You do realize some of the stuff you listed which YOU consider as not utterly useless for YOU once again, might be just so for SOMEBODY ELSE.
My roommate, for example, likes to powergame a bit. For him, buying that Klingon bundle that gave him a T6 ship and a maxed-out Klingon was worth the money he spent, because he didn't have to "grind the levels out" (his words, not mine). He didn't particularly want the ship itself, because he'd bought a few keys and gotten lucky on his third box with that big Rom ship from PIC, but he wanted an instamax Klink.
I wouldn't spend those amounts of money, but to him it was worth it.
i dont have spare 100eds of Dollars - id buy one ships, but i wont buy one ship, and one i didnt even want, together.
And they have said bundles sell generally better than ships, the issue here however is some can't afford 120.00 at one time so that I understand. And there is a VERY easy solution to this as I offered an idea below, without destroying the appeal to the larger bundle.
Still I think they'd sell more making two smaller bundles for sure, as people could have a choice to buy one. And they may also later then decide to get the other. I mean the Mirror bundle is popular price point for many, so why not mix up the current offering a bit? Buy as is if you want the 100% off T6 coupon, or if you don't need it consider these two alternatives separate...
There are people who want to support Cryptic, but 12000 ZEN is a lot at one time even with the 35% off.
I think it open it up to a lot more people, for those on bite sized budgets!
1 Promo Romulan Survivor Duty Officer Packs (To Character who purchased Bundle)
TOS Era Romulan Uniform (Account-Unlock for Romulan Bridge Officers or Captain)
TNG Era Romulan Uniform (Account-Unlock for Romulan Bridge Officers or Captain)
NOTE: Since the D'deridex is Miracle worker you gain extra Ship console slot, while the Reman Legendary bundle offers 25 (Duty Officers Claimable by every Captain) for example.
╘ You'd loose out on a 100% off CSTORE (bonus) coupon, & 1 Infinity Promo Romulan DOFF Pack!
╘ Yet (maybe) gain 25 DOFF claimable for all to give a choice, or they may not even offer this...
Still encourage many to consider the larger bundle, yet offer a slightly lower price point for those who can't spend 12,000 ZEN at one time. It also give flexiblity on the add-ons depending what people may need or want.
Just like all things trying to be Constructive, while also making it a bit more affordable for those on tighter budgets, or who want a slight variation on the choices given... This would achieve both (win-win) not a all or nothing choice.
Just wish they'd RETHINK adding at least one passive ability to more of the T5 Legendary Epic Consoles, it also encourage more new players to consider even those T5 Ships as well.
All I can do is HOPE maybe they read and RETHINK this, same with the adding a passive ability to the T5 Epic consoles.
Having spent a lot of time on other game forums, particularly the WoW forums, I have to admit that Som does have a little bit of a point when it comes to players. STO doesn't have this problem as much, but in WoW it doesn't matter what the devs do there are ALWAYS a large number of people on the forums demanding that all the devs get fired (even prior to the current lawsuit that's going on, which I will not address on this post). As a whole playerbases tend to be deeply divided on what they actually want, with many people having unrealistic expectations, and the one thing most are able to agree on is that they are unhappy.
Have you seen the state of WOW? You do realize the FF XIV became the WOW killer not based on anything they did but based on what WOW did and this was happening BEFORE the lawsuit fiasco. If ANYTHING, what is happening at WOW should be a case of what happens when you IGNORE the vocal, die hard fans of your game complaining that they are not happy and just do what you want and tell them we know better than you.
Those forums have been exactly the same since I first started visiting them back during WotLK (maybe earlier, I've played since Vanilla, but I don't think I used the forums until Wrath). It truly does not matter what the devs do there will ALWAYS be a vocal group calling for them to be fired for no good reason. I'm guilty of it too, between Legion and BfA I was in the group calling for Ion Hazzikostas to be fired and I actually LOVED those expansions (I now realize that was an extreme overreaction to the few issues I had). WoW is a trainwreck right now for a variety of reasons but the toxicity and hostility from the playerbase towards the devs has ALWAYS been there.
IMHO, the least they *could* do would be to have a dynamic discount-system like LoL does for example - reducing the price by any items you already own. I already have the uniforms and playable remans, so it'd be nice if that'd be subtracted from the total cost.
Also, 35% off is a little lame... most of the smaller legendary bundles were 50% off on their initial run.
Same
It's pretty clear they don't care about their players or they would do a dynamic discount. There's literally no reason not to besides getting an extra 120% or what ever profit out of the bundle from many of the players who purchase it. Heck they could just add replacement items like character/ship slots, stuff you could sell to other players, or other "unlimited" items and I would be cool with it.
Still that's nice they allowed the Republic symbol, my Romulan's will be very happy for that.
For those who wished the D'deridex had a bit better turn than 6, yet realize if you equip one of the two piece SETS it jumps to 8 (+2) and that's before...
[...]
I'm pretty sure that doesn't buff the base turnrate, which things like Skills and RCS multiply against, but merely adds +2 to the final total which is way less than having a starting base of 8 would give you realisticly. That two set is less of a boost than a decent high Mark RCS nowadays.
As for the other boosts past the cut quote, those are good too, but if I still have to run basically all of the ones I have to on the standard T6, that doesn't seem particularly Legendary to me. It doesn't have to have the best turnrate ever, in fact I don't like base turnrate past 15 or so, just enough to use at least single cannons (as per canon) well, which base 6 doesn't for me without resorting to Competitive Wargames Engines (usually Fortified).
I'm pretty sure it does refer to base turn, because it's +2 for the D'deridex, or +3 with the Scimitar consoles. Yet some Consoles (perhaps not all) aren't even limited by Ship type they can be used on...
It should be base of 7 for the Non Legendary Version or 7.5 for the Legendary one, and be then boosted to 10 or 10.5. The SET that comes with the D'deridex will also boost it from 6 by +2 to then 8 base turn.
╘ impulse speed % was only 1.24 used here and it's above 10.
Most other turn consoles are listed by % and generally give 1% - 52.5% depending on the quality and level. At least the Scimitar consoles those all have passive abilities as they came on the T6 versions, which sadly most T5 Consoles lack (though not all do) which is why they should enhance many to give one moderate passive ability!
It's just a constructive criticism, that I hope they reconsider...
the issue I have is how fast they are pushing these bundles. this is what the third one this year? or is it the fourth? there should have been the one for the anniversary and then one more around this time frame, but we saw the D7, the "Kdf" half klink half fed, the Disco legendary, I THINK the Mirror legendary was this year, and now this one. I would have been good with stretching these out over 2 years instead of 8 months
I'm still considering the Mirror Romulan Bundle as the sale price isn't too bad, just wished they revise some of the T5 Epic consoles, to include a moderate passive skill as well.
I've long guessed that the whole "legendary" gimmick was made up because Cryptic is running out of ships to make in general.
Looking at Memory Alpha, we have pretty much every canon Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and Dominion, ship in the game. While we are missing a few more Fed ships compared to the other factions, they tend to be ultra background ships the playerbase has little to no interest in at all. While Discovery provided a good haul at the beginning of S1, with the Binary Stars fleet, the rest of DSC, PIC, and LD, haven't really offered up a whole lot in the way of new ship designs.
I'm really hoping Picard Season Two greatly expands more Federation, or Romulan ships, as those two Factions get more involved or engaged after Riker came in to help out Picard at the last moment.
And yes part of me hopes maybe to even see some Klingon Ships, especially if Worf ever returns to make a Cameo like Data had done. We may even see his relative (Dr. S) again as they left that door open. I'm mostly greatly excited to see Q return though, and really wish Disco they might cast someone to play a reoccurring Q from time to time...
the issue I have is how fast they are pushing these bundles. this is what the third one this year? or is it the fourth? there should have been the one for the anniversary and then one more around this time frame, but we saw the D7, the "Kdf" half klink half fed, the Disco legendary, I THINK the Mirror legendary was this year, and now this one. I would have been good with stretching these out over 2 years instead of 8 months
I've long guessed that the whole "legendary" gimmick was made up because Cryptic is running out of ships to make in general.
Looking at Memory Alpha, we have pretty much every canon Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and Dominion, ship in the game. While we are missing a few more Fed ships compared to the other factions, they tend to be ultra background ships the playerbase has little to no interest in at all. While Discovery provided a good haul at the beginning of S1, with the Binary Stars fleet, the rest of DSC, PIC, and LD, haven't really offered up a whole lot in the way of new ship designs.
This is also likely why we have seen Cryptic digging into the ship backlog a lot more recently. The Oberth, Malachowski, Atrox, Vo'quv, Luna, Kar'fi, Steamrunner, etc. Many of these ships had been sitting in T6 development hell for years, with no one really expecting them every to get done. But in the last year or so we have seen Cryptic start to pump them out as a regular rate.
Even when it comes to Cryptic original designs, Cryptic has made unique design for pretty much every major ship class in the game, often 2-3 different ones, and cross faction packs. So there isn't much to mine out there either.
These last few years have seen a rather noticeable decline in the number of new ships being put out. From a high of 89 back in 2015, all the way to a low of just 42 new ships in 2020. This year is even worse with only 20 ships released thus far. Even if they continue at the rate they have been putting new ships out this year, we are looking at only around 34 being put out for the whole year. A new record low after several years of record lows.
The whole "legendary" thing is them just re-selling the most famous ship in Trek, again, to pad out the ship release schedule. Since they really don't have much left to put out anyways.
I think part of the lull of ships is also that, they have made it harder to make ships in the first place with scaling and other features they have added. I also wondering if some of the bad decisions cryptic the studio(magic's failure, neverwinter not quite being the success they've hoped) has made, is now effecting other parts of the company too. There is all so the problem, the game just isn't as popular as it was when legacy of Romulus released so perhaps there parent company perfect world doesn't think it would profitable to invest more into the game. I also can't imagine hiring all these actors for the episodes new or not has been cheap, all though I do really appreciate that part of the game. I also don't what licensing agreement cryptic has with paramount/cbs, it's possible they take a cut from every ship sell.
I hope they continue to release non-legendary single C-store ships. None of the legendary ships have interested me enough to want to buy the bundle. I have been very happy with single zen store ships. I like that they are account unlocks and with a ship sale you can get up to 30% off,which puts them at 2100 zen.
Yes, they are not as optimal as the legendary ships, but they can handle game content just fine. With some time and effort they can be made into really strong ships. I enjoy that aspect slot. Learning the ship and working to get the equipment to get the most of the design and my play style. My two favorite ships in STO and the ones I use the most are the T6 Gemini/Sagittarius and the T6 Miranda/Reliant. I can handle advanced TFO’s and perform well as tanks, which my preferred style of play.
And, personally, I often see Neverwinter rated above STO on lists of "most popular F2P MMOs" Its no industry powerhouse like WoW, FF14, GW2, or ESO, but i've not seen anything saying its doing bad either.
To be fair... WoW and FF14 are sub games. Not F2P. ESO is Buy2Play. No idea on GW2.
Although FF14's free trial goes all the way through Heavensward expansion so it is pretty generous.
I hope they continue to release non-legendary single C-store ships. None of the legendary ships have interested me enough to want to buy the bundle. I have been very happy with single zen store ships. I like that they are account unlocks and with a ship sale you can get up to 30% off,which puts them at 2100 zen.
Counterpoint: Legendaries are also account unlock.
Anyways Cryptic does plan on more normal C-Store releases. Odds are we'll get a bunch of new ships alongside the upcoming Mirror arc. There was even mention of exploring the possibility of somehow adding the Pioneer to the Light Cruiser line, like they did the Malachouski. So possible T6 Pioneer in the future.
I think part of the lull of ships is also that, they have made it harder to make ships in the first place with scaling and other features they have added. I also wondering if some of the bad decisions cryptic the studio(magic's failure, neverwinter not quite being the success they've hoped) has made, is now effecting other parts of the company too. There is all so the problem, the game just isn't as popular as it was when legacy of Romulus released so perhaps there parent company perfect world doesn't think it would profitable to invest more into the game. I also can't imagine hiring all these actors for the episodes new or not has been cheap, all though I do really appreciate that part of the game. I also don't what licensing agreement cryptic has with paramount/cbs, it's possible they take a cut from every ship sell.
Except everything we have heard from Cryptic these last few years is that STO is doing better now then its ever been. The DSC content has brought in more new people then even ViL did, which itself was breaking records in that regard. And these last few years have been some of STO's most profitable, with 2020 only doing about 5% worse then the single best year STO ever had. Unless we delve into the "everything Cryptic says is a lie" fallacy argument, everything we have heard is that STO is MORE popular/profitable now then its ever been.
And we have seen that reflected in the game itself. These last 2+ years have seen Cryptic put in a lot of systems/QoL/revamp work into the game
The RTFO system makes it far easier to get into much more of the game's TFOs. Widening how much content is playable.
The Event system revamp removing a lot of the hassle/confusion events had back when they were in reps, giving then their own UI element, giving you a way to instantly jump into the event TFO, removing the need to slot projects/deal with tokens, making event rewards account wide so you don't have to grind them on multiple characters, merging all the event stores into one for convince.
The T6 rep udpate streamlined the annoying sponsorship program, and made it easier to get your characters to an end game state by offering captain retrain tokens, fleet ship modules, and account wide rep store discounts.
The patrol system revamp made patrols far more visible to the average player, and made them far easier to get into then before. The changes to ship mastery EXP in patrols also removed most of the grind associated with leveling starship masteries.
Personal endeavors have nudges people into TFOs, Battlezones, patrols, and missions, they might not otherwise have been doing. Bringing a lot of life back into many older parts of the game, and offering up some useful, account wide, stat boosts as an incentive.
The scaling T6 ship update made T6 more valuable to players, by allowing them to be used from game start. Removing a lot of the hassle of having to constantly change ships during the leveling process.
The two updates that brought down the walls between FED/KDF/ROM ship has opened up people's ability to play far more of the game's ship then before.
The Trait/loadout update split ground and space active traits, and added traits, as well as visual slots, into loadouts.
Many other smaller QoL updates like the "fill all" button, the "salvage all" tab, admiralty cards becoming auto claimed, inventory item stacking increases, Mirror ship prefixes being applied to every ship in the game, search bars and filters added to many UI elements, etc.
These sorts of system updates are generally some of the most expensive to do, and many of them are things Cryptic had previously said for years they would like to do, but didn't have the manpower/money to do them. This was on top of a large uptick in content revamps. The YoK updates, the updates to the Klingon War missions, updates to many of the Delta Recruit missions, the upcoming TOS arc update for the Temporal Rerun, updates to many of the DQ patrols, updates to several TFOs like Infected Space, Khitomer Space, Into the Hive, Azure Nebula, Vault Ensnared, FED/Gorn Minefield. And all of this is itself on top of the fact we have been getting more new story missions, and patrols, now then we did between LoR and DR, and between DR and AoY. Everything we have seen the last 2+, nearly 3, years now is that PWE seems to be putting a lot of money into the game, and the game is more popular/profitable now then before.
Honestly, the only thing we have seen less of is new ships. Which seems to stem more from there's just not many ships left to make more then anything.
And, personally, I often see Neverwinter rated above STO on lists of "most popular F2P MMOs" Its no industry powerhouse like WoW, FF14, GW2, or ESO, but i've not seen anything saying its doing bad either.
I said nothing about profit from star trek online I'm not saying its closing anytime soon but I'm not sure the team is as big either, I find it odd if NW and STO are doing so well why didn't they just move the devs at least temporarily to help on STO and NW . Makes me wonder if cryptic the company isn't pulling enough profit margins for the parent company perfect world. The pandemic is also a likely factor in this whole ship lull thing too. Its just weird much of those changes you list were pretty long ago, Scaling ships which is the most recent was over two years ago.
I believe the whole discover content bringing new people but how many have stayed I don't know. But I know game companies like to hype up their games popularity to keep people playing and invested in their online environment. I'm not saying the game is dieing just that I don't think there are as many people now as there were at LOR launch, I know it bounces up and down with AOY and other big content updates bringing people back.
Also even if all of what you said is true that doesn't mean perfect world is happy with their investment returns in cryptic as a whole, its obvious in few cases they weren't see mtg online. I just don't completely buy the whole less new ships because there are less canon ships that they can put in the game. As they've made plenty of successful cryptic designs, there are still ships that should get T6 treatment. It could be becuase they are working on a big project we don't know about behind the scenes if so I can't wait to see it. But I'm really skeptical about your reasoning here.
everything we have heard from Cryptic these last few years is that STO is doing better now then its ever been.
Multiple platforms now as well as first new series in over a decade.
The DSC content has brought in more new people then even ViL did, which itself was breaking records in that regard.
ViL didn't have a TV show.
Unless we delve into the "everything Cryptic says is a lie" fallacy argument, everything we have heard is that STO is MORE popular/profitable now then its ever been.
Part of being a company is to put a positive spin on things, it's what they do.
I said nothing about profit from star trek online I'm not saying its closing anytime soon but I'm not sure the team is as big either, I find it odd if NW and STO are doing so well why didn't they just move the devs at least temporarily to help on STO and NW . Makes me wonder if cryptic the company isn't pulling enough profit margins for the parent company perfect world. The pandemic is also a likely factor in this whole ship lull thing too
Because that isn't how game development works... anywhere. The people who originally left to go work on Magic were replaced. Kael has mentioned this several times. With Magic closing down, they now have an excess of devs, so they fire the ones they no longer need.
Al Rivera has point blank admitted that, before all these new shows started coming out to give them more to work with, they were pretty much out of ideas for story arcs for STO, and only had a few story arc ideas left. Who would have guessed that after a decade of development you kinda have done most everything.
Star Trek has had hundreds of novels and comics written, 50+ years of fan fiction. If the creative team can't come up with ideas, then it's their problem and they need new people.
Comments
I wouldn't spend those amounts of money, but to him it was worth it.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Yes I also agree with you and @westmetals on that, why I suggested they offer the following yet still encouraging the largest pack.
Just wish they'd RETHINK adding at least one passive ability to more of the T5 Legendary Epic Consoles, it also encourage more new players to consider even those T5 Ships as well.
All I can do is HOPE maybe they read and RETHINK this, same with the adding a passive ability to the T5 Epic consoles.
It's pretty clear they don't care about their players or they would do a dynamic discount. There's literally no reason not to besides getting an extra 120% or what ever profit out of the bundle from many of the players who purchase it. Heck they could just add replacement items like character/ship slots, stuff you could sell to other players, or other "unlimited" items and I would be cool with it.
1) 10th Anniversary
2) T'Liss boost bundle
3) Mirror Gal-X
4) Walker boost bundle
I'm really hoping Picard Season Two greatly expands more Federation, or Romulan ships, as those two Factions get more involved or engaged after Riker came in to help out Picard at the last moment.
And yes part of me hopes maybe to even see some Klingon Ships, especially if Worf ever returns to make a Cameo like Data had done. We may even see his relative (Dr. S) again as they left that door open. I'm mostly greatly excited to see Q return though, and really wish Disco they might cast someone to play a reoccurring Q from time to time...
I think part of the lull of ships is also that, they have made it harder to make ships in the first place with scaling and other features they have added. I also wondering if some of the bad decisions cryptic the studio(magic's failure, neverwinter not quite being the success they've hoped) has made, is now effecting other parts of the company too. There is all so the problem, the game just isn't as popular as it was when legacy of Romulus released so perhaps there parent company perfect world doesn't think it would profitable to invest more into the game. I also can't imagine hiring all these actors for the episodes new or not has been cheap, all though I do really appreciate that part of the game. I also don't what licensing agreement cryptic has with paramount/cbs, it's possible they take a cut from every ship sell.
Yes, they are not as optimal as the legendary ships, but they can handle game content just fine. With some time and effort they can be made into really strong ships. I enjoy that aspect slot. Learning the ship and working to get the equipment to get the most of the design and my play style. My two favorite ships in STO and the ones I use the most are the T6 Gemini/Sagittarius and the T6 Miranda/Reliant. I can handle advanced TFO’s and perform well as tanks, which my preferred style of play.
To be fair... WoW and FF14 are sub games. Not F2P. ESO is Buy2Play. No idea on GW2.
Although FF14's free trial goes all the way through Heavensward expansion so it is pretty generous.
Counterpoint: Legendaries are also account unlock.
Anyways Cryptic does plan on more normal C-Store releases. Odds are we'll get a bunch of new ships alongside the upcoming Mirror arc. There was even mention of exploring the possibility of somehow adding the Pioneer to the Light Cruiser line, like they did the Malachouski. So possible T6 Pioneer in the future.
I said nothing about profit from star trek online I'm not saying its closing anytime soon but I'm not sure the team is as big either, I find it odd if NW and STO are doing so well why didn't they just move the devs at least temporarily to help on STO and NW . Makes me wonder if cryptic the company isn't pulling enough profit margins for the parent company perfect world. The pandemic is also a likely factor in this whole ship lull thing too. Its just weird much of those changes you list were pretty long ago, Scaling ships which is the most recent was over two years ago.
I believe the whole discover content bringing new people but how many have stayed I don't know. But I know game companies like to hype up their games popularity to keep people playing and invested in their online environment. I'm not saying the game is dieing just that I don't think there are as many people now as there were at LOR launch, I know it bounces up and down with AOY and other big content updates bringing people back.
Also even if all of what you said is true that doesn't mean perfect world is happy with their investment returns in cryptic as a whole, its obvious in few cases they weren't see mtg online. I just don't completely buy the whole less new ships because there are less canon ships that they can put in the game. As they've made plenty of successful cryptic designs, there are still ships that should get T6 treatment. It could be becuase they are working on a big project we don't know about behind the scenes if so I can't wait to see it. But I'm really skeptical about your reasoning here.
ViL didn't have a TV show.
Part of being a company is to put a positive spin on things, it's what they do.
unless you are claiming to work in the industry then you have no idea how game development works anymore than the person you are disagreeing with.
so either you have no idea what you are talking about or you are claiming to actually work in teh game development industry.
so which company are you going to pretend you work for?
Star Trek has had hundreds of novels and comics written, 50+ years of fan fiction. If the creative team can't come up with ideas, then it's their problem and they need new people.
No one said otherwise? No one said a thing. You didn't mention it.
I never said either of those things. Those are your words and the meaning you are attaching to things.