There needs to be something to convert all as someone who has only crafted a little but has a namk full of particles it will take me hours to convert them all to the new system
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Heh, I do hope there is some modular angle to it - won't be disappointed if it's not there, cause I didn't really expect it; but I'd really be happy if it was there cause it would be pretty awesome, imho.
It would kind of tie into the whole deck building thing they're trying to do - and - that they've been spreading to various areas of the game, like they did with the Kit Revamp.
THIS would be awesome indeed:
Imagine the ability to "swap" out modifiers to suit your build/playstyle.
purple Mk X RCS 1 hard coded modifier (as applicable to an RCS console) + 1 swap-able modifier MODULE (also as applicable to RCS)
purple Mk XI RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 2 swap-able modifier MODULES
purple Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 3 swap-able modifier MODULES
Ultraviolet Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 4 swap-able modifier MODULES
LOTS of possibilities for many different configurations with JUST 1 console.
Of course, this Modular capability/approach would only apply to the Crafted version of any given item (RCS engineering console as per my example) and if the UV mk12 Crafted version is deemed better/more powerful than the Fleet UV mk12 version, the Crafted version SHOULD cost more (Dil) AND be MORE difficult to craft as well.
Imagine the ability to "swap" out modifiers to suit your build/playstyle.
purple Mk X RCS 1 hard coded modifier (as applicable to an RCS console) + 1 swap-able modifier MODULE (also as applicable to RCS)
purple Mk XI RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 2 swap-able modifier MODULES
purple Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 3 swap-able modifier MODULES
Ultraviolet Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 4 swap-able modifier MODULES
LOTS of possibilities for many different configurations with JUST 1 console.
Of course, this Modular capability/approach would only apply to the Crafted version of any given item (RCS engineering console as per my example) and if the UV mk12 Crafted version is deemed better/more powerful than the Fleet UV mk12 version, the Crafted version SHOULD cost more (Dil) AND be MORE difficult to craft as well.
I love this idea. Flat out love it.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Many have their reasons for feeling the old crafting system was of no use, I'm unsure
if agree with all of them but I do have my own. And if you are going to revamp the
crafting system perhaps it might be a good opportunity to at least try to mitigate
these issues.
My main issue...crafting currently produces items that are obtainable elsewhere in the
game. This practice is tolerable for the purpose of "leveling" in crafting, but should
not be the end goal. High end crafting does not need to yield uber items that trump
Fleet or Reputation items...they merely need to offer something that is unobtainable
elsewhere. It's the same principle as items found in lockboxes and the Lobi store, if
I could obtain those items from a random drop or a mission reward, that would nullify
the reason for purchasing lockboxes or Lobi store items. If end game crafting offered
it's own unique items I feel it would encourage it's intergration with the rest of the
game.
And I emphasize that crafted items don't need to be better than existing gear, just
different. Like batteries that last longer but put out less energy. Weapons that have
a faster (or slower) rate of fire but have adjusted damage to have the same DPS as
their non-crafted counterparts. Shields with larger capacity but some damage from
every attack leaks through. Ship cannons that can be mounted in the rear arc. And
endless possibilties to fill personal and ship device slots, like grenades for non-
Tactical characters (or Tacs that just want more grenades),a secondary overshield that
has limited charges, deployable cover shields, Hypos that can target other player,
etc...
The second issue is the high Dilithium cost. The game needs to make money, I
understand that, but if you're going to ask us to spend Dilithium it better be for
something worthwhile. Understand that crafting takes up play time and our time and
effort to gather the resources needed to craft items should be acknowledged. I hear
Dilithium is required to produce certain crafting components. I hope those components
are unbound so that those that are Dilithium rich and wish to sell those components to
crafters unwilling to part with their Dil, have a way of doing so. Some say that makes
crafting nothing more than another store...and it is. But if you offer things in
crafting I can't get anywhere else and for a reasonable price it is a store I will
use.
I have heard rumors that the quality of crafted items will have an element of
randomness to it. I'm okay with this mechanic as long as the item doesn't require any
Dil, but if you ask for any Dilithium in the crafted item I must strongly object with
any kind of randomness. I have no problem with crafting being a different kind of
store but I better get what I paid for.
I'm going to be pretty upset if they've destroyed the doff system in the game to try to augment a portion of the game that I've never been really interested in, which, from other threads around the forums, they seem to have done.
There has to come a point in our careers where we get the Shepard effect and the enemy NPCs realize they're going up against a meat grinder and self preservation kicks in.
This is the most memorable thing I've seen in a while. May I use this?
I loved your entire post. Point me to your bandwagon and I shall jump on it. Your suggestions would really liven up the game.
On topic, having tested the crafting system on Tribble for about an hour, I'm underwhelmed. I'm a huge crafter on MMORPGs. I've been a crafter for well over a decade. It's just something that I do. Mining metals and making swords is just as important to me as killing orcs. In STO, if it were a reasonably fun and reliable system, mining the rocks and crafting phaser banks would be just as important to me as blowing up Undine. I'm reserving final judgement until later in the testing cycle/live implementation, but so far my conclusion is "if it's going to be this tedious, take this long, have no streamlining, have individual items have a ridiculous time-gate, -AND- have the final product's quality be a TRIBBLE shoot, I'm going to walk away disappointed again."
The interesting thing is, individually, any of these might be acceptable. Some MMORPGs used multi-step crafting at one point before they moved to streamlining. That was okay, to a point. You should still be able to get through those steps in rapid succession and not have to start over from the "main menu" for every piece. Being able to make components in bulk is essential. Some MMOs have randomized quality (to a point.) That's okay too (by itself). The problem in the system in testing lies in the enormous time gates. Which the current system not-so-subtly has a way to circumnavigate if only you're willing to give up a chunk of your dilithium. And here we come to the biggest problem of all: the dilithium grab.
Now, dilithium "tax" would be acceptable if it felt supplementary. It should be just enough to make high-end pieces recognizable. However, the bulk of a crafted item's cost should always be the gathered raw materials. A bronze shortsword should be made by mining copper and tin, smelting them, perhaps an additional alloying step to make the bronze, then crafting it. The "time investment cost" that the dilithium is supposed to represent should already be represented by harvesting the materials. (And the whole harvesting thing in the new system is another discussion altogether...)
The other option is to keep the large dilithium costs but make the item's quality static. (For the piece itself, not for the time gate. That timer needs to be drastically reduced and the dilithium pay gate done away with. Unreasonably large time sinks aren't acceptable, this isn't EVE.)
The best option, in my opinion, would be to take the "why not both" approach. Have it be possible to craft any piece of gear, including the end-game items, using nothing but harvested materials, but in doing so have to deal with the RNG determining the quality of the result. Have the option available to use whatever large amount of dilithium as a "catalyst" to guarantee a superior result. I think that compromise would make a large number of people reasonably happy, insofar as the word "reasonable" can be applied to the population of an MMORPG.
Whew, that went on a lot longer than I intended.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Admiral Hawkye L. Narasumas
Commanding Officer, NX-91883 U.S.S. Harmony - Prometheus Class Custom Variant
Fleet Commander, No Fate ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
For those with banks filled with crafting stuff, we need a batch conversions for the thousands of anomalies that we have, but we don't have such a thing. For now we are confined to doing it one click at a time.
It appears that our dedicated crafters will be reset to zero experience. This means having to make, and destroy many items before we can craft something useful.... again. So great cost and lots of time will be needed to regain what we had achieved earlier.
Crafting will be duty officer driven. Not having the right duty officers will be a serious impediment. This is yet another layer of cost and time over our heads. Then items will cost TONS of dilithium in spite of everything else. And since making crafting a duty officer mission, that means you might lose everything you invested into making a piece of gear... even dilithium!
I dont see a crafting system, I see an attempt at an economy regulator. All I can see is that the need for EC will rise as prices for certain items will now go through the roof considering the dilith investment.
My advice to people, if this is implemented with even half the cost of dilith it has now and assuming you will be able to sell your crafted items then I suggest people who do not craft or have little dilith start farming EC BIG time NOW if you want the good stuff !
As for having to start again I find that a slap in the face of the people who levelled crafting. Not only was it time consuming but also cost in game currency to achieve. Do we get a refund on the resources we lost to achieve that (who am I kidding) ?
I finally got a chance to get on tribble and try out the new crafting system and ui, and I must say, I think I like it. But the anomaly material exchange definitely needs a slider system, especially for those of us with tons and tons of anomaly material. and the new doff ui setup is going to take a little getting used to, but I still think it looks good.
(Just wish those of us who had already completed the entire current crafting system didn't have to start all over again, but I understand why we need to; oh well...)
What I'm saddest about in the season update is the loss of exploration missions. I loved those things, just couldn't play them as much as I wanted cause I was always off getting marks, credits or doing the latest grind. I'm sure going to miss them! But I hope it is only a goodbye to the exploration missions as we knew them and that a new updated system will come in the not to distant future. Only having the story, feature and latest community authored missions without something more random will get boring fast, even with the updates every month.
(And lets face it, its hard to get to newer community authored missions in its current ui form; most often I only ever find the same missions I've already done or don't really want to do, unless I read about it on the forums and know exactly what to search for or it has been picked as a feature community authored mission, but I hope you are already working toward an update for that too; if I had any good ideas for this too, I'd offer them, but I'm afraid I don't right now).
Edit: I am also concerned though about the dillithium cost associated with some of the crafting items. I didn't get a chance to really work with those yet, but I'm worried the cost is going to be a bit too high, especially from what others have said they have seen on tribble. This especially concerns me with the loss of the exploration missions as it reduces the amount of dillithium we can earn each day. Can you consider cutting the dilithium crafting costs in half? Or are you going to increase the number of ways we can earn dillithium each day with season 9.5?
Been Playing STO as much as I can for 11+ Years!
"Never Surrender! Never give up Hope!"
"Prosperity and Success in everything you do."
"To Boldly go.........well punch it already!"
"To Be or Not To Be"....Alas, the Foundry is Not To Be. We Shall miss Thee, dear Friend!
"Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers?"- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Thank You, Cryptic......even when I don't agree with all your decisions....Thank You for Star Trek Online!
I'm going to be pretty upset if they've destroyed the doff system in the game to try to augment a portion of the game that I've never been really interested in, which, from other threads around the forums, they seem to have done.
