Priority One Episode 179 | Crafty Captain Geko

elijahmre

Greetings, Captains! You’re listening to Episode 179 of Priority One Podcast, the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded on Thursday, June 19th, 2014 and published on Monday, June 23rd, 2014 at PriorityOnePodcast.com!

This week we Trek Out a webcomic that’s been around for some time, but may have slipped under your Trek-Radar with its creator Mark Farinas!

In STONews, D’Angelo announces Season 9.5 will arrive in late July with Season 9 Dev Blog #24. There is then a followup RP letter from Commander Jenna Romaine of Memory Alpha explaining the changes to “R&D,” and a quick introduction to some of the changes to crafting materials from STODesigner, Jesse Heinig.

But, to really answer our questions about the coming Crafting update we welcome Star Trek Online’s Lead Designer Al “Captain Geko” Rivera!

With an Al Rivera Interview, we’ll forgo the Community Spotlight this week and open Hailing Frequencies to see what’s incoming from you — our listeners.


Topics Discussed

• TrekComic.com
• Klingon Propaganda
• Season 9 Dev Blog #24 - D'Angelo Reveals Details About Season 9.5
• Season 9 Dev Blog #25 - New Research And Development
• Research & Development Materials
• AdjudicatorHawk FAQ
• Skiffy's LIFETIME-Sub Calculations

This week's Community Question

• What are your thoughts on the new changes to crafting that just hit Tribble? What would you like to see changed?

Let us know YOUR thoughts by commenting below!

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gofasternow

elijahmre wrote: »

• What are your thoughts on the new changes to crafting that just hit Tribble? What would you like to see changed?

Where have you been this past week? You know the answer already: EVERYTHING! Make it cheap, make it automatic, make it give me the mods I want, gimme gimme gimme, mine mine mine!

virusdancer

gofasternow wrote: »

Where have you been this past week? You know the answer already: EVERYTHING! Make it cheap, make it automatic, make it give me the mods I want, gimme gimme gimme, mine mine mine!

Cheap? They want to unionize and have Cryptic pay them to craft...well, not actually to do anything - but have Cryptic pay them all the same.

As an aside though, hey...why shouldn't it give me the mods I want? I'll drop 20k Dil out for [Acc]x3, I'm not dropping 20k Dil out for [Dmg]x3. :P

bareel

virusdancer wrote: »

As an aside though, hey...why shouldn't it give me the mods I want? I'll drop 20k Dil out for [Acc]x3, I'm not dropping 20k Dil out for [Dmg]x3. :P

Don't worry it is a Coming Soon feature of the crafting system :eek:

Honestly though it has been confirmed the new doff interface is here to stay, at least it's basic form, so that it can be moved to gateway sometime next year.

:(

I don't like change. I really don't like bad UI changes that reduce functionality to make it pretty.

starswordc

bareel wrote: »

Don't worry it is a Coming Soon feature of the crafting system :eek:

Honestly though it has been confirmed the new doff interface is here to stay, at least it's basic form, so that it can be moved to gateway sometime next year.

This after the coders said the Gateway's basically dead-on-arrival last time one of us asked about it.

And why do we have to have the same interface in-game as on the gateway, anyway? The current one works.

macronius

Geko - "Don't worry folks ... trust us ... this is a work in progress"

Where have I heard this before? :rolleyes:

virusdancer

macronius wrote: »

Geko - "Don't worry folks ... trust us ... this is a work in progress"

Where have I heard this before? :rolleyes:

Jokes about Geko aside...it was right there in the patch notes for when S9.5 first hit Tribble.

irishcaptain007

Thanks for the interview with Captain Geko. It was very informative... It assuaged some of my fears about the dilithium costs currently on tribble. But it also raised some questions... Especially regarding the new items in expansion 2 that will be exclusively tied to crafting. Hopefully we won't have to grind the crafting system on each of our toons and they will set up a similar system where if you progress through one toon you'll be able to reduce the costs for subsequent characters.

chalpen

virusdancer wrote: »

Jokes about Geko aside...it was right there in the patch notes for when S9.5 first hit Tribble.

