It seems Cryptic's ratio of gamble ships to store ships is heavily in favor of the gambling lately minus the Legend bundle.
I don't think it is a terrible ship, but unless the stats are really good I wouldn't consider this on the tier of Promo but then again nor did I think that Franklin was Promo worthy too.
I'd be more impressed if Cryptic spent time to fix the lag & some old-time bugs in the game for the next 3 months than keep popping out gamble ships every 3/4 months.
Even the gambling is becoming less & less attractive since Cryptic dwindles down the Infinity big ticket items but keeps the cost high for Loot boxes, Promo packs, & Phoenixes I think are now just neglected.
Heck, is Cryptic even still adding new ships or just redone paint jobs to the Lobi store for when you lose on this Promo pack you earn enough lobi to buy a ship?
Nope...the only ships added to the lobi store in almost 2 years have only been T6 versions of T5 lobi ships...last time it saw a original ship was back when it was the Hurq lockbox
Obviously another way to cut costs and get people to spend more money...no wonder lock box ships are pushing 3 quarters of a billion on the exchange....now even lobi has little value and more and more the only thing worth it in a lock back is the grand prize itself.
To be fair, I think most of the ships have little value. When I open boxes nowadays, I'm hoping to get some of the other things like traits and consoles. Not so much the lobi or the ship. Those would just be a nice bonus.
Well there are some good ships on there...it gave people reasons to earn lobi since most of the weapons and stuff on there are just gimmicks.
But Cryptic is all about cutting cost and maximizing profits...player be damned. They know as long as they make things like this ship with a strong trait and console (and decent little universal set bonus) people will strive for it and whales will spend $$$ on keys to get them.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Yea, I must say I was very surprised at their decision--very much. As some said we saw a large Fleet of these in 2399 with Riker, it would have been far better for this to be a nice CSTORE ship, given it shares consoles with ships in that line.
As someone before me said, a nice Promo Ship be STO DEVs take on the Titan, though maybe they'll make that CSTORE instead.
EDIT: I meant with a T6 refreshed update, that's for CSTORE, as per PS below.
It was depicted in 1-2 Star Trek Novels shown in Memory-Alpha URL, some consider it Cannon others don't--regardless it's a nice design.
I'd love to see the Luna class remade and added to STO, a really pretty ship design with elements of the Akira and Nebula roled into one. Sadly I believe there are some legal issues surrounding it which may not be possible to overcome.
Regarding the new R&D ship, I feel like Cryptic have finally lost their collective minds.
I never had an issue with most lockbox/R&D ships. They were either alien in origin, or supposedly limited production run/prototype vessels which lent towards them being "rare" ships. This is just beyond being a bad joke.
From Picard it was very clear to see that this was the main Starfleet cruiser deisgn of the era. While I thought it was a shame they just copy pasted it, in some ways I thought it represented the streamlining of armed forces equipment we see today (Joint Strike Fighter program etc). Modular vessels capable of being refitted in a modular manner to enable them to carry out their assigned duties. It may well have been the only design they were using at the time.
In other words, it's the new workhorse of the Federation, also being the only "canon" Starfleet design from the same time period that STO is set in. It's essentially the new Excelsior, which served as the backbone of the fleet for many years. Yet, despite this they decided to place it in a R&D gambling box. Tying it into the set-piece bonus for the Avenger/Arbiter, both C-Store products is just beyond the pale.
Honestly even without the super-duper new trait I would have snapped this one up for sure if it hit the C-Store, I actually quite like the design despite some of it's shortcomings.
I would be genuinely curious to see how much money they make from whales with few units "shipped" compared to being put on the C-Store and being accessible to much larger audiance. You'd think that the C-Store would win out but I guess people really are stupid enough to throw away hundreds of pounds/dollars (insert national currency here) gambling for pixels. Hell the drop rates are even worse than most gacha games lol.
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I'd love to see the Luna class remade and added to STO, a really pretty ship design with elements of the Akira and Nebula roled into one. Sadly I believe there are some legal issues surrounding it which may not be possible to overcome.
Regarding the new R&D ship, I feel like Cryptic have finally lost their collective minds.
I never had an issue with most lockbox/R&D ships. They were either alien in origin, or supposedly limited production run/prototype vessels which lent towards them being "rare" ships. This is just beyond being a bad joke.
