Im going to try again. I honestly dont think posting on these forums does much if any good but Dan says that he pays attention to them so I will give it a try again. The last time I posted, I said if you nerf things down you will lose players. Cryptic nerfed things down and maybe 30% of those on my friends list quit over it. Its upsetting to come here and work hard and try to make friends and then watch Cryptic drive away the very people you would think they would want to keep as paying customers.
I will give one example before I move along. One member in my fleet is a a VP of a major grocery chain. He spent about 300 hours levelling and buffing his sci-boat. After the many sci nerfs he felt that he couldnt compete at PVP anymore so he left. Now there are many teenagers on these boards that dont understand that after youve done 100+ PVP matches to get enough emblems to buy the shield you want that perhaps you dont want to do it again because Cryptic decided to nerf the skills that buffed your chosen shield; but for a VP with a demanding job and a family, its a major cost of time to have to redo something over and over again merely in order to perhaps be competitive. Sci was nerfed hard and the guy left rather than spend another 300 hours adapting to the new balances. Some would say hes a bad player and some would say hes unworthy of the game. But this was a fun / great / hard working guy that was an asset to my fleet and we had many hours invested in him based on hopes of future friendship and interaction and his loss hurt both on a personal level and a working fleet level. He was merely a single example because there were many that left over the nerfs.
I believe the loss of good players hurts the game both on a micro and a macro level. Maybe Dan will listen more than the last guy so I will try again. If you nerf things that people have invested over 100 hours improving then you are going to lose players. Dan you are on record as saying that you only play Tac and are good at it. I havent fought you so I dont know but maybe you are. Imagine waking up one day to find out that all Tac ships were nerfed down and you are one of the weakest players in the game. You have hundreds of hours invested in maximizing your Tac ship but now you need to here do a respec because the skills work different and you need a different kind of shield that will only take you 100+ pvp matches to earn based upon 1 emblem on average per match and even if you work hard and do everything you can for your boat - it still might be weak compared with the others. If you didnt work for Cryptic you might just decide that $15 a month could be better spent where you could enjoy your game rather than watch your effort be nerfed into foolishness.
Ok moving on to UGC and the foundry. Its not the main topic of my posts tonight but I have 2 quick comments. I have played games that had user builders and I know what eventually happens so you might want to pay attention.
1. You better make doggone certain that after the foundry is open that the best new content is coming from Cryptic. If players feel that they are paying to play the game and also the ones building and designing the game and that Cryptic is just a collection agency for their money then you are going to have a world of problems. Its really easy for a game design company to punt the ball to player builders and then keep collecting fees and dues from the players doing the building work and claim a low cost high profit product to their investors and it will work for awhile. But eventually that will catch up to you and bite you in the behind if the player base feels they are being handed amateur product while being charged a monthly fee for professional work. If you hand out free lifetime memberships or cstore points and/or other goodies to the better builders and perhaps even hire a couple of them then perhaps this problem can be avoided. If you get a reputation for having your players do your work for you then charging them a fee to use the product they built and designed you will get an angry and upset player base. You need to figure out a way to compensate these amateur builders in some shape or form for the work they are doing for you.
2. The success or failure of the building program will revolve around rewards offered. Reward both in skill points and equipment drops needs to be fair, reasonable, and balanced. You could have a player build a mission with a script worthy of Gene Roddenberry and Mission art worthy of Vermeer and a challenge worthy of the final boss on Zelda II and if they dont get good skill points or equipment drops for doing it they wont play it. On the other hand you could have horrid artwork, a worthless final challenge, and a terrible script along the lines of a Pakled saying, "Pakled sayze go keeel sheeeps fer guudies" and if players get extra skill points or better eq drops then they will flock to it and rate it highly.
A. Player builders have to be allowed to design rewards and prizes for doing their missions and perhaps even be allowed to build new things never seen in game before.
B. Prizes need to be fair, balanced, logical, and reasonable.
Anyway, I hear a lot of excitement about the Foundry and I share it. But it needs to complement work Cryptic is doing improving the game rather than replacing it so Cryptic artists can design new games to attract new customers. And players need to be able to share rewards both for their efforts in building areas for the game and for playing them.
