"Why don't you just delete them?" This statement makes perfect sense coming from someone at Cryptic earning $100k a year by copy pasting typo-ridden blogs full of wrong information I suppose. 100% agree with everything here, player QOL is so rarely worked on because the devs either don't care, don't understand or often want it to be tedious and time consuming to waste your time as "engagement". I would love to build more "themed" builds but it's so freaking painful I just can't be bothered.
It's not that bad of a suggestion when you consider how little of a loss it is to delete (let's say) a Biotoxin Injection module (or any useless module) after opening the packs _for a wealthy player._ Okay, you discarded ten biotoxin injections but you got two of the ones you find useful/sellable. You're discarding ten worth 200k each on the exchange, but two worth whatever, twenty million. Deleting the packs themselves would be moronic but opening them and discarding the crap (if you're so rich that a 200k sale is meaningless to you) is perfectly sound. Obviously, having them as choice packs WOULD be a better solution but "delete them" is not really a "wealthy dev" solution. It's - dare I say it - a very capitalist solution for a problem only affecting the game's wealthiest players. It's not a problem I have, mate, and I've been playing for years. I'm just NOT a "whale". Nothing but love for whales, swear to god. ! But I do wonder how many people can sympathise with "The Infinity packs don't remember my choices." Oh wahhh. Another solution: Open them when you get them. Sell the crap on alts. Don't let them build up. There's a small element of greed in hoarding them and it's not going to garner much sympathy from the community or, more importantly, the devs. A search bar for whales indeed. Hahaha. Good luck with that.
One thing I would like to add about the weapon choice pack. The random beam and random cannon selection should be removed and just let us pick a beam array, duel beam bank, heavy cannon, turret, etc…. It’s enough of a gamble to just open a lockbox, no need to gamble further when you want a beam array but end up with a duel beam bank.
totally agreed it's my biggest pet peeve in game and why I LOVE the choose any time boxes like the ones that came with the terran event ship or do it like spiral wave charge Dil! don't they want that sink lmfao..
Cryptic should just make the infinity boxes work like the Phoenix boxes. Make em drop tradable vouchers T1 to T6 which open up into a prize list like Phoenix.
As a gambling player i'm 100% agree with this review of the infinity lock boxes,this will help a lot and i have the same problem with the stacks and secondary items
Definitely agree! Very well thought-out video! You use the Infinity Lock Box as an example, but I would honestly love for this to apply to ALL Lock Boxes! Un-Binding the Choice Packs would be a HUGE QOL improvement for both Buyers AND Sellers! Random Console Packs are already frustrating! You NEVER get what you want out of them, whether you're selling OR using! Turning them into "Choose your console" would make them actually worth doing. Same thing with the Random Doff Packs! NO ONE wants a Duty Officer that can activate Attack Pattern Delta 1 when you use an Engineering or Pilot ability! Make ALL of those Doff Boxes into Choice Packs, and they will be opened sooooo much more! Same thing again as above for the Random Weapon Packs! An option in the Choice Pack UI to "Select All as X" would save SOOOO much time! As would a Filter/Search option! Stack limits for everything should be 9999! For all of the money some of us put into the game, that experience should be as pleasant as possible! Which would also make more people want to spend more money in STO.
2:45 - Yes, that is so right! I sadly was part of the problem. The current price for a t6 choice pack is around 1,2b. I got an jovian raider for 1b because someone needed the money fast. The jovian raider is one of the ships ingame, that isnt really liked by everyone. The indroduction Video from the official STO RUclips channel is a good example of how many people are liking that ship. I didnt know that and put it for 1,4b EC on the exchange. It took 3 Weeks to sell it and in this 3 weeks, no one put another jovian raider on the exchange. That means: Who ever bought it from me had to overpay 200 mil EC for a ship that should be "an underpay".
A lot of what is in a lockbox could be put in the Z-store. If they add a new ship to it, make an older lockbox ship available. There's probably a lot of ships in there that nobody uses.
Speaking of Weapon Packs: Back in the day, I used to be able to open the box, then select a weapon pack I wanted, then as I double-clicked to open all the other Weapon Packs, all I had to do was press "space-bar" and it would automatically select the last option I had selected. Meaning, I could do 30 packs in seconds. Now I have to double-click, scroll to select, click okay, to each of them.
You know Spence, being able to open such a huge amount of lockboxes that managing all the random stuff you get for sale becomes a tedious chore, i kinda wish i had your luxury Whale problems (and your Lobi!).
If Cryptic made a lot of older, depreciated lockbox content available for dil it would open a lot up. Certainly the infinity lockbox as it stands is simply too diluted. There's a bunch of T5 lockbox ships that are effectively worthless (some T5 cstore ships could get the same treatment) along with weapons, consoles and traits that could be put into a rotating limited time sale (Think Xur in Destiny2 or Baro in Warframe, or the couple of special vanity shield sales we've had in the past ) every or every other weekend offering a selection of lockbox content for somewhat large amounts of dil. This would also help manage the problem Cryptic has with the dilex on PC.
