It's a rather small thing, but are you adding flavor texts to the different crafting materials? I'd actually like to know what "Z particles" and "Thoron particles" are - having some item descriptions would really help to get some immersion with the system.
I'd also love to get Memory Alpha back in some capacity. Having a place that is all about crafting would be nice - at least if you make it more accessible (Transwarp). Currently the crafting system feels too much like UI clicking, even though I like the connection to the DOFF system.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "Sometimes you have to do things that you hate, so you can survive to fight another day."
<EDITED> 350 hours is ~14.5 days, 6 months ~12x longer than that.
Everyone quibbling with the numbers on this are ignoring the fact that he is saying you will be able to queue up projects and let them run while you are offline, assuming you have enough mats to do so, you can run the system 24/7 even with a limited hour or so window of playtime.
Yes, 350 hours is 14.5 days in the direct sense. But 350 hours of play time of the average MMO gamer is 2 hours per day, which turns that 350 hours into 6 months. Unless you're saying that people are going to hardcore grind for 14.5 days nonstop? Without sleep, bathroom, etc? :rolleyes:
So sorry, the math I originally posted was correct. :P
Of course, the average STO play time is 4 hours online, but I seriously doubt that player is going to do 4 hours of crafting for 3-4 months on end. Especially when there could be new playable content, fleet grinding, dilithum grinding, and now factoring in the material farming (grinding) to do crafting. On top of multiple characters. This shows that this current crafting system is not very fun in the slightest.
They have also stated that anything crafted is account bound on equip, so there is no need to make crafting account wide, it already is. You'd have to be pretty daft to do this on multiple characters, and the only benefit to doing so is to save the few seconds it takes to switch between characters.
I'm not talking about the crafted items itself but the crafting system. So instead of leveling up crafting on 3, 6, 9, 12 characters, it's all centralized on the account. So you don't have to be forced to stay on a single character. All characters contribute to the system.
It's a rather small thing, but are you adding flavor texts to the different crafting materials? I'd actually like to know what "Z particles" and "Thoron particles" are - having some item descriptions would really help to get some immersion with the system.
Not only don't you know what the MMO stand for, you can't do math. 350 hours is ~14.5 days, 6 months ~12x longer than that.
Everyone quibbling with the numbers on this are ignoring the fact that he is saying you will be able to queue up projects and let them run while you are offline, assuming you have enough mats to do so, you can run the system 24/7 even with a limited hour or so window of playtime.
They have also stated that anything crafted is account bound on equip, so there is no need to make crafting account wide, it already is. You'd have to be pretty daft to do this on multiple characters, and the only benefit to doing so is to save the few seconds it takes to switch between characters.
Not quite - there are trait unlocks,independent of the crafted items, but dependent on your rank in crafting.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I don't know about a new character, but starting the R&D with an existing Level 50 character feels so wrong:
You can only craft Mk VI or Mk VIII (the one that gives you 600 XP) without beeing Level 5 in that school, this means you need to craft 17 items per school to reach Level 3 (10,000 XP)... Yes, Level 3, not Level 5 that would allow you to build higher Mk items, that would reward more XP. The result is 34 Beams, Cannons and the corresponding consoles just to reach Level 3 in Cannons and Beams School.
Now think about shields... What the h... should you do with 34 shields... Or ground weapons?!? How many more will be required before you can craft Mk X? Are you going to end up with 300 junk beam-arrays (up to Level 5)?
Better Doffs get you a little Crafting-Skill-Bonus, that's nice, but what would be about a little XP earned Bonus from high quality Doffs?!? The only thing old character might have as an advantage over fresh ones are those good Doffs.
The old crafting-version is still around on Defera. Crafting you are doing there is not contributing to the new system.
I think your old general research skill should be the basis for the new system (giving you up to 1,650 XP for all schools to start with) or that crafting-station on Defera needs to be reworked, too.
If Defera-Crafting is going to stay in the game (so you could still get the General Research Skill rewarded by the old crafting-system), a fresh character could get some progress on Defera, too.
