Upgrading Bridge Officers

scottybro1970 · March 2017

Is that possible? What if you like one of them and don't want to part with him/her. I'd like to upgrade from green to purple if possible.

jaguarskx · March 2017

Absolutely not possible.

leemwatson · March 2017

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

corelogik · March 2017

The only time I worry about Boff rarity is when selecting away team Boff's. Even then, it's not much of a priority as was noted rarity has little to no effect of Boff powers.

jaguarskx · March 2017

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_officer

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Can, but not always. Superior/Basic designations tracks with rarity. Ex. Romulan Operative. Personally I'd just as soon have Cryptic do away Boff rarity by opening up boff traits to a system similar to skills (where we can swap between a number of choices and add new traits through special packs/items, separate from player traits because I know what I'd do with that...) As it is, there IS a point in having VR/R over U/C but a simple upgrade system probably isn't the most useful way of overcoming current constraints.

scottybro1970 · March 2017

Ok no problem. BTW Watson, I was just asking.

dracounguis · March 2017

You can 'upgrade' a Boff by buying a better quality one and then going to the tailor and slapping on the old Boff's look. I've done that a few times. And Watson is wrong and a bit mean.

A Boff with Superior [insertnamehere] is better than one with the common version. Now, it's not a HUGE difference; maybe a 3% vs a 1.5% buff, but if you're into squeezing out every drop of ability go for it.

But since most Boffs don't have any Space Traits; then as far as space combat goes, then yeah, a common Boff is the same as a Very Rare one.

misterloz · March 2017

As Dracoungis says, go to the tailor, select your boffs and save outfit. Then go grab a lovely purple boff with all the improved bells and whistles then simply load the old costume onto them and pretend nothing happened.

Just remember to remove all equipment from your old boff before shoving them in the faulty transporter or you'll lose everything they had.

Oh and remember to make a note of all the old skills they had so you can...uhem... Retrain them.

Unknown · March 2017

This content has been removed.

warpangel · March 2017

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

Random boff candidates can come with those qualifiers, iff the species doesn't have 3 fixed traits.

Commissioned boffs don't have a rarity at all, the game just tries to guess what the candidate was based on traits (and it will guess wrong a lot, especially if it's a unique boff with custom traits or if it has 3 species traits).

So to say, you can't upgrade boff rarity because boff rarity is not a thing.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

Random boff candidates can come with those qualifiers, iff the species doesn't have 3 fixed traits.

Commissioned boffs don't have a rarity at all, the game just tries to guess what the candidate was based on traits (and it will guess wrong a lot, especially if it's a unique boff with custom traits or if it has 3 species traits).

So to say, you can't upgrade boff rarity because boff rarity is not a thing.

I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. Try commissioning a boff from your candidate roster and watch the traits. They'll stay the same. The only time I'm aware of that boff traits will shuffle is in buying white quality officers from the a social hub contact. That's only because what you're buying is a randomized bridge officer, which that particular store listing has no way of displaying. Even still, once bought what you see is what you get, and if you see superior traits that means you're dealing with either a rare or very rare officer. Rarity can matter, it is a thing.

warpangel · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

Random boff candidates can come with those qualifiers, iff the species doesn't have 3 fixed traits.

Commissioned boffs don't have a rarity at all, the game just tries to guess what the candidate was based on traits (and it will guess wrong a lot, especially if it's a unique boff with custom traits or if it has 3 species traits).

So to say, you can't upgrade boff rarity because boff rarity is not a thing.

I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. Try commissioning a boff from your candidate roster and watch the traits. They'll stay the same. The only time I'm aware of that boff traits will shuffle is in buying white quality officers from the a social hub contact. That's only because what you're buying is a randomized bridge officer, which that particular store listing has no way of displaying. Even still, once bought what you see is what you get, and if you see superior traits that means you're dealing with either a rare or very rare officer. Rarity can matter, it is a thing.

I wasn't talking about traits and have no idea what you're talking about traits will "shuffle." I was talking about rarity, which commissioned officers do not have.