The Doff system isn't actually changed, but the interface is unwieldy as all get out. I find it visually jarring. It's not like the jump from STO classic UI to current LCARS either. That was a reskin, this is a reshuffle, and not one that I'm fond of. And the DOFF selection for the assignments is actually an added step bringing up a separate window to scroll through the doffs rather than the Holodeck current version which is actually streamlined compared to this. I actually don't know what the antonym for streamline is.
This is the most memorable thing I've seen in a while. May I use this?
I loved your entire post. Point me to your bandwagon and I shall jump on it. Your suggestions would really liven up the game.
Of course, I'm glad to have support for the idea.
In all truth it just makes sense to me.
On topic, having tested the crafting system on Tribble for about an hour, I'm underwhelmed. I'm a huge crafter on MMORPGs. I've been a crafter for well over a decade. It's just something that I do. Mining metals and making swords is just as important to me as killing orcs. In STO, if it were a reasonably fun and reliable system, mining the rocks and crafting phaser banks would be just as important to me as blowing up Undine. I'm reserving final judgement until later in the testing cycle/live implementation, but so far my conclusion is "if it's going to be this tedious, take this long, have no streamlining, have individual items have a ridiculous time-gate, -AND- have the final product's quality be a TRIBBLE shoot, I'm going to walk away disappointed again."
The interesting thing is, individually, any of these might be acceptable. Some MMORPGs used multi-step crafting at one point before they moved to streamlining. That was okay, to a point. You should still be able to get through those steps in rapid succession and not have to start over from the "main menu" for every piece. Being able to make components in bulk is essential. Some MMOs have randomized quality (to a point.) That's okay too (by itself). The problem in the system in testing lies in the enormous time gates. Which the current system not-so-subtly has a way to circumnavigate if only you're willing to give up a chunk of your dilithium. And here we come to the biggest problem of all: the dilithium grab.
Now, dilithium "tax" would be acceptable if it felt supplementary. It should be just enough to make high-end pieces recognizable. However, the bulk of a crafted item's cost should always be the gathered raw materials. A bronze shortsword should be made by mining copper and tin, smelting them, perhaps an additional alloying step to make the bronze, then crafting it. The "time investment cost" that the dilithium is supposed to represent should already be represented by harvesting the materials. (And the whole harvesting thing in the new system is another discussion altogether...)
The other option is to keep the large dilithium costs but make the item's quality static. (For the piece itself, not for the time gate. That timer needs to be drastically reduced and the dilithium pay gate done away with. Unreasonably large time sinks aren't acceptable, this isn't EVE.)
The best option, in my opinion, would be to take the "why not both" approach. Have it be possible to craft any piece of gear, including the end-game items, using nothing but harvested materials, but in doing so have to deal with the RNG determining the quality of the result. Have the option available to use whatever large amount of dilithium as a "catalyst" to guarantee a superior result. I think that compromise would make a large number of people reasonably happy, insofar as the word "reasonable" can be applied to the population of an MMORPG.
Whew, that went on a lot longer than I intended.
Agreed. I see the finish now button with dilithium and it reminds me of the same option in Civilization games when you need a unit now. If that was it it would be fine, dilithium is supposed to represent time in this game anyway.
Logically crafting is supposed to be an alternative to endgame gear acquisition right? Rather than going through the hardest content to acquire gear you go through all of the content to acquire materials that you can use with skill to make different gear.
I'm gonna spend some more time with it, but at the moment it seriously needs a tutorial. I haven't even gotten to the point where dilithium is a factor.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I'm concerned about the level of sample conversion I will have to do.
The majority of my regular samples are stored in one fleet bank.
The remainder are stored in a storage fleet bank.
The Blue quality samples are stored in the personal inventory of a specific character.
This means all 3 characters will have to empty out the banks, do the sample conversion and then put all the new materials back.
In the case of the first regular samples, this amounts to just over 4 bank tabs of samples.
I doubt my personal inventory can handle that many at once, so it's probably going to take me ages to process them all!
I'm actually at the point where I get worried everytime Cryptic blogs about crafting updates!
I knew this was bad news before I heard about the sample conversion!
And another player told me it only gets worse.......
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Add my voice for being careful about dilithium costs. Sure, make the best items had Dil costs (maybe as a cost for items that go into it). But be careful that your Dil costs don't make the system unworkable.
Crafting also has to compete with Fleet and Reputation gear. We can only have one core, one shield, one deflector, one engine, and a limited number of weapons. Instead of building crafting as a competitor to Fleet/Reputation gear, perhaps look into making it a complement. Instead of making new gear from raw materials, instead, you start with existing gear and add features or modify features. Maybe allow swapping of one modifier for another (say, Acc for CritH?). Uncommon and rarer might allow you to swap out a common modifier for a rarer modifier, like adding a second proc to your weapon, adding energy drain, or so on. A cool idea might be putting the old [borg] modifier back in, requiring a borg neural processor plus some other mats, allowing you to use the reputation and crafting system together to make new stuff. Another cool idea I've seen bandied around is the idea of putting in a project that adds modifiers, effectively increasing the item's rarity. Going from white to green might require a green mat and a modest amount of other resources. From green to blue would require a blue mat and a moderate amount of other resources. From blue to purple, purple mat and lots of resources. And you could even allow crafting to take purple resources and add +1 (making them effectively fleet quality) or +2 (effectively unique) modifiers. That would be cool in so many ways, though you'd definitely have balance issues.
