Here a weird thought. I bet this is all just a ploy. The devs wanted to add a higher cost to crafting. What better cost than one that can generate real $ (dilithium). They knew that any dilithium cost added to crafting was going to be raged against. So they put the first incarnation of diithium to crafting to be EXTREMELY HIGH. That way, when they lower it next week, we'll all be ok with the cost.
Look at dilithium loot. First prices were 7x higher than they are now. No one is complaining about the dilithium cost of those items now (even though they are still higher than they are on holodeck). They start off too high to get all the rage out, and then when they lower it, they look like they are listening to player feedback, when in all actuality they initially intended it to be the lower numbers, but wanted it to be well received. This is a business ploy to make themselves look good in the end and have another reason for players to need dilithium and in exchange buy c-points to get it.
i suppose they look at it in the sense of "better to be too high and lower it, than too low and raise it".
And the reaction to this issue just proves the point I made a few weeks ago:
Also, here is the problem with not telling us the plan: we have no chance to respond to it until it goes to Tribble. And by that time actual development time has been used implementing it. And that means if people dont like it then that time was wasted. If you tell us what you plan to do before doing the development to put it on Tribble, you can get feedback and see whether people like it or not.
"Our goal is to make it so that crafting is still rewarding and useful to everyone, even if they are not interested in working to acquire Dilithium."
Yet they still have to acquire Dilithium, this makes no sense. This whole idea is a bad one, no one I have spoken too or seen in the forums agrees with the devs on this one. Another big negative for F2P.
They're assuming people uninteresting in grinding will be similarly uninterested in Even-Mark gear.
As if one has anything whatsoever to do with the other.
Here's the scenario they picture: the people who want Even-Mark gear are the "1337" players who log in every day, run every daily, and then PvP with the best possible builds and gear they've earned or crafted.
Everybody else logs in occasionally, only does PvE, and doesn't care if their gear is any good or not.
It's a naive, ignorant fantasy that only serves the needs of those high up at Cryptic or Perfect World driving the P2W and C-$tore railroad philosophies.
fleet crafters need to be thought of in all this, though, imo. give us account wide/fleet wide banks that we can deposit dilithium in, or something.
I don't see this happening, since it opens a hole for Gold Farmer Fleets. In order for Cryptic to maintain the control over the economy (and in particular to exclude gold farmers), they cannot allow DL exchange between players by any other means except the designated DL<->CP market.
The "reasonable" cost to this, if one is needed, has to be in EC. Given the new role of EC in the game, this is the only thing that is even somewhat plausible (basically EC is now more of a long-term manna reserve, rather than an actual currency). Any amount of DL required for crafting, no matter how small, will basically shut the system down.
I don't see this happening, since it opens a hole for Gold Farmer Fleets. In order for Cryptic to maintain the control over the economy (and in particular to exclude gold farmers), they cannot allow DL exchange between players by any other means except the designated DL<->CP market.
The "reasonable" cost to this, if one is needed, has to be in EC. Given the new role of EC in the game, this is the only thing that is even somewhat reasonable (basically EC is now more of a long-term manna reserve, rather than an actual currency). Any amount of DL required for crafting, no matter how small, will basically shut the system down.
i understand that; i do, and the EC thing isn't a bad idea.
I just don't see how this is going to work, unless they're trying to control the economy by stopping all those people who would craft extra gear and sell it for huge amounts on the exchange.
For what it's worth, the re-itemization of all the DL gear was one of the few bright spots in this whole process. It was nice to see all the gear have consistent, and consistently useful mods like [CrtD] and [CrtH]. Assuming you intend to un-break crafting, it would be nice to see a wholesale cleanup of all the mods on crafted gear, similar to those now on the ship and ground weapons and gear in the ESD dilithium vendors.
The one exception to this is that the Mk XI vendor at the center of ESD still has a shop full of mostly useless and random junk. It would be good if at some point his inventory could be cleaned up to conform with the theme of the catalogs for the other (up to Mk X) dilithium vendors.