When you can buy the contents for a fraction of the cost of opening the box it is clearly a gambling addiction exploit by Cryptic. I do like having a free game paid for by addicts though.
Flippant comments like "Why don't you just delete them?" from the developers gives us an insight as to what they really think of the player base. You've paid money for those, why the hell should you delete them? As you've said before, there is a "disconnect" between the developers and the player base, and it really needs addressing. In any event, I totally agree with your ideas, and I would think, it would be reasonably easy for them to implement these. Let's hope someone from Cryptic watches your vid.
You stated some VERY valid concerns & proposed some valid options. I don't see Cryptic investing any effort in altering the Infinity LB process no matter the (over) saturation. After we buy I don't think Cryptic is too concern with the outcome nor our satisfaction unless there's something noticeable on a revenue spreadsheet that causes less buying. Infinity LB T6 starship options of 49 choices having 56 or 58 starships I think. But, I ceased investing real-money into STO gambling the day I won 1 Salvage Technology & 4 lobi lol.
Yeah, I don't expect much if any change. But it's a 0% chance of change if I said nothing, so is always a chance with it being out there that something could happen.
I'm concerned that if we complain about too many ship choices in the Infinity pack - Cryptic's knee jerk reaction might be to make it a "gamble within a gamble' like the kit modules - Cryptic tends to overreact... sometimes 100% agreement with the assessment about the lock box kit frames. I tend to delete them myself. I'd rather see salvage points, for re-rolling gear instead.
Alternately for the choice packs, make them bound to account instead of character. Some of us have 50 characters, and trying to remember which of my toons has a boff manual box when I want a kemocite 1 for example, can be frustrating... My *BIGGEST* suggestion though is to roll all the kit frame prizes into a choice box. There's dozens and dozens of possible kit frame prizes, like herald kits, terran kits, etc, that my experience when opening a large quantity of boxes (say 100) is that because these prizes take up so much of the list, sometimes half or more of your boxes end up as kit frames, which are largely worthless to sell (I just vendor them, with a few exceptions of course, like starfleet frontier, borg combat structure, etc) And we all know about the streaky RNG in STO. Once, I opened 10 infinity boxes, and all TEN of them opened into t5 ship packs...none of these sell for much, as they're mostly useful for admiralty (excepting the n'kaam and meshweaver, I actually have strong builds on both which I've T5-X'ed)
As with any economy the options are either "Imperative" to the Individual's choice,but can be "Detrimental" to the exchange and everyone else.If you were given the choice on any weapon you wanted,then no weapons would have any value on the exchange due to everyone having them. Omnis would be a good example.And even then,you have the pheonix boxes.Drop the pheonix box events back to every 3 to 4 months.This in turn increases the "Random" items value at Epic .Randoms are a good choice since Dil is everywhere.At the rate we have Dil,We must decrease the dil per mission.Drop rates on T6 ship are lower than they used to be as those spending 1125 on R&D get better chances per amount spent."Randoms",are the offset to the old crafting system.In my opinon,they should drop the infinity to a quarterly level and introduce boxes from time to time that are simple Liberated Borg Officers,Or specific weapons that are appealing to the masses.It's better knowing what your getting than spending two hours on stowiki.I remember hitting a t6 ship quite a bit once.The RNG changed for me in 2019.Godspeed!.Remember.".Where there is want,there is compromise".Where there is need, there is sacrifice".\m/(>_
These are problems most of us wish we had :) "Awww damn it, I'm so rich, it's actually a pain in the ass to be this rich." I just can't bring myself to sympathise all that much. But your suggestions are sound. My own lockbox experience is far less grand in scale but still, I do open them for lobi and get those kit module packs, and this is why my guild bank is so full of crap like Biotoxin Injection (bonus damage if you hit the enemy from behind, a common occurrence I'm sure! :D) and idk, Papa Echo drones. So I, unlike you who open tons of the things, open a few (literally five or ten a month) boxes as a sort of reward to myself, a treat, and what do I get? 4 Lobi and a biotoxin injection. Not five. In a game based on the spirit of science, discovery, and presumably the metric system, I get FOUR damn lobi. Increasing the minimum Lobi would be nice, you know? Because people like you who already have thousands won't be affected, but us lowly bottom feeders would actually experience a little more fairness, rather than "FOUR lobi, bitch, and some module you'll never use or sell for anything of any value, suckerrrrrrr!" I'm with you in spirit! Just a slightly different starting point :)
Yes! Please just unbind the stupid box and let us buy/sell it directly on the exchange! It's not reducing the amount of keys cryptic sells, but it sure as hell helps the playerbase. It's crazy it's still bound like that.
I agree with all of this. There's a few other QoL changes that I feel can be added to this list. Allow us to sell the VIP Dil vouchers so others who dont open boxes can get a chance to benefit from them, fix some of the old weapon boxes that give us zero control over what it drops when you open it and maybe give us a vanity shield choice pack. Just my two cents.
