I don't understand the premise of this thread. Why does there need an incentive to get players to play KDF?
Why does there need to be more KDF players?
Or is this a veiled butthurt kdf are underserved by cryptic and we feel ignored thread?
Add it to the list of things you don't understand. Don't you have some "debunching" to do?
I was wondering what might be done peer to peer. The tone of the thread had struck me as more of a wish listing thing and I went with a, "What could Cryptic do" scenario. I hadn't considered fielding what I or anyone else here might be doing. I belong to a fair sized fleet that has both a Fed and Klingon component but the KDF side of the house is too quiet. If I didn't have the fleet chat channel up I'd think I was the only fleet member online from a glance at the KDF roster.
What can be done? I wish that I knew how to reinvigorate interest within the fleet but it seems as though I have no powerful incentive to make the sell. AoY brought some wonderful TOS Klingon costumes but the players Fed side got a micro faction. I replayed the tutorial/Klingon story missions and they aren't nearly as polished or friendly as the alternative. Has anyone else found their halls nearly empty most of the time while your Fed counterpart seems like a hub of activity?
Having a purpose is nice. I'm cetain other fleeties will up for some queues KDF side when the time comes to build K-13 so there is an activity draw on the horizon but it would be nice to create something internally that could foster more interest. I don't like dangling a prize because it isn't much different than motivation by contraband farming.
I remember a weekend at least a year ago when a community member organized a Klingon activity day. I had to work so I only made one quick run but it was a cool idea to get a large group of players who appreciate the KDF together.
Being butthurt isn't proactive. I'd rather do something with what we do have. Maybe it isn't about assets but trying to reengage ourselves and demonstrate that Klingon players have fun together.
Creating and maintaining an active fleet seems to be a huge problem throughout the game, and I can imagine it's even more difficult on the KDF side. I've avoided joining fleets myself, because I'm largely a solo player. I've been working to change that lately and to get out there more and interact with other players and group up for content. Maybe it's time to join a Fleet already.
I think the Armada system was a good idea, but I also think that a lot of smaller fleets would be better served by merging with each other. However, I get that there's often a power struggle that can happen in those sorts of situations, and sometimes giving up whatever advancement you have made with Fleet holdings - no matter how small - can be a tough pill to swallow.
I think they need to have some sort of buy back if you close down a fleet. Some tokens or something that can be issued that recoups some of the resources that have been spent toward Fleet holdings, that you can then spend on supporting those holdings (and only those holdings. Meaning that Bound to Character and it's worthless otherwise, to avoid any room for exploits) when you join another fleet. At least that might help thin out and lead to some consolidation of the weaker and failing fleets.
I've also noticed that searching for a fleet that meets your needs is a pain in the butt. That could definitely use some work.
Well I for one do not like the ideas floating around along the lines of incorporating the KDF players into Fed starbases, or trying to remove all faction boundaries. I know allot of feds want to see that but myself, and I think others would like to keep the Empire strong and not merged in with the fed. Personally I would find it hard to believe that the majority of the kdf playerbase that mains a kDF player wants to merge with the fed.
As for the butthurt comment, unless I am not reading the ops picture correctly, I believe he is a federation player. A hunch persay, to my knowledge this thread was not started by KDF players.
I honestly see rep and ships as a bigger blockade then some think, but oh well its an opinion. As for the foundry, I recently found a thread in the kdf forums about it. So I gave it a go. It felt backwards to me. Something I did very well a long time ago was mess with world editors, I did not use the net as a guide. I would twist and turn the world editors to create amazing things, but this foundry seems backwards. From what I can tell, instead of making the map first, you have to create the dialog, triggers, and objectives first. To me that seems odd, until I finish making the map, how will I know what triggers, dialog, and objectives I will need. Of course thats an assumption that the foundry operates in that fashion. Mostly guess work here form this perspective. I do see the potential of the foundry. Just some random thoughts on this last point regarding the foundry.
You can create a map without putting in a word of dialog first or messing with any other aspects of the actual "quest" part of the Foundry.
There are some great tutorials out there on the web. Here's one by the Foundry Roundtable guys:
And I'll admit, I've been predominantly a Fed player for the past 6 years, and dabbled here and there with the KDF, until recently when I've become more active on that side of things.
So I'm coming into that side of things - and thus haven't been beat or discouraged by the lack of communication or development like a lot of long time KDF players have.
But when I see a problem, I like to try and offer up whatever I can to try and fix it, and the KDF seems like it has soooo much potential that has just gone untapped to me. The Klingons have a rich history and are THE Key opposition faction in the Star Trek Universe. To not spend effort to develop them more is just a tragedy in my opinion. It's like making a Star Wars game with a watered down version of the Empire, where the Stormtroopers don't have helmets or TIE Fighters (Yes...I'm one of those rare beings that is a fan of both franchises almost equally).
HOWEVER...I think that having regions of contested space or planets where open warfare - both PVP and PVE - would be a great addition to the game in my opinion. Some territorial control systems, where capturing and holding a region of space gives boosts to R&D for the dominant faction would be really cool.
Unfortunately, the game isn't balanced for PVP and frankly it probably never will be. If they could set it up so that gear and ships worked differently in contested regions, so that the field was more level, that would be something, but I don't know if that could be done.
Furthermore, it would take a LOT of support to create a KDF that had the numbers that would allow it to complete in such a system. The Federation would always win due to having more players.
The the bigger problem is that it would take a lot for Cryptic to step back from the Alliance that they've been building over the past few years and it would take a lot of work for them to reintroduce the animosity between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
How about we start with some simple things for incentivizing new(er) KDF players? The easiest path forward which can be used with the smallest amount of energy expended is the one people usually take.
Add in dialogue to the Interactions with chars which reflects the faction the player is playing as. C'mon, Devs! You did it in House Pegh. You do it every time Sela shows up. You did it with Admiral Leeta. PWE/Cryptic paid those people to use their likeness and then get them to do VO's for the game. And did so willingly. Without making either of them simply choose to sound like a dodgy copy of a Starfleet officer.
So why can't you do the same thing for the people who pay you? I'm not asking for an actual voice for my character. Having response choices more appropriate to a subject of the Empire or a citizen the Republic when I press <F> would be a good place to start. This cannot be that hard to do, can it?
Next, add in a faction specific mission once in awhile. One or two a year brought out at odd intervals would work. Drop some blogs about them. The way the Iconian War was initially presented would be a very good template. Just slow the pace down to extend the time out a little bit. And make some faction-specific gear for the rewards. It doesn't have to be anything more glamorous or powerful than that Roumlan Navy Ground Set. Which I very much enjoy using.
Lastly, please think about establishing and maintaining a stage setting. Which the two examples above are a part of. Homogenizing the game to reduce production times and costs and increase ROI is a good goal. Nothing at all wrong with earning enough money to feed the server hamsters. Creating "sticky" missions and events which require the player to spend more time in the game isn't wrong either. The more time someone plays STO, the more likely they are to spend RL Currency on it. I usually buy the prepaid cards which I keep in a stack after using. The height of this stack is worrisome sometimes, lol.
But if all I am going to do is play as Starfleet with either a Red or Green whatever, then why bother playing Red or Green at all? Which means I am playing Red or Green less. Which means I am playing STO less. Which means STO is losing opportunities to earn RL Currency from me. This cannot be good for Cryptic, can it?
As much as I'd love to have choices when it comes to dialog interaction during quests - not just for each faction, but also based off of career path and diplomatic/marauder level - to do so Cryptic would have to clear the development schedule and dedicate a significant portion of their resources to basically rewriting and expanding every quest in the game, which is just something that I don't see them doing.
However, I really wish that they'd do it with every mission they are currently developing and all future missions. It wouldn't help out for the majority of the game, but it would be a nice addition to the end game and would really serve to improve the immersion and make you feel like your choices mattered more - or that you actually had a choice at all.
I'm curious about what you mean by "Sticky missions" and "Stage Setting". I confused about what you're saying there, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Could you elaborate a bit more on those thoughts? Thanks.
As much as I'd love to have choices when it comes to dialog interaction during quests - not just for each faction, but also based off of career path and diplomatic/marauder level - to do so Cryptic would have to clear the development schedule and dedicate a significant portion of their resources to basically rewriting and expanding every quest in the game, which is just something that I don't see them doing.
However, I really wish that they'd do it with every mission they are currently developing and all future missions. It wouldn't help out for the majority of the game, but it would be a nice addition to the end game and would really serve to improve the immersion and make you feel like your choices mattered more - or that you actually had a choice at all.
I'm curious about what you mean by "Sticky missions" and "Stage Setting". I confused about what you're saying there, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Could you elaborate a bit more on those thoughts? Thanks.
"Stickiness" is an aspect of MMO's which requires the player to remain playing the game more often or longer. It is just an alternative way of saying "Grind".
"Stage Setting" is just an alternative way of saying "Immersion". I'd like some choices here dealing with career path as well, now that you mention it. Such things are already ingame. The first real Fed mission, rescuing the Azura, includes an excellent example of what you posted about.
I would rather they not go back and redo the dialogue choices for what is already in game. Such a project would be drudgery and I would not wish it on anyone. I'm not even going to go into how many things are currently broken because someone wanted to "improve" something. But doing so going forward with new missions and STFs should not add a significant amount of work
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
HOWEVER...I think that having regions of contested space or planets where open warfare - both PVP and PVE - would be a great addition to the game in my opinion. Some territorial control systems, where capturing and holding a region of space gives boosts to R&D for the dominant faction would be really cool.
Unfortunately, the game isn't balanced for PVP and frankly it probably never will be. If they could set it up so that gear and ships worked differently in contested regions, so that the field was more level, that would be something, but I don't know if that could be done.
Furthermore, it would take a LOT of support to create a KDF that had the numbers that would allow it to complete in such a system. The Federation would always win due to having more players.
The the bigger problem is that it would take a lot for Cryptic to step back from the Alliance that they've been building over the past few years and it would take a lot of work for them to reintroduce the animosity between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
Yeah I agree it would be nice to have a contested/Neutral zone type area of the game that has groups of raiders, and agencies/groups that are working outside of the two/three factions to take control of more territories. Though I could see it being more of colonies on contested planets/zones of the region of space calling in aid, after being attacked by the opposing faction's groups that feel those worlds/zones are actually still their faction's property. Even with the three factions being allied right now, we still saw Klingon empire working in the areas they felt they had claims to worlds while still allied with the Federation. To me make it more of you as a rom-kdf/Kdf character allying with houses of the empire/Kdf that give you missions to go into the area to resettle/conquer former Klingon worlds, while the rom-ed/Federation characters get missions to deal with raiders (both npc and pc types) kinda like a police force really. Ity would make it that the Kdf are upholding the peace of the alliance, but it is houses within the kdf/empire that are working against that goal without their knowledge (We have seen this in many of the series of houses working against each other an the goal of the empire/kdf itself.). I could see there being a sort of gating mechanic in place that only allows so many players to enter the area of space, with it being within a small 1-3 player margin of each other. The idea is based off the entire idea of the Neutral zone in which both sides were not supposed to be within it without each other's knowledge,w with many times needing both sides to send in the same number of ships, but also both sides routinely sending in ships on missions into the region for various reasons (with or without getting permission).
Though within this are of space I would almost say you need to make it that the values of each ship type (escort, destroyer, cruiser, battle-cruiser, and such) is kept at a set value, with maybe at most a slight boost given to them based on tier level to keep it less of a who has better gear an more better usage of abilities. So if you have a cruiser for example it would have the same general stats as any other cruiser (including stats of actua gear), but that based on the tier of the ship he stats might increase by 1-6%. The reasoning behind this is that one thing that deters alot of new players from staying with pvp is getting stomped by a player with gear that completely outclasses their own gear, and getting attacked when they are not really interested in pvping at that period of time. Though I could see a system of stat/level syncing might work a bit better, but the idea is to keep the stats of players engaging in the pvp aspect within a close margin to keep it less of a stomping an more of a actual battle. The other idea is to set-up a dual/variable-stat system, which has each ability/ship/weapon/gear have two values that correspond to pve or pvp encounters.
I don't think they would need to step back from the Alliance actually, since it has been shown that during prior alliances both sides had groups within their faction that were creating conflict. That ranged from working in areas that were of limits, to developing tech that was against treaties, even going on missions to destabilize the government of their allies. An it is these smaller factions within the larger factions that would be the engine for pvp, you working with them in a view of aiding your people/faction, hell you could have missions where a fed layer goes after another fed player that is working with a group that is threatening the alliance by their activities within that region of space. An example could be section 31 that might work on ways of sabotaging ship yards an colonies of the Kdf, since it has been shown to them that the Klingons are quite dangerous an could turn on the federation given the chance again. But pvp does not have to be a slugfest between the main factions either, but could be more about you lending aid to smaller factions in game, and then needing to fight against the other side an their allies, with rewards being given based on which side came out ontop.
Then you have the fact of what kind of system, and rewards would you have to keep pvp worth the time of the players. This is hugely important as regardless of how good or bad your pvp is, if the rewards are lacking in comparison to what you did for them it makes the entire system less appealing. I can see unique ship visuals, maybe a bit of gear, titles, ship traits maybe, unique boffs, and what have you.
As a new PS4 player, I'd like to add my thoughts to the discussion. MMOs are grinding games. I'd consider myself at average player who doesn't have lots of time to play games. So when I looked into STO and what was involved, I figured I had the time to play two characters to keep my incentive to play the game.
My main is Federation as I wanted to use science vessels "to go where no one has gone before". Since the other side of the coin was Klingons, my 2nd character I made a Klingon. Thought it might be fun.
Played the Klingon through the first mission and visited the home world. First mission was to kill my captain. Unappealing to me. Visited the home world and meet Worf. I thought it was great until I learned he choose the Klingon empire over the Federation. I had thought he evolved beyond the basic "Blood and Honor" stuff. Every spot I went in the city was all about being warrior and dying with honor. I didn't see much in the way of gameplay beyond that idea. A very one dimensional faction in my option compared to the Federation which has so many ships besides warships, lots of different species to play in a variety of way, all with different takes on life. Yea I know the game ends up being mostly space combat but if you don't have a character that appeals to you, you certainly don't have the incentive to play the game.
I have since created a third character on the Federation side whose heritage is tied into Scotty's family tree and might do some role playing with the character and is focused strictly on flagship type ships where my main is open to anything.
I might pick up the Klingon character again some day but even giving me a free T6 ship likely won't give me the incentive to play up to rank 50 to use it. I just don't have the time to play something which doesn't have a lot of appeal to me.
You want the Klingons to be more appealing to the masses? You have to offer more variety in the faction besides warrior, blood and honor. If I decide to play my Klingon character again, I would have the thought in my head to play him outside those basic parameters, likely an outcast but I expect most missions will keep me inside those parameters.
I don't understand the premise of this thread. Why does there need an incentive to get players to play KDF?
Why does there need to be more KDF players?
Or is this a veiled butthurt kdf are underserved by cryptic and we feel ignored thread?
Rationally speaking, I'd say it should be to make KDF-related products profitable thus encourage devs to create more.
But the obvious solution of "stop discriminating and just sell to everyone willing to buy" comes up against an irrationally hostile emotional reaction from KDF fans.
Except continuing to restate the obvious isn't the point of this thread. We already know that water takes the path of least resistance, and human nature is the same. The point of this thread is to foster discussion and generate ideas for how to improve KDF.
By all means, people can keep throwing out defeatist statements ("It will never change, why bother discussing it?", "Cryptic won't do anything for KDF, because Fed makes them more money.", etc. etc.) but it won't stop people from discussing the topic nor will it change the fact there's a serious disparity. This isn't about "quantity" but more about "quality" when it comes to the development attitude regarding KDF.
People have brought up many good points over the years- and it's really no secret that a disparity has ALWAYS existed. From the very beginning, ship releases and content were very disproportionate in regard to Fed/KDF. This has improved *somewhat* over the years but it really hasn't become balanced in any respect. Compare numbers on the amount of "episodes" all you want- that's only a single metric in a list of them.
For those who are "tired of seeing the topic" so they keep attempting to derail it- ask yourselves this question... By showing disrespect to others, how much respect do you think you will earn in return for topics that are important to you? That's something you can apply to all walks of life- not just an internet forum. Just something for you to think about. Consideration and courtesy actually go a LONG way in discussion.
Respect isn't freely given- it's earned.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Except continuing to restate the obvious isn't the point of this thread. We already know that water takes the path of least resistance, and human nature is the same. The point of this thread is to foster discussion and generate ideas for how to improve KDF.
By all means, people can keep throwing out defeatist statements ("It will never change, why bother discussing it?", "Cryptic won't do anything for KDF, because Fed makes them more money.", etc. etc.) but it won't stop people from discussing the topic nor will it change the fact there's a serious disparity. This isn't about "quantity" but more about "quality" when it comes to the development attitude regarding KDF.
People have brought up many good points over the years- and it's really no secret that a disparity has ALWAYS existed. From the very beginning, ship releases and content were very disproportionate in regard to Fed/KDF. This has improved *somewhat* over the years but it really hasn't become balanced in any respect. Compare numbers on the amount of "episodes" all you want- that's only a single metric in a list of them.
Except this is what discussing the topic is. Not mindlessly "me tooing" eachother.
I'm sure everyone on this forum can imagine a wealth of rewards they could theoretically give for creating new KDF toons, some plausible others less so. But the reality is, "incentivizing" players to create yet another throwaway alt for the purpose of getting some reward is not going to change anything.
To improve KDF, it needs to be made profitable. And that's not going to happen by rejecting reality and pretending that if John Q. Feddie just tried the Klingon storyline, everything would magically become "balanced."
As a new PS4 player, I'd like to add my thoughts to the discussion. MMOs are grinding games. I'd consider myself at average player who doesn't have lots of time to play games. So when I looked into STO and what was involved, I figured I had the time to play two characters to keep my incentive to play the game.
My main is Federation as I wanted to use science vessels "to go where no one has gone before". Since the other side of the coin was Klingons, my 2nd character I made a Klingon. Thought it might be fun.
Played the Klingon through the first mission and visited the home world. First mission was to kill my captain. Unappealing to me. Visited the home world and meet Worf. I thought it was great until I learned he choose the Klingon empire over the Federation. I had thought he evolved beyond the basic "Blood and Honor" stuff. Every spot I went in the city was all about being warrior and dying with honor. I didn't see much in the way of gameplay beyond that idea. A very one dimensional faction in my option compared to the Federation which has so many ships besides warships, lots of different species to play in a variety of way, all with different takes on life. Yea I know the game ends up being mostly space combat but if you don't have a character that appeals to you, you certainly don't have the incentive to play the game.
I have since created a third character on the Federation side whose heritage is tied into Scotty's family tree and might do some role playing with the character and is focused strictly on flagship type ships where my main is open to anything.
I might pick up the Klingon character again some day but even giving me a free T6 ship likely won't give me the incentive to play up to rank 50 to use it. I just don't have the time to play something which doesn't have a lot of appeal to me.
You want the Klingons to be more appealing to the masses? You have to offer more variety in the faction besides warrior, blood and honor. If I decide to play my Klingon character again, I would have the thought in my head to play him outside those basic parameters, likely an outcast but I expect most missions will keep me inside those parameters.
Welcome to The Show. Glad you're here. I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have over the years. Nice to see someone who can state their opinion in an adult manner and reasonably as well. Doesn't happen near enough around here. Thank you.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Except continuing to restate the obvious isn't the point of this thread. We already know that water takes the path of least resistance, and human nature is the same. The point of this thread is to foster discussion and generate ideas for how to improve KDF.
By all means, people can keep throwing out defeatist statements ("It will never change, why bother discussing it?", "Cryptic won't do anything for KDF, because Fed makes them more money.", etc. etc.) but it won't stop people from discussing the topic nor will it change the fact there's a serious disparity. This isn't about "quantity" but more about "quality" when it comes to the development attitude regarding KDF.
People have brought up many good points over the years- and it's really no secret that a disparity has ALWAYS existed. From the very beginning, ship releases and content were very disproportionate in regard to Fed/KDF. This has improved *somewhat* over the years but it really hasn't become balanced in any respect. Compare numbers on the amount of "episodes" all you want- that's only a single metric in a list of them.
Except this is what discussing the topic is. Not mindlessly "me tooing" eachother.
I'm sure everyone on this forum can imagine a wealth of rewards they could theoretically give for creating new KDF toons, some plausible others less so. But the reality is, "incentivizing" players to create yet another throwaway alt for the purpose of getting some reward is not going to change anything.
To improve KDF, it needs to be made profitable. And that's not going to happen by rejecting reality and pretending that if John Q. Feddie just tried the Klingon storyline, everything would magically become "balanced."
Not sure what you meant in your first sentence regarding this being what discussing the topic is. Simply rejecting others ideas outright because status quo doesn't show much open-mindedness, IMO. As I've said before, criticism is easy- constructive criticism takes skill. Offer suggestions and alternatives, rather than just shooting down other's opinions simply because you disagree with them. Have another/better idea? Throw it on the table.
As far as the "throwaway" alt thing- let's count how many instances of this have affected KDF specifically- and how many have affected Fed. I can count ONE for KDF (Delta) and TWO for Fed so far (Delta and AOY). So how is introducing an event for KDF dissimilar from what's already happened on Fed-side?
And... what are your ideas on how to make KDF profitable?
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Except continuing to restate the obvious isn't the point of this thread. We already know that water takes the path of least resistance, and human nature is the same. The point of this thread is to foster discussion and generate ideas for how to improve KDF.
By all means, people can keep throwing out defeatist statements ("It will never change, why bother discussing it?", "Cryptic won't do anything for KDF, because Fed makes them more money.", etc. etc.) but it won't stop people from discussing the topic nor will it change the fact there's a serious disparity. This isn't about "quantity" but more about "quality" when it comes to the development attitude regarding KDF.
People have brought up many good points over the years- and it's really no secret that a disparity has ALWAYS existed. From the very beginning, ship releases and content were very disproportionate in regard to Fed/KDF. This has improved *somewhat* over the years but it really hasn't become balanced in any respect. Compare numbers on the amount of "episodes" all you want- that's only a single metric in a list of them.
Except this is what discussing the topic is. Not mindlessly "me tooing" eachother.
I'm sure everyone on this forum can imagine a wealth of rewards they could theoretically give for creating new KDF toons, some plausible others less so. But the reality is, "incentivizing" players to create yet another throwaway alt for the purpose of getting some reward is not going to change anything.
To improve KDF, it needs to be made profitable. And that's not going to happen by rejecting reality and pretending that if John Q. Feddie just tried the Klingon storyline, everything would magically become "balanced."
Not sure what you meant in your first sentence regarding this being what discussing the topic is. Simply rejecting others ideas outright because status quo doesn't show much open-mindedness, IMO. As I've said before, criticism is easy- constructive criticism takes skill. Offer suggestions and alternatives, rather than just shooting down other's opinions simply because you disagree with them. Have another/better idea? Throw it on the table.
I have.
We are not in the position to accept or reject ideas. Cryptic is. We can only give opinions. And no amount of open-mindedness is going to change reality.
And... what are your ideas on how to make KDF profitable?
