I have waited for what seems like a few years for a good reason to create a new character. I have already developed each species that I want. All I see now are hideous ship model releases that are becoming increasingly more abstract and simplified art pieces that don't embody Star Trek (IMO), and I am dissappointed that both Discovery and Picard have been influenced bt them. They could be from any sci-fi show.
I want and like to create new characters. Every character I create needs EVERYTHING. Personally, I save my pheonix upgrade tokens for new characters. However, Star Trek Online doesn't offer a player who has supported the game for 11+ years and has already outfitted 40 characters to max level much. The game caters and is focused on possible new players.
I have been waiting for a "Linus" Saurian skin for what must be over 2 years. I don't even need a new species. One re-skin update of an already existing species in the game and I will spend much of my saved resources to play the game again, because I will need everything again. Each new species makes the entire game journey new for me, but there hasn't been a new species in years (at least it seems that way).
New players probably don't have resources saved, because it is so costly to outfit characters. Players that have saved resources might just be waiting for a reason to make a new character - a character/species they don't already have.
The comment made by Borticus scares me, because it inferrs that we don't like what they've created in the game. I interpret it as a message that there is not much new to come, and my wait and hope for a new journey with new character species is futile.
I have slowed down making characters a bit too in the last year or two for much the same reason, just running low on ideas for characters who are different but doable in the game (I am not losing interest in the game overall, just using my already existing characters and ships more and buying less because of it).
If not for the various recruitments I would have made even fewer. Right now the only firm idea I have (for the three quadrants that allow character variety anyway) is for a Romulan faction Delta, an Enaran who was disillusioned by the revelation of what really happened to the Regressive faction of her people who, during a search and rescue operation in the Iconian war, made telepathic contact with a Reman survivor while searching an RRF ship and got more of an infodump then expected. Seeking to in some small way atone for her own people's atrocity committed against a segment of their own population and honor the memory of those lost, she went with some of the Romulan forces that were returning home, to help the Republic in its fight against the remnants of the Tal Shiar and rebuild.
On the other hand, I have a number of ideas for Gamma quadrant characters (mostly Vorta, but also other races like Dosi), but I am tired of having to do those in other faction character generators so they are shelved until either the devs decide to expand the faction, I find a ship or something else that would fit one or more of them so well that I make the character(s) in another faction generator anyway because the opportunity is just too good to pass up (with a few less restrictions on the legendary bugshp it would have been one of those opportunities) despite the downsides of technically being in the wrong faction, or just give those ideas up as a lost cause.
So I am in pretty much the same holding pattern as you are.
Then nothing he changes about prize packs will have a damned bit of difference. The system, as it's designed, is broken, producing EXACTLY the results he finds weird. Like getting confused by someone getting wet by standing out in the rain.
Could not agree more. His answer is even staring him right in the face within his own question - "Why aren't you spending them? Nothing worthy to buy?"
Well, duh. There are mountains upon mountains of unspent dilithium because there is nothing worthwhile to spend it on. Maybe eventually he will figure it out.
I believe this is what one refers to as a rhetorical question. He knows.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Then nothing he changes about prize packs will have a damned bit of difference. The system, as it's designed, is broken, producing EXACTLY the results he finds weird. Like getting confused by someone getting wet by standing out in the rain.
Could not agree more. His answer is even staring him right in the face within his own question - "Why aren't you spending them? Nothing worthy to buy?"
Well, duh. There are mountains upon mountains of unspent dilithium because there is nothing worthwhile to spend it on. Maybe eventually he will figure it out.
I believe this is what one refers to as a rhetorical question. He knows.
And here I thought he was just being difficult or perhaps is misinformed but now with your clarification I realize it was just the way I was reading what he said and there is actually great flourish there that went unrecognized. Thank you.
No token upgrade is going to happen and the answer is in the metrics. It's because of those same metrics. When they unveil a new set of goalposts one of their principle frustrations is when players day one whatever was intended to be a long term (or at least a short term hurdle). For all the over achievers out their who hit the dil ceiling in ore and processed who spilled off the excess into uncommon prizes so they could keep topping up waiting for the day 1 sweep congratulations. I don't think there is any prize, because I doubt there will be a day one on account of the hoards in reserve.
Then nothing he changes about prize packs will have a damned bit of difference. The system, as it's designed, is broken, producing EXACTLY the results he finds weird. Like getting confused by someone getting wet by standing out in the rain.
Could not agree more. His answer is even staring him right in the face within his own question - "Why aren't you spending them? Nothing worthy to buy?"
Well, duh. There are mountains upon mountains of unspent dilithium because there is nothing worthwhile to spend it on. Maybe eventually he will figure it out.
I believe this is what one refers to as a rhetorical question. He knows.
And here I thought he was just being difficult or perhaps is misinformed but now with your clarification I realize it was just the way I was reading what he said and there is actually great flourish there that went unrecognized. Thank you.
