So, um here is a genuine question from a long-time player: If I actually spend a year on one thing, to get cannons, for example, will the thing have a noticeable effect on my gameplay abilities, beyond some kind of graphic? Or, will it just convince me that I have the bestest stuff?
So, um here is a genuine question from a long-time player: If I actually spend a year on one thing, to get cannons, for example, will the thing have a noticeable effect on my gameplay abilities, beyond some kind of graphic? Or, will it just convince me that I have the bestest stuff?
This is a serious question to me.
Will something be better than those crafted cannons? . . . by then probably, but there will be some sort of new grind to get it.
So, um here is a genuine question from a long-time player: If I actually spend a year on one thing, to get cannons, for example, will the thing have a noticeable effect on my gameplay abilities, beyond some kind of graphic? Or, will it just convince me that I have the bestest stuff?
This is a serious question to me.
No - one year of "crafting" every single day will get you a weapon or trait which will have no real meaningful impact on your PvE play.
The gear you get will only marginally be better then what is available now, assuming you are lucky enough to get the best outcome in the crafing lottery when you do max out.
There may be a few percent difference. So after a year of work you might be able to do an Infected space elite in 3 min instead of 3 min and 10 seconds.
All and all a good investment of a years time:rolleyes:
So, um here is a genuine question from a long-time player: If I actually spend a year on one thing, to get cannons, for example, will the thing have a noticeable effect on my gameplay abilities, beyond some kind of graphic? Or, will it just convince me that I have the bestest stuff?
This is a serious question to me.
no.
the best case scenario for crafting traits would be for them to be their own independent thing similiar to how the rep traits are. however since cryptic likes to TRIBBLE players over i wouldnt be suprised if they lumped them in with regular traits and forced you to pick. in which case, no crafting trait would out do the current optimal line up.
the crafting traits arent good. definitely not worth a year of your time to grind for, and you will not notice the miniscule improvement that they would bring.
Will something be better than those crafted cannons? . . . by then probably, but there will be some sort of new grind to get it.
But I don't really care if it's (or anything else is) statistically better. I'm asking if I will notice that it's statistically better? It's not like any of us PVP. So, will a random KDF mob standing in the corner of a room die .027th of a second faster? Will I notice that?
But I don't really care if it's (or anything else is) statistically better. I'm asking if I will notice that it's statistically better? It's not like any of us PVP. So, will a random KDF mob standing in the corner of a room die .027th of a second faster? Will I notice that?
As I stated in my post above - unless they seriously upgrade the existing PvE difficulty - there will not be a noticeable difference with the new gear. So many random things could happen in a match that you would need to parse all your stuff now and then after the year of crafting to see and real difference.
But it is something new to waste a year on. Really it's just to keep players logging in and spending dilithium - it's not designed to make gameplay statistically easier.
Of course, the EC sellers have the advantage in that they can:
Use money to buy Zen...
to buy dilithium...
to finish crafting...
to sell crafted items on the Exchange...
to sell even more EC's than before.
Even better, with the reduced EC value of item drops, the profit margin will likely be higher still as they draw down players' preexisting EC stockpiles and sell it to any new players that show up and are willing to buy EC's... to buy the crafted items from the Exchange that a new player is months away from being able to make.
...is that the current system is almost tailor-made for benefiting gold sellers/gold spammers. I really don't need to see these guys show up in my inbox any more often than they already do, and I honestly think it should be the company that benefits from their policies rather than some third party.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
No - one year of "crafting" every single day will get you a weapon or trait which will have no real meaningful impact on your PvE play.
The gear you get will only marginally be better then what is available now, assuming you are lucky enough to get the best outcome in the crafing lottery when you do max out.
There may be a few percent difference. So after a year of work you might be able to do an Infected space elite in 3 min instead of 3 min and 10 seconds.
All and all a good investment of a years time:rolleyes:
So, I could spend the next year doing crafting while watching 10-15 seconds count down, in order to save 10-15 seconds off a run of a stf.
We will be bringing down Star Trek Online tomorrow morning, Tuesday, July 22nd, at 7AM PDT (click here to view in your timezone) for newly scheduled maintenance and to apply a new patch. Patch notes can be found here, and we expect this maintenance to last for 2 hours. The test server, launcher and access to manage your account may also be unavailable during some portions of the maintenance.
