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Upgrading Mk XIV to next quality - major ripoff!

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  • chainfallchainfall Member Posts: 258 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    It is better to do the Mk II upgrade gamble.
    ~Megamind@Sobekeus
  • knockyknocky Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    betayuya wrote: »
    12 toons feed my free Dil, so i am not worried about it, it's still costs to much XD

    (which would be 96,000 dil a day) costs to much to do "fun" R+D play

    also note 615 zen at an exchange rate of 156 dil per zen.

    scary if i was buying that, which i am gladly not


    Watch out....you are the next target on the Exploit Train wreck.
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  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    tigeraries wrote: »
    You buy Mk 2 Very Rares and from there you upgrade to epic... that is what folks say is the best way to upgrade...

    /shrug.

    Just buy Ultra Rare Fleet Mk 10s and upgrade from there... if you hit epic good if not your UR Mk 14s... thou it's probably cheaper to buy UR Mk 12s... but then you loose out of 2 chances to hit epic.

    frankly this upgrade is pure cash grab money sink...

    I'm thinking of staying with ultra rare mk 12 fleet.

    As I said, I'm working on upgrading a Federation Type 1 Phaser. I got it from episode replay.

    This weapon has no mark, doesn't scale with player level, and replaying the episode at level 50 gets you the same markless non-scaling green quality weapon.

    When I opened the upgrade window the first time for this item it turned out to be a Mk II item. I used the free tech upgrades Cryptic gave out recently to get us started with the upgrade system. On the first tech upgrade it had enough points to go straight to Mk IV.

    The problem with upgrading is the chance to increase the quality is reset with each mark upgrade. So after upgrading it to Mk IV, for example, the chance went straight back to 0 and didn't increase until I used tech upgrades on it to increase its tech points. Even at higher marks that require a lot of tech points I still had less than a 10% chance of a rarity increase when using the final tech that would allow a mark upgrade.

    I also noticed something: the damn thing always seemed to require 1 more tech upgrade then it should have when upgrading it. Say I'm at 27,100/27,050 for the next upgrade, I would have to use 1 more tech upgrade before it would allow me to upgrade it, putting it at 32,100/27,050 (just a rough example). This system kept forcing me to gain more tech points then needed to upgrade it. This means it kept costing more dilithium and costs to craft upgrade tech then was necessary. In other words, even though I was just over the required amount of tech points it said "give me more dil and another tech" before I could upgrade to the next mark/rarity.
  • edited October 2014
    This content has been removed.
  • gizmox64gizmox64 Member Posts: 322 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm working on upgrading a very rare (purple) Mk XIV ground weapon to ultra rare quality. After upgrading it to purple I fully filled out the tech points to upgrade it again. Is it ultra rare now? NO!

    Now it sits with nothing more than a 5% chance to increase its quality the next time I *attempt* to upgrade it.

    All those improved tech upgrades I crafted and all that dilithium to upgrade its quality WASTED! This is nothing more than a major ripoff and it's going to cost a hell of a lot more dilithium then flat out buying an ultra rare fleet weapon.

    *snip*

    I would much rather have upgrading to next quality once you upgrade it to Mk XIV require more tech points with a guaranteed chance to upgrade it to the next quality.

    But as it stands, this is nothing more than a flat out MAJOR dilithium sink.

    128,064 tech points required to upgrade it at this point. Each improved tech upgrade (5k tech points each) makes it cost 950 dilithium. So that was about 24,320 dilithium I just wasted increasing only the chance to upgrade its quality, and that was only the first attempt to upgrade it to ultra rare.

    So when is it going to upgrade to ultra rare? When I've spent about 2 million dilithium and have a 99% chance to upgrade its quality??

    Thanks Cryptic for NOT listening to the playerbase on that one. :mad:

    Exactly my issue.
    I bought a Mk 14 from the exchange and wanted to make it Ultra Rare, then Elite.
    Put the gun in the upgrade slot it said 96 damage but the Ultra Rare said 93 damage.
    Regardless of that, the boarder color changed to Ultra Rare on the right side.
    I put in about 10 million EC in upgrade components. Filled the bar and poof.. nothing happened, Claim now did appear, and I got the gun back, but no increase in anything...
    All that EC spent, and all the REFINED dil gone.. WTH!

    I don't craft, so not sure if that's how crafting levels or items are created, but damn.
    When the upgrading system came out and we got those free items from the NPC, bamn, my Fleet gun upgraded no problem.

    Is this as intended? I mean fill the bar and nothing happens, but you're out all the costs.
    Is it supposed to be a gamble? Maybe reword the whole system to warn users they maybe wasting their EC and Dil because this gambling if you'll really get what it shows you will get.
    Very frustrating and a whole turn off to the whole god damn system.
  • commanderkassycommanderkassy Member Posts: 1,005 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    How about you go play a game of 'hide and go flog yourself'!

    So serious.
    ♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
    It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
  • ermanameermaname Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    When you upgrade you fill the top bar and as you do the bottom bar fills a little amount, when you upgrade to a new level the bottom bar resets to 0 (lame, lol) but when you get to mk xiv and fill the top bar, upon upgrading you retain the amount you had filled in the bottom bar, so it can take several attempts to get the quality to upgrade, but each time it gets more likely. Most I have seen in others videos or my own attempts have worked between 1 and 20%, but it is possible it will take a lot more. 1 of my consoles earlier took 5 fillings of the top bar to get me to 20% chance and the success to get epic.
  • darkknightucfdarkknightucf Member Posts: 1,546 Media Corps
    edited October 2014
    gizmox64 wrote: »
    Exactly my issue.
    I bought a Mk 14 from the exchange and wanted to make it Ultra Rare, then Elite.
    Put the gun in the upgrade slot it said 96 damage but the Ultra Rare said 93 damage.
    Regardless of that, the boarder color changed to Ultra Rare on the right side.
    I put in about 10 million EC in upgrade components. Filled the bar and poof.. nothing happened, Claim now did appear, and I got the gun back, but no increase in anything...
    All that EC spent, and all the REFINED dil gone.. WTH!

    I don't craft, so not sure if that's how crafting levels or items are created, but damn.
    When the upgrading system came out and we got those free items from the NPC, bamn, my Fleet gun upgraded no problem.

    Is this as intended? I mean fill the bar and nothing happens, but you're out all the costs.
    Is it supposed to be a gamble? Maybe reword the whole system to warn users they maybe wasting their EC and Dil because this gambling if you'll really get what it shows you will get.
    Very frustrating and a whole turn off to the whole god damn system.

    Upgraded my Borg AP DHC's x3 to MkXIV, and one of them proc'd to ultra-rare after one round of excess upgrades (I got really lucky).
    There was no stat increase, and I still kept the same number of affixes as my Mk XII's.

    Does this make sense?
    @Odenknight | U.S.S. Challenger | "Remember The Seven"
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  • betayuyabetayuya Member Posts: 1,059 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    (note) the Mk II idea is great for new stuff, for melee and mk X-XII rep sets, bad news, very, very, bad news :( lol

    (sorry, thought i would clarify what i meant and what not)
    eywdK7c.jpg
  • the1tiggletthe1tigglet Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Your better off using Superior uprgades, u get 12,800 TP and cost just over 1k dil vs only getting 5k TP and costing u 950 dil.



    Yep that is exactly what they want u to do, that's why they made the upgrade system the way it is.

    Yep exactly. It's sad too who the heck are we paying dilithium to from a lore standpoint? The technology doesn't use it we don't have mini warp cores in each weapon, and then to use dilithium for each and every upgrade is just stupid!
  • wildweasalwildweasal Member Posts: 1,053 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Lol, this post made me laugh the hardest in a long while. TY :D

    hell yeah it made me bust a gut too
    3ondby_zpsikszslyx.jpg
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Yep exactly. It's sad too who the heck are we paying dilithium to from a lore standpoint? The technology doesn't use it we don't have mini warp cores in each weapon, and then to use dilithium for each and every upgrade is just stupid!

    Its a video game... based on a tv show... neither make all that much sense 99% of the time. Most of it is not logical and very little of it is even slightly possible. ;)

    Anyway to the OP... (Sorry for the wall here)

    The system is designed to cost you X amount of Game materials. You can mix them to be either EC heavy (costing you less D) Or D heavy costy you very little ec.

    Here are some tips on how the system works.

    1) The better tech you use the more EC it will cost obviously... however it will cost the least amount of Dilihtium.
    2) All tech you apply has a chance of criting...1.5x or 2.0x So if you crit on expensive superior tech you get a lot of TP added... on lower level weapons this can often mean 5-6 levels at one time... on higher level it will lead to Roll over points. Increasing the chance of an upgrade.. as well as filling the bar for the next level up (if it isn't max).
    3) Accelerators come in 2 flavors Reaserch and Tech. Tech will boost the amount of XP hitting apply adds to the item. 1.5x and 2.0 here. They are worth a good amount of XP yes and they come from R&D zen store boxes... which is why you won't likely ever find them cheaper then they are right now. (high volume right now) Still if your going to buy them through the exchange keep an eye out, sometimes you can score a good deal.
    4) Experimental tech... is Superior Tech with a Blue Reaserch Booster grafted on to it. (yes accelerators stack) They take an extra 2 salvage pieces to craft that drop from Elite Que PvE missions. (right now the supply is pretty low and the costs of the salv on its own will run your 500-1mil it fluctuates). Hard to say if using this stuff is worth it... if you have to buy it from a crafter you are going to be paying 2-3x its price... if you can craft it you may want to sell it to buy other tech you need. (not many people can craft all there own upgrade needs) It costs 1880 to use one so value wise... is pretty harsh. Less of a gamble to upgrade rarity (for sure if you stack with blue reserch tech) however its still a gamble and its an expensive pull of the bandit arm.

    Not sure that info helps you much... you can boil the systme down like this...

    IF you are;
    - A player with less then 10mil EC... your going to be stuck using green tech Which is going to cost you a ton of Dilihitum. If you don't have a good way to earn D. (as in alts farming it for you) Then you are going to be forced to use $ bottom line. Frankly its going to be stupid expensive so I would adjust your expectations... shoot for UR at best. Don't even thing about rolling over and
    over to get gold unless you don't mind spending 100s of real $.
    As a ruff idea... expect to spend 5=1,00,000-2,000,000 ec per item and anywhere from 12,000-20,000 D per item (this is NOT worrying about UR rolls... I am talking about taking your mk 12 to 14 purple... you may get lucky you may not - if you insist on rolling for UR and even gold... there is no limit it could cost you 100,000s of D for one item if you get really unlucky)

    -A player with 100+Million EC but less then 500 or so million.... you can use Superior tech and green tech accels as long as you have a good way to replace the EC you are going to be burning. You will also have to consider D costs... it will be much lower then using the cheaper green tech.. still your going to either have to accept only upgrading a handful of things a week or have a small army of toons grinding D... or spend at least some actual $.

    - A player with 500+ Million... Now you can afford to use Superior tech and Blue Boosters... you are still going to have to have a way to replace the EC you burn (unless you have multiple billions of course). The advantage to doing this way is depending on crits and such you will spend the very least amount of Dilithium... at this point We are talking about spending 10-20mil EC per item, however only really having to drop 6-8k in D per item. (perhaps a bit less if you get some nice crits to pop) This will funny enough lead to some of the lowest % to upgrade rarities unless you go all out and use experimental and reaserch boosters (the cost in D are now going to jump a lot though). However the failed attempts bump the chance up a bit... over all I would say your better off burning superiror+ tech boosters and just expecting to roll more then a few times per item. In the end you are chooinsg between, higher chance fewer rolls or lower chance more rolls. The math says the lower chance with more rolls is likely the way to go... also you don't loose the progress so at some point spending more to reroll will always = a higher %. (In otherwords the experimental and reaserch boosters are a pure gamble if it pays off you win big if it doesn't you loose big... as the other way you build at least something for every subsequent roll.)
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  • atomictikiatomictiki Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Working as intended. The shoddy design of the upgrade system is intentional and is meant for you to throw away real/fake currency on.
    Leave nerfing to the professionals.
  • annahannah Member Posts: 201 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Considering the cost, its just not worth it going for epic imo.

    I did the MkII upgrade on a set of DHCs recently and got lucky on one which went UR then Epic while the others stayed VR.

    the diffrence between an epic and a VR DHC is 495.9 dmg on the VR and 517.6 on the Epic, and i think the acc/dmg mod makes up for 13 dmg on a dhc. which means the actual gain in damage is about 4 base dmg per quality. Feels like that should be a lot larger to make it worth going up in quality.
    192k TP to gain about 5% quality chanc for a mk 14 DHC is just dumb, specially for that little gain. If i could pick the mod, it'd be ossm, but i might get something ****ty like a dmg mod, or acc, which i really don't need or want.

    5% chance is fine when going up on rank. if you're lucky, sure awesome. But at max rank, it should be more liek 20% at the very least every time you fill the TP bar.

    192k is 15 superior kits and 16k dil, that would be reasonable for 20% chance, not 5%.
  • tpalelenatpalelena Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Its just not worth it.

    Better buy Ultra rares and just get them to MK XIV.
    Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I thought the upgrade system was pretty bad to begin with until I tried to upgrade to epic and realized how much dilithium and crafting materials it was going to take to get it done. It's pretty evil... they want you to pay for a ton of zen and convert that into dilithium to pay for the upgrades, pay to end the time gates, and pay for their material boxes. Pay pay pay pay...
    Tza0PEl.png
  • guilli88guilli88 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm sorry if you're too poor to play this game. Cryptic only caters to those with sufficient disposable income. Average people need not apply.


    At least, that's how I feel as a customer. No money? Go away. -cryptic

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  • rsoblivionrsoblivion Member Posts: 809 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    It really did cross the line D'Angelo, but this time it's Cryptic exploiting the people with insulting gameplay and awful systems designed to TRIBBLE you off enough to break open your wallet to speed things up.

    However it's had the reverse effect (if anyone has any brain cells) and made lots of people just leave. Leaving =/= $$$.

    Simple fact of economics really.
    Chris Robert's on SC:
    "You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    At 15% chance I got lucky and it finally upgraded my item to ultra rare quality.

    Chance of quality improvement to epic on upgrade - 0%.

    That's right. After upgrading to ultra rare quality the chance to upgrade to the next quality was completely reset. I was under the impression that the chance would be permanent even after it upgrades to the next quality when the item is Mk 14. :(

    Edit: Forgot to mention I noticed something earlier.

    At very rare Mk IV, each time I filled the tech points to the point I could upgrade it the chance to upgrade to the next rarity only went up 3%. Filling out 128k tech points and the chance only went up 3% each time until I got lucky.

    This means I upgraded it 5 times (5 TIMES!) at 950 dil each improved tech when it finally changed to ultra rare quality.

    (Don't mention it again that I should "use superior tech" because I'm only level 10 in that school, the tech goes for about 700K and up in the exchange, I'm not super rich like some of you, and I don't want to take my chances asking a stranger to craft them for me)

    I will admit I was mistaken about it asking for an extra tech upgrade before putting me a lot over the the required tech points. When it showed more than enough points I closed the window and opened it again and saw I didn't have enough points to upgrade. Adding in another tech upgrade gave me the points and after which I was able to upgrade it (or at least attempt to).
  • staq16staq16 Member Posts: 1,181 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    As annah pointed out, the cost-benefit of going for rarity-only upgrades on Mk XIV items is ludicrously poor.

    I got lucky last night, and now have a Mk XIV gold elite resilient shield on one alt. Unfortunately it was my engineer, the one who least needed it... but looking at what you get there is no way I'm going to be spending hundreds of thousands of dil on a fractional performance improvement to other alts.

    We've been here before, with STF gear and Mk XII consoles when they first came out; you get 90% of the effect for 10% of the cost of going top tier. Do yourself a favour and cap at the reasonably-achievable Mk XIV VR; at least that is a guaranteed return. Give it 6 months to a year and I expect we'll see some kind of shortcut to Mk XIV Gold as the power creep kicks in again.
  • minerkminerk Member Posts: 50 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    trelane87 wrote: »
    how are people supposed to get these and make the best gear in game if they can't do the content because they don't have UR/Epic gear?

    You don't need UR/Epic gear for elite. VR MK XIV is more then enough.

    Just some proper builds, teamwork and a good knowledge of the mission.
  • edited October 2014
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  • borg0vermindborg0vermind Member Posts: 498 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I appreciated this game because it gave hard working players a chance to get the same things the rich ones instantly got.
    Thats an excellent thing and will never change.
    But the problems keep arising and noone is fixing them.
    On top of that, now the game turned into a capitalist-like system where a very few get to profit off the majority, no matter if free or payed subscription.
  • cookiecrookcookiecrook Member Posts: 4,537 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    minerk wrote: »
    You don't need UR/Epic gear for elite. VR MK XIV is more then enough.

    Just some proper builds, teamwork and a good knowledge of the mission.

    I have played through countless elite runs of missions and patrols and even STF's with Mk XII fleet level gear and even a Mk XII Elachi Disruptor build with no issues. The only difference between having the better weapons makes is on how fast you can kill stuff. Even with Mk XIV Epic stuff though, it's still quicker to play through something on normal multiple times than it is to get through a single run of something on elite.
    <
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  • gizmox64gizmox64 Member Posts: 322 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    valoreah wrote: »
    ... make that person work really hard for a long time, then ask them to pay me for a lottery ticket which may or may not allow them to get paid for their hard work.

    Perfect explanation of how this upgrade system works, I'm going to use that when fleet mates ask "how do I upgrade?"

    This is the Horadric Cube of STO...
  • thegcbaconthegcbacon Member Posts: 434 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    At 15% chance I got lucky and it finally upgraded my item to ultra rare quality.

    Chance of quality improvement to epic on upgrade - 0%.

    That's right. After upgrading to ultra rare quality the chance to upgrade to the next quality was completely reset. I was under the impression that the chance would be permanent even after it upgrades to the next quality when the item is Mk 14. :(

    Since you got the upgrade, why would the upgrade quality not reset? It's like when you win the lottery, the pool resets to the base amount next draw.
  • guilli88guilli88 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    thegcbacon wrote: »
    Since you got the upgrade, why would the upgrade quality not reset? It's like when you win the lottery, the pool resets to the base amount next draw.

    Except the lottory is a tax on stupid people, this game isn't. Well, wasn't.

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  • uryenserellonturyenserellont Member Posts: 858 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I appreciated this game because it gave hard working players a chance to get the same things the rich ones instantly got.
    Thats an excellent thing and will never change.
    But the problems keep arising and noone is fixing them.
    On top of that, now the game turned into a capitalist-like system where a very few get to profit off the majority, no matter if free or payed subscription.

    Because they don't want hard working players getting the same things the rich ones got. If you don't pay you aren't worth anything to them. We are just $$$ to them, and from now on I'm going to refer to players as $$$.

    I have not upgraded nor will I upgrade a single thing until they change this system. I am also not going to give them a single penny from now on.

    If they're looking to kill the game they're doing a good job.
  • borg0vermindborg0vermind Member Posts: 498 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    $$$-players as you call them are supported by free players. Without one category it will be bad for the other too.
  • czertik123czertik123 Member Posts: 1,122 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    You have to be level 15 in a crafting school to even craft superior tech upgrades. Level 11 is the max I have in any crafting school. For ground weapons, which is the type of item I'm upgrading, I have it at level 10. Nowhere near close to being able to craft the tech upgrades I need.

    Superior Tech Upgrades in the exchange cost 718,000 and up at this time. I would need about 11 superior tech to make another attempt, so that would cost me around 7,898,00 or more, which is astronomically more than just buying the 10k EC basic tech from a ground equipment vendor. It would probably be way, way cheaper to craft on my own, which is what I would prefer to do since players like charging huge amounts for stuff. FFS! Basic tech upgrades start at 5k more in the exchange then buying them from the ground vendor.

    But at this rate it will probably be months before I reach level 15 in any crafting school doing basically only the 6k XP daily project. And I can't bring myself to log in every single friggen day to keep up with it.

    well, i researching only with 20h task which give 6-7k reserach exp, more or less every day and now i have 2x14 and rest on t10, so it can be done relative fast.
    Of cours ei using purple/blue guys/girls so i have relative niche chance for critical and 1k bonus.
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