This is absolutely just TRIBBLE. So now we have to grind away to save up Data Samples and Particle Traces AND Dilithium too? That's just ridiculous. Why on earth would I spend my hard earned Dilithium on Crafted Items which aren't nearly as good as the purples on the old Emblem stores? This will be a huge disincentive for people who want to unlock crafting.
This will absolutely destroy crafting in my Fleet. My Fleet, Stonewall Fleet, a very large and old fleet, has put a great deal of time and effort into creating a Store on our website for Fleet Members to order items and have the items mailed directly to them. You can even see it here. We'll have to end this practice from now on if this is put on live as our Store runs on 100% donations. There's no way for people donate dilithium to our Fleet and I would never require our fleet crafters to spend all of their own hard earned dilithium to complete orders for everyone in the fleet.
Here's the scenario they picture: the people who want Even-Mark gear are the "1337" players who log in every day, run every daily, and then PvP with the best possible builds and gear they've earned or crafted.
The funny thing about that picture is that this gear is not needed for leveling, and sucks compared with the new high-end (Mk XII) stuff available from the STFs. I don't see why anybody is going to want the even Mk DL priced gear at any point now, since it's not good enough to make it worth getting at lower levels, and is not the best available (and hence is worthless to those wanting to max out) at endgame. So that makes it especially hilarious that they keep finding ways to make this stuff more impossible-er to get, because it means they don't even realize just what gear it is players actually will WANT at any level.
Here's an idea; bring back component requirements (i.e., to craft a purple phaser, you need the materials and a common phaser of the same energy type)
Anything but this. Component requirements just made certain mks of common items horrendously expensive on the exchange.
For fleet crafting, maybe they should design a much cheaper dilithium-bought component, like a sub-schematic, that could be traded to the crafter. Maybe a 'Power Adapter mk X'. The prices could be managed by mk(though I'm sure everyone wants much cheaper than the current dilithium crafting tariffs), but players who want the gear could provide the simple, grindable part of gear and crafters could do their part unimpeded.
It keeps the weapon valuable but doesn't force the crafter to pay for it himself.
A categoric "NO!" to the added dilithium cost to crafting. I could state my reasons at length, but they've already been very well explained by those that preceded me.
The Tier 3 Excelsior and Nebula also need to be returned to the standard ship lineup as they were. The changes done to them is one I find unacceptable given previous pledges that the existing playerbase would not find itself hindered by the transition to Free-To-Play. If you want to put a cash-shop "Ship+1" item there, don't be cheap and make it a genuine addition such as a Venture-styled Nebula or the Ambassador-class. That'd be a much more honest practice giving something new to existing players to pay for, rather than make them pay for what they already had for free.
Making a non-tradeable element to crafting kills crafting, plain and simple. Nobody will craft for anyone else because they have to give up the gated and non tradeable dilithium to do it. Every character will only be able to craft for themselves, and it will be way easier to just pay a little more dilithium to get the item outright. But you guys knew that. This is a way to get people to quit crafting, kill selling crafted items in favor of another cash grab to make people spend cash for every item they get or spend weeks or months grinding for them, when we can get all those items far easier right now.
This is a terrible idea, and will promote people to quit testing so they can go craft and farm anomalies now before you nerf crafting into oblivion.
Taking a whole system away from all the players who pay you to play is an outrage. This is probably the mildest way I know how to describe it. The words I'm thinking would just get me banned.
I'm definitely agreeing with everyone here... You want our feedback, here it is in a nutshell
The crafting system on Tribble is absolutely pointless. It is not worth investing time and energy in. The cost in dilithium is FAR too high (if there should be a dilithium at all) and effectively eliminates it from the game.
Fleet Crafters will be unable to supply/equip their fleets without excessive grinding because diltihium can't be traded.
Those Crafters that sell on the exchange will end up not doing so due to having to spend hard earned Dilithium on making these items, Dilithium that they could have used for equipping themselves. With little to no supply exchange prices will initially skyrocket and then crash as players go elsewhere to get their items (I'm looking at the STFs here)
And crafting items for alts will become too detrimental for the "prime" character.
I'm sure that "someone" will see these as good things, but I don't. All crafting systems in MMOs have fleet/guild crafters, have people selling stuff on the exchange and have people crafting stuff for alts. Maybe the Crafting system in STO isn't the hardest or most complex, but what you are doing with crafting right now WILL destroy it.