Thanks for your patience and understanding,
- The Star Trek Online Team
Systems:
Research and Development:
Resolved an issue which was allowing players to run multiple Research Training projects from the same school simultaneously.
Only 1 Research Training project can be run at a time per school.
I have remained hopeful that this crafting system revamp was the start of something special. From the content already released, to the future content relayed to us in the numerous online interviews members of the Cryptic team have given, I have stayed hopeful... and then I get to read THIS? Is anyone in the Cryptic offices able to do simple math or did everyone forget their calculators when ya'll came up with this brilliantly heinous plan? In case you all missed the basic math refresher course, I will break it down for you..
Pre 7-22-14 patch, starting from 0
Assuming you run/complete nothing but the 20 hr research projects per day and NEVER crit. Each entry is recorded each day AFTER waiting the 20 hrs for the projects to complete.
Day 1, projects run=1, 1st school lvl 2 (6000xp)
Day 2, projects run=2, 1st school lvl 3 (18000xp)
Day 3, projects run=2, 1st school lvl 4 (30000xp)
Day 4, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp)
Day 5, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 3 (18000xp)
Day 6, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 4 (36000xp)
Day 7, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 2 (6000xp)
Day 8, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 3 (24000xp)
Day 9, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 4 (42000xp)
Day 10, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (60000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 5 (48000xp)
Day 11, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 6 (84000xp), From here on out the 2nd and 3rd schools do not change until after lvl 15
Day 12, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 7 (108000xp), "
Day 13, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 8 (132000xp), "
Day 14, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 9 (156000xp), "
Day 14, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (180000xp), "
Day 15, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (204000xp), "
Day 16, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (228000xp), "
Day 17, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (252000xp), "
Day 18, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (276000xp), "
Day 19, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (300000xp), "
Day 20, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (324000xp), "
Day 21, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (348000xp), "
Day 22, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (372000xp), "
Day 23, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (396000xp), "
Day 24, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (420000xp), "
Day 25, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (444000xp), "
Day 26, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (468000xp), "
Day 27, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (492000xp), "
Day 28, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (516000xp), "
Day 29, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (540000xp), "
Day 30, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (564000xp), "
Day 31, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (588000xp), "
Day 32, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (612000xp), "
Day 33, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 15 (636000xp), "
So now at this point, after 33 days of the same mindless grinding as the reputation system, you have reached Level 15 in your primary school and now have 5 projects to use. If you are one of seven fleet crafting specialists focusing on a single school, I could choose to continue my push for level 20 of that focus, foregoing all of the goodies I am now able to craft, which would take only a measly 48 additional days assuming I used all 5 available slots for that purpose ON THAT ONE SCHOOL... Or I could spend those 5 slots for 20 days to raise my 2nd focus to lvl 15, and then another 20 days for my 3rd focus to 15... hmmm.. decisions, decisions.
The way you propose we would reach level 15 in our primary school in only 105 days... Yes... thats ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE DAYS, or 3.5 months for the lay-person. And then to reach level 20 will only take an additional 240 days for a total of 345 days while limited at your 1 project per day per school.
Now I am pretty sure that in Al Rivera's interviewwith Priority One Podcast (1:14:33 thru 1:15:50) Al SPECIFICALLY states that the time required to get a single school up to Level 20 would take an equivalent amount of time as taking a reputation system from 0 to 5 (aka 40 days). I fail to see how 40 days = 345 days, and Im sure mathematicians would roll in their graves if you suggested such as true. The way you have it NOW fits into Al's public statements of the crafting system we have come to accept as FACT, and have seen no public retractment from Al to inform us otherwise.
I can assure you that IF you go through with this change, you will kill the crafting system, before it even got a chance to be something great.
So, I could spend the next year doing crafting while watching 10-15 seconds count down, in order to save 10-15 seconds off a run of a stf.
Hmm...
Well in the STOked interview Al said the purpose of the crafting system was to get people to log into the game daily/regularly - that's essential it - nothing more than that - with the promise of a few trinkets and shinnies to get you on the hamster wheel.
Well after this patch I am climbing off - I will let others get on their crafting wheel and Run forest run!
I finally calmed down enough over the doff UI (which I no longer participate in) to force myself to try the R&D system 2 days ago. I told myself to test it out on 1 guy and see how it went. Now this.
I could rant about it but I won't. I'll just simply say I am done with crafting now.
