I never had a problem with ship mastery myself, it seems fair to me that you should get full mastery of your ship in about the time it takes to reach lvl 60 and then increase the skill point rewards to make that easier.
Given that it is a "mastery" it seems to me that people should expect mastering a ship to take a while, but that's just me.
A nice improvement I hope. On another note though I did try leveling a ship in a foundry mission and seems that today no ships were giving me any mastery at all. Is it intended that foundry missions will no longer give starship mastery points?
It may sound odd, but I don't find the current mastery requirements too long or a grind. But I do feel starship mastery is a bit underutilized. Could it offer more than just simple passive bonuses and traits?
It may sound odd, but I don't find the current mastery requirements not too long or a grind. But I do feel starship mastery is a bit underutilized. Could it offer more than just simple passive bonuses and traits?
The hull masteries are very lackluster imo, it's nice to have, dont get me wrong, but there is potential for more "cool" masteries instead of flat hull changes.
I wish the 4 mastery tiers on every ship should have been in different compartment.
tier 1; hull upgrades (make it fun)
tier 2; shield system stuff
Tier 3; power system stuff
Tier 4; something else entirely, but powerful (being tier 4 unlock and all).
Starship mastery means NOTHING unless you buy a T6 ship. I'll be re-parking my T-5U ship because it's garbage compared to my T5 ship without the mastery.
But thanks for playing.
Have you given any thoughts to making ship traits account unlocks? That would isntantly boost the value of cross-faction ships and lockbox ships - even if you can use the ship only on a particular character or faction, you could slot on any character once unlocked.
An accountwide system for starship mastery and the ship traits would be awesome.
So basically, you want to bring Starship Mastery back to where is was BEFORE the great exp nerf?
That is definitely a good thing. Because i went instantly from "It's nice to have a bit of a change of pace now and again!" to "Oh GOD, how long do i have to keep flying this cruddy thing!?" once the well ran dry, so to speak.
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
Starship mastery means NOTHING unless you buy a T6 ship. I'll be re-parking my T-5U ship because it's garbage compared to my T5 ship without the mastery.
But thanks for playing.
*blinks* You want to explain this one to me. I've been critcal of Cryptic lately, but I don't get the premise that a T-5U ship is worse then the same exact T5 ship. I can see argements for T-5U vs T-6 but not T-5U and the exact same T-5 ship.
Me thinks you're complaining just to be with the cool kids and complain.
Thank you gorgonzolla for the information and this update.
While I personally don't mind playing a certain ship longer in order to open up all progression tiers, I know that there were many other players that expressed their concenrns over this. It's great to see you acting on their feedback and listening to the community. You're right - if people are feeling this as a grind, than it should be fixed and I'm glad you're doing it.
I hope this level of communcation only grows in the future.
I'm sorry...could somebody clear up how I as a t5-U pilot have any chance at a Starship Trait after the 4 mastery traits, without taking months to fill a spec tree or fork out for a T6 ship when it's really my T5-U I want to play? Because right now I'm afraid I don't fully understand how this applies to me. :-/
I vaguely remember Captain Geko a while ago saying on a podcast or an interview that starship traits will be obtainable through other means rather than just from the T6 ships.
While I think the changes you'll be seeing soon are great and are a big step in the right direction, I will be keeping a close eye on both your feedback and how these changes feel in a live environment.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Very good to hear, I've actually stopped using my Benthan cruiser entirely because it's just taking ridiculously long to master and is interfering with my game time quality and other important things to do in game. Good to hear you guys will be improving the system to drastically speed up the process. Maybe consider adding Mastery boosts to the Zen store and exchange to even further speed up the mastery process for those hard cores who need ships mastered ASAP for PvP.
On the note of Star ship traits, I and many others would like you guys to unlock star ship traits full potential, by making them account bound, and cross faction. A lot of extra ships will be sold if each ship's trait is account usable and cross faction usable. Their current locked down state is actually turning off a lot of players from buying some of the new ships. For instance, there are 4 Fed ships I would buy and I would also buy the 2 KDF ships, however, because their ship traits are locked to character and faction, these purchases are a no go.
Edit to add: Also maybe look at having the mastery unlock itself universal for ship type, e.g. when the Faeht Zen store variant has been mastered a purchased fleet version will already have access to it's own mastery trait. Having to master the same ship twice is not a good idea.
*blinks* You want to explain this one to me. I've been critcal of Cryptic lately, but I don't get the premise that a T-5U ship is worse then the same exact T5 ship. I can see argements for T-5U vs T-6 but not T-5U and the exact same T-5 ship.
Me thinks you're complaining just to be with the cool kids and complain.
Apples and oranges.My different T5 ship is much better than the 'demo' T-5U ship I'm currently flying. The mastery levels just can't make it as good as as the 'other' un-upgraded ship I gave up. IF the T-5u ship traits were portable I might fly T-5u's on my other toons for a while, but they're not- so waste of time for me
Your experience obviously differs, the wonder of the bottomless check book no doubt.
Hmm. I actually don't mind that it takes a little longer to gain all 5 levels in starship mastery. It makes gaining a level something special like an achievement. I don't recall anybody complaining about it either...
But they want us to buy ships for the ship-traits, level then up and go back to our main ship, $$$$
I'm sorry...could somebody clear up how I as a t5-U pilot have any chance at a Starship Trait after the 4 mastery traits, without taking months to fill a spec tree or fork out for a T6 ship when it's really my T5-U I want to play? Because right now I'm afraid I don't fully understand how this applies to me. :-/
It means that you can more quickly grind any T6s you obtain (either via C-Store or lockbox) to get their Mastery to use on your T5-U. It also means you will more rapidly max that T5U, provided you haven't already done so.
And if you don't have a T6 yet for any reason, then it just means you can spend more time trying out other T5U ships and quickly maxing them to their 4th Mastery.
Apples and oranges.My different T5 ship is much better than the 'demo' T-5U ship I'm currently flying. The mastery levels just can't make it as good as as the 'other' un-upgraded ship I gave up. IF the T-5u ship traits were portable I might fly T-5u's on my other toons for a while, but they're not- so waste of time for me
Are you sure you're not confusing T5U and T6? Because T5s as-is are inferior to T5Us on the simple grounds that they do not scale up like T5Us do; not to mention, lack the extra console slot.
Apples and oranges.My different T5 ship is much better than the 'demo' T-5U ship I'm currently flying. The mastery levels just can't make it as good as as the 'other' un-upgraded ship I gave up. IF the T-5u ship traits were portable I might fly T-5u's on my other toons for a while, but they're not- so waste of time for me
Your experience obviously differs, the wonder of the bottomless check book no doubt.
I still don't get it, and I wish I had a bottomless check book.
Step 1: Find a T-5 ship you like.
Step 2: Grind a bit of Dilithium
Step 2a: Convert Dilithium to zen
Step 3: Buy a ship upgrade
Strep 4: Fly same T-5 ship as a T-5u getting some smallish buffs... but still buffs...
So complaining that you don't like the T-5U was wrong. You don't like the ship itself and were hoping that making it T-5U would magically make you like it, when what you should have done is taken your T-5 ship and made it the T-5U in the first place
Still seeing you complain for the sake of complaining... edit: or as someone mentioned above your confusing T-5, T-5U and T-6
T5-U ships are supposed to get Mastery powers? I filled in my 4 bonus slots on my Nebby, but I don't see any progress bar or anything for a slottable trait power...?
T5-U ships are supposed to get Mastery powers? I filled in my 4 bonus slots on my Nebby, but I don't see any progress bar or anything for a slottable trait power...?
t5-U ships dont get the slottable 5th Trait. 5-U have the 1-4 buffs only.
T6 ships get all the Buffs and the slottable trait.
T5-U ships are supposed to get Mastery powers? I filled in my 4 bonus slots on my Nebby, but I don't see any progress bar or anything for a slottable trait power...?
No they don't get traits directly. You either need to open them up on a T-6 ship or through specilization. Once that's done they go back on your trait tab under ship traits.
Your oddy only gets the buffs indirectly... but you can slot the traits you've earned and apply them to all ships you have, including your oddy, after you unlock them.
(but yer, please make mastery traits cross faction account unlocks - we will even pay dil and/or EC for the token for different toons a la reputation sponsorship token!)
Less grind is always welcome, but of all the many grinds added with the expansion, In my experience Ship Mastery is by far the least grindy grind.
I never had to go work for it, between the need to grind levels to play the story missions and the need to grind dil for the upgrade system, mastering all the avalible ships just kinda happened.
Starship Mastery was never intended to be a grind. I like to think of it as a training period for you and your starship to become one. Our goal will be to tweak it until it feels just right. I am glad many of you weren't bothered by the skill point gain rate, that tells me it wasn't insanely off the mark.
I wonder why you didn't put the Starship Mastery system like the old Reputation trait was : each tier of mastery unlocks two mastery passive buffs, and you can choose which to use for each tier.
Starship Mastery was never intended to be a grind. I like to think of it as a training period for you and your starship to become one. Our goal will be to tweak it until it feels just right. I am glad many of you weren't bothered by the skill point gain rate, that tells me it wasn't insanely off the mark.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
When you are tired of killing millions of NPCs to go from 50 to 60, belive me that the ship mastery is not the first thing that came to our minds.
Fixing this means nothing if the skil points/spec points are not also improbed.
I still don't get it, and I wish I had a bottomless check book.
Step 1: Find a T-5 ship you like.
Step 2: Grind a bit of Dilithium
Step 2a: Convert Dilithium to zen
Step 3: Buy a ship upgrade
Strep 4: Fly same T-5 ship as a T-5u getting some smallish buffs... but still buffs...
So complaining that you don't like the T-5U was wrong. You don't like the ship itself and were hoping that making it T-5U would magically make you like it, when what you should have done is taken your T-5 ship and made it the T-5U in the first place
Still seeing you complain for the sake of complaining... edit: or as someone mentioned above your confusing T-5, T-5U and T-6
I see your confusion- lemme clarify:
I will be parking my T5u Chel Gret with T4 mastery because the T5 Kamarag is a MUCH better ship, and won't be upgrading the Chel Gret for free on my other 2 toons because it's a waste of my time to use that ship for mastery traits I cannot use on a different ship. FOURTY SEVEN dollars is NOT a reasonable price for a T-5U kamarag on each of my 2 KDF characters, just to get traits I CANNOT use on a different ship.
Capiche' ?
A t6 KDF ship was NOT sold to this account because they have NO versitility what-so-ever.
I will be parking my T5u Chel Gret with T4 mastery because the T5 Kamarag is a MUCH better ship, and won't be upgrading the Chel Gret for free on my other 2 toons because it's a waste of my time to use that ship for mastery traits I cannot use on a different ship. FOURTY SEVEN dollars is NOT a reasonable price for a T-5U kamarag on each of my 2 KDF characters, just to get traits I CANNOT use on a different ship.
Capiche' ?
A t6 KDF ship was NOT sold to this account because they have NO versitility what-so-ever.
Got it, and I agree. There are a ton of ships I own that I won't be upgrading to T-5U... though most of them I'm not particularly fond of in the first place, so quite a few of them will never see the light of day again, let alone make it to t-5U. Heck there were dilithium and special event farming alts that the only reason they got T-5U ships at all was because they were lockbox ships.
Still that's not really an issue with the upgrade system in my mind. That's an issue with the mechanics of the game being screwy and certain ships underperforming because Cryptic can't figure out how to make a good ship to save their lives (aka the Duantless).
Either I'm the odd man out or I'm thinking of something entirely different. But with my T5U Avenger, I unlocked all four levels of mastery while just playing the Delta story missions and PVE [those four boxes under the tab next to Ship Status]. I didn't grind for hours upon hours every day. I played casually for 1-2 hours a day doing a story mission and some PVE. I reached level 60 and Fleet Admiral in two weeks. Now, if you are talking about the three "trees" that you spend specialization points on, then that is taking a long time.
Got it, and I agree. There are a ton of ships I own that I won't be upgrading to T-5U... though most of them I'm not particularly fond of in the first place, so quite a few of them will never see the light of day again, let alone make it to t-5U. Heck there were dilithium and special event farming alts that the only reason they got T-5U ships at all was because they were lockbox ships.
Still that's not really an issue with the upgrade system in my mind. That's an issue with the mechanics of the game being screwy and certain ships underperforming because Cryptic can't figure out how to make a good ship to save their lives (aka the Duantless).
Ya, the UG is another sore spot for me- not only is the dilith expense outrageous using tech upgrades I can make, but I still cannot upgrade some of my gear because they haven't 'enabled' it yet in the system. Lotta good stuff in DR completely slaughtered by stupid.
Starship Mastery was never intended to be a grind. I like to think of it as a training period for you and your starship to become one. Our goal will be to tweak it until it feels just right. I am glad many of you weren't bothered by the skill point gain rate, that tells me it wasn't insanely off the mark.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
I'm glad to see you reducing this a bit and to know that you'll be keeping an eye on it to see how things are going for players across the board.
It's easy for some players who play one or two characters and play many hours of nothing but space combat to think it doesn't take long, but for those of us who vary between multiple characters, or who do more a mix of ground and space combat, it can be a little slow going. That said, I don't think it's terrible as it is and I'm sure the changes coming this week will pretty much bring it into a good range for all concerned.
As somebody else said, it's definitely the least grindy grind of the new content. :P
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Starship Mastery was never intended to be a grind. I like to think of it as a training period for you and your starship to become one. Our goal will be to tweak it until it feels just right. I am glad many of you weren't bothered by the skill point gain rate, that tells me it wasn't insanely off the mark.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Starship Masteries should be part of EVERY ship from Tier 1, all the way up to Tier 6 (and potentially beyond), if the intent is for the mastery to be "a training period for you and your starship to become one". Honestly getting fed up with all these shiny high-level systems in the game, that serve little to no purpose for low level players. Starship Masteries for one, the Captain Specialization being another, as well as the overall Reputation system.
As someone else said, Starrship Mastery is the least grindy grind of this grindfest. It's the Specialization Tree that bothers me. It's clear that it shouldn't be filled within a day, but with the current amount of skill points that we're given for a kill it's a very... protracted process.
Science for the win. / Czechoslovak Fleet 1st Division
Comments
Given that it is a "mastery" it seems to me that people should expect mastering a ship to take a while, but that's just me.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
The hull masteries are very lackluster imo, it's nice to have, dont get me wrong, but there is potential for more "cool" masteries instead of flat hull changes.
I wish the 4 mastery tiers on every ship should have been in different compartment.
tier 1; hull upgrades (make it fun)
tier 2; shield system stuff
Tier 3; power system stuff
Tier 4; something else entirely, but powerful (being tier 4 unlock and all).
sig
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5451/om71.jpg
It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
But thanks for playing.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
An accountwide system for starship mastery and the ship traits would be awesome.
That is definitely a good thing. Because i went instantly from "It's nice to have a bit of a change of pace now and again!" to "Oh GOD, how long do i have to keep flying this cruddy thing!?" once the well ran dry, so to speak.
*blinks* You want to explain this one to me. I've been critcal of Cryptic lately, but I don't get the premise that a T-5U ship is worse then the same exact T5 ship. I can see argements for T-5U vs T-6 but not T-5U and the exact same T-5 ship.
Me thinks you're complaining just to be with the cool kids and complain.
Edit: Also thank you Gorganzolla for the update!
While I personally don't mind playing a certain ship longer in order to open up all progression tiers, I know that there were many other players that expressed their concenrns over this. It's great to see you acting on their feedback and listening to the community. You're right - if people are feeling this as a grind, than it should be fixed and I'm glad you're doing it.
I hope this level of communcation only grows in the future.
I vaguely remember Captain Geko a while ago saying on a podcast or an interview that starship traits will be obtainable through other means rather than just from the T6 ships.
Very good to hear, I've actually stopped using my Benthan cruiser entirely because it's just taking ridiculously long to master and is interfering with my game time quality and other important things to do in game. Good to hear you guys will be improving the system to drastically speed up the process. Maybe consider adding Mastery boosts to the Zen store and exchange to even further speed up the mastery process for those hard cores who need ships mastered ASAP for PvP.
On the note of Star ship traits, I and many others would like you guys to unlock star ship traits full potential, by making them account bound, and cross faction. A lot of extra ships will be sold if each ship's trait is account usable and cross faction usable. Their current locked down state is actually turning off a lot of players from buying some of the new ships. For instance, there are 4 Fed ships I would buy and I would also buy the 2 KDF ships, however, because their ship traits are locked to character and faction, these purchases are a no go.
Edit to add: Also maybe look at having the mastery unlock itself universal for ship type, e.g. when the Faeht Zen store variant has been mastered a purchased fleet version will already have access to it's own mastery trait. Having to master the same ship twice is not a good idea.
Apples and oranges.My different T5 ship is much better than the 'demo' T-5U ship I'm currently flying. The mastery levels just can't make it as good as as the 'other' un-upgraded ship I gave up. IF the T-5u ship traits were portable I might fly T-5u's on my other toons for a while, but they're not- so waste of time for me
Your experience obviously differs, the wonder of the bottomless check book no doubt.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
But they want us to buy ships for the ship-traits, level then up and go back to our main ship, $$$$
And if you don't have a T6 yet for any reason, then it just means you can spend more time trying out other T5U ships and quickly maxing them to their 4th Mastery.
Are you sure you're not confusing T5U and T6? Because T5s as-is are inferior to T5Us on the simple grounds that they do not scale up like T5Us do; not to mention, lack the extra console slot.
I still don't get it, and I wish I had a bottomless check book.
Step 1: Find a T-5 ship you like.
Step 2: Grind a bit of Dilithium
Step 2a: Convert Dilithium to zen
Step 3: Buy a ship upgrade
Strep 4: Fly same T-5 ship as a T-5u getting some smallish buffs... but still buffs...
So complaining that you don't like the T-5U was wrong. You don't like the ship itself and were hoping that making it T-5U would magically make you like it, when what you should have done is taken your T-5 ship and made it the T-5U in the first place
Still seeing you complain for the sake of complaining... edit: or as someone mentioned above your confusing T-5, T-5U and T-6
T5-U ships are supposed to get Mastery powers? I filled in my 4 bonus slots on my Nebby, but I don't see any progress bar or anything for a slottable trait power...?
t5-U ships dont get the slottable 5th Trait. 5-U have the 1-4 buffs only.
T6 ships get all the Buffs and the slottable trait.
No they don't get traits directly. You either need to open them up on a T-6 ship or through specilization. Once that's done they go back on your trait tab under ship traits.
Your oddy only gets the buffs indirectly... but you can slot the traits you've earned and apply them to all ships you have, including your oddy, after you unlock them.
This... AND a gorn as an avatar.
Best.
Dev.
Ever.
(but yer, please make mastery traits cross faction account unlocks - we will even pay dil and/or EC for the token for different toons a la reputation sponsorship token!)
...#LLAP...
Starship Mastery was never intended to be a grind. I like to think of it as a training period for you and your starship to become one. Our goal will be to tweak it until it feels just right. I am glad many of you weren't bothered by the skill point gain rate, that tells me it wasn't insanely off the mark.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
When you are tired of killing millions of NPCs to go from 50 to 60, belive me that the ship mastery is not the first thing that came to our minds.
Fixing this means nothing if the skil points/spec points are not also improbed.
Division Hispana
www.divisionhispana.com
I will be parking my T5u Chel Gret with T4 mastery because the T5 Kamarag is a MUCH better ship, and won't be upgrading the Chel Gret for free on my other 2 toons because it's a waste of my time to use that ship for mastery traits I cannot use on a different ship. FOURTY SEVEN dollars is NOT a reasonable price for a T-5U kamarag on each of my 2 KDF characters, just to get traits I CANNOT use on a different ship.
Capiche' ?
A t6 KDF ship was NOT sold to this account because they have NO versitility what-so-ever.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Got it, and I agree. There are a ton of ships I own that I won't be upgrading to T-5U... though most of them I'm not particularly fond of in the first place, so quite a few of them will never see the light of day again, let alone make it to t-5U. Heck there were dilithium and special event farming alts that the only reason they got T-5U ships at all was because they were lockbox ships.
Still that's not really an issue with the upgrade system in my mind. That's an issue with the mechanics of the game being screwy and certain ships underperforming because Cryptic can't figure out how to make a good ship to save their lives (aka the Duantless).
continence ?
Ya, the UG is another sore spot for me- not only is the dilith expense outrageous using tech upgrades I can make, but I still cannot upgrade some of my gear because they haven't 'enabled' it yet in the system. Lotta good stuff in DR completely slaughtered by stupid.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I'm glad to see you reducing this a bit and to know that you'll be keeping an eye on it to see how things are going for players across the board.
It's easy for some players who play one or two characters and play many hours of nothing but space combat to think it doesn't take long, but for those of us who vary between multiple characters, or who do more a mix of ground and space combat, it can be a little slow going. That said, I don't think it's terrible as it is and I'm sure the changes coming this week will pretty much bring it into a good range for all concerned.
As somebody else said, it's definitely the least grindy grind of the new content. :P
Starship Masteries should be part of EVERY ship from Tier 1, all the way up to Tier 6 (and potentially beyond), if the intent is for the mastery to be "a training period for you and your starship to become one". Honestly getting fed up with all these shiny high-level systems in the game, that serve little to no purpose for low level players. Starship Masteries for one, the Captain Specialization being another, as well as the overall Reputation system.
one of the meanings is: please behave