i think people misunderstood the system of OPTIONAL UPGRADING old desired items by beeing the only one way to get new gear. guys calm down: there will stil lbe mk xii/mk xiv drops from missions, lockboxes etc.
this system is for a) upgrading old beloved mk xii items that wont appear as drops but may be useful. special mixed energy types, special torps etc.
and b) for quality upgrade of gear from veryrare to epic.
also the geame doesnt really force anyone to be full upic. this is not wow. im flying mkx and mk xi rares only, and im still hitting top and at least middle ranks in stf. so what?!
You'd rather replace your gear than upgrade them then...?
I would if that was a viable option, but it is starting to seem like any ways to get items above mk xii is being gated intentionally. No one has confirmed that at level 60 you will be able to purchase "fresh" mk xiii and mk xiv items from fleet holdings, nor has anyone confirmed that mission replay gives you items above mk xi or that special equipment packs will scale with you above mk xii.
I would if that was a viable option, but it is starting to seem like any ways to get items above mk xii is being gated intentionally. No one has confirmed that at level 60 you will be able to purchase "fresh" mk xiii and mk xiv items from fleet holdings, nor has anyone confirmed that mission replay gives you items above mk xi or that special equipment packs will scale with you above mk xii.
If someone has, please pipe in!
I'm not too sure if this is correct or not but as far as I know, there will be nothing higher dropping at level 60 than it does currently at level 50.
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I'm not too sure if this is correct or not but as far as I know, there will be nothing higher dropping at level 60 than it does currently at level 50.
The only thing I've heard was a confirmed MkXIII mission reward.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Will Mk XIII and/or Mk XIV gear be placed into the normal "sales" channels of Rep Projects and Fleet stores for regular amounts of resources as Mk XII is now or, will the only way to get them be to get Mk XII and then upgrade them?
If the only way to get them is to upgrade Mk XII's then I for one am bowing out of ever caring or seeking higher Mk's because I will not buy into, directly or indirectly to the R&D system. Based on reports so far, upgrading almost anything will cost more in Dilithium than the item cost to begin with. This is just wrong on a fundamental level.
Using only the Level 10 upgrade (5k Tech Points per use) and upgrading a Mk XII Romulan Plasma Beam Array (Romulan Rep Store) to Mk XIV :
Each upgrade token requires 950 dilithium per use
Mk XII to Mk XIII - 64,000 Tech Points (at 5k Tech points per token) (950 x 13 = 12350)
Mk XIII to Mk XIV - 128,000 Tech Points (at 5k Tech points per token) (950 x 26 = 24700)
Total cost is about 37,000 dilithium
Running a Rep project will cost at most 34k Dilithium for ANY item. Charging more than the original cost of the item, in the specific example, almost double, is NOT reasonable by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Crafting your own upgrades, is buying directly into R&D. Buying upgrades from the exchange, is buying indirectly into R&D.
Neither of which I have any interest in.
So please, put the higher Mk stuff into the normal sales channels. Let US decide how we want to acquire it, if we have the desire to do so.
If the sensible, simple thing isn't going to be done, then I propose the simpler, quicker method that will get not only me, but many others on board and will still cause a lot of that excess dilithium the devs are worried about to be absorbed.
So to go from Mk XII to Mk XIII will cost one upgrade token sold at vendors for 10k dilithium. Want to go to Mk XIV, 2 tokens for 10k each, total cost 20k Dilithium. No time gate, no waiting, use the tokens like you use keys on lockboxes. Simple, done, better price, much less resistance and many more people taking advantage of the opportunity.
"Go play with your DPS in the corner, I don't care how big it is." ~ Me "There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
The White versions of those weapons are a real edge-case, something I don't know that we've ever done on any other ship. I think we'd be more likely to add those to the existing Voth Lock Box weapon packs, than to allow them to be upgradeable
Maybe edge case, but the player has paid for and earned that ship and it's equipment.
Making the UNIQUE torpedo they come with (white or purple quality) unavailable to upgrade and republishing it into the Voth lockbox so they can "go fish" for another is a slap in the face.
Unique items on a ship, not available anywhere else excluding lockboxes, need to be available for reclaiming, and be upgradeable (where applicable).
There's an idea, can you make the common voth torp available via reclaim and the new reclaimed ones can be upgradeable? (if the one on the ships for tech reasons cannot be made so)
Does anyone have problems upgrading the Assimilated Engines Mk XII? I can upgrade the Mk XI variant but the Mk XII variant will just not budge. Anyone else can confirm?>
Tally of Total Cost/Time for this single weapon upgrade
Rare XI -> Rare XIV
Cost = 94 "BTU", 35hr duration [940,000 EC + 65,800 Dilith]
Rare XI ->Epic XIV
Cost = 1687 "BTU", 25+ Days duration [16,870,000 EC + 1,180,900 Dilith]
+ 600zen for R&D packages{The Buff these accelerators gave was relatively worthless as it wears off after 10k point or so}
YMMV after upgrading items for about 6hours or so sometimes a 1st time upgrade crit to rarity does happen.
Hopefully the higher teir crafted upgrades will offer more than 2k tech points per use but their cost on the exchange maybe too high initially since you will need several hundred of purple quality tech upgrades to acheive upgrades across several items, especially to get to Epic status, irrc some items upgraded last nite required 318,000 tech points per upgrade chance at higher levels.
