What level of stupid do you have to be to NOT want more account wide unlocks?
Lobi ships could be account wide unlocks.
Lobi costumes could be account wide unlocks.
Lobi ground weapons could be account bound so they can be shared with alts (unless they already are? I have no idea).
In fact, I may be in the minority... but, I'd take Lobi ships over Lobi gear. Plus, I wonder if this is the first step in finding a SMART solution to ship slot problems.
Also, Lobi/lockbox/promo ships going account-wide would solve the Starship trait issue, to a large degree. It would also still leave the door open to the eventual addition of Reciprocity as a cross-faction lock box prize in the future (it's coming, we all know it).
Lobi ship account unlocks would of course be cool directly, but I think the argument against it is that it means Lobi ships become more common, since if you like one, chances are you will use it on multiple characters.
But what would be nice would be a character unlock - e.g. so that you can dismiss the ship and later reclaim it.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I'd like to point out to all the people saying account wide box/lobi ships are impossible.
There was a time you would be ridiculed for suggesting account wide lobi, because "hur durr cryptic wants ur money!1!!"
And look what happened there.
No, I was one of those arguing in favor of account wide lobi. Character bound lobi was actually a deterrent against Lobi sales. It meant you could only ever open a lockbox on one character and expect to meaningfully accumulate it. I'd guess that actually boosted their lockbox sales, because previously only true blue whales could afford to spend that much on multiple characters.
Account wide lockbox and lobi ships are an entirely different animal, especially since they can be bought and sold on the Exchange, which lobi cannot.
Sure, who wouldn't want account wide unlocks on everything? But I'm able to acknowledge and accept that it may not be in Cryptic's interests to do so.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Everything should be account wide. The account = the player. The character didn't earn anything. The player did.
I like your way of thinking.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Lobi ship account unlocks would of course be cool directly, but I think the argument against it is that it means Lobi ships become more common, since if you like one, chances are you will use it on multiple characters.
But what would be nice would be a character unlock - e.g. so that you can dismiss the ship and later reclaim it.
How many people use the same ship for all their characters though? Beyond using it long enough to unlock a ship trait, I don't see that happening.
If this counts for ships like the Dyson and Kobalii - which have very useful set items which - this will be an amazing thing and my judgment on the change as 'mostly positive'. If it just includes The summer and winter holiday ships... /meh.
- STO runs on money and thrives when more players spend time in game. Whatever increases both is unlikely to become account wide.
- If an item is considered 'exclusive' or is a form of 'status symbol' it likely already is character bound. Most ships which aren't from the C-store fall into this category.
Everything else is a matter of working out whether changing an item from character to account bound will affect the demand for that item or cause a ripple effect affecting the demand of other items in game.
From a player point of view everything account bound would be a boon.
From a Cryptic/developer point of view it would take time and effort to determine whether it would benefit both the player and the game to change a wide variety of items from character to account bound. It would also have to be considered how this would effect items being added to the game in the future.
sig.
It's not what is done or said but why.
Words and actions may be judged, but motives?
And what level of entitlement do you need to be to want everything to be account unlocks?
Don't be "that guy." Nobody likes "that guy."
Making the lobi ground gear (and space gear) account-wide is perfectly reasonable, because as things stand now, there's little reason to buy nearly any of it short of aesthetics. Making them account-wide could make leveling a lot more fun, as they'd give existing players a way to twink their low-level characters and encourage new players to spend on shinies that would remain useful for the life of their account.
As for the ships, costumes, and other lobi items which can be sold/traded? Maybe not.
Didn't read the whole thread but I'll say this.. lobi ships.. Should be account unlocks. They are very expensive lobi wise.. And you can only acquire them via real world currency. Yes you can buy keys from the exchange but in the end of the chain real world money went into getting that lobi.. Just like c-store ships are account wide because it's real world money so should the Lobi ships. Sorry but if I put that kind of cash in to get a lobi ship.. And I have... I want my whole account to have acces to it.
