WHen people use words like "Disgusted by the change"... I think he may be right.
There is a way to communicate that the crafting system isn't great in a manner that isn't so overly emotional and potentially insulting.
Well I used the word "disgusted" to sum up my opinion of what others have said. When a change is made with no warning or explanation, it is very hard to give feedback other than a gut reaction.
If someone gives you something - then walks up to you a few days later, takes it out of your hands and walks off and says nothing - how would you feel? Happy? Angry? confuse? irritated? Lost?
Would you not have and emotional reaction - especially if it looked like there was no recourse?
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.
Put it back please.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Alright you know what? I think I'm going to tentatively predict that this is some sort of A: joke, or B: error. Because...this is way out of character for the devs. Yes, they've been known to add grind, but it's all been fairly garden-variety stuff, and while mildly annoying, perfectly reasonable. This is something else entirely. A matter of years? Will STO even be around in six years? And I don't mean that in a DOOOOMMM sense, just...six years is a long time, in computer and gaming terms. How long do MMOs usually last? (I should note, though, that I don't think the six years is quite correct. That's for levelling each school individually, as opposed to stacking different research projects to level various schools at the same time. Still, though.)
So, could be that this is just a mistake. Could also be some sort of joke, or prank. Another possibility is one that I doubt will be taken well, but I'll say anyway: I'm not really sure, and it's hard to tell, but I think the rage on the forums has been a bit worse than usual lately. Could be that the devs just got fed up enough to either play a rather mean prank, or fully intend to make this permanent but will probably revert it once they've calmed down.
Still though. If this is legitimate, it's...very odd.
Yes it's legit and I don't think 6 years is correct. I think the current calculations might be around 1.5-2 years to level all 7 schools to level 20...that's running a 20 hour project every day and without using Dilithium or other projects.
Not only that but I think this "new" revamp to the R&D will see Dilithium prices go back down. The exchange was yesterday 1 Zen/158 Dilithium but I think people will be holding on to Dilithium more now after grinding it to put some into R&D. This will take a lot Dilithium off the exchange; meaning you won't get as much for 1 Zen.
So that $120.00 to level one school to 15 might even cost you more.
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6-9 months IMHO should be the time to master all schools before the dil instant finish button. There are just so many more practical ways to make crafting an enduring thing other than the current monstrosity.
The fact that this thread is barely a day old and already has almost 400 posts should be a giant flashing light to the devs even if there are trolls and childish rants. Anybody with a basic reading level can pick out the drivel from the constructive comments that could make the system better for all.
The fact that this thread is barely a day old and already has almost 400 posts should be a giant flashing light to the devs even if there are trolls and childish rants. Anybody with a basic reading level can pick out the drivel from the constructive comments that could make the system better for all.
As much as you're right, it won't get changed, no matter how many posts there are in this thread. Cryptic like to stick to their guns on these things, even if they're blatently in the wrong.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Lvl 15 is the level which you can get "most" of the stuff
that is about 650k / 8.4k per day = 77 days PER school
To max a school to level 20 is over 2 million XP!! I think you can do the math:(
I was assuming you could do 4 hourly projects in 1 school at a time? Otherwise there is no point whatsoever in crafting.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
With crafting; yes you can take the easy route and just run the daily to level up, but that's slow. So if you engage with the system, if you run missions for materials or scan anomalies or run assignments for them, or trade with players, and if you actually craft things... then you can get through a lot faster.
Point taken. I see where you are coming from.....you see the MMO world of WoW and cry foul. I'm not primarily concerned with the increase in difficulty, but rather the time investment and enjoyment of this new R&D system. I'm not an economist, I don't want to have to think about the average price of rare crafting materials.....or the maximum profit margins of plasma couplers. I want to be able to "make things" that I can use in my little slice of time in this virtual world.
The developers had a golden opportunity here, in terms of the real fans of this game. Rarely do you get a chance, in an established MMO to overhaul one of your core systems. Do it too often and you run the risk of losing your core fans, ala SWG. Don't change often enough and game play gets boring, stale and too well documented. There are many examples in many other F2P games of how to do crafting so that it is both fun and rewarding. You want players to "engage with the system"? Then make it fun and interactive. This is nothing more than DOFF missions with 20 clicks and a time gate. (and the "optional" dilithium component) They chose to merge the R&D system with the duty officer system. A system which they have already conditioned me to use in a certain way. A way that involves setting up a mission and then letting it run, while I go off to focus on things I find fun and enjoyable. Perhaps if interactivity was one of their main goals with R&D, they shouldn't have made this choice.
Others have mentioned SWG crafting, with material quality affecting outcomes. How about you can craft things with multiple mats, but the quality that goes in will affect the quality out, not the RNG? Or Everquest 2. In that system I am forced to watch the entire crafting process and react to various conditions with crafting abilities. If I play it right, I get a pristine quality item, or multiples instead of one. If I play it wrong, I can get hurt or injured and the process may not even complete if I don't counter critical failures. These are just two simple examples of how to get players more engaged with the system.
I like what others have said about sub-components, a bit like SWG. You can craft these mind numbing bits yourself, or just buy them from someone much more patient. As far as the VR materials go, I think it's also a big mistake to tie them to a certain queue. It should all be randomized from the whole system. There's not really any interaction in the queues nowadays, after completion. Imagine the cheers from the team as you manage to loot the material you needed to finally finish that TR-118b.
Anyway, sorry to ramble, I hear your voice, but it just needs to be more interesting than currently implemented if I'm going to engage with it.
would have to look way back in the thread - but I think the max xp is 600 per hour per school
that would be shocking. i had all my projects slotted before the update so i can't check until tomorrow.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I personally like the crafting system overall. However, I do know it could use some improvements.
I also wanted to reiterate what I had posted on the Tribble forum while testing the R+D system. The XP curve is very steep. That is why the reduction in the number of concurrently running research projects is so unpopular. That one change really highlighted the underlying issue.
Looking at the size of this thread its safe to say that something should probably be done to ease the pain of climbing up the curve. Whether it is increasing XP gain somehow or lowering the amount needed.
Can someone do the math on how long it will take if someone spends 4 hours a day crafting items then slots the 20h.
That seems to me like it might be the most optimal since anything else will suffer schedule slip.
That's actually relatively simple. The best rate from crafting is 600 xp/hour whether you take that in larger or smaller bites the ratio comes out the same and longer projects take the more expensive materials as well. So four 600 point crafting projects per day is 2400 plus the 6000 from a non-crit research project gives us 8400 crafting xp/day. To get to level 15 that's 75 days, to get to level 20 that's 238 days.
Now if you're running all out and, assuming that you haven't hit level 15 in anything, you'd have 4 slots to play with. You could, concievably, do 12 of the 600 xp projects per 4 hour day (4 runs of 3) plus the 20 hour project. This would give you 13200 crafting xp per day and burn through materials relatively briskly. That would be 47.73 days to level 15, 151.51 days to level 20.
Well I used the word "disgusted" to sum up my opinion of what others have said. When a change is made with no warning or explanation, it is very hard to give feedback other than a gut reaction.
If someone gives you something - then walks up to you a few days later, takes it out of your hands and walks off and says nothing - how would you feel? Happy? Angry? confuse? irritated? Lost?
Would you not have and emotional reaction - especially if it looked like there was no recourse?
How would you feel if someone comes into your house because you didn't lock it, watches your TV, drinks your beer, and uses your bathroom, and then you realize your mistake and lock it, and he comes to you and berates you for locking him out of the house.
"If you didn't want me to come in, you could have put up a sign or just locked in the first place! And now you take that away. I am disgusted by your behaviour, and so are all the friends I wanted to invite for next week's football game!!"
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
that would be shocking. i had all my projects slotted before the update so i can't check until tomorrow.
Any projects slotted before the patch should complete as normal. Last night I slotted 3 of the same 20hr assignments in the same school and they are all still running now. In a few more hours I will find out if I actually get the 18k Xp in that school or if it only counts one.