Yes but sto has too much live right now that is in beta for a 4 year old game.
People just don't want cryptic to gatewayafy the crafting update

virusdancer

chalpen wrote: »

Yes but sto has too much live right now that is in beta for a 4 year old game.
People just don't wasn't cryptic to gatewayafy the crafting update

Some folks want to DOFF/Craft on their tablets. Some folks don't. Some folks want it to look the same both in the game and in Gateway. Some folks don't. Basically the sides have to marshal their forces and take to the forums of battle!

edit: Er, just don't forget the forum rules to avoid moderation issues...ahem.

chalpen

virusdancer wrote: »

Some folks want to DOFF/Craft on their tablets. Some folks don't. Some folks want it to look the same both in the game and in Gateway. Some folks don't. Basically the sides have to marshal their forces and take to the forums of battle!

edit: Er, just don't forget the forum rules to avoid moderation issues...ahem.

Cryptic went on last year talking how important a "second screen" was to mmo's nowadays. It was the best thing to do to keep an mmo current.
Then it wasn't .

Which is fine. But what is killing me is that cryptic won't say what had changed

virusdancer

chalpen wrote: »

Cryptic went on last year talking how important a "second screen" was to mmo's nowadays. It was the best thing to do to keep an mmo current.
Then it wasn't .

Which is fine. But what is killing me is that cryptic won't say what had changed

I could have my timeframe off, but didn't the Gateway stuff start dying down right before they started up with the Arc stuff?

capnmanx

Good episode.

Objectively, it mostly sounds like good news.

I'm having trouble being objective though; for me, the crafting revamp is being completely overshadowed by the removal of the exploration missions. Captain Geko's comments aren't making me feel any better. More causal dismissal of exploration missions as 'not adding anything to the game', and a vague assurance that things that are being removed will be back at some point in some form.

I'm increasingly certain that the folks saying we're bound to get an exploration revamp in X2 are being overly and hopelessly optimistic.

mustrumridcully0

capnmanx wrote: »

Good episode.

Objectively, it mostly sounds like good news.

I'm having trouble being objective though; for me, the crafting revamp is being completely overshadowed by the removal of the exploration missions. Captain Geko's comments aren't making me feel any better. More causal dismissal of exploration missions as 'not adding anything to the game', and a vague assurance that things that are being removed will be back at some point in some form.

I'm increasingly certain that the folks saying we're bound to get an exploration revamp in X2 are being overly and hopelessly optimistic.

It's more than that it didn't add to the game. There is a post in the Tribble feedback forums, IIRC, talking more about it. Their data shows that new players entered the exploration clusters and got stuck on some point - a mission objective not completing for some reason*, and that it was the point where players left forever. In addition, the exploration cluster missions are part of the install and take a lot of space, which meant long download times, another thing causing players to not try the game.

Of course, we don't have access to their data, but if we assume they are not lying to us about this (and if we did , what could they say anyway?), then this are issues that I understand. I conceptually love exploration content, but it should be seen as something that drives people to play the game, not somethnig that makes player go away.


*) I figure some missions are just broken, like some of those "fall through the floor" ground missions. Some of the combat missions tend to have the encounters spaced out in such a way that you may be searching quite a while until you find the next enemy ship - and if you're relatively new to the game, you may not know how to search effectively. Experienced players tend to know what to look for, and solve such a situation methodically and quickly, but new players will probably get frustrated, if not outright angry at a broken and poorly designed mission.
Of course, they could try to fix all that - but that is probably just not worth the effort - the missions, even if in perfect healthy state with no bugs breaking them, are not just that exciting.

amosov78

If they're looking for reasons to use Utopia Planitia for crafting, then how about adding various bonuses to the shipyard; like a time bonus for example. That way if the player is close enough to the sector it would be worth diverting for a stop over to the map, to decrease the time needed for projects.

dragonsbrethren

I'll give this a listen tomorrow when I've got some time.

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

*) I figure some missions are just broken, like some of those "fall through the floor" ground missions.

You just reminded me that boffs get stuck in the cluster ground missions all the time. A new player isn't going to have any idea what to do when their boffs get stuck.

captainrevo1

are people actually mourning the passing of the exploration clusters? they are utter garbage. they were garbage 4 years ago and they look even worse now.

im not a fan of taking content away but if it gives a bad impression to new players, and old players dont bother with them then what exactly is the point? a handful of players who just grind threw them. go play the foundry for a far better randomized exploration experience than they ever were.

iconians

Still no transcriptions?

How many times does Priority One need to be Liked on Facebook before you guys transcribe your interviews for those of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to listen?

I understand you have a volunteer staff, but unfortunately the ears of numerous STO players can not volunteer to function correctly.

psiameese

I'm also recalling that the Devs welcomed our telling them which cluster maps were problematic. When we did that more regularly, they would more than likely remove that map entirely from the cluster. I'm not sure when - or even why - this practice stopped? Was it around the time of the Free-to-play conversion? Knowing we started with over 3000 possible missions, it's hard to say what the percentage of faulty maps - both those removed and those reported but not removed - brought us down to when all was said and done.

It really sounds like not enough thought (aka time management) was put into how new player's would interact with the clusters, post-F2P? I can't really lay blame on our newer player's though. This isn't their fault.

jiralinria

So after listening to the interview and also testing the crafting system out on Tribble, I'm looking forward to it! As it is right now on Tribble, it needs some tweaking but where they are planning to take it to sounds VERY promising.

And the loss of the exploration clusters... well not sad about it. And those people who are getting easy EC and Dil out of them, too bad but I don't want it back and block space for better things.

azurianstar

What are your thoughts on the new changes to crafting that just hit Tribble? What would you like to see changed?

My first impressions of the new crafting system was not good. I found it to be more DOFF system than crafting, and it was disappointing. At it's core, it's really the same old crafting system but as a DOFF mission. So it takes away from that personal nature of what MMO Crafting is all about.

Some would argue that you (the Captain) would delegate crafting work to your crew, like they did in Star Trek, but yet Sisko was hands on with the creation of the Defiant. All the other Trek Captains got their hands dirty as well. So I, as a Captain, would like to feel like I'm researching and discovering new means to create something, then it would be okay to have my crew assemble it.

But as it is now, just it being a DOFF mission, just doesn't sit well with me.




Memory Alpha and Exploration Clusters:

I am disappointed these things are casualties of the new crafting system. While they were not hot spots, they were not entirely neglected as well. Memory Alpha fell out of favor because of the Unreplicatable materials that drove crafters away, and Exploration Clusters were places some people went to earn their Daily Dilithum and to others, to work on their exploration accolades.

For now, accoladers have no idea what's going to be the fate of the Exploration Accolades. Some worry their hard work will be deleted, while others worry that their accolades may never be completed. So hopefully July 3rd we get some answers.


But Geko saying that "people can go to other places for their daily dilithium" or the comment they are closing Memory Alpha because it's old is just terrible. Seems like a bad excuse to get rid of content. Memory Alpha is a canonical location that still has some unique side-missions that are nice in that they give depth to a location. So if Cryptic keeps deleting these missions, then its less of an MMO and makes STO more linear in being dependent on the storyline and queues. And that's not an MMO.

So I don't understand why they have to delete Memory Alpha, when surely they could convert it back into a Library like it was in TOS. I could imagine it would be a place Trek Lorists would enjoy, having bits and pieces of Trek and STO history in little tomes like they have in Neverwinter and in other MMOs. Maybe content Kestrel wrote for STO that could never be created as content, could be put here and give us insight to the storyline that we can't normally experience?


So they should keep Memory Alpha around.

mustrumridcully0

azurianstar wrote: »

My first impressions of the new crafting system was not good. I found it to be more DOFF system than crafting, and it was disappointing. At it's core, it's really the same old crafting system but as a DOFF mission. So it takes away from that personal nature of what MMO Crafting is all about.

Some would argue that you (the Captain) would delegate crafting work to your crew, like they did in Star Trek, but yet Sisko was hands on with the creation of the Defiant. All the other Trek Captains got their hands dirty as well. So I, as a Captain, would like to feel like I'm researching and discovering new means to create something, then it would be okay to have my crew assemble it.

But as it is now, just it being a DOFF mission, just doesn't sit well with me.

.

Sisko worked on the Defiant project, that doesn't mean he was hand-crafting the warp coils or something like that. He was a Commander, he probably was responsible for organizing the teams that did the physical and theoretical work, conducting meetings and solving issues. That's basically what you do, to.

Your team of engineers tells you "to build the new phasers, we need some phase converters". So you assemble a team that could build phase converters, but they tell that they need particular crafting materials, so you requisition those for them, or send someone to requisition them.

The only times we saw Sisko really building something by hand was when he build that Bajoran solar sail ship and when he was overtaken by some alien mind and build a clock.

He probably has the skills to do some of the work, and he probably did do stuff like that in the past, but as he grew in rank, he got away from doing the "on-hands" stuff and went into the guy with the responsbility, organizing the work and handling.

capnmanx

captainrevo1 wrote: »

are people actually mourning the passing of the exploration clusters? they are utter garbage. they were garbage 4 years ago and they look even worse now.

im not a fan of taking content away but if it gives a bad impression to new players, and old players dont bother with them then what exactly is the point? a handful of players who just grind threw them. go play the foundry for a far better randomized exploration experience than they ever were.

In what sense? Foundry missions are not 'go explore and see what you find' they are conventional missions with descriptions and specific objectives. Nothing random about them.

Besides which, even a good foundry map is usually just as ugly and buggy as the exploration ones ever were; I've had way more trouble with those than I ever did with the clusters.

mhall85

Ultra-rare MACO set.

WANT.

That is all.

annemarie30

i see the removal of the clusters as doing 2 things 1. getting rid of a relatively easy source of dilithium, and getting rid of the main source of farming the bits you need to craft.
hopefully doff missions will have the bits added to the scan such and such

havam

Hello my name is havam, and i m a crafter. I haven't crafted since the unreplicatable materials where introduced, since there was nothing to craft that i could possibly desire. From what i can tell from tribble, i ll stay dry until X2.

Here is the thing, I don't mind spending DIL and engage in a long term goal , similar to Starbases where its a question of months or years to finish something as opposed to weeks or days (rep system).

As a crafter I can deal with delayed rewards. The two things I have a hard time with is unpredictability and the feeling that in return for my efforts i receive junk. Eg. if i can't craft a CRTIDx5 MK XII AP DHC, then don't throw hundreds of DMGx2 MK X AP DHC at me on the way there.

1) Give me XP so that one day i will be able to craft what i want, and i know when that ll be so i can see the progress i m making.
2) give me some other rewards (unique Duty officers or Doff missions, bigger belt buckles, ... costume options, FM, bridges, interiors, anything really) Otherwise for every crafting missions that cannot produce my desired item. I feel like i m wasting resources, where i could just buy stuff of the exchange much more efficiently. Sure someone else has to craft it, but its no fun if i don't feel rewarded during the grind.

A simple fix would be that every failed crafting outcome, can at least be used to increase the odds and lower the price of the next attempt.


Overall, if a system that allows us modification of any gear in game we want to modify is coming great. Balance will be a nightmare but that level of complexity would be fun for sure. However, i m still waiting for those pvp leaderboards that were in testing in S3.... so pardon me if i won't hold my breadth.


TL;DR. The randomness and great amount of "almost but not quite" the item i m after that pile up in the tribble crafting system are not fun or engaging. Just remove them and give out completely unrelated rewards instead. To safe us all the frustration.

jengoz

annemarie30 wrote: »

i see the removal of the clusters as doing 2 things 1. getting rid of a relatively easy source of dilithium, and getting rid of the main source of farming the bits you need to craft.
hopefully doff missions will have the bits added to the scan such and such

yes... and add the EC Vendor Trash nerf.... Plus raise the dilithium prices and you have more grind for the players or moar money for Cryptic.


9.5 is not about crafting... it's about putting the squeeze on players again. too many players where making currencies by doing nothing but playing the game and in the long run Cryptic can't have that.


Be prepared to start grinding even more or open up your wallet .

orangeitis

elijahmre wrote: »

This week's Community Question

• What are your thoughts on the new changes to crafting that just hit Tribble? What would you like to see changed?

Other than the way it's presented through the DOFF UI, it's a step in the right direction. Though I would like for the R&D system to be less of a one-dimensional 'craft materials, then craft equipment' system. Adding the ability to craft more things would be nice, like costume pieces, rare consumables, new shuttles, kit powers, devices, or even whole starships. I think each player can fill their niche if the R&D system gets the proper player tools.

gooddaytodie39

Can any nice person please post a brief transcript or summary of the Geko interview?

dragonsbrethren

Listening to this, I'm getting hyped. It's a shame the early state of the crafting revamp is giving everyone (including myself) a negative impression of it. I was under the impression that Tribble was for near-final content, but apparently this is very early, and that explains a lot of the problems.

They've got some really cool stuff planned that blows the current system away. I do worry about "upgrading" gear, because...why? What justifies making our high-end gear even better? Yeah, this is me not understanding MMO progression again, I don't want to have better gear just to have better gear...

I'm still not sold on the current direction of the doff UI. I'm really going to miss selecting and planning an assignment from the same screen. I'm looking forward to seeing how it improves, but I have a feeling I'm going to miss the current UI.

hypl

captainrevo1 wrote: »

are people actually mourning the passing of the exploration clusters? they are utter garbage. they were garbage 4 years ago and they look even worse now.

im not a fan of taking content away but if it gives a bad impression to new players, and old players dont bother with them then what exactly is the point? a handful of players who just grind threw them. go play the foundry for a far better randomized exploration experience than they ever were.

I'm gonna miss fighting against the mighty warriors of the Third Borg Dynasty...