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Ideas for incentivizing KDF play
phenomenaut01
Member Posts: 714 Arc User
I'd like to have a serious discussion about how to get more players to try out the Klingon Faction playstyle, hopefully without it devolving into the usual bickering and sniping over what the Fed side has vs. what the KDF has.
Those discussions have been had to death and are very seldom productive in my opinion. The developers know how KDF players feel about how the faction has been handled and what it lacks comparatively to the Federation faction, so can we please move on to how to fix the problem?
So how would you entice players that wouldn't normally wouldn't try Klingon play to come over and try it out?
My thoughts on the subject are that they should create a new recruitment system - like they have done for the Temporal and Delta Rising recruitment systems - based around the KDF, that will allow for new KDF characters created during the event to gain rewards for playing the faction, as well as provide benefits to all characters on an account. This will draw people over to try out the faction by giving them a benefit to their other toons.
It's a longshot, and it doesn't fix the glaring bugs and other issues that the KDF suffers from, but it would likely provide a quantifiable boost to the number of KDF players and may lead to more long term players for the faction, which might give Cryptic some incentive to dedicate a small bit of development time to some of the issues that plague the faction.
What are your thoughts? Any other ideas on how to draw players to the KDF side of the game?
Those discussions have been had to death and are very seldom productive in my opinion. The developers know how KDF players feel about how the faction has been handled and what it lacks comparatively to the Federation faction, so can we please move on to how to fix the problem?
So how would you entice players that wouldn't normally wouldn't try Klingon play to come over and try it out?
My thoughts on the subject are that they should create a new recruitment system - like they have done for the Temporal and Delta Rising recruitment systems - based around the KDF, that will allow for new KDF characters created during the event to gain rewards for playing the faction, as well as provide benefits to all characters on an account. This will draw people over to try out the faction by giving them a benefit to their other toons.
It's a longshot, and it doesn't fix the glaring bugs and other issues that the KDF suffers from, but it would likely provide a quantifiable boost to the number of KDF players and may lead to more long term players for the faction, which might give Cryptic some incentive to dedicate a small bit of development time to some of the issues that plague the faction.
What are your thoughts? Any other ideas on how to draw players to the KDF side of the game?
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I doubt they could justify putting half as much effort into it as they did for AoY, or even Delta since that was cross-faction, but they could do something.
It seems like a fairly cheap way to get more people playing KDF and buying more ships, costumes and services like boff spaces.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Delta Recruits didn't have many - if any (it's been a long time since I played through that) additional missions, but still had the "artifact hunting" additions to existing missions. So beyond the creation of new rewards, dropping those artifacts, and perhaps an introductory mission or two, there wouldn't be a whole lot of extra work involved with the idea.
Unless they went for the AoY type of recruitment, with a separate tutorial, but I doubt they'd go that far.
However, it could be interesting if they built a bit of house intrigue into it.
Hmm, like maybe a "legacy of Torg" hunt for remnants of the house stirring up trouble? For something like that it might make sense to have a single ending episode instead of a starting one, where you get to resolve the problem with a bit of Klingon diplomacy.
Yeah, I think the best way to get players interested in the KDF is if they could gain something for their other characters. Of course, it'd be better if they did an overall bug pass beforehand, and smooth over some of the rougher parts of the storyline, but I suppose that's even more unlikely than a Recruitment Event.
That's a great idea!
I like playing Blue. It is enjoyable to "out-Kirk" James T most days. However, I prefer playing Red. There is an appeal to facing the same missions the Blue does and doing them as well as or better. I like swooping in with an impossibly huge cruiser which then makes an impossibly tight turn to successfully defeat those who would trample the Empire into the dust of history. I like pulling my bat'letlh into the ready position to cut down hordes of Borg Drones into pieces which are then strewn all about my feet. To stand upon a pile of the shattered bodies of those who dare to attack the Empire or its subjects and issue the challenge yet again to those foes who are fleeing for their lives is glorious! To fly the smallest ship in the game well enough to deliver the killing stroke to a Tactical Cube is also glorious!
I need no more encouragement to play this game as a warrior of an honorable House who fights for the good of the Empire and its friends. It is not war for its own sake. I am not a savage. I can see where some who have not come across to the Red Side might want an incentive for doing so. A phrase we used to use in 2012 comes to mind. It was used then as a sign of discontent with the way we players of Klingons were treated by Cryptic. The phrase is, "making bricks without straw".
