Am I outta line?

[Allegiance86]

They should have seen that coming.

I seriously doubt they didnt forsee it. Theyve never cared about anything like this in the past. Infact the whole reason you could hold on to them was so you could put them to use the following year. They and we the playerbase both understood this.

This is all about PWE wanting to see 'metrics'. And for you to make PWE happy, you have to pad the metrics so that it makes things look better then they are.

[Mike]

Also, the last event kinda sucked...

[cmdraftbrn]

metrics. that thing that tells you nothing because your tracking the wrong thing.

they could have left it alone and just gave you more options to "spend" your "uber event token" on something else instead of just the ship.

oh wait.... that involved critical thinking.

[adastra1930]

Guys, don't pooh-pooh the metrics. In my day job (which is not a game developer!) I spend all day looking at metrics. The likelihood is that the devs have targets that indicate whether a part of the game is pulling its weight or not. When a part of the game isn't pulling its weight, they likely have to balance that against its contribution to the overall offering. If they feel that that part of the game is vital to keeping the overall offering in balance, they have no choice but to attempt to fix the metrics for that feature, which is my interpretation of what's happened here.

On the whole, the team does a great job of supporting a diverse profile of gameplay and largely manage to satisfy a very large, very diverse set of players all at once. It's not fair to jump on them for a tweak like this that ultimately is probably part of a strategy that keeps all the other parts of the game running.

[Dancamvet]

Guys, don't pooh-pooh the metrics. In my day job (which is not a game developer!) I spend all day looking at metrics. The likelihood is that the devs have targets that indicate whether a part of the game is pulling its weight or not. When a part of the game isn't pulling its weight, they likely have to balance that against its contribution to the overall offering. If they feel that that part of the game is vital to keeping the overall offering in balance, they have no choice but to attempt to fix the metrics for that feature, which is my interpretation of what's happened here.

On the whole, the team does a great job of supporting a diverse profile of gameplay and largely manage to satisfy a very large, very diverse set of players all at once. It's not fair to jump on them for a tweak like this that ultimately is probably part of a strategy that keeps all the other parts of the game running.

Reasonable arguments. This is not permitted here....

[cmdraftbrn]

Guys, don't pooh-pooh the metrics. In my day job (which is not a game developer!) I spend all day looking at metrics. The likelihood is that the devs have targets that indicate whether a part of the game is pulling its weight or not. When a part of the game isn't pulling its weight, they likely have to balance that against its contribution to the overall offering. If they feel that that part of the game is vital to keeping the overall offering in balance, they have no choice but to attempt to fix the metrics for that feature, which is my interpretation of what's happened here.

On the whole, the team does a great job of supporting a diverse profile of gameplay and largely manage to satisfy a very large, very diverse set of players all at once. It's not fair to jump on them for a tweak like this that ultimately is probably part of a strategy that keeps all the other parts of the game running.

this is a reasonable thought out coherent argument.

if this was actually the case wouldnt they have pulled, stfs, pvp, klinks, roms, defera adventure zone, nukura adventure zone, and dino land by now since there not pulling their weight?

[venethus]

Guys, don't pooh-pooh the metrics. In my day job (which is not a game developer!) I spend all day looking at metrics. The likelihood is that the devs have targets that indicate whether a part of the game is pulling its weight or not. When a part of the game isn't pulling its weight, they likely have to balance that against its contribution to the overall offering. If they feel that that part of the game is vital to keeping the overall offering in balance, they have no choice but to attempt to fix the metrics for that feature, which is my interpretation of what's happened here.

On the whole, the team does a great job of supporting a diverse profile of gameplay and largely manage to satisfy a very large, very diverse set of players all at once. It's not fair to jump on them for a tweak like this that ultimately is probably part of a strategy that keeps all the other parts of the game running.

this is a reasonable thought out coherent argument.

if this was actually the case wouldnt they have pulled, stfs, pvp, klinks, roms, defera adventure zone, nukura adventure zone, and dino land by now since there not pulling their weight?

I think you are failing to consider that a majority of the community runs private queues these days and the numbers in public queues are not indicative of the numbers utilizing that content.

[adastra1930]

this is a reasonable thought out coherent argument.

if this was actually the case wouldnt they have pulled, stfs, pvp, klinks, roms, defera adventure zone, nukura adventure zone, and dino land by now since there not pulling their weight?

That's where the consideration re: whether they are key to keeping a balanced offering comes in. E.g. STO would lose credibility as an MMO if it didn't offer different playable factions. If those other areas are not pulling their weight, then I assume they are either on a hit list for revamp, or they may have already tried and given up. That's not uncommon in retail, where we sometimes keep something in the range that makes us a loss, but if we didn't carry it, we would lose credibility.