To quote myself: "stop discriminating and just sell to everyone willing to buy." Perhaps more than that, but that would certainly have to be the first step. There is no profit in preventing people from buying things.
Even if we keep to the idea that these ideas create "throw-away" alts, still have to lokat the fact of not all of those alts would be fully thrown away, but would be turned into full-time alts by some players that find they enjoy the faction. That is part of the idea of recruit events, and insensitive the transition of playing more of the factions than just Federation. Even if you say that fom a recruit event that 75-85% of the characters are actually throw-away alts, that is still a growth of 15-25% of the created characters being being added to the population.
One thing I think would help to make the Kdf, as well as Romulan factions more appealing an profitable, would be to flesh them out more ship an race wise. I mean looking at the two factions compared to the fed is the lack of diversity both in their ship line ups, as well as their choices in races they can play as. It would be nice to see both the number of ships you can play as class-wise increased, which can be done by adding ships from the races that you can also play as alongside the the Klingons/Romulans. Why play the KDF/Romulan faction as a non-klingon/Romulan character if you can't also use your chosen race's ships that are a member of your faction, or playing as a science or engineering character an having either no non c-store option or no race-related ship of your chosen career prefered type, when you could go play as any of the Federation races with a huge variety of ships. Even if you kept the race-specific ships as c-store purchases, which I can see as even in the federation most of the race-specific vessels are c-store vessels, than at least create a few more ships to bulk out the rooster choices a bit.
I would love to see some Remen ship designs, a ferasan vessel to sit in contrast to the Catain Atrox, more ships from the non-klingon races of the Kdf. THough also more than just two/three race choices in the Romulan faction would be an amazing change too (like allying them with the Cardassians.). I think the fact that the factions are so partially developed that it turns off the players that might actually play, and then enjoy an keep to the faction.
One thing I think would help to make the Kdf, as well as Romulan factions more appealing an profitable, would be to flesh them out more ship an race wise. I mean looking at the two factions compared to the fed is the lack of diversity both in their ship line ups, as well as their choices in races they can play as. It would be nice to see both the number of ships you can play as class-wise increased, which can be done by adding ships from the races that you can also play as alongside the the Klingons/Romulans. Why play the KDF/Romulan faction as a non-klingon/Romulan character if you can't also use your chosen race's ships that are a member of your faction, or playing as a science or engineering character an having either no non c-store option or no race-related ship of your chosen career prefered type, when you could go play as any of the Federation races with a huge variety of ships. Even if you kept the race-specific ships as c-store purchases, which I can see as even in the federation most of the race-specific vessels are c-store vessels, than at least create a few more ships to bulk out the rooster choices a bit.
I would love to see some Remen ship designs, a ferasan vessel to sit in contrast to the Catain Atrox, more ships from the non-klingon races of the Kdf. THough also more than just two/three race choices in the Romulan faction would be an amazing change too (like allying them with the Cardassians.). I think the fact that the factions are so partially developed that it turns off the players that might actually play, and then enjoy an keep to the faction.
As would I. The more the merrier. But so long as only 10-15% of players would be even allowed to buy them, they could never sell as much as the majority Fed ships or cross-faction ships.
First off, I had a previous account in STO that began with beta and was active until about a year after it went gold. My main was Klingon, which could only happen after playing Fed until level 5 or 10, then unlocking the Klingon player. Anyway, it was a long time ago and I wasn't able to find my original toon, so it's all new now.
I finally decided to jump back into STO and see where it was at. I'll tell you that compared to back then there's a lot more content than before. Back then it was only PvP really, and only in rooms. We did fight Fed for a time but they soon stopped coming after we beat the TRIBBLE out of them. Which makes sense when all you have is PvP. There was a PvP room for Klingon vs Klingon, but we really liked going after the Feds back then (we were the only faction with cloak back then and there were no romulans yet).
Enough about back then. Right now, I'm liking the gameplay though it's a lot of PvE. I'm also advancing very fast as I'm at level 50 (Lt. General) and still can't start a new post in Arc because my account is so new! Still learning things like crafting and all the new terminology like commendations and tech upgrades, etc.. Duty officers are cool too. The Tutorial on QonoS is pretty cool for noobs--though I seemed to have missed it until now! Better late than never.
Regarding this discussion my only input would be the one we(meaning, Klingon players) all wanted back in the beginning: open PvP warfare accessible from the main map. We bashed around ideas like war zones but on the main map rather than in a room/system. Sort of like how EVE has hisec, losec and nullsec space. It would be cool to open systems or sectors on the main map to open PvP. One possibility to appease PvE'ers would be to allow a faction's home sector and maybe adjoining sectors permanently off-bounds for open PvP. Eligible systems could be taken by controlling key planets or stations and then sectors would follow by holding key systems. Once a faction lost X amount of sectors a 'Peace Treaty would follow that would provide a faction-wide reward to the victors, then reset the map to start all over again. This would require that the Romulans be their own faction(or factions?).
Fleets could build their fleet stuff in the non-PvP sectors of the homeworld systems and keep their stuff safe for the most part. You could even limit PvP to the border sectors of each faction if you don't want to rain on the PvE'er parade. Who knows, maybe once a year PWE/Cryptic would say 'let it all burn' and open the entire map to PvP for a month and see what happens. It would be glorious to be sure!
Lastly, I'm looking for a fleet to join. Name in-game is 'qornah' and he flies battlecruisers. Plan on buying a Qib soon, but am somewhat casual in play so looking for similar Klingon players. I have headphones and TS and whatever for voice as well.
While I doubt seriously that PWE/C will open the galactic map for open PvP, I do think that if they worked on making the PvP system viable and more attractive it may help in improving the definition of the factions themselves. If we take a look at the ideals/goals/values of each faction, just from a few words we see:
Fed = "human"itarian, peacekeeping, exploration, diplomacy, etc.
KDF = War, honor, expansion, conquest, legacy, etc.
Based on this alone- two very different styles/flavors of play- who benefits the most from a non-conflict environment?
Is it really any wonder so many play Fed to begin with? Introducing more "bling" (ships) alone isn't going to resolve this problem. I also have to agree somewhat that a recruitment event in itself won't resolve it, either- although it would be good to at least make it more attractive for a short time.
The faction system in itself needs to be more clearly defined instead of more convoluted. There needs to be a definitive reason for wanting to choose a faction, rather than defaulting to what's more accessible or "easy". Improving the PvP system is one piece of this. There should also be consequences related to choosing a faction- such as being openly attacked in non-PvP designated areas.
The "Neutral Zone" might be an example of an area where PvP would be Open. Even throw in PvE/NPC elements into it, rescue missions, space pirates, random encounters, etc. There could also be some effective world faction bonuses for capturing certain systems relative to home areas, which would give those of a faction incentive to participate. Both space and ground missions could be introduced for this purpose.
If they actually finished out the Romulans as a third faction, it would make this even more dynamic. Then you'd have choices as RR or RSE available, and so forth.
There's a lot PWE/C *could* do, but I also have to agree that it's up to them in the end. As I've also said before, I doubt even they know what they're going to do from year to year, as their communication with players is usually pretty terse and they tend to wait right up until a release to actually announce anything regarding intention. Actively polling their players, soliciting some feedback, communicating a roadmap of future intentions, etc. would go a loooooong way in strengthening interest and marketing STO, IMO.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Klingon players have represented about 10-15% of the entire playerbase in STO. This was true in the beginning and true now, I believe. This may seem like a small number, but here's some data from the game, EVE, which is highly PvP, or at least thought to be. In EVE, 75% of the player base play in non-PvP areas. That leaves only 25% of the players who actively play in PvP space. Now, look back at STO and note the percentage of KDF players. In a scenario that saw more wide use of PvP on the open map, the KDF might actually be a force to be reckoned with. I really don't care how extensive PvP would be on the open map, so long as there is something to conquer. If it ends up being 2-3 sectors along the borders, fine. Make the Romulans their own factions and have area of PvP that sort of ends up looking like the Klingon triad symbol. Perfect.
