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Reverse Engineering
jivedutch
Member Posts: 357 Arc User
Could we have some sort of reverse engineering project in the system.
Where we could slot a disassembly project for a beam we got as loot, with a xp & component reward on completion. (to offset the EC that a vendor would pay)
Component quality could be depending on source level.
In real life you would also learn something while disassembling , which would be the XP, and there would also be usable parts for future assembly projects from that.
This would appeal to the non-crafters who dislike the gathering component of the crafting, giving them something else to do with the loot they pick up from missions than just vendortrashing it, since they could get marketable components in return of a small crafting experience.
In the whole crafting thing, it could even be an extra leveling track, where leveling up in the disassembly track would improve the chances & rewards from the items.
It would be something similar to the dis-enchanting other games have, for crafting components, an extra way of getter materials.
Where we could slot a disassembly project for a beam we got as loot, with a xp & component reward on completion. (to offset the EC that a vendor would pay)
Component quality could be depending on source level.
In real life you would also learn something while disassembling , which would be the XP, and there would also be usable parts for future assembly projects from that.
This would appeal to the non-crafters who dislike the gathering component of the crafting, giving them something else to do with the loot they pick up from missions than just vendortrashing it, since they could get marketable components in return of a small crafting experience.
In the whole crafting thing, it could even be an extra leveling track, where leveling up in the disassembly track would improve the chances & rewards from the items.
It would be something similar to the dis-enchanting other games have, for crafting components, an extra way of getter materials.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
"isn't feasible in a reasonable amount of time"
I wonder; Is 4.5 years enough time? STO's crafting system has been broken since day 1, and now that you are finally getting around to making a better crafting system, you slap on a huge dilith
The main thing I am wondering is why Cryptic is so intent on releasing the crafting system in an incomplete state with the intent to release the rest of the planned features later.
Wouldn't it be better to take a bit of extra time and release everything for the expansion and make sure everything works as best it can and all works together properly?
This right here.
Push off the "new crafting system" for another 4-5 months (or until the Expansion pack hits, whichever comes first). And release the new system, Fully Featured from the start. Of course, without the new crafting system, you really don't have a lot left to justify a "Season 9.5" tag for July's update.
Honestly, no, it wouldn't be better. Having something in the game to build on lets us iterate and improve. Everything has an opportunity cost - working on R+D means I'm not making critter groups, or mission rewards, or scripting boss fights, or working on progression systems or combat balance. We've dedicated a huge amount of time to getting the basic R+D system together (and you'll see lots of improvements to it in our next Tribble patch). It's just not realistic software development (and you can look at Google or Facebook etc. to see this demonstrated) to never release something until it's "done" - living products are never done. Plus, if I was working on R+D for 1.5 years instead of 8 months, you'd be missing out on all the other stuff we need me to make.
Also, please keep in mind that when I come out here and tell you why something is the way it is, and then you tell me "No, you're dumb and that's a dumb reason", it really makes me less motivated to come out here and talk to you guys. I spend a lot of my spare time and energy trying to communicate with you honestly and directly. I don't speak corporate-speak much, and I like to try and let players see as much "under the hood" as they want to. At some level, all I'm asking for is when I come out here and try to answer your questions, let the thought "well, maybe he has a reason for that" go through your head before you lay into me.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Overall, I feel the bones of the system is there. It does need adjusting of values, more options like this one above (and others I have listed), but one of the biggest things it needs I know is not your purview. It does need a much cleaner and more efficient UI and that UI needs to be divorced from the DOFF UI (which needs either major work itself or just returned to what we had before). I hope we will see tuning to the time gates, XP Curves, dilithium costs, and clearer subcomponent requirements for subcomponents.
So my real big question is why did you guys opt for a lottery system for the final rewards from the get go rather than a build what you want with different dropdown menus?
I do not fault you for an honest answer, I had just hoped that player input would have been a much larger part of fundamental system of this type from the ground up. Now what has happened is you guys developed this system and said, "Here look at the cool thing we made for you." The players have said (some including myself not as nice as we could but this is the gist) , "This is not really what we wanted for a crafting system, here are all the things we feel need to be in it." You guys get upset because you have invested a lot of time and effort into it and tell us we have no more time for that it will come later (and that is with the best intentions but things happen). Players are concerned later will never come.
