The pricing is agreeably outrageous. "im" guessing in the next couple of years STO is going to shut down or just its development support is going to be moved to some other projects due to current bad marketing of in game items cuasing a cascade of falling population+popularity for STO.
F2P atm looks like a trap to catch the blind, stupid, and ignorant. So please do not go this rout of P2W as you have sworn against cryptic, this is really bad policy. Up the refining count, give us back out free ship placks at the appropriate levels, or make certian missions like pvp give out refined dilithium not ore.
one, the conversion rate hasn't been stated yet. the current prices of ships/items/etc may change to reflect this (and they did say the dilithilum changes were coming in parts, which has happened so far).
two, exploration clusters can be repeated, just less frequently (instead of every 30 minutes, now once per day)
it's still too early to grab the torches and pitchforks
The one thing I know is that they set these numbers into place intentionally. That means they thought it was a good idea. I know that because I tested and hit commander I wont get a new ship and if I had tested less I would get a new ship. They thought that was ok too. For testing, where they should be making things easy for us to test they are making things harder. They thought 145k dilithium for one weapon was ok and only being able to make 8k a day was ok.
Yes, they might change it....and posts that tell them what we think are the only chance we have to have any effect on it. Sitting on our hands means we get what they did today. A concerted effort by the playerbase to say how spectacularly bad these new patch ideas are might change things. It could be that Perfect World has said this is the way to make more money and nothing we do will change anything. If this is so they will never say so. They would lose their jobs if they did. It's hard to come up with another answer since all this new stuff to harm the playerbase has come out of the blue like this. The game we're going to test is not nearly as good as the game we already have. What a shame.
Umm, an awefull lot of assumption being waved about here about Dilithium and ship purchases...
Untll I see otherwise I will assume the the "placard" discounts the ship price down to the amount of Dilithium you recieve. Ceratinly that what I would do if "I" were doing the coding for it. Or put it sufficently close that a couple exploration daylies would make up the difference. Especially seeing that this issue only kicks in at Commander level where the player should have three exploration zones availible and 3 exploration daylies availible.
Please do not that the Fed players have a grand total of 10 exploration zone compared to the 4 zones the KDF has... Quit grip'n guys. You wont know whats going on for certain untill Tribble comes back up. Right now tose of you griping haven't a clue as to whats happening...
Been playing KDF since the game started, ya'll got noth'n to complain about untill you've played KDF. So Start at KDF toon at the restart and then lets see what you have to say!
No assumptions here, its in the original post, in black and white.... literally.
At the ranks of Commander and above you will need to earn some additional dilithium to be able to afford the next ship, so be sure to play some daily missions for those rewards.
Some clarification needs to be made regarding exploration missions. Will we not be able to do more than three per day, or will there be a daily to get the dilithium reward separate from the normal explore missions? Also, will it be one explore daily period, or per cluster?
Well, I hope its not one per day. It would be a drastic change from Holodeck. In the Btran (and the KDF one which I cant remember) you had two missions. A daily that gave marks/emblems and a regular which gave the exploration badges.
Maybe if they have a daily which gives refined and a repeatable which gives dilithium (which would help towards getting your ship). If they have the cap on refinement each day, why limit the dilithium awarded per mission?
I like having a mission when trying to grind up exploration. Its a good marker of where I am at and sets a pace.
Wow... some of you need to realize we are testing this. It's way way to early for all the doom and gloom and epic fail stuff. A few points:
2) Prices will change. That's why we are testing to give feedback.
these statements contradict each other. the magnitude of our displeasure is directly proportional to how much the prices need to change, that is the feedback.
1) The limit is on refning 8000 dillithium ore.. don't assume it's a one to one conversion. In fact, I suspect it isn't based on a dev post (lord know where I saw it) that eventually you could do this on your ship and having the right duty officers would increase the yield. That makes me think it's not a one to one conversion.
i think its naive to assume 1 unrefined dilithium will = 1 refined dilithium. it will probably be more like 5 unrefined dilithium = 1 refined dilithium. in what universe can you take an unrefined substance and turn it into a more refined substance and be left with more then you started with? mater doesn't work like that! if basic physics is applied, this conversion problem is a lot bigger then we realize
We will be bringing the Tribble server down for maintenance to apply a new update.
ST.16.20111002a.4
Features:
Dilithium Update:
Dilithium ore is now implemented! You gain dilithium ore by completing daily tasks such as star cluster exploration, PVP, certain Duty Officer assignments, special events, or daily story missions.
Dilithium ore cannot be spent in its raw state and must be refined in order to create usable, spendable, refined dilithium.
Check your inventory and go to your resources tab in order to convert dilithium ore into refined dilithium, which is used to purchase gear and ships.
You may process up to 8,000 ore into refined dilithium each day.
You now gain a small stipend of refined dilithium at each new rank, along with a placard for a new ship at a deep discount in price.
At the ranks of Commander and above you will need to earn some additional dilithium to be able to afford the next ship, so be sure to play some daily missions for those rewards.
See the developer's log for information about the new changes to the economy.
What about the captains who are already at VA ? Is there anything in there to help them out ? It's not like these players are though testing once they reach VA.
Are we no longer supposed to get a Retrofit ship at VA, even though both the promotion mission and level progression window say we should ?
Weve updated how the player earns their ship at level up, but unfortunately there is no fixup for those already affected.
Really ???
Here's an easy fix - Make a non-repayable mission using the players level as the first point to check. If that player is at VA, have it check when they got VA. If it was before the launch of this patch, then they can do the mission. Once. And they'll receive the difference in Dilithium or an additional stipend of dilithium, and a ship discount token. Flag the mission as done.
If the player is not a VA, Flag the mission as done.
Players who got to VA will get some extra dilithium, and those who didn't will never even have to worry about it.
Remember, the players who've already reached max level are probably some of your most loyal testers, and if not loyal, then at least hard working. Please, don't leave them hanging in the breeze like this.
Since exploration missions reward dilithium they have been updated to be daily missions.
If Exploration missions give Refined Dilithium.... eh... ok, as long as the reward is equivalent to live. *BUT*
(and that's a BIG but!)
If exploration missions are giving out Dilithium Ore, then you're putting 2 gates on getting Dilithium in this manner when you should only have one. We already have a limit on how much Dilithium ore we can process in a day. Why would you put a second limit on how much Ore we can get ? That goes DIRECTLY against what was said in the STOked interview, where they talked about the example of a person with limited play time during the week, and lots of free time on the weekend, who could get loads of Dilithium ore over the weekend, but only had to log in a few minutes each day during the week to refine it.
Since the server doesn't seem to be up yet, I can't really make a justified examination of how practical this limit is.
But if the sources of Dilithium Ore are limited to dailies, why even bother having a hard cap on how much we can process? We're already technically limited to how much we can get, as a result of how many missions we can do - they're dailies.
The other concern is that you don't actually say how much 1 unit of Ore refines into for Refined Dilithium. 1? 5? 10? 100?
Should also point out that the F2P Dev Blog that you're linking to doesn't talk, at all, about the economic changes. It only talks about Klingons.
You should probably either remove the link, or actually post the Dev Blog dealing with the economic changes.
Remember, you'll be able to buy all the dilithium you want for cash. It's only the in-game dilithium that's limited. So this isn't some anti-inflation idea. It's a way to force people to spend cash to get anything they want, even the subscribers.
Very true I hadnt thought of that but I guess we will have to wait and see
Typically if you say, refine 8000 tons of Ore you'll usually get LESS than 8000 tons of final product because of all the TRIBBLE being removed by refinement...
Yeah, you know you also need to update the text in the "Rewards" window to take out the bit that says "New Ship" at every rank. Cause on top of everything else, that's just a slap in the face.
Cryptic folks, you should give everybody who has a character on Tribble like 500.000 dilithium to make up for the inconvenience we have had these past couple days getting a bigger ship as we got promoted. If you can give everybody test cryptic points for the test C store you must be able to give us some good dilithium to make up and so we can bring our ships/weapons up to appropriate specs. Anybody agree with me on this? Say yeah!
I'm not liking this change to purchasing ships. Maybe I'm just spoiled because we used to be able to get a free ship at each rank, but now we have to do some extra work for it? I don't know, it doesn't appeal to me.
I have read the blog posts, I have read through the release notes, and I don't understand the purpose of it. Maybe a dev or someone else can elaborate on why we can't get a free ship at each rank like we used to.
Cryptic folks, you should give everybody who has a character on Tribble like 500.000 dilithium to make up for the inconvenience we have had these past couple days getting a bigger ship as we got promoted. If you can give everybody test cryptic points for the test C store you must be able to give us some good dilithium to make up and so we can bring our ships/weapons up to appropriate specs. Anybody agree with me on this? Say yeah!
I can guarantee you that EVERYONE involved in this beta test EXCEPT Cryptic agrees with you on this.
Umm, an awefull lot of assumption being waved about here about Dilithium and ship purchases...
Untll I see otherwise I will assume the the "placard" discounts the ship price down to the amount of Dilithium you recieve. Ceratinly that what I would do if "I" were doing the coding for it. Or put it sufficently close that a couple exploration daylies would make up the difference. Especially seeing that this issue only kicks in at Commander level where the player should have three exploration zones availible and 3 exploration daylies availible.
■You now gain a small stipend of refined dilithium at each new rank, along with a placard for a new ship at a deep discount in price.
■At the ranks of Commander and above you will need to earn some additional dilithium to be able to afford the next ship, so be sure to play some daily missions for those rewards.
I just don't like the fact that we are "testing" this and we have to get everything from scratch (or pay for cryptic points to get test points. Yes I know we are getting "free points" but really)....
I have not liked the idea of F2P from when I first heard it... I always said F2P was to "Freely" giving the game away to non-payers. I, too, agree paying members are getting slapped in the face.
Time will tell how this game progresses. I just hope they listen to their player base about stuff rather than the ones who all they want to do is "make a quick yen"....
Typically if you say, refine 8000 tons of Ore you'll usually get LESS than 8000 tons of final product because of all the TRIBBLE being removed by refinement...
Odds are 8000 Ore = 4000 Refined Dilithium
lets hope it dosnt work that way, refine the ore and get more "lighter" minerals in return:D
I agree, thats way to limited.
Just fully "arming" a T5 cruiser alone would take 108 days aka more than Three and a Half months! And that just isn't acceptable.
Fine for silver members, but still "unacceptable" for us loyal gold members.
Your still ripping us off, as instead of grinding dailies, PvP and exploration missions for better "equipment" we end up being "forced" to spend it on a new ship instead. :mad:
I'm sorry, but the only real solution here is to bring back the Free Ship Token's, at least for subscribers.
I agree with this post!!!! Devs, please listen to what we are saying!!!! As a gold member, I don't want to loose anything!!!
i think its naive to assume 1 unrefined dilithium will = 1 refined dilithium. it will probably be more like 5 unrefined dilithium = 1 refined dilithium. in what universe can you take an unrefined substance and turn it into a more refined substance and be left with more then you started with? mater doesn't work like that! if basic physics is applied, this conversion problem is a lot bigger then we realize
Without units, this is still unfounded speculation.
What if dilithium ore is traded in kilos, but refined dilithium is traded in grams?
Since the server doesn't seem to be up yet, I can't really make a justified examination of how practical this limit is.
But if the sources of Dilithium Ore are limited to dailies, why even bother having a hard cap on how much we can process? We're already technically limited to how much we can get, as a result of how many missions we can do - they're dailies.
The other concern is that you don't actually say how much 1 unit of Ore refines into for Refined Dilithium. 1? 5? 10? 100?
Should also point out that the F2P Dev Blog that you're linking to doesn't talk, at all, about the economic changes. It only talks about Klingons.
You should probably either remove the link, or actually post the Dev Blog dealing with the economic changes.
Everybody is hoping that we'll find out that one ore will make multiple refined when that's not the way smelting works at all. You get less refined metal than you started out with ore...not less. And you'll only be able to refine 8k worth, so you'll be lucky if you get 8k back, probably more like 4-5k.
For subscribers to get what they already have on Holodeck, they'll have to acquire maybe a million or more dilithium just to buy ships and equip them.