Is it really? Didn't you find it odd when you discovered that? When you jump up and down and realize you have the easy way out, that's not a feature, that's an exploit.
Not in the slightest.
What I thought was "Man, this system is ridiculous. Oh, we can do multiple 20hrs? That's reasonable then."
It's not an "easy way out", it's the sole reason why the system wasn't a giant steaming pile of bovine excrement in the first place.
With the less than stellar amount of information about the R&D system, such as how much XP you need for each level, when things unlock, which queues offer certain materials... Now we won't be able to slot multiples of the 20 hour research project, I can't say I'm very happy with this. I've been looking through hundreds of pages in the tribble forum for the information about levels and their XP requirements. Thanks to the person that posted them above me, but why wasn't this in an official blog or forum post? You can see the rank requirements for the different DOFF commendations, as well as the rep system. I won't bother complaining anymore about the patch notes, but please make more information available to the players so they won't have to search all over the forums.
Just this week. Thursdays will remain our normal day.
~CaptainSmirk
So some kind of emergency grind maintenance?
I know u are not reponsible for this but u maybe should ask your marketing guys what will bring more money.
Players how get annoyed after 111 days of grindig and just stopp the entire thing.
Or
Players who can go through the R&D faster and then buy R&D packages because they not yet have the materials to make the lvl 15 things
By the way i doubt a lot of people will spend there gard earned dil to speed up the progress its way to expansive
I think with that change in the end u will lose money.
To get people to the log into the game. That is one of the most pathetic reasons I've ever heard to develop a video game. This type of thinking is a cancer in the game industry and why it's full of targ s***.
It's not about making a massive multiplayer online game, creating quality content to play, shaping an immersive universe to let players sink into. You know what their vision is? Dollar signs. Money. They didn't make this game to usher in a new era for Trek fans. Do you think they can make a worthwhile MMO? They can't even fix it! And always rush everything to holodeck, half-finished! They made this game to sucker money out of gullible Trek fans so they could retire to some island...full of naked women...or men.
I see now where my money went. I took a leap of faith and bought lifetime last year, to support this game. I had hopes 2014 would be an awesome year for STO. And now...I feel worse than angry.
With the less than stellar amount of information about the R&D system, such as how much XP you need for each level, when things unlock, which queues offer certain materials... Now we won't be able to slot multiples of the 20 hour research project, I can't say I'm very happy with this. I've been looking through hundreds of pages in the tribble forum for the information about levels and their XP requirements. Thanks to the person that posted them above me, but why wasn't this in an official blog or forum post? You can see the rank requirements for the different DOFF commendations, as well as the rep system. I won't bother complaining anymore about the patch notes, but please make more information available to the players so they won't have to search all over the forums.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Basically the problem comes down to the fact that Cryptic only cares about people who will be around for short term, not lifers, not subscribers, not even f2p'ers that occasionally throw them some money. People who are impatient and want everything now, now, now are their target audience. Let's look at this since it was released on holodeck:
Day 1: Looks pretty ****ty, another long grind, that could theoretically take 1 year to cap all schools.
Impatient people (and also, another issue here, massive amounts of RMT) throw approximately $500 USD from what I have heard to Zen > Dil and cap everything. The second part is another issue, in that by 5 AM PST the day after the update, there were multiple kjsakjda@ajkdjsa names shouting on esd/mass mailing to come spend real money on the new crafted gear at their website.
Day 2: Info filters down, 17k dil per 20 hr assignment breaks down into about 4.2~dil/second of your life in value, where as you can only refine, on average 8k/day (seemingly creating a 2.5~:1 daily dilith sink, further reinforcing the fact that cryptic doesn't like dilithium as it puts your hands in their pockets). However we now know about multiple 20hr/day of the same school. The people thinking about spending dil now go.. oh...this isn't as bad as it seems, and now have no reason to convert dil into R&D
This is bad for cryptic, as people have accepted this as a long term passive grind, which really just works into what you would normally do in a day. No more real work or investment needed outside current play, and the passives aren't going to suddenly make a 10k dps ship do 50k, they're just not that omg attractive over all. Nerfing the 20hr slot means they are going to reopen some, impatient, instant gratification possibilities, because now, the grind is such a drawn out joke, that by the time people complete all schools only using 20 hrs, the traits and gear will be 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rate.
