I'm actually curious as to how many people out there unlock multiple lockbox ships for various toons? not really people with billions of EC who can afford to do it. But someone who doesnt have lots of EC to spend, decided they want to go on a grinding spree and earn currency to buy another lockbox ship. I'm only wondering because i was in the same situation a day or two ago. I bought the Narcine a long time ago and it went to my best equipped and most progressed main. But i have KDF Sci and Rom Sci who i would also like to gear up with a Narcine but as a torp ship (my other one is a Tac beamboat). When i started thinking about having to grind the currency needed i just said "nah i aint gonna do it".
well hands down i would pay 1000 zen per toon once awarded and 3000 zen for account unlock. i think (only an opinion) that people would open more knowing they can unlock for other toons, i would!
The only lockbox ship I've ever bought was the JHAS when it had a significant drop in price during one of the re-releases. Right now I have two main characters, and one of them is still piloting that JHAS. I've almost quit playing the game other than to log in for dailies to just talk to the fleet in chat.
If there was a way to make lockbox ships account bound, even at a Zen cost, I would start buying lockbox ships, and I would become more active. I like being able to do new things, like the Featured Episodes or holiday events (even if they do get repetitive and grindy, they're still not "kill these same ships every half an hour.")
If I buy a lockbox ship, and ALL my alts can pilot it, I have something new to do. Something fun. I can try out new builds, see how ships change based on the faction/class of the pilot, and just tinker with builds (something I find fun.) Instead of lockbox ships being something I don't buy because it's stuck on a single character, it would be a way of changing the game for all my characters. Not only would I be willing to pay real money for the Zen token, I would become more engaged in the game and probably start buying new ships more often.
Right now, it's cost-prohibitive for me to buy a new ship if it's only for one character; therefore, a new ship isn't something I'm interested in. I'm more than content to keep flying my JHAS T5U until the Tier 7 ships release (we all know that's an eventuality), and probably still then. I, and I'm sure many others, would suddenly become much more interested in buying lockbox ships if they were able to become account bound. This would increase demand for keys, as well as adding a new item to the Zen store that would be bought for many of the ships unpacked in each lockbox. Many players would even buy these tokens for some of their existing lockbox ships. It's not a compromise between PWE/Cryptic and the Players; it's a dabo for both parties.
lobi (and of course lockbox ships) comes from lockboxes
all the lockboxes must continue to be opened to keep the game & the exchange lively
why?
because there's a whole bunch of other stuff in these lockboxes which people need to have on the market
consoles, doffs, traits, and now boff abilities
the game is better with tons of lockboxes being opened all the time, with a bunch of that loot ending up on the exchange and being made available to the game population
the idea of account unlocks would mean a whole lot less lockboxes being opened
of course alot of people would thats obvious as daylight during day time but would cryptic no why? more profitable without this idea 300+ keys at 125 zen v 2k unlock..and thats also pretty obvious
This is true. If every player offered cryptic 100 dollors each to make lockbox ships account wide I would seriously doubt they would do it then. WHY? believe it or not, for the normal person it takes opening anywhere between 50-100 lockboxes to win 1 ship. Now most ppl have at least 3-5 characters. Keys at 1.25 each opening 50 lockboxes is 62.50. If you just tried to win the ship on 2 of your characters that would be more than a 100 dollors. Now I know there are some ppl out there that have won a ship on the 1st try. Even I won a D'kora on my 3rd try once but that doesn't justify the fact I probably spent over 100 dollors to win the JHSS. Anyways. Cryptic won't do it and if they do STO players beware!!! Becasue that surely means cryptic is grasping for money and they have pulled out the big guns to please thier investors. If cryptic did do that they would make a huge spike in sales that month but I garantee from there on its death knocking at the servers door.
I do have to say, nice post. I read it all. Sadly it will never happen.
If nothing else, this is handy because it provides options when something gets broken.
I'm looking into the SWTOR pricing and how they handle it.
I think Lobi costumes would be a similar candidate for account conversion and maybe reputations or even levels or spec points. I realize you're talking some real controversy there. I'm not suggesting it be cheap or available to people who don't have them through normal earning but you have a combination of things there that I'd blow $150 on and be more receptive to spending in the future.