Double, or maybe triple the amount of components needed to craft, remove the even Mk gear from the crafting tables.... Do whatever you feel you need to do right now, but please DON'T connect dilithium to crafting like this.
At which point you can go away and rethink crafting. Make it more difficult, complex. Add components that need to be crafted and/or looted (like the borg salvage as an example) and let gathering these things be the time sink for crafting, not a non-tradable resource like dilithium.
This is exactly what happens under this new policy of not telling the community what is being planned.
They know this is a big TRIBBLE to the whole playerbase. they knew the feedback this would cause. They wanted to implement it, let the uproar commence, then do it anyway.
They want us to pay money for every item we get at every tier. There is no other explanation. Way to treat subscribers who are paying to test for them.
This change thoroughly kills the craft-for-others (Fleet Crafters, Crafter alts, "Give me the mats and I'll craft it for you", etc.) concept. As those are a major part of the crafting system in STO, it pretty much shoves a phaser on setting 16 up its nose and thumbs the trigger.
Is there a reason why craft-for-others needs to die?
I suppose I should make as many Aegis sets and Mk XI purples as I can with my current stockpiles before f2p goes live, as it's extremely unlikely I'll bother to make any after the conversion.
As an alternative, I'll add my grudging support to using the crafting system as an EC sink instead of DL.
While this change technically doesn't change the process of crafting much - adding one new resource requirement to even level (and Mk. XI) items isn't a fundamental change - it does, however, fundamentally change how crafting will be used in the game.
Crafting will no longer be a supply of higher-end items for alts, fleet mates, or the exchange. Nobody in their right mind will be crafting things with Dilithium for energy credits - or to give away.
I guess what I would have liked to see in the blog post was an acknowledgement that you were aware of this; That removing the ability to acquire high-end gear at any rank without Dilithium expenditure was the intent - and that the consequent inability to craft such items for friends, alts, or fleet mates was a recognized and expected outcome.
I find it difficult to imagine that the consequences of this change are a surprise to anyone at Cryptic - but I think you missed an opportunity to have muted - and may instead have exacerbated, the furor over this change.
I think it's a mistake to add Dilithium costs to crafting, and I think this will vastly reduce the incentive for Captains to put in the time and effort required to participate in crafting. But mistake or not, I think your introduction of the change was poorly done, and may well have made a less-than-ideal situation into a bad one.
This once, I'm not going to read through the thread. These are my thoughts on the Crafting changes.
My initial thoughts "I should have seen this coming." I'll admit that I had though better of Cryptic. It's my fault for nothing taking the Ship changes to their logical conclusion. I'll not make that mistake again.
The addition of Dilithium as a Crating better equipment is a double hammy on that equipment. The better equipment required Rare Particle Traces. Those are Rare Particle Traces don't grow in trees. They are items which must be gather by the Crafter or others as rare drops on Anomaly gathering. If it doesn't click, there are time based currencies as the new Dilithium is. So that means even more time the players have to invest in the game.
And this extra time may be doing things the play DOES NOT WANT TO DO. Cryptic has always touted STo as a game that player can play and level u the way they want to. Well having to do daillies mostly likely isn't going to be what all player want to do.
Also the Dilithium requirement means that anyone wanting crafted items have to do so on their characters. That means they have to. They can't gather the items and them give them to someone who can do the crafting. You've adding a huge unavoidable obstacle to the current play styles of the game.
The (Dilithium) discount varies with the quality of the gear, but it is meaningful.
No these discounts are not meaningful on top of the extra time that players now have to invest in gather Dilithium on top of the other crafting materials. The addition of the Dilithium requirements is going to destroy the crafting system so much that many player will not bother with it.
And on a snark not, I look forward to Cryptic in justifying these changes to the player base. I'm going to look forward to fireworks in these. It promises to be most entertaining.
Edit: And how I'm so worked up about this change, it's taken my enjoyment out of even play STO tonight. I was looking forward to testing the new build. But not now.