One thing I think would help to make the Kdf, as well as Romulan factions more appealing an profitable, would be to flesh them out more ship an race wise. I mean looking at the two factions compared to the fed is the lack of diversity both in their ship line ups, as well as their choices in races they can play as. It would be nice to see both the number of ships you can play as class-wise increased, which can be done by adding ships from the races that you can also play as alongside the the Klingons/Romulans. Why play the KDF/Romulan faction as a non-klingon/Romulan character if you can't also use your chosen race's ships that are a member of your faction, or playing as a science or engineering character an having either no non c-store option or no race-related ship of your chosen career prefered type, when you could go play as any of the Federation races with a huge variety of ships. Even if you kept the race-specific ships as c-store purchases, which I can see as even in the federation most of the race-specific vessels are c-store vessels, than at least create a few more ships to bulk out the rooster choices a bit.
I would love to see some Remen ship designs, a ferasan vessel to sit in contrast to the Catain Atrox, more ships from the non-klingon races of the Kdf. THough also more than just two/three race choices in the Romulan faction would be an amazing change too (like allying them with the Cardassians.). I think the fact that the factions are so partially developed that it turns off the players that might actually play, and then enjoy an keep to the faction.
As would I. The more the merrier. But so long as only 10-15% of players would be even allowed to buy them, they could never sell as much as the majority Fed ships or cross-faction ships.
Oh I agree with you that it would be nice. I am always reminded of something many always say and fit with what the devs are doing, which is "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", they are doing what is going to get them the most bang for their buck yet also might leave them high an dry too. This is part of why I so wish they hadnot taken the game into free to play, even though it has done wonders for the game, the entire concept of it pushes the notion of focusing your efforts (money, resources, and such) on the group that makes you the money, where as a sub game that might get you less money yearly on a steadier base though allows for a more uniform development.
I would also say though that the continuingly rising cost of purchasing the tiers of ships is worrying, It would have been nice to see some of the tiers of ships get a cost reduction (conversion into dil in the case of c-store ships), as than you could keep the top tier ships at a stead cost of 30ish dollars that the player-base actually feel okay paying (not feeling ripped off.). This would also help players in the Kdf/rom factions to feel less put off buying these ships actually, and making getting something that appeals to you more accessible as well. Which also would make catching up to your other toon abit easier, and so makes players more apt to play another faction if they can catch up faster.
Faction vs faction pvp with random battlezones that pop up like red alerts around the quadrants.
I could see that working, or just make it a red-alert that takes you to the Neutral zone as a battle-zone. Though i could also see a shift in the deep-space encounters, which allow Kdf/rom characters to jump into these, and attack the fed character that are doing them, while also having a similar type that the Fed/rom can do that has you try to run off Kling/rom raiders that are in a deep-space encounter. If you did this based on the zone you were in, and put into these deep-space encounters some worthwhile incentives, than I could see many actually enjoying them quite well.
I still say that we could use a syncing system, which syncs the gear quality, level, as well as the tier rank of the character's ship. Having something more of a all out no holds bar version would be fine for those players that enjoy that, but you still need to appeal to those players that keep the content an activities going, which alot of the time want a more fair battle.
To those thinking PvP. I mentioned this in another post. But I'll put it here. For this, Cryptic cold very easily breath life back in to it. "How?", you might ask. Well, with the battle zones. They are already set for Red versus Blue and all are territory and/or resources points. The player just need a selection as to which team they are fighting for. This would work for any old battle zone or new one they might give us. Of course they'd have to double up on it. A battle zone for those that want PvE and one that wants PvP. I mean it is all "Contested Territory."
"They would need to add PvP gear.", you might say. Nope, that's already in game as well. Saw a piece of it drop while leveling my AoY character. I can't remember if it was armor or shield, but it had one of the old PvP mods on it, [PBB] or some such. So everything for PvP is there. The mods just need to able to appear on crafted items. Also, from my exploration of the forums. It is not that Cryptic refuses to work on the PvP system. It's more that they haven't figured out how. The Original Dev for PvP left Cryptic long ago. He didn't leave anything behind but he had already built in to the game. The current Dev's haven't figured out what he was doing or how to work with it, yet. Yes, I used the word "yet." That's because i'm not sure if they're actually attempting to understand it or even work on it.
Also, another reason why PvP died was the change to the rewards for it. On this, blame the players that would set up privates and then just kill each other in turn to meet the reward quota.
PvP is something the Dev's are going to need to look at, with the addition of making STO available on console. PC gamers are a mixed lot of PvE and PvP. Console gamers, the majority of them are PvPers. So this would be a great time for Cryptic to dedicate some dev's to figuring out and fixing the PvP.
As far as syncing goes. Well on this you can take Tera or Guild Wars 2 in to account. When you enter a PvP map all your equipment is changed to a basic PvP setup and you are made max level just like everyone else. On this, I'd say they'd have to make a PvP skill and/or specialization tree. I'd go with a specialization tree myself. Then to level this, they would need to do a PvP leveling system, which the exp could only be earned from PvP. This way noone could max out the PvP specialization through PvE. Also, the current Specialization are for PvE, therefor they become inactive upon entering PvP. You step in with just your skill tree.
From this point I'd add in a PvP vendor. Just like the old Omega Store. You start off with a basic white set of PvP. You earn PvP marks as you PvP. Then you have to take X amount of Marks and the current piece of your white gear to the vendor. Then from here, you go over the list of available PvP gear, each with a different [Mod] setup so that the player could choose which mods they wanted. This way the player has to PvP in order to get marks. Then have to work their way up in gear. So starting out you start in White Mk X gear. To get green Mk X you need to swap out the white and the Marks for the Green. Then with the green Mk X and the right amount of marks you could get a Blue Mk XI piece. This way they can tie the PvP gear to the PvP level as well. You could do this as a Reputation. But this style works better for keeping a balance. There is no way to jump directly in to MK XII gear.
Then for crafting, one would be able to craft and upgrade PvP gear. The only thing here is to create a PvP Craft Token and PvP Upgrade Tech. Neither of these need to be in the Z store. You could put them there, but I'd set the price high. Up around 1000 Z en per one and no sales or bundles. Instead make these the reward for PvP dailies and make them character bound. The Craft and Upgrade bought from the Z Store are the same as ship upgrade tokens. You can get bound and unbound versions. This way, noone could abuse the reward system to get a massive stock of them to sell.
This wouldn't just give an incentive for more KDF players. It would give an incentive across the board for all Factions. Yes, I'm a KDF player, thinking about what can be done to help Federation and Romulan's as well.
Maybe a good idea maybe not. I read througha couple of the pages and there were a lot of "i'd make a recruit then delete him after I unlocked everything." what if, along with the traits and such, only THAT CHARACTER got to unlock a ship that only a recruit can have? that, or, unlock a faction tri-pack, with a faction only equipment set. maybe even have a 4th ship behind a lockbox.
> @phenomenaut01 said: > 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?
Create as many ships as the Federation has while leveling include this for Romulan ships also
One thing I think would help to make the Kdf, as well as Romulan factions more appealing an profitable, would be to flesh them out more ship an race wise. I mean looking at the two factions compared to the fed is the lack of diversity both in their ship line ups, as well as their choices in races they can play as. It would be nice to see both the number of ships you can play as class-wise increased, which can be done by adding ships from the races that you can also play as alongside the the Klingons/Romulans. Why play the KDF/Romulan faction as a non-klingon/Romulan character if you can't also use your chosen race's ships that are a member of your faction, or playing as a science or engineering character an having either no non c-store option or no race-related ship of your chosen career prefered type, when you could go play as any of the Federation races with a huge variety of ships. Even if you kept the race-specific ships as c-store purchases, which I can see as even in the federation most of the race-specific vessels are c-store vessels, than at least create a few more ships to bulk out the rooster choices a bit.
I would love to see some Remen ship designs, a ferasan vessel to sit in contrast to the Catain Atrox, more ships from the non-klingon races of the Kdf. THough also more than just two/three race choices in the Romulan faction would be an amazing change too (like allying them with the Cardassians.). I think the fact that the factions are so partially developed that it turns off the players that might actually play, and then enjoy an keep to the faction.
As would I. The more the merrier. But so long as only 10-15% of players would be even allowed to buy them, they could never sell as much as the majority Fed ships or cross-faction ships.
I don't suppose that it's occurred to anyone that the only reason that the cross faction ships have been limited to temporal and non-Fed/KDF is because that is all Cryptic has been allowed to use per their agreement with CBS?
Sure, I'm speculating, but it makes sense in my opinion. CBS has placed restrictions in the past to ensure the rarity of certain ships, so why wouldn't the restrict Feds from flying KDF ships and vice versa?
> @phenomenaut01 said:
> 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?
Create as many ships as the Federation has while leveling include this for Romulan ships also
I'd love more ships. Everyone would love more ships. But Cryptic isn't going to spend the development time or the money if the KDF faction isn't showing growth.
That is the whole idea. How do you grow the faction with the least amount of development time and money spent?
Comments
Creating and maintaining an active fleet seems to be a huge problem throughout the game, and I can imagine it's even more difficult on the KDF side. I've avoided joining fleets myself, because I'm largely a solo player. I've been working to change that lately and to get out there more and interact with other players and group up for content. Maybe it's time to join a Fleet already.
I think the Armada system was a good idea, but I also think that a lot of smaller fleets would be better served by merging with each other. However, I get that there's often a power struggle that can happen in those sorts of situations, and sometimes giving up whatever advancement you have made with Fleet holdings - no matter how small - can be a tough pill to swallow.
I think they need to have some sort of buy back if you close down a fleet. Some tokens or something that can be issued that recoups some of the resources that have been spent toward Fleet holdings, that you can then spend on supporting those holdings (and only those holdings. Meaning that Bound to Character and it's worthless otherwise, to avoid any room for exploits) when you join another fleet. At least that might help thin out and lead to some consolidation of the weaker and failing fleets.
I've also noticed that searching for a fleet that meets your needs is a pain in the butt. That could definitely use some work.
You can create a map without putting in a word of dialog first or messing with any other aspects of the actual "quest" part of the Foundry.
There are some great tutorials out there on the web. Here's one by the Foundry Roundtable guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLZuDSOW9mgW7BG_CStEARdES1FPkPiGNB&time_continue=2&v=43E3Ylo-Pi4
And I'll admit, I've been predominantly a Fed player for the past 6 years, and dabbled here and there with the KDF, until recently when I've become more active on that side of things.
So I'm coming into that side of things - and thus haven't been beat or discouraged by the lack of communication or development like a lot of long time KDF players have.
But when I see a problem, I like to try and offer up whatever I can to try and fix it, and the KDF seems like it has soooo much potential that has just gone untapped to me. The Klingons have a rich history and are THE Key opposition faction in the Star Trek Universe. To not spend effort to develop them more is just a tragedy in my opinion. It's like making a Star Wars game with a watered down version of the Empire, where the Stormtroopers don't have helmets or TIE Fighters (Yes...I'm one of those rare beings that is a fan of both franchises almost equally).
Open world PVP is a horrible idea for this game.
HOWEVER...I think that having regions of contested space or planets where open warfare - both PVP and PVE - would be a great addition to the game in my opinion. Some territorial control systems, where capturing and holding a region of space gives boosts to R&D for the dominant faction would be really cool.
Unfortunately, the game isn't balanced for PVP and frankly it probably never will be. If they could set it up so that gear and ships worked differently in contested regions, so that the field was more level, that would be something, but I don't know if that could be done.
Furthermore, it would take a LOT of support to create a KDF that had the numbers that would allow it to complete in such a system. The Federation would always win due to having more players.
The the bigger problem is that it would take a lot for Cryptic to step back from the Alliance that they've been building over the past few years and it would take a lot of work for them to reintroduce the animosity between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
As much as I'd love to have choices when it comes to dialog interaction during quests - not just for each faction, but also based off of career path and diplomatic/marauder level - to do so Cryptic would have to clear the development schedule and dedicate a significant portion of their resources to basically rewriting and expanding every quest in the game, which is just something that I don't see them doing.
However, I really wish that they'd do it with every mission they are currently developing and all future missions. It wouldn't help out for the majority of the game, but it would be a nice addition to the end game and would really serve to improve the immersion and make you feel like your choices mattered more - or that you actually had a choice at all.
I'm curious about what you mean by "Sticky missions" and "Stage Setting". I confused about what you're saying there, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Could you elaborate a bit more on those thoughts? Thanks.
"Stickiness" is an aspect of MMO's which requires the player to remain playing the game more often or longer. It is just an alternative way of saying "Grind".
"Stage Setting" is just an alternative way of saying "Immersion". I'd like some choices here dealing with career path as well, now that you mention it. Such things are already ingame. The first real Fed mission, rescuing the Azura, includes an excellent example of what you posted about.
I would rather they not go back and redo the dialogue choices for what is already in game. Such a project would be drudgery and I would not wish it on anyone. I'm not even going to go into how many things are currently broken because someone wanted to "improve" something. But doing so going forward with new missions and STFs should not add a significant amount of work
Yeah I agree it would be nice to have a contested/Neutral zone type area of the game that has groups of raiders, and agencies/groups that are working outside of the two/three factions to take control of more territories. Though I could see it being more of colonies on contested planets/zones of the region of space calling in aid, after being attacked by the opposing faction's groups that feel those worlds/zones are actually still their faction's property. Even with the three factions being allied right now, we still saw Klingon empire working in the areas they felt they had claims to worlds while still allied with the Federation. To me make it more of you as a rom-kdf/Kdf character allying with houses of the empire/Kdf that give you missions to go into the area to resettle/conquer former Klingon worlds, while the rom-ed/Federation characters get missions to deal with raiders (both npc and pc types) kinda like a police force really. Ity would make it that the Kdf are upholding the peace of the alliance, but it is houses within the kdf/empire that are working against that goal without their knowledge (We have seen this in many of the series of houses working against each other an the goal of the empire/kdf itself.). I could see there being a sort of gating mechanic in place that only allows so many players to enter the area of space, with it being within a small 1-3 player margin of each other. The idea is based off the entire idea of the Neutral zone in which both sides were not supposed to be within it without each other's knowledge,w with many times needing both sides to send in the same number of ships, but also both sides routinely sending in ships on missions into the region for various reasons (with or without getting permission).
Though within this are of space I would almost say you need to make it that the values of each ship type (escort, destroyer, cruiser, battle-cruiser, and such) is kept at a set value, with maybe at most a slight boost given to them based on tier level to keep it less of a who has better gear an more better usage of abilities. So if you have a cruiser for example it would have the same general stats as any other cruiser (including stats of actua gear), but that based on the tier of the ship he stats might increase by 1-6%. The reasoning behind this is that one thing that deters alot of new players from staying with pvp is getting stomped by a player with gear that completely outclasses their own gear, and getting attacked when they are not really interested in pvping at that period of time. Though I could see a system of stat/level syncing might work a bit better, but the idea is to keep the stats of players engaging in the pvp aspect within a close margin to keep it less of a stomping an more of a actual battle. The other idea is to set-up a dual/variable-stat system, which has each ability/ship/weapon/gear have two values that correspond to pve or pvp encounters.
