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Upgrade system - not broken...??

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  • wraithshadow13wraithshadow13 Member Posts: 1,728 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    For me personally, the upgrade system is not worth it at all. It's just one more way to make people log in and grind rather than putting in anything fun to make the grind more bearable. In a way (all the way) it is pay to win, because as others have stated, you're able to flat out BUY your way to better items. You're flat out able to BUY better ships. More so since there is no way to get ships above T-5 without going through the cash shop. Item wise, the upgrade system is just too expensive for how little people are getting out of it until they get to the max potential of the item.


    To make matters worse, the money people are spending on this game aren't really going fully to developing this game. There isn't even a whole lot going into just quality control. The winter event is broken in several ways for a whole lot of people, and that's not going to be fixed. There is no way Cryptic will fix the bugs before just pulling the event. It's how they've always done business. So much so, that the IP is the only thing keeping this game afloat, and many players have said many times that if this game wasn't Star Trek, they just wouldn't play it.


    In all fairness though, at least it's not nearly as bad as the Star Wars MMO... I think we can all agree on that one.
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  • zero2362zero2362 Member Posts: 436 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    I have a fleetmate who PvP during prime time just fine with no epic gear other then a couple of consoles which comes epic. Does JUST fine actually. And zero didn't say you could pvp with mk X whites. He said you could do STFs with them...which is correct.

    Im glad someone understood my point. I only mentioned my PVP experiment because it seemed relevant. As far as PVP is concerned I believe all that is necessary to be competetive is Mk XIV gear at VR or higher as ultra only adds 1 mod and epics mods add very little to equipment performance. Sure you will have a better chance with a gold loadout but the advantage it brings isnt that great
    343rguu.jpg

  • captmaniccaptmanic Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Once again...this game is NOT PAY TO WIN. People seriously, everytime you accuse cryptic of making the game pay to win, all your doing is showing of your own lack of knoweldge of game design...a rather BASIC one and that all your thought of game design is now just null and void. If you do not know the difference between P2W and P2C then you don't know enough about game design to offer anything of import on how the game should be designed.

    And no, not all the proits from a game goes back into a game. Don't be stupid. There is overhead costs for one thing. Cryptic is over here on the west coast...and our rent ain't cheap. They are also part of a bigger corp. The bigger corp will transfer money from one game to another to best increase their overall profits. This is perfectly normal and not something cryptic can control. And there is the fact that the share holder do get to keep the profits if they so choose instead of investing it back into the company. Once again, if you don't know these rather basic things and think that all the money you spend should go right back into the game...well sorry, but your just WAY too naive to have anything useful to input. And before you make comments about they don't put enough back...unless you know some details of their finacials that we the general public do not because you cryptics CFO...yeah you really don't know squat.

    bro - it is pay-to-win, because in STO you can pay, and win.. simple. A game that is not pay to win is somethin like Eve Online or World of ******** - where you simply cannot short-cut the skill training queues, no matter how much RL money you want to put into the game. Its impossible.
    Everything you need to be successful in STO you can buy with real life cash. This means that the rich people will be able to do well, by payin for it.
    Im not saying there are a die-hard minority few of you guys out there who are lifers and have stayed with the game from the early days, not bought anythin with RL cash but grinded your way up there - my hat goes off to you, I did the same in eve for 10 years.

    However - the way I see it the main player base in StO right now is people who play it for a short time, get pissed off with all the bull**** in the game, pay their way to victory, have a bit of fun along the way, then leave. Craptic get their money - they are happy - end of.

    It does not mean it is a good model for an MMO, or that Craptic will achieve customer satisfaction. They will, however, get rich (for a while at least until the game implodes - which it will, and then all they have to worry about is if they screwed us for enough to avoid their company going bankrupt, when it does happen.

    Sorry to be a cinic, but i've played a lot of MMO's, and this is the way I see STO and Cryptic as a company.

    But hey - Im still playin'. For now...
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,919 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    captmanic wrote: »
    bro - it is pay-to-win, because in STO you can pay, and win.. simple.

