I can currently train a bridge officer in something fairly useful - say DEM III, on the toon I have active just now - for 300 EC, the cost in expertise for levelling the boff afterwards, and the time it takes to find and click the right buttons.
So, I'm wondering what Cryptic will consider "reasonable" for being able to create a DEM III "manual" under the new system. My guess is 640 dilithium and a six hour timegate, skippable with (you guessed it) more dilithium. Anyone else want to pitch in with a guess?
But hey, at least I will be able to swap the resulting item to an alt, or trade it with a fleetmate, or sell it on the exchange. Whoop de doo, there's an improvement.
Y'know, if I wanted to play "Space Accountants With Guns", there's always EVE.
Y'know, if I wanted to play "Space Accountants With Guns", there's always EVE.
actually, accounting for Dilithium/Zen exchange rates, I do believe that this will make EVE online cheaper to play / month than STO. This is NOT accounting for all the hoops to jump through with either game, just a simple X dollar amount / month.
This... might actually make me consider booting up my EVE account.
But hey, at least I will be able to swap the resulting item to an alt, or trade it with a fleetmate, or sell it on the exchange. Whoop de doo, there's an improvement.
One point in favour of the new system - if I'm reading it right - is that skills are now never lost. So if you've trained a BOff in (say) DEM3, you don't lose that if they then train in A2SIF3 but can switch between the two.
So while the initial outlay is greater, the result is permanent - unlike the current system where you would lose that rare skill if retraining the BOff. Not so much of an issue with Captain-trainable skills but definitely one where Rare BOffs are the only solution (A2SIF3, Torp Spread 3, CSV 3 for example).
I must admit I also like the idea that my Alts can cross-train each others' BOffs.
Only if you don't have a work and family that you want to give attention bud...
You make it sound like it takes 8 hours a day to get dillithium. You even earn it passively by using Doffs. Collecting contraband and turning it in requires a few minutes for example. We are not talking about upgrading your whole armada of ships to epic Mk XIV here. :P
Uh, guys? You don't have to buy dil with zen. There are tons of reliable ways to win it in the game.
Yeah there are many sources with a somewhat decent dil payout but you know whats else in the game? A crapton of places where you need a buttload of said dil.
This whole process would be perfectly fine without the involvement of a timegated ressource. It's just there to push people to buy zen and convert it for the sake of milking wallets and that's what people are fed up with.
The conept of the new system is brilliant as it allows us to train bound boffs, makes it easier to get specific skills onto specific boffs and because they don't lose them permanently and skills can be switched out we don't need like 30 differen boffs anymore when we have various builds one one character.
But as so many pointed out, all we can expcet from this will result in a bordeline (or even completly) broken mess with a ridiculous price tag attached to it and it's not just some vague guess or a hunch. It was exactly like that with every revamp and bigger addtion in 2014.
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.
As far as I can see, there is no explicit Dilithium Cost attached to purchasing a manual from the BO trainers, nor training a skill.
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.
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.
So the crafting cost will only be relevant when we get to Rank III abilities - where we gain a lot of flexibility in trading them. And since skills are now learned permanently, you won't spend Dilithium often, since instead of slotting a different BOFF, you can configure your BOFF for something different.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
If I understand good , the system becomes from captain trainable abilities and boff trainable abilities (which consumes a boff and some abilities are hard to find and are expensive f.e. BO III) to new craftable item called training manual? That's good change, only bad thing , it will be for dilitium.
And second thing, next time the devs , pls try balance abilities (powers), some of them are weak f.e. tachyon beam, aceton beam, DEM (without Marion) and some of them are overpowered like BFAW or APO, some of them are near useless in pve and broken in pvp - looking on intel vapers with emp probes and subnuc waves.
Instead of creating new icons you should compare the numbers from abilities , compare dmg from f.e. Tachyon beam or DEM with BFAW.
Still i waiting for purple intelligence boffs available for players who didn't bought a delta pack.
Yeah there are many sources with a somewhat decent dil payout but you know whats else in the game? A crapton of places where you need a buttload of said dil.
No. There isn't. I've been playing for a little over a year, and I've bought exactly two items that needed Dilithium. There's lots places where you have the potential to spend a 'buttload of dil', but you don't need to.
All my Dil has gone to getting me Zen, which I only spend when there's a sale on.
First off, your "simple" solution doesn't help the fact that people with multiple ships they like to fly need to have either a lot of BoFFs (with extra slots costing zen) OR they need to constantly retrain the ones they have.
Secondly, your "simple" solution ain't that simple. Adding skills to BoFF trainer is pretty easy I would suspect...but considering how long it took them to just add in a bloody R&D tab, I suspect that the exchange code is a bit of a bear to modify. And that was JUST to add a tab and you want a search option that looks into the details of an item and you think that will be SIMPLE?!? Yeah...no. You seem to be under the rather mistaken impression that the systems in this game were well written and easy to modify instead of rushed together and pushed out to meet a due date.
And you want them to spend dev time with no monetary return. Sure, they could do that...till they run out of money and have to close. Seriously people, this is a COMPANY...not a charity. They don't make money, they close. Hell, they don't make ENOUGH money, they close. In this day and age, you don't have to be just profitable anymore to stay afloat. Trust me, the devs have WAY more vested intested in this game continuing then you do. For you it's just a game after all.
If you read my post, i do say they should implement the system adding to the old one, so yes, my simple solution takes care of the multiple ships/not having to retrain skills. It's the cost increase, the time sink and the more than possible abuse of a system by cryptic putting skills into lockboxes what i don't agree with. All those things are not needed at all to implement the good changes they are proposing.
Improving the Exchange Search difficult??? you've never programmed anything, have you? Search engines are the first thing you learn to code if you are a coder. Do you think they don't already have a database with all the specs of every
I think you guys have it wrong. I think it will be a very small amount of dil, I don't think this change is meant as a dil sink.
I think it is the beginning of an endless spec point grind treadmill of new specialization trees/powers.
If it was only a small amount of dilithium there'd be no reason for them to want that small amount of dilithium. Think about it, why would they want 200 dil per item? It wouldn't be worth it.
I think you guys have it wrong. I think it will be a very small amount of dil, I don't think this change is meant as a dil sink.
I think it is the beginning of an endless spec point grind treadmill of new specialization trees/powers.
endless with alot gaps where you don't have to do anything maybe... more so if you don't buy alot ships. new boff spec only matter if you can use em... granted ground doesn't need the right ship but alot, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say most, don't like ground much anyway. it easy to, no need to brother with boff specs.
personally the ability to update older boffs with new skills/specs outweights a little dil and grind, more so if you payed for 'em.. other may disagree of course but I like this change.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
For all of those who says it will be another dill sink:
1. You don't know how much dill will one PADD even cost
2. How many lv III skills are there? 30? 40? And you pay once for learning (and learning itself won't cost you any dilithium). Even if PADD will cost 1k dilithium this gave what 30-40k dilithium less then 5 day of play and you pay it once and only if you want to make all PADDs yourself. Don't want pay with dilithium, then buy PADD from Exchange with EC.
3. Permanent training means you can have one boff for 2-3 build, instead 2-3 separate boffs one for each build. And that means 2 BOff slots less needed. Slots which cost 250 ZEN which gives more then 40k dilithium with current exchange ratio. So I would say that I will probably spend less dilithium training my alts boffs with 3-4 lv III skills than by buying them slots for new officers.
If it was only a small amount of dilithium there'd be no reason for them to want that small amount of dilithium. Think about it, why would they want 200 dil per item? It wouldn't be worth it.
Supposing it is 200 dil per Padd. How much dil will you end up spending? If you consider just one ship and one set of officers for a T5-U that's 12 slots(this is if padds are the only way to train beyond one skill or if this is just limiting to class specific abilities) at 2400 dil, that's not cheap.
I'm also willing to bet its not gonna just be 200 dil. probably closer to at least 360.
Oh, and they'll still get you to buy more BoFF slots too. How you ask, because this system will probably start breaking the more load you put on it.
I won't be using this system at all. I would recommend that if you want to use it, to go to Tribble and do testing. I'm sure more bugs will crop over on Live even with testing on Tribble. The trick then will be getting Devs to listen to you if you find issues.
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Supposing it is 200 dil per Padd. How much dil will you end up spending? If you consider just one ship and one set of officers for a T5-U that's 12 slots(this is if padds are the only way to train beyond one skill or if this is just limiting to class specific abilities) at 2400 dil, that's not cheap.
I'm also willing to bet its not gonna just be 200 dil. probably closer to at least 360.
Oh, and they'll still get you to buy more BoFF slots too. How you ask, because this system will probably start breaking the more load you put on it.
I won't be using this system at all. I would recommend that if you want to use it, to go to Tribble and do testing. I'm sure more bugs will crop over on Live even with testing on Tribble. The trick then will be getting Devs to listen to you if you find issues.
The dilithium cost is only to craft the skills you can't buy outright from the skill trainer for EC, and if you can't craft a skill (or don't want to), you can always buy ones that other people have crafted off the exchange. If you don't want to spend dilithium on it, it doesn't look like you will have to. That's the first thing.
The second thing is that I find it hilarious that you consider 2400 dilithium to be "not cheap" - are you joking? That's like... 10 minutes of work in they Dyson zone? Maybe 12 minutes doing quick ground STFs?
The third thing is that you are obviously not getting that once you train a Boff with a skill, it doesn't go away - you can freely swap skills in and out like you can with traits now - thus, you won't NEED to train different Boff sets for each different ship, because you can just slap the powers you want on the Boffs you are already using.
Fourth thing - your bit about how somehow putting more load on the system is going to break everything and force you to buy more boff slots? That is simply incoherent gibberish. I can't even respond to it beyond that. On face it's an absurd statement. You are clearly just letting your irrational anger run away with you, and spouting whatever nonsense comes to mind. You should stop.
Fifth thing - you clearly don't know enough about the system to be making proclamations about how you will never use it. If you were a tabletop rpg character, I would say that this post earns you the special trait "Fleet of mouth", where instead of thinking in the thinking phase, you simply roll a d6 and make that many angry posts.
Sounds like a better system. Cryptic can charge as much dilithium as they want, sounds way better than fiddling around with the boff trainer and exchange all the time.
I believe the point being emphasized is that this is showing a trend toward monetizing more systems, not the actual cost. Sure, 100 or even 1,000 dil isn't all that much. Keep monetizing more and more systems and this will eventually add up.
This.
It's still a dilithium sink even if it's a "nickel and dime to death" dilithium sink.
I'm of the opinion that nothing new will go into the game without a dilithium/zen cost attached to it, at this point.
Improving the Exchange Search difficult??? you've never programmed anything, have you? Search engines are the first thing you learn to code if you are a coder.
Hello World has stepped its game up from my day then.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's still a dilithium sink even if it's a "nickel and dime to death" dilithium sink.
I'm of the opinion that nothing new will go into the game without a dilithium/zen cost attached to it, at this point.
Yes, I agree - it does make sense that if Cryptic is going to spend dev time on a new system, they should have a way to recoup those costs. You are right - this is entirely reasonable and a rational thing for them to do.
Yes, I agree - it does make sense that if Cryptic is going to spend dev time on a new system, they should have a way to recoup those costs. You are right - this is entirely reasonable and a rational thing for them to do.
So... why are you acting like it's a bad thing?
I think they have enough ways to "recoup costs."
This is starting to remind me of the KDF. Circular fail logic.
Add monetization. Some people leave because of this. Others blindly throw money at it. A few tolerate it.
Add more monetization. More leave because of this. Some blindly throw money at it. A few grudgingly tolerate it.
Add more monetization. Even more leave because of it. Some blindly throw money at it. A few complain, and barely tolerate it.
More monetization---makes some people leave, which means they need---more monetization---makes some people leave, which means they need---more monetization....
I believe the point being emphasized is that this is showing a trend toward monetizing more systems, not the actual cost. Sure, 100 or even 1,000 dil isn't all that much. Keep monetizing more and more systems and this will eventually add up.
If monetization is an issue for you then don't craft pads. Simple as that. Even R+D and upgrades don't necessarily incur a dil cost if you work from the exchange for all your gear. It is however nice to spend resources to upgrade and build what you want to. That could work from the stock of some other resources besides dil but it is a handy way of translating playtime to currency that maintains some consistency across a player's experience with the game (see. what 1,000,000 ec means to a fresh 50 on their first playthrough verus a veteran with 10 alts.)
Its an unfortunate byproduct of adding more stuff to the game that you're less able to afford absolutely everything you may want but stating the matter as a problem is missing the point of the game by quite a bit. The status quo of income/expense isn't, by any stetch of the imagination, a concept worth maintaining for a video game (systems and content should evolve).
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I believe the point being emphasized is that this is showing a trend toward monetizing more systems, not the actual cost. Sure, 100 or even 1,000 dil isn't all that much. Keep monetizing more and more systems and this will eventually add up.
Guess what, all idea in earning dilithium is for spending it later for something. Real problem which I see with some people here is fact that they want everything right now, instead earn it through time. And this is how good F2P works, have everything for free and "pay" with time, or get what you want right now but deal with fact that it will cost you $.
What is more as it was said here, you wan't have to pay even 1 dilithium if you don't want to. All needed items will be on exchange.
Supposing it is 200 dil per Padd. How much dil will you end up spending? If you consider just one ship and one set of officers for a T5-U that's 12 slots(this is if padds are the only way to train beyond one skill or if this is just limiting to class specific abilities) at 2400 dil, that's not cheap.
But only 4 of those are rank III abilities, which are the only ones you can't buy directly from the trainer and need to go through the crafting process.
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.
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.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Well, why do you all hate this revamp? Let me point-out a few things:
- With more then 1 set of abilities for each Bridge-Officer you need less BOFF-Slots for the same amount of ships/loadouts - you save Zen,
- you can add specializations to your BOFFs, so they become even more versatile,
- you don't have to keep BOFF-Slots free for training-use,
- you don't need to buy so many Superior Infiltrators/Operatives anymore, since you can use them with different abilities in different BOFF-Stations or on multiple ships - You save a lot of ECs,
- If you own a special BOFF (Zen-Store Borg, Lobi-Store,...) that is untradeable (after unpacking) and you want a special ability (that would require Captains-Training from another character atm.) on it, this is your chance.
-> For each 2 BOFF-Slots that you don't need to buy, you save 250 Zen, converted to Dilithium that might be enough for a 1 or 2 new abilities.
Yes, Dilithium needs to be earned by someone, if you are selling your Dilithium for Zen, then an increased demand means that Dilithium is worth more, if you are buying Dilithium, then you get a little less Dilithium per Zen.
We need to see the final numbers on this revamp, then we can still say:"The game is doomed", but not before that time.
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If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Comments
They are not going to do this right?! Please anybody tell me they are not doing this!
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So, I'm wondering what Cryptic will consider "reasonable" for being able to create a DEM III "manual" under the new system. My guess is 640 dilithium and a six hour timegate, skippable with (you guessed it) more dilithium. Anyone else want to pitch in with a guess?
But hey, at least I will be able to swap the resulting item to an alt, or trade it with a fleetmate, or sell it on the exchange. Whoop de doo, there's an improvement.
Y'know, if I wanted to play "Space Accountants With Guns", there's always EVE.
actually, accounting for Dilithium/Zen exchange rates, I do believe that this will make EVE online cheaper to play / month than STO. This is NOT accounting for all the hoops to jump through with either game, just a simple X dollar amount / month.
This... might actually make me consider booting up my EVE account.
One point in favour of the new system - if I'm reading it right - is that skills are now never lost. So if you've trained a BOff in (say) DEM3, you don't lose that if they then train in A2SIF3 but can switch between the two.
So while the initial outlay is greater, the result is permanent - unlike the current system where you would lose that rare skill if retraining the BOff. Not so much of an issue with Captain-trainable skills but definitely one where Rare BOffs are the only solution (A2SIF3, Torp Spread 3, CSV 3 for example).
I must admit I also like the idea that my Alts can cross-train each others' BOffs.
Only if you don't have a work and family that you want to give attention bud...
You make it sound like it takes 8 hours a day to get dillithium. You even earn it passively by using Doffs. Collecting contraband and turning it in requires a few minutes for example. We are not talking about upgrading your whole armada of ships to epic Mk XIV here. :P
Yeah there are many sources with a somewhat decent dil payout but you know whats else in the game? A crapton of places where you need a buttload of said dil.
This whole process would be perfectly fine without the involvement of a timegated ressource. It's just there to push people to buy zen and convert it for the sake of milking wallets and that's what people are fed up with.
The conept of the new system is brilliant as it allows us to train bound boffs, makes it easier to get specific skills onto specific boffs and because they don't lose them permanently and skills can be switched out we don't need like 30 differen boffs anymore when we have various builds one one character.
But as so many pointed out, all we can expcet from this will result in a bordeline (or even completly) broken mess with a ridiculous price tag attached to it and it's not just some vague guess or a hunch. It was exactly like that with every revamp and bigger addtion in 2014.
So the crafting cost will only be relevant when we get to Rank III abilities - where we gain a lot of flexibility in trading them. And since skills are now learned permanently, you won't spend Dilithium often, since instead of slotting a different BOFF, you can configure your BOFF for something different.
how much dilithium? It'll be a timegate thing again associated with a dilithium cost to skip it? 'tis the question
And second thing, next time the devs , pls try balance abilities (powers), some of them are weak f.e. tachyon beam, aceton beam, DEM (without Marion) and some of them are overpowered like BFAW or APO, some of them are near useless in pve and broken in pvp - looking on intel vapers with emp probes and subnuc waves.
Instead of creating new icons you should compare the numbers from abilities , compare dmg from f.e. Tachyon beam or DEM with BFAW.
Still i waiting for purple intelligence boffs available for players who didn't bought a delta pack.
No. There isn't. I've been playing for a little over a year, and I've bought exactly two items that needed Dilithium. There's lots places where you have the potential to spend a 'buttload of dil', but you don't need to.
All my Dil has gone to getting me Zen, which I only spend when there's a sale on.
lol
Let's make a compromise here, it will be both.:D
If you read my post, i do say they should implement the system adding to the old one, so yes, my simple solution takes care of the multiple ships/not having to retrain skills. It's the cost increase, the time sink and the more than possible abuse of a system by cryptic putting skills into lockboxes what i don't agree with. All those things are not needed at all to implement the good changes they are proposing.
Improving the Exchange Search difficult??? you've never programmed anything, have you? Search engines are the first thing you learn to code if you are a coder. Do you think they don't already have a database with all the specs of every
If it was only a small amount of dilithium there'd be no reason for them to want that small amount of dilithium. Think about it, why would they want 200 dil per item? It wouldn't be worth it.
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endless with alot gaps where you don't have to do anything maybe... more so if you don't buy alot ships. new boff spec only matter if you can use em... granted ground doesn't need the right ship but alot, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say most, don't like ground much anyway. it easy to, no need to brother with boff specs.
personally the ability to update older boffs with new skills/specs outweights a little dil and grind, more so if you payed for 'em.. other may disagree of course but I like this change.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
1. You don't know how much dill will one PADD even cost
2. How many lv III skills are there? 30? 40? And you pay once for learning (and learning itself won't cost you any dilithium). Even if PADD will cost 1k dilithium this gave what 30-40k dilithium less then 5 day of play and you pay it once and only if you want to make all PADDs yourself. Don't want pay with dilithium, then buy PADD from Exchange with EC.
3. Permanent training means you can have one boff for 2-3 build, instead 2-3 separate boffs one for each build. And that means 2 BOff slots less needed. Slots which cost 250 ZEN which gives more then 40k dilithium with current exchange ratio. So I would say that I will probably spend less dilithium training my alts boffs with 3-4 lv III skills than by buying them slots for new officers.
Supposing it is 200 dil per Padd. How much dil will you end up spending? If you consider just one ship and one set of officers for a T5-U that's 12 slots(this is if padds are the only way to train beyond one skill or if this is just limiting to class specific abilities) at 2400 dil, that's not cheap.
I'm also willing to bet its not gonna just be 200 dil. probably closer to at least 360.
Oh, and they'll still get you to buy more BoFF slots too. How you ask, because this system will probably start breaking the more load you put on it.
I won't be using this system at all. I would recommend that if you want to use it, to go to Tribble and do testing. I'm sure more bugs will crop over on Live even with testing on Tribble. The trick then will be getting Devs to listen to you if you find issues.
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The dilithium cost is only to craft the skills you can't buy outright from the skill trainer for EC, and if you can't craft a skill (or don't want to), you can always buy ones that other people have crafted off the exchange. If you don't want to spend dilithium on it, it doesn't look like you will have to. That's the first thing.
The second thing is that I find it hilarious that you consider 2400 dilithium to be "not cheap" - are you joking? That's like... 10 minutes of work in they Dyson zone? Maybe 12 minutes doing quick ground STFs?
The third thing is that you are obviously not getting that once you train a Boff with a skill, it doesn't go away - you can freely swap skills in and out like you can with traits now - thus, you won't NEED to train different Boff sets for each different ship, because you can just slap the powers you want on the Boffs you are already using.
Fourth thing - your bit about how somehow putting more load on the system is going to break everything and force you to buy more boff slots? That is simply incoherent gibberish. I can't even respond to it beyond that. On face it's an absurd statement. You are clearly just letting your irrational anger run away with you, and spouting whatever nonsense comes to mind. You should stop.
Fifth thing - you clearly don't know enough about the system to be making proclamations about how you will never use it. If you were a tabletop rpg character, I would say that this post earns you the special trait "Fleet of mouth", where instead of thinking in the thinking phase, you simply roll a d6 and make that many angry posts.
This.
It's still a dilithium sink even if it's a "nickel and dime to death" dilithium sink.
I'm of the opinion that nothing new will go into the game without a dilithium/zen cost attached to it, at this point.
Hello World has stepped its game up from my day then.
Yes, I agree - it does make sense that if Cryptic is going to spend dev time on a new system, they should have a way to recoup those costs. You are right - this is entirely reasonable and a rational thing for them to do.
So... why are you acting like it's a bad thing?
I think they have enough ways to "recoup costs."
This is starting to remind me of the KDF. Circular fail logic.
Add monetization. Some people leave because of this. Others blindly throw money at it. A few tolerate it.
Add more monetization. More leave because of this. Some blindly throw money at it. A few grudgingly tolerate it.
Add more monetization. Even more leave because of it. Some blindly throw money at it. A few complain, and barely tolerate it.
More monetization---makes some people leave, which means they need---more monetization---makes some people leave, which means they need---more monetization....
If monetization is an issue for you then don't craft pads. Simple as that. Even R+D and upgrades don't necessarily incur a dil cost if you work from the exchange for all your gear. It is however nice to spend resources to upgrade and build what you want to. That could work from the stock of some other resources besides dil but it is a handy way of translating playtime to currency that maintains some consistency across a player's experience with the game (see. what 1,000,000 ec means to a fresh 50 on their first playthrough verus a veteran with 10 alts.)
Its an unfortunate byproduct of adding more stuff to the game that you're less able to afford absolutely everything you may want but stating the matter as a problem is missing the point of the game by quite a bit. The status quo of income/expense isn't, by any stetch of the imagination, a concept worth maintaining for a video game (systems and content should evolve).
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Guess what, all idea in earning dilithium is for spending it later for something. Real problem which I see with some people here is fact that they want everything right now, instead earn it through time. And this is how good F2P works, have everything for free and "pay" with time, or get what you want right now but deal with fact that it will cost you $.
What is more as it was said here, you wan't have to pay even 1 dilithium if you don't want to. All needed items will be on exchange.
- With more then 1 set of abilities for each Bridge-Officer you need less BOFF-Slots for the same amount of ships/loadouts - you save Zen,
- you can add specializations to your BOFFs, so they become even more versatile,
- you don't have to keep BOFF-Slots free for training-use,
- you don't need to buy so many Superior Infiltrators/Operatives anymore, since you can use them with different abilities in different BOFF-Stations or on multiple ships - You save a lot of ECs,
- If you own a special BOFF (Zen-Store Borg, Lobi-Store,...) that is untradeable (after unpacking) and you want a special ability (that would require Captains-Training from another character atm.) on it, this is your chance.
-> For each 2 BOFF-Slots that you don't need to buy, you save 250 Zen, converted to Dilithium that might be enough for a 1 or 2 new abilities.
Yes, Dilithium needs to be earned by someone, if you are selling your Dilithium for Zen, then an increased demand means that Dilithium is worth more, if you are buying Dilithium, then you get a little less Dilithium per Zen.
We need to see the final numbers on this revamp, then we can still say:"The game is doomed", but not before that time.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.