Only candidates have actual rarity.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

Random boff candidates can come with those qualifiers, iff the species doesn't have 3 fixed traits.

Commissioned boffs don't have a rarity at all, the game just tries to guess what the candidate was based on traits (and it will guess wrong a lot, especially if it's a unique boff with custom traits or if it has 3 species traits).

So to say, you can't upgrade boff rarity because boff rarity is not a thing.

I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. Try commissioning a boff from your candidate roster and watch the traits. They'll stay the same. The only time I'm aware of that boff traits will shuffle is in buying white quality officers from the a social hub contact. That's only because what you're buying is a randomized bridge officer, which that particular store listing has no way of displaying. Even still, once bought what you see is what you get, and if you see superior traits that means you're dealing with either a rare or very rare officer. Rarity can matter, it is a thing.

I wasn't talking about traits and have no idea what you're talking about traits will "shuffle." I was talking about rarity, which commissioned officers do not have.

Only candidates have actual rarity.

Okay, then you are simply wrong. Under no circumstance does the game actually operate according to the way you've described. I thought you were trying referring to the apparent randomization of traits that occurs when you buy an officer from the NPC contact at a social zone. As it is, there's no basis to what (I think) you're trying to say. Commissioned boffs have rarity, which shows both in the quality of their traits and in officer's icon and stats page. Here's a random screenshot from the internet illustrating that fact.

Purple text and hue to the emblem: Very Rare.
White: Common.
Green: Uncommon.
Blue: Rare.

grendelthewise · March 2017

Now now guys. Relax and just play the game.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

monodoso wrote: »

Now now guys. Relax and just play the game.

I appreciate the sentiment but there is a point in trying to maintain some level of fact in an open forum. I believe warpangel is not correct and I have provide an explanation and visual illustration of why that is (here's the STO wiki page on the subject: Linky). Apologies if I seemed overly direct or hostile, my intention was to be unambiguous.

They're welcome to try to explain themselves further, maybe I'm the one who's not seeing the point. That's discussion.

arionisa · March 2017

I happen to really like Tarsi, and I now have an entire away team of her....at least her clones. As already mentioned, if you really like a particular BOFF but want a higher rarity, a quick trip to the tailor and a name change and you are set. only you will ever know that it's not the exact same collection of 1s and 0s you started with and when it looks exactly the same and has the same name, what difference does it make.

With some exceptions, BOFFs of every rarity and almost every possible trait are so plentiful and easy to get there would be no point to Cryptic going to the expense of adding a game mechanic to upgrade them. Every few weeks of actual playing I have to go through my inventory and and convert a bunch of boffs to manuals or just dispose of them because of how plentiful they are. Now that they finally got around to fixing it, even SROs are so plentiful and cheap I scrap a lot of em.

warpangel · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

Random boff candidates can come with those qualifiers, iff the species doesn't have 3 fixed traits.

Commissioned boffs don't have a rarity at all, the game just tries to guess what the candidate was based on traits (and it will guess wrong a lot, especially if it's a unique boff with custom traits or if it has 3 species traits).

So to say, you can't upgrade boff rarity because boff rarity is not a thing.

I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. Try commissioning a boff from your candidate roster and watch the traits. They'll stay the same. The only time I'm aware of that boff traits will shuffle is in buying white quality officers from the a social hub contact. That's only because what you're buying is a randomized bridge officer, which that particular store listing has no way of displaying. Even still, once bought what you see is what you get, and if you see superior traits that means you're dealing with either a rare or very rare officer. Rarity can matter, it is a thing.

I wasn't talking about traits and have no idea what you're talking about traits will "shuffle." I was talking about rarity, which commissioned officers do not have.

Only candidates have actual rarity.

Okay, then you are simply wrong. Under no circumstance does the game actually operate according to the way you've described. I thought you were trying referring to the apparent randomization of traits that occurs when you buy an officer from the NPC contact at a social zone. As it is, there's no basis to what (I think) you're trying to say. Commissioned boffs have rarity, which shows both in the quality of their traits and in officer's icon and stats page. Here's a random screenshot from the internet illustrating that fact.

