Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[Simon_Jester]

Gravity Well has some advantages:
-Synergy with a lot of space duty officer abilities
-Damages an arbitrary number of ships all at once (you can have a whole cluster of frigates or whatever get sucked in and damaged).
-Tends to 'stick' the ships in one place, so that you can pound on them with other area effect abilities (like Fire At Will or Torpedo Spread), and so that you can run away from them if you're being mobbed
-The area effect damage can destroy any destructible projectiles they try to fire at you.

On the other hand, you should pick the abilities that suit your captain's skills (the captain skill that improves Gravity Well effectiveness is different than the one that improves certain other bridge officer skills).

Also, Tyken's Rift and Gravity Well are on a shared cooldown, so you can't fire both of them at once, and in fact can't fire one within 15 seconds of the other at all. So if you're doing great things with Tyken's Rift, Gravity Well becomes less helpful.

[Lord Revan]

Grav Well can be "life saver" in ISA if you group DPS is lowish, grav well the Nanite sphares to give you some extra time to deal with the transformer.

[mr friendly guy]

Reading up on secondary deflectors..

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-t ... deflectors

My science captain is more geared to playing the deteriorating secondary deflector, given my abilities, ie I lack the gravity skill to play the inhibiting secondary deflector. So Tyken's rift is better for my skill set.

However I plan to try a second science ship, perhaps a Fleet Dauntless now that my fleet can support it (woo hoo) and try with gravity wells and the "control" skills which the inhibiting secondary deflector uses. Of course I will have to fork out shitloads of money on the EC which translates into a couple of tens of real world cash to gold farmers. What I am interested in trying is to see what happens when you play a gravity well then use consoles to fire a singularity or subspace rift nearby.

[RogueIce]

The fact that you are using gold farmers makes me sad on the inside.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, you can casually pick up EC at about ten to fourteen million EC per 500 Zen (that is, five real dollars) on the Exchange.

Unless the gold farmers are giving you more than 2000000 EC per dollar, you'd do better to just keep it within the game.

[Coaan]

Plus it doesn't get you banned if someone reports you.

[Lord Revan]

There's also the added bonus that there's less risk of getting hacked and loosing your account if you're not using "gold sellers".

[bilateralrope]

How bad is the gold seller spam within STO ?

[mr friendly guy]

The fact that you are using gold farmers makes me sad on the inside.

Er, why? Its not like they're playing for me. I just get the EC, buy good gear so I don't have to grind constantly.

Its the classic conundrum. Those who have little time but some $$$$ buy the virtual items from those who have lots of time but not a lot of money. I would rather do quests, try out different ship configurations than grind incessantly to get the tens of millions of EC to get the right items on the exchange. Some of those websites teaching players how to farm, had some players using multiple characters and accounts to farm. That would be boring as hell.

I already spend quite a bit of zen on ships, extra slots for crews,ships, bank etc. So Cryptic gets my money as well. If Cryptic sold EC directly in the C-store, I would most probably buy, but the inflation would most probably kill the game. At least gold sellers have to work within the limitations as well.

Well, you can casually pick up EC at about ten to fourteen million EC per 500 Zen (that is, five real dollars) on the Exchange.

Unless the gold farmers are giving you more than 2000000 EC per dollar, you'd do better to just keep it within the game.

You mean by buying master keys and then selling them on the exchange?

The gold farmer offers a slightly better rate. For $15 I can get 55 million EC which makes it better than your 2 million EC per dollar. The rates look similar at higher levels, but you can apply discount codes after a certain level to get a slight discount.

Plus it doesn't get you banned if someone reports you.

I thought gold farming was a problem mainly for subscription fee based MMORPGs like WoW, where everyone is supposed to be "equal" because they all pay the same monthly fee. In free to play but pay to win, or at least close to pay to win MMORPGs it seems to be the natural evolution.

There's also the added bonus that there's less risk of getting hacked and loosing your account if you're not using "gold sellers".

I know some gold farming sites advertised that they can play for you, but I am not using those. We just log in, I get invited to a ship and we make the exchange in EC.

How bad is the gold seller spam within STO ?

Since I joined, I have only had one email to my in game mail about gold sellers. Which just happens to be the seller I went to.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, you can casually pick up EC at about ten to fourteen million EC per 500 Zen (that is, five real dollars) on the Exchange.

Unless the gold farmers are giving you more than 2000000 EC per dollar, you'd do better to just keep it within the game.

You mean by buying master keys and then selling them on the exchange?

Among other things. Although I have a sneaking suspicion you could probably better that (and maybe hit four million EC per dollar or better) by selling ships on the Exchange. I'd have to look at the prices to be sure, though.

