Over the last couple of seasonal events we noticed a trend that was different than we had seen in the past. General participation on the event was dropping, but the number of ships being collected was staying the same. Somehow people were playing less and still earning the ships from these events; we started digging into the numbers to figure this out. We initially assumed people were using the Lobi bypass option to speed their way through the events, but after digging deeper into the numbers that wasnt the case either. It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldnt. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
So what you're saying is that the people who were saving up were doing the same amount of work, just at a different time. Participation wasn't down, it was just shifted to the previous year.
Sure, being able to claim Chels and Pleshs on all my DRs is nice, but I'm still likely shafted on the carrier, and I'm never going to be able to get the Risan ships despite grinding what I could the last 2 years to get them.
Thanks.
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
Thank you for the explanation behind the change; along with the account unlock. I only wish we had this explained properly from the start.
:rolleyes:
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
While I thank you for coming in and addressing our issues using the feedback of the players and giving a cool solution like that, I want to ask you a question you and other developers/higher-ups/etc should have asked themselves (or maybe you already have and you know the answer):
Over the last couple of seasonal events we noticed a trend that was different than we had seen in the past. General participation on the event was dropping, but the number of ships being collected was staying the same. Somehow people were playing less and still earning the ships from these events; we started digging into the numbers to figure this out. We initially assumed people were using the Lobi bypass option to speed their way through the events, but after digging deeper into the numbers that wasnt the case either. It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldnt. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
Here's the question:
WHY do players play less and use the fact you can keep the pearls safe to save time for the next event?
Is it possible that they do this because the way of getting pearls isn't interesting/pleasant/fun/etc... to them anymore and they try their best to spend as less time as possible?
/snipped cause I personally didn't have a problem with that particular change in thinking about it more.
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
Hrmm, that's kind of curious. I was expecting them in the Lobi Store or at least the consoles in the Lobi Store to keep the particular ships an "Event" thing but not blocking anybody from being able to do a set of the consoles on the newer ship. Cause some of the folks didn't necessarily have the concern about the ship itself, but rather if this Summer's ship had a console for a 3pc and they would not be able to 3pc. Would it be something that perhaps for those new players that have not had a chance to unlock the previous boats, that the new boat could provide them all the consoles - unlock those at least, even if they would not have access to the previous ships?
It's not necessarily a concern of mine, depending on how the unlock bit is handled - I do not have a current character that has any of the ships (rerolled again prior to Delta Rising), but if it recognizes previous unlocks (kind of like what happened with the Winter Event eventually) - that wouldn't be a personal concern.
But it's something that appears to have been a concern expressed by some folks amidst the...feedback.
Hrmm, oh well, just a thought. Still...the reply is enough for me to rotate my avatar 90 degrees.
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
you know, this does make me curious though...any chance this system will be expanded to the rewards gained from the crystalline catastrophe and mirror invasion events?
the items and doffs, obviously - not the marks and dilithium
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Say "BUH BYE!" to your Qmendations, Multidimensional Transporter Devices, Signed Photos, and Shards too, Metric Monkeys! NOW GET BACK TO GRINDING! RICH PWE BOSSES IN CHINA ARE DEPENDING ON YOU!
transporter devices and shards don't really count though, since those events don't have account unlocks. every character has to grind up the full set to claim it.
i wish the risian/winter ways to get the pearls changed up every year. the flying and running may be fun the first few times, but after a full month of doing that it loses every last bit of fun and becomes a complete chore, so the idea of repeating that every year becomes less than desirable and more of a turn off from the event.
Now clowns, that's another story. They scare the crap out of me.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
Over the last couple of seasonal events we noticed a trend that was different than we had seen in the past. General participation on the event was dropping, but the number of ships being collected was staying the same. Somehow people were playing less and still earning the ships from these events; we started digging into the numbers to figure this out. We initially assumed people were using the Lobi bypass option to speed their way through the events, but after digging deeper into the numbers that wasnt the case either. It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldnt. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
This one really makes me wonder about the thought process at Cryptic, though.
You saw this as a problem. These are players who you could reasonably suspect were going to stick around for another year. An entire year in which they could reasonably be expected to buy things. If for no other reason, when they are feeling demoralized... there's always that hitch that they should return for the summer event.
And that is the worst case scenario. Players who become seasonal players, only showing up for Risa. But even then... if they returned, they would return to all the changes you've made since the last Risa summer event, yes? Giving your team an entire year to impress those players into sticking around some more.
Why was this ever considered a problem? A short-term problem, sure. But these are players who get away with nothing. They do extra work in the summer so they don't have to the following summer.
You had a system in place that got your hooks into the minds of players that they should keep playing STO for another year so they could trivialize the gameplay next year.
These are players that plan one year ahead. They have way more faith in your game than you seem to perceive, but you were unwilling to see the big picture because your concern was... what? Short-term metrics?
Thank you for the detailed update salamiinferno, a more than reasonable change and course of action, that will surely be well received by most, as for some others.. well, its only a matter of time before they'll be asking for and expecting more more more.
There has been a lot of discussion, speculation, and general debate with the decision to adjust the way Summer Event ship currency is earned. This wasn’t a decision we came to lightly, but it was one that we needed to make to maintain the integrity of this event and these ships. I’m going to take a moment to give some history on these sorts of events, why we made this decision, and what we plan to do moving forward.
Our seasonal events came to pass as a way to give you something fun to play that doesn’t fall strictly in line with our standard gameplay, while also giving out a rare and powerful reward for doing so. We decided, as most of you would, that the most desirable reward we could give out is a ship and a system was designed to give you access to that ship. Over a specific period of time you’re asked to log in and play a short mission for about 55% of that time in order to earn a near lock box quality ship. This ship was earned per character and each character on your account had to turn in the same amount of currency to earn the ship. The ship wasn’t only powerful, but was a status symbol for someone that was there when the event ran. After a couple of years of participating in this system the general feedback from the community was that this was too tedious and far too much of a commitment for people with multiple alts that wanted the ship. This led us to have some internal discussions and make a change.
About a year ago we changed the system so that all you had to do was earn the ship on a single character on your account, and then every alt you had that could slot the ship project only had to turn in a single day’s worth of currency in order to get the ship. We were happy to make this change, and were even happier at how well it was received by the community. It meant everyone got their ships and didn’t have to get completely burned out on the daily mission to earn the currency. For a time, this was a great setup and both dev and player got what they wanted.
Over the last couple of seasonal events we noticed a trend that was different than we had seen in the past. General participation on the event was dropping, but the number of ships being collected was staying the same. Somehow people were playing less and still earning the ships from these events; we started digging into the numbers to figure this out. We initially assumed people were using the Lobi bypass option to speed their way through the events, but after digging deeper into the numbers that wasn’t the case either. It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldn’t. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
I’ve written all of this to explain how we’ve gotten to where we are today, a new currency for every ship every year. This ensured that each year the players that participate in the event will earn the reward for that year, while still allowing alts to earn the ships after a single play of the event. We knew that shipping the alt friendly system as it was is our mistake, and we wanted to ensure that impacted players weren’t left with nothing. We created a variety of desirable rewards that would let players turn in their pearls and feel like they got something valuable or unique for them. While this satisfied me in the short term, after reading all of your feedback I want to take this a step further.
We will be making every event ship you’ve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship you’ve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
Thanks for taking the time to respond, Salami.
This could have all been avoided if some communication and cooperation had happened.
I understand and respect the reason behind this decision, but I still do not agree with it.
My main had over 1500 pearls, and my alt had over 600. I put in the time last year to earn those pearls, and would have done the exact same thing this year, despite getting the new ship on day one.
This is where the veterans don't get the decision; which I am sure you can see it from our point of view, it invalidates the time we put into the events.
Please work with us! Certain recent decisions being made along with this one, makes it look like the opposite, and that can only be bad for the health of the community, and the game.
I am, however, grateful for the account unlock with the event ships...
i wish the risian/winter ways to get the pearls changed up every year. the flying and running may be fun the first few times, but after a full month of doing that it loses every last bit of fun and becomes a complete chore, so the idea of repeating that every year becomes less than desirable and more of a turn off from the event.
Yeah ... at least they could include the Powerboards into the "Grind" to mix things up a little ... I'm not really bothered with the 3min Mission every day, though ... just saying more Options are always nice ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
This one really makes me wonder about the thought process at Cryptic, though.
You saw this as a problem. These are players who you could reasonably suspect were going to stick around for another year. An entire year in which they could reasonably be expected to buy things. If for no other reason, when they are feeling demoralized... there's always that hitch that they should return for the summer event.
And that is the worst case scenario. Players who become seasonal players, only showing up for Risa. But even then... if they returned, they would return to all the changes you've made since the last Risa summer event, yes? Giving your team an entire year to impress those players into sticking around some more.
Why was this ever considered a problem? A short-term problem, sure. But these are players who get away with nothing. They do extra work in the summer so they don't have to the following summer.
You had a system in place that got your hooks into the minds of players that they should keep playing STO for another year so they could trivialize the gameplay next year.
These are players that plan one year ahead. They have way more faith in your game than you seem to perceive, but you were unwilling to see the big picture because your concern was... what? Short-term metrics?
I think he was saying it goes beyond that..er...sort of thing.
Bob grinds out Summer I and enough for Summer II. Summer II comes around, well sure Bob's got his Summer II ship off the bat...and Bob's going to grind ahead for his Summer III ship. Kicks into the scenario that Bob's just playing ahead a year and no worries, right?
But...
Joe grinds out Summer I and enough for Summer II...and...he does the same on some alts. Basically, Joe doesn't have to play Summer II, Summer III, Summer IV, etc, etc, etc, cause with the discounts - he basically ground out enough in the one Summer so he wouldn't have to play the event at all for years.
There were apparently enough Joe's doing that, that Bob became a casualty of what Joe was doing.
Cause remember, we went from that system where every toon had to do it all...so some folks were still used to that, yeah? So suddenly they had all this additional "free time" and they could...wham, bam, it.
Say somebody went through and did the factory thing with 10 toons. They were used to it. They did it through a couple of events and they could keep doing that. Maybe even playing through the event longer to build up a wee reserve.
Introduce the discounts.
Toon#1 claims it in Summer 1. Toons #2-10 use their reserve with the discount.
Toon#2 claims it in Summer 2. Toons #1, 3-10 use their reserve with the discount.
It would be ten years later before that player had to participate in the event again.
They weren't doing what Bob was doing, where he was faithfully plodding through the event each year while a year ahead - just wanting to have that ship the first day each year...where he was still playing the event...
...one could easily set oneself up to have no need to run the event for some time.
Now, some will say they put the time in...but it's not about time by itself, it's about when that time is in. It's an event...the time should be spent in the event, not gaming the event. It's a reward for each year's participation...which Bob was doing...but Joe wasn't.
* * * * *
But have to wonder how much participation they'll see with it just being the one toon doing the unlock now. It's kind of trippy...basically just wanting one character to go through it...come a long way from the factory play of a couple years back (and the I don't want to play anymore I hate this TRIBBLE way it was...lol).
Well at least my DR's get ships from previous years. I will have to buy more ship slots. Dang it Cryptic you do want to drain my bank account don't you? LOL:cool:
Over the last couple of seasonal events we noticed a trend that was different than we had seen in the past. General participation on the event was dropping, but the number of ships being collected was staying the same. Somehow people were playing less and still earning the ships from these events; we started digging into the numbers to figure this out. We initially assumed people were using the Lobi bypass option to speed their way through the events, but after digging deeper into the numbers that wasnt the case either. It turned out the change we made to make earning the ships more alt friendly had completely trivialized play of the events. Players could earn currency on all of their alts in one year, and then spend the currency from a single character every year to get the ship immediately. While some few players would then re-run the event on the character that spent their currency, the vast majority wouldnt. Again, this meant participation was down while rewards were still earned at the same rate.
First, thank you for posting and acknowledging the discontent, and acknowledging corporate mistakes.
Do you (plural "you" of the company) realize that it is extremely likely you could have achieved the vast majority of what you want, and been lauded for this system, if you had simply introduced this buy-back as an additional option for players to use the existing currency?
Instead, you chose the route of penalizing players. Taking something away and limiting choices is a form of punishment. Punishing someone you want something from - game time, money, etc. - is NEVER a good choice.
If what you're saying is genuinely the reason for this change - and I'm willing to accept that you're being honest - then your team really and truly needs to start expanding their skillset and looking for other solutions. This is a conflagration that never should have happened.
Finally, I'd add the obvious statement that - if something is being actively avoided by players - maybe that's a sign that there's something wrong with the content.
Now, some will say they put the time in...but it's not about time by itself, it's about when that time is in. It's an event...the time should be spent in the event, not gaming the event. It's a reward for each year's participation...which Bob was doing...but Joe wasn't.
The problem I see with that is... yes, Bob is still putting in the time. But he's apparently dedicated enough that all of that work isn't going to pay off for him if he stops playing.
If he up and leaves, all that work he put in doesn't really pay off for him. He'll still need to come around each summer to claim his ships. He'll still need to log in, and still throw in 1k pearls to get that ship and get the discount on other alts.
There's no incentive to stick around for another year if you haven't invested in Lohlunat Pearl Futures. Yes, it trivializes the gameplay -- but from my point of view, Cryptic unintentionally hooks a bunch of Bobs into STO by putting that seed in their brain that says, "Hey, I can pull one over on Cryptic next year, but I'll still have to log in to get it and play around with it."
It's like an unintentional "Returning Player" reward. If you've not been around for a year, hey, guess what... you still get your awesome ship.
Whatever the reasoning idc really. This game has enough grind as it is, acnt even keep up.
Weapons for R&D that are out of reach, its all a big gamble fest.
This game claims to have become more alt friendly, right. Ive been a vet for 5 years now and just came back after a year, still the same .......
Decided to do 1 toon thats it. Too bad as ive seen alot of nice new ships that can only be used on either a fed, kdf or rommy. Lost money for you guys.
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
Funny thing is I was too burned out from the grinding etc. to try for the Kobali, I didn't even look at the status. Now that I've taken a break I wished I had grinned for it but opportunity lost.
Actually as the "grind" wars started heating up I made the choice to skip summer and only focus on winter grinding so I don't have a single summer ship.
I have alts I was planning on making delta but they had Q marks set up for the winter...which you hate...
Ex-CoH players, Please add the chat channel "CoX STO"
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
This is so much WIN. Hopefully that works and also makes the event ships reclaimable for chars if we dismiss them. I was looking forward to Event to get Risian Cruiser on my Delta chars at least, but with this I can put them in my even more liked Chel Grett. I never used to Kobali ship due to limited ship space, but being able to reclaim would help a lot with that for sure
We will be making every event ship youve ever earned and every event ship moving forward total account unlocks. As soon as one character on your account owns a ship, every single other character on your account that exists now or you will ever create will have immediate access to any event ship youve earned. There will be no need for your alts to play the event mission, no hoops to fly through other than picking up the ship from a store. Hopefully taking this extra step will address any lingering concerns you have with the overall change. Thanks for reading this far, and I look forward to seeing you on Risa soon!
i wrote "wait & see"; and like i thought, this is not the end of the world, instead we have a real improvement, and less grind.
Comments
So what you're saying is that the people who were saving up were doing the same amount of work, just at a different time. Participation wasn't down, it was just shifted to the previous year.
Sure, being able to claim Chels and Pleshs on all my DRs is nice, but I'm still likely shafted on the carrier, and I'm never going to be able to get the Risan ships despite grinding what I could the last 2 years to get them.
Thanks.
Thank you for the explanation behind the change; along with the account unlock. I only wish we had this explained properly from the start.
:rolleyes:
STO Resources: <Ship Comparison - All Tiers + Small Craft + Hangar Pets> <Damage Resistance>
<R&D + Upgrade Costs> <Duty Officer Finder> <Suliban Doff Reqs> <Fleet Costs> <Rep Costs>
<Keybind Tour the Galaxy> <Fleet / Armada Management> <Currency Exchange> <Other STO Links>
I don't think it was actually planned from the start :
Thanks for making me believe in Feedback again ... or ****storms depending on your POV
Here's the question:
WHY do players play less and use the fact you can keep the pearls safe to save time for the next event?
Is it possible that they do this because the way of getting pearls isn't interesting/pleasant/fun/etc... to them anymore and they try their best to spend as less time as possible?