Rough math on a lobi ship: 8 lobi a box, 100 boxes for an 800 lobi ship or 110 for a 900 lobi ship. Master keys on sale 10 keys for 1000 TP so you need 10 to 11 packs.. That's 10 to 11 thousand turbine points or around 100 bucks a ship... Yea please that's 10 times any c-store ship account wide please for that kind of money!
Lobi gear is character locked, not even account locked so why should Lobi Ships be account wide unlocks? even the Spinal Disruptors are a store unlock for that character, not account.
This is going beyond account bind, this is going to reclaim tab wide unlocks for Lobi ships, not even Fleet ships get account wide unlocks.
Yes, that is entitlement ... rules been since since the JHAS come out in the Winter Event of 2011 and been consistent since them, rules for event ships have changed wildly over the years, first it was a reward on the mission reward list, then it became something that was brought with a special currency, then it became a reputation system and then a discount account wide was added after a year of that system and now its a account unlock, who knows what will happen next year, maybe we need to mail a postcard to Al Rivera, maybe we need to make a comment on Twitter ... its a mystery not even the Mayans knew about.
Lobi ships and Lock Box ships always follow the same rules.
Call me entitled then, because I think the non-ship items should be account bound. Ship I can understand.
But for example, costumes ?
Without discount : a Cstore costume cost 550zen. Not even starting on bundle of costume for the same price.
A lobi costume cost 200lobis. With an average of 5lobis/box, that's 40keys. Now, if you buy bundles of 10keys (the cheaper way), then that's 1125zen/10keys. Which means 4500zen, more than a ship (!).
So 550zen vs 4500zen, almost 10 times more, and not account bound ? Yeah right. Sure, you can buy keys with your EC, have a few lobis from the rerun... But in the end, even if you cut the price in half, or even down to a third, that's still a lot more, and not even account bound.
Same goes for the lobi gear, since the space ones are comparable to Cstore ship console, and also cost 200lobis. Which is a lot more than up to 3K zen.
Meanwhile, I'm not going to buy a single costume on the lobi store until it's account bound, even if it's never. And I'm not buying a lot of set for the same reason.
On a side note, and un-related, I wish the various one time ships/items (lobi, box, recurring or one time event...) had a special tab somewhere, so you can "discard" them and claim them back later. Similar to the "collection" tab in SWTOR. I really love this feature.
Don't buy Lobi anything. Don't care enough about the Special Events outside of Winter Wonderland to get worked up over any of it. I play WW strictly for the entertainment value. The Summer Event does not seem as much fun to me. Most of the Lobi stuff except for the ships isn't great.
Unlocking everything account wide would mean my Fed Tac gets to fly a FT5U Mogai with Superior Romulan Operatives for BOffs. Aren't the Two And Half Factions homogenous enough already?
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
The ships themselves, maybe not. It's kinda of a "Badge of Honor" to have a ship from a particular event.
But I think ALL unique consoles, weapons, engines, deflectors etc. that come with those ships, and that ALSO make up part of (and allow you to complete) 3 or 4 pce sets, should be available in the Lobi store AND be account unlocks.
The DSD or Obelisk Carrier are perfect examples of this. Currently you have to spend a fortune in Lobi to complete those sets if you have several Alts, and it's quite off-putting to say the least, which is probably why many don't bother.
Don't buy Lobi anything. Don't care enough about the Special Events outside of Winter Wonderland to get worked up over any of it. Most of the Lobi stuff except for the ships isn't great.
Unlocking everything account wide would mean my Fed Tac gets to fly a FT5U Mogai with Superior Romulan Operatives for BOffs. Aren't the Two And Half Factions homogenous enough already?
Bingo. Making everything account wide sounds just wrong. Things like Lobi and Event items sure, I can see that.
But stuff like spec points, rep, faction things, and the like is a no from me. If everything was account bound what would be the point of having more then one character?
Bingo. Making everything account wide sounds just wrong. Things like Lobi and Event items sure, I can see that.