I may have been gone for two years from this game, but at least two years ago, cryptic was more cryptic shall we say when they blatantly attempted money grabs. You really had to read between the lines to notice the subtle hints that they only cared about your wallet, and nerfing any means possible to avoid opening it to enjoy this game. It appears that they've thinned the heard enough to allow this hysterical level of incompetence.
TL;DR Business as usual for cryptic, move along.
PS: A+ Level trolling putting the pay dilith to complete and accept completion button on the same spot in every window. I'd love to see a thread of "Oops I just spent 17k" posts.
so what does this mean for those of us who used the system how we believed it was meant to be used and thus have two research projects going at once in the same school post update?
this one research per school at a time thing? should really have been better communicated/disclosed to us, because alot of users will now see this as not worth it given how it was perceived to be intended to run.
the dev blogs and indeed all the advertising never hinted at a one research per school concurrent limitation.
the exp required to level up jumps rather steeply per level as it is, and this 'nerfing' as I've heard it called, rather limits the utility and usability of a system to people who are unable to afford to so obviously put money into it as appears to now be intended.
I would like to suggest reexamining and perhaps adjusting the required exp to level up, as the system will be extremely unbalanced and unfair to free to play players who are still F2P as they cant really afford to be dumping money into the game.
Murphy's laws:
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
Letting us run 2 projects in a school would be a far more reasonable limitation. Or upping the experience rewards from 1 project to where they're *equivalent* to running 2 projects at a time. Or lowering the experience rewards and requirements across the board to where they're more in line with grinding Tier 5 in a reputation. And maybe sponsorship tokens for crafting (and commendations? Maybe? while you're at it.)
As it stands, you've effectively added 7 reps that require you to grind to TIER 20. And a MAJOR dilithium sink (plus, if Craylon Gas is currently working as intended, forced players to use the C-Store *and* a lottery system).
Let me say this again:
This is a bad idea.
I'm a devout believer in the usefulness of a crafting system. The old system was junk, yes. It was a huge dilithium sink that was completely unprofitable to grind or even have maxed out. What you replaced it with was, optionally, a dilithium sink, or a time gated system. There are some dilithium sinks along the way that aren't optional, but for the most part, they don't have to be used until you hit 15 in a school.
Which you've just made take 1/3 of a year. Per school. And there are only 5 slots for projects, even when you spend that 1/3 year. Which means that any way you cut it, with this change, you're spending *AT LEAST* 1/3 year (to level 4 schools) plus 1/3 year *MORE* to level the other 3. Producing no rewards worth speaking of for at least half that time, only focusing on one school per slot per day.
Some of us are in fleets that don't have all the projects finished with dilithium to burn on the vanity projects.
Just remember folks. Actions speak louder than words... All the fervent comments and strong opinions in the world wont change a thing. Its what you do that steers the ship. Dont just tell 'em you hate it. Show 'em you hate it.
I'd never heard of Al before today but I tuned in to his interview. Even under the ostensibly 'safe' conditions of being interviewed by an apologist, he still managed to convey a tone of contempt for the player base. No wonder we have Community Managers as a buffer between devs and players... If I had a company I would not want anyone to ever hear from Al. Even if he's poignant, astute, detailed, nuanced, honest and correct... none of that matters much when your tone alone says it all.
I get it that the comments are mostly emotion filled ire... And I get that he's certainly not paid well enough to deserve to stand under a torrent of bile... But even if it is your job to disagree with your customers about what's best for the game, you at least need to have a little class and professionalism.
He might as well be a used car salesman in philly... Hey how youze doin? Yeah. I got your exploration right here. And there's more where that came from.
After watching the interview I thought I might come back to comment on how surprisingly bad his attitude is, or how bad he is at hiding his contempt, but then I discovered 11 pages of people had already done exactly that... Nuff said.
But none of that really matters... The golden nugget in that conversation is as always just 2 words... "Time Currency"... Impatient players pay the bills, so this is a gamble... an attempt to measure... to see if a finish line further away can be monetized.
They're trying to find the sweet spot. The ball is in our court. Lets play ball.
Dear Cryptic,
with new change, i DIDN'T continue run project in R&D.
Stupid grinding system, i've lot of other more interesting things to do.
The possibility to slot multiple exp project WAS REALLY GOOD, for all, not only for me.
Nerf this? I didnt run project with dil. The same will be done by an impressive amount of player (ex. casual player). I will farm dil, and stock it for future.
And YOU will lose profits... not really a Ferengi merchant, u're...
Resolved an issue which was allowing players to run multiple Research Training projects from the same school simultaneously.
Only 1 Research Training project can be run at a time per school.
For me, I must say thank you. I was not convinced if I should bother with the crafting or not. Especially after all I got on my char with maxed crafting was one blue doff and a stupid accolade. Now I know I can happily sell all my resources, become a multimillionaire and save my nerves. So again thank you.
So let me get this straight, will this current R&D system going to have impact on all reputation systems currently in place.
8472 Counter-Command
Dyson Joint Command
Events
New Romulus
Nukara Strikeforce
Task Force Omega
Area any or all of these above going this R&D method, because it sure sounds like everything moving to this way. Just to get new gear just by grinding now extra R&D and schooling by levels. All drops of current gear from blown-up enemy star ships will be a thing of the past at this rate. Going to be extra I see now.
Can you at lease fix or put my TRANSWARP DESTINATIONS FOR TAU DEWA BLOCK earned already for Federation and KDF, you fix the Romulan already. Thanks!
Anyone who knows me in game knows I buy zen from time to time and I don't just buy 5-10USD worth. I buy quite a bit. Not only that, I am also a lifer so I have paid a fair amount of money into the game. That being said, I am , at this point, halting all my zen purchases.
I am doing this as a way to let Cryptic know that the nerfing of the R&D system is unacceptable. Running multiple research projects was a good way to get a jump on pushing a school further and faster. To be honest, I wasn't at all happy with the grind the way it was setup. However, the researches made it tolerable. Removing this ability to run multiples pretty much says that they want us to takes months to complete even a single school unless we dump huge amounts of dilithium into nothingness.
I am not even going to get started on the ridiculously low drop rates for the Very Rare R&D mats (59 elite runs and not a single VR mat).
I'm not gonna yell. I'm not gonna call anyone names. All I am gonna do is not give Cryptic anymore of my money until this is resolved. I have defended Cryptic on several occasions when it came to grinding and farming items, but this I cannot defend. It's been said many times before in this thread - Bad idea is BAD. I am sure any Dev or Community Manager can look at my account and see just how much money I have sent their way in the past 2 years. Consider that money lost from this point forward until you lessen the grind you have turn the game into.
I think all of us should do the same. Our words can only do so much. Our wallets will speak much louder.
No, I am not who you think I am. I am someone different. I am instead a banana.
I was sure that the running the same crafting training thing was a feature and now we find it is not
Oh well not a problem for me as plenty of work to do irl, and summer festival in LoTRO wants my attention so plenty of other places to head off to. Certainly not going to bother with crafting anymore here.
Comments
This is a serious question to me.
Will something be better than those crafted cannons? . . . by then probably, but there will be some sort of new grind to get it.
No - one year of "crafting" every single day will get you a weapon or trait which will have no real meaningful impact on your PvE play.
The gear you get will only marginally be better then what is available now, assuming you are lucky enough to get the best outcome in the crafing lottery when you do max out.
There may be a few percent difference. So after a year of work you might be able to do an Infected space elite in 3 min instead of 3 min and 10 seconds.
All and all a good investment of a years time:rolleyes:
no.
the best case scenario for crafting traits would be for them to be their own independent thing similiar to how the rep traits are. however since cryptic likes to TRIBBLE players over i wouldnt be suprised if they lumped them in with regular traits and forced you to pick. in which case, no crafting trait would out do the current optimal line up.
the crafting traits arent good. definitely not worth a year of your time to grind for, and you will not notice the miniscule improvement that they would bring.
But I don't really care if it's (or anything else is) statistically better. I'm asking if I will notice that it's statistically better? It's not like any of us PVP. So, will a random KDF mob standing in the corner of a room die .027th of a second faster? Will I notice that?
As I stated in my post above - unless they seriously upgrade the existing PvE difficulty - there will not be a noticeable difference with the new gear. So many random things could happen in a match that you would need to parse all your stuff now and then after the year of crafting to see and real difference.
But it is something new to waste a year on. Really it's just to keep players logging in and spending dilithium - it's not designed to make gameplay statistically easier.
this has tp be a new record for this game LOL
well time to start ignoring crafting again
So, I could spend the next year doing crafting while watching 10-15 seconds count down, in order to save 10-15 seconds off a run of a stf.
Hmm...
I have remained hopeful that this crafting system revamp was the start of something special. From the content already released, to the future content relayed to us in the numerous online interviews members of the Cryptic team have given, I have stayed hopeful... and then I get to read THIS? Is anyone in the Cryptic offices able to do simple math or did everyone forget their calculators when ya'll came up with this brilliantly heinous plan? In case you all missed the basic math refresher course, I will break it down for you..
Pre 7-22-14 patch, starting from 0
Assuming you run/complete nothing but the 20 hr research projects per day and NEVER crit. Each entry is recorded each day AFTER waiting the 20 hrs for the projects to complete.
Day 1, projects run=1, 1st school lvl 2 (6000xp)
Day 2, projects run=2, 1st school lvl 3 (18000xp)
Day 3, projects run=2, 1st school lvl 4 (30000xp)
Day 4, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp)
Day 5, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 3 (18000xp)
Day 6, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 4 (36000xp)
Day 7, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 2 (6000xp)
Day 8, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 3 (24000xp)
Day 9, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (48000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 4 (42000xp)
Day 10, projects run=3, 1st school lvl 5 (60000xp), 2nd school lvl 5 (48000xp), 3rd school lvl 5 (48000xp)
Day 11, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 6 (84000xp), From here on out the 2nd and 3rd schools do not change until after lvl 15
Day 12, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 7 (108000xp), "
Day 13, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 8 (132000xp), "
Day 14, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 9 (156000xp), "
Day 14, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (180000xp), "
Day 15, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (204000xp), "
Day 16, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 10 (228000xp), "
Day 17, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (252000xp), "
Day 18, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (276000xp), "
Day 19, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (300000xp), "
Day 20, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 11 (324000xp), "
Day 21, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (348000xp), "
Day 22, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (372000xp), "
Day 23, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (396000xp), "
Day 24, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 12 (420000xp), "
Day 25, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (444000xp), "
Day 26, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (468000xp), "
Day 27, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (492000xp), "
Day 28, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 13 (516000xp), "
Day 29, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (540000xp), "
Day 30, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (564000xp), "
Day 31, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (588000xp), "
Day 32, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 14 (612000xp), "
Day 33, projects run=4, 1st school lvl 15 (636000xp), "
So now at this point, after 33 days of the same mindless grinding as the reputation system, you have reached Level 15 in your primary school and now have 5 projects to use. If you are one of seven fleet crafting specialists focusing on a single school, I could choose to continue my push for level 20 of that focus, foregoing all of the goodies I am now able to craft, which would take only a measly 48 additional days assuming I used all 5 available slots for that purpose ON THAT ONE SCHOOL... Or I could spend those 5 slots for 20 days to raise my 2nd focus to lvl 15, and then another 20 days for my 3rd focus to 15... hmmm.. decisions, decisions.
The way you propose we would reach level 15 in our primary school in only 105 days... Yes... thats ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE DAYS, or 3.5 months for the lay-person. And then to reach level 20 will only take an additional 240 days for a total of 345 days while limited at your 1 project per day per school.
Now I am pretty sure that in Al Rivera's interview with Priority One Podcast (1:14:33 thru 1:15:50) Al SPECIFICALLY states that the time required to get a single school up to Level 20 would take an equivalent amount of time as taking a reputation system from 0 to 5 (aka 40 days). I fail to see how 40 days = 345 days, and Im sure mathematicians would roll in their graves if you suggested such as true. The way you have it NOW fits into Al's public statements of the crafting system we have come to accept as FACT, and have seen no public retractment from Al to inform us otherwise.
I can assure you that IF you go through with this change, you will kill the crafting system, before it even got a chance to be something great.
Well in the STOked interview Al said the purpose of the crafting system was to get people to log into the game daily/regularly - that's essential it - nothing more than that - with the promise of a few trinkets and shinnies to get you on the hamster wheel.
Well after this patch I am climbing off - I will let others get on their crafting wheel and Run forest run!
I could rant about it but I won't. I'll just simply say I am done with crafting now.
So they're patching 2 days early purely to TRIBBLE us over with crafting.
I'm joining the crowd with my torch and pitchfork. :mad:
Not in the slightest.
What I thought was "Man, this system is ridiculous. Oh, we can do multiple 20hrs? That's reasonable then."
It's not an "easy way out", it's the sole reason why the system wasn't a giant steaming pile of bovine excrement in the first place.
Please do not do this..
So some kind of emergency grind maintenance?
I know u are not reponsible for this but u maybe should ask your marketing guys what will bring more money.
Players how get annoyed after 111 days of grindig and just stopp the entire thing.
Or
Players who can go through the R&D faster and then buy R&D packages because they not yet have the materials to make the lvl 15 things
By the way i doubt a lot of people will spend there gard earned dil to speed up the progress its way to expansive
I think with that change in the end u will lose money.
It's not about making a massive multiplayer online game, creating quality content to play, shaping an immersive universe to let players sink into. You know what their vision is? Dollar signs. Money. They didn't make this game to usher in a new era for Trek fans. Do you think they can make a worthwhile MMO? They can't even fix it! And always rush everything to holodeck, half-finished! They made this game to sucker money out of gullible Trek fans so they could retire to some island...full of naked women...or men.
I see now where my money went. I took a leap of faith and bought lifetime last year, to support this game. I had hopes 2014 would be an awesome year for STO. And now...I feel worse than angry.
I feel let down, disappointed.
Info you wanted to know
Yeah, but it's a gold spammer's wet dream. Erm, EC spammer. Anyway, at least someone's going to be happy. Not most actual players, but someone.
Day 1: Looks pretty ****ty, another long grind, that could theoretically take 1 year to cap all schools.
Impatient people (and also, another issue here, massive amounts of RMT) throw approximately $500 USD from what I have heard to Zen > Dil and cap everything. The second part is another issue, in that by 5 AM PST the day after the update, there were multiple kjsakjda@ajkdjsa names shouting on esd/mass mailing to come spend real money on the new crafted gear at their website.
Day 2: Info filters down, 17k dil per 20 hr assignment breaks down into about 4.2~dil/second of your life in value, where as you can only refine, on average 8k/day (seemingly creating a 2.5~:1 daily dilith sink, further reinforcing the fact that cryptic doesn't like dilithium as it puts your hands in their pockets). However we now know about multiple 20hr/day of the same school. The people thinking about spending dil now go.. oh...this isn't as bad as it seems, and now have no reason to convert dil into R&D
This is bad for cryptic, as people have accepted this as a long term passive grind, which really just works into what you would normally do in a day. No more real work or investment needed outside current play, and the passives aren't going to suddenly make a 10k dps ship do 50k, they're just not that omg attractive over all. Nerfing the 20hr slot means they are going to reopen some, impatient, instant gratification possibilities, because now, the grind is such a drawn out joke, that by the time people complete all schools only using 20 hrs, the traits and gear will be 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rate.
I may have been gone for two years from this game, but at least two years ago, cryptic was more cryptic shall we say when they blatantly attempted money grabs. You really had to read between the lines to notice the subtle hints that they only cared about your wallet, and nerfing any means possible to avoid opening it to enjoy this game. It appears that they've thinned the heard enough to allow this hysterical level of incompetence.
TL;DR Business as usual for cryptic, move along.
PS: A+ Level trolling putting the pay dilith to complete and accept completion button on the same spot in every window. I'd love to see a thread of "Oops I just spent 17k" posts.
this one research per school at a time thing? should really have been better communicated/disclosed to us, because alot of users will now see this as not worth it given how it was perceived to be intended to run.
the dev blogs and indeed all the advertising never hinted at a one research per school concurrent limitation.
the exp required to level up jumps rather steeply per level as it is, and this 'nerfing' as I've heard it called, rather limits the utility and usability of a system to people who are unable to afford to so obviously put money into it as appears to now be intended.
I would like to suggest reexamining and perhaps adjusting the required exp to level up, as the system will be extremely unbalanced and unfair to free to play players who are still F2P as they cant really afford to be dumping money into the game.
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
This is a bad idea.
Letting us run 2 projects in a school would be a far more reasonable limitation. Or upping the experience rewards from 1 project to where they're *equivalent* to running 2 projects at a time. Or lowering the experience rewards and requirements across the board to where they're more in line with grinding Tier 5 in a reputation. And maybe sponsorship tokens for crafting (and commendations? Maybe? while you're at it.)
As it stands, you've effectively added 7 reps that require you to grind to TIER 20. And a MAJOR dilithium sink (plus, if Craylon Gas is currently working as intended, forced players to use the C-Store *and* a lottery system).
Let me say this again:
This is a bad idea.
I'm a devout believer in the usefulness of a crafting system. The old system was junk, yes. It was a huge dilithium sink that was completely unprofitable to grind or even have maxed out. What you replaced it with was, optionally, a dilithium sink, or a time gated system. There are some dilithium sinks along the way that aren't optional, but for the most part, they don't have to be used until you hit 15 in a school.
Which you've just made take 1/3 of a year. Per school. And there are only 5 slots for projects, even when you spend that 1/3 year. Which means that any way you cut it, with this change, you're spending *AT LEAST* 1/3 year (to level 4 schools) plus 1/3 year *MORE* to level the other 3. Producing no rewards worth speaking of for at least half that time, only focusing on one school per slot per day.
Some of us are in fleets that don't have all the projects finished with dilithium to burn on the vanity projects.
I feel like this bears repeating:
This is a *really* bad idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeLqsvFO31o
I'd never heard of Al before today but I tuned in to his interview. Even under the ostensibly 'safe' conditions of being interviewed by an apologist, he still managed to convey a tone of contempt for the player base. No wonder we have Community Managers as a buffer between devs and players... If I had a company I would not want anyone to ever hear from Al. Even if he's poignant, astute, detailed, nuanced, honest and correct... none of that matters much when your tone alone says it all.
I get it that the comments are mostly emotion filled ire... And I get that he's certainly not paid well enough to deserve to stand under a torrent of bile... But even if it is your job to disagree with your customers about what's best for the game, you at least need to have a little class and professionalism.
He might as well be a used car salesman in philly... Hey how youze doin? Yeah. I got your exploration right here. And there's more where that came from.
After watching the interview I thought I might come back to comment on how surprisingly bad his attitude is, or how bad he is at hiding his contempt, but then I discovered 11 pages of people had already done exactly that... Nuff said.
But none of that really matters... The golden nugget in that conversation is as always just 2 words... "Time Currency"... Impatient players pay the bills, so this is a gamble... an attempt to measure... to see if a finish line further away can be monetized.
They're trying to find the sweet spot. The ball is in our court. Lets play ball.
with new change, i DIDN'T continue run project in R&D.
Stupid grinding system, i've lot of other more interesting things to do.
The possibility to slot multiple exp project WAS REALLY GOOD, for all, not only for me.
Nerf this? I didnt run project with dil. The same will be done by an impressive amount of player (ex. casual player). I will farm dil, and stock it for future.
And YOU will lose profits... not really a Ferengi merchant, u're...
8472 Counter-Command
Dyson Joint Command
Events
New Romulus
Nukara Strikeforce
Task Force Omega
Area any or all of these above going this R&D method, because it sure sounds like everything moving to this way. Just to get new gear just by grinding now extra R&D and schooling by levels. All drops of current gear from blown-up enemy star ships will be a thing of the past at this rate. Going to be extra I see now.
Can you at lease fix or put my TRANSWARP DESTINATIONS FOR TAU DEWA BLOCK earned already for Federation and KDF, you fix the Romulan already. Thanks!
Time will only tell!
I am doing this as a way to let Cryptic know that the nerfing of the R&D system is unacceptable. Running multiple research projects was a good way to get a jump on pushing a school further and faster. To be honest, I wasn't at all happy with the grind the way it was setup. However, the researches made it tolerable. Removing this ability to run multiples pretty much says that they want us to takes months to complete even a single school unless we dump huge amounts of dilithium into nothingness.
I am not even going to get started on the ridiculously low drop rates for the Very Rare R&D mats (59 elite runs and not a single VR mat).
I'm not gonna yell. I'm not gonna call anyone names. All I am gonna do is not give Cryptic anymore of my money until this is resolved. I have defended Cryptic on several occasions when it came to grinding and farming items, but this I cannot defend. It's been said many times before in this thread - Bad idea is BAD. I am sure any Dev or Community Manager can look at my account and see just how much money I have sent their way in the past 2 years. Consider that money lost from this point forward until you lessen the grind you have turn the game into.
I think all of us should do the same. Our words can only do so much. Our wallets will speak much louder.
Oh well not a problem for me as plenty of work to do irl, and summer festival in LoTRO wants my attention so plenty of other places to head off to. Certainly not going to bother with crafting anymore here.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles