I don't want to sound ungrateful, I genuinely appreciate them listening to feedback and taking it into consideration.
In all honesty though, I think they tried to hit a 'middle ground' here and sadly missed the mark. While 500 Zen per respec was outrageous, now it's 300 Zen which is still very excessive. While I'm still 100% against the idea of respecs being a Zen item, 100 Zen is more inline with what the cost should be in my opinion.
I'm happy they at least lowered it a little, it's great that they hear the feedback. The price is sadly still too high though to encourage me to experiment with builds.
Free respecs, while nice for some, would not have been a good idea. There's such a thing as too much flexibility if it removes the need to have more than one character and would thus likely only suit the dominating career in the game.
This new price will make respeccing easier while still requiring people to put some thought in their build and work within the restrictions of that build, preventing our captains from being good at literally anything and everything with a few clicks.
I recognize the attempt, but ultimately I don't think this small reduction is the real solution. I will flatly state that I don't believe there should be a cost for this, but some of the options for "free once every X hours/days" would probably work as well. I doubt very much you'll commit all points to make a build that you absolutely can't live with at all for a short period of time.
Some food for thought:
If the goal is to experiment, shouldn't tokens come in at least two-packs so that I can revert if I don't like the results? One experiment now costs $6, for one character? That seems high for a potential flop.
Because of that, I didn't want to touch skills at all until I found this site: stf-vanguard.com/STO-Skill-Planner/index.html It's a little out of date, but PHENOMENALLY useful in making me feel more comfortable planning point usage. Cryptic should just buy this from the guy, update it, and put it on their website (or in-game if they can). The format does a much, much better job of explaining what the points are doing, and you can save/edit builds.
This mechanism of committing points, then getting stuck or having to pay directly contradicts other game mechanisms - traits and skill points. Both of those you can re-order at will, or simply level up for more points to spend where you want.
Locking in like this could very well hurt other sales. Someone going heavy into Science is not as likely to buy/grind for a new release ship with heavy tactical focus because they can't get the value from their skills (and vice-versa for any other focus/ship selection).
As others have noted, this set-up really does set the stage for a nasty fight if Cryptic needs to update/balance the skills. I've been in many queues and Red Alerts now that are...quick. I doubt this was intended, and may have a balance pass coming up. That will never be embraced with open arms by all the players regardless, but will be a lot more palatable if customers didn't have to pay to get their setups in the first place.
To be fair, none of these are new problems introduced exclusively with this revamp - they've been around as long as I've played this game. Still, if you're working on updating the mechanic, why not address these long-standing problems instead of replicating them?
It should be around 10,000 dilithium. This is coming from someone with about 10 respec tokens per character.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
To be honest I think the fact that Cryptic allows a person to buy anything sold in the C-Store via the collection of Dilithium is pretty generous (considering there are a very large number of ways to get such Dilithium). I'm not sure if I know of any other games that are as generous towards players as STO.
It's not "generous". Making a trickle of cash-shop currency available in game and/or a way to swap main in-game currency for shop currency is literally the industry standard method to deflect claims of pay-to-win.
Eh, I can't recall a single f2p game I've played that had a system anywhere close to as nice as STO's. (Star Wars just gives you a handful of coins, via achievements. So, a small finite number, with quite a bit of involvement to get. DDO & LotRO did similar things, if I recall. Perfect World had an exchange, but without any inflation controls, so actually getting useful amounts of currency was beyond any but the biggest gold farmers. TERA has no in-game method of getting currency.) I've gotten hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from the c-store over the years, I have a hard time calling that a "trickle". /shrug
I still think $1,380 is a bit much for me to update all my characters.
Why would anyone buy a new ship if you can't tailor your skill set to fit it. Using my previous post, look at the actual cost of a buying a new ship.
$30 New T6 (or T5 plus upgrade)
$30 for 10 respecs to dial it in.
Honestly? The system is never going to be balanced around you. Everything about what you describe (46 characters, needing to do 10-20 respecs per character/ship pairing) seems rather extreme - and games don't balance their systems around 0.1% examples of the playerbase. They can't.
(Really, given your respeccing needs, I'm kind of surprised that you don't spend lots of time on Tribble, figuring everything out before doing the "real" spec on the normal server.)
Make the token a craftable item, requiring dil, and bound to account. Limit respecs to every 72 hours with craftable tokens. Make c-store tokens usable anytime. People who are unable to craft them or want to buy more of them can get them from the c-store.
~are all locked to one character and TRIBBLE you people with alts, skill re-specification limitations are one of the few things balancing the field between people who pile all their effort on one character and players with many captains.
Instead of a price reduction, they could have...
a.) giving more than 1 free respec (maybe 3-5)
b.) made a free respec time window (aka, unlimited respecs for, say, a month) Then go back to the normal pay for respec.
It's just that when you shake up the skill trees, people will want to try out different things before finding what's 'best'.
Or give a good push/PSA saying 'go to Tribble and respec your toon there for free as often as you like!'.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
I don't agree that Respec's should be free, but I think that they should be cheap enough to encourage people to experiment with builds. 300 Zen is still a hefty price to pay to just try something different.
I would have preferred a straight Dilithium or EC cost as opposed to Zen. I realize you can convert Dilithium to Zen of course, but depending on the market price the respec price can still fluctuate quite a bit. 300 Zen is still too high of a price to encourage people to play around with different load outs.
Instead of a price reduction, they could have...
a.) giving more than 1 free respec (maybe 3-5)
b.) made a free respec time window (aka, unlimited respecs for, say, a month) Then go back to the normal pay for respec.
It's just that when you shake up the skill trees, people will want to try out different things before finding what's 'best'.
Or give a good push/PSA saying 'go to Tribble and respec your toon there for free as often as you like!'.
Granted, it wasn't exactly "publicly posted", but not only did a good handful of other posters, but what I figure would be "simple logic" says that the "test server" is just that - testing.
Not only testing the new toys that Cryptic's trying to make sure ain't broken, but also for players to test various... player-focused things, like builds...
But, of course, since the odds of pulling a full DPS team over to lather/rinse/repeat ISAs (if it's even working on Tribble), nobody wants to do their testing on the test server... So the next best thing is to clamor for free respecs...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Meh, while the gesture is appreciated, that change increased my willingness to experiment more with my builds by exactly 0%.
my thought exactly, while the reduction is a move in the right direction its not far enough to tempt me to experiment as was intended by the devs.
hoping for a free respect is expecting too much I guess but 50-100zen would certainly make me consider trying different builds once in a while.
BTW news of this makes me think their respec sale didn't go as well as expected.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
27% - 29 votes felt that it should be completely free.
The clear winner was that it should cost in-game currency instead at 45% - 48 votes.
I felt, and still do, feel that it should cost in game currency. I don't know how I feel about being completely free, obviously if they chose to do that, I'd take it, but overall I don't think it's the best option at all. My second choice would have been Zen reduction, which, is what we ended up getting. 300 is still rather high IMO but, better than 500 sooooo...yeah.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
...skill re-specification limitations are one of the few things balancing the field between people who pile all their effort on one character and players with many captains...
Huh?
I second this....huh?
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
If they really wanted to make customization and exploration of their new system fun and profitable then they would set the respec price somewhere between 10-50z. But they don't, just give them money and be happy to do it. Make sure to say thank you as well, it's only polite haha.
But, of course, since the odds of pulling a full DPS team over to lather/rinse/repeat ISAs (if it's even working on Tribble), nobody wants to do their testing on the test server... So the next best thing is to clamor for free respecs...
You also have to keep a second full installation of the game to play on the test server.
And then go through the character copy fandango. And keep doing it each time you get something new to test.
Champions at least has the power house to test things in a basic way on the actual live server.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I would give one a month the first time you fill your xp bar and have them not accumulate. The use it or lose it feeling would have people experimenting. If you don't feel like waiting another month for a respec, there is the zen option.
This also helps with the upcoming nerfs so people don't feel like they have been cheated because Cryptic felt like changing something they already bought into.
I guess the tokens weren't selling as well as they'd hoped. Unless they decide to take away the stacks of tokens I had saved up on all my toons, my policy of never buying them will remain unchanged.
~are all locked to one character and TRIBBLE you people with alts, skill re-specification limitations are one of the few things balancing the field between people who pile all their effort on one character and players with many captains.
Cheaper? Yes. Free? I'm not convinced.
In this case, we're focusing ONLY on the impact of free respecs vs paid respecs at a reduced cost. Part of the argument is that respecs are typically free in most paid and f2p MMO's.
The other part of the equation is the total cost being considered in a new purchase(s), as outlined in this thread, as well as the thread I linked. Opening up respecs allows people to easily experiment with different builds, which, in turn, will allow people to more easily consider new ships and various play styles that come with said ships. Add to that new Lobi gear, and then you have the potential for a greater part of your population who will want to purchase the new ship(s) and gear, ESPECIALLY when we have people in the STO community who can make a good video or write a tutorial on how to "spec & deck" with the new toys.
Besides, it's not like we didn't include areas where we would be willing to pay for different digital products and services..... how many loyal customers/clients do that (aside from my own, because they don't want me to go away )?
27% - 29 votes felt that it should be completely free.
The clear winner was that it should cost in-game currency instead at 45% - 48 votes.
I felt, and still do, feel that it should cost in game currency. I don't know how I feel about being completely free, obviously if they chose to do that, I'd take it, but overall I don't think it's the best option at all. My second choice would have been Zen reduction, which, is what we ended up getting. 300 is still rather high IMO but, better than 500 sooooo...yeah.
105 total votes in that thread, of which 48 votes said in-game currency (re: not Zen), and 29 votes said completely free. So, based on the poll, the majority of players who did not want Zen to be a part of the respec equation did not get their wish.
Out of those that said reduced cost (14), all but 1 had a condition on it (unbound or 1 free per time period w/ a purchase between new time periods, or Lifetime/Vets receive specific benefits towards respecs). Most had priced respecs at 125 Zen or less.
Out of those that said no change (14), one was trolling, 3 argued against the current locked-in system, and one had a conditional free respec per time period, w/ timed dill respec, and an untimed Zen respec.
There were at least 4 people who argued to keep the respecs free (3) or cost in-game currency (1) that did not vote.
Welcome to nuance. The poll doesn't show the contrary. What it does show is that similar ideas from different people are being shared; the OVERWHELMING majority in both threads agree that the current system does need to be changed and some offer suggestions on what they WILL pay for as a 'replacement option'. The vast majority between both agree that respecs should be free.
That's all very interesting, but... this is not a democracy run by a vote; and Cryptic can charge whatever it like's for it's services.
Then we will quickly be back to the status quo. The majority of the playerbase will play it safe and either go with a very balanced skill tree or copy one from the community and then never change it again. The whole notion that this skill revamp was going to encourage build diversity and experimentation will have failed horribly.
Comments
In all honesty though, I think they tried to hit a 'middle ground' here and sadly missed the mark. While 500 Zen per respec was outrageous, now it's 300 Zen which is still very excessive. While I'm still 100% against the idea of respecs being a Zen item, 100 Zen is more inline with what the cost should be in my opinion.
I'm happy they at least lowered it a little, it's great that they hear the feedback. The price is sadly still too high though to encourage me to experiment with builds.
Free respecs, while nice for some, would not have been a good idea. There's such a thing as too much flexibility if it removes the need to have more than one character and would thus likely only suit the dominating career in the game.
This new price will make respeccing easier while still requiring people to put some thought in their build and work within the restrictions of that build, preventing our captains from being good at literally anything and everything with a few clicks.
I still have like 5 of them leftover from previous promos or free bonus they use to give away a while back.
I'm a whale but even whales are not naive enough to fall in the new strategically made revamp to renew their coffers of $$$
Some food for thought:
To be fair, none of these are new problems introduced exclusively with this revamp - they've been around as long as I've played this game. Still, if you're working on updating the mechanic, why not address these long-standing problems instead of replicating them?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Why would anyone buy a new ship if you can't tailor your skill set to fit it. Using my previous post, look at the actual cost of a buying a new ship.
$30 New T6 (or T5 plus upgrade)
$30 for 10 respecs to dial it in.
====
$60 to play your new ship, if, you can do it in 10 respecs.
This is just too much. And is why most other MMO's don't charge for Respecs because you price the customer out of the game.
Please Cryptic, kick this old bit of Atari logic to the curb. You have turned STO into an amazing MMO.
Eh, I can't recall a single f2p game I've played that had a system anywhere close to as nice as STO's. (Star Wars just gives you a handful of coins, via achievements. So, a small finite number, with quite a bit of involvement to get. DDO & LotRO did similar things, if I recall. Perfect World had an exchange, but without any inflation controls, so actually getting useful amounts of currency was beyond any but the biggest gold farmers. TERA has no in-game method of getting currency.) I've gotten hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from the c-store over the years, I have a hard time calling that a "trickle". /shrug
Honestly? The system is never going to be balanced around you. Everything about what you describe (46 characters, needing to do 10-20 respecs per character/ship pairing) seems rather extreme - and games don't balance their systems around 0.1% examples of the playerbase. They can't.
(Really, given your respeccing needs, I'm kind of surprised that you don't spend lots of time on Tribble, figuring everything out before doing the "real" spec on the normal server.)
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Customers are often convinced the things they want should be free.
Sometimes they're right. Other times, less so.
As long as~
* Gene resequencers
* lock box grand prize ships
* lobi gear/costumes
~are all locked to one character and TRIBBLE you people with alts, skill re-specification limitations are one of the few things balancing the field between people who pile all their effort on one character and players with many captains.
Cheaper? Yes. Free? I'm not convinced.
a.) giving more than 1 free respec (maybe 3-5)
b.) made a free respec time window (aka, unlimited respecs for, say, a month) Then go back to the normal pay for respec.
It's just that when you shake up the skill trees, people will want to try out different things before finding what's 'best'.
Or give a good push/PSA saying 'go to Tribble and respec your toon there for free as often as you like!'.
I would have preferred a straight Dilithium or EC cost as opposed to Zen. I realize you can convert Dilithium to Zen of course, but depending on the market price the respec price can still fluctuate quite a bit. 300 Zen is still too high of a price to encourage people to play around with different load outs.
Granted, it wasn't exactly "publicly posted", but not only did a good handful of other posters, but what I figure would be "simple logic" says that the "test server" is just that - testing.
Not only testing the new toys that Cryptic's trying to make sure ain't broken, but also for players to test various... player-focused things, like builds...
But, of course, since the odds of pulling a full DPS team over to lather/rinse/repeat ISAs (if it's even working on Tribble), nobody wants to do their testing on the test server... So the next best thing is to clamor for free respecs...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
my thought exactly, while the reduction is a move in the right direction its not far enough to tempt me to experiment as was intended by the devs.
hoping for a free respect is expecting too much I guess but 50-100zen would certainly make me consider trying different builds once in a while.
BTW news of this makes me think their respec sale didn't go as well as expected.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Here's a poll a while back which show the contrary.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1213090/what-changes-would-you-make-to-the-cost-of-respec-tokens/p1
27% - 29 votes felt that it should be completely free.
The clear winner was that it should cost in-game currency instead at 45% - 48 votes.
I felt, and still do, feel that it should cost in game currency. I don't know how I feel about being completely free, obviously if they chose to do that, I'd take it, but overall I don't think it's the best option at all. My second choice would have been Zen reduction, which, is what we ended up getting. 300 is still rather high IMO but, better than 500 sooooo...yeah.
I second this....huh?
You also have to keep a second full installation of the game to play on the test server.
And then go through the character copy fandango. And keep doing it each time you get something new to test.
Champions at least has the power house to test things in a basic way on the actual live server.
This also helps with the upcoming nerfs so people don't feel like they have been cheated because Cryptic felt like changing something they already bought into.
In this case, we're focusing ONLY on the impact of free respecs vs paid respecs at a reduced cost. Part of the argument is that respecs are typically free in most paid and f2p MMO's.
The other part of the equation is the total cost being considered in a new purchase(s), as outlined in this thread, as well as the thread I linked. Opening up respecs allows people to easily experiment with different builds, which, in turn, will allow people to more easily consider new ships and various play styles that come with said ships. Add to that new Lobi gear, and then you have the potential for a greater part of your population who will want to purchase the new ship(s) and gear, ESPECIALLY when we have people in the STO community who can make a good video or write a tutorial on how to "spec & deck" with the new toys.
Besides, it's not like we didn't include areas where we would be willing to pay for different digital products and services..... how many loyal customers/clients do that (aside from my own, because they don't want me to go away
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
105 total votes in that thread, of which 48 votes said in-game currency (re: not Zen), and 29 votes said completely free. So, based on the poll, the majority of players who did not want Zen to be a part of the respec equation did not get their wish.
Out of those that said reduced cost (14), all but 1 had a condition on it (unbound or 1 free per time period w/ a purchase between new time periods, or Lifetime/Vets receive specific benefits towards respecs). Most had priced respecs at 125 Zen or less.
Out of those that said no change (14), one was trolling, 3 argued against the current locked-in system, and one had a conditional free respec per time period, w/ timed dill respec, and an untimed Zen respec.
There were at least 4 people who argued to keep the respecs free (3) or cost in-game currency (1) that did not vote.
Welcome to nuance. The poll doesn't show the contrary. What it does show is that similar ideas from different people are being shared; the OVERWHELMING majority in both threads agree that the current system does need to be changed and some offer suggestions on what they WILL pay for as a 'replacement option'. The vast majority between both agree that respecs should be free.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
That's all very interesting, but... this is not a democracy run by a vote; and Cryptic can charge whatever it like's for it's services.
So the customer has no power or say???
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
Pretty much...
Then we will quickly be back to the status quo. The majority of the playerbase will play it safe and either go with a very balanced skill tree or copy one from the community and then never change it again. The whole notion that this skill revamp was going to encourage build diversity and experimentation will have failed horribly.