[cmdraftbrn]

credibility vanished when we became tuvok: dino hunter

[QorDaq]

A lively discussion, great topic Sereph.

My personal opinion is, and I think Dan hit the nail on the head and Kenna sealed the deck with weather proofing for good measure;

a) Cryptics communication style is part of the problem.

and

b) Things are always going to change, sometimes to balance supporting part of the product that is not an earner.

The previous system really did one thing in the big picture--it assured long-time players cheap end-game ships for future alts with minimal investment of time or money once the work was done the first time.

While I really liked that element, I knew it was not sustainable.

My thinking on all of this in more detail follows in the spoiler below, you know, for those two people who may be interested...*Chuckle*...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My real issue then, is the way that things get communicated. For example, being a life-timer from the beginning I really enjoyed getting our Vet rewards early on. It was cool to see the next reward get announced and then track my days in-game as I eagerly awaited the next unlock.

But, again, it was not really sustainable. So what did they do? They made us wait until we hit 1000 days THEN told us the system was going away (no new rewards scheduled that is), AND told us that anyone who came in and got an LTS from that point on would unlock all rewards on day one.

Following this the next big commo snafu came when we were told that the old Marks were being retired to support a single new currency.

This later was actually good news to me because those useless low-level marks, were actually going to become useful again.

In the first case it was definitely an expectation thing. Cryptic was not telling us that Vet rewards were essentially being made by Devs in their free-time as it were (probably all at once for the most part), and once harder defined time-budgets came down the pipe, they could no longer be justified. Instead we got the party-line that it was not fair to make new players play for a thousand days to get their rewards...Doh!

In the second situation, we were told that Cryptic wanted to simplify the marks and currency system by eliminating the extraneous currencies that we had leveled past in deference to a global currency that would be useful throughout our character's careers. What they did not tell us was that there would be countless new currencies added to the game:

• EC - We had that.

• GPL - We had that.

• Dilithium - This was supposed to be the final solution to divergent currency.

Since then the following have been added:

• Lobi - Lockbox currency. (Not to mention Lockbox keys).

• Epohs - Combined collectible/ Breeding mini-game/ Rep currency (Currently two flavors).

• Rep Marks - Well, from reps (we are now up to 6 flavors).

• Elite Rep Marks - Because one, make that two counting Epohs, was not enough.

• Fleet Marks - Because Dilithium was not enough.

• Fleet Credits - Because Fleet Marks and Dilithium were not enough. To be fair, at least these travel with you after you have dumped your marks into a Fleet.

• Special Holding-based Commodities - Because we needed another Fleet Credit soak?

• Special-event Tokens - To date we have at least six? Including two for Summer.

• Elite Crafting Marks - Only available in Elite queues currently and only used for crafting the superior tech upgrades.

Not to mention C/Z-points. There may actually be more that I am not thinking about. However, the point I am making is that; we were told that the purpose of Dilithium was to eliminate the need for lot's of specialized in-game currencies. Now we have literally dozens, significantly more than the 7 or so we started with. The truth was something different, Dilithium was intended to be a way for those players with the means to be able to purchase an in-game currency with real money. But they sold it to us as a quality of life improvement.

Same with Vet rewards in my opinion.


So, to me, I see this recent change in much the same light. In a recent Priority One interview, Al Rivera came out and stated point-blank that they are releasing all of these new ship bundles to "Refill their coffers". Are they empty?

In the Dev Post about changing the nature of Pearls (and some future Event tokens as the new events start up), we are being told that this is to level the playing field for new players. It is then defended by saying that the ships are meant only for those that participate during a given event.

Cryptic's second point actually makes sense in the context of what Al Rivera has said in the interview mentioned above, but trying to gloss over that part by implying that this change will help new players? That comes across as disingenuous, or at least a bit sneaky and full of spin.

This last is what I have a problem with. I know the game will change. I know that if the budget folks can't find ways to meet their obligations to PWE that the game could go away--something I personally don't want because I have serious time and resource investment in this game already. Just don't candy coat it.

And I feel like that is at the core of the legitimate complaints about the change. Because when the argument starts with "For the good of the community" and the change clearly will not be seen as such, Cryptic is setting themselves up.

All of that said; we are being told in advance. We are being compensated (sort of), and any resources already in one of these incomplete projects will be completeable with the new tokens. Thus, once the current set of events catch up to the change everyone will be essentially starting over for any new events in the future. Overall, I don't feel that we are being treated unfairly. I do, however, feel like they think we are too stupid to read between the lines when they present info like this like it's a great thing designed to create parity and improve player experience.

maj!