Are we really looking at another personal attack on the morals of cryptic employees?
As I has said before I do not want people to feel like they can't express opinions.
Regardless of whether you agree with the incensed crowd it's hard to argue that not even taking the time to stop in for one minute and say "I hear you, we're talking about it" is a good move. There was apparently time to do a developer blog but the only people we've gotten to hear from so far are people who shouldn't have to be out here trying to calm us.
Regardless of whether you agree with the incensed crowd it's hard to argue that not even taking the time to stop in for one minute and say "I hear you, we're talking about it" is a good move. There was apparently time to do a developer blog but the only people we've gotten to hear from so far are people who shouldn't have to be out here trying to calm us.
As Stormy said (in the newer dev blog) they have read the responses in this thread, but at this point they don't have an organized response/answer. When they do have one that will NOT make everyone rage again, I'm sure they will post it.
Should he have posted that fact in here? Probably.
Does calling him (and the other devs) a coward(ly) help the discussion?
Yeah, Katic did a great job writing all that out and really thinking about it. I've looked it over and I couldn't think of anything to add.
I have seen several middle ground positions that I would support, and that is one more I'll add to the list in my head.
So . . . . What are your thoughts Cryptic? (Hint hint)
I like Katic's idea as well.
I think the visceral response was because this idea of crafting came more as a sucker punch than anything else. I don't think anyone expected a tax for crafting, of any DC amount, when it was announced they were changing it.
I think the visceral response was because this idea of crafting came more as a sucker punch than anything else. I don't think anyone expected a tax for crafting, of any DC amount, when it was announced they were changing it.
I know it seemed like a kick to the beans for me.
I agree that it was. At this point we are looking at a huge majority that came out of the woodwork saying, 'yeah, you can change that other stuff, but leave crafting alone."
50+ pages as proof...
**Looks at the large swimming pool full of blood**
Dear sir, I think that is quite an understatement.
It is good to hear someone finally chiming in on this matter and that you're aware of the problem and that changes aren't easy to make. With that said, these changes shouldn't have ever seen the light of day to begin with.
I agree with Jack Armstrong on this.
Someone should have known that adding a dilithium tax would send us to sharpening pitchforks and gathering torches.
You know, I'm starting to think the same thing. While I don't know much about PWE's business model, I am pretty sure that these changes aren't Cryptic's doing. The model between CO and STO is just way too different.
I keep hearing the words previously when they first announced F2P here ... Something along the lines of they did Champions first to see how it would go and that it was the model.
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.
I used to be. I am a little curiuos about some things that I have yet to test.
Like krafting. Dilithium.
Usage by short time span casual players like myself whom do not normally kraft, per se.
I joined a fleet so I could find those of similiar tempermant who didn't mind crafting for me while I benefited by sharing my skills in other areas. (though I do think I'm more for comedy releif more than anything else)
SO I do fear what that measn to me as a player not being Kraft minded.
I have since seen Cryptic go through how many change ups? on many things and for many reasons.
To be here, still, is testimony of those who create it or the endurability of the IP, or both.
I can not speak to the caliber of those above them. It is not a perfect world and I do not know all personalities involved (if any, really) to make such guesses.
I still log on ocassionally just to play (DOff myself blind) and try out combats ( currently on tribble)
in Ker'rat with the new consoles.
SO I must have some faith that Cryptic knows how to build a game I followed form CO and then COX before that. Possibly buttons are being pushed we do not know unfortunately being just the players and fans the bussiness side of things between Cryptic and they new guys, PW.
PW seems to have the money and knowledge to make a MMO and F2P, though my only nagging concern is do they really know the fans, the western players as well as Star Trek perception worldwide to make it fly smoothly? I figure Cryptic will make it fly how ever they must. They done it many time it seems.
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.
Other than the bugs (they happen) the beta has been very promising and not considering my recent Dilithium versus imposed laziness concern, how easy some of the normal level borg STFs are, etc, my only true concern is the KDF revival arrival.
I've stuck around for reason.
You made a fun game.
You've obviuosly put up with me for what ever reason.
Brilliant idea. I don't get adding Dilithium to crafting. I mean, Dil is supposed to be a time currency, right? Aren't we spending out time farming for anomalies (especially the random rare ones, which are required for the higher-end items). And if not spending our time, we're buying off the exchange which we do with EC (that we got from playing) and effectively spending other peoples' time.
Making crafting itself take time? I like it. 1-4 hours to craft an item, so long as we can have a handful going at once. That's fine. Want to offer anomalies via a Dil store? I'm ok with that too (in fact I love that idea).
