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Infographic: Costs of Upgrading in Delta Rising
ddesjardins
Member Posts: 3,056 Media Corps
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The costs are quite frankly not that high... there are plenty of ways to reduce the costs.
As far as EC vs D costs.
It really comes down to how you choose to play and upgrade. You can choose to use high end tech and spend the least amount of D or you can go the other way and spend almost nothing on Tech and burn more D. (for some people that have been hording on alts for months that isn't as crazy as it sounds).
To be completely honest with you even if your math is Correct for the majority of the playerbase... which imo it isn't.
Asking people to grind for a few months per toon... IS PRETTY LIGHT in terms of the standard MMO these days.
Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating the stupid grind core junk this game has become... lets not kid ourselves though the game was exactly that for a few years prior to DR.
To give you a better idea why I said your math is terribly wrong... let me give you an example from ONE of my toons.
4 Gold DHC... Started with MK 2... Used Experimental Superior + Blue Research tech on each. (crafted the superiors for around 3mil each cost (as I did each my purple bits) and picked up the blue upgrades) Ran 20 weapons this way 7,200 D cost to roll to mk 7.
Out of 20 weapons I had 7 UR and 2 Gold.
Sold 1 gold
Sold 4 Ur
They didn't have the mods I wanted... someone wanted them... Covered all my costs on Tech and boosters.
Applied Superior Tech to remaining 4 guns.
Aprox 40 Superiors used in total Crafting cost aprox 900k Each = 36 Million (Still ahead after selling the previous crafted gold and spare URs)
All 4 DHC now at mk 14... 3 Gold one still UR.
Aprox another 40k in D
No rush Will upgrade the last one in the next while when I feel like rolling. (no major thing to be honest with you)
So bottom line I spent around 96 Million EC... and 50k or so in D... to make one perfect MK 14 Gold set (ok 3... + one mk 14 UR)
I sold one gold and 3 urs ..... for a total of 90 Million(aprox) Ec
So bottom line this set for one of my toons cost me 9 million EC and around 50k in D.
I have repeated that now on around 7 toons... that all have nearly perfect mk 14 gold weapon sets.
As for shields and engines ect... there not worth rolling for gold on... Fleet consoles are cheap to roll to mk 14. (again gold is not a big deal.... if it happens great if not there is for sure no rush)
The only thing that makes any difference in running content is the guns... Upgrade your weapons to mk 14 gold. (only upgrade mk 2s... sell a handful of cast off mods... and you can easily cover your costs).
Since DR has hit I have fully upgraded a couple toons... upgraded what matters on a few more... I have been spending the D I have been earning in game no doubt.. not saving anything (so what)... EC wise I have MADE billions since DR has launched. I still can't believe anyone is moaning about the costs of DR.
High yes... hard on casuals yes (casual being = to the top grinders in this game is a dead idea). To people playing the game though, doesn't seem anywhere close to out of line compared to most other MMOs these days. (perhaps thats why there all bleeding numbers)
The infographic was called correctly - Costs of Upgrading Gear in Delta Rising, and not 'building your own gear from scratch.
It is representative of a number of players because I was one of the players invited to the survey. My experience was well within those numbers. And while you might have started in a significantly different place, the survey was for people upgrading from existing sets - not starting from scratch.
A total aside, I've just read up on another player who's costs were significantly higher than in the infographic.
If I can duplicate your success rate, I'll upgrade all my toons. But I limit myself to a few hours a day 'cause the people I used to play with have moved to another MMO.
It doesn't change the fact that a single toon casual player doesn't have a hope in hell.
My two bits
Admiral Thrax
Before you go saying you think someone's math i probably wrong maybe you should learn how to read the words associated with the numbers. Op clearly states from Mk XII to Mk XIV. Op is showing what the cost would be to the casual player that doesn't sell anything they upgraded becuase it didn't have the attributes they wanted. Good for you that you found a better way of doing it I applaude you, but please next time you decide to say someone is probably wrong in their math make sure you read things properly.
If someone wanted to get an Odyssey, for example, at 2500 Zen, current exchange rate is around 153 Dil per Zen, so that's 382,500 Dil requiring a little less than 48 days of getting the full 8k Dil, whether that's all on one toon, or split up among many is irrelevant, that's for just one T5.5 ship.
Even if you don't want a Cash shop ship you might very well have the extra Dil grinding, EC grinding, or Fleet Credit grinding necessary to get the various Fleet variants, then the upgrade token, *before* you even look at kitting it all out.
In reality, these estimates are low.
Almost called it.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
Good job!
Also where did you pull those numbers? 650k a day at 4.5 hrs a day? I'm a total noob to lvl 50 let alone 60 and I can pull 650k in 10 minutes. Super conservatively (for people that sit around talking more than playing) I'd say 40 hrs to pull the 120m ec mentioned and you put up a 138 hour estimate.
A full set from crafting alone will leave you short without some of the fleet gear like locators for instance.
All in all that infographic is very informative and highlights the stupidity of the situation we now face. Especially with the Dil costs...
"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."
Agreed, the Dil costs are insane, especially if you're going for elite gear (we all are) but the EC costs and estimates are a joke, the EC is easy as pie even without paying. To me it's not a huge deal though as I'm not looking to max out all game content within a week.
Farming EC isnt' what it once was. Having said that it's based on the amount of ec the average player can generate via doffing, drops value, etc done in the time it takes to grind out 8K dil on a single toon.
Several of the respondents ran alts for the 10 days with that goal in mind. Thier results were consistent which those numbers.
The survey group argued over whether to include results for people who can play the exchange effectively. 2 of the respondents are fairly regular ship sellers, and have ec flowing like water. The goal here was to show a single toon casual player starting from zero bank, but with a full set of gear earned while playing.
I can flip 800k ec myself in a short period of time, but I have to use multiple alts. That wasn't the target audience.
Alts? barf. I still only have 1 character and I run what amounts to a freebie torpedo boat with breen torps/cluster etc. I've played just long enough to turn all my dilithium into 3,000z and just got the intel ship from my advanced escort (8 zen left yay) have spent probably 25k dil max since I started playing. That said it surprises me the average person in your survey group couldn't pull more than 650k in 4.5 hrs when I can pull it in 10 min reliably.
That said I haven't flipped items since I was like lvl 30.
If I went by your info-graphic as a new player I'd log in, grind ec for <10 min, then spend 4 hrs and 20 min gambling at dabo, spending latinum on oodles of subspace party amplifiers and setting up dance parties at ESD. (Ironically not far off of what I actually do)
I believe the people the infographic are targeting... are not the ppl playing the exchange, or farming X elite STF or however the hell your making 650K-1 million+ in 10 minutes. More like people like me -
People who log in, do rep grind missions (like the Borg easy ground missions, Nukara easy ground missions, Romulan space patrol's, etc), story missions (I'm still working on DR myself), etc... I know I can make maybe 500K in a solid weekend of play by selling all the loot TRIBBLE to a vendor. I've tried looking to see if I can sell rare/VR items I find on the exchange, but generally they are never worth it (ie they sell on exchange for maybe 500-2,000 more EC than at vendor, and there are lots & lots at the low prices). I can push more if I go all out and grind all the rep missions possible... but that is offputting, boring and blah.
The only other way I could possibly see to make money is converting my Dil to store money and buying key's, and then selling the key's on the exchange. But I honestly don't make enough raw dil to constantly get 8K refined dil everyday (and this is with 20 doff missions generally always running, getting contraband and turning it in for the 2K dil, doing the 320 dil daily at the academy, and maybe a rep grind missions or 2)
So yeah, maybe you should check the wording of the OP & infographic - "CASUAL". I'm sorry, but you don't sound casual to me. And your idea of 'what a casual player is ludicrous and ridiculous IMO.
First, thanks to whoever organized the survey. It obviously didn't happen without a lot of work. Though I think the numbers are likely to be somewhat overstated for a couple of reasons.
Nobody should be paying the highest costs you quote as the costs of raising crafting skills are low (in everything except time). When crafting was added it should have been fairly obvious that something that needed it was about to turn up. Any casual player with at least 2 characters could easily have level 15 in all necessary crafting schools by now.
For beam upgrades the rare material rubidium is from CCA, and that doesn't seem to be as hard as some of the other ones. I tried it yesterday and it seems doable without upgraded gear, though I didn't do as much DPS as I hoped I did double that of the lowest DPS team member. I also tried ISA, we just missed the optional timer by a few seconds but got the R&D pack. So materials are not completely out of reach by playing rather than buying.
I also expect material prices on the exchange to fall over time as more people become geared enough to do the advanced versions.
So as ever in an MMO, it's marathon not a sprint. I'm not particularly happy with some of the DR changes. I believe that PWE has gone for inept cash grabs and grinding that make the game a good deal less fun than it was. But I don't see a reason to upgrade everything now.
A few targeted upgrades per alt will probably be how I'll start off. You may decide to do things differently.
Casual implies non number cruncher play for fun not farming etc. and sorry but 10 min isn't hardcore farming no matter how you slice it. My gear is below that of even most casuals, I don't put a lot of effort in as this is my for fun game, I play competitively in other games. I earn money by simply playing, and I don't mean playing the exchange. "Casual" doesn't mean stupid or incompetent as you seem to think. It means no effort put in, just play for fun and do what's fun. If my gear is bottom level (it is, to the point of next to free off just finishing episode missions, not even upgraded) and I put little effort in then sorry I AM a casual, I put little to no research into builds etc. I get enough of that in another game I play to not want the same here. I AM a casual, what I'm not is incompetent, neither are other casuals I know.
If someone spends all of 2 min asking in ESD how to make money the people there are more than willing to answer. Whenever I have a question I usually ask there.
I have 1 character, several pieces of gear still Mk X (some green), char skills strewn about poorly etc. If I'm not casual by your definition then you probably don't even know what the word means.
That said the "infographic" has no sources which is going to be necessary in this case for credibility.
I hear about these DPS channels, trade channels etc. but frankly I'm too lazy to figure out what it's about. Sorry but I am a casual, and sorry to challenge your definition of what a "casual" is, because casual doesn't mean incapacitated.
P.S. I can make pictures too. See that 18zen? That's what's left of all the dilithium I've ever made after buying that ship, (the one with that Mk X gear). If this is the screenshot of a "hardcore" player to you then I'm beginning to understand your issue.
http://i.imgur.com/bcs2r3a.jpg
Only slightly, and tbh with 0 sources and the numbers this guy came up with I'm having serious trouble believing it. I guess I'm one of those guys that doesn't complain just to complain.
I love Star Trek, and I've loved this game even with all it's issues for 3yrs now... I've literally spent 1yr of my life in this game (total play time) but this is the last straw. This entire expansion has been like a stake through the heart of the game and a slap in the face to Star Trek fans such as myself. PWE/Cryptic should be ashamed.
Delta Rising is the most successful launch in Star Trek Onlines history. <-Because you duped a bunch of people into buying your Delta Packs with hype. :mad:
XO of Training
Tier 5 Starbase, Tier 3 Embassy, Tier 3 Dilithium Mine, Tier 3 Spire
Join us at www.dtfleet.com
I recently made myself a set of MK 14 AP beam arrays (7 of them).
I ended up using approximatly 100 Superior kits to do that, one kit is around 600k on exchange atm. 100 x 600k = 60 mil EC. and then 100k * 1075 = 107.5k dil.
Rep gear costs a lot more than crafted. IIRC getting my emo beam to 14 alone was 25 kits or so.
Deflector, engine, warpcore, shields.
consoles are cheap to upgrade tho.
I dunno, they don't strike me as unreasonable numbers.
The only sad truth is that for a majority of players in game the whole upgrade process will be a futile effort because it in no way deals with current demands at end game. If u had a weak build b4 the upgrade but which was able to cope with old elite mode u will still have a weak build but will not be able to cope with new advanced.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Ideally we'd use figures provided by a third-party, verified in some meaningful way. In this case, the sample was small, but if you follow the threads here, on Reddit you find numerous examples where people think we the numbers are too conservative.
At the end of the day, I know the numbers expressed are accurate and fit the costs I experienced, as well as players I regulatory speak with.
Since this went live 3 hours ago I've had 2 players contact me with data samples of their experiences similar to the second poster. I think it would fair to say I will be trying out those techniques with LvL 1 gear tomorrow to see if it does make a difference with costs.
As with anything - especially info graphics - take anything you read with a grain of salt.
Empty queues say otherwise.
*there's no such thing as a Mk II Protonic Polaron, Spiral Wave, Andorian Phaser, Gravimetric Photon, etc. etc. etc. with which to attempt batch upgrading for example
The infographic is well in line with my own research into what is possible with the upgrade system and in fact may even skew a bit conservative. That being said, however, I'd like to see raw data or a more thorough list of explanations and citations of what some of the points mean.
Emo beam? lol? Does it listen to a lot of Fall Out Boy?
Joined January 2009
/10 chars.
Youp. This is the most sad part about the upgrades. Experimenting with ones builds and tinkering out new ones to hold on the fun.
All my 8 toons have different builds, DPS, Tanking, Healing, Debuffing, No Win Scenario, and also a Torpedo Boat on one which is so much fun.
The upgrades work in a strict linear fashion lets say as in they make you 25% more stronger from XII to XIV. Depending where you started from this can be quiet noticeable or not at all.
Removing the former elite mode to have a solid mean for comparison and felt progression was the worst call cryptic ever made in my opinion.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Just a lot of cutting.
I appreciate that Cryptic is trying to roll back the clock and have the Dev's engage us and tell us what's going on again but that was only about 33% of the problem. The other 66% we're all the bugs and broken promises/delayed items, etc... and the massive cash grab they started with their Random upgrades/crafting system...
I agree with him that Cryptic has a right/need to make money but I'm sorry I am not going shell out 80 dollars plus a character nor 100+ hours of my time for each to upgrade. Just not going to happen. I've spent way more on this game then on any game I ever have in the past. But not anymore... I have better things to do with my time than grind and better things to do with my cash then waste it on digital equipment that is way beyond overpriced.
Again I come back to the suggestions I have made before and I will make again.
1. Lower the costs in Dil for upgrading/crafting (30 to 50% would be about right) and make the upgrade tokens drop a bit more often or make them a select-able reward in the queues.
2. Fix your broken game. Fix all/most the bugs, Fix/release the content and upgrades that you've been alluding too/coming soon (TM) before you try to run off and do your next season or half season or whatever...
3. Stop turning every piece of new content into another cash cow/cash grab. I don't mind giving you my money if I feel like it's earned/something that I want. But I don't like feeling like someone is sticking their hand in my pocket and saying "want this?" gimme your all your money. Me giving you my money is a reward for a job well done... not a given because you say so.
Until they fix some of the things above that are wrong. My wallet will stay closed. Hopefully others will as well.
My new sig till Cryptic fixes it....