I'll be honest: I don't think were going to get a goldname reply to this other than Stormshade trying to put halon on this. (Stormy, you have a thankless job, and I don't want to give you personally a hard time. I don't want to come off as *personally* ragging on anyone in particular since I don't think it's anyone actually reading the forums that are making these decisions.) What we probably WILL see is in next week's patch to Tribble, a reduction in the dilithium needed for crafting to perhaps... 15-30% or so. It's not going to go away. They will simply not answer people. Same with the VA token. The unspoken message is: "Deal with it. It's not changing, and we are not responding to you to underline that." No reasons, no explanations. Just implemented changes that we're going to have to accept.
I could be surprised, I could be wrong, and I would very much like to be wrong. But this is what I'm hearing when I'm listening to the silence surrounding this issue, the VA token issue, and others.
With all due respect, charging dilithium to craft is just complete and utter stupidity and shows that the devs are better at reaching for players wallets than understanding how players participate and enjoy the game.
I understand that the Devs want to put in Dilithium sinks so that there will not be runaway inflation like has happened with energy credits and the exchange. Rather than build proper sinks they have decided to punish crafting.
If they wanted to do it right they would build new gear, functions and features that inspire spending and give players new enjoyable ways and methods to buy, spend, and enjoy earned rewards. Punishing what already exists by adding taxes absolutey builds barriers between gameplay and fun.
The ramifications and fallout of this are plentiful.
The role of the fleet crafter is gone and dead. Its hard enough to find a fleet member to take over the finance department and craft for others and to fill the fleet bank without emptying theiir own reserves. The idea of socialization and helping each other by having one fleet member farm samples and another craft them for members, friends, or fleet banks is now history. Less socialization, cooperation, and interaction between players does not make for a better game.
To further accelerate the process, when crafting is taxed and starts competing with dilithium / emblem type purchases on a purchasing power basis you will get less crafting and the declining percentage of the people who do craft will be more unhappy with it. Its only been 15 months since there was an overwhelming outcry over lack of crafting in this game and as we watched many people leave the game because of the lack thereof cryptic improved it slightly. And now with the new crafting tax it seems that cryptic has a new goal of making it more frustrating and worse than when the game began. Clearly this new crafting tax is a huge major step backwards towards goals of kitting up and playing the game at high levels of performance. Clearly, Cryptic seems to almost be pushing forward the pay to win agenda of encouragement of buying ships in the c-store to gain consoles, weapons, and other gear rather than being able to earn and craft it for free.
More fallout from the game will be unwrapped with this stupid idea. With less crafting there will be less opportunity to farm samples, list them on the exchange and participate in the economy of the game. Exchange and trade will take a horrific hit and prices will rise on the exchange. Certainly people farming samples, crafting them up and selling them on the exchange injects supply into the exchange and helps balance the game and energy credit cost downward as more supply and competition helps keep a lid on prices. As the crafters quit crafting for exchange sales, and emblem / dilithium sales of equipment become harder to afford and more dear you will see prices on an energy credit basis just skyrocket on the exchange. Spending your EC to buy gear for the new fleet member or new player to the game will be less desirable when prices skyrocket. Allure for alternative forms of merchandise procurement will certainly gain great appeal.
The player base will not enjoy the game more by making it more difficult and expensive to obtain gear.
Many of the craftable items are quite good and a new player that races to VA could be helped into the pvp / high end stf process by the fleet crafters willing to help kit him up to the task. Dilithium for crafting stops the process in its tracks and does so on an epic scale when crafters and others are limited to refining 8000 dilithium per day. I suppose now in fleets we can say to our new members, "congrats on making VA, now go spend a month grinding dilithium and farming samples before you can enjoy the game at the next level.".
I do not think newer and less well heeled players are going to be happy at these changes and once again rather than equalize the playing field, this tax like most in history accelerates the divide between those that have savings to succeed and those that do not.
Making the game less fun for new players and limiting our ability to help them just seems like a bad idea but over and over and over and over and over it just seems that Cryptic is working so hard to bend over backwards to charge more to enjoy this game so people can play it for free; that they are driving off and leaving the concept of fun play so far behind in the rear view mirror that they have lost touch with what the player base is telling them makes for a game they want to play.
