This is a very bad plan!
The introduction of Dilithium as a cost on these schematics reduces the ability to mass produce high-end gear, which is being done intentionally to increase the difficulty of acquiring such gear. Stephen D'Angelo
Using Dilithium is the wrong answer.
There are better ways of fixing the crafting issues. For example. Limit the number of high end items that a character can make by using a timer for each item. This does not increase the grind that most of us wish to avoid, and will still accomplish what you stated as your goal.
Comments
However I guess their primary goal is not to prevent "mass production", but to integrate crafting in their bigger "grind excess or pay cash" system, which can obviously only be accomplished with requiring/adding c-points or dilithium for all and everything..
Ah well, when will we be charged Dilithium for swapping instances? Or firing the ship's weapons? (sarcastic)
You just changed "play" time for "idle" aka the lazy way.
Im not surpised at all that people scream like mad.. in STO you could deck out your ship and probably the boffs with the top gear in around a week...
In most other (classic) mmos you need to grind a week only to find the necessary items to craft one part of a set or camp a certain mob for days to get the 0.05% drop rate chance.
Sure. But why not just sell some items that make crafting faster or cheaper for Dilithium (and thus, by player controlled exchange, for Dilithium)?
Since my last post I've been giving crafting some thought.... and here's what i think should have been done:
All crafting should require:
1) Common samples to create the starting item (or THE item if you want to craft a common item)
for example:
10 reds create a schematic
Schematic plus 10 energy reds creates MkI ground shield (higher level samples create higher Mk items)
OR
Schematic plus 20 energy reds creates MkI Ship Shield
2) Rare samples to add characteristics, for example:
Anyon adds [DMG]
Antithoron adds [CAP]
etc
so you can choose what characteristics your crafted item receives
If you HAVE to add dilithium into the mix, BAN samples from the exchange and make them purchaseable for Dilithium from the vendor in Memory Alpha (meaning people have to continue going to MA after they find a way to let us craft on our ships/starbases)
edit: also this means that there is no need for a dilithium reward on the exploration missions
edit: edit: Thinking about it, schematics could be purchaseable for Dilithium too, problem 1/2 solved
This way Dilithium is NOT compulsory, but continues to be the pay to win element they want it to be (C-Point exchange)
Comments?