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[Discussion] - My Personal Take on the Upcoming Faction Changes.

Started By:
Sul-Matuul, Sat 23 Jan, 2021 4:24 PM
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    #1
    So there's a lot of discussion in various places about the upcoming changes being made this anniversary to factions. The addition or rather change to allow faction characters access to essentially all other faction ships has been heating up a lot of topics; here, in game, on Reddit, Twitter...and some is getting quite heated.

    I thought I'd put my thoughts down for why mostly I am not bothered about this in a negative way but also what opinion I do have of it is only positive.

    Firstly I play Federation as my main character. I do have alts from all other factions but the only max level ones are a Romulan and a Jem'hadar (who came levelled already pretty much).
    My KDF alts and a few other Fed ones are low level and barely above 40. They are mainly used for fleet duties and to grant access to certain giveaway items. I have never felt inclined to level my KDF alts to max level and rarely play them purely because they are so under developed and tbh; playing much of the game with poorly geared levelling alts is a miserable experience.

    My Fed main has access to millions of EC worth of gear from years of play. He has access to 20+ T6 c-store ships plus all manner of gear and items from promotions, giveaways, exchange shopping, lockbox traits, long reputation grinds, older events etc.
    Compare that to my KDF alts who have next to nothing; access to maybe 2 c-store T6 ships, no lockbox gear, little promotional gear. They are just not as fun to play and getting them to the same level would require months of grinding, spending a fortune and I'd essentially need to find 10yrs worth of in-game items/traits/training/grinds etc. to add to them. Plus currently for some of the items I'd need to buy the same stuff I already own on my Fed main but for a different faction; paying twice for the same stuff.
    For these reasons I've never been inclined to play KDF. It would be too expensive and a massive grindy nightmare to have a character I could say was similar to my main and didn't feel seriously half-arsed, a burden to teams, or just not as exciting to play. The game has over the years always been tough for alt players.

    Now this new change to faction ships opens up ALL of my currently owned T6 ships to my KDF alts. That means I can get all the traits and gear off those ships for free with but a little ship levelling. That means suddenly my KDF alts could have a massive dump of new top end traits and consoles to add to builds.
    Add to this, I can now buy any ship I want and get the trait and gear from it for all my alts; saving me a massive amount of money AND incentivising me to actually buy new ships because now all my alts can get something from them!
    I'm going to get a massive influx of admiralty card for all my alts as well so I'll be able to better grind through those tours and earn more rewards.

    This change will give me a reason to pick up my neglected KDF alts. It'll give me more options to make them good, fun characters. I'll have more choice to play the game how I want and new ways to experience things in the game. Even my Fed main is going to be able to get some fun because there's quite a few KDF ships I'd like to drop him in to to try some alternative styles; or even play the same way but with a cloaking device added to the mix.

    Concerns about lockbox items and things like DPRM might be on some people's minds but I could never afford that anyway and don't think it's essential so it's a moot point for me. Also; a lot of people have treated the KDF like a discount shop for getting meta gear for years and have literally only played that faction for that reason. Feds have always needed to pay through the nose for those items so now the playing field is levelled.

    Apologies for the wall of text lol.Big GrinLive Long and Prosper
    SulMatuul
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    #2
    I think you have never paid attention to the game then, because KDF or KDF allied Roms and Doms have been the easiest to kit out with the best gear for the cheapest prizes in game.

    With the new changes consoles that cost 10 Mil to kit them out cost now 100 Mil and once that supply on the exchange is gone be happy to pay the full prize for everything if you want a DPRM you will pay the 1 Billion EC on every toon you want one of these consoles.

    Don't get blinded because the only thing this will do is to increase Craptics income by a lot because there are no longer cheap alternatives now everyone pays the same price.
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    #3
    I think you have never paid attention to the game then, because KDF or KDF allied Roms and Doms have been the easiest to kit out with the best gear for the cheapest prizes in game.

    With the new changes consoles that cost 10 Mil to kit them out cost now 100 Mil and once that supply on the exchange is gone be happy to pay the full prize for everything if you want a DPRM you will pay the 1 Billion EC on every toon you want one of these consoles.

    Don't get blinded because the only thing this will do is to increase Craptics income by a lot because there are no longer cheap alternatives now everyone pays the same price.
    Maybe it's cheap for you players with disposable income to blow on every new lockbox or buy every c-store ship. Not for me.
    I could not afford to buy the same ship twice to get a trait or console on both my Fed main and KDF alts. That means my KDF alts have very little in the way of ships, gear, trait, items, rewards, reputations maxed etc. They are severely underprepared for content and not enjoyable to play.
    I haven't had the resources to make them as good as my single main character.
    Plus as I said; I don't need or want things like DPRM, SAD; I don't chase DPS and don't need a top meta ship. The price changes to these doesn't matter to me frankly.

