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Lifetime Subscription updates
setadoon
Member Posts: 37 Arc User
With the recent sale i was wondering if there any conversations about updating the lifetime subscription at all?
I've seen a few threads here and there about how outdated a lot of the benefits are. Maybe some additions or tweaks mentioned on reddit and content videos would drive more folks to buy it.
We are getting later in the life of this game and some additions or even a lower retail price wouldnt hurt. People always get leary about buying a lifetime sub when a game is as old as STO is now. Console players who have less benefits from lifetime than pc does would enjoy an updated sub as well.
I've seen a few threads here and there about how outdated a lot of the benefits are. Maybe some additions or tweaks mentioned on reddit and content videos would drive more folks to buy it.
We are getting later in the life of this game and some additions or even a lower retail price wouldnt hurt. People always get leary about buying a lifetime sub when a game is as old as STO is now. Console players who have less benefits from lifetime than pc does would enjoy an updated sub as well.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Three things made the subscription interesting, to me at least:
- Lots of services
- An unique ship
- Unique player species (Lib. Borg especially)
The ships aren't all that unique anymore, as the 'double mode'-feature has been added to several others over the years. Besides, with all the upgrades required to make them just as good as other ships you might've already upgraded, they're not that appealing anymore. At the very least they should have made them T6X and then T6X2 automatically when they released those features and put the lifer subscription on sale again.
Anyway, besides the ships, the most interesting premium species has also lost all its uniqueness.
So that leaves the services (retrain tokens, extra bank, inventory and character slots and so on). While this was always a thing that helped convince me to buy the subscription on my accounts, they're not something unique.
Nowadays, I wouldn't buy the subscription anymore - not because the game is aging (even if STO were put into maintenance mode, that stuff isn't going anywhere), but simply because the lifer benefits themselves have lost most of their uniqueness. The services were nice to have, but that alone wouldn't be enough for me to buy lifetime.
The Zen was never a prime motivator for me, I don't have the patience to wait half a year to buy a ship lol. It has helped me get some upgrades now and then, but that's really it.
(And I say this as someone who bought an LTS as soon as it was offered at the end of Closed Beta in late 2009, early 2010 - so yeah, it's definitely been worth it for me - but even back then no one knew if the game would last the 5 years needed for me to 'make it worth the cost'; but at this point, for myself, it has been.)
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..."
Indeed.
I'm seeing Borgified characters everywhere, without the 700 day skill boost - i.e., these players aren't lifers. And they have more options and can apply those options to even more species than lifers ever could.
I'm not really sure what Cryptic expects with their subscription sales anymore. I mean, you can put the lifer subscription on sale all you want (and it does seem to happen more frequently nowadays) - if you're removing one of its primary unique selling points, I doubt many people are going to remain interested in it.
At this point you basically get an unique line in your player biography and character overview screen - the places where it says 'liberated Borg'. The former is something hardly anyone will look at, the latter is something other players cannot even see. So what's really the point of this unique playable species then?
Everything else, the uniforms, looks and abilities, that actually matter and which are visible while playing the game, aren't included, nor unique.
That's a good point. Cryptic won't even lose much since the tokens are easy to get -- it would just a minor bit of niceness for the LTS players.
I've had a LTS on PC since 2014 but I can't really recommend it to most new buyers unless the cost is pocket change to them or they really like the ship designs -- the convenience features like auto dil refinement and extra respecs are nice, but not $150 nice. And that $150 would get you a Mudd's choice bundle or 7 x T6 ships of your choice (2 x 3 token bundles + 1 more).
Console has 1 less benefit, that's it.
Console is about a third cheaper, and can be acquired for Free; PC players do not get this option. That's why it doesn't have a stipend....literally the only benefit missing from Console LTS. I've seen some console players literally rage at this, but they refuse to acknowledge PC can't get it free.
There was whispers, as is always, on the Livestream about LTS, but until they publish any changes (which will literally be the week before) we don't know what they plan.
Absolutely 100% on the Assimilate ability.
Good suggestions. +1 vote
I think a good update would be to make a legendary version of the Lifer ships. It would be a great way to really breathe some new life into the benefits.
Also, maybe a lifer species for the Dominion? I remember hearing that Changelings were no longer off the table for being a playable species, they would be the perfect lifer exclusive species for them. Alternatively... just make a liberated borg Jem'hadar?
I mean I don't see why a Vorta couldn't really fit, ֚saying they didn't participate in combat...admirals also didn't participate in away mission
Well... we also have to consider the dynamics of the Dominion Military vs Starfleet. Starfleet Admirals typically rise up through the ranks, and thus have the knowledge and skills to take part in combat if necessary. The Dominion pretty much just relies on a clone army lead by clone commanders who have the memories and experiences of their previous incarnations. While Vorta are good diplomats and espionage agents, we never really see one participating in heavy combat like the Jem'Hadar do. Most of the time they're hanging back in safe territory, then come in after the fact to congratulate the victorious Jem'Hadar and pretty much claim credit. Seen Weyoun do that once or twice at least and get vaporized once for it. While we do see Vorta aboard combat ships, 9 times out of 10 its only the Jem'Hadar actually doing things.
And even in STO we see this dynamic. Its the Jem'Hadar that are boots on the ground, with Vorta hanging back to delegate. And the one time we actually SEE a Vorta fire a weapon, Loriss doesn't even land a kill shot. She hits Weyoun in the shoulder from relatively close range. Weyoun actually showed a bit more accuracy at hitting a smaller target when he destroyed Bashir's bag. But then we see Weyoun fall back on using the Jem'Hadar as a weapon rather than trying to shoot back at Loriss himself (granted he had an injured shoulder at the time, he still had the pistol and could have tried his off hand).
