I'm really not interested in investing in crafting if you get random quality with random mods with sky high dilithium costs. I'd rather just do reputation or fleet stuff for a sure thing.
Yeah, if I want random vendorjunk, I'll just go grind an STF.
Seriously? This a) makes really no sense at all and b) is the most useless trait since mostly escorts mount cannons and they already have high turn rates and inertia. The slightest buff it would give is to cruisers which use Dual or Single Cannons...pretty much none.
It is actually counterproductive since gaining inertia actually worsens your ship's ability to keep cannons on target by reducing your ability to strafe.
1. Putting the new R&D tab in the doff UI does not seem intuitive. I know we should be aware of minimap button bloat, but I spent like 5 minutes looking for the new R&D window before finding it when I gave up and decided to check out the new doff UI. Something needs to be put in to note it is there.
2. Also, the old R&D menu link is still in the mini map drop down menu and still links to the memory alpha R&D progress.
3. T5 engineering on the Starbases still states that it unlocks a crafting station construction project. I assume this will be removed. For fleets that already have it, will something be replacing their now obsolete crafting tables? Or are they just out the not-insubstantial amount of dil and fleet marks they put into that project?
Lockboxes, reduce chance of failure. Just a guess.
*edit: Sorry 'crafting packs' aka gamble rewards limited to crafting.
I'm assuming right now that catalysts will be consumed. It's been a while since I took chemistry, but I seem to remember a little something about catalysts.
Catalysis is the increase in the rate of a chemical reaction of one or more reactants due to the participation of an additional substance called a catalyst. Unlike other reagents in the chemical reaction, a catalyst is not consumed by the reaction.
I feel bad about ripping into something folks have clearly worked hard on.
Crafting my own gear should give me more control over the things I get, not less. With the existing Rep and Fleet stores, I can see which mods I want and buy then item that suits my needs. Random quality and mods make R&D worse than Rep or Fleet systems that already exist.
If I want random quality gear, I can run missions and get loot drops. Many of these actually earn me Dilithium, rather than cost it like R&D. Dilithium costs make R&D worse than random loot drops that already exist.
Not sure where to go from here. Are the ideas of random quality and mods, along with Dil costs set in stone?
Without Dil costs, it could be a distracting side game, with a chance of something useful here and there.
Without Random results, it could be a path to gearing up our ships.
With both it's a waste of good ideas.
I've had a little play around with the system on Tribble, I like the mats to parts to products system.
It would be nice to be able to make parts in batches, rather than one at a time, so have a slider to make 5 or 10 EPS Conduits, rather than one at a time.
Maybe put a pin on the parts list for products, so I can see how many of each part I need when I'm crafting them, without having to take notes or keep going back to the craft product screen to check.
Material Conversion is...one at a time? I'm going to break my mouse holding down ctrl and clicking. :P
Drag the conversion shop window so that the Buy button lines up with the Okay button; you may need to adjust the size of the conversion shop window a tad to get them to overlap. Then all you have to do is click a LOT. But this way it's only clicking... I use this filling Torpedoes in my Fleet's projects.
As far as my feedback on the new R&D, to paraphrase and expand upon what I posted under the Patch Notes...
UI: Okay, but actually manages to have less information available at a glance than the old one. There is no need to display everything in bigass tiles... or is crafting coming to a smartphone app that needs such things? I'll get used to the new UI if it goes live as-is, but it's not among the elements I'd consider an improvement.
Timers: Really? You took a Progress bar that took a few seconds for anything in the system and made everything use a timer that takes longer still... this is not something I'd consider an improvement. Adding a button to spend dilithium in exchange for skipping the timer... I don't know, you could at least be subtle about monetizing the system? Maybe?
Variability: Crafting in most games is a method to bypass random loot in exchange for time and effort spent on both collecting the ingredients and ranking up the crafting skill. Somehow, this ended up as a method of gambling on random equipment instead. An option to select [Mods] is as important as selecting the damage type. Of course, the variable quality screwed that up... my suggestion would be requiring a minimum doff quality to match the quality of the item you are making, i.e. if you need a Very Rare doff to make a Very Rare item.
Costs: Okay, that would be just fine... except for the timers and variability. Spending 20k dilithium and having any possibility of getting Rare Mk XII rewards screams BUY YOUR EQUIPMENT FROM THE REP OR FLEET STORES really, really loudly. If you insist on the timers and variable rewards, cost needs to be significantly decreased. It's fine if we could get somewhere near the return on dilithium we have available elsewhere in-game, but that's not the case as things stand.
