Started reading the thread last night and stopped at page 29 (around midnight). Started reading from there this morning and it had grown to 57 pages. It grew to 60 whilst I was reading.
So, to begin, the summer event is planned and worked on during the previous winter event and the winter event for 2015 is being worked on now-ish. This is according to dev posts where they have said a change to the way a current event is happening is just not that easy as it has been worked out well in advance of the event. That last part is key here - well in advance of the event.
Cryptic have had the phasing out of the pearls planned for some time. They have to have because they needed to make a transition work in several ways. First they needed to have the mission reward a different currency than pearls. Then they had to link the new currency with the ship reputation AND have it work with those already part-filled with a different currency. Then they had to create a whole new store in which to spend the old currency and fill it with items. On top of all of this they had to make sure that all of the above worked and linked in correctly. Nevermind any design on a new ship, costumes, emotes, etc.
With the above in mind, they left it until just before the event to announce their decision.
But it is what follows that has me somewhat miffed.
Cryptic could have announced that they will change the way event currencies work at the END of this event. A simple "we've decided that hoarding pearls will no longer count towards next year's ship but we have added a store which you can use extra pearls in to buy awesome stuff so you can grind a bit more this year for extra rewards THIS YEAR" would have had people thinking "okay, so get the ship and spend leftovers on shiny stuff, gotcha, thanks".
I skipped last year's event as I didn't want a cruiser. Looks didn't matter, just another cruiser to me so I played the game instead. This year I'll be skipping it unless it is a good sci ship for my Klingons. I have no saved up pearls so I'm not hurt by the actions of this move, but I still feel for those that are.
I'm more concerned for the precedent it sets for winter. I love the Chel Grett. My DR alts would get some serious mileage out of them. Same for the Sarr Theln and Plek Bresh. I have q-photos saved on my mains to unlock this years ship a little quicker and make it easier to get the new ship on my alts and I would have run my new alts through the event as often as needed to earn the old ships. Am I SOL? Probably. But will Cryptic admit it now and put me out of my misery? Not likely. I'm going to be wondering all summer and autumn. Not worrying, mind; just wondering.
Emojis in space? Not interested, but I may write-off anyone using them as someone I may not get on with. Just my personal preferences influencing my decisions on that point.
Overall, not a well handled move is what I think of this.
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
1.- People will play the grind with 1 char to grind 1000 pearls (or whatever) and then 40 with their alters, and that is it.
2.- People will not play everyday, the first days Risa will be packed and with a lot of map#, while the last ones will be almost empty.
3.- No one will save currency for the next year, because it's unlikely we will get another "compensation sale" like this one.
Also, on the subject of the costs:
800 pearls == 4 specialization points == 16 * 25000 tech upgrade points (saving ~32000 dilithium). Which means, incidentally, that the official line about XP ratio can be deduced to:
a) Officially, 15 minutes of game equates to ~480 dilithium
b) The pearl conversion table gives us the value of 1 specialization point: 8 times as much as a single Superior Tech Upgrade (in dilithium)
c) The Superior Tech Upgrade requires 1075 Dilithium, which is ~2.24 times 480
d) For Cryptic, each specialization point at level 60 should require 268.75 minutes, or roughly 4 hours and nearly 30 minutes.
Awesome move Cryptic so for all those People that did not stop to run the Daily last year and actualy spend time ingam you telling suck it up and grind more?
What happend to all rewards are supposed to be equal for time spend we spend the time just a year in advance please Elaborate why this is diffrent.
But what's with retiring the old ships? I don't understand the reasoning that led there. you don't want deltas to have decent ships for free? Thats nonsense. Many players who purchased c-store ships, many through exchanged zen from dil, can access those ships -> Deltas with T-6 Ships
Whats the point in not letting them have a t-5?
Even more pointless, Deltas are are going to have a decent ship for free. This year's ship. But not with the previous year's consoles. The only effect is new players/characters have less fun toys to play with.
