Was this intentional or an artifact in the way the upgrade system was implemented?
I would call that an artifact. It's probably just doing a wholesale replacement of one item with another, and of course the higher marks have different models as you're aware.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
One of the things I thought of while goofing around with this system that upgrading items will bring particular attention to is the differences in art between all of the grades of gear. As an experiment, I decided to try to see what happens to the weapons (as appears in the player's hands) when you upgrade a ground weapon from Mark I to Mark XIV. I chose to do so with a Phaser Stun Pistol and a Phaser Sniper Rilfe.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that when an item is upgraded from one Mark to another, the item is replaced en toto, meaning that the pistol and rifle were moved along an art path that goes from:
Plain -> Plain with glowing fiddlybits -> Redesign (around Mk V or VI) -> Redesign with glowing fiddlybits
One of the things I was looking forward to in this new upgrade system was the chance that I might be able to upgrade a plain jane (canon) phaser rifle up to the stats of a purple Mk IV weapon without having all the glowing fiddlybits tacked on like I'm playing World of ********.
While I know this might be a preference thing, but a lot of the top tier weapons don't look like anything ever used in the shows or movies (in particular the Insurrection-type phaser rifle, or the Insurrection-type phaser pistol). I was hoping the upgrade system would give me a chance to have those, but it looks like not.
Was this intentional or an artifact in the way the upgrade system was implemented?
I do find it sad that the latter Next Generation movies, which are actually the standard end point for the prime universe canon as Insurrection was the latest Starfleet tech with Voyager being some years out of date, and Nemesis is the LAST Prime Universe event. Those should've been the starting point of visuals. Even the Sovereign class in game isn't the finalized up to date version. They clearly saw Nemesis as the Scimitar is flawless, but the Enterprise-E's class isn't.
The phaser rifles aren't. I was hoping that they would become the more recent versions as they increased but nope. I'd Say the MACO Battle Rifle is recognizable as being in the lineage, but it isn't very sleek. I'm glad to see the Compression Phaser Rifles in game though. But I think the best was the EVA Phaser Type 3c.
I figured we'd get all the canon stuff, as a variety. We've got split beam, full auto, high density beam, pulse wave, and sniper, there's enough room. Maybe weapons visual customization will come in the future.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
So, forgive me if this has been covered, but will the Tempest Tail Gun be upgradable? It currently claims to already be max level. So does that mean it is already Mk XIV (equivalent) and I''m just able to use it at level 50 because of the awesomeness of the Tempest, or what? :-)
I think there might be a bug with space maps and the upgrade system. On Tribble I had two upgrade projects running one TR116b Ultra-Rare MKXIV rifle and a fleet Quantum Torpedo MKXIII. When on the ground maps like Drozanna, Jenolan Sphere, Kobali etc these items show there proper running time. However in space maps for example, ln the Delta quadrant patrol type missions or sector space the items show up as complete and the "claim now" button is there as though the item is finished when there could be over 4 hours left to finish the upgrade. Clicking on the button doesn't do anything.
I bet they never anticipated this scenario. It's sort of in the category of an edge case, even if a whole lot of players still have X or XI rep gear.
I forgot that they changed the costumes to rep projects a season or two ago. I am going to check on that once tribble is up again.
Edit: Tested it and no, no project either and the store at DS9 used to register the Omega gear doesn't recognize the items. So while old omega gear can be upgraded to higher marks it won't grant the costume of those higher marks.
I forgot that they changed the costumes to rep projects a season or two ago. I am going to check on that once tribble is up again.
Take the set to Roxy on DS9 and do the turn-in thing. See if that unlocks the visuals (alternatively, discard the set pieces and immediately reclaim them from the replicator, which does the same thing).
Edit: beaten by the edit! I type slow. (very slow)
How exactly does this system make crafting impossible? You act as if Mk XIV Epics will be the only desirable items in the game, but last I checked there's plenty of Mk XI uncommon and rare items on the exchange that still sell for way above the cost to craft them. Not everyone in the game is a minmaxer. I'll give that most or maybe all of the richer players are, but it's not really fair to say that everyone will only settle for the best. Do we all aim for the best? Of course, but you need to remember players that settle, even if temporarily, for the almost-best gear.
Mk XIII items are substantially cheaper to upgrade to than Mk XIV ones, and there will be plenty of a market for them, analogous to the current Mk XI market that exists in the game. And crafters will occasionally get lucky and get a MK XIII very rare, ultra rare or epic, items that will be just a hair below Mk XIV, and much more affordable. There will even definitely be a small but real market for Mk XIII epics, that you can sell for cheaper, so that the buyer may upgrade it.
It's very important to remember that upgrading an item needn't end after the first time the item changes hands.
I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
I understand your point about settling, and it is a good point. Even the top 1% will have to settle for most of their characters under this system. Let me explain a bit what the game looks like from the top 1%, maybe that will help understand how this impacts you.
There are four categories of player wealth in the modern STO economy.
The 1% are wealthy like Bill Gates or Royalty. We are the Ferengi in personification in the game - indeed my Ferengi's name is Moneybags and is every bit the part a Star Trek fan could imagine. This portion of the STO population refines somewhere between 64,000 and 96,000 (or more) Dilithium per day, every day, seemingly forever. I am in the middle of that category as I refine 80,000 Dilithium per day, every single day, which breaks down as 8K per day on 10 characters. I also have multiple items listed on the exchange for 100+ million EC, meaning I have to sell items on multiple characters, and use multiple accounts for account banks to insure I don't sell and hit the 999,999,999 EC cap on a good sales day. These are 1%er problems.
The next 9% at the top are the wealthy in STO, and represents my primary sales market. That 9% of the players in the game play extremely regularly and have multiple characters on a single lifetime account , but have only one or two main characters. These players have multiple characters that earn wealth solely for the purpose of making their one or two characters extremely wealthy. That category of player makes between 150,000 and 250,000 Dilithium a week, and 50,000,000 EC in a slow week. I have never met many of those players, but since they buy my high end stuff on the exchange I know their names via the email I get when an item sells. After several years, the same @names become familiar.
Then there is a 65% middle class in STO. 8,000 Dilithium per day played is a normal day played, but they don't play every day and struggle to build a stockpile of ore except during in-game events. They are conservative spenders so they can stockpile Dilithium, to some extent, but 200K Dilithium on a character is a lot to them. They hover around 5-20 million EC disposable income, and basically have to work to produce every item they obtain - whether it be for a ship, a bridge officer, etc. These players will occasionally buy ZEN and open lockboxes, but to these players a lockbox really is a lottery ticket.
The bottom 25% play STO but are not caught up into the wealth of the game. Their economy is sufficient for their play style, but their playstyle mostly omits playing much of the repeated content on a regular basis and focuses primarily on the Episodic content or interaction with other players. These players will level crafting with the free 6000 XP option over a long period of time, but have no intention of ever making an epic item because it will forever be unaffordable for them anyway, and they are OK with that because it wouldn't matter to the way they play STO anyway.