And before anyone mentions the Hur'q Weyoun shot... BIG unmoving target. Anyone could hit that.
I wouldn't trust a Vorta with a rifle unless it was a survival situation, like crash landed on a planet. But someone like Admiral Quinn? Yea give that man a rifle. Just because he sits behind a desk now doesn't mean that's ALL he's ever done. Unlike the Vorta.
Dominion Military structure is FAR more rigid than Starfleet or the KDF. It is essentially a Caste System. You have the Warrior Caste, made up of Jem'Hadar. You have the Administrative Caste, made up of Vorta. And you have the Leader Caste, made up of Changelings. There's very little to no room for variation because of how the Changelings have set things up.
That is the main issue with making playable Vorta for Dominion. The story they set up is centered around a Jem'Hadar perspective. And it really isn't until after the Hur'q Conflict that we see any chance of that changing. There would have to be some narrative reason to say this particular Vorta (as a player character) is performing the duties of a Jem'Hadar First in a highly rigid Caste System Military setup.
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It wouldn't surprise me at all if there's a standards for phaser skill even Starfleet admirals must qualify in or be forced to retire, while I suspect most Vorta would barely which end of a phaser is the dangerous one.
The Vorta are not fighters because of their poor sight; doesn't stop them from shooting at blurry blobs, but makes them pretty poor soldiers especially as they are very slight in build, and they don't take orders from the Jem'Hadar; the Founders are their Masters, and they follow their orders blindly (The Dom Faction is specifically built ONLY for Jem'Hadar which precludes any Vorta playing it (as per the Dev's)). They are effective administrators and the Founder's voices, but pretty poor strategists in relation to other species (as per DS9).
If ever they are made playable, it will be only directly to Fed or KDF, and they will automatically get -50 Accuracy and -50 Crit Hit on the ground
At this point I don't really see the value anymore of trying to make the existing lifer species more interesting. Not at all. Even if all the existing costume options and kit powers etc. were added to the Liberated Borg, it would still be something any non-lifer could access as well.
There's just no point anymore in trying to sell the Liberated Borg as a 'lifer-exclusive' benefit, because it's uniqueness has basically been reduced to a line in your biography.
They'd have to come up with a new premium species, if they wanted to make access to unique species one of the Lifetime's unique selling points - which I think they should do. (Yes, we do have Talaxians as one of those, but few people care about them - you can't ask people to throw over a hundred euro's or dollars at a game and then make a species no one cares about one of the primary USP's.)
The question is then: which species would be interesting enough, to fulfill that role? Changelings might be interesting, but probably also too powerful and, outside of the Dominion faction, it wouldn't make much sense.
The problem here is that, by allowing everyone to play as a liberated or even, basically, a full Borg, they've opened up one of the most impressive things we had. It's something that isn't very easy to replace (again, Talaxians? Not a serious, equally valuable alternative).
Unless they were to add god play to the lifer benefits and just release playable Q as part of it, but well... I doubt I need to point out why that would be a bad idea.
I think it was a very poor, perhaps even dumb decision to unlock Borg stuff for everyone. Especially if you want to keep holding sales for your lifetime membership (which, again, seems to happen far more often than in the past). If I weren't a lifer already - and hence, part of the target group - it would be hard to take those offers seriously. It's just silly that they're trying to sell a very expensive product that has so-called premium species in them, that anyone can far better approach with stuff that's available
- in a broader range
- to all
- for free, in-game
I mean to be fair we don't have to be logical. You can play a talaxian in the klingon empire. A talaxian is *not* remotely suited for such a role, but you can play one because we get to make characters that break the mold so to speak.
So, I don't see a problem with letting the lifers play vorta, or changelings, or whatever. We already have races we can play that wouldn't make sense in some of the context you can play them.
Weyoun was shot for question the loyalty of the Jem'Hadar, not for taking credit for their work.
Meanwhile, with all the cloning and genetic manipulation the Founders are capable of, a story in which the Vorta are "re-engineered" to correct their vision and make them more effective in combat is not out of the question.
Naturally, this would create greater friction between the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar and could even possibly raise the Vorta's ambition to a point where a faction of them would seek to challenge the Founders. Indeed, this would be a good story arc to use as a follow-up to Victory is Life and would be an opportunity to fill out the Gamma Quadrant system patrols and so forth. Plus, new original characters could be introduced to save money on hiring known actors, not to mention a playable Vorta.
Smaller stakes, no time travel, no super-dooper-high-tech-way-beyond-ours enemy whose shields somehow can't stop our space lasers, no alternate universe hijinx, and no dialog aped from other properties.
As for Lifetime Subscription updates, how about a Space Gear Set and a Ground Gear Set that can be repeatedly modified via the crafting system to suit the players needs/whims?
Ground Set includes pistol, rifle, kit, armor, and shield
Space Set includes, energy weapon, torpedo, engine, shield, deflector, and core
But... To "re-craft" these sets one must acquire the proper materials via a combination of Phoenix Prize Packs (different material per token level), elite TFO's, and Lobi and Dilithium stores. Oh, and even from The Captain's Table.
Only one Space Set and one Ground Set per character.
I have ideas about what mods the Lifers can make to the various gear, like energy type and color, choosing between Split Beam, High Density, Full Auto, etc... but those details can come later.