Out with the New and in with the Old: Take the old system, adjust dilithium (erm, Unreplicatable Materials) costs to match this new one, and add Very Rare Mk XII items; then, add Kits and Modules. Everything about that adjusted old system would be better than the new one. The only redeeming feature the new system has is the separate inventory tab for crafting... but that could be tacked onto the old system, couldn't it?
Review: Sorry, but I was really getting stoked until I saw this iteration... this really needs to be refined or it's going to put folks off of crafting even more. Heck, it uses doffs and yet seems to miss the fact that we've capped out CXP ranks, adds timers, gives random rewards, takes longer, has huge amounts of clicking, doesn't let you avoid it by crafting on Defera, and... argh, just argh. The old system wasn't bad, just the cost and quality limits. The new system is bad, the cost is closer to the alternatives, but the system limits quality thanks to variable results.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Wow. I was expecting a bad conversion rate for old to new mats, because every other conversion in the past has had bad conversion rates. But I was just playing with the system and it is a complete random roll for what you get from conversions.
The system as is:
Trade in current common particles for common or uncommon crafting materials. Straightforward enough.
Trade in current rare particle traces for a blue quality "random crafting material."
The problem: blue quality "random crafting material" purchase does not equate to blue quality crafting materials. Instead, it equates to a random roll to determine what type of crafting materials you get. I turned in 15ish particle traces and got 20 or so green mats, 6-7 white mats, and 2 blue mats.
That's a terrible conversion matrix. Possibly getting white mats from particle traces when you can get guaranteed greens from common particles makes no sense. Blue particle traces are much harder to get than common particles. Why would you get less rewards for turning them in? Particle traces should be exchanged for blue quality crafting mats or if it remains a "random" roll it should only be for blues and purples. Not greens and whites.
This mechanic needs to be worked out, or there will be a lot of rage when 9.5 launches.
I'll be brutally honest here, I'm disappointed. This isn't a revamp, just you guys changing the Crafting system into the DOFF system. I'm sorry Devs, but this is NOT what people wanted.
1) The UI is horrible and unintuitive
2) Instead of lowering Dilithum Costs, you actually are increasing it.
3) Recipes are bland and uncreative.
4) Inability to choose rarity type, it's all just dumb DOFF random luck in what you get.
5) Inability to choose the modifiers.
6) Recipes that once took a few seconds, now take hours. Unless you buy it immediately with a massive Dilithium Tax.
7) No room for add on recipes like the Jem'Hadar Weapon Packs.
8) No Sign of Melee Weapon Crafting
9) No Sign of Kit Module Crafting
10) No Freedom of Creativity
11) Conversion Rates from old Mats to New Mats is horrendous. I had over 200 particles, barely reached level 1 in one of the schools. So of us who are crafting vets, we have to start completely over.
12) A new mega grind.
Right now, I am extremely disappointed that in all this time, this is what you guys came up with. Especially when people who wanted a crafting revamp was asking for systems of the best crafting in all MMOs like Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and more. Instead, you turn this into a DOFF - Rep grind. We want to feel like we are creating the items. Look at Sisko, he was hands-on with the Defiant. Janeway was hands-on with projects. Picard was hands-on with some things too.
And on top of it, many of these items (especially the high end) ask for lots of Dilithum to create even simple systems. Especially when small fleets are hurting badly because of all their Dilithum is being used for Fleet Projects so their fleets can advance. And why should people bother with crafted items when I can go on the Exchange and buy what I want without even spending Dilithum?
Also the crafting system is a golden opportunity for you to create new NPC vendors in dead spots that players could be sent to, to buy components for crafting.
I'm sorry Cryptic, but I do not endorse this new system. The Original STO Crafting was more crafting than it's successors. All this is, is another grind that you are duping your customers to make up for the bad content of Season 9 and keep us "Busy" for Season 10. As it is now, I will not bother wasting my time.
I'm not going to go so far as to say that this new crafting system needs to be scrapped and re-evaluated at it's very roots ... but as is it is neither entertaining nor useful compared to other systems already in place.
The new system is mediated, your DOffs do all the work. There's no feeling of actually -making- anything.
The new system is click-heavy with a dozen or so seperately crafted components for the high end gear.
The new system -may-, arguably, be cheaper than the current system but that's going to depend on the availability of rare or very rare materials going forward and at 20k a pop for a -chance- to craft a Mk XII purple item the argument against isn't even terribly difficult.
The new system is too random: between item quality as a weighted RNG roll and random item traits the person doing the crafting has remarkably little control over the outcome of their labors.
Trait: Activating any Engineering Bridge Officer ability gives 100% dodge chance with 20% deflect for 3 seconds.
Wont that allow Cruisers to be practically invincible? Most Cruisers have 1 Eng power on average every 5 seconds. So every 5 seconds we are invincible for 3 seconds then take 2 seconds of damage then invincible again? That's not even counting the stacking with RSP 2 and 3 with extend doffs.