I hope you guys get this right. STO's crafting system has shown absolutely no interest to me before today...let's see what you can do with it.
pwlaughingtrendy, please transmit this post via subspace to the mother ship.
Speaking as someone who has loved MMO crafting since Gemstone and UO I feel safe in making this assertion:
Any game crafting system whose items are meant to compete for use in PvP/PvE combat is immediately a non--starter. Period. Stop. There are no successful examples in mainstream MMOs.
A game crafting system should focus on things that do not affect/imbalance game play. Wearables, unusual housing items, non-combat pets, etc. Of this there are plenty of successful examples. Raph Koster learned that lesson from UO for STO.
For example, a swimsuit shouldn't be something everyone gets after stockpiling Favors. They should have been craftable: not just styles but patterns/decals. Favors for the patterns and mats? Sure.
So this revamp doesn't really matter because it ignores the desired outcome by players: a crafting system that allows them to make things for other players to delight those other players and for the crafter to get recognition for what they make.
The current design assumption is completely misdirected. To paraphrase The Jerk, it is NOT a profit motive. Think Etsy, not Smith & Wesson. Crafters want recognition, not EC. Going back to Koster, that's why we saw things like Maker's Marks.
Add my voice for being careful about dilithium costs. Sure, make the best items had Dil costs (maybe as a cost for items that go into it). But be careful that your Dil costs don't make the system unworkable.
Crafting also has to compete with Fleet and Reputation gear. We can only have one core, one shield, one deflector, one engine, and a limited number of weapons. Instead of building crafting as a competitor to Fleet/Reputation gear, perhaps look into making it a complement. Instead of making new gear from raw materials, instead, you start with existing gear and add features or modify features. Maybe allow swapping of one modifier for another (say, Acc for CritH?). Uncommon and rarer might allow you to swap out a common modifier for a rarer modifier, like adding a second proc to your weapon, adding energy drain, or so on. A cool idea might be putting the old [borg] modifier back in, requiring a borg neural processor plus some other mats, allowing you to use the reputation and crafting system together to make new stuff. Another cool idea I've seen bandied around is the idea of putting in a project that adds modifiers, effectively increasing the item's rarity. Going from white to green might require a green mat and a modest amount of other resources. From green to blue would require a blue mat and a moderate amount of other resources. From blue to purple, purple mat and lots of resources. And you could even allow crafting to take purple resources and add +1 (making them effectively fleet quality) or +2 (effectively unique) modifiers. That would be cool in so many ways, though you'd definitely have balance issues.
I hope you guys get this right. STO's crafting system has shown absolutely no interest to me before today...let's see what you can do with it.
This absolutely. Much of this game is solid customization. Allowing us to customize our equipment from a base item is a natural extension. Especially after the excellent Kit revamp. I am hoping that this crafting will go in that direction.
pwlaughingtrendy, please transmit this post via subspace to the mother ship.
Speaking as someone who has loved MMO crafting since Gemstone and UO I feel safe in making this assertion:
A game crafting system should focus on things that do not affect/imbalance game play. Wearables, unusual housing items, non-combat pets, etc. Of this there are plenty of successful examples. Raph Koster learned that lesson from UO for STO.
For example, a swimsuit shouldn't be something everyone gets after stockpiling Favors. They should have been craftable: not just styles but patterns/decals. Favors for the patterns and mats? Sure.
So this revamp doesn't really matter because it ignores the desired outcome by players: a crafting system that allows them to make things for other players to delight those other players and for the crafter to get recognition for what they make.
The current design assumption is completely misdirected. To paraphrase The Jerk, it is NOT a profit motive. Think Etsy, not Smith & Wesson. Crafters want recognition, not EC. Going back to Koster, that's why we saw things like Maker's Marks.
I think that a modding system would work, but crafting non combat items is certainly an excellent idea. Though many crafters do want EC.
I would love swimsuit patterns available, though someone's bound to say I'm a Starfleet officer not a tailor. That said, Ben Sisko was certainly a chef.
After I saw the YouTube post someone made, I thought along the same lines. Cryptic is removing a hallmark feature, which connected the game to the main premise of the franchise. Exploration.
"Star Trek: Online" is a game that contains 'Star Trek' elements, but it does not use them in a "Star Trek" like manner. Players are not: (1) exploring new regions of space, (2) discovering new lifeforms, (3) learning about a civilization's culture and philosophy, etc...
If they kept the exploration aspects of the game, cryptic could have updated them with new types of missions. Some of those missions include, not limited to: (1) assist in colonization, (2) free captives, (3) scan & study new lifeforms, (4) learn a new language to help in peace negotiations, (5) chart a system with astrometrics, (6) diplomatically solve territory disputes, etc... While a tiny percentage of them are in feature episodes, Cryptic should have made them apart of the exploration mechanic.
What we now have is grinding resources and filling buckets.
Even though "Star Trek: Online" is dressed like "Star Trek", the game's mechanics do not even reflect the franchise.