Thanks for checking-in Heretic. Is it possible to get a better idea of how long F2P Beta is due to last? I think that would give people a better sense of perspective and/or reduce some of the pressure if people saw there was another X number of weeks/months (assuming there is, obviously just the opposite if there's little time left, heh).
Also, while the Blogs are, I'd like to think, trying to be helpful, they come off as to sales-pitchy. It would be nice to know more about the inside rationale behind these massive and complicated changes. For example, like kirian_darkstar had said, Dil was supposed to replace badges, markes, emblems, etc (each of which was a form of Time Currency) and you don't need any of those in crafting now, why would you add Dil going forward?
And Stephen's earlier remark about not telling us in advance about changes. That seems silly. Look at other non-communicated ideas (like adding Dil to Crafting) and they all come out as bad or ill-received. Look at well informed and shared-info (both ways) projects (like the DOff System) and they are Da Bomb!
Sigh. Anyway, crossing my fingers. Hoping the resulting Holodeck Conversion is more full of reasonable "final" decisions than failures. I'm hoping Golds get that VA Ship Token, a better Old Currency to Dil Conversion rate, Higher/Non-existant Refinement limits, a fixed T5 Excelsior (give me back all my TWs), basically anything on the "bad" list here.
It seems to me that Cryptic is laboring under a mandate that everything be monetized, that there be no end-arounds to spending cash for getting gear. This is why the dilithium is being added to crafting, and in such amounts that it is easier to just buy the item with dilithium, and that it is so hard to get that amount of dilithium in either case that people will spend cash to get the dilithium. It seems our new evil overlords want us to spend hundreds of dollars to get and outfit our ships.
This is probably also why they aren't discussing this with us beforehand. They know a crock of dung when they see it, and they know what the response will be. If they didn't need to test everything they would have just sprung it on us at f2p launch, and in this case I'm a bit surprised they didn't just do that. It seems that Stephen has been put into place as the sacrificial lamb to take all the abuse, and then some new EP can come in later with unstained hands.
The trouble is that it wont work. The Asian market works differently than the western one or the Facebook game one, which is primarily people at work who don't play mmos. Here Cryptic will run their reputation into the ground by trying to turn an existing game into a monetized grindfest and a thousand disgruntled gamers can spread the word through every gaming outlet to stay away from STO and Cryptic. They lose a bunch of the players they had, and don't get nearly the bounce they're hoping for out of the silvers. I know that I've lost a lot of respect for Cryptic as a game designer in the last few weeks and it will definitely hurt their chances of getting me to play future games, which is a shame since I wanted to play neverwinter.
We want something we can earn.. but the current system makes tons of mk xi very rares available by just farming data samples (boring)
How bout a compromise... something that lets us still earn our gear use the cool new BOFF's for crafting and still gives good incentive to shortcut (buy with dilithium) if you are in a hurry or rich.
Here's my full suggestion. (Warning its a bit long)
I just noticed today that when you buy from the dilithium exchange, the items are now Bind on Pickup. I used to be able to buy my fleet mates emblem items from time to time. I guess that's gone too.
I don't think anyone expected a tax for crafting, of any DC amount, when it was announced they were changing it.
I did. When I saw the dilithium prices for gear folks were talking about, my first thought was, "no problem, I can craft everything I need." Then I realized I couldn't possibly be the first person to have that thought, and they were going to do something to make crafting a lot more expensive, or a lot more time consuming, or both.
Sorry, if you want a private conversation use mail. On the forums it's open for anyone to reply.
That said, the DOff system would be a good way to rationalize our Captain's overseeing mining operations as I believe duty officers aren't just on our ship(s), they're officers that report to us. Just saying, it's not unworkable.
Z
your right so telling me what i can and cannot do is not a place on this forum. i hope you spoke to the other guy too before you went after me, otherwise you be well to fallow what i told him.
I dont remember in any star trek show the captain having to spend dilithium on ship upgrades or anything to do with ships in general.
The only exception was voyager when needing to find deuterium or other supplies, but even then I dont recall them being limited in anyway because of a daily refinement limit or being restricted on ho much they can get...
nope but if you recall there being in some episodes that fuel is needed or running out and a starships had to move to a local planet to obtain these crystals or fuel.
the original series had plenty of these episodes when they crystals are depleted or got destroyed. "mudd's women" was one of them. but you are right they weren't restricted by certain limits however you should know that the federation had something they called a Prime Directive. it could have been in there to certain limitations of what they could do at refueling station.
umm... At what point did you believe i was attacking your perspective?
