that will be). And if I need to level a new main to get the Delta content and bonuses, I won't be able to use those ships once they are bound to my obsolete main.
Granted, I really hope those bonuses are transferable over to older characters, because we all put a lot of work into getting them where they are now.
Here's a solution, imperfect though it may be: Once a character has played through all the Delta Recruit content, give them a special account token. This token acts similarly to the Reputation system tokens for alts when the main toon has already completed the reputation- it would give all other characters on that account the Delta bonuses and opportunities- an "Updated Training Manual" so to speak.
It may not be perfect, but, it's an idea. This way, all old toons stay relevant, but the content gets played. We keep our toons, you get your metrics. Win-win.
Those ship boxes are bound o character anyway so doesn't matter if you open them or not, your new Delta recruit is not going to use them.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
Yes, we get to explore the same missions we've played dozens of times, but with a 'fog of war' effect so we have to 'explore' our way around the maps. :P