Can we meet halfway on upgrading DOffs?

curs0r

Given certain changes, I find the dilithium cost of upgrading DOffs to be a little steep since the upgraded DOff is of random type. Could it possibly be changed so that upgrading 5 of a specific type of DOff awards a DOff of that same type? For example, 5 Common Chefs + 250 dil = 1 Uncommon Chef? This of course while leaving in the possibility of gaining randoms by simply not using DOffs of the same type. Just a thought.

ungratefuldead88

That's an interesting idea and one that might pump a modicum of value back into green DOFFs as I thought the now-depleted exchange value of low-level duty officers was a nice way of funneling some EC towards newer players. Sort of like chipped gems from old school Diablo II.

vizhonia

It has become a ripoff to trade up doffs... Costing the Doffs AND and outrageously high amount of Dilithium to upgrade them... I'm done playing the trading game and I used to do it all the time... It's a better deal to just retire Doffs you don't like anymore.

I think Cryptic thinks there is too much Dilithium in the game and are going too far to try to get rid of some of it, but in this case, All they are going to do is cut down on the Doff activity... The Personel officers used to have crowds around them... Not anymore.

I thought they were expensive before, but within reason, and unless the price goes back down to what it was, I'm done playing the trading game.

I'm actually pissed at Cryptic over this one, because it's breaking the part of the game I'm most interested in: Doffs... It was introducing Doffs to the game that got me to play... and liked it enough to go lifetime, but at this point, Cryptic is back in my "Won't see another penny of mine" department for this... I am actually losing interest in playing with some of the recent negative changes... This is just on the top of the list.

mariston

I no longer do the General Recruitment mission because of the dilithium cost. I also refuse to upgrade greens to blues because it is too expensive. Greens have essentially become "throw aways" to be split into whites and then contributed to the fleet or sold. The increased dilithium has really made me re-think my DOFF recruiting. Not happy.

zerobang

imho it was a bad idea to introduce this "upgrinder" in the first place, we got our blues and Purples just fine without it.

But i understood why it was introduced... because the CASUAL player needed an easy way to get some GOOD DOffs, without really knowing the ins and outs of the game yet.

But that way was too easy so that everybody did it, even the guys who should know better did it out of convenience, and stopped actually playing the DOffing game.

Then came the Dilithium removal from dismissing DOffs,
that was step 1 in making them a (worthless) commodity.
Even the few that were left gaming the DOff System were now FORCED to upgrind, because there was really nothing else to do with low value DOffs but sell on exchange or upgrind.


Then they introduced the Starbases, suddenly no one cared about getting Purple DOffs anymore, everybody needed high amounts of whites!
Suddenly DOffs were no longer "my Crew" on "my Ship"... i became a Space Taxi Driver!
Pick em up on SFA, put them in a Shuttle and off to the Starbase you go!


With the 10x increased cost to upgrinding, there is really just one thing left to do with DOffs that are not purple and that is downgrind to make em white and slot them in the Starbase at the next chance you get.

You can't dismiss em, you can't upgrind them, half of them are not even worth EC on the exchange anymore.

And then you get Fleetmarks out of it, and buy purple DOffs from the Fleetstore (after you unlocked it of course).





having the Starbases as sink for white DOffs... it's OK if you are in a Fleet, if not then you only get EC out of the Exchange and THAT is a problem.


i don't like that DOffs are now a commodity instead of my "crew"... the whole thing the DOff System was invented for was for the immersion of having a CREW on your Ship, i feel like a Orion Slaver maybe but not like a Starfleet Captain taking care of his Crew, dumping all those people into the Starbase, not to mention that the numbers don't make any roleplay sense either.
We surely have slotted like 500.000+ DOffs into our Starbase now, thats easily enough Personnel for 50 Starbases by now and it still wants more...



i don't like that there is basically only ONE way for DOffs out of the system now, downgrind to white and slot them into the Starbase.
selling them on the exchange does not get the item out of the system.
of course white DOffs can die, but who is still sending whites on missions... only new Players.
dismissing them is no longer an option...
upgrinding is so expensive now that only crazy people would do that.

the one thing i like is that my Purple DOffs have a certain value again, now that getting them is no longer THAT easy.

i had a pure Gorn and a pure Orion Ship going on...
but the race specific upgrinders are even more expensive than the default one, i will NOT go to these guys anymore.


