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Why I actually LIKE the new changes
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Thats right; I said it. I actually LIKE the new changes. Which ones? ALL of them. Buying high end gear with dillithium, being able to convert dillithium to CP to get C-store items, and now some crafting tiers requiring dillithium. Why in the world would I like those things?
Simple: none of them are actually needed to play the game. I've heard stories of people geting to VA in their T2 ships, so you obviouslly dont NEED a VA ship. The same goes for purple gear. Is it nice? Sure, but its to be honest its BARELY better than blue. As far as crafting goes, some people seem to think that everything you craft will now require dillithium, but that is incorrect. It is only every OTHER tier that will, and as previously explained there really isnt much of a difference in the stats of one tier to the next.
And people talk about "grinding", but get real; you ALREADY have to grind to get purple gear. You ALREADY have to grind to get enough emblems to get C-store ships. You ALREADY have to grind to get the high end anomalies you need to craft the high end gear. The new system isnt turning the game into a grind because its ALREADY a grind to get those things.
The new changes are simply bringing uniformity to the grind by having a common element needed: dillithium. But the fact remains, and I repeat this is actually a FACT: no one "needs" any of the things that require dillithium to play the game or get to max level. Wanting and needing are very different things, and if Cryptic can make you really WANT something then they have dont their job as a business.
Simple: none of them are actually needed to play the game. I've heard stories of people geting to VA in their T2 ships, so you obviouslly dont NEED a VA ship. The same goes for purple gear. Is it nice? Sure, but its to be honest its BARELY better than blue. As far as crafting goes, some people seem to think that everything you craft will now require dillithium, but that is incorrect. It is only every OTHER tier that will, and as previously explained there really isnt much of a difference in the stats of one tier to the next.
And people talk about "grinding", but get real; you ALREADY have to grind to get purple gear. You ALREADY have to grind to get enough emblems to get C-store ships. You ALREADY have to grind to get the high end anomalies you need to craft the high end gear. The new system isnt turning the game into a grind because its ALREADY a grind to get those things.
The new changes are simply bringing uniformity to the grind by having a common element needed: dillithium. But the fact remains, and I repeat this is actually a FACT: no one "needs" any of the things that require dillithium to play the game or get to max level. Wanting and needing are very different things, and if Cryptic can make you really WANT something then they have dont their job as a business.
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I am one of those people who took my NX to Admiral on Elite mode, who only uses gear from drops, Mission Rewards, or Exploration Badges, and has over 100 million EC scattered across my alts. Yes, FTP is a different experience but in reality this game needs some grind. It needs something for people to work toward because for the vast majority who do not PvP having the best gear is meaningless because the combat time difference between White and Purple, or T5.5 Excelsior Refit and T5 Sovereign, is probably not even 30 seconds in an average Mission.
STO is too easy and plays too fast. It takes about 75 /played hours on the PvE side to go from 1 to 51 and through all the STFs. For FTP to work, heck for any game to really work, people cannot get to level cap in 2 or 3 weeks and have nothing left to do - other then complain that they are at level cap and have nothing to do. The game seriously needed something to slow down the leveling pace; and it seems Dilithium is going to be that thing - but only for those who want to feel like they have all the best stuff in the game.
the dilithium/crafting thing still needs some work or maybe even a whole rethink but im not opposed to makeing crafting a little tougher than it is, and there are some issues with the VA tickets/ships that still need looking at in my opinion.
im also not convinced c-should be going up. not because i have a massive problem with a price increase but im just not sure that the best course of action overall for the game. id want to attract most players with more reasonable costs rather than a few with high costs.
very anticlimactic. No reason for me to do dailes...I have all the gear I need. forst 3 missions every tier on my engie have been breen to upgrade the set then I go get a new shiney harpeng and don't need phasers since I was able to get plenty by buying and discharging TOS ents.
Moral of the story. Game is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Ive played a lot of MMO's and none of them can you get fully geared and equipped so fast as STO. I can't tell you how many raids I did in wow to get my tier 1 back in mc. months and months and months. The complainers have NO IDEA what a grind is if you think dilithium is a bad grind.
So I agree with these changes. Make it a little harder and earn all that phat lootage. If people have to use some of their dilithium then that adds to the cost of the end product. its as simple as that. Go look at other F2P with crafting. Most of them require cash shop items to be able to craft high end gear. Dilithium is not cash shop but available in game here folks. Does it hurt a little knowing your dilithium is being used, yup. But you are crafting gear that is better than the boss drops in the normal mode stf's here folks.