Hey devs...what is the exchange rate for badges, marks, emblems, and merits? We better be getting a ton of dilithium from them or you've really socked it to the subscribers. And made a huge grindfests for the new players whether they subscribe or not.
To everyone complaining about how much dilithium is needed to purchase items, may I ask a question.
Are you not getting any items via drops? The items in the stores are some of the very best in the game. To me, being able to go out and acquire all the best stuff should take some time. One of the things I don't like about Holodeck is that the best items are too easy to acquire. Items from drops/mission rewards, for the most part, are completely worthless every step of the way. Why? Every rank up, everyone runs to the store/crafter and grabs the very best, highest Mark gear they can equip, making all drops/rewards for the next 10 levels completely-irrelevant-vendor-trash.
Typically if you say, refine 8000 tons of Ore you'll usually get LESS than 8000 tons of final product because of all the TRIBBLE being removed by refinement...
Odds are 8000 Ore = 4000 Refined Dilithium
Exactly. You cant get more from spending energy to break something down into a better state. You take a a gold nugget just mined that weighs 1lbs. You smelt it and burn out the impurities and it weighs 6oz or less.
Unless, in the star trek universe they have perfected the art of alchemy and transmutation. That would be another story.
News flash: This is "feedback" we are giving.
We are telling them already now that we do not want this.
While the conversion rate may yet to be determined, we do know that at this point gold members are being screwed over.
1.) No ship token and not enough dilithium to get a free ship at commander and up.
2.) Forced to spend dilithium we grind in PvP, Dailies and Exploration on a new ship instead of spending it on EQUIPMENT as we do now with badges on holodeck.
News flash the second of multiple updates isn't even live yet. Feedback is one thing.. but you are giving feedback without even knonwing the facts yet. Your making assumptions and not giving true feedback. And we all know what assumptions can make out of you.
Remember, you'll be able to buy all the dilithium you want for cash. It's only the in-game dilithium that's limited. So this isn't some anti-inflation idea. It's a way to force people to spend cash to get anything they want, even the subscribers.
Which is just wrong and unethical but also most importantly, its very bad buisness.
I would think that a company thats trying to make a lot of $$$ would be eager to practice good buisness so that their customers keep coming back.
Thus i maintain my view that Cryptic are trying to TRIBBLE us susbcribers over, until they prove otherwise.
- Restore the free ship tokens
- Greatly increase the cap on refining dilithium, I.E Mk XI weapons should only take a couple of days to grind for.
Well it's nice to know that we have a clear picture of exactly how worthless a Gold account will be then. And if this is the case, how did they know that "Silver" players were getting respecs when they shouldn't; if there are no Silvers on Tribble, who reported this?
Without units, this is still unfounded speculation.
What if dilithium ore is traded in kilos, but refined dilithium is traded in grams?
If this is the case, we are ok. If not, they seem to be off by more than one order of magnitude. I will reserve judgement until I actually see the refinement process, but I am not overly confident that this will work out well.
News flash the second of multiple updates isn't even live yet. Feedback is one thing.. but you are giving feedback without even knonwing the facts yet. Your making assumptions and not giving true feedback. And we all know what assumptions can make out of you.
So what your saying then is that the developers are telling lies straight to our faces? How reassuring...
Many of the reasons for the ranting here comes straight from the dev's own mouths, such as the two "facts" i listed in my post there.
This is a first for me but I am kinda not feeling some of the upcoming changes. Earlier I was promoted to Commander. I was excited to get my next ship, yes it was on Tribble, but still excited I was. But I didn't hav eneough Dlithium? WHY does Dilithium have to tie into every facet of this game. Ilisten to interviews all the time involving the Devs and many if not all have said "the players will be rewarded for their time played".
If we were recieving free next tier ships for free when promoted before, bu t now we have to wait until we get enough Dilithium I am not being rewarded for my time played. Basically this life time player is loosing something because why? It seems like too many things are being forced to change for no reason.
Here is an idea to toss around....
The free ship deal when you are promoted should stay intact. Make those ships have 0 amount if sold and if by some chance we want to get rid of it, make it where we can have it "recycled" or "stripped" for parts that would be used to help craft other items.