Not sure myself after his other subposts on the subject, based on the reddit/twitter threads I strongly believe he is out of touch with the players and overall has little idea about gamers and how they act/think.
I gave up trying to get the Samsar long ago, nowadays I rarely use anything but green tokens for upgrades and commendation pools, even most of the blues I get I break down into greens when I need upgrades. Very occasionally I get something from the blue or magenta tab like an admiralty card or doff, or occasionally an engine or console or whatnot to experiment with something different.
If I get an UR I just get X-upgrades, and I got a whole 2 epics since the Phoenix box thing starter (and those were on the account that I did not have a specific ship I wanted like the already mentioned Samsar for my Kobali captain).
As more of my characters reach top end the fewer upgrades I need so my buying phoenix boxes has slowed a bit. I suspect that pattern is not that unusual from what I hear from others in chat.
unless you need it for a theme, the samsar is a horrible ship. I used it for trait on a couple toons but I don't bother now. IMO AHOD is not that necessary a trait
I gave up trying to get the Samsar long ago, nowadays I rarely use anything but green tokens for upgrades and commendation pools, even most of the blues I get I break down into greens when I need upgrades. Very occasionally I get something from the blue or magenta tab like an admiralty card or doff, or occasionally an engine or console or whatnot to experiment with something different.
If I get an UR I just get X-upgrades, and I got a whole 2 epics since the Phoenix box thing starter (and those were on the account that I did not have a specific ship I wanted like the already mentioned Samsar for my Kobali captain).
As more of my characters reach top end the fewer upgrades I need so my buying phoenix boxes has slowed a bit. I suspect that pattern is not that unusual from what I hear from others in chat.
unless you need it for a theme, the samsar is a horrible ship. I used it for trait on a couple toons but I don't bother now. IMO AHOD is not that necessary a trait
I wanted it for the Kobali character I have (yes, I have burned through so many character ideas I even have a Kobali alt) for the theme/space Barbie aspect. I know the ship itself is not anything special in of itself though from what I have seen it is not that bad either for an oldschool T6. If anything it is quite a bit tankier than the T5ux Delta quadrant ship I have her in now.
While even I admit the Samsar isn't a top contender for DPS... dang thing can make a decent healboat. I actually had to make a Kobali Healboat to get 1st place in Crystalline Entity for my main. I just couldn't beat the DPS with my main (could on several alts without trying somehow), but it does count healing.
Not only that, the Samsar comes with the Kobali Warp Core, which is needed to have the COMPLETE Kobali set. Which honestly is one of my go to sets because I like the extra heals.
> @corinthalas said: > Likewise. The Domino console is a great console, and a *LOT* of players would happily spend millions of dilithium getting the ship it comes with **IF** they could just spend said dilithium to get exactly what they want. If the 'trade up' cost of an epic prize token was in the ballpark of 4-4.5 million dilithium, that's actually *BETTER* for the game than what we have now, because that's 4-4.5 million dilithium *NOT* being fed back into a bunch of upgraded items to be sold on the Exchange, because what else is a player going to do with all those phoenix upgrades they don't need? It also won't produce the massive backlog of unspent prize vouchers we have now for the same reason -- they'll get consumed trading up, which gives the system time to balance itself out as new prizes get added.
Bing, bing, bing!
That is right. Trade-up doesn’t mean drop rates need to be more “unfriendly” They just need to be very expensive and I think the millions of dilithium worth is a good ballpark.
If anyone is interested. Kael said in this week’s livestream that Phoenix store items are definitely coming soon. He also said we will eventually get the new tutorial bridge. And (according to the rumor mill) Kael may have told MCStu that the California was coming in a lockbox. They also talked about maybe having a new exploration system.
For me, personally, I NEVER get anything higher than blue, so it's just not worth it to me to put actual resources into, let alone the resource that i can use in the Zen store.
Secondly, we don't need three different types of lockboxes in the game, that's just annoying to me, lol.
On top of that, i (like MANY players) have been in the game since beta, so i've already earned all of the interesting (to me), making anything rare and under, well... Useless. I have no want or need of ANY of that, so i just downgrade everything into upgrades, since i don't like using dil for that either.
I love Borticus and all the work he does for the players. Given the original post, i'll be really curious to see what they do to improve the phoenix boxes and their rewards. What all do you think they might add in to the rewards?
If they really want to sink some dill... All they have to do is release one Phoenix only ship.
Legendary like event ships ? Why not... just put them as one offs in the phoenix store. No need for new art.. bridges, just adjust copy and paste with some adjusted stats. Leave the old traits and consoles on them as one offs... and add a new account unlock trait.
Or put some brand new Phoenix consoles in the store... perhaps a ship trait or two. They don't have to be game busting good... just good enough to be interesting.