I did 100% of my old crafting with Alien Artifacts, these now have zero use in the new system? Why can we not trade these is for parts?
Why would anyone want to do this? Apart from grinding to get the new traits there is no point in crafting. No crafting system should be about getting traits.
I am looking at what can be crafted and so far all the items would be x10 easier to get, 10 cheaper with x10 less clicking just by using the exchange or fleet gear. Where are the new craft only items, why would anyone want to craft over other easier and more fun methods of getting the items?
If new gear unlocks later then I could see it being a good system with a few tweaks but right now what is the point?
Variability: Crafting in most games is a method to bypass random loot in exchange for time and effort spent on both collecting the ingredients and ranking up the crafting skill. Somehow, this ended up as a method of gambling on random equipment instead. An option to select [Mods] is as important as selecting the damage type. Of course, the variable quality screwed that up... my suggestion would be requiring a minimum doff quality to match the quality of the item you are making, i.e. if you need a Very Rare doff to make a Very Rare item.
I think the new crafting system will live or die depending on whether or not they replace the luck-based mechanic. I see some people complaining about the dilithium costs. The costs are fairly easy to change. The luck-based mechanic is a basic part of their design and probably takes a lot of work to change. That probably means that few people will use the new crafting system. Well, few people used the old crafting system, so that's basically status quo. I'm more worried about the changes to the doff system, as we've lost a bunch of functionality there.
I would line to know what the stuff we can offers exactly that i really want. I already have lobi, lockbox, fleet and rep weapons and gear. So if the best i get are regular mk12 vr beams with random addons like [crtd][crtH][dmg], right? So how many do i have to craft to get say [crtD]x3? And than what? Thats it? Crafting seems like sonething for ppl with no fleet gear and no reps. Are there that manx to give them a whole new crafting system!
Basically what i'm saying is this: either the stuff is better than fleet/rep gear or its not. If not then why would i use it at all?
I would line to know what the stuff we can offers exactly that i really want. I already have lobi, lockbox, fleet and rep weapons and gear. So if the best i get are regular mk12 vr beams with random addons like [crtd][crtH][dmg], right? So how many do i have to craft to get say [crtD]x3? And than what? Thats it? Crafting seems like sonething for ppl with no fleet gear and no reps. Are there that manx to give them a whole new crafting system!
Basically what i'm saying is this: either the stuff is better than fleet/rep gear or its not. If not then why would i use it at all?
there are alot of people who do not want to be in a fleet, so crafting the VR weapons like that would be good for them. Rep gear isnt all that great either, while free its still good gear..being able to craft the gear is nice, as some people dont want to deal with Rep.
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
The system is a lot more intuitive than the old system. But, it also feels more like crafting - or, more appropriately, manufacturing. In China.
In other words, any player looking to succeed in this system will have to become a massive provider of low-grade arms and equipment. I've manufactured the components to make twenty or so AP beams... and I'm somewhere early in Level 3. It feels like I'll have to arm every ship in Starfleet with its junk default equipment to get level 20 in a skill. No no no. Bad. People want to get max crafting BEFORE becoming the sole supplier to four interstellar guerrilla insurgencies at once of low-grade munitions. Put the BULK of the experienced in component crafting. That way, you rank up by building components for thing you want after you max the skill. Instead of feeling like you have to waste tons of materials to grind a rank, it would feel like preparing for being able to do what you want with this stuff.
My only other major gripe is Dilithium costs. Again, ABSURD. I can see where the 30-40k is, making components that you need 3 or 4 of to make high-end gear. And, unless you want to wait DAYS to make this item, shell out a few thousand more dilithium. 900 to skip the HOUR it takes to make a Mk VI AP? No. No no no. Make the skip cost EC. Dilithium is not coal, you do not shovel it into the warp core for an hour to power one console to make a component. The console does not need its own separate power source. These dilithium costs are too high. Things are already too high for dilithium.
So, to summarize... Fun system, but badly realized. Things need to swap around.
Side note, bug report: The window where you select to make gear (i.e., beams), the "Project Time" display is saying 1 minute when it's one hour.
Beyond the UI being a large clunky mess and the removal of all the useful info from the doff screen the number of clicks needed to make anything is exponentionally higher.
If I want to make a weapon, list the base materials I need and then just start making all the subparts for me before doing the final one. Or let me do batches, or any of a number of other QoL methods of making this usable. I'm not too concerned on the time it takes total if I can set it and forget it. And as others have mentioned, unless I can choose my mods and quality and have a good to 100% chance to get them there is no reason to waste time and dilithum building up this system to get something I will have bought from a rep store well before I can cap this. I can cap a rep on an alt in 20 days, looking at the xp and time gating on this it would take me longer then that to get anywhere near the cap in just 1 of the schools.