Good Hunting
Yeah basic upgrades are pretty expensive for high level gear, reasonable for low level stuff. upgrading mk2 to 10 is quick and easy. past that? it gets expensive fast. I'm not even going to try to upgrade high level stuff with the basic upgrades on the live server. I tried it on Tribble with a Repeater pistol.... got a REALLY sweet pistol. But it cost a fortune. Too much. But as noted, it was trying for gold that was where most of the fortune got sunk in. upping it to 14 wasn't obscenely expensive.
I would if that was a viable option, but it is starting to seem like any ways to get items above mk xii is being gated intentionally. No one has confirmed that at level 60 you will be able to purchase "fresh" mk xiii and mk xiv items from fleet holdings, nor has anyone confirmed that mission replay gives you items above mk xi or that special equipment packs will scale with you above mk xii.
So what if they haven't confirmed it yet? There's just about a month still left to go and cryptic just got around to talking about item upgrades (which you'd hope they'd explain before talking about all the new/shiny content you could buy, as you know how the forums tend to take things the wrong way at the soonest opportunity...)
If we get to Oct. 13th without confirmation then worry. For now, well just assume that what we can confirm right now on tribble isn't the end state of DR.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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Will Mk XIII and/or Mk XIV gear be placed into the normal "sales" channels of Rep Projects and Fleet stores for regular amounts of resources as Mk XII is now or, will the only way to get them be to get Mk XII and then upgrade them?
If the only way to get them is to upgrade Mk XII's then I for one am bowing out of ever caring or seeking higher Mk's because I will not buy into, directly or indirectly to the R&D system. Based on reports so far, upgrading almost anything will cost more in Dilithium than the item cost to begin with. This is just wrong on a fundamental level.
An example from someone in another thread;
Running a Rep project will cost at most 34k Dilithium for ANY item. Charging more than the original cost of the item, in the specific example, almost double, is NOT reasonable by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Crafting your own upgrades, is buying directly into R&D. Buying upgrades from the exchange, is buying indirectly into R&D.
Neither of which I have any interest in.
So please, put the higher Mk stuff into the normal sales channels. Let US decide how we want to acquire it, if we have the desire to do so.
If the sensible, simple thing isn't going to be done, then I propose the simpler, quicker method that will get not only me, but many others on board and will still cause a lot of that excess dilithium the devs are worried about to be absorbed.
So to go from Mk XII to Mk XIII will cost one upgrade token sold at vendors for 10k dilithium. Want to go to Mk XIV, 2 tokens for 10k each, total cost 20k Dilithium. No time gate, no waiting, use the tokens like you use keys on lockboxes. Simple, done, better price, much less resistance and many more people taking advantage of the opportunity.
One thing you may not be aware of, according to a tribble player apparently high quality upgrade kits are dropping from elite queues. So at least on the crafting front you may not be locked out.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
submitted a bug report but upgraded a deuterium-stabilized warp core green quality MK v up to MKXIV very rare and the core never gained any new mods but S-cap.
One thing you may not be aware of, according to a tribble player apparently high quality upgrade kits are dropping from elite queues. So at least on the crafting front you may not be locked out.
you can also get them as drops during my level 60 grind on elite doing patrols over and over a gain i got a few superior upgrade kits
Based on upgrading a whole ton of stuff, dilithium costs need to go down. Rarity upgrades after getting to MK XIV seem to be the biggest culprit so perhaps once you get there the price on dilithium goes down slightly to maybe 50-75% of what it is and/or you can attempt to increase rarity for one superior upgrade kit instead of having to use several. Anyone of these would make the system far more reasonable cost wise.
Based on upgrading a whole ton of stuff, dilithium costs need to go down. Rarity upgrades after getting to MK XIV seem to be the biggest culprit so perhaps once you get there the price on dilithium goes down slightly to maybe 50-75% of what it is and/or you can attempt to increase rarity for one superior upgrade kit instead of having to use several. Anyone of these would make the system far more reasonable cost wise.
Agreed, that sounds reasonable.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
For context, I have at least 6 million Dilithium sitting around and tens of thousands of ZEN on my accounts. As a day one player of STO who still plays most days, most who know me know I am probably one of the wealthiest players on Holodeck, a 1% type with tens of millions of fleet credits earned across multiple completed Starbases. With tremendous wealth I have some insight into the top of the economy of STO on Holodeck, because I am one of the few who can afford to be engaged at that top end daily.
The first problem here is that the system, as it is being monetized for Cryptic, makes crafting impossible as a profession in the game because nobody can realistically afford to buy the extreme high end stuff off the EC exchange once someone has invested that much Dillithium into a single item. This system prices epic items out of reach for most players, because it puts the cost of an epic item at around $75 just to produce, which is at least 200 million EC on the exchange and likely much higher due to the rarity of actually seeing an epic item listed on the exchange. A single epic dual beam array could cost as much as a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, which prices the epic item out of reach for all but 1% of players.
I just don't see how Cryptic makes any money off this. The incentive to pay to upgrade crafting skills with Zen was that it could be recouped in game by selling items, but now that the creation of items that people will want to buy has become so expensive, it is virtually impossible for a player to actually recoup any investment in ZEN leveling crafting, because there are very few players wealthy enough to be able to afford the high end items that the end level crafting system can produce. It is hard to see how the model as designed on Tribble translates to the economy as it exists on Holodeck. I'm glad I haven't been throwing my Dilithium into the Crafting system, because right now that is looking more and more to have been an "epic" mistake by those who did.