    No you can't.

    A lot of your points on the failings of the RnD system are accurate, but you're off the rails on the P2W argument. This game is not P2W, not even close.

    That being said, the Upgrade costs are ridiculous. Best compromise I have found is to completely forget that the stupid 'gold' rarity even exists.

    I am running mostly Mk XIV UR/VR and doing perfectly fine. I know people that are geared worse then me that do fine in PvP. This game is in no way P2W, that part of your argument is off base.. sorry.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • zero2362zero2362 Member Posts: 436 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Once again...this game is NOT PAY TO WIN. People seriously, everytime you accuse cryptic of making the game pay to win, all your doing is showing of your own lack of knoweldge of game design...a rather BASIC one and that all your thought of game design is now just null and void. If you do not know the difference between P2W and P2C then you don't know enough about game design to offer anything of import on how the game should be designed.

    And no, not all the proits from a game goes back into a game. Don't be stupid. There is overhead costs for one thing. Cryptic is over here on the west coast...and our rent ain't cheap. They are also part of a bigger corp. The bigger corp will transfer money from one game to another to best increase their overall profits. This is perfectly normal and not something cryptic can control. And there is the fact that the share holder do get to keep the profits if they so choose instead of investing it back into the company. Once again, if you don't know these rather basic things and think that all the money you spend should go right back into the game...well sorry, but your just WAY too naive to have anything useful to input. And before you make comments about they don't put enough back...unless you know some details of their finacials that we the general public do not because you cryptics CFO...yeah you really don't know squat.

    Urm The Scimitar seems very Pay to win to me. It outperforms most other ships and can only be aquired if someone drops the money for it. Even if you convert Dill to zen someone has still dropped money so you can hav a Scimitar not to mention all those lock box premium ships and the like. How is that not pay to win
    343rguu.jpg

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  • vesterengvestereng Member Posts: 2,252 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Crafting and upgrading are authenticated fundamentally broken.


    They were supposed to have breaking down components from items and modifiers.

    Sadly people were dumb enough to pay them for the broken version and so now they, rightfully and understandable, ask why they should fix it

    Whales be whaling
  • erei1erei1 Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    It's an insane waste of resources, and you know fun part ? It's random.

    You can spend a crazy amount of dil and EC, get lucky and the item will upgrade, only to have some stupid mod you never cared about.

    I'll wait for cryptic to fix their stuff.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Don't assume the new baseline is Gold Mark XIVs. Just don't the baseline is Mark XIV Purples.
    Most of the people you will encounter in PvE or PvP will not have gold gear. And even if they do, I predict that just a single decision you outsmarted your opponent will weigh out gold gear manifold. 2 extra mods, even with the special Gold Deluxe Supra Turbo mod is not that significant.

    Gear matters a lot more now in STO than it used to 2-3 years ago, but mark and the specific type of gear (which set bonuses, which console powers) still matter so much more than rarity...


    So the cost you really need to worry about are about 20,000 Dilithium. Which is approximately the cost of Mark XII reputation gear, for example. You were able to manage those cost once, you'll be able to do it again.

    And there are even plenty of items you don't really need to bother upgrading. The boosts that are given to deflectors and warp cores are marginal (even for a Science Vessel those last few points will not make a big observable difference).



    But hey, if you think Golds are a must, I think that will make some Cryptic bean counters very happy, because it means you and people thinking like you will be kept pretty buy and have plenty of incentive to buy Zen.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    zero2362 wrote: »
    Urm The Scimitar seems very Pay to win to me. It outperforms most other ships and can only be aquired if someone drops the money for it. Even if you convert Dill to zen someone has still dropped money so you can hav a Scimitar not to mention all those lock box premium ships and the like. How is that not pay to win

    But that is the key thing to it: In P2W, you, not someone else, has to pay for it. If you don't have the money for such luxuries, you are a second class player forever.


    The STO F2P system avoids that problem with the dilithium exchange. Even if you can't afford a single dime, you can eventually get the most imbalanced, overpowered ship and gear.