My main has over 400 Purple doffs, giving me a list that just shows them with no traits or ability to sort is just...
I noticed something else: no kits or kit modules. Single cannons are also missing.
The new plasma ground weapons are also missing. I'm referring to weapons such as split beam pistols, repeater pistols, wide beam rifles, piercing beam rifles, etc. Since you've also removed them from the dilithium store, the highest you can get now are Mk IX white from EC vendors.
Overall, I think the new system is great. I like the user interface and people with bad eye-sight can read the display with out any major effort. When I logged into tribble, the interface took me about twenty minutes to get oriented to the interface. One annoying thing that occured is the tab for the Delta Volanis area kept closing if I open the replicator box to buy a commodity required by the mission. The interface kept going back to the "Current..." tab. That made it difficult to buy things.
I did use the conversion tool for the older resources. I agree with the poster above, it will be really tedious to have to sit through thousands of each material if you have to convert it one at a time. Other then that, the tool is fine.
I am concerned about not having an actual cluster to go into. I cannot imagine 75 ships crowded around the tiny cluster imprint in sector space. Also, in the older system, cluster DOFF missions were relative to the zone. If you used the interface from the interior of the ship, then the missions would pertain to the zone the ship was located in. Since the ship is not in the system, the only way to access those mission is to go out to sector space.
They should add a commodity tab to inventory. This will make it easier to go to a freighter to purchase commodites at a better cost than using the ship's replicator.
The tool seems labor intensive. There seems to be a great deal of button clicking and moving to other windows to accomplish what use to just take two sub panels to accomplish.
My major concern with the new system as it relates to exploring space is that prior to the game having a crafting system, the players had exploration missions to do as an alternative to the episode missions. By removing the exploration missions, the solo player has nothing to do. For me, I just like doing the exploration missions to pass the time when no one was logged into the game. Now, the solo player has to rely on people doing queue missions and the Foundry to get any loot or resources. Myself, I spend on average about 12 hours at a time logged into the game. On many days, people do not queue up at certain times. So the solo player has to sit around waiting.
That is a trememdous loss of profit in the game. The duty officer system only allows 20 missions at a time. Which is an extremely slow way to get the large quantities of material needed to build the Fleet holding Projects.
For me, the fun factor has been removed from the game. Queue missions are not fun because no one socializes in them. People just queue do the mission and then run through the mission as fast as they can. The exploration missions allowed players ot relax and take their time on a mission. Foundry missions have really been not fun because they require a length of twenty minutes to get anything of value out of them. And they are very difficult to play with a group of 5 people.
The episodes are good if you only have one character. For those of us with 25 or more characters, the thought of only having episode missions to grind for loot is a nightmare. I rather be chased by Jason at Camp Crystal Lake.
I cannot imagine that a group of professional developers think that having the players sit around for 8 months to wait for a revamp Exploration System is a wise decision. If people were burned out with queue missions before, if they are the only thing to do, then no one will do them.
The Omega missions are like that. They were the only thing to do for so long that people are not excited to do them.
Unless im missing something the xp awarded seems very low. its taken ages to get up to level 1 in anything. the initial levels should progress very quickly and then slow down. edit - Ok seems i was. you need to craft lower level items to go up in the ranks which makes sense but annoying if you are already at max rank and little interest in those weapons but the xp seems pretty good.
i also hope the conversion happens in a better way than the click everything we have now. that will take an age to sort out.
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
The new UI for listing DOff-assignments (and R&D projects) needs some tweaking.
1) Required materials and rewards should be listed in a more comparable way, i.e., one coloumn per type of requirement (e.g., dilithium). Maybe it is even possible to make such a coloum-based table sortable... so I could sort my assignments/projects according to their requirements/rewards of certain resources.
2) The boxes for each assignment are too big. Right now they are bigger than the associated thumbnail pictures. At least decrease the box size to fit the picture height, better decrease the picture size, too.
3) I really miss the the small subtitles/descriptions of each assignment in the general list. You won't see it until you select an assignment. From what I see, that 1 line of text should easily fit within those new boxes listed, even if you decrease their size a bit. The descriptions add a lot of flavor to the entire DOff system, and should definitely NOT be hidden away within the individual assignment pages.
Basically what i'm saying is this: either the stuff is better than fleet/rep gear or its not. If not then why would i use it at all?
While I'm currently unable to load a developed toon onto Tribble for some reason, the obvious killer argument is the traits. As published, the Engineering trait looks godly when you bear in mind that even a Doffed / A2B Escort will be activating powers every 5-10s. Let alone cruisers with more Eng slots....
The Torpedo, Science and Ground Weapon traits also look extremely potent, albeit not to the same degree.
The other issue is those Dil costs; depending on takeup this could drive the Zen-Dil ratio into the ground (I suspect that smart players will be cashing in their Zen now in anticipation of a crash down to 100 dil per zen when people start projects...) but with the numbers being bandied about, this looks like a money-grab that makes the lockboxes look tame.
First Issue:
- is the conversion screen. I have literally over 3k particles gathered up and have to trade all of them one by one? Please tell me that this is temporary and we will get a slider to do this! You seriously cannot expect a player sitting hours and hours clicking trade-in and then Ok on the pop up...
Second issue:
- just stating common or uncommon material is simply bad. I want to know what I am trading in for! This is a pure random generated conversion where I, as a player, must hope to get the right materials. Please make it more clear what I can trade in for!!!
Third issue:
- is there any way the system can automatically assign the highest tier quality (purple) DoFF to the project?
It is really annoying having to select the highest every time since you need more than one component to craft an item...
Fourth issue:
- Please....please give us the option to set the amount of items to be crafted! You can add the craft duration as the amount goes up but please we need an amount option!
Fifth issue:
- and this is really disappointing. I am maxxed in crafting on Holodeck and I have no advance or head start in the new system...this sucks!!!!
This pretty much covers my opinions as well.
1. whoever came up with the idea to let you trade 1u a time should get fired...
2. not letting us know what were trading our resources for is also a bit of a bad move. this is not roulett were playing, this is a trade the old for the new. we need to know what were trading, becouse we know what we need and want...
4. agreed, if we need 3 of the same items to make a weapon, then let us chose to make 3. and simply add the time of making one and multiply it by 3.
5. alot of us have the old crafting system maxed out. we should be given somewhere between 50% of the entire crafting system if not all in the new crafting system as a reward for already having the crafting system maxed out.
Don't TRIBBLE us over again like you did with the reputation system.
Why did you add a redundant second step to crafting?
Under the current/old system:
1. acquire materials
2. craft the thing you want
Under the new system:
1. acquire materials
2. use materials to craft middle-man component objects
3. craft the thing you want
All you're doing is adding unneeded steps to the process and making it longer and more arduous because of the clunky UI not showing all kinds of valuable information. Stop adding more clicks. For every click you lose users.
I would like to take this opportunity to bring up a consistent problem with the UI in STO: We can't do anything in bulk in an efficient manner.
Want to buy booze from the bartenders in bulk? Nope, 1 at a time; the slider was removed eons ago.
Want to buy 16000 Industrial Energy Cells? Must buy in increments of 100.
Want to donate 300 duty officers to a fleet project? ONE. AT. A. TIME.
Want to buy 100 fleet duty officers from your starbase? One at a time.
Want to convert 23,000 worthless Dyson marks into unrefined ore? Oh oh, not only do you have to do it in batches of 50, but there's also a time gate too! (Same thing with Cybernetic Implants.)
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Comments
Double-click one. It opens a new window. Prepare yourself for converting them one at a time...
Just delete them for everyone and save yourself deleted accounts.
2. Also, the old R&D menu link is still in the mini map drop down menu and still links to the memory alpha R&D progress.
3. T5 engineering on the Starbases still states that it unlocks a crafting station construction project. I assume this will be removed. For fleets that already have it, will something be replacing their now obsolete crafting tables? Or are they just out the not-insubstantial amount of dil and fleet marks they put into that project?
I'm assuming right now that catalysts will be consumed. It's been a while since I took chemistry, but I seem to remember a little something about catalysts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalysis
Crafting my own gear should give me more control over the things I get, not less. With the existing Rep and Fleet stores, I can see which mods I want and buy then item that suits my needs. Random quality and mods make R&D worse than Rep or Fleet systems that already exist.
If I want random quality gear, I can run missions and get loot drops. Many of these actually earn me Dilithium, rather than cost it like R&D. Dilithium costs make R&D worse than random loot drops that already exist.
Not sure where to go from here. Are the ideas of random quality and mods, along with Dil costs set in stone?
Without Dil costs, it could be a distracting side game, with a chance of something useful here and there.
Without Random results, it could be a path to gearing up our ships.
With both it's a waste of good ideas.
I've had a little play around with the system on Tribble, I like the mats to parts to products system.
It would be nice to be able to make parts in batches, rather than one at a time, so have a slider to make 5 or 10 EPS Conduits, rather than one at a time.
Maybe put a pin on the parts list for products, so I can see how many of each part I need when I'm crafting them, without having to take notes or keep going back to the craft product screen to check.
Drag the conversion shop window so that the Buy button lines up with the Okay button; you may need to adjust the size of the conversion shop window a tad to get them to overlap. Then all you have to do is click a LOT. But this way it's only clicking... I use this filling Torpedoes in my Fleet's projects.
As far as my feedback on the new R&D, to paraphrase and expand upon what I posted under the Patch Notes...
UI: Okay, but actually manages to have less information available at a glance than the old one. There is no need to display everything in bigass tiles... or is crafting coming to a smartphone app that needs such things? I'll get used to the new UI if it goes live as-is, but it's not among the elements I'd consider an improvement.
Timers: Really? You took a Progress bar that took a few seconds for anything in the system and made everything use a timer that takes longer still... this is not something I'd consider an improvement. Adding a button to spend dilithium in exchange for skipping the timer... I don't know, you could at least be subtle about monetizing the system? Maybe?
Variability: Crafting in most games is a method to bypass random loot in exchange for time and effort spent on both collecting the ingredients and ranking up the crafting skill. Somehow, this ended up as a method of gambling on random equipment instead. An option to select [Mods] is as important as selecting the damage type. Of course, the variable quality screwed that up... my suggestion would be requiring a minimum doff quality to match the quality of the item you are making, i.e. if you need a Very Rare doff to make a Very Rare item.
Costs: Okay, that would be just fine... except for the timers and variability. Spending 20k dilithium and having any possibility of getting Rare Mk XII rewards screams BUY YOUR EQUIPMENT FROM THE REP OR FLEET STORES really, really loudly. If you insist on the timers and variable rewards, cost needs to be significantly decreased. It's fine if we could get somewhere near the return on dilithium we have available elsewhere in-game, but that's not the case as things stand.
Out with the New and in with the Old: Take the old system, adjust dilithium (erm, Unreplicatable Materials) costs to match this new one, and add Very Rare Mk XII items; then, add Kits and Modules. Everything about that adjusted old system would be better than the new one. The only redeeming feature the new system has is the separate inventory tab for crafting... but that could be tacked onto the old system, couldn't it?
Review: Sorry, but I was really getting stoked until I saw this iteration... this really needs to be refined or it's going to put folks off of crafting even more. Heck, it uses doffs and yet seems to miss the fact that we've capped out CXP ranks, adds timers, gives random rewards, takes longer, has huge amounts of clicking, doesn't let you avoid it by crafting on Defera, and... argh, just argh. The old system wasn't bad, just the cost and quality limits. The new system is bad, the cost is closer to the alternatives, but the system limits quality thanks to variable results.
Hehe, I have opinions, and you asked for them. :P
The system as is:
Trade in current common particles for common or uncommon crafting materials. Straightforward enough.
Trade in current rare particle traces for a blue quality "random crafting material."
The problem: blue quality "random crafting material" purchase does not equate to blue quality crafting materials. Instead, it equates to a random roll to determine what type of crafting materials you get. I turned in 15ish particle traces and got 20 or so green mats, 6-7 white mats, and 2 blue mats.
That's a terrible conversion matrix. Possibly getting white mats from particle traces when you can get guaranteed greens from common particles makes no sense. Blue particle traces are much harder to get than common particles. Why would you get less rewards for turning them in? Particle traces should be exchanged for blue quality crafting mats or if it remains a "random" roll it should only be for blues and purples. Not greens and whites.
This mechanic needs to be worked out, or there will be a lot of rage when 9.5 launches.
1) The UI is horrible and unintuitive
2) Instead of lowering Dilithum Costs, you actually are increasing it.
3) Recipes are bland and uncreative.
4) Inability to choose rarity type, it's all just dumb DOFF random luck in what you get.
5) Inability to choose the modifiers.
6) Recipes that once took a few seconds, now take hours. Unless you buy it immediately with a massive Dilithium Tax.
7) No room for add on recipes like the Jem'Hadar Weapon Packs.
8) No Sign of Melee Weapon Crafting
9) No Sign of Kit Module Crafting
10) No Freedom of Creativity
11) Conversion Rates from old Mats to New Mats is horrendous. I had over 200 particles, barely reached level 1 in one of the schools. So of us who are crafting vets, we have to start completely over.
12) A new mega grind.
Right now, I am extremely disappointed that in all this time, this is what you guys came up with. Especially when people who wanted a crafting revamp was asking for systems of the best crafting in all MMOs like Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and more. Instead, you turn this into a DOFF - Rep grind. We want to feel like we are creating the items. Look at Sisko, he was hands-on with the Defiant. Janeway was hands-on with projects. Picard was hands-on with some things too.
And on top of it, many of these items (especially the high end) ask for lots of Dilithum to create even simple systems. Especially when small fleets are hurting badly because of all their Dilithum is being used for Fleet Projects so their fleets can advance. And why should people bother with crafted items when I can go on the Exchange and buy what I want without even spending Dilithum?
Also the crafting system is a golden opportunity for you to create new NPC vendors in dead spots that players could be sent to, to buy components for crafting.
I'm sorry Cryptic, but I do not endorse this new system. The Original STO Crafting was more crafting than it's successors. All this is, is another grind that you are duping your customers to make up for the bad content of Season 9 and keep us "Busy" for Season 10. As it is now, I will not bother wasting my time.
The new system is mediated, your DOffs do all the work. There's no feeling of actually -making- anything.
The new system is click-heavy with a dozen or so seperately crafted components for the high end gear.
The new system -may-, arguably, be cheaper than the current system but that's going to depend on the availability of rare or very rare materials going forward and at 20k a pop for a -chance- to craft a Mk XII purple item the argument against isn't even terribly difficult.
The new system is too random: between item quality as a weighted RNG roll and random item traits the person doing the crafting has remarkably little control over the outcome of their labors.
1. "Subprocessor unit" listed is actually Emitter Array
2. Beam Tac Console takes 1 hr not 1 minute as advertised
as I explore the system more I will add more things like this I've found.
Why would anyone want to do this? Apart from grinding to get the new traits there is no point in crafting. No crafting system should be about getting traits.
I am looking at what can be crafted and so far all the items would be x10 easier to get, 10 cheaper with x10 less clicking just by using the exchange or fleet gear. Where are the new craft only items, why would anyone want to craft over other easier and more fun methods of getting the items?
If new gear unlocks later then I could see it being a good system with a few tweaks but right now what is the point?
I think the new crafting system will live or die depending on whether or not they replace the luck-based mechanic. I see some people complaining about the dilithium costs. The costs are fairly easy to change. The luck-based mechanic is a basic part of their design and probably takes a lot of work to change. That probably means that few people will use the new crafting system. Well, few people used the old crafting system, so that's basically status quo. I'm more worried about the changes to the doff system, as we've lost a bunch of functionality there.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1147711
Basically what i'm saying is this: either the stuff is better than fleet/rep gear or its not. If not then why would i use it at all?
there are alot of people who do not want to be in a fleet, so crafting the VR weapons like that would be good for them. Rep gear isnt all that great either, while free its still good gear..being able to craft the gear is nice, as some people dont want to deal with Rep.
In other words, any player looking to succeed in this system will have to become a massive provider of low-grade arms and equipment. I've manufactured the components to make twenty or so AP beams... and I'm somewhere early in Level 3. It feels like I'll have to arm every ship in Starfleet with its junk default equipment to get level 20 in a skill. No no no. Bad. People want to get max crafting BEFORE becoming the sole supplier to four interstellar guerrilla insurgencies at once of low-grade munitions. Put the BULK of the experienced in component crafting. That way, you rank up by building components for thing you want after you max the skill. Instead of feeling like you have to waste tons of materials to grind a rank, it would feel like preparing for being able to do what you want with this stuff.
My only other major gripe is Dilithium costs. Again, ABSURD. I can see where the 30-40k is, making components that you need 3 or 4 of to make high-end gear. And, unless you want to wait DAYS to make this item, shell out a few thousand more dilithium. 900 to skip the HOUR it takes to make a Mk VI AP? No. No no no. Make the skip cost EC. Dilithium is not coal, you do not shovel it into the warp core for an hour to power one console to make a component. The console does not need its own separate power source. These dilithium costs are too high. Things are already too high for dilithium.
So, to summarize... Fun system, but badly realized. Things need to swap around.
Side note, bug report: The window where you select to make gear (i.e., beams), the "Project Time" display is saying 1 minute when it's one hour.
If I want to make a weapon, list the base materials I need and then just start making all the subparts for me before doing the final one. Or let me do batches, or any of a number of other QoL methods of making this usable. I'm not too concerned on the time it takes total if I can set it and forget it. And as others have mentioned, unless I can choose my mods and quality and have a good to 100% chance to get them there is no reason to waste time and dilithum building up this system to get something I will have bought from a rep store well before I can cap this. I can cap a rep on an alt in 20 days, looking at the xp and time gating on this it would take me longer then that to get anywhere near the cap in just 1 of the schools.
My main has over 400 Purple doffs, giving me a list that just shows them with no traits or ability to sort is just...
The new plasma ground weapons are also missing. I'm referring to weapons such as split beam pistols, repeater pistols, wide beam rifles, piercing beam rifles, etc. Since you've also removed them from the dilithium store, the highest you can get now are Mk IX white from EC vendors.
I did use the conversion tool for the older resources. I agree with the poster above, it will be really tedious to have to sit through thousands of each material if you have to convert it one at a time. Other then that, the tool is fine.