I'd probably pay:
750 ZEN per costume x 5 = 3750
2000 ZEN per ship x 3 (at least) = 6000
1000 ZEN per 10 levels x 6 = 6000
That's $157.50 right there. I might make it a point to buy some or all from sale price ZEN or during sales but I'd buy it all.
I'd probably be up for maybe 250 ZEN per rep tier. That's another 10k ZEN. Again, not all at once. Maybe using stipend or sales or dilithium exchange but I'd do it.
There's over $250 you'd get "sunk" from me even if it's not all at once and involves some mitigation from sales/stipend/conversion, before looking at account unlock of spec points or DOff commendations. Plus greater eagerness to pick up new lockbox items. Some I have wanted and fought off the urge to buy because I might want them later on a different character. This usually makes me able to defeat my urge to buy some things because I think:
Maybe there's another character I'd rather have them on. But I don't want to roll a new character because of the other effort involved not just in leveling but advancing to identical status to my main.
Honestly, I'd be completely upfront if Cryptic ever wanted to do a focus group on how people who are tempted to buy resist sales pitches. I have a whole well of strategies I use to talk myself out of spending because I could very easily give into the urge to load up a bit more on a credit card or pick up some extra work somewhere or grind dilithium. But I don't because I have ways of talking myself out of purchases and a big thing that I use to talk myself out of spending is that I just can't justify bringing another character or multiple others up to par with my main.
OMG, I always thought Lobi costumes was account wide. How could they not be? A costume, not account wide. Really. Thats a punch to the gut if there ever was one.
I would not object to this idea, though I would not use it. I personally play every toon differently, only one toon is allowed Lockbox ships, the others use either event ships or DR pack ships. I can see how a number of players would utilize it.
Why should I pay for an account unlock for a ship that has been broken for 7 months and counting (Tholian Orb Weaver)? Maybe if Cryptic actually stood behind their work I might consider this idea, but until there is a fix for "all" players who bought this ship I say what's the point of giving Cryptic more money?
The more i have been thinking about this, I can understand that company wants to keep the lock-box cash cow going. I mean while I am not one who does the lock box thing there seem to be plenty that are, I think it is a bad way to handle scarcity/rarity for ships.
Personal opinion inbound, so hate all you want, but I think it all needs to be redone.
I think all ships should be Zen/C-store items and pay once unlock for all. Want to control rarity have certain ships sold for only a brief time, and only those who bought it when was available will have it.
My "Main" was rolled in beta early access, i have some of the BOs that are no longer obtainable in game, and some items like the weird snake staff-thingies. I also missed some items like the Breen BO as i was out town when that season was offering the reward. My point is not every one is going to be online all the time and they may "miss" the opportunity to buy the limited edition stuff.
I know from reading that this model caters to whales, those players who will spend many hundreds of dollars gambling for ships to sell on the EC market. I think the game makers would see an insane amount of people buying limited edition ships from the zen store for 30 bucks a pop, more than enough to compensate for whale hunting.
Lock boxes and Lobi store items, I do think there is a place for them. For instance I have always seen Lobi as the "consolation prize" of spending real money on a lock box and getting bupkis. What I think needs to be in lock boxes are consoles, random BO's, and Ship customization pieces/skins on an account wide unlock (and tradeable). With Lobi being the place to unlock character specific costumes and gear as a consolidation.
I think this would keep an EC market going, as people love to customize their ships and satisfy the diversity/rarity of ships and take the punitive sting out of the whole lock-box thing.
lobi (and of course lockbox ships) comes from lockboxes
all the lockboxes must continue to be opened to keep the game & the exchange lively
why?
because there's a whole bunch of other stuff in these lockboxes which people need to have on the market
consoles, doffs, traits, and now boff abilities
the game is better with tons of lockboxes being opened all the time, with a bunch of that loot ending up on the exchange and being made available to the game population
the idea of account unlocks would mean a whole lot less lockboxes being opened
Unless some of us aren't opening or are opening fewer because we've talked ourselves out of the value of these ships.
