You can save a lot of money if you're happy with Very Rare, which I am.
You really encounter the most ridiculous costs while trying to upgrade rarity. The cheapest way by far is to outfit yourself with Very Rare or Ultra Rare Mark 12 from Rep or from the Fleet Shops and simply upgrade the rarity.
The difference between a MKXIV Very Rare or Ultra Rare and a MKXIV epic is mere percentage points. Personally, I'm happy going to mark 14 and calling it a day. If I get lucky along the way and get a rarity upgrade then great.. but I'm not going to spend millions of resources to try and get that shiny gold color, it's just not that important and not worth it.
I have gotten lucky twice on consoles and had them increase, one went up to Ultra Rare and my Neutronium went up to Epic. Yeah, it's great to have but I won't spend a ton just to get rarity.
So far going from Mark 12 to Mark 14 has been fairly inexpensive. It's upping the Rarity that gets you. Don't fall for it.. it's just a percent or two.. totally not worth it.
You can get most stuff to mark 14 just using Advanced (Blue) Upgrades.
I have been upgrading my gear organicaly. I haven't purchased any Mats and I have created all of my own Tokens, less the few frieebies from the event. I have my Tac, and Eng Consoles done up to VR Mk XIV. I have my Warp Core and Engine up to VR Mk XIV. I have my Aft weapons up to VR Mk XIV. All for about 120l Dil, that I started hoarding when Cryptic announced DR. In with that 120k dil I made the Alliance Rep Grenade and Uni-Console. I don;t see the expense as over the top. People just want everything without any effort. Look around you.
The issue that is not mentioned is that the Upgrade system isn't supposed to be completed immediately upon hitting lvl 50/60. It's supposed to be a progression. I believe it is to add incentive to participate in the content. Play the game, get the mats/dil get the upgrades. A little patience would reduce the costs in that misleadiung Infographic.
"I have to have it now" should cost you through the nose.
Yeah, I've been doing the mad scientist bit myself too.
The issue isn't with base weapons (like an earlier post said). It is rep items, Lobi items and mission rewards(depending on the level you get them). Lock Box items to an extent as well.
The issue isn't with base weapons (like an earlier post said). It is rep items, Lobi items and mission rewards(depending on the level you get them). Lock Box items to an extent as well.
Eh, I don't mind taking my time...though I'm not even gonna bother going to XIV for awhile...XIII's fine for me...I don't have any R&D skills to 15 yet(only 1 at 14, 3 more higher than 10, and 2 that I haven't even touched yet[ground and cannons]), but I'm crafting what I can and selling anything I don't want or need....
.......of course in my case, I once waited 5 -years- to ask someone a question in real-life.......so I -might- be a little biased.... <_<;;
TBH I think the Rep gear being character limited should have a choice of mod as you already spend 20k dil on each weapon. Currently spending that then rolling the lottery on UR upgrade to get the mod you want (say looking for another CrtD on a CrtD x2 weapon) is just WAY too costly. Seeing as 1 in 6 might get the mod you want...
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."
It's a neat chart, yet I think the following quote from page 3 sums it up:
Actually, it should be the other way round. Paying customers should have a more reasonable price for upgrading quickly. The non-paying players should still do the grind.
Here are my problems with this expansion (forget the bugs for the moment, but the bugs. The bugs!!! Oh dear.) :
1) Delta rep gear should be at least MkXIII, if not MkXIV.
2) More MkXIII and MkXIV gear should be dropping in the DQ
3) Lockbox gear from the Delta box. Should be MkXIV. I didn't pay to open lockboxes for the chance to get ship gear to have to pay again to upgrade them.
4) Same with LB/Lobi T6 ships. They should come with at least MkXII VR gear (is probably a moot point as most players will have gear sets they like to use already).
5) Dili cost: Cryptic have made dili more expensive with this expansion. They need to make it cheaper, so the zen->dili buyers get more value for money. They can do this by reducing the costs of the usual dili sinks, so that everyone wins on this (except the dili->zen horders).
When I started playing this game this year, I stated on the forums that i thought STO was good value for money. When I dropped 10-20 per month I got a lot of good stuff for that and got a decent amount of bang for my buck. Since DR, not so much. In fact to the extent that the money I dropped the day after DR launched will be the last bit of money I will pay this game until they sort out the exorbitant cost of playing comfortably.
It really comes down to how you choose to play and upgrade. You can choose to use high end tech and spend the least amount of D or you can go the other way and spend almost nothing on Tech and burn more D. (for some people that have been hording on alts for months that isn't as crazy as it sounds).
