I'm wholly against this move. Grind plus power creep. Not in favor.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
I sure am having an enjoyable time latching onto the Boatswain Whistle addition to the queue pop-up windows as the only great thing about Season 9.5 that I love and adore.
With this change to crafting, that is the one change they added with S9.5 that I can give 2 thumbs up.
They botched the doffing UI, they removed clusters, they broke some cluster accolade progressions, they set the doff assignment timer to the sector one, and the crafting UI it terrible.
S9.5 - The season we'd all love to forget. Expansion 2 can't come soon enough.
With this change to crafting, that is the one change they added with S9.5 that I can give 2 thumbs up.
They botched the doffing UI, they removed clusters, they broke some cluster accolade progressions, they set the doff assignment timer to the sector one, and the crafting UI it terrible.
S9.5 - The season we'd all love to forget. Expansion 2 can't come soon enough.
It's not the worst season-and-a-half we've had. But it's not encouraging me to buy Zen hand over fist, either.
I sure am having an enjoyable time latching onto the Boatswain Whistle addition to the queue pop-up windows as the only great thing about Season 9.5 that I love and adore.
Well I also liked the new standardized uniforms, especially all the different variants you can make based on the blogs and the extra stuff from twitter.
I'd also probably have been happier if they had also revamped the Romulan and Cardassian episodes for season 9.5 like the did the Klingon and Borg ones.
This is an absolutely horrible idea. The new crafting system is already daunting enough - progress is so slow it's almost not worth it to even start. This "feature" is the only thing that makes this system seem doable. Removing it just makes it seem impossible to achieve anything, so why should we bother?
Well I also liked the new standardized uniforms, especially all the different variants you can make based on the blogs and the extra stuff from twitter.
I did too. Up until they ported a known bug from Tribble onto holodeck that caused the client to crash whenever you accessed the tailor. Simultaneously justifying why nobody should test on Tribble to begin with, and how even a great and well-received change (like the Odyssey uniforms) can be premiered so sloppily.
Yes, I am aware they fixed that bug (and I am grateful for that work and effort).
But it made the public release of the Odyssey uniform changes bittersweet. Like seeing a really attractive person walk up to you with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their shoe.
Yeah, that's crafting out for me now. Too much fuss and pother. Shame, because I like crafting systems that are medium-grindy, it's something nice to do other than killing stuff, and every MMO needs that. But a year, that's just a joke.
Especially since, as someone mentinoed above, lots of players are max level, and they want to get to max level crafting in a reasonable time frame.
This smells of a directive from on high - I guess PWE are testing the waters to see whether Western MMO players will enjoy the degree of hopeless grind Asian MMO players do, and they're using poor old Cryptic as a guinea pig. I think to some extent there's overlap, we will medium-grind for stuff if it's contextualized right, but we don't like max-grind for the sake of it, especially not when the monetization is so in your face. We'll just go and play another game instead, or if all games are grindy like that, we'll just stop playing games.
In the recent and now infamous interview Al Rivera talked about how fleets could have one guy who does X, and another guy who dose Y and how X guy and Y guy could work together to benefit from each others specialty.
This just forces generalization on us. Its totally counter to what Al was saying in the podcast. This was clearly an intended feature, not an issue. Shame on cryptic for trying to paint this as a fix.
If you want to fix something cryptic fix my damn loadouts!
Cryptic, you are going to lose a lot of crafting players if you go through with this. Everything you set out to do with the system will be a moot point now.
Cryptic, you are going to lose a lot of crafting players if you go through with this. Everything you set out to do with the system will be a moot point now.
The only thing I can figure is they had a board meeting that said, "Let's make crafting more lucrative than it was 4 years ago."
"Okay. How about instead of waiting 4 years to get valuable, worthwhile, and lucrative rewards for crafting, it only takes 1?"
If Cryptic/PWE allowed mobile access to the DOff system (including crafting), would we continue to argue this point?
Is this (or will this) upset create a business case for PWE to justify and sanction a mobility solution for DOff system access?
From the STOked interview last weekend, it was inferred that the new DOff system may be a step towards something for mobile platforms. Certainly, if you want to keep players loyal and engaged on STO, Cryptic/PWE would be wise to find a strong hook, like a mobile application.
And if a mobile app existed that allowed DOff system access, would players (aka customers) complain that the crafting grind is unreasonable?
Just food for thought...
