It’s been a year since Delta Rising went live, it’s been a few days since they added yet another right-to-left resources sink, another lockbox, and some cheesy artwork.
Yes, this is going to be a negative post.
Going on four months since my ‘silent ban’ went into effect. The discussion that triggered it, involved a “monsterplay’ suggestion and an exchange with Cryptic maps guy Tacofangs.
What I really didn’t parse or understand from his replies finally sank in.
summarized-Cryptic is after the lowest-common-denominator of players, and is uninterested in anything else.
The “LCD Demographic” can be defined, in this case, as follows:
Exclusively plays PvE-and only missions that guarantee success.
PvE’s for the most rewards for time spent.
Will spend to shorten the amount of time.
Does NOT demand good story elements, but is very focused on seeing/having Celebrity Guest Stars.
Will NOT PvP, or will only do so if they can purchase a guaranteed win *(Kemocite’s bugged form, Embassy consoles with FAW, etc.-these only get ‘fixed’ when it is time to roll out the next bugged buyit power)
Will NOT do PvE content that is difficult, or presents any challenge beyond “Massive sax of Hitpointz to FAW or Kemo in seconds”.
is not interested in puzzles or problem-solving beyond “Bind to spacebar, hit spacebar, success!”
is NOT interested in mission content that provides a risk of failure.
Is Not Interested in Playing anything but Federation (or Fed-Approved Romulans for the power-creep).
Does not want to think, or risk, just wants a purple ribbon for being there.
This is the profile of the targeted demographic, this is how and why PvP is dead, as are the bulk of the PvE queues, it’s why when Cryptic talks population, they talk about characters, instead of players.
It’s like network television in the late nineties-with the reality shows, when you think about it. Minimum effort content with a hype machine, gamble-boxes to stimulate sales, and shoddy workmanship as the standard, extending from known issues (Kemocite, Neutronic Torps, badly scripted story missions, minimum effort and “Finally we don’t have to develop for faction X” statements, the list is comprehensive and somewhat depressing.)
The type of player that plays KDF isn’t desirable to Cryptic-we’re something of a vestige from an earlier era, a bit like PvP, only it took ’em longer and required actual justifications before we were abandoned.
Justifications?
The Bortasque situation-this also applies with the Varanus, they spent a huge amount on artwork, then slaved it to the worst game-stats they could compile, on a ship that can’t do what it is supposed to do-by design.
RvB’ing the PvP queues-this was sold as a way to ‘save’ PvP, but after it was implemented, Geko himself pronounced that it ended the burdensome requirement for continued development of assets, story, etc. for the KDF players…because we’re not a profit center they’re interested in pursuing.
This can be further demonstrated by Cryptic’s own demographics-in eight months they went from zero to Legacy of Romulus, and it was profitable-at eleven percent of the playerbase. To do that, they made the Romulan ‘fraction’ grossly over-powered (as admitted by his lead developerness, Geko himself on Priority One radio in June.)
Cryptic’s infographic shows 16% of STO characters pre-Delta Recruits were KDF… and 11% were playing Romulans.
In eight months they gave Romulan players more than they did KDF players in three years in terms of story development, endgame equipment (that is actually useable), and development dollars. The 1-20 missions for KDF were done ‘off the clock’-probably over that three years, and tacked on after the hype machine was put into the Romulans…
and they only managed 11%, even with transferring most of the best tricks from KDF products to Fed-available (including Leech, to help with the pathetic -10 power per subsystem thing).
but Cryptic is only interested in Starfleet-all our faction is, is dilithium farming to support Starfleet mains under their definitions, and PvP, hte thing they claimed AFTER release was the KDF’s ‘special area’ is, and will be forever, totally abandoned.
Because it’s not in line with the targeted demographic. Where selling “Moar Powah!!” works great with PvE, (the npc’s can hardly walk out or refuse to queue), it’s a killer for PvP-because you run out of opponents very quickly as people simply cease to show up.
Balance is anathema to Cryptic, as is quality.