I understand that the reason for including dilithium in crafting is that without more things to raise demand for dilithium, people won't spend c-points on dilithium and the whole economy will shut down, and time-players won't have access to c-store ships without paying directly. Lowering the non-=dilithium material component requirements some would allow crafting to take comparable, (or slightly longer) times, without reducing the demand for dilithium. It might even raise it, by lowering the bar for how long it takes before you have enough stuff that investing dilithium in crafting makes sense, rather than waiting for loot drops.
This may have been suggested, but one way to save fleet crafting, if not the rest of the crafting system, i to create a "craft for other" command or temporary bank or something. Player 1 (the client) sends a request to player 2 (the crafter). The client must already have all the required materials, the schematic and the dilithium. The crafter hits "craft for other" and the items vanish from the client's bank, and the item appears there. If cryptic really wants to limit things they could make it bind at that point.
that wouldnt change anything. just creates more of headache.
STO isn't "just another game" for me, either. While I have played plenty other MMOs, I really wanted this one to be special. Because it fused together two loves of mine: Star Trek and online gaming. Star Trek is practically a way of life for me. When I found out that Perpetual had acquired the rights to make an MMO out of it I couldn't believe it and followed it since. I WANTED a Trek MMO ever since I started playing them with Dark Age of Camelot. Sadly, the one true attempt is being flushed down the toilet due to poor marketing decisions.
To reply to yourself and Katic, while I've always been a Trek fan and have owned or played every Trek computer game that's been out, along with the various incarnations of tabletop Trek RPG's stretching back to the early days of FASA, this isn't my first MMO.
With the advent of Evercrack and other games, I was hesitant to get into MMOs, at least until City of Heroes. That game was, until they've gone F2P as well, my first game of choice and one I've paid a yearly sub to (No LTS there!) for over 7 years.
While Champions was my first superhero tabletop paper & dice game and ignited my love of the superhero genre (including the Marvel RPG, Silver Age Sentinels [RIP] etc.), CO I really only bought to get into the closed Beta for STO. It didn't engage me the way CoH did.
But...CO seems to have figured out how to do F2P RIGHT, from the start. Why there seems to be such a degree of cruft in the lauch of the STO F2P, even if it's a Test server, confuses me.
That being said, I do understand people who have honestly gotten into MMOs because of STO...when I heard Perpetual was going to launch this game originally back in the dark ages of the '00's, I even applied to work for them, thinking that could put me even closer to Trek, and my love of gaming.
Since this post is getting into TL : DR for some, suffice it to say, since the lauch of STO, and even CO, I've been trying to get my online gaming friends to try it, or even friends/family who are Trek fans, but not even close to being online gamers, excited about F2P, knowing I could at least try to get them into the games via F2P and they might like it.
With all the "improvements" to the game, there's no way someone who is truly in the demo. of a "casual online gamer" is going to find a grindfest of any interest to them, and they'll either be a statistic of people who abandon a character within a few months of trying the game, or just not bother even trying it at all because it will look like work to them to play a game.
Too many of these changes don't seem to make it worthy of an investment in time, money, or both.
Count me in as part of the "unsilent majority" that hates this BS. I agree with others who expressed that the purpose of crafting was to give viable alternatives (READ: NOT cheaper but alternate) to Di stores/raids/cstores/whatever. Adding Di to crafting is simply a lazy attempt at double dipping by charging 2 times for "time" currency. It certainly destroys any social aspect of crafting (crafting for fleet mates or friends), which is a time honored tradition in mmo's.
If changes must be made, here are my ideas:
- raise and diversify the amount of anomalies and traces needed
- incorporate a success/failure rate to crafting
- allow Di to make up for shortfalls in anomalies (if you're short a few anomalies or a trace or something, the difference can be paid for in Di)
I don't know. Tribble has shown me some troubling signs of things to come. To be fair, the DOFF system is wonderful, even if it is the sum total of the upcoming new content. However, the FE integration into the main story is awful. They don't fit. It locks out people who haven't done all the main story missions (which weren't very good anyway). The new ship fiasco was embarrassing. I've tried my best to be the "can't say something nice don't say anything" guy, but this is horrible. When this hot mess goes live, I'm seeing very little carrot and a whole lot of stick.
They want to change crafting? My solution was posted in another thread, and I don't want to violate Forum rules by directly quoting myself, so I'll just give you the basics. Just so you know, this was inspired by posts here by Jack_Armstrong and Leviathan99
It's never made sense to me to have us crafting with Anomalies. We find "Alien Artifacts" and use them to make what now? How many times did we ever hear Spock, Scotty, Data, or Geordi say "well, we've found this strange device, we don't know who made it, or what it's purpose was, but we're going to integrate it into the ship intentionally, and, failing that, we'll patch it into a piece of ground equipment".. Um.. Never? Yeah, I'm pretty sure "never" is the answer there.
So here's what we do, we rename some of the anomalies, and include a new catagory of items similar to Commodities gather-able through the Doff system and loot-able as drops. Things like Deuterium, Duranium, Beryllium, Gadolinium, Titanium, Tritium, Transparant Aluminum, you name it.
We gather these various materials and a few sensible anomalies (Antimatter for Photon Torpedoes, Plasma Samples for Plasma-based Weaponry for ground/space, etc..), and we construct components.
These components will be varied, and will differ from recipe to recipe, using existing items in the game for inspiration.
Lets say you want to craft a new Impulse Engine. The Schematic (findable as a drop or buy able for EC) calls for: Duranium and Plasma Samples for the Impulse Reactor (fusion-based), Tritium and Duranium for the Impulse Driver Coils, and Beryllium and Titanium for the Impulse Manifold. Once you've combined all those for the componants, you can then create the Impulse Engine. More advanced Impulse Engines (higher quality) require more materials, and better Impulse Engines (Hyper, Combat, Efficient) require more components (additional Driver Coils, for instance).
Now, this does add to the grind, but seeing as how there will be fewer Anomalies, and Doff system integration (and all the materials should be tradeable/sell-able/unbound) it will still work to complicate the system and discourage the mass-production of items because now the materiels will be more numerous and varied and the process of crafting itself will have a few more steps thrown in.
I'm not envisioning a time-factor in crafting, but if it took 30 minutes to an hour to craft each component, and 1-2 hours to assemble the final product, I wouldn't see it as such a bad thing so long as you could craft multiple objects at once (say, five end-products at a time, and up to 12 components at a time).
Now, here's what makes the penny-pinchers at PW happy: A Dilithium store. If you don't have the materials or EC to buy them, you can skip that step and buy the fully-completed components from a Vendor at Memory Alpha/Qonos, for Dilithium. The thing is, the Vendor prices the Components individually at such a price that buying the gear direct from a Dilithium Vendor on ESD/Qonos is cheaper than buying the ready-made components and assembling it.
