If we're ever to get another fraction Id love to see a Voth Exile one, but like the spoonheads most their ships are out there via lockboxes.
Some Voth exiles, some Gorn rebels, mix liberally and we have a unified endorthermic dinosaur fraction ready to make use of touched up Gorn NPC ships as tier 1-4 toys and ready to ally with feds or klinks as their whim sways. For tiers 3-6 make a couple voth-gorn hybrid ships(with the best being z-store only) and things are set!
What would be the point? There is nothing truly unique about any of the existing species save for a few traits that aren't fundamental to gameplay. The species' traits, alike many other things in this game, could have been so much more had more thought gone into them at pre-release.
It still baffles me to this day why the likes of the Pakled were added to the Federation instead of the Xindi or Deltan. I'm still disappointed that the Republic haven't got the ability to play (as) Suliban or Acamarian yet either, especially as it was discussed around the release of LoR. Just another one of those finer ideas that never quite took off.
This thread got me thinking. We can't do androids. But we can do organic brains in robot bodies. To make them unique, the bodies must be visibly mechanical. With special parts not found elsewhere.
Would be fun for RP, at least.
Playable Terran. And I don't want a carbon copy of he Feds. I want the total opposite.
If Humans have the "Leadership" quality to make Ship repairs faster, I want the Terran one to have a "Tyranny" trait that amplifies damage. Not Crit chance nor Crit Severity but pure Damage.
Something like this:
Tyranny (Space and Ground)
-"Inspire's" your crew to perform well or face the Agony Booth thus putting your crew on a frenzy. Adds 10% more damage and Accuracy to attacks and 20% chance to expose targets. The damage scales by 1% the longer you stay in battle and stacks 5 times. Resets after leaving battle.
I seriously want a Terran Faction with their own unique ships. But since it's not possible I want a 100% MU Terran for a Captain or a BOFF for the KDF or Fed. And yes sorry no Rom since they already have Remans for BOFF's.
Trust me I love my Rom but seriously:
SRO+Reman=Owning Damage
So seriously there needs to be a bit of balance most specially since almost 90% of the Boffs on the Fed side alone is pretty damn useless trait wise for space. The KDF also needs more Boff space traits.
I don't really see the point of a 4th faction unless it can somehow attract new players to the game.
Sure existing players would probably like a 4th faction, but I am not sure everyone will want to roll a new captain for it. Adding a 4th faction also means many of the the pre-existing missions needs to be reworded to include acknowledging the new faction. Or worse, bring back voice actors to re-record dialog that acknowledges the 4th faction. For example, in Spheres of Influence Admiral Koal mentioned all 3 of the current factions. Including a 4th faction would mean the texts needs to be updated which should not be too difficult, but then Cryptic would need to bring back the voice actor to re-record that segment of the dialog if adding the 4th faction is going to be done properly.
The new faction will need to have ships designed for them from Tier 1 through Tier 6. For T2 through T5 there needs to be at least 3 ships per tier if done properly when players get promoted so that they can select thier free ship. Though similar to the KDF and Romulan, the 4th race could also be shafted by not having science vessel at every tier. For example, the Romulan's first available science vessel is the T5 Ha'nom Science Warbird. That means at least a total of 10 ships from T1 through T5.
Tier 1 - The starter ship everyone gets. No other choices.
Tier 2 to Tier 4 - An escort and a cruiser.
Tier 5 - An escort, cruiser and science vessel.
It does not make sense to offer new T5 starships for the 4th faction in the C-Store that are better than the free T5 ships the player can choose from. Since T5 ships are no longer end game ships, most players would likely not bother purchasing a new 4th faction T5 starship for 2,500 Zen when they can purchase a new T6 starship for 3,000 Zen. Right off the bat the 4th faction is going to have a very short list of starship. This will likely make players pause and think if playing the 4th faction is going to be worthwhile.
Tier 6 starships will be limited at first. If done properly there should be at least 3 different ships; one that is appropriate for each captain class. They will not be exact copy and paste of existing T6 starhips so some design work is necessary which means time, effort, and expenses.
Whatever faction that is going to be developed will need to be interesting enough to drawn in new players to STO. New players are necessary to expand the player base to make STO potentially a more financially successful game. You can only on milk the existing player base for so much money and players to refuse to spend any real money at all on STO will still likely refuse to spend real money even after a 4th faction is created. This limits the medium and long term financial viability of STO.
The Cardassians is an obvious suggestion for a 4th faction since they were the primary antagonists in DS9. But that faction would be like a mirror image of the Romulan Republic to a certain extent. The Cardassians are split into two factions the Cardassian Union (or whatever they call themselves now) and the True Way. The Union would be took weak to stand on their own since they are still recovering from the Dominion War. Therefore, they will need to align themselves with either the Fed or the KDF; at least this opens up options to buy T1 - T4 Fed/KDF starships. The True Way does not seem to be as big of a threat compared to the remnant Romulan Star Empire, but they want to destabilize the Cardassian Union so that they can restore the Cardassian Empire. Like the Tal'Shiar, the True Way relies on a more powerful faction to help them on their path to reinvigorate themselves in order to dominate all Cardissians and make them a force to be reckoned with as they expand their empire.
Regardless of who the 4th faction will be, eventually it will follow the same path and story as the current 3 factions. Therefore only some of the missions prior to the Cardassian Struggle story arc will be unique to the 4th faction. You can be sure that the 4th faction will also have the Romulan Mystery, Spectre and Wasteland missions intermixed with unique missions as well. As for unique missions, I would say that the faction would probably have around 35 - 40 missions that are unique all taking place prior to the Cardassian Struggle. After that it is the same missions for everyone.
The Federation is the dominate faction in STO. Based on the statistics released by Cryptic last year I think the KDF and Romulan factions combined accounted for less than 20% of all captains created in STO. What will happen when a 4th faction is introduced? Will players rather play the 4th faction rather than the Fed? Or will the 4th faction further marginalize the number of player in the KDF and Romulan factions?
In any event, the number of players in the new faction must be large enough to justify the cost of ships designed for it, the new missions and modifications to existing missions. The new faction can potentially cannibalize the sale of ships in other factions in the current player base. For example, a player that was going to create a KDF or Romulan captain, and eventually purchase a T6 starship, but instead decided to play the new faction and purchase the new faction's T6 starship. In either case, the player was going to purchase a T6 starship. However, in the case of the new faction, Cryptic needed to spend a lot of money to introduce the new faction to get the player to purchase the T6 starship.
This is why it is important that an expansion which includes a new faction attract new players to the game. Especially if they play as the new faction. If the expansion draws in a lot of new players, but the overall number of players in the new faction is small, then new faction is basically a failure and future releases of T6 starships for that faction would adversely affect sales because the cost to design, test, and implement new starships is greater than the revenue generated by the sale of those ships.
In a Priority One Podcast from last year where Al "Captain Geko" Rivera was asked a question about the possible release of a T6 KDF science vessel, he basically said it will not happen. The reason is because sales of a T5 KDF science vessels (DSD and Varanus supposedly) were very low; at best maybe two dozen in one week. I think that included the sale of the Romulan's DSD too. Assuming 24 KDF and Romulan science vessels were sold every week for 52 weeks, that means a total of 1,248 ships sold. Assuming all ships were purchased using Zen at the full price of 2,500 Zen or $25 USD, that means Cryptic would have gross sales of $31,200 and that is before you subtract out expenses associated with design, testing and implementation.
If the player base in the 4th faction is not large enough to even cover the expenses associated with that faction's T6 starships, then the 4th faction would negatively affect STO's annual revenues.
I seriously want a Terran Faction with their own unique ships. But since it's not possible I want a 100% MU Terran for a Captain or a BOFF for the KDF or Fed. And yes sorry no Rom since they already have Remans for BOFF's.
It's basically impossible to get Reman / Romulan Boffs for most players. That last time I saw a Doff mission that rewarded one of those Boffs was back around September 2014.
Between that point in time through the end of the 2015 Risan Summer Event I have never seen a Doff mission that rewarded a Reman / Romulan Boff. I visited New Romulus every other day during that time.
I stopped afterwards because I took a break from STO until the middle of the 2015 Winter Event. Since there is no real reason for my Romulan captain to visit New Romulus, I don't bother checking for those Doff missions anymore unless I decide to fly to the Dyson Sphere Gateway.
I think I read somewhere that the Doff missions rewarding Reman / Romulan Boffs have been disabled by Cryptic, but I am not 100% sure.
I seriously want a Terran Faction with their own unique ships. But since it's not possible I want a 100% MU Terran for a Captain or a BOFF for the KDF or Fed. And yes sorry no Rom since they already have Remans for BOFF's.
It's basically impossible to get Reman / Romulan Boffs for most players. That last time I saw a Doff mission that rewarded one of those Boffs was back around September 2014.
I don't see Boff recruiting missions often in general. That includes Feds. Most assignments I see right now that reward Boffs are the commendation rank up ones, not random recruitment. you can easily tell the difference because random recruitment requires you to slot a Doff, the rank up ones don't, also the rank up ones don't usually give recruitment CxP.
The Federation is the dominate faction in STO. Based on the statistics released by Cryptic last year I think the KDF and Romulan factions combined accounted for less than 20% of all captains created in STO. What will happen when a 4th faction is introduced? Will players rather play the 4th faction rather than the Fed? Or will the 4th faction further marginalize the number of player in the KDF and Romulan factions?
yeah but there are problems with those numbers... sure all those characters were created for the federation.... for years you HAD TO make one for the Federation and level it to 30 to be able to play a KDF character...
So sure all those characters were made... how many are active? how many were deleted? how many ever got past the tutorial? Notice these bits of info weren't included just the 'hey we have millions of federation characters!' stat.
The Federation is the dominate faction in STO. Based on the statistics released by Cryptic last year I think the KDF and Romulan factions combined accounted for less than 20% of all captains created in STO. What will happen when a 4th faction is introduced? Will players rather play the 4th faction rather than the Fed? Or will the 4th faction further marginalize the number of player in the KDF and Romulan factions?
yeah but there are problems with those numbers... sure all those characters were created for the federation.... for years you HAD TO make one for the Federation and level it to 30 to be able to play a KDF character...
So sure all those characters were made... how many are active? how many were deleted? how many ever got past the tutorial? Notice these bits of info weren't included just the 'hey we have millions of federation characters!' stat.
It was never 30. First it was 8, but the KDF didn't have enough story to start at 8 back then. So they upped it to 25. Then in LoR it got dropped to 0. Which was what? two years ago?
It was never 30. First it was 8, but the KDF didn't have enough story to start at 8 back then. So they upped it to 25. Then in LoR it got dropped to 0. Which was what? two years ago?
Assuming you're correct, thats fine, 15minutes less levelling but the point is, you HAD TO HAVE a fed char before you could make a KDF one. So ofc the fed has bloated numbers.
Now Im sure there is still a majority of fed characters, just not as much as craptic wants us to believe(or perhaps they want to believe)
For one thing they really need to balance out the factions they need to make romulan and klingon on par with the feds and add content for klingon and romulan if they just give to the feds then basically they are TRIBBLE over others that want to play and dislike the feds but want to be rom or klingon.
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
What do you think? Will we see new playable species this year? Do you want new playable species? Should they be premium species, for example a new Veteran reward, or a C-store purchase? Or free?
If any Dev happens to read this: are there any plans being made for the release of new playable species? No need to go into details such as release dates, I'd just like to know if we can expect some new species somewhere this year
(I know it's unlikely this will get an official answer, but one can try )
D'Stahl did mention the Borg (read Cooperative) were considered.
I would gladly replace my entire roster with Borg Captains and start a one man assimilation campaign in PvP.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
For one thing they really need to balance out the factions they need to make romulan and klingon on par with the feds and add content for klingon and romulan if they just give to the feds then basically they are TRIBBLE over others that want to play and dislike the feds but want to be rom or klingon.
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
I think you got it wrong, population wise Fed has many players just because of canon RP and the fact their supposed to be the "Heroes", but races for them sucks a lot. Humans and Saurians having Leadership and Efficiency are about the only good species for them and even those traits aren't even on par on what the other 2 factions get. And science ships wise they do have a lot but Science and Engi are the forte of the Feds While the Other 2 are more Tact and PvP oriented. So really it's not surprising Feds has more Sci ships but here is the catch... What class gets nerfed a lot? Science. What class is always on top currently? Tactical So sensing a pattern here already? Good. Seriously the Best offensive ships and DPS ships came from Roms and KDF's.
No matter how many races or ships the Feds get if the Quality are poor then Rom's and KDF still have it much better. There are more advantages both Roms and KDF's have over Feds that most players of these 2 factions care to even realized.
Feds are just Milking Cows for Cryptic and PW due to population. Look at their giveaways for asking players to return. Fed ships. Looks cool but in the end if one actually realizes feds just have more eye candy and no real quality. that's whay whenever someone asks me which faction to play as a starter I always say KDF or Rom. They are much better and has a more good storyline.
Also Races like Ferengi's won't serve the KDF or Romulans. Klingons would eat the Ferengi alive because they literally are dishonorable to them while the Romulans are more sneaky than the Ferengi's that even the Ferengi's deal less with them.
For one thing they really need to balance out the factions they need to make romulan and klingon on par with the feds and add content for klingon and romulan if they just give to the feds then basically they are TRIBBLE over others that want to play and dislike the feds but want to be rom or klingon.
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
I think you got it wrong, population wise Fed has many players just because of canon RP and the fact their supposed to be the "Heroes", but races for them sucks a lot. Humans and Saurians having Leadership and Efficiency are about the only good species for them and even those traits aren't even on par on what the other 2 factions get. And science ships wise they do have a lot but Science and Engi are the forte of the Feds While the Other 2 are more Tact and PvP oriented. So really it's not surprising Feds has more Sci ships but here is the catch... What class gets nerfed a lot? Science. What class is always on top currently? Tactical So sensing a pattern here already? Good. Seriously the Best offensive ships and DPS ships came from Roms and KDF's.
No matter how many races or ships the Feds get if the Quality are poor then Rom's and KDF still have it much better. There are more advantages both Roms and KDF's have over Feds that most players of these 2 factions care to even realized.
Feds are just Milking Cows for Cryptic and PW due to population. Look at their giveaways for asking players to return. Fed ships. Looks cool but in the end if one actually realizes feds just have more eye candy and no real quality. that's whay whenever someone asks me which faction to play as a starter I always say KDF or Rom. They are much better and has a more good storyline.
Also Races like Ferengi's won't serve the KDF or Romulans. Klingons would eat the Ferengi alive because they literally are dishonorable to them while the Romulans are more sneaky than the Ferengi's that even the Ferengi's deal less with them.
The population is like that because they made it so that people will choose feds more but they are lossing money by doing this. They would make more money by milking all three, even if ships don't sell its because most possibly just grind dil to buy them, but thing is they got to make the ships good. You want them to make the ships good and balance out all the other ships they have that way each faction can be equil. Romulans should get the most cosmetics and civi clothing they need to milk out outfits for romulans, and also basically force the other two factions to be played or basically worth it. For one they need to make the playerbase less all fed, basically they can nerf the dil rate making romulans and klingons always getting more. So feds get less, til the playerbase is balanced out
Add more content for both romulans and klingons. A overhaul of kronos would also be good making a starbase like earth space dock for klingons would also basically split the playerbase it does not make sense they don't have that.
Basically people like earth space dock because of the easy access they have to it.
They do need a Klingon Space Dock, like earth space dock, basically same size or bigger.
They also need to add a romulan space dock that is built around new romulus that basically feds and klings can access.
This would be great for those wanting to talk with each other. I bet the new earth space dock would be the romulan starbase if they did this.
Romulan faction is the best one they just need to make it much better! Start milking romulan faction, as well as klingon faction! *If you do this then people will come back to the game in numbers*
They need to bascially fix pvp and make it worth it, and balance out things they broke that drove pvpers away. They need a third pvp option for romulans that way, each faction can fight each other. No more red, vs blue, But Green vs Red, Vs blue.
For one thing they really need to balance out the factions they need to make romulan and klingon on par with the feds and add content for klingon and romulan if they just give to the feds then basically they are TRIBBLE over others that want to play and dislike the feds but want to be rom or klingon.
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
I think you got it wrong, population wise Fed has many players just because of canon RP and the fact their supposed to be the "Heroes", but races for them sucks a lot. Humans and Saurians having Leadership and Efficiency are about the only good species for them and even those traits aren't even on par on what the other 2 factions get. And science ships wise they do have a lot but Science and Engi are the forte of the Feds While the Other 2 are more Tact and PvP oriented. So really it's not surprising Feds has more Sci ships but here is the catch... What class gets nerfed a lot? Science. What class is always on top currently? Tactical So sensing a pattern here already? Good. Seriously the Best offensive ships and DPS ships came from Roms and KDF's.
No matter how many races or ships the Feds get if the Quality are poor then Rom's and KDF still have it much better. There are more advantages both Roms and KDF's have over Feds that most players of these 2 factions care to even realized.
Feds are just Milking Cows for Cryptic and PW due to population. Look at their giveaways for asking players to return. Fed ships. Looks cool but in the end if one actually realizes feds just have more eye candy and no real quality. that's whay whenever someone asks me which faction to play as a starter I always say KDF or Rom. They are much better and has a more good storyline.