Dan, I hope you read this - now on to the more important posts.
Happy Star Trek All,
Bugshu
I will give one example before I move along. One member in my fleet is a a VP of a major grocery chain. He spent about 300 hours levelling and buffing his sci-boat. After the many sci nerfs he felt that he couldnt compete at PVP anymore so he left. Now there are many teenagers on these boards that dont understand that after youve done 100+ PVP matches to get enough emblems to buy the shield you want that perhaps you dont want to do it again because Cryptic decided to nerf the skills that buffed your chosen shield; but for a VP with a demanding job and a family, its a major cost of time to have to redo something over and over again merely in order to perhaps be competitive. Sci was nerfed hard and the guy left rather than spend another 300 hours adapting to the new balances. Some would say hes a bad player and some would say hes unworthy of the game. But this was a fun / great / hard working guy that was an asset to my fleet and we had many hours invested in him based on hopes of future friendship and interaction and his loss hurt both on a personal level and a working fleet level. He was merely a single example because there were many that left over the nerfs.
I believe the loss of good players hurts the game both on a micro and a macro level. Maybe Dan will listen more than the last guy so I will try again. If you nerf things that people have invested over 100 hours improving then you are going to lose players. Dan you are on record as saying that you only play Tac and are good at it. I havent fought you so I dont know but maybe you are. Imagine waking up one day to find out that all Tac ships were nerfed down and you are one of the weakest players in the game. You have hundreds of hours invested in maximizing your Tac ship but now you need to here do a respec because the skills work different and you need a different kind of shield that will only take you 100+ pvp matches to earn based upon 1 emblem on average per match and even if you work hard and do everything you can for your boat - it still might be weak compared with the others. If you didnt work for Cryptic you might just decide that $15 a month could be better spent where you could enjoy your game rather than watch your effort be nerfed into foolishness.
Ok moving on to UGC and the foundry. Its not the main topic of my posts tonight but I have 2 quick comments. I have played games that had user builders and I know what eventually happens so you might want to pay attention.
1. You better make doggone certain that after the foundry is open that the best new content is coming from Cryptic. If players feel that they are paying to play the game and also the ones building and designing the game and that Cryptic is just a collection agency for their money then you are going to have a world of problems. Its really easy for a game design company to punt the ball to player builders and then keep collecting fees and dues from the players doing the building work and claim a low cost high profit product to their investors and it will work for awhile. But eventually that will catch up to you and bite you in the behind if the player base feels they are being handed amateur product while being charged a monthly fee for professional work. If you hand out free lifetime memberships or cstore points and/or other goodies to the better builders and perhaps even hire a couple of them then perhaps this problem can be avoided. If you get a reputation for having your players do your work for you then charging them a fee to use the product they built and designed you will get an angry and upset player base. You need to figure out a way to compensate these amateur builders in some shape or form for the work they are doing for you.
2. The success or failure of the building program will revolve around rewards offered. Reward both in skill points and equipment drops needs to be fair, reasonable, and balanced. You could have a player build a mission with a script worthy of Gene Roddenberry and Mission art worthy of Vermeer and a challenge worthy of the final boss on Zelda II and if they dont get good skill points or equipment drops for doing it they wont play it. On the other hand you could have horrid artwork, a worthless final challenge, and a terrible script along the lines of a Pakled saying, "Pakled sayze go keeel sheeeps fer guudies" and if players get extra skill points or better eq drops then they will flock to it and rate it highly.
A. Player builders have to be allowed to design rewards and prizes for doing their missions and perhaps even be allowed to build new things never seen in game before.
B. Prizes need to be fair, balanced, logical, and reasonable.
Anyway, I hear a lot of excitement about the Foundry and I share it. But it needs to complement work Cryptic is doing improving the game rather than replacing it so Cryptic artists can design new games to attract new customers. And players need to be able to share rewards both for their efforts in building areas for the game and for playing them.
Dan, I hope you read this - now on to the more important posts.
Happy Star Trek All,
Bugshu
# 2
10-27-2010, 01:01 PM
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bugshu
Im going to try again. I honestly dont think posting on these forums does much if any good but Dan says that he pays attention to them so I will give it a try again. The last time I posted, I said if you nerf things down you will lose players. Cryptic nerfed things down and maybe 30% of those on my friends list quit over it. Its upsetting to come here and work hard and try to make friends and then watch Cryptic drive away the very people you would think they would want to keep as paying customers.
I will give one example before I move along. One member in my fleet is a a VP of a major grocery chain. He spent about 300 hours levelling and buffing his sci-boat. After the many sci nerfs he felt that he couldnt compete at PVP anymore so he left. Now there are many teenagers on these boards that dont understand that after youve done 100+ PVP matches to get enough emblems to buy the shield you want that perhaps you dont want to do it again because Cryptic decided to nerf the skills that buffed your chosen shield; but for a VP with a demanding job and a family, its a major cost of time to have to redo something over and over again merely in order to perhaps be competitive. Sci was nerfed hard and the guy left rather than spend another 300 hours adapting to the new balances. Some would say hes a bad player and some would say hes unworthy of the game. But this was a fun / great / hard working guy that was an asset to my fleet and we had many hours invested in him based on hopes of future friendship and interaction and his loss hurt both on a personal level and a working fleet level. He was merely a single example because there were many that left over the nerfs. IDan, I hope you read this - now on to the more important posts. Happy Star Trek All, Bugshu |
Now for Cryptic and Co. Please refrain from any changes based on this, because time is valuable to alot of people. Most of th players want to be comfortable with what they have and just want to get today what they had planned for yesterday. Whenever you nerf abilities or specials, you make several changes to everyones ship configurations that cause more players to become angry and leave. Some people strive hard for what they have, and not everyone has time and breezes through the missions and pvp zones for what they already earned.
If anything, if something is nerfed, the items that were nerfed should have a value (other than sell) like an higher exchange rate for upgrading to a similar setup. What is the price you get for trading a Tier 4 Boff Special? I mean, if Cryptic changes and nerf's your Boff's powers, why can't you be able to get a free respec on your BOff and available powers to each level (if you've already trained up in all the levels?).
# 3
10-27-2010, 02:37 PM
first point... i know what you mean, even i'd wished you had formulated it a bit more diplomatic,
but to the topic, i feel for friend, but on the other side other players felt like the cant compete with scis before...
a game like this is always in a flow and full of a lot of changes... and balancing...
me personally appreciate it for having new challenges and new goals to reach,
but i can really understand its frustrating if a setup you worked hard for becomes less useful...
but finally with a new lvl-cap or similar anyone will be forced to gather everything new again...
bout the UGC: i really dont believe cryptic will stop working as soon UGC is out
some kind of rewards for the best UGC-builders would be nice,
but a very tough decision where to draw a line and to say: "you are in, you are not!"...
designing rewards is already announced for a later release of the foundry,
while for now cryptic seems to set up a prepared system for calculated xp and merit rewards...
as soon player may design customized rewards there have to be some limits to avoid abuse tho...
and yeah i share this excitement too and cant await it,
maybe we shouldnt expect the worst all the time
but to the topic, i feel for friend, but on the other side other players felt like the cant compete with scis before...
a game like this is always in a flow and full of a lot of changes... and balancing...
me personally appreciate it for having new challenges and new goals to reach,
but i can really understand its frustrating if a setup you worked hard for becomes less useful...
but finally with a new lvl-cap or similar anyone will be forced to gather everything new again...
bout the UGC: i really dont believe cryptic will stop working as soon UGC is out
some kind of rewards for the best UGC-builders would be nice,
but a very tough decision where to draw a line and to say: "you are in, you are not!"...
designing rewards is already announced for a later release of the foundry,
while for now cryptic seems to set up a prepared system for calculated xp and merit rewards...
as soon player may design customized rewards there have to be some limits to avoid abuse tho...
and yeah i share this excitement too and cant await it,
maybe we shouldnt expect the worst all the time
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