    Of course, STO F2P still has incentive for power creep, the other nasty problem that all pay-to-win games automatically have. To make people willing to spend money on Zen or Dilithium on Zen, there must be stuff worth getting. And the easiest way to make something "worth getting" is to add power. New looks are always subjective, power less so.

    At least Cryptic usually combines the ship power creep with making new ship models. Imagine they'd sell you merely a Tier 6 Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit without the Pathfinder skin, because skins are expensive to make compared to upgrading a few stats..
    erei1 wrote: »
    It's an insane waste of resources, and you know fun part ? It's random.

    You can spend a crazy amount of dil and EC, get lucky and the item will upgrade, only to have some stupid mod you never cared about.

    I'll wait for cryptic to fix their stuff.

    You can actually avoid the randomness. Buy Fleet Gear - that's already Ultra-Rare. The Gold mod is pre-defined (for weapons, it's the Acc/Dmg hybrid). Of course, if Fleet Gear doesn't have the mod you wanted in the first place, it's no help.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • jellico1jellico1 Member Posts: 2,719
    edited December 2014
    I cant speak for everyone and wont try

    I upgraded 1 ship to mk-14

    When i was done i felt robbed/cheated and really felt i was taken avantage of when i compared the cost used to upgrade

    then looked at the rewards of space content and space content in general now

    and how i am now limited to one set of weapons for my ship because of these horrible costs

    I feel ive losts a lot more than gained pre DR fun wise
    Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
    Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
    Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng

    JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
  • dpsloss88dpsloss88 Member Posts: 765 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    They went crazy with greed. How did they think anyone except the whales would swallow this insanity? And once the player base is gone the whales will get bored because there is no one to show off to.
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    jellico1 wrote: »
    I cant speak for everyone and wont try

    I upgraded 1 ship to mk-14

    When i was done i felt robbed/cheated and really felt i was taken avantage of when i compared the cost used to upgrade
    Did you feel similarly cheated when you first brought your ship to Mark XII, pre Delta Rising? Did you do that over 2-3 months or did you need longer for that?
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • lordhooklordhook Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    captmanic wrote: »
    having used the upgrade system now to upgrade many items (including several to epic) - I can confirm that the current upgrade system is sh*t and faaaar too expensive and thirsty on dilithium.

    As a quick example -

    note ALL OF THE BELOW ASSUMES YOU HAVE A TIER 14 ITEM ALREADY AT UR:
    (if you dont.. which you wont... then you can expect to approximately double the below cost)..

    A typical tier 14 item need around 250k of tech points to upgrade, so this is 20 superior tech upgrade, at 300k a piece.

    This totals 6 million in tech upgrade (for one run at the upgrade) - I havent even factored in the dilithium cost yet..
    HOWEVER - this 1 level of upgrade will give you around 4% rarity chance. Ive upgrade enough items to know that they usually 'ding' to epic.. somewhere around 20-30% on average.. so this is a MINIMUM of 5 runs, so thats currently 30million in tech upgrades (or around $15 of real life cash).

    Now for the dilithium... 1075 dilithium per tech upgrade, and so far we have used 100 tech upgrades.. so thats 107k of dilithium (remember this is one item..). At a dillithium refining rate of 8k per day.. thats around 2 weeks of dilithium refining for this one item upgrade... (remember all of this assumes your item STARTS at tier 14 UR.

    Now - there are 22 items slot approx on an average ship.. so 2 weeks and 30 million multiplied by 22, gives around 650million cost, and 44 weeks of refining to upgrade your whole ship (assuming you do not change any modules in that time - or, god forbid consider flying another starship...)...

    I have just 3 words...

    WHAT

    A

    JOKE

    I mean Cryptic.... are you frickin serious or what..????

    Anyway - the good news is I have a simple fix - and this is REALLY simple and is at the heart of the problem in my opinion for why the current system is a joke... Simply add a new tech upgrade to the current crafting system that gives not 12,400 tech points (which is WAAAAAY to low), but say around 25-30k tech points. This would be a REALLY simple fix that would effectively solve all of the current issues around this broken upgrade system..


    Cryptic - I've said it many times before and ill say it again - SORT IT OUT...!

    It is working as intended. They just want your money.


    There is only one way to win, not playing.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    lordhook wrote: »
    It is working as intended. They just want your money.

    'Broken' is in the eye of the beholder. For Cryptic it's working just fine; for the ones paying them, maybe not so much. (See my sig *g*)
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • vesterengvestereng Member Posts: 2,252 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    It's hard to decide

    I don't know if they hadn't nerfed dil, ec, marks and drops from STF, I'd still play it?

    Or if they gave text upgraded weapons away for free, would I then go play a nerfed map with forced failure?

    Probably not.

    It's like before Dil Vaporizing you were holding out hoping they'd re-new the game and get passed the content drought.

    Then they release something so terrible you find yourself dreaming of the time where the game was only a nightmare, those were the good days.
  • tinead51tinead51 Member Posts: 449 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    captmanic wrote: »
    SNIP
    Cryptic - I've said it many times before and ill say it again - SORT IT OUT...!

    More christmas day hilarity, thanks so much :D
  • kerygankerygan Member Posts: 254 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    well , people, are used with STO being easy , thats why they complain about the dificulty of instance , thee R&D system and all , but the true fact is that the game needed a change like this to make it more ... mmo . I mean ... seriously , before you could max everything in this game in ... 2-3 months ? this is why i quited before , it was nothing left to do , but now with this latests changes there is a hope that this game will actually get a GAMEPLAY . It still has its bugs and missconeptions , like the intel ships ... those ships limit the game to 3 ships , the old ships should get an upgrade for a inteligence boff , w/o those there are useless ships. If they change that , then is going to be good , the R&D system is ok , it suppose to be like that , to take time to develop , to make your charater stronger , allsow the specialization points , you are used with the old STO , get everything in instance , but all others mmo's takes alot of time to develop your character , look at WoW , Lineage and other games.
    Allsow with that elachi ship ... it suppose to be rare , and you have to pay for it.
  • tekehdtekehd Member Posts: 2,032 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    captmanic wrote: »
    Number 2) Dont ignore or alienate your entire customer base, but instead respond to their comments, especially when they have disputes over their satisfaction.

    Please stop making the false assumption that you represent "the customer base".
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  • deaftravis05deaftravis05 Member Posts: 4,885 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    No you can't.

    A lot of your points on the failings of the RnD system are accurate, but you're off the rails on the P2W argument. This game is not P2W, not even close.

    That being said, the Upgrade costs are ridiculous. Best compromise I have found is to completely forget that the stupid 'gold' rarity even exists.

    I am running mostly Mk XIV UR/VR and doing perfectly fine. I know people that are geared worse then me that do fine in PvP. This game is in no way P2W, that part of your argument is off base.. sorry.

    It's not P2W really, it's just... all the gear are possible to get... every one of them. You can grind for them or pay for them.
    tekehd wrote: »
    Please stop making the false assumption that you represent "the customer base".

    THank you
  • ghyudtghyudt Member Posts: 1,112 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    There was already another thread like this about a month ago that I showed the actual numbers on, and it was far less than what they thought. Same thing here. I'm not gonna do it all over again, because apparently some other idiot is just gonna start another all over again. All I'm gonna say is this; STOP FACTORING IN THE INSTANT COMPLETION COST. This is not a necessity. The item upgrades just the same by letting it complete on its own as it does by finishing it immediately. If you want to save some dilithium, then don't do your upgrading until you're ready to log off for the day. Make it the last thing you do. That way, it will complete while you're away, and it will.be ready when you get back. Or you can whip out that credit card and finish everything now. I don't really care. Just stop blowing this stupid **** out of proportion.
  • rsoblivionrsoblivion Member Posts: 809 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    It's not blowing it out of proportion when you have to fill out 240,000 Tech Points around 10 times on avg @ 12800 per Tech Upgrade purchased.

