exploration is the key idea behind Star Trek
Its interesting to see that cryptic gives a **** about what Star Trek actually stands for.
It wouldnt surprise me if their next step is to remove all the sector maps and tell the players to use the PVE queue instead.
To back up those statements with a "me, too!", I managed 1st place (in CC Elite STF) last week with a FED SCI retrofit (Nova-class) on my lvl 50 FED SCI toon -- and only Mk XI plasma and tetryon weaponry. No fleet or elite gear. And I was healing others during the battle while still managing to survive much of the time. I'll say I do have the Red Matter Capacitor, but I wouldn't consider it the decisive factor in winning. Like I said, no elite or fleet gear on that ship build.
It is possible. Elite Fleet gear is not always required.
On the flipside, I entered into an ISE Elite STF soon after and got reduced to atoms repeatedly.
And I haven't repeated that CC Elite STF 1st place victory... yet.
Hell I managed to get first place in an escort that was built from spare parts I had laying about so it isn't too hard to get these things.
But on the topic at hand, just going to put some general responses to stuff I've seen said that's plain wrong.
First point is people saying the modifiers are random, and true enough they will be at first. Yet it has already been said in a podcast that the basic tech is there to put the modifier changing mechanics into the system and that they'll be arriving with the expansion later in the year. So really see it as a chance to use the cheap materials to level your crafting for the time being.
They also speculated that maybe early next year there might be the ability to upgrade the quality of an item, for example from blue to purple or purple to ultraviolet or even gold. D'Angelo said a while back that getting a proper crafting revamp to work would take a few seasons and that's what is happening.
Also, there's traits to be had once you've got to the end of a particular school of crafting, such as the beam damage one for the beams school. Those will be a nice reward in themselves until we wait for the other parts of the crafting tech to arrive.
Secondly, of course they have to monetise some things so that they can keep the game going, it would be illogical to do otherwise. Yet when it comes down to it, you make the decision as to whether you put the effort in or not, no one is making you buy anything. I'm going to be running with fleet mates in all the queues so that we can help each other move forward. That way not only do we have the materials but we also have fun playing together.
Now I'm not a fan of the dilithium monetisation, though in the form of timer cooldown reductions. That should be removed entirely. I don't mind the item dil costs though as once we can change the modifiers it won't matter what they are as we can just change them. However the issue will be what we need to do to change them, that will just have to be a case of wait and see for the time being.
Thirdly, people complaining about the cluster removal, I agree with you all wholeheartedly, I say leave the clusters alone and just disable the explore missions so we can still farm resources from them. The explores are pretty broken and don't reflect well on the game, but we ought to be able to keep getting mats from them in my opinion.
Lastly, anyone complaining about how to get the very rare resources, I have no sympathy. I run all the queues with fleet mates all the time and we have no issues with any of them, frankly I don't think they're hard enough and it would be nice to have a 'legendary' level but that's a topic for another thread. Learn to do them and then be surprised how easy they actually are.
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.
Ok, so having spent a bajillionty hours grinding R&D to get the Aegis set, for example, are we able to transfer it between our characters yet? If not then this just makes it even less appealing than it already was to me, I don't think I've ever even bothered with R&D for exactly that reason.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.
Ok, so having spent a bajillionty hours grinding R&D to get the Aegis set, for example, are we able to transfer it between our characters yet? If not then this just makes it even less appealing than it already was to me, I don't think I've ever even bothered with R&D for exactly that reason.
I'm not sure what you're asking. You already could transfer it, as long as you didn't equip it.
That's not changing.
Cryptic has said every craftable item is tradeable.
They are basically forcing you to play on elite. In order to get very Rare resources. That will pretty much doom the resource system unless you have a lot of very rare data tiles that you trade in.
Too many people TRIBBLE around in the elite PVE ques so you wind up with massive amounts of damage to your ship because 2 people leave the ques leaving 3 people left to do the mission.
So the Research system just became a waste of time. Unless you want to play hideous elite mission from the ques system.