And everyone has to remember that this is testing. Give your feedback and move on. No one is walking into your home and punching your mom in the face here. All the vitrol needs to stop and constructive critisism is needed.
That being said, as long as you budget your dilithium right, you should be able to get soem decent consols and other tech at least halfway trhough your rank, though at the RA levels, they might want to scale the costs back a hair on that, but that's my only observation. It works for me either way
Now add the time it takes to actually GRIND 250 emblems.
I used to do that. Run exploration clusters to get some uncommon gear if I didn't feel like crafting. Now instead we get a daily mission for the same currency you will need at maximum level. Why would I spend it on overpriced leveling gear?
However you play, or whatever the reasons you play a certain way, they do not apply to everyone.
The fact is, that you could do almost anything without grinding before, and now you can't. You'll have to try pretty hard to avoid the dilithium systems now, so in fact the people who try to do without grinding are the MOST affected by the changes.
And the crafting changes are just INSANE. The person crafting must do the grinding, and that might be okay if you craft for yourself.
If you do it for a group or fleet, you're basically boned.
Time to step back and think it through one more time. Even if you think the changes aren't bad, its a "FACT" that its impossible see most of them as good.
Facts are fun.
I'm sorry but that simply isnt true. The only things that require DL are the things that already required grinding under the current system. Purple gear requires grinding marks/emblems, T5 C-store ships require grinding marks/emblems, and high end crafting requires grinding rare anomalies. Unless you are talking about something else; if so please explain.
About 25 to 30 hours tops just by doing the Eta Eridani, Breen & B'Tran nebula dailies... So all told a month for me.
Right. A month of doing the same thing over and over is quite different from 15 minutes.
I would be OK with there being a currency charge to crafting, if the currency was EC and the prices were topped at 33% of the total cost of the items. the other 66% would be the cost of the schematic and the time it took to gather the ingrediants.
True but my example is probably worst case scenario so it's hardly a grind...
High end crafting.. LOW end crafting. Outfitting a ship at ANY LEVEL with gear better than whites (Either from the Dilithium store or buying them on the exchange from someone who did)
And even for the things you CAN get without dilithium, the question remains: Is that fun?
Leveling up in your t2 ship and using old gear is possible, but also completely uninteresting for anyone outside of the "Do it because its a challenge" crowd
The entire game runs off of one artificial pay-gate now; Dilithium. You pay in time, or in money. Its a job, or a billl.
But not fun.
Once players give up on Crafting its one less thing to keep them busy and one more reason to quit the game and move on. I know there are plenty of ways to get gear that matches pretty much what you can craft. But is that a good thing?
Shouldn't folks have a reason to want to craft? Shouldn't crafting be so great that the extra delithium it costs wouldn't stop us from crafting? If the crafting gear was so awesome and worth the Delithium maybe Cryptic would actually get people to trade Cstore points for it. But as of now I still see no reason to ever have to trade for Delithium.
I'm sorry but it appears you dont actually know what you are talking about. You can get ALL gear up to purple without DL. If you are a gold player you get ALL ships for free except for VA(which I think you should, but thats a different topic). That means you can get all the way up to an RA ship with full blue gear without using any DL.
Every tier will not require DL, only every other tier. So you can still craft every other tier of gear without touching DL if you dont want to.
Yeah unless I missed something, all of that vendor gear is still dilithium-based. So is the actual tier of crafted gear people use - no one who knows better uses the odd-marked gear..
So you rely on drops that show up in the Exchange. And thats hoping that the forthcoming changes to the exchange doesn't plug that little hole.
My point stands; You can avoid dilithium if you gimp yourself and stay on the fringes of gameplay - but that isn't fun and did nothing to improve the game.
The sheer amount of Dilithium needed to "fully play" the game is way out of hand, and removes accessibility from all but the hardcore and those who are... 'financially enabled' to succeed.
Its really interesting. You seem to have forgiven them overnight, while I have just gotten more bitter.
They can't continue to make the same "mistake" over and over with every new system they reveal and still get a pass on it.
And that is the whole debate isn't it. Convenience is the bread and butter of any F2P mmo.
I love this game. Have been a lifetime since I was in the beta before launch. And I see many years of great play in the future. Make it so.
STO is flat out the easiest MMO I've ever played. I also think it has more potential than any MMO on the market simply because of what you can do with it.
This game is ready for an overhaul in PVP. It has the perfect background seting for actual instanced battlegrounds. It actually makes more sense in this game than in most MMOs.
As far as the changes to the economy and all of that. Anything to slow down the pace of leveling in this game, and to make the highest end gear hard to get and very are is a big PLUS in my eyes.
I'm tired of seeing every VA run around with a full set of Aegis Gear or the full Borg set. Every single ship in teh game has one currently I swear.
That's stupid. It should be hard to get considering how awesome it is That also includes the best purple gear. It's supposed to be the best stuff in the game.. why is it so easy to get all the time?
I could literally CASUALLY play this game for one month in its current state, maybe just a few hours a day.. and I'll be VA with max gear you can get.
That's stupid.
There is no challenge, no bragging rights.. NONE of that in this game. When F2P launches and this game has an active economy and pace that has literally been cut in half if not more.. it will be a fresh new MMO for all the new players coming on board.... and they will be so proud to upgrade their ship for the first time.. so proud to craft that first amazing piece of purple gear and show it off to their friends.. be proud when they are playing ofr weeks just to try and get all the components and dilithium to complete that Aegis Set or any other upcoming sets.
They will link it to their friends in game and all of them will be awestruck by its stats... rather than go take 10 minutes to get some stuff, buy it off the Exchange, go craft a full set like you can do now.
I also think there should be a small death penality for the game. (Minus PVP of course)
If you run in guns blazing and the NPCs blow up your ship, you should have to pay some Dilithium to repair it back to full.. or else face penalties.. It doesn't have to be a stupid high price, but it needs to be something to make people THINK before they run in guns blazing with no fear of dieing.
The game is justwayyy tooo easYyy.
Also, don't go telling me about difficulty sliders. The ground dmg needs to be changed so that when you increase them its scalable across the board.... also make playing on the harder skill levels even more rewarding and the penalty stiffer once its balanced better.
That oepns up soooo much replayability its not even funny.
Continue with these hardcore changes. Crypitic is making a game now for people to freely play and pay to upgrade or grind to upgrade. This is no different than LOTRO or other F2P games. But one thing they can't have iis a game that lasts for 1 month fo rplayers.
More end game content will come but everyone needs to understand now.. They are not focusing this beta of
F2P on existing subscribers only.. they are actually making it for a new audience who has maybe never played this game before. New end game content will be coming and so will PVP. They have stated that numerous times... and thats what the current generation of players will have to look forward to. For now.. this new STO that we are playing is for the huge influx of free players that are about to hit the server.
Suck it up... and treat them well, as guess what, when they see your awesome fully loaded VA ship flying around they will be awestruck... Help them out and show them the ways..
They are the future of this game.. not JUST who is currently on it.
Thanks
I thought this was Star Trek, not E-Peen Online.
Back to the original post . . . you don't NEED a gear grind in STO.
That being said, the Levels might need to be tweaked to balance between the hardcore players and those who area bit more casual
my .02 creds
Actually, that is exactly how you get the high level gear in STO right now.
The economy has nothing to do with the pace of leveling.
There will be no bragging rights in F2P STO because you can spend your way to the best gear that is currently rD-depended on Tribble. However you choose to look at it, the changes in F2P STO are not being made for gameplay reasons, they're being made for profit reasons. I'm glad a few current players like the changes. I have a feeling that opinion may change after F2P goes live and you decide to level a new character, however.
Currently, leveling is too fast in STO. XP and related values should be reduced by 1/3 at least. Of course, that runs headlong into a content problem that is not easy to solve, but STO has always had content issues. Slower leveling would also alleviate the perceived rD grind because people would have more time at each tier to acquire ore and refine it. They could get more use out of their gear and not feel the need to constantly upgrade gear and ships. Slower leveling would, save for the content issue, mostly be a boon for STO.
But slower leveling could also drive F2P players away by not giving them a sense of progress. I don't expect Cryptic to change the pace of leveling simply because there's no monetary reason for them to do so. Why take the risk of driving potential players away with a lengthened leveling arc?
That may be how YOU get your high level gear, but I get mine by crafting.
Z
AND they have to allow for someone else to spend the dilithium for the crafting.
Beaten like a dead horse.