er, no thanks - whats the matter with this game. we can use t6 ships when we start the game up, I dont want to pay dilithium for more, lesser ships that just dont go as far in the game.
This. When you geniuses decided to allow the use of T6 ships from the start, everything below Tier 5(upgradeable to Tier 5U) became completely worthless.
I wouldn't even want to buy those with EC, let alone Dilithium or Zen.
You can bet this comes because they realized NO ONE bought any Tier 1-4 ships from the Zen Store anymore anyway.
Rificulous.
A step into the right direction. I am actually excited to finally get a chance to play around a T-1 constitution just for the heck of it instead of wasting Zen to buy a basically worthless ship in the late game. BUT! Very big BUT! There are lots of flaws in the new system.
1) Too expensive for new players.
I doubt first time players will earn enough dilithium to take advantage of these prices. I don't think I earned 150,000 dilithium until after I reached the old level cap (granted I started playing in F2P year 1). If a new player reached the level cap and still haven't earned enough to purchase any of the lower tier ships, chances are they would rather save up to exchange dilithium for Zen to purchase T-6 ships.
Perhaps the dev should add a promotion (level up) discount like how the first regular ship is free after a promotion?
Maybe a major significant discount for the very first character for each faction?
2) Lack of option.
This is expensive for multi-account players. I don't know what's the ratio is of single main vs multi-character players are there, but it seems like a bit of a hassle for multi-character players. I am not one of those people, but it would be nice to have an option to purchase account wide unlock.
Maybe a progressive discount on each character you purchase for? (10% off for second character purchase, 20% off for third character purchase)
'Mastery' style progression to earn discount for other characters?
A new project to earn account wide unlock like the free ship coupon (but with lower requirement)?
A ship enthusiast reputation to earn discount for other characters?
Heck, maybe just only let the visual be account wide unlock since there are many space barbie enthusiasts? One character get the console and actual ship stats, but everyone else get the visual options.
(None of my suggestion are perfect, just throwing some ideas. I'm sure other more dedicated players will find just as much flaws in these as the actual change to be implemented)
3) Lack of clarification (just for the blog post)
Will ship purchased be reclaimable by the purchasing character?
Will consoles / gears / weapons of these ship be reclaimable by the purchasing character?
Will visual options remain unlocked for other compatible different tier ship after the ship has been sold?
Just clarify visual options in regards to the entire account would be nice.
Will the consoles/special weapons be transferable between different characters on a single account?
A step into the right direction. I am actually excited to finally get a chance to play around a T-1 constitution just for the heck of it instead of wasting Zen on buying a basically worthless ship in the late game. BUT! Very big BUT! There are lots of flaws in the new system.
1) Too expensive for new players.
I doubt first time players will earn enough dilithium to take advantage of these prices. I don't think I earned 150,000 dilithium until after I reached the old level cap (granted I started playing in F2P year 1). If a new player reached the level cap and still haven't earned enough to purchase any of the lower tier ship, chances are they would rather save up to exchange dilithium for Zen to purchase T-6 ships.
Perhaps the dev should add a promotion (level up) discount like how the first regular ship is free after a promotion?
Maybe a major significant discount for the very first character for each faction?
2) Lack of option.
This is expensive for multi-account players. I don't know what's the ratio is of single main vs multi-character players are there, but it seems like a bit of a hassle for multi-character players. I am not one of those people, but it would be nice to have an option to purchase account wide unlock.
Maybe a progressive discount on each character you purchase for? (10% off for second character purchase, 20% off for third character purchase)
'Mastery' style progression to earn discount for other characters?
A new project to earn account wide unlock like the free ship coupon (but with lower requirement)?
A ship enthusiast reputation to earn discount for other characters?
Heck, maybe just only let the visual be account wide unlock since there are many space barbie enthusiasts? One character get the console and actual ship stats, but everyone else get the visual options.
(None of my suggestion are perfect, just throwing some ideas. I'm sure other more dedicated players will find just as much flaws in these as the actual change to be implemented)
3) Lack of clarification (just for the blog post)
Will ship purchased be reclaimable by the purchasing character?
Will consoles of these ship be reclaimable by the purchasing character?
Will visual options remain unlocked for other compatible different tier ship after the ship has been sold?
Just clarify visual options in regards to the entire account would be nice.