Crafters can craft, even for fleets, grinders can grind and craft, and those uninterested in Crafting at all get better deals by grinding for the gear directly through the Dilithium stores on ESD/Qonos.
And, the people who don't want to grind Dilithium don't have to to craft. But the people who want to craft as quickly as possible still have the Dlithium-C-Store cash-railroad PW wants so much. And Crafting will finally make IP-sense in how it works.
Throw in some C-Store shortcuts (crafting slots, random bags of mats/componants, shortcut devices that half or eliminate the time-delay associated with crafting) and PW gets what they want, Players get what they want, Fleet Crafting still exists, and the Crafting system is improved and made more interesting to boot.
It's a win-win-win!
EDIT: I've expanded on this idea further and explained it in more detail over in General Community Feedback.
They want to change crafting? My solution was posted in another thread, and I don't want to violate Forum rules by directly quoting myself, so I'll just give you the basics. Just so you know, this was inspired by posts here by Jack_Armstrong and Leviathan99
It's never made sense to me to have us crafting with Anomalies. We find "Alien Artifacts" and use them to make what now? How many times did we ever hear Spock, Scotty, Data, or Geordi say "well, we've found this strange device, we don't know who made it, or what it's purpose was, but we're going to integrate it into the ship intentionally, and, failing that, we'll patch it into a piece of ground equipment".. Um.. Never? Yeah, I'm pretty sure "never" is the answer there.
So here's what we do, we rename some of the anomalies, and include a new catagory of items similar to Commodities gather-able through the Doff system and loot-able as drops. Things like Deuterium, Duranium, Beryllium, Gadolinium, Titanium, Tritium, Transparant Aluminum, you name it.
We gather these various materials and a few sensible anomalies (Antimatter for Photon Torpedoes, Plasma Samples for Plasma-based Weaponry for ground/space, etc..), and we construct components.
These components will be varied, and will differ from recipe to recipe, using existing items in the game for inspiration.
Lets say you want to craft a new Impulse Engine. The Schematic (findable as a drop or buy able for EC) calls for: Duranium and Plasma Samples for the Impulse Reactor (fusion-based), Tritium and Duranium for the Impulse Driver Coils, and Beryllium and Titanium for the Impulse Manifold. Once you've combined all those for the componants, you can then create the Impulse Engine. More advanced Impulse Engines (higher quality) require more materials, and better Impulse Engines (Hyper, Combat, Efficient) require more components (additional Driver Coils, for instance).
Now, this does add to the grind, but seeing as how there will be fewer Anomalies, and Doff system integration (and all the materials should be tradeable/sell-able/unbound) it will still work to complicate the system and discourage the mass-production of items because now the materiels will be more numerous and varied and the process of crafting itself will have a few more steps thrown in.
I'm not envisioning a time-factor in crafting, but if it took 30 minutes to an hour to craft each component, and 1-2 hours to assemble the final product, I wouldn't see it as such a bad thing so long as you could craft multiple objects at once (say, five end-products at a time, and up to 12 components at a time).
Now, here's what makes the penny-pinchers at PW happy: A Dilithium store. If you don't have the materials or EC to buy them, you can skip that step and buy the fully-completed components from a Vendor at Memory Alpha/Qonos, for Dilithium. The thing is, the Vendor prices the Components individually at such a price that buying the gear direct from a Dilithium Vendor on ESD/Qonos is cheaper than buying the ready-made components and assembling it.
Crafters can craft, even for fleets, grinders can grind and craft, and those uninterested in Crafting at all get better deals by grinding for the gear directly through the Dilithium stores on ESD/Qonos.
And, the people who don't want to grind Dilithium don't have to to craft. But the people who want to craft as quickly as possible still have the Dlithium-C-Store cash-railroad PW wants so much. And Crafting will finally make IP-sense in how it works.
Throw in some C-Store shortcuts (crafting slots, random bags of mats/componants, shortcut devices that half or eliminate the time-delay associated with crafting) and PW gets what they want, Players get what they want, Fleet Crafting still exists, and the Crafting system is improved and made more interesting to boot.
It's a win-win-win!
wow, this is the number one best darn idea i have ever heard in the face of this game or even other MMO's for that matter. i personally love the idea, and agree wholesomely on it! the thinking on this matter was great. i would love to see this system integrated and crafting changed. it would fit the lore nearly 100%.
now hwo do we suggest this to the game designers so they can try to get it to work? or even consider it
wow, this is the number one best darn idea i have ever heard in the face of this game or even other MMO's for that matter. i personally love the idea, and agree wholesomely on it! the thinking on this matter was great. i would love to see this system integrated and crafting changed. it would fit the lore nearly 100%.
now hwo do we suggest this to the game designers so they can try to get it to work? or even consider it
Coming from you Palmera, that is high praise indeed. (Not being sarcastic, really, thank you!)
I'm not sure of the cross-posting rules since they've gone back to the Cryptic Forum Usage Guidelines, the closest thing I can find is under Spamming, and it says the following is an example of Spam:
Creating Duplicate Threads (A Duplicate Thread is defined as a thread which discusses the same topic as another thread, which has had a new post within the last 30 days.)
Seeing as how this thread is in response to the Path to F2P Dev Blog, and there's several threads in STO Discussion about the crafting changes (one of which I linked as my inspiration for this idea) I could probably get away with posting a new Thread to the Tribble Feedback forum pitching it, but it would likely get little traffic since the Dilithium-Crafting fiasco..
They want to change crafting? My solution was posted in another thread, and I don't want to violate Forum rules by directly quoting myself, so I'll just give you the basics. Just so you know, this was inspired by posts here by Jack_Armstrong and Leviathan99[/B]
While I'd love to take credit for the component crafting idea, it was actually Alexraptor that suggested it.
I love the idea that you put forth by combining both Alex's component crafting and Leviathan's Dilithium shop for parts (anomalies/particle traces/etc). Like you said, it's a win-win all around. Now, if they'll just listen to our ideas and meet us in the middle-ground we're proposing.
If Heretic was a lousy developer, I'd agree with you, but as it is, he's doing far too much good work to merit a promotion. This is the curse of competence; never making it to "management" because you're too good at getting actual important work done.
Actually, I've been both a systems lead and a lead designer on other projects here at Cryptic and elsewhere, but those were on projects I had been on from the beginning. When I came on STO, I knew squat about the way the team had set things up, so wasn't in a position to be a lead - I like to know what I am doing before I start offering direction.
In fairness, while I do communicate a lot, it is an enormous effort to do both that and the rest of my job. I do, however, appreciate people's kind words.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
I think STO is moving in a positive direction, and I appreciate that you, Heretic, and all the other devs are putting a lot of hard work and long hours into it. The naysayers may be in the spotlight now, but once everything settles months from now, what we'll have left is players happily playing a better game than the one we have now.
To give some constructive feedback:
Someone in this long list of backlash suggested a variable Dilithium component to crafting.
Between 0 and 100% depending on how close you are to the full recipe.
I would fully support this. It would not only be a fair compromise I'd call it an improvement of the current crafting system.
The dedicated crafters, solo and fleet, could continue to do what they like and every impatient soul can have his/her shortcut to the desired gear or outright buy it if they don't feel like grinding for anomalies.
This is a way to add Dilithium to crafting that I could totally stand behind. Rare particle traces are worth X% of the total Dilithium cost of a completed item, regular worth Y%, Schematic is Still required!
On top of this, if you have none of the components, this is a great way to spend Dilithium to get an alternate weapon configuration from what you can get at the Dilithium vendor at ESD/First City.
Another way to integrate dilithium into crafting I could totally stand behind would be something similar to the Reforging system in WOW (ducks behind a cover shield). Hear me out now, before yelling about me bringing up WoW
You could pay an extra Dilithium cost and change one of the modifiers on the crafted weapon. That Anitproton Dual Heavy Cannon with [CritH][DMG]x2 ? You could change one of those Damage modifiers to a [CritD] or [Acc] or [Crith] again. Want to get rid of both [DMG] modifiers ? Then pay the cost twice. Want to make it [Acc]x3 ? pay it 3 times, once for each modifier you want to change.
This system could be added in several ways. First, you could change item bonuses for a lesser Dilithium cost while crafting the item. Second, you could change the bonuses after the fact for a greater cost at a NPC who will 'remaster' or 'reforge' the item. These costs could also be based on the item's MK level. A reasonable cost might be 100 Dilithium per item level, per modifier changed; half that cost if the change is made while crafting the item. Therefor, changing one modifier on a MK XI cannon would cost 1100. Changing two modifiers 2200, and so on. If those 2 modifiers were changed while crafting the item, it'd only cost 1100.
This way, there's still potential Dilithium sinks in *and* outside of crafting, Cryptic will be adding features to crafting rather than making it more restrictive, and I would suspect the player base would be much more receptive to a system like this. It's guaranteed that your more serious players, like your PVPers would also be using the "reforging." Finally, by having an option to change the modifiers in AND outside of crafting allows those who are not crafters to still sink their dilithium, and have access to the system, so it'd be a win/win change for everyone.
If anyone's proposed this before, sorry, I'm not trying to copy your idea, I just thought of it after reading Timelord_Victorious's post.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
I come from a Web System development background and understand the amount of change you guys are doing isn't trivial! I'm impressed that you and a few others are continuing to engage the community openly asking for feedback on the new features that are being developed given the time constraints you are probably working against.
I've learned that no matter the how technically/financially restrictive a system may be, involving clients upfront and getting their input for solutions allows them to feel invested in the final design and also allows them to understand the work that is being done to accommodate their needs/wants.
It's a shame how crafting was modified seemingly without regard for what people have requested since closed beta 2 years ago.....
Anyway, keep up the hard work and the communication, it'll pay off in the long run!
Actually, I've been both a systems lead and a lead designer on other projects here at Cryptic and elsewhere, but those were on projects I had been on from the beginning. When I came on STO, I knew squat about the way the team had set things up, so wasn't in a position to be a lead - I like to know what I am doing before I start offering direction.
In fairness, while I do communicate a lot, it is an enormous effort to do both that and the rest of my job. I do, however, appreciate people's kind words.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
The fact that you guys are willing to try, and willing to admit that it's been bloody, is one of the reasons I stuck with you guys so long. I'm hoping that by the time all this testing is over, the game is in good shape. I believe you guys are more than capable of achieving that, and while there are (naturally) some concerns, i'm always willing to give the benefit of the doiubt.
and thanks for all your hard work. the doff system is a work of art.
I seem to remember a while back there was talk of completely revamping the crafting system. One part in particular was "the ability to choose ground weapon geometry." As I understand it, that was to mean that we could choose what our ground weapons looked like. (ie make a phaser rifle look like they did on TNG, or VOY, or First Contact) I don't know how many times I have equipped a polaron rifle hoping beyond hope that it would actually look like the Jem'Hadar Polaron Rifles that the Jem'Hadar and Breen use, but alas, it is always this god awful looking purple monstrosity. The antiproton ground weapons look like they came straight from a comic book. We STILL have no means of obtaining the klingon D'k'tagh, Mek'leth, the Jem'Hadar Kar'takin, nor the Andorian melee weapons!
You want to add dilithium to crafting? Here's my proposal. Leave crafting as it is on Holodeck, but add another optional feature: The ability to make it look how we want it to by being able to select from 3-4 visual design options. Now, make the design feature cost dilithuim to use! There ya go, we get to keep things as is, you get your dilithium infusion into crafting, and We the Players can choose if we want to use it or not. This also gives us the continued ability to be able to craft for our fleets, and encourages those who haven't leveled crafting a reason to do so for personal customization.
Now with all these ways your are putting up for spending dilithium, why not at least double the dilithium daily refining cap? 8k per day is honestly too low, 12-16k per day is more reasonable.
So crafting is over, for anyone but yourself....I mean, why would you spend the most needed resource, to make someone else, when you can't get Dilithium back from them in exchange. Doesn't give ANY incentive at all
Actually, I've been both a systems lead and a lead designer on other projects here at Cryptic and elsewhere, but those were on projects I had been on from the beginning. When I came on STO, I knew squat about the way the team had set things up, so wasn't in a position to be a lead - I like to know what I am doing before I start offering direction.
In fairness, while I do communicate a lot, it is an enormous effort to do both that and the rest of my job. I do, however, appreciate people's kind words.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
This is a way to add Dilithium to crafting that I could totally stand behind. Rare particle traces are worth X% of the total Dilithium cost of a completed item, regular worth Y%, Schematic is Still required!
On top of this, if you have none of the components, this is a great way to spend Dilithium to get an alternate weapon configuration from what you can get at the Dilithium vendor at ESD/First City.
Another way to integrate dilithium into crafting I could totally stand behind would be something similar to the Reforging system in WOW (ducks behind a cover shield). Hear me out now, before yelling about me bringing up WoW
You could pay an extra Dilithium cost and change one of the modifiers on the crafted weapon. That Anitproton Dual Heavy Cannon with [CritH][DMG]x2 ? You could change one of those Damage modifiers to a [CritD] or [Acc] or [CritD] again. Want to get rid of both ? Then pay the cost twice. Want to make it [Acc]x3 ? pay it 3 times, once for each modifier you want to change.
This system could be added in several ways. First, you could change item bonuses for a lesser Dilithium cost while crafting the item. Second, you could change the bonuses after the fact for a greater cost at a NPC ?
This way, there's still potential Dilithium sinks in *and* outside of crafting, Cryptic will be adding features to crafting rather than making it more restrictive, and I would suspect the player base would be much more receptive to a system like this. Also, it's guaranteed that your more serious players, like your PVPers would also be using the "reforging," so it'd be a win/win change.
If anyone's proposed this before, sorry, I'm not trying to copy your idea, I just thought of it after reading Timelord_Victorious's post.
This is a very good idea, I would fully support this, in all honesty. I might even actually spend Dilithium in it if it were done like this.
Grinding for particles is something I loathe, that's why I only have one crafting char.
If I could toss in some dilithium and not have to hunt for particles, especially exotics, it would be fantastic.
The only people who would lose majorly in that deal are the ones who sell particles on the exchange.
Well, depending on how much dilithium it costs, and how it relates to the particle prices. on the exchange market.
Coming from you Palmera, that is high praise indeed. (Not being sarcastic, really, thank you!)
I'm not sure of the cross-posting rules since they've gone back to the Cryptic Forum Usage Guidelines, the closest thing I can find is under Spamming, and it says the following is an example of Spam:
Seeing as how this thread is in response to the Path to F2P Dev Blog, and there's several threads in STO Discussion about the crafting changes (one of which I linked as my inspiration for this idea) I could probably get away with posting a new Thread to the Tribble Feedback forum pitching it, but it would likely get little traffic since the Dilithium-Crafting fiasco..
Maybe General Feedback?
indeed i am a hard up no bullspita kinda guy. but everyone should know by now that its only cause im overly opinated. most 'true' canadians are. naturally thou canada is hated by everyone on these games for that, and cause of our ... quebeccers...
if something makes sense ill say yes, if something doesnt ill tell you. if it makes sense and i dont like it, ill tell you. and ill always give a reason.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters.
Trust us the fan base isn't looking for reasons to get angry. The idea of getting new players and generate revenue for Cryptic is something I can get behind. More revenue for Cryptic means more investment into the game and that's good for me as a Lifer.
But it has really come off as dilithium has been jammed into anything regardless if it makes the game better or not. We want the game to be better.
How does adding dilithium to something make it better? That's the questiong Cryptic needs to ask. Make me want to spend dilithium. Don't make it so I'm forced to pay dilithium especially for something that doesn't require it right now on Holodeck.
The option to modify crafting itmes using dilithium is awesome. Why wasn't something like that rolled out? Are the bosses so pushy that they just want dilithium thrown into everything? If that's the case we need the Devs to push back at the bosses and tell them the changes will never work with the folks too cheap to pay a 15 buck monthly sub.
This is a very good idea, I would fully support this, in all honesty. I might even actually spend Dilithium in it if it were done like this.
Grinding for particles is something I loathe, that's why I only have one crafting char.
If I could toss in some dilithium and not have to hunt for particles, especially exotics, it would be fantastic.
The only people who would lose majorly in that deal are the ones who sell particles on the exchange.
Well, depending on how much dilithium it costs, and how it relates to the particle prices. on the exchange market.
Thanks for the support
Technically even those selling particles on the exchange may not loose out with this system, because there will be people who have plenty of EC and not enough Dilithium.
They want to change crafting? My solution was posted in another thread, and I don't want to violate Forum rules by directly quoting myself, so I'll just give you the basics. Just so you know, this was inspired by posts here by Jack_Armstrong and Leviathan99
It's never made sense to me to have us crafting with Anomalies. We find "Alien Artifacts" and use them to make what now? How many times did we ever hear Spock, Scotty, Data, or Geordi say "well, we've found this strange device, we don't know who made it, or what it's purpose was, but we're going to integrate it into the ship intentionally, and, failing that, we'll patch it into a piece of ground equipment".. Um.. Never? Yeah, I'm pretty sure "never" is the answer there.
So here's what we do, we rename some of the anomalies, and include a new catagory of items similar to Commodities gather-able through the Doff system and loot-able as drops. Things like Deuterium, Duranium, Beryllium, Gadolinium, Titanium, Tritium, Transparant Aluminum, you name it.
We gather these various materials and a few sensible anomalies (Antimatter for Photon Torpedoes, Plasma Samples for Plasma-based Weaponry for ground/space, etc..), and we construct components.
These components will be varied, and will differ from recipe to recipe, using existing items in the game for inspiration.
Lets say you want to craft a new Impulse Engine. The Schematic (findable as a drop or buy able for EC) calls for: Duranium and Plasma Samples for the Impulse Reactor (fusion-based), Tritium and Duranium for the Impulse Driver Coils, and Beryllium and Titanium for the Impulse Manifold. Once you've combined all those for the componants, you can then create the Impulse Engine. More advanced Impulse Engines (higher quality) require more materials, and better Impulse Engines (Hyper, Combat, Efficient) require more components (additional Driver Coils, for instance).
Now, this does add to the grind, but seeing as how there will be fewer Anomalies, and Doff system integration (and all the materials should be tradeable/sell-able/unbound) it will still work to complicate the system and discourage the mass-production of items because now the materiels will be more numerous and varied and the process of crafting itself will have a few more steps thrown in.
I'm not envisioning a time-factor in crafting, but if it took 30 minutes to an hour to craft each component, and 1-2 hours to assemble the final product, I wouldn't see it as such a bad thing so long as you could craft multiple objects at once (say, five end-products at a time, and up to 12 components at a time).
Now, here's what makes the penny-pinchers at PW happy: A Dilithium store. If you don't have the materials or EC to buy them, you can skip that step and buy the fully-completed components from a Vendor at Memory Alpha/Qonos, for Dilithium. The thing is, the Vendor prices the Components individually at such a price that buying the gear direct from a Dilithium Vendor on ESD/Qonos is cheaper than buying the ready-made components and assembling it.
Crafters can craft, even for fleets, grinders can grind and craft, and those uninterested in Crafting at all get better deals by grinding for the gear directly through the Dilithium stores on ESD/Qonos.
And, the people who don't want to grind Dilithium don't have to to craft. But the people who want to craft as quickly as possible still have the Dlithium-C-Store cash-railroad PW wants so much. And Crafting will finally make IP-sense in how it works.
Throw in some C-Store shortcuts (crafting slots, random bags of mats/componants, shortcut devices that half or eliminate the time-delay associated with crafting) and PW gets what they want, Players get what they want, Fleet Crafting still exists, and the Crafting system is improved and made more interesting to boot.
It's a win-win-win!
This should be stickified somewhere, along with Nagus' and other brilliant sugestions, this is by far one of the best I've read anywhere on this forum. I really hope Heretic or any developer has been made aware of that idea. It's simply brilliant.
Cryptic, I realize you are probably going to do what you want and justify it by claiming it is for the "silent majority," but when 100% of the posts in a long thread like this one are opposed to a change, it is a BAD IDEA.
Agreed. I haven't seen such negative reaction to a change in any game in a very long time. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen it in forever. I'm an STO fangirl, and I've stuck around through the content drought, and even bought an LTS. However, I loathe, despise, and otherwise bear negative sentiments about using dilithium in crafting.
I realize why you want to add a dilithium component to crafting: without it, crafting is an end-run around the dilithium economy. Crafters make high level gear available, via the exchange, for energy credits, and you clearly want to restrict the availability of such gear.
It's designed to make money for PW. That's it.
But circumventing the regular economy is the entire point of crafting in MMOs. There must be another solution.
Possibilities I can think of (these are just ideas):
1) Make particles and anomalies bound. This will force crafters to harvest materials themselves rather than buy them from the exchange. Downside: this is slightly annoying, and it still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
I'm the fleet crafter. I do not charge anything for my fleetmates for this, and in fact I'll often use my own data samples to make up the difference if my fleet mates or the fleet bank doesn't have enough. I've farmed enough anomalies that I have quite a few of them. I spent a lot of time doing the boring grind to max out my crafting. Right now, in my fleet, people send me the rare particle traces that are needed for the specific items they want (e.g. the Aegis set). I don't have time to go farm the particle traces for them. They have to send those to me, so they either have to farm those themselves or buy them off the exchange. Switching to this system would force _me_ to go farm for those rare traces, and I don't want to do that on top of taking the time to stand around in Memory Alpha. I'd like to go play and not just farm anomalies all the time.
2) Make crafted objects bound on pickup. This will keep crafted gear off the exchange. Downside: still hurts the social aspect of crafting.
This would make it impossible for fleet crafters to send items to fleetmates, and I would not be able to send crafted items to my alts.
3) Make dilithium ore, instead of refined dilithium, a crafting component. This does circumvent the daily limit on refining, however, it's still a dilithium cost. But it is a much less annoying dilithium cost, since an industrious player can easily obtain more ore per day than he/she can refine- and a dedicated crafter is likely to be just the sort of player who does that. To retain the social aspect of crafting, make unrefined ore trade-able via the fleet bank.
Provided ore is tradeable, it's just one more thing to farm for, like adding another rare particle trace to the mix. I'm not seeing the advantage there.
I greatly prefer #3, but speaking as a crafter, any of those changes would be preferable to what you've done.
Or, they could just have, maybe, a little less greed. The Aegis set was put in to encourage crafting. This dilithium change completely discourages crafting.
@Katic--Your idea is pretty much how crafting is done in LOTRO now since it went f2p. Right now, I can go meander around Middle Earth and find all the crafting nodes I need to make the items I want. Or, if I'm short a few crafting mats, I can buy them in the Lotro store by buying an 'ingredient pack'. While I've mostly had all the mats I needed to level crafting in LOTRO, I have indeed purchased some 'crafting packs' with Turbine points when I was very close to the next tier but I was just shy of having enough mats to reach it. That system has been working extremely well. I'm happy with it, I craft for my kinmates, I get to level my crafting skill the way I want, and the 'I want it now' crowd can spend money to buy the craft packs they need to level if they don't want to go hunt down more material nodes. I hope Cryptic takes a good hard look at how LOTRO does it, because that's about the only crafting setup I could support as being remotely fair to those of us who do a ton of crafting.
Now, this does add to the grind, but seeing as how there will be fewer Anomalies, and Doff system integration (and all the materials should be tradeable/sell-able/unbound) it will still work to complicate the system and discourage the mass-production of items because now the materiels will be more numerous and varied and the process of crafting itself will have a few more steps thrown in.
I lijke the idea of DOff missions to get hard to find or very rare components..
Now, here's what makes the penny-pinchers at PW happy: A Dilithium store. If you don't have the materials or EC to buy them, you can skip that step and buy the fully-completed components from a Vendor at Memory Alpha/Qonos, for Dilithium. The thing is, the Vendor prices the Components individually at such a price that buying the gear direct from a Dilithium Vendor on ESD/Qonos is cheaper than buying the ready-made components and assembling it.
Sounds lijke a good win/win idea and if some of the rarer or very rare components are still hard to find or have a particular Vendor, I thinjk the " its too casual-ites" may even be happy that some effort is till expended to craft.
I do not craft per se and have little to offer in criteque, but this sounds promising.
* the random "j" in my words. No idea I thinjk my jkeyboard my be Norwegian today.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
This pretty much confirms between the lines what I and many others suspected.
That all those changes we are rioting about are mandated by Perfect World and you guys are required to make it somehow work for both PW and us and of course yourself.
It's a bloody Hercules task I can imagine.
However I would advise you to be more open about this.
People are more forgiving for required changes then you give us credit for. But try to be open and work WITH us not against us while trying to convince us of the opposite.
That will crash and burn the game in record time.
One thing to note, why cant we mine the asteroids we find in the different missions? That could be the source of items for crafting and at the same time can open a new line of ships, like miner ships, transport ships, players that can have alts to be miners, merchants, etc.
Actually, I've been both a systems lead and a lead designer on other projects here at Cryptic and elsewhere, but those were on projects I had been on from the beginning. When I came on STO, I knew squat about the way the team had set things up, so wasn't in a position to be a lead - I like to know what I am doing before I start offering direction.
In fairness, while I do communicate a lot, it is an enormous effort to do both that and the rest of my job. I do, however, appreciate people's kind words.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
Nice to see that somebody responded. But Im sorry this idea to add Dilithium to crafting is just a bad idea. It adds another grind that most people including myself, and I dont speak for everybody, dont want. Why is crafted equipment getting put in 2nd place? High end crafted equipment should, in every MMO that Ive played, be equivalent or greater than anything you could pick up or get from a mission, STFs in this case. Your goal to make crafting still rewarding IMO is not that. Its to force everybody into the STFs because you dont have to use/grind Dilithium. I dont care for STFs at all. I dont want to do them. I want to play the way I want not be forced down a path that conforms to your vision.
Youre putting this in to stop the flow of mass produced gear, fine I get that and somewhat welcome it. Change it to EC not a form of currency that is going to take months of mind numbingly boring grinding with DOff missions and Dailies that only give you a pitiful amount of Ore that can never be built up enough to maximize the refinement process per day. Unless people are willing to play for 20 hours a day and forgo work and other things that normal people do to provide for themselves and their families.
All Ive seen is the process of making those of us in the game who have a substantial amount of recourses poor. It has been said that this is a small minority of people in the game who have this. Ill admit Im one of them sitting on 86M+ EC on one character. No, not as much as some out there but still. I took the time to get that myself because I wanted to not because I had to just to be able to afford one piece of equipment that took months of grinding to get. Which is what youre doing with the new system. I hope you guys fix this. I get it that this is why its in testing so you can get feedback but the Dilithium added to crafting has to go please.
Do that and itll be a step toward saving face. Thanks.
As long as the in game economy is tied in any way to the real world economy (Dilithium for C-points) the problem remains,they will add unreasonable Dilithium sinks throughout the game....even if they decide not to have a 'crafting tax'.
I believe my personal problem with Dilithium in crafting is to point of what Dilithium (a time/or money based curreny) is supposed to do in the game...
Which is:
Replace Badges, Marks and Emblems. (Time based currencies)
There is no required quantity of Badges, Marks or Emblem in crafting. (No time based currency needed)
So why is Dilithium being put into crafting?? It does not make sense to me.
Crafting is the alternative system that did not REQUIRE grinding to get better gears. (No time or time based currencies REQUIRED although you COULD spend "time")
You COULD grind materials needed if you wanted to, OR you COULD purchase the materials from others on the exchange. ("time" needed/ "time" not needed)
But...
Now, I COULD still grind most of the materials needed BUT I will HAVE to grind the Dilithium needed also. (Which requires "time" and time/money)
Now, I COULD still buy most of the materials needed BUT I will HAVE to grind the Dilithium needed also. (Which does not require "time" but requires time/money)
This will force players into grinding for a material that wasn't apart of crafting in the begin with.
It does not make sense to me.
The only commonality is "Time".
If crafting REQUIRES more time, then adding an amount of time to crafting based on MkLevel and complexity (Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare), then do so.
Adding time needed to craft something makes sense to me.
A few seconds to slap together a Large Hypo, makes sense to me.
A few seconds to slap together a Very Rare MkX Shield array, does not make sense to me.
Slapping together 18 Large Hypos before I'm a "Master" Hypo crafter, kinda makes sense to me.
Slapping together 18 Large Hypos and now I know enough to make Deflector Arrays, does not make sense to me....
Crafting has needed to be rebuilt since the begining, so it made sense.
So crafting sequence would make sense. Hypos to Deflectors don't make sense.
It almost needs it's own "Skill Tree", with Time added.
Comments
that wouldnt change anything. just creates more of headache.
To reply to yourself and Katic, while I've always been a Trek fan and have owned or played every Trek computer game that's been out, along with the various incarnations of tabletop Trek RPG's stretching back to the early days of FASA, this isn't my first MMO.
With the advent of Evercrack and other games, I was hesitant to get into MMOs, at least until City of Heroes. That game was, until they've gone F2P as well, my first game of choice and one I've paid a yearly sub to (No LTS there!) for over 7 years.
While Champions was my first superhero tabletop paper & dice game and ignited my love of the superhero genre (including the Marvel RPG, Silver Age Sentinels [RIP] etc.), CO I really only bought to get into the closed Beta for STO. It didn't engage me the way CoH did.
But...CO seems to have figured out how to do F2P RIGHT, from the start. Why there seems to be such a degree of cruft in the lauch of the STO F2P, even if it's a Test server, confuses me.
That being said, I do understand people who have honestly gotten into MMOs because of STO...when I heard Perpetual was going to launch this game originally back in the dark ages of the '00's, I even applied to work for them, thinking that could put me even closer to Trek, and my love of gaming.
Since this post is getting into TL : DR for some, suffice it to say, since the lauch of STO, and even CO, I've been trying to get my online gaming friends to try it, or even friends/family who are Trek fans, but not even close to being online gamers, excited about F2P, knowing I could at least try to get them into the games via F2P and they might like it.
With all the "improvements" to the game, there's no way someone who is truly in the demo. of a "casual online gamer" is going to find a grindfest of any interest to them, and they'll either be a statistic of people who abandon a character within a few months of trying the game, or just not bother even trying it at all because it will look like work to them to play a game.
Too many of these changes don't seem to make it worthy of an investment in time, money, or both.
If changes must be made, here are my ideas:
- raise and diversify the amount of anomalies and traces needed
- incorporate a success/failure rate to crafting
- allow Di to make up for shortfalls in anomalies (if you're short a few anomalies or a trace or something, the difference can be paid for in Di)
I don't know. Tribble has shown me some troubling signs of things to come. To be fair, the DOFF system is wonderful, even if it is the sum total of the upcoming new content. However, the FE integration into the main story is awful. They don't fit. It locks out people who haven't done all the main story missions (which weren't very good anyway). The new ship fiasco was embarrassing. I've tried my best to be the "can't say something nice don't say anything" guy, but this is horrible. When this hot mess goes live, I'm seeing very little carrot and a whole lot of stick.
It's never made sense to me to have us crafting with Anomalies. We find "Alien Artifacts" and use them to make what now? How many times did we ever hear Spock, Scotty, Data, or Geordi say "well, we've found this strange device, we don't know who made it, or what it's purpose was, but we're going to integrate it into the ship intentionally, and, failing that, we'll patch it into a piece of ground equipment".. Um.. Never? Yeah, I'm pretty sure "never" is the answer there.
So here's what we do, we rename some of the anomalies, and include a new catagory of items similar to Commodities gather-able through the Doff system and loot-able as drops. Things like Deuterium, Duranium, Beryllium, Gadolinium, Titanium, Tritium, Transparant Aluminum, you name it.
We gather these various materials and a few sensible anomalies (Antimatter for Photon Torpedoes, Plasma Samples for Plasma-based Weaponry for ground/space, etc..), and we construct components.
These components will be varied, and will differ from recipe to recipe, using existing items in the game for inspiration.
Lets say you want to craft a new Impulse Engine. The Schematic (findable as a drop or buy able for EC) calls for: Duranium and Plasma Samples for the Impulse Reactor (fusion-based), Tritium and Duranium for the Impulse Driver Coils, and Beryllium and Titanium for the Impulse Manifold. Once you've combined all those for the componants, you can then create the Impulse Engine. More advanced Impulse Engines (higher quality) require more materials, and better Impulse Engines (Hyper, Combat, Efficient) require more components (additional Driver Coils, for instance).
Now, this does add to the grind, but seeing as how there will be fewer Anomalies, and Doff system integration (and all the materials should be tradeable/sell-able/unbound) it will still work to complicate the system and discourage the mass-production of items because now the materiels will be more numerous and varied and the process of crafting itself will have a few more steps thrown in.
I'm not envisioning a time-factor in crafting, but if it took 30 minutes to an hour to craft each component, and 1-2 hours to assemble the final product, I wouldn't see it as such a bad thing so long as you could craft multiple objects at once (say, five end-products at a time, and up to 12 components at a time).
Now, here's what makes the penny-pinchers at PW happy: A Dilithium store. If you don't have the materials or EC to buy them, you can skip that step and buy the fully-completed components from a Vendor at Memory Alpha/Qonos, for Dilithium. The thing is, the Vendor prices the Components individually at such a price that buying the gear direct from a Dilithium Vendor on ESD/Qonos is cheaper than buying the ready-made components and assembling it.
Crafters can craft, even for fleets, grinders can grind and craft, and those uninterested in Crafting at all get better deals by grinding for the gear directly through the Dilithium stores on ESD/Qonos.
And, the people who don't want to grind Dilithium don't have to to craft. But the people who want to craft as quickly as possible still have the Dlithium-C-Store cash-railroad PW wants so much. And Crafting will finally make IP-sense in how it works.
Throw in some C-Store shortcuts (crafting slots, random bags of mats/componants, shortcut devices that half or eliminate the time-delay associated with crafting) and PW gets what they want, Players get what they want, Fleet Crafting still exists, and the Crafting system is improved and made more interesting to boot.
It's a win-win-win!
EDIT: I've expanded on this idea further and explained it in more detail over in General Community Feedback.
wow, this is the number one best darn idea i have ever heard in the face of this game or even other MMO's for that matter. i personally love the idea, and agree wholesomely on it! the thinking on this matter was great. i would love to see this system integrated and crafting changed. it would fit the lore nearly 100%.
now hwo do we suggest this to the game designers so they can try to get it to work? or even consider it
Coming from you Palmera, that is high praise indeed. (Not being sarcastic, really, thank you!)
I'm not sure of the cross-posting rules since they've gone back to the Cryptic Forum Usage Guidelines, the closest thing I can find is under Spamming, and it says the following is an example of Spam:
Seeing as how this thread is in response to the Path to F2P Dev Blog, and there's several threads in STO Discussion about the crafting changes (one of which I linked as my inspiration for this idea) I could probably get away with posting a new Thread to the Tribble Feedback forum pitching it, but it would likely get little traffic since the Dilithium-Crafting fiasco..
Maybe General Feedback?
While I'd love to take credit for the component crafting idea, it was actually Alexraptor that suggested it.
I love the idea that you put forth by combining both Alex's component crafting and Leviathan's Dilithium shop for parts (anomalies/particle traces/etc). Like you said, it's a win-win all around. Now, if they'll just listen to our ideas and meet us in the middle-ground we're proposing.
Actually, I've been both a systems lead and a lead designer on other projects here at Cryptic and elsewhere, but those were on projects I had been on from the beginning. When I came on STO, I knew squat about the way the team had set things up, so wasn't in a position to be a lead - I like to know what I am doing before I start offering direction.
In fairness, while I do communicate a lot, it is an enormous effort to do both that and the rest of my job. I do, however, appreciate people's kind words.
The truth is, the game is undergoing a period of massive change, and even in the best of circumstances that will leave people uneasy and sensitive. There are a lot of factors going into the decisions being made, and a lot of very hard decisions being made to accommodate an array of requirements and ramifications. People are - quite understandably - upset about a lot of the changes.
There's no denying this beta has been pretty bloody, but the team really is trying its best to navigate through extremely complicated waters. It isn't always going to succeed on the first (or second) try, but that's why we have made this beta as long as we have, so we can give ourselves the best chance possible to arrive at at least tolerable solutions for all involved.
This is a way to add Dilithium to crafting that I could totally stand behind. Rare particle traces are worth X% of the total Dilithium cost of a completed item, regular worth Y%, Schematic is Still required!
On top of this, if you have none of the components, this is a great way to spend Dilithium to get an alternate weapon configuration from what you can get at the Dilithium vendor at ESD/First City.
Another way to integrate dilithium into crafting I could totally stand behind would be something similar to the Reforging system in WOW (ducks behind a cover shield). Hear me out now, before yelling about me bringing up WoW
You could pay an extra Dilithium cost and change one of the modifiers on the crafted weapon. That Anitproton Dual Heavy Cannon with [CritH][DMG]x2 ? You could change one of those Damage modifiers to a [CritD] or [Acc] or [Crith] again. Want to get rid of both [DMG] modifiers ? Then pay the cost twice. Want to make it [Acc]x3 ? pay it 3 times, once for each modifier you want to change.
This system could be added in several ways. First, you could change item bonuses for a lesser Dilithium cost while crafting the item. Second, you could change the bonuses after the fact for a greater cost at a NPC who will 'remaster' or 'reforge' the item. These costs could also be based on the item's MK level. A reasonable cost might be 100 Dilithium per item level, per modifier changed; half that cost if the change is made while crafting the item. Therefor, changing one modifier on a MK XI cannon would cost 1100. Changing two modifiers 2200, and so on. If those 2 modifiers were changed while crafting the item, it'd only cost 1100.
This way, there's still potential Dilithium sinks in *and* outside of crafting, Cryptic will be adding features to crafting rather than making it more restrictive, and I would suspect the player base would be much more receptive to a system like this. It's guaranteed that your more serious players, like your PVPers would also be using the "reforging." Finally, by having an option to change the modifiers in AND outside of crafting allows those who are not crafters to still sink their dilithium, and have access to the system, so it'd be a win/win change for everyone.
If anyone's proposed this before, sorry, I'm not trying to copy your idea, I just thought of it after reading Timelord_Victorious's post.
I come from a Web System development background and understand the amount of change you guys are doing isn't trivial! I'm impressed that you and a few others are continuing to engage the community openly asking for feedback on the new features that are being developed given the time constraints you are probably working against.
I've learned that no matter the how technically/financially restrictive a system may be, involving clients upfront and getting their input for solutions allows them to feel invested in the final design and also allows them to understand the work that is being done to accommodate their needs/wants.
It's a shame how crafting was modified seemingly without regard for what people have requested since closed beta 2 years ago.....
Anyway, keep up the hard work and the communication, it'll pay off in the long run!
The fact that you guys are willing to try, and willing to admit that it's been bloody, is one of the reasons I stuck with you guys so long. I'm hoping that by the time all this testing is over, the game is in good shape. I believe you guys are more than capable of achieving that, and while there are (naturally) some concerns, i'm always willing to give the benefit of the doiubt.
and thanks for all your hard work. the doff system is a work of art.
I vote Heretic for understatement of the year.
But seriously, thanks for popping in here to basically say "hi" as well as a big thanks for all the communication do you with us.
Know that it is appreciated.
You want to add dilithium to crafting? Here's my proposal. Leave crafting as it is on Holodeck, but add another optional feature: The ability to make it look how we want it to by being able to select from 3-4 visual design options. Now, make the design feature cost dilithuim to use! There ya go, we get to keep things as is, you get your dilithium infusion into crafting, and We the Players can choose if we want to use it or not. This also gives us the continued ability to be able to craft for our fleets, and encourages those who haven't leveled crafting a reason to do so for personal customization.
Now with all these ways your are putting up for spending dilithium, why not at least double the dilithium daily refining cap? 8k per day is honestly too low, 12-16k per day is more reasonable.
You, Sir, are a class act.
This is a very good idea, I would fully support this, in all honesty. I might even actually spend Dilithium in it if it were done like this.
Grinding for particles is something I loathe, that's why I only have one crafting char.
If I could toss in some dilithium and not have to hunt for particles, especially exotics, it would be fantastic.
The only people who would lose majorly in that deal are the ones who sell particles on the exchange.
Well, depending on how much dilithium it costs, and how it relates to the particle prices. on the exchange market.
Yep, very much appreciated.
indeed i am a hard up no bullspita kinda guy. but everyone should know by now that its only cause im overly opinated. most 'true' canadians are. naturally thou canada is hated by everyone on these games for that, and cause of our ... quebeccers...
if something makes sense ill say yes, if something doesnt ill tell you. if it makes sense and i dont like it, ill tell you. and ill always give a reason.
i like the idea, it makes sense in many ways.
Trust us the fan base isn't looking for reasons to get angry. The idea of getting new players and generate revenue for Cryptic is something I can get behind. More revenue for Cryptic means more investment into the game and that's good for me as a Lifer.
But it has really come off as dilithium has been jammed into anything regardless if it makes the game better or not. We want the game to be better.
How does adding dilithium to something make it better? That's the questiong Cryptic needs to ask. Make me want to spend dilithium. Don't make it so I'm forced to pay dilithium especially for something that doesn't require it right now on Holodeck.
The option to modify crafting itmes using dilithium is awesome. Why wasn't something like that rolled out? Are the bosses so pushy that they just want dilithium thrown into everything? If that's the case we need the Devs to push back at the bosses and tell them the changes will never work with the folks too cheap to pay a 15 buck monthly sub.
Thanks for the support
Technically even those selling particles on the exchange may not loose out with this system, because there will be people who have plenty of EC and not enough Dilithium.
This should be stickified somewhere, along with Nagus' and other brilliant sugestions, this is by far one of the best I've read anywhere on this forum. I really hope Heretic or any developer has been made aware of that idea. It's simply brilliant.
It's designed to make money for PW. That's it.
I'm the fleet crafter. I do not charge anything for my fleetmates for this, and in fact I'll often use my own data samples to make up the difference if my fleet mates or the fleet bank doesn't have enough. I've farmed enough anomalies that I have quite a few of them. I spent a lot of time doing the boring grind to max out my crafting. Right now, in my fleet, people send me the rare particle traces that are needed for the specific items they want (e.g. the Aegis set). I don't have time to go farm the particle traces for them. They have to send those to me, so they either have to farm those themselves or buy them off the exchange. Switching to this system would force _me_ to go farm for those rare traces, and I don't want to do that on top of taking the time to stand around in Memory Alpha. I'd like to go play and not just farm anomalies all the time.
This would make it impossible for fleet crafters to send items to fleetmates, and I would not be able to send crafted items to my alts.
Provided ore is tradeable, it's just one more thing to farm for, like adding another rare particle trace to the mix. I'm not seeing the advantage there.
Or, they could just have, maybe, a little less greed. The Aegis set was put in to encourage crafting. This dilithium change completely discourages crafting.
@Katic--Your idea is pretty much how crafting is done in LOTRO now since it went f2p. Right now, I can go meander around Middle Earth and find all the crafting nodes I need to make the items I want. Or, if I'm short a few crafting mats, I can buy them in the Lotro store by buying an 'ingredient pack'. While I've mostly had all the mats I needed to level crafting in LOTRO, I have indeed purchased some 'crafting packs' with Turbine points when I was very close to the next tier but I was just shy of having enough mats to reach it. That system has been working extremely well. I'm happy with it, I craft for my kinmates, I get to level my crafting skill the way I want, and the 'I want it now' crowd can spend money to buy the craft packs they need to level if they don't want to go hunt down more material nodes. I hope Cryptic takes a good hard look at how LOTRO does it, because that's about the only crafting setup I could support as being remotely fair to those of us who do a ton of crafting.
This pretty much confirms between the lines what I and many others suspected.
That all those changes we are rioting about are mandated by Perfect World and you guys are required to make it somehow work for both PW and us and of course yourself.
It's a bloody Hercules task I can imagine.
However I would advise you to be more open about this.
People are more forgiving for required changes then you give us credit for. But try to be open and work WITH us not against us while trying to convince us of the opposite.
That will crash and burn the game in record time.
Nice to see that somebody responded. But Im sorry this idea to add Dilithium to crafting is just a bad idea. It adds another grind that most people including myself, and I dont speak for everybody, dont want. Why is crafted equipment getting put in 2nd place? High end crafted equipment should, in every MMO that Ive played, be equivalent or greater than anything you could pick up or get from a mission, STFs in this case. Your goal to make crafting still rewarding IMO is not that. Its to force everybody into the STFs because you dont have to use/grind Dilithium. I dont care for STFs at all. I dont want to do them. I want to play the way I want not be forced down a path that conforms to your vision.
Youre putting this in to stop the flow of mass produced gear, fine I get that and somewhat welcome it. Change it to EC not a form of currency that is going to take months of mind numbingly boring grinding with DOff missions and Dailies that only give you a pitiful amount of Ore that can never be built up enough to maximize the refinement process per day. Unless people are willing to play for 20 hours a day and forgo work and other things that normal people do to provide for themselves and their families.
All Ive seen is the process of making those of us in the game who have a substantial amount of recourses poor. It has been said that this is a small minority of people in the game who have this. Ill admit Im one of them sitting on 86M+ EC on one character. No, not as much as some out there but still. I took the time to get that myself because I wanted to not because I had to just to be able to afford one piece of equipment that took months of grinding to get. Which is what youre doing with the new system. I hope you guys fix this. I get it that this is why its in testing so you can get feedback but the Dilithium added to crafting has to go please.
Do that and itll be a step toward saving face. Thanks.
Which is:
Replace Badges, Marks and Emblems. (Time based currencies)
There is no required quantity of Badges, Marks or Emblem in crafting. (No time based currency needed)
So why is Dilithium being put into crafting?? It does not make sense to me.
Crafting is the alternative system that did not REQUIRE grinding to get better gears. (No time or time based currencies REQUIRED although you COULD spend "time")
You COULD grind materials needed if you wanted to, OR you COULD purchase the materials from others on the exchange. ("time" needed/ "time" not needed)
But...
Now, I COULD still grind most of the materials needed BUT I will HAVE to grind the Dilithium needed also. (Which requires "time" and time/money)
Now, I COULD still buy most of the materials needed BUT I will HAVE to grind the Dilithium needed also. (Which does not require "time" but requires time/money)
This will force players into grinding for a material that wasn't apart of crafting in the begin with.
It does not make sense to me.
The only commonality is "Time".
If crafting REQUIRES more time, then adding an amount of time to crafting based on MkLevel and complexity (Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare), then do so.
Adding time needed to craft something makes sense to me.
A few seconds to slap together a Large Hypo, makes sense to me.
A few seconds to slap together a Very Rare MkX Shield array, does not make sense to me.
Slapping together 18 Large Hypos before I'm a "Master" Hypo crafter, kinda makes sense to me.
Slapping together 18 Large Hypos and now I know enough to make Deflector Arrays, does not make sense to me....
Crafting has needed to be rebuilt since the begining, so it made sense.
So crafting sequence would make sense. Hypos to Deflectors don't make sense.
It almost needs it's own "Skill Tree", with Time added.
But does NOT Dilithium make sense...
Much wisdom in these words.