I thought about this idea as well and agree that it would be well received. If I recall though, there was a thing back during the subscription era where they gave some reasons why they don't want people to be able to change the look of their weapons. That was many years ago, not sure if that policy has changed, but as far as I know they have always opposed the idea of letting people customize weapon appearance. It's a shame because such a thing would be very well received by the player base and would make an excellent Dilithium Sink.
I'm glad to see the color changing weapons gaining more traction again. Part of why I brought it up in another thread recently. CBS had originally said no to it years ago back in the subscription era. To my knowledge it was due to issues with canon colors. Such as they didn't want to see green phasers when in canon they've typically been either blue or orange. However at this juncture in my book the canon looks argument is no longer a valid one for a number of reasons.
First is that we've seen them sign off on odd color weapons before, such as biomolecular phasers that are all green, even though canonically phasers are supposed to be blue or green. Second, if the canon looks argument was valid, we wouldn't have the pulse phaser beams. We only ever saw phasers fire as a beam or in cannon type fire like from the Defiant up to that point. So if we're going by that logic that ship sailed. Plus they used to say "no end game Constitution class" yet now we have 4 at last count I believe it was. If they're bent on having restrictions then put some minor restrictions in place like they have over in WoW for their transmog. For transmog in WoW you can only transmog a 2h weapon to another 2h weapon. I can't transmog a 2h battle axe into a 1h sword. In STO terms if they're bent on restrictions, make it so that we can only do disruptor to disruptor, phaser to phaser and so on. Though I would argue the counter to that is beam weapons should be able to use other beam weapon visuals, cannons to cannons, and so on. It shouldn't matter if it's a different type so long as it's a beam weapon to beam weapon. I've seen people go out of their way and farm older content for MONTHS to get one item to drop back in my WoW days. For that matter I farmed an old BC raid to get a 2h mace to drop for me finally. Don't even get me started on how much gold people will shell out in that game for the perfect transmog.
Let's face it, space barbie is the true endgame. It hurts no one to be able to customize your toon's look or your ship. Plus folks would need to actually have access to the item whose appearance they're wanting to use, which incentivizes people to try to acquire items they otherwise never would have, creating inventive to generate those items again.
1. Let fleet holdings use unrefined dilithium. I can only refine 8K or 9K a day, so I often have such a backlog that I can not play a toon for a month and still have leftover. This could help actually build up fleets, reduce the bad exchange rate on dilithium for fleet credit, and reduce stockpiled supply issues
2. As others have asked for many, many moons. Weapon vanity.
3. To be logically sensible, add a token dil charge to transwarp. Add a token weekly upkeep for your ship.
4. Fix the phoenix. More stuff, trade-up options, straight-up dil buyout options
5. Sell untradeable keys for 75-125000dil (1 key at 500d-1Z is 62500)
6. Allow newer players to replay old events for a chunk of dil or buyout for a huge chunk. For instance, for 125000 or 250000d one can do last summer's event as well as this one. Or pay like 500000 to buy it out
7. Reduce the dilithium cost of just about everything. You're either passing it by because the cost to budget isn't there, or hoarding to save up, then you get there and there's a sale on and well, that 1000Z could be handy. You need to drop the prices on some items to the point where you you can get it in no more than 5 days, or I may have lost interest and done something different. Also remember that 4000dil is ALWAYS worth one phoenix upgrade
8. Rework ship levelling to a series of "minor refits" purchasable with dilithium for a nominal fee. Allow account purchase of all unlocked traits for a nominal fee
9. Allow trade of dilithium for EC.
10. Sell Lobi for dil at a ridiculous rate like 15-25k : 1
11. Straight-out fix the diliex and make it a game function. You can buy or sell however much of one or the other for a fix price. Obviously it would have to be slanted to be favourable to dil buyers, buy not so much that they could then profit by selling. Pretty tricky, but it should be doable. Might be a bit punitive to FTP
12. Direct sell event favours for dil
Oh where to start one some of these. While I agree with some of these, I strongly disagree with others. However i'll start with the top of the list and work my way down.
1: You can refine 8k per toon per day. If you have 2 toons that's 16k per day. In this instance if they were to do something like this it wouldn't be a 1:1 ratio like people are hoping for. It would most likely be a 4:1 or 5:1+ since it's unrefined dilithium. The other problem is it would open that can of worms of "well you let us use unrefined dilithium for fleets, why can't we use it for (insert desired thing here)". Folks would gradually demand more and more items be opened up for unrefined dilithium and folks would never be satisfied. While it could be a big help to medium-smaller sized fleets especially, I don't see this as being the best way to go about it. While this could reduce the amount of unrefined dilithium sitting around, it still doesn't address the main problem which is the absolute hordes of refined dilithium that already exist. I give this one an A for effort, but it doesn't address the actual problem. 2: Agreed, see above.
3: Dear sweet merciful heavens absolutely NO on that one. They removed the EC cost on transwarping for a reason and the last thing we need is it returning in the form of a dilithium cost. This was little more than an annoyance that didn't really do much for removing excess EC anyways and usually only punished newer and lesser established players who wanted to use the feature. As for the part requiring an upkeep for your starship again absolutely NO for a number of reasons. Not to mention the first of which is that life happens outside the game. Sometimes people are forced to step away from the game due to real life responsibilities or concerns. Regardless of why someone is forced to step away (hopefully a pleasant one) having to pay who knows how much dilithium to "repair" their ships before they can make use of them again, or use them at full capacity, isn't going to make that person want to stick around, and in actuality would simply make them not want to play at all. Lets assume for sake of argument a completely broken down ship is 5k dilithium to get it operational again. For people like me who actually have the maximum amount of ship slots, you're looking at 300k dilithium on just my main toon alone. Across my entire account I shudder to think how much dilithium it would actually cost. There's adding grind that's worth while and then there's adding grind for the sake of grind. This is adding grind for the sake of grind. Not only this but to get folks to use a sink, it has to be something they want to invest in that could remove large amounts of dilithium at once potentially and on a consistent basis. Cosmetic items can remove large amounts of dilithium at once and consistently in ways an upkeep fee never could. Lastly on this point, this would make STO essentially a job to keep my ships from breaking down and I don't call that fun. If I want to play a game where that stuff matters, I'll go play a survival game of some type.
4: I don't see them doing straight buyouts, but if they did decide to update the box I could see them doing the upgrade a token thing before I could them doing the buyout. Personally I would set it at anywhere from a 5:! or 10:1 ration when trading up. 5-10 tokens required to get the next tier up, 2 tokens for downgrading to a lower tier so folks couldn't cheese it for a profit. As far as to what would go in the phoenix boxes at this point I'm honestly not sure since we have the Mudd's Market which provides account unlocks vs the character unlock of the phoenix packs.
5: If you honestly think they would do a direct buyout for any less than 50k per key you're kidding yourself. They're not going to let keys go for as cheap as some people wish they would, it's just not going to happen. Plus if it's more than 62,500 dilithium per key, at that point they would be better off to just drop cash and get the key that way. 6: 500k dilithium at 500 dilithium per zen is only $10 worth of zen. Considering what it costs to buy certain events out now, again you're kidding yourself if you honestly think they're going to let past events be bought out for that cheap. Raise that to about 1.5m dilithium or even 2m dlithium depending on the item, and you might be closer to reality of what we would get.
7: Barring something extreme happening they're not going to lower prices anywhere close to a level you're wanting. However with proper dilithium sinks in place to remove excess dilithium, the dilithium prices for certain items in the cstore will come down on their own. If as a hypothetical you have a ship that's the standard 3k zen price, that's 1.5m dilithium as it sits right now to get that ship at 500 dilithium per zen. Let's suppose that zen drops to 250 dilithium per zen. That reduces the dilithium cost from 1.5m down to 750k. While I doubt the markets will hit 250 dilithium again, at least not for a long time, you still get the idea. Otherwise certain items have fixed costs for a reason.
8: The "minor refits" won't happen and not everyone wants to get stuck in the same Miranda forever. I don't see them doing a mass unlocking of all unlocked traits, especially some of the lockbox, lobi, and promo traits. However for ships that you have an already existing account unlock for, that I can potentially see them doing the account unlock for. For that matter I would pay for that myself. Most likely it would be a nickel and dime thing of x dilithium here, x dilithium there similar to how they do with certain Cartel Market items in SWTOR. 9: NEVER going to happen directly nor should it. All that would do is hyper inflate EC beyond the ridiculous state its already in, and you've traded one hyper inflated currency situation for another. You can however trade dilithium for zen, use the zen to purchase things like keys, then sell those keys for EC. Direct dilithium to EC should NEVER EVER happen if you want to keep a healthy game. 10: I've suggested this elsewhere already an I agree dilithium to lobi should be an option every so often at least. lobi to dilithium would need to be prohibited however. 11: Not going to happen nor should it. 12: Absolutely agree depending on the rate
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
I think there are only two arguments we've gotten against color matching weapons.
1. CBS. There isn't much we can do about this one, but its a dumb reason given the rainbow weapon fire we already have, and the whole point of weapon visuals is to match them all so we don't have the rainbow puke flavored visuals with different sets being combined.
2. PVP. This is fairly nonsensical. Good luck telling the one beam out of 6-8 that happens to be a specific set weapon when ships can die in seconds. Then good luck in that knowledge actually mattering at all. If I know someone in PVP is using the quantum phase set because of that one blue phaser beam, what does that do for me? Nothing at all that I can think of.
I think they should add the non-upgradable T5 Mirror Universe ships to the Phoenix store, and an option to trade tokens upward (though at a steep exchange rate like 6-10 per level)
Possibly also those bridges that "don't sell"?
I honestly hope they never offer phoenix upgrade tokens, because people start with the highest tokens. So even at 10 Very Rare to get a Ultra, if some have saved for 2-3 months they may have 75-150 or more. I realize they could add a few Lockbox/Lobi (Retired) Ships to provide more options for Phoenix as well. Still some may be rolling in them, and could hurt the DZE far more, depending if they exlusively wanted the Experimental Upgrade during a Phoenix Weekend. Most have gone recently to Mudd, rather than balancing between the two.
Still I like your idea, @rattler2 as well as @westmetals originally suggested the supply is very small on the Mirror Ships! That's maybe where my Ferengi could offer a twist!
I don't see why the Ferengi Business Woman I had several idea's by others in my post from Page 1, as well as a bit more comprehensive idea for what she'd be about in my first post on Page 10 (related but similar thread) or even the idea of a twist (below) based on one or two people's suggestion. If only one Female Ferengi inspired by the original ever decides to go into business on Drozana.
Andrea Martin, the actress and comedienne, plays Moogie, Quark and Rom's Ferengi society defying mother, in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Family Business".
Perhaps maybe she might also offer a few Fleet Grade ships, instead called Tier 5 Mirror (Refit) Ships; with the same Skin as Uncommon T5 Mirror yet extend improved Hull & Shield Modifiers, and Mastery I-IV per Character, 11 consoles for GPL / DIL & 1 Fleet Module. She could also offer the original Mirror Ships for GPL/DIL to reduce the Fleet Module cost to 1. Why, because it encourage some to consider a few Variants from the Port for Mirror Ships at ESD/Quonos/Quonos with DIL or ZEN (Tier 1-4) Reclaim. Since 85-90% of ship design is the skin (which this not include) it's mostly internal updates, like Hull/Shield modifiers, Mastery I-IV, or the 11 consoles, and giving a separate new Admiralty Card.
Then maybe in time she might even sweeten the deal, by offering a (account-bind) T5 Mirror (Refit) Ship skins in time maybe 7-12 (months) or every a few years later, as each Faction has 3-4 different Ships that could use an update. How fast she'd offer which ships who knows, yet they could also be used to update (some) ships in the Badlands as well. It be good to make the Skin (Account-Bind) cause if people got 1 ship for a few characters but not others, if they got the Skin update it encourage them to add the ships to all characters!
Still it wouldn't prevent people from upgrading them to Experimental as long as they had 11 consoles before the upgrade.
The core idea is her shop be a GPL drain & DIL (that excludes the Fleet Dilithium Discount also extended to DIL Store) given the ships initially have no new External skins. She could also sell those bridges that don't sell in ZEN store per your suggestion, if she ever decides to get started. Along with a few (Ground & Space) Items, that comparable to Fleet Holdings yet also very different. She also wouldn't offer a SET bonus (similar to Fleet, while comparable yet different as well) to ensure she doesn't compete with the Lobi Vendor which has a lot of SET items that our popular! I'm sure Cryptic given that could find something for her to Sell...
So thank you both!, though ultimately will decide where or how they offer each! I'd just love to see a Ferengi Business Woman who was cunning, smart, and offered various phrases from a female perspective.
Also as said on earlier page, they ever expand Fleet Tier 3 Holdings out to 4 (even if they don't) to include 3 Endeavors (that pop a bit more often) to encourage more people donate DIL to Fleet Projects &/or Buy Fleet Gear with DIL; or an alternative separate one to spent in DIL Store, or in time to spend GPL/DIL with my new Ferengi Business Woman idea as well.
PS: It be also nice to see a Ferengi (Voice Actor) inspired by her, to speak the Rules of Acquision with a Female Twist, or other things.
Just spit-balling. I know damn well some of those ideas are terrible, but they all are potentials, even if the downfalls are probably bad.
Just for fun though,
1. I don't disagree, but I don't think it would be as bad as you say. Another option would be for you to be able to trade a second sum of unrefined for fleet vouchers per day. It might help, but it may just be a weak idea
2. Why in all that is holy are they hesitant on this?
3. I know. It's too late, but it would have been interesting.
4. Something could be done. Even if it was moving some of the older and potentially less desireable items from the Lobi store and Infinity boxes, or mission replay rewards. I'd buy some tokens to skip a few mission replays
5. I suggested between 75k and 125k and untradeable, 50k might be on the cheap. You don't want it to be more attractive than buying keys for Zen, but still have it at a level where if you were in a mood you could pull the wheel and make X dil disappear.
6. The price is negotiable, but it needs to be in the realm of achievable. I mean 500000 dil is 2 months of refinement. I think that it is an option that people would save for.
7. We are obviously talking about different things here. I'm talking space weapons and other TRIBBLE. Price stuff so people can buy it right now. It's not a super-great plan to price stuff in the millions and have Cstore tokens priced at hundreds. Also with fleet purchases, I'm practically double-dipping with having to pay dil for fleet credits and having to pay dil again to buy the item. Things like space weapons in the reputation shop or hangar pet upgrades are probably an ok price, but it is still 3 or 4 days playing to buy 1. They cost more than the primary weapon. In 4 days, I can instead open 12+ reputation boxes, and hope for the best and come out over 4000 dil richer, so there's some weighing of options
8. pretty much what I was thinking, yes for the traits. For the levelling I was suggesting pay X each to skip rank 1-4
9. I'm not sure. No matter how you do it, there's always some smrtaz will figure how to game the system. Some people want dil, some want ec. You're probably right. But it really doesn't affect me because I don't participate
10. agreed
11. it could be done. I don't have any data to know what practicality it might have. Certainty in purchase is always a good thing when spending money. For instance they could fix 1Z buys 475dil and 500dil buys 1Z. Not a great option, I agree. Your market should not need a pacemaker
12. cool
@jozen#9312 I wanted to comment on some of your suggestions.
I'll start with the ones I like:
#2 Vanity Weapons, as I commented already I think it is a good idea as I stated to someone else earlier in this thread.
Yet I think @seaofsorrows also stated there was a reason why he remembers Cryptic was originally against that idea though it's possible it may have changed. Why I suggested maybe the idea of a Ferengi Business Woman (above) and on first page reference Beams & Cannons for GPL & DIL--if they allowed this, it likely wouldn't be very cheap at all.
#4 Fix the Phoenix, and yes many would like to see more items added to phoenix.
╘ Yet trade up tokens may not be good for less than 10:1, we be lucky just to see that!
╘ Why, because people people start with highest tokens, not lowest.
╘ If someone spends 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 on tokens they may have 35-70 (+) Very Rare Tokens if lucky!
╘ Suddenly instead of maybe 1 Epic &/or 1 Ultra.
╘ Now they'd have 7 Ultra tokens just from Very Rare (above) tokens.
╘ If they just want Ultra for Ship upgrades, could be bad for DZE with out adding a few Ultra ships.
╘ Someone pointed out, some Lockbox/Lobi (Retired) T5 Ships could be added, + others to Mudd.
╘ Will Cryptic re-evaluate, I guess it depends what a majority spent their Epic tokens on?
╘ Should also offer 33% of Event items to Phoenix, even if 67% go to Mudds--not ignore Phoenix..
A model more like the Little Engine that Could, comes to mind!
Now some of the challenges, or reasons why Cryptic has avoided doing others.
#1 I think our Volunteer CM was correct on this one. Even if they allowed only 8,000 Ore to be converted to Fleet Dilithium Voucher each day, it still would effectively double the refinement capabilities to buy gear, or donate to fleet projects. Making the problem for the DZE far greater than in already is!
Next I'll start with one they already do.
#3 Dil for Transwarp - you can currently buy Transwarp Coils in the DIL Store currently.
╘ 10 for 3,200 DIL, or if you have Fleet Dilithium (max) Discount of 15%, then it's 2,750.
NOTE: Fleet Mine Dilithium Discount of 4%, 5%, & 6% not only apply to Fleet, but also stack in the Dilithium Store as well. Why I suggested the Ferengi Business Woman not honor those Fleet Dilithium discounts! Except perhaps on special new Event weekends for this New Ferengi Entrepreneur, where she may also offer discounts to GPL too?
#5 Perhaps you refer to lockbox keys, they already provide a means to earn thru trading DIL for ZEN, or purchasing the ZEN. Unless your hoping it may reduce the DZE, by offering slightly lower ZEN cost (-25) than they'd be given (thru DZE) bypassing it directly eating Dilithium. Might work, but would Cryptic try it? No idea...
#6 That be far, far, harder to do. Simply because it wouldn't focus on new items everyone could earn!
#7 Reducing the Dilithium cost, any further also have the opposite effect! So it hurt the DZE not help!
I don't think anyone was upset with you, just respectful disagreement on a few, not all items. Though I tried to start with a those idea's I liked.
Thought about making heal/repair items only purchasable with dilithium, but i.m.o. this would only increase the amount of people flying around with tons of injuries.
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.
I know people don't like them but.. 'Flash Sales.'
Just instead of the current Zen ones, Dilithium ones. Have occasional sales that pop up for 1-3 days where you can get items only previously available from lock boxes for Dilithium like the current Vanity Shield promotion. Maybe in a week or two, we get a couple days where you can buy an array of Kit modules, maybe some traits, Lock Box Weapons, whatever. If people know these pop up from time to time, they will hoard Dilithium and wait.. they will be less likely to go trade it for Zen, it will become more valuable. This also prevents players from converting that Dilithium to EC.
Outside of that, things to help Veterans that might want to start new characters. Things that let them skip this horrendous grind associated with new characters, tokens to complete specializations, reputations, crafting schools, etc.
Lastly, let people buy out daily event progress for Dilithium. Keep the current Zen buyout for the entire event, but one day you just don't feel like running 'To Hell With Honor' or whatever idiotic queue is in play at the time.. spend a small amount of Dilithium to get one day completion.. maybe you'll feel up to the monotony tomorrow.
While this would need some research to have a good price, flash sales of T6 lockbox ships that don't appear on the exchange because they're not popular could be a good addition too, or they could go with an account-bound "equipment pack" where you don't get the ship, its potential pets or its admirality card, but you get its trait and its console.
Also, while I'm here, because it's still one of the eternally-forgotten: upgradeable herald torpedo.
Thought about making heal/repair items only purchasable with dilithium, but i.m.o. this would only increase the amount of people flying around with tons of injuries.
While this would need some research to have a good price, flash sales of T6 lockbox ships that don't appear on the exchange because they're not popular could be a good addition too
That's another great idea. And it doesn't lose Cryptic any money.. why? Because people who buy keys to open boxes aren't hunting for those ships.. as evidenced by the fact that they're not selecting them. There are a ton of ships that have good but not 'great' layouts, or look really cool or have some cool little thing about them that people just don't resell. These ships are just wasted time for the developers right now, and while someone might not be willing to blow 1B+ EC to get a Xindi Olean or a Vaadwaur Manasa, if you could get one for a chunk of your Dilithium, a lot of players would happily jump on that.
I think there are only two arguments we've gotten against color matching weapons.
We've also been told once or twice it would be too difficult to implement due to how weapons work in STO.
Its a game, it needs coding to do fun new things. That's what we pay them for. I can appreciate it might take them a while to work around whatever difficulties there are, but that isn't an excuse not to do it.
I think there are only two arguments we've gotten against color matching weapons.
We've also been told once or twice it would be too difficult to implement due to how weapons work in STO.
that isn't an excuse not to do it.
The STO team is small these days, I would argue that they should hire a lot more people considering they keep talking about record sales the past few years but that doesn't change the fact that the team is small right now. With a small team they need to prioritize things based on how impactful they would be and how much work it would take, because any dev time spent on things like this is dev time that could have been spent on new content, lockbox items, new ship traits or consoles, etc.
One more potential dilithium sink: Cardassian and Breen style ground weapons. Who doesn't want their breen or cardassian Boff to use those weapons.
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.
Just spit-balling. I know damn well some of those ideas are terrible, but they all are potentials, even if the downfalls are probably bad.
Just for fun though,
1. I don't disagree, but I don't think it would be as bad as you say. Another option would be for you to be able to trade a second sum of unrefined for fleet vouchers per day. It might help, but it may just be a weak idea
First I have to ask, why suggest something that is going to be little more than an annoyance to players that you know would have super massive downfalls with very little upsides? Not trying to come at you, but getting the question out of the way before someone else asks.
With that said, as another pointed out, this would effectively give you more refinement capacity without giving it to you in the form of actual refined dilithium, in addition to the other issues I pointed out before. This is not a good thing and would only serve to devalue dilithium more. The goal is to give people sinks that they can engage in that provide them something of value while also removing excess dilithium at the same time.
Just spit-balling. I know damn well some of those ideas are terrible, but they all are potentials, even if the downfalls are probably bad.
Just for fun though,
1. I don't disagree, but I don't think it would be as bad as you say. Another option would be for you to be able to trade a second sum of unrefined for fleet vouchers per day. It might help, but it may just be a weak idea
2. Why in all that is holy are they hesitant on this?
3. I know. It's too late, but it would have been interesting.
4. Something could be done. Even if it was moving some of the older and potentially less desireable items from the Lobi store and Infinity boxes, or mission replay rewards. I'd buy some tokens to skip a few mission replays
5. I suggested between 75k and 125k and untradeable, 50k might be on the cheap. You don't want it to be more attractive than buying keys for Zen, but still have it at a level where if you were in a mood you could pull the wheel and make X dil disappear.
6. The price is negotiable, but it needs to be in the realm of achievable. I mean 500000 dil is 2 months of refinement. I think that it is an option that people would save for.
7. We are obviously talking about different things here. I'm talking space weapons and other TRIBBLE. Price stuff so people can buy it right now. It's not a super-great plan to price stuff in the millions and have Cstore tokens priced at hundreds. Also with fleet purchases, I'm practically double-dipping with having to pay dil for fleet credits and having to pay dil again to buy the item. Things like space weapons in the reputation shop or hangar pet upgrades are probably an ok price, but it is still 3 or 4 days playing to buy 1. They cost more than the primary weapon. In 4 days, I can instead open 12+ reputation boxes, and hope for the best and come out over 4000 dil richer, so there's some weighing of options
8. pretty much what I was thinking, yes for the traits. For the levelling I was suggesting pay X each to skip rank 1-4
9. I'm not sure. No matter how you do it, there's always some smrtaz will figure how to game the system. Some people want dil, some want ec. You're probably right. But it really doesn't affect me because I don't participate
10. agreed
11. it could be done. I don't have any data to know what practicality it might have. Certainty in purchase is always a good thing when spending money. For instance they could fix 1Z buys 475dil and 500dil buys 1Z. Not a great option, I agree. Your market should not need a pacemaker
12. cool
2: It's not strictly them, but CBS having had issues with it previously as myself and some others have talked about. This was years ago that CBS voiced an issue with it and asked them not to do it. We bring it up now however because at this juncture the original logic behind it isn't as great as it once was, especially with all the other odd stuff they've signed off on. 3: Even if it had been here from the start it would still be a bad idea. Items and ships needing repair after alot of use as well as wear and tear is one thing, but them breaking down for simply existing is a terrible idea in any game. The only time it's not a terrible idea is in a survival type game dedicated to survival type stuff. STO is not that sort of game. 4: You already get mission gear for free just by playing the game. Skipping cutscenes you've seen a thousand times or dialogue options you've heard a thousand times is one thing, but basically throwing a token at a mission to get the rewards without doing anything is something else entirely. At that point why even play the game if you can't be bothered to even play the basic story missions? Just put it on normal mode, grab your best stuff, and blitz the mission. For that matter you can blitz it with a team if you really want to end it fast. Folks may buy them but I see that doing more harm in the long run than anything else. Folks could just throw cash at the game, have a fully decked out ship in an hour if they spent enough money, which would include mission gear at that juncture, and be into end game content having zero clue what they're doing. Not that we don't have issues of folks going into content they're not ready for now, but I see this only making it worse and causing burnout alot faster.
5: Once again, if they can get a key for 62,500 dilithium at a 500:! conversion rate for dilithium as is right now, why would they ever pay more than the 62,500 dilithium? You're basically asking them to give folks an option that would let them pay more than 500 dilithium per zen to get a single key. Even more so should dilithium to zen start coming back down to earth, they can get keys for even less than the 62,500 still. The price couldn't be more than 62,500 zen for a single key if they were to do this, otherwise you're kidding yourself if you think it would be below 50,000 per key. Also to be blunt on this one, you didn't think it out as far as you needed to.
6: That's only 2 months refinement IF you're running a single toon only. You're capable of refining 8k dilithium PER TOON per day. if you have more than one toon that's an additional 8k per day bringing that 500k to you alot faster. Assuming you have 3 toons running that's 24k dilithium per day bringing that to 20 days of refinement. Again the precedent has already been set buy previous event buyouts. Assuming they allowed folks to redo old events they missed or were never here for, it's not going to be as cheap as you're wanting it to be. 500k dilithium at current rates is only 1k zen or $10. Previous event buyouts have gone for as cheap as 3k zen or as high as 6k zen depending on the event. Simply because someone can't get it that day or they have to do a little grinding for it doesn't automatically make something bad. How much grinding they should have to do is debatable, but precedent already exists that event buyouts wouldn't be as cheap as you're wishing they would be.