[I say this because, for example, the going rate for a Ship Upgrade Token on the Exchange can be lower than that for a Fleet Upgrade Module, even though the upgrade token costs an equal or greater amount of EC. Prices on the Exchange do not always make sense, and a bit of cleverness can get you a long way, especially if you can brute force your way into a pile of investment capital.]

And, hm. Actually, now that I no longer use this method... it would work very well for you, better than it ever did for me. And you can do it with minimal investment of effort on your part if you have any willingness to use the crafting system at all... by making bridge officer training manuals with your Science skills. Stuff like Hazard Emitters III.

The up front cost is that you have to make a PADD, which costs 20000 EC and 200 dilithium, and half an hour of duty officer time for crafting... but if you have enough dilithium, you can literally just tell y (less, even). So in effect you are spending one penny and maybe ten seconds of your time, in exchange for 80000 EC of return on investment. Sometimes it'd be more, up to twice as much.

Multiply this by enough times and you have something in the neighborhood of eight million EC per dollar of real money... although to be fair, it COULD add up to an hour or so of gameplay time because you'd be doing it so many times. So, call it "grind light," the grinding equivalent of a get-rich-quick scheme.

The other catch is that this is time-limited, you only actually sell so many manuals a day, so your actual EC income is limited and you can't just generate 100 million EC from this method at will. but it's a steady income stream requiring minimal time and effort on your part and it's got a much better return on investment than the gold farmers.

How bad is the gold seller spam within STO ?

Since I joined, I have only had one email to my in game mail about gold sellers. Which just happens to be the seller I went to.

They advertise annoyingly on the Beta Quadrant general-local chat on a regular basis, but aside from that, yeah. Not noticeable.

[Coaan]

I thought gold farming was a problem mainly for subscription fee based MMORPGs like WoW, where everyone is supposed to be "equal" because they all pay the same monthly fee. In free to play but pay to win, or at least close to pay to win MMORPGs it seems to be the natural evolution.

Why would you ever think this when gold spammers/sellers have been a bannable offense in most mmos? I can't even think of an mmo where buying currency from a third party that isn't the developer is a good idea/legit.

It's a very bannable thing and I would be careful about using their services more than once. If the devs/GM's spot the pattern, they'll take action

[Lord Revan]

I thought gold farming was a problem mainly for subscription fee based MMORPGs like WoW, where everyone is supposed to be "equal" because they all pay the same monthly fee. In free to play but pay to win, or at least close to pay to win MMORPGs it seems to be the natural evolution.

Why would you ever think this when gold spammers/sellers have been a bannable offense in most mmos? I can't even think of an mmo where buying currency from a third party that isn't the developer is a good idea/legit.

It's a very bannable thing and I would be careful about using their services more than once. If the devs/GM's spot the pattern, they'll take action

In fact it's bannable for the very same reasons in both Sub MMOs like WoW and Free to play ones, the developers/publishers aren't getting a single cent out of it.

We got remember that Activision-Blizzard(since WoW is developed and published by the same company) and Cryptic/New World are in the end companies and the main goal of any successful company is to make money for the shareholders/owners.

While companies can have other goals as well it doesn't mean they like it when others profit from their work without their consent.

[bilateralrope]

Gold sellers do harm everyone else's experience. Spam is the most obvious one, the rest of the harms differ from game to game.

In games where the quickest way to farm gold is generating it, gold sellers are a significant cause of inflation because their actions are creating a lot of gold. If the best income involves selling stuff to players then inflation isn't an issue, but the gold sellers will cause an oversupply and bring down prices, thus bringing down the incomes of other players.

In games where only so many players can be doing a specific piece of content at a time, the gold sellers can monopolise it and prevent anyone else from doing it.

Breaking into another players account and stealing everything is a common way for gold sellers to get gold.

As far as I'm concerned, that harm is why gold sellers should be stamped out by whoever is running a game. The developers offering a legitimate way to buy gold (usually by buying some intermediary object then selling it to players, as that causes much less inflation than just generating gold) is one tool against them. One I have no problem with, as my only issue with the gold buyers is that they encourage the harm the gold sellers cause.

[Simon_Jester]

In this case, given the role of EC in the Star Trek economy...

It may be that the gold farmers are outright stealing energy credits somehow, I can't rule it out. But unless that is what they're doing...

I honestly can't imagine that "gold farmers" who target energy credits are seriously hurting the game economy.

EC prices for most of the truly valued items in the game are already high enough that it's practically impossible to get high-end items without either buying Zen items for resale, or extensive exercises in crafting. If all current gold farmers stopped, the rewards of being a crafter might go up a bit.