1. All high end mk XI & XII gear will require very rare materials that can only be gathered occasionally from Elite PvE queues or purchased for 300 zen which is turned into components that cost dilithum
2. Special items like the Aegis gear, the TR rifle, and the other crafting exclusive gear will require 'school specialist' doffs that will be added to C-Store doff packs as rare drops and a 1000 dilithium assignment that has a rare chance to drop one. They will likely cost millions of EC on the exchange (probably 20 million for a very rare)
3. Will take months to max out one of the seven schools unless you're willing to dump insane quantities of dilithium to automatically complete them. Not to mention the amount of vendor trash that you'll have clutter your inventory
So PvE grind + 300 Zen Materials + C-Store/Exchange only doffs + Timegates + New dilithium sink = Unmitigated Disaster
Hell I managed to get first place in an escort that was built from spare parts I had laying about so it isn't too hard to get these things.
But on the topic at hand, just going to put some general responses to stuff I've seen said that's plain wrong.
First point is people saying the modifiers are random, and true enough they will be at first. Yet it has already been said in a podcast that the basic tech is there to put the modifier changing mechanics into the system and that they'll be arriving with the expansion later in the year. So really see it as a chance to use the cheap materials to level your crafting for the time being.
They also speculated that maybe early next year there might be the ability to upgrade the quality of an item, for example from blue to purple or purple to ultraviolet or even gold. D'Angelo said a while back that getting a proper crafting revamp to work would take a few seasons and that's what is happening.
Also, there's traits to be had once you've got to the end of a particular school of crafting, such as the beam damage one for the beams school. Those will be a nice reward in themselves until we wait for the other parts of the crafting tech to arrive.
Secondly, of course they have to monetise some things so that they can keep the game going, it would be illogical to do otherwise. Yet when it comes down to it, you make the decision as to whether you put the effort in or not, no one is making you buy anything. I'm going to be running with fleet mates in all the queues so that we can help each other move forward. That way not only do we have the materials but we also have fun playing together.
Now I'm not a fan of the dilithium monetisation, though in the form of timer cooldown reductions. That should be removed entirely. I don't mind the item dil costs though as once we can change the modifiers it won't matter what they are as we can just change them. However the issue will be what we need to do to change them, that will just have to be a case of wait and see for the time being.
Thirdly, people complaining about the cluster removal, I agree with you all wholeheartedly, I say leave the clusters alone and just disable the explore missions so we can still farm resources from them. The explores are pretty broken and don't reflect well on the game, but we ought to be able to keep getting mats from them in my opinion.
Lastly, anyone complaining about how to get the very rare resources, I have no sympathy. I run all the queues with fleet mates all the time and we have no issues with any of them, frankly I don't think they're hard enough and it would be nice to have a 'legendary' level but that's a topic for another thread. Learn to do them and then be surprised how easy they actually are.
So basically we are getting a half finished product,something Cryptic is notorious for,and we get to 'test' it for 6 to 12 months before they turn it into something semi-useful.Thanks,I'll pass.
Compared to the Reputation system,leveling R&D is a nightmare.But you forget the most important aspect....the traits aren't all that good compared to what is already available,and remember,you can only have so many traits active at any one time,you will have to give something up to get the 2% damage increase on beams...
The reason for removing the clusters is one of numbers...there are 2000+ cluster exploration maps,and they would have to go through each and every one to update them with the new crafting mats.It's for cheaper for them to just remove the maps and replace them with something completely new in 1 or 2 years time.
"They have to monetise some things?" *facepalm*
Ok,read this next part again gathering mats....
In addition to their normal rewards, PvE queues will now drop an additional Research and Development Material Reward Package. This pack comes in two main types - a Normal Queue R&D Material Reward Package and an Advanced Queue R&D Material Reward Package. The normal pack is given as an additional reward in normal queues and contains a random assortment of 20 R&D materials (10 common, uncommon or rare materials, 7 uncommon or rare materials, and 3 rare materials). The Advanced pack, on the other hand, is given as an additional reward in elite queues and contains a random assortment of 25 R&D materials (5 common materials, 10 common, uncommon, rare or very rare materials, 7 uncommon, rare or very rare materials, and 3 rare or very rare materials).
and what you get from the c-store....