As much as you're right, it won't get changed, no matter how many posts there are in this thread. Cryptic like to stick to their guns on these things, even if they're blatently in the wrong.
I think they will change it back, but will get us with something else.. make us hapy and then stick a knife in our back !!
Thats the cryptic way... they make me happy and then a knife..
How would you feel if someone comes into your house because you didn't lock it, watches your TV, drinks your beer, and uses your bathroom, and then you realize your mistake and lock it, and he comes to you and berates you for locking him out of the house.
"If you didn't want me to come in, you could have put up a sign or just locked in the first place! And now you take that away. I am disgusted by your behaviour, and so are all the friends I wanted to invite for next week's football game!!"
This is not really the case. The devs indicated on Tribble - and the post are near the beginning of this thread - that it would take about 40 days or so to get to level 15 or about the same as completing a rep. Now it's at least double that.
So they led us to believe that is "Was working as Intended"
There is a big difference.
P.S. - they also told us to come in the house and use the system as it was up and running before!
Ok, so the system is really '4 curves in 1' sort of deal. Going from the beginning to a casual to a hardcore ending.
Then adjust the xp projects accordingly.
At level 0, let us slot as many xp projects as we want, up to 5 if we have the slots for it. At level 5 we can slot no more than 3 xp projects (per school that is). At level 10, 2 xp projects at a time. At level 15, only 1 xp project at a time.
There, the new player or new alt or whatever can easily get their crafting going right out of the starting gate. The more ok-with-grind player can still reasonably look at getting level 10. The more heavy-duty player will push their way to 15, and the truly hardcore or rich will get to 20 in due time.
PS, I fully expect them to involve crafting somehow in a new fleet holding. Probably let us buy another slot or something from it as well, among other stuff.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Since it takes a fraction of the time to get Reputation gear as it does to reach level 15 in a crafting school now, I predict that crafting will stall for several people somewhere between level's six and ten.
Fleet Gear takes even less time to get if you have a high enough level Starbase or are in one of the Public Service channels.
Even if they left things the same it would still take more than a month to get to level 15 in just one school slotting 3 - 20hr projects per day - every day!
So 1 month to get to a level where you can pay more stuff to get a random chance at a useful item for endgame - in ONE school!!
Sorry but I don't consider that "Fast" - I consider that reasonable. At that point I would have 4 slots open and could use one to craft stuff to take me to level 20 and the other 3 slots to start on the other schools. It would still take a year to max out the crafting.
A year to get to the point where a player could produce decent gear on a reliable basis - under the "pre-Nerf" system. That is not "too fast"
No, I agree with you that the long-term crafting progression seems rather long to expect most people who are at endgame already to bother with it.
I said that me being able to unlock 3 slots in less than a week was too fast. They had to correct that, specifically.
For awhile now, Cryptic has tried to error on the side of being very conservative when they roll out a new feature. They'd rather start out slow and tweak things as they go. I believe that they will need to make changes and that they will make changes.
One of those changes should be accommodating crafting for players who are already at endgame. Not to hand them the whole Crafting system on a latinum platter, but to accelerate their progress to produce endgame level gear (Mk 10+, Rare) from one school without requiring a dilithium shortcut. There are a lot of ways they can do that without allowing this multiple 20 hr loophole.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Comments
Well I used the word "disgusted" to sum up my opinion of what others have said. When a change is made with no warning or explanation, it is very hard to give feedback other than a gut reaction.
If someone gives you something - then walks up to you a few days later, takes it out of your hands and walks off and says nothing - how would you feel? Happy? Angry? confuse? irritated? Lost?
Would you not have and emotional reaction - especially if it looked like there was no recourse?
Put it back please.
So, could be that this is just a mistake. Could also be some sort of joke, or prank. Another possibility is one that I doubt will be taken well, but I'll say anyway: I'm not really sure, and it's hard to tell, but I think the rage on the forums has been a bit worse than usual lately. Could be that the devs just got fed up enough to either play a rather mean prank, or fully intend to make this permanent but will probably revert it once they've calmed down.
Still though. If this is legitimate, it's...very odd.
"Oh Great Bird of the Galaxy, deliver us from the evil that has arisen. Send the Mighty Dan to release us, his humble followers..."
Not only that but I think this "new" revamp to the R&D will see Dilithium prices go back down. The exchange was yesterday 1 Zen/158 Dilithium but I think people will be holding on to Dilithium more now after grinding it to put some into R&D. This will take a lot Dilithium off the exchange; meaning you won't get as much for 1 Zen.
So that $120.00 to level one school to 15 might even cost you more.
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Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians
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That seems to me like it might be the most optimal since anything else will suffer schedule slip.
The fact that this thread is barely a day old and already has almost 400 posts should be a giant flashing light to the devs even if there are trolls and childish rants. Anybody with a basic reading level can pick out the drivel from the constructive comments that could make the system better for all.
STO Resources: <Ship Comparison - All Tiers + Small Craft + Hangar Pets> <Damage Resistance>
<R&D + Upgrade Costs> <Duty Officer Finder> <Suliban Doff Reqs> <Fleet Costs> <Rep Costs>
<Keybind Tour the Galaxy> <Fleet / Armada Management> <Currency Exchange> <Other STO Links>
As much as you're right, it won't get changed, no matter how many posts there are in this thread. Cryptic like to stick to their guns on these things, even if they're blatently in the wrong.
Yes - max XP per hour of crafting is 600
600x4 = 2400xp + 6000xp from 20h = 8400xp
Lvl 15 is the level which you can get "most" of the stuff
that is about 650k / 8.4k per day = 77 days PER school
To max a school to level 20 is over 2 million XP!! I think you can do the math:(
Still won't get changed though.
I was assuming you could do 4 hourly projects in 1 school at a time? Otherwise there is no point whatsoever in crafting.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
No, you could do that. It was patched earlier so you can only do one per school at a time.
I am done.
would have to look way back in the thread - but I think the max xp is 600 per hour per school
This change SUCKS!!!!
Point taken. I see where you are coming from.....you see the MMO world of WoW and cry foul. I'm not primarily concerned with the increase in difficulty, but rather the time investment and enjoyment of this new R&D system. I'm not an economist, I don't want to have to think about the average price of rare crafting materials.....or the maximum profit margins of plasma couplers. I want to be able to "make things" that I can use in my little slice of time in this virtual world.
The developers had a golden opportunity here, in terms of the real fans of this game. Rarely do you get a chance, in an established MMO to overhaul one of your core systems. Do it too often and you run the risk of losing your core fans, ala SWG. Don't change often enough and game play gets boring, stale and too well documented. There are many examples in many other F2P games of how to do crafting so that it is both fun and rewarding. You want players to "engage with the system"? Then make it fun and interactive. This is nothing more than DOFF missions with 20 clicks and a time gate. (and the "optional" dilithium component) They chose to merge the R&D system with the duty officer system. A system which they have already conditioned me to use in a certain way. A way that involves setting up a mission and then letting it run, while I go off to focus on things I find fun and enjoyable. Perhaps if interactivity was one of their main goals with R&D, they shouldn't have made this choice.
Others have mentioned SWG crafting, with material quality affecting outcomes. How about you can craft things with multiple mats, but the quality that goes in will affect the quality out, not the RNG? Or Everquest 2. In that system I am forced to watch the entire crafting process and react to various conditions with crafting abilities. If I play it right, I get a pristine quality item, or multiples instead of one. If I play it wrong, I can get hurt or injured and the process may not even complete if I don't counter critical failures. These are just two simple examples of how to get players more engaged with the system.
I like what others have said about sub-components, a bit like SWG. You can craft these mind numbing bits yourself, or just buy them from someone much more patient. As far as the VR materials go, I think it's also a big mistake to tie them to a certain queue. It should all be randomized from the whole system. There's not really any interaction in the queues nowadays, after completion. Imagine the cheers from the team as you manage to loot the material you needed to finally finish that TR-118b.
