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R&D phase 2, now with 100% less RNG
bioixi
Member Posts: 764 Arc User
R&D Phase 2
You know, current R&D feels incomplete, there are many things left to RNG and too few left to real crafting and personal effort, crafting made a lot of things obsolete, instead of being an improvement to all items in game, it became a curse for most, which are left forgotten.
I'm proposing a new revamp, one that will make all items useful, one that will get rid of the random number generator, true crafting.
Let's begin with with Modifiers:
From now on I'll call them Mods or [Mod]
We need craftable modifier, think of them as Gems from other MMOs, and we also need Mod slots, which would be equivalent to gem Sockets.
They'll be completely removable and exchangeable, think of weapons and mods as profession kit with their kit modules, you can have a [CrtD] mod, but if you grow tired of it you can just simply replace it with a [Pen] mod from your inventory, then you can use that [CrtD] mod for another weapon, or you can sell it in the exchange.
So, now Items will have [Mod] sockets based on rarity, 1 for uncommon, 2 for rare, and so on, Epic items will have one special socket for a dual mod.
Some special items might have more or less Sockets or might come with an special irremovable [Mod] (For example the AR-116b will have 4x irremovable shield penetration mods).
A [Mod] might have a quality, meaning it cannot be equipped to lower quality items, for example, the [arc] mod should be very rare and you won't be able to socket it in rare items.
Quality upgrades
Quality upgrades now rely in the RNG lottery, and that's annoying, you might upgrade something in your first try or spend a fortune of dilithium and failing to do so.
No more, you'll still need dilithium and tech upgrades to increase an item's level, and you can still craft very rare items, but you'll need a new quality upgrade item to increase an item's quality.
Such Quality tech upgrades will also be craftable items, for example, salvaged tech (reward from Elite PvE) can be used to craft a quality tech upgrade, let's say you need 4 salvaged tech to craft 1 quality tech upgrade, and 1 quality tech upgrade to increase an item's quality from very rare to ultra rare, 2 to increase quality from ultra rare to epic.
Basic crafting:
It also relies in RNG, let's get rid of it.
A profession level shouldn't influence the chance to get a very rare instead of a rare, a profession level should guarantee rarity, and decrease time and costs needed to craft, research and upgrade.
So, I propose the ability to craft uncommon items at any level, rare items at level 5, very rare items at level 10, and special items at level 15.
Missing features:
We still need device crafting, and profession kit and modules crafting and upgrading.
Ship upgrading:
Why not? why can't we upgrade our favourite ship from tier 1 to tier 5 (and then 5-U with the zen token).
We need ship upgrading, allow us to level up our ship using crafting to add weapon, console, boff and device slots.
I'm not talking about adding extra weapon slots to T5/T6 ships I'm talking about having a T5-U NX-01 with 4 fore weapons and 2 aft weapons, 2 device slots, 5 bridge officers and 10/11 consoles like most escorts of that tier.
You know, current R&D feels incomplete, there are many things left to RNG and too few left to real crafting and personal effort, crafting made a lot of things obsolete, instead of being an improvement to all items in game, it became a curse for most, which are left forgotten.
I'm proposing a new revamp, one that will make all items useful, one that will get rid of the random number generator, true crafting.
Let's begin with with Modifiers:
From now on I'll call them Mods or [Mod]
We need craftable modifier, think of them as Gems from other MMOs, and we also need Mod slots, which would be equivalent to gem Sockets.
They'll be completely removable and exchangeable, think of weapons and mods as profession kit with their kit modules, you can have a [CrtD] mod, but if you grow tired of it you can just simply replace it with a [Pen] mod from your inventory, then you can use that [CrtD] mod for another weapon, or you can sell it in the exchange.
So, now Items will have [Mod] sockets based on rarity, 1 for uncommon, 2 for rare, and so on, Epic items will have one special socket for a dual mod.
Some special items might have more or less Sockets or might come with an special irremovable [Mod] (For example the AR-116b will have 4x irremovable shield penetration mods).
A [Mod] might have a quality, meaning it cannot be equipped to lower quality items, for example, the [arc] mod should be very rare and you won't be able to socket it in rare items.
Quality upgrades
Quality upgrades now rely in the RNG lottery, and that's annoying, you might upgrade something in your first try or spend a fortune of dilithium and failing to do so.
No more, you'll still need dilithium and tech upgrades to increase an item's level, and you can still craft very rare items, but you'll need a new quality upgrade item to increase an item's quality.
Such Quality tech upgrades will also be craftable items, for example, salvaged tech (reward from Elite PvE) can be used to craft a quality tech upgrade, let's say you need 4 salvaged tech to craft 1 quality tech upgrade, and 1 quality tech upgrade to increase an item's quality from very rare to ultra rare, 2 to increase quality from ultra rare to epic.
Basic crafting:
It also relies in RNG, let's get rid of it.
A profession level shouldn't influence the chance to get a very rare instead of a rare, a profession level should guarantee rarity, and decrease time and costs needed to craft, research and upgrade.
So, I propose the ability to craft uncommon items at any level, rare items at level 5, very rare items at level 10, and special items at level 15.
Missing features:
We still need device crafting, and profession kit and modules crafting and upgrading.
Ship upgrading:
Why not? why can't we upgrade our favourite ship from tier 1 to tier 5 (and then 5-U with the zen token).
We need ship upgrading, allow us to level up our ship using crafting to add weapon, console, boff and device slots.
I'm not talking about adding extra weapon slots to T5/T6 ships I'm talking about having a T5-U NX-01 with 4 fore weapons and 2 aft weapons, 2 device slots, 5 bridge officers and 10/11 consoles like most escorts of that tier.
Post edited by bioixi on
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Comments
It means more Zen, which means more money in Cryptic's pocket.
The current system is symptomatic of an unwillingness or inability to devise a practical crafting algorithm which allows the player to discover which inputs are more successful, and thereby improve the odds of a desirable outcome. In fact, the crafting system should not be dictating to players which inputs may be used at all. It should be possible to make functional versions of different items with a range of materials & expertise. After all, the dev's took the "low road" with the Delta rep gear, merely adding "thoron-infused" to existing weapons (to marginal effect, BTW), so crafting players should have the opportunity to do the same.
Materials, catalysts, tech upgrades, should all have set values, and some effective characteristic categories, so that if a player is short on trellium, for instance, he/she might use a greater quantity of tritanium or other material, and still get a working item. Or perhaps some combinations are disastrous, and might result not only in the loss of the materials, but also a cool-down before crafting can be attempted again (while the lab is being repaired)!
The algorithm approach is the most straightforward, but would require some work to build a table for materials & the crafted products. The players are probably more sophisticated than the dev's when it comes to this type of mathematics, so we're not likely to see this happen, even if some enterprising players submit such a scheme to the staff.
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STO player since November 2013
The sad thing is a lot of what you are bringing up here was brought up as requests when the crafting system hit Tribble. Sadly, it fell on deaf ears and we got a rushed crafting system that is left unfinished (I know, it is the MO of this MMO - unfinished systems rushed out the door).
People were even requesting a reverse engineering system back then where you would have a chance to gain crafting recipes, MODs, and resources. Right now I think what we have is worse than what we had before. At least before the crafter knew exactly what they were getting and how much it costs. Now, we have a system geared to punish the crafter with tons and tons of slot pulls to get what they really want to craft. I agree the system takes no advantage of gear to reduce the RNG, no "hard work" to get better, just the daily XP time gate, a system full of obsolete items, and an exchange full of crafting failures. It is merely a slot machine fed by dilithium/zen coupled with the hungry upgrade system.
The devs said they wanted to get the system out to use to use and more things we asked for were coming "later". Well, I will file this with the "later" we got for the rest of the DOFF category rewards...meaning never going to happen they are on to the next RNG/Microtransaction Slot Machine. Plain and simple, it should have never launched in the state it was in.
For reference, here is the thread(s) about the crafting system when it was on Tribble.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1147621
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1146041
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1166351
Pretty much what I've felt from the beginning.
Sounds reasonable ... sadly it'll most likely share the same fate as "Star Trek : Phase Two"
As for our items, they won't lose any [Mod]s, but they won't give you free mod items, for example, you have an item with the [CrtD] mod, you'll keep it, that mod will be irremovable, but will be replaceable, so, if you put a [Dmg] mod item in that [CrtD] slot, you won't get a free [CrtD] mod item, and that +2o% critical severity will be replaced with some extra damage, if you want to remove the [Dmg] mod item, then the [CrtD] mod will come back.
And why does one *need* to upgrade their ship when you get one free up to T5?
Nostalgia, aesthetics, sentimentalism, take your pick.
Anyway, this thread is about an R&D overhaul, the ship upgrading crossed my mind as I was finishing writing and I decided to add it, so no, there is no ulterior motive here.
I could care less what people are flying (i.e. what their space avatar looks like) as long as it is what they want it to look like. If they want it to look like a Connie, then who cares. The old excuse the devs and opponents used of it, "ruining immersion" or "CBS will not allow that" all go out the window. Just take a look at ESD, Q'onos, and New Romulus. There are so many non-faction ships that faction players are flying. So what is the point now?
I would just like my "space avatar" to be "less constraining".