Cryptic once again, you need to rethink things. Unmitigated greed will remove the fun factor for many that play this game and ramming a pay to win model down peoples throats in the name of f2p might very well bite you in the behind in the end. Lotr did better with f2p because they added a million new players that were happy with the game. Youve once seen millions of players come to this game and leave it in short order. Why are you trying to repeat history?
To succeed, the game needs to be fun. Nonstop taxes and fees to enjoy it do not contribute to the cause. Please stop and think it over. Listen to your players.
Uhm, from what I've been hearing you pay about 30-60% of the store cost in Dilithium when crafting. Is this really what you mean by 'much lower?'
But crafters are also supporting their fleets. Are you positing crafting as being entirely a solo experience? Or is Cryptic/PWI expecting people to buy C-points so they can purchase extra dilithium so they can build gear for their fleet?
1) Aegis needs a few more special effects or tweaks to make it competitive with the other sets out there.
2) When are the KDF going to get access to more costume colors? I can see them on the NPCs but we can't get access to those colors? Please. I know the Klingons are limited in visual spectrum but the Orions aren't, and I don't know where to start with the Gorn and Letheans but still.
Then please explain why this Dev Blog exists. If the basics of crafting haven't changed, then why is a Dev Blog being wasted explaining the alterations that make crafting useless.
1) Aegis needs a few more special effects or tweaks to make it competitive with the other sets out there.
2) When are the KDF going to get access to more costume colors? I can see them on the NPCs but we can't get access to those colors? Please. I know the Klingons are limited in visual spectrum but the Orions aren't, and I don't know where to start with the Gorn and Letheans but still.
You forget the silent majority. Those have clearly and unmistakenly not spoken up in outrage yet. So I conclude they must be very very happy with those changes. Anyone who is not, should have every reason to object, which I have seen only very few so far compared to the huge playerbaser this games has.
Very rarely do I give into the "doom and gloom" group but adding a dilithium sink to crafting sucks. I have 7 Federation characters of which 2 are max crafters. So now, I have to GRIND dilithium on those toons AND grind the materials. This is to say NOTHING about a fleetmate who would ask that I craft something.
Of the 80+ posts that I have read thus far, I am in favor of one of the two solutions.
1. 0% to 25% dilithum cost (compared to buying it from the vendor directly) for crafting even level items
2. No Dilithium cost for Gold accounts and a slightly reduced Dilithium cost for Silver players.
I understand that this is "Pass #1" on the crafting but this is a bad. Please figure out a compromise.
You forget the silent majority. Those have clearly and unmistakenly not spoken up in outrage yet. So I conclude they must be very very happy with those changes. Anyone who is not, should have every reason to object, which I have seen only very few so far compared to the huge playerbaser this games has.
...Oh, look, a new +1 ship with cool powers!
Thats because they are completely oblivious and clueless as to whats happening, since they usually don't even read the forums or visit the test server.
Come F2P launch day and they are probally going to give off one loud... WTF???
Comments
i suppose they look at it in the sense of "better to be too high and lower it, than too low and raise it".
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3805401&postcount=8
This is exactly what happens under this new policy of not telling the community what is being planned.
They're assuming people uninteresting in grinding will be similarly uninterested in Even-Mark gear.
As if one has anything whatsoever to do with the other.
Here's the scenario they picture: the people who want Even-Mark gear are the "1337" players who log in every day, run every daily, and then PvP with the best possible builds and gear they've earned or crafted.
Everybody else logs in occasionally, only does PvE, and doesn't care if their gear is any good or not.
It's a naive, ignorant fantasy that only serves the needs of those high up at Cryptic or Perfect World driving the P2W and C-$tore railroad philosophies.
The "reasonable" cost to this, if one is needed, has to be in EC. Given the new role of EC in the game, this is the only thing that is even somewhat plausible (basically EC is now more of a long-term manna reserve, rather than an actual currency). Any amount of DL required for crafting, no matter how small, will basically shut the system down.
i understand that; i do, and the EC thing isn't a bad idea.