But frankly that market is badly underserved, which I know because there are still times and places where you can make a 50%, 100%, or even 300% markup on your energy credit investment sometimes, just by visiting a hub location and running back and forth for a minute or two. There are times when it is outright impossible to find desired items on the Exchange, or when the prices are exorbitant and totally out of line with the investment of resources required to make them. As I mentioned, an obvious example of this is science bridge officer training manuals, which are only 'correctly priced' if the EC-to-dilithium exchange rate pegged by contraband prices is WAY off, despite that being one of the most actively traded commodities in the game that I can think of.

Prices for science officer training manuals SHOULD never break 65000 EC, if there were a substantial and healthy crafting population in the game producing them.

In other words, there are not enough crafters operating in the game to meet the level of demand even with the gold farmers. While that may be a good thing for the relative handful of people doing the actual crafting, it's not necessarily good for the playerbase as a whole.

Now, if those same gold farmers were selling dilithium, then they might well be hurting the playerbase as a whole and cutting into Cryptic's revenue stream by undercutting the Cryptic-authorized dilithium-to-Zen exchange rate. I don't know, I haven't finished thinking about that and I've got to go to work.

[Coaan]

Some of the inflation on the exchange is natural - quite a few of the items available simply aren't easily available anymore or are from lockboxes now out of circulation. You can see a prime example of this in old consoles such as the leech and ground traits from lockboxes.

Both are skyrocketing in price now that the supply is lowered while the demand has risen.

Now, I don't strictly mind the idea of cryptic, and other mmos, offering currency for real life money. Most MMOs do offer some form of stuff for money these days and even cryptic does allow a rudimentary form of money for energy credits in the form of being able to purchase master keys and sell them on the exchange.

I'm not against this form of purchase because it supports the developer and doesn't undermine the economy in game, whereas third party purchases over inflate the economy and as a result, prices skyrocket.

Either way, it's getting off message.

Friendly Guy? You need to be very careful if you intend to continue buying EC.

[mr friendly guy]

I will try and cut down on purchases and try and sell stuff on the exchange for inflated prices (actually I sold a Ultra rare MK 12 personal shield for 275 k EC, even though its only worth like 11000 EC, and mine was the cheapest one by 125 k). Most of my recent gold seller purchases has gone to support the fleet I am a member of, with the occasional item.
**************************************************
But before I go to sleep, I will just like to put my take on things

1. Its not like the fact that you pay to win is hidden in STO. In games like WoW it harms the player base because they pay to play, and don't expect to pay an extra hidden cost (ie to gold sellers to compete against those who are willing). Sure there are people who still haven't figured out that in STO all the free stuff they get from grinding and then buying on the exchange only works because someone else on the other end is willing to "pay to win" and exchange real cash for some virtual goods to get ahead.

STO does it numerous times with zen to dilithium, and to a lesser extent zen to item, which is then traded for EC. I have paid for zen, traded it for dilithium. So from this POV, there isn't a hidden cost, its quite up front.

2. The problem of taking money from the developer

That of course depends on the type of game. Its not an issue with TCGs, because someone had to pay the company for the card in the first place (usually in boosters), even if they make a profit on selling a specific card to a seller. For example Infinity wars tolerates this type of behaviour.

In MMORPGs where the ability to generate the good (ie virtual currency) is purely from grinding or playing the game, I can see why they could potentially lose out. Now in STO the 2 major currencies you're going to use are EC and dilithium. Yes there are other currencies, but AFAIK only these two can be exchanged between players. Some goods like Fleet goods require dilithium and fleet credits, but fleet credits can be exchanged 1:1 with dilithium by completing fleet tasks.

Cryptic pretty much allows dilithium to be exchanged for real world currency via zen. If they allowed EC to be, I would just pay for EC, although the inflationary problem might be worse. However I noticed they do take advantage of gold sellers, whether intentional or not. Simply put, some of the good items cost more than 10 million EC limit for players. Even if we buy from gold sellers, they can't give us more than 10 million EC at once, and so to purchase an expensive item, we need to pay cryptic to increase our EC limit to 1 billion. So Cryptic in a roundabout way is making money this way.

3. Inflation

This could be a problem, however I notice Cryptic does limit the amount of EC someone can acquire, which would cap the price of goods somewhat. But as Simon pointed out, the costs is ridiculous. A plasmonic leech was fricking expensive, and I would have to grind and grind to afford it. I would rather do the quests.

Now I am not sure how much of the inflation is due to gold sellers, but I suspect not as much as one thinks. This is because players farm ridiculous amounts anyway (there are websites and youtube videos telling people how to farm dilithium and EC). Professional Gold farmers has to be a minority or else it wouldn't be profitable for them, just like any business where the sellers outnumber the buyers. This is of course supposition, and my impression on players farming is from a particular sample, ie arcgames message board and blogs on STO builds. But if I am right, most of the inflation comes from the players farming, rather than professional gold farmers.

