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Improving the "account is the player" philosophy in the future
thegrandnagus1
Member Posts: 5,166 Arc User
At some point in the recent past the devs explained (on a podcast interview) that they were trying to shift mechanics from character unlocks to account unlocks, viewing the "account as the player" rather than each individual character.
With this being their stated design philosophy, what things currently tied to individual characters would you like to see applied to the entire account in the future?
With this being their stated design philosophy, what things currently tied to individual characters would you like to see applied to the entire account in the future?
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But if they're really going to go for "account as the player" as a design goal, the one thing they really need to make account-wide is dilithium. Encouraging players to switch out from their preferred character(s) just to farm ore for otherwise unused refinery mules is not compatible with treating the account as the player.
I guess the one thing that would be very nice to have open to the account instead of the individual character would be to unlock those Dilithium uniforms to be account unlocks. Some of those things are more than 1 million Dil for a single character unlock. And that is why I've never even considered buying them. Change it to be an account unlock and I will earn as much Dil as I can to get those uniforms.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
That would require an account based refinement cap. And when you can have upwards of 50 characters or so per account...
Do you make that variable based on the number of characters on the account or is it hardlocked at one point for EVERYONE?
This is a can of worms best left alone, as it would directly impact either the hardcores who have max characters or the casuals who only have a couple.
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Whether Cryptic wants to reward the the creation of refinery mules in the first place is of course up to them. Currently they do so I have to assume it's on purpose. I don't really mind either way.
Yeah, so what?
Not a good way to respond you know. It sends the message that "You don't care".
It doesn't require any further coding on their part to make work as it stands now. While true we have an overall cap based on the number of characters, its also helping to keep the DL exchange in check with the current system. Switch to something like what you propose, and we'll hit 500/1 within a day.
The main limiting factor is the fact we have to character hop. Not everyone wants to do that so naturally any characters not used don't generate DL.
Lets look at an account with say... 50 characters. That's going to be 50 x 8000 right? That's about... 400k Dilithium. Now... if we remove the character limiter... that is basically an instant 400k accessable by any character on an account right? Now... multiply that by the number of players that have 50 characters. Then apply that to the Dilithium Exchange.
Market Crash in two seconds because of saturation. Dilithium will be almost as WORTHLESS as GPL is. It will drive casual players away because they would have to shell out 500/1 on the exchange if they don't want to, or can't, spend real money on the game for Zen.
We see spikes every time we have an event that gives a lot of DL. While on paper what you propose sounds nice for those who need DL for fleet projects or rep... its actually terrible for the economy.
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As with so many things, there will be both intended and unintended consequences that we may not be able to predict until the rollout actually occurs.
As for specific unlocks, the one I want is starship traits. I can live without actually getting the ship if it's character bound (if I really had to), but the trait should be available to all characters once unlocked by any character. This would also eliminate the grind to unlock the mastery on each and every character who owns the ship.
This would do it. Any starship trait (C-store, lobi, lockbox) unlocked on one unlocks for all, to be reclaimed in the dilithium store.
Daily Dilithium refinement cap multiplied by the number of max level characters on the account and the Dilithium can be refined in part or whole by any character on the account.
Account wide resource sharing for crafting materials and currencies.
Pipe dream want:
Account wide lock box ships or at the very lease the ability to transfer commissioned Lock Box ship to other characters on the account for Dilithium.
No, the main limiting factor account-wide is farming the ore. There is no numeric difference if the ore was account-wide but players still had to log in to each toon to refine it's share vs letting them refine it all one-click. The former would just be boring to mechanically click through (and encourage bots to automate it).
Nobody takes the time to farm ore and then leave it unrefined because clicking the refine button is too much work.
They can already do that now, if they care to farm that much ore. It's actually far easier to farm 400k ore with 50 characters than one, since Admiralty is the best source and it has long cooldowns. If they're not doing it now, it's because they have better things to do than farm STO all day. And making the ore account-wide wouldn't change anything.