7: Heaven forbid someone have to wait more than a day to get something they want in game and can't have their instant gratification now. I'm sorry but that's how this one sounds to me since you've expanded on it. I'm all for making sure things can be acquired in a reasonable time frame, but I hardly call 3-4 days excessive. Spiral Wave Disruptors as one example are some of the nastiest disruptors in game due to their backed in extra damage mod. They're meant to be more difficult to get because of this, and are tied to certain ships in order to unlock them. Advanced Phasers/Disruptors are the same way, they're meant to be more difficult to get because of what they can do. With that said, you also do NOT need any of the reputation weapons, reputation items, or anything from the dilithium store to succeed in the game. You can make a basic cohesive build for virtually any type of ship and any style of weapons off the mission reward gear. Will it be a chart topper, no it won't, but it will get you through 95% of the content in game even on advanced. The items in the dilithium store can help as can reputation items, but are absolutely not required to succeed in game. Again heaven forbid someone can't get everything in a single day. Also who is telling you that dilithium is the only thing you can dump into fleet projects to get credit? You can get fleet credit in more ways than just dilithium, it just happens that dilithium is the best payout in terms of credits, with fleet marks paying out the most. This just reads as you wanting them to make it easier for you without you having thought of how it would effect the wider game as a whole.
9: Trading dilithium for zen, then using that zen to buy keys and sell them isn't gaming the system at all, but using it how it's supposed to be used. It's not a direct dilithium to EC conversion like you're wanting. Both currencies EC and Dilithium are super inflated right now and in need of sinks. Allowing a straight dilithium to EC conversion would hyper inflate the EC even more than now. Trading dilithium for zen, then selling keys you bought with said zen is only scooping up bits of EC that are already there.
11: Yeah no, you can't just favor one side or the other completely, you need it to be in a butter zone if they were to hypothetically fix the prices. You need it to be high enough that people feel like they're getting a fair value for their zen when they sell it, yet also low enough that folks don't feel like they're being ripped off and having to pay too much to get the zen. That butter zone is 250-375. In that range you get a fair amount of dilithium when you sell zen, and it doesn't completely break the bank when you do decide to buy zen. There's no "might be punitive to free to play" under that suggestion, it is punitive at what you were saying. In games like this you need a healthy balance of folks spending cash and free to play folks. You need free to play folks who can farm dilithium, and cash paying folks to drop cash in order to buy said dilithium and other items.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
On the subject of weapons, it would be nice if they'd add Dual Beam Bank versions of the Advanced Phasers and Disruptors, plus maybe a high price tag Omni version of those as well as the Spiral Wave Disruptors. It's a low effort change that probably wouldn't have a massive impact on the DilEx, but it might make them more attractive for some builds that focus more on visuals than min-maxing.
An example I can give is with the Advanced Phasers, yesterday I considered putting my Section 31 themed toon in a Miranda and I've already determined that I want him using advanced phasers purely for the looks. With a Miranda I'd like to have at least one DBB so that the rollbar hardpoints get used, but my only options for blue DBB phasers are TOS phasers (don't really like their firing animation, advanced stay on continuously while TOS seem to cycle a few times), Disco linked (don't fit the timeframe I'm aiming for with this character, but might be my best bet), or Andorian (which I HATE the sound effect of). I'm gonna see how it looks to have a covert DBB there, but I don't like the idea of having different colored beams so I'll probably end up moving that toon back into their JJ Connie or possibly into a Vengeance (Vengeance seems a bit cliché though for a S31 character). My explanation for the JJ Connie was that somewhere between the TOS and TWoK eras Section 31 became aware of the JJ Timeline and since the JJ Connie was more advanced than Prime Timeline Federation ships they decided to build their own.
EDIT: Covert DBB seems to cycle just like the TOS DBB did, so that's something I'll just have to deal with. I still think it would be nice to expand the Advanced Phaser and Disruptor options though.
Still I like your idea, @rattler2 as well as @westmetals originally suggested the supply is very small on the Mirror Ships! That's maybe where my Ferengi could offer a twist!
I don't see why the Ferengi Business Woman I suggest (posts on first page) & or my two posts on Page 10 (related thread) if she ever decides to go into business. Perhaps maybe she might offer Fleet Grade Tier 5 Mirror Ships.
They wouldn't be called Fleet Ships and be one of the few that don't require Fleet Credit , as she'd substitute 15-20x that in GPL, and a sizeable DIL drain. It wouldn't include a updated T5 Skin, as it's just a (Interior Refit) mostly. And small part of the DIL cost factor in reduced 1-2x Fleet Module cost, given the T5 Mirror ships were originally (Uncommon) not Rare, and based on older Ship Modules. Still it wouldn't prevent people from upgrading them to Experimental as long as they had 11 consoles before the upgrade.
You'd still gain access to Ship variants Port with DIL or ZEN Store Reclaim (Tier 1-4) skins depending what you already had. The core idea is her shop be a GPL drain & DIL (that excludes the Fleet Dilithium Discount also extended to DIL Store) given the ships initially have no new External skins. Maybe in time she might (slowly) offer them to a few Ships for a secondary GPL & DIL sink in time! She could also sell those bridges that don't sell in ZEN store per your suggestion, if she ever decides to get started. Along with a few (Ground & Space) Items, that comparable to Fleet Holdings yet also very different. She also wouldn't offer a SET bonus (similar to Fleet, while comparable yet different as well) to ensure she doesn't compete with the Lobi Vendor which has a lot of SET items that our popular! I'm sure Cryptic given that could find something for her to Sell...
So thank you both, though ultimately will decide where or how they offer each! I'd just love to see a Ferengi Business Woman who was cunning, smart, and offered various phrases from a female perspective.
I appreciate the creativity of your idea, but I specifically proposed the existing T5 Mirror ships because of the fact that they already exist (would take no development time)... it would just be a matter of adding an entry for them in the store. And they are not otherwise available (except from lockboxes).
As for trading phoenix tokens for other levels... you can already trade downward, it's 1:2 of the next level down. There's also a "gamble" ability to buy brand new boxes with the lowest level tokens, but that has a potential of being a straight loss (as it costs multiple of the lowest level token and you could potentially "win" one of that level back...)... I was proposing a trade-up ability at something like 10:1 to the next level, but maybe that exact number would be an issue... okay... it's a concept. I just thought that it would be helpful to give players a "sure" access route to the higher level tokens.
NOTE: I revised my note above, to clarify what I proposed, her unique twist be.
Maybe they'd indeed offer those T5 Mirror (Uncommon) ships at Port just for DIL, sure why not! I just thought the idea of the Ferengi Busines Woman find a more creative way to make it more interesting.
My Ferengi could introduce a (Refit) of only the Internal System with slightly reinforced Hull & Shield Modifiers (Very Rare) quality, Master I-IV, along 11 consoles to make it Fleet Grade. It not update the External Ship skin so saving 90% of the update time allowing them to get out far sooner, yet also offer a (Purple) Admiralty card with slightly updated stats! You'd however have to pay more GPL/DIL and 1 Fleet Module to unlock (per Character) for Ships that were NEVER previously upgradeable--the BIG APPEAL! She could also encourage people buy Variant (Tier 1-4) of the Mirror ships at Port for Skin unlocks of the Mirror Ships. Why to me it made sense to offer the Original Mirror Ships herself for GPL/DIL herself OR encourage you to check the Exchange; so you are only charged 1 Fleet Module rather than 4 for her Refit option.
Then it be worthy of something to consider then using a Experimental Upgrade on. Yet it also suddenly create a lot more interest and appeal for a GPL/DIL sink with lessor development effort! Selling the ZEN bridges could be another idea for her, especially ones that worked on Mirror ships as well as others.
Later in time they could unlock a revised T5 Mirror (Refit) Ship Skins just from the Ferengi Business Woman perhaps (Per Account) for GPL/DIL, and use those to also update some of the Ships in the Badlands. Would they do this or others, or choose to offer them other ways--who knows.
No idea is bad, I just like seeing people offer them up.
I just think it be fun to see some statements from a Female perspective about the Rules of Acquision, their rights allowing them into Business & how woman do things slightly different. Of course all based on a Comedic approach.
I originally proposed she offer (similar yet different) gear than Fleet does,for GPL/DIL, also without SET bonus to not compete with Lobi Store. She might appeal to some in smaller Fleets, or none at all, yet may also have unique items others can't get else where.
I thought about this idea as well and agree that it would be well received. If I recall though, there was a thing back during the subscription era where they gave some reasons why they don't want people to be able to change the look of their weapons. That was many years ago, not sure if that policy has changed, but as far as I know they have always opposed the idea of letting people customize weapon appearance. It's a shame because such a thing would be very well received by the player base and would make an excellent Dilithium Sink.
A couple of the other comments mentioned that there had been reluctance to consider this years ago. I remember there being some pushback as well. From the perspective of the IP holder I see it as a concern for the integrity of the IP. I admit I'd be stupid enough to want a weapon effect that shoots herds of cats at my enemies but I know it wouldn't be acceptable . In the case of my suggestion I was spitballing something quite limited; 22nd c Fed weapon effects, TOS Fed weapon effects, TOS KDF weapon effects....etc. As "canon" as they can make them. Another stumbling block might have been PVP where players want to know what they are getting hit with "NOW". The sun set on most of PVP a long time ago. If they ever wanted a renewal all vanity effects should be removed in PVP arenas anyway. The big issue would be technical possibilites where weapons are coded differently than any other vanity effect and they are unable to figure out a way to implement it. Oh well. It's something I'd exchange zen for dil for.
Someone else mentioned flash sales and as far as delivery and dil "sales" functioning this is the only workable solution. If someone has a dilithium reserve of their own or more probably a long time frame to grind their own for that purpose it defeats the purpose. An offering has to be attractive to the consumer and the attainability has to be in question.
I think there are only two arguments we've gotten against color matching weapons.
We've also been told once or twice it would be too difficult to implement due to how weapons work in STO.
that isn't an excuse not to do it.
The STO team is small these days, I would argue that they should hire a lot more people considering they keep talking about record sales the past few years but that doesn't change the fact that the team is small right now. With a small team they need to prioritize things based on how impactful they would be and how much work it would take, because any dev time spent on things like this is dev time that could have been spent on new content, lockbox items, new ship traits or consoles, etc.
Yeah and I understand that too. Something along the lines of "we believe developer time is better spent in other areas because this feature would take an outsized amount of time and energy to do," is an actually legitimate answer though. When people say they just can't do it because its hard, that is just nonsense.
The question of course becomes what are they doing instead? We haven't seen any new systems in a while, that I can recall.
A couple of the other comments mentioned that there had been reluctance to consider this years ago. I remember there being some pushback as well. From the perspective of the IP holder I see it as a concern for the integrity of the IP. I admit I'd be stupid enough to want a weapon effect that shoots herds of cats at my enemies but I know it wouldn't be acceptable . In the case of my suggestion I was spitballing something quite limited; 22nd c Fed weapon effects, TOS Fed weapon effects, TOS KDF weapon effects....etc. As "canon" as they can make them. Another stumbling block might have been PVP where players want to know what they are getting hit with "NOW". The sun set on most of PVP a long time ago. If they ever wanted a renewal all vanity effects should be removed in PVP arenas anyway. The big issue would be technical possibilites where weapons are coded differently than any other vanity effect and they are unable to figure out a way to implement it. Oh well. It's something I'd exchange zen for dil for.
Someone else mentioned flash sales and as far as delivery and dil "sales" functioning this is the only workable solution. If someone has a dilithium reserve of their own or more probably a long time frame to grind their own for that purpose it defeats the purpose. An offering has to be attractive to the consumer and the attainability has to be in question.
If the PVP players wanted to know what they were being hit with, they always had the option to turn on a combat log and then look at the log. PVP was never a valid reason to avoid doing weapon cosmetics or similar, nor is it a valid reason. It's the equivalent of saying, "I like muscle cars, therefore no one else should be allowed to paint their cars red." In other words they have nothing to do with each other save someone not liking a certain visual someone has. It's really none of their business.
Also as far as the canon concerns, I no longer consider this a valid argument either because they've already approved a ton of off color stuff. If they're concerned with canon still for whatever reason, then just add a restriction that folks can only change the color of their weapons to an already existing visual. Calling those visuals shouldn't be as hard as one would think. All you're doing is telling to use visual A instead of visual B. I don't know how Cryptic's stuff is setup behind the scenes, only how I would do it from a modding perspective.
For dilithium flash sales, they would work to pull large amounts of dilithium out like the phoenix packs did when they were first introduced. It was always up to each player whether they would burn their dilithium for phoenix packs or not. If they were saving for something else, they were under no obligation to purchase phoenix boxes. The same would be true for dilithium flash sales. Depending on what they offer for our hypothetical flash sales, it could do extremely well. As for attainability, simply because folks may not be able to get it in a day doesn't make it unobtainable. Folks also need to realize while some of these items might be priced well for our hypothetical flash sales, some would be higher than what folks may like to pay, because again the goal is to remove excess dilithium.
I think there are only two arguments we've gotten against color matching weapons.
We've also been told once or twice it would be too difficult to implement due to how weapons work in STO.
that isn't an excuse not to do it.
The STO team is small these days, I would argue that they should hire a lot more people considering they keep talking about record sales the past few years but that doesn't change the fact that the team is small right now. With a small team they need to prioritize things based on how impactful they would be and how much work it would take, because any dev time spent on things like this is dev time that could have been spent on new content, lockbox items, new ship traits or consoles, etc.
Yeah and I understand that too. Something along the lines of "we believe developer time is better spent in other areas because this feature would take an outsized amount of time and energy to do," is an actually legitimate answer though. When people say they just can't do it because its hard, that is just nonsense.
The question of course becomes what are they doing instead? We haven't seen any new systems in a while, that I can recall.
People need to understand as well that certain features will automatically take a certain amount of time at a minimum to develop because certain processes and otherwise just can't be sped up and take as long as they take. Not even because those processes are hard, but purely because of the steps involved and what must be done. As just one example, let's suppose they're working on the model of a ship, they have to make sure all the parts go together correctly, all the textures of the ship are correct, everything is facing the way it's supposed to, and down the line. That's true whether it's something Cryptic is doing or whether it's me creating a mod for Space Engineers or another game I like to play. Not always hard to do, just time consuming. While that person is handling that task, that's another person that can't do something else that may be needed. If it takes hypothetically a month to produce a science ship, it's going to take a month to do regardless of whether they start now or next year, barring advances in technology that could speed up the process. Of course we can't factor in something that doesn't exist yet.
Right now I'm working on an era mod for Space Engineers. Getting the models the way i need them to be, then making sure all the data and definitions around those blocks works properly and doesn't look like a targ's rear end once it's in game, all take time. Not hard work usually, just certain things have to be set certain ways. I've been going for about 3 weeks at this point and I would say I'm maybe a quarter of the way done at most. It's not AAA studio level work that I'm doing per say, but it still takes time even with all my ducks in a row.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Yea I like your comment about PVP not being a valid reason for Ship Visuals, cause they all use combat logs to review their effectiveness and what they are hit with.
I'm sure my Ferengi Business Woman would love to sell them as separate unlocks for Beams, Dual Heavy/Dual or Cannons. Both as I said on page 1 and likely be expensive in GPL/DIL, it mostly appeal to those who had a few weapons, and weren't concerned with the PROC's they offered initially at least!
Beams would require one unlock, and Cannons may require separate unlocks for Heavy/Dual/Cannons, though the majority only use 2 of 3 types. Cannon's might also unlock visuals for turrets so still encourage many to get all 3?
Also as said on earlier page, they ever expand Fleet Tier 3 Holdings out to 4 (even if they don't) to include 3 Endeavors (that pop a bit more often) to encourage more people donate DIL to Fleet Projects &/or Buy Fleet Gear with DIL; or an alternative separate one to spent in DIL Store, or in time to spend GPL/DIL with my new Ferengi Business Woman idea as well.
No...matter-antimatter reactions are what powers the ship, with fusion as a backup - dilithum is a REGULATOR, which is why any ship with an active warp core exploded when The Burn happened.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
away with ye zombieness (white lantern ring blast)
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Comments
I'm glad to see the color changing weapons gaining more traction again. Part of why I brought it up in another thread recently. CBS had originally said no to it years ago back in the subscription era. To my knowledge it was due to issues with canon colors. Such as they didn't want to see green phasers when in canon they've typically been either blue or orange. However at this juncture in my book the canon looks argument is no longer a valid one for a number of reasons.
First is that we've seen them sign off on odd color weapons before, such as biomolecular phasers that are all green, even though canonically phasers are supposed to be blue or green. Second, if the canon looks argument was valid, we wouldn't have the pulse phaser beams. We only ever saw phasers fire as a beam or in cannon type fire like from the Defiant up to that point. So if we're going by that logic that ship sailed. Plus they used to say "no end game Constitution class" yet now we have 4 at last count I believe it was. If they're bent on having restrictions then put some minor restrictions in place like they have over in WoW for their transmog. For transmog in WoW you can only transmog a 2h weapon to another 2h weapon. I can't transmog a 2h battle axe into a 1h sword. In STO terms if they're bent on restrictions, make it so that we can only do disruptor to disruptor, phaser to phaser and so on. Though I would argue the counter to that is beam weapons should be able to use other beam weapon visuals, cannons to cannons, and so on. It shouldn't matter if it's a different type so long as it's a beam weapon to beam weapon. I've seen people go out of their way and farm older content for MONTHS to get one item to drop back in my WoW days. For that matter I farmed an old BC raid to get a 2h mace to drop for me finally. Don't even get me started on how much gold people will shell out in that game for the perfect transmog.
Let's face it, space barbie is the true endgame. It hurts no one to be able to customize your toon's look or your ship. Plus folks would need to actually have access to the item whose appearance they're wanting to use, which incentivizes people to try to acquire items they otherwise never would have, creating inventive to generate those items again.
Oh where to start one some of these. While I agree with some of these, I strongly disagree with others. However i'll start with the top of the list and work my way down.
1: You can refine 8k per toon per day. If you have 2 toons that's 16k per day. In this instance if they were to do something like this it wouldn't be a 1:1 ratio like people are hoping for. It would most likely be a 4:1 or 5:1+ since it's unrefined dilithium. The other problem is it would open that can of worms of "well you let us use unrefined dilithium for fleets, why can't we use it for (insert desired thing here)". Folks would gradually demand more and more items be opened up for unrefined dilithium and folks would never be satisfied. While it could be a big help to medium-smaller sized fleets especially, I don't see this as being the best way to go about it. While this could reduce the amount of unrefined dilithium sitting around, it still doesn't address the main problem which is the absolute hordes of refined dilithium that already exist. I give this one an A for effort, but it doesn't address the actual problem.
2: Agreed, see above.
3: Dear sweet merciful heavens absolutely NO on that one. They removed the EC cost on transwarping for a reason and the last thing we need is it returning in the form of a dilithium cost. This was little more than an annoyance that didn't really do much for removing excess EC anyways and usually only punished newer and lesser established players who wanted to use the feature. As for the part requiring an upkeep for your starship again absolutely NO for a number of reasons. Not to mention the first of which is that life happens outside the game. Sometimes people are forced to step away from the game due to real life responsibilities or concerns. Regardless of why someone is forced to step away (hopefully a pleasant one) having to pay who knows how much dilithium to "repair" their ships before they can make use of them again, or use them at full capacity, isn't going to make that person want to stick around, and in actuality would simply make them not want to play at all. Lets assume for sake of argument a completely broken down ship is 5k dilithium to get it operational again. For people like me who actually have the maximum amount of ship slots, you're looking at 300k dilithium on just my main toon alone. Across my entire account I shudder to think how much dilithium it would actually cost. There's adding grind that's worth while and then there's adding grind for the sake of grind. This is adding grind for the sake of grind. Not only this but to get folks to use a sink, it has to be something they want to invest in that could remove large amounts of dilithium at once potentially and on a consistent basis. Cosmetic items can remove large amounts of dilithium at once and consistently in ways an upkeep fee never could. Lastly on this point, this would make STO essentially a job to keep my ships from breaking down and I don't call that fun. If I want to play a game where that stuff matters, I'll go play a survival game of some type.
4: I don't see them doing straight buyouts, but if they did decide to update the box I could see them doing the upgrade a token thing before I could them doing the buyout. Personally I would set it at anywhere from a 5:! or 10:1 ration when trading up. 5-10 tokens required to get the next tier up, 2 tokens for downgrading to a lower tier so folks couldn't cheese it for a profit. As far as to what would go in the phoenix boxes at this point I'm honestly not sure since we have the Mudd's Market which provides account unlocks vs the character unlock of the phoenix packs.
5: If you honestly think they would do a direct buyout for any less than 50k per key you're kidding yourself. They're not going to let keys go for as cheap as some people wish they would, it's just not going to happen. Plus if it's more than 62,500 dilithium per key, at that point they would be better off to just drop cash and get the key that way.
6: 500k dilithium at 500 dilithium per zen is only $10 worth of zen. Considering what it costs to buy certain events out now, again you're kidding yourself if you honestly think they're going to let past events be bought out for that cheap. Raise that to about 1.5m dilithium or even 2m dlithium depending on the item, and you might be closer to reality of what we would get.
7: Barring something extreme happening they're not going to lower prices anywhere close to a level you're wanting. However with proper dilithium sinks in place to remove excess dilithium, the dilithium prices for certain items in the cstore will come down on their own. If as a hypothetical you have a ship that's the standard 3k zen price, that's 1.5m dilithium as it sits right now to get that ship at 500 dilithium per zen. Let's suppose that zen drops to 250 dilithium per zen. That reduces the dilithium cost from 1.5m down to 750k. While I doubt the markets will hit 250 dilithium again, at least not for a long time, you still get the idea. Otherwise certain items have fixed costs for a reason.
8: The "minor refits" won't happen and not everyone wants to get stuck in the same Miranda forever. I don't see them doing a mass unlocking of all unlocked traits, especially some of the lockbox, lobi, and promo traits. However for ships that you have an already existing account unlock for, that I can potentially see them doing the account unlock for. For that matter I would pay for that myself. Most likely it would be a nickel and dime thing of x dilithium here, x dilithium there similar to how they do with certain Cartel Market items in SWTOR.
9: NEVER going to happen directly nor should it. All that would do is hyper inflate EC beyond the ridiculous state its already in, and you've traded one hyper inflated currency situation for another. You can however trade dilithium for zen, use the zen to purchase things like keys, then sell those keys for EC. Direct dilithium to EC should NEVER EVER happen if you want to keep a healthy game.
10: I've suggested this elsewhere already an I agree dilithium to lobi should be an option every so often at least. lobi to dilithium would need to be prohibited however.
11: Not going to happen nor should it.
12: Absolutely agree depending on the rate
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
1. CBS. There isn't much we can do about this one, but its a dumb reason given the rainbow weapon fire we already have, and the whole point of weapon visuals is to match them all so we don't have the rainbow puke flavored visuals with different sets being combined.
2. PVP. This is fairly nonsensical. Good luck telling the one beam out of 6-8 that happens to be a specific set weapon when ships can die in seconds. Then good luck in that knowledge actually mattering at all. If I know someone in PVP is using the quantum phase set because of that one blue phaser beam, what does that do for me? Nothing at all that I can think of.
I honestly hope they never offer phoenix upgrade tokens, because people start with the highest tokens. So even at 10 Very Rare to get a Ultra, if some have saved for 2-3 months they may have 75-150 or more. I realize they could add a few Lockbox/Lobi (Retired) Ships to provide more options for Phoenix as well. Still some may be rolling in them, and could hurt the DZE far more, depending if they exlusively wanted the Experimental Upgrade during a Phoenix Weekend. Most have gone recently to Mudd, rather than balancing between the two.
Still I like your idea, @rattler2 as well as @westmetals originally suggested the supply is very small on the Mirror Ships! That's maybe where my Ferengi could offer a twist!
I don't see why the Ferengi Business Woman I had several idea's by others in my post from Page 1, as well as a bit more comprehensive idea for what she'd be about in my first post on Page 10 (related but similar thread) or even the idea of a twist (below) based on one or two people's suggestion. If only one Female Ferengi inspired by the original ever decides to go into business on Drozana.
Andrea Martin, the actress and comedienne, plays Moogie, Quark and Rom's Ferengi society defying mother, in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Family Business".
Perhaps maybe she might also offer a few Fleet Grade ships, instead called Tier 5 Mirror (Refit) Ships; with the same Skin as Uncommon T5 Mirror yet extend improved Hull & Shield Modifiers, and Mastery I-IV per Character, 11 consoles for GPL / DIL & 1 Fleet Module. She could also offer the original Mirror Ships for GPL/DIL to reduce the Fleet Module cost to 1. Why, because it encourage some to consider a few Variants from the Port for Mirror Ships at ESD/Quonos/Quonos with DIL or ZEN (Tier 1-4) Reclaim. Since 85-90% of ship design is the skin (which this not include) it's mostly internal updates, like Hull/Shield modifiers, Mastery I-IV, or the 11 consoles, and giving a separate new Admiralty Card.
Then maybe in time she might even sweeten the deal, by offering a (account-bind) T5 Mirror (Refit) Ship skins in time maybe 7-12 (months) or every a few years later, as each Faction has 3-4 different Ships that could use an update. How fast she'd offer which ships who knows, yet they could also be used to update (some) ships in the Badlands as well. It be good to make the Skin (Account-Bind) cause if people got 1 ship for a few characters but not others, if they got the Skin update it encourage them to add the ships to all characters!
Still it wouldn't prevent people from upgrading them to Experimental as long as they had 11 consoles before the upgrade.
The core idea is her shop be a GPL drain & DIL (that excludes the Fleet Dilithium Discount also extended to DIL Store) given the ships initially have no new External skins. She could also sell those bridges that don't sell in ZEN store per your suggestion, if she ever decides to get started. Along with a few (Ground & Space) Items, that comparable to Fleet Holdings yet also very different. She also wouldn't offer a SET bonus (similar to Fleet, while comparable yet different as well) to ensure she doesn't compete with the Lobi Vendor which has a lot of SET items that our popular! I'm sure Cryptic given that could find something for her to Sell...
So thank you both!, though ultimately will decide where or how they offer each! I'd just love to see a Ferengi Business Woman who was cunning, smart, and offered various phrases from a female perspective.
@ambassadorkael#6946
Also as said on earlier page, they ever expand Fleet Tier 3 Holdings out to 4 (even if they don't) to include 3 Endeavors (that pop a bit more often) to encourage more people donate DIL to Fleet Projects &/or Buy Fleet Gear with DIL; or an alternative separate one to spent in DIL Store, or in time to spend GPL/DIL with my new Ferengi Business Woman idea as well.
PS: It be also nice to see a Ferengi (Voice Actor) inspired by her, to speak the Rules of Acquision with a Female Twist, or other things.
Just spit-balling. I know damn well some of those ideas are terrible, but they all are potentials, even if the downfalls are probably bad.
Just for fun though,
1. I don't disagree, but I don't think it would be as bad as you say. Another option would be for you to be able to trade a second sum of unrefined for fleet vouchers per day. It might help, but it may just be a weak idea
2. Why in all that is holy are they hesitant on this?
3. I know. It's too late, but it would have been interesting.
4. Something could be done. Even if it was moving some of the older and potentially less desireable items from the Lobi store and Infinity boxes, or mission replay rewards. I'd buy some tokens to skip a few mission replays
5. I suggested between 75k and 125k and untradeable, 50k might be on the cheap. You don't want it to be more attractive than buying keys for Zen, but still have it at a level where if you were in a mood you could pull the wheel and make X dil disappear.
6. The price is negotiable, but it needs to be in the realm of achievable. I mean 500000 dil is 2 months of refinement. I think that it is an option that people would save for.
7. We are obviously talking about different things here. I'm talking space weapons and other TRIBBLE. Price stuff so people can buy it right now. It's not a super-great plan to price stuff in the millions and have Cstore tokens priced at hundreds. Also with fleet purchases, I'm practically double-dipping with having to pay dil for fleet credits and having to pay dil again to buy the item. Things like space weapons in the reputation shop or hangar pet upgrades are probably an ok price, but it is still 3 or 4 days playing to buy 1. They cost more than the primary weapon. In 4 days, I can instead open 12+ reputation boxes, and hope for the best and come out over 4000 dil richer, so there's some weighing of options
8. pretty much what I was thinking, yes for the traits. For the levelling I was suggesting pay X each to skip rank 1-4
9. I'm not sure. No matter how you do it, there's always some smrtaz will figure how to game the system. Some people want dil, some want ec. You're probably right. But it really doesn't affect me because I don't participate
10. agreed
11. it could be done. I don't have any data to know what practicality it might have. Certainty in purchase is always a good thing when spending money. For instance they could fix 1Z buys 475dil and 500dil buys 1Z. Not a great option, I agree. Your market should not need a pacemaker
12. cool
Either by decree of the Great Mighty IP Holder CBS (Which is why we never had RGB control of our weapon visuals ever), or technical limitations.
I'll start with the ones I like:
#2 Vanity Weapons, as I commented already I think it is a good idea as I stated to someone else earlier in this thread.
Yet I think @seaofsorrows also stated there was a reason why he remembers Cryptic was originally against that idea though it's possible it may have changed. Why I suggested maybe the idea of a Ferengi Business Woman (above) and on first page reference Beams & Cannons for GPL & DIL--if they allowed this, it likely wouldn't be very cheap at all.
#4 Fix the Phoenix, and yes many would like to see more items added to phoenix.
╘ Yet trade up tokens may not be good for less than 10:1, we be lucky just to see that!
╘ Why, because people people start with highest tokens, not lowest.
╘ If someone spends 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 on tokens they may have 35-70 (+) Very Rare Tokens if lucky!
╘ Suddenly instead of maybe 1 Epic &/or 1 Ultra.
╘ Now they'd have 7 Ultra tokens just from Very Rare (above) tokens.
╘ If they just want Ultra for Ship upgrades, could be bad for DZE with out adding a few Ultra ships.
╘ Someone pointed out, some Lockbox/Lobi (Retired) T5 Ships could be added, + others to Mudd.
╘ Will Cryptic re-evaluate, I guess it depends what a majority spent their Epic tokens on?
╘ Should also offer 33% of Event items to Phoenix, even if 67% go to Mudds--not ignore Phoenix..
A model more like the Little Engine that Could, comes to mind!
Now some of the challenges, or reasons why Cryptic has avoided doing others.
#1 I think our Volunteer CM was correct on this one. Even if they allowed only 8,000 Ore to be converted to Fleet Dilithium Voucher each day, it still would effectively double the refinement capabilities to buy gear, or donate to fleet projects. Making the problem for the DZE far greater than in already is!
Next I'll start with one they already do.
#3 Dil for Transwarp - you can currently buy Transwarp Coils in the DIL Store currently.
╘ 10 for 3,200 DIL, or if you have Fleet Dilithium (max) Discount of 15%, then it's 2,750.
NOTE: Fleet Mine Dilithium Discount of 4%, 5%, & 6% not only apply to Fleet, but also stack in the Dilithium Store as well. Why I suggested the Ferengi Business Woman not honor those Fleet Dilithium discounts! Except perhaps on special new Event weekends for this New Ferengi Entrepreneur, where she may also offer discounts to GPL too?
#5 Perhaps you refer to lockbox keys, they already provide a means to earn thru trading DIL for ZEN, or purchasing the ZEN. Unless your hoping it may reduce the DZE, by offering slightly lower ZEN cost (-25) than they'd be given (thru DZE) bypassing it directly eating Dilithium. Might work, but would Cryptic try it? No idea...
#6 That be far, far, harder to do. Simply because it wouldn't focus on new items everyone could earn!
#7 Reducing the Dilithium cost, any further also have the opposite effect! So it hurt the DZE not help!
I don't think anyone was upset with you, just respectful disagreement on a few, not all items. Though I tried to start with a those idea's I liked.
Also, while I'm here, because it's still one of the eternally-forgotten: upgradeable herald torpedo.
Yeah, I can totally see that happening.
That's another great idea. And it doesn't lose Cryptic any money.. why? Because people who buy keys to open boxes aren't hunting for those ships.. as evidenced by the fact that they're not selecting them. There are a ton of ships that have good but not 'great' layouts, or look really cool or have some cool little thing about them that people just don't resell. These ships are just wasted time for the developers right now, and while someone might not be willing to blow 1B+ EC to get a Xindi Olean or a Vaadwaur Manasa, if you could get one for a chunk of your Dilithium, a lot of players would happily jump on that.
We've also been told once or twice it would be too difficult to implement due to how weapons work in STO.
Its a game, it needs coding to do fun new things. That's what we pay them for. I can appreciate it might take them a while to work around whatever difficulties there are, but that isn't an excuse not to do it.
First I have to ask, why suggest something that is going to be little more than an annoyance to players that you know would have super massive downfalls with very little upsides? Not trying to come at you, but getting the question out of the way before someone else asks.
With that said, as another pointed out, this would effectively give you more refinement capacity without giving it to you in the form of actual refined dilithium, in addition to the other issues I pointed out before. This is not a good thing and would only serve to devalue dilithium more. The goal is to give people sinks that they can engage in that provide them something of value while also removing excess dilithium at the same time.
2: It's not strictly them, but CBS having had issues with it previously as myself and some others have talked about. This was years ago that CBS voiced an issue with it and asked them not to do it. We bring it up now however because at this juncture the original logic behind it isn't as great as it once was, especially with all the other odd stuff they've signed off on.
3: Even if it had been here from the start it would still be a bad idea. Items and ships needing repair after alot of use as well as wear and tear is one thing, but them breaking down for simply existing is a terrible idea in any game. The only time it's not a terrible idea is in a survival type game dedicated to survival type stuff. STO is not that sort of game.
4: You already get mission gear for free just by playing the game. Skipping cutscenes you've seen a thousand times or dialogue options you've heard a thousand times is one thing, but basically throwing a token at a mission to get the rewards without doing anything is something else entirely. At that point why even play the game if you can't be bothered to even play the basic story missions? Just put it on normal mode, grab your best stuff, and blitz the mission. For that matter you can blitz it with a team if you really want to end it fast. Folks may buy them but I see that doing more harm in the long run than anything else. Folks could just throw cash at the game, have a fully decked out ship in an hour if they spent enough money, which would include mission gear at that juncture, and be into end game content having zero clue what they're doing. Not that we don't have issues of folks going into content they're not ready for now, but I see this only making it worse and causing burnout alot faster.
5: Once again, if they can get a key for 62,500 dilithium at a 500:! conversion rate for dilithium as is right now, why would they ever pay more than the 62,500 dilithium? You're basically asking them to give folks an option that would let them pay more than 500 dilithium per zen to get a single key. Even more so should dilithium to zen start coming back down to earth, they can get keys for even less than the 62,500 still. The price couldn't be more than 62,500 zen for a single key if they were to do this, otherwise you're kidding yourself if you think it would be below 50,000 per key. Also to be blunt on this one, you didn't think it out as far as you needed to.
6: That's only 2 months refinement IF you're running a single toon only. You're capable of refining 8k dilithium PER TOON per day. if you have more than one toon that's an additional 8k per day bringing that 500k to you alot faster. Assuming you have 3 toons running that's 24k dilithium per day bringing that to 20 days of refinement. Again the precedent has already been set buy previous event buyouts. Assuming they allowed folks to redo old events they missed or were never here for, it's not going to be as cheap as you're wanting it to be. 500k dilithium at current rates is only 1k zen or $10. Previous event buyouts have gone for as cheap as 3k zen or as high as 6k zen depending on the event. Simply because someone can't get it that day or they have to do a little grinding for it doesn't automatically make something bad. How much grinding they should have to do is debatable, but precedent already exists that event buyouts wouldn't be as cheap as you're wishing they would be.
7: Heaven forbid someone have to wait more than a day to get something they want in game and can't have their instant gratification now. I'm sorry but that's how this one sounds to me since you've expanded on it. I'm all for making sure things can be acquired in a reasonable time frame, but I hardly call 3-4 days excessive. Spiral Wave Disruptors as one example are some of the nastiest disruptors in game due to their backed in extra damage mod. They're meant to be more difficult to get because of this, and are tied to certain ships in order to unlock them. Advanced Phasers/Disruptors are the same way, they're meant to be more difficult to get because of what they can do. With that said, you also do NOT need any of the reputation weapons, reputation items, or anything from the dilithium store to succeed in the game. You can make a basic cohesive build for virtually any type of ship and any style of weapons off the mission reward gear. Will it be a chart topper, no it won't, but it will get you through 95% of the content in game even on advanced. The items in the dilithium store can help as can reputation items, but are absolutely not required to succeed in game. Again heaven forbid someone can't get everything in a single day. Also who is telling you that dilithium is the only thing you can dump into fleet projects to get credit? You can get fleet credit in more ways than just dilithium, it just happens that dilithium is the best payout in terms of credits, with fleet marks paying out the most. This just reads as you wanting them to make it easier for you without you having thought of how it would effect the wider game as a whole.
9: Trading dilithium for zen, then using that zen to buy keys and sell them isn't gaming the system at all, but using it how it's supposed to be used. It's not a direct dilithium to EC conversion like you're wanting. Both currencies EC and Dilithium are super inflated right now and in need of sinks. Allowing a straight dilithium to EC conversion would hyper inflate the EC even more than now. Trading dilithium for zen, then selling keys you bought with said zen is only scooping up bits of EC that are already there.
11: Yeah no, you can't just favor one side or the other completely, you need it to be in a butter zone if they were to hypothetically fix the prices. You need it to be high enough that people feel like they're getting a fair value for their zen when they sell it, yet also low enough that folks don't feel like they're being ripped off and having to pay too much to get the zen. That butter zone is 250-375. In that range you get a fair amount of dilithium when you sell zen, and it doesn't completely break the bank when you do decide to buy zen. There's no "might be punitive to free to play" under that suggestion, it is punitive at what you were saying. In games like this you need a healthy balance of folks spending cash and free to play folks. You need free to play folks who can farm dilithium, and cash paying folks to drop cash in order to buy said dilithium and other items.
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An example I can give is with the Advanced Phasers, yesterday I considered putting my Section 31 themed toon in a Miranda and I've already determined that I want him using advanced phasers purely for the looks. With a Miranda I'd like to have at least one DBB so that the rollbar hardpoints get used, but my only options for blue DBB phasers are TOS phasers (don't really like their firing animation, advanced stay on continuously while TOS seem to cycle a few times), Disco linked (don't fit the timeframe I'm aiming for with this character, but might be my best bet), or Andorian (which I HATE the sound effect of). I'm gonna see how it looks to have a covert DBB there, but I don't like the idea of having different colored beams so I'll probably end up moving that toon back into their JJ Connie or possibly into a Vengeance (Vengeance seems a bit cliché though for a S31 character). My explanation for the JJ Connie was that somewhere between the TOS and TWoK eras Section 31 became aware of the JJ Timeline and since the JJ Connie was more advanced than Prime Timeline Federation ships they decided to build their own.
EDIT: Covert DBB seems to cycle just like the TOS DBB did, so that's something I'll just have to deal with. I still think it would be nice to expand the Advanced Phaser and Disruptor options though.
NOTE: I revised my note above, to clarify what I proposed, her unique twist be.
Maybe they'd indeed offer those T5 Mirror (Uncommon) ships at Port just for DIL, sure why not! I just thought the idea of the Ferengi Busines Woman find a more creative way to make it more interesting.
My Ferengi could introduce a (Refit) of only the Internal System with slightly reinforced Hull & Shield Modifiers (Very Rare) quality, Master I-IV, along 11 consoles to make it Fleet Grade. It not update the External Ship skin so saving 90% of the update time allowing them to get out far sooner, yet also offer a (Purple) Admiralty card with slightly updated stats! You'd however have to pay more GPL/DIL and 1 Fleet Module to unlock (per Character) for Ships that were NEVER previously upgradeable--the BIG APPEAL! She could also encourage people buy Variant (Tier 1-4) of the Mirror ships at Port for Skin unlocks of the Mirror Ships. Why to me it made sense to offer the Original Mirror Ships herself for GPL/DIL herself OR encourage you to check the Exchange; so you are only charged 1 Fleet Module rather than 4 for her Refit option.
Then it be worthy of something to consider then using a Experimental Upgrade on. Yet it also suddenly create a lot more interest and appeal for a GPL/DIL sink with lessor development effort! Selling the ZEN bridges could be another idea for her, especially ones that worked on Mirror ships as well as others.
Later in time they could unlock a revised T5 Mirror (Refit) Ship Skins just from the Ferengi Business Woman perhaps (Per Account) for GPL/DIL, and use those to also update some of the Ships in the Badlands. Would they do this or others, or choose to offer them other ways--who knows.
No idea is bad, I just like seeing people offer them up.
I just think it be fun to see some statements from a Female perspective about the Rules of Acquision, their rights allowing them into Business & how woman do things slightly different. Of course all based on a Comedic approach.
I originally proposed she offer (similar yet different) gear than Fleet does,for GPL/DIL, also without SET bonus to not compete with Lobi Store. She might appeal to some in smaller Fleets, or none at all, yet may also have unique items others can't get else where.
A couple of the other comments mentioned that there had been reluctance to consider this years ago. I remember there being some pushback as well. From the perspective of the IP holder I see it as a concern for the integrity of the IP. I admit I'd be stupid enough to want a weapon effect that shoots herds of cats at my enemies but I know it wouldn't be acceptable
Someone else mentioned flash sales and as far as delivery and dil "sales" functioning this is the only workable solution. If someone has a dilithium reserve of their own or more probably a long time frame to grind their own for that purpose it defeats the purpose. An offering has to be attractive to the consumer and the attainability has to be in question.
Yeah and I understand that too. Something along the lines of "we believe developer time is better spent in other areas because this feature would take an outsized amount of time and energy to do," is an actually legitimate answer though. When people say they just can't do it because its hard, that is just nonsense.
The question of course becomes what are they doing instead? We haven't seen any new systems in a while, that I can recall.
That will never happen, it would only hurt the dilex economy.
If the PVP players wanted to know what they were being hit with, they always had the option to turn on a combat log and then look at the log. PVP was never a valid reason to avoid doing weapon cosmetics or similar, nor is it a valid reason. It's the equivalent of saying, "I like muscle cars, therefore no one else should be allowed to paint their cars red." In other words they have nothing to do with each other save someone not liking a certain visual someone has. It's really none of their business.
Also as far as the canon concerns, I no longer consider this a valid argument either because they've already approved a ton of off color stuff. If they're concerned with canon still for whatever reason, then just add a restriction that folks can only change the color of their weapons to an already existing visual. Calling those visuals shouldn't be as hard as one would think. All you're doing is telling to use visual A instead of visual B. I don't know how Cryptic's stuff is setup behind the scenes, only how I would do it from a modding perspective.
For dilithium flash sales, they would work to pull large amounts of dilithium out like the phoenix packs did when they were first introduced. It was always up to each player whether they would burn their dilithium for phoenix packs or not. If they were saving for something else, they were under no obligation to purchase phoenix boxes. The same would be true for dilithium flash sales. Depending on what they offer for our hypothetical flash sales, it could do extremely well. As for attainability, simply because folks may not be able to get it in a day doesn't make it unobtainable. Folks also need to realize while some of these items might be priced well for our hypothetical flash sales, some would be higher than what folks may like to pay, because again the goal is to remove excess dilithium.
People need to understand as well that certain features will automatically take a certain amount of time at a minimum to develop because certain processes and otherwise just can't be sped up and take as long as they take. Not even because those processes are hard, but purely because of the steps involved and what must be done. As just one example, let's suppose they're working on the model of a ship, they have to make sure all the parts go together correctly, all the textures of the ship are correct, everything is facing the way it's supposed to, and down the line. That's true whether it's something Cryptic is doing or whether it's me creating a mod for Space Engineers or another game I like to play. Not always hard to do, just time consuming. While that person is handling that task, that's another person that can't do something else that may be needed. If it takes hypothetically a month to produce a science ship, it's going to take a month to do regardless of whether they start now or next year, barring advances in technology that could speed up the process. Of course we can't factor in something that doesn't exist yet.
Right now I'm working on an era mod for Space Engineers. Getting the models the way i need them to be, then making sure all the data and definitions around those blocks works properly and doesn't look like a targ's rear end once it's in game, all take time. Not hard work usually, just certain things have to be set certain ways. I've been going for about 3 weeks at this point and I would say I'm maybe a quarter of the way done at most. It's not AAA studio level work that I'm doing per say, but it still takes time even with all my ducks in a row.
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I'm sure my Ferengi Business Woman would love to sell them as separate unlocks for Beams, Dual Heavy/Dual or Cannons. Both as I said on page 1 and likely be expensive in GPL/DIL, it mostly appeal to those who had a few weapons, and weren't concerned with the PROC's they offered initially at least!
Beams would require one unlock, and Cannons may require separate unlocks for Heavy/Dual/Cannons, though the majority only use 2 of 3 types. Cannon's might also unlock visuals for turrets so still encourage many to get all 3?
Also as said on earlier page, they ever expand Fleet Tier 3 Holdings out to 4 (even if they don't) to include 3 Endeavors (that pop a bit more often) to encourage more people donate DIL to Fleet Projects &/or Buy Fleet Gear with DIL; or an alternative separate one to spent in DIL Store, or in time to spend GPL/DIL with my new Ferengi Business Woman idea as well.
I thought this too. Like this idea a lot.
Don't you mean "Shut Up And Take Your Dilithium" ?
I give you one option that will without a doubt fix the issue instantaneously!!!
ADD a line of code that will removed 1 Dilithium from us every time we use a energy weapon, torpedo or mine fire by our ship.
After all Dilithium is supposed to be what powers our ships.
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