"Star Trek: Online" has more in common with "Farmville" and "YoVille".
Gather resources, fill buckets, and wait for timegates to expire. Rinse and repeat... As a result of converting everything over to timegates, buckets, and resource grinding, Cryptic ended up burying the main premise of the franchise.
I am holding out hope that the shut down of the clusters at this time is a prelude to an exploration revamp, and they would do well to use these ideas in addition to those posted across these forums.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Am I missing something? I'm glad that the crafting system is being looked at, but I'm still unclear as to WHAT I can craft (which is all anyone really gives a TRIBBLE about considering peeps will grind for anything - including a Risan Love Boat). I'll be straight up though - if I can't craft items that are on par with fleet quality or better . . . I just don't see the point, or why anyone should care.
As it stands you will be able to craft up to MkXII Ultra Rare in certain areas, the question is the dilithium cost.
It's curious part of what Cryptic is doing is eliminating one of the things that killed crafting, mainly that almost anything you could craft, you could just buy from the dilithium store for less dilithium. Now they've eliminated the competition by removing craftable items from the D-store.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
OK so I was playing with this system, and it's not that bad. A little long to build anything good. A couple of issue I think might make the system a bit more usable:
Allow us to "reverse engineer" items (via duty officers) to obtain components
And I have to stress this, this is just a personal issue. Why does a player with a maxed out crafter have to spend all day trying to build a tier 1 item? Or am I missing something.
I like the easier Duty Officer Interface, and the mission rewards are better understood, but I am sad to see the exploration zones go (Unless the much talked about "Next Expansion" give us a whole new zone, then "SO LONG CLUSTER MISSIONS. HELLO SPACE ZONE.")
Is there going to be anything remotely appealing about 9.5 or is this update just going to be the crafting revamp?
I appreciate you guys are working on the crafting system but to be honest, I'm not a big crafter. This system you are proposing (even in it's early stage) doesn't change that, in fact as it is on tribble, I'll avoid it like the plague.
Once again, anything else on target for 9.5 or should I just wait it out until E2?
In our three-part blog, System Designer Jeff AdjudicatorHawk Hamilton shares more information about the new schools captains can take part in with crafting update coming soon! Read more details about how the schools function in the latest entry of the Season 9 News Dev Blog series.
Didn't we already know everything in that? Bit of a pointless blog!
Not everyone follows the Tribble patch notes, or the dev tracker. Some people don't even follow these dev blogs, you'd be surprised at how little of the STO playerbase actually uses these forums.
I am wondering what this new system means for the alien artifacts and creating consoles from them?
They'll remain as-is in the Duty Officer system. It's a bit more arcane to make a console that way, but more fun for players who prefer the Duty Officer system over a Crafting system.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
They'll remain as-is in the Duty Officer system. It's a bit more arcane to make a console that way, but more fun for players who prefer the Duty Officer system over a Crafting system.
Empowering the Alien Device is going to have to change since the particle traces are going away ... after that I suppose it could remain the same. Slightly more random than the crafting system currently in testing, but not by much.
How's the feedback slog going, by the way? We're dying to hear from you over there.
And if the tech is in the works, then why won't they just postpone the release of S9,5 till it's all finished and ready?
Oh yeah, because they've got their arbitrary deadlines and tend to release unfinished content just to have something to market and monetize.
D'Angelo said a good while ago, think it was the Season 8.5 launch, that to do the crafting system properly would take a few seasons to fully get sorted out. That was back then so it is hardly a surprise that this is the case.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Geko stated in the recent episode of Priority One that crafting specific items with modifiers will come in the future, just not with 9.5.
Not everyone follows the Tribble patch notes, or the dev tracker. Some people don't even follow these dev blogs, you'd be surprised at how little of the STO playerbase actually uses these forums.
Geko also stated:
- Secondary deflectors to all science ships
Tacofangs stated the addition of Club 47 sometime after Season 9. It's pretty clear, that that "sometime" is not Season 9.5. Maybe not even "Expansion 2".
Mr Stahl was notorious at promising all sorts of things, many of which never came to existence. Actions prove more to me than mere words. At this point, Geko, Taco and the rest of Cryptic could tell me, the "Sky is blue" and I'd still not believe it. The "new and improved" monetized crafting system, will see no usage from me. All my characters that I care about, are max level and decked out in Fleet gear. With the crafting system not being equal or greater to Fleet gear, there's simply no need for it in my situation. And the fact that they are purposely "nerfing" the only working system they have (Duty Officers), makes matter worse.
Add to that, the entire removal of the "Exploration Clusters", basically removes any semblance of calling this a Star Trek game. Wasn't Exploration one of it's primary draws, compared to the likes of oh I dunno, Star Wars etc?
Since we've not even seen what exactly the catalysts will do, How to obtain them or what boosts to chance they give yet
Can you all stop blowing the gamble chance horn at this early stage of release, Its as if some people revel in spreading negative misinformation for the sake of it
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
If this is *ANYTHING* Like the Neverwinter crafting "Professions" I'm all-in. THAT is a great crafting system. The old STO crafting system (all the way back to launch) just plain... well, sucks. The Neverwinter Professions system is awesome.
Based on this blog post it appears the be a similar system (albeit different names and description, but mechanically the same). This is awesome news.
In our three-part blog, System Designer Jeff AdjudicatorHawk Hamilton shares more information about the new schools captains can take part in with crafting update coming soon! Read more details about how the schools function in the latest entry of the Season 9 News Dev Blog series.
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In the other thread, found what might be causing the issue. It's still there on NRC...but not Qo'noS.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
THIS would be awesome indeed:
Imagine the ability to "swap" out modifiers to suit your build/playstyle.
purple Mk X RCS 1 hard coded modifier (as applicable to an RCS console) + 1 swap-able modifier MODULE (also as applicable to RCS)
purple Mk XI RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 2 swap-able modifier MODULES
purple Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 3 swap-able modifier MODULES
Ultraviolet Mk XII RCS 1 hard coded modifier + 4 swap-able modifier MODULES
LOTS of possibilities for many different configurations with JUST 1 console.
Of course, this Modular capability/approach would only apply to the Crafted version of any given item (RCS engineering console as per my example) and if the UV mk12 Crafted version is deemed better/more powerful than the Fleet UV mk12 version, the Crafted version SHOULD cost more (Dil) AND be MORE difficult to craft as well.
I love this idea. Flat out love it.
if agree with all of them but I do have my own. And if you are going to revamp the
crafting system perhaps it might be a good opportunity to at least try to mitigate
these issues.
My main issue...crafting currently produces items that are obtainable elsewhere in the
game. This practice is tolerable for the purpose of "leveling" in crafting, but should
not be the end goal. High end crafting does not need to yield uber items that trump
Fleet or Reputation items...they merely need to offer something that is unobtainable
elsewhere. It's the same principle as items found in lockboxes and the Lobi store, if
I could obtain those items from a random drop or a mission reward, that would nullify
the reason for purchasing lockboxes or Lobi store items. If end game crafting offered
it's own unique items I feel it would encourage it's intergration with the rest of the
game.
And I emphasize that crafted items don't need to be better than existing gear, just
different. Like batteries that last longer but put out less energy. Weapons that have
a faster (or slower) rate of fire but have adjusted damage to have the same DPS as
their non-crafted counterparts. Shields with larger capacity but some damage from
every attack leaks through. Ship cannons that can be mounted in the rear arc. And
endless possibilties to fill personal and ship device slots, like grenades for non-
Tactical characters (or Tacs that just want more grenades),a secondary overshield that
has limited charges, deployable cover shields, Hypos that can target other player,
etc...
The second issue is the high Dilithium cost. The game needs to make money, I
understand that, but if you're going to ask us to spend Dilithium it better be for
something worthwhile. Understand that crafting takes up play time and our time and
effort to gather the resources needed to craft items should be acknowledged. I hear
Dilithium is required to produce certain crafting components. I hope those components
are unbound so that those that are Dilithium rich and wish to sell those components to
crafters unwilling to part with their Dil, have a way of doing so. Some say that makes
crafting nothing more than another store...and it is. But if you offer things in
crafting I can't get anywhere else and for a reasonable price it is a store I will
use.
I have heard rumors that the quality of crafted items will have an element of
randomness to it. I'm okay with this mechanic as long as the item doesn't require any
Dil, but if you ask for any Dilithium in the crafted item I must strongly object with
any kind of randomness. I have no problem with crafting being a different kind of
store but I better get what I paid for.
This is the most memorable thing I've seen in a while. May I use this?
I loved your entire post. Point me to your bandwagon and I shall jump on it. Your suggestions would really liven up the game.
On topic, having tested the crafting system on Tribble for about an hour, I'm underwhelmed. I'm a huge crafter on MMORPGs. I've been a crafter for well over a decade. It's just something that I do. Mining metals and making swords is just as important to me as killing orcs. In STO, if it were a reasonably fun and reliable system, mining the rocks and crafting phaser banks would be just as important to me as blowing up Undine. I'm reserving final judgement until later in the testing cycle/live implementation, but so far my conclusion is "if it's going to be this tedious, take this long, have no streamlining, have individual items have a ridiculous time-gate, -AND- have the final product's quality be a TRIBBLE shoot, I'm going to walk away disappointed again."
The interesting thing is, individually, any of these might be acceptable. Some MMORPGs used multi-step crafting at one point before they moved to streamlining. That was okay, to a point. You should still be able to get through those steps in rapid succession and not have to start over from the "main menu" for every piece. Being able to make components in bulk is essential. Some MMOs have randomized quality (to a point.) That's okay too (by itself). The problem in the system in testing lies in the enormous time gates. Which the current system not-so-subtly has a way to circumnavigate if only you're willing to give up a chunk of your dilithium. And here we come to the biggest problem of all: the dilithium grab.
Now, dilithium "tax" would be acceptable if it felt supplementary. It should be just enough to make high-end pieces recognizable. However, the bulk of a crafted item's cost should always be the gathered raw materials. A bronze shortsword should be made by mining copper and tin, smelting them, perhaps an additional alloying step to make the bronze, then crafting it. The "time investment cost" that the dilithium is supposed to represent should already be represented by harvesting the materials. (And the whole harvesting thing in the new system is another discussion altogether...)