Not to mention that getting a purple Refugee or Chef or Bartender from the upgrinder is now really hurting, the random part of the deal made it barley worth it before, but now its a deal braker.

So YES, if i could choose more specific details, Species and Profession then i might turn in 5 Blues for 1 Purple again, but not for some random purple Tellarite Bartender *pff lol* NOPE.



/feedback

bluegeek

I haven't bothered to use the "DOFFgrinder" since they made the changes, and I'm not likely to.

If I could get a guaranteed DOFF of a particular specialization, I might change my opinion about that.

The problem, again, is that the DOFF system isn't designed to recognize what you're putting in and spit something different out based on what you put in.

In other words, the only way you could get a specific DOFF specialization out of a DOFF assignment is if there was one assignment for every kind of DOFF specialization there is. Since there are a lot of specs out there, the UI would get ugly very, very fast.

That's pretty much how we've been informed the DOFF system works. Plug in X and get Y... you never ever get Z or any other letter of the alphabet.

X is either very specific, or anything of that type of input. You could require 5 chefs, or any 5 DO's. All the DOFF system knows is that you satisfied the requirements for the assignment. It doesn't keep track of what you put in.

Y is either a static reward or a random one... there's no such thing as a decision tree that says "if player puts in 5 common chefs, then reward 1 uncommon chef".

blackjackwidow

Completely agree w/zerobang on all points. Personally, I used the upgrinder a little at first launch and never really have used it since. Don't really need it to get purples if you're an avid DOffer.

What I find most ridiculous is paying for general recruitments. Seriously - is Starfleet charging captains to get new recruits on their ships? Can you imagine Captain Kirk walking into the Starfleet Academy personnel office and offering up dilithium to get 5 random graduates? OK, maybe Kirk might - certainly not Picard.

The ONLY option I think is acceptable, other than reverting to free at SFA, would be to have the Starbase Personnel Officers do General Recruitment for free. Our Starbase projects should reward the fleet with something besides dilithium stores that you can't get elsewhere.

IMHO, Starbase chefs should offer all possible replicator items, Starbase bartenders should offer all possible replicator items, Starbase Security Officers should take 3 instead of 5 contraband turn in (the "old" price) in exchange for dilithium, Starbase Personnel Officers should give free general recruitments, Cultural Exchanges should return uncommon or better DOffs, ... you get the idea. A lot of resources have been poured into these starbases, with nothing truly rewarding in return.

bluegeek

What about a compromise on the number of free DOFF's you can get at one time?

Right now, if you run a General Recruitment assignment you get (and pay for) a small pack of DOFFs.

What if they made an assignment available that gave you one free random DOFF every 1d? (or maybe every 3 days, so the General Recruitment assignments still have value)

I'd also like to see 1-for-1 exchanges at minimal cost to get a random DOFF from a specific department. It could be limited to common DOFFs to make it a little easier to satisfy fleet project requirements, or extended to be able to trade green for green, and blue for blue.

These 1-for-1 exchanges could be time-gated by duration or cooldown to keep people from running them over and over until they get exactly what they want, but just putting a cost on them might be restrictive enough.

fedman70

Well, with upgrading the ultimate goal will be to have ALL purple doffs, with the profession and attributes you want for the assignments you want to run (or assigning them to your ship)

I would like it if there were some exchange-type interface, but not for buying, for TRADING doffs in game. You set down the doff and the doff you want in exchange, it's searchable, when the other person finds match he puts down his and you trade. Currently, the only ways to trade are to actually hand your trading partner what he wants, Spam the channel in Earth Spacedock, etc, or post here.

lordhavelock

I pretty much agree with Zerobang, too, though I've never minded the upgrinder, even as an avid DOffer. I didn't abuse it, but I did like it as an easy way to outfit the crew of my lesser-played Alt characters and/or for the ability to get "themed" crews (the All Vulcan Crew, All Gorn, or whatever). Now I won't proceed with that, as it's too expensive.

So I don't do upgrinds any more, and I don't do General Recruitments, either. I might do the former if I could know what I was getting as a result, even if just the category (Tactical, Medical, etc.), but getting Chefs and Bartenders is just way too frequent, and, as with 'Bang, another Purple Tellarite Bartender I do not need.

:rolleyes:

blackjackwidow wrote: »

...IMHO, Starbase chefs should offer all possible replicator items, Starbase bartenders should offer all possible replicator items, Starbase Security Officers should take 3 instead of 5 contraband turn in (the "old" price) in exchange for dilithium, Starbase Personnel Officers should give free general recruitments, Cultural Exchanges should return uncommon or better DOffs, ... you get the idea. A lot of resources have been poured into these starbases, with nothing truly rewarding in return.

/QFT.

fedman70

mariston wrote: »

I no longer do the General Recruitment mission because of the dilithium cost. I also refuse to upgrade greens to blues because it is too expensive. Greens have essentially become "throw aways" to be split into whites and then contributed to the fleet or sold. The increased dilithium has really made me re-think my DOFF recruiting. Not happy.

I'm kind of in that zone already, which maybe it why I shouldn't complain. Sure, there are a lot of things about this game I don't like, but since I never ever spend real money for Zen, (I'm a lifer too) I'm really not Cryptic's customer, am I? I'm a freeloader.

ussultimatum

At this point my assumption is that cryptic's only intention for DOFFs is now as a consumable item and to try and sell us doffpacks as the best "deal".

They've shot themselves in the foot on that, because through mismanagement they've managed to devalue most DOFFs to the point where it's irrelevant. (example: getting lower tier DOFFs is often a losing situation as upgrinder costs are too high and random rewards for a double costed [doffs + dilithium] system is a terrible idea).


Dismissal dilithium rewards being gone, upgrinder costs and general recruitment pack costs now mean I simply don't bother with the DOFF system much.

maddog0000doom

me too since the change i just dont doff that much thankfuly i got loads of doffs already so only new chraters i make suffer.

i refuse to drop any dilth on doffs specialy since im bleeding out dilth faster than i can make it.

my advice is to just buy doff packs from xchange atleast ec is alot easyer to make

dareau

ussultimatum wrote: »

At this point my assumption is that cryptic's only intention for DOFFs is now as a consumable item and to try and sell us doffpacks as the best "deal".

They've shot themselves in the foot on that, because through mismanagement they've managed to devalue most DOFFs to the point where it's irrelevant. (example: getting lower tier DOFFs is often a losing situation as upgrinder costs are too high and random rewards for a double costed [doffs + dilithium] system is a terrible idea).


Dismissal dilithium rewards being gone, upgrinder costs and general recruitment pack costs now mean I simply don't bother with the DOFF system much.

I don't agree on the first part, they still (at least sorta) want DOffs for their powers and missions, notice they added the whole Epohh system with season 7.

Though yeah, Stahl specifically stated somewhere in the whole season 7 preludes/mess that the upgrinder prices were added to make "rare" DOffs "cost" as much from the grinder as they would from "other sources" - and the semi-general consensus is that they priced them up to C-store levels instead of pricing the C-store down...

Occasionally, I still use the DOff system for Contraband/Dilithium, and I desire max Diplomacy on each toon for the various transwarps to bases (K7 at tier 2, SB39 at tier 3, DS9 at tier 4).

markhawkman

I've noticed that the new compactor prices seem to be directly related to the Ferra store prices... IE, not cheap.

blackjackwidow

markhawkman wrote: »

I've noticed that the new compactor prices seem to be directly related to the Ferra store prices... IE, not cheap.

At least with Ferra, you know what you're buying beforehand-not just the rarity, but the exact specialization and traits.

The 'upgrinder' only guarantees rarity. It doesn't even guarantee an officer. I always thought Ferra's store was a bit overpriced, but at least you're not rolling the die, as you are with the RNG roulette wheel.

markhawkman

I said related, not equal. The general compactor seems to be 5/12 of Ferra's price, and the racial ones are 6/12s.

blackjackwidow

markhawkman wrote: »

I said related, not equal. The general compactor seems to be 5/12 of Ferra's price, and the racial ones are 6/12s.

My mistake. Reading comprehension score drastically reduced due to brain freeze from evil animated snowmen. :eek:

Still, as you stated earlier, not cheap. And at least for me, neither are worth the dilithium charged for the result, regardless.