Also, nice job cutting out the part about Cryptic maybe not wanting to reward the creation of refinery mules at all.
And whatever that cap should be is for Cryptic to decide.
Ship unlocks would be great, and I agree about the Jem-like level 6 mastery mechanic. Ship and trait account-wide unlocks, and I think they're done.
Reputation XP progression
Admirality XP
Doff CXP
Specialization trees
Starship traits of zen and event ships
Think if all of that would be an account wide endeavor instead of some nonsensical, repetitive turn off per character I would end up having more fun in game not to mention would have the willingness to invest more into it.
Throwing 30 bucks at STO every now and then is a joke for me, unlocking a trait for 12 characters is not and all too often this stops me from doing so and second guessing myself if I even need it or just let it be.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the active play or the earning of marks and all just the click click click all over again for the Xth time hinders me to tend more to the game in any way.
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Pretty much this.
Every time I go to start a new character I stop and think..
"I am going to have to do that Reputation Grind from level 1-6 on 12 different reps.. again."
"I am going to have to level all my Duty Officer schools.. again."
"I am going to have to earn all those specialization points.. again."
"I am going to have to unlock all my starship traits.. again."
"I am going to have to advance all my Admiralty schools.. again."
Then I just say #$*& that and log into one of my already done characters and play them instead.
It's great that they keep adding stuff to the game, rather it's through Reputation, Crafting, whatever.. but everything they add just adds one more thing that needs to be grinded out for new players or for Vets considering a new character. Some stuff has a bit of relief like sponsorship for Reputation, but everything else is just back to day after day of 'click, click, log' until the character gets to a state where I actually want to play them.
I have already done this stuff 8 times.. I don't intend to do any of it again.
AMEN!!!
I'm only "grinding" to Tier 6 reps on one toon - simply to get the gear discount for the account - But none of my other toons will even do half the reps (and then only to Tier 5), because of the click, click, click, the 20hr CD, and the sheer drudgery of "the grind". So Cryptic looses a dil sink there.
If Rep Marks and rep equipment were transferable, that would make a huge difference. ( I know it's "supposed" to show how dedicated, and skillfull you are, achieving that level in a rep, but it no longer has any meaning, except ... more grind)
"Grinding" even to lvl 15 in any R&D school is a nightmare, so that's also out. It's easier to let the "gold seller" bots do all the grinding, and then just buy the stuff from the exchange. So another loss for Cryptic.
Account wide R&D skill unlocks would be great, so you could concentrate on just 1 school for each alt.
Lockbox and Lobi ships are out, except maybe as an exchange purchase, because they are BTC, and that's just a no win scenario as far as value goes.
Well, they could at least let you put dil into the account bank instead of that clumsy kludge of passing it through the dil exchange (and possibly accidentally selling it).
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And if I "accidentally" bought a load of Zen for 25 dil/per, that would be totally effing awesome.
Though I don't think it's possible to buy Zen at below the highest offer. Any Zen sold always goes to the highest bidder first.
What you've identified as flaws or impediments in the system, I'd wager are actually designed features to some extent.
all of this needs to be like paragon/champion/*insert game-specific post-level progression system* points, definitely - those systems are account-wide for a reason
if you do it right, that kind of accidental selling would be like christmas coming early for you
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Starship Mastery should be unlocked account-wide. I am okay with requiring a Dilithium or even a Zen "fee" for it, especially if it includes lobi/lockbox/promo traits.
Crafting traits should also be unlocked account wide (maybe with a character reclaim cost.)
The only time I've ever "accidentally" sold dil is when a phoenix event popped up but given that I play a longer game and stack the exchange with the event in mind it was no biggie. If someone can't figure out that putting dil on for the current asking price is a bad idea then they need some lessons in basic sums, nevermind maths.
I think dil should mostly remain untouched so as not to TRIBBLE with the exchange. The last thing we want is for it to cap out and stagnate the way mishandling neverwinters AD issues messed with the rates there. Yes its a time consuming thing to grind out dil and refine it before passing it to alts
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