As some of you may already know STO will be F2P with the end of the year. http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...d.php?t=230101
There are already a couple of threads if it is a good or bad thing and there is still no official word from Cryptic. Also I don't want to talk about how F2P will work in the end.


But I want to talk about its impact on PvP. Maybe some of you PvP in other F2P games and can tell us what happened there after the change (CO?). So what do I expect? For one I hope there will be more people playing PvP and more important I hope some of the old PvPers who left come back again. This does not necessarily mean the matches will get better but at least there will be more. We can also hope balance issues will be fixed faster but somehow I doubt that.

So everything is fine? I'm not sure. The big question will be what can be bought in the C-Store. Or more important will it be necessary to use it to win? I know a single item or ship won't let a starter kill a pro but what about two equals? If one uses the C-Store and the other one don't will the one using it always win? The first obvious step has been taken with the RI and the whole Tx.5 issue. Sure we can hope some items will be disabled in PvP but I don't expect Cryptic to go down that road.

From what I understand, we can expect a lot more Tier X.5 ships.

Pay to win.

Does it really make sense to speculate about something, we dont have any information about? Who cares?
I bet participating in PVP will be free. Maybe there will be some maps to buy but shouldnt be very expensive i guess. So many people can play the game for free. I guess, it will be like: I buy one ship from time to time and can have fun in this F2P game.
It might make more sense for PVPer to play the game without subscription... depending on the prices....

I guess now i understand why all tiers will receive special x.5 ship alternatives....it kinda starts to make sense common ships for free customers, alternatives for gold customers / in game currency farming...

Unless and until Stahl puts his money where his mouth is when he said PVP is an important part of PW's games and they intend on improving this area...pvp and all it's reaches should be f2p. it's not like we got anything out of our 1.5 year subs and lifetimes anyway. Even balance is a shambles right now and improvements we were told coming over a year ago still aren't here. I doubt the competitive chinese would put up with any of that crap.

You will see the PvP edge where paying customers will have acess to slightly better ships and ground kits. This will give about a (maximum) 15 to 20% boost from paying to non paying customer/pvper. Hence as the posters above have mentioned with the .5 refits to ships (One can assume tier 5) from C store. Allods/LotR/Co/*** has all this implemented and it works fine. How it will fare in STO? Who knows.

Well it won't fare well in STO, because they have proven throughout the past 1.5 years they know nothing of balance. It's like they are the Faux News of MMO's when it comes to releasing new items and PVP...Fair and Balanced is just a catch-phrase...not an actuality. So I will stick with my paid subscription and I will stick with my fleet that will do whatever we need to do short of cheating and exploiting to remain competitive.

Champions Online went F2P at the start of this year.

I am not a CO expert, and I haven't PvP there at all yet. But this I know:

C-Store Buffs
1) There are several items in the C-Store that buff your character, or even change it. Heals, Power Recharges, Devices that turn your character into a different creature with different power sets.
2) These items do not work in PvP.

As the noob player of one of the more squishier archetypes, I must admit that I needed quite a few of these heals already.

Silver vs Gold
Champions Online most interesting feature for many players were the abilty you could create characters there. You could combine abilities from different power sets and were not limited to a single, rigit class structure.

For the move to Free To Play, Cryptic introduced a new type of character, an "archetype" character. These lose almost all of this freedom, and instead provide a single thematic build.

It can be argued that the "Free-Form" characters can be more powerful than the archetype characters (if you know what you're doing).

For PvP, Cryptic seperated the PvP Ques so that archetype characters would only have to compete with other archetypes (though I think you can also go into free-form PvP with them, it is probably not recommended.)

Conclusions for CO
So in Champions Online, there is no Pay-To-Win concept at work. The only buff applicable for PvP is the Acclaim buff, that means you earn more rewards from PvP. Which is obviously not affecting the actual game balance.


What does that mean for Startrek Online?

I do not know for sure.

I have the feeling that they don't actually intend to create as strong restrictions as they did in CO. On the other hand, introductions like the Rhode Island give raise to speculation that they are indeed planning for a Pay-To-Win model - at least for the lower tiers. We will have to see what is happening here.
I could see a restriction locking your career choice and your ship choice (e.g. Tactical Officers have to fly Escorts, Engineers Cruisers and so on), but that would also break apart if we think about the KDF. (Wo gets to fly Carriers or BOPs? What do Science Officers fly?)

These are the plans as far as they have been announced:

Badges, Marks and Emblens will be rolled into one currency. THis change is already coming in September, if all goes to plan. This "time-based currency" (as dstahl put it) will be called Dilithium.

All existing in-game ships will be changed to be buyable via Dilithium, not Energy Credits, Marks or Emblems. (Note that Energy credits itself will still exist.).

Ships that are C-Store only will remain C-Store only. (Unclear what this means for ships that exist in both.)
But there will be a way to exchange Dilithium for C-Points. This exchange, according to dstahl's reply, will be based on some kind of auction process, not on some kind of NPC vendor or automatic exchange rate model.

Some might consider this as a way to invite more gold farmers, but it seems that others games using such approaches did not have this happen. Quite possible that the strong competititon with many players and the legality of such offers ruins profit margins. Especially if you consider that many gold farmers only sell you cold so they can steal your credit card details - if there is a "legal" way to buy it via Cryptic, that source of revenue dies to them.

What it means is that someone has to pay for the C-Store you want. Even if that's not you.

A relatively balanced but still optimistic outlook for me:
1) Tier 2.5 to Tier 4.5 will enter the C-Store and will remain available exclusively for C-Points. Nothing will be done to split the PvP Queues for this. If you want to PvP at this tier, you better earn some C-Points.
2) Tier 5 remains Tier 5, no Tier 5.5 or Tier 6 ships (unless there is a level cap increase eventually.
3) Any new heals and buffs added to the game will remain unavailable for use in PvP.

A more optimistic view would be that Tier x.5 5 die and the Rhode Island remains the odd man out, and a somewhat less optimsitic view could be that they will be segregated.

I do not expect that any players will be barred from entry for PvP. This would serve no real purpose (especially not if you want to sell the Rhode Island and the like.)

F2P means get ready for an influx of 12 year olds.

And I guess we can give up hope of ever getting new maps and such. They didn't give us anything during the 19+ months we paid subs. Why would they give us anything when we've stopped paying them to give us nothing?