I wish they'd just make T6 Ship Levels (where you have to set up, fly, and gain Ship EXP to unlock said levels) purchasable WITH refined dilithium - and keep such purchases per character.
^^^
That would definitely be a Dil sink I'd use as I hate having to spend time setting up a ship and 'flying' it just to get its Level 6 ship trait unlocked for the ship i REALLY want to use said ship trait on. It also wouldn't impact players actually playing the game as again, for most it's just a chore they need to do to get a trait for the ship they really want to use.
But no, all the Dev chatter I see on the new Dil sinks are destructive (IE they take away something players could earn like Admiralty reroll tokens, or they want to remove/make certain Fleet project inputs Dil only, etc. <--- Which are both sub optimal solutions as F2P players see Refined Dil as the one way they can earn Zen in game to get ships/items they want, and the Devs are never going to get past that with out offering a Dil Sink that has real and wanted convenience like the suggestion above which many others before me here have also made - it was actually brought up to Borticus on a recent Live Stream, but he seemed hesitant, even though it fills the criteria of not really being a 'one time purchase' as many of us with lots of Dil also have lots of T6 ship we haven't unlocked because doing so is a hassle and requires time setting up and using a ship you really don't want to use - you just want the Level 6 trait unlocked for your main ship to use.
It adds an option for players who want the convenience here, but DOESN'T take anything away from players who don't mind grinding levels on a T6 ship they'll never use again once the unlock the trait for that character. I don't see the downside to this type of Dil sink; and they've already done something similar (but of course using Zen) for the Reputations.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Just my 2 EC but am not so sure it's possible to introduce one or two truly effective Dil sinks at this point. I can't see how it would have any effect on the ratio of spenders to savers.
Amongst the best ideas I've heard most involve expanding certain in-game items available for dil or switching select transactions from the zen store to dil. Still think they'd be a drop in the bucket.
Sure some ideas put forth might temporarily help with the backlog given it's a supply and demand thing in part.
The balance previously found seemed to revolve around a core group of players using all their dil plus zen to dil to get things done. I don't see that happening again given the age of the game and current game development levels. Who wants to spend more at this point?
In an era where "quick fixes" are being asked for I don't think there is a quick fix for this.
Still waiting to put in my very first dil to zen order 10+ years later.
Many players have been in favor of being able to spend dilithium to bypass having to unlock starship mastery packages. The response from Cryptic regarding this and other ideas has been overwhelming silence. Or worse -- they take something away so you can spend dilithium to get it back.
Yep - and one of the few ideas they did implement - paying Dil for reroll tokens - was an absolute failure, and they even acknowledged that it "didn't affect the exchange at all" in a livestream. So after acknowledging that it didn't do what they'd hoped and was a mistake, did they roll back that mistake? Did they heck.
And granted the Vanity Shield sale temporarily impacted this, but the benefit that generated was very quickly lost through the subsequent, relentless, Zen-demand driving sales.
Sadly, it seems like there isn't any real solution to this problem because even if they did listen to player feedback, and introduce one or two truly effective Dil sinks, their queue of high-demand (zen-driven) sales means it wouldn't do any lasting good.
The problem is they keep looking for quick fixes... and if they can't find one they give up.
There is no quick fix. Any quick fix will be temporary.
The only real fix is to continually add new gear that will require upgrades. (and to stop giving away so many ultra upgrades... the ultra upgrades with every 20 key pack exasperated the exchange issues as well) The only real sink that has ever worked has been upgrades, first through upgrades then through phoenix boxes. Problem is they haven't added anything gear wise to replace what people upgraded at this point years back already.
A new reputation would help... BUT that is work, and adding more required grind, and also adds more Dill payout for farmers. If they expanded Reputations to Tier 7 they would likely receive massive backlash.
My suggestions are to iterate on reps and content.
- There is no rule that says every reputation should only have one Ground/Space set. (the oldest do have multiples) Add some new gear to each rep.... if they really want to be lazy do for Sets what they did for weapons with tier 6. Mix and match. Copy the stats from say the Comp rep engine but add it to say the Discovery rep as a Disco rep set piece. Add Temp deflector to Gamma... A gamma engine to Delta. ect ect ect. People will grab new rep gear and upgrade it. (thus burning dil)
- Add actual new mission gear... to OLD missions on a temp basis. They could run 1-2 week episode reruns. (like they did way way way back) It would take almost no work to simply say its Delta Quadrant mission chain week... offer 2x the XP/Dil/EC rewards for replays and add a few new interesting consoles/ship sets/ground gear what have you. They don't have to feature crazy art work... who cares recycle stuff with new names and stats. Again stuff that people will UPGRADE... and hopefully put the stuff they upgraded to gold 3 years ago into a bank.
- Crazy idea that that most won't like.... Bump gear grade one more step Perhaps its time for Mark 16, and a 20% NPC health/dmg bump across the board to go with it. If people are going to continue using the same set of weapons they have been using for 4 years... ding them for a one time upgrade fee.
That is my thoughts on the Dil exchange. We don't need anything radical, they don't need new systems or to chance anything that they may believe could eat into their zen sales. No they just need to keep the upgrade machine going. The issue today is simple there are a great number of players that simply aren't upgrading anything anymore... which was by far the largest sink. Sure new fleet holdings, new reps ect could eat Dil... but I get it Cryptic is short staffed and stuff like that seems to not be in the cards. Easy stuff.... man rerunning mission chains and throwing in some wide angle beam, a good torp, a few uni consoles with specs decent enough to replace something else. These seem like the type of things they could easily do. Also any mission gear they give this way should be at best Blue MK X base. lol
Many players have been in favor of being able to spend dilithium to bypass having to unlock starship mastery packages. The response from Cryptic regarding this and other ideas has been overwhelming silence. Or worse -- they take something away so you can spend dilithium to get it back.
Yep - and one of the few ideas they did implement - paying Dil for reroll tokens - was an absolute failure, and they even acknowledged that it "didn't affect the exchange at all" in a livestream. So after acknowledging that it didn't do what they'd hoped and was a mistake, did they roll back that mistake? Did they heck.
And granted the Vanity Shield sale temporarily impacted this, but the benefit that generated was very quickly lost through the subsequent, relentless, Zen-demand driving sales.
Sadly, it seems like there isn't any real solution to this problem because even if they did listen to player feedback, and introduce one or two truly effective Dil sinks, their queue of high-demand (zen-driven) sales means it wouldn't do any lasting good.
The problem is they keep looking for quick fixes... and if they can't find one they give up.
There is no quick fix. Any quick fix will be temporary.
The only real fix is to continually add new gear that will require upgrades. (and to stop giving away so many ultra upgrades... the ultra upgrades with every 20 key pack exasperated the exchange issues as well) The only real sink that has ever worked has been upgrades, first through upgrades then through phoenix boxes. Problem is they haven't added anything gear wise to replace what people upgraded at this point years back already.
A new reputation would help... BUT that is work, and adding more required grind, and also adds more Dill payout for farmers. If they expanded Reputations to Tier 7 they would likely receive massive backlash.
My suggestions are to iterate on reps and content.
- There is no rule that says every reputation should only have one Ground/Space set. (the oldest do have multiples) Add some new gear to each rep.... if they really want to be lazy do for Sets what they did for weapons with tier 6. Mix and match. Copy the stats from say the Comp rep engine but add it to say the Discovery rep as a Disco rep set piece. Add Temp deflector to Gamma... A gamma engine to Delta. ect ect ect. People will grab new rep gear and upgrade it. (thus burning dil)
- Add actual new mission gear... to OLD missions on a temp basis. They could run 1-2 week episode reruns. (like they did way way way back) It would take almost no work to simply say its Delta Quadrant mission chain week... offer 2x the XP/Dil/EC rewards for replays and add a few new interesting consoles/ship sets/ground gear what have you. They don't have to feature crazy art work... who cares recycle stuff with new names and stats. Again stuff that people will UPGRADE... and hopefully put the stuff they upgraded to gold 3 years ago into a bank.
- Crazy idea that that most won't like.... Bump gear grade one more step Perhaps its time for Mark 16, and a 20% NPC health/dmg bump across the board to go with it. If people are going to continue using the same set of weapons they have been using for 4 years... ding them for a one time upgrade fee.
That is my thoughts on the Dil exchange. We don't need anything radical, they don't need new systems or to chance anything that they may believe could eat into their zen sales. No they just need to keep the upgrade machine going. The issue today is simple there are a great number of players that simply aren't upgrading anything anymore... which was by far the largest sink. Sure new fleet holdings, new reps ect could eat Dil... but I get it Cryptic is short staffed and stuff like that seems to not be in the cards. Easy stuff.... man rerunning mission chains and throwing in some wide angle beam, a good torp, a few uni consoles with specs decent enough to replace something else. These seem like the type of things they could easily do. Also any mission gear they give this way should be at best Blue MK X base. lol
That ties in well with long-requested things for reputations like adding DBBs and omnibeams to reps that only offer DHCs for forward primary weapons and turrets. The cannons especially are a problem since a lot of ships cannot mount them.
Also, if they added powered melee weapons (or any melee weapons) with the more modern animations and closers similar to what J'Ula's mek'leths have (but Aakar's lack) then that would help too.
I really have to agree with some of the above statements. I really don't think there is ANY quick fix for this but that DOES seem to be the only thing they're looking for. It really worries me about the current state of Cryptic, as a company. Between the monetization choices, comments made by Kael, the current state of all three games, the obvious issues caused by covid (for both Cryptic AND the community) and that no other games have really been launched since, I really wonder what's going on at the offices. Is it PWE pushing the company in ways that just don't work for this specific market? How big is the actual STO team, in terms of making things happen?
One of my biggest gripes about most MMO's today, is that they're charging way too much for how little you're actually getting, and that's not even considering how much made is actually put back into the game. With all that in mind, and i've mentioned this elsewhere on this forum, do you think people would be willing to give up the Dil exchange IF and only if, they dropped their zen prices by a considerable amount? It would solve... "solve" the Dil sink issues and cause an influx of much needed cash to their stores but would that just be another "quick fix" solution to a bigger, unaddressed issue here?
As an F2P game, i get the need to do the earnable in-game currency for a cash shop. It's more appealing for getting F2P players to hop in. The issue is that it's REALLY biting them in the foot right now. If the MMO's weren't charging so much for these things, wouldn't it make removing them more palatable?
ESO, for example, is experimenting with the earnable In-game Currencies for their cash shops, and from what i'm seeing on the forums, it's less than popular. SWTOR, obviously just doesn't care and will keep gouging you AND your dead horse for money. Champions online, which is basically dead for years now, is still charging the same prices for their store as STO does, despite the complete lack of players and development. If you're going to charge way too much for the items, of course no one will buy them. Add into that, that they can get those purchases from in-game means, then, yeah... that high price becomes even more of a joke. Constant sales make it look like a joke. The sheer dragon hordes of dilithium they say some people have, make those prices a joke. It's like the GPL. They refuse to do anything of value with it, because players HAVE. TOO. MUCH. And because of poor planning, that's the case with Dil now, too. More so, when you can just BUY out an event on day one (with your Dil stockpile), then spend the rest of that three weeks replenishing said stockpile with the event daily.
As unpopular of an opinion as this might be, i genuinely think that if they permanently dropped all the prices in the store buy half, people would be more willing to lose the Dil/zen exchange. I think they would get a HUGE boost to immediate sales, it might be more profitable in the long run, and it wouldn't be as much of a joke. Again, it's not nearly as bad as EA is doing things over on SWTOR, but it would solve a lot of issues.
For me personally, I'd consider buying stuff for microtransaction prices. 5€ for a costume, 7€ for a bridge, 10€ for a ship. But not more, obviously I'm not an attractive player to them. It only takes one player to buy the expensive bundles to replace dozens of players like me. And that works.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The advantage to the dill system has always been the mirco transactions where on zen to buy dil. Upgrading gear, unlocking some extra trait slots at the fleet, fleet gear ect. Many people would drop 20 bucks to max that upgrade weekend... or to just buy those extra slots.
As Al says retention is high... which means very few players need any of that stuff anymore. Cryptic has given no one any reason to mico transaction Dill anymore. Those microtransactions allowed them to keep a lot of "free" or low paying players in game. Which gave the whales a reason to be around to buy the big packs in the pure full $$$ form... and for the micro transactions to top up the free folks.
