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Upgrading - Whats with the costs?
blaz3rdude
Member Posts: 16 Arc User
So, out of curiosity, I looked at the costs to upgrade a simple type II object to a type III object as I was starting out a toon.
The costs were incredible.
I would have imagined, particularly for lower end equipment for the price to be a lot less.
Are there plans to change the update system?
The costs were incredible.
I would have imagined, particularly for lower end equipment for the price to be a lot less.
Are there plans to change the update system?
Post edited by blaz3rdude on
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IIRC, a single upgrade kit will allow the item to upgrade several levels with just one application (and paying once). It just takes time until the update is finished. Don't use the "Finish Now" button. Wait for it to complete. Best done before logging out of the game.
Not that long ago I spent what I think was 25mil EC six times, on six Phased Polaron Beam Arrays (Mk XII Purples). They're all [CrtD]x2, but if I upgrade them, with the current system, there's a chance I'll end up with a [Dmg] or [Acc] modifier instead of the desired [CrtD]x3, and seeing as the cost of the weapons alone, plus the cost of what it would be to upgrade them, that's a huge gamble for it to work out wrong.
I'll hold on to my Mk XII's until Cryptic rework the system. if they don't, I guess I'll forever play with XII weapons.
what the upgrade UI probably doesn't show is that just one superior upgrade kit can upgrade a MKII beam array (for example) to MK 3,4,5,6, and 7 with just one application
in that sense MKII gear is incredibly cheap to upgrade
There are likely plans to change it. They're always looking for ways to make things harder for the players, make them more expensive, and generally TRIBBLE us.
More practically, there's no point in upgrading mk ii gear to mk iii unless you're sure you want to use it at the end game. If you just want better gear while you're leveling up, some better stuff will drop eventually.
Agree. Whenever I'm levelling a new toon I simply use whatever random stuff happens to drop during the PVE missions. You definitely won't have an optimal loadout, but it'll be sufficient.
I wonder if anyone calculated how much Dil you can get over all from missions? Is it enough to afford a Mark XII item, or upgrade a Mark XII item to Mark XIV?
You're not alone in this, the upgrade system is a failure in its current form, not to mention it can break set items' set bonuses if you upgrade one of them and ignore the others.
Better off saving up for elite fleet items.
Most lock box weapons are at mk X or higher, typically XII. There are fewer of them at lower levels, and rep weapons cannot be purchased low enough.
I have done this on many rep sets and all set bonuses work fine
Possibly, it's enough to upgrade one Mk XII weapon to Mk XIV. I doubt it's enough for a full set. I think an episode gives 480 dilithium the first time you play it. Some episodes may give more; some may give less.
See mightbobcnc's spreadsheet for the upgrade costs.
http://bit.ly/STOUpgradeTable
Either you have a crafting/upgrade system that is EXPENSIVE but reliable (you pick what you want, every time), or you have one that's UNRELIABLE and cheap (so that you don't mind trying again and again, as a meta-game).
The problem with STO's is that you get the WORST of both worlds. It costs ungodly sums -- including the cost of the original gear that could be 32,000 dil or more and other currencies on top of that, PER ITEM -- and you get a random TRIBBLE-shoot (emphasis on TRIBBLE) for the upgrade quality and additional mods. It's prohibitive and stops people from repeating it as a meta-game.
It is, to date, the WORST crafting/upgrade system I've ever seen in any game of any genre.
So you're not alone in being upset with it, OP. Cryptic royally dropped the ball on this one. So close, yet so far.
So much RNG. Much fail. Wow.
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You're lucky. Try looking up the tech points for SET PIECES....
And this is where it gets prohibitively expensive. Low-tier gear is fine to upgrade, but the tech points increases geometrically as the levels rise. You can use one experimental to get a mk II beam array to Mk IX without using another... then you'll use 10 of them to get to Mk X, and 20 to get to Mk XII, and by the time you get to Mk XIV you've used 50 of them. At over 1000 dil a pop. And if you reach XIV and want a quality increase? HAH...You'll spend 100 more just for a hope to get a quality increase.
Keep in mind that's hundreds of thousands of dil on an item that costs tens of thousands to replace if you TRIBBLE it up from RNG-assigned mods, and on top of that it's just ONE of a couple dozen components on your ship you're upgrading.
It costs MILLIONS in the end. Millions of dilithium. Which the whales buy zen to exchange for beause it's faster.
That's why cryptic did this. It's a dil sink. They sell zen with dil sinks. It's why the fleets are the way they are, and why R&D is the way it is, and why upgrading is the way it is. It's 100% to sell zen, nothing more. It's not for us, the players. No part of it benefits us. No part of it is designed around the user experience. It's just a thin excuse for a dil sink.
Sorry, but that is just the beginning. It is actually very, very, very cheap to upgrade that Mk II to Mk VII or VIII. After you hit Mk VIII or Mk IX, that is where you get really screwed on the cost to upgrade. It makes an extremely huge jump in cost, and become nothing more than a money grab for the company.
What I recommend is hold onto the MK II weapons you have, and if anything, use a superior upgrade, with a Tech accelerator to increase it 1.5 times. After it hits where it is going to with that one upgrade, the stop upgrading.
It is cheaper (if you are not wanting to min/max) to just buy cheap MK XII purples that have anything other than DMG, or a PVP mod at this time. Then, sit on those till they eventually decide to make the cost reasonable to upgrade. Though, that will most likely be a while, because they will wait till they can milk all of those paying real money for Dil to upgrade now.
If you want to min/max, and play endgame content, then you will want to upgrade to at least MK XIII purples. This will increase the DPS of your weapons where they will not be too low of DPS. Before DR, they nerfed the Mk II weapons, so they don't hit nearly as hard as they used to. But they are fairly decent for a new player to the game.
As you play longer, and learn the skills better, as well as better weapon combos, and console combos, you will be able to increase your DPS some. But it is still pointless to waste so much to upgrade beyond Mk XIII at the very most.
The upgrade cost are just stupid.
I'm really not interested in Blame - I just thought there was something I was missing.
Is Crypic fixing it? Any comments / statements? Is Priority One Productions maybe going to ask the dev's about it? I just want to understand if this is what I am going to be stuck with.
I love the new BO system, Dilithium on missions (so much fairer and fun to play!) but this is a stinker.
It explicitely doesn'T do that anymore.
Worst case is that you need to open every item in your set once in the upgrade tab - you don't need to upgrade it, just open the tab. That converts any pre-DR items into the "Dynamic Items" that they need to be to be upgradeable, and set bonuses work across mark barriers then.
None that I know of.
The upgrade system is meant as permanent dil sink for the average player where depending on a build of course as well as the upgrade strategy the costs of an mk14 loadout are probably double as that of an mk12.
The regular form of rarity upgrades, and depending on how one approaches them, the cost can increase by a magnitude of ten or more easily leaving it for players which are extremely dedicated toward this game.
Considering that one can theoretically put more dil into a single character than in a tier 5 star base I suspect this system to be working as intended for everybody around.
The only thing players can hope for is an increase of rewards in form of salvage technology in elite maps as well as a continuous resupply of quality booster.
The means for high quality gear from upgrades at low level mk are the results of gambling with that system for hours/days. I also suspect this to be working as intended because other than that crafting doesnt offer anything helpful which would justify the time gate behind which it has been hidden.
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I dont get it, 10k EC for basic upgrade and 1k dili.. Or improved, what 40k EC on exchange, is to much to pay for it?
lost here...
This. It's designed to squeeze as much money out of you by frustrating you psychologically.
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Okay, and now try getting it to a point you can use it end-game. Get that baby up to Mk XII, at least Very Rare.
Try that, and report back. Let me know how long it takes with all the time gates. Let me know how much dil you wasted, how many hard-to-get mats you used to craft the upgrades, oh and don't forget the time gates on crafting the upgrades, too! Then let me know how one single item does any good at all for ALL of that wasted resources, when everything comes at Mk XII Very Rare as standard these days. You've wasted a TRIBBLE-ton of valuable resources to get.... where? To get back to par?
Then try to get that Mk XII Very Rare to anything higher. You know, a net gain? Do that. Then report how long it took, how much resources that took.
.... then do it 20 more times because that's just ONE item on your entire ship full of equipment ...
Could not have said it better myself. This sums up why the upgrade system is so bad. It's like regressive game developing and I wouldn't be surprised if they don't play the game they are working on every day. I know people joke about it, but now I'm beginning to wonder..
I dropped 1400 dilithium and got nothing. I'm sorry, that's a joke.
Oh, but you can just hit up the 200k DPS channel and roflstomp queues! you cry. Not everyone uses a DPS channel, nor does everyone appreciate the Advanced queues that are in no way the old Elite queues. R+D Assistance only has a chance of awarding purple mats and if it does it's random. I'm not keen on wasting purple mats for a decent chance of a white item. With random stats.