The other option is to keep the large dilithium costs but make the item's quality static. (For the piece itself, not for the time gate. That timer needs to be drastically reduced and the dilithium pay gate done away with. Unreasonably large time sinks aren't acceptable, this isn't EVE.)
The best option, in my opinion, would be to take the "why not both" approach. Have it be possible to craft any piece of gear, including the end-game items, using nothing but harvested materials, but in doing so have to deal with the RNG determining the quality of the result. Have the option available to use whatever large amount of dilithium as a "catalyst" to guarantee a superior result. I think that compromise would make a large number of people reasonably happy, insofar as the word "reasonable" can be applied to the population of an MMORPG.
Whew, that went on a lot longer than I intended.
Admiral Hawkye L. Narasumas
Commanding Officer, NX-91883 U.S.S. Harmony - Prometheus Class Custom Variant
Fleet Commander, No Fate
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For those with banks filled with crafting stuff, we need a batch conversions for the thousands of anomalies that we have, but we don't have such a thing. For now we are confined to doing it one click at a time.
It appears that our dedicated crafters will be reset to zero experience. This means having to make, and destroy many items before we can craft something useful.... again. So great cost and lots of time will be needed to regain what we had achieved earlier.
Crafting will be duty officer driven. Not having the right duty officers will be a serious impediment. This is yet another layer of cost and time over our heads. Then items will cost TONS of dilithium in spite of everything else. And since making crafting a duty officer mission, that means you might lose everything you invested into making a piece of gear... even dilithium!
I see no win here at this time.
Member since December 2009
My advice to people, if this is implemented with even half the cost of dilith it has now and assuming you will be able to sell your crafted items then I suggest people who do not craft or have little dilith start farming EC BIG time NOW if you want the good stuff !
As for having to start again I find that a slap in the face of the people who levelled crafting. Not only was it time consuming but also cost in game currency to achieve. Do we get a refund on the resources we lost to achieve that (who am I kidding) ?
(Just wish those of us who had already completed the entire current crafting system didn't have to start all over again, but I understand why we need to; oh well...)
What I'm saddest about in the season update is the loss of exploration missions. I loved those things, just couldn't play them as much as I wanted cause I was always off getting marks, credits or doing the latest grind. I'm sure going to miss them! But I hope it is only a goodbye to the exploration missions as we knew them and that a new updated system will come in the not to distant future. Only having the story, feature and latest community authored missions without something more random will get boring fast, even with the updates every month.
(And lets face it, its hard to get to newer community authored missions in its current ui form; most often I only ever find the same missions I've already done or don't really want to do, unless I read about it on the forums and know exactly what to search for or it has been picked as a feature community authored mission, but I hope you are already working toward an update for that too; if I had any good ideas for this too, I'd offer them, but I'm afraid I don't right now).
Edit: I am also concerned though about the dillithium cost associated with some of the crafting items. I didn't get a chance to really work with those yet, but I'm worried the cost is going to be a bit too high, especially from what others have said they have seen on tribble. This especially concerns me with the loss of the exploration missions as it reduces the amount of dillithium we can earn each day. Can you consider cutting the dilithium crafting costs in half? Or are you going to increase the number of ways we can earn dillithium each day with season 9.5?
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Thank You, Cryptic......even when I don't agree with all your decisions....Thank You for Star Trek Online!
The Doff system isn't actually changed, but the interface is unwieldy as all get out. I find it visually jarring. It's not like the jump from STO classic UI to current LCARS either. That was a reskin, this is a reshuffle, and not one that I'm fond of. And the DOFF selection for the assignments is actually an added step bringing up a separate window to scroll through the doffs rather than the Holodeck current version which is actually streamlined compared to this. I actually don't know what the antonym for streamline is.
Of course, I'm glad to have support for the idea.
In all truth it just makes sense to me.
Agreed. I see the finish now button with dilithium and it reminds me of the same option in Civilization games when you need a unit now. If that was it it would be fine, dilithium is supposed to represent time in this game anyway.
Logically crafting is supposed to be an alternative to endgame gear acquisition right? Rather than going through the hardest content to acquire gear you go through all of the content to acquire materials that you can use with skill to make different gear.
I'm gonna spend some more time with it, but at the moment it seriously needs a tutorial. I haven't even gotten to the point where dilithium is a factor.
The majority of my regular samples are stored in one fleet bank.
The remainder are stored in a storage fleet bank.
The Blue quality samples are stored in the personal inventory of a specific character.
This means all 3 characters will have to empty out the banks, do the sample conversion and then put all the new materials back.
In the case of the first regular samples, this amounts to just over 4 bank tabs of samples.
I doubt my personal inventory can handle that many at once, so it's probably going to take me ages to process them all!
I'm actually at the point where I get worried everytime Cryptic blogs about crafting updates!
I knew this was bad news before I heard about the sample conversion!
And another player told me it only gets worse.......