Also Races like Ferengi's won't serve the KDF or Romulans. Klingons would eat the Ferengi alive because they literally are dishonorable to them while the Romulans are more sneaky than the Ferengi's that even the Ferengi's deal less with them.
The population is like that because they made it so that people will choose feds more but they are lossing money by doing this. They would make more money by milking all three, even if ships don't sell its because most possibly just grind dil to buy them, but thing is they got to make the ships good. You want them to make the ships good and balance out all the other ships they have that way each faction can be equil. Romulans should get the most cosmetics and civi clothing they need to milk out outfits for romulans, and also basically force the other two factions to be played or basically worth it. For one they need to make the playerbase less all fed, basically they can nerf the dil rate making romulans and klingons always getting more. So feds get less, til the playerbase is balanced out
Add more content for both romulans and klingons. A overhaul of kronos would also be good making a starbase like earth space dock for klingons would also basically split the playerbase it does not make sense they don't have that.
Basically people like earth space dock because of the easy access they have to it.
They do need a Klingon Space Dock, like earth space dock, basically same size or bigger.
They also need to add a romulan space dock that is built around new romulus that basically feds and klings can access.
This would be great for those wanting to talk with each other. I bet the new earth space dock would be the romulan starbase if they did this.
Romulan faction is the best one they just need to make it much better! Start milking romulan faction, as well as klingon faction! *If you do this then people will come back to the game in numbers*
They need to bascially fix pvp and make it worth it, and balance out things they broke that drove pvpers away. They need a third pvp option for romulans that way, each faction can fight each other. No more red, vs blue, But Green vs Red, Vs blue.
Ironic Cryptic did try before to make some ships for the KDF but the negativity of it not being Klingon enough might have pushed the developers back. I think it was the Gorn science ship forgot what was it. Also most ships made for the Feds have been shown on camera or has been approved by CBS hence we don't have a T6 Connie since CBS said no to it.
There where only a few ships shown for the Klingons and Romulans and it's lucky enough that they even have more varieties here in the game than what's shown in canon. The higher versions or Tier are just rehash of the old which still needs to be approved as far as I can tell.
Also I do not agree on what you are saying that they are forcing the people to choose the Feds. People who actually watch Star Trek and who are not that well knowledgeable about the franchise would high probability choose the Feds because of Canon RP. They are the heroes of the show. So you saying they are forcing people to choose the Feds is kinda absurd to me since character creation isn't even forced.
I have played many MMORPG's. People choose factions base on what they want, not by what the developers say. Granted you can do research on STO but have you even read how much bad rap the feds have? Still majority of the people choose the Feds. As I said in my other post because of RP canon.
You're argument about "Milking" the Roms and KDF is going to be hard. As I said before they tried it before but the negative remarks might have made them stop. Also if you think about it they gave ships that are generic clones since people keep't on bashing for difference like on the leech ship that the KDF was so proud of. The mistake made by the KDF's before was rubbing it more when feds cried about it so to keep both happy instead of a ship they just give a lockbox reward to the feds. Sure enough this started it all. Fed players bought more keys. Just to get the console. Now imagine this:
100 KDF player buys the Vandal for the Leech Console total of 100,000 Zen total.
100 Feds buys Keys. 10 for the price of 1000 (I know 10 keys are not priced like that just making it rounded). But! those 10 keys don't guarantee the Leech console. some opened tons of Boxes but couldn't get the Console. This is a hard fact of the lockboxes and the price of it in the Exchange. imagine how much Zen Cryptic made from that. One thing is for sure lots.
Now combine that with the fact that since feds are technically the most faction and the Hero faction in the Star Trek lore which again adds to the factor of people mostly choosing this faction means more people have invested on their Fed. cryptic never forced them they choose it themselves. So when Cryptic sees this fact what did they do? Time to milk the Feds.
They didn't give the Feds anything ground breaking. Those ships? They are the same as what's given to the other 2. In fact even if you try putting the argument of lesser sci ships to the other 2 Factions it doesn't matter that much. Why? because sci gets nerf a lot and the game itself almost revolve around tacts which the 2 other factions have a very strong point. Top DPS doesn't belong to Feds they belong to Roms. The KDF is blessed with easy farming and good ships as well. The Feds? Cosmetic. And they don't even look that good to me. Personally I find the current Rom and KDF costume more appealing than any of the ones made for the Feds.
I could go on and on on why I you're suggestion wouldn't work for cryptic since they are running a business and needs to be sure they will get money out of it like good Ferengi's. Base on what happened on the past I think they are more inclined for a safer bet than gamble with the Rom and KDF population who in the first place are only a few.
Why the heck do you think I said in my other post when asked by someone to chose either Rom or KDF? Not only because I think the Roms and KDF are much better but because those 2 factions needs more population. But alas most will still chose the Feds even if you try promoting the other 2 factions. Simply because the Feds are the face of Star Trek so really it can't be helped. It's peoples choice.
I don't see Boff recruiting missions often in general. That includes Feds. Most assignments I see right now that reward Boffs are the commendation rank up ones, not random recruitment. you can easily tell the difference because random recruitment requires you to slot a Doff, the rank up ones don't, also the rank up ones don't usually give recruitment CxP.
I see both random recruitment and commendation rank up Boff recruiting missions decently often for my captains. The only things absent are the Romulan / Reman Boff recruitment missions for my Romulan faction captains.
Like I stated, the last time I've seen those random recruitment / commendation rank up missions in Romulan space was back in mid / late 2014.
For one thing they really need to balance out the factions they need to make romulan and klingon on par with the feds and add content for klingon and romulan if they just give to the feds then basically they are TRIBBLE over others that want to play and dislike the feds but want to be rom or klingon.