I don't think they would need to step back from the Alliance actually, since it has been shown that during prior alliances both sides had groups within their faction that were creating conflict. That ranged from working in areas that were of limits, to developing tech that was against treaties, even going on missions to destabilize the government of their allies. An it is these smaller factions within the larger factions that would be the engine for pvp, you working with them in a view of aiding your people/faction, hell you could have missions where a fed layer goes after another fed player that is working with a group that is threatening the alliance by their activities within that region of space. An example could be section 31 that might work on ways of sabotaging ship yards an colonies of the Kdf, since it has been shown to them that the Klingons are quite dangerous an could turn on the federation given the chance again. But pvp does not have to be a slugfest between the main factions either, but could be more about you lending aid to smaller factions in game, and then needing to fight against the other side an their allies, with rewards being given based on which side came out ontop.
Then you have the fact of what kind of system, and rewards would you have to keep pvp worth the time of the players. This is hugely important as regardless of how good or bad your pvp is, if the rewards are lacking in comparison to what you did for them it makes the entire system less appealing. I can see unique ship visuals, maybe a bit of gear, titles, ship traits maybe, unique boffs, and what have you.
My character Tsin'xing
My main is Federation as I wanted to use science vessels "to go where no one has gone before". Since the other side of the coin was Klingons, my 2nd character I made a Klingon. Thought it might be fun.
Played the Klingon through the first mission and visited the home world. First mission was to kill my captain. Unappealing to me. Visited the home world and meet Worf. I thought it was great until I learned he choose the Klingon empire over the Federation. I had thought he evolved beyond the basic "Blood and Honor" stuff. Every spot I went in the city was all about being warrior and dying with honor. I didn't see much in the way of gameplay beyond that idea. A very one dimensional faction in my option compared to the Federation which has so many ships besides warships, lots of different species to play in a variety of way, all with different takes on life. Yea I know the game ends up being mostly space combat but if you don't have a character that appeals to you, you certainly don't have the incentive to play the game.
I have since created a third character on the Federation side whose heritage is tied into Scotty's family tree and might do some role playing with the character and is focused strictly on flagship type ships where my main is open to anything.
I might pick up the Klingon character again some day but even giving me a free T6 ship likely won't give me the incentive to play up to rank 50 to use it. I just don't have the time to play something which doesn't have a lot of appeal to me.
You want the Klingons to be more appealing to the masses? You have to offer more variety in the faction besides warrior, blood and honor. If I decide to play my Klingon character again, I would have the thought in my head to play him outside those basic parameters, likely an outcast but I expect most missions will keep me inside those parameters.
That would be Federation for the Devs.
For a third of the work load...they make a ton of moola.
It is the same mind set the players have about the queues.
Players only do ISA (???) and CCA...same reasons, right?
How does one change human nature?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Rationally speaking, I'd say it should be to make KDF-related products profitable thus encourage devs to create more.
But the obvious solution of "stop discriminating and just sell to everyone willing to buy" comes up against an irrationally hostile emotional reaction from KDF fans.
So yeah, probably butthurt.
By all means, people can keep throwing out defeatist statements ("It will never change, why bother discussing it?", "Cryptic won't do anything for KDF, because Fed makes them more money.", etc. etc.) but it won't stop people from discussing the topic nor will it change the fact there's a serious disparity. This isn't about "quantity" but more about "quality" when it comes to the development attitude regarding KDF.
People have brought up many good points over the years- and it's really no secret that a disparity has ALWAYS existed. From the very beginning, ship releases and content were very disproportionate in regard to Fed/KDF. This has improved *somewhat* over the years but it really hasn't become balanced in any respect. Compare numbers on the amount of "episodes" all you want- that's only a single metric in a list of them.
For those who are "tired of seeing the topic" so they keep attempting to derail it- ask yourselves this question... By showing disrespect to others, how much respect do you think you will earn in return for topics that are important to you? That's something you can apply to all walks of life- not just an internet forum. Just something for you to think about. Consideration and courtesy actually go a LONG way in discussion.
Respect isn't freely given- it's earned.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I'm sure everyone on this forum can imagine a wealth of rewards they could theoretically give for creating new KDF toons, some plausible others less so. But the reality is, "incentivizing" players to create yet another throwaway alt for the purpose of getting some reward is not going to change anything.
To improve KDF, it needs to be made profitable. And that's not going to happen by rejecting reality and pretending that if John Q. Feddie just tried the Klingon storyline, everything would magically become "balanced."
Welcome to The Show. Glad you're here. I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have over the years. Nice to see someone who can state their opinion in an adult manner and reasonably as well. Doesn't happen near enough around here. Thank you.
Not sure what you meant in your first sentence regarding this being what discussing the topic is. Simply rejecting others ideas outright because status quo doesn't show much open-mindedness, IMO. As I've said before, criticism is easy- constructive criticism takes skill. Offer suggestions and alternatives, rather than just shooting down other's opinions simply because you disagree with them. Have another/better idea? Throw it on the table.
As far as the "throwaway" alt thing- let's count how many instances of this have affected KDF specifically- and how many have affected Fed. I can count ONE for KDF (Delta) and TWO for Fed so far (Delta and AOY). So how is introducing an event for KDF dissimilar from what's already happened on Fed-side?
And... what are your ideas on how to make KDF profitable?
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
We are not in the position to accept or reject ideas. Cryptic is. We can only give opinions. And no amount of open-mindedness is going to change reality.
To quote myself: "stop discriminating and just sell to everyone willing to buy." Perhaps more than that, but that would certainly have to be the first step. There is no profit in preventing people from buying things.
One thing I think would help to make the Kdf, as well as Romulan factions more appealing an profitable, would be to flesh them out more ship an race wise. I mean looking at the two factions compared to the fed is the lack of diversity both in their ship line ups, as well as their choices in races they can play as. It would be nice to see both the number of ships you can play as class-wise increased, which can be done by adding ships from the races that you can also play as alongside the the Klingons/Romulans. Why play the KDF/Romulan faction as a non-klingon/Romulan character if you can't also use your chosen race's ships that are a member of your faction, or playing as a science or engineering character an having either no non c-store option or no race-related ship of your chosen career prefered type, when you could go play as any of the Federation races with a huge variety of ships. Even if you kept the race-specific ships as c-store purchases, which I can see as even in the federation most of the race-specific vessels are c-store vessels, than at least create a few more ships to bulk out the rooster choices a bit.
I would love to see some Remen ship designs, a ferasan vessel to sit in contrast to the Catain Atrox, more ships from the non-klingon races of the Kdf. THough also more than just two/three race choices in the Romulan faction would be an amazing change too (like allying them with the Cardassians.). I think the fact that the factions are so partially developed that it turns off the players that might actually play, and then enjoy an keep to the faction.
I finally decided to jump back into STO and see where it was at. I'll tell you that compared to back then there's a lot more content than before. Back then it was only PvP really, and only in rooms. We did fight Fed for a time but they soon stopped coming after we beat the TRIBBLE out of them. Which makes sense when all you have is PvP. There was a PvP room for Klingon vs Klingon, but we really liked going after the Feds back then (we were the only faction with cloak back then and there were no romulans yet).
Enough about back then. Right now, I'm liking the gameplay though it's a lot of PvE. I'm also advancing very fast as I'm at level 50 (Lt. General) and still can't start a new post in Arc because my account is so new! Still learning things like crafting and all the new terminology like commendations and tech upgrades, etc.. Duty officers are cool too. The Tutorial on QonoS is pretty cool for noobs--though I seemed to have missed it until now! Better late than never.
Regarding this discussion my only input would be the one we(meaning, Klingon players) all wanted back in the beginning: open PvP warfare accessible from the main map. We bashed around ideas like war zones but on the main map rather than in a room/system. Sort of like how EVE has hisec, losec and nullsec space. It would be cool to open systems or sectors on the main map to open PvP. One possibility to appease PvE'ers would be to allow a faction's home sector and maybe adjoining sectors permanently off-bounds for open PvP. Eligible systems could be taken by controlling key planets or stations and then sectors would follow by holding key systems. Once a faction lost X amount of sectors a 'Peace Treaty would follow that would provide a faction-wide reward to the victors, then reset the map to start all over again. This would require that the Romulans be their own faction(or factions?).