Yep, pretty much this. I designated a single alt to work R&D... all materials pre DR were sent to that alt so they have a massive stockpile of materials..... been leveling through R&D schools since the crafting revamp and have 15 in two schools now, and the rest are between 10-13 and still leveling. on a daily basis running 5 6000 point projects per day through my non-15 schools to get them to 15.
What? How has the game suddenly become uncomfortable to play? There is so much to do in the game that does not require upgrading at all. Therefore, ther is no more cost to playing then there was before.
Upgrading, and it's costs, are still optional. Heck, even playing in DR content is optional. Playing Elite STFs is optional. The entire system is designed to get players to play long-term. So, I think the quote stands as accurate: the costs are high because players want new stuff sooner-than-later. That means skipping dedication and patience to get what you want, when those two things are what is needed.
Although I understand being a paying customer should grant certain amenities, that makes sense. Yet I do not think that means it has to be from an optional system like the upgrade process. It's designed to keep everyone on the same level playing field. Otherwise, it really would be "pay to win".
Is this supposed to be the cost to get Mark XIV gear, or is this supposed to be the cost to get Gold Mark XIV gear?
Because come on, why would you need gold gear in the first place? You're talking about "casual gamers" as if casual gamers before Delta Rising where all decked out with all the sets and Mark XII gear.
I think the term "casual" player is ill-defined. Some people seem to think casual players have the same goals and needs as hardcore players, but are just in some way "non-serious" about it?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The game is already pay to win/shortcut/advantage (whatever you want to call it). Just look at T5U upgrades or T6 ships. Also dili gates that can be conveniently bypassed by spending money. We're already there. It's just you don't see it because you've played the game for so long and have a lot of resources at your disposal.
The simple fact of the matter is that I am what you would probably call casual. At most I can only get on for a few hours a night and I want to enjoy myself with that time (play comfortably, with minimal grind). Knowing that, I am aware that I will have to pay money to do this (and I was more than happy to). However, since DR, they seem to be trying to milk more and more for this "comfort zone".
For example, you have to do advanced stfs to get the Ancient Batteries for delta rep gear. I did my first advanced stf (MU) last night in a Benthan (T6/M5) with all MkXII VR gear (Corrosive plasma, Thoron quants) to see what the difficulty was like (I'm a ROM-TAC). Now maybe the team was poor (it was a PUG) and possibly my build may have problems, but at one stage I was on my own with a group of about 3 MU ships and just couldn't make a dent on my targeted ship's hull. Considering that I don't have anything resembling this issue when I do normal, it made me realise that I have to upgrade my gear to MkXIV to do this comfortably. I already bought the keys to get that corrosive plasma gear. I am not paying more to upgrade it so I can meet the difficulty just to get a rep special item.
I am also not saying that the upgrade system should be completely optional for paying players. If you have gear you like to use, then you should be able to upgrade it (Ships too!). But making upgrading mandatory for all just to be able to compete in advanced level is not the way to do it. That's why i suggested delta rep gear should be of a higher level and also why there should be more MkXIII and XIV gear dropping as loot and also why Delta LB gear should be dropping MkXIV. Stop with the mandatory upgrading just to be competitive. This would also benefit non-paying players.
The infographic is well in line with my own research into what is possible with the upgrade system and in fact may even skew a bit conservative. That being said, however, I'd like to see raw data or a more thorough list of explanations and citations of what some of the points mean.
Indepth coverage may be posted later, however no 2 replies were the same as you might imagine. The survey covered more than just costs, but this stood out as something worth talking about immediately.
For example, in the bottom-left section, were the T5U upgrade tokens purchased with EC or by grinding and converting Dil to Zen? I'm assuming Dil, hence the spike in dil cost
For the crafters, how many Rare crafting materials were bought from the exchange instead of earned from doffing and drops (or converting old hoarded particle traces)?
Everyone had different experiences, but most of the EC was used to get VR materials. There was a period when Rubidium became extremely scarse for 48 hours as we assumed larger groups of people had reached LvL 15 in Beams.
Of the listed EC costs, how much is just the EC cost to craft upgrades vs the cost to purchase materials? (e.g. regardless of if you get your mats from the exchange or gameplay, it will still cost you 15k EC to craft each superior tech upgrade (crits excluded))
Mostly purchases. The EC cost for crafting was around 15K ec per superior upgrade.
For the most part yes. The pricing is inclusive of those added costs. We were tempted to use additional catalysts but chose to report on the Experimentals instead as there were more issues there as to odd results.
Who are these survey participants? (names aren't necessary but like, were they all from one or a handful of specific fleets or frequenters of a specific chat channel?)
I'm unsure of the number of fleets (that wasn't required), and unsure of the final number of participants. I helped organize 12 respondents, and there were 5 other guys coordinating responses. Mostly US and UK, with a scattering from around the world. The sample size was larger, but wasn't included in the final numbers. Everyone replied differently from word and txt doc, to google docs, excel etc. The survey wasn't well set-up, but you could see trends almost immediately. It focused on existing players with existing rep and VR gear.
As for the chat channels, pesfy, estf, dps etc. Mostly player we used to grind elites with as they had the time (no longer grinding or playing), and the willingness to keep notes.
We chose not to include 2 results as they looked skewed, either by miscalculation or simply bad metrics in following upgrade costs. Both were in the high end of the results, and 50-80% higher than what we found.
Given the feedback here and on Reddit overnight, they may have been accurate.
Did anybody use alts to speed up the earning/refining process?
No, and that was a huge point of contention. Most of us use the advantages of alts simply to get around the dilithium (and now EC) gates. The difficulty was that the mechanics in this aspect is significantly more difficult to describe accurately when there are so many different interpretations of what to do.
We settled on a single toon, no alts with a complete set of rep gear and eite weapons. My gear choices were adapted maoc, elite fleet warp core, elite fleet phasers, and spire consoles.
The number of updated consoles was limited to four as most people use at least 2 speciality consoles depending on the build.
IMO the problem is not really the cost. The whole mechanic with after 60 spec. points; high XP demand & MK14 gear is a great foundation for long time engagement. You're not supposed to deck yourself out to gold MK 14 on week one after DR release (but you can with too much money at hand of course). I'm sure that it is intended for long term play & actually I like it more long term. And no I'm not super rich and have decked all out to G14. My 2 mains have most at MK13, one item each at MK14 & gold rarity is something I don't even aim for at the moment.
The massive oversight IMO is stuff to play. The new missions are very cool; I love them; far above usual MMO quality & even the patrolfillers are a good read when doing the first time... but its not enough to do. Its all to instanced & too gated. Occasional a foundry to mix things up but those can be a ..uhm.. mixed bag.
What STO IMO really, really need is; assuming they don't have about 100+ new missions ready to be released SOON; a new solid procedual generated content system. Unlike the one they axed one that get constant updates (i.e. improvements; not just "does not work? Delete!").
Very interesting and it follows my experience with upgrading and crafting. The costs are far too high at the moment for both areas. To play the harder content to get the drops needed to craft the better gear just doesn't make sense. You need the better gear to play that content to begin with otherwise you are left buying overpriced resources off the exchange. I fortunately have got my crafting schools to level 10 to make my own improved tech upgrades but not superior. This game has been very unbalanced since DR launched between costs, difficulty, and rewards. Things are so expensive I don't want to upgrade anything for fear something better may come out and my stuff antiquated.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
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.
I'm just curious to see at this point... if they are ever going to respond with their reasoning as to why the costs are so high or if they are finally going to come out and say hey ... we're going to fix this.
As I pointed out to a fleetmate last night you currently have to run 4 queued normal missions just to get enough Dil to apply 1 and I'm not exaggerating 1 superior tech upgrade. Now I know the farmers and the cool kids that do the Advanced and Elite will do it faster but for casuals like me ... yeah I have better things to do than just sit and farm dil so I can upgrade.
Don't even get me started on the costs for the upgrades if you want to buy them using EC or aren't a level 15 crafter in almost everything...
Now I know the farmers and the cool kids that do the Advanced and Elite will do it faster but for casuals like me ... yeah I have better things to do than just sit and farm dil so I can upgrade.
You have a sold point there because in 9 out of 10 cases farming equals boring, for casuals and hardcore players alike. Players should just be able to queue up for whatever they like and be rewarded accordingly. We had that some time ago in STO. Making general PvE endgame inaccessible for average players is the worst call I have ever seen in this game. Everybody will get hurt because of it in the long run.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
. Making general PvE endgame inaccessible for average players is the worst call I have ever seen in this game. Everybody will get hurt because of it in the long run.
More like turning content that WAS previously accessible , inaccessible .
... because if they had made an actual Expansion , with a NEW tier of raids ... instead of tinkering with the old STF's for the 5-6th time ...
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.
Comments
You really encounter the most ridiculous costs while trying to upgrade rarity. The cheapest way by far is to outfit yourself with Very Rare or Ultra Rare Mark 12 from Rep or from the Fleet Shops and simply upgrade the rarity.
The difference between a MKXIV Very Rare or Ultra Rare and a MKXIV epic is mere percentage points. Personally, I'm happy going to mark 14 and calling it a day. If I get lucky along the way and get a rarity upgrade then great.. but I'm not going to spend millions of resources to try and get that shiny gold color, it's just not that important and not worth it.
I have gotten lucky twice on consoles and had them increase, one went up to Ultra Rare and my Neutronium went up to Epic. Yeah, it's great to have but I won't spend a ton just to get rarity.
So far going from Mark 12 to Mark 14 has been fairly inexpensive. It's upping the Rarity that gets you. Don't fall for it.. it's just a percent or two.. totally not worth it.
You can get most stuff to mark 14 just using Advanced (Blue) Upgrades.
My character Tsin'xing
Eh, I don't mind taking my time...though I'm not even gonna bother going to XIV for awhile...XIII's fine for me...I don't have any R&D skills to 15 yet(only 1 at 14, 3 more higher than 10, and 2 that I haven't even touched yet[ground and cannons]), but I'm crafting what I can and selling anything I don't want or need....
.......of course in my case, I once waited 5 -years- to ask someone a question in real-life.......so I -might- be a little biased.... <_<;;
"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."
Here are my problems with this expansion (forget the bugs for the moment, but the bugs. The bugs!!! Oh dear.) :
1) Delta rep gear should be at least MkXIII, if not MkXIV.
2) More MkXIII and MkXIV gear should be dropping in the DQ
3) Lockbox gear from the Delta box. Should be MkXIV. I didn't pay to open lockboxes for the chance to get ship gear to have to pay again to upgrade them.
4) Same with LB/Lobi T6 ships. They should come with at least MkXII VR gear (is probably a moot point as most players will have gear sets they like to use already).
5) Dili cost: Cryptic have made dili more expensive with this expansion. They need to make it cheaper, so the zen->dili buyers get more value for money. They can do this by reducing the costs of the usual dili sinks, so that everyone wins on this (except the dili->zen horders).
When I started playing this game this year, I stated on the forums that i thought STO was good value for money. When I dropped 10-20 per month I got a lot of good stuff for that and got a decent amount of bang for my buck. Since DR, not so much. In fact to the extent that the money I dropped the day after DR launched will be the last bit of money I will pay this game until they sort out the exorbitant cost of playing comfortably.
Cheers!
Yep, pretty much this. I designated a single alt to work R&D... all materials pre DR were sent to that alt so they have a massive stockpile of materials..... been leveling through R&D schools since the crafting revamp and have 15 in two schools now, and the rest are between 10-13 and still leveling. on a daily basis running 5 6000 point projects per day through my non-15 schools to get them to 15.
What? How has the game suddenly become uncomfortable to play? There is so much to do in the game that does not require upgrading at all. Therefore, ther is no more cost to playing then there was before.
Upgrading, and it's costs, are still optional. Heck, even playing in DR content is optional. Playing Elite STFs is optional. The entire system is designed to get players to play long-term. So, I think the quote stands as accurate: the costs are high because players want new stuff sooner-than-later. That means skipping dedication and patience to get what you want, when those two things are what is needed.
Although I understand being a paying customer should grant certain amenities, that makes sense. Yet I do not think that means it has to be from an optional system like the upgrade process. It's designed to keep everyone on the same level playing field. Otherwise, it really would be "pay to win".
Is this supposed to be the cost to get Mark XIV gear, or is this supposed to be the cost to get Gold Mark XIV gear?
Because come on, why would you need gold gear in the first place? You're talking about "casual gamers" as if casual gamers before Delta Rising where all decked out with all the sets and Mark XII gear.
I think the term "casual" player is ill-defined. Some people seem to think casual players have the same goals and needs as hardcore players, but are just in some way "non-serious" about it?
The simple fact of the matter is that I am what you would probably call casual. At most I can only get on for a few hours a night and I want to enjoy myself with that time (play comfortably, with minimal grind). Knowing that, I am aware that I will have to pay money to do this (and I was more than happy to). However, since DR, they seem to be trying to milk more and more for this "comfort zone".
For example, you have to do advanced stfs to get the Ancient Batteries for delta rep gear. I did my first advanced stf (MU) last night in a Benthan (T6/M5) with all MkXII VR gear (Corrosive plasma, Thoron quants) to see what the difficulty was like (I'm a ROM-TAC). Now maybe the team was poor (it was a PUG) and possibly my build may have problems, but at one stage I was on my own with a group of about 3 MU ships and just couldn't make a dent on my targeted ship's hull. Considering that I don't have anything resembling this issue when I do normal, it made me realise that I have to upgrade my gear to MkXIV to do this comfortably. I already bought the keys to get that corrosive plasma gear. I am not paying more to upgrade it so I can meet the difficulty just to get a rep special item.
I am also not saying that the upgrade system should be completely optional for paying players. If you have gear you like to use, then you should be able to upgrade it (Ships too!). But making upgrading mandatory for all just to be able to compete in advanced level is not the way to do it. That's why i suggested delta rep gear should be of a higher level and also why there should be more MkXIII and XIV gear dropping as loot and also why Delta LB gear should be dropping MkXIV. Stop with the mandatory upgrading just to be competitive. This would also benefit non-paying players.
Cheers!
Indepth coverage may be posted later, however no 2 replies were the same as you might imagine. The survey covered more than just costs, but this stood out as something worth talking about immediately.
Yes, Dil to Zen conversion.
Yes, I volunteered for that. I used my reserve to do it as did others.
Everyone had different experiences, but most of the EC was used to get VR materials. There was a period when Rubidium became extremely scarse for 48 hours as we assumed larger groups of people had reached LvL 15 in Beams.
Mostly purchases. The EC cost for crafting was around 15K ec per superior upgrade.
For the most part yes. The pricing is inclusive of those added costs. We were tempted to use additional catalysts but chose to report on the Experimentals instead as there were more issues there as to odd results.
No. It was a an "I Want it Now, take my money scenario".
I'm unsure of the number of fleets (that wasn't required), and unsure of the final number of participants. I helped organize 12 respondents, and there were 5 other guys coordinating responses. Mostly US and UK, with a scattering from around the world. The sample size was larger, but wasn't included in the final numbers. Everyone replied differently from word and txt doc, to google docs, excel etc. The survey wasn't well set-up, but you could see trends almost immediately. It focused on existing players with existing rep and VR gear.
As for the chat channels, pesfy, estf, dps etc. Mostly player we used to grind elites with as they had the time (no longer grinding or playing), and the willingness to keep notes.
We chose not to include 2 results as they looked skewed, either by miscalculation or simply bad metrics in following upgrade costs. Both were in the high end of the results, and 50-80% higher than what we found.
Given the feedback here and on Reddit overnight, they may have been accurate.
No, and that was a huge point of contention. Most of us use the advantages of alts simply to get around the dilithium (and now EC) gates. The difficulty was that the mechanics in this aspect is significantly more difficult to describe accurately when there are so many different interpretations of what to do.
We settled on a single toon, no alts with a complete set of rep gear and eite weapons. My gear choices were adapted maoc, elite fleet warp core, elite fleet phasers, and spire consoles.
The number of updated consoles was limited to four as most people use at least 2 speciality consoles depending on the build.
Hope that doesn't spawn more questions
The massive oversight IMO is stuff to play. The new missions are very cool; I love them; far above usual MMO quality & even the patrolfillers are a good read when doing the first time... but its not enough to do. Its all to instanced & too gated. Occasional a foundry to mix things up but those can be a ..uhm.. mixed bag.
What STO IMO really, really need is; assuming they don't have about 100+ new missions ready to be released SOON; a new solid procedual generated content system. Unlike the one they axed one that get constant updates (i.e. improvements; not just "does not work? Delete!").
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Let me put it this way. Given the cited figures of dilithium expenditure, if this was to get gear to Gold Mk XIV then they all have Satan's luck. :P
Joined January 2009
As I pointed out to a fleetmate last night you currently have to run 4 queued normal missions just to get enough Dil to apply 1 and I'm not exaggerating 1 superior tech upgrade. Now I know the farmers and the cool kids that do the Advanced and Elite will do it faster but for casuals like me ... yeah I have better things to do than just sit and farm dil so I can upgrade.
Don't even get me started on the costs for the upgrades if you want to buy them using EC or aren't a level 15 crafter in almost everything...
My new sig till Cryptic fixes it....
You have a sold point there because in 9 out of 10 cases farming equals boring, for casuals and hardcore players alike. Players should just be able to queue up for whatever they like and be rewarded accordingly. We had that some time ago in STO. Making general PvE endgame inaccessible for average players is the worst call I have ever seen in this game. Everybody will get hurt because of it in the long run.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
More like turning content that WAS previously accessible , inaccessible .
... because if they had made an actual Expansion , with a NEW tier of raids ... instead of tinkering with the old STF's for the 5-6th time ...
That seems unlikely. Even when it was only on Tribble they stopped responding in the official feedback thread after a few pages.
Joined January 2009