No, you are simply wrong. Commissioned boffs do not have rarity. The color displayed in your random screenshot is, as I have already explained, an educated guess based on how many basic or superior traits the boff has.

Most easy to see if you commission a random purple gorn boff, which will then show up as blue. Because gorn have 3 fixed racial traits a purple gorn has room for only 1 random superior trait, therefore the game incorrectly guesses it was a blue even though it really was a purple.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

No, you are simply wrong. Commissioned boffs do not have rarity. The color displayed in your random screenshot is, as I have already explained, an educated guess based on how many basic or superior traits the boff has.

Most easy to see if you commission a random purple gorn boff, which will then show up as blue. Because gorn have 3 fixed racial traits a purple gorn has room for only 1 random superior trait, therefore the game incorrectly guesses it was a blue even though it really was a purple.

That's a specific bug with certain KDF officers (Lethean too). They will always show rare. It's not a general property of the system. Rarity is a quality that demonstrably exists for commissioned officers and in every other circumstance tracks with what you see with in the candidate. Computers making "educated guesses" is a moot point. Here's the wiki again. It outlines the question of boff rarity pretty well.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_Officer_traits

tarran61 · March 2017

jaguarskx wrote: »

leemwatson wrote: »

Boff Rarity has little to no effect on the Boff anyway. You can have a white Boff with the exact same traits and skills as a VR Boff, so OP, your proposal is pointless.

Not exactly true since White Boffs only have 2 basic and 2 standard traits while Purple Boffs have 2 standard and 2 superior traits.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_officer

An traits can and do matter!

warpangel · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

No, you are simply wrong. Commissioned boffs do not have rarity. The color displayed in your random screenshot is, as I have already explained, an educated guess based on how many basic or superior traits the boff has.

Most easy to see if you commission a random purple gorn boff, which will then show up as blue. Because gorn have 3 fixed racial traits a purple gorn has room for only 1 random superior trait, therefore the game incorrectly guesses it was a blue even though it really was a purple.

That's a specific bug with certain KDF officers (Lethean too). They will always show rare. It's not a general property of the system. Rarity is a quality that demonstrably exists for commissioned officers and in every other circumstance tracks with what you see with in the candidate. Computers making "educated guesses" is a moot point. Here's the wiki again. It outlines the question of boff rarity pretty well.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_Officer_traits

It is a general property of the system and applies to every bridge officer that has a nonstandard trait distribution, most notably all random boffs with 3 racial traits. The "bug" happens because the actual rarity is not saved when a bridge officer is commissioned, so it's simply impossible for the game to know any better.

evilmark444 · March 2017

One thing to remember when doing the tailor copy paste to "upgrade" a boff is to stick with the specific race you used the first time, don't try to "upgrade" from Andorian to aliengen-Andorian (just an example) because the outfit won't load properly and you'll have to start over from scratch.

I say this because recently I decided to change my aliengen Trill boff (supposed to be VanZyl) to an authentic Trill so she would have markings down the entirety of her body instead of just her neck, and I had to do the entire thing manually. There's a site that will change the race of a saved outfit for you, but even that didn't work in this case.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

It is a general property of the system and applies to every bridge officer that has a nonstandard trait distribution, most notably all random boffs with 3 racial traits. The "bug" happens because the actual rarity is not saved when a bridge officer is commissioned, so it's simply impossible for the game to know any better.

That's restating the bug, it's not an equivalent statement to "Rarity does not exist for commissioned officers" (I think you're getting metaphysical on the nature of what counts as "rarity.") THEY DO HAVE RARITY, it is an explicitly displayed attribute, although sometimes (very infrequently, I've only known this to happen with KDF Letheans and Gorn) it does not follow with what's displayed.

warpangel · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

It is a general property of the system and applies to every bridge officer that has a nonstandard trait distribution, most notably all random boffs with 3 racial traits. The "bug" happens because the actual rarity is not saved when a bridge officer is commissioned, so it's simply impossible for the game to know any better.

