So I was looking over the ASTRONOMICAL costs of upgrading just my favorite PvP toon flying a torpedo T'varo. Just to get it upgraded to MK XIII will cost upwards of 1 million dilithium => ~ 6000 Zen => $60 (at current rate). I have some Dilithium reserved but not enough for it. Throw in $5-10 for the T5U which I am loathed to get ... simply on principle. So that's $70.
That doesn't even count the more extreme costs of getting it to gold so it stays competitive. Or I could spend $30 on Steam and I could get 3 out of the 4 Total War game series + all the associated expansions! :eek:
Okay Cryptic ... how about a big fat NO! I will play your X2 content on normal and then enjoy my "brand new" (for me) games which will keep me entertained for months until the next bit of content comes out.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Do you have more details because some of these 1 million dilithium claims seem a bit absurd. What are you using to upgrade your equipment and how many things are you upgrading?
indeed, considoring I've upgraded my fave few items with about the cost of 20k dilithium that claim seems way off base
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
Do you have more details because some of these 1 million dilithium claims seem a bit absurd. What are you using to upgrade your equipment and how many things are you upgrading?
List everything.
It is one of those things that should be pretty easy for folks to do, no?
Right-click each item on the ship. Write down the TP requirement to get to Mk XIII for each item. Take a look at which mix of Tech Upgrades meets their EC/Dil availability. Voila...done.
Would see things like non-Rep weapons require 64k TP while Rep weapons (not Rep Store, but actual ordnance weapons) require ~85k TP. We'd see that Rep set pieces are ~106k TP while non-Rep set pieces are ~85k TP. We'd see that non-Rep consoles are ~20k and Rep consoles are ~35k. Etc, etc, etc...
It would help for some folks to see how it might be more expensive for other folks than it was for themselves, etc, etc, etc.
I think something might be wrong here I upgraded 25 items using 350,000 Dilithium and around 7,000,000 EC. I'm not level 15 in any school and I passed every timegate.
Fleet Admiral Thomas Winston James a.k.a. The Grayfox Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
So I was looking over the ASTRONOMICAL costs of upgrading just my favorite PvP toon flying a torpedo T'varo. Just to get it upgraded to MK XIII will cost upwards of 1 million dilithium => ~ 6000 Zen => $60 (at current rate). I have some Dilithium reserved but not enough for it. Throw in $5-10 for the T5U which I am loathed to get ... simply on principle. So that's $70.
That doesn't even count the more extreme costs of getting it to gold so it stays competitive. Or I could spend $30 on Steam and I could get 3 out of the 4 Total War game series + all the associated expansions! :eek:
Okay Cryptic ... how about a big fat NO! I will play your X2 content on normal and then enjoy my "brand new" (for me) games which will keep me entertained for months until the next bit of content comes out.
A rough calculation of all of my upgraded ship items to MK XIII came out to about ~90-100k dilithium using superior kits, pending time gate skips and TP crits. That's equipment for one ship.
Overall, that's not too bad for me. There are many things I desire to upgrade, including a nice bat'leth I had on my main for about 2 years that I simply stopped using. But I'm in no rush to upgrade it all. Mk XIV and gold quality is definitely going to require a major investment, but it's not a priority.
My calculation is based on using green(common) and blue. I don't bother wasting away months leveling crafting and the dilithium expenses there. So I was planning on using exchange to do it.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I am a big fan of history and the total war series but real life got in the way. Then I was pulled in here. I have played MTW and RTW so many times and I even modded them.
Anyways ... that's off topic. I was simply arguing that the satisfaction I get from going through the upgrade process isn't worth the cost ... not even if it is 1/2 my estimate ... $30. For that much I can buy a whole bunch of games and have tons of time to play them casually ... on my schedule.
I will still enjoy X2 easy-mode content ... as long I can do it in my purple XII / fleet gear. Which everyone says is possible.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Are you calculating it correctly? here is my estimate. Of course it is assuming ALL superior tech kits cost the same amount of Dil. I only had a superior shield kit and superior beam weapon kit on me and it costs 1075 to apply it. So i'm assuming all superior tech kits also cost 1075 to apply.
Rom Plas Scim = 5 tac consoles, Tachyonic console, ZPEC console, Assimilated Deflector, KCB, Fleet shields, Fleet Sing core, 6 Rom Plas Beam Arrays
basic tech kit = 700 dil to apply it (2000xp)
improved tech kit = 950 dil to apply it (5000xp)
superior tech kit = 1075 dil to apply it (12800xp)
XP per item /// quantity needed /// total dil to upgrade /// type of kits needed
13650XP x4 needed (7100 dil total) kits = x4 bas x4 supe
15600XP x1 needed (2025 dil total) kits = x1 imp x1 supe
24206XP x1 needed (2150 dil total) kits = x2 supe
34528XP x1 needed (3225 dil total) kits = x3 supe
64000XP x6 needed (32250 dil total) kits = x30 supe
72000XP x2 needed (12900 dil total) kits = x12 supe
106240XP x2 needed (19350 dil total) kits = x19 supe
Totals needed are:
71 superior kits
1 improved kit
4 basic kits
EC cost = roughly 55 Million Energy Credits OR 3500 zen OR 577500 refined dilithium
Dil Cost = 79000 Refined Dilithium
The EC cost is equivalent costs using master key trade in using prices as of right now 9/27/2014 8:30AM pst. The refined dilithium shown is the total you need to donate to each upgrade project. All of the above assumes the upgrade does not crit and if there any kind of timer it is allowed to run its full course and no FINISH NOW is done. Ohh and obviously the EC cost is if you have to buy every single tech kit from the exchange and that also reflects pricing as of right now as well. And i were to craft all of my own superior kits then thats less EC/master keys/dil i have to pay.
I agree with the OP in that this new system is a bleed'em dry, delete your alts, ignore your bridge officers, and never bother looking at exchange again without first opening your wallet. My gold subscription is obsolete. Purchasing, with real life cash, a bit of zen here and there is obsolete. My ship is soon to be obsolete because I wont fly battlestar trekitca!
Dil will be so high in demand that fleet holding will stagnate and doff reward missions will be harder then ever to collect the reward.
3 fully rep'ed and geared alts are gone, deleted forever from my account. These bells and whistles are landmines and razorwire.
Full of Fail is how identify the tricks and traps of Delta Rising. As I said before, they(Cryptic)should have named it Middle Finger Rising.
EC Cost = @ 18 million, assuming all kits are bought on the exchange (if available)
Dil Cost = 168225 refined dil total
You save 37 mil EC on tech kit purchasing, you spend 89000 more dil on adding the kits. That Dil is equivalent to about 10mil ec doing master key trading. So save 37 mil ec spend 10 mil ec equivalent that balances out at 27 mil ec saved the equivalent of 1750 zen or 289k dil.
My calculation is based on using green(common) and blue. I don't bother wasting away months leveling crafting and the dilithium expenses there. So I was planning on using exchange to do it.
That's your problem, not Cryptic's. They give you a cheap way but you're refusing to take it.
I finally decided to give crafting a shot doing the 20 hour project. If I can't get what I want thru crafting, then maybe I will purchase new shinnies slowly from the Exchange or not bother at all.
So I was looking over the ASTRONOMICAL costs of upgrading just my favorite PvP toon flying a torpedo T'varo. Just to get it upgraded to MK XIII will cost upwards of 1 million dilithium => ~ 6000 Zen => $60 (at current rate). I have some Dilithium reserved but not enough for it. Throw in $5-10 for the T5U which I am loathed to get ... simply on principle. So that's $70.
That doesn't even count the more extreme costs of getting it to gold so it stays competitive. Or I could spend $30 on Steam and I could get 3 out of the 4 Total War game series + all the associated expansions! :eek:
Okay Cryptic ... how about a big fat NO! I will play your X2 content on normal and then enjoy my "brand new" (for me) games which will keep me entertained for months until the next bit of content comes out.
GUESS WHAT? YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND ZEN for any of that!
I am just short of level 14 in 4 R+D schools so I can only use Improved kits plus the charity drops (exactly 1 so far) of Superior kits.
950 dil per application!?
Bar moves v e r y slowly like 10% per Improved kit.
2 days to upgrade 1 VR item to VR Mk XIII (only 4% chance of color change with 2 Superior and the rest Improved kits used.....
It's going to be a long cold winter.....
Thanks Cryptic, enjoy those 3 spooks.
you can use any kits your crafting skill only affects what kits you can MAKE not use. Of course you will have to buy the superiors of exchange until you can make them.
3 fully rep'ed and geared alts are gone, deleted forever from my account. These bells and whistles are landmines and razorwire.
I really hope you're just using hyperbole there. Otherwise...... wow. Going off the deep end.
(You know, not every alt has to be kept "fully geared".... and you never know when the game'll have a change, or adjustment, or event that you'll want some alts to take advantage of. Nuking alts for any other reason than "I wanted to do something different with that character slot" is complete foolishness. Especially if they're alts that have had effort put into them.)
I finally decided to give crafting a shot doing the 20 hour project. If I can't get what I want thru crafting, then maybe I will purchase new shinnies slowly from the Exchange or not bother at all.
I feel the same way. I could rush to get all top tier equipment, but then what? Taking the time to slowly but surely get there through gameplay just feels more satisfying to me.
I have been casually doing the 20 hour R&D projects whenever I can (or remember to) and I've already gotten three of the schools up to level 8 without using any zen or dilithium. In the meantime I am collecting tech upgrades and boosters for the time when I do hit level 15.
GUESS WHAT? YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND ZEN for any of that!
Since this gear bump is an artificial increase that Cryptic decided needed to happen ... I won't be spending any zen. Other MMOs have this stuff but it usually comes with new gear and finely balanced content that requires the stats. You can also earn the gear directly by doing the content. Crafting is completely optional and actually fun. I recall how casual and fun TOR crafting was ... though it was mostly pointless at end game.
Anyways, given the limited dilithium rewards for MOST missions (340 dilithium for 30 minutes run of Undine for example) ... and 8K cap ... and you have a terrible system. In a Perfect World / Cryptic MMO you grind currency in order to be able to grid an upgrade to get better gear to grind more marks. Wow. Of course you can bypass most of that massive grinding with zen.
But whatever ... I give up trying to convince anyone that this is a terrible return on their time. If I spent the time on a game I want to have a good time since that's my return. The only thing to look forward to here is the grind. So I will play the new content and say NO to more grind fests and cash grabs.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
What you're effectively afraid of is a marginal difference in potential damage, if and only if you manage to maximize your potential 100% of the time.
And how many of us can do that 100% of the time?Seriously?
For PvE it's MEANINGLESS. You can play with everything you currently have. It's being done NOW.
For PvP it's either the END OF THE WORLD or something you're not really worried about.
That means as with every change in the game for the past 3 years - this is about the players. If you're a decent captain, you might be able to min/max something new to gain a small advantage. The upgrades proposed T5-U and the newer T-6 ships are about abilities, not just bigger and better guns.
I have no doubt that creative min/maxers will make them very destructive.
But for every 50K Falchion out there, there are hundreds - nay, thousands - that can't break 10K even if supported by a team of APB3 spammers.
I would even go so far as suggesting we'll see T5 players ECLIPSING the many upgraders and new ship purchasers.
'Cause once again it's not about the gear or the ships. It's about the Captain sitting in front of a keyboard.
My Two Bits
Admiral Thrax
P.S. I'm still buying the Operations Pack, and will 'maybe' upgrade 2 ships. The price is a steal. And the sad truth is a dude in a Oberth will still likely kick my TRIBBLE in PvP. So stop whining.
That doesn't even count the more extreme costs of getting it to gold so it stays competitive. Or I could spend $30 on Steam and I could get 3 out of the 4 Total War game series + all the associated expansions! :eek:
[..]
Go with the TW. You will get exponential value for it. That is an amazingly good deal!!
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Even if you use basic upgrade it won't be any million.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Even if you use basic upgrade it won't be any million.
I kinda read that and thought to myself "challenge accepted" hehe
I posted the most kit/xp efficient upgrade path which used all superior except for a handful of basic and 1 imp for my gear set on page 1. Then just for the hell of it i did some calculations on what it would cost if i were to use mostly improved kits. But now based on my gear which i posted on page 1 if i were to use basic kits only here is what i came up with:
511 basic tech kits (good look finding them)
EC cost: nobody has acknowledged my previous 2 posts so TRIBBLE you guys i'm not even gonna bother estimating it, go do it yourself
Dil cost: 357700 (as in 358k i didnt forget drop and zeroes)
Comments
List everything.
It is one of those things that should be pretty easy for folks to do, no?
Right-click each item on the ship. Write down the TP requirement to get to Mk XIII for each item. Take a look at which mix of Tech Upgrades meets their EC/Dil availability. Voila...done.
Would see things like non-Rep weapons require 64k TP while Rep weapons (not Rep Store, but actual ordnance weapons) require ~85k TP. We'd see that Rep set pieces are ~106k TP while non-Rep set pieces are ~85k TP. We'd see that non-Rep consoles are ~20k and Rep consoles are ~35k. Etc, etc, etc...