From Picard it was very clear to see that this was the main Starfleet cruiser deisgn of the era. While I thought it was a shame they just copy pasted it, in some ways I thought it represented the streamlining of armed forces equipment we see today (Joint Strike Fighter program etc). Modular vessels capable of being refitted in a modular manner to enable them to carry out their assigned duties. It may well have been the only design they were using at the time.
In other words, it's the new workhorse of the Federation, also being the only "canon" Starfleet design from the same time period that STO is set in. It's essentially the new Excelsior, which served as the backbone of the fleet for many years. Yet, despite this they decided to place it in a R&D gambling box. Tying it into the set-piece bonus for the Avenger/Arbiter, both C-Store products is just beyond the pale.
Honestly even without the super-duper new trait I would have snapped this one up for sure if it hit the C-Store, I actually quite like the design despite some of it's shortcomings.
I would be genuinely curious to see how much money they make from whales with few units "shipped" compared to being put on the C-Store and being accessible to much larger audiance. You'd think that the C-Store would win out but I guess people really are stupid enough to throw away hundreds of pounds/dollars (insert national currency here) gambling for pixels. Hell the drop rates are even worse than most gacha games lol.
Regarding the ship being the workhorse:
Even when Starfleet had few ships (like when the only had like 12 Excelsior class ships - if that was the class, not really sure about that), there were still other ones like Miranda's.
And that was when there had been less time to create other ship classes because the Federation as a whole had been less advanced and probably heavily relied on some members' designs for a while of the relatively short period it had existed up until that point.
It makes no sense that there would be only one main ship type in a period where the Federation is much more established and has the resources to build a wide variety of ships. And what happened to all the ships we know existed already?
It's not like the Defiant, Sovereign, Intrepid and other designs like the Akira haven't proven themselves to be reliable.
Whatever they say or what some professor says (if he's not actually conducting research and writing a peer-reviewed paper, his opinion is worth as much as that of a newspaper columnist or someone writing a blog post anyway, regardless of his titel of professor), the copy-pasting was just ridiculous.
And as the video I posted earlier shows: it was totally unnecessary. When a fan can make a realistic fleet and make it into a very well designed video, there's no excuse for those in charge of a professional tv-series that's sold for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars - and with a full studio and art team at their disposal - to come up with this cheap nonsense.
Heck, they could've asked a fan to make a nice video. He'd probably have done it for free as we can see on YT.
Whoever decided that it would be best to just copy-paste a fleet, is a complete idiot or incompetent. That scene was a joke, and not of the funny kind.
Was the criteria for a ship being a lockbox/promo ship an "official" set of rules?
I'll get it solely for the trait and console, I'd like to play around with them for a bit. Even if I was to spend real money on obtaining it, that would not make me Stupid. Some one might have the opinion that it does, but why should that bother me, it has no basis in fact or reality.
I think it's fine where it is, I'm sure there is a magic metric that shows they will make more this way. It's not a ship that is common in the STO universe (as we know it), and this is not the first time a gimmick has been the selling point of a ship. Not to mention, my money is on is on the bet that we will never see this ship outside of the Picard T.V. show, add that to STO not being Canon, and I don't think it's "technically" violating any of the rules, (open to debate on this idea), that may be official but are most likely just a assumptions. (waiting on a answer if these lockbox/promo pack rules are "official".) If this was a "official rule", we can move on to the arguments about how rules are changed and updated in every facet of our lives for our entire lives.
I'm also not worried about a cash grab, they can't grab what I don't offer, and does not change, impede, or lock me out of any content in this game. When the game makes money, I get to play.
Now before anyone calls me a "White Knight", remember this is a cryptic game, so the "official" way to say it is "Whyte Nigt".
Was the criteria for a ship being a lockbox/promo ship an "official" set of rules?
I'll get it solely for the trait and console, I'd like to play around with them for a bit. Even if I was to spend real money on obtaining it, that would not make me Stupid. Some one might have the opinion that it does, but why should that bother me, it has no basis in fact or reality.
I think it's fine where it is, I'm sure there is a magic metric that shows they will make more this way. It's not a ship that is common in the STO universe (as we know it), and this is not the first time a gimmick has been the selling point of a ship. Not to mention, my money is on is on the bet that we will never see this ship outside of the Picard T.V. show, add that to STO not being Canon, and I don't think it's "technically" violating any of the rules, (open to debate on this idea), that may be official but are most likely just a assumptions. (waiting on a answer if these lockbox/promo pack rules are "official".) If this was a "official rule", we can move on to the arguments about how rules are changed and updated in every facet of our lives for our entire lives.