You know what would sell... a faction free Reman bridge officer with Sup infiltrator, at Ultra rare. And a Reman with standard infiltrator at purple.
Then nothing he changes about prize packs will have a damned bit of difference. The system, as it's designed, is broken, producing EXACTLY the results he finds weird. Like getting confused by someone getting wet by standing out in the rain.
Could not agree more. His answer is even staring him right in the face within his own question - "Why aren't you spending them? Nothing worthy to buy?"
Well, duh. There are mountains upon mountains of unspent dilithium because there is nothing worthwhile to spend it on. Maybe eventually he will figure it out.
I believe this is what one refers to as a rhetorical question. He knows.
You'd think so but you never know when someone might miss something you'd assume to be obvious even when its right in front of them
Its like that old sherlock holmes joke: sherlock and watson decide to go camping one weekend. they go out into the woods, set up their camp and after a long day decide to turn in and get some sleep. in the middle of the night sherlock wakes up watson, points to the sky suddenly and says 'tell me watson what do you make of that?' he looks at the stars for a moment and then starts talking about how fascinating they are and wonders what they might find if they were to go there and wonders about the physics behind how they got there and how many of them there are and the nature of the universe....and finally in mid sentence, sherlock slaps watson to shut him up and says 'no watson you idiot! someone stole our tent!'
The point being, common sense isn't always as common as the term implies
That said, the more i've noticed the weird pattern in the way those epic tokens are announced the more convinced I am that the system is rigged with a timer to only ever grant anything above very rare during a specific set period of time, which would make it impossible to get them outside that time frame no matter how many boxes you open. The funny thing is i'm not the only one who's come to that particular conclusion
I'm still convinced at least half of the epic token announcements are false flags anyway.
Well, I can vouch that they do indeed exist. I have exactly one (1) such Epic token, for all the good it does me. LOL
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I have 7 in my bank. I got one a few months back when I decided I need a handful of upgrades. I agree the odds are lowish... I would also suggest they are lower then lockboxes. (not that I have sat down and opened 1000 of each to compare myself lol)
I'm not sure why a token for a one off previously free event ship needs to have such terrible odds. Also I'm pretty sure I have pulled more gold tickets then URs. The UR odds seem very low as well.
I have 7 in my bank. I got one a few months back when I decided I need a handful of upgrades. I agree the odds are lowish... I would also suggest they are lower then lockboxes. (not that I have sat down and opened 1000 of each to compare myself lol)
I'm not sure why a token for a one off previously free event ship needs to have such terrible odds. Also I'm pretty sure I have pulled more gold tickets then URs. The UR odds seem very low as well.
According to tests people have run and reported the results on in this forum, the odds of getting UR phoenix tokens definitely are quite a bit lower than lockbox or promobox. Getting a T6 from a lockbox runs around one in two-fifty while an elite phoenix token runs around one in a thousand or so, IIRC.
Oh I know they do, I got two back to back on PC 4 years ago.
That was before they were available all the time though.
Just the amount I see during certain times raises my eyebrow.
There are thousands of players at any time. And honestly you can just turn off those notifications outright too.
That's a PC exclusive feature (they didn't make that mistake twice), and I can guarantee there aren't thousands of players on console at ANY given time. Especially given there's no crossplay.
Comments
Then bringing them to mudds months down the road as an account unlock. While leaving them in the phoenix.
There was no reason Mudd had to mean the end of Phoenix.
I have slowed down making characters a bit too in the last year or two for much the same reason, just running low on ideas for characters who are different but doable in the game (I am not losing interest in the game overall, just using my already existing characters and ships more and buying less because of it).
If not for the various recruitments I would have made even fewer. Right now the only firm idea I have (for the three quadrants that allow character variety anyway) is for a Romulan faction Delta, an Enaran who was disillusioned by the revelation of what really happened to the Regressive faction of her people who, during a search and rescue operation in the Iconian war, made telepathic contact with a Reman survivor while searching an RRF ship and got more of an infodump then expected. Seeking to in some small way atone for her own people's atrocity committed against a segment of their own population and honor the memory of those lost, she went with some of the Romulan forces that were returning home, to help the Republic in its fight against the remnants of the Tal Shiar and rebuild.
On the other hand, I have a number of ideas for Gamma quadrant characters (mostly Vorta, but also other races like Dosi), but I am tired of having to do those in other faction character generators so they are shelved until either the devs decide to expand the faction, I find a ship or something else that would fit one or more of them so well that I make the character(s) in another faction generator anyway because the opportunity is just too good to pass up (with a few less restrictions on the legendary bugshp it would have been one of those opportunities) despite the downsides of technically being in the wrong faction, or just give those ideas up as a lost cause.
So I am in pretty much the same holding pattern as you are.