Based on the model above, do the math. The top 10% plays between 5-7 days a week. The bottom 90% plays on average 3 times a week. The top 10% recycles lots of Dilithium on a regular basis across multiple characters. The middle class recycles 25000 Dilithium on average per week, and 50000 Dilithium per week on a good week. The bottom 25% recycles 10-15K Dilithium per week per account, on a good week.
Now think through the costs. Think through the time it takes to level crafting when the vast majority of players only play 3 times a week. When a top crafter creates a MXIII item and sells it to someone of the middle class, it is hard to see how that middle class person will be able to upgrade it. Not only will it take them until summer of 2015 to level crafting high enough to actually do the upgrade, but buying the item in the first place was an enormous purchase for that player, and upgrading that item will be another enormous purchase in the context of their overall wealth. It is hard to see how the vast majority of players in that Middle Class, which includes the majority of new players that come from the F2P recycle model of players, will ever be able to afford investing in 8 weapons, much less Engines, Shields, Deflectors, etc.
Under the model on Tribble, Crafted items can only be introduced into the Holodeck economy by the rich, for the profit of the rich, and each sale represents a massive expense by 90% of the players in the game, many of whom will find such an option completely unaffordable, and realistically obtainable only once or twice PER YEAR. Under the current system, the rich person who ha actually advanced far enough to craft has no dependency whatsoever on the buyer, because the community is completely disconnected from the supply chain necessary to craft an item - that supply chain in the current form of item creation being Dilithium, which the rich player creates for himself. Cryptic's system fails to be inclusive because it has completely disconnected the community from the supply chain for an item, so 90% of the population provides no function at all to the crafting of an end game item by the 10% that can afford to craft for the larger community under this system. That's shockingly shortsided economic theory in my opinion.
Crafting at the current cost points will make the MK XIII item the high end cost point for the largest portion of the market, and it makes the higher level MK XIV items only available to those who could buy a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship off the exchange right now. I'm going to guess, that ain't you.
In my opinion, Cryptic should keep the huge leveling curves in crafting to make it a true profession in the game (I'm speaking about the 18K Dilithium completion cost), but lower the Dilithium costs of actually making items, and instead shift that cost towards a mechanic where the vast majority of players have to farm some portion of the crafting materials (obtained only via drops) needed to create the item so the community itself represents the supply chain for an item created. If the average player is able to create wealth as part of the crafting system that produces incredibly expensive items, then by being part of the supply chain, at least players will be able to earn the wealth necessary to actually purchase the expensive item.
The crafting system should allow for players, via gameplay by the community itself, to contribute heavily into the economy of the crafting system via obtaining drops rather than speanding gated Dilithium in a Dilithium economy that is ruled primarily by the top 10%, because under a shared economic system for crafting, a much higher portion of the playerbase has the opportunity to earn the new end game items by developing wealth playing for those important drops.
If the larger player community has no way to contribute towards the crafting system, and the very high Dilithium costs make it prohibitive for most players to participate in that system, the result is the crafting system can never be a legitimate profession from a player perspective in STO - whether as a supplier (most players) or manufacturer (those who have leveled high enough to do it, and are wealthy enough to buy the materials) - to anyone except the top 1% who can afford to make items regularly with their gated Dilithium supply and the top 10% that can afford to buy those high end items simi-regularly. If you're part of the 90%, you need to go grind several months so you can pay someone like me all that wealth you saved... for one item.
Speaking as a greedy Ferengi, god bless Cryptic for designing a hilarious system that makes the rich like me richer and the rest of you slave for months just to pay me top price, and I absolutely do get to set the price extremely high, because supply for end game items will be extremely low and demand will be extremely high - and nobody who actually plays STO is going to accuse the rich of gouging the playerbase when we have to spend huge sums of Dilithium and do expect a profit in return.
If Cryptic wants to do better, then they need to rearrange the way end game items are crafted so that it allows the community to participate in the supply chain, and the only way to do that is replace the high Dilithium cost with a drop that the middle class majority can farm and sell back to the crafters in quantities that rich crafters can't obtain quickly by farming themselves. To not do that insures the rich don't have to pay the majority poor players to control the crafting system price market. This really is basic economics, and it is sad no one at Cryptic realizes this issue exists in their system as designed.
The crafting system has the potential to distribute wealth in the community, or consolidate it at the top. It represents an opportunity to create supply side wealth for players and demand side wealth for players. So far this appears to be a foreign concept to Cryptic based on what I'm seeing on Tribble.
I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
- SNIP, a lot of theories about the Microeconomic state of STO -
1-10%er here...(somewhere in there...I bounce around depending on how bored I am.)
I am in maintenance mode at this point. A lot of what you say here is true and resonates. I think what we are witnessing is going the be grind overload, finally: the perfect storm where we have an upgrade system, a crafting system, a new rep system AND likely a new lockbox all hitting all at once. Even for a well-to-do player like myself, that is simply not sustainable by any means. People are going to have to select guns or butter - but in fact, this game requires guns exclusively and they will be so out of reach of most that no one will want to grind all the way to get there.
People need to see the end of the tunnel, not some nebulous future where they can eventually, possible get a better weapon by chance.
This system is ridiculously too costly and has too many variables for failure. It's like buying a newer car but having no idea what the paint color will be, if your interior is cloth or soft, Corinthian leather*, or the size of your drivetrain.
The prices need to be lowered on dil. The system needs to be simplified. A LOT.
I think there might be a bug with space maps and the upgrade system. On Tribble I had two upgrade projects running one TR116b Ultra-Rare MKXIV rifle and a fleet Quantum Torpedo MKXIII. When on the ground maps like Drozanna, Jenolan Sphere, Kobali etc these items show there proper running time. However in space maps for example, ln the Delta quadrant patrol type missions or sector space the items show up as complete and the "claim now" button is there as though the item is finished when there could be over 4 hours left to finish the upgrade. Clicking on the button doesn't do anything.
This is a known issue that we're working on.
Daniel "FlyingTarg" Razza
Star Trek Online Lead Programmer
I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
I understand your point about settling, and it is a good point. Even the top 1% will have to settle for most of their characters under this system. Let me explain a bit what the game looks like from the top 1%, maybe that will help understand how this impacts you.
There are four categories of player wealth in the modern STO economy.
. . .
As I was reading through your post and at first I was almost already thinking up a rebuttal, but by the end of it you had convinced me and I now agree with you. I really hadn't thought about how Dilithium acts as a currency gate with this new system; I was merely thinking about it as an expense.
I'm no expert of course--I only have one level 50 toon on my account so far so I'm probably in the bottom 5%--but your perspective makes a lot of sense, and I hope the devs read it and take it to heart.
I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
I understand your point about settling, and it is a good point. Even the top 1% will have to settle for most of their characters under this system. Let me explain a bit what the game looks like from the top 1%, maybe that will help understand how this impacts you.
There are four categories of player wealth in the modern STO economy.
The 1% are wealthy like Bill Gates or Royalty. We are the Ferengi in personification in the game - indeed my Ferengi's name is Moneybags and is every bit the part a Star Trek fan could imagine. This portion of the STO population refines somewhere between 64,000 and 96,000 (or more) Dilithium per day, every day, seemingly forever. I am in the middle of that category as I refine 80,000 Dilithium per day, every single day, which breaks down as 8K per day on 10 characters. I also have multiple items listed on the exchange for 100+ million EC, meaning I have to sell items on multiple characters, and use multiple accounts for account banks to insure I don't sell and hit the 999,999,999 EC cap on a good sales day. These are 1%er problems.