I just don't see how this is going to work, unless they're trying to control the economy by stopping all those people who would craft extra gear and sell it for huge amounts on the exchange.
The one exception to this is that the Mk XI vendor at the center of ESD still has a shop full of mostly useless and random junk. It would be good if at some point his inventory could be cleaned up to conform with the theme of the catalogs for the other (up to Mk X) dilithium vendors.
This will absolutely destroy crafting in my Fleet. My Fleet, Stonewall Fleet, a very large and old fleet, has put a great deal of time and effort into creating a Store on our website for Fleet Members to order items and have the items mailed directly to them. You can even see it here. We'll have to end this practice from now on if this is put on live as our Store runs on 100% donations. There's no way for people donate dilithium to our Fleet and I would never require our fleet crafters to spend all of their own hard earned dilithium to complete orders for everyone in the fleet.
If you don't want to take part in our boring grind-fest game then you're not allowed to be competitive and you'll be stuck with inferior gear.
Way to give a two-fingered salute to your players Cryptic.
Whoever came up with this idea should be fired.
Anything but this. Component requirements just made certain mks of common items horrendously expensive on the exchange.
For fleet crafting, maybe they should design a much cheaper dilithium-bought component, like a sub-schematic, that could be traded to the crafter. Maybe a 'Power Adapter mk X'. The prices could be managed by mk(though I'm sure everyone wants much cheaper than the current dilithium crafting tariffs), but players who want the gear could provide the simple, grindable part of gear and crafters could do their part unimpeded.
It keeps the weapon valuable but doesn't force the crafter to pay for it himself.
The Tier 3 Excelsior and Nebula also need to be returned to the standard ship lineup as they were. The changes done to them is one I find unacceptable given previous pledges that the existing playerbase would not find itself hindered by the transition to Free-To-Play. If you want to put a cash-shop "Ship+1" item there, don't be cheap and make it a genuine addition such as a Venture-styled Nebula or the Ambassador-class. That'd be a much more honest practice giving something new to existing players to pay for, rather than make them pay for what they already had for free.
As T.G.N. said, Just check with us before Ya drop Bombshells like this into the game.
Not all of Us are against what You are trying to do...
But it sure seems like You are trying awfully hard to make Us that way! :rolleyes:
This is a terrible idea, and will promote people to quit testing so they can go craft and farm anomalies now before you nerf crafting into oblivion.
Taking a whole system away from all the players who pay you to play is an outrage. This is probably the mildest way I know how to describe it. The words I'm thinking would just get me banned.
Fix this.
The crafting system on Tribble is absolutely pointless. It is not worth investing time and energy in. The cost in dilithium is FAR too high (if there should be a dilithium at all) and effectively eliminates it from the game.
Fleet Crafters will be unable to supply/equip their fleets without excessive grinding because diltihium can't be traded.
Those Crafters that sell on the exchange will end up not doing so due to having to spend hard earned Dilithium on making these items, Dilithium that they could have used for equipping themselves. With little to no supply exchange prices will initially skyrocket and then crash as players go elsewhere to get their items (I'm looking at the STFs here)
And crafting items for alts will become too detrimental for the "prime" character.
I'm sure that "someone" will see these as good things, but I don't. All crafting systems in MMOs have fleet/guild crafters, have people selling stuff on the exchange and have people crafting stuff for alts. Maybe the Crafting system in STO isn't the hardest or most complex, but what you are doing with crafting right now WILL destroy it.
Double, or maybe triple the amount of components needed to craft, remove the even Mk gear from the crafting tables.... Do whatever you feel you need to do right now, but please DON'T connect dilithium to crafting like this.
At which point you can go away and rethink crafting. Make it more difficult, complex. Add components that need to be crafted and/or looted (like the borg salvage as an example) and let gathering these things be the time sink for crafting, not a non-tradable resource like dilithium.
They know this is a big TRIBBLE to the whole playerbase. they knew the feedback this would cause. They wanted to implement it, let the uproar commence, then do it anyway.
They want us to pay money for every item we get at every tier. There is no other explanation. Way to treat subscribers who are paying to test for them.
Is there a reason why craft-for-others needs to die?