Will the consoles/special weapons be transferable between different characters on a single account?
Is the dilithium an alternative, or is the account-unlock per Zen not available any more? If it's the latter, once more the game highly discourages us from creating new characters...
I agree, I like the idea of adding this as an option, but adding this & removing something else isn't an option it's just simply a change & isn't player friendly always. I see this future, soon to be, method a positive in some or most situations but a negative in other situations like account unlocking. In most cases at these tiers, 1-4, the ships themselves weren't being used but maybe for the skins, consoles, collecting, & Admiralty. Those tier 3 & 4 dilithium prices for zen ships aren't, "a huge price discount," if for multiple characters.
Again, this newest feature could've been added along with keeping the soon to be old option of buying with zen too & it would've served all players in the best of both ways, but Cryptic doesn't like adding options lately for players instead it likes changing course & steering us in that direction.
At first, I thought it was an attempt to curb the dil-to-zen ratios not going down, but then
As these ships are now dilithium purchases and under deep discount, they will now be per-character unlocks, instead of per-account.
showed up, so it's really about "encouraging" people to buy the account-wide version of the ships and having one last surge of money before the end of the current fiscal quarter.
Interesting theory, not saying you're incorrect, but I believe it more if Cryptic announced this then before it's implemented there's another ship sale. I figured that was what the Legendary Bundle was suppose to boost myself, & after initially being squeamish about that Legendary Bundle I did buy it with Zen since I determined, for myself, it was a good enough value. I just don't understand why Cryptic perpetually adds these new methods, features, mechanics not as options but as directives. Heck at Cryptic's current pace there's less & less reasons to buy zen & items/services to spend it on lol.
The initial Blog was a good deal and I posted about that. The revised one has me confirming that they really have no idea. They pulled the same thing with the Enterprise MACO and TWoK Outfits. If you figured out the Dilithium to Lobi cost conversion it actually was more expensive.
You must always read deep with this crowd. The whole read of the Blog borders on the disengenuous. People have been talking about T1-T4 C-Store future pricing. No has has ever mention the Ship Vendor's Dilitium Ships. The initial Blog is released and people are 'elated' about the new prices for those C-Store Ships. I mean, who would want to buy 16 of those Ship Vendor Dilithium Ships.
Nope, incorrect Blog, the initial Blog's prices was for the ships no one ever complained about. The prices for the C-Store Ships are really 15 times what was originally stated. The Blog's Subject would also seem to point to the C-Store Ships because the other ones could always be purchased with Dilithium.
Maybe the Blog was supposed to be released next Wednesday instead (April 1st).
I agree. Te first Blog looked like a good deak, then they 'revised' it with the whole "Hey, if it cost Zen before, it's MORE dill and per character. Yeah, I don't think you're going to see much Dill go for the previous Zen based T1 - T4 ships. There may be a few new players who do it before they realize how utterly worthless these ships are, even if they still plan to make use of the Admiralty system.
As per usual, the Devs have no real clue how anything below the true endgame works. They think they're added another Dil Sink; but it's not really a Dil sink if only a very tiny percentage use it - and yeah, I guarantee no one who's played this game long will bother paying 150K Dil for a single character unlocked ship. Again EVEN IF you still use Admiralty the return for the outlay just plain sucks; and with T6 ships that level with you; no one will USE these T1-T4 previously Zen ships for character leveling.
And if you're OC D enough to own EVERY ship, you already bought these as account unlocks with Zen, and there won't be enough new players with the same condition where it will be that much of a Dil sink in the long run.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Most people who play STO do not have, and/or play, more then 2-3 characters.
And those of us who do are psychotic. I own up to it, heh heh.
Well I don't think your psychotic, and I think 25-50% at least have between 3-7 characters at least; as with 3 recruiting events having come and gone most got 3+ on top of the 3 they were already permitted. I couldn't say that many players have more than 10 characters. 3 of my current characters were mostly recruits, and while I do care for them, and try to play them and upgrade their gear/equipment for sure; most is trying to advance their R&D, DOFF Assignments, and Admiralty campaigns to finish their recruiting adventures and then a bit more as time permits. Perhaps your the same?