That's restating the bug, it's not an equivalent statement to "Rarity does not exist for commissioned officers" (I think you're getting metaphysical on the nature of what counts as "rarity.") THEY DO HAVE RARITY, it is an explicitly displayed attribute, although sometimes (very infrequently, I've only known this to happen with KDF Letheans and Gorn) it does not follow with what's displayed.

Posting in allcaps isn't going to make them have rarity.

I have explained to you the mechanics of the feature. I suppose I could dig up the dev posts from years ago when it was implemented, but that's more effort than I care to put in. And frankly, you ignoring the facts is not my problem.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

Posting in allcaps isn't going to make them have rarity.

I have explained to you the mechanics of the feature. I suppose I could dig up the dev posts from years ago when it was implemented, but that's more effort than I care to put in. And frankly, you ignoring the facts is not my problem.

I've given you a fair chance to explain your first thrust that boff rarity isn't a thing. And I've listened. I just find it silly to hold a unintended discrepancy in how rarity is determined as proof positive that boff rarity doesn't exist at all (such that one can't consider a boff rarity upgrade system.) Let's break the process down from the begining.

1. A random officer is created.
2. Traits are (presumably) randomly assigned based on these parameters and set trait pools.
3. The officer is commissioned.
4. It's rarity is read by using these same parameters.
5. That rarity is assigned.

So, a Very Rare gorn is created. It's three racial traits means that it technically qualifies as rare. So, when commissioned that's what it's displayed as. Does this mean that rarity isn't a thing (to quote you)? Nope, not in the slightest because compare that rare officer with a superior trait to a common officer with a basic trait. The functional distinction between bridge officer rarities remains. The slight stat differences (between trait levels) remains. The utility of a boff upgrade system remains (take any other example). It's just questionable to try upgrading a Gorn or Lethean beyond rare.

You were incorrect in asserting that boff rarity isn't a thing. There's just an extra level of complication in the commissioning process, which has little to do with this thread (since the question of upgrading rarity is inextricably linked to the question of upgrading traits.)

grendelthewise · March 2017

You guys are still bitching aND moaning about this. Do I need throw cold water on you two.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

monodoso wrote: »

You guys are still bitching aND moaning about this. Do I need throw cold water on you two.

Nope, you just need to accept that people will disagree in an open discussion format. I think warpangle is still laboring under a misconception. Is that really something you feel necessary to wade into? As far as forums go that's pretty damn mild. Even sticking to "he's wrong" is just a statement about the argument a poster is bringing to the table. There's nothing personal about it.

warpangel · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

Posting in allcaps isn't going to make them have rarity.

I have explained to you the mechanics of the feature. I suppose I could dig up the dev posts from years ago when it was implemented, but that's more effort than I care to put in. And frankly, you ignoring the facts is not my problem.

I've given you a fair chance to explain your first thrust that boff rarity isn't a thing. And I've listened. I just find it silly to hold a unintended discrepancy in how rarity is determined as proof positive that boff rarity doesn't exist at all (such that one can't consider a boff rarity upgrade system.) Let's break the process down from the begining.

1. A random officer is created.
2. Traits are (presumably) randomly assigned based on these parameters and set trait pools.
3. The officer is commissioned.
4. It's rarity is read by using these same parameters.
5. That rarity is assigned.

So, a Very Rare gorn is created. It's three racial traits means that it technically qualifies as rare. So, when commissioned that's what it's displayed as. Does this mean that rarity isn't a thing (to quote you)? Nope, not in the slightest because compare that rare officer with a superior trait to a common officer with a basic trait. The functional distinction between bridge officer rarities remains. The slight stat differences (between trait levels) remains. The utility of a boff upgrade system remains (take any other example). It's just questionable to try upgrading a Gorn or Lethean beyond rare.

You were incorrect in asserting that boff rarity isn't a thing. There's just an extra level of complication in the commissioning process, which has little to do with this thread (since the question of upgrading rarity is inextricably linked to the question of upgrading traits.)