I am concerned about not having an actual cluster to go into. I cannot imagine 75 ships crowded around the tiny cluster imprint in sector space. Also, in the older system, cluster DOFF missions were relative to the zone. If you used the interface from the interior of the ship, then the missions would pertain to the zone the ship was located in. Since the ship is not in the system, the only way to access those mission is to go out to sector space.
They should add a commodity tab to inventory. This will make it easier to go to a freighter to purchase commodites at a better cost than using the ship's replicator.
The tool seems labor intensive. There seems to be a great deal of button clicking and moving to other windows to accomplish what use to just take two sub panels to accomplish.
My major concern with the new system as it relates to exploring space is that prior to the game having a crafting system, the players had exploration missions to do as an alternative to the episode missions. By removing the exploration missions, the solo player has nothing to do. For me, I just like doing the exploration missions to pass the time when no one was logged into the game. Now, the solo player has to rely on people doing queue missions and the Foundry to get any loot or resources. Myself, I spend on average about 12 hours at a time logged into the game. On many days, people do not queue up at certain times. So the solo player has to sit around waiting.
That is a trememdous loss of profit in the game. The duty officer system only allows 20 missions at a time. Which is an extremely slow way to get the large quantities of material needed to build the Fleet holding Projects.
For me, the fun factor has been removed from the game. Queue missions are not fun because no one socializes in them. People just queue do the mission and then run through the mission as fast as they can. The exploration missions allowed players ot relax and take their time on a mission. Foundry missions have really been not fun because they require a length of twenty minutes to get anything of value out of them. And they are very difficult to play with a group of 5 people.
The episodes are good if you only have one character. For those of us with 25 or more characters, the thought of only having episode missions to grind for loot is a nightmare. I rather be chased by Jason at Camp Crystal Lake.
I cannot imagine that a group of professional developers think that having the players sit around for 8 months to wait for a revamp Exploration System is a wise decision. If people were burned out with queue missions before, if they are the only thing to do, then no one will do them.
The Omega missions are like that. They were the only thing to do for so long that people are not excited to do them.
i also hope the conversion happens in a better way than the click everything we have now. that will take an age to sort out.
1) Required materials and rewards should be listed in a more comparable way, i.e., one coloumn per type of requirement (e.g., dilithium). Maybe it is even possible to make such a coloum-based table sortable... so I could sort my assignments/projects according to their requirements/rewards of certain resources.
2) The boxes for each assignment are too big. Right now they are bigger than the associated thumbnail pictures. At least decrease the box size to fit the picture height, better decrease the picture size, too.
3) I really miss the the small subtitles/descriptions of each assignment in the general list. You won't see it until you select an assignment. From what I see, that 1 line of text should easily fit within those new boxes listed, even if you decrease their size a bit. The descriptions add a lot of flavor to the entire DOff system, and should definitely NOT be hidden away within the individual assignment pages.
STOWiki admin.
While I'm currently unable to load a developed toon onto Tribble for some reason, the obvious killer argument is the traits. As published, the Engineering trait looks godly when you bear in mind that even a Doffed / A2B Escort will be activating powers every 5-10s. Let alone cruisers with more Eng slots....
The Torpedo, Science and Ground Weapon traits also look extremely potent, albeit not to the same degree.
The other issue is those Dil costs; depending on takeup this could drive the Zen-Dil ratio into the ground (I suspect that smart players will be cashing in their Zen now in anticipation of a crash down to 100 dil per zen when people start projects...) but with the numbers being bandied about, this looks like a money-grab that makes the lockboxes look tame.
This pretty much covers my opinions as well.
1. whoever came up with the idea to let you trade 1u a time should get fired...
2. not letting us know what were trading our resources for is also a bit of a bad move. this is not roulett were playing, this is a trade the old for the new. we need to know what were trading, becouse we know what we need and want...
4. agreed, if we need 3 of the same items to make a weapon, then let us chose to make 3. and simply add the time of making one and multiply it by 3.
5. alot of us have the old crafting system maxed out. we should be given somewhere between 50% of the entire crafting system if not all in the new crafting system as a reward for already having the crafting system maxed out.
Don't TRIBBLE us over again like you did with the reputation system.
Under the current/old system:
1. acquire materials
2. craft the thing you want
Under the new system:
1. acquire materials
2. use materials to craft middle-man component objects
3. craft the thing you want
All you're doing is adding unneeded steps to the process and making it longer and more arduous because of the clunky UI not showing all kinds of valuable information. Stop adding more clicks. For every click you lose users.
I would like to take this opportunity to bring up a consistent problem with the UI in STO: We can't do anything in bulk in an efficient manner.
Joined January 2009