I was more agreeing with you on the second paragraph of you post.
That mining opperation sub-missions could be later institutued with the Starbases.
And the off topic comment was as much to me as anyone else.
The topic is Dilithium/Crafting, not mining operations or the Napoleanic wars.
So can we both pretty please get back to Dilithium/Crafting? Thank You.
very well than. i was only marly trying to be nice on a matter of fun with 3 other officers with the war.
but sure let us get back to how our crafting can be made better. (lot of great ideas coming out of the wood works) as for the dilithium, the idea of having this is good, however they need to change means of refinement, and lower prices a tad bit more, (another 10-20%?) and create a little more missions where it can be obtained more fairly without people upsetting people at SFA/KDFA.
just my opinions on the subject matter as voiced before. but people call me out on it all the time.
As we already spend lots of time farming for anamolies, I'd say Dilithium only adds to the pain by adding more time to craft farming. If you want to make it more difficult, fine, but please please pleeeeease take dilithium out of the equation. At least make it so you charge dilithium if you don't have enoughsamples to craft the item. I'd say make it a percentage based on how deficient you are in having said samples. Don't make it too much, though.
I teach my toons to craft even though I only need one to do so, but I also do a lot of crafting for my friends and fleeties. Since you can't trade dilithium among players directly, this makes it impossible. Also, you guys said you wanted to make this a more social game. Doing something like *this* takes away from being social.
I dont remember in any star trek show the captain having to spend dilithium on ship upgrades or anything to do with ships in general.
The only exception was voyager when needing to find deuterium or other supplies, but even then I dont recall them being limited in anyway because of a daily refinement limit or being restricted on ho much they can get...
You have the examples of STIV:TVH where they had to recrystalize the dilithium (shouldn't give devs ideas about that), the "lithium" cracking station on Delta Vega (TOS: Where No Man Has Gone Before) but that was automated, Rigel XII (TOS: Mudd's Women) had "lithium" the ship needed.
There's other examples, especially for topaline, pergium, and other various minerals, refilling deuterium tanks, trading for spare parts (DS9: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River') and so forth.
Problem with all of this is: you never really see major episodes with Starfleet, KDF, etc. ships that are built solely around refueling, resupply, etc. of the ships supplies and stores...because IT'S BORING. Because the major power of the post-TNG era can make what they need, for the most part, out of a replicator.
We're not playing "Extreme Couponing: The MMO" here...this is supposed to be STO. But, because this is an MMO, and one component of MMOs is crafting, we have crafting as a way of getting better gear, but at a cost of either grinding, or as a cash sink.
I think the "grind" of crafting is down pat IMO (as we see on Holodeck today), but it's not necessarily much of a cash sink, unless you're buying components off the Exchange, and even then if you have the EC, it's not an issue.
So the choice was made to add in a "time-based currency" in the form of Dil, which is either supposed to slow down crafting higher end gear, or cause people to grind more, burn more cash, or something of all three.
Ultimately, it turns me into a merchant captain, plying the high subspace seas in search of fresh fruit, booty, and dilithium dubloons to bring back to me port. Arrrgh!
So, am I alone in wondering when they will simply remove Energy Credits altogether? I cannot imagine many will invest much time in going to all this effort to earn for a currency that has no future the moment this goes Live.
In my opinion, having Energy Credits from missions, vending items, etc, converted wholesale into Dilithium and subsequently opening up the currency for more than just a C-Point exchange would make these Dilithium changes more palatable. If they then kept an an iron grip on the C-Point to Dilithium exchange rate, defining the most one could exchange for C-Points along with how often on a per-account basis, and given they are not fronting a dime worth of C-Points, then..
Well, there are worse ideas. And there are better ones, I'm sure. We'll see what happens.
Back on topic, I am truly not looking forward to doing dailies to get anomalies and dilithium to craft _anything_. I just simply won't do it. Gathering anomalies is already tedium. Then grind dailies to get the dilithium in order to make use of the stuff you already tediously gathered?
Crafting has its own resources, its own time sink. It does not need another time sink added to it.
Well, to me it seems that crafting is currently seen as a method for a player to create their own gear and not as a valid means of gameplay to sell gear to others.
As a crafter I will have to spend time to gather resources in exploration, however, the amount of dielithium I can gather there is stricktly limited. Hence, a crafter is forced to other gameplay to gather enough resources to craft now.