There's basically an equilibrium price that can be calculated through Cryptic's internal metrics and a bit of analysis of player spending behavior. Now, the question is whether that equilibrium price is 1k ZEN or 10k ZEN or 1.9k ZEN. It does require some interpretation of player behavior as well which is where this gets tricky... Because there are things I DON'T buy for certain reasons.
Same is true with everyone really.
It may be, for instance, that uniform costumes don't sell well because ship interiors aren't developed. Most of our content takes place on away teams. Maybe people's urge to wear uniforms is in proportion to how much time people spend in faction psychologically reinforcing areas of the game.
You can get a solid estimated equilibrium price for account unlocks based on what people DO do but the actual equilbrium price is probably somewhat lower based on what people DON'T do. The metrics are great for analyzing what people DO do. Analyzing what people AREN'T doing and WHY requires some real craft and is an imprecise science.
Perhaps they're afraid of making C-Store ships obsolete. This just occurred to me. Lockbox/ Lobi ships tend to be better.
T1 through T4 (ie, half hour flight time ships you buy for the console) for quite some time and now T5 are basically obsolete with T6. T5U can't have hybrid seats.
C-Store ships don't require you to unlock them with $200+ worth of keys or lobi.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Perhaps they're afraid of making C-Store ships obsolete. This just occurred to me. Lockbox/ Lobi ships tend to be better.
I wouldn't say that, The lockbox ships have always been more of a novelty to me, I always go back to my C-Store Faction specific ships and I think many other people feel the same way, most of the best considered ships are C-Store, the Scimitar being the obvious one, The Mercury, Phantom, Eclipse, Presidio, and they have the best Mastery traits Reciprocity, All hands on deck ect...
I wouldn't say that, The lockbox ships have always been more of a novelty to me, I always go back to my C-Store Faction specific ships and I think many other people feel the same way, most of the best considered ships are C-Store, the Scimitar being the obvious one, The Mercury, Phantom, Eclipse, Presidio, and they have the best Mastery traits Reciprocity, All hands on deck ect...
JHSS, Sheshar and Ateleth have extremely powerful traits.
I'm actually less interested in the new lockbox ships than the old ones because of the traits. that's too expensive resource and time wise for multiple characters.
Given that I paid to account-unlock a few lockbox mounts in TOR, and those are less central to how a character plays than a ship is? Yeah, I'd pay a reasonable fee.
What I would pay for is a ship upgrade token for my each of my Mirror Universe lockbox ships, but apparently, Cryptic has already thought of all the income streams that they want...
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
JHSS, Sheshar and Ateleth have extremely powerful traits.
They have "decent" traits, an extra beam overload I or torpedo high yield I once every 30 seconds doesn't really hold it's own especially compared to traits like reciprocity which greatly reduce cool downs which is a far greater benefit in my honest opinion.
Also it's debatable to consider the Sheshar and JHSS as lockbox ships as they come from Research and Development packs and not lockboxes.
If this change were made I think it would apply to lockbox and Lobi Store ships but not the exclusive R&D pack ships.
Example: 250 zen for a single ship unlock on a toon, so it will be able to claim that ship forever from cstore or reclaim tab. Hell, even 500 zen to be honest :P
If this change were made I think it would apply to lockbox and Lobi Store ships but not the exclusive R&D pack ships.
Why? At least for me it's exactly the same issue -- if I can pay to unlock then I am willing to spend more money to get more ships in the first place.
My job pays very well and gaming is my main hobby, so the only limit on my spending is not seeing enough value in the lockbox and R&D ships, compared to C-Store ships that are account unlocks.
Unlocks make a ship more valuable to me, so I can justify buying more ships.
As others have mentioned, this feature is one of the things I like best about the cash shop in SWTOR (meanwhile, some of the sleazier consumables they sell is what I like least about the game - like "one week" passes to give unlimited access to pvp / space combat / etc. Or the hideously low credit cap combined with temporary cap increases. bleh)
SWTOR items cost 60-250 zen to unlock. Of course, they also have a vastly higher number of small items to unlock, compared to STO starships..... dozens of costumes, dozens of mounts, dozens of pretty weapons, etc, etc, etc. No need to charge 1000zen+ when there's so many things to charge a little bit for.