Hrmm, that's kind of curious. I was expecting them in the Lobi Store or at least the consoles in the Lobi Store to keep the particular ships an "Event" thing but not blocking anybody from being able to do a set of the consoles on the newer ship. Cause some of the folks didn't necessarily have the concern about the ship itself, but rather if this Summer's ship had a console for a 3pc and they would not be able to 3pc. Would it be something that perhaps for those new players that have not had a chance to unlock the previous boats, that the new boat could provide them all the consoles - unlock those at least, even if they would not have access to the previous ships?
It's not necessarily a concern of mine, depending on how the unlock bit is handled - I do not have a current character that has any of the ships (rerolled again prior to Delta Rising), but if it recognizes previous unlocks (kind of like what happened with the Winter Event eventually) - that wouldn't be a personal concern.
But it's something that appears to have been a concern expressed by some folks amidst the...feedback.
Hrmm, oh well, just a thought. Still...the reply is enough for me to rotate my avatar 90 degrees.
...the ones you need to fly through on Risa!
Amirite? /elbowjab
Eh? Come on!
You loved it!
But that's the thing, it was his double entendre pun. Only the main has to fly through hoops to get stuff. The alts no longer do.
you know, this does make me curious though...any chance this system will be expanded to the rewards gained from the crystalline catastrophe and mirror invasion events?
the items and doffs, obviously - not the marks and dilithium
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Yeah, because that was working so FLAWLESSLY with the breen ships this last winter.
i wish the risian/winter ways to get the pearls changed up every year. the flying and running may be fun the first few times, but after a full month of doing that it loses every last bit of fun and becomes a complete chore, so the idea of repeating that every year becomes less than desirable and more of a turn off from the event.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
This one really makes me wonder about the thought process at Cryptic, though.
You saw this as a problem. These are players who you could reasonably suspect were going to stick around for another year. An entire year in which they could reasonably be expected to buy things. If for no other reason, when they are feeling demoralized... there's always that hitch that they should return for the summer event.
And that is the worst case scenario. Players who become seasonal players, only showing up for Risa. But even then... if they returned, they would return to all the changes you've made since the last Risa summer event, yes? Giving your team an entire year to impress those players into sticking around some more.
Why was this ever considered a problem? A short-term problem, sure. But these are players who get away with nothing. They do extra work in the summer so they don't have to the following summer.
You had a system in place that got your hooks into the minds of players that they should keep playing STO for another year so they could trivialize the gameplay next year.
These are players that plan one year ahead. They have way more faith in your game than you seem to perceive, but you were unwilling to see the big picture because your concern was... what? Short-term metrics?
Thanks for taking the time to respond, Salami.
This could have all been avoided if some communication and cooperation had happened.
I understand and respect the reason behind this decision, but I still do not agree with it.
My main had over 1500 pearls, and my alt had over 600. I put in the time last year to earn those pearls, and would have done the exact same thing this year, despite getting the new ship on day one.
This is where the veterans don't get the decision; which I am sure you can see it from our point of view, it invalidates the time we put into the events.
Please work with us! Certain recent decisions being made along with this one, makes it look like the opposite, and that can only be bad for the health of the community, and the game.
I am, however, grateful for the account unlock with the event ships...
Yeah ... at least they could include the Powerboards into the "Grind" to mix things up a little ... I'm not really bothered with the 3min Mission every day, though ... just saying more Options are always nice ...
I just want to say I love your new avatar schtick.
I think he was saying it goes beyond that..er...sort of thing.
Bob grinds out Summer I and enough for Summer II. Summer II comes around, well sure Bob's got his Summer II ship off the bat...and Bob's going to grind ahead for his Summer III ship. Kicks into the scenario that Bob's just playing ahead a year and no worries, right?
But...
Joe grinds out Summer I and enough for Summer II...and...he does the same on some alts. Basically, Joe doesn't have to play Summer II, Summer III, Summer IV, etc, etc, etc, cause with the discounts - he basically ground out enough in the one Summer so he wouldn't have to play the event at all for years.
There were apparently enough Joe's doing that, that Bob became a casualty of what Joe was doing.
Cause remember, we went from that system where every toon had to do it all...so some folks were still used to that, yeah? So suddenly they had all this additional "free time" and they could...wham, bam, it.
Say somebody went through and did the factory thing with 10 toons. They were used to it. They did it through a couple of events and they could keep doing that. Maybe even playing through the event longer to build up a wee reserve.
Introduce the discounts.
Toon#1 claims it in Summer 1. Toons #2-10 use their reserve with the discount.
Toon#2 claims it in Summer 2. Toons #1, 3-10 use their reserve with the discount.
It would be ten years later before that player had to participate in the event again.
They weren't doing what Bob was doing, where he was faithfully plodding through the event each year while a year ahead - just wanting to have that ship the first day each year...where he was still playing the event...
...one could easily set oneself up to have no need to run the event for some time.
Now, some will say they put the time in...but it's not about time by itself, it's about when that time is in. It's an event...the time should be spent in the event, not gaming the event. It's a reward for each year's participation...which Bob was doing...but Joe wasn't.
* * * * *
But have to wonder how much participation they'll see with it just being the one toon doing the unlock now. It's kind of trippy...basically just wanting one character to go through it...come a long way from the factory play of a couple years back (and the I don't want to play anymore I hate this TRIBBLE way it was...lol).
First, thank you for posting and acknowledging the discontent, and acknowledging corporate mistakes.
Now, please watch 20 seconds of this video starting at 3:18 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtFo_E_Ea0
Incentivize, don't penalize.
Do you (plural "you" of the company) realize that it is extremely likely you could have achieved the vast majority of what you want, and been lauded for this system, if you had simply introduced this buy-back as an additional option for players to use the existing currency?
Instead, you chose the route of penalizing players. Taking something away and limiting choices is a form of punishment. Punishing someone you want something from - game time, money, etc. - is NEVER a good choice.
If what you're saying is genuinely the reason for this change - and I'm willing to accept that you're being honest - then your team really and truly needs to start expanding their skillset and looking for other solutions. This is a conflagration that never should have happened.
Finally, I'd add the obvious statement that - if something is being actively avoided by players - maybe that's a sign that there's something wrong with the content.
I will pay 1000 pearls for that as a ship emote.
The problem I see with that is... yes, Bob is still putting in the time. But he's apparently dedicated enough that all of that work isn't going to pay off for him if he stops playing.
If he up and leaves, all that work he put in doesn't really pay off for him. He'll still need to come around each summer to claim his ships. He'll still need to log in, and still throw in 1k pearls to get that ship and get the discount on other alts.
There's no incentive to stick around for another year if you haven't invested in Lohlunat Pearl Futures. Yes, it trivializes the gameplay -- but from my point of view, Cryptic unintentionally hooks a bunch of Bobs into STO by putting that seed in their brain that says, "Hey, I can pull one over on Cryptic next year, but I'll still have to log in to get it and play around with it."
It's like an unintentional "Returning Player" reward. If you've not been around for a year, hey, guess what... you still get your awesome ship.
Weapons for R&D that are out of reach, its all a big gamble fest.
This game claims to have become more alt friendly, right. Ive been a vet for 5 years now and just came back after a year, still the same .......
Decided to do 1 toon thats it. Too bad as ive seen alot of nice new ships that can only be used on either a fed, kdf or rommy. Lost money for you guys.
Cool Beans. My alts welcome
1. Kamarg
2. Dyson
3. Obelisk
Funny thing is I was too burned out from the grinding etc. to try for the Kobali, I didn't even look at the status. Now that I've taken a break I wished I had grinned for it but opportunity lost.
Actually as the "grind" wars started heating up I made the choice to skip summer and only focus on winter grinding so I don't have a single summer ship.
I have alts I was planning on making delta but they had Q marks set up for the winter...which you hate...
Ex-CoH players, Please add the chat channel "CoX STO"
This is so much WIN. Hopefully that works and also makes the event ships reclaimable for chars if we dismiss them. I was looking forward to Event to get Risian Cruiser on my Delta chars at least, but with this I can put them in my even more liked Chel Grett. I never used to Kobali ship due to limited ship space, but being able to reclaim would help a lot with that for sure
i wrote "wait & see"; and like i thought, this is not the end of the world, instead we have a real improvement, and less grind.
for this time, i would say, thank you the devs