The next 9% at the top are the wealthy in STO, and represents my primary sales market. That 9% of the players in the game play extremely regularly and have multiple characters on a single lifetime account , but have only one or two main characters. These players have multiple characters that earn wealth solely for the purpose of making their one or two characters extremely wealthy. That category of player makes between 150,000 and 250,000 Dilithium a week, and 50,000,000 EC in a slow week. I have never met many of those players, but since they buy my high end stuff on the exchange I know their names via the email I get when an item sells. After several years, the same @names become familiar.
Then there is a 65% middle class in STO. 8,000 Dilithium per day played is a normal day played, but they don't play every day and struggle to build a stockpile of ore except during in-game events. They are conservative spenders so they can stockpile Dilithium, to some extent, but 200K Dilithium on a character is a lot to them. They hover around 5-20 million EC disposable income, and basically have to work to produce every item they obtain - whether it be for a ship, a bridge officer, etc. These players will occasionally buy ZEN and open lockboxes, but to these players a lockbox really is a lottery ticket.
The bottom 25% play STO but are not caught up into the wealth of the game. Their economy is sufficient for their play style, but their playstyle mostly omits playing much of the repeated content on a regular basis and focuses primarily on the Episodic content or interaction with other players. These players will level crafting with the free 6000 XP option over a long period of time, but have no intention of ever making an epic item because it will forever be unaffordable for them anyway, and they are OK with that because it wouldn't matter to the way they play STO anyway.
Based on the model above, do the math. The top 10% plays between 5-7 days a week. The bottom 90% plays on average 3 times a week. The top 10% recycles lots of Dilithium on a regular basis across multiple characters. The middle class recycles 25000 Dilithium on average per week, and 50000 Dilithium per week on a good week. The bottom 25% recycles 10-15K Dilithium per week per account, on a good week.
I want to start here and say I'M IN THE MIDDLE CLASS
I'm in that 15 million-20 million range, which fluctuates by my need to buy commodities for fleet projects in bulk.
I play daily and maintain around half a million dilithium so I'm a bit richer there. With between 100k and 250k on my alts.
A lockbox is a gamble I will never take. And I have to be conservative with my dilithium expenditure and EC usage. On the whole though my play style economically is slow and steady progress.
Now think through the costs. Think through the time it takes to level crafting when the vast majority of players only play 3 times a week. When a top crafter creates a MXIII item and sells it to someone of the middle class, it is hard to see how that middle class person will be able to upgrade it. Not only will it take them until summer of 2015 to level crafting high enough to actually do the upgrade, but buying the item in the first place was an enormous purchase for that player, and upgrading that item will be another enormous purchase in the context of their overall wealth. It is hard to see how the vast majority of players in that Middle Class, which includes the majority of new players that come from the F2P recycle model of players, will ever be able to afford investing in 8 weapons, much less Engines, Shields, Deflectors, etc.
Under the model on Tribble, Crafted items can only be introduced into the Holodeck economy by the rich, for the profit of the rich, and each sale represents a massive expense by 90% of the players in the game, many of whom will find such an option completely unaffordable, and realistically obtainable only once or twice PER YEAR. Under the current system, the rich person who ha actually advanced far enough to craft has no dependency whatsoever on the buyer, because the community is completely disconnected from the supply chain necessary to craft an item - that supply chain in the current form of item creation being Dilithium, which the rich player creates for himself. Cryptic's system fails to be inclusive because it has completely disconnected the community from the supply chain for an item, so 90% of the population provides no function at all to the crafting of an end game item by the 10% that can afford to craft for the larger community under this system. That's shockingly shortsided economic theory in my opinion.
Crafting at the current cost points will make the MK XIII item the high end cost point for the largest portion of the market, and it makes the higher level MK XIV items only available to those who could buy a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship off the exchange right now. I'm going to guess, that ain't you.
In my opinion, Cryptic should keep the huge leveling curves in crafting to make it a true profession in the game (I'm speaking about the 18K Dilithium completion cost), but lower the Dilithium costs of actually making items, and instead shift that cost towards a mechanic where the vast majority of players have to farm some portion of the crafting materials (obtained only via drops) needed to create the item so the community itself represents the supply chain for an item created. If the average player is able to create wealth as part of the crafting system that produces incredibly expensive items, then by being part of the supply chain, at least players will be able to earn the wealth necessary to actually purchase the expensive item.
The crafting system should allow for players, via gameplay by the community itself, to contribute heavily into the economy of the crafting system via obtaining drops rather than speanding gated Dilithium in a Dilithium economy that is ruled primarily by the top 10%, because under a shared economic system for crafting, a much higher portion of the playerbase has the opportunity to earn the new end game items by developing wealth playing for those important drops.
If the larger player community has no way to contribute towards the crafting system, and the very high Dilithium costs make it prohibitive for most players to participate in that system, the result is the crafting system can never be a legitimate profession from a player perspective in STO - whether as a supplier (most players) or manufacturer (those who have leveled high enough to do it, and are wealthy enough to buy the materials) - to anyone except the top 1% who can afford to make items regularly with their gated Dilithium supply and the top 10% that can afford to buy those high end items simi-regularly. If you're part of the 90%, you need to go grind several months so you can pay someone like me all that wealth you saved... for one item.
Speaking as a greedy Ferengi, god bless Cryptic for designing a hilarious system that makes the rich like me richer and the rest of you slave for months just to pay me top price, and I absolutely do get to set the price extremely high, because supply for end game items will be extremely low and demand will be extremely high - and nobody who actually plays STO is going to accuse the rich of gouging the playerbase when we have to spend huge sums of Dilithium and do expect a profit in return.
If Cryptic wants to do better, then they need to rearrange the way end game items are crafted so that it allows the community to participate in the supply chain, and the only way to do that is replace the high Dilithium cost with a drop that the middle class majority can farm and sell back to the crafters in quantities that rich crafters can't obtain quickly by farming themselves. To not do that insures the rich don't have to pay the majority poor players to control the crafting system price market. This really is basic economics, and it is sad no one at Cryptic realizes this issue exists in their system as designed.
The crafting system has the potential to distribute wealth in the community, or consolidate it at the top. It represents an opportunity to create supply side wealth for players and demand side wealth for players. So far this appears to be a foreign concept to Cryptic based on what I'm seeing on Tribble.
Absolutely correct.
Especially with the way materials drops are set up, combined with the dilithium investment most middle class players including myself are not going to be able to get much out of this system. My plan for the way it is now is just to plan for the long term. It took me two years to be generally kitted out in MkXII across the board, so a year for MkXIV is acceptable compared to paying out every TRIBBLE.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I'm trying to figure this out. I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't make me and my fleet mates feel like the game is going downhill fast in terms of dilithium sinks.
What I experimented with involved ground armors and some space consoles. This is what I found.