(The costumes also have the additional "boost the economy" features of - you need all the pieces of the costume to unlock it, and you don't get the whole costume at once from a lockbox. So there's plenty of need to buy more lockboxes or troll the auction house for purchases, when you're looking to complete a collection.......)
So, yeah. It's not directly comparable to STO, but it's still an interesting idea.
As to "exclusivity" and/or CBS wanting ships to be "rare".... you can only be logged on to one of your alts at a time. So even if you've unlocked Wacky Alien Ship 12 across your account, that doesn't mean sector space is suddenly full of them. It's still just one visible ship.
And "but it'll destroy the economy because people won't have to spend $300/300mil EC for each of their characters!" is totally insane. I can't believe there are enough people who would do that, for it to be a major impact on the overall game economy.
Why? At least for me it's exactly the same issue -- if I can pay to unlock then I am willing to spend more money to get more ships in the first place.
My job pays very well and gaming is my main hobby, so the only limit on my spending is not seeing enough value in the lockbox and R&D ships, compared to C-Store ships that are account unlocks.
Unlocks make a ship more valuable to me, so I can justify buying more ships.
I'n not saying R&D ships shouldn't be account unlocks, but If Cryptic were to implement this it would likely only apply to Lockbox/Lobi ships only since the R&D ships are meant to promote the sale of R&D packs, it's kind of a "Don't ask for too much" thing, if they did impliment what Op said and have it not apply to R&D ships then easily I'd settle for that, but if they do implement this for all ships then great if it's only a Lockbox ship thing then at least we have the huge benefit of account wide Lockbox ships and that's good enough for me.
I still think paying possibly hundreds of dollars (easy to do with a .04% drop rate) for a ship, then asking someone to pay more to make it reclaimable or usable by other toon on the account seems a bit much too much. I think once acquired (at current cost) it should be an account unlock by default.
I think the whole "unique ship" thing needs an overhaul.
I still think paying possibly hundreds of dollars (easy to do with a .04% drop rate) for a ship, then asking someone to pay more to make it reclaimable or usable by other toon on the account seems a bit much too much. I think once acquired (at current cost) it should be an account unlock by default.
I think the whole "unique ship" thing needs an overhaul.
There may be some truth to this but lockbox ships are not necessarily direct purchases. The economy could be flooded with them from relatively few mega-whales whereas a direct purchase would be different.
What might be reasonable is something like:
Gold members get a discount on account services (which have no fixed cost to develop like art assets), which might include account unlocks. That would move both gold subs and lifetimes.
Though if we're really looking at going this route...
Why limit it to lockbox ships?
I might actually suggest reducing prices in the C-Store by a large margin, making many account items into character items if purchased after a certain date, and introducing the account unlock feature for all ships.
Like maybe ships would be somewhere around 60% off the current price with account unlock scaling by tier. Likewise costumes, etc.
And maybe put everything in tradeable boxes until opened. And when opened, you get the account unlock option at the tailor or ship selector.
You probably wouldn't lose anything on whales who would almost always buy the account unlock. Account unlock discounts would be a strong promo to run during things like Delta Recruit event. And you'd convert more F2P players into buyers with the lower "single use" price and then have a second sales pitch to get them to make alts.
I think you'd definitely sell more low tier ships if they were single character, 60% off and boxed to be traded (meaning you can gift anything to a friend, a perk that drives League of Legends monetization).
They have "decent" traits, an extra beam overload I or torpedo high yield I once every 30 seconds doesn't really hold it's own especially compared to traits like reciprocity which greatly reduce cool downs which is a far greater benefit in my honest opinion.
They're situationally useful, but fun when realized.
On a plasma torp boat, the Sheshar's trait is wonderful (only hindered by the fact that you need the Rom or Reman 3-pc set for maximum plasma torpedo boosting). On a Command-capable torpedo boat? Even moreso (you could get near-continuous volleys of HY torpedoes with Concentrate Firepower 2 and 3 after just 1 initial HY2-3, plus the trait and then the CF2 or CF3 skill).
