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Rarity Upgrades = Horror
kaarruu
Member Posts: 133 Arc User
Now I got to T4 Terran reputation recently and did the project for the warp core. It's almost jaw-droppingly good for an energy weapon ship geared towards offense. No [Amp] mod, but hey, rep cores get that on rarity upgrade. Shouldn't be a problem, right?
Quarter of a million dilithium and countless crafting clicks later, I'm ready to admit that yes, it is indeed a problem. The expense for upgrading MK 14 reputation gear's rarity is completely unreasonable, bordering on insanity. Sure, you might get a lucky roll with low probability, but more often than not that doesn't happen. Why is it like this? What's the goal here? Are we supposed to throw our credit cards at the game in frustration to get the success, whatever it takes? Are we supposed to quit in disgust or refrain from even trying rarity upgrades, knowing how ridiculous the costs are?
I'm not angry. I won't delete my characters in a tearful fit of rage or threaten to never ever buy anything from Cryptic ever again! I am, however, developing a quiet loathing for the whole upgrade and crafting system. It's obscenely expensive and the excessive luck component discourages use beyond mark upgrades. The game has been steadily improving after the low point of Delta Rising - here's another thing that could use attention.
Make upgrading less horrible.
Quarter of a million dilithium and countless crafting clicks later, I'm ready to admit that yes, it is indeed a problem. The expense for upgrading MK 14 reputation gear's rarity is completely unreasonable, bordering on insanity. Sure, you might get a lucky roll with low probability, but more often than not that doesn't happen. Why is it like this? What's the goal here? Are we supposed to throw our credit cards at the game in frustration to get the success, whatever it takes? Are we supposed to quit in disgust or refrain from even trying rarity upgrades, knowing how ridiculous the costs are?
I'm not angry. I won't delete my characters in a tearful fit of rage or threaten to never ever buy anything from Cryptic ever again! I am, however, developing a quiet loathing for the whole upgrade and crafting system. It's obscenely expensive and the excessive luck component discourages use beyond mark upgrades. The game has been steadily improving after the low point of Delta Rising - here's another thing that could use attention.
Make upgrading less horrible.
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though i will admit i did actually do some during the last big "event" for crafting and the results were medicore on several items.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
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Qualify your statement "insanely easy PvE" or it doesn't mean anything.
On normal difficulty, I'd agree. On advanced, try taking on a Recluse in CCA, a borg tac cube in ISA, or a cruiser in MIA. Sure it's doable (minus timed optionals and having to carry a worthless team at the same time so typical of pugs while tanking random TSV spam, borg invisitorps or you name it), but the amount of time it takes is a constant reminder that 'you're doing it wrong, grind/pay more.'
I too refused to waste hard earned (grinded) dilithium on upgrades, then decided to unload all the Omegas during the 1st upgrade event, plus a lot of bonus tech stuff, and many crafted superior upgrades.
During this one I used up around 7,500 zen (also all grinded), without aiming for quality improvements. A few items did increase in rarity, which was expected given the very low upgrade chances combined with lots of mark upgrades (and therefore quality upgrade chances despite them not stacking as they do at Mk14). It helps to work with UR items with the mods you want to begin with so you don't have to worry about quality upgrades or random mods.
I tried my 'luck' on the plasma wide beam rifle, which was around 35-50% at MK 14 Rare to test the system's stacking probability, and it was enough of a taste of gambling (betting against yourself at low probabilities for rewards that don't even far outweigh the losses) to give up ever trying this again since it was clear the dilithium and tech upgrades were vanishing real quick while the Rare -> VR probability even when nearing 50/50 can make you feel robbed. The quality chances are normalized, so this was a valid test of the actual quality improvement chance system as it is.
It isn't fun. The cost of everything is too high for a game offering too little content, gameplay, or ability to facilitate positive team interactions, nevermind no PvP, and the grind which is steadily becoming ever greater as the exchange rates creep steadily upwards (in favor of buyers) all of which far outweigh the fun for me right now, and that's despite sitting on a boatload of ships of every type, gold crtd3x beams (thanks to Omega grind that was boring and a time-waste), end game rep and fleet gear, rare doffs, etc., 3 mains across all factions, lots of well equiped and capable alts, bells and whistles, great fleet memberships (despite being empty most of the time now), 30K ISA parsed Scimitar Tac and other capable Sci character.
What's worse is as everyone is saying, which I have no doubt is correct: STO is one of the very best F2P models which is much more forgiving than other MMOs. Despite this, I still feel like all the time, tinkering, taking advantage of every opportunity still results in feeling underwhelming and with nothing truly new to do. At the very least, it's a good distraction.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Very rare resources are used to craft superior upgrades, forcing them to be used for such things instead of being hoarded.
Dilithium is required to speed up the upgrade process, turning upgrades into a dilithium sink, causing people to spend dilithium on upgrades instead of hoarding it for conversion to Zen which does not make money for the game.
The entire upgrade process, indirectly, makes money for the game developers, which helps to pay salaries and operation costs. And it gives you the benefit of more powerful/capable equipment.
Sure, it's possible to not upgrade and create an effective build, but that's boring isn't it? Only malcontents will take that route.
Human psychology.
You have to re-buy gear you already bought.
Developers get to not do any work, they have done zero animations, zero models - essentially just copy-paste.
The notion in itself is madness, without the millions of dil for litterly nothing but copy-paste numbers.
You add on the fact, you could buy something like 10 c-store ships, per upgraded ship, and, how they promised to add modifers of your chosing then we've reached astronomical whale country.
I called the upgrading system the emperor's new clothing from day 1, mainly because there is no content, it doesn't exist.
To give you just better numbers is just changing some numbers around in notepad straight up copy-paste.