I can see how Cryptic will sell lots of ZEN initially to the Star Trek fan whales already in STO, but what I don't see is how this system entices the constantly rotating mass of new players in STO to buy ZEN anymore. If you do the math, the way the crafting system works, both leveling and now actually producing end game items, imposes a price gap between veterans and new players at a minimum of $750 US worth of ZEN, and in reality like closer to double that price.
How exactly does Cryptic promote a healthy STO community when new players face a $1000 US ZEN gap between them and existing, veteran players? I own stock in PWE, and there is nothing in my investment materials that suggests the Crafting system as designed has anything in common with the PWE F2P investment model of constantly recycling new players every quarter for new micro transactions. One would think they would be shooting for $60-100 US in micro transactions every quarter from new players, but this system makes the cost to compete 10x that.
And the biggest issue, this significantly impairs the ability of the casual player to ever reach the highest levels in the game. I am quite confused by the profit philosophy at work here, but if this goes to Holodeck, Delta Rising will only be appealing long term to the top veterans in the game, because it prices all but the most dedicated veterans or wealthy new gamers with insane amounts of disposable income (which is surely a huge minority of the gaming population) out of the elite end game.
I'll be "epic" under the new system because I am a 1%er. As for most of the rest of you, I doubt most of you will ever see it, and if you ever do it will only be on one toon. Look at it this way, you'll never have to buy a service again that relates to having more than one viable toon, like the $100 Voth ship pack or more character slots or even playing a Romulan on the side, and it is unimaginable there will ever be a new race added to STO because that character has less than a 1% chance of ever being elite at end game. In reality, so much of the existing Z Store just became unnecessary to ever purchase, because more than one toon at elite end game is beyond the hopes of 99% of the players, including every new player unwilling to spend more than an average of $15 a month on a game when the alternative is exactly that in TOR.
This system is weird. I hope Cryptic knows what they are doing, because I don't see how the math works at all.
These are the same as the Voth Antiproton Weapons that were included in the Voth Lock Box. So if you'd like upgradeable versions, you can acquire them elsewhere.
None of the starter equipment that comes pre-equipped on Starships will be upgradeable, other than special exceptions like Consoles and some special unique weapons (Wide-Angle Quantum, for example).
Speaking of that particular item, I was unable to upgrade it on Tribble last night, not even when I had a Projectile upgrade pack in my inventory.
For context, I have at least 6 million Dilithium sitting around and tens of thousands of ZEN on my accounts. As a day one player of STO who still plays most days, most who know me know I am probably one of the wealthiest players on Holodeck, a 1% type with tens of millions of fleet credits earned across multiple completed Starbases. With tremendous wealth I have some insight into the top of the economy of STO on Holodeck, because I am one of the few who can afford to be engaged at that top end daily.
The first problem here is that the system, as it is being monetized for Cryptic, makes crafting impossible as a profession in the game because nobody can realistically afford to buy the extreme high end stuff off the EC exchange once someone has invested that much Dillithium into a single item. This system prices epic items out of reach for most players, because it puts the cost of an epic item at around $75 just to produce, which is at least 200 million EC on the exchange and likely much higher due to the rarity of actually seeing an epic item listed on the exchange. A single epic dual beam array could cost as much as a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, which prices the epic item out of reach for all but 1% of players.
I just don't see how Cryptic makes any money off this. The incentive to pay to upgrade crafting skills with Zen was that it could be recouped in game by selling items, but now that the creation of items that people will want to buy has become so expensive, it is virtually impossible for a player to actually recoup any investment in ZEN leveling crafting, because there are very few players wealthy enough to be able to afford the high end items that the end level crafting system can produce. It is hard to see how the model as designed on Tribble translates to the economy as it exists on Holodeck. I'm glad I haven't been throwing my Dilithium into the Crafting system, because right now that is looking more and more to have been an "epic" mistake by those who did.
I can see how Cryptic will sell lots of ZEN initially to the Star Trek fan whales already in STO, but what I don't see is how this system entices the constantly rotating mass of new players in STO to buy ZEN anymore. If you do the math, the way the crafting system works, both leveling and now actually producing end game items, imposes a price gap between veterans and new players at a minimum of $750 US worth of ZEN, and in reality like closer to double that price.
How exactly does Cryptic promote a healthy STO community when new players face a $1000 US ZEN gap between them and existing, veteran players? I own stock in PWE, and there is nothing in my investment materials that suggests the Crafting system as designed has anything in common with the PWE F2P investment model of constantly recycling new players every quarter for new micro transactions. One would think they would be shooting for $60-100 US in micro transactions every quarter from new players, but this system makes the cost to compete 10x that.
And the biggest issue, this significantly impairs the ability of the casual player to ever reach the highest levels in the game. I am quite confused by the profit philosophy at work here, but if this goes to Holodeck, Delta Rising will only be appealing long term to the top veterans in the game, because it prices all but the most dedicated veterans or wealthy new gamers with insane amounts of disposable income (which is surely a huge minority of the gaming population) out of the elite end game.