[Elheru Aran]

I think the problem with most RPGs and money is that almost all of them end up being pay-to-win ultimately because there's always going to be higher end items that cost a lot of time and money but give people a real edge in gameplay. Leveling up isn't much of an issue, it only takes time and if the game is designed well it can be done without incurring any costs other than time. It's the endgame content where pay-to-win becomes an issue because everybody wants to have the phasers that can one-shot Borg cubes.

Are there ANY RPG's which don't use real-world money in some fashion?

[Simon_Jester]

I will try and cut down on purchases and try and sell stuff on the exchange for inflated prices (actually I sold a Ultra rare MK 12 personal shield for 275 k EC, even though its only worth like 11000 EC, and mine was the cheapest one by 125 k). Most of my recent gold seller purchases has gone to support the fleet I am a member of, with the occasional item.

The list prices of items that say what they're officially "worth" are meaningless.

And yeah, glad you're being more careful. I'd like to note that if you really want that very simple "just spend money for EC" experience, buying and then selling for EC something like a master key or fleet ship upgrade will in fact work. It's worth spending a little time doing math to figure out how to get a favorable rate of return on this- "let's see, 14 million EC divided by 500 Zen, or 20 million EC divided by 700 Zen... which do I want..." or something like that.

Also, try manufacturing Science bridge officer training manuals. Seriously. It's not hard, it's not very time consuming, and you CAN make a respectable chunk EC that way on a good day.

...Sure there are people who still haven't figured out that in STO all the free stuff they get from grinding and then buying on the exchange only works because someone else on the other end is willing to "pay to win" and exchange real cash for some virtual goods to get ahead...

Thing is, a lot of the sought after items on the Exchange are things you can craft, and in many cases can't actually buy. You can't buy a [CrtD]x3 beam weapon for real money, you have to make one, for instance. Or someone else has to make them.

Simply put, some of the good items cost more than 10 million EC limit for players. Even if we buy from gold sellers, they can't give us more than 10 million EC at once, and so to purchase an expensive item, we need to pay cryptic to increase our EC limit to 1 billion. So Cryptic in a roundabout way is making money this way.

That's them making money once, in a relatively small amount, and then never again from any alt that player owns. Come on, you have to be kidding...

This could be a problem, however I notice Cryptic does limit the amount of EC someone can acquire, which would cap the price of goods somewhat. But as Simon pointed out, the costs is ridiculous. A plasmonic leech was fricking expensive, and I would have to grind and grind to afford it. I would rather do the quests.

The Plasmonic Leech is stupidspensive because if you're Starfleet (and most players are), the only way to get one is from a Tal Shiar Lockbox, and they stopped releasing those as drops on a regular basis two years ago. Some of the lockboxes appeared during certain special events, but only a tiny number.

[mr friendly guy]

There is such a desync with PvP. The second match I was literally stuck in a spot for a minute while my team was fighting. When I did move the ship moved jerkily and I got stuck in an asteroid. It got really bad when I got killed and I didn't even if the guy just hit me fast or if I was slow. Even when we won there were periods where I simply last battlefield awareness as it just zoomed in on my ship instead of allowing me to see the whole battlefield.

[Elheru Aran]

Sounds like your hardware/connection isn't playing well with their servers.

[mr friendly guy]

So I got the Fleet version of the Dauntless. Its supposed to give you more consoles and hull points. However I have found out it only has 4 levels of starship mastery instead of 5, and you don't have the particle synthesiser console. I hope this is a bug and not a feature, which I have reported.

[Coaan]

That is not a bug.

You have a STRONGER ship than the zen variant you can buy with currency other than zen. What did you expect?

That is the trade-off. If you purchase a ship through a fleet, you get the upgraded hull and console slots, but you do not get the trait or the special console. The main draw of this method is getting access to competitive tier 6 ships without having to pay zen for them. Once you understand how to generate energy credits through the market, you can then use them to get fleet ship modules, which is the currency used.

They cost 9 million ( at the time of my last market check) each and you generally need between four and five for most ships.

[mr friendly guy]

I would have preferred it if they had a Fleet strength ship you could purchase with ZEN, like the command console Fed ships I purchased. Otherwise some ships have a trade off like you mention between the trait / consoles vs extra hull strength/shield strength, whereas some do not.

Wondering whether its worthwhile to get a regular Dauntless for its console (especially since there is an admiralty system coming in for unused ships).

[FaxModem1]

The Nebula class has always been my favorite class of ship. Is it better to get the refit, the ZEN version or do either even hold up?

[RogueIce]

The Nebula class has always been my favorite class of ship. Is it better to get the refit, the ZEN version or do either even hold up?

That's going to depend on how much you care about the Tachyon Detection Grid console. Otherwise the Fleet version is going to be better. Since it's T5 you don't have to worry about the Starship Mastery thing.