I came back to the game in May after like 8 years. For the hell of it, I opened a few infinity boxes. DING T6 box. I am not gonna have that luck again any time soon.
good assessment sab, agree with all points. the win for something "good" is flooded with low value items making it seem like getting something good actually happens very very rarely,
Bound to character should be eliminated from the lockbox. Ships should have a separate inf box. Kit modules should be a separate inf box. Weps should be a separate inf box. The rest can be in another inf box. I still think Congress should classify all boxes that require something to open them as gambling devices and be regulated as such since there is real money involved.
Sometimes, I feel like the content producers for this game are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. This is one of those times. Sometimes I feel like Cryptic are making obvious choices to lower their income potential by structuring their offering to discourage interaction with the store. This is one of those times, as well. A single starship costs about 60% of another game's major content expansion. Gambling increases that cost to nearly 500% of a triple A expansion. Meanwhile, microtransactions are largely meaningless. To say that Cryptic makes the whole game frustrating for the purpose of extracting $$$ from pockets is to suggest water is a major contributor to wetness. To suggest that a priority fix is making the fool/money parting machine less frustrating in ways so minor as to be invisible to the average player is a number of things for which it would be impolite, at best, to assign adjectives. Cryptic is badly in need of a real competitor.
I’m concerned with cryptic and this game more than ever now and I don’t plan on spending another dollar. I play on Xbox where recently they updated the game which disabled play for most everyone and Hard locked fps at 30 and removed HD output entirely for everyone else. They made no attempt to address the issue and the notification it would be getting worked on, 2 weeks later, was buried and I only found it because someone on Reddit. They still have no addressed the video quality issue and I’m concerned they simply won’t at this point. Their forum is a nightmare and I’ve received zero feedback when presenting them with evidence of bugs. They will most likely find a way to blame us when they eventually fail financially. Or they could fix the little things that are driving people away.
Interesting video, but bear in mind what happened after re-engineering. If supply goes above the demand because the more sought-after stuff is only ever chosen, it will drive the economy further into the ground. A lot of useless stuff makes the money circulate. Even now we have nothing to spend currency on. The abundance of QoL could make or break the economy. It is worth pondering on which way the economy would go if any or several of these were implemented.
I believe any items 5 years old or more should be migrated to the lobi store. Obviously people already got what they wanted at a gamble. I agree that the choice packs should not be bound. The inflation is real but they love the high price of ships because it pushes people to buy more and more keys. Broken by design to take advantage of their dwindling player base
Great vid again Spencer what's funny is I've gotten to where I actually get stuff out of the that I can use cuz I'm still disappointed I don't get a ship :-)
I agree with everything you said I think the solution is they need to hire you and content creators to give input on the game and they should listen to you when they do so hear a lot of that where y'all tell them things and they don't listen to you
Spencer after watching when your videos often feel on rubber stamping the video cuz I say the same thing great video but when I think about it I've never watched the video that I haven't been entertained by whether it's you or Tri or augi anyone else in fact after years of listening to y'all the closest I ever came to disagreeing with someone was when they talked about the Titan destroyer and the only thing I said was it didn't work for me which is far from disagreeing with their opinion about it thanks for all y'all do
Oh yeah they should definitely increase the stack limit also if they don't want to go that route how about when I delete kit modules kit frames or anything out of the lock box I don't want I get one lobi for deleting it
Good video explaining these things. I rarely open Infinity Lockboxes, and I have noticed in my efforts to sell what I don't need, the sheer level of tediousness I go through to find something others might buy. (I do want to say I'm so jealous of your number of T6 ships packs however... Grr! I just want one when I open my boxes, RNG gods stop hating me please!!) But again, all of your ideas make sense and really should be considered by the devs and their teams. Have you considered sending Borticus a link of this video so he can look it over himself? Since they are well thought out ideas, and not just some random player ranting at them, they might at least take notice. Never know. Anyways, great video!
Speaking of profession specific traits; is there any equivalent personal traits for science and/or engineering captains that compares to the "A Good Day to Die" tactical trait?
Not really. You can see all of them on the list here if you want to look at em. Profession specific ones are marked on he list. sto.fandom.com/wiki/Infinity_Prize_Pack:_Personal_Trait_(Space)
I do not open these to 'sell' anything. I open these for me. For me, the more options the better. But the kit frames... agreed... How many do I need? Also being able to sell direct would be very helpful for ll the reasons you stated. I could grab essentially a choice pack for my account and lock it on choice for the toon I want.
These inconveniences almost seem to be by design. They would rather someone just delete the space garbage, and buy another key from the c-store, rather than wade through all of the choices to try to find something that is hot on the market. Keeping the EC prices high in the market will drive people to try their luck and purchase keys. I quit opening lockboxes because who knows what they are going to nerf next. These ideas you have are excellent, but I don't see them being implemented, as long as people keep buying keys.
i stopped opening lock boxes a long time ago (ok ive open a couple) but due to the overall feeling of clumsiness and value for money i just sell keys and buy the thinks i need. I've spent my money so cyptic happy, how i use that zen purchase i dont think their bother to be honest.
As I said in the vid, the character with all those ship boxes / multiple stacks of lobi was over on Tribble. That's the character I did that big 12k opening on last year. On the main server, I sadly don't have anywhere near that much lobi or ships right now.
I agree with you, those idiots that are running the game these days just don't care. Like you, I've been around a long time too, for me what used to be enjoyable for this lifer, is no longer fun. These days I play the game just to have something to do. Whenever I see a lock box, I just ignore it, I won't waste my time picking it up.
take out the T5 ships. re-do ALL of the weapon packs so you can select the type of weapon you want (beam, cannon, dual cannon), bin kit frames. also, try opening these on console. nobody has bothered trying it who works on the game.
I think lock boxes should be banned full-stop and Cryptic/Gearbox should sell in-game items through the Zen store. Gambling and any system that encourages gambling, has no place in a responsible MMO, especially considering that nearly all other forms of Internet gambling have very stringent controls and safeguards placed on them.
I still think they should take the tier 5 ships that they took out of the phoenix prize packs, the ones that somehow aren’t misleading from the infinity lock box and make them buyable with dilithium. Also can someone explain how the new Starfleet academy map is better then the last one(this is coming from a console player) it made a kinda bland place even more bland.🧐
Also, if possible, I would like to be able to unlock the T6 ship's Trait once unlocked, and then another character in the account can unlock it with Dil if they are on the same ship, unlocking it with Argala every time is tedious...ZzzZzzZzZ..
It keeps it highlighted, but you still have to re-select it. Before you could just pick something, then line up the box and accept button to spam them open.
I have a solution that would fix all this, make inf boxes cost 10 keys to open each, take everything out of them and only leave the ships, make the prize a random ship, put everything else in the dill store.
If they made account unlock on everything in lock box and lobi with deliution like make it $50 extra that would solve the crisis in one swoop. Maybe make certain items like traits, consoles, and doffs still be character only.
Yeah, so absolutely none of these suggestions will be of interest to the developer, if for no other reason than no one has hundreds upon hundreds of box items they need to open! To want alterations that are likely to affect such a tiny percentage of the players is completely unrealistic. As for normal players deciding what to sell; it's not difficult for anyone to choose. If people haven't already got an idea of what they're after and need to sell what they've just acquired from a lockbox, they simply look up the item on the Exchange and can instantly see the current market availability and pricing. I would add, judging by the dimwitted, clueless pricing of most items on the exchange, I'm not sure most players even care to make much of a profit!!! I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the issues DPS players, 'whales' and the obsessive spenders have with this game make up such a small percentage of the player base I would be shocked if the developer ever cared to address them. However, as a bit of a trader, I fully agree with being able to sell boxed items. I could make even more of a killing if I could buy those and pick and choose when and what to sell. But I doubt the developer cares to make trader's lives easier, as it's in their interest for the Exchange to fail, in order that people are more inclined to spend real money in order to progress and acquire what they need. And they certainly wouldn't care to make traders lives easier and more profitable. I have a strong feeling that the developer probably looks at the figures of how people are playing, what they're purchasing/acquiring, etc, and knows what it's doing. The alteration I would like to see is the removal of all gambling and have everything sold at good old honest fixed prices... but I would say that as it suits the way I play!
"Why don't you just delete them?" This statement makes perfect sense coming from someone at Cryptic earning $100k a year by copy pasting typo-ridden blogs full of wrong information I suppose. 100% agree with everything here, player QOL is so rarely worked on because the devs either don't care, don't understand or often want it to be tedious and time consuming to waste your time as "engagement". I would love to build more "themed" builds but it's so freaking painful I just can't be bothered.
It's not that bad of a suggestion when you consider how little of a loss it is to delete (let's say) a Biotoxin Injection module (or any useless module) after opening the packs _for a wealthy player._ Okay, you discarded ten biotoxin injections but you got two of the ones you find useful/sellable. You're discarding ten worth 200k each on the exchange, but two worth whatever, twenty million. Deleting the packs themselves would be moronic but opening them and discarding the crap (if you're so rich that a 200k sale is meaningless to you) is perfectly sound.
Obviously, having them as choice packs WOULD be a better solution but "delete them" is not really a "wealthy dev" solution. It's - dare I say it - a very capitalist solution for a problem only affecting the game's wealthiest players. It's not a problem I have, mate, and I've been playing for years. I'm just NOT a "whale".
Nothing but love for whales, swear to god. ! But I do wonder how many people can sympathise with "The Infinity packs don't remember my choices." Oh wahhh.
Another solution: Open them when you get them. Sell the crap on alts. Don't let them build up. There's a small element of greed in hoarding them and it's not going to garner much sympathy from the community or, more importantly, the devs. A search bar for whales indeed. Hahaha. Good luck with that.
“Just delete them” is just a rude thing to say to someone spending money on your game, period, whether that person is a whale or a minnow
One thing I would like to add about the weapon choice pack. The random beam and random cannon selection should be removed and just let us pick a beam array, duel beam bank, heavy cannon, turret, etc…. It’s enough of a gamble to just open a lockbox, no need to gamble further when you want a beam array but end up with a duel beam bank.
totally agreed it's my biggest pet peeve in game and why I LOVE the choose any time boxes like the ones that came with the terran event ship or do it like spiral wave charge Dil! don't they want that sink lmfao..
100% agreement with this. Lock box kit frames are nearly useless. At the very least they should be put in a choice box.
I have half a bank filled with them lol 😂
I paid a million for a few back when there were not so many alternatives.
Cryptic should just make the infinity boxes work like the Phoenix boxes. Make em drop tradable vouchers T1 to T6 which open up into a prize list like Phoenix.
As a gambling player i'm 100% agree with this review of the infinity lock boxes,this will help a lot and i have the same problem with the stacks and secondary items
Definitely agree! Very well thought-out video!
You use the Infinity Lock Box as an example, but I would honestly love for this to apply to ALL Lock Boxes!
Un-Binding the Choice Packs would be a HUGE QOL improvement for both Buyers AND Sellers!
Random Console Packs are already frustrating! You NEVER get what you want out of them, whether you're selling OR using! Turning them into "Choose your console" would make them actually worth doing.
Same thing with the Random Doff Packs! NO ONE wants a Duty Officer that can activate Attack Pattern Delta 1 when you use an Engineering or Pilot ability! Make ALL of those Doff Boxes into Choice Packs, and they will be opened sooooo much more!
Same thing again as above for the Random Weapon Packs!
An option in the Choice Pack UI to "Select All as X" would save SOOOO much time! As would a Filter/Search option!
Stack limits for everything should be 9999!
For all of the money some of us put into the game, that experience should be as pleasant as possible! Which would also make more people want to spend more money in STO.
2:45 - Yes, that is so right! I sadly was part of the problem. The current price for a t6 choice pack is around 1,2b. I got an jovian raider for 1b because someone needed the money fast. The jovian raider is one of the ships ingame, that isnt really liked by everyone. The indroduction Video from the official STO RUclips channel is a good example of how many people are liking that ship. I didnt know that and put it for 1,4b EC on the exchange. It took 3 Weeks to sell it and in this 3 weeks, no one put another jovian raider on the exchange. That means: Who ever bought it from me had to overpay 200 mil EC for a ship that should be "an underpay".
A lot of what is in a lockbox could be put in the Z-store. If they add a new ship to it, make an older lockbox ship available. There's probably a lot of ships in there that nobody uses.
Speaking of Weapon Packs: Back in the day, I used to be able to open the box, then select a weapon pack I wanted, then as I double-clicked to open all the other Weapon Packs, all I had to do was press "space-bar" and it would automatically select the last option I had selected. Meaning, I could do 30 packs in seconds. Now I have to double-click, scroll to select, click okay, to each of them.
Yeah, no idea why they removed the ability for packs to remember choices.
You know Spence, being able to open such a huge amount of lockboxes that managing all the random stuff you get for sale becomes a tedious chore, i kinda wish i had your luxury Whale problems (and your Lobi!).
If Cryptic made a lot of older, depreciated lockbox content available for dil it would open a lot up. Certainly the infinity lockbox as it stands is simply too diluted.
There's a bunch of T5 lockbox ships that are effectively worthless (some T5 cstore ships could get the same treatment) along with weapons, consoles and traits that could be put into a rotating limited time sale (Think Xur in Destiny2 or Baro in Warframe, or the couple of special vanity shield sales we've had in the past ) every or every other weekend offering a selection of lockbox content for somewhat large amounts of dil. This would also help manage the problem Cryptic has with the dilex on PC.
When you can buy the contents for a fraction of the cost of opening the box it is clearly a gambling addiction exploit by Cryptic. I do like having a free game paid for by addicts though.
Flippant comments like "Why don't you just delete them?" from the developers gives us an insight as to what they really think of the player base. You've paid money for those, why the hell should you delete them? As you've said before, there is a "disconnect" between the developers and the player base, and it really needs addressing. In any event, I totally agree with your ideas, and I would think, it would be reasonably easy for them to implement these. Let's hope someone from Cryptic watches your vid.
You stated some VERY valid concerns & proposed some valid options. I don't see Cryptic investing any effort in altering the Infinity LB process no matter the (over) saturation. After we buy I don't think Cryptic is too concern with the outcome nor our satisfaction unless there's something noticeable on a revenue spreadsheet that causes less buying. Infinity LB T6 starship options of 49 choices having 56 or 58 starships I think. But, I ceased investing real-money into STO gambling the day I won 1 Salvage Technology & 4 lobi lol.
Yeah, I don't expect much if any change. But it's a 0% chance of change if I said nothing, so is always a chance with it being out there that something could happen.
I'm concerned that if we complain about too many ship choices in the Infinity pack - Cryptic's knee jerk reaction might be to make it a "gamble within a gamble' like the kit modules - Cryptic tends to overreact... sometimes
100% agreement with the assessment about the lock box kit frames. I tend to delete them myself. I'd rather see salvage points, for re-rolling gear instead.
Totally agree. My backlog isn’t nearly as bad as yours, but it’s still there.
Alternately for the choice packs, make them bound to account instead of character. Some of us have 50 characters, and trying to remember which of my toons has a boff manual box when I want a kemocite 1 for example, can be frustrating...
My *BIGGEST* suggestion though is to roll all the kit frame prizes into a choice box. There's dozens and dozens of possible kit frame prizes, like herald kits, terran kits, etc, that my experience when opening a large quantity of boxes (say 100) is that because these prizes take up so much of the list, sometimes half or more of your boxes end up as kit frames, which are largely worthless to sell (I just vendor them, with a few exceptions of course, like starfleet frontier, borg combat structure, etc)
And we all know about the streaky RNG in STO. Once, I opened 10 infinity boxes, and all TEN of them opened into t5 ship packs...none of these sell for much, as they're mostly useful for admiralty (excepting the n'kaam and meshweaver, I actually have strong builds on both which I've T5-X'ed)
As with any economy the options are either "Imperative" to the Individual's choice,but can be "Detrimental" to the exchange and everyone else.If you were given the choice on any weapon you wanted,then no weapons would have any value on the exchange due to everyone having them. Omnis would be a good example.And even then,you have the pheonix boxes.Drop the pheonix box events back to every 3 to 4 months.This in turn increases the "Random" items value at Epic .Randoms are a good choice since Dil is everywhere.At the rate we have Dil,We must decrease the dil per mission.Drop rates on T6 ship are lower than they used to be as those spending 1125 on R&D get better chances per amount spent."Randoms",are the offset to the old crafting system.In my opinon,they should drop the infinity to a quarterly level and introduce boxes from time to time that are simple Liberated Borg Officers,Or specific weapons that are appealing to the masses.It's better knowing what your getting than spending two hours on stowiki.I remember hitting a t6 ship quite a bit once.The RNG changed for me in 2019.Godspeed!.Remember.".Where there is want,there is compromise".Where there is need, there is sacrifice".\m/(>_
These are problems most of us wish we had :) "Awww damn it, I'm so rich, it's actually a pain in the ass to be this rich."
I just can't bring myself to sympathise all that much. But your suggestions are sound. My own lockbox experience is far less grand in scale but still, I do open them for lobi and get those kit module packs, and this is why my guild bank is so full of crap like Biotoxin Injection (bonus damage if you hit the enemy from behind, a common occurrence I'm sure! :D) and idk, Papa Echo drones. So I, unlike you who open tons of the things, open a few (literally five or ten a month) boxes as a sort of reward to myself, a treat, and what do I get? 4 Lobi and a biotoxin injection. Not five. In a game based on the spirit of science, discovery, and presumably the metric system, I get FOUR damn lobi.
Increasing the minimum Lobi would be nice, you know? Because people like you who already have thousands won't be affected, but us lowly bottom feeders would actually experience a little more fairness, rather than "FOUR lobi, bitch, and some module you'll never use or sell for anything of any value, suckerrrrrrr!"
I'm with you in spirit! Just a slightly different starting point :)
Yes! Please just unbind the stupid box and let us buy/sell it directly on the exchange! It's not reducing the amount of keys cryptic sells, but it sure as hell helps the playerbase. It's crazy it's still bound like that.
I agree with all of this. There's a few other QoL changes that I feel can be added to this list. Allow us to sell the VIP Dil vouchers so others who dont open boxes can get a chance to benefit from them, fix some of the old weapon boxes that give us zero control over what it drops when you open it and maybe give us a vanity shield choice pack. Just my two cents.
10000% agress but they don't care
I came back to the game in May after like 8 years. For the hell of it, I opened a few infinity boxes. DING T6 box. I am not gonna have that luck again any time soon.
good assessment sab, agree with all points. the win for something "good" is flooded with low value items making it seem like getting something good actually happens very very rarely,
I’m with u on the doff universal thing
Tired of buying borg lb when I could be doing infinity lb
Bound to character should be eliminated from the lockbox. Ships should have a separate inf box. Kit modules should be a separate inf box. Weps should be a separate inf box. The rest can be in another inf box. I still think Congress should classify all boxes that require something to open them as gambling devices and be regulated as such since there is real money involved.
Sometimes, I feel like the content producers for this game are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. This is one of those times.
Sometimes I feel like Cryptic are making obvious choices to lower their income potential by structuring their offering to discourage interaction with the store. This is one of those times, as well.
A single starship costs about 60% of another game's major content expansion. Gambling increases that cost to nearly 500% of a triple A expansion. Meanwhile, microtransactions are largely meaningless. To say that Cryptic makes the whole game frustrating for the purpose of extracting $$$ from pockets is to suggest water is a major contributor to wetness. To suggest that a priority fix is making the fool/money parting machine less frustrating in ways so minor as to be invisible to the average player is a number of things for which it would be impolite, at best, to assign adjectives.
Cryptic is badly in need of a real competitor.
Great explanation and doable solutions. Even if they implement a few of these, it would be a huge W. Thank you
Well on the bright side I have enough infinity lock box weapon boxes to basically get a whole set of every weapon choice twice over just about
I’m concerned with cryptic and this game more than ever now and I don’t plan on spending another dollar. I play on Xbox where recently they updated the game which disabled play for most everyone and
Hard locked fps at 30 and removed HD output entirely for everyone else. They made no attempt to address the issue and the notification it would be getting worked on, 2 weeks later, was buried and I only found it because someone on Reddit. They still have no addressed the video quality issue and I’m concerned they simply won’t at this point. Their forum is a nightmare and I’ve received zero feedback when presenting them with evidence of bugs. They will most likely find a way to blame us when they eventually fail financially. Or they could fix the little things that are driving people away.
1st! Borticus needs to learn how to play STO.
how dare you sully a God.... LOL
Kael. Too.
They should've hired Augie too.
No, they should get rid of him.
@@gerogyzurkov2259 AGREED!
Interesting video, but bear in mind what happened after re-engineering. If supply goes above the demand because the more sought-after stuff is only ever chosen, it will drive the economy further into the ground. A lot of useless stuff makes the money circulate. Even now we have nothing to spend currency on. The abundance of QoL could make or break the economy. It is worth pondering on which way the economy would go if any or several of these were implemented.
I believe any items 5 years old or more should be migrated to the lobi store. Obviously people already got what they wanted at a gamble. I agree that the choice packs should not be bound. The inflation is real but they love the high price of ships because it pushes people to buy more and more keys.
Broken by design to take advantage of their dwindling player base
I totally agree cryptic needs to fix all these problems that you addressed in this video. 🖖💜👌
Great vid again Spencer what's funny is I've gotten to where I actually get stuff out of the that I can use cuz I'm still disappointed I don't get a ship :-)
I agree with everything you said I think the solution is they need to hire you and content creators to give input on the game and they should listen to you when they do so hear a lot of that where y'all tell them things and they don't listen to you
Spencer after watching when your videos often feel on rubber stamping the video cuz I say the same thing great video but when I think about it I've never watched the video that I haven't been entertained by whether it's you or Tri or augi anyone else in fact after years of listening to y'all the closest I ever came to disagreeing with someone was when they talked about the Titan destroyer and the only thing I said was it didn't work for me which is far from disagreeing with their opinion about it thanks for all y'all do
...can resolve...but won't. Oh ...kit modules. And that 'random' tactical one is _always_ the Tactical EMP one.
Oh yeah they should definitely increase the stack limit also if they don't want to go that route how about when I delete kit modules kit frames or anything out of the lock box I don't want I get one lobi for deleting it
Good video explaining these things. I rarely open Infinity Lockboxes, and I have noticed in my efforts to sell what I don't need, the sheer level of tediousness I go through to find something others might buy.
(I do want to say I'm so jealous of your number of T6 ships packs however... Grr! I just want one when I open my boxes, RNG gods stop hating me please!!)
But again, all of your ideas make sense and really should be considered by the devs and their teams. Have you considered sending Borticus a link of this video so he can look it over himself? Since they are well thought out ideas, and not just some random player ranting at them, they might at least take notice. Never know.
Anyways, great video!
Yeah, it has been sent to them.
we NEED more larger stackables as well! we got 9999 on R and D but 20!!!!? on infinity boxes?! that's stupid...
Speaking of profession specific traits; is there any equivalent personal traits for science and/or engineering captains that compares to the "A Good Day to Die" tactical trait?
Not really. You can see all of them on the list here if you want to look at em. Profession specific ones are marked on he list.
sto.fandom.com/wiki/Infinity_Prize_Pack:_Personal_Trait_(Space)
It's a shame, just another reason pigeonholing everyone into playing a tac captain.
I do not open these to 'sell' anything. I open these for me. For me, the more options the better. But the kit frames... agreed... How many do I need? Also being able to sell direct would be very helpful for ll the reasons you stated. I could grab essentially a choice pack for my account and lock it on choice for the toon I want.
These inconveniences almost seem to be by design. They would rather someone just delete the space garbage, and buy another key from the c-store, rather than wade through all of the choices to try to find something that is hot on the market. Keeping the EC prices high in the market will drive people to try their luck and purchase keys. I quit opening lockboxes because who knows what they are going to nerf next. These ideas you have are excellent, but I don't see them being implemented, as long as people keep buying keys.
i stopped opening lock boxes a long time ago (ok ive open a couple) but due to the overall feeling of clumsiness and value for money i just sell keys and buy the thinks i need. I've spent my money so cyptic happy, how i use that zen purchase i dont think their bother to be honest.
Great video, as usual. Dude! How did you get all of those Lobi??? WOW!!
As I said in the vid, the character with all those ship boxes / multiple stacks of lobi was over on Tribble. That's the character I did that big 12k opening on last year.
On the main server, I sadly don't have anywhere near that much lobi or ships right now.
@@CasualSAB Oh, OK. I forgot about that. Thanks.
I agree with you, those idiots that are running the game these days just don't care. Like you, I've been around a long time too, for me what used to be enjoyable for this lifer, is no longer fun. These days I play the game just to have something to do.
Whenever I see a lock box, I just ignore it, I won't waste my time picking it up.
What are your thoughts on an exchange lock box - trade one for something you want???
take out the T5 ships. re-do ALL of the weapon packs so you can select the type of weapon you want (beam, cannon, dual cannon), bin kit frames. also, try opening these on console. nobody has bothered trying it who works on the game.
I think lock boxes should be banned full-stop and Cryptic/Gearbox should sell in-game items through the Zen store. Gambling and any system that encourages gambling, has no place in a responsible MMO, especially considering that nearly all other forms of Internet gambling have very stringent controls and safeguards placed on them.
Jesus thats so much stuff wow.
I still think they should take the tier 5 ships that they took out of the phoenix prize packs, the ones that somehow aren’t misleading from the infinity lock box and make them buyable with dilithium. Also can someone explain how the new Starfleet academy map is better then the last one(this is coming from a console player) it made a kinda bland place even more bland.🧐
Also, if possible, I would like to be able to unlock the T6 ship's Trait once unlocked, and then another character in the account can unlock it with Dil if they are on the same ship, unlocking it with Argala every time is tedious...ZzzZzzZzZ..
Until they hire you to work at Cryptic, unfortunately none of these changes will ever happen.
No run hide your credit card. Hide your children's piggy bank. Don't do it!.. 😂
ive tried it ingame, selecting a weapon pack does remember my weapon selection choice
It keeps it highlighted, but you still have to re-select it. Before you could just pick something, then line up the box and accept button to spam them open.
100% This!
I want to know what Borticus thinks first.....
thinking is not his strength
How are you getting stuff from the inf box on tribble? I am not even allowed to spend money there!
Copied keys from live a while back.
I have a solution that would fix all this, make inf boxes cost 10 keys to open each, take everything out of them and only leave the ships, make the prize a random ship, put everything else in the dill store.
If they made account unlock on everything in lock box and lobi with deliution like make it $50 extra that would solve the crisis in one swoop. Maybe make certain items like traits, consoles, and doffs still be character only.
So never ever buy lock boxes? Deal. I can do that. They seem extremely foolish to spend actual money on.
I have never had more than 40mil ec over 8 carecters and from before console release have no idea how people can afford ships
Has anyone sent this to the devs yet?
Aye, on Twitter. twitter.com/ThatSpencerB/status/1582258913298157568
The year is #2033. Cryptic never did change anything yet related to Lock Boxes system. Its still a ripoff.
tldr STO is full of gambling and not ashamed of it... Nope, nope nope.
Ppl actually open lockboxes lmao never spend real money on a free game
Yeah, so absolutely none of these suggestions will be of interest to the developer, if for no other reason than no one has hundreds upon hundreds of box items they need to open! To want alterations that are likely to affect such a tiny percentage of the players is completely unrealistic.
As for normal players deciding what to sell; it's not difficult for anyone to choose. If people haven't already got an idea of what they're after and need to sell what they've just acquired from a lockbox, they simply look up the item on the Exchange and can instantly see the current market availability and pricing. I would add, judging by the dimwitted, clueless pricing of most items on the exchange, I'm not sure most players even care to make much of a profit!!!
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the issues DPS players, 'whales' and the obsessive spenders have with this game make up such a small percentage of the player base I would be shocked if the developer ever cared to address them.
However, as a bit of a trader, I fully agree with being able to sell boxed items. I could make even more of a killing if I could buy those and pick and choose when and what to sell. But I doubt the developer cares to make trader's lives easier, as it's in their interest for the Exchange to fail, in order that people are more inclined to spend real money in order to progress and acquire what they need. And they certainly wouldn't care to make traders lives easier and more profitable.
I have a strong feeling that the developer probably looks at the figures of how people are playing, what they're purchasing/acquiring, etc, and knows what it's doing.
The alteration I would like to see is the removal of all gambling and have everything sold at good old honest fixed prices... but I would say that as it suits the way I play!