You want to make them exclusive ships for each year? Thats nonsense too. You were making console sets for breen and risian ships. Now you gotta wipe that out too, because it wouldn't be fair to the new players and alts you were so eager to make us create. Way to go...
They already did it with the Kobali cruiser and the Command Ship console set. No 4-piece bonus for new players/toons. If they don't mind TRIBBLE over customers looking to pay up to 12,000 Zen for a set, they probably don't care how unfair it is for people in free ships either.
Fortunately I have the ships on all my old toons and I don't really care that much about my Delta Recruit, to get overly upset over it...but I can't help but feel sorry for the new players who just got screwed out of 2 (and probably 5 when they copy this to the Winter event) nice ships and the accompanying console sets forever.
What is it with Cryptic and Summer event brain farts? Last year's genius invention -- map-restricted clothes -- got me to put the game down and not play for 5 months simply because I couldn't believe anyone would do something that lame. "Retiring" the ships doesn't quite rise to that level yet, although I have a feeling I'd be likely to think differently if I hadn't got cruisers for my toons using saved-up pearls last year.
Grinding isn't fun, but people do it in the expectation of lay back for a bit enjoy the rewards wile having time to actually relax and play some actual content and have fun.
unfortunately, you seem to have an approach were you induce players to create more alts to replay replay replay the same thing over and over until it's not fun any more, until it's agonising boring and then remove any possible relief solution they might had found.
some people had extra tokens, so they could relax and walk around the island event and just have ... fun ... but no ... you had to make it impossible to replay a single thing again :mad:
Another detail I forgot to mention: We are being lied to. Why? Because the simplest solution to "we dont' want to see the seasonal ship around on day 1 of the event" is "this year's ship project won't be finished before [start of event + 21 days]". Instead, they mess with the currency and the state of things, which is like kicking a hornet's nest.
Which, incidentally, they seem to enjoy doing.
Maybe Cryptic's goal designers should know that trying to win in a clash of wills against the thousands playing the game is, at best, a "delay the inevitable" proposition.
I mean, why can we have a daily mark reward from playing Foundry's missions, since the usual "player generated content" (AKA PvP in other games) is so broken in here? People farms marks because they need the new sets, so...
Another detail I forgot to mention: We are being lied to. Why? Because the simplest solution to "we dont' want to see the seasonal ship around on day 1 of the event" is "this year's ship project won't be finished before [start of event + 21 days]". Instead, they mess with the currency and the state of things, which is like kicking a hornet's nest.
Which, incidentally, they seem to enjoy doing.
It's not that they don't want to see the event ship on day 1. That has always happened even the first time this type of event ran. They just want the early birds to pay for their ships in lobi instead of last-year's leftovers.
And then ... , then I want cup's on our saucer's , cups that have "earl gray, hot" emblazoned on them .
(don't worry, you probably won't be able to see that in the realistically dark sector space, because these emotes HAVE TO BE REALISTIC !!!)
And then ... , plates maybe ... with "hot, plain hot tomato soup !" emblazoned on them in screaming pink . Maybe that can be voice animated as well .
... it could be no less existing as McNeal's other STO voice work ...
Starship Emote Pack: "Smile" and "Sad"
Starship Emote Pack: "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down"
Starship Emote Pack: "Live Long and Prosper"
Starship Emote Pack: "Rock, Paper, Scissors"
Where there are going to be four packs:
Well Smirk was supposedly excited for what was coming in 2015 ... , so maybe the space-smirk-smile was his reason for being excited ?
... cuz I'm pretty sure that the sad face will be the most popular choice ... -- ESD surrounded by sad face emotes ... , I can see it now ... (while I'll imagine each happy smiley as a Hello Kitty face in space)
... I'm actually surprised there are not more of them cheering this on . Or have you recruited Virus to do your PR for you ... ? 'Cuz he sure seems to be making an effort to replace quality with quantity these days ...
There you go. If the devs have a sense of humor, they should put a shark in the water in front of one of the ramps we jump over with our floating surf boards. And offer a leather jacket costume option.
With an "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa" emote!
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
EDIT: just to add clarification, this is unrelated to the solution down the road regarding XP.
I think you guys need to improve your planning of plan reveals.
Because
"we have a solution to your skill point concerns, in the meantime:
-we're gonna nerf rewarding patrols
-we're gonna wrap the Iconian War in one season
-we're gonna nerf Borg Red Alerts
-we're gonna nerf 12-hour assignments
-we're gonna retire lohlunat pearls
-we're gonna retire old Risian ships"
is NOT a good way to prepare your players for something.
The ship emotes are a good idea and the ability to use pearls for spec points is cool for those savvy enough to save them up, but seriously, you don't pile up the bad news before a news that is only potentially good and that we know nothing about.
What's next? Lobi crystals will expire 5 months after being earned? If a spec bar isn't filled in 1 week, your progress is reset?
Good to hear that there IS a solution in the pipeline
Yes... a 'Final solution' where players who can remember being able to earn XP will be driven off the game with bs like the risian fubar...
...So as to prevent them from corrupting the future new players who will be forced to join the Cryptic-Youth, and wear snazzy armbands with the company logo.
But all new accounts will get a goose-step emote and tailor shop company-logo armband ABSOLUTELY FREE!
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Want the new shiny on day one then spend the lobi - don't have the lobi? Then open boxes, to open boxes you need keys, don't have the keys? You need to buy them so either spend loads of Ec or spend Zen! Don't have the Zen spend $$$.
Spend time to get the new ship and grind the content - Cryptics metrics say this is great content and the players are loving it .
Want to have a real life summer holiday and spend a couple of weeks away from your computer, then you have to pray the game doesn't go down while you can play or you are S.O.O.L.
For the record, yes I do/did have pearls stored up to get a jump start on this years event as I didn't want to play every day, and had I got the new ship on day one I still would have played whenever I could. Now it seems I am being penalised for trying to plan ahead and wanting what everyone else wants.
Well STO's "Alt-friendliness" is like a bipolar monkey on crack with multiple personalities ...
+ Play Delta Recruits ! Make a new Toon ! Get extra Stuff ...
- You want an easy way to level multiple Toons ... too bad we're nerfing Doffing XP ...
+ Never mind how about those useful Sponsorship Tokens i.E.
- You want to have all the fancy old Event Ships & maybe complete your Console-Set ... sorry you're screwed ... especially if you're a Delta Recruit ...
+ Never mind you can still have your "Event-Ship-Discount" ... but only if you're doing it on every toon during Year X ... otherwise you're screwed again & it's worthless ...
etc etc ...
Pfft ... , that's a lot of entitled nonsense .
Don't you see ??? The emotes are so kawaiiii, kids love emotes, and we NEED more kids in this gambling-timer-RNG fest, because they spend without understanding money .
... sorry, I had to RP a pro-Cryptic stance there ... , if only because for over 50 pages no one said "entitled" , and I was getting worried that something was wrong with our "I don't understand what words mean" generation ...
Comments
Cryptic "want to maintain the exclusivity and collectability of the event ships" and are removing the Pearls to do so.
:mad:
Cryptic took the Badge of Temba and the Tamarian Envoy title I had from Season 1 and gave it to everyone. No longer exclusive.
:mad:
OK, so how much GPL will it cost me to buy a device that allows me to ignore ship holo-spam?
:mad:
So, to begin, the summer event is planned and worked on during the previous winter event and the winter event for 2015 is being worked on now-ish. This is according to dev posts where they have said a change to the way a current event is happening is just not that easy as it has been worked out well in advance of the event. That last part is key here - well in advance of the event.
Cryptic have had the phasing out of the pearls planned for some time. They have to have because they needed to make a transition work in several ways. First they needed to have the mission reward a different currency than pearls. Then they had to link the new currency with the ship reputation AND have it work with those already part-filled with a different currency. Then they had to create a whole new store in which to spend the old currency and fill it with items. On top of all of this they had to make sure that all of the above worked and linked in correctly. Nevermind any design on a new ship, costumes, emotes, etc.
With the above in mind, they left it until just before the event to announce their decision.
But it is what follows that has me somewhat miffed.
Cryptic could have announced that they will change the way event currencies work at the END of this event. A simple "we've decided that hoarding pearls will no longer count towards next year's ship but we have added a store which you can use extra pearls in to buy awesome stuff so you can grind a bit more this year for extra rewards THIS YEAR" would have had people thinking "okay, so get the ship and spend leftovers on shiny stuff, gotcha, thanks".
I skipped last year's event as I didn't want a cruiser. Looks didn't matter, just another cruiser to me so I played the game instead. This year I'll be skipping it unless it is a good sci ship for my Klingons. I have no saved up pearls so I'm not hurt by the actions of this move, but I still feel for those that are.
I'm more concerned for the precedent it sets for winter. I love the Chel Grett. My DR alts would get some serious mileage out of them. Same for the Sarr Theln and Plek Bresh. I have q-photos saved on my mains to unlock this years ship a little quicker and make it easier to get the new ship on my alts and I would have run my new alts through the event as often as needed to earn the old ships. Am I SOL? Probably. But will Cryptic admit it now and put me out of my misery? Not likely. I'm going to be wondering all summer and autumn. Not worrying, mind; just wondering.
Emojis in space? Not interested, but I may write-off anyone using them as someone I may not get on with. Just my personal preferences influencing my decisions on that point.
Overall, not a well handled move is what I think of this.
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
1.- People will play the grind with 1 char to grind 1000 pearls (or whatever) and then 40 with their alters, and that is it.
2.- People will not play everyday, the first days Risa will be packed and with a lot of map#, while the last ones will be almost empty.
3.- No one will save currency for the next year, because it's unlikely we will get another "compensation sale" like this one.
Also, on the subject of the costs:
800 pearls == 4 specialization points == 16 * 25000 tech upgrade points (saving ~32000 dilithium). Which means, incidentally, that the official line about XP ratio can be deduced to:
a) Officially, 15 minutes of game equates to ~480 dilithium
b) The pearl conversion table gives us the value of 1 specialization point: 8 times as much as a single Superior Tech Upgrade (in dilithium)
c) The Superior Tech Upgrade requires 1075 Dilithium, which is ~2.24 times 480
d) For Cryptic, each specialization point at level 60 should require 268.75 minutes, or roughly 4 hours and nearly 30 minutes.
Yay. -.-U
Do i understand it? No
Does it make the Game better? No
so why
[Anniversary Qmendation] 320
[Autographed 8x10 Glossy Picture of Q] 1520
This i have to change to when these Event come back ... .
Dont like it already today.
Subscribed For: 4 years 5 months 20 days at 26.10.2014
it's been fun.
What happend to all rewards are supposed to be equal for time spend we spend the time just a year in advance please Elaborate why this is diffrent.
They already did it with the Kobali cruiser and the Command Ship console set. No 4-piece bonus for new players/toons. If they don't mind TRIBBLE over customers looking to pay up to 12,000 Zen for a set, they probably don't care how unfair it is for people in free ships either.
Fortunately I have the ships on all my old toons and I don't really care that much about my Delta Recruit, to get overly upset over it...but I can't help but feel sorry for the new players who just got screwed out of 2 (and probably 5 when they copy this to the Winter event) nice ships and the accompanying console sets forever.
What is it with Cryptic and Summer event brain farts? Last year's genius invention -- map-restricted clothes -- got me to put the game down and not play for 5 months simply because I couldn't believe anyone would do something that lame. "Retiring" the ships doesn't quite rise to that level yet, although I have a feeling I'd be likely to think differently if I hadn't got cruisers for my toons using saved-up pearls last year.
unfortunately, you seem to have an approach were you induce players to create more alts to replay replay replay the same thing over and over until it's not fun any more, until it's agonising boring and then remove any possible relief solution they might had found.
some people had extra tokens, so they could relax and walk around the island event and just have ... fun ... but no ... you had to make it impossible to replay a single thing again :mad:
Which, incidentally, they seem to enjoy doing.
Maybe Cryptic's goal designers should know that trying to win in a clash of wills against the thousands playing the game is, at best, a "delay the inevitable" proposition.
I mean, why can we have a daily mark reward from playing Foundry's missions, since the usual "player generated content" (AKA PvP in other games) is so broken in here? People farms marks because they need the new sets, so...
That's right !
I want those 'smiley' faces on our deflector dishes . It's soft canon dammit !!!
And then ... , then I want cup's on our saucer's , cups that have "earl gray, hot" emblazoned on them .
(don't worry, you probably won't be able to see that in the realistically dark sector space, because these emotes HAVE TO BE REALISTIC !!!)
And then ... , plates maybe ... with "hot, plain hot tomato soup !" emblazoned on them in screaming pink . Maybe that can be voice animated as well .
... it could be no less existing as McNeal's other STO voice work ...
I hope these packs are at least ACCOUNT bound.
IMO, I just respect Taco. My experiences with him have at least been positive & informative. Trendy , on the other hand......
A FINAL solution?
Well Smirk was supposedly excited for what was coming in 2015 ... , so maybe the space-smirk-smile was his reason for being excited ?
... cuz I'm pretty sure that the sad face will be the most popular choice ... -- ESD surrounded by sad face emotes ... , I can see it now ... (while I'll imagine each happy smiley as a Hello Kitty face in space)
There's only one way to address this....forbid the players from talking about it.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
Yep. Trendy is gonna soil herself when she comes to work this morning and logs in, then immediately SHUT! DOWN! EVERYTHING!
Oh I know your fleet will love'em ... .
... I'm actually surprised there are not more of them cheering this on . Or have you recruited Virus to do your PR for you ... ? 'Cuz he sure seems to be making an effort to replace quality with quantity these days ...
With an "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa" emote!
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
I think you guys need to improve your planning of plan reveals.
Because
"we have a solution to your skill point concerns, in the meantime:
-we're gonna nerf rewarding patrols
-we're gonna wrap the Iconian War in one season
-we're gonna nerf Borg Red Alerts
-we're gonna nerf 12-hour assignments
-we're gonna retire lohlunat pearls
-we're gonna retire old Risian ships"
is NOT a good way to prepare your players for something.
The ship emotes are a good idea and the ability to use pearls for spec points is cool for those savvy enough to save them up, but seriously, you don't pile up the bad news before a news that is only potentially good and that we know nothing about.
What's next? Lobi crystals will expire 5 months after being earned? If a spec bar isn't filled in 1 week, your progress is reset?
Yes... a 'Final solution' where players who can remember being able to earn XP will be driven off the game with bs like the risian fubar...
...So as to prevent them from corrupting the future new players who will be forced to join the Cryptic-Youth, and wear snazzy armbands with the company logo.
But all new accounts will get a goose-step emote and tailor shop company-logo armband ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Want the new shiny on day one then spend the lobi - don't have the lobi? Then open boxes, to open boxes you need keys, don't have the keys? You need to buy them so either spend loads of Ec or spend Zen! Don't have the Zen spend $$$.
Spend time to get the new ship and grind the content - Cryptics metrics say this is great content and the players are loving it .
Want to have a real life summer holiday and spend a couple of weeks away from your computer, then you have to pray the game doesn't go down while you can play or you are S.O.O.L.
For the record, yes I do/did have pearls stored up to get a jump start on this years event as I didn't want to play every day, and had I got the new ship on day one I still would have played whenever I could. Now it seems I am being penalised for trying to plan ahead and wanting what everyone else wants.
No I am not happy with this at all, not one bit.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Pfft ... , that's a lot of entitled nonsense .
Don't you see ??? The emotes are so kawaiiii, kids love emotes, and we NEED more kids in this gambling-timer-RNG fest, because they spend without understanding money .
... sorry, I had to RP a pro-Cryptic stance there ... , if only because for over 50 pages no one said "entitled" , and I was getting worried that something was wrong with our "I don't understand what words mean" generation ...