For those looking for a leg up on their competition, Research and Development Booster Packages are available in the C-store for 300 ZEN. These packs includes: 40 R&D materials (15 common materials or better, 15 uncommon materials or better, 6 rare materials or better, and 3 very rare materials), 8 R&D components (3 Mk II or better, 3 Mk VI or better, and 2 Mk X or better) and 3 R&D catalysts that can be used to increase your effective school skill on a given project, yielding a higher chance to create a higher quality item. A bundle of 4 R&D Booster Packages is also available at a discount, for 1,000 ZEN.
The one thing you need,is the one thing you can't farm or create....and yes I said need,because the amount of junk items you will create without the catalists will make crafting very,very expensive.
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
OK.. I'm going to ask this question, because I know its been asked but nothing has been said about it really...
If you have a character that has maxed crafting in the old system, is there anything been done to reflect this, other than the new accolades?
This topic seems to have been skirted around. And yes I know its is not a high priority topic, still needs to be addressed.
Thanks.
If you touched the current system even from the defera borg items, you get the accolade, if you got at least 1500 ( i believe) in the current system you get an aegis doff.
New home of the Romulan Republic.
I have an idea for what Season 11 should be; Season 11: The Big Bug Fix.
I have not been able to read my bug tickets in over a year, not even the tickets about not being able to see my tickets.
I find the drama of your signature proof of your immaturity, this means you, DR whiners.
^ It's stupid that it's a common DOFF. Guaranteed it's going to get sucked into someones Starbase Project.
As for the latest blog on Material Nodes. I really hate their decision to monetize it by putting it in the C-store or putting it in Elite Queues. Nobody is playing Queued events anymore. The Klingon queues been dead for months and this isn't going to revitalize them. People are just plain tired of playing the same content over and over again for the past 4 years.
You need to have the Very Rare chance to get the Very Rare Materials through normal drops.
no, this stupid common aegis doff TRIBBLE even seems to be bound... so its not going into a fleet project
its just wasting roster space which you can extend for even more zen at the c-store ^^
Generally, I'm in favor of the way forward here. I'm a little cheesed that all my hard earned research is now worthless and I'll have to start all over again. But I have a ton of materials in my bank, so meh. Speaking of which, glad that I'll actually have room in my bank after a ton of conversion is done.
I have a few concerns:
1) I am not so much concerned about the removal of exploration clusters (scan 5, kill 7) as I am removing the empty space to search for materials. When I was farming, I did enjoy hopping into my runabout and scanning the heck out of anomalies. It may have been small, but it did actually give a feeling of exploration.
In addition to their normal rewards, PvE queues will now drop an additional Research and Development Material Reward Package.
2) Ugh. Really. I'm honestly burned out on PvE queues. Between grinding for marks (fleet and reputation) and looking fondly back when I leveled my character with story missions (remember story missions? because the game actually has a really good storyline. Three of them even!) I would be perfectly happy with some other way. I mean, I kind of get it (yay, salvage!).
Referring to my earlier point. That's what I liked about farming in the exploration clusters. I felt like I was boldly going somewhere and searching for anomalies. Not just shooting some junior officer out a torpedo tube and telling him to do it for me. I mean a shuttle... yeah...
In order to replace these sources of Dilithium, we are looking at ways to add more Dilithium to rewards throughout the game, with a focus on adding it to rewards for single player content.
3) Okay. Finally. If I got dilithium for replaying story missions, I would probably replay the heck out of some of them. Heck I'd love to get dilithium and/or material packages for revisiting the patrol mission planets (remember those?). Go to random planet, play mission on that planet, get materials and dilithium for doing so. What's not to love about that?!
(mildly off topic)
That's probably the biggest complaint with my play group. We don't replay story mission because there's no benefit in moving our "end game" forward. No marks for various reputations or fleet. No dilithium to help move our projects along. So we grind... ugh.
(and we're back!)
All that said. I am all for removing dilithium from the crafting system. Dilithium was supposed to be the "time" currency. But the crafting itself is a time sink. So, we have time on top of time. I'd be perfectly happy is some crafting took (reasonably) longer and there was no dilithium cost.