Mark upgrade for MACO Armor Mk XII to XIII: Armor stats do not change. Not even a decimal value.
Mark upgrade for Field Generator Mk XII to XIII: Stats to not upgrade. Both tooltips say +20% shield capacity.
This is just an example. Mark upgrades for some items don't change the stats of the item, only its displayed mark. Does the team know about this?
Mark upgrade for MACO Armor Mk XII to XIII: Armor stats do not change. Not even a decimal value.
Mark upgrade for Field Generator Mk XII to XIII: Stats to not upgrade. Both tooltips say +20% shield capacity.
This is just an example. Mark upgrades for some items don't change the stats of the item, only its displayed mark. Does the team know about this?
Are any Devs going to respond to the INSANE costs of this "upgrade" system? I mean several HUNDRED THOUSAND dilithium just to upgrade *ONE* ship? not including Ground Equipment? I thought you where trying to get players to go out and try new things? But you aren't you are pigeonholing people into flying with ONE SHIP,and only play ONE FREAKING CHARACTER...SO my alts are going to shrivel up and die as I will never be playing them again,and my 30+ ships and hundreds of items are now completely obsolete in this new system....this is just stupid.
I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
I understand your point about settling, and it is a good point. Even the top 1% will have to settle for most of their characters under this system. Let me explain a bit what the game looks like from the top 1%, maybe that will help understand how this impacts you.
There are four categories of player wealth in the modern STO economy.
The 1% are wealthy like Bill Gates or Royalty. We are the Ferengi in personification in the game - indeed my Ferengi's name is Moneybags and is every bit the part a Star Trek fan could imagine. This portion of the STO population refines somewhere between 64,000 and 96,000 (or more) Dilithium per day, every day, seemingly forever. I am in the middle of that category as I refine 80,000 Dilithium per day, every single day, which breaks down as 8K per day on 10 characters. I also have multiple items listed on the exchange for 100+ million EC, meaning I have to sell items on multiple characters, and use multiple accounts for account banks to insure I don't sell and hit the 999,999,999 EC cap on a good sales day. These are 1%er problems.
The next 9% at the top are the wealthy in STO, and represents my primary sales market. That 9% of the players in the game play extremely regularly and have multiple characters on a single lifetime account , but have only one or two main characters. These players have multiple characters that earn wealth solely for the purpose of making their one or two characters extremely wealthy. That category of player makes between 150,000 and 250,000 Dilithium a week, and 50,000,000 EC in a slow week. I have never met many of those players, but since they buy my high end stuff on the exchange I know their names via the email I get when an item sells. After several years, the same @names become familiar.
Then there is a 65% middle class in STO. 8,000 Dilithium per day played is a normal day played, but they don't play every day and struggle to build a stockpile of ore except during in-game events. They are conservative spenders so they can stockpile Dilithium, to some extent, but 200K Dilithium on a character is a lot to them. They hover around 5-20 million EC disposable income, and basically have to work to produce every item they obtain - whether it be for a ship, a bridge officer, etc. These players will occasionally buy ZEN and open lockboxes, but to these players a lockbox really is a lottery ticket.
The bottom 25% play STO but are not caught up into the wealth of the game. Their economy is sufficient for their play style, but their playstyle mostly omits playing much of the repeated content on a regular basis and focuses primarily on the Episodic content or interaction with other players. These players will level crafting with the free 6000 XP option over a long period of time, but have no intention of ever making an epic item because it will forever be unaffordable for them anyway, and they are OK with that because it wouldn't matter to the way they play STO anyway.
Based on the model above, do the math. The top 10% plays between 5-7 days a week. The bottom 90% plays on average 3 times a week. The top 10% recycles lots of Dilithium on a regular basis across multiple characters. The middle class recycles 25000 Dilithium on average per week, and 50000 Dilithium per week on a good week. The bottom 25% recycles 10-15K Dilithium per week per account, on a good week.
Now think through the costs. Think through the time it takes to level crafting when the vast majority of players only play 3 times a week. When a top crafter creates a MXIII item and sells it to someone of the middle class, it is hard to see how that middle class person will be able to upgrade it. Not only will it take them until summer of 2015 to level crafting high enough to actually do the upgrade, but buying the item in the first place was an enormous purchase for that player, and upgrading that item will be another enormous purchase in the context of their overall wealth. It is hard to see how the vast majority of players in that Middle Class, which includes the majority of new players that come from the F2P recycle model of players, will ever be able to afford investing in 8 weapons, much less Engines, Shields, Deflectors, etc.
Under the model on Tribble, Crafted items can only be introduced into the Holodeck economy by the rich, for the profit of the rich, and each sale represents a massive expense by 90% of the players in the game, many of whom will find such an option completely unaffordable, and realistically obtainable only once or twice PER YEAR. Under the current system, the rich person who ha actually advanced far enough to craft has no dependency whatsoever on the buyer, because the community is completely disconnected from the supply chain necessary to craft an item - that supply chain in the current form of item creation being Dilithium, which the rich player creates for himself. Cryptic's system fails to be inclusive because it has completely disconnected the community from the supply chain for an item, so 90% of the population provides no function at all to the crafting of an end game item by the 10% that can afford to craft for the larger community under this system. That's shockingly shortsided economic theory in my opinion.
Crafting at the current cost points will make the MK XIII item the high end cost point for the largest portion of the market, and it makes the higher level MK XIV items only available to those who could buy a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship off the exchange right now. I'm going to guess, that ain't you.
In my opinion, Cryptic should keep the huge leveling curves in crafting to make it a true profession in the game (I'm speaking about the 18K Dilithium completion cost), but lower the Dilithium costs of actually making items, and instead shift that cost towards a mechanic where the vast majority of players have to farm some portion of the crafting materials (obtained only via drops) needed to create the item so the community itself represents the supply chain for an item created. If the average player is able to create wealth as part of the crafting system that produces incredibly expensive items, then by being part of the supply chain, at least players will be able to earn the wealth necessary to actually purchase the expensive item.
The crafting system should allow for players, via gameplay by the community itself, to contribute heavily into the economy of the crafting system via obtaining drops rather than speanding gated Dilithium in a Dilithium economy that is ruled primarily by the top 10%, because under a shared economic system for crafting, a much higher portion of the playerbase has the opportunity to earn the new end game items by developing wealth playing for those important drops.
If the larger player community has no way to contribute towards the crafting system, and the very high Dilithium costs make it prohibitive for most players to participate in that system, the result is the crafting system can never be a legitimate profession from a player perspective in STO - whether as a supplier (most players) or manufacturer (those who have leveled high enough to do it, and are wealthy enough to buy the materials) - to anyone except the top 1% who can afford to make items regularly with their gated Dilithium supply and the top 10% that can afford to buy those high end items simi-regularly. If you're part of the 90%, you need to go grind several months so you can pay someone like me all that wealth you saved... for one item.
Speaking as a greedy Ferengi, god bless Cryptic for designing a hilarious system that makes the rich like me richer and the rest of you slave for months just to pay me top price, and I absolutely do get to set the price extremely high, because supply for end game items will be extremely low and demand will be extremely high - and nobody who actually plays STO is going to accuse the rich of gouging the playerbase when we have to spend huge sums of Dilithium and do expect a profit in return.