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Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Crafting also has to compete with Fleet and Reputation gear. We can only have one core, one shield, one deflector, one engine, and a limited number of weapons. Instead of building crafting as a competitor to Fleet/Reputation gear, perhaps look into making it a complement. Instead of making new gear from raw materials, instead, you start with existing gear and add features or modify features. Maybe allow swapping of one modifier for another (say, Acc for CritH?). Uncommon and rarer might allow you to swap out a common modifier for a rarer modifier, like adding a second proc to your weapon, adding energy drain, or so on. A cool idea might be putting the old [borg] modifier back in, requiring a borg neural processor plus some other mats, allowing you to use the reputation and crafting system together to make new stuff. Another cool idea I've seen bandied around is the idea of putting in a project that adds modifiers, effectively increasing the item's rarity. Going from white to green might require a green mat and a modest amount of other resources. From green to blue would require a blue mat and a moderate amount of other resources. From blue to purple, purple mat and lots of resources. And you could even allow crafting to take purple resources and add +1 (making them effectively fleet quality) or +2 (effectively unique) modifiers. That would be cool in so many ways, though you'd definitely have balance issues.
I hope you guys get this right. STO's crafting system has shown absolutely no interest to me before today...let's see what you can do with it.
Speaking as someone who has loved MMO crafting since Gemstone and UO I feel safe in making this assertion:
A game crafting system should focus on things that do not affect/imbalance game play. Wearables, unusual housing items, non-combat pets, etc. Of this there are plenty of successful examples. Raph Koster learned that lesson from UO for STO.
For example, a swimsuit shouldn't be something everyone gets after stockpiling Favors. They should have been craftable: not just styles but patterns/decals. Favors for the patterns and mats? Sure.
So this revamp doesn't really matter because it ignores the desired outcome by players: a crafting system that allows them to make things for other players to delight those other players and for the crafter to get recognition for what they make.
The current design assumption is completely misdirected. To paraphrase The Jerk, it is NOT a profit motive. Think Etsy, not Smith & Wesson. Crafters want recognition, not EC. Going back to Koster, that's why we saw things like Maker's Marks.
That said I do look forward to emptying my various banks accounts. More people get rich selling supplies to crafters than crafters get rich selling their stuff. I stockpiled for this reason alone - I assumed Cryptic would not fundamentally rethink crafting. So few graphical MMOs do...
I would love swimsuit patterns available, though someone's bound to say I'm a Starfleet officer not a tailor. That said, Ben Sisko was certainly a chef.
I am holding out hope that the shut down of the clusters at this time is a prelude to an exploration revamp, and they would do well to use these ideas in addition to those posted across these forums.
As it stands you will be able to craft up to MkXII Ultra Rare in certain areas, the question is the dilithium cost.
It's curious part of what Cryptic is doing is eliminating one of the things that killed crafting, mainly that almost anything you could craft, you could just buy from the dilithium store for less dilithium. Now they've eliminated the competition by removing craftable items from the D-store.
I like the easier Duty Officer Interface, and the mission rewards are better understood, but I am sad to see the exploration zones go (Unless the much talked about "Next Expansion" give us a whole new zone, then "SO LONG CLUSTER MISSIONS. HELLO SPACE ZONE.")
I appreciate you guys are working on the crafting system but to be honest, I'm not a big crafter. This system you are proposing (even in it's early stage) doesn't change that, in fact as it is on tribble, I'll avoid it like the plague.
Once again, anything else on target for 9.5 or should I just wait it out until E2?
Link to the blog.
~LaughingTrendy
Not everyone follows the Tribble patch notes, or the dev tracker. Some people don't even follow these dev blogs, you'd be surprised at how little of the STO playerbase actually uses these forums.
Seriously, though. I like what I'm hearing so far in regards to crafting.
They'll remain as-is in the Duty Officer system. It's a bit more arcane to make a console that way, but more fun for players who prefer the Duty Officer system over a Crafting system.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Empowering the Alien Device is going to have to change since the particle traces are going away ... after that I suppose it could remain the same. Slightly more random than the crafting system currently in testing, but not by much.
How's the feedback slog going, by the way? We're dying to hear from you over there.
D'Angelo said a good while ago, think it was the Season 8.5 launch, that to do the crafting system properly would take a few seasons to fully get sorted out. That was back then so it is hardly a surprise that this is the case.
Geko also stated:
- Secondary deflectors to all science ships
Tacofangs stated the addition of Club 47 sometime after Season 9. It's pretty clear, that that "sometime" is not Season 9.5. Maybe not even "Expansion 2".
Mr Stahl was notorious at promising all sorts of things, many of which never came to existence. Actions prove more to me than mere words. At this point, Geko, Taco and the rest of Cryptic could tell me, the "Sky is blue" and I'd still not believe it. The "new and improved" monetized crafting system, will see no usage from me. All my characters that I care about, are max level and decked out in Fleet gear. With the crafting system not being equal or greater to Fleet gear, there's simply no need for it in my situation. And the fact that they are purposely "nerfing" the only working system they have (Duty Officers), makes matter worse.
Add to that, the entire removal of the "Exploration Clusters", basically removes any semblance of calling this a Star Trek game. Wasn't Exploration one of it's primary draws, compared to the likes of oh I dunno, Star Wars etc?
Can you all stop blowing the gamble chance horn at this early stage of release, Its as if some people revel in spreading negative misinformation for the sake of it
Based on this blog post it appears the be a similar system (albeit different names and description, but mechanically the same). This is awesome news.