Fleets could build their fleet stuff in the non-PvP sectors of the homeworld systems and keep their stuff safe for the most part. You could even limit PvP to the border sectors of each faction if you don't want to rain on the PvE'er parade. Who knows, maybe once a year PWE/Cryptic would say 'let it all burn' and open the entire map to PvP for a month and see what happens. It would be glorious to be sure!
Lastly, I'm looking for a fleet to join. Name in-game is 'qornah' and he flies battlecruisers. Plan on buying a Qib soon, but am somewhat casual in play so looking for similar Klingon players. I have headphones and TS and whatever for voice as well.
Fed = "human"itarian, peacekeeping, exploration, diplomacy, etc.
KDF = War, honor, expansion, conquest, legacy, etc.
Based on this alone- two very different styles/flavors of play- who benefits the most from a non-conflict environment?
Is it really any wonder so many play Fed to begin with? Introducing more "bling" (ships) alone isn't going to resolve this problem. I also have to agree somewhat that a recruitment event in itself won't resolve it, either- although it would be good to at least make it more attractive for a short time.
The faction system in itself needs to be more clearly defined instead of more convoluted. There needs to be a definitive reason for wanting to choose a faction, rather than defaulting to what's more accessible or "easy". Improving the PvP system is one piece of this. There should also be consequences related to choosing a faction- such as being openly attacked in non-PvP designated areas.
The "Neutral Zone" might be an example of an area where PvP would be Open. Even throw in PvE/NPC elements into it, rescue missions, space pirates, random encounters, etc. There could also be some effective world faction bonuses for capturing certain systems relative to home areas, which would give those of a faction incentive to participate. Both space and ground missions could be introduced for this purpose.
If they actually finished out the Romulans as a third faction, it would make this even more dynamic. Then you'd have choices as RR or RSE available, and so forth.
There's a lot PWE/C *could* do, but I also have to agree that it's up to them in the end. As I've also said before, I doubt even they know what they're going to do from year to year, as their communication with players is usually pretty terse and they tend to wait right up until a release to actually announce anything regarding intention. Actively polling their players, soliciting some feedback, communicating a roadmap of future intentions, etc. would go a loooooong way in strengthening interest and marketing STO, IMO.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
My character Tsin'xing
Oh I agree with you that it would be nice. I am always reminded of something many always say and fit with what the devs are doing, which is "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", they are doing what is going to get them the most bang for their buck yet also might leave them high an dry too. This is part of why I so wish they hadnot taken the game into free to play, even though it has done wonders for the game, the entire concept of it pushes the notion of focusing your efforts (money, resources, and such) on the group that makes you the money, where as a sub game that might get you less money yearly on a steadier base though allows for a more uniform development.
I would also say though that the continuingly rising cost of purchasing the tiers of ships is worrying, It would have been nice to see some of the tiers of ships get a cost reduction (conversion into dil in the case of c-store ships), as than you could keep the top tier ships at a stead cost of 30ish dollars that the player-base actually feel okay paying (not feeling ripped off.). This would also help players in the Kdf/rom factions to feel less put off buying these ships actually, and making getting something that appeals to you more accessible as well. Which also would make catching up to your other toon abit easier, and so makes players more apt to play another faction if they can catch up faster.
I could see that working, or just make it a red-alert that takes you to the Neutral zone as a battle-zone. Though i could also see a shift in the deep-space encounters, which allow Kdf/rom characters to jump into these, and attack the fed character that are doing them, while also having a similar type that the Fed/rom can do that has you try to run off Kling/rom raiders that are in a deep-space encounter. If you did this based on the zone you were in, and put into these deep-space encounters some worthwhile incentives, than I could see many actually enjoying them quite well.
I still say that we could use a syncing system, which syncs the gear quality, level, as well as the tier rank of the character's ship. Having something more of a all out no holds bar version would be fine for those players that enjoy that, but you still need to appeal to those players that keep the content an activities going, which alot of the time want a more fair battle.
"They would need to add PvP gear.", you might say. Nope, that's already in game as well. Saw a piece of it drop while leveling my AoY character. I can't remember if it was armor or shield, but it had one of the old PvP mods on it, [PBB] or some such. So everything for PvP is there. The mods just need to able to appear on crafted items. Also, from my exploration of the forums. It is not that Cryptic refuses to work on the PvP system. It's more that they haven't figured out how. The Original Dev for PvP left Cryptic long ago. He didn't leave anything behind but he had already built in to the game. The current Dev's haven't figured out what he was doing or how to work with it, yet. Yes, I used the word "yet." That's because i'm not sure if they're actually attempting to understand it or even work on it.
Also, another reason why PvP died was the change to the rewards for it. On this, blame the players that would set up privates and then just kill each other in turn to meet the reward quota.
PvP is something the Dev's are going to need to look at, with the addition of making STO available on console. PC gamers are a mixed lot of PvE and PvP. Console gamers, the majority of them are PvPers. So this would be a great time for Cryptic to dedicate some dev's to figuring out and fixing the PvP.
As far as syncing goes. Well on this you can take Tera or Guild Wars 2 in to account. When you enter a PvP map all your equipment is changed to a basic PvP setup and you are made max level just like everyone else. On this, I'd say they'd have to make a PvP skill and/or specialization tree. I'd go with a specialization tree myself. Then to level this, they would need to do a PvP leveling system, which the exp could only be earned from PvP. This way noone could max out the PvP specialization through PvE. Also, the current Specialization are for PvE, therefor they become inactive upon entering PvP. You step in with just your skill tree.
From this point I'd add in a PvP vendor. Just like the old Omega Store. You start off with a basic white set of PvP. You earn PvP marks as you PvP. Then you have to take X amount of Marks and the current piece of your white gear to the vendor. Then from here, you go over the list of available PvP gear, each with a different [Mod] setup so that the player could choose which mods they wanted. This way the player has to PvP in order to get marks. Then have to work their way up in gear. So starting out you start in White Mk X gear. To get green Mk X you need to swap out the white and the Marks for the Green. Then with the green Mk X and the right amount of marks you could get a Blue Mk XI piece. This way they can tie the PvP gear to the PvP level as well. You could do this as a Reputation. But this style works better for keeping a balance. There is no way to jump directly in to MK XII gear.
Then for crafting, one would be able to craft and upgrade PvP gear. The only thing here is to create a PvP Craft Token and PvP Upgrade Tech. Neither of these need to be in the Z store. You could put them there, but I'd set the price high. Up around 1000 Z en per one and no sales or bundles. Instead make these the reward for PvP dailies and make them character bound. The Craft and Upgrade bought from the Z Store are the same as ship upgrade tokens. You can get bound and unbound versions. This way, noone could abuse the reward system to get a massive stock of them to sell.
This wouldn't just give an incentive for more KDF players. It would give an incentive across the board for all Factions. Yes, I'm a KDF player, thinking about what can be done to help Federation and Romulan's as well.
> Open PvP? *points at Kerrat*
It's like locking 2 boxers in a closet and calling it a ring.
My character Tsin'xing
> 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.
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> 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?
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> 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.
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> What are your thoughts? Any other ideas on how to draw players to the KDF side of the game?
Create as many ships as the Federation has while leveling include this for Romulan ships also
I don't suppose that it's occurred to anyone that the only reason that the cross faction ships have been limited to temporal and non-Fed/KDF is because that is all Cryptic has been allowed to use per their agreement with CBS?
Sure, I'm speculating, but it makes sense in my opinion. CBS has placed restrictions in the past to ensure the rarity of certain ships, so why wouldn't the restrict Feds from flying KDF ships and vice versa?
I'd love more ships. Everyone would love more ships. But Cryptic isn't going to spend the development time or the money if the KDF faction isn't showing growth.
That is the whole idea. How do you grow the faction with the least amount of development time and money spent?