But stuff like spec points, rep, faction things, and the like is a no from me. If everything was account bound what would be the point of having more then one character?
The same point as we have now, to have different builds and playstyles. Are you telling me you roll alts just to acquire the same stuff you already have earned? Well that's fine, you could still do so if you wanted to, I guess no one would force you to use account wide unlocks. Maybe a system where you could unlock them account wide or not would be ideal. The only downside is people would be able to play the way they want and not the way you want them to.
The same point as we have now, to have different builds and playstyles. Are you telling me you roll alts just to acquire the same stuff you already have earned? Well that's fine, you could still do so if you wanted to, I guess no one would force you to use account wide unlocks. Maybe a system where you could unlock them account wide or not would be ideal. The only downside is people would be able to play the way they want and not the way you want them to.
I agree with you.
Lobi is account wide, so should be the things you buy with it.
Let's take ZEN store for ex. Things like ships are account unlocks too and almost everything else too.
I see little logic in having certain things being character bound, since the player worked for it, not the character while player wasn't present.
I find it simply troublesome and unnecessary to have items like equipment or even Lockbox ships being character bound. I'm not saying there should be a store where you can get unlimited amounts of it.
I just think you should be able to store them into the accound bank to use it with another character. So the number of Lockbox ships/uniforms/special consoles and similar things wouldn't suddenly rise and make them trivial. But to buy them for another character again, just because you don't play that one character anymore is just tedious and demotivating imo.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Personally I think it's great that event ships would becoming account-wide, I have the bortas and the odyssey on a couple toons. I really wanted the kobali samsar cruiser, but due to many issues...I was unable to get and/or even slot the ship. Missed out on the entire event too...
Replay boffs like the breen and reman being account wide would be nice, I have quite a few toons...and the prospect of doing the same two episodes for like 3 accounts in a row is not fun.
The same point as we have now, to have different builds and playstyles. Are you telling me you roll alts just to acquire the same stuff you already have earned? Well that's fine, you could still do so if you wanted to, I guess no one would force you to use account wide unlocks. Maybe a system where you could unlock them account wide or not would be ideal. The only downside is people would be able to play the way they want and not the way you want them to.
It took me a while to find for the right words for it but I have.
IMMERSION!
Making things Rep and Spec points is Immersion Breaking and yes I know people could point to just about ten other things that is worst but I feel like that is using the slippery slope fallacy. We don't have to push forward with immersion breaking actions. We can stop here or even try to push back and get more RP back into MMORPGs.
And before people bring up what mostly what happens at Drozana or the bar on DS9 that is not what I'm talking about.
You have beat Mass Effect, a Fallout game, or your one player RPG game of choice and you want to start over with a new character to see how the story and gameplay is unlike the last run. Make a new character, they are nothing like your last character. You start the game and boom. The Reapers are dead, The Battle for the Dam is over, and etc. "Here is your gear [PUT PLAYER NAME HERE], go have fun."
...mind you if you had it unlock then somethings would kinda break, besides costs nothing stops me of having a full team using Temporal Weapons but if they are unlocked then would limits be implemented? only 1 Pistol and 1 Rifle like the Bajoran weapons?
Why would you impose limits? If you unlocked any of the ground items, why would it matter if you equipped every alt and BoFF with, say, the Undine Wrist Lance?
None of the ground gear in the Lobi store is superior to stuff you can purchase from the Exchange with ECs. A lot of is it good. Solid boosts to power that don't require a niche build to get it to work. Is any of it better than a craftable [CrtD]x3 anti-proton weapon? Most likely not.
You have beat Mass Effect, a Fallout game, or your one player RPG game of choice and you want to start over with a new character to see how the story and gameplay is unlike the last run. Make a new character, they are nothing like your last character. You start the game and boom. The Reapers are dead, The Battle for the Dam is over, and etc. "Here is your gear [PUT PLAYER NAME HERE], go have fun."