But the overall-progression is still too slow. There needs to be more to gain a little XP. Those disassemble-projects would be a great help. Just imagine you could get 2 or 3 weapons out of reputation-boxes, disassemble them and build a new one.
Some people wrote about some rare materials that is only available as drop from STFs... That reminds me of the old days of prototype-drops... I needed 100 runs on KAGE for that bloody Mk XII Armor, don't do something like that again.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
It only takes 40 days to finish the reputations (doing only the dailies), this crafting/r&d system should not take longer. If it still takes more than 2 months to finish when it goes live, I will have 3 reasons not to start (dil cost and gambling mechanism being the first 2).
What needs to happen:
Gambling goes away and you get what you choose (5K dil for this is okay) or the dil cost goes away
Amount of xp needed to max out gets reduced or the amount of xp generated needs to increase (without dil or special items being added in)
350 to 400 hours of ....mindless grind to complete the crafting system
Then the huge costs and gambling for your item at the end of it
just sell level 20 master crafter in the zen store for 2500 zen and be done with it
the items are very powerful but we steamroll over the content now........ !!!
Why do we need more powerful items cryptic ?
And the items will be bound ?...If so then doing the crafting system will be a Big no on more than one character making even more unattractive
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
It only takes 40 days to finish the reputations (doing only the dailies), this crafting/r&d system should not take longer. If it still takes more than 2 months to finish when it goes live, I will have 3 reasons not to start (dil cost and gambling mechanism being the first 2).
What needs to happen:
Gambling goes away and you get what you choose (5K dil for this is okay) or the dil cost goes away
Amount of xp needed to max out gets reduced or the amount of xp generated needs to increase (without dil or special items being added in)
You forgot about new characters: If a fresh character needs a few days more then 40, that would be ok, since they can start R&D at which level? 10, maybe 15... You need a few days to reach level 50, after that you should be able to finish within 40 days.
But the required XP to level-up R&D and the rewarded XP from the projects look like they are going to replace every single loot-drop in the game by crafting materials. How else should someone be able to craft 300 items from below Mk VIII for each school?!? And that's only up to level 5 in each R&D school: As soon as you hit level 5, you can craft new components for Mk VIII and Mk X items (without Dilithium-Costs).
A little gamble is ok, the chance to get ultra-rare instead of very-rare is good.
350 to 400 hours of ....mindless grind to complete the crafting system
Then the huge costs and gambling for your item at the end of it
just sell level 20 master crafter in the zen store for 2500 zen and be done with it
the items are very powerful but we steamroll over the content now........ !!!
Why do we need more powerful items cryptic ?
And the items will be bound ?...If so then doing the crafting system will be a Big no on more than one character making even more unattractive
2500 Zen per account or per character?
Maybe you didn't see the "Maximum 1 per Ship"-label on some of the items: You may only equip one 360° Beam Array and only one wide-arc DHC per ship.
And don't forget that they added sponsorship-tokens to reputations, so a fresh character is able to finish reputations within 20 days. I don't see something like that coming for R&D... Except they give us Reman Datalogs or something like that.
As far as I know those items are "Bind to account on Equip", so you may sell those items on the exchange (hell imagine the prices for the first Mk XII 360° Beam-Arrays ), after equipping them once, you can still trade them inside your account using your account-bank.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
I feel that with the new crafting systsem relying on the Doffs the only way many of the older players will even really be able to start the new crafting system would be if the new DOffs that you get in teh crafting Tutorial Reward box also granted you the 18 DOff slots that you need to even open it.
I have 1 toon set up with the compilation for doing my DOff missions as it is with no room for anymore at around the 400 slots mark and I will have to findout what DOffs are in teh box before I can even figure out which 18 of my Blue and Purple quality ones I can sacrifice for the whites just to do the crafting. and I know that there are many others that are in the same boat as me or have max slots unlock aand are full.
Any of the players that still only have the basic free 100 slots that they start with because they can't afford to spend money on the game are going to be even worse off because by the time you have the 2 or 3 of each type of DOff that won't leave you with the room for 18 just to use for crafting Most of the people that I know with only 100 slots have full Purple Rosters so can't even contribute DOffs to the fleet projects if they wish to keep leveling their CXP so they won't be taking part in the new crafting as a result unless more free DOff slots are provided. Even if it is just the required for the Tutorial Reward Pack to be redeemed.