The problem Cryptic is going to face in 2022 is they are going to start dropping free players... and worse they are going to start dropping the top up players that are mostly ok with $150 ship packs cause they would only spend 20-40 bucks and grind the rest to trade to the many small dill purchasers. Which will in turn make the game a little less full... which will start to dry up some of the whales. (sure there are probably a handful of die hard trek fan whales that would play an empty game but I suspect no enough to keep Cryptics doors open either)
The only way forward for Cryptic in 2022 is to solve the dill exchange... and its simple. Its not a simple one update fix. It really is as simple as adding new gear to upgrade. Perhaps just going forward with a Mk 16 bump... bump the NPCs 20% cause the power creep is making PvE too fast anyway. Actually tending the power creep in a way that means upgrades... and not just Gold consoles and uber traits sold on Zen store / promo box ships. It should be pretty easy to add new tac consoles to existing holdings... new sci consoles... new secondary deflectors... new mission gear that is good enough to displace old already upgraded things. (and smartening up about giving away so many ultimate upgrades for events and with every key ring sold) The ultimate upgrades have made a bad situation even worse... releasing a handful of new items worth using then giving away free ultimate upgrades defeats the good done by adding them.
I'm sucker for Trek... and no matter what I know I won't leave for good unless the game really does clear out or the servers go down. However since launch I have taken multiple months long breaks and a couple that went as long as a year. I admit I'm a small time spender. After 10 years frankly there isn't much I need or want anymore... I'll spend 20-40 bucks here and there to top up my Zen to buy a pack or whatever. Having said that if I am going to have to wait a couple months to convert Dill... (which is where we are heading pretty fast) I think it might be time to go pick up ED Odyssey (which I held off on for obvious reasons) and go waste a few months there. If Cryptic doesn't figure out how to setup their in game currency micro transaction market the break will probably get extended a few times in 2022. After 10 years of F2P and being able to stay up to date with ships and gear ect ect for around the same price I was paying when the game was a sub (I Subbed until it was no longer an option) if I can't have the latest greatest anymore unless I'm willing to shell out for a $150 ship pack every month... well frankly I can't justify that, and I suspect too many people feel the same way for the game to make to 2023. Damn didn't mean to post a Doom post... but really getting the F2P balance right is something Cryptic has actually always been one of the few ways they have been best in the business.... STO F2P has always been the gold standard imo nothing you couldn't trade other players for. nothing that was paywalled. Its sad to see Cryptic let it slip as it has, not that it isn't more then savable at this point... but every month they don't make changes its getting harder and harder to right.
My experience with STO is still a positive one. I play every day for at least an hour doing a variety of different things that may interest me that day. I take a very casual attitude. I may do an event, work on my fleet, do endeavors that interest me, random TFO’s, roleplay, group content with friends, roam around an adventure zone (Dyson, Nukara, Badlands, New Romulus), pick out and repeat a story arc mission I have not done in awhile. I find there is so much variety of things to do. I have a main character I use 70% of the time and a few alts to mix it up for variety.
I don’t usually feel FOMO, because what is usually offered as awards do not grab me as a must have. I am mostly sitting out the winter event, because I have no interest in the ship awarded and have most of what I need from the event store.
As far as ships go, I use zen store T6 ships and find them totally sufficient to enjoy the game and do space Barbie. Adding in the T6X token from event awards is always a plus, but not necessary. I have no legendary ships or lockbox award ships and no desire to go after them. My main character is a TOS Tellarite and use a T6 Gemini for him. I never went after the classic Connie, because I really like the Gemini. For the event campaign I selected the two T6 tokens, in that way I have full flexibility to use the ships on any current or future character if I decide to switch up a theme.
So in all, I am very pleased with my STO experience. I drop a moderate amount of money now and then when there is a sale, but find the 500 zen I get monthly from LTS helps keep my spending levels moderate.
and that no other games have really been launched since
The did launch "Magic: The Gathering" - but it failed to garner the level of respone they were hoping for, so they shuttered it. Good decision of bad, they did have a team develop and launch the thing, so no, even that aspect of the company continues.