I believe this is what one refers to as a rhetorical question. He knows.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
And here I thought he was just being difficult or perhaps is misinformed but now with your clarification I realize it was just the way I was reading what he said and there is actually great flourish there that went unrecognized. Thank you.
unless you need it for a theme, the samsar is a horrible ship. I used it for trait on a couple toons but I don't bother now. IMO AHOD is not that necessary a trait
I wanted it for the Kobali character I have (yes, I have burned through so many character ideas I even have a Kobali alt) for the theme/space Barbie aspect. I know the ship itself is not anything special in of itself though from what I have seen it is not that bad either for an oldschool T6. If anything it is quite a bit tankier than the T5ux Delta quadrant ship I have her in now.
Not only that, the Samsar comes with the Kobali Warp Core, which is needed to have the COMPLETE Kobali set. Which honestly is one of my go to sets because I like the extra heals.
Fair enough.
> Likewise. The Domino console is a great console, and a *LOT* of players would happily spend millions of dilithium getting the ship it comes with **IF** they could just spend said dilithium to get exactly what they want. If the 'trade up' cost of an epic prize token was in the ballpark of 4-4.5 million dilithium, that's actually *BETTER* for the game than what we have now, because that's 4-4.5 million dilithium *NOT* being fed back into a bunch of upgraded items to be sold on the Exchange, because what else is a player going to do with all those phoenix upgrades they don't need? It also won't produce the massive backlog of unspent prize vouchers we have now for the same reason -- they'll get consumed trading up, which gives the system time to balance itself out as new prizes get added.
Bing, bing, bing!
That is right. Trade-up doesn’t mean drop rates need to be more “unfriendly” They just need to be very expensive and I think the millions of dilithium worth is a good ballpark.
If anyone is interested. Kael said in this week’s livestream that Phoenix store items are definitely coming soon. He also said we will eventually get the new tutorial bridge. And (according to the rumor mill) Kael may have told MCStu that the California was coming in a lockbox. They also talked about maybe having a new exploration system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/u3c0ds/ten_forward_weekly_41322/
Secondly, we don't need three different types of lockboxes in the game, that's just annoying to me, lol.
On top of that, i (like MANY players) have been in the game since beta, so i've already earned all of the interesting (to me), making anything rare and under, well... Useless. I have no want or need of ANY of that, so i just downgrade everything into upgrades, since i don't like using dil for that either.
I love Borticus and all the work he does for the players. Given the original post, i'll be really curious to see what they do to improve the phoenix boxes and their rewards. What all do you think they might add in to the rewards?
Legendary like event ships ? Why not... just put them as one offs in the phoenix store. No need for new art.. bridges, just adjust copy and paste with some adjusted stats. Leave the old traits and consoles on them as one offs... and add a new account unlock trait.
Or put some brand new Phoenix consoles in the store... perhaps a ship trait or two. They don't have to be game busting good... just good enough to be interesting.
You know what would sell... a faction free Reman bridge officer with Sup infiltrator, at Ultra rare. And a Reman with standard infiltrator at purple.
You'd think so but you never know when someone might miss something you'd assume to be obvious even when its right in front of them
Its like that old sherlock holmes joke: sherlock and watson decide to go camping one weekend. they go out into the woods, set up their camp and after a long day decide to turn in and get some sleep. in the middle of the night sherlock wakes up watson, points to the sky suddenly and says 'tell me watson what do you make of that?' he looks at the stars for a moment and then starts talking about how fascinating they are and wonders what they might find if they were to go there and wonders about the physics behind how they got there and how many of them there are and the nature of the universe....and finally in mid sentence, sherlock slaps watson to shut him up and says 'no watson you idiot! someone stole our tent!'
The point being, common sense isn't always as common as the term implies
That said, the more i've noticed the weird pattern in the way those epic tokens are announced the more convinced I am that the system is rigged with a timer to only ever grant anything above very rare during a specific set period of time, which would make it impossible to get them outside that time frame no matter how many boxes you open. The funny thing is i'm not the only one who's come to that particular conclusion
Well, I can vouch that they do indeed exist. I have exactly one (1) such Epic token, for all the good it does me. LOL
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
Oh I know they do, I got two back to back on PC 4 years ago.
That was before they were available all the time though.
Just the amount I see during certain times raises my eyebrow.
I'm not sure why a token for a one off previously free event ship needs to have such terrible odds. Also I'm pretty sure I have pulled more gold tickets then URs. The UR odds seem very low as well.
According to tests people have run and reported the results on in this forum, the odds of getting UR phoenix tokens definitely are quite a bit lower than lockbox or promobox. Getting a T6 from a lockbox runs around one in two-fifty while an elite phoenix token runs around one in a thousand or so, IIRC.
There are thousands of players at any time. And honestly you can just turn off those notifications outright too.
That's a PC exclusive feature (they didn't make that mistake twice), and I can guarantee there aren't thousands of players on console at ANY given time. Especially given there's no crossplay.