I disagree that Starship Mastery ranks 1-4 should be available from Tier 1, unless that's on a playable Iconian ship available only to a playable Iconian race. Now starting from Tier 4? That would be fine, as by that point we're all Admirals (granted, Rear Admirals) with "experience". It would also give more utility to the Mirror Ships players rely on until they can grind enough EC/Dil/Zen to get a proper T5 or T6.
Slottable Mastery traits on T6 ships is fine; we're senior enough in rank to helm the most advanced starships. Really, my only issue is that the most advanced ships, Odyssey, Vesta, Dyson ships, Scimitar, and Bortesqu don't have a T6 option or upgrade; though I'm hoping that they will as Fleet versions. The following ships I feel should also be T6, on the grounds of their advanced capabilities in-story canon: Tal Shiar ships, the Voth Bulwark (really, all three Voth ships), and the Advanced Obelisk.
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.
That's another thing I wanted to mention, the Specialization XP earned is far too low and needs to be drastically increased by a large margin, in addition to making all T6 ship traits account wide and cross faction unlocks and drastically decreasing ship mastery time.
For the ships I took through the story/patrols, the mastery pace actually felt too fast. Now that I'm done the story and I'm just flying ships in whatever content I happen to do (mostly Mirror Invasion because of the event), it does feel a little on the slow side. Not too bad, though.
Not bad, I appreciate this being looked into. Though Starship mastery is the least of my problems when it comes to grind.
Currently I'm at about lvl 56 and I'm not far off getting ship mastery for my Eclipse. But if you're talking about a short time to get to know your ship, it is indeed a long time to grind for starship mastery. I knew my Eclipse inside and out by lvl 52 or 53. I've settled it into being my full time ship.
But then again I can take a totally new ship, fly it in 2-3 STFs whilst fine-tuning what gear to use on it and I adapt. (Mostly. Escorts remain an eternal problem for me to fly.)
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
As others have said, starship mastery 'grind' is definitely one of the smallest evils of Delta Rising. I have to say I'd much prefer having skill points gained by defeating enemy ships raised than lowering the amount of skill points needed to get ship masteries.
But, while it may not be much of a grind on a given character, it gets worrisome when you take into account multiple characters and the 'need' for starship traits. Trying to get all the starship traits on all characters (because currently, the only option to get starship traits are Tier 6 ships or leveling itself and using spec points) does get very grindy in the end. So:
Please think about making the Starship Traits account wide unlocks, at the moment the RR and KDF are at a huge disatvantage.
Not only as Valenn says, KDF and Romulans are at a disadvantage given the choice of traits, but getting the one and same trait on many alts does get tedious in the end.
EDIT: I kinda like the idea by someone higher in this thread (was it Iconians?) to give Tier 6 ships the ability to create 'account bound starship trait tokens', basically.
Once you unlock the level 5 Mastery on them, AKA the unique starship trait, you can gain further xp (significantly lower amount than needed to get to level 5) to gain these account tradeable tokens. And by giving a token to your alt, the alt would gain said starship trait.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
EDIT: I kinda like the idea by someone higher in this thread (was it Iconians?) to give Tier 6 ships the ability to create 'account bound starship trait tokens', basically.
Once you unlock the level 5 Mastery on them, AKA the unique starship trait, you can gain further xp (significantly lower amount than needed to get to level 5) to gain these account tradeable tokens. And by giving a token to your alt, the alt would gain said starship trait.
Well it's basically the reputation token rehashed, you also have to 'gain' it (there by getting 100 corresponding marks and buying it). So whoever originally came up with that...
Oh, and it was apparently Hyperionx09 I saw mention this on page 3.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
While the mastery grind has not been terrible, I definitely approve of reducing the amount of points needed. Very friendly to those of us who run more than one alt and that like to run a few different ships on top of that.
I broke out my anniversary Dysons for the Mirror Event and have been wishing I could get them leveled up faster for it.
As for granting ship mastery traits account-wide once earned, it sounds like a great idea to me. At least across toons of the same faction.
Starship Mastery 'grind' is pretty much a non-issue for me. I'm grinding Argala for my Specialization tree: the Mastery points accrue gratuitously along with it, far as I'm concerned.
TLDR - Traits should be account based and faction-less unlocks - this will be more fun for the playerbase AND make you more money in ship/lockbox sales - win-win!
It would definitely feel less grind-y if we didn't have to re-master the same ship on every character that had that particular ship.
---
OT: More devs on the forums engaging in discussion with players about systems and stuff? I hope this is a trend and not a fluke. :eek:
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
EDIT: I kinda like the idea by someone higher in this thread (was it Iconians?) to give Tier 6 ships the ability to create 'account bound starship trait tokens', basically.
Once you unlock the level 5 Mastery on them, AKA the unique starship trait, you can gain further xp (significantly lower amount than needed to get to level 5) to gain these account tradeable tokens. And by giving a token to your alt, the alt would gain said starship trait.
I posted that suggestion; giving a fair but reasonable way to pass on Masteries without either being too entitled or too complicated for the players or Cryptic. And it's not much different from grinding 100 or so Marks to trade for a Reputation Sponsorship; in this case, skips the middleman and is directly worked on and gained. The XP required per "skill pass" could stand to be lower than what I suggested, but again, I chose a conservative amount rather than one too low.
Reposting with slight fixes:
Account Bound Mastery Suggestion: As to making the 5th Mastery Account-unlock, I support this insofar as still having to work for it. Instead of just leveling it once and then it's unlocked for all characters, I suggest to encourage players to keep using the ship instead of just dropping it and forgetting it.
For example: I level my Guardian to Rank 5. However, instead of letting the bar stop there, let a second bar appear below it (so that if the "Mastered" code is tied to the bar, it doesn't reset Masteries or anything; it simply opens up a new and separate bar). The XP required to fill it will either be the same as it currently is getting from 3 to 4, or the rebalanced XP required to get from 3 to 4.
For every completion of that bar, a player gains an account-bound item; for this example, we'll call it: [Holodeck Bridge Training: Guardian - Desperate Repairs]. The in-game idea is that as a master of your ship, you earn the right to record a training simulation of your performance to share with one officer, in this case, an alt. However, to prevent early abuse, the alt in question needs to be level 50 minimum, though personally, level 40 minimum would be ideal, as we're already Admirals by that point. But I won't complain if it's left at 50 minimum to use, given that if implemented, it's already doing us all a great favor.
This way, all objectives would be met. Players can have access to as many starship traits as they're willing to work on, this will encourage repeated use of any T6s every so often, and Cryptic can sell more T6s or Delta Operations Packs. The only losers here would be the lazy or unwilling.
In the end, progressing through Star Trek Online should be fun and rewarding and shouldn't feel like a grind.
Best Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Cryptic Studios
Lead Systems Designer
Fixed your typo there
-Rule of Acquisition #113: Always have sex with the boss.
-I am one of the many victims from the hijacked Caspian Division.
I will not let the childish acts of a criminal ruin this game for me.
-The actions of Cryptic, on the other hand......
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 think no one is bothered by it that has a small amount of characters. Although those people like myself it will take around a decade to get our characters up to that point. Thus making it an overwhelming grind we just will not take part in since that is all the game has become is a grind and not fun.
As a primarily Romulan I concur that Account Wide, or some other way to share unlocks, would be an appreciated change.
If you did it for experience in the ship it should IMO be account wide. Is why for instance I am not too keep on xping up 10+ b'rels and other canon ships like that. The whole setup of grind in this game is backfiring making players shy away from even bothering to do anything lol.
I don't think the mastery system is bad as it is. I think it's one of the better balanced systems you currently have in the game now. What I think that cause people from switching ships is the amount of Dilithium needed to get decent gear and to upgrade gear. To me that is prohibitive for me to even think about switching ships until I have one ship completely set up. I don't have the zen or dilithium to spare to even think about getting other ships level up thier mastery to tier 5. Change the need to use dilithium to upgrade gear and craft gear and maybe I will finally be able to have dilithium to get other tier 6 ships.
you dont have to have the best gear to do ship mastery, although i have upgraded a few items of equipment on a couple of my ships i have a basic mix of mk10, mk11 & mk12 level gear on the rest of my ships and that is pefectly adequate for doing ship mastery in most stuff.
things like any normal & advanced pve content, the deferi space missions, any of the story content and foundry space missions and even while this event is running the mirror event, all is good for ship mastery with basic gear.
i fully intend to just upgrade kit on 2 ships for each of my characters for high level content, the rest will remain with basic gear for normal content.
having said that if you must have the best gear at all times at the end of the day you only really need enough high end gear for one ship and just swap the gear over to whatever ship you want to use at the time.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
It would definitely feel less grind-y if we didn't have to re-master the same ship on every character that had that particular ship.
Apart from one romulan T6 trait (warp shadow on cloak) nothing seems particularly faction flavored right now.
Making these account unlocks would address any faction imbalance that traits cause before they become a matter of contention.
If we don't make them account unlocks now we may gain too many that really are appropriate only to specific factions at which point this may no longer be an easy option.
I don't have a problem with starship mastery so far. But having T6 ships the only ones with T5 mastery is not right to me. The way it is setup now you have to buy all T6 ships in order to get slotable starship traits. That is 3000 zen a ship lol I understand you need to make money but come on really lol. So I'm not in no hurry to get those starship traits seeing they will cost me 3000 zen each. I have one so far from eclpse cruiser will be awhile for the next one lol.
We're unlikely to get any way to acquire account-wide unlocks on Ship Traits.
Allowing us to do so will mean that PWE sells only 1 lockbox ship per account instead of 7. The Ferengi overlords will not allow it.
I wouldn't have much problem with only allowing account unlocks on Zen ships or other more 'freely' obtainable Tier 6 ships with traits.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
It also could refer to the old saying "Diarrhea of the Mouth"...
<chuckle>
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I would still have my T6 ships T5 ship mastery without the roll back on that particular character (hadn't even hit 60 yet...). My main two characters were unaffected, but this one had a minor roll back and ended up back at T2 on the Guardian (arguably the most tedious ship to fly). It's kinda sad that the nerf wasn't thought out 2-3 weeks ago leaving the playerbase in limbo of WTF to do.
Good to see you are looking at fixing it though.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
If you did it for experience in the ship it should IMO be account wide. Is why for instance I am not too keep on xping up 10+ b'rels and other canon ships like that. The whole setup of grind in this game is backfiring making players shy away from even bothering to do anything lol.
the question is, why would you need to level 10+ B'rels? I have 10 characters as well, not a single one of them flies the same ship as any of the others. - if you just have 10 clones of the same captain for dil farming and what not, then guess what - you should have to level them all up individually.
Comments
Slottable Mastery traits on T6 ships is fine; we're senior enough in rank to helm the most advanced starships. Really, my only issue is that the most advanced ships, Odyssey, Vesta, Dyson ships, Scimitar, and Bortesqu don't have a T6 option or upgrade; though I'm hoping that they will as Fleet versions. The following ships I feel should also be T6, on the grounds of their advanced capabilities in-story canon: Tal Shiar ships, the Voth Bulwark (really, all three Voth ships), and the Advanced Obelisk.
That's another thing I wanted to mention, the Specialization XP earned is far too low and needs to be drastically increased by a large margin, in addition to making all T6 ship traits account wide and cross faction unlocks and drastically decreasing ship mastery time.
would like to see a token to re-box a lockbox ship to transfer to different toon on same account. and a token to convert char bound to acct bound....
and a special token to purchase a SINGLE other faction T4 ship.
(no upgrade or fleet unlock for these).......
i'm bringing the microwave popcorn
You meant contenance I guess, which translates to composure/countenance in English. :P
i actually used 2 different sources and took the more english sounding one.
go on, go on, there is nothing to see here
oh yes, oohhhh yesssss ^
Currently I'm at about lvl 56 and I'm not far off getting ship mastery for my Eclipse. But if you're talking about a short time to get to know your ship, it is indeed a long time to grind for starship mastery. I knew my Eclipse inside and out by lvl 52 or 53. I've settled it into being my full time ship.
But then again I can take a totally new ship, fly it in 2-3 STFs whilst fine-tuning what gear to use on it and I adapt. (Mostly. Escorts remain an eternal problem for me to fly.)
But, while it may not be much of a grind on a given character, it gets worrisome when you take into account multiple characters and the 'need' for starship traits. Trying to get all the starship traits on all characters (because currently, the only option to get starship traits are Tier 6 ships or leveling itself and using spec points) does get very grindy in the end. So: Not only as Valenn says, KDF and Romulans are at a disadvantage given the choice of traits, but getting the one and same trait on many alts does get tedious in the end.
EDIT: I kinda like the idea by someone higher in this thread (was it Iconians?) to give Tier 6 ships the ability to create 'account bound starship trait tokens', basically.
Once you unlock the level 5 Mastery on them, AKA the unique starship trait, you can gain further xp (significantly lower amount than needed to get to level 5) to gain these account tradeable tokens. And by giving a token to your alt, the alt would gain said starship trait.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
My head is about to burst with pride; not in myself for throwing a tantrum, but that they're communicating again.
Keep it up guys and you may squeeze a lifetime out of me yet.
Not my idea, but an idea that I endorse. :cool:
Well it's basically the reputation token rehashed, you also have to 'gain' it (there by getting 100 corresponding marks and buying it). So whoever originally came up with that...
Oh, and it was apparently Hyperionx09 I saw mention this on page 3.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
I broke out my anniversary Dysons for the Mirror Event and have been wishing I could get them leveled up faster for it.
As for granting ship mastery traits account-wide once earned, it sounds like a great idea to me. At least across toons of the same faction.
It would definitely feel less grind-y if we didn't have to re-master the same ship on every character that had that particular ship.
---
OT: More devs on the forums engaging in discussion with players about systems and stuff? I hope this is a trend and not a fluke. :eek:
Joined January 2009
I posted that suggestion; giving a fair but reasonable way to pass on Masteries without either being too entitled or too complicated for the players or Cryptic. And it's not much different from grinding 100 or so Marks to trade for a Reputation Sponsorship; in this case, skips the middleman and is directly worked on and gained. The XP required per "skill pass" could stand to be lower than what I suggested, but again, I chose a conservative amount rather than one too low.
Reposting with slight fixes:
Account Bound Mastery Suggestion:
As to making the 5th Mastery Account-unlock, I support this insofar as still having to work for it. Instead of just leveling it once and then it's unlocked for all characters, I suggest to encourage players to keep using the ship instead of just dropping it and forgetting it.
For example: I level my Guardian to Rank 5. However, instead of letting the bar stop there, let a second bar appear below it (so that if the "Mastered" code is tied to the bar, it doesn't reset Masteries or anything; it simply opens up a new and separate bar). The XP required to fill it will either be the same as it currently is getting from 3 to 4, or the rebalanced XP required to get from 3 to 4.
For every completion of that bar, a player gains an account-bound item; for this example, we'll call it: [Holodeck Bridge Training: Guardian - Desperate Repairs]. The in-game idea is that as a master of your ship, you earn the right to record a training simulation of your performance to share with one officer, in this case, an alt. However, to prevent early abuse, the alt in question needs to be level 50 minimum, though personally, level 40 minimum would be ideal, as we're already Admirals by that point. But I won't complain if it's left at 50 minimum to use, given that if implemented, it's already doing us all a great favor.
This way, all objectives would be met. Players can have access to as many starship traits as they're willing to work on, this will encourage repeated use of any T6s every so often, and Cryptic can sell more T6s or Delta Operations Packs. The only losers here would be the lazy or unwilling.
Fixed your typo there
-Rule of Acquisition #113: Always have sex with the boss.
-I am one of the many victims from the hijacked Caspian Division.
I will not let the childish acts of a criminal ruin this game for me.
-The actions of Cryptic, on the other hand......
I think no one is bothered by it that has a small amount of characters. Although those people like myself it will take around a decade to get our characters up to that point. Thus making it an overwhelming grind we just will not take part in since that is all the game has become is a grind and not fun.
As a primarily Romulan I concur that Account Wide, or some other way to share unlocks, would be an appreciated change.
If you did it for experience in the ship it should IMO be account wide. Is why for instance I am not too keep on xping up 10+ b'rels and other canon ships like that. The whole setup of grind in this game is backfiring making players shy away from even bothering to do anything lol.
you dont have to have the best gear to do ship mastery, although i have upgraded a few items of equipment on a couple of my ships i have a basic mix of mk10, mk11 & mk12 level gear on the rest of my ships and that is pefectly adequate for doing ship mastery in most stuff.
things like any normal & advanced pve content, the deferi space missions, any of the story content and foundry space missions and even while this event is running the mirror event, all is good for ship mastery with basic gear.
i fully intend to just upgrade kit on 2 ships for each of my characters for high level content, the rest will remain with basic gear for normal content.
having said that if you must have the best gear at all times at the end of the day you only really need enough high end gear for one ship and just swap the gear over to whatever ship you want to use at the time.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Apart from one romulan T6 trait (warp shadow on cloak) nothing seems particularly faction flavored right now.
Making these account unlocks would address any faction imbalance that traits cause before they become a matter of contention.
If we don't make them account unlocks now we may gain too many that really are appropriate only to specific factions at which point this may no longer be an easy option.
Allowing us to do so will mean that PWE sells only 1 lockbox ship per account instead of 7. The Ferengi overlords will not allow it.
I wouldn't have much problem with only allowing account unlocks on Zen ships or other more 'freely' obtainable Tier 6 ships with traits.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
It also could refer to the old saying "Diarrhea of the Mouth"...
<chuckle>
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
A: Not a grind? Are you new to STO or something?
B: T6 sales not where you want them to be?
C: T5U driver here.. I DON'T GET NO T5 MASTERY!
Good to see you are looking at fixing it though.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
the question is, why would you need to level 10+ B'rels? I have 10 characters as well, not a single one of them flies the same ship as any of the others. - if you just have 10 clones of the same captain for dil farming and what not, then guess what - you should have to level them all up individually.
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU