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Fix Platonian Chekov
(HGH)Apollo
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
You nerfed Chekov right before his sale by removing his costumed trait and removing him from a difficult to complete collection. If you will not give him back costumed trait you should give him another trait to replace it. Give him inspiring, survivalist or veteran and add him to that collection. Or at the very least give him another trait without collection like tactician. He is the best Chekov in that three pack you are selling today. You took away some of his value right before a sale where multiple players could acquire him. So restore his value.
Let’s fly!
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It’s not just native dress but the fact that Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Chapel were forced to change into those garments and held against their will for the amusement of the Platonians. It is similar to the TNG episode QPid where Q held the TNG crew against their will and made them perform in period costumes.
I'm on board with this. It makes sense. I am Team Platonian Crew are Costumed!
The "costumed" trait was replaced with "resourceful".
That trait was added by error, and it is something we need to pay better attention to before releasing a crew, which we intend on doing as we understand the impact this can have especially where collections are involved.
Or did you just make an argument for them removing Costumed from all of the QPid cards?
Edit: Retracting my previous comment, turns out was added post-launch of Platonian, but has been a part of my sheets for sometime...
From the data I have at my disposal the original traits were:
Human, Starfleet, Federation, Costumed, Telekinetic
And are now:
Human, Starfleet, Federation, Resourceful, Telekinetic
Not to my knowledge.
I will however suggest it as a potential future collection.
That is the kind of mistake that once made, it is best to live with it. The bigger and more unfortunate error was removing the costumed trait after selling the card.
The biggest impact of losing the costumed trait is not losing the collection value. There are 76 other golds that can replace him, or 17 if you only want to count the currently unnecessary golds.
Costumed is a peculiar voyage trait. It is one of the top voyage traits with a 31.38% chance of showing up on at least one seat. It is also one for which not many crew exist that can fill them, relative to the rest of the top voyage traits. This means that good costumed voyagers are in demand. But this is not what makes it peculiar. As you know, certain voyage skill pairs are also in high demand given how few voyagers, especially good ones, can provide them. To be clear, I am referring to ENG/MED, ENG/CMD, ENG/SEC, MED/SEC, MED/CMD and SCI/SEC. So it happens that at the intersection of costumed voyagers and rare primary/secondary skill crew sits... nobody - not after Platonian Chekov got his costumed trait removed.
Top costumed voyagers by primary/secondary pairs (any order):
ENG/MED: White Rabbit only, vrank #265
ENG/CMD: RAF Miles O'Brien, vrank #247
ENG/SEC: Bounty Hunter Mudd, vrank #237
MED/SEC: Merry Men Crusher only, vrank #354
MED/CMD: none
SEC/SCI: Maquis Tuvok, vrank #331
Then along came Platonian Chekov, a primarily SCI/SEC voyager, costumed, ranked #37 !!! I immediately knew I wanted him for these reasons and why I have cited him up with no hesitation. It was a significant investment. But he was a breath of fresh air and this costumed trait was what made him truly shine as a voyager.
And then he was neutered. On what might be perceived as a whim, seemingly with no consideration to anything that I have just described, especially given how most trait inconsistencies reported throughout the years have gone by largely ignored, and given how we are talking about a Timelines Originals cards. And this also comes in the context of the post-Waddle winter season.
*In the interest of being exhaustive and to satisfy everyone's curiosity: yes, there are other costumed cards that can provide these rare skills as a primary/tertiary or secondary/tertiary pair. There are exactly five in top 200, so less than you might think:
ENG/MED: Carlos Data (as sec/ter)
ENG/SEC: Scapegoat O'Brien (as sec/ter)
MED/SEC: Niners Ezri (as pri/ter)
MED/CMD: Merry Men Troi (as sec/ter) and Lothario Q (as sec/ter, vrank #186)
Most people who play the game know what kind of value Carlos Data, Niners Ezri, Merry Men Troi, and more recently, Scapegoat O'Brien, bring to the table. This costumed trait is part of the reason why these cards are so good. Platonian Chekov was in this rare company. Until he got neutered the way he did.
What is left for Chekov? He's merely a good voyager. While #1 in his particular skill order on federation, starfleet and resourceful seats (outperformed by Activated Dahj on human seats), he is not the priority choice in the skill set (federation: FOB, starfleet: FOB + 1 other, resourceful: Gary Seven +2 other, human: 5 others). What this means is that in more mature rosters, he will mostly be confined to SEC/SCI voyages with very few chances to contribute anywhere else, and he will age less well even for SEC/SCI voyages (a costumed SEC/SCI might've grabbed a seat years down the line). He is no Carlos Data, he is no Niners Ezri, he is no Merry Men Troi, and definitely no Scapegoat O'Brien. He is just meh while we were sold an amazing card.
And this is why removing a trait means that much to players that are fully in the game and spend resources in getting a card. Thanks for the full explanation with clear data @NoNameNamer
Besides the utility issue of messing with Platonian Chekov, for me it also removed the fun of Platonian Spock. I was going to get Spock and make a really cool toga bridge. No longer and that’s a shame. A game should be fun.
Can you please explain that a little better? How was a Costumed Crew having the Costumed Trait an "error"?
All the Platonian crew are clearly costumed. I think the error came in that WRG only wants a certain number of crew in each collection to make them difficult to complete to sell packs and dilithium and if they kept Platonian Chekov costumed they might have then had to add in Kirk and Spock which would have expanded the crew pool for the costumed collection making it easier to complete.
The issue, is yet again, they made a change after people invested resources to get something. I have said it before, I will say it again, the people making decisions in this game are clearly not players, despite what any of them say in interviews. As evidenced by this whole debacle, the damage to WRG by leaving this "error" alone seems minimal, but fixing the "error" causes significant harm to the players.
I can remember a time when the forums would be set on fire for something like this. Seeing that an issue like this one is not stirring the pot as I believe that it once would have makes me believe that WRG has effectively reduced the expectations, and excitement, of the players of this "MMCCG".
What a brilliant post. I am signing onto this dissenting opinion.
@Shan The frustrating part about post-release changes to elite cards, especially weeks or months later, is that players have made irrevocable and unrecoverable resource investments based on the initial information. This entire game is based on collecting character variants and carefully investing resources, resources that are effectively players' real money and time. When a high-end variant is altered like Platonian Chekov was, those extremely costly investments are essentially stolen from players. Players make decisions relying on the product being what it says it is, then the product is changed later with no opportunity to recoup the invested resources.
The cost of acquiring and immortalizing even an average 5-star with citations can be in the $100 range (far more for Tuesday pack cards like Platonian Chekov depending on one's luck pulling the first copy), but regardless of the actual price, there is monetary value to these investments. If changes like this are to be made to "fix" a problem, then part of the process must be to refund players' investments into the altered card, remove the card from players' rosters, and provide the purchase/investment opportunity again with the updated information. If doing this is too onerous, then the change should not be implemented regardless of any other consideration, full stop. Otherwise, it feels pretty much like a bait and switch to players, i.e. fraud. In fact, I would say that it *is* tantamount to fraud or theft of services from the players' perspective.
=j=Jurist
Space Junkies
I imagine at some point changing something people paid real cashy folding money to get after that money has changed hands rises to the level of not just civil charges.......
These are digital assets. WRG is 100% in their rights to change anything about any character whenever they choose. Every player agreed to that in the TOS for playing the game.
Was it a bad decision, yes. Should it be corrected, yes. But please don't escalate the issue by making false claims that there was anything illegal about what they did.
I'm not making any claims.
But, you do you.
You clearly did not read the disclaimer.
The Disclaimer is the Disclaimer. But, this is turning into an ongoing thing. It's by far not the first time Crew was changed after luring people into spending actual cash folding money either directly to purchase the Crew, get chances to draw for the Crew, or do better in an Event to try and win the Crew. Wasn't at least one Crew changed during the Event it was a Reward in, with literally very little time left in the Event?
To say giving someone who is clearly costumed the Costumed Trait was an "error", when it was obviously removed for other reasons, is pretty clearly not an "error". It was done for contrived game reasons. After money had changed hands. That is going to be one of those things that leaves a very bad taste in people's mouths. Especially well it is well past the first time.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: IT IS NOT SHAN'S FAULT! SHE CAN ONLY PASS ON WHAT SHE IS TOLD TO PASS ON BY THE COMPANY. THEY JUST KEEP THROWING HER UNDER THE BUS AND DOING LAPS!
Oh, I'm quite sure this was a mistake. But intentionally, I doubt that.
Humans make mistakes each day, even at their daily job. Which will always cost someone money.
If you knew how much money is lost each day because someone makes an error... it's insane.
This happens because the majority of humans don't care as long it isn't their money.
Sadly it happened to some STT players and I hope they get some compensation.
That's why there are disclaimers.
Chekov didn't appear like this in the episode, correct, since he is a Timelines Original? So if WRG doesn't want to add Kirk & Spock into the Costumed, change the flavor text to distinguish Chekov from them (and any other crew that come later actually from that episode).
A simple one could be, "Chekov puts on a costume for a play reenacting the Platonian incident." Of course, that would cause him to lose the "telekinetic" trait.
So a more complicated one could be, "Putting on a costume to infiltrate the Platonian base, Chekov takes a Kironide cocktail be better assist his crew mates."
So while the crew in the episode were wearing "native outfits," Chekov put on a costume from ship's stores.
Character unnerfed. Pandora's box of characters from that episode flooding the Costumed collection not opened.
Just add the trait back and learn from YOUR mistake. You can’t expect to retain players if you pass your mistakes onto them. Too much more of this and players are going to begin filing bait-and-switch complaints with their respective app stores regarding purchases specifically related to these crew you change after they go live (and after players spend their money). You might not INTEND to pull a bait and switch but the end result is the same.
It's not a way to run a business or instill consumer confidence and I'm not surprised they're struggling.
I am aware of the TOS and that game developers usually have the right to alter the digital assets in their products without incurring any liability. That is why I said it feels fraudulent and is tantamount to fraud from the players' perspective. I.e. it is not illegal or even a breach of the TOS, but it is still a gut punch to the game's core players who fund the entire enterprise. No one is talking about actual legal liability, only perceived ill intent and/or poor management and decision-making.
Simple mistakes like a trait added in error are the sorts of things one would expect to be fixed in a few days or weeks at most, not a full 6 months later during which the "error" has acted as a selling point for a super-premium asset. Seemingly minor mistakes causing players to lose value have become a tradition in our game, and those mistakes almost never work in players' favor like they do in most games. Most games I have played in the last couple of decades would have remedied this issue by either a) leaving the trait alone, or b) issuing a statement apologizing for the screw-up and a blanket grant of 4x 5-star citations to anyone who owns Platonian Chekov, plus perhaps an opportunity to exchange Chekov for extra citations or some other arrangement. Here, the remedy is a stealth trait removal 6 months after the fact and a pseudo-mea culpa on the forums as Shan is thrown to the wolves yet again with all the communications responsibility and none of the authority to help. The frustration is not confined to this one issue, it stems from almost a full year of a near-endless parade of similar problems that leave players losing value at every turn and with the impression that we are adversaries, not assets. Feels bad, man.
=j=Jurist
Space Junkies