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DOFF Upgrinder Cost: If we have to pay, it should not be random.
ussultimatum
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
There is a massive disparity in price ranges and usefulness across DOFF specialties.
If we are now going to be forced to pay a chunk of dilithium, in addition to 5 DOFFs, the random element needs to be removed.
All of the other dilithium taxes function with a deterministic reward, Fleet Gear, STF Gear, Dil Store Gear, SB Progression, Lt. Ferra/S'stas Doffs, etc.
Why is the grinder now a dilithium gamble?
I mean, it's already somewhat of a gamble now. You can use 5 blue doffs with a total value of 1 to 2 million, and end up with a Purple doff only worth 600k. Now you would lose 5K dilithium on top of that.
At the very least we should now be able to choose the Dept we want (Tactical, Ops, etc).
If you want to make this an attractive sink, and not see it abandoned then there needs to be a determinable reward.
If we are now going to be forced to pay a chunk of dilithium, in addition to 5 DOFFs, the random element needs to be removed.
All of the other dilithium taxes function with a deterministic reward, Fleet Gear, STF Gear, Dil Store Gear, SB Progression, Lt. Ferra/S'stas Doffs, etc.
Why is the grinder now a dilithium gamble?
I mean, it's already somewhat of a gamble now. You can use 5 blue doffs with a total value of 1 to 2 million, and end up with a Purple doff only worth 600k. Now you would lose 5K dilithium on top of that.
At the very least we should now be able to choose the Dept we want (Tactical, Ops, etc).
If you want to make this an attractive sink, and not see it abandoned then there needs to be a determinable reward.
Post edited by ussultimatum on
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I, for one, don't intend on using it much, if at all, unless it gives you a lot more choice. Heck, I've never once used it now yet!
Honestly, there will be no reason a thinking player will touch this.
5000 dilithium + 1 to 2 million ECs worth of Blue Doffs for a random Purple - from a random Department, a random specialization and a random set of traits.
It just doesn't make sense.
I never really thought it was that great in the first place. That said, I got my blues and purples the hard way, usually grinding out colony missions and occasionally picking up a wanted one or two off the Exchange.
I always figured you'd probably get something useless on the other end, so I thought it would be ill-advised to use it. With the increasing dil costs that only becomes moreso.
I hope the devs are keeping this in mind and adjusting starbase costs downwards. Otherwise, fleets are just going to give up on the bases. So much for the bottom line there. Despite the incessant chant of "it isn't a race," usually by those in very large fleets or have solo fleets, I cannot help but think it is undesirable to grind now for a ship I MIGHT get in two to five years, made worse if you're concerned with potential longevity.
Well, I personally think the cost is there to slow people down more than making money off possible Zen:Dilithium sales. I could well be wrong there, but I simply get the feeling they want to slow the rate at which you get a fully maxed out crew compliment (min/maxing for space/ground abilities or maximizing successes in DOFF assignments).
Notice that going the other way (grinding down from high to low) doesn't cost anything. I find that to be quite profitable, and very useful with the Fleet system! Likewise, the slower Officer exchanges (4 hours to complete) only cost you 1 DOFF, and no Dilithium. Still a gamble either way, though.
In short, the old compactor might've been "too good" for its Cost (time + dilithium) vs reward.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
Well, its generally better, perception-wise, to start with less favorable and move to more favorable. Even if you end up with the same numbers, going from favorable and making it less favorable annoys people. Its ALWAYS better perception to buff than nerf, even if what the nerf is fixing might be an exploit/exploitable (because, frankly, pro-player imbalances/exploits can be well liked).
We'll see what happens. Whether we (or the devs) like it or not, MMOs are services, not products, and that means they do have to adjust and change things as new systems come along, the playerbase changes, etc.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
That, I will grant you.
The devs want to slow progress down. And frankly, I can't blame them. How many people have you heard screaming about having nothing to do? I've heard a lot. A whole lot.
And I can't entirely fault them for wanting to monetize the DOff system.