I'm also not worried about a cash grab, they can't grab what I don't offer, and does not change, impede, or lock me out of any content in this game. When the game makes money, I get to play.
Now before anyone calls me a "White Knight", remember this is a cryptic game, so the "official" way to say it is "Whyte Nigt".
People like you are gonna be the reason why more and more ships are either in massive expensive bundles or just in gamble boxes....because you're okay with this underhanded TRIBBLE because you can easily afford it...hell you probably like it because not everyone can afford to for out almost a billion EC for this new ship...so you feel special and powerful because you have something not many have.
Doesn't matter if it isn't "common" in the STO universe? But I'll play devils advocate a little...who says it is uncommon? They could easily make it common...but they wont.
It was EXTREMELY common in canon 2399...a decade before STO takes place...
So why don't you stop with the BS and just admit you want it rare to feed your ego and powercreep
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Klingon Players might get a huge boon from this. If the new trait stacks with Emergency Weapon Cycle and becomes an ultra powerful combination.. the KDF players should be able to buy just the trait and get something that costs Feds 1B for next to nothing.
I know it's a small consolation, we would trade it all for actual KDF Ships and Content in a heart beat.. but at least it's something.
People like you are gonna be the reason why more and more ships are either in massive expensive bundles or just in gamble boxes....because you're okay with this underhanded TRIBBLE because you can easily afford it...hell you probably like it because not everyone can afford to for out almost a billion EC for this new ship...so you feel special and powerful because you have something not many have.
Here is what you need to remember.. players like this person help us either way...
Either they don't buy which shows the studio that these tactics don't work..
Or he shells out and that money keeps the rest of us playing for free.
Like it or not, someone has to pay the bills.. if he wants to pay them and get an ugly ship that no one else wants in return.. cool by me. To be honest, I could afford to do it as well, I just won't because it's stupid.
As someone before me said, a nice Promo Ship be STO DEVs take on the Titan
The Titan was stated to be a Prometheus Class ship in the Decipher RPG supplement material, and a Luna Class ship in the Titan novel series. Both ship classes are already in-game.
Was the criteria for a ship being a lockbox/promo ship an "official" set of rules?
I'll get it solely for the trait and console, I'd like to play around with them for a bit. Even if I was to spend real money on obtaining it, that would not make me Stupid. Some one might have the opinion that it does, but why should that bother me, it has no basis in fact or reality.
I think it's fine where it is, I'm sure there is a magic metric that shows they will make more this way. It's not a ship that is common in the STO universe (as we know it), and this is not the first time a gimmick has been the selling point of a ship. Not to mention, my money is on is on the bet that we will never see this ship outside of the Picard T.V. show, add that to STO not being Canon, and I don't think it's "technically" violating any of the rules, (open to debate on this idea), that may be official but are most likely just a assumptions. (waiting on a answer if these lockbox/promo pack rules are "official".) If this was a "official rule", we can move on to the arguments about how rules are changed and updated in every facet of our lives for our entire lives.
I'm also not worried about a cash grab, they can't grab what I don't offer, and does not change, impede, or lock me out of any content in this game. When the game makes money, I get to play.
Now before anyone calls me a "White Knight", remember this is a cryptic game, so the "official" way to say it is "Whyte Nigt".
People like you are gonna be the reason why more and more ships are either in massive expensive bundles or just in gamble boxes....because you're okay with this underhanded TRIBBLE because you can easily afford it...hell you probably like it because not everyone can afford to for out almost a billion EC for this new ship...so you feel special and powerful because you have something not many have.
Doesn't matter if it isn't "common" in the STO universe? But I'll play devils advocate a little...who says it is uncommon? They could easily make it common...but they wont.
It was EXTREMELY common in canon 2399...a decade before STO takes place...
So why don't you stop with the BS and just admit you want it rare to feed your ego and powercreep
Not a fair assessment, and a little over-aggressive to be honest.
I won an Infinity ship prize box during one of the promotions several months ago at a point where I was opening the boxes for Lobi rather than anything else, and just happened to get lucky and hit the jackpot. However, none of the ships on offer appealled to me (partly because I already own the ones I REALLY wanted) and I therefore left that box in the bank.
