Each of the crafters are going to be competing against one another to see what they can sell the fastest. Bridge officer abilities will actually have a true value attached to them, scaled by the dilithium cost needed to make them.
With mulitple bridge officer ability crafters each trying to move their merchandise as fast as possible while making as much money as possible, they will just be undercutting one another.
Undercutting is good because it means no insane prices and with the natural economics of supply and demand, we will see which abilities actually are valuable, compared to abilities that are artifically inflated due to previous scarcity.
Unless you think spending 14 million EC or more on a bridge officer after mousing over the list on the exchange isn't insane.
so people that don't craft, like me, are screwed, great
you don't even run the 20 hr project? That's all I've done and I'm 15 in 4 schools and 13 in the other 3. I don't even log on every day. If you haven't been running even the 20 hr project then...
Each of the crafters are going to be competing against one another to see what they can sell the fastest. Bridge officer abilities will actually have a true value attached to them, scaled by the dilithium cost needed to make them.
With mulitple bridge officer ability crafters each trying to move their merchandise as fast as possible while making as much money as possible, they will just be undercutting one another.
Undercutting is good because it means no insane prices and with the natural economics of supply and demand, we will see which abilities actually are valuable, compared to abilities that are artifically inflated due to previous scarcity.
Unless you think spending 14 million EC or more on a bridge officer after mousing over the list on the exchange isn't insane.
in my opinion all the prices are too high :rolleyes:
how the new players will train their boffs if they need dil? at the lower levels, it's impossible to earn a lot of dil, and when you begin to play at this "game", you want to try a lot of skills.
this "game" is just a piece of TRIBBLE now; they add dil sink everywhere, remove all the pleasure. we don't PLAY, we are just pushers of sliders. give us MISSIONS, FUN and PLEASURE. we are like Sisyphus condemned to do always the same thing day after day:
"As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to endlessly roll a huge boulder up a steep hill.[3] [10] [11] The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top which ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration."
Unless you think spending 14 million EC or more on a bridge officer after mousing over the list on the exchange isn't insane.
Last I checked the only boffs that go for north of 4-5 mil are ones with Traits. It has nothing to do with the skills on them.
Traits aren't changing. Good reman and romulan boffs with Sup traits are still going to go for high EC.
There are only the following skills that are "expensive".
- Transfer Shield Strength. (mainly because it is a fairly rare drop) Still not hard to find this one for 700k on a weekend.
- Torp Spread 3... way to get this for free of course still semi rare and 500k-2mil depending on faction is pretty standard last I checked.
- Energy Siphen 3... a bit more rare on the KDF side, still not that popular a choice of skill anyway so it doesn't tend to be to crazy ec wise as long as there are some on the market.
- Polarized Hull 3... not that rare and not that popular so its normally pretty cheap
- Tykens 3... enough of them out there that I have never seen it get expensive or hard to find.
- Beam Overload 3... These are pretty common. Market workers try to push these now and then but by the weekends supply always outstrips demand.
- Omega 3... dime a dozen still for none tacs you buy boffs but there plentiful and cheap.
- RSP 3... pretty common and not to expensive.
- Aux to Sif 3... used to get pretty expensive. Its not as popular as it once was and the supply isn't really that bad. Much like Overload 3 the odd market worker will try but the supply always overruns there attempts to make profits.
- B party 3... ya dime a dozen.
So there it is... NOTHING in there is expensive really. On a thursday morning with few newer players selling there boffs a few of them do dry up as they are somewhat rare drops. They are all easy to find on a weekend though.
Does the system make a lot of sense right now... no. Destroying a Boff to train was always a bit silly. That doesn't mean we should be happy about ANOTHER system being revamped to tie into the crafting system. (Which puts more strain on crafting resourses which WILL mean more expensive Tech as well... at least at first. Hard to say after we haven't seen material costs or anything yet). Lets all also get a bit real here... we know a new spec is coming shortly (perhaps at the same time) and there will be new specialized boff skills (like Intel) and that will mean new skills. I have no doubt that new Level 3s for these won't unlock form spec tree anymore (which I admit isn't bad) however I bet they will be expensive crafted items on par with things like the Omni Beam and Plasma Emish Torp. So look forward to new skill level 3s never going under 8-10 Mil EC. Which means they will cost people a lot more then the "rare" stuff costs now. Then there is always the lockbox component. Anyone taking bets on what OP new Level 3 abilities are coming to a Golden Ferengi Skill book near you soon ? lol
This system may be more logical for the basic skills... still it won't be cheaper then just going to a skill trainer is right now. A few skills some people find a pain to find right now like TSS3 perhaps becomes a bit easier to get. A few skills that are super annoying to train right now cause they require spec unlocks like the level 3 Intel stuff might be easier to get for people willing to spend $ (cause crafting those isn't going to be trivial... so new players will be forced to buy Zen and sell it) It also opens the door to some more nasty power creep, and true P2W when they dovetail this system into the lockbox setup.
So, Bridge Officer training will now be somewhat more flexible...
... but, instead of being virtually instantaneous and costing only trivial amounts of EC and quantities of expertise (which last every endgame character has in abundance), it will now also cost dilithium, and I strongly suspect these "manuals" will require time to prepare (though they will have a handy "finish now" button which you can press if you want to spend more dilithium.)
We gain in flexibility... and we gain in Moar Grind. Does Cryptic have some kind of industrial-strength Fun Hoover over there, with which to suck every single trace of enjoyment out of the game?
in my opinion all the prices are too high :rolleyes:
Player-based economies don't care what you think. There are people who will be willing to pay the prices set and there will be people who will be upset that they can't afford those prices.
These changes attach true value to bridge officer abilities. Meaning that it will actually be worthwhile for some people to craft skillbooks and sell them to other players. If certain players are too low in level, then there's a bridge officer trainer who will sell books to them.
If the bridge officer trainer sells manuals for dilithium instead of energy credits, and a new player is unable to purchase it? Then the ones sold by the bridge officer trainer can still be listed on the exchange. Which again, is subject to the laws of supply and demand and players attempting to undercut one another for what they can sell the manuals for.
Skills need to be valuable in the game. A Dilithium cost linked to it ensures that skills remain valuable. Without a dilithium cost, all player skills become worthless and not worth the time spent crafting them and posting them on the exchange.
These changes actually incentivize players into participating in the skill revamp.
Another example of let's fix what's not broken,while the list of game bugs gets bigger and bigger.
It's something that player like me have been asking tohave for a number of years. I can't hve the abilities I want to have on my Bound BOFFs that don't have the same career path as their Captains.
Why there going to be useless unless you plan to commision them and use them with that ability.
You never know, I predict since it will take tiem to get all tier III abilities, prices will rise, people will want those abilities, right now boffs are really cheap, so this feels like a low risk high reward operation..
i know, but like yours my opinion is valuable . you are happy with this new system and the cost, i'm glad for you. and i don't care about player-based economies
however, a lot of players won't share your point of view: they don't want to craft stuff, they don't want to buy a stupid book to craft an ability etc. the old system wasn't perfect but at least it was accessible for all.
a fight against a cryptic's white-knight is impossible with my poor english; so enjoy the new system
Last I checked the only boffs that go for north of 4-5 mil are ones with Traits. It has nothing to do with the skills on them.
Truth be told, I never check those prices unless I'm actually in need of one of those skills (which isn't often). The time spent mousing over bridge officers on the exchange gives me a headache and is really quite boring.
Oftentimes a skill I want I just end up forgetting about using due to the price asked for, when I can replace that skill with a similar one for less price. For instance, Hazard Emitters III vs. Transfer Shield Strength III. Sure, it might mean I won't get what I really wanted, but HE III can be substituted in a pinch.
There are only the following skills that are "expensive".
- Transfer Shield Strength. (mainly because it is a fairly rare drop) Still not hard to find this one for 700k on a weekend.
- Torp Spread 3... way to get this for free of course still semi rare and 500k-2mil depending on faction is pretty standard last I checked.
- Energy Siphen 3... a bit more rare on the KDF side, still not that popular a choice of skill anyway so it doesn't tend to be to crazy ec wise as long as there are some on the market.
- Polarized Hull 3... not that rare and not that popular so its normally pretty cheap
- Tykens 3... enough of them out there that I have never seen it get expensive or hard to find.
- Beam Overload 3... These are pretty common. Market workers try to push these now and then but by the weekends supply always outstrips demand.
- Omega 3... dime a dozen still for none tacs you buy boffs but there plentiful and cheap.
- RSP 3... pretty common and not to expensive.
- Aux to Sif 3... used to get pretty expensive. Its not as popular as it once was and the supply isn't really that bad. Much like Overload 3 the odd market worker will try but the supply always overruns there attempts to make profits.
- B party 3... ya dime a dozen.
So there it is... NOTHING in there is expensive really. On a thursday morning with few newer players selling there boffs a few of them do dry up as they are somewhat rare drops. They are all easy to find on a weekend though.
All of which requires you to mouse over each one going down the last, page after page hoping to find one for cheap. Cheap is still relative. What is considered expensive to you or I may not be considered expensive to other players.
It still comes down to whether a small dilithium cost is worth what players are asking for now, and the time spent manually looking at each bridge officer on the exchange.
I still argue the new changes are better.
Does the system make a lot of sense right now... no. Destroying a Boff to train was always a bit silly. That doesn't mean we should be happy about ANOTHER system being revamped to tie into the crafting system. (Which puts more strain on crafting resourses which WILL mean more expensive Tech as well... at least at first. Hard to say after we haven't seen material costs or anything yet).
I personally am pleased with the bridge officer revamp. With crafting mats becoming more valuable as they are added to more things, that means more players who have no desire to craft at all can still sell the raw materials and still make some pocket change.
Whether it's bridge officer abilities or crafted gear, non-crafters benefit from low prices from crafters undercutting oneanother on the exchange, and they benefit from their mats being more valuable to sell on the exchange to the crafters.
Lets all also get a bit real here... we know a new spec is coming shortly (perhaps at the same time) and there will be new specialized boff skills (like Intel) and that will mean new skills. I have no doubt that new Level 3s for these won't unlock form spec tree anymore (which I admit isn't bad) however I bet they will be expensive crafted items on par with things like the Omni Beam and Plasma Emish Torp. So look forward to new skill level 3s never going under 8-10 Mil EC. Which means they will cost people a lot more then the "rare" stuff costs now. Then there is always the lockbox component. Anyone taking bets on what OP new Level 3 abilities are coming to a Golden Ferengi Skill book near you soon ? lol
That's all speculation but it still doesn't take away from the fact this was a necessary quality of life upgrade, and many people will actually be able to use bridge officers abilities they may not be able to previously afford, or find a captain to train them, or what have you.
Not to mention bridge officers who are bound to your character, like my liberated borg engineer from my Amazon pre-order. Completely unable to use more valuable engineering skills like Engineering Team III or Emergency Power to Shields III. And now she will be able to.
This system may be more logical for the basic skills... still it won't be cheaper then just going to a skill trainer is right now. A few skills some people find a pain to find right now like TSS3 perhaps becomes a bit easier to get. A few skills that are super annoying to train right now cause they require spec unlocks like the level 3 Intel stuff might be easier to get for people willing to spend $ (cause crafting those isn't going to be trivial... so new players will be forced to buy Zen and sell it) It also opens the door to some more nasty power creep, and true P2W when they dovetail this system into the lockbox setup.
Or they can just bypass that all and use energy credits, which are still free. There is no EC cap, nor is there any necessity to buying Zen.
New players can buy basic manuals from vendors...it says so in the article. Seriouslly, if you all ain't gonna even bother reading the bloody article before going on your hate fill arguments, just stop already. Seriously the level of ignorance is quite aggrivating.
And no early level way of getting dil? You mean other then doing a spot light foundry mission with the officer report mission to get almost 4k right there? And doing further foundry with officer report for another 1500? Or doing the mines. Oh and there is the DOFF missions. But hey, there is no real way for them to get dil...right.
And the fun of this game is that we get to fly our favorite trek ship and blow stuff up. That was the fun before DR (as all of pre DR endgame content was running CCE and ISE and KSE and CSE)...which means it's actually the same POST DR...only now you can improve ever so slight as you continue to do what you did before for fun. If running queues endlessly en mass wasn't grind BEFORE DR, why it grind now AFTER? Just play like you did before DR...nothing is stopping you other then YOU (well and the empty queues...but that honestly is the real issue with DR).
i have read the article, and yet the BASIC stuff; but we all know that if you use the BASIC stuff, you need a huge amount of dil. my post was about DILITHIUM not about ec; you should read also carefully all the sentences.
I'm a little tired of replying to folks that have obviously not bothered reading the blog, and I have little doubt that if I continue to do so I'm going to end up disturbing the mods resulting in them having to send me some kind of pesky message that might not go too well for me at this point.
Bridge officers and their abilities are an important part of Star Trek Online, and we have wanted to improve that player experience for quite some time. Finally that day is here, and we are excited to give players a glimpse of the upcoming revamp. From a high level standpoint, the updated Bridge Officer Training system is focused on allowing players to invest in their bridge officers by training them in any of their Class and Specialization abilities, which can then be easily swapped in and out on the fly.
Aye, it's been over three years now...meh; but I'm glad you're finally getting around to it. Had really hoped it was coming with X2/DR, but some of that stuff mentioned with it being delayed again had me thinking it wouldn't happen until after the Skill Revamp and that itself wouldn't likely happen until S11 or later. Glad this is finally being looked at.
That swapped out on the fly looks interesting, eh? No more having to rerun to a BOFF trainer to change something - no more needing to hunt down folks or loading up a second client to switch stuff around - not having to carry an army of BOFFs. Sounds nifty.
To train a bridge officer with the new system, you simply need to obtain the Training Manual for the desired ability and have the needed Expertise Points required for training. Training a bridge officer in the new ability will consume the Training Manual in the process. Once trained, the bridge officer will now permanently have the new ability.
So that's how they'll be able to swap things out - they're going to store the various abilities they've got and then it's just a case of picking which they use. Sounds great. Geko has talked about the skill book thing forever, so this must have been something idling along the way forever too, eh?
In addition, bridge officers now will be able to train in any Specialization. This means that any Tactical, Engineering or Science bridge officer can be trained in Specializations such as Intelligence or any future releases! Not only that, but we have also exposed new ranks of some abilities that were previously unavailable.
Whoa there, so what you're saying is folks that have their Roms/Remans or folks with Embassy Roms, folks with Naus Pirates, or whatever they've got there...they can train any of their BOFFs in Specializations, meaning that every BOFF can be a hybrid BOFF and not just the hybrid already BOFFs? Heh, I want to make some jokes about Pakled Intelligence BOFFs. :P
But yeah, that's pretty damn awesome sounding.
Training Manuals
Players will no longer need to consume another bridge officer to give their bridge officers a new ability. Instead each ability will have a Training Manual item for each available rank of the ability. Using the overhauled bridge officer skill screen, players will be able to see all of the known abilities and untrained abilities a bridge officer has.
Hrmm, a bunch of those consumed BOFFs were because of abilities not available from Captain training or from other players. Want to see if there's any clarification on how that's being handled, and if not - I'll bring it up again at the end of this reply.
As a bridge officer is trained in additional abilities the Expertise Points required to learn a new ability will increase. With the new system in place a bridge officer will be able to learn all available abilities for his Class (Tactical, Engineering or Science) and also any abilities for his Specialization. Bridge officers must still be promoted to learn additional higher ranking abilities.
That's a little concerning. Sure, I might be swimming in Expertise right now - but how is something like that going to affect new players. Just what kind of increase are we looking at for the cost there? Are we looking at a cost where folks will still buy a bunch of BOFF slots because of that increased cost in Expertise? Hrmm, cause yeah - say I've got a Sci BOFF that I want all those abilities on - just how expensive will that get? Compared to an Eng BOFF with fewer abilities, etc, etc, etc - should I prepare myself to still have various stables of BOFFs because of that cost?
The primary method for obtaining Training Manuals is to purchase them from any of the current bridge officer training officers, who now will sell the manuals. Any ability that was previously trainable will have a Training Manual available for purchase. The other method in which players can obtain Training Manuals for the higher ranked abilities is to craft them in the new Officer Training crafting school.
Okay, that sounds pretty clear outside of those BOFF abilities that one could only find on a BOFF. Are those TMs going to be available from the BOFF Trainers or are they going to be craftable items?
Once a Training Manual is purchased or crafted it may be traded with other players and posted on the Exchange. This will be very helpful for players who wish to obtain manuals which they are unable to craft due to Class restrictions.
Yep, that's kind of the crux of the issue there - the BOFFs that couldn't be traded or having to find somebody that could train those that could be traded. This is definitely nifty.
Crafting School Officer Training
Many of the higher ranking Training Manuals will not be for sale at the bridge officer trainer. Players will need to craft those manuals in the new Officer Training school. Unlike the other crafting schools, the Officer Training school does not need to be leveled in order to unlock the recipes. In fact this school has no experience associated with it at all; players either have the recipes unlocked or they dont.
"Many of..." would that get into those from Captain training, the BOFF only abilities...but it's not an "All..." sort of thing, does that mean maybe the BOFF abilities will be there? Yeah, I'm sounding like a broken record there. Guess I've asked it enough not to ask it at the end.
Class specific (Tactical, Engineering, Science) recipes for manuals are unlocked by spending the necessary Skill Points within the player Skill Tree. This works identically to how the system currently functions, but players now will unlock the crafting recipe instead of the ability to directly train a bridge officer. Once the recipe is unlocked, players may begin crafting those Training Manuals. Also the STO Team has also been considering updating the Skill System in the future, and if this happens the method for unlocking Training Manual recipes will likely change.
So the things we used to be able to train our BOFFs for free, more or less, even for those we're going to need to do the crafted TMs? Hrmmm...
...and as a massive aside, mentioning that change to the Skill System - it's way off topic, but how big of a change are you looking at there since so much gear out there includes various Skill boosts - abilities do as well...yeah, yeah, I know - more on that later whenever/ifever you guys get to that.
But uh, yeah - we'll need to craft books for stuff we were able to do basically free? Hrmm, obviously the crafting is going to require some resources - any chance there will be two types of books? Bound and Unbound...stuff that's cheaper for us to use and stuff that's more expensive for when we want to hook somebody else up or whatever? Oh well, going to continue reading...
(yes, I've already read through this a few times - but I'm writing out this reply as if it were the first time I was reading it)
It is important to note that players only unlock class specific recipes for the class of their character. So if your character is a tactical officer and you wish to obtain high-ranking engineering or science manuals, you must trade or purchase them from other players.
That's cool though, cause you said we could pick them up off the Exchange.
All crafted manuals will require a PADD (Personal Access Display Device) which is a new crafting component. The cost of creating this component is several uncommon crafting materials and a small amount of Diltihium and Energy Credits. Once a PADD component is created players can use it to create their own manuals or they can be traded and sold to other players for assistance in creating manuals you might not have access to.
Okay then, getting into the meat of things here a bit so to speak...so some questions.
The PADD component there, that sounds like the VR components. Is the PADD going to be a VR component where we're looking at a Dil cost of 500 or 4000 Dil? Personally, 4000 Dil wouldn't be "small" - it's not a lot, but it's not "small" either. So would we be looking at 500 Dil? Or is it maybe going to be a Rare component with a Dil cost that's "smaller" than 500 Dil?
What kind of duration are we going to be looking at for crafting these PADDs? Seconds? Minutes?
Hrmm, will be interesting to see how the Exchange reacts to things based on the costs - available R&D slots...the "value" of the PADD vs. a skill book and so forth. Hrmmm...will have to see.
Specializations
One of the most exciting updates to Bridge Officer Training is the ability to train bridge officers in Specializations.
Training in a specialization is similar to the normal process in that it requires a type of manual called a Specialization Qualification. A Specialization Qualification is unique in that they not only unlock that Specialization for the bridge officer but also trains him in four space and four ground abilities (one for every available slot) from the get go.
Once the Specialization is unlocked that bridge officer can continue to learn any additional abilities from it.
Guessing that this SQ's going to cost more to craft than the PADD, eh?
With this training, it's not overwriting any of their abilities though, right? It's just adding four available abilities to their list of available abilities, yeah?
What kind of Expertise cost is going to be involved in dropping a SQ out on a BOFF?
While currently bridge officers can only learn the Intelligence Specialization we will be releasing more in the future!
Each additional Specialization that a bridge officer learns will cost an increased amount of Expertise Points.
Ah, there's the increased cost...hrmm, what's the original cost and increased cost going to look like for doing this?
The Training Manuals for any Specialization can still be purchased from the bridge officer trainers, with the exception of higher ranking abilities and the Specialization Manual itself. All Specialization Manuals must be crafted. To unlock the recipe for crafting a Specialization Manual players must have spent 10 skill points within the desired specialization. To unlock the additional higher ranking ability recipes, players must spend around 20 skill points within the desired specialization.
Will the SMs cost more to craft than the TMs?
Bridge officers may learn all available Specializations but may only have one active at a time.
Once a Specialization is learned though players can quickly and easily swap which Specialization a bridge officer has active at any time (outside of combat and in a social map like Sector Space or Earth Space Doc).
The question that keeps popping in to my mind with this...is what does this mean for the current ships with Hybrid Seats, where we've currently been slotting Intel/whatever in them. Does this mean we'll be able to slot other Specialization/whatever in them or will those be limited to a particular specialization. Cause uh, otherwise, we wouldn't be able to swap them out like that without swapping ships. But I just want to make sure - you're basically saying that Hybrid Seats are Specialist/Career and they're not Intel/Career sorts of things, right? Or is it more a case of being able to change the Specialization on the BOFF because we've changed ships and then can change the BOFF's Specialization? Yeah, some clarity there would be nifty.
Stations & Ability Selection
Not only has the Skills screen had a major overhaul to the interface for bridge officers but also the Stations screen has received a lot of attention. Besides numerous interface improvements to the screen players will now be able to swap out individual bridge officer abilities directly on the Stations screen. This will allow players to quickly and easily customize their bridge officer abilities to the ship stations.
Er...okay...I guess, lol. I'm more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy than whether it comes on a pretty plate or not.
Subject to Change!
As a reminder the Bridge Officer Training system is still under development and is subject to change. We are still testing the system and will be looking for additional feedback from the STO community once released on the Tribble Test Server.
That going to be a normal Tribble thing or are we looking at Tribble being locked to Gold for that particular testing?
* * * * *
Doh, just because I wasn't going to ask the question again about the BOFF only abilities - I ended up forgetting there was another question I had based on part of that:
Not only that, but we have also exposed new ranks of some abilities that were previously unavailable.
Does that mean we're going to be potentially looking at Rank 4 abilities? Which will likely end up being Lock Box stuff? Cause uh...for the most part I was just cruising through there pretty happy overall, wee concerns here and there...but that, Rank 4 stuff - which is what that sounds like (not just Rank 3 of stuff that wasn't available before)...and it being hidden behind something like a Lock Box - that would just outright suck.
These changes are good. I can now train my Tactical SRO BOFFs in a specialization which gives me more flexibility in my bridge station layout. I used to have to find a way to make it work by putting them in the non-Intel Tacticals and universals.
I was liking this update right upto the point where it said Training manuals would require uncommon materials and dilithium... (anyone wanna bet they'll require Tritanium, which is already over-used and under-dropped in game).
I'm not excited about going from a system that only needs EC to one that needs materials, Dilithium and EC.
Just realized they won't even have to develop new skills as such. Just Ultra-Rare skill books for Attack Pattern Beta 4 and Gravity Well 4 and so on.
Oh man I didn't even think of that. Way to go if they hadn't they have now. lol
Kidden... this is now a possibility though ya. I seem to remember Geko making a off hand comment about the BOFF system not being easily monetizable at some point a few years back.
Or they can just bypass that all and use energy credits, which are still free. There is no EC cap, nor is there any necessity to buying Zen.
{Snipped down}
Just want to say its not really speculation. Its speculation as to weather it comes with the next spec tree for sure. Its not long term though. They have always said Intel was just the first of many new sub classes for Boffs. The only question is do we get it soon or further down the road. It will come at some point.
Your right there will always be the option to use EC... myself I could care less. Should I decide to come back to the game I have 2-3 Bil in liquid EC... and another 5-8 Bil worth of Merch, and its diversified enough with traits / ships ect that I am not to worried about it getting devalued on me. Should I come back I have no worries. Honesty it just annoys me that they are going to make this game even harder to jump into for new players. (cause healthy MMOs need to keep new people for more then a few months). Make no mistake the powerful skills from the crafting tie in are going to all cost 5+ mil each... cause there going to have long time gates and direct D costs. Which means to keep up with demand crafters will be using the Finish now button and that will be added to the cost of those skills just like its added to the other level 15 Crafted gear. As for the lockbox boff skills (that is a bit of spectulation I admit, still seems highly likely doesn't it) yes they will be able to buy stuff like that for EC from people like me that when I play will open 100 lockboxes a day easily. Guess what if I'm playing those things are going to be EXPENSIVE. Cause I will make sure of it. lol
I may gift one now and then to a newer PvP player I like or something to assuage my conscience.
I've had enough. I've uninstalled and PWE will not get a single cent more from me on any of their games. I'm tired of more and more intrusive Asian MMO money draining mechanics. **** that, I'm done.
I've had enough. I've uninstalled and PWE will not get a single cent more from me on any of their games. I'm tired of more and more intrusive Asian MMO money draining mechanics. **** that, I'm done.
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No, you just purchase your skills off the exchange from people who don't mind crafting. The same as everything else.
at insane prices as usual!
Chance to upgrade to next level, each piece of tech will be 500,000 k and training just the 1 officer will cost 5 million dil
Each of the crafters are going to be competing against one another to see what they can sell the fastest. Bridge officer abilities will actually have a true value attached to them, scaled by the dilithium cost needed to make them.
With mulitple bridge officer ability crafters each trying to move their merchandise as fast as possible while making as much money as possible, they will just be undercutting one another.
Undercutting is good because it means no insane prices and with the natural economics of supply and demand, we will see which abilities actually are valuable, compared to abilities that are artifically inflated due to previous scarcity.
Unless you think spending 14 million EC or more on a bridge officer after mousing over the list on the exchange isn't insane.
you don't even run the 20 hr project? That's all I've done and I'm 15 in 4 schools and 13 in the other 3. I don't even log on every day. If you haven't been running even the 20 hr project then...
Don't forget doffing and contraband ... anyway, I'd agree with the cynic
in my opinion all the prices are too high :rolleyes:
how the new players will train their boffs if they need dil? at the lower levels, it's impossible to earn a lot of dil, and when you begin to play at this "game", you want to try a lot of skills.
this "game" is just a piece of TRIBBLE now; they add dil sink everywhere, remove all the pleasure. we don't PLAY, we are just pushers of sliders. give us MISSIONS, FUN and PLEASURE. we are like Sisyphus condemned to do always the same thing day after day:
"As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to endlessly roll a huge boulder up a steep hill.[3] [10] [11] The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top which ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration."
Last I checked the only boffs that go for north of 4-5 mil are ones with Traits. It has nothing to do with the skills on them.
Traits aren't changing. Good reman and romulan boffs with Sup traits are still going to go for high EC.
There are only the following skills that are "expensive".
- Transfer Shield Strength. (mainly because it is a fairly rare drop) Still not hard to find this one for 700k on a weekend.
- Torp Spread 3... way to get this for free of course still semi rare and 500k-2mil depending on faction is pretty standard last I checked.
- Energy Siphen 3... a bit more rare on the KDF side, still not that popular a choice of skill anyway so it doesn't tend to be to crazy ec wise as long as there are some on the market.
- Polarized Hull 3... not that rare and not that popular so its normally pretty cheap
- Tykens 3... enough of them out there that I have never seen it get expensive or hard to find.
- Beam Overload 3... These are pretty common. Market workers try to push these now and then but by the weekends supply always outstrips demand.
- Omega 3... dime a dozen still for none tacs you buy boffs but there plentiful and cheap.
- RSP 3... pretty common and not to expensive.
- Aux to Sif 3... used to get pretty expensive. Its not as popular as it once was and the supply isn't really that bad. Much like Overload 3 the odd market worker will try but the supply always overruns there attempts to make profits.
- B party 3... ya dime a dozen.
So there it is... NOTHING in there is expensive really. On a thursday morning with few newer players selling there boffs a few of them do dry up as they are somewhat rare drops. They are all easy to find on a weekend though.
Does the system make a lot of sense right now... no. Destroying a Boff to train was always a bit silly. That doesn't mean we should be happy about ANOTHER system being revamped to tie into the crafting system. (Which puts more strain on crafting resourses which WILL mean more expensive Tech as well... at least at first. Hard to say after we haven't seen material costs or anything yet). Lets all also get a bit real here... we know a new spec is coming shortly (perhaps at the same time) and there will be new specialized boff skills (like Intel) and that will mean new skills. I have no doubt that new Level 3s for these won't unlock form spec tree anymore (which I admit isn't bad) however I bet they will be expensive crafted items on par with things like the Omni Beam and Plasma Emish Torp. So look forward to new skill level 3s never going under 8-10 Mil EC. Which means they will cost people a lot more then the "rare" stuff costs now. Then there is always the lockbox component. Anyone taking bets on what OP new Level 3 abilities are coming to a Golden Ferengi Skill book near you soon ? lol
This system may be more logical for the basic skills... still it won't be cheaper then just going to a skill trainer is right now. A few skills some people find a pain to find right now like TSS3 perhaps becomes a bit easier to get. A few skills that are super annoying to train right now cause they require spec unlocks like the level 3 Intel stuff might be easier to get for people willing to spend $ (cause crafting those isn't going to be trivial... so new players will be forced to buy Zen and sell it) It also opens the door to some more nasty power creep, and true P2W when they dovetail this system into the lockbox setup.
... but, instead of being virtually instantaneous and costing only trivial amounts of EC and quantities of expertise (which last every endgame character has in abundance), it will now also cost dilithium, and I strongly suspect these "manuals" will require time to prepare (though they will have a handy "finish now" button which you can press if you want to spend more dilithium.)
We gain in flexibility... and we gain in Moar Grind. Does Cryptic have some kind of industrial-strength Fun Hoover over there, with which to suck every single trace of enjoyment out of the game?
Why there going to be useless unless you plan to commision them and use them with that ability.
Player-based economies don't care what you think. There are people who will be willing to pay the prices set and there will be people who will be upset that they can't afford those prices.
These changes attach true value to bridge officer abilities. Meaning that it will actually be worthwhile for some people to craft skillbooks and sell them to other players. If certain players are too low in level, then there's a bridge officer trainer who will sell books to them.
If the bridge officer trainer sells manuals for dilithium instead of energy credits, and a new player is unable to purchase it? Then the ones sold by the bridge officer trainer can still be listed on the exchange. Which again, is subject to the laws of supply and demand and players attempting to undercut one another for what they can sell the manuals for.
Skills need to be valuable in the game. A Dilithium cost linked to it ensures that skills remain valuable. Without a dilithium cost, all player skills become worthless and not worth the time spent crafting them and posting them on the exchange.
These changes actually incentivize players into participating in the skill revamp.
Just realized they won't even have to develop new skills as such. Just Ultra-Rare skill books for Attack Pattern Beta 4 and Gravity Well 4 and so on.
It's something that player like me have been asking tohave for a number of years. I can't hve the abilities I want to have on my Bound BOFFs that don't have the same career path as their Captains.
You never know, I predict since it will take tiem to get all tier III abilities, prices will rise, people will want those abilities, right now boffs are really cheap, so this feels like a low risk high reward operation..
i know, but like yours my opinion is valuable
however, a lot of players won't share your point of view: they don't want to craft stuff, they don't want to buy a stupid book to craft an ability etc. the old system wasn't perfect but at least it was accessible for all.
a fight against a cryptic's white-knight is impossible with my poor english; so enjoy the new system
Truth be told, I never check those prices unless I'm actually in need of one of those skills (which isn't often). The time spent mousing over bridge officers on the exchange gives me a headache and is really quite boring.
Oftentimes a skill I want I just end up forgetting about using due to the price asked for, when I can replace that skill with a similar one for less price. For instance, Hazard Emitters III vs. Transfer Shield Strength III. Sure, it might mean I won't get what I really wanted, but HE III can be substituted in a pinch.
All of which requires you to mouse over each one going down the last, page after page hoping to find one for cheap. Cheap is still relative. What is considered expensive to you or I may not be considered expensive to other players.
It still comes down to whether a small dilithium cost is worth what players are asking for now, and the time spent manually looking at each bridge officer on the exchange.
I still argue the new changes are better.
I personally am pleased with the bridge officer revamp. With crafting mats becoming more valuable as they are added to more things, that means more players who have no desire to craft at all can still sell the raw materials and still make some pocket change.
Whether it's bridge officer abilities or crafted gear, non-crafters benefit from low prices from crafters undercutting oneanother on the exchange, and they benefit from their mats being more valuable to sell on the exchange to the crafters.
That's all speculation but it still doesn't take away from the fact this was a necessary quality of life upgrade, and many people will actually be able to use bridge officers abilities they may not be able to previously afford, or find a captain to train them, or what have you.
Not to mention bridge officers who are bound to your character, like my liberated borg engineer from my Amazon pre-order. Completely unable to use more valuable engineering skills like Engineering Team III or Emergency Power to Shields III. And now she will be able to.
Or they can just bypass that all and use energy credits, which are still free. There is no EC cap, nor is there any necessity to buying Zen.
i have read the article, and yet the BASIC stuff; but we all know that if you use the BASIC stuff, you need a huge amount of dil. my post was about DILITHIUM not about ec; you should read also carefully all the sentences.
So instead, I'm just going to post this final reply in this thread to the actual blog: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9052733-bridge-officer-training
Aye, it's been over three years now...meh; but I'm glad you're finally getting around to it. Had really hoped it was coming with X2/DR, but some of that stuff mentioned with it being delayed again had me thinking it wouldn't happen until after the Skill Revamp and that itself wouldn't likely happen until S11 or later. Glad this is finally being looked at.
That swapped out on the fly looks interesting, eh? No more having to rerun to a BOFF trainer to change something - no more needing to hunt down folks or loading up a second client to switch stuff around - not having to carry an army of BOFFs. Sounds nifty.
So that's how they'll be able to swap things out - they're going to store the various abilities they've got and then it's just a case of picking which they use. Sounds great. Geko has talked about the skill book thing forever, so this must have been something idling along the way forever too, eh?
Whoa there, so what you're saying is folks that have their Roms/Remans or folks with Embassy Roms, folks with Naus Pirates, or whatever they've got there...they can train any of their BOFFs in Specializations, meaning that every BOFF can be a hybrid BOFF and not just the hybrid already BOFFs? Heh, I want to make some jokes about Pakled Intelligence BOFFs. :P
But yeah, that's pretty damn awesome sounding.
Hrmm, a bunch of those consumed BOFFs were because of abilities not available from Captain training or from other players. Want to see if there's any clarification on how that's being handled, and if not - I'll bring it up again at the end of this reply.
That's a little concerning. Sure, I might be swimming in Expertise right now - but how is something like that going to affect new players. Just what kind of increase are we looking at for the cost there? Are we looking at a cost where folks will still buy a bunch of BOFF slots because of that increased cost in Expertise? Hrmm, cause yeah - say I've got a Sci BOFF that I want all those abilities on - just how expensive will that get? Compared to an Eng BOFF with fewer abilities, etc, etc, etc - should I prepare myself to still have various stables of BOFFs because of that cost?
Okay, that sounds pretty clear outside of those BOFF abilities that one could only find on a BOFF. Are those TMs going to be available from the BOFF Trainers or are they going to be craftable items?
Yep, that's kind of the crux of the issue there - the BOFFs that couldn't be traded or having to find somebody that could train those that could be traded. This is definitely nifty.
"Many of..." would that get into those from Captain training, the BOFF only abilities...but it's not an "All..." sort of thing, does that mean maybe the BOFF abilities will be there? Yeah, I'm sounding like a broken record there. Guess I've asked it enough not to ask it at the end.
So the things we used to be able to train our BOFFs for free, more or less, even for those we're going to need to do the crafted TMs? Hrmmm...
...and as a massive aside, mentioning that change to the Skill System - it's way off topic, but how big of a change are you looking at there since so much gear out there includes various Skill boosts - abilities do as well...yeah, yeah, I know - more on that later whenever/ifever you guys get to that.
But uh, yeah - we'll need to craft books for stuff we were able to do basically free? Hrmm, obviously the crafting is going to require some resources - any chance there will be two types of books? Bound and Unbound...stuff that's cheaper for us to use and stuff that's more expensive for when we want to hook somebody else up or whatever? Oh well, going to continue reading...
(yes, I've already read through this a few times - but I'm writing out this reply as if it were the first time I was reading it)
That's cool though, cause you said we could pick them up off the Exchange.
Okay then, getting into the meat of things here a bit so to speak...so some questions.
The PADD component there, that sounds like the VR components. Is the PADD going to be a VR component where we're looking at a Dil cost of 500 or 4000 Dil? Personally, 4000 Dil wouldn't be "small" - it's not a lot, but it's not "small" either. So would we be looking at 500 Dil? Or is it maybe going to be a Rare component with a Dil cost that's "smaller" than 500 Dil?
What kind of duration are we going to be looking at for crafting these PADDs? Seconds? Minutes?
Hrmm, will be interesting to see how the Exchange reacts to things based on the costs - available R&D slots...the "value" of the PADD vs. a skill book and so forth. Hrmmm...will have to see.
Guessing that this SQ's going to cost more to craft than the PADD, eh?
With this training, it's not overwriting any of their abilities though, right? It's just adding four available abilities to their list of available abilities, yeah?
What kind of Expertise cost is going to be involved in dropping a SQ out on a BOFF?
Ah, there's the increased cost...hrmm, what's the original cost and increased cost going to look like for doing this?
Will the SMs cost more to craft than the TMs?
The question that keeps popping in to my mind with this...is what does this mean for the current ships with Hybrid Seats, where we've currently been slotting Intel/whatever in them. Does this mean we'll be able to slot other Specialization/whatever in them or will those be limited to a particular specialization. Cause uh, otherwise, we wouldn't be able to swap them out like that without swapping ships. But I just want to make sure - you're basically saying that Hybrid Seats are Specialist/Career and they're not Intel/Career sorts of things, right? Or is it more a case of being able to change the Specialization on the BOFF because we've changed ships and then can change the BOFF's Specialization? Yeah, some clarity there would be nifty.
Er...okay...I guess, lol. I'm more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy than whether it comes on a pretty plate or not.
That going to be a normal Tribble thing or are we looking at Tribble being locked to Gold for that particular testing?
* * * * *
Doh, just because I wasn't going to ask the question again about the BOFF only abilities - I ended up forgetting there was another question I had based on part of that:
Does that mean we're going to be potentially looking at Rank 4 abilities? Which will likely end up being Lock Box stuff? Cause uh...for the most part I was just cruising through there pretty happy overall, wee concerns here and there...but that, Rank 4 stuff - which is what that sounds like (not just Rank 3 of stuff that wasn't available before)...and it being hidden behind something like a Lock Box - that would just outright suck.
I'm not excited about going from a system that only needs EC to one that needs materials, Dilithium and EC.
Oh man I didn't even think of that. Way to go if they hadn't they have now.
Kidden... this is now a possibility though ya. I seem to remember Geko making a off hand comment about the BOFF system not being easily monetizable at some point a few years back.
... it would be only fair if your abilities cost a million or 2
Just want to say its not really speculation. Its speculation as to weather it comes with the next spec tree for sure. Its not long term though. They have always said Intel was just the first of many new sub classes for Boffs. The only question is do we get it soon or further down the road. It will come at some point.
Your right there will always be the option to use EC... myself I could care less. Should I decide to come back to the game I have 2-3 Bil in liquid EC... and another 5-8 Bil worth of Merch, and its diversified enough with traits / ships ect that I am not to worried about it getting devalued on me. Should I come back I have no worries. Honesty it just annoys me that they are going to make this game even harder to jump into for new players. (cause healthy MMOs need to keep new people for more then a few months). Make no mistake the powerful skills from the crafting tie in are going to all cost 5+ mil each... cause there going to have long time gates and direct D costs. Which means to keep up with demand crafters will be using the Finish now button and that will be added to the cost of those skills just like its added to the other level 15 Crafted gear. As for the lockbox boff skills (that is a bit of spectulation I admit, still seems highly likely doesn't it) yes they will be able to buy stuff like that for EC from people like me that when I play will open 100 lockboxes a day easily. Guess what if I'm playing those things are going to be EXPENSIVE. Cause I will make sure of it. lol
I may gift one now and then to a newer PvP player I like or something to assuage my conscience.
See you in a few months.