I realize Cryptic/PWE has made NO formal announcement about such technologies or game features. But I wonder if mobile access to the DOff system would lessen the grind pain...
Yes we would continue to argue this point, because it doesn't really change the maths of how long it will take to get to level 20; just the amount of "busy" work I can do getting there... its no less grindy, I t just means that I can grind in more places...
Meh, in a way I wish CBS would just pull the IP and get someone else to make a Trek MMO or games in general.
I've played off and on for a couple years and I had a blast in the beginning. It's nothing but grind now and this crafting system as it was released is nothing new, this change actually makes it worse.
What can I say? We saw this coming a month ago when it first appeared on Tribble. A bad system with a terrible UI, with feedback completely ignored.
This is the Asian model of MMOs, it's all about the grind. All we can hope for now is a new STO that's done by a Western Company, who really does care about the Star Trek community.
An honest look at the end result of this change is that anyone who was planning on doing all schools will only be put out very marginally on the total time to complete, 20 days or so, since that's the difference in getting that 5th R&D assignment slot. This decision is thus much more punitive to those that don't plan to max out all schools, and those who did, but planned to do it on their own terms, like getting one rushed to max level in order to be producing top tier equipment while working on the others. It's an attempt at pushing us to do it the "right" way, rather than how we want to do it.
I have to say, I'm not a fan of this decision, even though I really wasn't planning to push one school to max level at expense of nearly all others. It will still put a crimp in my plans, which were to get to max R&D assignment slots as fast as possible, then go in the generalist direction that Cryptic seems to think is the "proper" way to do it. They should just leave it as it is, and let people choose their own paths through it.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
welp i was gonna try to craft also but since this change this is to rich for my blood and i don't like giving up my hard earned dill for nothing. what gets me is when i first started this game i was told crafting was useless so i left it alone ,so they try to revamp it and pull this on everyone and make it useless again its ridiculous. i dont really need crafting anyway since im T5 in all reps and have all the fleet gear ill ever want:D
A demon of greed. Don't worry, he comes very often to visit.
"Hey guys, I have a genius plan to make more money, let's throw a 200days rep grind, and a 18K dil "make it faster" option, they'll pay dil like mad, and buy more zen !".
Not only it's a dumb grind, but it's also time gated. Unless you spend ungodly amount of dil, you really have to wait 100days.
On the opposite, the usual craft we have in various MMO is also a grind. But it's not time gated, so you can totally skip the crafting for a while, and rush a bunch of lvl in a matter of hours.
That's what I usually do on LOTRO when they add a new craft cap. I enjoy the new content and gather resources on the way, and when I'm done with the new quests, I spend those resources into the craft and rush the max lvl in a few hours. It's also a grind, but I can do it my way.
STO crafting is a grind we do the Cryptic's way.
I don't mind having a grind, to be honest I'm used to have grindy craft. But seriously, 20h project ? There is a reason why NWN craft is one of the worst I've ever seen (go leadership, go !). And they made it even worse. That's a feat.
lol man seriously? i wanted to get that omni phaser beam so badly and well i guess im not gonna get it. After hearing this im gonna give up on crafting all together :mad:
plus what if u have multiple toons how am i gonna find them time to do rep,crafting,fleet projects,dilithium and rep equipment this is just getting stupid now.:mad::mad:
What they want you to do is actually craft stuff to make up the XP difference.
If you focus on a school and craft like a maniac it will actually go faster than it would with just the XP projects. Now, will I craft like a maniac? No. Am I happy about this? No. But I don't know who it serves to just pretend the projects are the only thing you can do with what is supposed to be a CRAFTING system. They want you to craft. Isn't it obvious?
Comments
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Cryptic, plz un-nerf, kthnxbai.
With this change to crafting, that is the one change they added with S9.5 that I can give 2 thumbs up.
They botched the doffing UI, they removed clusters, they broke some cluster accolade progressions, they set the doff assignment timer to the sector one, and the crafting UI it terrible.
S9.5 - The season we'd all love to forget. Expansion 2 can't come soon enough.
It's not the worst season-and-a-half we've had. But it's not encouraging me to buy Zen hand over fist, either.
Well I also liked the new standardized uniforms, especially all the different variants you can make based on the blogs and the extra stuff from twitter.
I'd also probably have been happier if they had also revamped the Romulan and Cardassian episodes for season 9.5 like the did the Klingon and Borg ones.