If Cryptic wants to do better, then they need to rearrange the way end game items are crafted so that it allows the community to participate in the supply chain, and the only way to do that is replace the high Dilithium cost with a drop that the middle class majority can farm and sell back to the crafters in quantities that rich crafters can't obtain quickly by farming themselves. To not do that insures the rich don't have to pay the majority poor players to control the crafting system price market. This really is basic economics, and it is sad no one at Cryptic realizes this issue exists in their system as designed.
The crafting system has the potential to distribute wealth in the community, or consolidate it at the top. It represents an opportunity to create supply side wealth for players and demand side wealth for players. So far this appears to be a foreign concept to Cryptic based on what I'm seeing on Tribble.
I feel like I am in the bottom of that. Dilithium for me is slow to earn and goes very fast. Between helping the fleets I am in and using it for stuff I need, I can't bank it. I have about 10 million EC between all of my characters and maybe 35k DL at the most between them all. I do play a couple of days a week on average. I am definitely the player this system punishes and that makes me not want to bother with it at all.
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$100,000,000 question asked repeated times but no answer yet.
Actually it was answered by borticus yesterday. New delta missions will drop mark 13 occasionally. Older missions will never do so. Mark 14 is not loot.
Actually it was answered by borticus yesterday. New delta missions will drop mark 13 occasionally. Older missions will never do so. Mark 14 is not loot.
So - the only way to get mkxiii xnd mk xiv is to grind? And an occasional, pre-vetted drop? What about equipment packs? What about new fleet holdings?
Your argument about casual players and upgrades being out of reach is flawed.
Your setting extremely high prices in the exchange based upon your supposed Dil cost.
You then went on to explain how you got that Dil at no EC or ZEN cost other than time on 8-10 characters.
So your basis on setting prices just plain hurts the casual player.
Your BLAMING a supposedly bad economic model on the DEVs - when it's YOU that caused the problem.
I have done some upgrading. As an example; upgrading a single tac fleet console from mkii (12) to mk iii (13) takes less than a days worth of converted dil ore....You can almost get two complete a day.
Devs have added crafting projects that allow you to complete the "GRIND" to level 15 in a much more reasonable time. I did it recently on tribble...It will take R&D material and components....no Dil.
You can easily outfit a single ship in a month - DIL gated time.
Mk iv will definately take longer.
Gold level will be a stretch goal.
But you don't lose progress on your upgrade items...just don't upgrade them till your ready to stop playing for the evening...some take 12 or more hours - unless you rush with Dil.
The Devs seem to be listening. It's NOT just a money grab. You can get "upgraded" in a reasonable time...hmm I remember them saying it would take about the same time as REPUTATION...
Well it seems that the Devs have lived up to that...at least at present time on tribble. Always subject to change.
And for your grind question, that depends on your definition. The cost to bump a mark 12 purple to mark 14 purple is currently ~30k dil and you can use packs available from vendors if you don't like crafting or are scared of the auction house prices. I'm hoping the day vs heed the calls for lower prices. Even at this price, it is believable as two steps up from the current price for fleet or rep mark 12 gear.
So if you believe the only way to get fleet gear right now, today, is to grind then you will also believe that in October the only way to get mark 14 gear is to grind. If, like me, you just play the game and occasionally notice that you have piled up a bunch of money and buy something endgame worthy, then you will not believe you need to grind for mark 14 gear.
Also, we do not yet know if mark 13&14 will be rewarded for the new elite/advanced stf. Before you panic about doing it, people on tribble have rocked the stf on elite setting with mark 5 ships and mark 12 gear. They said it was very hard, but winnable. So if mark 14 shows up at advanced or elite settings, it can be earned without first buying a new ship and without buying upgraded gear.
Also, let's be realistic, if there isn't mark 14 gear in the first lockbox, it will be in the second one. And we already have been told t6 fleet ships are coming in the future (not at launch), so it is reasonable to expect mark 14 fleet gear either at the same time or shortly after.
Okay, so.. after spending an ungodly amount of dilithium (at least a million) I upgraded the Wrist Lance from the Lobi store...
As you can see.. I feel really.. *really* cheated... lol Stats are *identical* to the "ultra rare" .. :rolleyes:
It is possible that it's just a bug as they haven't actually set the higher value items in yet, so as the list in this thread continues to be updated you may log in and see the proper stats.
Actually it was answered by borticus yesterday. New delta missions will drop mark 13 occasionally. Older missions will never do so. Mark 14 is not loot.
And for your grind question, that depends on your definition. The cost to bump a mark 12 purple to mark 14 purple is currently ~30k dil and you can use packs available from vendors if you don't like crafting or are scared of the auction house prices. I'm hoping the day vs heed the calls for lower prices. Even at this price, it is believable as two steps up from the current price for fleet or rep mark 12 gear.
So if you believe the only way to get fleet gear right now, today, is to grind then you will also believe that in October the only way to get mark 14 gear is to grind. If, like me, you just play the game and occasionally notice that you have piled up a bunch of money and buy something endgame worthy, then you will not believe you need to grind for mark 14 gear.
Also, we do not yet know if mark 13&14 will be rewarded for the new elite/advanced stf. Before you panic about doing it, people on tribble have rocked the stf on elite setting with mark 5 ships and mark 12 gear. They said it was very hard, but winnable. So if mark 14 shows up at advanced or elite settings, it can be earned without first buying a new ship and without buying upgraded gear.
Also, let's be realistic, if there isn't mark 14 gear in the first lockbox, it will be in the second one. And we already have been told t6 fleet ships are coming in the future (not at launch), so it is reasonable to expect mark 14 fleet gear either at the same time or shortly after.
That's pretty much how I managed to fully kit out my ship at MkXI. MkXII took some concentrated work but it was done very steadily.
A lot of the grind does depend on how quickly you want to get it done. But I still think there's a lot of truth in what he said.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
My thread was closed and I was told to come here.....
Here's my 2 cents. The only dil sink in this upgrade system should be, as markhawkman put it, in obtaining gold quality items. I don't mind having to upgrade to mk XIII at lvl 55 and then upgrade again at lvl 60 to mk XIV. But when I pop my kit and item in, I expect to get a mk XIII version at same quality (for lvl 55) and a mk XIV version at same quality at lvl 60. Not a chance of upgrading, a guarantee. And then I would have the option of attempting to upgrade to gold quality OR upgrade my mk XI blue mission rewards (lobi items, consoles, etc etc). This way, the dil sink is less mandatory and more optional. Plus, doing it this way will reduce power creep (I think) and for those who HAVE to have the best stuff, they will be willing to sink the dilithium for gold quality items which means grinding for them and more $$$ for Cryptic/PWE. But making us all do this is just ridiculous.