To be clear, I'm FAR from impressed by this move and Cryptic's business model has been painfully disappointing lately, and keep in mind that I am that Forumite who has been asking for the Nova class to receive some attention for over six years,
However, again, I have a prize box sitting in my bank that was won months ago. Am I supposed to just leave it there to prove some sort of point? I am admittedly quite interested in this ship (though NOT the Inquiry skin - that thing is awful!) - I have a Tac character that could make good use of it. Am I supposed to feel bad for thinking 'I might just open that stored box for this ship'?
Nope.
I agree that the criticism was harshly written.
The criticism should be directed at Cryptic for unnecessarily making things rare (assuming this was not dictated by CBS) and expecting players to pay, on average hundreds of dollars for a single ship.
Not at fellow players.
It's just crazy that they are making these decisions. Whether or not one thinks that players are crazy to go with it, those players are not the source of the craziness. Cryptic needs to take a step back and take a look at the decisions they are making (also with regard to things like bad communication, constant events, visual spam and so on; basically everything players are constantly complaining about).
The prices they are expecting players to pay are just ridiculous. And it doesn't help them either. Look at the carrier bundle: that was a normal C-store release, at normal prices. And these things are insanely popular, out of the dozens of PUGs I've been in at least 90% must have had at least one player flying one. You can find them in social instances and battlezones. They're everywhere.
THEY should take note of this. $30 for a ship is apparently reasonable, judging from what everyone can see in-game.
As someone before me said, a nice Promo Ship be STO DEVs take on the Titan
The Titan was stated to be a Prometheus Class ship in the Decipher RPG supplement material, and a Luna Class ship in the Titan novel series. Both ship classes are already in-game.
The Luna class doesn't even HAVE a T6 yet. But as for the Titan being a Promethius class they could always release a legendary version of it.
Decipher probably would have used the Luna too if not for IP ownership issues because it was fanon by then and would go over better with the fans buying the game. It would have cost them money (possibly a lot of it) to use the Luna while the Prometheus was part of the license they already had to produce the game in the first place.
My main when I returned to STO (the captain who's picture I use for my forum icon) originally flew the Luna class (in a modified Sol configuration) as her endgame ship, if there was a T6 version (and it was affordable) she would still be flying the class.
Was the criteria for a ship being a lockbox/promo ship an "official" set of rules?
No, there was never an official, set in stone, set of rules, as to how ships were released.
I agree with there not being "official, set in stone rules". That is to say, I don't recall ever seeing an official blog or press statement saying "we promise this...". However I'm pretty sure the devs actually said (essentially what you said in your post) when lockboxes first started. Now whether that was in a forum post on old forums that don't exist anymore or some old podcast I can't remember, but I definitely know it was said. But obviously, plans changed.
*Having said that, I would bet that in the interviews they did with various gaming websites whenever the first lockboxes were released they would have made the kind of comments we are talking about. So I might look around the web later and see if I can find an articles from whatever year that would have been.
@gaevsman I really like my Valkis. Built it myself over time using elite patrols to fine tune. 4 types of plasma dual and dual heavy cannons front, 3x plasma turrets with rapid rear, kcb+assimilated console, plasmonic, valdore console, 2xR&D consoles, 4x plasma tac consoles, hull image refractors, ship's console, iconian shield, temporal singularity and deflector, competitive engine. Energy siphon 1, reroute power from life support, rally point marker, channeled deconstruction + rapid decay, shield overload trait, Aux2Damp. It's a lot of fun, can tank, debuff, heal, deal acceptable damage, and turn well if shuffling power appropriately plus battle cloak. It's also maxed on decloak ambush bonuses and duration with all reman boff types on a Rom Tac. To me it's the Romulan's response to the Scimitar Killer (Vengeance, also among my favorite ships).
The Luna class doesn't even HAVE a T6 yet. But as for the Titan being a Promethius class they could always release a legendary version of it.
The ship being T6 or not wasn't part of the original discussion. All that was part of the original discussion was adding the Titan to the game, and it is in the game, as the T5 Luna.