It would help for some folks to see how it might be more expensive for other folks than it was for themselves, etc, etc, etc.
Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians
U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
Game Handle: Grayfox@GrayfoxJames
Website: https://www.libertytaskforce.com
Armada (STOFA Member Fleet): https://www.libertytaskforce.com/stofa
Discord: https://discord.gg/bGp9N7z
Twitter: STOFA@LTFGrayfox
Email: CSDynamix@Hotmail.com
my total war collection is complete :P
shogun doesnt count for me
Overall, that's not too bad for me. There are many things I desire to upgrade, including a nice bat'leth I had on my main for about 2 years that I simply stopped using. But I'm in no rush to upgrade it all. Mk XIV and gold quality is definitely going to require a major investment, but it's not a priority.
- Judge Aaron Satie
I am a big fan of history and the total war series but real life got in the way. Then I was pulled in here. I have played MTW and RTW so many times and I even modded them.
Anyways ... that's off topic. I was simply arguing that the satisfaction I get from going through the upgrade process isn't worth the cost ... not even if it is 1/2 my estimate ... $30. For that much I can buy a whole bunch of games and have tons of time to play them casually ... on my schedule.
I will still enjoy X2 easy-mode content ... as long I can do it in my purple XII / fleet gear. Which everyone says is possible.
- Judge Aaron Satie
Rom Plas Scim = 5 tac consoles, Tachyonic console, ZPEC console, Assimilated Deflector, KCB, Fleet shields, Fleet Sing core, 6 Rom Plas Beam Arrays
basic tech kit = 700 dil to apply it (2000xp)
improved tech kit = 950 dil to apply it (5000xp)
superior tech kit = 1075 dil to apply it (12800xp)
XP per item /// quantity needed /// total dil to upgrade /// type of kits needed
13650XP x4 needed (7100 dil total) kits = x4 bas x4 supe
15600XP x1 needed (2025 dil total) kits = x1 imp x1 supe
24206XP x1 needed (2150 dil total) kits = x2 supe
34528XP x1 needed (3225 dil total) kits = x3 supe
64000XP x6 needed (32250 dil total) kits = x30 supe
72000XP x2 needed (12900 dil total) kits = x12 supe
106240XP x2 needed (19350 dil total) kits = x19 supe
Totals needed are:
71 superior kits
1 improved kit
4 basic kits
EC cost = roughly 55 Million Energy Credits OR 3500 zen OR 577500 refined dilithium
Dil Cost = 79000 Refined Dilithium
The EC cost is equivalent costs using master key trade in using prices as of right now 9/27/2014 8:30AM pst. The refined dilithium shown is the total you need to donate to each upgrade project. All of the above assumes the upgrade does not crit and if there any kind of timer it is allowed to run its full course and no FINISH NOW is done. Ohh and obviously the EC cost is if you have to buy every single tech kit from the exchange and that also reflects pricing as of right now as well. And i were to craft all of my own superior kits then thats less EC/master keys/dil i have to pay.
hopefully i didnt fatfinger anything
Dil will be so high in demand that fleet holding will stagnate and doff reward missions will be harder then ever to collect the reward.
3 fully rep'ed and geared alts are gone, deleted forever from my account. These bells and whistles are landmines and razorwire.
Full of Fail is how identify the tricks and traps of Delta Rising. As I said before, they(Cryptic)should have named it Middle Finger Rising.
4 basic tech kits
173 improved tech kits
1 superior tech kit
EC Cost = @ 18 million, assuming all kits are bought on the exchange (if available)
Dil Cost = 168225 refined dil total
You save 37 mil EC on tech kit purchasing, you spend 89000 more dil on adding the kits. That Dil is equivalent to about 10mil ec doing master key trading. So save 37 mil ec spend 10 mil ec equivalent that balances out at 27 mil ec saved the equivalent of 1750 zen or 289k dil.
or something like that....
That's your problem, not Cryptic's. They give you a cheap way but you're refusing to take it.
950 dil per application!?
Bar moves v e r y slowly like 10% per Improved kit.
2 days to upgrade 1 VR item to VR Mk XIII (only 4% chance of color change with 2 Superior and the rest Improved kits used.....
It's going to be a long cold winter.....
Thanks Cryptic, enjoy those 3 spooks.
I finally decided to give crafting a shot doing the 20 hour project. If I can't get what I want thru crafting, then maybe I will purchase new shinnies slowly from the Exchange or not bother at all.
GUESS WHAT? YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND ZEN for any of that!
you can use any kits your crafting skill only affects what kits you can MAKE not use. Of course you will have to buy the superiors of exchange until you can make them.
I think I'll hold off upgrading stuff while the inevitable bugs get worked out and see how much zen I can aquire over the next couple of weeks.
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
I really hope you're just using hyperbole there. Otherwise...... wow. Going off the deep end.
(You know, not every alt has to be kept "fully geared".... and you never know when the game'll have a change, or adjustment, or event that you'll want some alts to take advantage of. Nuking alts for any other reason than "I wanted to do something different with that character slot" is complete foolishness. Especially if they're alts that have had effort put into them.)
I feel the same way. I could rush to get all top tier equipment, but then what? Taking the time to slowly but surely get there through gameplay just feels more satisfying to me.
I have been casually doing the 20 hour R&D projects whenever I can (or remember to) and I've already gotten three of the schools up to level 8 without using any zen or dilithium. In the meantime I am collecting tech upgrades and boosters for the time when I do hit level 15.
Since this gear bump is an artificial increase that Cryptic decided needed to happen ... I won't be spending any zen. Other MMOs have this stuff but it usually comes with new gear and finely balanced content that requires the stats. You can also earn the gear directly by doing the content. Crafting is completely optional and actually fun. I recall how casual and fun TOR crafting was ... though it was mostly pointless at end game.
Anyways, given the limited dilithium rewards for MOST missions (340 dilithium for 30 minutes run of Undine for example) ... and 8K cap ... and you have a terrible system. In a Perfect World / Cryptic MMO you grind currency in order to be able to grid an upgrade to get better gear to grind more marks. Wow. Of course you can bypass most of that massive grinding with zen.
But whatever ... I give up trying to convince anyone that this is a terrible return on their time. If I spent the time on a game I want to have a good time since that's my return. The only thing to look forward to here is the grind. So I will play the new content and say NO to more grind fests and cash grabs.
- Judge Aaron Satie
D-O-N-T U-P-G-R-A-D-E.
Try playing the game for fun, you might enjoy that.
And how many of us can do that 100% of the time? Seriously?
For PvE it's MEANINGLESS. You can play with everything you currently have. It's being done NOW.
For PvP it's either the END OF THE WORLD or something you're not really worried about.
That means as with every change in the game for the past 3 years - this is about the players. If you're a decent captain, you might be able to min/max something new to gain a small advantage. The upgrades proposed T5-U and the newer T-6 ships are about abilities, not just bigger and better guns.
I have no doubt that creative min/maxers will make them very destructive.
But for every 50K Falchion out there, there are hundreds - nay, thousands - that can't break 10K even if supported by a team of APB3 spammers.
I would even go so far as suggesting we'll see T5 players ECLIPSING the many upgraders and new ship purchasers.
'Cause once again it's not about the gear or the ships. It's about the Captain sitting in front of a keyboard.
My Two Bits
Admiral Thrax
P.S. I'm still buying the Operations Pack, and will 'maybe' upgrade 2 ships. The price is a steal. And the sad truth is a dude in a Oberth will still likely kick my TRIBBLE in PvP. So stop whining.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
G'day Spartan
Yeah gotta love those Steam sales
You know me from my TWC community? :P
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
nope, further back. i'll message you in game
They can't stop, it's their nature. Most of them wouldn't have 95% of their post count w/o it. It is their Spice!
Ok but...
OP is just saying, at least according to him/her, the upgrade system isn't worth the value it provides is all.
Personally, I'd probably just skip the upgrading system and focus on the game itself and have fun with that also.
Even if you use basic upgrade it won't be any million.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I kinda read that and thought to myself "challenge accepted" hehe
I posted the most kit/xp efficient upgrade path which used all superior except for a handful of basic and 1 imp for my gear set on page 1. Then just for the hell of it i did some calculations on what it would cost if i were to use mostly improved kits. But now based on my gear which i posted on page 1 if i were to use basic kits only here is what i came up with:
511 basic tech kits (good look finding them)
EC cost: nobody has acknowledged my previous 2 posts so TRIBBLE you guys i'm not even gonna bother estimating it, go do it yourself
Dil cost: 357700 (as in 358k i didnt forget drop and zeroes)