Star Trek Online: Retiring Lohlunat Pearls

[Agathon55]

For a "limited time," it seems. My biggest beef is with them retiring the other event ships. Pigeonholing your playebase into a singular reward choice during a recurring annual event is extremely unwise.

I don't have a big problem with them retiring the old event ships (even though I don't have either of them) since they're most likely replacing them with t6 ships. My biggest beef with the announcement is that the projects will disappear at the end of the event. If you don't make the deadline then all your effort is essentially wasted.

[Sysil]

They most definitely made it enticing enough to favor the marathon powergamer, which I am not. I am being pretty vocal with a large group of people on the forums who've had enough of Cryptic's pandering to the basement-dwelling trolls who powergame their lives awhile siphoning off the wallets of the indolent and wealthy.

In STO there's 2 ways to get stuff: you work for it or you pay for it. That's the reality of it. You don't seem to want to do neither. Do you expect Cryptic to just give you stuff? That's not a realistic expectation in a F2P game.

As an former 'indolent' player that knows a lot of 'basement-dwelling trolls' I think you could benefit from a broader point of view.

[JarekCyphus]

They most definitely made it enticing enough to favor the marathon powergamer, which I am not. I am being pretty vocal with a large group of people on the forums who've had enough of Cryptic's pandering to the basement-dwelling trolls who powergame their lives awhile siphoning off the wallets of the indolent and wealthy.

In STO there's 2 ways to get stuff: you work for it or you pay for it. That's the reality of it. You don't seem to want to do neither. Do you expect Cryptic to just give you stuff? That's not a realistic expectation in a F2P game.

As an former 'indolent' player that knows a lot of 'basement-dwelling trolls' I think you could benefit from a broader point of view.

Hyperbolic; I never said I didn't want to work for anything. Not once. You put words in my mouth. Don't.

[Mike]

Whats my name doing in that quote?!

[JarekCyphus]

Whats my name doing in that quote?!

[JarekCyphus]

I'll just leave this here. Cryptic's decision is clearly not a popular one.

[Sysil]

Hyperbolic; I never said I didn't want to work for anything. Not once. You put words in my mouth. Don't.

Then what is it you want? You're insulting the people who are paying for and the people who are working for the rewards. Saying you want stuff without doing anything or paying is a natural assumption.

Maybe you could clear up exactly what you want, hopefully without insulting whole segments of the STO player base while doing so.

[JarekCyphus]

Hyperbolic; I never said I didn't want to work for anything. Not once. You put words in my mouth. Don't.

Then what is it you want? You're insulting the people who are paying for and the people who are working for the rewards. Saying you want stuff without doing anything or paying is a natural assumption.

Maybe you could clear up exactly what you want, hopefully without insulting whole segments of the STO player base while doing so.

Maybe you should address facts instead of pushing hyperbolic conjecture. I never said I wanted anything, either; nor did I ever say I never wanted to work for anything. That's nonsense. This isn't my first rodeo, cowboy.

For the record, maybe you should get to know someone before judging how "broad" their perspective is. More often than not, logical people form their opinions based on how they handle favorable and unfavorable experiences, and the kindred folks they've met along the way. As an Iraq vet who's lost the roof over his head twice, lived on three couches, yet managed to survive to own his very first house and advance to Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, I can assure you my perspective is—in fact—quite broad, as is my experience with online games.

The problems I, like so many on the forums, am addressing are Cryptic's REPEAT offenses of showing no equality between player demographics, favoring instead the two extremes I illustrated posts ago. If you can't accept this as a genuine problem with the game, then you are part of the problem. SWTOR and LotRO are F2P games, too, and suffer from NONE of these problems. Not whatsoever. They both have grinds, sure, but they're not these long and seemingly endless ones that have plagued STO since PWE took the helm.

Fitting, then, that both games are faring way better in subscriber numbers, owned by companies faring FAR better in market shares. The $ speaks, when people listen.

Cryptic isn't listening. That, or they're too afraid to give PWE pushbacks.

[Sysil]

You don't like that I made an assumption based on what you posted, which is funny since you did the same in your last post.

Instead of taking it personally, I'll just say that you're assumption is wrong and I'll explain why: I do see the problem of too much grinding as real. Since STO has gone F2P the amount of grinding has increased year after year. DR multiplied it. I don't tend to compare different games because generally the reasons why one is more successful than another is very complex and goes beyond the simple explanations like 'one has more grind than the other'.

The problem I have with your comments (besides your gratuitous insults) is that I don't see how it applies to the replacement of the Lohlunat favors. Nowhere is it written that the grind for the ships will be longer and they are compensating the players who have some left (with something I personally think is better than the free ships). So in the end, apart from not being able to grind one year to replace the next year's grind there is no difference. Well, OK, the older ships won't be available but STO has too many ship options has it is so I don't see that as a problem.

[JarekCyphus]

You don't like that I made an assumption based on what you posted, which is funny since you did the same in your last post.

Instead of taking it personally, I'll just say that you're assumption is wrong and I'll explain why: I do see the problem of too much grinding as real. Since STO has gone F2P the amount of grinding has increased year after year. DR multiplied it. I don't tend to compare different games because generally the reasons why one is more successful than another is very complex and goes beyond the simple explanations like 'one has more grind than the other'.

The problem I have with your comments (besides your gratuitous insults) is that I don't see how it applies to the replacement of the Lohlunat favors. Nowhere is it written that the grind for the ships will be longer and they are compensating the players who have some left (with something I personally think is better than the free ships). So in the end, apart from not being able to grind one year to replace the next year's grind there is no difference. Well, OK, the older ships won't be available but STO has too many ship options has it is so I don't see that as a problem.

But that's just the point. They keep making the game grindier and grindier, and people just keep leaving and leaving. It's no secret; it just seems Cryptic chooses to ignore the reasons why people are leaving the game, even though it's discussed ad nauseam on the STO boards. It really makes me wonder if PWE has a tighter leash on Cryptic than we would be led to believe. Where is CBS in all of this?

I guess at this point we should just all be grateful the game isn't abundant in JJ-flares.

The point is that for many of us (the thread I linked is pretty clear on that), this is the straw that's finally breaking the camel's back, the same as how the SWTOR DEV's family being threatened on social media over update 3.2's Sentinel/Marauder brought upon a huge stance against trolls and cyberbullies. While cyberbullying and playerbase alienating are two completely different hot-button issues, both demographics affected by the behaviors have finally drawn an indelible line in the sand, and we're not being quiet about it, anymore.