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
I think you got it wrong, population wise Fed has many players just because of canon RP and the fact their supposed to be the "Heroes", but races for them sucks a lot. Humans and Saurians having Leadership and Efficiency are about the only good species for them and even those traits aren't even on par on what the other 2 factions get. And science ships wise they do have a lot but Science and Engi are the forte of the Feds While the Other 2 are more Tact and PvP oriented. So really it's not surprising Feds has more Sci ships but here is the catch... What class gets nerfed a lot? Science. What class is always on top currently? Tactical So sensing a pattern here already? Good. Seriously the Best offensive ships and DPS ships came from Roms and KDF's.
No matter how many races or ships the Feds get if the Quality are poor then Rom's and KDF still have it much better. There are more advantages both Roms and KDF's have over Feds that most players of these 2 factions care to even realized.
Feds are just Milking Cows for Cryptic and PW due to population. Look at their giveaways for asking players to return. Fed ships. Looks cool but in the end if one actually realizes feds just have more eye candy and no real quality. that's whay whenever someone asks me which faction to play as a starter I always say KDF or Rom. They are much better and has a more good storyline.
Also Races like Ferengi's won't serve the KDF or Romulans. Klingons would eat the Ferengi alive because they literally are dishonorable to them while the Romulans are more sneaky than the Ferengi's that even the Ferengi's deal less with them.
The population is like that because they made it so that people will choose feds more but they are lossing money by doing this. They would make more money by milking all three, even if ships don't sell its because most possibly just grind dil to buy them, but thing is they got to make the ships good. You want them to make the ships good and balance out all the other ships they have that way each faction can be equil. Romulans should get the most cosmetics and civi clothing they need to milk out outfits for romulans, and also basically force the other two factions to be played or basically worth it. For one they need to make the playerbase less all fed, basically they can nerf the dil rate making romulans and klingons always getting more. So feds get less, til the playerbase is balanced out
Add more content for both romulans and klingons. A overhaul of kronos would also be good making a starbase like earth space dock for klingons would also basically split the playerbase it does not make sense they don't have that.
Basically people like earth space dock because of the easy access they have to it.
They do need a Klingon Space Dock, like earth space dock, basically same size or bigger.
They also need to add a romulan space dock that is built around new romulus that basically feds and klings can access.
This would be great for those wanting to talk with each other. I bet the new earth space dock would be the romulan starbase if they did this.
Romulan faction is the best one they just need to make it much better! Start milking romulan faction, as well as klingon faction! *If you do this then people will come back to the game in numbers*
They need to bascially fix pvp and make it worth it, and balance out things they broke that drove pvpers away. They need a third pvp option for romulans that way, each faction can fight each other. No more red, vs blue, But Green vs Red, Vs blue.
Ironic Cryptic did try before to make some ships for the KDF but the negativity of it not being Klingon enough might have pushed the developers back. I think it was the Gorn science ship forgot what was it. Also most ships made for the Feds have been shown on camera or has been approved by CBS hence we don't have a T6 Connie since CBS said no to it.
There where only a few ships shown for the Klingons and Romulans and it's lucky enough that they even have more varieties here in the game than what's shown in canon. The higher versions or Tier are just rehash of the old which still needs to be approved as far as I can tell.
Also I do not agree on what you are saying that they are forcing the people to choose the Feds. People who actually watch Star Trek and who are not that well knowledgeable about the franchise would high probability choose the Feds because of Canon RP. They are the heroes of the show. So you saying they are forcing people to choose the Feds is kinda absurd to me since character creation isn't even forced.
I have played many MMORPG's. People choose factions base on what they want, not by what the developers say. Granted you can do research on STO but have you even read how much bad rap the feds have? Still majority of the people choose the Feds. As I said in my other post because of RP canon.
You're argument about "Milking" the Roms and KDF is going to be hard. As I said before they tried it before but the negative remarks might have made them stop. Also if you think about it they gave ships that are generic clones since people keep't on bashing for difference like on the leech ship that the KDF was so proud of. The mistake made by the KDF's before was rubbing it more when feds cried about it so to keep both happy instead of a ship they just give a lockbox reward to the feds. Sure enough this started it all. Fed players bought more keys. Just to get the console. Now imagine this:
100 KDF player buys the Vandal for the Leech Console total of 100,000 Zen total.
100 Feds buys Keys. 10 for the price of 1000 (I know 10 keys are not priced like that just making it rounded). But! those 10 keys don't guarantee the Leech console. some opened tons of Boxes but couldn't get the Console. This is a hard fact of the lockboxes and the price of it in the Exchange. imagine how much Zen Cryptic made from that. One thing is for sure lots.
Now combine that with the fact that since feds are technically the most faction and the Hero faction in the Star Trek lore which again adds to the factor of people mostly choosing this faction means more people have invested on their Fed. cryptic never forced them they choose it themselves. So when Cryptic sees this fact what did they do? Time to milk the Feds.
They didn't give the Feds anything ground breaking. Those ships? They are the same as what's given to the other 2. In fact even if you try putting the argument of lesser sci ships to the other 2 Factions it doesn't matter that much. Why? because sci gets nerf a lot and the game itself almost revolve around tacts which the 2 other factions have a very strong point. Top DPS doesn't belong to Feds they belong to Roms. The KDF is blessed with easy farming and good ships as well. The Feds? Cosmetic. And they don't even look that good to me. Personally I find the current Rom and KDF costume more appealing than any of the ones made for the Feds.
I could go on and on on why I you're suggestion wouldn't work for cryptic since they are running a business and needs to be sure they will get money out of it like good Ferengi's. Base on what happened on the past I think they are more inclined for a safer bet than gamble with the Rom and KDF population who in the first place are only a few.
Why the heck do you think I said in my other post when asked by someone to chose either Rom or KDF? Not only because I think the Roms and KDF are much better but because those 2 factions needs more population. But alas most will still chose the Feds even if you try promoting the other 2 factions. Simply because the Feds are the face of Star Trek so really it can't be helped. It's peoples choice.
