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The Merit/Honor System MUST STAY.
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
This is something I have not seen people talk about very much.
Most of the chaos seems to be focused on the cost of ships and equipment and availability of dilithium.
But this is something that is equally important and directly impacts both the aforementioned subjects.
At present on Holodeck we use Merits/Honor to Respec, Buy Bridge Officers, Train Bridge Officers, Rename Bridge Officers and rename Ships.
Out of the lot the two most important uses are Respeccing and training Bridge Officers.
Those two are vital to the game, as your skill point allocation and which skills your Bridge Officers have ultimately determine wether you succeed or fail in the game.
What is also important to understand that Merits/Honor are rewarded by virtually ALL missions.
To respec as a Vice Admiral you may need to grind A LOT, but how you do it is all up to you, wether you replay Episodes or play new ones, do PvP, Exploration or Dailies, its ultimately all up to you.
The new Dilithium system is at its core a consolidation of all the Badges, Medals, Marks and Emblems in the game.
All of these are by nature limited currencies that are rewarded for completing a handful of very very specific tasks.
They are not given out for the normal progression through Episodes and Patrol missions like the Merits/Honor are.
And as such, Merits/Honor is simply one of those currencies that is by nature incompatible with being consolidated into Dilithium.
Now Dilithium as we all know by now is essentially the new "Emblems", it will be the main currency for obtaining high quality equipment as well as new ships.
And this is where the problem starts.
Because what once cost Merits/Honor now costs dilithium, it will now be a drain on the same currency you need for getting a new ship and equipment.
Your freedom of being able to experiment with different Bridge Officer layouts and skills as well as being able to change your playstyle or fondly change the name of your ship and crew is being taken away from you.
Because you will no longer be able to afford to do so, since these things will now draw from the Time-Limited currency that you already "need" to get new ships and equipment, and you will need to work that much harder and longer to obtain it if you do.
Cryptic, I both understand and support the need to scale down on the excessive amount of currencies currently in the game, currencies that quickly become obsolete as you move past them.
But the Merit/Honor currency is not one of them.
The Merit/Honor currency is unique, and fills a critical role in both lore and what is practical.
I mean c'mon, when have you ever seen a starfleet officer being bought with dilithium like some kind of slave? Buying an officer with "Influence" makes a lot more sense here.
So Cryptic, I implore you, DO NOT remove the Merit/Honor system from the game, we need it, now more than ever.
Most of the chaos seems to be focused on the cost of ships and equipment and availability of dilithium.
But this is something that is equally important and directly impacts both the aforementioned subjects.
At present on Holodeck we use Merits/Honor to Respec, Buy Bridge Officers, Train Bridge Officers, Rename Bridge Officers and rename Ships.
Out of the lot the two most important uses are Respeccing and training Bridge Officers.
Those two are vital to the game, as your skill point allocation and which skills your Bridge Officers have ultimately determine wether you succeed or fail in the game.
What is also important to understand that Merits/Honor are rewarded by virtually ALL missions.
To respec as a Vice Admiral you may need to grind A LOT, but how you do it is all up to you, wether you replay Episodes or play new ones, do PvP, Exploration or Dailies, its ultimately all up to you.
The new Dilithium system is at its core a consolidation of all the Badges, Medals, Marks and Emblems in the game.
All of these are by nature limited currencies that are rewarded for completing a handful of very very specific tasks.
They are not given out for the normal progression through Episodes and Patrol missions like the Merits/Honor are.
And as such, Merits/Honor is simply one of those currencies that is by nature incompatible with being consolidated into Dilithium.
Now Dilithium as we all know by now is essentially the new "Emblems", it will be the main currency for obtaining high quality equipment as well as new ships.
And this is where the problem starts.
Because what once cost Merits/Honor now costs dilithium, it will now be a drain on the same currency you need for getting a new ship and equipment.
Your freedom of being able to experiment with different Bridge Officer layouts and skills as well as being able to change your playstyle or fondly change the name of your ship and crew is being taken away from you.
Because you will no longer be able to afford to do so, since these things will now draw from the Time-Limited currency that you already "need" to get new ships and equipment, and you will need to work that much harder and longer to obtain it if you do.
Cryptic, I both understand and support the need to scale down on the excessive amount of currencies currently in the game, currencies that quickly become obsolete as you move past them.
But the Merit/Honor currency is not one of them.
The Merit/Honor currency is unique, and fills a critical role in both lore and what is practical.
I mean c'mon, when have you ever seen a starfleet officer being bought with dilithium like some kind of slave? Buying an officer with "Influence" makes a lot more sense here.
So Cryptic, I implore you, DO NOT remove the Merit/Honor system from the game, we need it, now more than ever.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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It has nothing to do with simplifying the currencies, no matter what is being said. If it was about that, then they would have never touched it in the first place.
It is about driving people to have so many drains on their resource that they have to augment them by c-store purchases OR grind an excessive amount of time. If they can force people into lengthy grinds, a certain percentage are guaranteed to hit the c-store, which becomes their revenue flow.
Any kind of feedback about things designed to drive c-store sales isn't going to get much traction, sadly to say. PW , in order to get it's money's worth, will want to see hard cash numbers from STO, and so Cryptic is probably doing the best they can to fit that while not totally TRIBBLE the game.
I agree it's not exactly confluent .. but it won't change. They'll back down on almost everything else before this.
Exactly! Bridge Officers are not mere slaves we can just auction off for some measly energy credits... Oh wait.
So I believe that Merit/Honor should be the personal currency (non tradeable only useable on yourself and bridge officers) and Dilithium should be the trade/goods currency, by this I mean, If you want to buy anything tangable in game (ships, weapons, etc) you use Dilithium. Just from a gameplay point of view it doesn't make much since to hand someone Dilithium Ore and say "ZOMG I just learned how to do BO3. Never mind all the years at the academy testing/training for it I just learned it right now by touching this peice of rock"
Farting around with different set ups and experimenting is part of the fun.
That isn't Biff Jr. that's Biff's younger self in 1955. Griff (Back to the Future 2) is his grandson.
your credability points are sinking :P
Noted and fixed. Thanks!
No problem
Back on topic
I'm not saying Dilithium is bad. I love the idea of trading CPoints for Dilithium and vise versa and I really feel it will help STO actually feel like there is an active economy that doesn't center around the Exchange w/ next to useless Energy Credits (which if ships no longer cost Energy Credits and their only use/purpose is for the Exchange why do we have them?)
However, since Dilithium is limited to a daily amount players are going to be forced to "do I get my next ship, do I train/promote my bridge officers, etc" ? And I don't like this. Which ever one someone decides will effect the other. If you buy the ship, you won't have enough left over to promote your bridge officers so I'll still end up only being able to use my T1 BOFF Abilities. What was the point of getting the ship?
The opposite is also true, I trained/promoted my BOFFs but now I dont have enough for the new ship, I'm stuck using my T1. What was the point of training/promoting?
Mertis/Honor very nicely fixes this catch 22. (just as it is on Holodeck)
Active Economy ? - If Dilithium is in short supply to the point people cant equip themselves then the 'ECONOMY' is going to grind to a horrific stop and what little Dilithium goes on the market will be getting charged inflated C-Point costs.
That 8K Refined Dilithium has to pay for Ships, Equipment, Officers, Training, Respecs and whatever else Cryptic throw ontop of it with limited means of getting Dilithium to start with that ensures Dilithium is going to be scarce.
Your going to be happy paying $25 worth of C-points for 8K Dilithium that wont even buy you a single piece of equipment ?
As for EC: That would logically be used for costume changes, ship reconfigurations and replicated gear. Tying the costume customisations and replicated gear into Dilithium would completely obliterate the need for EC and further drain folks consumption of Dilithium.
Want a new paint job, fleet logo or to put that shiny C-Store uniform on your toon - Sorry, cant do that cause doing so would drain your Refined Dilithium away from the gear you need to run missions effectively.
This is called Supply and Demand. If supply is super high and there is no demand to use it, you end up with tons and tons of currency with nothing to use/waste/dump it on. This is what Energy Credits have been. The CPoints give Lifers/Sub'ers a reason to convert the CPoints over because after all they will just get 400 next month. It gives Lifers/Sub'ers more playing room in the economy and gives them the upper hand in trade dealing. If something is limited/scarce you are going to want it more.
The point I was going on is I like the idea of Dilithium and this trade economy, but Mertis/Honor need to STAY in game because this is a personal currency. My Spec, My Assigned BOFFs, etc are all things that effect only me, thus it is not tangeable to anyone else. Taking that out of game will hinder players. The Catch-22 with Dilithium (see previous post) can be avoided by keeping Merits/Honor in the game.
I forgot about Uniform Changes and Ship Changes. EC does have a use outside the exchange after all. Though in Star Trek I'm sure we would have to do something worth the merit to warrant a Uniform change since they dont have a currency (thats awhole another issue lol)
youre flaming.....
is your favorite comic book Fantastic Four w/ the Fantastic Flamer?
And what of Respecs?
http://www.allamericanblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/double-facepalm1.jpg
We've got like twelve to fifteen different forms of currency. I'm glad some people are happy that it's actually RANKS of the same currency but since I can't earn order 1 and 2 from the same mission I count it as separate forms
Think of the Dilithium (or energy credits if you want) as money for time/services rendered. Your cadet/ensign/what have you contacts a teacher and they pay them in Dilithiium... or burn up a set supply of Dilithium contacting them :P if you want to be obsessive about the 'no Trek-moneys!!!' thing
I think that what is being argued in this thread is that Starfleet Merit/KDF Honor is more like a kind of XP than like a kind of currency, since it is used to train your BOFFs in new skills and to promote them.
A possible compromise here might be that instead of using Dilithium for promotion/respec, players would use BOFF XP. It would slow down your leveling of your BOFFs (so you might hit RA 1 before you have fully trained your BOFFs' Cmdr level skills), but it would make a lot more sense and keep the strain off of your Dilithium.
right now i am not sure how exactly it will all work out.
Respecs for Dilithium would most certainly suck.
And to the one guy who suggested that LIFERS will spend their 400 stipend to buy dilithium....
lol, those 400 points are barely enough to counter the new increased C-Store pricetags,
just take a look on Tribbles C-Store, barely any Lifer will waist his stipend on ingame currency if he can have C-Store unlocks.
What that means is... You're going to be spending $15 per month on the game. It's just now that it's going to be in the c-store. That's all.
I agree with almost everyone's distaste for these changes, but facts are facts.
For me, on tribble currently, customizing my ship for those "cool nacelle pylons" at ESD costs EC and not DL.
So I, at this time, do not seem to need to worry about using up limited DL resources on cosmetic ship changes.
But I still find Dilithium as resource poorly thought out. It just doesn't fit the IP. People don't exchange Dilitihium on a regular basis.
Using Merit and Honor as "Dilithium Ore" and "Favor" as "refined Dilithium" would work considerably better for me.
What I said was
And as you just said it's going to take a LOOONG time to get an account unlock w/ just 400 points per month alone. The idea Cryptic has here is that they give you 400 in the hopes that you will "buy something" with it or will spend money to make up the difference. I know alot of people level alts and think on an alt to alt level, why buy a CStore Cruiser if my Tactical Captain is going to be in an Escort? Doing that would waste the CPoints for that character so why dont I just spend 100 of my 400 points and get a decent size amount of Dilithium for it, because (as I stated) I will get 400 more the next month so there is no harm in actuallly using some of it. Just because you would perfer to hoard your CPoints (Hoarding is a problem you should seek help!! ) to try and get a unneeded HUGE amount (by the time you do I'm willing to bet there will be a sale) by all means more power to you.
Don't assume just because you wouldn't do something doesn't mean generalize about everyone else.
The entire concept of Lifers trading C-points to buy Dilithium falls apart if Dilithium supply is curbed to an insane degree or the C-Store has items that circumvent the need for Dilithium.
Why would I need to trade C-Points for Dilithium to buy a equipment if I can save up points towards getting C-Store ships that come with equipment ?
Sure, buying a cruiser for an escort pilot is pointless... unless you ever want to level a character up in a cruiser, the game makes cruisers better or that cruiser comes with a console that can be used for an Escort pilot.
I.E
Who needs to buy phaser banks if they get leveling phasers off the Connie
Who needs to buy doffs or Boffs if they buy them off the C-Store packs
Who needs to buy phaser cannons when they come off the Defiant
Personally, I own all but two C-Store ships (no NX or T1 Connie). I plan on purchasing every ship when comes out.
Being a lifer with a stipend and owning most every ship already (and uniforms, and all races, and bridges, etc...), I will most likely have a surplus of C-Points that I can use to purchase DL if I want, rather than grind it out.
So in my case, I see this new system as a good way to trade un-needed C-Points for better gear if I want, while providing someone with C-Points who does not want to spend any real cash, but wants a C-Store ship.
Also, C-Store ships have white gear on them which sells for almost no EC. DL purchased gear, from what I have seen so far is superior to what you get "free" on a ship.
They will make it so that it will either cost you 6 months for a respec, or just buy buy buy from C$tore.
Did you compare the price of a respec on the Tribble C-Store to that of a respec on Holodeck yet? Maybe this is just a copy & paste error from the CO shop, but... it seems the value has changed.
1. You never stop getting officer XP in the currnet live build. Even when you max every single bridge officer you have, you still accrue officer XP. Lets put that to use for training your bridge officers as well.
2. I have seen many complain that leveling is too fast in this game. Why not remove the cap on XP that we currently have and use XP for skill retrain. It would slow down progression a bit but, it would not be something that is over whelming.