Buying new content from, like okay here is a ship that required actual work, models, animations, you know content I feel is fair.
Upgrading just makes me laugh and you know doubly so with Delta Rising nerfs killing off the queues, now you got even less reason to care about stats.
And I even feel it goes against what used to be the core quality of the game, that you could play around with builds all you wanted and have different gear, different loadouts.
I'd never want to have just one build, to marry that one console that cost me 800,000 dil to make it 12% better.
Lastly I look at the price of everything. How do you get the most for your money. That would mean for example lockbox ship versus c-store ship.
Upgrading is a 1 character unlock rather than buying something for all characters.
So yeah, lol on upgrading and everyone in it.
But that's the run of it, want the good stuff, then upgrade, go big or go home.
Do people need gold to do the content, hell no, but it does add a lil more to the stats and gives you bragging rights I suppose.
Personally I think it should be reduced a bit in costs, also the crafting thing, I cant even understand why if you tell the computer to craft such and such it wouldn't be able to...I mean how many times did Jean Luc ask for Tea Earl Grey Hot and get Clam Chowder on the series instead?
2. If you absolutely must do it, wait for an upgrade weekend so the dil and tech upgrade cost will only be (insane) / 2.
The upgrade process does not achieve its potential as an effective sink. The cost is so high that most people (that I have contact with) refuse to buy into it. So having it as a system alone does not sink resources. It must also be used. I personally believe that if the cost, in dilithium (they can't cut EC costs as that is mostly player controlled), was cut in half (or more) the system would sink more resources.
I think that Cryptic doesn't understand their own game. Why I believe this is simply being around long enough to see things that are out of balance to begin with swing back and forth from one side of absurdity to the other. Queues reward too much? make them not worth the effort. OP weapon? nerf it until its unusable. It goes the other way too. And, when nothing is in balance in game, how could they possibly get this right?
That was only because I got a boat load of upgrade kits transferring my old winter Autographs.
This is so very true.
Getting items, even weapons to Mark XIV isn't that hard and absolutely does not require cash to accomplish. Especially if you choose to do so during an 'Upgrade Weekend' like the one we just had.
Rarity on the other hand is another story and comes with all the issues and valid complaints brought up by the OP. The thing you have to remember is exactly what's said in the quote above, that rarity upgrades are a luxury. They're something you do when you have the best of the best and basically have nothing left to pour your time and efforts into.
Consoles are easy to get to Epic, all my consoles are shiny gold, but beyond that I don't waste my time and effort. I go for mark XIV, some items (especially weapons) get a huge boost from Mark Upgrade. If I get a lucky roll along the way and get a rarity upgrade, then great.. but I'm not going to bankrupt myself trying to get it.
Consoles - Easy to upgrade mark and rarity. Mark is worth it, rarity is nice but not essential. In my experience, the best return on rarity upgrade have come from Embassy Consoles, Bio-Neural Infusion Circuits and locators.
Weapons - Fairly expensive to upgrade mark, extremely expensive to upgrade rarity. Rarity helps, but your best results comes from Mods, followed by Mark, followed by Rarity. Rarity is a luxury here. It's nice but not required.
Shields - Expensive to raise mark, generally extremely expensive to upgrade rarity. Shields get a fair return from rarity and mark, but honestly, you can live without either. Personally, I took all my ship shields to mark XIV and stopped. The return from rarity can be gained through other means and far cheaper. Pouring dilithium into your shields for a cap upgrade simply isn't worth it. If you're that worried about it, slot a field generator in your science slot and get more for less.
Warp Core - Again, fairly expensive for mark, very expensive for rarity. This one is tough because UR upgrade is quite useful on Rep cores as it gives the highly desirable AMP mod. If you're after DPS and using a Rep Core, then this is the one where you're going to have to bite the bullet. Prepare to spend heavily on this one. Alternately, you can purchase an Ultra Rare Warp Core/Singularity from your fleet and get the AMP mod for next to nothing.
Impulse/Deflector - Irrelevant and pointless to upgrade. Go to Mk XIV if you wish, but rarity upgrades here are a tremendous waste of resources.
"Insanely easy PvE" as in two players with a working knowledge of game mechanics and skill tree can pretty much roll any normal queue there is, and three good players can handle advanced. I've got a couple of builds that essentially print 1st place in CCA and none of the gear is even new.
My wife's main toon is running a temporal sci with regular purple MK XII equipment and consistently places top 3 in CCA... and she's not even running any T6 starship mastery traits or any rep traits because she has spent literally $0 on the game and hates the rep grind.
Most pubbies in this game are completely ignorant of how to properly distribute points in the skill tree and chain BoFF abilities for maximum effect, so "normal" difficulty has been dumbed down to accommodate these people. You may have the biggest, baddest ship on the block absolutely covered with golden goodies, but if your skill tree is all wrong and your BoFF abilities aren't jiving with one another you aren't going to be very effective.
You really don't need to go gold on anything and even if it's a must have mod like [amp] or something i'd serious reconsider how important it is that you are willing to through that much dilithium and EC (because those upgrades cost you other resources too) at it.
Any build that relies that heavily on specific mod or upgrade for an item has some serious issues and is a risky business.
I'll make everything to Mk14 but beyond that i'l pass please, just not worth the money. Hell for 200-300K dil you can practically buy a C-store T6 ship under favorable exchange conditions!
What? 300K Dil at current rates (230d/z) that show no sign of ever decreasing is 1,304 zen, 1,696 zen short of one full price T6. Single ships also don't come out at fleet level, so have to add another 500 zen to that plus the fleet holdings. Not quite there, but the fact still stands: rarity upgrade costs start to rival entire ships altogether.