The 12th Fleet: Starbase Valhalla

All I'm hearing from the other sto boards is whining about the risian ships and the changes with the summer event. I've also read the devs response. (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showt ... st23858201) and I can't help but agree, its not like they have to do these events and even give the players the ability to claim extra. I mean I was absent for the original dyson destroyer, but I wasn't on for the event so I missed out. I mean all I'm hearing anymore is players being angry about things changing and pwe being evil. There is not much I can point out and say hey that's wrong. I mean sure the game has gotten a bit more 'grindy' but things like "special" events are special...they don't have to do them. I have a lot of left over things from events. I didn't finish them on time or gathered more. My porogative..they don't have to allow me to do something with them after the event.

Am I out of line here? Am I just not seeing the 'evil' here?

Like I said in the other thread, I don't see the big problem. Cryptic does not like that you can grind 5 alts in 1 year and then enjoy 5 years of ships without grinding. So they decided you needed to grind 1 time five years in a row. It makes Cryptic's numbers look better but really does not change a lot.

The game has problems that are so much worse than this.

its just another case in a string of cases of cryptic not getting their way so they changed the rules. again.

seraph wrote: Am I out of line here? Am I just not seeing the 'evil' here?

Look at it from the player’s side. We have been told we can spend hours grinding a special currency which can be used to buy the ship next year. Next year arrives and all of a sudden without warning we get told all those hours are wasted and we cannot spend that currency anymore that we earned.

Many players have 25+ days of play time wasted due to this change. Can you blame players for being upset about 25+ days of wasted time?

Sysil wrote:So they decided you needed to grind 1 time five years in a row. It makes Cryptic's numbers look better but really does not change a lot.
The game has problems that are so much worse than this.

Does it make the numbers look better? How many people are going to grind less now? I for one won’t be grinding every day like I used to as its pointless now. So less playtime, worse numbers for Cryptic's.

Pottsey wrote:Does it make the numbers look better? How many people are going to grind less now? I for one won’t be grinding every day like I used to as its pointless now. So less playtime, worse numbers for Cryptic's.

Why is it pointless? You'd get the same rewards.

That's just it though... "Playtime" doesn't seem to be the metric they are trying to improve here. Rather, this is an attempt to increase daily log ins.

Depending upon how this metric is collected (i.e. by account or actual entrance into the game server,) this readily explains the original setup of needing to fully complete the project for each character. Then, due either to complaints or just to be nice, they changed it so that each alt only had to log in once.

Then people accumulated multiple extra marks... thus not needing to log in, and their metrics drop. Some on the official forums have stated that this shouldn't be a factor as they had logged in the previous year. In actuality that makes their metrics worse. They are always going to be comparing the previous year to the current year. The fact that people gathered so many extra pearls the previous year could possibly make the metrics look even worse than it actually was.

This metric is then of course compared to the cash flow, which is why you can buy the ships on day one using lobi... the financial intake spike compensates for any dip in log ins that users who bought the ships created.

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In the end, the summer (and winter) events are designed to increase player log ins during times when activity drops due to vacations / holidays. Any change they make will be to flatten out or increase this curve. Having half the activity this year due to double activity the pervious year, makes the metrics look worse, not the same.

Sorry, long rambly post... the file server is down here at work... nothing better to do than regail you with long posts...

I think the main issue people are having is an arbitrary change in the rules again.
The one thing that both PWE and Cryptic are terrible at is client/community communication. Admittedly this is them starting to do just that on this issue but they seem to make the same mistake over and over, they're not good at balancing the expectations of the community with what they're up to in terms of changes to the game, changes seem sudden and unfair because there seems to be little warning, even when they've been well planned in advance.
They could do with a communication workshop like we had in the final year of Vet School to learn these skills.

I can't say I'm that worried otherwise, I'll use my excess for some cool bits. It just means if I don't like the ship, I'm not going to bother at all. Perhaps this is the best way.

Sysil wrote:

Pottsey wrote:Does it make the numbers look better? How many people are going to grind less now? I for one won’t be grinding every day like I used to as its pointless now. So less playtime, worse numbers for Cryptic's.

Why is it pointless? You'd get the same rewards.

The event is on longer then you need to get the ship. In the past many players would have spent every day or almost every day of the event earning rewards as you could spend the extra currency next year to get the ships early. Now there is no point in getting the extra currency so there is no point to keep playing after you have enough for the base ship.

Take me for example; I always spent every day of the event earning the currency. With the new changes why would I bother taking part in the event every day? If many players feel the same why Metric wise this change is going to have a massive decrease in the amount of players, playing the new content. The very opposite to what the devs changes are meant to do. The devs don’t seem to have thought this out very well.

A good example is the snowman lane event last Winter event. Most players only played it just enough to get the minimum amount needed then after that the player drop off was massive. I can see the same thing happening with the new currency.

It's ok for me now that we can get the other ships again. Don't mind the grind...

And it's true cryptic does not have to do these events, but then we also don't have to play STO

LBlackmoor wrote:That's just it though... "Playtime" doesn't seem to be the metric they are trying to improve here. Rather, this is an attempt to increase daily log ins.

Which doesn’t make sense to me as the change is going decease daily logins massively.