All of this could have been easily avoided by interaction at much earlier stages. I understand you want to have surprise things that are cool, but a fundamental system like should not really be a surprise (at least how it works...special items yes).
I for one appreciate your extra effort in trying to help us understand the dev process better. It is nice to know that a system of reverse engineering loot drops for components is in the works. I think this additional crafting track would be an invaluable asset for those of us that have dream of the day when a truly awesome crafting system is fully in place.
When did I say that was a dumb reason or call you dumb?
If you read the comments left, the crafting system you are wanting to release at 9.5 is not really what we want but we are stoked for the promises we have heard for the future about upgrading equipment, and we all want to be able to actually choose what we want. Iterating is great, and you should iterate, but releasing something that's somewhat basic then telling us you'll fix it later has never been a good policy.
The fact of the matter is, right now the crafting isn't so much crafting as it is playing to roll a drop, but the stuff that has been promised to come out later sounds great, and I know it sucks to sometimes not be able to do anything with work you have done, but suggesting that you release that in the midst of huge concerns is an example of a sunk cost fallacy, and suggesting that continued work on R&D is taking something away from other areas concerns me since the plans for "iteration" have already been announced, so that implies you could just decide not to let us upgrade equipment and choose mods for our stuff in the future; that you could just abandon crafting to work on something else.
When I say release it when you are done, it's the core features we are looking for, that you have promised, and when it is useful, and while the unique items are good, the chance based system where we can't actually pick what we want is a lot less useful than the future promises. If I could compare it to another feature, you seem to imply that I am asking that you should have waited to release rep till nukara and dyson reps were in rather than starting at two but what I am really saying is it would have been bad had you let us do the rep grind for traits and said we have to wait to get the associated sets later when those are done.
I like crafting and am hoping to see crafting do well, but my concern is that the current release plan to release something not asked for and a promise to fix it later is just going to drive players away. How many games do you know of that are good now but can never escape the bad press of a terrible launch week? My concern is that could happen with crafting here.
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We want to see the ability to make items with specific mods and to upgrade or modify our existing equipment. Iteration upon that is adding more choices for equipment and modifications we can make. I would even go as far as to say pay to get a random drop would be better as a way to iterate on building your own custom gear than it would be the other way around, but once we can choose what we want, the random drops part isn't likely to get used anyways.
The issue is the core design goals and underlying mechanics, and I have been beta testing for long enough to know those don't just change next patch. Next patch is a new paint job and the numbers have been rebalanced as you work on perfecting the system, but you'll have to work hard to convince me that the method we go about crafting (gathering materials to make components to make a random item of the type and mark we specified) is going to change by a great amount.
Want a Polarized Pulswave Disruptor (Doesn't drop from the Polarized Disruptor Boxes)? Then "destroy" one Polarized Ground or Space weapon for a chance to get a "polarization matrix" (or whatever it is called) and build your own Rifle.
(As far as i remember Korath did similar things to Cardassian Weapons in "Endgame")
Ok adjudicatorhawk, this is for you.
There is cryptic, there is perfect world, there are the devs who do the best they can to improve the game within the needs of the business model and there are those who put the business model before the needs of fun and game play.
We don't know which are the devs doing the best they can for us, and which are the devs doing the best they can for the bottom line. We know that some one out there is watching the bottom line because they have to be, or there would be no game. We also know that the bottom line is some times raised higher then it need to be at the cost of our fun, and as consumers that is always going to be against our interest and cause discontent.
Some times people misdirect that discontent, either through ignorance of where it should be aimed, or simply through the use of the wrong pronoun by which a comment may be directed at you rather then the business.
So what is there to be discontent about?
I've been with STO a long while now. There have been bleak patches, bad patches, good patches, fun patches, huge amounts of time without patches and occasionally nicotine patches.
STO has suffered from competing visions, rushed development and at first a subscription based revenue stream, which seemed to be feeding no development at all, and then a F2P revenue stream which didn't seem to be feeding balance or polish, just money grab content.
LoR was a big surprise to me. I had thought it a horrible waist of development resources as I had no desire to play as a romulan, but I actually got a lot of enjoyment out of it, at least until I burnt through the content and went back to my fed and Klink as I have no intention of investing time or money in more then two characters.
I still had little hope of seeing balance or bug fixing getting much attention, but then cryptic actually did start fixing some long standing bugs which had been troubling me for far too long, some with duty officers and some with science abilities, and some with costumes and accolades.
So cryptic as a whole won points with me and earned a better reputation, but there are still black marks.
For a long while I did not consider much of the paid content to be game breaking, but now it has reached the point where it seems to me cryptic are releasing more and more content that outright obsoletes existing content. I don't like that.
It also seems that cryptic are releasing content that is not finished, and not following through with finishing it. Look at load outs which are broken, kit modules which have no category on the exchange and the secondary deflectors which are still not in for anything but the dyson destroyers.
Given that these things have been partially released and not finished why should we believe that R&D will be finished?
Well actually there is a reason. The Klingon faction. Is it equal to the feds? No, but it was released unfinished and now I would say it stands tall and proud compared to the pathetic thing it once was, so there is hope.
But even if there is hope, we plan for the worst, not the best. We are distrustful and jaded. Cryptic has done things to redeem itself for past failures, and if it builds on those maybe we wont need to be distrustful any more, but its going to have to build on them with polish and fixed content, not broken content and promises.
This is a forum, we are the masses, we are as smart as the least intelligent of our number and we want our Jam today, not tomorrow.
... So yeah any way, big text wall, sorry about that. Point is, as I am sure you already to know, you can be as honest and transparent with us as a Gallamites head, you are still going to take the stick that's meant for cryptic. Its not right, its not fair, but its the way it is. Thank you for taking the time to post on the forums any way. When we arn't blaming you for things that arn't your fault we do appreciate it.
Personally I'd rather miss out on that stuff if it get's us a better crafting system. I've been trying to get the devs to notice that the current system has a fundamental flaw ever since seeing it on tribble. not to discourage you but to help you. I prefer blizzard's "it's done when it's done" mentality and I know it to be one of the reason why WoW is still among the most popular MMO's out there. I'd rather play STO then WoW and I like STO to be the best it can be.
I've been rather vocal about my displeasure whit the new crafting system currently on tribble. That's not meant to discourage you. It's meant to help you make STO the best it can be. I also realize that what I am asking for will probably take a lot of work. I see so much potential in the system that's on tribble but to really make it a crafting system changes need to be made. It's gonna take a lot of work and I'd be grateful if you took it on even if that means postponing launching this system to expansion 2
our issue are whit underlying mechanics far more than whit execution or the numbers. since cryptic has stated this to be an alpha build we react to it as this must change now or it will never change. that leads to rushed comments that don't always have the friendliest tone made worse by the fact that their written and not spoken. I like to thank adjudicatorhawk for actually doing this. If more devs did this, without corporate talk and the discussion would yield real change in the game. the player-base would notice that such back and forth is beneficial to them and start reacting more reserved.
First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
Speaking from experience in other games, I think this would be best paired with a revamp of need/greed rolls. Greed doesn't work in a game like this and I think it would be better if loot options were, essentially:
Every man for himself (anyone can loot anything.)
Standard (You get your own loot drops.)
Auto-Random (Everyone automatically selects Need, effectively.)
Manual Random (Need or Pass. Greed just clutters things up.)
Actually, for this paragraph I salute you. I do want you (and the rest of the staff) to understand that everything that I argue for, everything that I argue against, everything that I say about the game or aspects of that game... aren't about you. You and the rest of the staff give us a game that we enjoy, otherwise we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be so passionate in our opinions about that game. So for that, thank you.
For the rest, please remember that all of the feedback you get, even complaints about the very structure of the Crafting Revamp itself... all of it is us trying to let you know what we hope for as STO evolves. Our perspective as players is different from your perspective as developers, which I'm sure differs from the perspective of management at times. Those of us that take to the Tribble section of the forums are here because we are engaged enough to want to participate in the process, and while at times we may end up a bit too engaged, I hope that you do take to heart the feedback provided. Even if I don't always agree with my fellow forum denizens, and argue against them, we all want a better STO.
Anywho, that was all serious, so... BACON!