Thinking about it the refining cap could cause some players to cap their playing time when they reach the refining cap. Do we really want to dis-incentivize players from playing?
Which is just wrong and unethical but also most importantly, its very bad buisness.
It's great business for Cryptic. They are just making sure that they capture 95% of the potential gold farming market, rather than letting this revenue go to the botters and spammers. To the extent it keeps those types out of game, at least it has some small benefit for actual players. It won't be enough to keep people playing, but it is what it is. The alternative is letting that money go into someone else's pocket, which is what has happened in most games that have any form of "player economy."
Comments
F2P atm looks like a trap to catch the blind, stupid, and ignorant. So please do not go this rout of P2W as you have sworn against cryptic, this is really bad policy. Up the refining count, give us back out free ship placks at the appropriate levels, or make certian missions like pvp give out refined dilithium not ore.
The one thing I know is that they set these numbers into place intentionally. That means they thought it was a good idea. I know that because I tested and hit commander I wont get a new ship and if I had tested less I would get a new ship. They thought that was ok too. For testing, where they should be making things easy for us to test they are making things harder. They thought 145k dilithium for one weapon was ok and only being able to make 8k a day was ok.
Yes, they might change it....and posts that tell them what we think are the only chance we have to have any effect on it. Sitting on our hands means we get what they did today. A concerted effort by the playerbase to say how spectacularly bad these new patch ideas are might change things. It could be that Perfect World has said this is the way to make more money and nothing we do will change anything. If this is so they will never say so. They would lose their jobs if they did. It's hard to come up with another answer since all this new stuff to harm the playerbase has come out of the blue like this. The game we're going to test is not nearly as good as the game we already have. What a shame.
No assumptions here, its in the original post, in black and white.... literally.
Well, I hope its not one per day. It would be a drastic change from Holodeck. In the Btran (and the KDF one which I cant remember) you had two missions. A daily that gave marks/emblems and a regular which gave the exploration badges.
Maybe if they have a daily which gives refined and a repeatable which gives dilithium (which would help towards getting your ship). If they have the cap on refinement each day, why limit the dilithium awarded per mission?
I like having a mission when trying to grind up exploration. Its a good marker of where I am at and sets a pace.
these statements contradict each other. the magnitude of our displeasure is directly proportional to how much the prices need to change, that is the feedback.
i think its naive to assume 1 unrefined dilithium will = 1 refined dilithium. it will probably be more like 5 unrefined dilithium = 1 refined dilithium. in what universe can you take an unrefined substance and turn it into a more refined substance and be left with more then you started with? mater doesn't work like that! if basic physics is applied, this conversion problem is a lot bigger then we realize
Are we no longer supposed to get a Retrofit ship at VA, even though both the promotion mission and level progression window say we should ?
Edit: Really ???
Here's an easy fix - Make a non-repayable mission using the players level as the first point to check. If that player is at VA, have it check when they got VA. If it was before the launch of this patch, then they can do the mission. Once. And they'll receive the difference in Dilithium or an additional stipend of dilithium, and a ship discount token. Flag the mission as done.
If the player is not a VA, Flag the mission as done.
Players who got to VA will get some extra dilithium, and those who didn't will never even have to worry about it.
Remember, the players who've already reached max level are probably some of your most loyal testers, and if not loyal, then at least hard working. Please, don't leave them hanging in the breeze like this.
Looking forward to these.
If Exploration missions give Refined Dilithium.... eh... ok, as long as the reward is equivalent to live.
*BUT*
(and that's a BIG but!)
If exploration missions are giving out Dilithium Ore, then you're putting 2 gates on getting Dilithium in this manner when you should only have one. We already have a limit on how much Dilithium ore we can process in a day. Why would you put a second limit on how much Ore we can get ? That goes DIRECTLY against what was said in the STOked interview, where they talked about the example of a person with limited play time during the week, and lots of free time on the weekend, who could get loads of Dilithium ore over the weekend, but only had to log in a few minutes each day during the week to refine it.
Remember, you'll be able to buy all the dilithium you want for cash. It's only the in-game dilithium that's limited. So this isn't some anti-inflation idea. It's a way to force people to spend cash to get anything they want, even the subscribers.
Typically if you say, refine 8000 tons of Ore you'll usually get LESS than 8000 tons of final product because of all the TRIBBLE being removed by refinement...
Odds are 8000 Ore = 4000 Refined Dilithium
I have read the blog posts, I have read through the release notes, and I don't understand the purpose of it. Maybe a dev or someone else can elaborate on why we can't get a free ship at each rank like we used to.
■You now gain a small stipend of refined dilithium at each new rank, along with a placard for a new ship at a deep discount in price.
■At the ranks of Commander and above you will need to earn some additional dilithium to be able to afford the next ship, so be sure to play some daily missions for those rewards.
I have not liked the idea of F2P from when I first heard it... I always said F2P was to "Freely" giving the game away to non-payers. I, too, agree paying members are getting slapped in the face.
Time will tell how this game progresses. I just hope they listen to their player base about stuff rather than the ones who all they want to do is "make a quick yen"....
Jeremy
lets hope it dosnt work that way, refine the ore and get more "lighter" minerals in return:D
I agree with this post!!!! Devs, please listen to what we are saying!!!! As a gold member, I don't want to loose anything!!!
Without units, this is still unfounded speculation.
What if dilithium ore is traded in kilos, but refined dilithium is traded in grams?
Everybody is hoping that we'll find out that one ore will make multiple refined when that's not the way smelting works at all. You get less refined metal than you started out with ore...not less. And you'll only be able to refine 8k worth, so you'll be lucky if you get 8k back, probably more like 4-5k.
For subscribers to get what they already have on Holodeck, they'll have to acquire maybe a million or more dilithium just to buy ships and equip them.
Hey devs...what is the exchange rate for badges, marks, emblems, and merits? We better be getting a ton of dilithium from them or you've really socked it to the subscribers. And made a huge grindfests for the new players whether they subscribe or not.
Are you not getting any items via drops? The items in the stores are some of the very best in the game. To me, being able to go out and acquire all the best stuff should take some time. One of the things I don't like about Holodeck is that the best items are too easy to acquire. Items from drops/mission rewards, for the most part, are completely worthless every step of the way. Why? Every rank up, everyone runs to the store/crafter and grabs the very best, highest Mark gear they can equip, making all drops/rewards for the next 10 levels completely-irrelevant-vendor-trash.
This needs to change.
We're gold not silver.
Exactly. You cant get more from spending energy to break something down into a better state. You take a a gold nugget just mined that weighs 1lbs. You smelt it and burn out the impurities and it weighs 6oz or less.
Unless, in the star trek universe they have perfected the art of alchemy and transmutation. That would be another story.
News flash the second of multiple updates isn't even live yet. Feedback is one thing.. but you are giving feedback without even knonwing the facts yet. Your making assumptions and not giving true feedback. And we all know what assumptions can make out of you.
Which is just wrong and unethical but also most importantly, its very bad buisness.
I would think that a company thats trying to make a lot of $$$ would be eager to practice good buisness so that their customers keep coming back.
Thus i maintain my view that Cryptic are trying to TRIBBLE us susbcribers over, until they prove otherwise.
- Restore the free ship tokens
- Greatly increase the cap on refining dilithium, I.E Mk XI weapons should only take a couple of days to grind for.
If this is the case, we are ok. If not, they seem to be off by more than one order of magnitude. I will reserve judgement until I actually see the refinement process, but I am not overly confident that this will work out well.
So what your saying then is that the developers are telling lies straight to our faces? How reassuring...
Many of the reasons for the ranting here comes straight from the dev's own mouths, such as the two "facts" i listed in my post there.
If we were recieving free next tier ships for free when promoted before, bu t now we have to wait until we get enough Dilithium I am not being rewarded for my time played. Basically this life time player is loosing something because why? It seems like too many things are being forced to change for no reason.
Here is an idea to toss around....
The free ship deal when you are promoted should stay intact. Make those ships have 0 amount if sold and if by some chance we want to get rid of it, make it where we can have it "recycled" or "stripped" for parts that would be used to help craft other items.
I agree that 8k is way to low for the price of items. I could deal with 8k per lvl tier, that would be more doable instead of a super grind fest.