Also, the reward for crafting is to be able to sell the items you make, but this will only supply you with energy credits.
To my mind the easiest way to fix this is to do one (or all) of the following:
Change the Delithium requirement from refined to ore and reduce the amount needed by 50% (to current amount)
Allow players to trade delithium ore or at least to store it in a fleet bank
Add a daily mission for each exploration cluster with a delithium ore reward
Add a daily crafting mission (craft 3 items) that rewards delithium ore
Delithium is sopposed to reward actual play time and crafting is playtime as well. Hence, it should be treated the same way.
To my midn a good crafting system is what can make the difference for a game to be special. STO crafting still needs improvments, but the step with the delithium was not an improvment.
He specifically says "money dosent exist in the 24th century"...which means to me, money dosent exist, so again, back to my original question...
Money might not exist, but the SCE can't simply pull a Sovereign Class Starship out of its trousers, plonk it in a spacedock and say "There you go!"
The resources and/or energy to construct and replicate things must still come from somewhere. Dilithium is an established power source in Star Trek that is widely understood and accepted in Star Trek Canon.
So, am I alone in wondering when they will simply remove Energy Credits altogether? I cannot imagine many will invest much time in going to all this effort to earn for a currency that has no future the moment this goes Live.
Judging by this quote from Gozer, Cryptic has plans for Energy Credits. At least, that's what the quote implies.
Money might not exist, but the SCE can't simply pull a Sovereign Class Starship out of its trousers, plonk it in a spacedock and say "There you go!"
The resources and/or energy to construct and replicate things must still come from somewhere. Dilithium is an established power source in Star Trek that is widely understood and accepted in Star Trek Canon.
That should be enough.
It's not the job of Starfleet Captains to go chasing after Dilithium except in the most dire of circumstances. Dilithium is provided by Starfleet, and we're to imagine that Starfleet trades something for it; whatever that is, it isn't a currency.
Now, when they're in the bar in Star Trek III, McCoy tells the big lobed pilot he will pay anything to get to the Mutara Nebula. I believe the words "Credits many" were used. Even without that, we could infer that some sort of credits were going to be traded.
But this is really not the point. Getting back to crafting and dilithium: IF dilithium is forever going to be a basic component in crafting, I am done with this game. Period. Lifetime be damned.
I've invested over $400.00 in this game. Adding even one more cash sink in this game is one too many.
I'll go against the grain here. I don't believe that ANYONE who subscribed or bought an LTS ever got what they were supposed to get. No one got the complete game experience. Many have already fallen to the wayside. More still will fall as well. As we discuss F2P, many who don't care to test are still replaying the same old stuff over and over again, because there isn't anything else.
It's not the job of Starfleet Captains to go chasing after Dilithium except in the most dire of circumstances. Dilithium is provided by Starfleet, and we're to imagine that Starfleet trades something for it; whatever that is, it isn't a currency.
Now, when they're in the bar in Star Trek III, McCoy tells the big lobed pilot he will pay anything to get to the Mutara Nebula. I believe the words "Credits many" were used. Even without that, we could infer that some sort of credits were going to be traded.
But this is really not the point. Getting back to crafting and dilithium: IF dilithium is forever going to be a basic component in crafting, I am done with this game. Period. Lifetime be damned.
I've invested over $400.00 in this game. Adding even one more cash sink in this game is one too many.
I'll go against the grain here. I don't believe that ANYONE who subscribed or bought an LTS ever got what they were supposed to get. No one got the complete game experience. Many have already fallen to the wayside. More still will fall as well. As we discuss F2P, many who don't care to test are still replaying the same old stuff over and over again, because there isn't anything else.
The Content drought continues...
Within the context of crafting I actually agree with you - Dilithium is a terrible idea.
As a 'currency' in game however, it could work... if it wasn't so horribly implemented.
The cost for crafting with dilithium (as is) is far too high. I personally think that at most a single item should not be more then the amount of dilithium you can earn in a day (or the amount of raw ore you can convert daily) and this is speaking of crafting the high end max level craft items, not lower level tier items. I could see a higher dilithium (this means higher then say 8000 IE 9000, 10000 or 11000 not almost 16000) cost if i was getting something unavailable anywhere else. ie as mentioned in an earlier reply a damage bonus that was say, maybe dmgx3 (for example) but not for nearly twice (that is two days works to collect one of the many different items needed to craft a single item) what you can convert daily with samples and traces in addition to the cost (plus the investment of getting to that point in the crafting trade) additionally if it was a potential extra even if it was random but again ...not twice a daily convert value that is also approx. 25% of the cost of getting an item with dilithium alone. that is too high.
Simply put I think that the price for buying an item with straight dilithium is ok but a little too high maybe 15-20% less would be perfect as far as I care but the crafting cost of dilithium should be dropped by at least 50% better would be a 75% drop and perfect would be a 90% reduction in the dilithium cost for uncommon, rare, and very rare items but with the same amount in EC then added to the crafting cost. UNLESS with the dilithium price the item would gain bonus stats or bonus multipliers known ahead of time or unknown, standard or random. Even having a chance (small for minor bonus large for big bonus.
Doing all of these would make ALOT if not ALL crafters happy. Well the only way to make all crafters happy would be to give them everything for nothing all day long, i dont mind paying for something, BUT i do resent being held at gunpoint and getting mugged which is kind of how i felt when i started crafting after the last craft system change.
an additional two cents:
I would like to see these ideas incorperated into crafting items available:
1. Weapon Sets. a weapon that equiped with others of the type that gave a bonus like +5 or +10 DPS for each additional weapon from the set equiped front or rear to be seperate.
2. Console Weapon Engine Deflector and Shield Set.
3. Items that had a random variable add to the final product. You could make that chance for getting say the very rare add a exp tract that you got better at the more times you did it (ie crafted a item with a rare or very rare bonus) sucessfully.
4. Why- this would add a greater variety to the weapons available and give you a more unique experiance for both crafting and game play. Crafting the exact same items available in a store isnt crating it is replicateing i dont want to be a replicator i want to be a crafter. I would rather that except for a small TOKEN amount of dilithium that instead we used energy credits. The use of energy credits makes more sense to me I mean how much dilithium gets put into a kit you wear or a hand to hand weapon, or a control conswole on the bridge?
that's my two cents, well ok my dime so far i guess...lol
The last two cents I promise:
And finally by the by, my thanks for listening to all of us goes out to a certain dev who seems to be the only one who responds REGULARLY and lets us know we have been heard and listened too,(REGULARLY) (well CONSISTENTLY TOO) not nameing dev names here, that would be blasphemy and i am not heretic, err i mean i am not a heretic, err ooops, i think i'll shut up now.
What it's good for, in short here: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/treknology-d.htm
"Dilithium crystal Component of the warp drive inside which the matter and antimatter streams are converted to an electroplasma stream in a controlled mutual annihilation. Occasionally referred to as dilithium matrix. Dilithium is the only known element to be non-reactive to antimatter when subjected to a high frequency electromagnetic field in the megawatt range. The efficiency of the reaction inside the crystal depends on its quality (TOS: "Mudd's Women", "The Alternative Factor", "Elaan of Troyius", "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", TNG: "Peak Performance", VOY: "Threshold").
Although Dilithium does not exist in the real world (and would probably not be a stable element if ever discovered), it is an efficient concept to solve the problem of controlling the matter/antimatter reaction. While only naturally occurring crystals were available in the 23rd century, monocrystalline dilithium can now be produced by means of epitaxy (TNGTM). The use of natural crystals in the 23rd century is a tongue-in-cheek reference to TOS: "Elaan of Troyius" where a necklace of raw dilithium saved the ship. It seems that during TOS dilithium was meant to be the actual power source of the ship, whereas in TNG and later it became "crystal"-clear that the warp drive is powered with matter and antimatter. During the first season of TOS the crystals were referred to as "lithium crystals". This was changed to "dilithium" because the real element could never have the properties ascribed to it."
On crafting: Why are there replicators in every starship which can replicate almost everything at any time with programing (='wits'!;)) and energy as the only requirements? So concerning Star Trek, the actual STO crafting system is very inconsistent!
IMHO a consistent STO crafting system should be based only on these two requirements: wits and energy (credits)
Comments
Regardless of whether you agree with the incensed crowd it's hard to argue that not even taking the time to stop in for one minute and say "I hear you, we're talking about it" is a good move. There was apparently time to do a developer blog but the only people we've gotten to hear from so far are people who shouldn't have to be out here trying to calm us.
Yeah, Katic did a great job writing all that out and really thinking about it. I've looked it over and I couldn't think of anything to add.
I have seen several middle ground positions that I would support, and that is one more I'll add to the list in my head.
So . . . . What are your thoughts Cryptic? (Hint hint)
As Stormy said (in the newer dev blog) they have read the responses in this thread, but at this point they don't have an organized response/answer. When they do have one that will NOT make everyone rage again, I'm sure they will post it.