You were saying that it was already in the game as a counter argument to the one suggesting the Titan could be added as a promo ship, I was pointing out that the one in game isn't a T6 which means it can still be chosen (as long as they can renew the license of course)
@gaevsman I really like my Valkis. Built it myself over time using elite patrols to fine tune. 4 types of plasma dual and dual heavy cannons front, 3x plasma turrets with rapid rear, kcb+assimilated console, plasmonic, valdore console, 2xR&D consoles, 4x plasma tac consoles, hull image refractors, ship's console, iconian shield, temporal singularity and deflector, competitive engine. Energy siphon 1, reroute power from life support, rally point marker, channeled deconstruction + rapid decay, shield overload trait, Aux2Damp. It's a lot of fun, can tank, debuff, heal, deal acceptable damage, and turn well if shuffling power appropriately plus battle cloak. It's also maxed on decloak ambush bonuses and duration with all reman boff types on a Rom Tac. To me it's the Romulan's response to the Scimitar Killer (Vengeance, also among my favorite ships).
It's a beauty... i already have the Universe and the Durgath.. that's the only one missing...
Might be ugly but I love it. Gives me an excuse to use my Battlecruisers again!
That's the only reason i'm considering it... but i would buy it from the exchange.. all of them.. but from time to time i buy promotions, for the lobi, mainly, and to keep the lights on..
I'm already fine with my Endeavor tactical Odyssey, I don't need another similar ship particularly with an inferior design and especially not since it's a promo ship.
Okay, seriously? They actually think this misbegotten mass of half-melted LEGOs is worthy of a promo pack? I think my brain just hit a Divide By Zero error.
Was the criteria for a ship being a lockbox/promo ship an "official" set of rules?
No, there was never an official, set in stone, set of rules, as to how ships were released.
I agree with there not being "official, set in stone rules". That is to say, I don't recall ever seeing an official blog or press statement saying "we promise this...". However I'm pretty sure the devs actually said (essentially what you said in your post) when lockboxes first started. Now whether that was in a forum post on old forums that don't exist anymore or some old podcast I can't remember, but I definitely know it was said. But obviously, plans changed.
*Having said that, I would bet that in the interviews they did with various gaming websites whenever the first lockboxes were released they would have made the kind of comments we are talking about. So I might look around the web later and see if I can find an articles from whatever year that would have been.
They did said it in the past. Basically boiled down: Faction ships -> Store; weird ones -> gambling; with a blind eye turned on weird factional ones (different timelines & stuff). Everyone who played STO for a long time and frequents the occasional drama knows that. I though about burning some time digging out old comments too but be honest: Do you really think ppl with somtaawkhars view on things care what a dev said some time ago, appreciate you digging it out or even bother reading it? Does it even matter if suddenly hell freezes and he says "ops, my bad, yeah Cryptic did bad"? The new rule seems to be "max speed for the gravy train no matter what" and what marketing feel well speech a dev held a day/week/month/decade before won't change it.
The healthiest approach with Cryptic (well.. most companies actually) it not really look on what they say but what they do.
Look at the releases this year. 9 months in and ONE normal c-store release. Sure, 4 ships but they are all basicly the same ship.
A super expensive legendary pack, a Legendary ship, and everything else was lockbox/promo.
It's pretty clear they are only interested in making content for money, which is the result of the "free to play" model.
I'd much rather pay a subscription fee and get decent, available content. Say what you want about WoW, you can get everything ingame just by playing the game.
Look at the releases this year. 9 months in and ONE normal c-store release. Sure, 4 ships but they are all basicly the same ship.
A super expensive legendary pack, a Legendary ship, and everything else was lockbox/promo.
It's pretty clear they are only interested in making content for money, which is the result of the "free to play" model.
I'd much rather pay a subscription fee and get decent, available content. Say what you want about WoW, you can get everything ingame just by playing the game.
That probably would not be much if any better nowadays. Sure, they would have some guaranteed income from the subs, but on the other hand they would loose all of the income from middle-of-the-road F2Ps that can afford to buy extras like character slots, other services, and even the occasional ship on an informal basis but do not have a steady enough budget surplus to keep a subscription going.
What the F2P concept doesn't have in big purchases it makes up in numbers of small ones.
Look at the releases this year. 9 months in and ONE normal c-store release. Sure, 4 ships but they are all basicly the same ship.
A super expensive legendary pack, a Legendary ship, and everything else was lockbox/promo.
It's pretty clear they are only interested in making content for money, which is the result of the "free to play" model.
I'd much rather pay a subscription fee and get decent, available content. Say what you want about WoW, you can get everything ingame just by playing the game.
In fairness, this year is hard to use as any sort of measure of anything. California has one of the most draconian and restrictive lockdowns in place, and has some of the most idiotic policies and laws in the world, one of their newer ones apparently forcing Uber and Lyft to flee the state, as well as millions of other jobs. I don't know how much that hurts Cryptic, but I easily believe it does.
Funny you should mention them taking a step back to reflect on past decisions. I mean, I'd wager that they must really regret putting the Vengence Dreadnought in the Lobi store. Whilst this is completely subjective, I tend to see more Vengence Dreadnought's in-game than any other class of ship; there are always several in the Sol System and nine out of ten TFOs I participate in have at least one player using one. Hard evidence suggest its an overwhelmingly popular ship and players were obviously willing to hand over the Lobi to obtain it - and the only method of obtaining Lobi is buying Zen and opening boxes....
I have often wondered about this as well, I am sure Cryptic is probably kicking themselves over that lockbox.
Cryptic assumed that the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise would be the most desirable ship, they gambled that players would figure it's 'close enough' to a T6 Constitution Class and clamor for it. That wasn't the case and obviously, the most desirable ship was the Vengeance. I often wonder though.. if they could go back and reverse this decision.. would they? They had to still make a pretty good chunk of change off the Vengeance.. I am sure there were people that cranked box after box trying to get 900 Lobi. The percentage of players that realized that they could save a fortune and buy it on the exchange (I have purchased a Vengenace for as low as 180M) are the vast minority. I often wondered what would have made them more money.. having the Vengeance as the 'Grand Prize' or leaving it as is.
Overall, I honestly think that maybe 'as is' is best for everyone. Part of the reason the Vengeance is so popular is because of it's price to performance ratio. Had the ship been a grand prize ship it would be in that 600-700M range and probably wouldn't have been nearly as popular. As it is right now, it's probably the best bargain in STO.
Comments
Well there are some good ships on there...it gave people reasons to earn lobi since most of the weapons and stuff on there are just gimmicks.
But Cryptic is all about cutting cost and maximizing profits...player be damned. They know as long as they make things like this ship with a strong trait and console (and decent little universal set bonus) people will strive for it and whales will spend $$$ on keys to get them.
As someone before me said, a nice Promo Ship be STO DEVs take on the Titan, though maybe they'll make that CSTORE instead.
EDIT: I meant with a T6 refreshed update, that's for CSTORE, as per PS below.
It was depicted in 1-2 Star Trek Novels shown in Memory-Alpha URL, some consider it Cannon others don't--regardless it's a nice design.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Titan
Perhaps the Titan we'll see in CSTORE, though one ship I was always surprised, that never got CSTORE was the Typhoon.
PS: I meant T6 Titan Class, not T5 Luna, why I suggested it be a good one for CSTORE.
Regarding the new R&D ship, I feel like Cryptic have finally lost their collective minds.
I never had an issue with most lockbox/R&D ships. They were either alien in origin, or supposedly limited production run/prototype vessels which lent towards them being "rare" ships. This is just beyond being a bad joke.
From Picard it was very clear to see that this was the main Starfleet cruiser deisgn of the era. While I thought it was a shame they just copy pasted it, in some ways I thought it represented the streamlining of armed forces equipment we see today (Joint Strike Fighter program etc). Modular vessels capable of being refitted in a modular manner to enable them to carry out their assigned duties. It may well have been the only design they were using at the time.
In other words, it's the new workhorse of the Federation, also being the only "canon" Starfleet design from the same time period that STO is set in. It's essentially the new Excelsior, which served as the backbone of the fleet for many years. Yet, despite this they decided to place it in a R&D gambling box. Tying it into the set-piece bonus for the Avenger/Arbiter, both C-Store products is just beyond the pale.
Honestly even without the super-duper new trait I would have snapped this one up for sure if it hit the C-Store, I actually quite like the design despite some of it's shortcomings.
I would be genuinely curious to see how much money they make from whales with few units "shipped" compared to being put on the C-Store and being accessible to much larger audiance. You'd think that the C-Store would win out but I guess people really are stupid enough to throw away hundreds of pounds/dollars (insert national currency here) gambling for pixels. Hell the drop rates are even worse than most gacha games lol.
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Regarding the ship being the workhorse:
Even when Starfleet had few ships (like when the only had like 12 Excelsior class ships - if that was the class, not really sure about that), there were still other ones like Miranda's.
And that was when there had been less time to create other ship classes because the Federation as a whole had been less advanced and probably heavily relied on some members' designs for a while of the relatively short period it had existed up until that point.
It makes no sense that there would be only one main ship type in a period where the Federation is much more established and has the resources to build a wide variety of ships. And what happened to all the ships we know existed already?
It's not like the Defiant, Sovereign, Intrepid and other designs like the Akira haven't proven themselves to be reliable.
Whatever they say or what some professor says (if he's not actually conducting research and writing a peer-reviewed paper, his opinion is worth as much as that of a newspaper columnist or someone writing a blog post anyway, regardless of his titel of professor), the copy-pasting was just ridiculous.
And as the video I posted earlier shows: it was totally unnecessary. When a fan can make a realistic fleet and make it into a very well designed video, there's no excuse for those in charge of a professional tv-series that's sold for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars - and with a full studio and art team at their disposal - to come up with this cheap nonsense.
Heck, they could've asked a fan to make a nice video. He'd probably have done it for free as we can see on YT.
Whoever decided that it would be best to just copy-paste a fleet, is a complete idiot or incompetent. That scene was a joke, and not of the funny kind.
I'll get it solely for the trait and console, I'd like to play around with them for a bit. Even if I was to spend real money on obtaining it, that would not make me Stupid. Some one might have the opinion that it does, but why should that bother me, it has no basis in fact or reality.
I think it's fine where it is, I'm sure there is a magic metric that shows they will make more this way. It's not a ship that is common in the STO universe (as we know it), and this is not the first time a gimmick has been the selling point of a ship. Not to mention, my money is on is on the bet that we will never see this ship outside of the Picard T.V. show, add that to STO not being Canon, and I don't think it's "technically" violating any of the rules, (open to debate on this idea), that may be official but are most likely just a assumptions. (waiting on a answer if these lockbox/promo pack rules are "official".) If this was a "official rule", we can move on to the arguments about how rules are changed and updated in every facet of our lives for our entire lives.
I'm also not worried about a cash grab, they can't grab what I don't offer, and does not change, impede, or lock me out of any content in this game. When the game makes money, I get to play.
Now before anyone calls me a "White Knight", remember this is a cryptic game, so the "official" way to say it is "Whyte Nigt".
People like you are gonna be the reason why more and more ships are either in massive expensive bundles or just in gamble boxes....because you're okay with this underhanded TRIBBLE because you can easily afford it...hell you probably like it because not everyone can afford to for out almost a billion EC for this new ship...so you feel special and powerful because you have something not many have.
Doesn't matter if it isn't "common" in the STO universe? But I'll play devils advocate a little...who says it is uncommon? They could easily make it common...but they wont.
It was EXTREMELY common in canon 2399...a decade before STO takes place...
So why don't you stop with the BS and just admit you want it rare to feed your ego and powercreep
Klingon Players might get a huge boon from this. If the new trait stacks with Emergency Weapon Cycle and becomes an ultra powerful combination.. the KDF players should be able to buy just the trait and get something that costs Feds 1B for next to nothing.
I know it's a small consolation, we would trade it all for actual KDF Ships and Content in a heart beat.. but at least it's something.
Here is what you need to remember.. players like this person help us either way...
Either they don't buy which shows the studio that these tactics don't work..
Or he shells out and that money keeps the rest of us playing for free.
Like it or not, someone has to pay the bills.. if he wants to pay them and get an ugly ship that no one else wants in return.. cool by me. To be honest, I could afford to do it as well, I just won't because it's stupid.
Nope.
I agree that the criticism was harshly written.
The criticism should be directed at Cryptic for unnecessarily making things rare (assuming this was not dictated by CBS) and expecting players to pay, on average hundreds of dollars for a single ship.
Not at fellow players.
It's just crazy that they are making these decisions. Whether or not one thinks that players are crazy to go with it, those players are not the source of the craziness. Cryptic needs to take a step back and take a look at the decisions they are making (also with regard to things like bad communication, constant events, visual spam and so on; basically everything players are constantly complaining about).
The prices they are expecting players to pay are just ridiculous. And it doesn't help them either. Look at the carrier bundle: that was a normal C-store release, at normal prices. And these things are insanely popular, out of the dozens of PUGs I've been in at least 90% must have had at least one player flying one. You can find them in social instances and battlezones. They're everywhere.
THEY should take note of this. $30 for a ship is apparently reasonable, judging from what everyone can see in-game.
Did you hear me that time?
Decipher probably would have used the Luna too if not for IP ownership issues because it was fanon by then and would go over better with the fans buying the game. It would have cost them money (possibly a lot of it) to use the Luna while the Prometheus was part of the license they already had to produce the game in the first place.
My main when I returned to STO (the captain who's picture I use for my forum icon) originally flew the Luna class (in a modified Sol configuration) as her endgame ship, if there was a T6 version (and it was affordable) she would still be flying the class.
I agree with there not being "official, set in stone rules". That is to say, I don't recall ever seeing an official blog or press statement saying "we promise this...". However I'm pretty sure the devs actually said (essentially what you said in your post) when lockboxes first started. Now whether that was in a forum post on old forums that don't exist anymore or some old podcast I can't remember, but I definitely know it was said. But obviously, plans changed.
*Having said that, I would bet that in the interviews they did with various gaming websites whenever the first lockboxes were released they would have made the kind of comments we are talking about. So I might look around the web later and see if I can find an articles from whatever year that would have been.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
It's a beauty... i already have the Universe and the Durgath.. that's the only one missing...
That's the only reason i'm considering it... but i would buy it from the exchange.. all of them.. but from time to time i buy promotions, for the lobi, mainly, and to keep the lights on..
They did said it in the past. Basically boiled down: Faction ships -> Store; weird ones -> gambling; with a blind eye turned on weird factional ones (different timelines & stuff). Everyone who played STO for a long time and frequents the occasional drama knows that. I though about burning some time digging out old comments too but be honest: Do you really think ppl with somtaawkhars view on things care what a dev said some time ago, appreciate you digging it out or even bother reading it? Does it even matter if suddenly hell freezes and he says "ops, my bad, yeah Cryptic did bad"? The new rule seems to be "max speed for the gravy train no matter what" and what marketing feel well speech a dev held a day/week/month/decade before won't change it.
The healthiest approach with Cryptic (well.. most companies actually) it not really look on what they say but what they do.
A super expensive legendary pack, a Legendary ship, and everything else was lockbox/promo.
It's pretty clear they are only interested in making content for money, which is the result of the "free to play" model.
I'd much rather pay a subscription fee and get decent, available content. Say what you want about WoW, you can get everything ingame just by playing the game.
That probably would not be much if any better nowadays. Sure, they would have some guaranteed income from the subs, but on the other hand they would loose all of the income from middle-of-the-road F2Ps that can afford to buy extras like character slots, other services, and even the occasional ship on an informal basis but do not have a steady enough budget surplus to keep a subscription going.
What the F2P concept doesn't have in big purchases it makes up in numbers of small ones.
In fairness, this year is hard to use as any sort of measure of anything. California has one of the most draconian and restrictive lockdowns in place, and has some of the most idiotic policies and laws in the world, one of their newer ones apparently forcing Uber and Lyft to flee the state, as well as millions of other jobs. I don't know how much that hurts Cryptic, but I easily believe it does.
I have often wondered about this as well, I am sure Cryptic is probably kicking themselves over that lockbox.
Cryptic assumed that the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise would be the most desirable ship, they gambled that players would figure it's 'close enough' to a T6 Constitution Class and clamor for it. That wasn't the case and obviously, the most desirable ship was the Vengeance. I often wonder though.. if they could go back and reverse this decision.. would they? They had to still make a pretty good chunk of change off the Vengeance.. I am sure there were people that cranked box after box trying to get 900 Lobi. The percentage of players that realized that they could save a fortune and buy it on the exchange (I have purchased a Vengenace for as low as 180M) are the vast minority. I often wondered what would have made them more money.. having the Vengeance as the 'Grand Prize' or leaving it as is.
Overall, I honestly think that maybe 'as is' is best for everyone. Part of the reason the Vengeance is so popular is because of it's price to performance ratio. Had the ship been a grand prize ship it would be in that 600-700M range and probably wouldn't have been nearly as popular. As it is right now, it's probably the best bargain in STO.