    Each Tech Upgrade costs around 200,000 EC. Each Applied Upgrade costs 1,014 Dil.
    One Beam @ VR to UR @ Mk XIV is going to cost ~3.8M EC and ~19266 Dil to Upgrade

    So times that by 8 for a complete Weapon set gives ~30.4M EC and ~154K Dil.

    Compared to a Mk XII Rep gear piece and that's an increase in costs from 40K EC and 35K Dil per main set piece or ~20K Dil per Rep weapon though that's at Mk XII. Thing is the UR upgrade can make your Rom Plas Beams a bad investment if it gets any other mod than an extra CrtD or Pen mod. Makes an AP build far more logical.

    Include the other parts and a single ship starts looking incredibly expensive to upgrade. Oh and zero use of insta-make Dil sink in those calcs.

    Other ways to do it include using Mk II VR gear and upgrading to Mk VII or VIII using an Experimental Upgrade and 2x RP Boost for max % chance of upgrade to VR/Epic during upgrade process. But that's not counting the cost of the Mk II weapons in the first place which are very expensive EC wise off the exchange or incredibly dull to produce via R&D (200+ weapons (DBB and Array) with only one CrtD x3 so far...).

    The lottery of the system is so far broken that the % chance of getting what you want is just not there. If you could choose the UR mod then it would be more palatable, but currently it's just a EC/Dil sink of the highest order.
    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."
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  • drkfrontiersdrkfrontiers Member Posts: 2,477 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    captmanic wrote: »
    I dont really need to answer this because you clearly aren't an end-game player.. but I will..

    I, for one do it because I PvP in this game, and to PvP in this game (as anyone who has pvp'd in this game will undoubtedly confirm) you need to have the gold standard of gear to even stand half a chance of doing wel..

    But even if you do not like to PvP, in order to do well in PvE (and by do well - I mean being able to run most the elite stf's, or produce in excess of 20k dps), you also need superior gear..

    Honestly - don't bother about PvP considerations. You will save yourself a whole bucket load of hurt and pain. PvP is dead.
  • starkaosstarkaos Member Posts: 11,556 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Honestly - don't bother about PvP considerations. You will save yourself a whole bucket load of hurt and pain. PvP is dead.

    If the devs at one point in time were considering to remove PvP from the game and the only real change to PvP in years is Shuttle PvP, then PvP might not be dead, but it is a grotesque weak abomination crying "Kill me now" to put it out of its misery.
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  • ceekayzeroceekayzero Member Posts: 411 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    rsoblivion wrote: »
    Each Tech Upgrade costs around 200,000 EC. Each Applied Upgrade costs 1,014 Dil.
    One Beam @ VR to UR @ Mk XIV is going to cost ~3.8M EC and ~19266 Dil to Upgrade

    ---

    Other ways to do it include using Mk II VR gear and upgrading to Mk VII or VIII using an Experimental Upgrade and 2x RP Boost for max % chance of upgrade to VR/Epic during upgrade process. But that's not counting the cost of the Mk II weapons in the first place which are very expensive EC wise off the exchange or incredibly dull to produce via R&D (200+ weapons (DBB and Array) with only one CrtD x3 so far...).

    Well, instead of spending 200K EC on an upgrade token, you can play the various PvE queues (and most of them are puggable; CCA in particular) and ge the VR/rare mats to craft your own. This also lets you play the game, which I find to be quite fun sometimes.

    I agree that the priority for the R&D System needs to be the opportunity to re-roll mods. The RNG factor when it comes to upgrading expensive weapons is not good, IMO. The rest of the system, including dilithium cost, I am OK with.
  • drkfrontiersdrkfrontiers Member Posts: 2,477 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    starkaos wrote: »
    If the devs at one point in time were considering to remove PvP from the game and the only real change to PvP in years is Shuttle PvP, then PvP might not be dead, but it is a grotesque weak abomination crying "Kill me now" to put it out of its misery.

    LOL thanks mate I need a giggle.
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