Well Kdf use to have more people playing this faction then they did something that drove people away from it. Most kdf players are rom aligned, what they got to do is make it once again appealing to play kdf, and make it more appealing to play romulan. Most players are not here because of faction but because of pve and sometimes pvp, they like to do content and end game.
They really need to add more content for both kdf and romulan players, this is a fact then they can get people into that player base. Like for example romulans should get their own starbase that allows kdfs and feds access to this. kdf needs a starbase like earthspace dock, they need to redo the kronos ground map, its bascially like a maze.
Romulan players should get access to teir five allied ships, since basically they can access the other teirs why not teir five.
Romulans need more playable speices, and they need to make females for the gorn, nausy, leithen races for kdf.
I want to see Aenar as a playble race, romulans could get them. Serbiens also a good race to add to romulan faction.
Klingons should get reg trill, augmented human looking klingons.
I'd say the species the most likely to be introduced in the near future (as part of the next expansion perhaps) are the Cardassians. They said multiple times that they regret having made the Galor class a playable starship. And they never released the Keldon and Hideki classes as playable starships either. Cryptic also revamped the Cardassian story arc and introduced more detailed and diversed NPC models. Plus the nearby Gamma quadrant provides lots of room for creativity.
I think the response to Cardassian characters would be positive. Also, I think it would be reasonable to add the Kobali as a playable race for all factions. imo.
I would like to see a playable Medusan. It's a canon species from TOS, and yet we've never seen one since Spock went blind due to Dr. Pulaksi's jealousy.
*crewman speaking to a box*
Sir! The tholians are trying to trap us in a web! What do we do?"
*Crewman pauses a moment.*
"Aye, sir, we'll get right on that!"
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
Some Voth exiles, some Gorn rebels, mix liberally and we have a unified endorthermic dinosaur fraction ready to make use of touched up Gorn NPC ships as tier 1-4 toys and ready to ally with feds or klinks as their whim sways. For tiers 3-6 make a couple voth-gorn hybrid ships(with the best being z-store only) and things are set!
Their looks as gotten a real overhaul, the missions as well.
There are assets already in-game.
I think Garak should consider joining the Federation / Alliance and be part of the destruction of the True Way and the Alpha Jem'hadar.
It still baffles me to this day why the likes of the Pakled were added to the Federation instead of the Xindi or Deltan. I'm still disappointed that the Republic haven't got the ability to play (as) Suliban or Acamarian yet either, especially as it was discussed around the release of LoR. Just another one of those finer ideas that never quite took off.
Would be fun for RP, at least.
If Humans have the "Leadership" quality to make Ship repairs faster, I want the Terran one to have a "Tyranny" trait that amplifies damage. Not Crit chance nor Crit Severity but pure Damage.
Something like this:
Tyranny (Space and Ground)
-"Inspire's" your crew to perform well or face the Agony Booth thus putting your crew on a frenzy. Adds 10% more damage and Accuracy to attacks and 20% chance to expose targets. The damage scales by 1% the longer you stay in battle and stacks 5 times. Resets after leaving battle.
I seriously want a Terran Faction with their own unique ships. But since it's not possible I want a 100% MU Terran for a Captain or a BOFF for the KDF or Fed. And yes sorry no Rom since they already have Remans for BOFF's.
Trust me I love my Rom but seriously:
SRO+Reman=Owning Damage
So seriously there needs to be a bit of balance most specially since almost 90% of the Boffs on the Fed side alone is pretty damn useless trait wise for space. The KDF also needs more Boff space traits.
so... in sto that would be..... missions focused solely on peace and beaming down to garden.
Yes... Mission focused solely on Peace... Rest In Peace.
And to a Garden fertilized by the people involve by the Mission of Peace...
Sure existing players would probably like a 4th faction, but I am not sure everyone will want to roll a new captain for it. Adding a 4th faction also means many of the the pre-existing missions needs to be reworded to include acknowledging the new faction. Or worse, bring back voice actors to re-record dialog that acknowledges the 4th faction. For example, in Spheres of Influence Admiral Koal mentioned all 3 of the current factions. Including a 4th faction would mean the texts needs to be updated which should not be too difficult, but then Cryptic would need to bring back the voice actor to re-record that segment of the dialog if adding the 4th faction is going to be done properly.
The new faction will need to have ships designed for them from Tier 1 through Tier 6. For T2 through T5 there needs to be at least 3 ships per tier if done properly when players get promoted so that they can select thier free ship. Though similar to the KDF and Romulan, the 4th race could also be shafted by not having science vessel at every tier. For example, the Romulan's first available science vessel is the T5 Ha'nom Science Warbird. That means at least a total of 10 ships from T1 through T5.
Tier 1 - The starter ship everyone gets. No other choices.
Tier 2 to Tier 4 - An escort and a cruiser.
Tier 5 - An escort, cruiser and science vessel.
It does not make sense to offer new T5 starships for the 4th faction in the C-Store that are better than the free T5 ships the player can choose from. Since T5 ships are no longer end game ships, most players would likely not bother purchasing a new 4th faction T5 starship for 2,500 Zen when they can purchase a new T6 starship for 3,000 Zen. Right off the bat the 4th faction is going to have a very short list of starship. This will likely make players pause and think if playing the 4th faction is going to be worthwhile.
Tier 6 starships will be limited at first. If done properly there should be at least 3 different ships; one that is appropriate for each captain class. They will not be exact copy and paste of existing T6 starhips so some design work is necessary which means time, effort, and expenses.
Whatever faction that is going to be developed will need to be interesting enough to drawn in new players to STO. New players are necessary to expand the player base to make STO potentially a more financially successful game. You can only on milk the existing player base for so much money and players to refuse to spend any real money at all on STO will still likely refuse to spend real money even after a 4th faction is created. This limits the medium and long term financial viability of STO.
The Cardassians is an obvious suggestion for a 4th faction since they were the primary antagonists in DS9. But that faction would be like a mirror image of the Romulan Republic to a certain extent. The Cardassians are split into two factions the Cardassian Union (or whatever they call themselves now) and the True Way. The Union would be took weak to stand on their own since they are still recovering from the Dominion War. Therefore, they will need to align themselves with either the Fed or the KDF; at least this opens up options to buy T1 - T4 Fed/KDF starships. The True Way does not seem to be as big of a threat compared to the remnant Romulan Star Empire, but they want to destabilize the Cardassian Union so that they can restore the Cardassian Empire. Like the Tal'Shiar, the True Way relies on a more powerful faction to help them on their path to reinvigorate themselves in order to dominate all Cardissians and make them a force to be reckoned with as they expand their empire.
Regardless of who the 4th faction will be, eventually it will follow the same path and story as the current 3 factions. Therefore only some of the missions prior to the Cardassian Struggle story arc will be unique to the 4th faction. You can be sure that the 4th faction will also have the Romulan Mystery, Spectre and Wasteland missions intermixed with unique missions as well. As for unique missions, I would say that the faction would probably have around 35 - 40 missions that are unique all taking place prior to the Cardassian Struggle. After that it is the same missions for everyone.
The Federation is the dominate faction in STO. Based on the statistics released by Cryptic last year I think the KDF and Romulan factions combined accounted for less than 20% of all captains created in STO. What will happen when a 4th faction is introduced? Will players rather play the 4th faction rather than the Fed? Or will the 4th faction further marginalize the number of player in the KDF and Romulan factions?
In any event, the number of players in the new faction must be large enough to justify the cost of ships designed for it, the new missions and modifications to existing missions. The new faction can potentially cannibalize the sale of ships in other factions in the current player base. For example, a player that was going to create a KDF or Romulan captain, and eventually purchase a T6 starship, but instead decided to play the new faction and purchase the new faction's T6 starship. In either case, the player was going to purchase a T6 starship. However, in the case of the new faction, Cryptic needed to spend a lot of money to introduce the new faction to get the player to purchase the T6 starship.
This is why it is important that an expansion which includes a new faction attract new players to the game. Especially if they play as the new faction. If the expansion draws in a lot of new players, but the overall number of players in the new faction is small, then new faction is basically a failure and future releases of T6 starships for that faction would adversely affect sales because the cost to design, test, and implement new starships is greater than the revenue generated by the sale of those ships.
In a Priority One Podcast from last year where Al "Captain Geko" Rivera was asked a question about the possible release of a T6 KDF science vessel, he basically said it will not happen. The reason is because sales of a T5 KDF science vessels (DSD and Varanus supposedly) were very low; at best maybe two dozen in one week. I think that included the sale of the Romulan's DSD too. Assuming 24 KDF and Romulan science vessels were sold every week for 52 weeks, that means a total of 1,248 ships sold. Assuming all ships were purchased using Zen at the full price of 2,500 Zen or $25 USD, that means Cryptic would have gross sales of $31,200 and that is before you subtract out expenses associated with design, testing and implementation.
If the player base in the 4th faction is not large enough to even cover the expenses associated with that faction's T6 starships, then the 4th faction would negatively affect STO's annual revenues.
It's basically impossible to get Reman / Romulan Boffs for most players. That last time I saw a Doff mission that rewarded one of those Boffs was back around September 2014.
Between that point in time through the end of the 2015 Risan Summer Event I have never seen a Doff mission that rewarded a Reman / Romulan Boff. I visited New Romulus every other day during that time.
I stopped afterwards because I took a break from STO until the middle of the 2015 Winter Event. Since there is no real reason for my Romulan captain to visit New Romulus, I don't bother checking for those Doff missions anymore unless I decide to fly to the Dyson Sphere Gateway.
I think I read somewhere that the Doff missions rewarding Reman / Romulan Boffs have been disabled by Cryptic, but I am not 100% sure.
My character Tsin'xing
yeah but there are problems with those numbers... sure all those characters were created for the federation.... for years you HAD TO make one for the Federation and level it to 30 to be able to play a KDF character...
So sure all those characters were made... how many are active? how many were deleted? how many ever got past the tutorial? Notice these bits of info weren't included just the 'hey we have millions of federation characters!' stat.
My character Tsin'xing
Assuming you're correct, thats fine, 15minutes less levelling but the point is, you HAD TO HAVE a fed char before you could make a KDF one. So ofc the fed has bloated numbers.
Now Im sure there is still a majority of fed characters, just not as much as craptic wants us to believe(or perhaps they want to believe)
My character Tsin'xing
Also romulan faction needs more speices, for example Aenar could be a good race. That ferengi type race, Surians
Aenar could be a pay to get option in zen store but it must be an option as well as the other two as free.
They need to add more cosmetics, romulans should get all hairs that humans and aliens get.
Klingons should also get andorians, reg trill, frenegi
Every race should get frengi since they are buniess people they are more likely to work with the klings and roms as well.
Rom's and klings need science ships, people are wanting this badly and it should be an option.
D'Stahl did mention the Borg (read Cooperative) were considered.
I would gladly replace my entire roster with Borg Captains and start a one man assimilation campaign in PvP.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
No matter how many races or ships the Feds get if the Quality are poor then Rom's and KDF still have it much better. There are more advantages both Roms and KDF's have over Feds that most players of these 2 factions care to even realized.
Feds are just Milking Cows for Cryptic and PW due to population. Look at their giveaways for asking players to return. Fed ships. Looks cool but in the end if one actually realizes feds just have more eye candy and no real quality. that's whay whenever someone asks me which faction to play as a starter I always say KDF or Rom. They are much better and has a more good storyline.
Also Races like Ferengi's won't serve the KDF or Romulans. Klingons would eat the Ferengi alive because they literally are dishonorable to them while the Romulans are more sneaky than the Ferengi's that even the Ferengi's deal less with them.
The population is like that because they made it so that people will choose feds more but they are lossing money by doing this. They would make more money by milking all three, even if ships don't sell its because most possibly just grind dil to buy them, but thing is they got to make the ships good. You want them to make the ships good and balance out all the other ships they have that way each faction can be equil. Romulans should get the most cosmetics and civi clothing they need to milk out outfits for romulans, and also basically force the other two factions to be played or basically worth it. For one they need to make the playerbase less all fed, basically they can nerf the dil rate making romulans and klingons always getting more. So feds get less, til the playerbase is balanced out
Add more content for both romulans and klingons. A overhaul of kronos would also be good making a starbase like earth space dock for klingons would also basically split the playerbase it does not make sense they don't have that.
Basically people like earth space dock because of the easy access they have to it.
They do need a Klingon Space Dock, like earth space dock, basically same size or bigger.
They also need to add a romulan space dock that is built around new romulus that basically feds and klings can access.
This would be great for those wanting to talk with each other. I bet the new earth space dock would be the romulan starbase if they did this.
Romulan faction is the best one they just need to make it much better! Start milking romulan faction, as well as klingon faction! *If you do this then people will come back to the game in numbers*
They need to bascially fix pvp and make it worth it, and balance out things they broke that drove pvpers away. They need a third pvp option for romulans that way, each faction can fight each other. No more red, vs blue, But Green vs Red, Vs blue.
Ironic Cryptic did try before to make some ships for the KDF but the negativity of it not being Klingon enough might have pushed the developers back. I think it was the Gorn science ship forgot what was it. Also most ships made for the Feds have been shown on camera or has been approved by CBS hence we don't have a T6 Connie since CBS said no to it.
There where only a few ships shown for the Klingons and Romulans and it's lucky enough that they even have more varieties here in the game than what's shown in canon. The higher versions or Tier are just rehash of the old which still needs to be approved as far as I can tell.
Also I do not agree on what you are saying that they are forcing the people to choose the Feds. People who actually watch Star Trek and who are not that well knowledgeable about the franchise would high probability choose the Feds because of Canon RP. They are the heroes of the show. So you saying they are forcing people to choose the Feds is kinda absurd to me since character creation isn't even forced.
I have played many MMORPG's. People choose factions base on what they want, not by what the developers say. Granted you can do research on STO but have you even read how much bad rap the feds have? Still majority of the people choose the Feds. As I said in my other post because of RP canon.
You're argument about "Milking" the Roms and KDF is going to be hard. As I said before they tried it before but the negative remarks might have made them stop. Also if you think about it they gave ships that are generic clones since people keep't on bashing for difference like on the leech ship that the KDF was so proud of. The mistake made by the KDF's before was rubbing it more when feds cried about it so to keep both happy instead of a ship they just give a lockbox reward to the feds. Sure enough this started it all. Fed players bought more keys. Just to get the console. Now imagine this:
100 KDF player buys the Vandal for the Leech Console total of 100,000 Zen total.
100 Feds buys Keys. 10 for the price of 1000 (I know 10 keys are not priced like that just making it rounded). But! those 10 keys don't guarantee the Leech console. some opened tons of Boxes but couldn't get the Console. This is a hard fact of the lockboxes and the price of it in the Exchange. imagine how much Zen Cryptic made from that. One thing is for sure lots.
Now combine that with the fact that since feds are technically the most faction and the Hero faction in the Star Trek lore which again adds to the factor of people mostly choosing this faction means more people have invested on their Fed. cryptic never forced them they choose it themselves. So when Cryptic sees this fact what did they do? Time to milk the Feds.
They didn't give the Feds anything ground breaking. Those ships? They are the same as what's given to the other 2. In fact even if you try putting the argument of lesser sci ships to the other 2 Factions it doesn't matter that much. Why? because sci gets nerf a lot and the game itself almost revolve around tacts which the 2 other factions have a very strong point. Top DPS doesn't belong to Feds they belong to Roms. The KDF is blessed with easy farming and good ships as well. The Feds? Cosmetic. And they don't even look that good to me. Personally I find the current Rom and KDF costume more appealing than any of the ones made for the Feds.
I could go on and on on why I you're suggestion wouldn't work for cryptic since they are running a business and needs to be sure they will get money out of it like good Ferengi's. Base on what happened on the past I think they are more inclined for a safer bet than gamble with the Rom and KDF population who in the first place are only a few.
Why the heck do you think I said in my other post when asked by someone to chose either Rom or KDF? Not only because I think the Roms and KDF are much better but because those 2 factions needs more population. But alas most will still chose the Feds even if you try promoting the other 2 factions. Simply because the Feds are the face of Star Trek so really it can't be helped. It's peoples choice.
I see both random recruitment and commendation rank up Boff recruiting missions decently often for my captains. The only things absent are the Romulan / Reman Boff recruitment missions for my Romulan faction captains.
Like I stated, the last time I've seen those random recruitment / commendation rank up missions in Romulan space was back in mid / late 2014.
They really need to add more content for both kdf and romulan players, this is a fact then they can get people into that player base. Like for example romulans should get their own starbase that allows kdfs and feds access to this. kdf needs a starbase like earthspace dock, they need to redo the kronos ground map, its bascially like a maze.
Romulan players should get access to teir five allied ships, since basically they can access the other teirs why not teir five.
Romulans need more playable speices, and they need to make females for the gorn, nausy, leithen races for kdf.
I want to see Aenar as a playble race, romulans could get them. Serbiens also a good race to add to romulan faction.
Klingons should get reg trill, augmented human looking klingons.
I think the response to Cardassian characters would be positive. Also, I think it would be reasonable to add the Kobali as a playable race for all factions. imo.
*crewman speaking to a box*
Sir! The tholians are trying to trap us in a web! What do we do?"
*Crewman pauses a moment.*
"Aye, sir, we'll get right on that!"