The problems come in two flavors, though:
1) Numbers of DOffs needed - the starbases are horrid, ravenous beasts. When I see a project stinking things up for a week on the list, it's always a DOff bottleneck needed. One of my fleets is halfway to T3, and we're having problems mustering up the troops to sacrifice.
2) The sacrifice of DOffs - DOffs are actually quite valuable. Both as boosters and as stuff. People are reluctant to offer them up to the starbase beast - and I don't blame them. I don't sacrifice my best. And there are a few DOffs I did sacrifice - albeit reluctantly - from my first set of DOffs (yeah, I got a little attached) because I'd rather them be in a starbase than splatter on a mission. Yes, silly, I know.
But this combination results in a lot of people becoming incredibly frustrated when their fleet, which does not have titanic numbers, ends up stuck early to mid way through the grind. I'm not a fleet leader so I don't precisely know how base missions are allocated, but I have to wonder if there are ways around sacrificing DOffs.
So I can see a lot of fleets just plain throwing in the towel - especially since people need to do this to get base-level end-game gear, and with the embassies now wanting to be fed.
That said, this topic is not only a dead horse, but one that is thoroughly putrifying and mostly skeletonized, so I won't continue to beat on it, but, there ya have it.
Because this Dilithum Tax is just going to hurt everyone, especially small fleets who have to do the DOFF shuffle in order to get the right DOFFs to projects. And lets not forget that a lot of people are very low on Dilithium right now because of these same Starbase Projects.
I just hope this isn't somekind of conn by Perfect World to force us to spend Zen on the Dilithum Exchange, because that's something like the mafia did.
I wouldn't seeing maybe mixed-type DOFFs. Say, they're Rare, but actually can do two different job assignments at equal level to a Common. Of course, I'd make them Bind automatically, but I'm a cruel, terrible person.
It only forces you if you're impatient or don't have much time to play (and even that's arguable). If you're earning your Dilithium, this is slowing you down. Both on an individual and a fleet basis (my theory is above).
Tangent: it'd be nice if they had more things we could do with the DOFF system, but that's just me. As is, its a rather enjoyable little resource game for me, and one I almost prefer to the regular game. Certainly, if I could use them to automate certain things that'd be fantastic... "Assign X, Y, and Z officers to this team: when you posses A, B, and C, they will take them and make a D."
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
I'll have to agree. Everyone gets EC, whether they're shooting for it or not, and it flows in much higher quantities than anything else. One lucky drop can net you hundreds of thousands, even millions. Players can simply give it away after a certain point. Its pretty much worthless unless you account for the sheer amount of it floating around and its mobility.
Dilithium flows at a much lower rate, can't be directly transferred, and is always useful for something (even if its just Zen). If you have a million dilithium, that's a fortune in Zen! A million in EC isn't really a big deal.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
not unless starfleet and the federation in 2409 have drastically changed their philosophies.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Heard of SOPA or PIPA? ACTA? Major companies are run by Ferengi.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
To be honest, I can live with the 1k dilithium on general recruitments, the foundry daily pays for it just fine, and unless dilithium yielding missions get severly reduced I have no problems to fill my daily 8k fast enough.
The upgrinder cost feels for me like someone sledgehammered the problem at hand. That it was really easy to repeatedly down- and upgrind. Because 250 dilithium is just peanuts for an altoholic. So yeah the new costs will get the job done of making that unprofitable.
But instead of screaming bloody murder you perhaps should ask yourselves the question if 'the job get's done' with other means or with a lower cost.
Would it become unprofitable with let's say 2.5/3k for the purple grinder? It would probably prevent me from throwing every blue I get at it, but as you recall (see above) I'm lazy and while I am able to get quite a bit of dilithium per day it wouldn't exactly count as something that I call good entertainment.
With 5/6k there is no question what I do with blues, either throw at some fitting doff exchange or downgrind to whites to feed my hungry starbase. Half the price would at least make me think a second about getting a nice purple before downgrinding it anyway (yay starbases!
If you continue that line of thought the next thing cryptic probably has to do then is to increase the downgrind assignment duration to one minute, something that I really don't want to happen.
Thought off one perspective on this:
Suppose they don't like how people can grind up AND down (even with some loss) to get the DOff their fleet needs for projects? You could do this repeatedly until you get the white DOff you need.
Hm.
Would much prefer DOff grinder times go up than costs go up. 5 seconds is the crazy part, not prices/costs/rewards.
Raise time to 4 hours.
Again, look at adding fleet and personal DOff/Rep project time reducers on C-Store if they want to make more $$$.
If I'm to "buy" doffs, let me at least choose what profession will they be, I'm sick of getting blue nongamma refugees, purple bartenders of just different sizes and shapes and whatnot.
The exchange is not a solution as DoFF prices there are unbelievably high.
I agree. I think EC would be an ok way to pay instead of dilithium, but this is even better. The dilithium costs just mean I won't be upgrading DOffs as much because of the need for dilithium elsewhere.
They can't monetize ECs the way that Dilithium has been monetized.
Currently no.
This is a losing prospect, and quite frankly the loss is already (as you mention) built into it.
No, the problem was adding the short sighted Fleet Doff requisitions which has now killed the Upgrinder as well as Dismissal Rewards.
We have both lost a way to earn Dil from DOFFs and now have a new tax added.
Why they won't do it in the end? Because that'd ruin current Romulan Ale skyhigh prices. That Ale sells almost as if it was a purple MK12 console. And also that'd make storing a white colonist on the exchange by setting it's price on several millions impossible - and devs don't want a mutiny on the Bounty.
For the price we'll gonna pay we should at least be able to ask for exact specialization. I mean for example, if I want a diplomat, I don't want yet another refugee.
Traits would be random of course, unless there will be an option to pay dil for specific traits.
EC is somewhat easy to come by, but why not charge, say 100k ec then?
We really need to get away from the perception that everyone in the game are EC Millionaires; they're not. Must of us forum guys are, but not everyone is. EC would be a perfectly fine gate.
Again, the big problems here in S7, simply put, is that there are now Dilithium inputs where A) They weren't before
Getting back to the OP: I agree. Like I said in another thread, something to the effect of "I refuse to pay 5k Dilithium to grind up 5 Blue Doffs for a Purple Chef or Refuge. Bugger Off."
This game is becoming ridicules, charge me for switching toons too why don't ya! :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Most of you guys really are clueless - look they added a dilth sink to suck up lots of dilth and force people to buy more zen to convert to dilth.
Now there are thousands of people with 10's if not hundreds of million in EC - some with more than a billion - now this way duty officer prices will skyrocket(they are becoming to low now) and it will suck up a lot of peoples EC - even those with just a few million - but hey there is a solution - yes you can buy ZEN to purchase things to sell like Keys
Brilliant!!
If any of you people think feedback here will change the planned changes you are really smoking some good stuff and should really share!!
don't give them any more ideas >.<
feedback is better than just quiting the game. at least when a game tanks devs know why, better than leaving them scratching their heads and wondering wtf. further, feedback does cause change, not always, not reliably, and oft useless against certain pigheaded types who think they're gods of game design and players will swallow anything they dish out...but it's the only option.
the only fool is one who keeps their mouth shut while knowing a trains about to derail.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
? Low Dilithium, high time.
? Equal dilithium, equal time.
? High dilitlium, almost instant.
There ought be a fee for the guaranteed upgraded (like we have now) and the simple convenience of not having roam around (same as now). But, again, I see a TIME sink more than I see a MONEY sink. Dilithium via STFs, events, and DOFFs don't cost money, they cost TIME.
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
100,000 EC is a drop in the bucket for a VA man. Just 1 Tour the Galaxy race, you can easily earn around 1 million EC, 2 if you're good.
The reason why Cryptic won't use EC is because Dilithum is the Time Currency, which you can legally purchase (providing convert to Zen and then to Dilithium).
And honestly, I think that is their goal. To "encourage" players to buy Dilithum with Zen.