The Crafting System is still Bottlenecking

stuartlarkin

I've taken a long break from STO, with season 10 and the constant parade of new ships I couldn't keep up with let alone level a toon in every specialization I just had enough, so if this has already been discussed apologies, I haven't been here.

I love the new crafting system, I applaud the changes to the upgrades so I no longer have to wait an arbitrary amount of hours before my shiny new cannon is ready to go, but I find that already after no more than a week I am starting to get fatigued with the game again and I think the main problem is I can't craft anything. I can pick up green and white mats by the tonne, but Blue especially Z particles are much harder to come by and the purples are a nightmare. The sole source for Purple mats and the best source for blue (Although I find I get fewer Z-particles than anything else, is this just me?) is Advanced or better PVE and there is just no reliable way to earn them, yes with the return to the optional objectives this has freed up the system a lot, but still I only get 1 purple mat for every 15-30 minute encounter and with the huge drop off in PVE numbers outside of events even doing that is hard. PVE which I used to do for a bit of Dil, marks and some fun has become a grind, a chore something I must do even when I don't really want to because to upgrade my ships I must have the purple mats.

This sole sourcing of Materials is the systems bottle neck. Please Cryptic introduce more sources of purple materials. With the removal of the exploration zones, which I fully understand as they were very limited in their verity there is nowhere to get large amounts of crafting materials anymore, even most missions only have 1 white source as opposed to the 2 or 3 green and white included in earlier missions. Without the ability to multiple source the purple materials, beyond R&D packs and PVE the crafting system is a hard to use option. I can make whatever I want, but to do so I will have to suffer PVE's I am not fond of to gather what I need or spend huge sums of EC on the exchange to get my hands on them. This is keeping exchange prices high and losing you players.

I would suggest possibly including advanced R&D packs as rewards for the daily missions in the Battle/Adventure Zones, maybe include normal R&D packs for foundry missions and advanced for Featured. Story missions rewarding R&D packs based on the difficulty you play at, it would certainly add incentive for me to play on advanced more often. Adding a few doff missions to reward purple mats as well would increase the verity. But while players are forced into a cycle of playing elements of the game they don't want to you will suffer an attrition of your player base. Some days I really feel like a good PVE match others I don't and when I don't I find I have to because I need certain materials for an upgrade, it makes me not want to come back. So please increase the sources of Purple and Blue materials, it'll allow players to use the crafting system whatever element of the game they wish to play. If I fancy a few days playing foundry and story missions I shouldn't be penalized because I'm not in a mood for PVE and that's how it feels at the moment, to me anyway. Salvaged tech can stay the province of PVE elite, that would seem appropriate for the challenge and makes sense you get salvage by shooting aliens in the face, but why is it I can only get all the other materials that way?

Maybe you plan to introduce more sources in season 11, I hope so, the talk of exploration is a welcome change of pace and it would make a sensible source for it, but please consider what I've said/typed. Not everyone wants to play PVE all the time and if you want to craft or upgrade that's what you have to do, Material packs as a reward for all elements of the game can only help you as it will free players to play where they want and happy players are staying players, and for me being able to play some story missions a little foundry and maybe a system patrol or two and still be able to upgrade would make me a very happy player.

davefenestrator

DOFF missions hand out piles of blue mats on crits, and you can always sell the excess whites and greens to buy purples on the exchange. Also the Sol and QQo'nos home systems have extra science and exploration missions that don't show up in sector space.

Also don't forget the Request R&D Assistance missions which give both mats and components.

You can also do something else you like that pays credits and buy finished gear or upgrades or mats.

As a last resort you can get EC from selling lockbox keys. Buy the keys with zen or dil traded for zen.

In short, there are many choices.

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stuartlarkin

davefenestrator wrote: »

DOFF missions hand out piles of blue mats on crits, and you can always sell the excess whites and greens to buy purples on the exchange. Also the Sol and QQo'nos home systems have extra science and exploration missions that don't show up in sector space.

Also don't forget the Request R&D Assistance missions which give both mats and components.

You can also do something else you like that pays credits and buy finished gear or upgrades or mats.

As a last resort you can get EC from selling lockbox keys. Buy the keys with zen or dil traded for zen.

In short, there are many choices.