<signature under reconstruction>
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Want cheap commodities? Yeah you do. Commodity Cheat Sheet (includes food and data samples)
Want to make the game better? Might I suggest this form
Hey, we should all be happy because Gekko's plan for STO is coming to fruition nicely. Remember its three main points:
1) Remove content (Because as we all know, and as Gekko has stated "STO has too much content..")
2) Increase the 'grind' (Because nothing brings players back like having to grind the exact same event or content over and over and over to 'earn' a good item.)
3) Monetize everything (How else will they make money?)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Well I have tested the crafting system on tribble and to be honest it has way too many things wrong with it and as for the c store thing am not sure about that either but I'm certain I won't waste any c store points on that item lol.
This crafting system for me doesn't have context since it doesn't as far as I can tell augment whats already available, the dillithium costs for the high end gear just don't seem worth it to me for why would you spend 5000 when you can just take that along with some fleet credits and get gear thats way better than what the crafting system could offer anyway add to that the rep gear as well which also is better. I don't see this as being something people are going to invest significant time and resources which are better spent on fleet gear or rep gear then there is fleet starbases where again that resource is better spent .
To be honest I see this system just being yet another item that people will just stay away from for the most part and spending their precious dillithium on their bases and items that can be bought from the fleet stores.
So basically we are getting a half finished product,something Cryptic is notorious for,and we get to 'test' it for 6 to 12 months before they turn it into something semi-useful.Thanks,I'll pass.
Compared to the Reputation system,leveling R&D is a nightmare.But you forget the most important aspect....the traits aren't all that good compared to what is already available,and remember,you can only have so many traits active at any one time,you will have to give something up to get the 2% damage increase on beams...
The reason for removing the clusters is one of numbers...there are 2000+ cluster exploration maps,and they would have to go through each and every one to update them with the new crafting mats.It's for cheaper for them to just remove the maps and replace them with something completely new in 1 or 2 years time.
"They have to monetise some things?" *facepalm*
Ok,read this next part again gathering mats....
and what you get from the c-store....
The one thing you need,is the one thing you can't farm or create....and yes I said need,because the amount of junk items you will create without the catalists will make crafting very,very expensive.
Well that just proves you didn't read all of what I said. It was predicted long ago that it would be rolled out over a few seasons and that's exactly what is happening.
Now the traits are actually pretty nice, you just have to build your ship properly to take advantage of them. Granted they're not all completely fantastic, but there's 2-3 I'd think would be foolish to turn down.
As to the explores, do you really believe they're all individual maps? They random scenario generators, buggy as hell granted but they're not individual maps. Having 2000 individual maps like that would be insane.
And yes they do need to monetise some stuff, it's a F2P game not subscription based, and if you look at other 'F2P' games out there this game blows them all out the water in terms of what is possible to do without paying, so count your lucky stars.
And no you don't NEED catalysts, you choose them, and I'm not going to cry over a few useless items especially when modifier changing gets released. Once you don't worry about modifiers or getting decent stuff immediately it's actually pretty nice.
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.
Well that just proves you didn't read all of what I said. It was predicted long ago that it would be rolled out over a few seasons and that's exactly what is happening.
Now the traits are actually pretty nice, you just have to build your ship properly to take advantage of them. Granted they're not all completely fantastic, but there's 2-3 I'd think would be foolish to turn down.
As to the explores, do you really believe they're all individual maps? They random scenario generators, buggy as hell granted but they're not individual maps. Having 2000 individual maps like that would be insane.
And yes they do need to monetise some stuff, it's a F2P game not subscription based, and if you look at other 'F2P' games out there this game blows them all out the water in terms of what is possible to do without paying, so count your lucky stars.
And no you don't NEED catalysts, you choose them, and I'm not going to cry over a few useless items especially when modifier changing gets released. Once you don't worry about modifiers or getting decent stuff immediately it's actually pretty nice.
You really think Cryptic is going be worried about adding to the crafting system once launched?
They are worried about getting Expansion 2 out. Then another 2 or 3 seasons fixing that. The Gateway is still beta after 2 years plus. The exploration cluster removed after 4 years. Genesis was never updated. Foundry is still not up to par after 3 years and treated like a step child.
Well that just proves you didn't read all of what I said. It was predicted long ago that it would be rolled out over a few seasons and that's exactly what is happening.
Now the traits are actually pretty nice, you just have to build your ship properly to take advantage of them. Granted they're not all completely fantastic, but there's 2-3 I'd think would be foolish to turn down.
As to the explores, do you really believe they're all individual maps? They random scenario generators, buggy as hell granted but they're not individual maps. Having 2000 individual maps like that would be insane.
And yes they do need to monetise some stuff, it's a F2P game not subscription based, and if you look at other 'F2P' games out there this game blows them all out the water in terms of what is possible to do without paying, so count your lucky stars.
And no you don't NEED catalysts, you choose them, and I'm not going to cry over a few useless items especially when modifier changing gets released. Once you don't worry about modifiers or getting decent stuff immediately it's actually pretty nice.
Oh,I read all of what you said,I just don't agree with it.
And yes,the exploration maps are stand alone maps....they were created in an automated map generator,that's why there are so many and why they are buggy as hell.These maps aren't created 'on the fly' so to speak.
I know how PWE operates,you forget that they are a Chinese company and they have their traditional ways of squeezing money out of people....fail crafting is one of them,buying TRIBBLE from the cash store to make it a bit less fail is very much in line with what they do in their other MMO's.And maybe you don't have a problem with spending a TRIBBLE ton of Dilithium on useless items,but I guarantee you a lot of people do.
It might be a F2P game,but that doesn't mean they have to nickle and dime people to death like a bunch of Ferengi.
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
You really think Cryptic is going be worried about adding to the crafting system once launched?
They are worried about getting Expansion 2 out. Then another 2 or 3 seasons fixing that. The Gateway is still beta after 2 years plus. The exploration cluster removed after 4 years. Genesis was never updated. Foundry is still not up to par after 3 years and treated like a step child.
Should we continue.
Actually Genesis WAS messed with more than once. Granted, the end result was only a marginal improvement, but they did at least try.
Oh,I read all of what you said,I just don't agree with it.
And yes,the exploration maps are stand alone maps....they were created in an automated map generator,that's why there are so many and why they are buggy as hell.These maps aren't created 'on the fly' so to speak.
I know how PWE operates,you forget that they are a Chinese company and they have their traditional ways of squeezing money out of people....fail crafting is one of them,buying TRIBBLE from the cash store to make it a bit less fail is very much in line with what they do in their other MMO's.And maybe you don't have a problem with spending a TRIBBLE ton of Dilithium on useless items,but I guarantee you a lot of people do.
It might be a F2P game,but that doesn't mean they have to nickle and dime people to death like a bunch of Ferengi.
It's an MMO, that's pretty much how all MMOs operate.
Actually Genesis WAS messed with more than once. Granted, the end result was only a marginal improvement, but they did at least try.It's an MMO, that's pretty much how all MMOs operate.
I have little faith or hope that Cryptic will add meaningful content or drastically change the system that more envious Star Trek. While every other game company creates games that embodies progression, character development and/or exploration.
Sorry. Players, customers, now unpaid content developers are getting thrown under the bus while Cryptic profits from it.
Actually Genesis WAS messed with more than once. Granted, the end result was only a marginal improvement, but they did at least try.It's an MMO, that's pretty much how all MMOs operate.
And how many F2P MMO's have monthly/lifetime subs?
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
I was thinking about the Hard Drive Cost preventing noobs from trying the game. Maybe if this is really the case and such an issue Cryptic should break the download/install up and ask the user what to put on the drive. The game can patch the other files as needed.
Maybe try being more proactive than reactive?
Um. I don't really remember the download size requirements for the game but...
Arc = Size On Disk: 81.6 MB (85,643,264 bytes)
Sto = Size on Disk: 10.5 GB (11,382,267,904 bytes)
Arc takes about 200k (that's K) in ram and is running at 0% of my cpu resources. (Admitidly it's a 6 core at over 3gig...) and that's taking into account Arc itself, it's browser and it's overlay (when running a game, the overlay is a mere 30k or less).
Sto takes about 700-800k (surely it's got to be dropping when I tab out to check...) and around 3-5% of my cpu when I'm in Memory Alpha (which in my opinion looks kind of neat...and from the way one of the posts read seems to be about to be nixed the way Clusters were, or perhaps it's crashing was a glitch for those tribble crafting testers)...
Arc really doesn't constitute an significant hit on a modern system, contrary to even my early beliefs on it, and no, I still don't like it...but... it shouldn't be any real issue for download/storage space or performance inhibition. And it even kindly tells me that my caps lock is on (the one time I used it and forgot to turn it off) before I tried to put in my password. If anything keeps new players away, surely it must be things like these non-improvement 'improvements and updates' or stories from their friends about how much grinding or cash it takes to get 'end game' items. Or perhaps the fact that 'end game' is repeated runs of stfs after only spending a couple weeks to hit level cap with rather casual playing.
Comments
Last time I checked it took my friend 250 tries to get a CtrlDx3.
This is funnier. You cannot comment on Star Trek Online Facebook post anymore. I guess they was getting too much negative feedback on Facebook.
exploration is the key idea behind Star Trek
Its interesting to see that cryptic gives a **** about what Star Trek actually stands for.
It wouldnt surprise me if their next step is to remove all the sector maps and tell the players to use the PVE queue instead.
Hell I managed to get first place in an escort that was built from spare parts I had laying about so it isn't too hard to get these things.
But on the topic at hand, just going to put some general responses to stuff I've seen said that's plain wrong.
First point is people saying the modifiers are random, and true enough they will be at first. Yet it has already been said in a podcast that the basic tech is there to put the modifier changing mechanics into the system and that they'll be arriving with the expansion later in the year. So really see it as a chance to use the cheap materials to level your crafting for the time being.
They also speculated that maybe early next year there might be the ability to upgrade the quality of an item, for example from blue to purple or purple to ultraviolet or even gold. D'Angelo said a while back that getting a proper crafting revamp to work would take a few seasons and that's what is happening.
Also, there's traits to be had once you've got to the end of a particular school of crafting, such as the beam damage one for the beams school. Those will be a nice reward in themselves until we wait for the other parts of the crafting tech to arrive.
Secondly, of course they have to monetise some things so that they can keep the game going, it would be illogical to do otherwise. Yet when it comes down to it, you make the decision as to whether you put the effort in or not, no one is making you buy anything. I'm going to be running with fleet mates in all the queues so that we can help each other move forward. That way not only do we have the materials but we also have fun playing together.
Now I'm not a fan of the dilithium monetisation, though in the form of timer cooldown reductions. That should be removed entirely. I don't mind the item dil costs though as once we can change the modifiers it won't matter what they are as we can just change them. However the issue will be what we need to do to change them, that will just have to be a case of wait and see for the time being.
Thirdly, people complaining about the cluster removal, I agree with you all wholeheartedly, I say leave the clusters alone and just disable the explore missions so we can still farm resources from them. The explores are pretty broken and don't reflect well on the game, but we ought to be able to keep getting mats from them in my opinion.
Lastly, anyone complaining about how to get the very rare resources, I have no sympathy. I run all the queues with fleet mates all the time and we have no issues with any of them, frankly I don't think they're hard enough and it would be nice to have a 'legendary' level but that's a topic for another thread. Learn to do them and then be surprised how easy they actually are.
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.
If you have a character that has maxed crafting in the old system, is there anything been done to reflect this, other than the new accolades?
This topic seems to have been skirted around. And yes I know its is not a high priority topic, still needs to be addressed.
Thanks.
NO. You wont get any XP with new system . Everyone start from ZERO ( except the accolades )
Ahhh...
OK thanks... bit of a bummer... but at least I have an answer.
I'm not sure what you're asking. You already could transfer it, as long as you didn't equip it.
That's not changing.
Cryptic has said every craftable item is tradeable.
Too many people TRIBBLE around in the elite PVE ques so you wind up with massive amounts of damage to your ship because 2 people leave the ques leaving 3 people left to do the mission.
So the Research system just became a waste of time. Unless you want to play hideous elite mission from the ques system.
1. All high end mk XI & XII gear will require very rare materials that can only be gathered occasionally from Elite PvE queues or purchased for 300 zen which is turned into components that cost dilithum
2. Special items like the Aegis gear, the TR rifle, and the other crafting exclusive gear will require 'school specialist' doffs that will be added to C-Store doff packs as rare drops and a 1000 dilithium assignment that has a rare chance to drop one. They will likely cost millions of EC on the exchange (probably 20 million for a very rare)
3. Will take months to max out one of the seven schools unless you're willing to dump insane quantities of dilithium to automatically complete them. Not to mention the amount of vendor trash that you'll have clutter your inventory
So PvE grind + 300 Zen Materials + C-Store/Exchange only doffs + Timegates + New dilithium sink = Unmitigated Disaster
So basically we are getting a half finished product,something Cryptic is notorious for,and we get to 'test' it for 6 to 12 months before they turn it into something semi-useful.Thanks,I'll pass.
Compared to the Reputation system,leveling R&D is a nightmare.But you forget the most important aspect....the traits aren't all that good compared to what is already available,and remember,you can only have so many traits active at any one time,you will have to give something up to get the 2% damage increase on beams...
The reason for removing the clusters is one of numbers...there are 2000+ cluster exploration maps,and they would have to go through each and every one to update them with the new crafting mats.It's for cheaper for them to just remove the maps and replace them with something completely new in 1 or 2 years time.
"They have to monetise some things?" *facepalm*
Ok,read this next part again gathering mats....
and what you get from the c-store....
The one thing you need,is the one thing you can't farm or create....and yes I said need,because the amount of junk items you will create without the catalists will make crafting very,very expensive.
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
I have an idea for what Season 11 should be; Season 11: The Big Bug Fix.
I have not been able to read my bug tickets in over a year, not even the tickets about not being able to see my tickets.
I find the drama of your signature proof of your immaturity, this means you, DR whiners.
http://i.imgur.com/dHFbqIY.png
As for the latest blog on Material Nodes. I really hate their decision to monetize it by putting it in the C-store or putting it in Elite Queues. Nobody is playing Queued events anymore. The Klingon queues been dead for months and this isn't going to revitalize them. People are just plain tired of playing the same content over and over again for the past 4 years.
You need to have the Very Rare chance to get the Very Rare Materials through normal drops.
its just wasting roster space which you can extend for even more zen at the c-store ^^
http://i.imgur.com/nIEGoNE.png
I know too much about doffs
I have a few concerns:
1) I am not so much concerned about the removal of exploration clusters (scan 5, kill 7) as I am removing the empty space to search for materials. When I was farming, I did enjoy hopping into my runabout and scanning the heck out of anomalies. It may have been small, but it did actually give a feeling of exploration.
2) Ugh. Really. I'm honestly burned out on PvE queues. Between grinding for marks (fleet and reputation) and looking fondly back when I leveled my character with story missions (remember story missions? because the game actually has a really good storyline. Three of them even!) I would be perfectly happy with some other way. I mean, I kind of get it (yay, salvage!).
Referring to my earlier point. That's what I liked about farming in the exploration clusters. I felt like I was boldly going somewhere and searching for anomalies. Not just shooting some junior officer out a torpedo tube and telling him to do it for me. I mean a shuttle... yeah...
3) Okay. Finally. If I got dilithium for replaying story missions, I would probably replay the heck out of some of them. Heck I'd love to get dilithium and/or material packages for revisiting the patrol mission planets (remember those?). Go to random planet, play mission on that planet, get materials and dilithium for doing so. What's not to love about that?!
(mildly off topic)
That's probably the biggest complaint with my play group. We don't replay story mission because there's no benefit in moving our "end game" forward. No marks for various reputations or fleet. No dilithium to help move our projects along. So we grind... ugh.
(and we're back!)
All that said. I am all for removing dilithium from the crafting system. Dilithium was supposed to be the "time" currency. But the crafting itself is a time sink. So, we have time on top of time. I'd be perfectly happy is some crafting took (reasonably) longer and there was no dilithium cost.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Want cheap commodities? Yeah you do. Commodity Cheat Sheet (includes food and data samples)
Want to make the game better? Might I suggest this form
1) Remove content (Because as we all know, and as Gekko has stated "STO has too much content..")
2) Increase the 'grind' (Because nothing brings players back like having to grind the exact same event or content over and over and over to 'earn' a good item.)