I now view this phrase as a worthy challenge. It is challenging to perform Space Magic well without the far more numerous specialized ships and inherent advantages of the Blue Side. I have a Lethean Science char who flies around in a FT5-U cruiser and has earned me an invitation to the DPS Leagues. Granted, it is lowest level and I've not bothered with accepting it, but it is nice to know I earned it. And I really feel like I truly earned it. I do not know if I would get the same level of satisfaction from doing so with my Starfleet characters. Because it feels like with them, such an invitation should almost be automatic. They have access to ships and gear which my KDF characters never will.
This is my incentive to playing as a proud member of the Red Side. To do more with less and to do it well. After all, STO is a game. Something we play for entertainment. I find it entertaining at the highest level to play well without the odds being in my favor. I am not trying to be condescending here. Lord knows there are far too many people on these forums who revel in looking down their noses at others. Not my style to do so.
So, those of you who are members of Starfleet, if you are bored with having technology and the Dev Team answer every challenge for you, if you wonder what it is like to swan about the thick of a fight in a ship which has the skin of an egg shell and the fangs of a dragon, if you want to look your enemy squarely in the eye up close before you drop them with the backslash from your bat'letlh, come try the Red Side. You'll not be sorry you did so. Ever.
Qapla'!
I'm glad you enjoy the KDF faction in its current state as much as you do, thank you for that perspective.
an interesting idea, but how Is that a draw for players who have never tried out KDF play before?
I'd love a KDF (and Romulan for that matter) version of the AOY expansion, where you get to play a TOS era version of each of those factions. But it's probably more work than they're willing to put into something that's not Fed related.
However, I vaguely recall one of the Devs saying something in a podcast about them considering that sort of thing. I can't find a link to which one though, so I might have imagined it.
My best hope for the faction would be a redux in the style of LoR or latter Federation story repairs that would modernize them so they are presented at a standard that reflects the remainder of the game across the board. Shooting the moon would be a mini story set in Empire open to members of all factions at the end of the road with a small selection of new KDF styled T6 ships to carry on through whatever Alliance story awaits us.
For me, after having been in the U.S. Army, playing KDF was more natural. The KDF story arc held to Honor and Duty. The Federation story line felt like little more than, "We are the Federation. Now go forth and kill everything in your path." It didn't feel like I was a part of the Federation or even Starfleet. It left a more Terran Empire feeling than anything else.
While I would appreciate a good event for both the KDF and Romulans. For me, it is not needed. I've already taken to the Foundry. Granted I'm stilling learning the ins on outs of it, and it shows in some of the missions that I have in. I have a story that I am trying to tell. But I'm also focusing on the systems and planets that have nothing or just a PvP queue. The latter is time consuming, digging in to Lore, which some have and some don't, and applying it to what I do. Of course having to build maps for it all is also time consuming. This is what I can do for the KDF, so that's what I'm doing. And no, before you ask, none of my missions will be available for the Federation.
A long time ago, someone from Cryptic posted a graphic in the forums which allegedly show statistics about how much of the player base was KDF. Every time I see an 'official' statistic, I am reminded of what Samuel Clemens once said about them. He is not wrong. The statistic stated only 16% of the playerbase played KDF. The percentage is valueless since no one but Cryptic actually knows how many accounts there are in STO and how many of those accounts are active. Anything posted here as to the actual numbers would be speculation on our part and neccessarily 'massaged' by the appropriate spin doctors at Cryptic.
I haven't thought about this in a very long time, And then my primary thought is how sometimes game developers get a bad case of Lead Singer's Disease. The rockstar mentality is alive and well among game developers. No Man's Sky is pretty good proof of this. There is no reason to think the developers of STO are immune to the high caused by adulation and accolades from fans. Most addicts will do whatever it takes to get high again. Further, most addicts, when they get caught, always blame someone else. They will find a lie which suits them and they refuse to move off of it.
This how I mostly view the lie about 'only 16% of the playerbase plays KDF'.
This lie is an indirect result of whomever it was who approved the design and release of the BortesQ Zen Store Battlecruiser. A great fat useless whale of a ship which has nothing at all in common with anything remotely Klingon and ample proof the Dev team at the time was not only unfamiliar with Star Trek, they could not care less about the topic. "Make something Klingon. They'll buy it because it has the Star Trek label on it."
The poor sales of such a misbegotten ship were used to reinforce the lie. Not only were we 'only 16%', we were 'unprofitable'. Which was further used to deflect time and attention away from the KDF. From that point on, the only way the KDF got a new ship was in conjunction with something which was Federation. The Mogh battlecruiser was the next ship I can remember being released. Alongside the Starfleet Avenger battlecruiser. There may have been a specific Klingon ship release I have forgotten in between the Bort and the Mogh, but I am pretty sure there was not one.
Why am I bringing all this up? A valid question.
- Expecting/Demanding/Hoping/Speculating the Dev team 'do something' for the KDF is a waste of time.
- Unless and until we 16% stop being 'unprofitable' the beancounters will back up the Dev team's story.
- Despite each of the Executive Producers being presented as being large and in charge, the powers behind the curtain will do everything to maintain the status quo. The EP's are figureheads whose primary job is to serve as heat shields for whomever is really calling the shots on development.
- Since we of the Red Side cannot rely upon the Dev team to do right by us, we can only rely upon ourselves to create events and content which is KDF specific.
- The previous point is not necessarily a bad one. Most of the KDF content in the Foundry was done by people who really care about Star Trek. For them, it is about doing something right in a genre we all greatly enjoy. For others in the same genre, it is probably only about the paycheck. And whenever someone does something artistic solely motivated by money, the quality drives off the cliff.
Two W.O.T.s in the same thread on the same evening. I really should stop and go back to lurking now.
clearly that would never work but still...
Eight or twelve hours should do the trick.
In the weeks of the event, playing Klingon characters, completing DOFF missions, completing queues with a KDF character and similar things will unlock special rewards like bonus dilithium, bonus skill points, bonus commendation and crafting XP depending on participation.
2) Captured Vessel Token: Buy in the C-Store or a common lockbox reward that allows KDF players (and KDF aligned Romulans) to acquire Federation ships. You need either 5 of these tokens or 1, if the account owns the C-Store version of the ship. A ship gained this way also has access to at least one extra hull material and/or pattern that makes the ship look more Klingon.
That sounds more like: "Best incentive to make a KDF alt that never needs to play a single KDF mission or to buy a single KDF ship". Aka dead weight for the purpose of making the KDF faction actually financially interesting for Cryptic to invest in.
Of course, this would mean they'd actually have to shift focus away from developing Federation content and come up with unique Episode content relative to the KDF... which hasn't been done in a long time. It also means they'd need to introduce some KDF specific ships, similar to what they did with the 25th and 31st century ships for Fed, etc. And lastly, it means they'd need to have interest in developing said content to begin with.
As I'm fond of saying- "Anything is possible, but not always probable."
We'll likely just see more milking of the time-travel Federation specific content, as was posted recently with "Artifacts" and so forth. PWE/C isn't going to develop anything KDF specific until it hits them where it (ac)counts.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I was under the impression it plays exactly the same way, last time I played my Joint Trill KDF officer the ground and space combat was identical to the Fed side.
You say to not let it devolve into a ''fed has vs kdf has'' debate, yet, together with the Star Trek focus always having been on the Fed side, it is an important reason.
This is exactly why I thought about coming up with ideas that would require very little development time, like the Recruiting Events. However, I think that there are enough assets developed now that they could easily tweak some of the Fed mission locations for use by the KDF with very little additional effort, if they only decided to dedicate a bit of time.
I agree that at it's core the KDF story is strong, but you're right that it does come across as dated and is overdue for a good "Quality of life" update pass. It definitely has some beautiful locations that are unique to the faction that have gone unseen by those that haven't tried the KDF storyline, so it seems that it would be an good idea to broaden the audience for those locales to maximize the usage, especially since - as you stated - they are often concerned about the amount of effort vs. the "repeat business" when it comes to asset creation.
Heck, if they were to spend a bit of time converting the locations and assets that haven't already been released to the Foundry - and there many - then that would be a step in the right direction.
You are right, we don't know how these 16% were calculated, and thus they are only a guide on how things are. However, if you want to use the term "lie" - even if somewhat mitigated as merely hyperbole by the "lies, damned lies, and statistics" quote you're referring to - you should give more reasons than "we cannot check it" or "my gut tells me otherwise". You're insinuating the 16% are intended to give a wrong impression here and somehow conflating that with an unrelated issue, an in your eyes bad KDF ship build. (Unrelated to your point, it may be related to "a smaller playerbase"). As we cannot check the data nor the calculation, we may say "That number helps us nothing to understand the issue", but we may not simply say "it's wrong".
Still, a business not counting beans would quickly run out of them and go down. This is not to say that things cannot be handled in a better way, but the general denigration of "financial reasons are against the things I'd like, that cannot be" is really not that impressive a point.
Now we start bordering on a conspiracy theory kind of reasoning. What would the reason be for "the powers behind the curtain", always a nice reliable villain, to do so? What are they to gain from suppressing the rightful place of the KDF faction against better knowledge? Yes, this last sentence was cynic, but
invites that, because there is no "right" in any way involved here. You do deserve, as a customer of a company, that they render the service advertised, if you paid for it. You do not decide how this service will be changed/improved. You may decide you don't like it and are well within reason to make decisions based on that, but there is no obligation on Cryptic's (or PWE's) part to treat the KDF better than they do. I would think it would be nice for the overall feel of the game and thus a good decision business wise, but you are not watching an "Injustice" of not doing right here.
I completely agree that KDF play definitely feels more in line with the gameplay choices of the developers, with the constant combat and lack of diplomacy. It just plays to the factions tendencies, and is a more natural fit. I think that they managed to put in some of the "Honor and Glory" that the KDF is famous for, but there's always room for more.
As I said in a previous post, I think releasing more maps and assets from the KDF side of things to the Foundry would definitely help things out, however, as it is there seems to be little incentive for most players to delve into the Foundry missions as it is (especially since they removed the dilithium daily) and between that and the lack of promotion of the system, and the messy search that makes it difficult to find missions that have the "flavor" you're in the mood for, I think the Foundry is becoming underutilized and/or forgotten by many players. But that's a whole other issue.
And I understand completely that it may not seem necessary to draw focus to the KDF for you and other players that are currently enjoying the faction. But the whole point is to bring the KDF into focus for players that either have never tried KDF play out before, or have a KDF toon that is collecting dust (or just used to grind Contraband or Doff missions).
Thanks for your perspective and response. I look forward to checking out your Foundry missions!
As it is the tailor offerings for the KDF are fairly slim in my opinion, and there are a lot of bugs and clipping issues that have gone unfixed. Ships have their own pile of issues.
But I agree that more KDF freebies - either costume or ships - would definitely get people to at least pop over and check things out for a bit. But I'm not certain that it would lead to any long term growth, like a larger and more focus event likely would.
Still, it's a great idea, and I agree - give up the freebies!
What the minority factions need is to stop being disincentivized by a host of unnecessary restrictions that turn them into unprofitable "ghettos" only worthy of receiving occasional duplicates of Starfleet materiel. So that players who do want to play them are not punished for it.
Being able to switch factions with an existing character would also be useful in getting more people to try them all.
Meh, I agree that wanting some dev time focused on the KDF is a long shot, but it doesn't hurt to speculate on it or brainstorm some effective ways that attention could be brought to the "Red side" of the game.
That figure of 16% has always bothered me too. I've been a lurker on the KDF side since the game launched and I remember actively getting excited when it unlocked for me when my Fed toon hit level 20. I also remember being pretty disappointed with what was there once I got to play it. I'm not a PVPer and the focus was more heavily on that at that point. I suspect that that turned off a lot of players and many of them never went back to check things out once KDF play was expanded with Delta Rising.
But the KDF is far different from what it was, and I think that if a small push was made to reintroduce it to the larger playerbase, they might be able to grow that number.
And I think that that's the thing that a lot of people aren't realizing: Why wouldn't the Developers want to grow the playerbase? Sure, it seems like KDF is the red-headed stepchild of the game, but if they noticed enough interest and a growth in the numbers, then I think they might re-assess things.
Is it a pipe-dream? Definitely. Will it happen? Realistically....probably not. But there's no harm in speculating and suggesting things.
You never know what could happen.
I agree that the 20 hour cooldown is a joke. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't offer up a reduced cooldown for subs or lifetimers as an incentive to sign up.
But it's not a bad idea to have some incentives like that for KDF players, just to get people to come over and try it out. However, I think it would just lead to more grind alts.