I am aware of all of the things you have mentioned but if I may redress,

Doff missions in the Sphere space hand out a lot of blue mats I am aware but else were you really have to critical them to get any blue materials and its only 1 or 2, and while I have spent a lot of time getting a LOT of purple science boffs this is not something everyone has.

R&D assistance missions while giving a good return do take a fair amount of time to run and are only accessible on Sol/QQo'nos making them something which must be sought out rather than something which you can do in the course of normal game play.

You can by the materials with EC off the exchange as I mentioned and the EC gaining method of your choice is a valid reason keys, fleet modules whatever but have you actually looked at the prices, you will burn through the 3 mill or so you made on a single key sale in 1 R&D project.

Besides all of the things you have pointed out really highlight my point, if you want to craft you are bottle necked by the limited availability of sources for the materials you need. They are not something you can earn in regular game play and the purple materials so vital to upgrading later in the game simply must be bought from the exchange or countless hours of PVE, doesn't it sound better and more enjoyable to have a system where I can earn these materials in normal game play rather than having to spend half the day running from 1 NPC doff mission giver to another and then off specific zones for more doff missions, while the rest of the day locked in a cycle of PVE. If you could earn the materials to craft and upgrade through foundary, story missions and patrols I think you'd be looking at a much more enjoyable player experince where you could grind the things you like rather than hours of PVE and Exchange shopping management.

The Crafting system itself has nothing wrong with it, yes the costs seem high, but then if the materials especially the purple ones could be earned through normal game play wouldn't it flow a lot better and the costs much more manageable?

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earwigvr6

This is why they "Sell" R and D packs.

They are nothing more than greedy. Greed features in everything in this game. In order to get anywhere and do anything with any degree of success and to defy the tediousness of the grind day in day out you are forced into only one option...

Buying things...

Sad but true.

You either get bored to death and grind for several months. Or you buy the stuff.

salazarraze

OP, do you like queues? If so, the crafting system is for you. If not, well then it's not for you. Personally, I like queues. If you're having trouble with a particular queue, try joining the PublicEliteSTF channel in game. You'll have an easier time forming a team and completing a queue successfully. It's a good idea to do 4-5 queues a day (or if you're me, about 20 a day) and save them up over several days or weeks. You'll have all the R&D mats that you'll ever need. And they'll be FREE.

farmallm

I agree on the materials. The system is a far cry from WoW's. And I loved theirs. So my lower level characters was usually geared well as they leveled. This system is rough, as you can't make match sets well, and some mats are near impossible to get.

davefenestrator

Besides all of the things you have pointed out really highlight my point, if you want to craft you are bottle necked by the limited availability of sources for the materials you need. They are not something you can earn in regular game play and the purple materials so vital to upgrading later in the game simply must be bought from the exchange or countless hours of PVE

What game hands you a mountain of precious crafting resources with no extra work besides normal play? (Especially what F2P game, when resources have a sale value?)

Not SWTOR: its best mats come from elite raids, from running the equivalent of DOFF missions (with timers), and to a very limited extent from gathering similar to scanning anomalies in STO. The mats you can gather are planet-specific (so your current planet won't have them) and widely scattered. Also, you can only level one crafting school and mat harvesting, you are not allowed to harvest other mats.

foxrockssocks

In my experience the real bottleneck is Z particles. Initially I thought it was the purple mats too, but those can be accrued fairly reliably, if slowly. Z particles are always random, and a single kit needs what, 3-5 every time? I have tons of purple mats sitting around doing nothing as I work on my Z particle supply.

Some purple mats are dirt cheap too, like Craylon Gas. Cannons are out of favor and the STFs that drop it are some of the most run and easier ones.

Of course white and green materials and even the other non-Z blues are all generally useless because you can't make anything useful with them, without Z particles. Then again, if you're willing to fork over extra dilithium, you can use the lower quality kits and make them in bulk easily and cheaply. That option is usually forgotten (for good reason), but it is there.

davefenestrator

Normal play like story missions does give dil, so 2 extra story missions gives you the extra dil to use 2 blue upgrades instead of 1 purple.

Even single-player games like Skyrim make you do extra work for mats -- you wander and clear out random caves, drag piles of junk to vendors, sell them to get the ore or gear.

mosul33

OP, that entire game, not just the R&D system, is bottleneking the rewards. Its the new "fun" of grinding for scraps till it breaks your spirit

davefenestrator

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

thatcursedwolf

RNG isn't work, it's annoyance and hassle.

mustrumridcully0

I think bottlenecking is a feature. In an MMO, you want your players to return regularly. If you could have everything immediately, you would not need to do that.​​

adastra1930

I don't think there's any reason to make blue/purple mats any more easy to come by...as it is, it's already often cheaper to buy materials/components off the exchange than craft them or earn them. More blues/purples would just flood the market and make it even sillier to craft anything but the highest-level gear. I personally would just let the mat farmers carry on as they are, and work the exchange for the mats you need.

sisteric

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

orangeitis

stuartlarkin wrote: »

I've taken a long break from STO, with season 10 and the constant parade of new ships I couldn't keep up with let alone level a toon in every specialization I just had enough, so if this has already been discussed apologies, I haven't been here.

Of course trying to do everything would be too much. You only need 1½ specialization trees total for each captain, and a handful of ships at most, and that's mainly if you want multiple starship traits and/or special consoles.

I agree that we need more sources for purple materials though. +1 that vote.

markhawkman

sisteric wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

Uh.. you ever play any games by Blizzard that include crafting as part of the game?

STO crafting is easy in comparison.

thatcursedwolf

markhawkman wrote: »

sisteric wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

Uh.. you ever play any games by Blizzard that include crafting as part of the game?

STO crafting is easy in comparison.

In Censoredcraft you know exactly what will come out the other end and the waits are in seconds not hours,

Devil was built around random stats.

sheldonlcooper

If you're just starting out it is a lot of work, depending on the # of characters. I equipped 6 characters to lvl 14 in space and ground - making all the kits myself from gathered particles. This takes close to 200 argonites and plektons. The argonites for space and ground shields are the biggest drag. Of course many more rubidiums and z particles. I actually have sold well over 1000 z particles but not one single rubidium. That's the rare blue for me.

You can now grind the borg disconnected and azure for the argonites. The viscous elite used to be good also but i doubt it's runs anymore in pug - haven't looked in a couple months. Plektons, well, that could be a real pain. I would really just advise buying them during R&D weekend. Sell something else beforehand then buy 100 plektons during the weekend. The price has come down nicely.

Oh, also, it used to be a little easier to get argonites and plektons through the R&D weekend STF bonus box. If I opened say 10 of those I would get a purple maybe 4 times. Now I could open 10 and get zero most likely. I got a large % of my plektons that way last fall opening those bonus boxes (from any STF)

markhawkman

thatcursedwolf wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

sisteric wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

Uh.. you ever play any games by Blizzard that include crafting as part of the game?

STO crafting is easy in comparison.

In Censoredcraft you know exactly what will come out the other end and the waits are in seconds not hours,

Devil was built around random stats.

Is Warcraft still censored? Either way, Materials are harder to get in Blizzards games since the majority are random drops, and the ones that aren't are boss loot.

sisteric

markhawkman wrote: »

sisteric wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

Uh.. you ever play any games by Blizzard that include crafting as part of the game?

STO crafting is easy in comparison.

I do, and I find WOW crafting way easier and infinitely more logical than STO's crafting system. In fact, I have so much more crafting going on in WOW that I can actually profit from it. STO, I can't even muster up the desire to slog through regularly enough as it is.

sisteric

markhawkman wrote: »

thatcursedwolf wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

sisteric wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Or just maybe: every game makes you do some work to earn the best gear.

If you could earn a [ GO 100% XIV EPIC ] reward box for running one queue, this thread would be titled "I have all my gear, there's nothing left to work for!"

No it wouldn't. Or not at least for me. I have multiple characters and multiple ships per character to gear up. And then there all those BOff's to gear up too, per character.

Bottlenecking the materials is very bad thing for crafting as rule. Bottlenecking the gear behind the rep grinds is fine. Bottlenecking new slots and ships behind Zen purchases is fine too.

There are appropriate places for gating things and there are things that need to be part of the normal play. Crafting should be part of the normal gameplay. Purple mats are hard to get. And with certain queues not ever being active when I play, it can be real difficult to get certain mats. And I don't have the time to play the exchange or make EC as it is. There needs to be better methods for gaining materials. I believe that specific locations could be set up to mine the mats, like the Dil Mine. Being able to go to different locations to mine the mats would be more in line with most crafting systems in other MMO's and would allow them to add more mats when ever they want to expand crafting.
This also allows the dedicated crafters to actually do more actual crafting and less griping about how queues are not available.

I also would like them to remove the randomness of the gear perks. It bothers me that we can design a piece of gear but really have no idea how well it will work once done. Or what it's capabilities are. Gearing in the game is hard as it is, making you have to create hundreds or thousands of a particular item in order to get the combination of perks you want on your gear is just shear frustration on the crafters part. And the waste of resources, time and energy over that alone will drive the dedicated crafter to other games that are friendlier to crafters.

The systems needs to be tweaked to allow a better use of time and resources. And better and more varied methods of gaining those mats and gear pieces are needed just as well.

And the lack of any information on them talking about crafting makes me think that the next expansion will not see any improvements to crafting. Of any kind. I just hope they don't make it any worse. Otherwise, crafting will only become something that those with the money to buy everything will do. And those of us without the ability and time to make the EC will be left behind.

Uh.. you ever play any games by Blizzard that include crafting as part of the game?

STO crafting is easy in comparison.

In Censoredcraft you know exactly what will come out the other end and the waits are in seconds not hours,

Devil was built around random stats.

Is Warcraft still censored? Either way, Materials are harder to get in Blizzards games since the majority are random drops, and the ones that aren't are boss loot.

Actually, all of the materials have one specific thing that gets you a number of that material. And then there is the resources nodes scattered about that generate the specified resources and also a random chance for additional rarer materials. And then there are ways to make the materials, there is garrison missions and shipyard missions. And then weekly crafting options. And then you can always go to the auction house and buy them too. And the cost involved are not as inflated as STO is. SO I don't see where it's harder when I have more resources than I am using on a regular basis. With no lack of any specific material. Or any material locked behind only one kind of content. Unlike STO where I very specific resources that are hard to get my hands on and cost way to much on the exchange for my taste.

Now, because of some things they have done, WOW crafting has some different issues, to be fair. But Bottlenecking due to resources is not the one of them. And is what the topic here is about.

EDIT: I forgot about the fact that you can get the resources by certain specific vendors if you collect certain currency running specific content. WOW created a large number of ways to do it.

aesica

markhawkman wrote: »

Is Warcraft still censored? Either way, Materials are harder to get in Blizzards games since the majority are random drops, and the ones that aren't are boss loot.

No, but some of us like to joke about it from the time when it was.

Anyway no, World of W*rcraft's crafting mats aren't generally random at all, or at least not since perhaps the Burning Cr*sade expansion. They're actually quite predictable now: Find ore/herb nodes for ore/herbs. Kill/skin beasts for leather. Kill humanoids (and in Warlords of Dr**nor, certain beasts too) for cloth/fur. Disenchant unwanted green/blue/purple items for enchanting materials. Etc and soforth.

The main problem is that, in WoW, the crafting mats make sense and is intuitive. Collect ore from ore nodes, turn ore into armor. Collect enchanting dust from junk items and use it to enchant your items. Collect herbs from bushes/whatever then convert it into potions or inscription ink. The actual crafting process only takes a few seconds as the bar progresses from 0% to 100%.

In STO, its more like this: Find a completely randomized node in ground or space, get a small amount of materials. Or do STFs/request R&D assistance/etc. What you get feels completely random in most cases. Want to make something? Great, but first, you need to make all these meaningless subcomponents, and each one requires completely random materials as well as minutes/hours to complete. There's no meaningful identity between crafting mats like there is in WoW--they're all just anonymous things you cobble together to make more anonymous things until you can make what you actually want.

markhawkman

Ah, I see. Never did WoW crafting I guess they improved it over the crafting system they used in Diablo 2. That one had some truely hilarious faults.... mostly due to the randomness of it. It would often mix high and low level mods in a way that made the item worthless. And sometimes it'd tack a ridiculous level on the item that exceeded the level the item would be useful at... and occasionally it'd even make items that no one would even be able to use due to being greater than the max player level... how does that happen? yeah I don't really know. Sounds like a lack of sanity checks in the code. My best guess is that the level requirement on the finished item is not actually derived from the stats of the item, but rather the level requirement sets the highest level of affix that the item can have.... but isn't back-checked after choosing affixes, so if you get a high level roll and low affixes the item is total trash.

Oh and D2 had no actual guaranteed drops of any resource... not in stock anyways. Modders could have fun with that though.

sisteric

markhawkman wrote: »

Ah, I see. Never did WoW crafting I guess they improved it over the crafting system they used in Diablo 2. That one had some truely hilarious faults.... mostly due to the randomness of it. It would often mix high and low level mods in a way that made the item worthless. And sometimes it'd tack a ridiculous level on the item that exceeded the level the item would be useful at... and occasionally it'd even make items that no one would even be able to use due to being greater than the max player level... how does that happen? yeah I don't really know. Sounds like a lack of sanity checks in the code. My best guess is that the level requirement on the finished item is not actually derived from the stats of the item, but rather the level requirement sets the highest level of affix that the item can have.... but isn't back-checked after choosing affixes, so if you get a high level roll and low affixes the item is total trash.

Oh and D2 had no actual guaranteed drops of any resource... not in stock anyways. Modders could have fun with that though.

D3 is much better about this. resources are a bit random still, but the crafting makes a better sense now. But I haven't played for quite some time now, since before reaper came out.

kamiyama317

You can get mats from PVE queues and DOff assignments. Science and Exploration assignments in particular reward R&D mats. Mining dilithium at Vlugta also gets you some mats if you get a good score (over 700) and you can do that easy with some practice. Use the arrow keys, not the mouse.

Just make DOffing, mining, and PVE queues part of your daily routine. Soon enough you will have piles of mats. If you need that one rare or very rare mat for something, it's not a big deal to buy it off the exchange. You can't expect to have everything easy. The old crafting system was the same way - sometimes I needed that one rare particle trace and had to go buy it.

I admit I've also spent some zen on R&D packs. But considering how cheap most mats are on the exchange, I think I would have been better off buying keys, selling them, and using the EC to buy the mats I wanted.

My biggest complaint about the new R&D system is that you can't have more than 3 research projects going on in the same category at any one time. I went through the effort of unlocking 4 R&D queues, so why can't I have 4 research projects running in one category? This is the real bottleneck - they don't want you maxing out a category that fast.

sisteric

kamiyama317 wrote: »

You can get mats from PVE queues and DOff assignments. Science and Exploration assignments in particular reward R&D mats. Mining dilithium at Vlugta also gets you some mats if you get a good score (over 700) and you can do that easy with some practice. Use the arrow keys, not the mouse.

Just make DOffing, mining, and PVE queues part of your daily routine. Soon enough you will have piles of mats. If you need that one rare or very rare mat for something, it's not a big deal to buy it off the exchange. You can't expect to have everything easy. The old crafting system was the same way - sometimes I needed that one rare particle trace and had to go buy it.

I admit I've also spent some zen on R&D packs. But considering how cheap most mats are on the exchange, I think I would have been better off buying keys, selling them, and using the EC to buy the mats I wanted.

My biggest complaint about the new R&D system is that you can't have more than 3 research projects going on in the same category at any one time. I went through the effort of unlocking 4 R&D queues, so why can't I have 4 research projects running in one category? This is the real bottleneck - they don't want you maxing out a category that fast.

The Queue is the only place where you know that you will get the material you need or want. The other methods will generate random mats for you so become unreliable to get what you need. It is quite possible to do all things you says and only get what you need from the PVE queue. This is quite an issue. And you may think that the materials are cheap, but I don't think so. And 'buying keys' is not an option. They need to add more reliable methods of gaining the materials. Things that you do to get the exact material you want. RNG is not a game mechanic that I like for anything but combat. Everything else should follow logical progression. Action A generates Product B. And that just does not exit in the game outside of the queues. And then you are hampered if the material you want is behind queues nobody is pugging. So they need to add alternate methods to open up crafting to be more fun and accessible.

kamiyama317

You could always sell mats you don't need so you have cash to buy the mats you do need.

You can make over a hundred mats a day if you combine the methods I said above. They aren't hard to get. The rare ones maybe, but they're rare. The rare particle traces were hard to get in the previous crafting system, and were also random drops. To that end, randomness has always been part of the crafting in STO.

I do have issues with the R&D system. Mat availability isn't one of them.

bernatk

Also don't forget kids, for WOW (and most of Blizzard's games) you need pay IRL cash for the privilege of accessing that said game. Every Cryptic games including STO is F2P, eg. you download and play without paying a dime!
Of course the monetization will be different!