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Mastery System - Any hope?

valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
With the new roll out of Romulan ships now available across factions. Am I the only one seeing the mastery system broken as can be? Still looking at 8 toons, with 30+ ships EACH to unlock their mastery with. Looking at hundreds and hundreds of hours with no specifically designed way to unlock these other than running patrols over and over and over. No cross character mastery trait unlock, no Admiralty system to unlock this stuff.
I know this has been brought up a couple times but have we got ANY word at all that this is an issue being looked at? Or acknowledgement it is an issue?

I don't even have an index of which ships I own and which character MIGHT have unlocked which trait, you need a spread sheet to just keep track.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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  • lordmerc22lordmerc22 Member Posts: 776 Arc User
    I guess it depends on what angle you see it from. For me, it gives me an excuse to try out ships I wouldnt have done so, if mastery wasnt there. This way i also found some ships matching to some of my alts as primary or secondary. What I mean is from my angle it looks good, not great but I still like it.

    For someone else who doesnt enjoy trying out ships he doesnt fly often, yes it may feel dull.
  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    That may be true for a single alt, or maybe two... Sto has provided many alts slots over the years. Dominon, Romulan, Temporal, ETC, if you have never ever bought a character slot your sitting at 5-6 slots minimum.. After the third or fourth or fifth time unlocking the traits you want, you may wander over to the other ships to see if their traits are good...
    Or for those of us who are contantly gonna try out new builds.. I find a mastery I like so much I think.. I need this on all my characters, 6 - 8 hours later, lets do it all over again.
    Extreme cases of completionism. I want to unlock all the traits on the ships I BOUGHT, assuming you supported this game for years, that means 200hours+ to unlock the 40 some odd ships per character, not even counting a character you may now or in the future just made.
    I have six unrestricted character slots I wouldn't dream of making a character with cause even to give them a bare minimum build of traits to work with is at least a days worth of work, and that's just building a concept, now I got another 40 ships that MIGHT work with this build, but I either have to reorganize an entire other character to try, or spend the hours unlocking mastery.
    Is STO's intention just to keep some of us unlocking mastery over and over for hundreds of hours. At least if that is the intent that would be one thing, but I can never seem to find if they see this as a problem.
    Why are you bothering to unlock the mastery for over 30+ ships per character?

    Even if you are going after the starship traits you can use 5? 6? What are the other 24-25 for then?

    Builds are the crux of this game. A build may benefit greatly from a mastery you haven't tried, you have to unlock it even to try. And again, once you put in the work to unlock it, why is it necessary to do it again for an alt? Or again for another alt?
    Sure it's my choice to choose which content I play, but these traits are first and foremost bought when you get a ship, then behind a grind of xp, then only given to a single character. Anyone who wants to experiement with their build is looking at so much grind just to get a glance at what might be an awesome build.
  • baddmoonrizinbaddmoonrizin Member Posts: 10,296 Community Moderator
    The system is working as intended. I'm not seeing the problem with the system. Now, if you're complaint is unlocking every Trait on every ship on every character on your account, that's something that you're putting yourself through.
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  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    The system is working as intended. I'm not seeing the problem with the system. Now, if you're complaint is unlocking every Trait on every ship on every character on your account, that's something that you're putting yourself through.

    I acknowledge that point, which in fairness is true. But you could say the same for an account bank, if you want EC on every character you should have to earn it on ever character? Why allow ships from other factions be shared now?

    The system is working as intended = Meaning the Devs WANT us to be spending time unlocking these over and over? Reguardless of scale of unlocking it twice for a single alt, or 10 times for 10 alts, that is the intention of the mastery system?
    Or is the intention we only ever have one alt and we should only be unlocking it once anyway?
    They didn't forsee anyone having 5 alts and wanting to unlock multiple masteries?
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,511 Arc User
    Learn restraint.

    I have over 10 characters and over 30 ships. My characters gain the traits they will use and ignore the ones they will not.
  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User

    Altaholics who create 5+ alts are in the extreme minority, so game devs rarely, if ever, design things in their favor.

    So everyone how saw "play as romulan, play as dominion, play as temporal agent, play original character" look at those and said... EH pass, I got my one federation and/or klingon? Why keep making these content playable races if by that logic, no one is making alts?
  • lordmerc22lordmerc22 Member Posts: 776 Arc User
    I got 6 characters too and I do play them all - just when having less time I sort of queue them, 3 one day, 3 next day

    The problem I see if they change the system is they would have to do it for those who like the system

    Like others point out, you can use 5 traits per ship - you can just unlock these on every alt and therefore have a small list to train up
  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    lordmerc22 wrote: »
    The problem I see if they change the system is they would have to do it for those who like the system

    I like this point, Cause most opposition to this thread is not... WE like the way the system is, it's "Stop complaining cause I don't care"
    Is anyone in love with the fact they don't unlock account wide? Is anyone Violently opposed to an account wide unlock when you unlock a mastery? Or massivly opposed to a research system, or admirality system that might allow us to passively level our mastery?
    Will these in some way lessen the experience of those who don't care while enriching the "Extreme majorities" experience?
  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    Faction unrestriction doesn't effect trait collection. All traits have been available for all factions for some time now, either from alternate faction version of a ship with the same trait, a dil store account unlock (for C-Store ships that have no other faction counterparts) or a lockbox item pack (for faction lockbox ships).
  • lordmerc22lordmerc22 Member Posts: 776 Arc User
    valorim wrote: »
    lordmerc22 wrote: »
    The problem I see if they change the system is they would have to do it for those who like the system

    I like this point, Cause most opposition to this thread is not... WE like the way the system is, it's "Stop complaining cause I don't care"
    Is anyone in love with the fact they don't unlock account wide? Is anyone Violently opposed to an account wide unlock when you unlock a mastery? Or massivly opposed to a research system, or admirality system that might allow us to passively level our mastery?
    Will these in some way lessen the experience of those who don't care while enriching the "Extreme majorities" experience?


    The way you put it sounds like you want to play the game passively. Passively isnt really playing(though there are people in love with browser games and facebook games that are mostly automated) - you just set something up and move on. I dont like the use of the word "Violently" cause it would mean forcefully yet its you who asks a change and tries to push it so the fit of that word there is questionable - there is a system in place and it works well. What should be done is what majority wants and not a few vocal ones - best thing you could see the vibes about your idea may had been setting a poll.

    By the way, being an account unlock when you train a ship's mastery is more likely to have positive reaction than a completely passive system like admiralty/research - just saying
  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    lordmerc22 wrote: »

    The way you put it sounds like you want to play the game passively. Passively isnt really playing(though there are people in love with browser games and facebook games that are mostly automated

    No no no, There is SOOO much content in STO. A plethera to do and play and enjoy. I adore the amount of effort they put in with events, new content, missions, Plenty to do.. I feel like I never make it to this content, once I have done all my duty officers, and then my admirality, and then my other missions (Hand in contraband and prisoners on the KDF homeworld) And then unlock the one or two traits I decided to unlock today....
    When do I play the content? Some of us run only a couple hours a day, or week. I want to unlock more traits on more alts.. I'm just.. SOL?
  • lordmerc22lordmerc22 Member Posts: 776 Arc User
    valorim wrote: »
    lordmerc22 wrote: »

    The way you put it sounds like you want to play the game passively. Passively isnt really playing(though there are people in love with browser games and facebook games that are mostly automated

    No no no, There is SOOO much content in STO. A plethera to do and play and enjoy. I adore the amount of effort they put in with events, new content, missions, Plenty to do.. I feel like I never make it to this content, once I have done all my duty officers, and then my admirality, and then my other missions (Hand in contraband and prisoners on the KDF homeworld) And then unlock the one or two traits I decided to unlock today....
    When do I play the content? Some of us run only a couple hours a day, or week. I want to unlock more traits on more alts.. I'm just.. SOL?

    I play mostly KDF side too - I dont do always my doffing because there are better things to do too and on that we agree that doffing takes a lot time but its optional. I dont have a lot more time than you, usually 2-4h daily. My stance on it, is I can get contraband another day - I dont think its good to stress over it. Remember to do what is fun first. I guess you also sort of treat every toon like main like me too - in that case try not to make too many alts when there is no reason(recruiting events you missed) cause yes you can play only so many. I limited myself to 6 and will increase only if they get the temporal event I missed
  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    The system is poorly designed and does need some retooling. Its probably 10x faster to get mastery by running Argala 5-6 times than it is to run STFs or missions to unlock whatever mastery you're after. That's a huge design flaw. And we already know part of the issue stems from the refusal to even give XP out with some spawns, like in battle of binary stars.

    Progression is extremely slow if you don't just go out to Argala and grind, which is why people do it that way.

    Frankly I don't understand the resistance here. If you've unlocked a trait 10x, why shouldn't it be account unlocked permanently at that point? You've tried that ship enough that you know how it flies, you just want the trait.

    And as for unlocking lots of traits on one character, it happens because you thought that trait X was going to be really good, then you find out its not that good. Then you try trait Y, and it turns out to not work that well either. So you go to trait Z, and then you question traits A,B,C. Or maybe you realize you just don't like that build and go back to the drawing board.

    Personally, I have some characters with the bare minimum unlocked, and others with nearly everything unlocked that they can unlock. Neither situation is wrong.

    What is wrong is that Argala is basically the only way to do it in a reasonable time frame. Playing the game normally does not do it for some reason.
  • burstorionburstorion Member Posts: 1,750 Arc User
    I tend to cycle all my ships between my 20+ alts a few at a time, one always with the newest ship to test out the trait, the others with whatever appeals

    Generally, when I feel like the ship build I'm using is decent but stale, I switch to a new ship to keep it fairly fresh - and forces me to improvise and adapt as not all my drones have the same gear which can be fun in itself as being borg perfect is boring

    For example, I took my dbb using escort (Xyfius) who has benefitted a lot from the new bo (I digress) and moved it to the Kor bop which revitalised the character as I had to use the ebc (and energy torps) in a manner more like the 'classic' klingon bop, weaving in and out, surviving by stealth and hull heal/regen while exploding things


    The trick to traits I feel is grind them all - once (maybe on your main as they are bound to have all the gear no matter the ship type you use so they are best as a build testbed). From there decide what benefits whom in their current/expected ships and then train those for them - once you have the core 4/5 traits, you can take your time learning the others and if you need to learn a new trait... you have enough traits as backup to grind it in relative safety - while at the same time enjoying the mastery grind as a way to enjoy a new ship in a different situation

    TL;DR Theres nothing wrong with the system as it is, you just need to realise you only need 4/5 traits at most so learn those then use the 'carrot' of a new trait to increase game enjoyment by flying something new and imperfect
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    You know what they never spoke about, the Account Mastery Unlocks in the Dilitium Store for Romulan Ships. It was that a Mastery Unlocked on a Faction Ship (C-Store) where there was no corresponding Mastery for another Faction got placed in the Dilitium Store. What will happen now for those Romulan ones like Warp Shadow? Do the Fereraton/KDF still get them or are they no longer doing that.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
    Judge Dan Haywood
    'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
    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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  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,342 Arc User
    Whilst I agree Mastery could be account unlock, I think that it's too easy to level. Should take longer in my opinion, and yes I too have dozens upon dozens of T6's, but I would appreciate a ship more if I was playing in it for a bit longer than 45 minutes it takes to max it out.
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    Why are you bothering to unlock the mastery for over 30+ ships per character?

    Even if you are going after the starship traits you can use 5? 6? What are the other 24-25 for then?

    Yeah totally agreed. Some people are just obsessive over things like this. Nobody needs to unlock every single starship trait on every character.

    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    leemwatson wrote: »
    Whilst I agree Mastery could be account unlock, I think that it's too easy to level. Should take longer in my opinion, and yes I too have dozens upon dozens of T6's, but I would appreciate a ship more if I was playing in it for a bit longer than 45 minutes it takes to max it out.

    That 45 minutes only happens grinding Argala.

    Recently I've spent some time bringing a character up to speed, one that I had relegated to a bank alt. The only trait they had was the Delta recruit account wide trait. I put them in a Phantom to start on reciprocity and started doing missions for gear. Sunrise x3, Beyond the Nexus x3, Scylla and Charbydis x3, and so on. I ran a bunch of STFs for marks as well, all of this over the course of a week. By the time I finished getting all the gear I wanted, or the marks for it, was the Phantom done? Nope. I still had to go run Argala at least a couple times, and only then did I unlock the first actual ship trait. That is a broken system.

    I mentioned in my earlier post that a lot of places don't even give XP for ship kills, and I'm remembering that a lot of other places don't give you ship kills at all. Scylla and Charbydis has a whole lot of fighting and maybe half of the ships you kill give nothing as XP, but then missions like Beyond the Nexus don't even kill the ships, so you get zero XP. There are a few delta quadrant patrols that give no XP too, despite the amount of fighting. The one where you disable Borg ships for the Cooperative, for example, if you do it right, you get no XP.

    Frankly, I might not mind if it took longer to get the mastery, but only if doing anything besides Argala actually gave reasonable XP. STFs do not. Most missions do not. Lots of patrols do not. Its Argala or nothing.
  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,342 Arc User
    leemwatson wrote: »
    Whilst I agree Mastery could be account unlock, I think that it's too easy to level. Should take longer in my opinion, and yes I too have dozens upon dozens of T6's, but I would appreciate a ship more if I was playing in it for a bit longer than 45 minutes it takes to max it out.

    That 45 minutes only happens grinding Argala.

    Recently I've spent some time bringing a character up to speed, one that I had relegated to a bank alt. The only trait they had was the Delta recruit account wide trait. I put them in a Phantom to start on reciprocity and started doing missions for gear. Sunrise x3, Beyond the Nexus x3, Scylla and Charbydis x3, and so on. I ran a bunch of STFs for marks as well, all of this over the course of a week. By the time I finished getting all the gear I wanted, or the marks for it, was the Phantom done? Nope. I still had to go run Argala at least a couple times, and only then did I unlock the first actual ship trait. That is a broken system.

    I mentioned in my earlier post that a lot of places don't even give XP for ship kills, and I'm remembering that a lot of other places don't give you ship kills at all. Scylla and Charbydis has a whole lot of fighting and maybe half of the ships you kill give nothing as XP, but then missions like Beyond the Nexus don't even kill the ships, so you get zero XP. There are a few delta quadrant patrols that give no XP too, despite the amount of fighting. The one where you disable Borg ships for the Cooperative, for example, if you do it right, you get no XP.

    Frankly, I might not mind if it took longer to get the mastery, but only if doing anything besides Argala actually gave reasonable XP. STFs do not. Most missions do not. Lots of patrols do not. Its Argala or nothing.

    Sorry, but you are incorrect. I hit Argala, then SB1, then Hive Onslaught, then Borg Disc, then Undine Assault and back to Argala if I need it. XP on most PvE maps with mobs is good enough to almost level each run.
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • valorimvalorim Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    Nobody needs to unlock every single starship trait on every character.

    You are technically correct, none of us need to do that, or need to play the game, or need to own a computer or need anything in reguards to gaming, But some of us.. Call us a minority or the obsessive or whatever, WANT to have unlocks for our 10+ or 20+ characters without having to spend 700 hours to do it, and if your only ever gonna use the 5/6 you choose, then why is it such a big bother for us to request that all be account unlocked, we still saved you a whole 3-5 hours of grinding your only required traits to satisfy and saved those of us who want to unlock more then 5/6 per character Hundreds of hours.

    My point is and always has been, it hurts nothing, nothing in the game to make unlocks account wide, and in actuality would increase the likelihood that people buy new ships and make new characters and spend more time in game events, building fleets, etc. (Maybe expanding the player base of a niche game)
  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »
    @foxrockssocks

    I have 21 characters. Not one has ever grinded argala for anything. Your assumptions are incorrect. You assertions are faulty. Argala is not required for anything and never was. Since the release of DR i have not run argala more than 6 times total with all of my characters. It is more than possible to master a ship, any ship, in 45 minutes with no argala at all, not even going to the Delta Quad.

    Fascinating. By being so forthcoming with your example, I can safely presume that you are tacitly agreeing with me. You're not going to tell us you leveled ship mastery by playing the game "normally" by running story missions and random STFs, you're just going to give us another place that functions similarly to Argala, aren't you? I go to Argala, you go to your secret place. Great, but that doesn't refute the point, it doesn't demonstrate that there is not a problem with the rest of the game and the mastery grind.
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    Specifics are never forthcoming.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
    Judge Dan Haywood
    'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
    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.'
    Lt. Philip J. Minns
  • baddmoonrizinbaddmoonrizin Member Posts: 10,296 Community Moderator
    Actually, making Traits account unlocks would reduce time spent in game, because a player would no longer need to run Mastery on their various alts.

    Everything should award Mastery XP. There's really no excuse for why something wouldn't.

    If account unlocks were to be done, I think it would be best to add the T6 level to all ships. T5 would unlock the Trait on the character, T6 would unlock the Trait for the account.

    Just because we want a thing, though, doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do.
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  • ussvaliant#6064 ussvaliant Member Posts: 1,006 Arc User
    Maybe ssm account unlocks haven't been implemented as there's no way to separate c-store/event ship traits from the Lockbox/Doff-R&D ones and thus Cryptic would obviously not want to allow the traits from those ships to be an account unlock as you wouldn't need to try to get it on an alt if the trait were a good one.
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    Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
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