    Like I said, this is my opinion. For me personally this will open up new avenues to gear up my alts and that will likely get me playing them more. I'll get to experience more of the game from a different angle and that can only be a good thing.
    SulMatuul
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    #4
     –  Last edited by Mack; Sat 23 Jan, 2021 5:19 PM.
    Maybe it's cheap for you players with disposable income to blow on every new lockbox or buy every c-store ship. Not for me.
    I could not afford to buy the same ship twice to get a trait or console on both my Fed main and KDF alts. That means my KDF alts have very little in the way of ships, gear, trait, items, rewards, reputations maxed etc. They are severely underprepared for content and not enjoyable to play.
    I haven't had the resources to make them as good as my single main character.
    Income had nothing to do with it.

    Some of us just know how to play the exchange to make the EC we did. That's really it. Also, most of the cross faction trait/ship boxes were super cheap.

    And that's the point. Now, for veterans it's a pretty good thing especially if you have said ship. But moving forward, there's really no way for people to actually get stuff without the expediting real money. Now, you need to own the ship and have to spend the real money - where as in the past, there were alternatives. If you looked and learn to play the market, EC is super easy.
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    #5
    Not entire true....only so for lockbox stuff.

    Anything on a C-store ship can now be bought on a single character and you get access to the full benefit for all characters. Currently if I'd wanted the Arbiter trait on all my alts I'd need to buy three ships. Now I can buy only one; whichever I like the look of, and get everything on all characters. That saves me money.
    If you have multiple alts and want the same traits for all you can just pick the ships that have what you want and not need to buy the same thing twice or even 3 times.

    Just because I could get a DPRM for 10M on my KDF alt doesn't mean I'd enjoy flying his single T6 ship he has access to when he lacks any other T6 ship traits, has no reps levelled and doesn't have even half the consoles my main has access to from store ships.

    Enjoyment of this game for many is not governed solely by one's ease of access to cheap lockbox items.
    SulMatuul
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    #6
    Whatever floats your boat. It takes many traits to make a ship build.

    Anyway for me personally I got it everything so since we're discussing on a personal level I can't care less now. Z-Store is where I own everything.

    But if we're discussing long term and for the guy who entered or even someone who never invested in z-store ships for whatever reason and wants to make a good build moving forward, yea - they better have that good disposable income.
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    #7
    Anything on a C-store ship can now be bought on a single character and you get access to the full benefit for all characters. Currently if I'd wanted the Arbiter trait on all my alts I'd need to buy three ships. Now I can buy only one; whichever I like the look of, and get everything on all characters. That saves me money.
    If you have multiple alts and want the same traits for all you can just pick the ships that have what you want and not need to buy the same thing twice or even 3 times.
    For most C-Store traits and consoles, you could've just bought one ship, the Romulan or Jem'Hadar version, before this update and have it accessible for all captains.
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    #8
    Well said. My oldest captain on my account is a KDF Tac Klingon, but although I made it to level 65 on him, I've only sank at best half the hours of gameplay on him as I have my Fed Tac or Sci toon or my Rom Engineer that I made over a year afterwards. Every time I log in to my KDF toon, I always have fun with it, but whenever I start thinking about changing up my gameplay a bit with him to spice things up, I hit the shipyard and get a reality check.

    There at the shipyard, I find myself greeted by my Fleet B'rel BOP, a few old event ships, and several battle cruisers that all look VERY similar to each other. Science ships are barely a thing for KDF directly and their Romulan and Jem'Hadar allies similarly have little to offer. Outside of the handful of Disco KDF designs (which I'm not really a big fan of personally), all KDF gets is the battlecruiser/raptor ship form (which all are very cookie-cutter to each other aside from size rescaling and maybe some different greebles slapped on to make it look like it isn't EXACTLY the same), the bird of prey design, and a few ally ship designs that just feel very generic "token alien" options. While a lot of Fed ships follow the saucer/secondary hull/2 nacelles on pylons off the secondary hull form, a lot also mix it up such as the Defiant and even the core design theme sees a lot more variation than the KDF side. Add to that all the "exclusive" ships that are currently Fed-only, and you quickly feel very pigeon-holed into a narrow look and style of gameplay.

    While some may argue that the "red/blue wall" is a core component of the game, the Klingon rivalry really started to die way back in 2013 with the Legacy of Romulus. At launch, Klingons were a PVP-only unlock once you hit level 20 on the Fed side, but Legacy of Romulus stood up KDF as the "other" playable faction and made Romulans choose one side or the other as they were launched with the same release. At the same time, ALL story arcs converged into a single, common storyline regardless of your faction choice that we've all played since. Thus, we had 3 years where the Fed/KDF rivalry WAS the game, and nearly 8 years now of common ground since. Similarly, PVP is pretty non-existent for the vast majority of players, so the "red/blue wall" doesn't really have any true reason to be other than the "that's how it has always been" excuse. The Romulan walls came down some time ago and the Jem'Hadar only had a token wall placed around their ships when they launched, so the Fed/KDF barrier coming down has been written on the wall for a long time. I and many players had great hopes that the "Year of Klingon" would be a renaissance where we would see all kinds of love poured into new KDF-exclusive content that didn't really materialize, but honestly just getting rid of these "exclusive" barriers entirely might be the best choice for all in the long run.
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    #9
    For most C-Store traits and consoles, you could've just bought one ship, the Romulan or Jem'Hadar version, before this update and have it accessible for all captains.
    This was only possible since Aug 2019. So unless I went and bought Rom variants of all my Fed ships (at great expense) I'd not have access to most of the accumulated stuff on all alts.
    The change to Rom ships opened up my Fed to some new alternatives I could potentially take advantage of. This change will do the same for KDF and Fed ships across the board.
    From Tuesday I'll have access to 31 (mostly Fed) T6 C-store ships across all of my characters; that is a massive benefit for me. It will give me a reason to pick up my KDF alts a bit more and get them some new traits and consoles.
    SulMatuul
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    #10
    I think that Sul's opinion of this is why Cryptic is making this change. It will encourage more gameplay...at least for a while...and I'm sure that it will generate more income for Cryptic! In this aspect, I tend to agree with Bridger's and Mack's points above, though I understand and respect Sul's and other's opinions on this matter.

    For the average player, who is not chasing the DPS dragon, this change will be welcome. For those who spend time, and money, developing builds strictly for improving DPS, this change will get mixed reactions at best. For these people, this change means a more expensive gaming experience going forward...should they choose to go forward.

    This change will also get mixed reactions from those who enjoy a more canon experience within the game. Canonically, unless you make all factions in the game join into one unified faction (presumably the Federation, but they could also dissolve all factions and make the Alliance the single faction going forward), it makes zero sense to have all factions zipping around space in any ship that they like. The Alliance gives an excuse for Alliance ships, but does not explain Klingons gaining access to Federation ships, and Feds gaining access to Klingon ships. For those playing STO as hardcore fans of Star Trek, STO has been a place to immerse yourself in the world that you love. With this change, these players will either have to make a huge change to their head canon to keep STO enjoyable to them, or this change may just break their immersion enough to make them quit the game. This began happening a while ago, with universal access to Romulan and Dominion ships. Because they aren't their own 'Factions' within the game, are not one of the major two factions in what's left of Star Trek, and are already required to serve as Federation or Klingon anyway, this change was not as game-changing as the upcoming change to STO is.

    Personally, I don't like this change. I enjoy the challenge of constantly trying to improve my builds, and aside from my Federation characters, this change will make life more expensive for me....check that....with increased demand for the (what use to be faction specific) ships for their traits and consoles, those ships prices will be higher than they were when they were faction locked, so EVERYTHING will be more expensive for EVERYONE, specifically if you're shopping the exchange for those ships. I'm also a life-long Star Trek fan. From an immersion perspective, STO makes less sense to me now, as an extension of the Star Trek universe. There is more that STO does that bothers me, like the common story that both factions follow after tutorials, but that's not the subject of this post. My point in bringing that up though, is that all of these changes for convenience on Cryptic's part have a cumulative negative effect on my enjoyment of STO. I am already fairly removed from STO, except for participating in fleet events, and in-game events for the free stuff. I cannot see these changes improving my desire to play any more than that.

    I understand this from Cryptic's perspective. It means a lower workload to maintain the game. It means, potentially more $$$ coming into Cryptic's cofers. It means a potentially more active player base...at least in the short term. These changes will also continue to push away the DPS players and the hardcore Star Trek fans. I see Cryptic making short term decisions without regard for the longer term consequences. Maybe they have a longer term plan...idk, but if they don't, this seems like they are squeezing as much as they can out of the remaining player base, before the end finally comes for STO.
    Morris
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    #11
    I have to agree with Bridger, this in the end just makes things more expensive for the KDF...and IMO, as we've seen already with the Romulans and Jem'hadar, we will see a decline in Klingons ships...because why do they need new ones when they can just use Fed ships?

    This will make there be less of a reason than ever to make KDF characters? This update takes away every advantage the KDF had. Other than Klingon/Nausicaan armor, skimpy Orion clothing, and giant lizzards...what does the KDF have anymore? Unless the Discovery Klingons just has some absolutely mind bending racial trait?

    It took the devs 11 years just to give Klingons some hair options not involving dreadlocks!

    With no new examples of Klingon (Or Romulan or Jem'hadar for that matter) ships, after this "Year of the Klingon" (which mostly was just model updates) it's just going to be yet another "Year of the Federation"...which is probably exactly what it's going to be because remember we haven't gotten

    Discovery Enterprise, Discovery future, Admiral Picard, or Lower Decks uniforms
    Discovery future ships and the California class
    Plenty of Fed ships to give the T6 treatment, plus ship of the line and legendary packs

    I hope I'm wrong but I was right about the Romulans and Jem'hadar not getting much attention after they were given full reciprocal access with their allied factions
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    #12
    I honestly don’t think the immersion aspect makes any difference.
    From the first lockbox up until now you’ve had players able to fly all manner of alien ships and use weird weaponry.

    Like I said I discussion about this in game earlier: for years you’ve been able to fly an Undine ship whilst commanding a bridge crew made up of bikini clad aliens whilst wearing a knitted novelty jumper and using kit modules that summon hurricanes.... all whilst playing as an admiral in Starfleet.
    Immersion has never really existed in the game in the sense that it stick to a canon accurate portrayal. It’s a theme park with options to play how you like.

    Those who want canon accurate gameplay can still pick their crew to match and use only canon gear or ships. They can hang around any system they want to avoid seeing weird alien ships.
    Sol system has been full of weird ships for years already, this change isn’t going to make the place look any weirder.
    SulMatuul
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    #13
    For me, the change really just starts to remove any character from the game, and the theme, it just becomes "Space MMORPG", which is really quite sad. I don't have anything positive to say about the change, it feels lazy, no need to actually focus on making ships for a faction. Of course, it's to be expected when they stuggled to even add a 3rd real faction in the first place!
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    #14
     –  Last edited by Taku; Sat 23 Jan, 2021 8:10 PM.
    I will not think about quitting or ragequit or walk away -- or whatever you want to call it -- because of this change. I want to be up front about that.

    I'm okay with this. My head canon is intact. Even if it wasn't, this isn't a deal breaker for me. We saw this coming, and now it's here. We can see the elimination of faction-only Fleets coming, and it will happen eventually. And people will complain about that as well. I won't. My headspace is sorted.

    Here's why:

    Klingons in Starfleet is no big deal. It has been done. It is a fact. Get over it.
    Feds in the KDF shouldn't be too hard to imagine either, given the officer exchange programs we have seen on-screen.

    As for the increased cost as a money-grab? Let the market settle down. Everyone is running around like Chicken Little, "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!" Chill. Give it time and see how it shakes out.

    Some of you may know that I play primarily as a KDF Reman in the House of Kular (and most times I am the ONLY KDF player online from UFP). If this change and event gets more people into our KDF Fleets, I'm okay with that. If it gets some of YOU to play your neglected KDF alts, I'm okay with that. If it means seeing Klingons piloting Galaxy-class starships, I'm okay with that.

    Most importantly, there's nothing written that says that you have to put your Andorian captain in an An'quat War Command Battlecruiser. If you don't want to: Don't.

    And I'll be okay with that.
    "And when I saw the breadth of my domain, I wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer."
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    #15
    For me, the change really just starts to remove any character from the game, and the theme, it just becomes "Space MMORPG", which is really quite sad. I don't have anything positive to say about the change, it feels lazy, no need to actually focus on making ships for a faction. Of course, it's to be expected when they stuggled to even add a 3rd real faction in the first place!
    I wonder why they even really bothered? They obviously don't want to develop anything else...they should have just kept the game Starfleet only instead of adding the KDF as a afterthought (then totally neglect it instead of even remotely attempting to nurture it).

    This is their ultimate goal (and they've been planning this for a while now, who knows how long) would it have really been much different than if there was only one faction and they started giving us Klingon, Romulan, and Jem'hadar ships as like gamble box ships or something?

    Starfleet could have even fit some of the KDF races in...like Orions and Gorn...already has playable Klingons. Could of taken in Romulan and Reman refugees escaping the Empire and Tal Shiar.

    Without worrying about the other factions we could have seen more Fed fractions (like TMP era Feds (TMP based bridge would have been awesome), since the KDF transporter effect is basically the TMP Fed one but red) and I personally would have liked to see Enterprise era Feds (with a NX bridge) and the transporter effect was nice

    Instead of making fractions not many care about and the Devs weren't intending to care about much themselves they could have made more that easily integrate with Feds and wouldn't require years of planning and work to integrate like they are now doing with the KDF.