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What to do about Crafting
tau41
Member Posts: 70 Arc User
So I popped on here and saw a bunch of threads about crafting. For the most part, they are whining about how bad it sucks, which is widely acknowledged, with very little about what to be done about it. People are talking about item power levels and things, and while that's a symptom of the problem, it doesn't fix the fact that crafting is entirely too much effort for not enough reward as things presently stand. So I'm starting a new thread for visions of STO crafting, and I'm going to lead with mine and my explanation about why.
It's the future, we have replicators to make everything. No one builds everything by hand-you're a starship captain, you're too busy.
Before I go further, my whole theory about game systems in STO is that they should be utilized to make the game feel more like Star Trek. So here we go.
This is my opinion, and I'm just throwing it out there. Crafting, in the vein where we go to crafting stations to craft, in Star Trek, makes zero sense. I understand the game didn't launch with Duty Officers. Why not eliminate the entire existing crafting system and put several series of DOFF missions at Memory Alpha? After all, it's not the Captain who is EVER in engineering, tinkering with stuff for hours-it's usually the Chief Engineer or some science personnel. When you have completed enough chains, which would benefit your Science, Engineering, and Development xp, you could have a shot at making something. Personally, I would LOVE to be able to craft an awesome Quantum Torpedo. I'm JUST throwin' it out there. ;p
I think we're pretty good on primary systems like shields, engines, and deflector arrays since the set bonuses are likely enough to make other options there less competitive, so I would suggest focusing the items made on weapon systems and consoles. On the character scale, there can and should be something about making the melee weapons that are so iconic in Star Trek, and possibly one of those could be an item for KDF that allows you to undertake a mission to craft your own super purple bat'leth in the volcano in the footsteps of Kahless. KDF players would LOVE that. I'm sure you could do something similar with lirpas as well.
The other side of this is the anomalies. Between the at-times unresponsive mini game, and the fact crafting is terrible, I avoid scanning them anymore. I hate the drops clogging up my inventory for a handful of junk I will NEVER have the patience to grind up to. But in reality, there aren't tons and tons of nodes. Why not make the data something you sell for some energy credits? Particularly at the beginning of the game, I'd have gone out of my way to make a couple thousand EC's. I would say crafting nodes at end game should be worth no less than 2k EC's and no more than ~3.5k EC's. It wouldn't be efficient to run around JUST scanning nodes to make all your money, but it would be just enough that if you had a LOUSY run of loot on your missions you wouldn't feel like you got nowhere that day.
*added bolding for emphasis, hope it isn't too much. -Tau
It's the future, we have replicators to make everything. No one builds everything by hand-you're a starship captain, you're too busy.
Before I go further, my whole theory about game systems in STO is that they should be utilized to make the game feel more like Star Trek. So here we go.
This is my opinion, and I'm just throwing it out there. Crafting, in the vein where we go to crafting stations to craft, in Star Trek, makes zero sense. I understand the game didn't launch with Duty Officers. Why not eliminate the entire existing crafting system and put several series of DOFF missions at Memory Alpha? After all, it's not the Captain who is EVER in engineering, tinkering with stuff for hours-it's usually the Chief Engineer or some science personnel. When you have completed enough chains, which would benefit your Science, Engineering, and Development xp, you could have a shot at making something. Personally, I would LOVE to be able to craft an awesome Quantum Torpedo. I'm JUST throwin' it out there. ;p
I think we're pretty good on primary systems like shields, engines, and deflector arrays since the set bonuses are likely enough to make other options there less competitive, so I would suggest focusing the items made on weapon systems and consoles. On the character scale, there can and should be something about making the melee weapons that are so iconic in Star Trek, and possibly one of those could be an item for KDF that allows you to undertake a mission to craft your own super purple bat'leth in the volcano in the footsteps of Kahless. KDF players would LOVE that. I'm sure you could do something similar with lirpas as well.
The other side of this is the anomalies. Between the at-times unresponsive mini game, and the fact crafting is terrible, I avoid scanning them anymore. I hate the drops clogging up my inventory for a handful of junk I will NEVER have the patience to grind up to. But in reality, there aren't tons and tons of nodes. Why not make the data something you sell for some energy credits? Particularly at the beginning of the game, I'd have gone out of my way to make a couple thousand EC's. I would say crafting nodes at end game should be worth no less than 2k EC's and no more than ~3.5k EC's. It wouldn't be efficient to run around JUST scanning nodes to make all your money, but it would be just enough that if you had a LOUSY run of loot on your missions you wouldn't feel like you got nowhere that day.
*added bolding for emphasis, hope it isn't too much. -Tau
Post edited by tau41 on
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Comments
Drastically reduce (or preferably completely remove) dilithium costs. Commodity/Trace input would potentially need to be adjusted as a result.
Allow selectable mods on items (IE: Choose the 3 mods you want on your Space guns as opposed to choosing from a tiny list of terrible combinations).
Add additional Crafting only sets.
Allow crafted items to go up to the Mk XII tier (with appropriate exorbitant non-diltihium resource costs)
You're welcome.
See, this I don't think will work because it will STILL be lame, unexciting, and frankly, not Trekky.
This one. Remove unreplicable TRIBBLE, add mark XII purples.
And how would crafting be "trekky" . Put Kirk's face on the crafting interface ? Derp, some people got some weird ideas.
I like the idea about being able to select craft specific modifiers ... that makes a ton of sense to me. "Captain I've improved targeting by 10%" translation; took standard Mk XII Torp, and added an Acc Modifier.
So the Input would be the Standard, common, variety... along with some matierials output would be the next tier up (uncommon). Etc. I always thought it was kind of funny that you get a shield... without putting in a shield. But I digress.
To me this sounds very treky. Star Trek VI Undiscovered Country... BoP that can fire cloaked... McCoy and Spock head to upgrade a Photon Torp to make an emission seeking one...
I think that is the type of crafting I would like to see. Let us take the commons, and make the Uncommon, then Rare, then Very Rare. Drop the Dilithium costs entirel... make schematics and materials harder to come by... Hell Schematics for nifty stuff should be mission reward only.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
See, you just outright don't get it. You think crafting should be like it is in WoW, but this isn't WoW, this is Star Trek. It has a completely different flavor here. Trekky isn't stamping a face onto an object, it would be showing a respect to how things work in the star fairing universe. I'm not going to bother explaining that dilithium sinks are here to stay because it's obviously beyond your ken.
But here, let me help you out. To sum up the both of you, you put forward lousy ideas that neither change the fundamental system nor address its serious flaws. Crafting in this game sucks at every level, and having marginally better loot out of it won't fix what's wrong, though it might funnel a few more credits into the pockets of the people who bleed their eyes out working with it.
Crafting stations in an obscure place, hunting particle traces which you turn into stuff? It's all contrived. You have to fix the concept before you can fix the execution.
Doesn't address serious flaws?
Dilithum costs are ridiculous in crafting right now. How does significantly lowering/removing them not fix that?
Crafting becomes pointless at end-game as none of the gear scales to Mk XII. How does allowing gear to scale to Mk XII not address that flaw?
At present, crafted set gear is woefully outclassed by non-crafted set gear. How does adding new crafted set gear that's on par with mission oriented set gear not fix that issue?
People don't bother to craft because the items that are crafted have (in most cases) absolutely terrible mod selection. How does allowing players to chose their mods not address that concern?
So your problem is with the fact that in an era where replicators exist (which by the way, cannot make everything, nor can they do the fine mechanical work that's necessary for most advanced construction) you object to having to actually put some effort into crafting to get stuff?
Argue that line, instead of the argument that fixing the glaring flaws in STO's crafting system wouldn't actually fix the glaring flaws in STO's crafting system.
I think a lot of players probably enjoy doing it themselves, but I think the doff missions are a good idea. Why not have a mix of do-it-yourself and doff missions which grant "Crafting marks/XP?"
New, unique-to-crafting items would definitely be welcome.
I agree that some changes could be made here. Maybe scanned particles could be exchanged for more "Crafting Marks?"
Yup.
That's a great idea, but probably non-trivial to implement, as I don't think the engine allows mods to be "added" to an item...every possible variant of every single item would have to be hard-coded into the game.
Yup. Although dilithium would probably continue to be part of the equation, same as every other system that grants Mk XII gear.
Here's what I think would be awesome for crafting: the crafting system should be the way to upgrade mission reward items which normally cap at Mk XI to Mk XII.
The Lobi store is currently doing this for a few items (e.g., the Crystalline set). IMO, the crafting system would be the best place for it. People could craft Mk XII versions of the TOS phasers, the Efficient Impulse Engines, the Paratrinic shields, and all of the other mission reward stuff.
Oh, it's almost like you actually read my first post, except clearly haven't.
Again, you're going to have to accept that we're probably stuck with ridiculous Dilithium sinks. The entire system is full of misery, so it makes sense to fix the entire system. 'Crafting' as it was implemented should never have been put into a science fiction game, but it was. I DID argue the line that the concept was stupid-I was nice about it.
By the same token, let's put back in your face about effort, you're asking for easier crafting as well. That's what removal of the dilithium drain is for you-a crafting nerf to make it easier and take less effort. But get this-it actually DOES make sense that Dilithium-an energy resource-would be expended in the construction of advanced equipment! Throw the unereplicatable materials out, sure-they're just an intermediary abstraction anyhow.
Also, so long as crafting something costs an amount of Dilithium that is relative to the cost of buying one of the extremely rare Fleet items, the Dilithium sink in crafting isn't working ANYHOW because anyone with half a brain will get their items there instead.
What you want is a reduction in cost. That's probably reasonable-I'm certain that the cost is completely out of whack with other systems in game, as that was the exact problem with Champions Online. What I want is them to realize the same thing they realized in CO-everything about the crafting is bad. The execution is awkward, the concept doesn't make sense, on and on. Scrap it and make something good out of it. Since my point is to throw out the old system ANYWAYS, why not design it from the ground up to be more effortless? Again, YOU are the captain. You're not sitting around in engineering tinkering, you have a ship and away teams to lead.
Honestly, this gets even worse the second you look at it from a Klingon perspective.
Are you physically incapable of having a conversation with someone without insulting them, or do you just feel the need to spew acid at anything with a pulse? You put forth an idea, people presented their opinions on it. Instead of having a rational conversation on those ideas you jump straight down people's throats.
Not helpful.
I accept nothing as immutable. If I feel something needs to be changed, I say so. The crafting system has a solid foundation: you go find resources, you use said resources to get stuff that you want.
What's lacking is the implementation, and tuning of costs associated with said implementation.
I guess you missed the part about adjusting trace/commodity inputs to compensate for dilithium removal. Being limited to crafting one or two items per week is an absurd shackle to put on crafters.
Secondly, anti-matter reactors are far from the only means of power generation in the 25th century. So don't even start claiming that dilithium = energy resource unless you're planning on having people carry around fusion-oriented currencies, as well as making them go and hunt anti-matter.
Thirdly, don't pretend that dilithium is a coherent in-universe resource. Cryptic took a Trek-related name, and slapped it on the mechanism they use to artificially gate progress. Nothing more.
What I want is a system that isn't completely redundant and inferior to a straight up npc store.
As I said above, the crafting system has a decent foundation. It's simple, straightforward, and with the right tweaks (especially in the mid-refinement area) it can easily be made into a vibrant means of advancing a character.
Elaborate.
You're a KDF member. Proud Warrior of House... whatever. The Empire has enemies, and your ship is on the front lines, proud to be defending and promoting the ideals and valor of the empire...
Except that you're off in engineering or wherever, tinkering with TRIBBLE no one wants because everyone is requisitioning better things through NPC's (as you stated). You bring shame and dishonor to your family, and should be shunned, you awful, lousy Klingon.
Look. The literal reason here that I feel strongly that the current crafting system is just garbage is mostly the arms race theory in design. What role is crafting supposed to play? Currently, it's an outdated money sink for players dumb enough to participate in it, and that is obvious from merely the first few hundred points in.
Your solution, to add mk XII items that are competitive with what's out there is good on paper, and bad in practice BECAUSE of the arms race theory. Every patch, or at least every so often, they will want to release a new rep, or something new with NPC's to keep player interest up. One of the easiest ways to make players want to pursue that content is new, better, flashier gear. If you update the crafting system to current standards, you bump up the power level in the game (which many people on the forums claims is a little whacked anyhow), AND you create a situation where next patch, we'll see Mk XIII and Mk IV super items because the devs want to get everyone excited about the new stuff.
Conversely, if you make crafting about items that aren't widely available from other segments of the game, it gives the devs a reason to keep updating crafting every patch, which keeps guys like yourself happy (or well, happier) in the long run. Crafting couldeven become about fun things at that point, and no one would mind because there is ALWAYS a market for fun.
And finally... just a consideration for you... No one is going to have money or resources to grab your crafted items until they finish getting the rep items they want because they're sinking a sizable chunk of their resources into the daily rep grinds. If you work WITH this consideration, you realize that prices for everything have a pretty low critical mass-which is good for somethings and REALLY BAD for expensive crafting. I grind out my MACO set, why am I going to want to Aegis? Seriously, *why*? I also consider it "dumb" that the supreme crafted items compete with the Rep items-that's just a lose/lose situation.
Do you get that? Are we at least one the same page now?
Actually, you start off pretty insultingly in just the second sentence of your OP regarding the existing threads related to crafting and continue a condescending your-ideas-suck tone through every reply you have posted so far.
But hey - be defensive and condescending. Its the internet, after all. :rolleyes:
And I think they are going to have to either reduce the dilithium costs by a large degree or vastly improve the quality of the crafted items before anyone will be terribly interested in revisiting crafting. I craft the occasional Aegis set for an alt or a friend, but other than that, there isn't much worth the cost.
And a crafting mat cost reduction is still a sink. Its just not a wildly inappropriate sink like it currently is.
I suggested that they add more unique sets to crafting for ground and space. I would like to see a ground set that includes a kit(it would come in various marks) that encourages people to play the role of a tank or a medic.
Also, as other games do we need multiple crafting trees. Science officers can craft superior consumables and devices for a player to use. Engineers can make superior ship consoles and armor/shields. And, tacs can make weapons and consumables such as grenades or items that can upgrade your weapons fire power by adding an additional mod.
There are a lot of creative fixes and we need to see them. Crafting has always been an important part of any mmo and should be a players primary way of earning money not selling keys.
Oh really?
All before I called you on it. If you're going to lie, at least do it in a way that isn't instantly noticeable.
Nice pack of assumptions you're making there, notably that every KDF member is a Klingon and that they all ascribe to the exact same cultural stereotypes, but I digress.
None of that makes a crafting system less viable for a KDF character than a Starfleet character. If you can't handle the fact that your own character is doing what you appear to believe is menial labor (which assembling, experimenting with and improving massively powerful pieces of machinery most certainly is not), than simply put yourself in the shoes of the genius engineer you keep in the bowels of your ship.
Translation: I don't like gear based MMO progression.
What crafting should be is a viable means to create gear that makes the game more enjoyable in a way that is neither superior, nor inferior, to other methods with the same goal. For some that will be vanity items. For others it will be powerful equipment.
And now we're back to "I don't like gear based MMO progression".
In addition, allowing crafting to reach the same ceiling as other gear sources in no way makes that ceiling any higher. If I bounce a ball 25 feet high, and then bounce another ball the exact same height, the first ball doesn't magically bounce higher.
I guess you missed the part where I advocated for items that were crafting exclusive?
Following that logic, why have Omega, Adapted Maco or Borg sets since we have a Maco set? You want everyone wearing the same armor, carrying the same rifle, flying the shame ship equipped with the exact same weapons, shields and engines?
Because reducing variety is exactly what leads to that sort of thing. Increasing viable options leads to people having more and more things to mix and match, and create interesting, workable and fun combinations.
I understand that you're looking for something in a crafting system that the vast majority of MMO players wouldn't touch with a twenty foot pole and a hazmat suit.
Again, its your tone and your complete dismissal of any opinion other than your own that's the problem here.
You start a forum thread and then act the fool to anyone who doesn't agree with you? That's not exactly a great way to encourage discussion and try to find commonly acceptable solutions.
But if it makes you feel better to chalk it all up to us just not grasping the core crafting problems, you go right ahead and do that.
Me too.
Is it wrong to craft? Are we bad people?
Not in the least. Making a good-faith effort to try and improve an area that you feel needs attention is nothing to feel shame for.
Shouting down anyone who disagrees with you for the simple fact that they disagree with you...not so much.
No. Craft till your little pixel-ie fingers bleed.
But, in all fairness, if you are crafting with any kind of profit motive in mind, you are going to be completely wasting your resources with STO crafting as is.
If you want a nice aegis set because you haven't maxed out the rep system or only play once in a blue moon and don't care to max out your gear, crafting is fine.
To be fair, when used correctly the Aegis set can be instrumental to a few hilarious high-defense related builds.
Oh yeah. I loved me my aegis set until I ran out of things to do and STF'd until I had enough for the adapted MACO XII.
Did you even read what I said
The issue is cost. In terms of time and Dilithium.
For Time you have to gather the Particle Traces and Data Samples and the Schematic for the Craftables, while for Advanced Fleet weapons you have to level up your starbase and do the project that unlocks the Vendor.
Or you can join a fleet that's already done that so Adv. Fleet weapons are free in that regard.
For Dilithium, the Beam array above requires 95 Common materials (950) and 8 Uncommon Materials (8k) or ~78/7 during the event. Adv. Fleet weapons straight up cost 10k Dil, no reductions.
However because you can completely negate the Time cost for Fleet weapons, it's a lot easier to wait a single day and refine more Dilithium to buy them than to save up for a Crafting event.
This is the issue with crafting. With the advent of Fleet equipment, it's a lot easier to get better gear for less cost. You can't mess with the Dilithium cost because then Adv. Fleet weapons become wasteful.
My suggestion to mitigate the severe Time cost difference would be to increase the amount of Data Samples found. That's all.
Going based on the OP's idea that you wouldn't leave your ship to go off crafting, I'd suggest having a Research & Development Facility (Crafting Facility) on your ship, where you go to a main station that over looks the area with crew walking around working in different sections on weaponry, kits, shields etc etc. You level up and get access to new crafting schematics and you interact with something that works similar to the DoFF missions. You choose the type of item you want to craft with the bonuses you would like to see and what quality you want to make.
So for example I want to make a Uncommon Phaser Turret MK XI [Acc] and on a fail I'll lose some materials, on a success I'll get what I want and on a crit it'll bump it up to Rare. This would also be good that on a Very Rare item you would get an Ultra Rare on a crit. This is also where your level would come into play, say you want to make something that requires a skill of 1000; as you level higher and higher above the 1000 skill requirement it increases your success / crit success and decreases your fail rate. You could also introduce a separate DoFF Officer Listing with a smaller cap of say 10-20 officers which are your Research & Development team and depending on the rarity of each one, they would give added bonuses to your crafting.
This helps people generate income and you can actually spend EC to get better items in the game that may have added extra bonuses that stuff from the reputation system can't give you. They could introduce the dilithium cost to the assignment of creating the item:
Common = 0 Dil
Uncommon = 500 Dil
Rare = 1000 Dil
Very Rare = 2000 Dil
This would make crafting so much more worthwhile in my opinion and give me more of a reason to use it as a form of income to save up for a ship on the exchange or whatever I wanted.
this is the only correct answer, or alternatively, pretend it isn't there, since i doubt cryptic will remove dil costs(lol, has the past updates not teach any of you anything?), we don't need even more top notch gear to be hidden behind a massive wall of dil/loot(like elite stuff).
How about making some crafting or other types of missions cost energy credits? Some kind of prerequisite for having duty missions happen. Right now, with dilithium, energy credits are only useful in transwarping and some new person's things.
There is a second problem that is even more important than that however, and that is how to make crafting more fun and engaging. I believe a good way to do this might be to tie item improvements into a crafting system. Say you find or earn an awesome Fleet type photon torpedo. You could then use your duty officers to upgrade them in a system where for some more work, (And maybe a chance to fail and losing the item which would keep things interesting,) you could use them to make enhancements.
A critical success could even maybe change the item into something better in such a system, say turn a common item to green. This would also give our science and engineer doffs things to do.