LOOT DROPS

kwyjen

There used to be a time way back in the day when you would get a decent purple something doing a stf. Now it is seldom if never. I would like to suggest a re-vamp of loot drops. The max level of equipment has been bumped up to level XIV, why aren't there ever any MK XIV drops? The exchange limit was raised to 800 million, so why are loot drops still only 5-30 k on average before turning into a vendor? The drops are almost always white or green, with a blue once in a blue moon and never anything useful. I myself have been in game for over 4 yrs, and had a chance to build my fortune so to speak before all the downgrade changes happened.
But for new players it is almost impossible for them to build up any type of bank roll. Think about it Devs, we want them to stay and play, throw these guys a bone, bump up the value of loot drops and give the newbs a chance. Just sayin

kwyjen

well

jade1280

kwyjen wrote: »

well

Not gonna say now.


But it has to do with kids and money.

angrytarg

kwyjen wrote: »

(...)The drops are almost always white or green, with a blue once in a blue moon (...)

That's exactly how it's supposed to be. White is "common", green "uncommon", blue is "rare" and purple is "very rare". If they'd drop more often they wouldn't be rare or very rare

But you are right in general. STOs loot system is terrible. Not only does basically every player know that it's a waste to slot anything but purple and above, you get those items reliably from stores anyway (making the "very rare" thing a farce). Random loot drops have neither gameplay nor EC value and are basically completely superflous and there are literally no uniques or set items that could drop. It needs a serious overhaul so loot, crafting and rewards as well as unqiues have something going for them. As it stands Cryptic could just as well remove drops aside from consumables and replace them with a varying EC bounty per mob and put everything else in stores.​​

kwyjen

LOL

mmps1

I've had a fair amount of superior upgrade crafting manuals from loot. Goodtimes.

bobbydazlers

I have also been playing for about 4 years and I cant say I have noticed the drop rates for any particular colour have ever changed, other then the fact that I have never got anything above MK12 very rare and I don't believe you will ever see a drop above this even though (if you have any sense) you set the threshold at epic.
mostly I just seem to get common and uncommon and more often then not MK11 or below for the most part.

I think MK12 ultra and higher is mostly reserved for mission rewards and such.

what does amaze me most is how many players seem to ignore drops completely, still that's ok, all the more for me.

centaurianalpha

I've only been here about 2.5 years, but I never made much off of loot drops. In fact, not until the advent of the Admiralty System did any of my alt's have more than 1mio EC at once (mostly because I spent most of them on fleet project commodities). My main source of EC's for the longest time was "Tour The Galaxy", but now the AS provides all the EC I need for normal operations.

Admittedly, it takes a while before the AS is really a plentiful resource for new players, but I would recommend they focus on developing that system as soon as possible!

jaguarskx

kwyjen wrote: »

The max level of equipment has been bumped up to level XIV, why aren't there ever any MK XIV drops? The exchange limit was raised to 800 million, so why are loot drops still only 5-30 k on average before turning into a vendor? The drops are almost always white or green, with a blue once in a blue moon and never anything useful. I myself have been in game for over 4 yrs, and had a chance to build my fortune so to speak before all the downgrade changes happened.
But for new players it is almost impossible for them to build up any type of bank roll.

The lack of MK XIV drops is most likely a way to encourage players to use the upgrade system they put into the game. For those who do not want to bother, then there is the Exchange.

The nerf to the value of "stuff" is the direct result of complaints in the forum about the out of control EC economy in the game. Instead of creating EC sinks like actually charging EC for ship repairs and medical treatment for injured captains, Cryptic decided to lower the value of loot. Lower value of loot does not directly address the problem of too much EC in the game's economy, but at least it slows down the introduction of new EC into the economy.

I think Cryptic should implement fees for ship repair and medical treatment. The only players that would be affected are those who decided to play missions above normal difficulty. Most players do not change the difficulty level in story missions or foundry missions so repair and treatment costs would be zero. The biggest group of player affected would be those of us playing Advanced or Elite queued missions. I am pretty sure most of us who do play those missions can afford to pay for repairs and medical treatment.

If new players cannot build up a decent bankroll (thereby inflating the EC economy), then the only they can buy stuff from the Exchange is if sellers lower their prices. That shifts the Exchange from a seller's market to a buyer's market. However, that would not stop another player from quickly buying the item and then relisting them at a higher price.


There are ways new players can make a decent amount of EC in the game. They just need to be savvy enough to learn how to do so. I created a secondary STO account last summer in the last few remaining days of the Risa Summer Event 2015 as a F2P only account (not spending a dime on that account). After the event ended I took a break from STO coming back just in time to snag the Breen Dreadnought during the Winter Event on my primary account.

I didn't start playing on my secondary account again until the 2016 Anniversary Event. I have been logging in sporadically with that account since then. Thus far, I have accumulated 26m EC on my single character in that account. I wouldn't say that is a lot of EC, but it's not too shabby.

markhawkman

you can actually get mk13 common to very rare kit modules if you're fighting at level 60.