Regardless I've read through several comments, and certainly agree after reading, that one concern was the use of no more account-wide unlocks. Despite the non account-wide for Tier 1-4 ships I think they still have found a fair balance mostly at the lower end. So considering 500 ZEN takes 202,000 DIL not 15,000; it benefits those who have less than the average but (mostly) in the two lower Tier's than the top two.
TIER; New Price for Ships that previously cost Dilithium; New Price for Ships that previously cost ZEN;
1; 1,000; 15,000 -averaged out upwards to 13 at todays 404:1 rates or 202,000 DIL.
2; 2,500; 37,500 -averaged out upwards to 8
3; 5,000; 75,000 -averaged out upwards to 5.5 (74k) 407,000 DIL/5.5
4; 10,000; 150,000 -averaged out to but 4 as it is 610,000 DIL /4=(average) DIL for 1500 ZEN.
Now after that critique I think it's also fair, to point out something nice was they reduced the current ships at Port offered for Dilithium. Today for a T4 ship you'd require 64,000 to purchase one, those were offered through to Captain (Tier 4) at promotions (non ZEN) ships, as of this coming Thursday they have been reduced to 10k for a T4 Ship. So their is some good news for those who want to slightly expand their Admiralty rosters a bit.
A slightly higher average be nice for old ZEN T4 if averaged to 5 be 122k or 5.5 be 110k; I guess the thought was Ships have very usable consoles, or weapons, like Quad Cannon's or Leech Console.
I don't like where this game is going. First you add Mudd's Market which offers stuff for horror prices WHEN on sale, The Legendary Bundle for horror price for a SALE (which anyway cannot be bought to my knowledge today, so that was a misleading thing too).The Kelvin admiral pack I got free when there was a promotion now I cannot see in my promotions tab as unlocked (Mudd's Market). I haven't tested yet but can I still use them account-wide?
As for the main issue here:
I 'kindof' support the idea to make ships available for characters only for a reduced price OR have them be bought account-wide for zen. Taking the latter option is absolute nonsense. Especially those ships are a slightly buffed version for the dilithium ships with different visuals, so buying them for zen had a point until now. So doing this, you devalue your previous mindset as well. Finally what happens with bundles with like the Legacy of Romulus Legacy Pack. That bundle contains lots of T1-T4 ships. And on your new mindset why would anyone want to buy that pack in the future (including me who planned to sometime in the future) because 1.: those ships can be bought per-character 2.: The bundle may not be account-wide. In my opinion the T6 for every level was a big mistake but I thing the dev team won't acknowledge this and continue on their path ruining the game with decisions the player base don't like, based on profit like Ferengis.
er, no thanks - whats the matter with this game. we can use t6 ships when we start the game up, I dont want to pay dilithium for more, lesser ships that just dont go as far in the game.
This. When you geniuses decided to allow the use of T6 ships from the start, everything below Tier 5(upgradeable to Tier 5U) became completely worthless.
I wouldn't even want to buy those with EC, let alone Dilithium or Zen.
You can bet this comes because they realized NO ONE bought any Tier 1-4 ships from the Zen Store anymore anyway.
Rificulous.
There's is more value than just the ship themselves: The costume, admiralty card, console/other equipment. The lower tier cards are quite useful as shuttle alternates.
I don't like where this game is going. First you add Mudd's Market which offers stuff for horror prices WHEN on sale, The Legendary Bundle for horror price for a SALE (which anyway cannot be bought to my knowledge today, so that was a misleading thing too).The Kelvin admiral pack I got free when there was a promotion now I cannot see in my promotions tab as unlocked (Mudd's Market). I haven't tested yet but can I still use them account-wide?
As for the main issue here:
I 'kindof' support the idea to make ships available for characters only for a reduced price OR have them be bought account-wide for zen. Taking the latter option is absolute nonsense. Especially those ships are a slightly buffed version for the dilithium ships with different visuals, so buying them for zen had a point until now. So doing this, you devalue your previous mindset as well. Finally what happens with bundles with like the Legacy of Romulus Legacy Pack. That bundle contains lots of T1-T4 ships. And on your new mindset why would anyone want to buy that pack in the future (including me who planned to sometime in the future) because 1.: those ships can be bought per-character 2.: The bundle may not be account-wide. In my opinion the T6 for every level was a big mistake but I thing the dev team won't acknowledge this and continue on their path ruining the game with decisions the player base don't like, based on profit like Ferengis.
I'm sorry you felt mislead by the legendary pack, but I clearly understood from day one it was going to be in the store itself only for a limited time. I'm not sure why people were confused by that.
As for the old Kelvin uniform, apparently I got that the first time around. It doesn't appear in the C-Store, but if you go to the tailor, it's there. I checked myself when the Mudd version came out.
Good, I still miss when the vendorships costed EC. You could buy and discard them as you pleased since even the max tier vendorships were only 130k EC (If I remember right.)
Sadly no T5s, I've been interested in the T5 Bortasque ships for the consoles for 'fun', but ain't spending Zen on a T5 ship at this point. Especially ones with such under-powered consoles.
Now one thing I've noticed nobody commented on, is the greatly reduced prices for Old DIL ships at Port! It's quite a notable savings so I checked the current T4 Rear Admiral Ships are today currently 68k and will in future be 1/7th the cost at 10,000 DIL; though the (formerly) ZEN 500 ships will be but 15,000 (if spread out over 10 character average) that's still only 15,000 not 20,200 per character!
Then on re-reading their original post it mentioned this, "you could now buy sixteen Tier 2 ships for the same price as before,..." so yea assuming you only want a particular ship for 1-4 of your characters, it will be a lot more affordable for sure.
I think they handled this in a very fair manner, but I also think the balance is mostly true at T1-T2 levels, the average is reduced at T3/T4 levels as I've shown above. I think the claim made of 16 was also outdated as I saw 13 at Tier 1 and 8 at T2.
er, no thanks - whats the matter with this game. we can use t6 ships when we start the game up, I dont want to pay dilithium for more, lesser ships that just dont go as far in the game.
This. When you geniuses decided to allow the use of T6 ships from the start, everything below Tier 5(upgradeable to Tier 5U) became completely worthless.
I wouldn't even want to buy those with EC, let alone Dilithium or Zen.
You can bet this comes because they realized NO ONE bought any Tier 1-4 ships from the Zen Store anymore anyway.
Rificulous.
Oh there was one reason to buy some still, parts from customizing in the tailor. Me, I'm more interested in taking a look at what ships I could make use of that were dilithium before and now discounted less dilithium.
Thanks for the Advanced Light Cruiser, Allied Escort Bundles, Jem-Hadar Light Battlecruiser, and Mek'leth
New Content Wishlist
T6 updates for the Kamarag & Vor'Cha
Heavy Cruiser & a Movie Era Style AoY Utility Cruiser
Wow, 'least common denominator...the F2Per with only 1 or 2 characters', way to slap some players in the face. Excuse some of us who do not have 20 characters grinding 24/7. Who work 10-11 hour days, still studying to earning a degree in astrophysics, and putting food on the table.
The initial Blog was a good deal and I posted about that. The revised one has me confirming that they really have no idea. They pulled the same thing with the Enterprise MACO and TWoK Outfits. If you figured out the Dilithium to Lobi cost conversion it actually was more expensive.
Except in this case its mathematically less expensive.
At the current dilex rate of 400ish
A T4 zen ship on the Cstore costs 1,500 zen, or 600,000 dil. In the new system you could buy 4 of them for the price of one ship currently.
A T3 zen ship on the Cstore costs 1,000 zen, or 400,000 dil. In the new system you could buy 5.3 of them for the price of one ship currently,
A T2 zen ship on the Cstore costs 750 zen, or 300,000 dil. In the new system you could buy 8 of them for the price of one ship currently.
A T1 zen ship on the Cstore costs 500 zen, or 200,000 dil. In the new system you could buy 13.3 of them for the price of one ship currently.
You are getting anywhere from a 75% to a like 93% price discount on these ships.
For a single character unlock only. If you have alts, the price goes up exponentially.
Wow, 'least common denominator...the F2Per with only 1 or 2 characters', way to slap some players in the face. Excuse some of us who do not have 20 characters grinding 24/7. Who work 10-11 hour days, still studying to earning a degree in astrophysics, and putting food on the table.
Ok, I don't really care much for this change.. but still..
WHAT?
Right now a T4 ship costs 1000 Zen.. that's $10 USD.
Under the new system, while it's only 'per character' it's 125k Dilithium. The current rate is 404 Dilithium per Zen so that means to purchase the ship with money, it would now cost you approximately $3.09 if you bought Zen and turned it into Dilithium. If you only have 1-2 characters, that's still cheaper then buying from the store.
It only gets more expensive for people that have a ton of characters and want that exact ship on every character for whatever reason. For players like you.. this is a savings.
Most people in the game don't have 10 characters, most barely have 3, and even then, don't use them all. Much like how the average dil payout for events was around 1.9X, but that 1.9X was because of a very small number of people farming events on many characters, while most people only did them on one, if at all, this change is made for the larger majority of STO players who don't have that many characters.
This is an overwhelmingly better deal for the vast majority of STO players.
I've got around 40 characters and it reminds me of the dilithium rate and their defense that increasing the daily refinement cap at least to an account cap and having the option to choose per character or per account would ruin the exchange rate even at 100k per day cap for the account. Now with 40 characters I have the ability to refine 320k a day in this annoying really annoying method but that is fine to refine 320k a day but not 100k LOL.
i don't know if it is a good or bad idea; time will tell us. But if they want to make this modification interesting, they should reverse the modification done to the ferengi admiralty, or they add more interesting stuff to do, for using the ferengin dil voucher.
@ambassadorkael#6946
The article mentions there is a surplus of older models, but the Agents of Yesterday ships are relatively new.
Will those also be affected by the change?
I would also like to mirror the question asked above: Will the zen purchase for account unlock also remain as an option?
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
In my case, it doesn't matter if its Zen or Dil - you made my purchases per-character instead of per-account. I had access to the Intrepid Class with the ablative armor at one point. The character I purchased it on is still on my account, yet when I go to my alts, I have to pay another 2000 Zen for a ship that should already be unlocked on all my characters. So, this doesn't do anything for me anyway.
If you purchased a T1-T4 Ship in the past from the C-Store for Zen it is NOT changing for you to per Character. You still have your Account Unlock.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
In my case, it doesn't matter if its Zen or Dil - you made my purchases per-character instead of per-account. I had access to the Intrepid Class with the ablative armor at one point. The character I purchased it on is still on my account, yet when I go to my alts, I have to pay another 2000 Zen for a ship that should already be unlocked on all my characters. So, this doesn't do anything for me anyway.
1. This change hasn't even happened yet!
2. This change will not affect the ships you have already purchased from the C-Store as they will still be unlocked on the account.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Given T6 Scaleable ships what is the point (apart from the consoles) ?
Admiralty cards.
Cryptic themselves have stated they are aware that, with the scalable T6 ships update, lower tier ships have largely become pointless outside of admiralty. This is pretty much them going "hey, we know these ships are largely worthless, so here's a massive price cut on them!"
Plus I also like using those ships on lower level characters, I don't use a t6 for all from the start.
I have quite a few T1-T4 ships purchased account wide, and there are a few I never bothered collecting and probably never will at this point.
This does seem like a silly change especially now that T6 ships can level up with you. I can't imagine anyone would willingly spend valuable resources getting something of such limited value, especially as it's tied to a single character.
If anything this dilutes their value even more.
The pricing structure seems horribly skewed as well.
I'm sure the decision has already been made at this point, so there is little point in discussing it.
In my case, it doesn't matter if its Zen or Dil - you made my purchases per-character instead of per-account. I had access to the Intrepid Class with the ablative armor at one point. The character I purchased it on is still on my account, yet when I go to my alts, I have to pay another 2000 Zen for a ship that should already be unlocked on all my characters. So, this doesn't do anything for me anyway.
In your case, I'm pretty sure that was the free level-up ship token. When you rank up, you get a free ship token, and those tokens are good for a one-time "purchase" of a C-store ship for that character.
If that's what happened, you didn't actually "buy" it, just unlocked it one-time for your character. I've done this before for the defiant, and galaxy class, as well as one of the Orion ships.
In my case, it doesn't matter if its Zen or Dil - you made my purchases per-character instead of per-account. I had access to the Intrepid Class with the ablative armor at one point. The character I purchased it on is still on my account, yet when I go to my alts, I have to pay another 2000 Zen for a ship that should already be unlocked on all my characters. So, this doesn't do anything for me anyway.
The Ablative Armor Intrepid ship is either a C-Store account unlock, or acquired per-character via the Vice Admiral ship token for Veterans and via the more cently introduced ship token for Level 60+ characters (don't remember the exact level that unlocks).
And it's nota ffected by this change, because the Ablative Armor Console Intrepid is Tier 5, the change only affects Tier 1to Tier 4.
I don' think it's a dilithium sink or anything, it's just something given to players that don't own Tier 6 ships and want a new ship.Accepting the reality that if you#re going to buy a ship with Zen, buying anything less than Tier 6 is probably a mistake, especially for a newbie.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
> @phoenix841 said: > (Quote) > > In your case, I'm pretty sure that was the free level-up ship token. When you rank up, you get a free ship token, and those tokens are good for a one-time "purchase" of a C-store ship for that character. > If that's what happened, you didn't actually "buy" it, just unlocked it one-time for your character. I've done this before for the defiant, and galaxy class, as well as one of the Orion ships. It was actually the Ship Vendor version of a C-Store Ship. No Consoles, etc.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
In my case, it doesn't matter if its Zen or Dil - you made my purchases per-character instead of per-account. I had access to the Intrepid Class with the ablative armor at one point. The character I purchased it on is still on my account, yet when I go to my alts, I have to pay another 2000 Zen for a ship that should already be unlocked on all my characters. So, this doesn't do anything for me anyway.
Your last free ship you get from Admiral Quinn lets you choose a C-store ship. So yeah, it only unlocks only for that toon. Or else you could do many alts and unlock 'all' the T5 ships. At least, that was the thing back then when T5 was the max and people would have cared about it.
Comments
This. When you geniuses decided to allow the use of T6 ships from the start, everything below Tier 5(upgradeable to Tier 5U) became completely worthless.
I wouldn't even want to buy those with EC, let alone Dilithium or Zen.
You can bet this comes because they realized NO ONE bought any Tier 1-4 ships from the Zen Store anymore anyway.
Rificulous.
1) Too expensive for new players.
I doubt first time players will earn enough dilithium to take advantage of these prices. I don't think I earned 150,000 dilithium until after I reached the old level cap (granted I started playing in F2P year 1). If a new player reached the level cap and still haven't earned enough to purchase any of the lower tier ships, chances are they would rather save up to exchange dilithium for Zen to purchase T-6 ships.
2) Lack of option.
This is expensive for multi-account players. I don't know what's the ratio is of single main vs multi-character players are there, but it seems like a bit of a hassle for multi-character players. I am not one of those people, but it would be nice to have an option to purchase account wide unlock.
(None of my suggestion are perfect, just throwing some ideas. I'm sure other more dedicated players will find just as much flaws in these as the actual change to be implemented)
3) Lack of clarification (just for the blog post)
1) Too expensive for new players.
I doubt first time players will earn enough dilithium to take advantage of these prices. I don't think I earned 150,000 dilithium until after I reached the old level cap (granted I started playing in F2P year 1). If a new player reached the level cap and still haven't earned enough to purchase any of the lower tier ship, chances are they would rather save up to exchange dilithium for Zen to purchase T-6 ships.
2) Lack of option.
This is expensive for multi-account players. I don't know what's the ratio is of single main vs multi-character players are there, but it seems like a bit of a hassle for multi-character players. I am not one of those people, but it would be nice to have an option to purchase account wide unlock.
(None of my suggestion are perfect, just throwing some ideas. I'm sure other more dedicated players will find just as much flaws in these as the actual change to be implemented)
3) Lack of clarification (just for the blog post)
I agree, I like the idea of adding this as an option, but adding this & removing something else isn't an option it's just simply a change & isn't player friendly always. I see this future, soon to be, method a positive in some or most situations but a negative in other situations like account unlocking. In most cases at these tiers, 1-4, the ships themselves weren't being used but maybe for the skins, consoles, collecting, & Admiralty. Those tier 3 & 4 dilithium prices for zen ships aren't, "a huge price discount," if for multiple characters.
Again, this newest feature could've been added along with keeping the soon to be old option of buying with zen too & it would've served all players in the best of both ways, but Cryptic doesn't like adding options lately for players instead it likes changing course & steering us in that direction.
Interesting theory, not saying you're incorrect, but I believe it more if Cryptic announced this then before it's implemented there's another ship sale. I figured that was what the Legendary Bundle was suppose to boost myself, & after initially being squeamish about that Legendary Bundle I did buy it with Zen since I determined, for myself, it was a good enough value. I just don't understand why Cryptic perpetually adds these new methods, features, mechanics not as options but as directives. Heck at Cryptic's current pace there's less & less reasons to buy zen & items/services to spend it on lol.
I agree. Te first Blog looked like a good deak, then they 'revised' it with the whole "Hey, if it cost Zen before, it's MORE dill and per character. Yeah, I don't think you're going to see much Dill go for the previous Zen based T1 - T4 ships. There may be a few new players who do it before they realize how utterly worthless these ships are, even if they still plan to make use of the Admiralty system.
As per usual, the Devs have no real clue how anything below the true endgame works. They think they're added another Dil Sink; but it's not really a Dil sink if only a very tiny percentage use it - and yeah, I guarantee no one who's played this game long will bother paying 150K Dil for a single character unlocked ship. Again EVEN IF you still use Admiralty the return for the outlay just plain sucks; and with T6 ships that level with you; no one will USE these T1-T4 previously Zen ships for character leveling.
And if you're OC D enough to own EVERY ship, you already bought these as account unlocks with Zen, and there won't be enough new players with the same condition where it will be that much of a Dil sink in the long run.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Well I don't think your psychotic, and I think 25-50% at least have between 3-7 characters at least; as with 3 recruiting events having come and gone most got 3+ on top of the 3 they were already permitted. I couldn't say that many players have more than 10 characters. 3 of my current characters were mostly recruits, and while I do care for them, and try to play them and upgrade their gear/equipment for sure; most is trying to advance their R&D, DOFF Assignments, and Admiralty campaigns to finish their recruiting adventures and then a bit more as time permits. Perhaps your the same?
Regardless I've read through several comments, and certainly agree after reading, that one concern was the use of no more account-wide unlocks. Despite the non account-wide for Tier 1-4 ships I think they still have found a fair balance mostly at the lower end. So considering 500 ZEN takes 202,000 DIL not 15,000; it benefits those who have less than the average but (mostly) in the two lower Tier's than the top two.
TIER; New Price for Ships that previously cost Dilithium; New Price for Ships that previously cost ZEN;
1; 1,000; 15,000 -averaged out upwards to 13 at todays 404:1 rates or 202,000 DIL.
2; 2,500; 37,500 -averaged out upwards to 8
3; 5,000; 75,000 -averaged out upwards to 5.5 (74k) 407,000 DIL/5.5
4; 10,000; 150,000 -averaged out to but 4 as it is 610,000 DIL /4=(average) DIL for 1500 ZEN.
Now after that critique I think it's also fair, to point out something nice was they reduced the current ships at Port offered for Dilithium. Today for a T4 ship you'd require 64,000 to purchase one, those were offered through to Captain (Tier 4) at promotions (non ZEN) ships, as of this coming Thursday they have been reduced to 10k for a T4 Ship. So their is some good news for those who want to slightly expand their Admiralty rosters a bit.
A slightly higher average be nice for old ZEN T4 if averaged to 5 be 122k or 5.5 be 110k; I guess the thought was Ships have very usable consoles, or weapons, like Quad Cannon's or Leech Console.
As for the main issue here:
I 'kindof' support the idea to make ships available for characters only for a reduced price OR have them be bought account-wide for zen. Taking the latter option is absolute nonsense. Especially those ships are a slightly buffed version for the dilithium ships with different visuals, so buying them for zen had a point until now. So doing this, you devalue your previous mindset as well. Finally what happens with bundles with like the Legacy of Romulus Legacy Pack. That bundle contains lots of T1-T4 ships. And on your new mindset why would anyone want to buy that pack in the future (including me who planned to sometime in the future) because 1.: those ships can be bought per-character 2.: The bundle may not be account-wide. In my opinion the T6 for every level was a big mistake but I thing the dev team won't acknowledge this and continue on their path ruining the game with decisions the player base don't like, based on profit like Ferengis.
There's is more value than just the ship themselves: The costume, admiralty card, console/other equipment. The lower tier cards are quite useful as shuttle alternates.
I'm sorry you felt mislead by the legendary pack, but I clearly understood from day one it was going to be in the store itself only for a limited time. I'm not sure why people were confused by that.
As for the old Kelvin uniform, apparently I got that the first time around. It doesn't appear in the C-Store, but if you go to the tailor, it's there. I checked myself when the Mudd version came out.
Sadly no T5s, I've been interested in the T5 Bortasque ships for the consoles for 'fun', but ain't spending Zen on a T5 ship at this point. Especially ones with such under-powered consoles.
Then on re-reading their original post it mentioned this, "you could now buy sixteen Tier 2 ships for the same price as before,..." so yea assuming you only want a particular ship for 1-4 of your characters, it will be a lot more affordable for sure.
I think they handled this in a very fair manner, but I also think the balance is mostly true at T1-T2 levels, the average is reduced at T3/T4 levels as I've shown above. I think the claim made of 16 was also outdated as I saw 13 at Tier 1 and 8 at T2.
Oh there was one reason to buy some still, parts from customizing in the tailor. Me, I'm more interested in taking a look at what ships I could make use of that were dilithium before and now discounted less dilithium.
Ok, I don't really care much for this change.. but still..
WHAT?
Right now a T4 ship costs 1000 Zen.. that's $10 USD.
Under the new system, while it's only 'per character' it's 125k Dilithium. The current rate is 404 Dilithium per Zen so that means to purchase the ship with money, it would now cost you approximately $3.09 if you bought Zen and turned it into Dilithium. If you only have 1-2 characters, that's still cheaper then buying from the store.
It only gets more expensive for people that have a ton of characters and want that exact ship on every character for whatever reason. For players like you.. this is a savings.
I've got around 40 characters and it reminds me of the dilithium rate and their defense that increasing the daily refinement cap at least to an account cap and having the option to choose per character or per account would ruin the exchange rate even at 100k per day cap for the account. Now with 40 characters I have the ability to refine 320k a day in this annoying really annoying method but that is fine to refine 320k a day but not 100k LOL.
"As these ships are now dilithium purchases and under deep discount, they will now be per-character unlocks, instead of per-account."
Why am I not surprised?
The article mentions there is a surplus of older models, but the Agents of Yesterday ships are relatively new.
Will those also be affected by the change?
I would also like to mirror the question asked above: Will the zen purchase for account unlock also remain as an option?
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
1. This change hasn't even happened yet!
2. This change will not affect the ships you have already purchased from the C-Store as they will still be unlocked on the account.
Plus I also like using those ships on lower level characters, I don't use a t6 for all from the start.
I have quite a few T1-T4 ships purchased account wide, and there are a few I never bothered collecting and probably never will at this point.
This does seem like a silly change especially now that T6 ships can level up with you. I can't imagine anyone would willingly spend valuable resources getting something of such limited value, especially as it's tied to a single character.
If anything this dilutes their value even more.
The pricing structure seems horribly skewed as well.
I'm sure the decision has already been made at this point, so there is little point in discussing it.
Thank you.
In your case, I'm pretty sure that was the free level-up ship token. When you rank up, you get a free ship token, and those tokens are good for a one-time "purchase" of a C-store ship for that character.
If that's what happened, you didn't actually "buy" it, just unlocked it one-time for your character. I've done this before for the defiant, and galaxy class, as well as one of the Orion ships.
The Ablative Armor Intrepid ship is either a C-Store account unlock, or acquired per-character via the Vice Admiral ship token for Veterans and via the more cently introduced ship token for Level 60+ characters (don't remember the exact level that unlocks).
And it's nota ffected by this change, because the Ablative Armor Console Intrepid is Tier 5, the change only affects Tier 1to Tier 4.
I don' think it's a dilithium sink or anything, it's just something given to players that don't own Tier 6 ships and want a new ship.Accepting the reality that if you#re going to buy a ship with Zen, buying anything less than Tier 6 is probably a mistake, especially for a newbie.
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> In your case, I'm pretty sure that was the free level-up ship token. When you rank up, you get a free ship token, and those tokens are good for a one-time "purchase" of a C-store ship for that character.
> If that's what happened, you didn't actually "buy" it, just unlocked it one-time for your character. I've done this before for the defiant, and galaxy class, as well as one of the Orion ships.
It was actually the Ship Vendor version of a C-Store Ship. No Consoles, etc.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Your last free ship you get from Admiral Quinn lets you choose a C-store ship. So yeah, it only unlocks only for that toon. Or else you could do many alts and unlock 'all' the T5 ships. At least, that was the thing back then when T5 was the max and people would have cared about it.