I'll be "epic" under the new system because I am a 1%er. As for most of the rest of you, I doubt most of you will ever see it, and if you ever do it will only be on one toon. Look at it this way, you'll never have to buy a service again that relates to having more than one viable toon, like the $100 Voth ship pack or more character slots or even playing a Romulan on the side, and it is unimaginable there will ever be a new race added to STO because that character has less than a 1% chance of ever being elite at end game. In reality, so much of the existing Z Store just became unnecessary to ever purchase, because more than one toon at elite end game is beyond the hopes of 99% of the players, including every new player unwilling to spend more than an average of $15 a month on a game when the alternative is exactly that in TOR.
This system is weird. I hope Cryptic knows what they are doing, because I don't see how the math works at all.
Darksided
Jupiter Force
Listen to the rich man he knows what he's talking about.
Thanks for breaking it down from that perspective.
I'm of the opinion that a game has to actually be beatable, and advancement systems in that game need to be completable. If you have something that can predictably cause people to rage quit and not actually finish then that needs to be reworked stat.
And with this it can be argued again that dilithium is used WAY too much as a currency in this game.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
One of the things I thought of while goofing around with this system that upgrading items will bring particular attention to is the differences in art between all of the grades of gear. As an experiment, I decided to try to see what happens to the weapons (as appears in the player's hands) when you upgrade a ground weapon from Mark I to Mark XIV. I chose to do so with a Phaser Stun Pistol and a Phaser Sniper Rilfe.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that when an item is upgraded from one Mark to another, the item is replaced en toto, meaning that the pistol and rifle were moved along an art path that goes from:
Plain -> Plain with glowing fiddlybits -> Redesign (around Mk V or VI) -> Redesign with glowing fiddlybits
One of the things I was looking forward to in this new upgrade system was the chance that I might be able to upgrade a plain jane (canon) phaser rifle up to the stats of a purple Mk IV weapon without having all the glowing fiddlybits tacked on like I'm playing World of ********.
While I know this might be a preference thing, but a lot of the top tier weapons don't look like anything ever used in the shows or movies (in particular the Insurrection-type phaser rifle, or the Insurrection-type phaser pistol). I was hoping the upgrade system would give me a chance to have those, but it looks like not.
Was this intentional or an artifact in the way the upgrade system was implemented?
For context, I have at least 6 million Dilithium sitting around and tens of thousands of ZEN on my accounts. As a day one player of STO who still plays most days, most who know me know I am probably one of the wealthiest players on Holodeck, a 1% type with tens of millions of fleet credits earned across multiple completed Starbases. With tremendous wealth I have some insight into the top of the economy of STO on Holodeck, because I am one of the few who can afford to be engaged at that top end daily.
The first problem here is that the system, as it is being monetized for Cryptic, makes crafting impossible as a profession in the game because nobody can realistically afford to buy the extreme high end stuff off the EC exchange once someone has invested that much Dillithium into a single item. This system prices epic items out of reach for most players, because it puts the cost of an epic item at around $75 just to produce, which is at least 200 million EC on the exchange and likely much higher due to the rarity of actually seeing an epic item listed on the exchange. A single epic dual beam array could cost as much as a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, which prices the epic item out of reach for all but 1% of players.
I just don't see how Cryptic makes any money off this. The incentive to pay to upgrade crafting skills with Zen was that it could be recouped in game by selling items, but now that the creation of items that people will want to buy has become so expensive, it is virtually impossible for a player to actually recoup any investment in ZEN leveling crafting, because there are very few players wealthy enough to be able to afford the high end items that the end level crafting system can produce. It is hard to see how the model as designed on Tribble translates to the economy as it exists on Holodeck. I'm glad I haven't been throwing my Dilithium into the Crafting system, because right now that is looking more and more to have been an "epic" mistake by those who did.
I can see how Cryptic will sell lots of ZEN initially to the Star Trek fan whales already in STO, but what I don't see is how this system entices the constantly rotating mass of new players in STO to buy ZEN anymore. If you do the math, the way the crafting system works, both leveling and now actually producing end game items, imposes a price gap between veterans and new players at a minimum of $750 US worth of ZEN, and in reality like closer to double that price.
How exactly does Cryptic promote a healthy STO community when new players face a $1000 US ZEN gap between them and existing, veteran players? I own stock in PWE, and there is nothing in my investment materials that suggests the Crafting system as designed has anything in common with the PWE F2P investment model of constantly recycling new players every quarter for new micro transactions. One would think they would be shooting for $60-100 US in micro transactions every quarter from new players, but this system makes the cost to compete 10x that.
And the biggest issue, this significantly impairs the ability of the casual player to ever reach the highest levels in the game. I am quite confused by the profit philosophy at work here, but if this goes to Holodeck, Delta Rising will only be appealing long term to the top veterans in the game, because it prices all but the most dedicated veterans or wealthy new gamers with insane amounts of disposable income (which is surely a huge minority of the gaming population) out of the elite end game.
I'll be "epic" under the new system because I am a 1%er. As for most of the rest of you, I doubt most of you will ever see it, and if you ever do it will only be on one toon. Look at it this way, you'll never have to buy a service again that relates to having more than one viable toon, like the $100 Voth ship pack or more character slots or even playing a Romulan on the side, and it is unimaginable there will ever be a new race added to STO because that character has less than a 1% chance of ever being elite at end game. In reality, so much of the existing Z Store just became unnecessary to ever purchase, because more than one toon at elite end game is beyond the hopes of 99% of the players, including every new player unwilling to spend more than an average of $15 a month on a game when the alternative is exactly that in TOR.
This system is weird. I hope Cryptic knows what they are doing, because I don't see how the math works at all.
Darksided
Jupiter Force
100% truth in this post and the I'd say the $1000 figure is pretty precise.
These are the same as the Voth Antiproton Weapons that were included in the Voth Lock Box. So if you'd like upgradeable versions, you can acquire them elsewhere.
None of the starter equipment that comes pre-equipped on Starships will be upgradeable, other than special exceptions like Consoles and some special unique weapons (Wide-Angle Quantum, for example).
Does this include ground starter equipment as well, such as Standard Issue Disruptor and Polaron weapons?
For context, I have at least 6 million Dilithium sitting around and tens of thousands of ZEN on my accounts. As a day one player of STO who still plays most days, most who know me know I am probably one of the wealthiest players on Holodeck, a 1% type with tens of millions of fleet credits earned across multiple completed Starbases. With tremendous wealth I have some insight into the top of the economy of STO on Holodeck, because I am one of the few who can afford to be engaged at that top end daily.
The first problem here is that the system, as it is being monetized for Cryptic, makes crafting impossible as a profession in the game because nobody can realistically afford to buy the extreme high end stuff off the EC exchange once someone has invested that much Dillithium into a single item. This system prices epic items out of reach for most players, because it puts the cost of an epic item at around $75 just to produce, which is at least 200 million EC on the exchange and likely much higher due to the rarity of actually seeing an epic item listed on the exchange. A single epic dual beam array could cost as much as a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, which prices the epic item out of reach for all but 1% of players.
I just don't see how Cryptic makes any money off this. The incentive to pay to upgrade crafting skills with Zen was that it could be recouped in game by selling items, but now that the creation of items that people will want to buy has become so expensive, it is virtually impossible for a player to actually recoup any investment in ZEN leveling crafting, because there are very few players wealthy enough to be able to afford the high end items that the end level crafting system can produce. It is hard to see how the model as designed on Tribble translates to the economy as it exists on Holodeck. I'm glad I haven't been throwing my Dilithium into the Crafting system, because right now that is looking more and more to have been an "epic" mistake by those who did.
. . .
How exactly does this system make crafting impossible? You act as if Mk XIV Epics will be the only desirable items in the game, but last I checked there's plenty of Mk XI uncommon and rare items on the exchange that still sell for way above the cost to craft them. Not everyone in the game is a minmaxer. I'll give that most or maybe all of the richer players are, but it's not really fair to say that everyone will only settle for the best. Do we all aim for the best? Of course, but you need to remember players that settle, even if temporarily, for the almost-best gear.
Mk XIII items are substantially cheaper to upgrade to than Mk XIV ones, and there will be plenty of a market for them, analogous to the current Mk XI market that exists in the game. And crafters will occasionally get lucky and get a MK XIII very rare, ultra rare or epic, items that will be just a hair below Mk XIV, and much more affordable. There will even definitely be a small but real market for Mk XIII epics, that you can sell for cheaper, so that the buyer may upgrade it.
It's very important to remember that upgrading an item needn't end after the first time the item changes hands.
ast I checked there's plenty of Mk XI uncommon and rare items on the exchange that still sell for way above the cost to craft them
Those are drops which had been put on sale to get a bit more selling value than simply tossing them into a vendor. In case of crafted items, those are weapons people leveled their crafting on and now are selling them for peanuts to cut their losses. It has nothing to do with actual profit.
Remember how mk xi tac consoles were the middle ground between price and nice big numbers? The prices on those dropped 3-fold since spire consoles were released. Now its cutting losses instead of making profit when I get one from STF. Just because most players cannot afford better does not mean those items are competitive.
Another thing is, since items above mk xii will require more and more resources to make/upgrade, less and less characters in average queue will be appriopriately kitted out. Its a huge problem for people with alts and beginners/middle grounders. Less valuable drops and more expensive usable items, plus some of those items will never turn profit (cause in order to even dream of being competitive you would have to spend more and more in fleet stores).
It will mean way more vendor trash and much less actual ec profit for average player when compared to exchange prices of good items.
This will make the gap between "endgame players" even wider. Mind you, now its difference between 500 dps and 80k dps. Yet every "endgame player" will crowd the highest difficulty queues since they are the ones with decent or semi-decent rewards. Don't be deluded into thinking that 3rd difficulty level on queues will bring more rewards; Cryptic will just buff current enemies in elites by 50% HP and shorter cooldowns on everything, leave rewards as is and call it "new elite". Remember season 7?
Alts will become a real burden, instead of source of entertainment. Same for extra ships on one characters. And I am still talking about mk xiv purple/blue, not gold.
Less demand for lockbox ships (since there will be generally less characters in game) will lead to higher prices (because lucky people who decided to sell one will have to recoup more losses).
It's very important to remember that upgrading an item needn't end after the first time the item changes hands.
It still means nothing since people will spend majority of their resources on upgrading fleet gear which exists outside of regular market.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
These are the same as the Voth Antiproton Weapons that were included in the Voth Lock Box. So if you'd like upgradeable versions, you can acquire them elsewhere.
None of the starter equipment that comes pre-equipped on Starships will be upgradeable, other than special exceptions like Consoles and some special unique weapons (Wide-Angle Quantum, for example).
Are the Vesta's Aux cannons upgradable then, because a previous poster answered my quiets ion that they are but they are already maxed out. I would test myself,but need the answer if they are supposed to be. Will try this weekend when I have time to test.
arn't the costumes rep projects now to unlock the option?
honest question as all mine where legacy unlocks before the rep system was put in
Thats how its supposed to work now. Buying a mk 12 set unlocks costume project. Upgrading lower mk set does not unlock any costumes nor costume projects, I'd say.
Same for other items - upgrading hadar set from mk 11 to 12 should not unlock any costume parts since that character did not buy lobi upgrade for said set.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
I did some testing yesterday and got a bit confused. If I want to test the upgrading, then do I have to travel between ESD (tech upgrade items) and Drozana (Dilithium, EC) or did I miss a Vendor on Drozana or a Console with DIL/EC on ESD? That was quite annoying, so I upgraded only my Jem Hadar ground shield. I found that one item was already quite expensive, but the high costs have already been mentioned elsewhere. The next thing I wondered about was the upgrade to higher rarity. Does that only work on MK XIV items? Is the chance to get higher rarity always that low? (few percent). If it fails, then all invested dilithium and upgrade items are gone? Is that right or did I miss something? I made already one attempt to do that and stopped then, because I was again out of EC and dilithium...
How is that with craftable upgrade tech? What do they cost? Only craft material or also EC and dilithium?
I also saw that most items I got from episodes were not upgradable (CRM, etc), except the phase shifting shield from the Devidian missions. I guess that will be fixed.
My first impression about this upgrade system is best summarized as "highly disappointing". I was quite happy when I read that I could upgrade my Dominion polaron beam arrays - my favorite weapon -, or the type 3 phaser rifle, but now I think I will just leave them as they are, since I use them for the procs and not for the damage anyway. That is, if the costs for upgrading are not being reduced to reasonable amounts.
edit: OK, just found a table with examples of upgrades and the cost with and without waiting. It also included the materials needed for superior upgrade tech...
Think I hit a new bug: I have a Hyper-Impulse Engine Mk XII [Aux] [Spd] [Turn] I was trying to upgrade, and I got it to 64,000/64,000 TP, but it will not let me upgrade it; it says I need to use another tech upgrade.
Potential cause: some of the tech upgrades I used crited, so perhaps the last one I used was critical so it gave me more TP, but the game was anticipating it only adding standard TP, and this somehow caused the item to not be flagged as upgrade-ready.
It's on my toon Maridia@chounyuu on Tribble, and hovering over the engines also says 64,000 TP, 5% rarity chance, if any devs want to look at the item.
Comments
this system is for a) upgrading old beloved mk xii items that wont appear as drops but may be useful. special mixed energy types, special torps etc.
and b) for quality upgrade of gear from veryrare to epic.
also the geame doesnt really force anyone to be full upic. this is not wow. im flying mkx and mk xi rares only, and im still hitting top and at least middle ranks in stf. so what?!
I would if that was a viable option, but it is starting to seem like any ways to get items above mk xii is being gated intentionally. No one has confirmed that at level 60 you will be able to purchase "fresh" mk xiii and mk xiv items from fleet holdings, nor has anyone confirmed that mission replay gives you items above mk xi or that special equipment packs will scale with you above mk xii.
If someone has, please pipe in!
I'm not too sure if this is correct or not but as far as I know, there will be nothing higher dropping at level 60 than it does currently at level 50.
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The only thing I've heard was a confirmed MkXIII mission reward.
If the only way to get them is to upgrade Mk XII's then I for one am bowing out of ever caring or seeking higher Mk's because I will not buy into, directly or indirectly to the R&D system. Based on reports so far, upgrading almost anything will cost more in Dilithium than the item cost to begin with. This is just wrong on a fundamental level.
An example from someone in another thread;
Running a Rep project will cost at most 34k Dilithium for ANY item. Charging more than the original cost of the item, in the specific example, almost double, is NOT reasonable by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
Crafting your own upgrades, is buying directly into R&D. Buying upgrades from the exchange, is buying indirectly into R&D.
Neither of which I have any interest in.
So please, put the higher Mk stuff into the normal sales channels. Let US decide how we want to acquire it, if we have the desire to do so.
If the sensible, simple thing isn't going to be done, then I propose the simpler, quicker method that will get not only me, but many others on board and will still cause a lot of that excess dilithium the devs are worried about to be absorbed.
1 Upgrade token = 10k Dilithium, 1 Token per Mk increase.
So to go from Mk XII to Mk XIII will cost one upgrade token sold at vendors for 10k dilithium. Want to go to Mk XIV, 2 tokens for 10k each, total cost 20k Dilithium. No time gate, no waiting, use the tokens like you use keys on lockboxes. Simple, done, better price, much less resistance and many more people taking advantage of the opportunity.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Maybe edge case, but the player has paid for and earned that ship and it's equipment.
Making the UNIQUE torpedo they come with (white or purple quality) unavailable to upgrade and republishing it into the Voth lockbox so they can "go fish" for another is a slap in the face.
Unique items on a ship, not available anywhere else excluding lockboxes, need to be available for reclaiming, and be upgradeable (where applicable).
There's an idea, can you make the common voth torp available via reclaim and the new reclaimed ones can be upgradeable? (if the one on the ships for tech reasons cannot be made so)
My character Tsin'xing
So what if they haven't confirmed it yet? There's just about a month still left to go and cryptic just got around to talking about item upgrades (which you'd hope they'd explain before talking about all the new/shiny content you could buy, as you know how the forums tend to take things the wrong way at the soonest opportunity...)
If we get to Oct. 13th without confirmation then worry. For now, well just assume that what we can confirm right now on tribble isn't the end state of DR.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
One thing you may not be aware of, according to a tribble player apparently high quality upgrade kits are dropping from elite queues. So at least on the crafting front you may not be locked out.
you can also get them as drops during my level 60 grind on elite doing patrols over and over a gain i got a few superior upgrade kits
Agreed, that sounds reasonable.
The first problem here is that the system, as it is being monetized for Cryptic, makes crafting impossible as a profession in the game because nobody can realistically afford to buy the extreme high end stuff off the EC exchange once someone has invested that much Dillithium into a single item. This system prices epic items out of reach for most players, because it puts the cost of an epic item at around $75 just to produce, which is at least 200 million EC on the exchange and likely much higher due to the rarity of actually seeing an epic item listed on the exchange. A single epic dual beam array could cost as much as a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, which prices the epic item out of reach for all but 1% of players.
I just don't see how Cryptic makes any money off this. The incentive to pay to upgrade crafting skills with Zen was that it could be recouped in game by selling items, but now that the creation of items that people will want to buy has become so expensive, it is virtually impossible for a player to actually recoup any investment in ZEN leveling crafting, because there are very few players wealthy enough to be able to afford the high end items that the end level crafting system can produce. It is hard to see how the model as designed on Tribble translates to the economy as it exists on Holodeck. I'm glad I haven't been throwing my Dilithium into the Crafting system, because right now that is looking more and more to have been an "epic" mistake by those who did.
I can see how Cryptic will sell lots of ZEN initially to the Star Trek fan whales already in STO, but what I don't see is how this system entices the constantly rotating mass of new players in STO to buy ZEN anymore. If you do the math, the way the crafting system works, both leveling and now actually producing end game items, imposes a price gap between veterans and new players at a minimum of $750 US worth of ZEN, and in reality like closer to double that price.
How exactly does Cryptic promote a healthy STO community when new players face a $1000 US ZEN gap between them and existing, veteran players? I own stock in PWE, and there is nothing in my investment materials that suggests the Crafting system as designed has anything in common with the PWE F2P investment model of constantly recycling new players every quarter for new micro transactions. One would think they would be shooting for $60-100 US in micro transactions every quarter from new players, but this system makes the cost to compete 10x that.
And the biggest issue, this significantly impairs the ability of the casual player to ever reach the highest levels in the game. I am quite confused by the profit philosophy at work here, but if this goes to Holodeck, Delta Rising will only be appealing long term to the top veterans in the game, because it prices all but the most dedicated veterans or wealthy new gamers with insane amounts of disposable income (which is surely a huge minority of the gaming population) out of the elite end game.
I'll be "epic" under the new system because I am a 1%er. As for most of the rest of you, I doubt most of you will ever see it, and if you ever do it will only be on one toon. Look at it this way, you'll never have to buy a service again that relates to having more than one viable toon, like the $100 Voth ship pack or more character slots or even playing a Romulan on the side, and it is unimaginable there will ever be a new race added to STO because that character has less than a 1% chance of ever being elite at end game. In reality, so much of the existing Z Store just became unnecessary to ever purchase, because more than one toon at elite end game is beyond the hopes of 99% of the players, including every new player unwilling to spend more than an average of $15 a month on a game when the alternative is exactly that in TOR.
This system is weird. I hope Cryptic knows what they are doing, because I don't see how the math works at all.
Darksided
Jupiter Force
Rules of Acquisition at Priority One
Speaking of that particular item, I was unable to upgrade it on Tribble last night, not even when I had a Projectile upgrade pack in my inventory.
Listen to the rich man he knows what he's talking about.
Thanks for breaking it down from that perspective.
I'm of the opinion that a game has to actually be beatable, and advancement systems in that game need to be completable. If you have something that can predictably cause people to rage quit and not actually finish then that needs to be reworked stat.
And with this it can be argued again that dilithium is used WAY too much as a currency in this game.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that when an item is upgraded from one Mark to another, the item is replaced en toto, meaning that the pistol and rifle were moved along an art path that goes from:
Plain -> Plain with glowing fiddlybits -> Redesign (around Mk V or VI) -> Redesign with glowing fiddlybits
One of the things I was looking forward to in this new upgrade system was the chance that I might be able to upgrade a plain jane (canon) phaser rifle up to the stats of a purple Mk IV weapon without having all the glowing fiddlybits tacked on like I'm playing World of ********.
While I know this might be a preference thing, but a lot of the top tier weapons don't look like anything ever used in the shows or movies (in particular the Insurrection-type phaser rifle, or the Insurrection-type phaser pistol). I was hoping the upgrade system would give me a chance to have those, but it looks like not.
Was this intentional or an artifact in the way the upgrade system was implemented?
100% truth in this post and the I'd say the $1000 figure is pretty precise.
Does this include ground starter equipment as well, such as Standard Issue Disruptor and Polaron weapons?
How exactly does this system make crafting impossible? You act as if Mk XIV Epics will be the only desirable items in the game, but last I checked there's plenty of Mk XI uncommon and rare items on the exchange that still sell for way above the cost to craft them. Not everyone in the game is a minmaxer. I'll give that most or maybe all of the richer players are, but it's not really fair to say that everyone will only settle for the best. Do we all aim for the best? Of course, but you need to remember players that settle, even if temporarily, for the almost-best gear.
Mk XIII items are substantially cheaper to upgrade to than Mk XIV ones, and there will be plenty of a market for them, analogous to the current Mk XI market that exists in the game. And crafters will occasionally get lucky and get a MK XIII very rare, ultra rare or epic, items that will be just a hair below Mk XIV, and much more affordable. There will even definitely be a small but real market for Mk XIII epics, that you can sell for cheaper, so that the buyer may upgrade it.
It's very important to remember that upgrading an item needn't end after the first time the item changes hands.
Those are drops which had been put on sale to get a bit more selling value than simply tossing them into a vendor. In case of crafted items, those are weapons people leveled their crafting on and now are selling them for peanuts to cut their losses. It has nothing to do with actual profit.
Remember how mk xi tac consoles were the middle ground between price and nice big numbers? The prices on those dropped 3-fold since spire consoles were released. Now its cutting losses instead of making profit when I get one from STF. Just because most players cannot afford better does not mean those items are competitive.
Another thing is, since items above mk xii will require more and more resources to make/upgrade, less and less characters in average queue will be appriopriately kitted out. Its a huge problem for people with alts and beginners/middle grounders. Less valuable drops and more expensive usable items, plus some of those items will never turn profit (cause in order to even dream of being competitive you would have to spend more and more in fleet stores).
It will mean way more vendor trash and much less actual ec profit for average player when compared to exchange prices of good items.
This will make the gap between "endgame players" even wider. Mind you, now its difference between 500 dps and 80k dps. Yet every "endgame player" will crowd the highest difficulty queues since they are the ones with decent or semi-decent rewards. Don't be deluded into thinking that 3rd difficulty level on queues will bring more rewards; Cryptic will just buff current enemies in elites by 50% HP and shorter cooldowns on everything, leave rewards as is and call it "new elite". Remember season 7?
Alts will become a real burden, instead of source of entertainment. Same for extra ships on one characters. And I am still talking about mk xiv purple/blue, not gold.
Less demand for lockbox ships (since there will be generally less characters in game) will lead to higher prices (because lucky people who decided to sell one will have to recoup more losses).
It still means nothing since people will spend majority of their resources on upgrading fleet gear which exists outside of regular market.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Are the Vesta's Aux cannons upgradable then, because a previous poster answered my quiets ion that they are but they are already maxed out. I would test myself,but need the answer if they are supposed to be. Will try this weekend when I have time to test.
honest question as all mine where legacy unlocks before the rep system was put in
Thats how its supposed to work now. Buying a mk 12 set unlocks costume project. Upgrading lower mk set does not unlock any costumes nor costume projects, I'd say.
Same for other items - upgrading hadar set from mk 11 to 12 should not unlock any costume parts since that character did not buy lobi upgrade for said set.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
PS... please add the Federation Type 1 cricket phaser/ Federation type 2 phaser to the upgradeable lists plz,plz, tnx
I did some testing yesterday and got a bit confused. If I want to test the upgrading, then do I have to travel between ESD (tech upgrade items) and Drozana (Dilithium, EC) or did I miss a Vendor on Drozana or a Console with DIL/EC on ESD? That was quite annoying, so I upgraded only my Jem Hadar ground shield. I found that one item was already quite expensive, but the high costs have already been mentioned elsewhere. The next thing I wondered about was the upgrade to higher rarity. Does that only work on MK XIV items? Is the chance to get higher rarity always that low? (few percent). If it fails, then all invested dilithium and upgrade items are gone? Is that right or did I miss something? I made already one attempt to do that and stopped then, because I was again out of EC and dilithium...
How is that with craftable upgrade tech? What do they cost? Only craft material or also EC and dilithium?
I also saw that most items I got from episodes were not upgradable (CRM, etc), except the phase shifting shield from the Devidian missions. I guess that will be fixed.
My first impression about this upgrade system is best summarized as "highly disappointing". I was quite happy when I read that I could upgrade my Dominion polaron beam arrays - my favorite weapon -, or the type 3 phaser rifle, but now I think I will just leave them as they are, since I use them for the procs and not for the damage anyway. That is, if the costs for upgrading are not being reduced to reasonable amounts.
edit: OK, just found a table with examples of upgrades and the cost with and without waiting. It also included the materials needed for superior upgrade tech...
Potential cause: some of the tech upgrades I used crited, so perhaps the last one I used was critical so it gave me more TP, but the game was anticipating it only adding standard TP, and this somehow caused the item to not be flagged as upgrade-ready.
It's on my toon Maridia@chounyuu on Tribble, and hovering over the engines also says 64,000 TP, 5% rarity chance, if any devs want to look at the item.
Try the registration NPC on DS9.