3) Monetize everything (How else will they make money?)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
This crafting system for me doesn't have context since it doesn't as far as I can tell augment whats already available, the dillithium costs for the high end gear just don't seem worth it to me for why would you spend 5000 when you can just take that along with some fleet credits and get gear thats way better than what the crafting system could offer anyway add to that the rep gear as well which also is better. I don't see this as being something people are going to invest significant time and resources which are better spent on fleet gear or rep gear then there is fleet starbases where again that resource is better spent
To be honest I see this system just being yet another item that people will just stay away from for the most part and spending their precious dillithium on their bases and items that can be bought from the fleet stores.
Well that just proves you didn't read all of what I said. It was predicted long ago that it would be rolled out over a few seasons and that's exactly what is happening.
Now the traits are actually pretty nice, you just have to build your ship properly to take advantage of them. Granted they're not all completely fantastic, but there's 2-3 I'd think would be foolish to turn down.
As to the explores, do you really believe they're all individual maps? They random scenario generators, buggy as hell granted but they're not individual maps. Having 2000 individual maps like that would be insane.
And yes they do need to monetise some stuff, it's a F2P game not subscription based, and if you look at other 'F2P' games out there this game blows them all out the water in terms of what is possible to do without paying, so count your lucky stars.
And no you don't NEED catalysts, you choose them, and I'm not going to cry over a few useless items especially when modifier changing gets released. Once you don't worry about modifiers or getting decent stuff immediately it's actually pretty nice.
You really think Cryptic is going be worried about adding to the crafting system once launched?
They are worried about getting Expansion 2 out. Then another 2 or 3 seasons fixing that. The Gateway is still beta after 2 years plus. The exploration cluster removed after 4 years. Genesis was never updated. Foundry is still not up to par after 3 years and treated like a step child.
Should we continue.
Oh,I read all of what you said,I just don't agree with it.
And yes,the exploration maps are stand alone maps....they were created in an automated map generator,that's why there are so many and why they are buggy as hell.These maps aren't created 'on the fly' so to speak.
I know how PWE operates,you forget that they are a Chinese company and they have their traditional ways of squeezing money out of people....fail crafting is one of them,buying TRIBBLE from the cash store to make it a bit less fail is very much in line with what they do in their other MMO's.And maybe you don't have a problem with spending a TRIBBLE ton of Dilithium on useless items,but I guarantee you a lot of people do.
It might be a F2P game,but that doesn't mean they have to nickle and dime people to death like a bunch of Ferengi.
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
My character Tsin'xing
I have little faith or hope that Cryptic will add meaningful content or drastically change the system that more envious Star Trek. While every other game company creates games that embodies progression, character development and/or exploration.
Sorry. Players, customers, now unpaid content developers are getting thrown under the bus while Cryptic profits from it.
And how many F2P MMO's have monthly/lifetime subs?
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
Um. I don't really remember the download size requirements for the game but...
Arc = Size On Disk: 81.6 MB (85,643,264 bytes)
Sto = Size on Disk: 10.5 GB (11,382,267,904 bytes)
Arc takes about 200k (that's K) in ram and is running at 0% of my cpu resources. (Admitidly it's a 6 core at over 3gig...) and that's taking into account Arc itself, it's browser and it's overlay (when running a game, the overlay is a mere 30k or less).
Sto takes about 700-800k (surely it's got to be dropping when I tab out to check...) and around 3-5% of my cpu when I'm in Memory Alpha (which in my opinion looks kind of neat...and from the way one of the posts read seems to be about to be nixed the way Clusters were, or perhaps it's crashing was a glitch for those tribble crafting testers)...
Arc really doesn't constitute an significant hit on a modern system, contrary to even my early beliefs on it, and no, I still don't like it...but... it shouldn't be any real issue for download/storage space or performance inhibition. And it even kindly tells me that my caps lock is on (the one time I used it and forgot to turn it off) before I tried to put in my password. If anything keeps new players away, surely it must be things like these non-improvement 'improvements and updates' or stories from their friends about how much grinding or cash it takes to get 'end game' items. Or perhaps the fact that 'end game' is repeated runs of stfs after only spending a couple weeks to hit level cap with rather casual playing.