I suppose I should make as many Aegis sets and Mk XI purples as I can with my current stockpiles before f2p goes live, as it's extremely unlikely I'll bother to make any after the conversion.
As an alternative, I'll add my grudging support to using the crafting system as an EC sink instead of DL.
Crafting will no longer be a supply of higher-end items for alts, fleet mates, or the exchange. Nobody in their right mind will be crafting things with Dilithium for energy credits - or to give away.
I guess what I would have liked to see in the blog post was an acknowledgement that you were aware of this; That removing the ability to acquire high-end gear at any rank without Dilithium expenditure was the intent - and that the consequent inability to craft such items for friends, alts, or fleet mates was a recognized and expected outcome.
I find it difficult to imagine that the consequences of this change are a surprise to anyone at Cryptic - but I think you missed an opportunity to have muted - and may instead have exacerbated, the furor over this change.
I think it's a mistake to add Dilithium costs to crafting, and I think this will vastly reduce the incentive for Captains to put in the time and effort required to participate in crafting. But mistake or not, I think your introduction of the change was poorly done, and may well have made a less-than-ideal situation into a bad one.
My initial thoughts "I should have seen this coming." I'll admit that I had though better of Cryptic. It's my fault for nothing taking the Ship changes to their logical conclusion. I'll not make that mistake again.
The addition of Dilithium as a Crating better equipment is a double hammy on that equipment. The better equipment required Rare Particle Traces. Those are Rare Particle Traces don't grow in trees. They are items which must be gather by the Crafter or others as rare drops on Anomaly gathering. If it doesn't click, there are time based currencies as the new Dilithium is. So that means even more time the players have to invest in the game.
And this extra time may be doing things the play DOES NOT WANT TO DO. Cryptic has always touted STo as a game that player can play and level u the way they want to. Well having to do daillies mostly likely isn't going to be what all player want to do.
Also the Dilithium requirement means that anyone wanting crafted items have to do so on their characters. That means they have to. They can't gather the items and them give them to someone who can do the crafting. You've adding a huge unavoidable obstacle to the current play styles of the game.
No these discounts are not meaningful on top of the extra time that players now have to invest in gather Dilithium on top of the other crafting materials. The addition of the Dilithium requirements is going to destroy the crafting system so much that many player will not bother with it.
And on a snark not, I look forward to Cryptic in justifying these changes to the player base. I'm going to look forward to fireworks in these. It promises to be most entertaining.
Edit: And how I'm so worked up about this change, it's taken my enjoyment out of even play STO tonight. I was looking forward to testing the new build. But not now.
I could be surprised, I could be wrong, and I would very much like to be wrong. But this is what I'm hearing when I'm listening to the silence surrounding this issue, the VA token issue, and others.
Huh. This sounds rather defeatist.
I understand that the Devs want to put in Dilithium sinks so that there will not be runaway inflation like has happened with energy credits and the exchange. Rather than build proper sinks they have decided to punish crafting.
If they wanted to do it right they would build new gear, functions and features that inspire spending and give players new enjoyable ways and methods to buy, spend, and enjoy earned rewards. Punishing what already exists by adding taxes absolutey builds barriers between gameplay and fun.
The ramifications and fallout of this are plentiful.
The role of the fleet crafter is gone and dead. Its hard enough to find a fleet member to take over the finance department and craft for others and to fill the fleet bank without emptying theiir own reserves. The idea of socialization and helping each other by having one fleet member farm samples and another craft them for members, friends, or fleet banks is now history. Less socialization, cooperation, and interaction between players does not make for a better game.
To further accelerate the process, when crafting is taxed and starts competing with dilithium / emblem type purchases on a purchasing power basis you will get less crafting and the declining percentage of the people who do craft will be more unhappy with it. Its only been 15 months since there was an overwhelming outcry over lack of crafting in this game and as we watched many people leave the game because of the lack thereof cryptic improved it slightly. And now with the new crafting tax it seems that cryptic has a new goal of making it more frustrating and worse than when the game began. Clearly this new crafting tax is a huge major step backwards towards goals of kitting up and playing the game at high levels of performance. Clearly, Cryptic seems to almost be pushing forward the pay to win agenda of encouragement of buying ships in the c-store to gain consoles, weapons, and other gear rather than being able to earn and craft it for free.