On the other end, free BO1s from weapons with [Over] and buffed by the BO Doffs? Pure hilarity.
Hmmm... I generally don't bother with lock box ships (as in, I own ONE, over a couple years, across twelve characters) because they are so comparatively expensive. If they came as an account unlock, that would definitely get me into the market to purchase and/or gamble for them...
If there were a Zen cost on top of the current Master Key/Lobi cost, I'm not quite so certain I'd bother or that it would make any difference in my buying habits...
Then again, both options would also reduce the number of folks that buy duplicates under the current system...
Though Delta Rising's impact on alts probably diminished that market...
Hmmmm...
As to the associated Starship Traits, moving those to an account level would also promote sales of both lock box and C-Store ships (since I primarily play KDF/Rom, I'd buy a Phantom in a heartbeat)... but it would still cut back on duplicate sales to those that do so under the current system...
Hmmmm... need statistics, market research, surveys, etc.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Comments
I'm actually curious as to how many people out there unlock multiple lockbox ships for various toons? not really people with billions of EC who can afford to do it. But someone who doesnt have lots of EC to spend, decided they want to go on a grinding spree and earn currency to buy another lockbox ship. I'm only wondering because i was in the same situation a day or two ago. I bought the Narcine a long time ago and it went to my best equipped and most progressed main. But i have KDF Sci and Rom Sci who i would also like to gear up with a Narcine but as a torp ship (my other one is a Tac beamboat). When i started thinking about having to grind the currency needed i just said "nah i aint gonna do it".
If there was a way to make lockbox ships account bound, even at a Zen cost, I would start buying lockbox ships, and I would become more active. I like being able to do new things, like the Featured Episodes or holiday events (even if they do get repetitive and grindy, they're still not "kill these same ships every half an hour.")
If I buy a lockbox ship, and ALL my alts can pilot it, I have something new to do. Something fun. I can try out new builds, see how ships change based on the faction/class of the pilot, and just tinker with builds (something I find fun.) Instead of lockbox ships being something I don't buy because it's stuck on a single character, it would be a way of changing the game for all my characters. Not only would I be willing to pay real money for the Zen token, I would become more engaged in the game and probably start buying new ships more often.
Right now, it's cost-prohibitive for me to buy a new ship if it's only for one character; therefore, a new ship isn't something I'm interested in. I'm more than content to keep flying my JHAS T5U until the Tier 7 ships release (we all know that's an eventuality), and probably still then. I, and I'm sure many others, would suddenly become much more interested in buying lockbox ships if they were able to become account bound. This would increase demand for keys, as well as adding a new item to the Zen store that would be bought for many of the ships unpacked in each lockbox. Many players would even buy these tokens for some of their existing lockbox ships. It's not a compromise between PWE/Cryptic and the Players; it's a dabo for both parties.
well, aside from my original reply
lobi (and of course lockbox ships) comes from lockboxes
all the lockboxes must continue to be opened to keep the game & the exchange lively
why?
because there's a whole bunch of other stuff in these lockboxes which people need to have on the market
consoles, doffs, traits, and now boff abilities
the game is better with tons of lockboxes being opened all the time, with a bunch of that loot ending up on the exchange and being made available to the game population
the idea of account unlocks would mean a whole lot less lockboxes being opened
In my own, insignificant opinion, I've always believed that Lockbox ships should have been treated like C-Store ships. Account unlocks.
This is true. If every player offered cryptic 100 dollors each to make lockbox ships account wide I would seriously doubt they would do it then. WHY? believe it or not, for the normal person it takes opening anywhere between 50-100 lockboxes to win 1 ship. Now most ppl have at least 3-5 characters. Keys at 1.25 each opening 50 lockboxes is 62.50. If you just tried to win the ship on 2 of your characters that would be more than a 100 dollors. Now I know there are some ppl out there that have won a ship on the 1st try. Even I won a D'kora on my 3rd try once but that doesn't justify the fact I probably spent over 100 dollors to win the JHSS. Anyways. Cryptic won't do it and if they do STO players beware!!! Becasue that surely means cryptic is grasping for money and they have pulled out the big guns to please thier investors. If cryptic did do that they would make a huge spike in sales that month but I garantee from there on its death knocking at the servers door.
I do have to say, nice post. I read it all. Sadly it will never happen.
OMG, I always thought Lobi costumes was account wide. How could they not be? A costume, not account wide. Really. Thats a punch to the gut if there ever was one.
https://twitter.com/Salami_Inferno/status/604056185319219200
TL;DR
Orb Weaver fix has hit Tribble today.
Personal opinion inbound, so hate all you want, but I think it all needs to be redone.
I think all ships should be Zen/C-store items and pay once unlock for all. Want to control rarity have certain ships sold for only a brief time, and only those who bought it when was available will have it.
My "Main" was rolled in beta early access, i have some of the BOs that are no longer obtainable in game, and some items like the weird snake staff-thingies. I also missed some items like the Breen BO as i was out town when that season was offering the reward. My point is not every one is going to be online all the time and they may "miss" the opportunity to buy the limited edition stuff.
I know from reading that this model caters to whales, those players who will spend many hundreds of dollars gambling for ships to sell on the EC market. I think the game makers would see an insane amount of people buying limited edition ships from the zen store for 30 bucks a pop, more than enough to compensate for whale hunting.
Lock boxes and Lobi store items, I do think there is a place for them. For instance I have always seen Lobi as the "consolation prize" of spending real money on a lock box and getting bupkis. What I think needs to be in lock boxes are consoles, random BO's, and Ship customization pieces/skins on an account wide unlock (and tradeable). With Lobi being the place to unlock character specific costumes and gear as a consolidation.
I think this would keep an EC market going, as people love to customize their ships and satisfy the diversity/rarity of ships and take the punitive sting out of the whole lock-box thing.
Just an opinion
Unless some of us aren't opening or are opening fewer because we've talked ourselves out of the value of these ships.
There's basically an equilibrium price that can be calculated through Cryptic's internal metrics and a bit of analysis of player spending behavior. Now, the question is whether that equilibrium price is 1k ZEN or 10k ZEN or 1.9k ZEN. It does require some interpretation of player behavior as well which is where this gets tricky... Because there are things I DON'T buy for certain reasons.
Same is true with everyone really.
It may be, for instance, that uniform costumes don't sell well because ship interiors aren't developed. Most of our content takes place on away teams. Maybe people's urge to wear uniforms is in proportion to how much time people spend in faction psychologically reinforcing areas of the game.
You can get a solid estimated equilibrium price for account unlocks based on what people DO do but the actual equilbrium price is probably somewhat lower based on what people DON'T do. The metrics are great for analyzing what people DO do. Analyzing what people AREN'T doing and WHY requires some real craft and is an imprecise science.
T1 through T4 (ie, half hour flight time ships you buy for the console) for quite some time and now T5 are basically obsolete with T6. T5U can't have hybrid seats.
C-Store ships don't require you to unlock them with $200+ worth of keys or lobi.
I wouldn't say that, The lockbox ships have always been more of a novelty to me, I always go back to my C-Store Faction specific ships and I think many other people feel the same way, most of the best considered ships are C-Store, the Scimitar being the obvious one, The Mercury, Phantom, Eclipse, Presidio, and they have the best Mastery traits Reciprocity, All hands on deck ect...
JHSS, Sheshar and Ateleth have extremely powerful traits.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
...#LLAP...
They have "decent" traits, an extra beam overload I or torpedo high yield I once every 30 seconds doesn't really hold it's own especially compared to traits like reciprocity which greatly reduce cool downs which is a far greater benefit in my honest opinion.
Also it's debatable to consider the Sheshar and JHSS as lockbox ships as they come from Research and Development packs and not lockboxes.
If this change were made I think it would apply to lockbox and Lobi Store ships but not the exclusive R&D pack ships.
Why? At least for me it's exactly the same issue -- if I can pay to unlock then I am willing to spend more money to get more ships in the first place.
My job pays very well and gaming is my main hobby, so the only limit on my spending is not seeing enough value in the lockbox and R&D ships, compared to C-Store ships that are account unlocks.
Unlocks make a ship more valuable to me, so I can justify buying more ships.
SWTOR items cost 60-250 zen to unlock. Of course, they also have a vastly higher number of small items to unlock, compared to STO starships..... dozens of costumes, dozens of mounts, dozens of pretty weapons, etc, etc, etc. No need to charge 1000zen+ when there's so many things to charge a little bit for.
(The costumes also have the additional "boost the economy" features of - you need all the pieces of the costume to unlock it, and you don't get the whole costume at once from a lockbox. So there's plenty of need to buy more lockboxes or troll the auction house for purchases, when you're looking to complete a collection.......)
So, yeah. It's not directly comparable to STO, but it's still an interesting idea.
As to "exclusivity" and/or CBS wanting ships to be "rare".... you can only be logged on to one of your alts at a time. So even if you've unlocked Wacky Alien Ship 12 across your account, that doesn't mean sector space is suddenly full of them. It's still just one visible ship.
And "but it'll destroy the economy because people won't have to spend $300/300mil EC for each of their characters!" is totally insane. I can't believe there are enough people who would do that, for it to be a major impact on the overall game economy.
I'n not saying R&D ships shouldn't be account unlocks, but If Cryptic were to implement this it would likely only apply to Lockbox/Lobi ships only since the R&D ships are meant to promote the sale of R&D packs, it's kind of a "Don't ask for too much" thing, if they did impliment what Op said and have it not apply to R&D ships then easily I'd settle for that, but if they do implement this for all ships then great if it's only a Lockbox ship thing then at least we have the huge benefit of account wide Lockbox ships and that's good enough for me.
I think the whole "unique ship" thing needs an overhaul.
There may be some truth to this but lockbox ships are not necessarily direct purchases. The economy could be flooded with them from relatively few mega-whales whereas a direct purchase would be different.
What might be reasonable is something like:
Gold members get a discount on account services (which have no fixed cost to develop like art assets), which might include account unlocks. That would move both gold subs and lifetimes.
Though if we're really looking at going this route...
Why limit it to lockbox ships?
I might actually suggest reducing prices in the C-Store by a large margin, making many account items into character items if purchased after a certain date, and introducing the account unlock feature for all ships.
Like maybe ships would be somewhere around 60% off the current price with account unlock scaling by tier. Likewise costumes, etc.
And maybe put everything in tradeable boxes until opened. And when opened, you get the account unlock option at the tailor or ship selector.
You probably wouldn't lose anything on whales who would almost always buy the account unlock. Account unlock discounts would be a strong promo to run during things like Delta Recruit event. And you'd convert more F2P players into buyers with the lower "single use" price and then have a second sales pitch to get them to make alts.
I think you'd definitely sell more low tier ships if they were single character, 60% off and boxed to be traded (meaning you can gift anything to a friend, a perk that drives League of Legends monetization).
On a plasma torp boat, the Sheshar's trait is wonderful (only hindered by the fact that you need the Rom or Reman 3-pc set for maximum plasma torpedo boosting). On a Command-capable torpedo boat? Even moreso (you could get near-continuous volleys of HY torpedoes with Concentrate Firepower 2 and 3 after just 1 initial HY2-3, plus the trait and then the CF2 or CF3 skill).
On the other end, free BO1s from weapons with [Over] and buffed by the BO Doffs? Pure hilarity.
If there were a Zen cost on top of the current Master Key/Lobi cost, I'm not quite so certain I'd bother or that it would make any difference in my buying habits...
Then again, both options would also reduce the number of folks that buy duplicates under the current system...
Though Delta Rising's impact on alts probably diminished that market...
Hmmmm...
As to the associated Starship Traits, moving those to an account level would also promote sales of both lock box and C-Store ships (since I primarily play KDF/Rom, I'd buy a Phantom in a heartbeat)... but it would still cut back on duplicate sales to those that do so under the current system...
Hmmmm... need statistics, market research, surveys, etc.