To elaborate, this is what I want to have happen on the drop of X2. I log on and upgrade my ship to T5-U (if not done so already). I then have the option to upgrade my mk XI blue/purple gear to mk XII. I then play the new story missions etc etc till I hit lvl 55. Then I can have the option to upgrade my gear to Mk XIII at the cost of like 2k (max) dil per item with the guarantee that I get a mk XIII equivalent at the same quality. I can then do this for all my items. (yes there will still be a waiting period on all the items but, just as it is now, you can insta-upgrade using dil). I then continue with new content to get to level 60. (This will not affect the new mastery tree). I then will have the option to upgrade my mk XIII gear to mk XIV just the same as before when I upgraded to mk XIII. And then I'm done. And If I want to I can attempt to get my gear to epic, or gold, quality (This is where the dil sink will go). Anyone else like this idea? If not, please tell me why. thanks
NOTE: By "upgrade" I mean, pull up the new UI, pop in the item, kit, and optional accelerator. The Tech points/experience will still play a role but only toward upgrading to epic or gold quality.
NOTE 1.2: In my suggestion, when upgrading I'm implying that mods carry over. In the case of getting a gamble on mods when moving from any quality lower than UR to UR, I suggest that we be allowed to see what that mod will be before we click "upgrade".
The overall goal of this idea was to remove the gamble and dil sink of this new system without completely throwing aside what the devs have already put their time into making for us. (With the exception of gold "epic" quality items)
Quick update note:
* In an upcoming patch (not sure when exactly it will hit), the time required for gear to finish its upgrade process should go down significantly. The cost to skip this timer will also go down significantly.
* We are continuing to add upgrade functionality. You should see upgrade functionality for more items in the next big update, including the Bajoran phaser pistol and rifle, the black version of the type 2 Federation phaser pistol, the CRM-200 cryonic cannon, and the synchronic proton distortion rifle. Keep an eye on the patch notes!
Quick update note:
* In an upcoming patch (not sure when exactly it will hit), the time required for gear to finish its upgrade process should go down significantly. The cost to skip this timer will also go down significantly.
* We are continuing to add upgrade functionality. You should see upgrade functionality for more items in the next big update, including the Bajoran phaser pistol and rifle, the black version of the type 2 Federation phaser pistol, the CRM-200 cryonic cannon, and the synchronic proton distortion rifle. Keep an eye on the patch notes!
can we plz get a reduction on how many Tech it requires to upgrade items?
for example it took me 2 Blue Tech and 21 Green Tech to upgrade 1 Beam Weapon (which I feel is a little too much)
Quick update note:
* In an upcoming patch (not sure when exactly it will hit), the time required for gear to finish its upgrade process should go down significantly. The cost to skip this timer will also go down significantly.
* We are continuing to add upgrade functionality. You should see upgrade functionality for more items in the next big update, including the Bajoran phaser pistol and rifle, the black version of the type 2 Federation phaser pistol, the CRM-200 cryonic cannon, and the synchronic proton distortion rifle. Keep an eye on the patch notes!
This sounds like an awesome change, honestly. I already felt like the cost for the upgrades themselves was pretty reasonable, but the time gate/dil cost to finish was something like 2/3rds of the final cost to upgrade. If that comes down significantly, then the overall upgrade cost gets much cheaper.
Comments
I would call that an artifact. It's probably just doing a wholesale replacement of one item with another, and of course the higher marks have different models as you're aware.
I bet they never anticipated this scenario. It's sort of in the category of an edge case, even if a whole lot of players still have X or XI rep gear.
Joined January 2009
I do find it sad that the latter Next Generation movies, which are actually the standard end point for the prime universe canon as Insurrection was the latest Starfleet tech with Voyager being some years out of date, and Nemesis is the LAST Prime Universe event. Those should've been the starting point of visuals. Even the Sovereign class in game isn't the finalized up to date version. They clearly saw Nemesis as the Scimitar is flawless, but the Enterprise-E's class isn't.
The phaser rifles aren't. I was hoping that they would become the more recent versions as they increased but nope. I'd Say the MACO Battle Rifle is recognizable as being in the lineage, but it isn't very sleek. I'm glad to see the Compression Phaser Rifles in game though. But I think the best was the EVA Phaser Type 3c.
http://images.auctionworks.com/hi/3/3282/eva-50.jpg
I figured we'd get all the canon stuff, as a variety. We've got split beam, full auto, high density beam, pulse wave, and sniper, there's enough room. Maybe weapons visual customization will come in the future.
Thanks!
1000+ day veteran
I forgot that they changed the costumes to rep projects a season or two ago. I am going to check on that once tribble is up again.
Edit: Tested it and no, no project either and the store at DS9 used to register the Omega gear doesn't recognize the items. So while old omega gear can be upgraded to higher marks it won't grant the costume of those higher marks.
Take the set to Roxy on DS9 and do the turn-in thing. See if that unlocks the visuals (alternatively, discard the set pieces and immediately reclaim them from the replicator, which does the same thing).
Edit: beaten by the edit! I type slow. (very slow)
Dil cost
Time taken
Number of upgrades needed.
As it stands now this whole system cost way too much and takes far too long.
Oh and so so much clicking...
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I never said it makes crafting impossible, but I will note the system as it functions right now makes "epic" top end items unobtainable to the vast majority of players. That could be by design, but if it is, I do hope that Cryptic realizes the impact it will have on the community.
I understand your point about settling, and it is a good point. Even the top 1% will have to settle for most of their characters under this system. Let me explain a bit what the game looks like from the top 1%, maybe that will help understand how this impacts you.
There are four categories of player wealth in the modern STO economy.
The 1% are wealthy like Bill Gates or Royalty. We are the Ferengi in personification in the game - indeed my Ferengi's name is Moneybags and is every bit the part a Star Trek fan could imagine. This portion of the STO population refines somewhere between 64,000 and 96,000 (or more) Dilithium per day, every day, seemingly forever. I am in the middle of that category as I refine 80,000 Dilithium per day, every single day, which breaks down as 8K per day on 10 characters. I also have multiple items listed on the exchange for 100+ million EC, meaning I have to sell items on multiple characters, and use multiple accounts for account banks to insure I don't sell and hit the 999,999,999 EC cap on a good sales day. These are 1%er problems.
The next 9% at the top are the wealthy in STO, and represents my primary sales market. That 9% of the players in the game play extremely regularly and have multiple characters on a single lifetime account , but have only one or two main characters. These players have multiple characters that earn wealth solely for the purpose of making their one or two characters extremely wealthy. That category of player makes between 150,000 and 250,000 Dilithium a week, and 50,000,000 EC in a slow week. I have never met many of those players, but since they buy my high end stuff on the exchange I know their names via the email I get when an item sells. After several years, the same @names become familiar.
Then there is a 65% middle class in STO. 8,000 Dilithium per day played is a normal day played, but they don't play every day and struggle to build a stockpile of ore except during in-game events. They are conservative spenders so they can stockpile Dilithium, to some extent, but 200K Dilithium on a character is a lot to them. They hover around 5-20 million EC disposable income, and basically have to work to produce every item they obtain - whether it be for a ship, a bridge officer, etc. These players will occasionally buy ZEN and open lockboxes, but to these players a lockbox really is a lottery ticket.
The bottom 25% play STO but are not caught up into the wealth of the game. Their economy is sufficient for their play style, but their playstyle mostly omits playing much of the repeated content on a regular basis and focuses primarily on the Episodic content or interaction with other players. These players will level crafting with the free 6000 XP option over a long period of time, but have no intention of ever making an epic item because it will forever be unaffordable for them anyway, and they are OK with that because it wouldn't matter to the way they play STO anyway.
Based on the model above, do the math. The top 10% plays between 5-7 days a week. The bottom 90% plays on average 3 times a week. The top 10% recycles lots of Dilithium on a regular basis across multiple characters. The middle class recycles 25000 Dilithium on average per week, and 50000 Dilithium per week on a good week. The bottom 25% recycles 10-15K Dilithium per week per account, on a good week.
Now think through the costs. Think through the time it takes to level crafting when the vast majority of players only play 3 times a week. When a top crafter creates a MXIII item and sells it to someone of the middle class, it is hard to see how that middle class person will be able to upgrade it. Not only will it take them until summer of 2015 to level crafting high enough to actually do the upgrade, but buying the item in the first place was an enormous purchase for that player, and upgrading that item will be another enormous purchase in the context of their overall wealth. It is hard to see how the vast majority of players in that Middle Class, which includes the majority of new players that come from the F2P recycle model of players, will ever be able to afford investing in 8 weapons, much less Engines, Shields, Deflectors, etc.
Under the model on Tribble, Crafted items can only be introduced into the Holodeck economy by the rich, for the profit of the rich, and each sale represents a massive expense by 90% of the players in the game, many of whom will find such an option completely unaffordable, and realistically obtainable only once or twice PER YEAR. Under the current system, the rich person who ha actually advanced far enough to craft has no dependency whatsoever on the buyer, because the community is completely disconnected from the supply chain necessary to craft an item - that supply chain in the current form of item creation being Dilithium, which the rich player creates for himself. Cryptic's system fails to be inclusive because it has completely disconnected the community from the supply chain for an item, so 90% of the population provides no function at all to the crafting of an end game item by the 10% that can afford to craft for the larger community under this system. That's shockingly shortsided economic theory in my opinion.
Crafting at the current cost points will make the MK XIII item the high end cost point for the largest portion of the market, and it makes the higher level MK XIV items only available to those who could buy a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship off the exchange right now. I'm going to guess, that ain't you.
In my opinion, Cryptic should keep the huge leveling curves in crafting to make it a true profession in the game (I'm speaking about the 18K Dilithium completion cost), but lower the Dilithium costs of actually making items, and instead shift that cost towards a mechanic where the vast majority of players have to farm some portion of the crafting materials (obtained only via drops) needed to create the item so the community itself represents the supply chain for an item created. If the average player is able to create wealth as part of the crafting system that produces incredibly expensive items, then by being part of the supply chain, at least players will be able to earn the wealth necessary to actually purchase the expensive item.
The crafting system should allow for players, via gameplay by the community itself, to contribute heavily into the economy of the crafting system via obtaining drops rather than speanding gated Dilithium in a Dilithium economy that is ruled primarily by the top 10%, because under a shared economic system for crafting, a much higher portion of the playerbase has the opportunity to earn the new end game items by developing wealth playing for those important drops.
If the larger player community has no way to contribute towards the crafting system, and the very high Dilithium costs make it prohibitive for most players to participate in that system, the result is the crafting system can never be a legitimate profession from a player perspective in STO - whether as a supplier (most players) or manufacturer (those who have leveled high enough to do it, and are wealthy enough to buy the materials) - to anyone except the top 1% who can afford to make items regularly with their gated Dilithium supply and the top 10% that can afford to buy those high end items simi-regularly. If you're part of the 90%, you need to go grind several months so you can pay someone like me all that wealth you saved... for one item.
Speaking as a greedy Ferengi, god bless Cryptic for designing a hilarious system that makes the rich like me richer and the rest of you slave for months just to pay me top price, and I absolutely do get to set the price extremely high, because supply for end game items will be extremely low and demand will be extremely high - and nobody who actually plays STO is going to accuse the rich of gouging the playerbase when we have to spend huge sums of Dilithium and do expect a profit in return.
If Cryptic wants to do better, then they need to rearrange the way end game items are crafted so that it allows the community to participate in the supply chain, and the only way to do that is replace the high Dilithium cost with a drop that the middle class majority can farm and sell back to the crafters in quantities that rich crafters can't obtain quickly by farming themselves. To not do that insures the rich don't have to pay the majority poor players to control the crafting system price market. This really is basic economics, and it is sad no one at Cryptic realizes this issue exists in their system as designed.
The crafting system has the potential to distribute wealth in the community, or consolidate it at the top. It represents an opportunity to create supply side wealth for players and demand side wealth for players. So far this appears to be a foreign concept to Cryptic based on what I'm seeing on Tribble.
Rules of Acquisition at Priority One
This. Cryptic, please, cut down the values. It is too much.
1-10%er here...(somewhere in there...I bounce around depending on how bored I am.)
I am in maintenance mode at this point. A lot of what you say here is true and resonates. I think what we are witnessing is going the be grind overload, finally: the perfect storm where we have an upgrade system, a crafting system, a new rep system AND likely a new lockbox all hitting all at once. Even for a well-to-do player like myself, that is simply not sustainable by any means. People are going to have to select guns or butter - but in fact, this game requires guns exclusively and they will be so out of reach of most that no one will want to grind all the way to get there.
People need to see the end of the tunnel, not some nebulous future where they can eventually, possible get a better weapon by chance.
This system is ridiculously too costly and has too many variables for failure. It's like buying a newer car but having no idea what the paint color will be, if your interior is cloth or soft, Corinthian leather*, or the size of your drivetrain.
The prices need to be lowered on dil. The system needs to be simplified. A LOT.
This is a known issue that we're working on.
Star Trek Online Lead Programmer
As I was reading through your post and at first I was almost already thinking up a rebuttal, but by the end of it you had convinced me and I now agree with you. I really hadn't thought about how Dilithium acts as a currency gate with this new system; I was merely thinking about it as an expense.
I'm no expert of course--I only have one level 50 toon on my account so far so I'm probably in the bottom 5%--but your perspective makes a lot of sense, and I hope the devs read it and take it to heart.
I want to start here and say I'M IN THE MIDDLE CLASS
I'm in that 15 million-20 million range, which fluctuates by my need to buy commodities for fleet projects in bulk.
I play daily and maintain around half a million dilithium so I'm a bit richer there. With between 100k and 250k on my alts.
A lockbox is a gamble I will never take. And I have to be conservative with my dilithium expenditure and EC usage. On the whole though my play style economically is slow and steady progress.
Absolutely correct.
Especially with the way materials drops are set up, combined with the dilithium investment most middle class players including myself are not going to be able to get much out of this system. My plan for the way it is now is just to plan for the long term. It took me two years to be generally kitted out in MkXII across the board, so a year for MkXIV is acceptable compared to paying out every TRIBBLE.
What I experimented with involved ground armors and some space consoles. This is what I found.
Mark upgrade for MACO Armor Mk XII to XIII: Armor stats do not change. Not even a decimal value.
Mark upgrade for Field Generator Mk XII to XIII: Stats to not upgrade. Both tooltips say +20% shield capacity.
This is just an example. Mark upgrades for some items don't change the stats of the item, only its displayed mark. Does the team know about this?
Totes, brah. Totes!!!11!!!
^- upgrading weapons with the [borg] mod makes the mod dissappear
so this one is a mod short now
The Evil Queen - Tac - Hobo
John May Lives - Sci - Hobo
I feel like I am in the bottom of that. Dilithium for me is slow to earn and goes very fast. Between helping the fleets I am in and using it for stuff I need, I can't bank it. I have about 10 million EC between all of my characters and maybe 35k DL at the most between them all. I do play a couple of days a week on average. I am definitely the player this system punishes and that makes me not want to bother with it at all.
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As you can see.. I feel really.. *really* cheated... lol Stats are *identical* to the "ultra rare" .. :rolleyes:
$100,000,000 question asked repeated times but no answer yet.
Actually it was answered by borticus yesterday. New delta missions will drop mark 13 occasionally. Older missions will never do so. Mark 14 is not loot.
So - the only way to get mkxiii xnd mk xiv is to grind? And an occasional, pre-vetted drop? What about equipment packs? What about new fleet holdings?
BTW - can you link to where he stated that?
Your setting extremely high prices in the exchange based upon your supposed Dil cost.
You then went on to explain how you got that Dil at no EC or ZEN cost other than time on 8-10 characters.
So your basis on setting prices just plain hurts the casual player.
Your BLAMING a supposedly bad economic model on the DEVs - when it's YOU that caused the problem.
I have done some upgrading. As an example; upgrading a single tac fleet console from mkii (12) to mk iii (13) takes less than a days worth of converted dil ore....You can almost get two complete a day.
Devs have added crafting projects that allow you to complete the "GRIND" to level 15 in a much more reasonable time. I did it recently on tribble...It will take R&D material and components....no Dil.
You can easily outfit a single ship in a month - DIL gated time.
Mk iv will definately take longer.
Gold level will be a stretch goal.
But you don't lose progress on your upgrade items...just don't upgrade them till your ready to stop playing for the evening...some take 12 or more hours - unless you rush with Dil.
The Devs seem to be listening. It's NOT just a money grab. You can get "upgraded" in a reasonable time...hmm I remember them saying it would take about the same time as REPUTATION...
Well it seems that the Devs have lived up to that...at least at present time on tribble. Always subject to change.
And for your grind question, that depends on your definition. The cost to bump a mark 12 purple to mark 14 purple is currently ~30k dil and you can use packs available from vendors if you don't like crafting or are scared of the auction house prices. I'm hoping the day vs heed the calls for lower prices. Even at this price, it is believable as two steps up from the current price for fleet or rep mark 12 gear.
So if you believe the only way to get fleet gear right now, today, is to grind then you will also believe that in October the only way to get mark 14 gear is to grind. If, like me, you just play the game and occasionally notice that you have piled up a bunch of money and buy something endgame worthy, then you will not believe you need to grind for mark 14 gear.
Also, we do not yet know if mark 13&14 will be rewarded for the new elite/advanced stf. Before you panic about doing it, people on tribble have rocked the stf on elite setting with mark 5 ships and mark 12 gear. They said it was very hard, but winnable. So if mark 14 shows up at advanced or elite settings, it can be earned without first buying a new ship and without buying upgraded gear.
Also, let's be realistic, if there isn't mark 14 gear in the first lockbox, it will be in the second one. And we already have been told t6 fleet ships are coming in the future (not at launch), so it is reasonable to expect mark 14 fleet gear either at the same time or shortly after.
It is possible that it's just a bug as they haven't actually set the higher value items in yet, so as the list in this thread continues to be updated you may log in and see the proper stats.
Thanks, didn't see that post, good on ya.
That's pretty much how I managed to fully kit out my ship at MkXI. MkXII took some concentrated work but it was done very steadily.
A lot of the grind does depend on how quickly you want to get it done. But I still think there's a lot of truth in what he said.
Here's my 2 cents. The only dil sink in this upgrade system should be, as markhawkman put it, in obtaining gold quality items. I don't mind having to upgrade to mk XIII at lvl 55 and then upgrade again at lvl 60 to mk XIV. But when I pop my kit and item in, I expect to get a mk XIII version at same quality (for lvl 55) and a mk XIV version at same quality at lvl 60. Not a chance of upgrading, a guarantee. And then I would have the option of attempting to upgrade to gold quality OR upgrade my mk XI blue mission rewards (lobi items, consoles, etc etc). This way, the dil sink is less mandatory and more optional. Plus, doing it this way will reduce power creep (I think) and for those who HAVE to have the best stuff, they will be willing to sink the dilithium for gold quality items which means grinding for them and more $$$ for Cryptic/PWE. But making us all do this is just ridiculous.
To elaborate, this is what I want to have happen on the drop of X2. I log on and upgrade my ship to T5-U (if not done so already). I then have the option to upgrade my mk XI blue/purple gear to mk XII. I then play the new story missions etc etc till I hit lvl 55. Then I can have the option to upgrade my gear to Mk XIII at the cost of like 2k (max) dil per item with the guarantee that I get a mk XIII equivalent at the same quality. I can then do this for all my items. (yes there will still be a waiting period on all the items but, just as it is now, you can insta-upgrade using dil). I then continue with new content to get to level 60. (This will not affect the new mastery tree). I then will have the option to upgrade my mk XIII gear to mk XIV just the same as before when I upgraded to mk XIII. And then I'm done. And If I want to I can attempt to get my gear to epic, or gold, quality (This is where the dil sink will go). Anyone else like this idea? If not, please tell me why. thanks
NOTE: By "upgrade" I mean, pull up the new UI, pop in the item, kit, and optional accelerator. The Tech points/experience will still play a role but only toward upgrading to epic or gold quality.
NOTE 1.2: In my suggestion, when upgrading I'm implying that mods carry over. In the case of getting a gamble on mods when moving from any quality lower than UR to UR, I suggest that we be allowed to see what that mod will be before we click "upgrade".
The overall goal of this idea was to remove the gamble and dil sink of this new system without completely throwing aside what the devs have already put their time into making for us. (With the exception of gold "epic" quality items)
* In an upcoming patch (not sure when exactly it will hit), the time required for gear to finish its upgrade process should go down significantly. The cost to skip this timer will also go down significantly.
* We are continuing to add upgrade functionality. You should see upgrade functionality for more items in the next big update, including the Bajoran phaser pistol and rifle, the black version of the type 2 Federation phaser pistol, the CRM-200 cryonic cannon, and the synchronic proton distortion rifle. Keep an eye on the patch notes!
can we plz get a reduction on how many Tech it requires to upgrade items?
for example it took me 2 Blue Tech and 21 Green Tech to upgrade 1 Beam Weapon (which I feel is a little too much)
This sounds like an awesome change, honestly. I already felt like the cost for the upgrades themselves was pretty reasonable, but the time gate/dil cost to finish was something like 2/3rds of the final cost to upgrade. If that comes down significantly, then the overall upgrade cost gets much cheaper.