Should he have posted that fact in here? Probably.
Does calling him (and the other devs) a coward(ly) help the discussion?
No.
Constructive ideas like Katic's proposal are helpful. http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=238090 More of that please!
I like Katic's idea as well.
I think the visceral response was because this idea of crafting came more as a sucker punch than anything else. I don't think anyone expected a tax for crafting, of any DC amount, when it was announced they were changing it.
I know it seemed like a kick to the beans for me.
I agree that it was. At this point we are looking at a huge majority that came out of the woodwork saying, 'yeah, you can change that other stuff, but leave crafting alone."
50+ pages as proof...
I agree with Jack Armstrong on this.
Someone should have known that adding a dilithium tax would send us to sharpening pitchforks and gathering torches.
I keep hearing the words previously when they first announced F2P here ... Something along the lines of they did Champions first to see how it would go and that it was the model.
Doesn't quite feel that way at the moment.
It seems to me that Cryptic is laboring under a mandate that everything be monetized, that there be no end-arounds to spending cash for getting gear. This is why the dilithium is being added to crafting, and in such amounts that it is easier to just buy the item with dilithium, and that it is so hard to get that amount of dilithium in either case that people will spend cash to get the dilithium. It seems our new evil overlords want us to spend hundreds of dollars to get and outfit our ships.
This is probably also why they aren't discussing this with us beforehand. They know a crock of dung when they see it, and they know what the response will be. If they didn't need to test everything they would have just sprung it on us at f2p launch, and in this case I'm a bit surprised they didn't just do that. It seems that Stephen has been put into place as the sacrificial lamb to take all the abuse, and then some new EP can come in later with unstained hands.
The trouble is that it wont work. The Asian market works differently than the western one or the Facebook game one, which is primarily people at work who don't play mmos. Here Cryptic will run their reputation into the ground by trying to turn an existing game into a monetized grindfest and a thousand disgruntled gamers can spread the word through every gaming outlet to stay away from STO and Cryptic. They lose a bunch of the players they had, and don't get nearly the bounce they're hoping for out of the silvers. I know that I've lost a lot of respect for Cryptic as a game designer in the last few weeks and it will definitely hurt their chances of getting me to play future games, which is a shame since I wanted to play neverwinter.
We want something we can earn.. but the current system makes tons of mk xi very rares available by just farming data samples (boring)
How bout a compromise... something that lets us still earn our gear use the cool new BOFF's for crafting and still gives good incentive to shortcut (buy with dilithium) if you are in a hurry or rich.
Here's my full suggestion. (Warning its a bit long)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=238216
I did. When I saw the dilithium prices for gear folks were talking about, my first thought was, "no problem, I can craft everything I need." Then I realized I couldn't possibly be the first person to have that thought, and they were going to do something to make crafting a lot more expensive, or a lot more time consuming, or both.
your right so telling me what i can and cannot do is not a place on this forum. i hope you spoke to the other guy too before you went after me, otherwise you be well to fallow what i told him.
nope but if you recall there being in some episodes that fuel is needed or running out and a starships had to move to a local planet to obtain these crystals or fuel.
the original series had plenty of these episodes when they crystals are depleted or got destroyed. "mudd's women" was one of them. but you are right they weren't restricted by certain limits however you should know that the federation had something they called a Prime Directive. it could have been in there to certain limitations of what they could do at refueling station.
very well than. i was only marly trying to be nice on a matter of fun with 3 other officers with the war.
but sure let us get back to how our crafting can be made better. (lot of great ideas coming out of the wood works) as for the dilithium, the idea of having this is good, however they need to change means of refinement, and lower prices a tad bit more, (another 10-20%?) and create a little more missions where it can be obtained more fairly without people upsetting people at SFA/KDFA.
just my opinions on the subject matter as voiced before. but people call me out on it all the time.
I teach my toons to craft even though I only need one to do so, but I also do a lot of crafting for my friends and fleeties. Since you can't trade dilithium among players directly, this makes it impossible. Also, you guys said you wanted to make this a more social game. Doing something like *this* takes away from being social.
You have the examples of STIV:TVH where they had to recrystalize the dilithium (shouldn't give devs ideas about that), the "lithium" cracking station on Delta Vega (TOS: Where No Man Has Gone Before) but that was automated, Rigel XII (TOS: Mudd's Women) had "lithium" the ship needed.
There's other examples, especially for topaline, pergium, and other various minerals, refilling deuterium tanks, trading for spare parts (DS9: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River') and so forth.
Problem with all of this is: you never really see major episodes with Starfleet, KDF, etc. ships that are built solely around refueling, resupply, etc. of the ships supplies and stores...because IT'S BORING. Because the major power of the post-TNG era can make what they need, for the most part, out of a replicator.
We're not playing "Extreme Couponing: The MMO" here...this is supposed to be STO. But, because this is an MMO, and one component of MMOs is crafting, we have crafting as a way of getting better gear, but at a cost of either grinding, or as a cash sink.
I think the "grind" of crafting is down pat IMO (as we see on Holodeck today), but it's not necessarily much of a cash sink, unless you're buying components off the Exchange, and even then if you have the EC, it's not an issue.
So the choice was made to add in a "time-based currency" in the form of Dil, which is either supposed to slow down crafting higher end gear, or cause people to grind more, burn more cash, or something of all three.
Ultimately, it turns me into a merchant captain, plying the high subspace seas in search of fresh fruit, booty, and dilithium dubloons to bring back to me port. Arrrgh!
In my opinion, having Energy Credits from missions, vending items, etc, converted wholesale into Dilithium and subsequently opening up the currency for more than just a C-Point exchange would make these Dilithium changes more palatable. If they then kept an an iron grip on the C-Point to Dilithium exchange rate, defining the most one could exchange for C-Points along with how often on a per-account basis, and given they are not fronting a dime worth of C-Points, then..
Well, there are worse ideas. And there are better ones, I'm sure. We'll see what happens.
Back on topic, I am truly not looking forward to doing dailies to get anomalies and dilithium to craft _anything_. I just simply won't do it. Gathering anomalies is already tedium. Then grind dailies to get the dilithium in order to make use of the stuff you already tediously gathered?
Crafting has its own resources, its own time sink. It does not need another time sink added to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilY4hRgfC2Q&feature=related
So why do we even have currencies in this game (aside from Latinum) ????
cause they not going to give xii gear for free?
and he says that currency has no meaning the time period to which he is from. meaning money still exist. but we is not longer a issue.
As a crafter I will have to spend time to gather resources in exploration, however, the amount of dielithium I can gather there is stricktly limited. Hence, a crafter is forced to other gameplay to gather enough resources to craft now.
Also, the reward for crafting is to be able to sell the items you make, but this will only supply you with energy credits.
To my mind the easiest way to fix this is to do one (or all) of the following:
Delithium is sopposed to reward actual play time and crafting is playtime as well. Hence, it should be treated the same way.
To my midn a good crafting system is what can make the difference for a game to be special. STO crafting still needs improvments, but the step with the delithium was not an improvment.
He specifically says "money dosent exist in the 24th century"...which means to me, money dosent exist, so again, back to my original question...
Money might not exist, but the SCE can't simply pull a Sovereign Class Starship out of its trousers, plonk it in a spacedock and say "There you go!"
The resources and/or energy to construct and replicate things must still come from somewhere. Dilithium is an established power source in Star Trek that is widely understood and accepted in Star Trek Canon.
That should be enough.
Judging by this quote from Gozer, Cryptic has plans for Energy Credits. At least, that's what the quote implies.
Z
It's not the job of Starfleet Captains to go chasing after Dilithium except in the most dire of circumstances. Dilithium is provided by Starfleet, and we're to imagine that Starfleet trades something for it; whatever that is, it isn't a currency.
Now, when they're in the bar in Star Trek III, McCoy tells the big lobed pilot he will pay anything to get to the Mutara Nebula. I believe the words "Credits many" were used. Even without that, we could infer that some sort of credits were going to be traded.
But this is really not the point. Getting back to crafting and dilithium: IF dilithium is forever going to be a basic component in crafting, I am done with this game. Period. Lifetime be damned.
I've invested over $400.00 in this game. Adding even one more cash sink in this game is one too many.
I'll go against the grain here. I don't believe that ANYONE who subscribed or bought an LTS ever got what they were supposed to get. No one got the complete game experience. Many have already fallen to the wayside. More still will fall as well. As we discuss F2P, many who don't care to test are still replaying the same old stuff over and over again, because there isn't anything else.
The Content drought continues...
Within the context of crafting I actually agree with you - Dilithium is a terrible idea.
As a 'currency' in game however, it could work... if it wasn't so horribly implemented.