I am pretty sure the devs explained the rarity is not saved in the database when commissioning, either before the rarity display was added (to explain why it wasn't displayed) or after people first complained about their boffs being "downgraded" when commissioned (to reassure players they weren't really downgraded). I did not invent the concept myself. But as I said I'm not going to search for where that was said. I don't care that much.

I did do a lot of testing on the details of the estimation errors, though. It's much more than just purples showing up as blue. IIRC the formula is:
1. Anything with 2 superior traits is shown purple
2. 1 superior is blue
3. 0 superior 0 basic is green
4. 0 superior 1+ basic is white
And no, it is in fact NOT the same formula used to generate the randoms. That means almost all greens show up as white. Ironically, the gorn are one of the races that gets the green right, because the 3rd racial trait overrides the basic that greens normally have.

Obviously the traits could be upgradeable, and if the number of superior/basic traits changed so would the estimate of the boffs rarity. But thats not the same as upgrading the rarity by itself.

OTOH if boff traits were made changeable like player traits, the rarity display would likely have to be removed again, because the traits would no longer be at all indicative of what the boff was before commissioning and they'd still have no actual rarity data to display.

ltminns · March 2017

If you buy the Romulan Rare Tactical Officer with SRO from the Fleet Embassy, you will end up with a Very Rare Commissioned Bridge Officer.

By the way, the Leeta Boff you got from the Groupees Promotion was an EPIC Bridge Officer, but when Commissioned she is 'only' Very Rare as she has only two Superior Traits. A true Epic Boff would have FOUR Superior.

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

warpangel wrote: »

I am pretty sure the devs explained the rarity is not saved in the database when commissioning, either before the rarity display was added (to explain why it wasn't displayed) or after people first complained about their boffs being "downgraded" when commissioned (to reassure players they weren't really downgraded). I did not invent the concept myself. But as I said I'm not going to search for where that was said. I don't care that much.

I did do a lot of testing on the details of the estimation errors, though. It's much more than just purples showing up as blue. IIRC the formula is:
1. Anything with 2 superior traits is shown purple
2. 1 superior is blue
3. 0 superior 0 basic is green
4. 0 superior 1+ basic is white
And no, it is in fact NOT the same formula used to generate the randoms. That means almost all greens show up as white. Ironically, the gorn are one of the races that gets the green right, because the 3rd racial trait overrides the basic that greens normally have.

Obviously the traits could be upgradeable, and if the number of superior/basic traits changed so would the estimate of the boffs rarity. But thats not the same as upgrading the rarity by itself.

OTOH if boff traits were made changeable like player traits, the rarity display would likely have to be removed again, because the traits would no longer be at all indicative of what the boff was before commissioning and they'd still have no actual rarity data to display.

So (just to reiterate some stuff to make sure I'm on the same page) rarity isn't a saved attribute, it's a functional attribute that works according to a set of parameters which can be handled logically. It's still rarity, ie. a tier based system of designating quality, but there's just room for boffs to shift from one level to other based on the designation discrepancies between creation and commissioning. For your tested list, just take a boff upgrade system as replacing (1:1) basic traits with standard/superior, with reclassification occurring as they meet the conditions of higher rarities.

And in the interest of clarity, I personally took a boff upgrade system as necessarily involving trait upgrades since as far as I'm aware it's the only quantifiable difference. It's just text/icon color otherwise. But that's more the thread's original idea. I would rather Cryptic dispense with boff rarity and have the interchangeable trait system similar to current boff skills.

grendelthewise · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

monodoso wrote: »

You guys are still bitching aND moaning about this. Do I need throw cold water on you two.

Nope, you just need to accept that people will disagree in an open discussion format. I think warpangle is still laboring under a misconception. Is that really something you feel necessary to wade into? As far as forums go that's pretty damn mild. Even sticking to "he's wrong" is just a statement about the argument a poster is bringing to the table. There's nothing personal about it.

No, I get tired of listening to two grown people complain about something totally stupid. Get over it and move on.

Upgrading Bridge Officers

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