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Dilithium Dilithium Dilithium!
originalkatic
Member Posts: 81 Arc User
Does anybody else remember what they told us Dilithium was going to be? A time based currency for specific endgame items and for exchange for Cash Shop Currency?
Doesn't it bother anybody else that it's turned into far, far more? You need Dilithium for Fleet Gear, Dilithium to upgrade, Dilithium for crafting, Dilithium for Fleet Projects, Dilithium to buy Doffs, Dilithium to buy Boffs, Dilithium to buy.. Well, everything but the weakest, simplest pieces of trash gear.
And that wouldn't be so bad if they were incorporated as optional shortcuts everywhere (the finish project early Dilithium Shortcut is the only perfect use of Dilithium in the game so far as I can tell), but they're forced in as mandatory taxes, i.e. the worst implementation possible.
Does anybody remember when crafting was a Fleet activity? Now, with Dilithium being non-transferable and mandatory for higher level gear and mandatory to upgrade lower level gear, Fleet Crafting is dead as the proverbial doornail.
And it's not time based, at all, it's grind based. Grind your Doffs for paltry amounts, or grind a very limited select list of missions for slightly more than paltry amounts.
There's no going through replaying story missions for Dilithium, there's no earning Dilithium via crafting, or taking on random mobs.. It bothers me to no end that in order to be able to do the things I want to do in game, I'm forced by necessity to do a whole lot of repetitive TRIBBLE I have no interest in doing. I'm not playing STO to repeat dailies endlessly, that's not what playing is. That's work.
Dilithium wouldn't bother me if it was rewarded everywhere in lesser amounts, say, a straight 100 for every mission accomplished on Normal, 200 for Advanced, 300 for Expert (multiplied by 1.5 if it's the first time you've done that mission), but in every mission, not just Queued things and Dailies.. I mean, imagine being rewarded Dilithium for every mission you play, that every second you're actually playing the game was rewarded, instead of every second spent playing the game outside "these very specific repetitive missions" being punished.
Imagine the hardcore "8k per day then log-out" every day grinders having to actually play the game longer, and the more casual "do a bunch of missions for 2-3 hour" players actually getting rewarded for it instead of getting worn out and insulted by the grind and leaving for games not so hell bent on railroading them into a specific play-style..
I mean, basically, isn't anyone else sick and tired of Dilithium Taxes?
Doesn't it bother anybody else that it's turned into far, far more? You need Dilithium for Fleet Gear, Dilithium to upgrade, Dilithium for crafting, Dilithium for Fleet Projects, Dilithium to buy Doffs, Dilithium to buy Boffs, Dilithium to buy.. Well, everything but the weakest, simplest pieces of trash gear.
And that wouldn't be so bad if they were incorporated as optional shortcuts everywhere (the finish project early Dilithium Shortcut is the only perfect use of Dilithium in the game so far as I can tell), but they're forced in as mandatory taxes, i.e. the worst implementation possible.
Does anybody remember when crafting was a Fleet activity? Now, with Dilithium being non-transferable and mandatory for higher level gear and mandatory to upgrade lower level gear, Fleet Crafting is dead as the proverbial doornail.
And it's not time based, at all, it's grind based. Grind your Doffs for paltry amounts, or grind a very limited select list of missions for slightly more than paltry amounts.
There's no going through replaying story missions for Dilithium, there's no earning Dilithium via crafting, or taking on random mobs.. It bothers me to no end that in order to be able to do the things I want to do in game, I'm forced by necessity to do a whole lot of repetitive TRIBBLE I have no interest in doing. I'm not playing STO to repeat dailies endlessly, that's not what playing is. That's work.
Dilithium wouldn't bother me if it was rewarded everywhere in lesser amounts, say, a straight 100 for every mission accomplished on Normal, 200 for Advanced, 300 for Expert (multiplied by 1.5 if it's the first time you've done that mission), but in every mission, not just Queued things and Dailies.. I mean, imagine being rewarded Dilithium for every mission you play, that every second you're actually playing the game was rewarded, instead of every second spent playing the game outside "these very specific repetitive missions" being punished.
Imagine the hardcore "8k per day then log-out" every day grinders having to actually play the game longer, and the more casual "do a bunch of missions for 2-3 hour" players actually getting rewarded for it instead of getting worn out and insulted by the grind and leaving for games not so hell bent on railroading them into a specific play-style..
I mean, basically, isn't anyone else sick and tired of Dilithium Taxes?
Original Join Date: January 2010. Ragequit Date: January 7th 2012. Return Date: October 23rd 2014.
Almost called it.
Almost called it.
Post edited by originalkatic on
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So nerfing litterly everything in the whole game, exp, dil, EC, "time" you name it, they nerfed it is just hilarious to me.
All I can think of is they decided that the majority of their playerbase are whales and they were going to only direct gameplay at those people.
I bring that up because it wasn't just DR the nerfed a lot - the nerfing has been going on regularly since and with season 7.
One month they nerf vendor trash, the doff upgrinder, then they delete exploration month after month after month.
And like I said, in their words the game has been doing great? So how are they able to be pitiful enough to nerf stuff like vendor trash - which is the most pitiful I ever saw done in a game but also straight up delete stuff people were playing, tour the galaxy, daily mirror event etc etc etc etc
What's left? What's left is you do exactly what they tell you to fit into their pitiful little metrics, you do your upgrading and you do your leveling THE WAY WE TOLD YOU TO.
To me personally "upgrading" doesn't exist.
All that is, is someone spending 15 minutes in notepad copy-pasting some numbers around.
They want 5 million dil, per ship, for some random numbers with no model and no animation - that's the price of 10x t6 c-store ships.
But hey the whales are eating it up so here we are
I've seen many a game ruined by stupid decisions - stupid in that they were pointless changes to something that was already working, which in their OWN WORDS, STO was.
You can always buy zen and buy more dilithium.
See?
I don't think you understand what "time based currency" is. It means it is supposed to represent the complete value of the average player's time. Now, more things should award it (almost everything should, really, in some quantity). The refinement cap is supposed to be set around the target daily dilithium earned in the average player's playtime so as not to imbalance the economy in favor of people who have more time.
I agree with this 100%
except i dont call them whales i call them "Sheeple" they love to be herded and will graze on anything their herders give them....basically what you said
This is one player who don't. Even IF I use all 3 of my characters for Dil on their run. I won't hit the cap for 1 character. Only times I hit the cap on 1 character is either from Rep completion or Dil weekends.
Dil makes the game go. You can buy zen to sell for more Dil so you will help out the company. Over time, I became content with what I have. So I will enjoy the game with what I have. And use my Dil wisely on Rep purchases, upgrades, etc.
I wouldn't mind a chance for getting more Dil. However the ones who has a ton will give them even more. That in turn will not solve the problem. And the Dil exchange will inflate even more than what it is now. As more people have access to more Dil amounts.
I don't use the time gates as I got time to let them tick on down.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
So uh, considering what you state they said it was for initially and then what you complain about...one can only take it to mean that your complaint is that they offer too far a variety of endgame gear. That you'd prefer that they provided fewer options? Hrmmm...that's a different kind of complaint than I've seen lately...
...well, unless you have no idea what you said there - and - there's been thousands upon thousands of those kind of posts of late.
also like real money you cant buy everything you would like to buy, you need to pick and choose the items and upgrades that you want the most and get them even if like with real money you might have to save up for what you want.
in fact dilithium is so close to being like real money you can actually buy in game items that you would normally need to pay real money to buy like I did for example with the DR ship pack.
and to make it fair they have even made it so you can only refine 8k of dilithium a day so everyone if they play the game right can earn the maximum amount in the shortest possible time.
so really no player should be all that much more wealthy in game unless they are prepared to pay real money to be so.
I think this is all around the best system to do things when I pay dilithium to upgrade my shields it gives my a good feeling that I have actually achieved something.
similarly if I use my dilithium to craft something I also get the same feeling of achievement and if I donate a percentage of my dilithium to the fleet I get that feeling also.
I also get a massive feeling of pleasure when I use the items I have used dilithium to attain and when I see the changes in fleet holdings I get the same feelings of pleasure knowing I have contributed in some way to these changes.
if I could get every item in the game without this I would not enjoy the game as half as much as I do now, I would be loosing any feelings of achievement and pleasure every time I spend dilithium and use or benefit from what I have used it for.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
the problem is with averages you and I don't know what the average in game time and dil earnings is, we can only see how long we spend in game and how much dil we earn.
there my be some players who can spend 6 or more hours a day playing and there may be payers who only spend an hour or two a day playing and there may be players who only play for an hour or two a week.
only sto knows the exact average players time in the game and how much dilithium is earned on average by each player.
therefore if they say the average player will earn 8k dil a day I can do nothing but believe them without seeing contradictory figures that proves otherwise.
even if they gave dilithium out for almost everything so that players who play less then the average amount would earn what is now the average amount of dilithium nothing would change other then more people getting more for less and that would be unfair for players who do play the average amount or longer and would alter the exchange rate on the dilithium exchange and put an unfair advantage on anyone who is prepared to pay real money for dilithium also.
and remember the average amount a 'player' will earn is 8k not the average amount a character will earn so some players could say "I have played for the average amount of time but none of my characters earned 8k dilithium" but they may well have earned 8k in total across all the characters they played.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Great post and many of the sentiments, I feel, are widely shared. I had a similar experience on another title, a hack and slash based on multiple layers of Hell, from a different company that had an eerily similar mentality that STO has adopted since S7: "Play *our* way. That is fun. What you are all doing is not fun so we're going to change/remove things we initially created, calling your playstyle 'exploitive' or not condusive to our metrics."
Good games, and STO can easily go back to being that, have fun as the goal, not directed, metric-based play. I get that this is not my creation. I respect their right to make the game their way but is it too much to ask to stop changing the rules of that game on a regular basis? It's one thing to fix an issue. It's another entirely to keep changing the rules of the game or introducing broken systems that completely alter how the game is even being played. Patches in the last year do far less fixing and far more altering rules.
It feels like I'm being told to make a 3-point shot and the game designers keep moving the line all over the court. Crafting and levelling feels like I'm taking the shot from 20 yards behind the basket and based on what they've been doing since S7, I'm actually afraid their solutions will only compound the issues as they've been doing.
iI's been like watching Rome burn one building at a time.
"Everytime a rule changes, the future changes"
Seems to me that it feels like there is no straight business plan happening with Cryptic.
I envision someone from the Parent company saying. Increase profits.
Then everyone responds with "Nerf this nerf that"
"make them pay more on this and that."
Really wondering which direction these guys are heading.
I've read many jokes about Cryptic being like Ferengi, but when you consider that the different races are just scifi takes on traditional human stereotypes (Klingons represent aggressive folks, for instance), there may be a little too much truth to the idea that 'Ferengi' really are running this game. Maybe it's not Cryptics fault - maybe it's PerfectWorlds fault. I couldn't care less. All I know is that video games should either be fun or intellectually stimulating.
I mean, their goal obviously isn't to make a 'Star Trek game' - it's to make a 'Star Trek Flavoured Money Production Utility Program'. Not even joking - they've nailed that. The goal obviously isn't to make an awesome game, it's to make a 'this is legally a game, even though half the stuff STILL doesn't work' piece of software. Anyone who disagrees can feel free to tell me about how awesome their Klingon Uniform Slots are, or how great the Ship Loadout system is and how it works as designed for most of the players, or how fantastic that the old crafting material conversion process was for anyone who had more than, like, 7 single items to convert.
I stopped buying things because I was utterly disgusted with the lack of support for KDF, and this hasn't changed yet. WHERE IS MY DAMN KDF STARTER PACK? WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
The DR pack confirmed for me that this was the right decision. And I used to be angry at people who bought it, because they're just encouraging the greed that Cryptic are forced to show. The game might not have been perfect under Atari, but I don't remember them introducing lockboxes, which is the exact place that this anti-player attitude appears to have been unleashed. I don't disagree with the lockbox in principle, I do disagree very strongly with the way they're set up. Anyway, point is, I'm now happy with all those whales. They're keeping the game afloat. I'm not.
On another note: Didn't they get rid of all the different currencies years ago? And don't we now have MORE currencies (including Marks)?
My point is this: While I hate the entire dilithium chain, and the way it's been implemented...well....at least we don't need Lobi to do basic stuff.
YET.
Not a single part of this comment by the OP do I agree with.
1. Fleet Gear - yes in rather small amounts....most things are around a couple days of grinding on a single character, unless you want the shiniest ship in the game...then yes...it will take some work.
2. Dilithium to upgrade/crafting. I haven't put any into RnD yet myself. If you wan't to hit the "upgrade now" button like a mad man that's on you.
3. Fleet projects. The key word here is fleet. No one asked you to complete an entire fleet upgrade by yourself.
4. Doffs, Boffs. I've never spent any dilithium on either of these. L2P.
Doffs aren't endgame Gear. Boffs aren't endgame Gear. Upgrading a Mk II to a Mk III is not endgame gear. If they wanted to make it so that everything that unlocks and becomes purchasable at T5 & T6 took Dilithium, that I could figure, but Dilithium has been wedged into nearly every part of the game, at every level. Things T1 starting players can use and would want are demanding Dilithium before the player has even gained access to missions that pay Dilithium.
Almost called it.
Here's my big issue Bob: I don't like doing the same things day after day.
Some days I want to try and RP, others I want to replay some of the better Featured Episodes. Some days I want to just cruise around reading system descriptions and Doffing in different Sector Blocks..
But that basically means that if I'm having fun, I'm doing myself the disservice in the long run when I decide to play Queued Missions or PvP when I'm geared in White Mk IX gear because I didn't play like they want me to doing the daily repeatables for Dilithium.
F2P or LTS, everybody who chooses to spend their time in this game should be allowed to play the game in whatever way is most fun for them, not be railroaded into playing any specific way, much less into playing specific missions again and again and again against their will, which is exactly what Dilithium does.
Almost called it.
I don't think any single peice of gear should require grinding for several days, much less weeks of grinding to outfit a single ship, or years of grinding for the whole stable, sorry, I don't think grinding is acceptable, all it shows is a lack of imagination on the part of the game developers. There are much better ways of choking off access to elite gear, but then, I'm not even talking about Elite Gear, I'm talking about simple Mk XII Uncommon & Rares, not Gear Sets, not Reputation Gear, regular, fairly average %$#@ I'm getting from an in game vendor shouldn't require days of grind per item, sorry.
Almost called it.
Okay, so they told us that dilithium would be time gated currency for end-game stuff.....
Which I'm sure you'll provide valid examples of....
Fleet gear... you mean that stuff people get for end-game?
You mean all that end-game crafting stuff?
You mean all those fleet projects to equip fleets for provisions to get end-game stuff?
You mean all those high-quality doffs people get to equip themselves for end-game actions?
You mean higher quality boffs for use end-game?
Yes, clearly it seems with dil being used for all this end-game stuff they lied when they told us it would be time-gated currency used for getting end-game stuff.
The prices that we are expected to pay for basic equipment upgrades is just foolish IMO.
I pretty much play the way that I want to play and I save most if not all my Dilithium for buying Zen when the numbers work in my favor.
I donate some Dilithium to fleet projects but only about 1000 per day.
Dilithium is STO's life blood and Cryptic is trying to drain us all of it so that each time we want to buy something from the Zen-Shop we'll need to use our real cash to do it.
I prefer that Cryptic make its money by having sales and offering new pay items over them fleecing the player base for all the Dilithium that we have.
Instead of a 8k Daily Cap, I'd like to see 80k Weekly cap.
What I'm saying above is that instead of being bound to only 8k per day you should be able to refine 80k in a 7 day period.
So whether you get your 80k in just one day or stretch it out over seven days you should be able to hit your cap without any problems.
The above would be great for players that do not get much time to play during the week but have much more playing time on the weekends.
I'd turn Dilithium into an account based currency. I'd still keep a cap per character like 10k for F2P and 15k for subs (to encourage ppl to sub)
I'd also put a daily account limit to lets say around 50k for f2p, 75k for subs. This would ensure a certain fairness in preventing ppl with an insane amount of alts to flood the market with dil.
But at least any dilithium you earn can be used by all of your characters.
I'd also reduce the dil prices in all the stores, No items or piece of gear should be worth more than a day's character cap.
People did complain when DIL was introduced. And I agree. Energy Credits make sense. Gold Pressed Latinum is obvious. They could have worked in less significant currencies, like Quatloos. Dilithium is the crystal that makes the ship go, and a symbolic mineral on some planets. I don't remember it EVER being used as currency.
Clearly it isn't that hard to look this stuff up...PWE simply doesn't give a damn or else they would. I mean, I don't expect the PWE overlords to actually watch a few episodes or anything. That wouldn't be reasonable. But I would think, at the very least, they do us (Trek fans) the dignity of NOT misusing something as iconic and symbolic as a friggin' Dilithium crystal as a plot device for their ongoing cash grab.
It was Cryptic who picked it
I never remember Kirk or Picard pulling their Enterprises up to ESD and paying for weapon or other gear upgrades with ECs, GPLs or anything else. I never remember them changing ships every Rank promotion either. Or pulling glowing items out of space and using those items to upgrade their ship after a battle. How in the world can all of those things happen IN THE GAME when they never happened in the movies or TV shows?
Are you implying this is a game?:P
I don't know. I've been trying to make sense of why the use of dil as much as we're asked to use it now. In the 24th century, "money" is gone and the economy is different. Currency may still exist in some format for certain things but the idea that economy is driven by money and money is how you survive and get something worthwhile and worth your time out of life, is extinct in the 24th century. On Earth, at least... is my understanding.
"The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." (Picard, First Contact; http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Money)
I can see how a central currency and a few side-currencies would be needed for STO, though, since we aren't just dealing with Earth cultures, and even if Earth cultures didn't use money we'd still have to interact with other cultures that did. Adapting dil to be that central currency makes some sense - but not to the extent it's being used, my opinion.
Money's a big thing, it makes the world go 'round (in the 21st century at least), so simplifying it down to needing dil for most everything that would be useful or add value to the playing of the game, was probably to TPTB the obvious choice. Putting the currencies behind gates and leaving "money sinks" helps perpetuate the desired economy. Unfortunately, it does turn into a grind in that implementation.
Anyway, I don't get to play much so I don't make enough dil to be able to have the things I'd want to make playing the game as fun as I'd like, and grinding is work and my RL job is already a grind; so as a result I don't log on much. Hah, ironical.
Maybe they should offer the captains side-jobs. For instance, my 9 foot Klingon could dust the high shelves and also not kill anyone at Quarks. And in payment he would accept large sums of dil. I think that's pretty reasonable.