The cost for crafting with dilithium (as is) is far too high. I personally think that at most a single item should not be more then the amount of dilithium you can earn in a day (or the amount of raw ore you can convert daily) and this is speaking of crafting the high end max level craft items, not lower level tier items. I could see a higher dilithium (this means higher then say 8000 IE 9000, 10000 or 11000 not almost 16000) cost if i was getting something unavailable anywhere else. ie as mentioned in an earlier reply a damage bonus that was say, maybe dmgx3 (for example) but not for nearly twice (that is two days works to collect one of the many different items needed to craft a single item) what you can convert daily with samples and traces in addition to the cost (plus the investment of getting to that point in the crafting trade) additionally if it was a potential extra even if it was random but again ...not twice a daily convert value that is also approx. 25% of the cost of getting an item with dilithium alone. that is too high.
Simply put I think that the price for buying an item with straight dilithium is ok but a little too high maybe 15-20% less would be perfect as far as I care but the crafting cost of dilithium should be dropped by at least 50% better would be a 75% drop and perfect would be a 90% reduction in the dilithium cost for uncommon, rare, and very rare items but with the same amount in EC then added to the crafting cost. UNLESS with the dilithium price the item would gain bonus stats or bonus multipliers known ahead of time or unknown, standard or random. Even having a chance (small for minor bonus large for big bonus.
Doing all of these would make ALOT if not ALL crafters happy. Well the only way to make all crafters happy would be to give them everything for nothing all day long, i dont mind paying for something, BUT i do resent being held at gunpoint and getting mugged which is kind of how i felt when i started crafting after the last craft system change.
an additional two cents:
I would like to see these ideas incorperated into crafting items available:
1. Weapon Sets. a weapon that equiped with others of the type that gave a bonus like +5 or +10 DPS for each additional weapon from the set equiped front or rear to be seperate.
2. Console Weapon Engine Deflector and Shield Set.
3. Items that had a random variable add to the final product. You could make that chance for getting say the very rare add a exp tract that you got better at the more times you did it (ie crafted a item with a rare or very rare bonus) sucessfully.
4. Why- this would add a greater variety to the weapons available and give you a more unique experiance for both crafting and game play. Crafting the exact same items available in a store isnt crating it is replicateing i dont want to be a replicator i want to be a crafter. I would rather that except for a small TOKEN amount of dilithium that instead we used energy credits. The use of energy credits makes more sense to me I mean how much dilithium gets put into a kit you wear or a hand to hand weapon, or a control conswole on the bridge?
that's my two cents, well ok my dime so far i guess...lol
The last two cents I promise:
And finally by the by, my thanks for listening to all of us goes out to a certain dev who seems to be the only one who responds REGULARLY and lets us know we have been heard and listened too,(REGULARLY) (well CONSISTENTLY TOO) not nameing dev names here, that would be blasphemy and i am not heretic, err i mean i am not a heretic, err ooops, i think i'll shut up now.
Probably this was mentioned already, but again: Concerning Dilithium as currency: It simply never was in Star Trek:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dilithium
What it's good for, in short here:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/treknology-d.htm
"Dilithium crystal Component of the warp drive inside which the matter and antimatter streams are converted to an electroplasma stream in a controlled mutual annihilation. Occasionally referred to as dilithium matrix. Dilithium is the only known element to be non-reactive to antimatter when subjected to a high frequency electromagnetic field in the megawatt range. The efficiency of the reaction inside the crystal depends on its quality (TOS: "Mudd's Women", "The Alternative Factor", "Elaan of Troyius", "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", TNG: "Peak Performance", VOY: "Threshold").
Although Dilithium does not exist in the real world (and would probably not be a stable element if ever discovered), it is an efficient concept to solve the problem of controlling the matter/antimatter reaction. While only naturally occurring crystals were available in the 23rd century, monocrystalline dilithium can now be produced by means of epitaxy (TNGTM). The use of natural crystals in the 23rd century is a tongue-in-cheek reference to TOS: "Elaan of Troyius" where a necklace of raw dilithium saved the ship. It seems that during TOS dilithium was meant to be the actual power source of the ship, whereas in TNG and later it became "crystal"-clear that the warp drive is powered with matter and antimatter. During the first season of TOS the crystals were referred to as "lithium crystals". This was changed to "dilithium" because the real element could never have the properties ascribed to it."
If there is something like a currency in Federation its "Federation credits":
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Federation_credit
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/economy.htm
On crafting: Why are there replicators in every starship which can replicate almost everything at any time with programing (='wits'!;)) and energy as the only requirements? So concerning Star Trek, the actual STO crafting system is very inconsistent!
IMHO a consistent STO crafting system should be based only on these two requirements: wits and energy (credits)