More fallout from the game will be unwrapped with this stupid idea. With less crafting there will be less opportunity to farm samples, list them on the exchange and participate in the economy of the game. Exchange and trade will take a horrific hit and prices will rise on the exchange. Certainly people farming samples, crafting them up and selling them on the exchange injects supply into the exchange and helps balance the game and energy credit cost downward as more supply and competition helps keep a lid on prices. As the crafters quit crafting for exchange sales, and emblem / dilithium sales of equipment become harder to afford and more dear you will see prices on an energy credit basis just skyrocket on the exchange. Spending your EC to buy gear for the new fleet member or new player to the game will be less desirable when prices skyrocket. Allure for alternative forms of merchandise procurement will certainly gain great appeal.
The player base will not enjoy the game more by making it more difficult and expensive to obtain gear.
Many of the craftable items are quite good and a new player that races to VA could be helped into the pvp / high end stf process by the fleet crafters willing to help kit him up to the task. Dilithium for crafting stops the process in its tracks and does so on an epic scale when crafters and others are limited to refining 8000 dilithium per day. I suppose now in fleets we can say to our new members, "congrats on making VA, now go spend a month grinding dilithium and farming samples before you can enjoy the game at the next level.".
I do not think newer and less well heeled players are going to be happy at these changes and once again rather than equalize the playing field, this tax like most in history accelerates the divide between those that have savings to succeed and those that do not.
Making the game less fun for new players and limiting our ability to help them just seems like a bad idea but over and over and over and over and over it just seems that Cryptic is working so hard to bend over backwards to charge more to enjoy this game so people can play it for free; that they are driving off and leaving the concept of fun play so far behind in the rear view mirror that they have lost touch with what the player base is telling them makes for a game they want to play.
Cryptic once again, you need to rethink things. Unmitigated greed will remove the fun factor for many that play this game and ramming a pay to win model down peoples throats in the name of f2p might very well bite you in the behind in the end. Lotr did better with f2p because they added a million new players that were happy with the game. Youve once seen millions of players come to this game and leave it in short order. Why are you trying to repeat history?
To succeed, the game needs to be fun. Nonstop taxes and fees to enjoy it do not contribute to the cause. Please stop and think it over. Listen to your players.
Happy Gaming All,
Bugshu
SWTOR Here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's almost like They believe that even if that happens, They'll still have a grandious supply of new players, with F2P...
The only problem with this line of thinking, is that those of US that They do drive away...
Will spread the word that this game isn't worth bothering with, unless you have a Very Large Bank Account Balance.
And if I'm thinking this way..., imagine what the more vocal folks are gonna do...
1) Aegis needs a few more special effects or tweaks to make it competitive with the other sets out there.
2) When are the KDF going to get access to more costume colors? I can see them on the NPCs but we can't get access to those colors? Please. I know the Klingons are limited in visual spectrum but the Orions aren't, and I don't know where to start with the Gorn and Letheans but still.
Then please explain why this Dev Blog exists. If the basics of crafting haven't changed, then why is a Dev Blog being wasted explaining the alterations that make crafting useless.
ummm... wrong thread my friend...
You forget the silent majority. Those have clearly and unmistakenly not spoken up in outrage yet. So I conclude they must be very very happy with those changes. Anyone who is not, should have every reason to object, which I have seen only very few so far compared to the huge playerbaser this games has.
...Oh, look, a new +1 ship with cool powers!
Of the 80+ posts that I have read thus far, I am in favor of one of the two solutions.
1. 0% to 25% dilithum cost (compared to buying it from the vendor directly) for crafting even level items
2. No Dilithium cost for Gold accounts and a slightly reduced Dilithium cost for Silver players.
I understand that this is "Pass #1" on the crafting but this is a bad. Please figure out a compromise.
Matt
Thats because they are completely oblivious and clueless as to whats happening, since they usually don't even read the forums or visit the test server.
Come F2P launch day and they are probally going to give off one loud... WTF???