Whether they decide to do yet another game now that PWE and Cryptic have been acquired by the Embracer Group:
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
and that no other games have really been launched since
The did launch "Magic: The Gathering"
My understanding was that Magic only made it to open beta and never officially launched before they killed it.
It ran as a live game for many months and even received patches and updates during that time (including one content update). For all intents and purposes it was 'launched' and running for a good chunk of time as a live game. They even took money for microtransactions in that time -- all of which was ultimately refunded. It even had it's own community manager and marketing team in Cryptic for a time.
So yeah, if you want to get into the semantics of the term 'official launch' -- but the game was developed, completed, and run as a live service for months before it was ultimately shuttered
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Comments
^^^
That would definitely be a Dil sink I'd use as I hate having to spend time setting up a ship and 'flying' it just to get its Level 6 ship trait unlocked for the ship i REALLY want to use said ship trait on. It also wouldn't impact players actually playing the game as again, for most it's just a chore they need to do to get a trait for the ship they really want to use.
But no, all the Dev chatter I see on the new Dil sinks are destructive (IE they take away something players could earn like Admiralty reroll tokens, or they want to remove/make certain Fleet project inputs Dil only, etc. <--- Which are both sub optimal solutions as F2P players see Refined Dil as the one way they can earn Zen in game to get ships/items they want, and the Devs are never going to get past that with out offering a Dil Sink that has real and wanted convenience like the suggestion above which many others before me here have also made - it was actually brought up to Borticus on a recent Live Stream, but he seemed hesitant, even though it fills the criteria of not really being a 'one time purchase' as many of us with lots of Dil also have lots of T6 ship we haven't unlocked because doing so is a hassle and requires time setting up and using a ship you really don't want to use - you just want the Level 6 trait unlocked for your main ship to use.
It adds an option for players who want the convenience here, but DOESN'T take anything away from players who don't mind grinding levels on a T6 ship they'll never use again once the unlock the trait for that character. I don't see the downside to this type of Dil sink; and they've already done something similar (but of course using Zen) for the Reputations.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Amongst the best ideas I've heard most involve expanding certain in-game items available for dil or switching select transactions from the zen store to dil. Still think they'd be a drop in the bucket.
Sure some ideas put forth might temporarily help with the backlog given it's a supply and demand thing in part.
The balance previously found seemed to revolve around a core group of players using all their dil plus zen to dil to get things done. I don't see that happening again given the age of the game and current game development levels. Who wants to spend more at this point?
In an era where "quick fixes" are being asked for I don't think there is a quick fix for this.
Still waiting to put in my very first dil to zen order 10+ years later.
The problem is they keep looking for quick fixes... and if they can't find one they give up.
There is no quick fix. Any quick fix will be temporary.
The only real fix is to continually add new gear that will require upgrades. (and to stop giving away so many ultra upgrades... the ultra upgrades with every 20 key pack exasperated the exchange issues as well) The only real sink that has ever worked has been upgrades, first through upgrades then through phoenix boxes. Problem is they haven't added anything gear wise to replace what people upgraded at this point years back already.
A new reputation would help... BUT that is work, and adding more required grind, and also adds more Dill payout for farmers. If they expanded Reputations to Tier 7 they would likely receive massive backlash.
My suggestions are to iterate on reps and content.
- There is no rule that says every reputation should only have one Ground/Space set. (the oldest do have multiples) Add some new gear to each rep.... if they really want to be lazy do for Sets what they did for weapons with tier 6. Mix and match. Copy the stats from say the Comp rep engine but add it to say the Discovery rep as a Disco rep set piece. Add Temp deflector to Gamma... A gamma engine to Delta. ect ect ect. People will grab new rep gear and upgrade it. (thus burning dil)
- Add actual new mission gear... to OLD missions on a temp basis. They could run 1-2 week episode reruns. (like they did way way way back) It would take almost no work to simply say its Delta Quadrant mission chain week... offer 2x the XP/Dil/EC rewards for replays and add a few new interesting consoles/ship sets/ground gear what have you. They don't have to feature crazy art work... who cares recycle stuff with new names and stats. Again stuff that people will UPGRADE... and hopefully put the stuff they upgraded to gold 3 years ago into a bank.
- Crazy idea that that most won't like.... Bump gear grade one more step Perhaps its time for Mark 16, and a 20% NPC health/dmg bump across the board to go with it. If people are going to continue using the same set of weapons they have been using for 4 years... ding them for a one time upgrade fee.
That is my thoughts on the Dil exchange. We don't need anything radical, they don't need new systems or to chance anything that they may believe could eat into their zen sales. No they just need to keep the upgrade machine going. The issue today is simple there are a great number of players that simply aren't upgrading anything anymore... which was by far the largest sink. Sure new fleet holdings, new reps ect could eat Dil... but I get it Cryptic is short staffed and stuff like that seems to not be in the cards. Easy stuff.... man rerunning mission chains and throwing in some wide angle beam, a good torp, a few uni consoles with specs decent enough to replace something else. These seem like the type of things they could easily do. Also any mission gear they give this way should be at best Blue MK X base. lol
That ties in well with long-requested things for reputations like adding DBBs and omnibeams to reps that only offer DHCs for forward primary weapons and turrets. The cannons especially are a problem since a lot of ships cannot mount them.
Also, if they added powered melee weapons (or any melee weapons) with the more modern animations and closers similar to what J'Ula's mek'leths have (but Aakar's lack) then that would help too.
One of my biggest gripes about most MMO's today, is that they're charging way too much for how little you're actually getting, and that's not even considering how much made is actually put back into the game. With all that in mind, and i've mentioned this elsewhere on this forum, do you think people would be willing to give up the Dil exchange IF and only if, they dropped their zen prices by a considerable amount? It would solve... "solve" the Dil sink issues and cause an influx of much needed cash to their stores but would that just be another "quick fix" solution to a bigger, unaddressed issue here?
As an F2P game, i get the need to do the earnable in-game currency for a cash shop. It's more appealing for getting F2P players to hop in. The issue is that it's REALLY biting them in the foot right now. If the MMO's weren't charging so much for these things, wouldn't it make removing them more palatable?
ESO, for example, is experimenting with the earnable In-game Currencies for their cash shops, and from what i'm seeing on the forums, it's less than popular. SWTOR, obviously just doesn't care and will keep gouging you AND your dead horse for money. Champions online, which is basically dead for years now, is still charging the same prices for their store as STO does, despite the complete lack of players and development. If you're going to charge way too much for the items, of course no one will buy them. Add into that, that they can get those purchases from in-game means, then, yeah... that high price becomes even more of a joke. Constant sales make it look like a joke. The sheer dragon hordes of dilithium they say some people have, make those prices a joke. It's like the GPL. They refuse to do anything of value with it, because players HAVE. TOO. MUCH. And because of poor planning, that's the case with Dil now, too. More so, when you can just BUY out an event on day one (with your Dil stockpile), then spend the rest of that three weeks replenishing said stockpile with the event daily.
As unpopular of an opinion as this might be, i genuinely think that if they permanently dropped all the prices in the store buy half, people would be more willing to lose the Dil/zen exchange. I think they would get a HUGE boost to immediate sales, it might be more profitable in the long run, and it wouldn't be as much of a joke. Again, it's not nearly as bad as EA is doing things over on SWTOR, but it would solve a lot of issues.
For me personally, I'd consider buying stuff for microtransaction prices. 5€ for a costume, 7€ for a bridge, 10€ for a ship. But not more, obviously I'm not an attractive player to them. It only takes one player to buy the expensive bundles to replace dozens of players like me. And that works.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
As Al says retention is high... which means very few players need any of that stuff anymore. Cryptic has given no one any reason to mico transaction Dill anymore. Those microtransactions allowed them to keep a lot of "free" or low paying players in game. Which gave the whales a reason to be around to buy the big packs in the pure full $$$ form... and for the micro transactions to top up the free folks.
The problem Cryptic is going to face in 2022 is they are going to start dropping free players... and worse they are going to start dropping the top up players that are mostly ok with $150 ship packs cause they would only spend 20-40 bucks and grind the rest to trade to the many small dill purchasers. Which will in turn make the game a little less full... which will start to dry up some of the whales. (sure there are probably a handful of die hard trek fan whales that would play an empty game but I suspect no enough to keep Cryptics doors open either)
The only way forward for Cryptic in 2022 is to solve the dill exchange... and its simple. Its not a simple one update fix. It really is as simple as adding new gear to upgrade. Perhaps just going forward with a Mk 16 bump... bump the NPCs 20% cause the power creep is making PvE too fast anyway. Actually tending the power creep in a way that means upgrades... and not just Gold consoles and uber traits sold on Zen store / promo box ships. It should be pretty easy to add new tac consoles to existing holdings... new sci consoles... new secondary deflectors... new mission gear that is good enough to displace old already upgraded things. (and smartening up about giving away so many ultimate upgrades for events and with every key ring sold) The ultimate upgrades have made a bad situation even worse... releasing a handful of new items worth using then giving away free ultimate upgrades defeats the good done by adding them.
I'm sucker for Trek... and no matter what I know I won't leave for good unless the game really does clear out or the servers go down. However since launch I have taken multiple months long breaks and a couple that went as long as a year. I admit I'm a small time spender. After 10 years frankly there isn't much I need or want anymore... I'll spend 20-40 bucks here and there to top up my Zen to buy a pack or whatever. Having said that if I am going to have to wait a couple months to convert Dill... (which is where we are heading pretty fast) I think it might be time to go pick up ED Odyssey (which I held off on for obvious reasons) and go waste a few months there. If Cryptic doesn't figure out how to setup their in game currency micro transaction market the break will probably get extended a few times in 2022. After 10 years of F2P and being able to stay up to date with ships and gear ect ect for around the same price I was paying when the game was a sub (I Subbed until it was no longer an option) if I can't have the latest greatest anymore unless I'm willing to shell out for a $150 ship pack every month... well frankly I can't justify that, and I suspect too many people feel the same way for the game to make to 2023. Damn didn't mean to post a Doom post... but really getting the F2P balance right is something Cryptic has actually always been one of the few ways they have been best in the business.... STO F2P has always been the gold standard imo nothing you couldn't trade other players for. nothing that was paywalled. Its sad to see Cryptic let it slip as it has, not that it isn't more then savable at this point... but every month they don't make changes its getting harder and harder to right.
I don’t usually feel FOMO, because what is usually offered as awards do not grab me as a must have. I am mostly sitting out the winter event, because I have no interest in the ship awarded and have most of what I need from the event store.
As far as ships go, I use zen store T6 ships and find them totally sufficient to enjoy the game and do space Barbie. Adding in the T6X token from event awards is always a plus, but not necessary. I have no legendary ships or lockbox award ships and no desire to go after them. My main character is a TOS Tellarite and use a T6 Gemini for him. I never went after the classic Connie, because I really like the Gemini. For the event campaign I selected the two T6 tokens, in that way I have full flexibility to use the ships on any current or future character if I decide to switch up a theme.
So in all, I am very pleased with my STO experience. I drop a moderate amount of money now and then when there is a sale, but find the 500 zen I get monthly from LTS helps keep my spending levels moderate.
The did launch "Magic: The Gathering" - but it failed to garner the level of respone they were hoping for, so they shuttered it. Good decision of bad, they did have a team develop and launch the thing, so no, even that aspect of the company continues.
Whether they decide to do yet another game now that PWE and Cryptic have been acquired by the Embracer Group:
https://thesixthaxis.com/2021/12/21/embracer-have-bought-perfect-world-creators-of-neverwinter-and-star-trek-online/
remains to be seen.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
My understanding was that Magic only made it to open beta and never officially launched before they killed it.
^ Click image to listen to my favorite Trek theme song! ^
It ran as a live game for many months and even received patches and updates during that time (including one content update). For all intents and purposes it was 'launched' and running for a good chunk of time as a live game. They even took money for microtransactions in that time -- all of which was ultimately refunded. It even had it's own community manager and marketing team in Cryptic for a time.
So yeah, if you want to get into the semantics of the term 'official launch' -- but the game was developed, completed, and run as a live service for months before it was ultimately shuttered
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."