I did too. Up until they ported a known bug from Tribble onto holodeck that caused the client to crash whenever you accessed the tailor. Simultaneously justifying why nobody should test on Tribble to begin with, and how even a great and well-received change (like the Odyssey uniforms) can be premiered so sloppily.
Yes, I am aware they fixed that bug (and I am grateful for that work and effort).
But it made the public release of the Odyssey uniform changes bittersweet. Like seeing a really attractive person walk up to you with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their shoe.
Really? At least the other .5 seasons actually added content. This one just added grind and bad UI changes.
I don't count lockboxes as content by the way.
Especially since, as someone mentinoed above, lots of players are max level, and they want to get to max level crafting in a reasonable time frame.
This smells of a directive from on high - I guess PWE are testing the waters to see whether Western MMO players will enjoy the degree of hopeless grind Asian MMO players do, and they're using poor old Cryptic as a guinea pig. I think to some extent there's overlap, we will medium-grind for stuff if it's contextualized right, but we don't like max-grind for the sake of it, especially not when the monetization is so in your face. We'll just go and play another game instead, or if all games are grindy like that, we'll just stop playing games.
Word to the wise.
"Content" is an extremely subjective and malleable word that means many things to many people.
But I can say Season 2 and Season 3 really have to take the cake in terms of TRIBBLE things up on release.
At least I'm not reduced to level 1 in Season 9.5
Some math a friend did. Not sure if this is entirely accurate, but the amount of time it will take now it ridiculously stupid to max one school.
Add 2mil more for the ground kit school (coming soon!). I hope 2nd deflectors get tacked onto the science school when they come out.
This just forces generalization on us. Its totally counter to what Al was saying in the podcast. This was clearly an intended feature, not an issue. Shame on cryptic for trying to paint this as a fix.
If you want to fix something cryptic fix my damn loadouts!
The only thing I can figure is they had a board meeting that said, "Let's make crafting more lucrative than it was 4 years ago."
"Okay. How about instead of waiting 4 years to get valuable, worthwhile, and lucrative rewards for crafting, it only takes 1?"
"BRILLIANT!"
Maybe the crafting system will introduce the Sisyphus Set to go along with the Aegis set whenever you max every school out.
Yes we would continue to argue this point, because it doesn't really change the maths of how long it will take to get to level 20; just the amount of "busy" work I can do getting there... its no less grindy, I t just means that I can grind in more places...
I've played off and on for a couple years and I had a blast in the beginning. It's nothing but grind now and this crafting system as it was released is nothing new, this change actually makes it worse.
I guess it's time to find something else to do.
This is the Asian model of MMOs, it's all about the grind. All we can hope for now is a new STO that's done by a Western Company, who really does care about the Star Trek community.
I have to say, I'm not a fan of this decision, even though I really wasn't planning to push one school to max level at expense of nearly all others. It will still put a crimp in my plans, which were to get to max R&D assignment slots as fast as possible, then go in the generalist direction that Cryptic seems to think is the "proper" way to do it. They should just leave it as it is, and let people choose their own paths through it.
They thought there was rage on day one...wait till today's patch later....
(It's the 22nd for me..)
"Hey guys, I have a genius plan to make more money, let's throw a 200days rep grind, and a 18K dil "make it faster" option, they'll pay dil like mad, and buy more zen !".
Not only it's a dumb grind, but it's also time gated. Unless you spend ungodly amount of dil, you really have to wait 100days.
On the opposite, the usual craft we have in various MMO is also a grind. But it's not time gated, so you can totally skip the crafting for a while, and rush a bunch of lvl in a matter of hours.
That's what I usually do on LOTRO when they add a new craft cap. I enjoy the new content and gather resources on the way, and when I'm done with the new quests, I spend those resources into the craft and rush the max lvl in a few hours. It's also a grind, but I can do it my way.
STO crafting is a grind we do the Cryptic's way.
I don't mind having a grind, to be honest I'm used to have grindy craft. But seriously, 20h project ? There is a reason why NWN craft is one of the worst I've ever seen (go leadership, go !). And they made it even worse. That's a feat.
plus what if u have multiple toons how am i gonna find them time to do rep,crafting,fleet projects,dilithium and rep equipment this is just getting stupid now.:mad::mad:
If you focus on a school and craft like a maniac it will actually go faster than it would with just the XP projects. Now, will I craft like a maniac? No. Am I happy about this? No. But I don't know who it serves to just pretend the projects are the only thing you can do with what is supposed to be a CRAFTING system. They want you to craft. Isn't it obvious?