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Please make special ship purchases account wide
psygn0sis
Member Posts: 102 Arc User
I have bought many lobi ships and recently the Jem recon bug(1 billion ec), but they and their traits are only good for 1 toon, I have several (klink,rom,delta,disco and jems) and it's way way to expensive to get these ships and traits for alt accounts. Please make the ships or at least their traits account wide. That way we can build up our other toons too.I know this isn't the first post on this but this is a feature we badly need. thank you
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Originally it was going to be a form of consolation prize but they decided to make it a super premium currency instead.
This will be changing in the near future, so you're in luck. From the live-stream a couple of weeks back, Kael said they are 'looking at/planning' to give Lock-box/Lobi ships the 6th Tier Unlock Mastery as per the Jem'Hadar. When this happens, I am not sure, and the Dev's won't tell you, so watch the News Feed for more details in the future. I can't whether this will apply to T5U's though.
Really? That's awesome! Makes a bit of sense as most players who can will only spend the funds to get one of these ships in the first place.
Come to think of it. If they expand that feature to the future Klingon and Romulan T6 C-store ships it could result in an increase in KDF and Rom toons/players. Something that the KDF playerbase has been wanting for a while as I understand it.
That would be amazing, ive been seriously considering getting a lifetime sub but I don't like the thought of then having to buy enough keys to convert to EC to get my favourate ships back on my borg alt.
I have never bought a single lobi/lockbox/promotional ship more than once. Particularly promotional ships you can get from doff packs and r&d boxes are way too expensive as mere one-character unlocks. But if what you say is true I would be seriously tempted to get them all, promotional, lobi and lockbox ships. So, paradoxcally, unlocking them for the entire account would actually make me spend more money, not less.
Certainly won't complain if it does happen as the vonph trait is one I'd like to have on most of my characters and I do have a 2nd t'laru stashed that might make it's way to my f2p account rather than used on the alt thats slowly traiting other vessels first.
As much as I would love to have access to my prototype Dread, Crossfield, Walker, NX Refit, ect... on all my Feds... I have to also think about how that balances with other things and... its just not viable long term. Unless people really love missions like Of Bajor...
But how many would spend the time/money to get a second of the same exclusive ship for another character? It can't be all that many. Certainly not enough to affect the bottom line to such a degree as you propose, right? I guess without metrics to study, it's kinda a pointless argument.
But once that ship is on their main character, they have very little incentive to get another one unless they are grabbing them to put onto the exchange. Even then, it gives incentive to the big spenders to spend more to get more copies of these ship as to the moderate spender they have just doubled in value so to speak. This could also give incentive to those more modest spenders to invest/grind for those ships they once thought completely unobtainable. Just the concept has certainly given me more incentive to save up for a ship or two. I don't have to worry about putting such and such ship onto the correct character or worry that once the character has it then the combination is completely unsuitable and I end up with a dead weight ship. This eliminates any potential worry and gives investment incentive.
But again, to form a proper conclusion one needs data.
C-Store isn't enough in a F2P MMO like this. You need another source of income. Lockbox keys are that. Cryptic isn't as big as some other companies so they don't have quite as many resources.
Also... other than my Tholian Tarantula and a Crossfield, all my lockbox/lobi ships were bought off the Exchange with ECs.
Anyways... as it stands, making those account unlocks would definitely cut into profits in one form or another. The non faction ships? One and done. Faction ships? 2-3 and done, unless you really want the weapons to go with them or something.
Like I said, I wouldn't mind having them be account unlocks, but from a financial standpoint it may not be viable in the long run.
Only a minority of the players even go in for lockbox ships to begin with, and an even more miniscule one would actually ever try to get a duplicate ship.
I know that personally, as much as I would love to have my Crossfield in my AoD toon, nothing in this world could ever make me get a second one for it. It's simply not worth it for a "slightly" different experience.
They neglect revenue potential of stuff like cosmetics which could be a potential gold mine (if done right and priced to match).
How many balk at the thought of buying a ship for 3000zen yet would find something that makes their favourite ship looks a bit more unique for 300-500 zen way more interesting to the point where they might end up buying store stuff more often and in doing so spending more money.
Most likely: Cryptic's sales and marketing believed that they make more money as things are now, from whales buying multiple copies and from the rest of us buying different ships for different captains instead of sharing one ship. It's possible they might have changed their minds about this:
Less likely: CBS demands that non-faction and special ships like T6 Connie be rare and requires Cryptic to make them single-captain purchases.
I own a bunch of lock box and lobi ships so if the Tier 6 idea happens and is retroactive instead of just for new releases I'll be a happy camper. It could also get me to buy more ships since it will increase their value.
I have one lockbox ship that I bought off the exchange specifically for the character I wanted to build, I have no intention of getting anymore because their real life money value compared to ingame value doesn't warrant the purchase, giving them a 6th mastery slot increases their value dramatically giving people an extra little incentive to buy more.
What's your source for this?
This is how I always think of this kind of argument. With the current system as is, the type of people that gamble for/buy just one lock box ship for one character instead of multiples of the same kind for multiple characters will still only need to get one of that ship if ships suddenly became account wide unlocks. In this scenario there would be zero extra revenue or profit generated from such a change.
On the other end of the space richness spectrum, the type of people who gamble for/buy multiple of the same lock box ship for multiple characters will now only need to acquire a single version of that ship which obviously means that less keys/promo packs are selling. This obviously leads to a loss of revenue and profit for Cryptic that is not made up on the other end of the spectrum.
I think that this idea in it's most basic form is a non-starter since it so obviously leads to a loss of revenue. Some other proposals like lock box/promo/lobi ships unlocking 3000 zen c-store purchases for alts are more in the ball park. I favor a mixed proposal that treats lock box, lobi and promo ships separately.
Promo Ships: Zero changes. Keep them 100% single character unlocks. They are supposed to be the grand prize to end all grand prizes after all.
Lock Box Ships: Alts can buy lock box ships that your account already owns in the lobi store. Some discounted lobi number would be acceptable but with that discounted number, the ship would have to be account bound. I'm just pulling a number out of my TRIBBLE here but I'll say 600 lobi for TRIBBLES and giggles.
Lobi Ships: Alts can buy lobi ships that your account already owns for half price but they will be account bound when bought at half price.
Wont be holding my breath, I know he said they're considering it but I wont believe it till I see it.