The basic gist of this idea is letting us trade Federation merits (or the Klingon equivalent) for Cryptic Points.

Using the Respec as a baseline 50 Merits per C-Store point is fair. Considering it costs 20,000 merits for a full respec which is 400 Cryptic points in the C-Store.

This allows people to put in "Sweat equity" to get the C-Store unlocks without feeling like they are getting nickel and dimed to death every time they see something nice in the C-Store they might want to have.

It would also shut up a lot of people who complain that all of the neat stuff goes on the C-Store and is just a money grab.

You can't trade Merits so that gets around problems with "gold sellers".

If 50 merits is too low work out your own conversion rate but I wouldn't go higher than 100. This also might be something to look at for your other MMOs.

Anyways, I hope you guys see this and I hope the player base would see the value in such an idea.

If there's a specific reason that you can't make this work beyond "We don't want to." or "We really need the money." I'd still like to hear it.

Cheers.

considering i have... 50k worth o merits through pvp ... so lets go 50 per 1ec .. 1000 Cps :O.. works for me

now all we need is somthing worth buying

Sorry, but this will NEVER happen.

It is the same thing as to why you cannot get Microsoft Points(same denominations as Cryptic Points) in exchange for Xbox Live gamerscore. You will have better luck asking for C-Store points for veteran reward milestones.

Hey you remember the days when in-game stuff was always unlocked it in-game effort?

That's probably true. And a decent suggestion to boot.

Nothing in the C-Store is required for gameplay. Nothing in it affects gameplay in a way that improves it. You can reach the max level, and get the best stuff and fly the most powerful ship without ever buying a single cryptic point.

It's all just ship skins, bridge skins, inferior player races, and account management perks.

Nothing yet.

Are they required? No.
Would they make the game a little more interesting? Yes.
Are they worth spending real money on? Not really.

I wouldn't mind C-Store points as Vet rewards, but Cryptic has given out C-Store points for filling out a survey and they had their "Tax Day Sale" where C-Store Prices were cut in half. So money isn't always the overriding issue in terms of C-Store unlocks.

My point is this: If Cryptic is going to keep pumping out C-Store items, regardless of how little time and development they consume they might as well provide alternate ways of getting the items for people who aren't interested in spending more money on top of the sub fee.

I have a feeling that the C-Store items might contribute to long term burnout of the game if they are the only updates being put forth with any frequency. Otherwise you're left with a Fast Food MMO, you can play out all of the unquie content in 1-2 months and all you are left with dull grind. I'm not talking about burning through content and hitting Admiral in 1-2 weeks like people do. Even at a leisurely pace you'll still be at the "endgame" grinding badges on the same 10 repeatable missions and the STFs.