The only people that will probably even bother with the crafting system are those that are starting fresh toons and there fore have the slots as things are now.
I feel that with the new crafting systsem relying on the Doffs the only way many of the older players will even really be able to start the new crafting system would be if the new DOffs that you get in teh crafting Tutorial Reward box also granted you the 18 DOff slots that you need to even open it.
I have 1 toon set up with the compilation for doing my DOff missions as it is with no room for anymore at around the 400 slots mark and I will have to findout what DOffs are in teh box before I can even figure out which 18 of my Blue and Purple quality ones I can sacrifice for the whites just to do the crafting. and I know that there are many others that are in the same boat as me or have max slots unlock aand are full.
Any of the players that still only have the basic free 100 slots that they start with because they can't afford to spend money on the game are going to be even worse off because by the time you have the 2 or 3 of each type of DOff that won't leave you with the room for 18 just to use for crafting Most of the people that I know with only 100 slots have full Purple Rosters so can't even contribute DOffs to the fleet projects if they wish to keep leveling their CXP so they won't be taking part in the new crafting as a result unless more free DOff slots are provided. Even if it is just the required for the Tutorial Reward Pack to be redeemed.
The only people that will probably even bother with the crafting system are those that are starting fresh toons and there fore have the slots as things are now.
If you got bule and purple DOFFs, you would be dumb to dump any of them. They can do the crafting, too. Usually, even better than these white ECHs...
"I came from a time long gone, saw many other times...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
I just copied my max rank crafted over to tribble and I had to start over from the very beginning which is complete bs I work hard to level that crafter up to max rank spend time and money getting the mats to do it and now when this new system comes out ill have to do it all over again they should at least give those of us who have maxed out crafters some kind of head started like being able to craft Mk VI stuff right from the start
I just copied my max rank crafted over to tribble and I had to start over from the very beginning which is complete bs I work hard to level that crafter up to max rank spend time and money getting the mats to do it and now when this new system comes out ill have to do it all over again they should at least give those of us who have maxed out crafters some kind of head started like being able to craft Mk VI stuff right from the start
You can start crafting with Mk VI, you can't craft Mk VIII and above, because you can't craft the components required for those... Maybe those components can be traded on the exchange, then you could start with Mk X.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
I just copied my max rank crafted over to tribble and I had to start over from the very beginning which is complete bs I work hard to level that crafter up to max rank spend time and money getting the mats to do it and now when this new system comes out ill have to do it all over again they should at least give those of us who have maxed out crafters some kind of head started like being able to craft Mk VI stuff right from the start
I disagree with you & agree. We're getting shafted as usual from Craptic & I'm walking away from this bug laden grindfest of a game. All the so called programmers ever do is cut & paste TRIBBLE & introduce bugs doing so & never fix them. I can craft like you right now @ max lvl & the only acceptable compromise is to maintain that & grind "a little" to go from mk 11 gear to the new mk 12 gear. Anything less is pure BS & Craptic & Imperfect World can go F themselves. I'm done w/ this nonsense, don't care if I get banned from these worthless forums & am writing to CBS directly to have their license revoked. The more people that complain directly to CBS the better it will be for us players. What are they going to take away from us next- diplomatic status? Marauder status? All in the name of "improving" the game? KMA Craptic.
I would respectfully request that you holster your outrage until the next patch to Tribble.
Next patch to Tribble just came. So... what is it that's supposed to make 350 hours less bad? Because as I understand it, Crafting Skill is heavily influenced by level. Ergo, being Level 15 in a School will still give you chances for blues. And you STILL can't customize mods. I also see nothing that makes this grind less horribly brutal.
The time required doesn't appear to have changed at all.
Am I missing something?
I know you disagree with some or most of the design decisions, but aren't you taking this a little too personally? Though i too hope they tweak the time required.
I hate you cryptic, why do you take my stuff away, my crafting skill is part of my character you take that away. You take away club 42 you take away exploration, you just keep taking away from me. This is ridiculous .If i have a max crafting skill i should keep it. No matter what the change is. I grind for over a year for my maco gear, then a guy with no life who can play 24/7 has it before i do. And you make me spend more resources to get it. Not to mention the countless builds you have destroyed in youR " balancing" act I dont get you and now i hate you .
This Crafting Revamp... is STO's version of Threshold from Voyager. As SFDebris once put it (paraphrasing here), Threshold was a mild exaggeration of everything VOY had been doing up to that point. But that mild exaggeration of all of it made it seem like self-parody... and made it the single worst part of the series. Likewise, this revamp is only a slight exaggeration of the senseless, boring grind and ham-handed over-monetization that the game now suffers from. But if it launches as such, it will be the worst single part of the game (most of the rest now being removed).
Please, Cryptic... I'm BEGGING now... I will BOMBARD you with money if you just PLEASE make this not terrible.
Next patch to Tribble just came. So... what is it that's supposed to make 350 hours less bad? Because as I understand it, Crafting Skill is heavily influenced by level. Ergo, being Level 15 in a School will still give you chances for blues. And you STILL can't customize mods. I also see nothing that makes this grind less horribly brutal.
Don't use it then; you can buy the weapons from me when I put them on the exchange.
This system still seems like a walk in the park compared to when I used to play FFXI...
Don't use it then; you can buy the weapons from me when I put them on the exchange.
This system still seems like a walk in the park compared to when I used to play FFXI...
Yea, in the 3-4 months when you can start MAKING weapons. The point of Crafting for me is to make my own gear. Not buy it from some dude that doesn't understand that just because another game did it doesn't mean it's acceptable in this one or any other.
Well, I don't know if you had a look at the components required to craft Mk X items, I did: This spreadsheet shows which Level 5 Components are required by which school.
The Level 5 Components are required to craft Mk X items, so long duration, no Dilithium-Costs and quite good XP. Looking at it you'll see that each component is usually used in 2 schools. The exceptions are Ground Weapons (those Components are not used anywhere else), Beams (Power Surge Regulator is exclusive to Beams) and Science (Quantum Field Focus is exclusive to Science).
It looks like (at least) 2 Schools have been scratched from R&D (see Missing 1 and Missing 2 in Solution 1 and Solution 2). Or Handheld Calibration Control and Micro Powercell have been added to annoy players...
Now you can see that some R&D schools should give you synergies, for example: You start R&D with Beams-School, after that you start Shields-School. The result is: Once both Schools hit Level 5, you've got the components required to build Mk X Cannon-School items, too (giving you a kick-start to Cannons-School). You can see more of these examples in the Spreadsheet (link in this Post).
Now Science, Beams and Ground-Weapons don't have that much synergies, Ground-Weapons is fully isolated, Science has got only one common Component with Projectiles and Beams have the unique Component Power Surge Regulator.
You could make another spreadsheet for Level 10 Components (that are required to build Mk XI and Mk XII items), but you would still require the Level 5 Components to build Mk XI and Mk XII items. And wasting lots of Dilithium to level-up R&D is a no-go for me.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Yea, in the 3-4 months when you can start MAKING weapons. The point of Crafting for me is to make my own gear. Not buy it from some dude that doesn't understand that just because another game did it doesn't mean it's acceptable in this one or any other.
The doffs you need for crafting, are special doffs or can we use the doffs we have now ??
If so, how are we going to see the difference on the exchange ??
I've been thinking and it might be a good idea/nice if crafting materials packs such as those that we're supposed to get from doing PvE queues are added as mission replay rewards.
The doffs you need for crafting, are special doffs or can we use the doffs we have now ??
If so, how are we going to see the difference on the exchange ??
I've been thinking and it might be a good idea/nice if crafting materials packs such as those that we're supposed to get from doing PvE queues are added as mission replay rewards.
Sounds like a good idea.
Now to what I think about the system as it appears right now.
1. I know I mentioned it before, but after spending about an hour to craft components to make some gear (low level, as I tried to get one more school past level 5), I ask once again: Please give us the possibility to craft components in batches of at least 10. At least the low level stuff, of which you need quite some amount to get enough components to craft some low level gear.
2. It is okay if the crafting starts at level 15 to allow new players to collect materials, but you yould give them a hint that they should start collecting these materials from the first second of gameplay.
3. I still think the XP reward for crafting components is too low. It's what you spend most of the time while crafting, so it should give at least a slight feeling of progress if you do so...
I feel like I've forgotten some more points, but my life keeps distracting me...
"I came from a time long gone, saw many other times...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
QFT. Hawk, a lot of people are not seeing what you apparently can. If there is some way to stack projects, I don't think anyone can see it. Now, if there is a way that you can harvest a bunch of material, and then que up like 24 hours worth of projects, then sure, 350 hours is fine, as long as I don't have to be awake for all of it. But from what I last saw on tribble, this isn't the case.
EDIT: Ninja'd. Curse me for using a tablet. Okay, waiting for the next update. Also, if you don't want the rage, may I respectfully request that next update you release in an incomplete state you put out something that states your total picturefor the system and say in the tribble patch notes when you implement it?
This definately smells alot like the Dilthium scenario when they removed it from the STF then scaled them back in at a lower return rate.
I'm sure all we are seeing on tribble is the extreme which everyone will say...."NO" then they adjust till we reluctatly compromise.
after several hours of testing the new crafting system on Tribble I'd like to give my thoughts on some aspects I find important to improve the whole system. I'm not discussing the fundamental mechanics of the system, because I don't think Cryptic is gonna change them. One other note, I haven't read the thread, so I may touch things which have been discussed or are under discussion right now.
The way Cryptic has designed the system is, that it requires you to produce tons of items you will not use to progress so that your chance to produce better items will be better eventually. In order to craft any number of an item you need to craft its components first, which as it stands right now is quite tedious. Lets say I'm producing many Mk VI items, then I need as many white components A, twice as many green components B, and three times as many components C, in total six times* the number of items I want to craft. In order to alleviate this tediousness we need to be able to chain projects in serial, rather than only in parallel as it is right now. Otherwise your engaged in continuosly clicking for a long time. At higher levels this can easily be half an hour or so. So, please, implement serial chaining of projects in that way, that we set the component/item and its amount we want to craft. Of course the time for this project would be the amount of the components times the time for a single component.
*this would be the worst case scenario, I am aware, that the Projects on a Crit give three components instead of one
Then, the UI, it did get better with last patch, but, the listing is still not ideal. The high level tick box is a start, but I think you could have tick boxes for eg. white compontents, greens, blues, and purple ones, and in addition one for items. On that note, I like the fact, that the lists remembers its position when crafting items, so that you don't have to scroll down.
Next, blue stuff. The old rare particle traces:
1. when converting them in to the new materials, why don't they convert solely into blue materials, but rather into a lot of white and green materials and very little blue materials? I think, that isn't necessary, because I think, when you have a lot of those particle traces you have a much bigger lot of the old common materials.
2. Because of their lousy conversion rate I went to the place where you could get garanteed rare particle traces, the Vlugta Dilithium Mine, to actually get some more rare materials. But all you get now are white and green materials. This is very disappointing. I hope to see this changed along with the conversion of the rare particle traces.
Well, this got a little longer than I expected, I apologize for that. And thanks for reading.
What if we were previously master crafters? Is there any trade off to what our level will start out as if we previously mastered crafting, or do we all have to start over from square one? Is it possible that master crafters get any advantage here? Thanks.
"The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns" ~ Hamlet by William Shakespeare & Star Trek VI
Comments
I'd also love to get Memory Alpha back in some capacity. Having a place that is all about crafting would be nice - at least if you make it more accessible (Transwarp). Currently the crafting system feels too much like UI clicking, even though I like the connection to the DOFF system.
"Sometimes you have to do things that you hate, so you can survive to fight another day."
Yes, 350 hours is 14.5 days in the direct sense. But 350 hours of play time of the average MMO gamer is 2 hours per day, which turns that 350 hours into 6 months. Unless you're saying that people are going to hardcore grind for 14.5 days nonstop? Without sleep, bathroom, etc? :rolleyes:
So sorry, the math I originally posted was correct. :P
Of course, the average STO play time is 4 hours online, but I seriously doubt that player is going to do 4 hours of crafting for 3-4 months on end. Especially when there could be new playable content, fleet grinding, dilithum grinding, and now factoring in the material farming (grinding) to do crafting. On top of multiple characters. This shows that this current crafting system is not very fun in the slightest.
I'm not talking about the crafted items itself but the crafting system. So instead of leveling up crafting on 3, 6, 9, 12 characters, it's all centralized on the account. So you don't have to be forced to stay on a single character. All characters contribute to the system.
Yes, a detailed description would be good.
But the information is available at Memory Alpha:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Z-particle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-particle
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Thoron
Not quite - there are trait unlocks,independent of the crafted items, but dependent on your rank in crafting.
I don't know about a new character, but starting the R&D with an existing Level 50 character feels so wrong:
You can only craft Mk VI or Mk VIII (the one that gives you 600 XP) without beeing Level 5 in that school, this means you need to craft 17 items per school to reach Level 3 (10,000 XP)... Yes, Level 3, not Level 5 that would allow you to build higher Mk items, that would reward more XP. The result is 34 Beams, Cannons and the corresponding consoles just to reach Level 3 in Cannons and Beams School.
Now think about shields... What the h... should you do with 34 shields... Or ground weapons?!? How many more will be required before you can craft Mk X? Are you going to end up with 300 junk beam-arrays (up to Level 5)?
Better Doffs get you a little Crafting-Skill-Bonus, that's nice, but what would be about a little XP earned Bonus from high quality Doffs?!? The only thing old character might have as an advantage over fresh ones are those good Doffs.
The old crafting-version is still around on Defera. Crafting you are doing there is not contributing to the new system.
I think your old general research skill should be the basis for the new system (giving you up to 1,650 XP for all schools to start with) or that crafting-station on Defera needs to be reworked, too.
If Defera-Crafting is going to stay in the game (so you could still get the General Research Skill rewarded by the old crafting-system), a fresh character could get some progress on Defera, too.
But the overall-progression is still too slow. There needs to be more to gain a little XP. Those disassemble-projects would be a great help. Just imagine you could get 2 or 3 weapons out of reputation-boxes, disassemble them and build a new one.
Some people wrote about some rare materials that is only available as drop from STFs... That reminds me of the old days of prototype-drops... I needed 100 runs on KAGE for that bloody Mk XII Armor, don't do something like that again.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
What needs to happen:
Gambling goes away and you get what you choose (5K dil for this is okay) or the dil cost goes away
Amount of xp needed to max out gets reduced or the amount of xp generated needs to increase (without dil or special items being added in)
Then the huge costs and gambling for your item at the end of it
just sell level 20 master crafter in the zen store for 2500 zen and be done with it
the items are very powerful but we steamroll over the content now........ !!!
Why do we need more powerful items cryptic ?
And the items will be bound ?...If so then doing the crafting system will be a Big no on more than one character making even more unattractive
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
You forgot about new characters: If a fresh character needs a few days more then 40, that would be ok, since they can start R&D at which level? 10, maybe 15... You need a few days to reach level 50, after that you should be able to finish within 40 days.
But the required XP to level-up R&D and the rewarded XP from the projects look like they are going to replace every single loot-drop in the game by crafting materials. How else should someone be able to craft 300 items from below Mk VIII for each school?!? And that's only up to level 5 in each R&D school: As soon as you hit level 5, you can craft new components for Mk VIII and Mk X items (without Dilithium-Costs).
A little gamble is ok, the chance to get ultra-rare instead of very-rare is good.
2500 Zen per account or per character?
Maybe you didn't see the "Maximum 1 per Ship"-label on some of the items: You may only equip one 360° Beam Array and only one wide-arc DHC per ship.
And don't forget that they added sponsorship-tokens to reputations, so a fresh character is able to finish reputations within 20 days. I don't see something like that coming for R&D... Except they give us Reman Datalogs or something like that.
As far as I know those items are "Bind to account on Equip", so you may sell those items on the exchange (hell imagine the prices for the first Mk XII 360° Beam-Arrays
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
I have 1 toon set up with the compilation for doing my DOff missions as it is with no room for anymore at around the 400 slots mark and I will have to findout what DOffs are in teh box before I can even figure out which 18 of my Blue and Purple quality ones I can sacrifice for the whites just to do the crafting. and I know that there are many others that are in the same boat as me or have max slots unlock aand are full.
Any of the players that still only have the basic free 100 slots that they start with because they can't afford to spend money on the game are going to be even worse off because by the time you have the 2 or 3 of each type of DOff that won't leave you with the room for 18 just to use for crafting Most of the people that I know with only 100 slots have full Purple Rosters so can't even contribute DOffs to the fleet projects if they wish to keep leveling their CXP so they won't be taking part in the new crafting as a result unless more free DOff slots are provided. Even if it is just the required for the Tutorial Reward Pack to be redeemed.
The only people that will probably even bother with the crafting system are those that are starting fresh toons and there fore have the slots as things are now.
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
You can start crafting with Mk VI, you can't craft Mk VIII and above, because you can't craft the components required for those... Maybe those components can be traded on the exchange, then you could start with Mk X.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
I disagree with you & agree. We're getting shafted as usual from Craptic & I'm walking away from this bug laden grindfest of a game. All the so called programmers ever do is cut & paste TRIBBLE & introduce bugs doing so & never fix them. I can craft like you right now @ max lvl & the only acceptable compromise is to maintain that & grind "a little" to go from mk 11 gear to the new mk 12 gear. Anything less is pure BS & Craptic & Imperfect World can go F themselves. I'm done w/ this nonsense, don't care if I get banned from these worthless forums & am writing to CBS directly to have their license revoked. The more people that complain directly to CBS the better it will be for us players. What are they going to take away from us next- diplomatic status? Marauder status? All in the name of "improving" the game? KMA Craptic.
Next patch to Tribble just came. So... what is it that's supposed to make 350 hours less bad? Because as I understand it, Crafting Skill is heavily influenced by level. Ergo, being Level 15 in a School will still give you chances for blues. And you STILL can't customize mods. I also see nothing that makes this grind less horribly brutal.
The time required doesn't appear to have changed at all.
Am I missing something?
I know you disagree with some or most of the design decisions, but aren't you taking this a little too personally? Though i too hope they tweak the time required.
This Crafting Revamp... is STO's version of Threshold from Voyager. As SFDebris once put it (paraphrasing here), Threshold was a mild exaggeration of everything VOY had been doing up to that point. But that mild exaggeration of all of it made it seem like self-parody... and made it the single worst part of the series. Likewise, this revamp is only a slight exaggeration of the senseless, boring grind and ham-handed over-monetization that the game now suffers from. But if it launches as such, it will be the worst single part of the game (most of the rest now being removed).
Please, Cryptic... I'm BEGGING now... I will BOMBARD you with money if you just PLEASE make this not terrible.
Don't use it then; you can buy the weapons from me when I put them on the exchange.
This system still seems like a walk in the park compared to when I used to play FFXI...
Why 15 Ranks?!?
Doff'ing only needs 4 to max.
Reputation only needs 5 to max.
Fleets only needs 3 or 5 to max.
But crafting needs *15*...
What were you smoking?
Yea, in the 3-4 months when you can start MAKING weapons. The point of Crafting for me is to make my own gear. Not buy it from some dude that doesn't understand that just because another game did it doesn't mean it's acceptable in this one or any other.
This spreadsheet shows which Level 5 Components are required by which school.
The Level 5 Components are required to craft Mk X items, so long duration, no Dilithium-Costs and quite good XP. Looking at it you'll see that each component is usually used in 2 schools. The exceptions are Ground Weapons (those Components are not used anywhere else), Beams (Power Surge Regulator is exclusive to Beams) and Science (Quantum Field Focus is exclusive to Science).
It looks like (at least) 2 Schools have been scratched from R&D (see Missing 1 and Missing 2 in Solution 1 and Solution 2). Or Handheld Calibration Control and Micro Powercell have been added to annoy players...
Now you can see that some R&D schools should give you synergies, for example: You start R&D with Beams-School, after that you start Shields-School. The result is: Once both Schools hit Level 5, you've got the components required to build Mk X Cannon-School items, too (giving you a kick-start to Cannons-School). You can see more of these examples in the Spreadsheet (link in this Post).
Now Science, Beams and Ground-Weapons don't have that much synergies, Ground-Weapons is fully isolated, Science has got only one common Component with Projectiles and Beams have the unique Component Power Surge Regulator.
You could make another spreadsheet for Level 10 Components (that are required to build Mk XI and Mk XII items), but you would still require the Level 5 Components to build Mk XI and Mk XII items. And wasting lots of Dilithium to level-up R&D is a no-go for me.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
You can't always get what you want.
Your captain has 50.
More levels mean greater fidelity; it's better to have 15 levels than 4 if the total XP to complete is the same. Also, it's 20 levels not 15.
If so, how are we going to see the difference on the exchange ??
Sounds like a good idea.
Now to what I think about the system as it appears right now.
1. I know I mentioned it before, but after spending about an hour to craft components to make some gear (low level, as I tried to get one more school past level 5), I ask once again: Please give us the possibility to craft components in batches of at least 10. At least the low level stuff, of which you need quite some amount to get enough components to craft some low level gear.
2. It is okay if the crafting starts at level 15 to allow new players to collect materials, but you yould give them a hint that they should start collecting these materials from the first second of gameplay.
3. I still think the XP reward for crafting components is too low. It's what you spend most of the time while crafting, so it should give at least a slight feeling of progress if you do so...
I feel like I've forgotten some more points, but my life keeps distracting me...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
This definately smells alot like the Dilthium scenario when they removed it from the STF then scaled them back in at a lower return rate.
I'm sure all we are seeing on tribble is the extreme which everyone will say...."NO" then they adjust till we reluctatly compromise.
after several hours of testing the new crafting system on Tribble I'd like to give my thoughts on some aspects I find important to improve the whole system. I'm not discussing the fundamental mechanics of the system, because I don't think Cryptic is gonna change them. One other note, I haven't read the thread, so I may touch things which have been discussed or are under discussion right now.
The way Cryptic has designed the system is, that it requires you to produce tons of items you will not use to progress so that your chance to produce better items will be better eventually. In order to craft any number of an item you need to craft its components first, which as it stands right now is quite tedious. Lets say I'm producing many Mk VI items, then I need as many white components A, twice as many green components B, and three times as many components C, in total six times* the number of items I want to craft. In order to alleviate this tediousness we need to be able to chain projects in serial, rather than only in parallel as it is right now. Otherwise your engaged in continuosly clicking for a long time. At higher levels this can easily be half an hour or so. So, please, implement serial chaining of projects in that way, that we set the component/item and its amount we want to craft. Of course the time for this project would be the amount of the components times the time for a single component.
*this would be the worst case scenario, I am aware, that the Projects on a Crit give three components instead of one
Then, the UI, it did get better with last patch, but, the listing is still not ideal. The high level tick box is a start, but I think you could have tick boxes for eg. white compontents, greens, blues, and purple ones, and in addition one for items. On that note, I like the fact, that the lists remembers its position when crafting items, so that you don't have to scroll down.
Next, blue stuff. The old rare particle traces:
1. when converting them in to the new materials, why don't they convert solely into blue materials, but rather into a lot of white and green materials and very little blue materials? I think, that isn't necessary, because I think, when you have a lot of those particle traces you have a much bigger lot of the old common materials.
2. Because of their lousy conversion rate I went to the place where you could get garanteed rare particle traces, the Vlugta Dilithium Mine, to actually get some more rare materials. But all you get now are white and green materials. This is very disappointing. I hope to see this changed along with the conversion of the rare particle traces.
Well, this got a little longer than I expected, I apologize for that. And thanks for reading.