That's a pretty decent way of putting it. It gets into wondering if they just want to have a bunch of Space Barbies in different outfits so they don't have to bother changing those outfits.
Lobi store ground weapons, armor and space sets. They will still make bank with people trying to get lobi for their ships on each toon, but I figure the ground items and space sets are cheap enough that it wouldn't make much of a difference.
Specialization points should be account wide. I know this has been said before but it really is the only thing that will make this game Alt friendly again.
I like it.. After all, you can't really grind multiple characters faster than just one. (They can make patrol timers account wide)
After level 60 all spec points are earned across each character.
But when new specs come out you can simply use a dummy character to fill it in immediately. But other than giving us immediate access to spec powers I fail to see a down-side to that.
Comments
Lobi ships could be account wide unlocks.
Lobi costumes could be account wide unlocks.
Lobi ground weapons could be account bound so they can be shared with alts (unless they already are? I have no idea).
Lobi ship account unlocks would of course be cool directly, but I think the argument against it is that it means Lobi ships become more common, since if you like one, chances are you will use it on multiple characters.
But what would be nice would be a character unlock - e.g. so that you can dismiss the ship and later reclaim it.
No, I was one of those arguing in favor of account wide lobi. Character bound lobi was actually a deterrent against Lobi sales. It meant you could only ever open a lockbox on one character and expect to meaningfully accumulate it. I'd guess that actually boosted their lockbox sales, because previously only true blue whales could afford to spend that much on multiple characters.
Account wide lockbox and lobi ships are an entirely different animal, especially since they can be bought and sold on the Exchange, which lobi cannot.
Sure, who wouldn't want account wide unlocks on everything? But I'm able to acknowledge and accept that it may not be in Cryptic's interests to do so.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
How many people use the same ship for all their characters though? Beyond using it long enough to unlock a ship trait, I don't see that happening.
- STO runs on money and thrives when more players spend time in game. Whatever increases both is unlikely to become account wide.
- If an item is considered 'exclusive' or is a form of 'status symbol' it likely already is character bound. Most ships which aren't from the C-store fall into this category.
Everything else is a matter of working out whether changing an item from character to account bound will affect the demand for that item or cause a ripple effect affecting the demand of other items in game.
From a player point of view everything account bound would be a boon.
From a Cryptic/developer point of view it would take time and effort to determine whether it would benefit both the player and the game to change a wide variety of items from character to account bound. It would also have to be considered how this would effect items being added to the game in the future.
It's not what is done or said but why.
Words and actions may be judged, but motives?
Motives are truth to a believer
Making the lobi ground gear (and space gear) account-wide is perfectly reasonable, because as things stand now, there's little reason to buy nearly any of it short of aesthetics. Making them account-wide could make leveling a lot more fun, as they'd give existing players a way to twink their low-level characters and encourage new players to spend on shinies that would remain useful for the life of their account.
As for the ships, costumes, and other lobi items which can be sold/traded? Maybe not.
Rough math on a lobi ship: 8 lobi a box, 100 boxes for an 800 lobi ship or 110 for a 900 lobi ship. Master keys on sale 10 keys for 1000 TP so you need 10 to 11 packs.. That's 10 to 11 thousand turbine points or around 100 bucks a ship... Yea please that's 10 times any c-store ship account wide please for that kind of money!
But for example, costumes ?
Without discount : a Cstore costume cost 550zen. Not even starting on bundle of costume for the same price.
A lobi costume cost 200lobis. With an average of 5lobis/box, that's 40keys. Now, if you buy bundles of 10keys (the cheaper way), then that's 1125zen/10keys. Which means 4500zen, more than a ship (!).
So 550zen vs 4500zen, almost 10 times more, and not account bound ? Yeah right. Sure, you can buy keys with your EC, have a few lobis from the rerun... But in the end, even if you cut the price in half, or even down to a third, that's still a lot more, and not even account bound.
Same goes for the lobi gear, since the space ones are comparable to Cstore ship console, and also cost 200lobis. Which is a lot more than up to 3K zen.
Meanwhile, I'm not going to buy a single costume on the lobi store until it's account bound, even if it's never. And I'm not buying a lot of set for the same reason.
On a side note, and un-related, I wish the various one time ships/items (lobi, box, recurring or one time event...) had a special tab somewhere, so you can "discard" them and claim them back later. Similar to the "collection" tab in SWTOR. I really love this feature.
That's all I really need to be happy right now.
Unlocking everything account wide would mean my Fed Tac gets to fly a FT5U Mogai with Superior Romulan Operatives for BOffs. Aren't the Two And Half Factions homogenous enough already?
But I think ALL unique consoles, weapons, engines, deflectors etc. that come with those ships, and that ALSO make up part of (and allow you to complete) 3 or 4 pce sets, should be available in the Lobi store AND be account unlocks.
The DSD or Obelisk Carrier are perfect examples of this. Currently you have to spend a fortune in Lobi to complete those sets if you have several Alts, and it's quite off-putting to say the least, which is probably why many don't bother.
Bingo. Making everything account wide sounds just wrong. Things like Lobi and Event items sure, I can see that.
But stuff like spec points, rep, faction things, and the like is a no from me. If everything was account bound what would be the point of having more then one character?
The same point as we have now, to have different builds and playstyles. Are you telling me you roll alts just to acquire the same stuff you already have earned? Well that's fine, you could still do so if you wanted to, I guess no one would force you to use account wide unlocks. Maybe a system where you could unlock them account wide or not would be ideal. The only downside is people would be able to play the way they want and not the way you want them to.
Lobi is account wide, so should be the things you buy with it.
Let's take ZEN store for ex. Things like ships are account unlocks too and almost everything else too.
I see little logic in having certain things being character bound, since the player worked for it, not the character while player wasn't present.
I find it simply troublesome and unnecessary to have items like equipment or even Lockbox ships being character bound. I'm not saying there should be a store where you can get unlimited amounts of it.
I just think you should be able to store them into the accound bank to use it with another character. So the number of Lockbox ships/uniforms/special consoles and similar things wouldn't suddenly rise and make them trivial. But to buy them for another character again, just because you don't play that one character anymore is just tedious and demotivating imo.
Replay boffs like the breen and reman being account wide would be nice, I have quite a few toons...and the prospect of doing the same two episodes for like 3 accounts in a row is not fun.
It took me a while to find for the right words for it but I have.
IMMERSION!
Making things Rep and Spec points is Immersion Breaking and yes I know people could point to just about ten other things that is worst but I feel like that is using the slippery slope fallacy. We don't have to push forward with immersion breaking actions. We can stop here or even try to push back and get more RP back into MMORPGs.
And before people bring up what mostly what happens at Drozana or the bar on DS9 that is not what I'm talking about.
You have beat Mass Effect, a Fallout game, or your one player RPG game of choice and you want to start over with a new character to see how the story and gameplay is unlike the last run. Make a new character, they are nothing like your last character. You start the game and boom. The Reapers are dead, The Battle for the Dam is over, and etc. "Here is your gear [PUT PLAYER NAME HERE], go have fun."
None of the ground gear in the Lobi store is superior to stuff you can purchase from the Exchange with ECs. A lot of is it good. Solid boosts to power that don't require a niche build to get it to work. Is any of it better than a craftable [CrtD]x3 anti-proton weapon? Most likely not.
That's a pretty decent way of putting it. It gets into wondering if they just want to have a bunch of Space Barbies in different outfits so they don't have to bother changing those outfits.
That should be next.
Also, not doing this BS to the winter event, that'd be nice.
I like it.. After all, you can't really grind multiple characters faster than just one. (They can make patrol timers account wide)
After level 60 all spec points are earned across each character.
But when new specs come out you can simply use a dummy character to fill it in immediately. But other than giving us immediate access to spec powers I fail to see a down-side to that.