Anyway, sorry to ramble, I hear your voice, but it just needs to be more interesting than currently implemented if I'm going to engage with it.
John
that would be shocking. i had all my projects slotted before the update so i can't check until tomorrow.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
We've had the year of hell already. This is the year of grind! Starting with the Rep System Revamp and the Grindyversary.
I also wanted to reiterate what I had posted on the Tribble forum while testing the R+D system. The XP curve is very steep. That is why the reduction in the number of concurrently running research projects is so unpopular. That one change really highlighted the underlying issue.
Looking at the size of this thread its safe to say that something should probably be done to ease the pain of climbing up the curve. Whether it is increasing XP gain somehow or lowering the amount needed.
Whatever you had slotted before the patch will go through. I just picked up 21k crafting xp
That's actually relatively simple. The best rate from crafting is 600 xp/hour whether you take that in larger or smaller bites the ratio comes out the same and longer projects take the more expensive materials as well. So four 600 point crafting projects per day is 2400 plus the 6000 from a non-crit research project gives us 8400 crafting xp/day. To get to level 15 that's 75 days, to get to level 20 that's 238 days.
Now if you're running all out and, assuming that you haven't hit level 15 in anything, you'd have 4 slots to play with. You could, concievably, do 12 of the 600 xp projects per 4 hour day (4 runs of 3) plus the 20 hour project. This would give you 13200 crafting xp per day and burn through materials relatively briskly. That would be 47.73 days to level 15, 151.51 days to level 20.
How would you feel if someone comes into your house because you didn't lock it, watches your TV, drinks your beer, and uses your bathroom, and then you realize your mistake and lock it, and he comes to you and berates you for locking him out of the house.
"If you didn't want me to come in, you could have put up a sign or just locked in the first place! And now you take that away. I am disgusted by your behaviour, and so are all the friends I wanted to invite for next week's football game!!"
Any projects slotted before the patch should complete as normal. Last night I slotted 3 of the same 20hr assignments in the same school and they are all still running now. In a few more hours I will find out if I actually get the 18k Xp in that school or if it only counts one.
I think they will change it back, but will get us with something else.. make us hapy and then stick a knife in our back !!
Thats the cryptic way... they make me happy and then a knife..
This is not really the case. The devs indicated on Tribble - and the post are near the beginning of this thread - that it would take about 40 days or so to get to level 15 or about the same as completing a rep. Now it's at least double that.
So they led us to believe that is "Was working as Intended"
There is a big difference.
P.S. - they also told us to come in the house and use the system as it was up and running before!
Then adjust the xp projects accordingly.
At level 0, let us slot as many xp projects as we want, up to 5 if we have the slots for it. At level 5 we can slot no more than 3 xp projects (per school that is). At level 10, 2 xp projects at a time. At level 15, only 1 xp project at a time.
There, the new player or new alt or whatever can easily get their crafting going right out of the starting gate. The more ok-with-grind player can still reasonably look at getting level 10. The more heavy-duty player will push their way to 15, and the truly hardcore or rich will get to 20 in due time.
PS, I fully expect them to involve crafting somehow in a new fleet holding. Probably let us buy another slot or something from it as well, among other stuff.
Fleet Gear takes even less time to get if you have a high enough level Starbase or are in one of the Public Service channels.
No, I agree with you that the long-term crafting progression seems rather long to expect most people who are at endgame already to bother with it.
I said that me being able to unlock 3 slots in less than a week was too fast. They had to correct that, specifically.
For awhile now, Cryptic has tried to error on the side of being very conservative when they roll out a new feature. They'd rather start out slow and tweak things as they go. I believe that they will need to make changes and that they will make changes.
One of those changes should be accommodating crafting for players who are already at endgame. Not to hand them the whole Crafting system on a latinum platter, but to accelerate their progress to produce endgame level gear (Mk 10+, Rare) from one school without requiring a dilithium shortcut. There are a lot of ways they can do that without allowing this multiple 20 hr loophole.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek