Ask Cryptic: The October Edition

I can kinda understand the dil for the sets (Just got my borg shields. Don't know why everyone says they're rubbish, the only shields I have that are higher are the Reman set, though admitadly not tried the shields in combat yet). Only 4 away from the Deflector and completeness.


But Dil for the recruitment missions at the academy? I don't understand that. Sure, if you were getting green or higher quality doffs, but they are white. Basics. I don't get it. There is enough dil sinks running about. I can just see it now. At the graduation ceremony, the key speaker stands:


"Congratulations on graduating from Starfleet Academy, Class of 2409. Unfortunately, none of you will be shipping out, as none of our Captains have any Dilithium to buy you with."

LOL! Or Your a fresh faced Ensign, the Captian and first officer are dead after the borg attack. You are now the highest ranking officer aboard and placed in command of the ship. You look around and notice that not only are you the highest rank aboard, but the only one aboard. You hail Starfleet: Starfleet: "Oh i'm sorry, you don't have enough dilithium to crew your ship! Good luck with the battle though! Give us a call and let us know how things go!"

Stunshock wrote:I can kinda understand the dil for the sets (Just got my borg shields. Don't know why everyone says they're rubbish, the only shields I have that are higher are the Reman set, though admitadly not tried the shields in combat yet). Only 4 away from the Deflector and completeness.

The shields aren't bad-bad, they're only bad in comparison. If you compare them to the maco or honor guard shields, the borg shields generally look inferior.

Resilient and Covariant shields are generally considered better than regenerative, because more shield HP is usually more helpful than regen. The retro shield has 15% plasma resist, the maco and HG have 20%. The maco shield also has a general resistance bonus. On top of that, both maco and HG shields have a proc effect. The retro shields have none of that.

So they're good shields, but the maco and HG are better. Since the 4-piece set bonus (the tractor beam) isn't generally considered that useful or amazing, most people opt to go for a 3-piece borg set and substitute the shield.

Ah. And everyone is complaining about that? Sheesh. Its not like they are destroying the engineers ability to tank and provide support (the only time i have spoken out about a nerf of some kind). And as an Engy, I'm always using Tractor Beams and grapplers as part of my fighting arsenal, so I'm more than happy to get another free one. In this nerfing, am I going to loose the tractor beam if I keep the three?

!! RED ALERT - RED ALERT !!
Hold on to your hats, guys! Here is the 7th installment of the Season 7 Development Blog from STO... and it's a WHOPPER!!

http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=723801

The embassy thing actually looks neat, I'm especially interested in, "and several Duty Officer Assignment slot upgrades." But new consoles, new weapon, new doffs/boffs. All that sounds good to me.

It is, of course, another sink for dil and other resources. But at least this time they're asking for dil for new things, and not adding a dil cost to things we could previously get without.

It's kind of rough on smaller fleets, or fleets that struggle to finish starbase projects, though. I mean, it'll basically mean every fleet has 1.5 starbases. Bigger fleets will actually benefit though. The fleet my klingons are in finishes pretty much every project within a day, run several specials every day, and still people complain they can't use all their fleet marks. So in all likelihood the new embassy projects will be a welcome place to dump fleet marks.

sounds like we will spend most of our time grinding and not socializing in season 7. lol. Sorry cant talk gotta get some dil to get my ship out of hock.


still sounds fun. i'm ready, maybe, kinda

Agreed. I also would note that things often get "adjusted" between debut on Tribble and final debut on Holodeck (which is, let's face it, what Tribble is supposed to be for). Not always... but often. So let's hope they quickly recognize any issues with the new system and adjust them before release.

Like you, I found this very exciting! Looking forward to it. It's starting to look like Season 7 may be one of the biggest in terms of new stuff in a long time...

There are things i'm very excited about and very scared about with this new update. We will just have to wait and see and hope that these improvements (?) will just make this game a little more awesome!

Whatever they throw at us I have no doubt this Fleet can MAKE it awesome heheheheh

Well said Captian Leonov!

Blog 8: http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=726221

All your existing borg-drops (EDC's, salvage, ect) are being turned into omega marks and neural processors. They'll then be taken away and locked in a box until you grind sufficient reputation. Which will require items from doing STF's other borg-things, plus dil.

Also, it's not on the blog but it's in the forum thread linked in the blog: STF dil rewards are being cut in half. A normal will give 240 and an elite 480.

verbena wrote:Blog 8: http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=726221

All your existing borg-drops (EDC's, salvage, ect) are being turned into omega marks and neural processors. They'll then be taken away and locked in a box until you grind sufficient reputation. Which will require items from doing STF's other borg-things, plus dil.

Also, it's not on the blog but it's in the forum thread linked in the blog: STF dil rewards are being cut in half. A normal will give 240 and an elite 480.

WOW... guess we better spend all the EDC and Borg Salvage we can get between now and then. I can't see how it's going to work if they're actually nerfing the Dil payout while increasing the requirements. Any idea what the feedback on that is running to on Tribble?

Most feedback is pretty negative, but I really don't know how many people have actually played with the changes on tribble. It looks like the fleet actions are getting boosted with dil, so maybe that's supposed to partly make up for it. I don't know, 480 for an elite stf seems really low. Especially when you have to wait an hour in between.

They are adding some stuff to the system. The current retro set is going to become an XI set, and there'll be an XII version. It looks like you'll get access to all three sets (maco, omega, and HG) regardless of faction, though the cross-faction set will still look like your faction's set. The weapons and other generic equipment you could get from the omega stores is getting revamped.

But, all that only becomes available after you grind your way through the reputation system. Which currently will require 10 days worth of dil, some omega marks, and other inputs. And I have no idea how long it'll take to rank up your reputation even if you have all the items available (which you won't, because they're stealing them and locking them in a box until you grind your reputation). Because if the reputation is modeled off the starbase advancements each 'project' is likely to have a cool down.

verbena wrote:Most feedback is pretty negative, but I really don't know how many people have actually played with the changes on tribble. It looks like the fleet actions are getting boosted with dil, so maybe that's supposed to partly make up for it. I don't know, 480 for an elite stf seems really low. Especially when you have to wait an hour in between.

They are adding some stuff to the system. The current retro set is going to become an XI set, and there'll be an XII version. It looks like you'll get access to all three sets (maco, omega, and HG) regardless of faction, though the cross-faction set will still look like your faction's set. The weapons and other generic equipment you could get from the omega stores is getting revamped.

But, all that only becomes available after you grind your way through the reputation system. Which currently will require 10 days worth of dil, some omega marks, and other inputs. And I have no idea how long it'll take to rank up your reputation even if you have all the items available (which you won't, because they're stealing them and locking them in a box until you grind your reputation). Because if the reputation is modeled off the starbase advancements each 'project' is likely to have a cool down.

There's been talk, on the forums, for some time that they are steering things away from the STF's. I don't how true that is but this looks like it. I know, looking at the Fleet weapons and equipment, that they look set to be as good as or even better than the Mk XI and Mk XII Borg and specialty sets. It may be that's where they're steering things. I can live with that. As long as the equipment and weapons are comparable and obtainable (without devoting my life to grinding) I don't really care if it's part of a "set" or not. However, if they're gonna do that, then I think the costume options should be unlocked for everyone or unlocked some other way. In all honesty the Honor Guard and Omega (KDF) costume options are the only reason I would bother with the specialty ground sets as the Fleet options are comparable enough, stat-wise. As for the Fed side their costume options all look too much like space suits... probably wouldn't bother...

Lomax6996 wrote:There's been talk, on the forums, for some time that they are steering things away from the STF's. I don't how true that is but this looks like it. I know, looking at the Fleet weapons and equipment, that they look set to be as good as or even better than the Mk XI and Mk XII Borg and specialty sets. It may be that's where they're steering things. I can live with that. As long as the equipment and weapons are comparable and obtainable (without devoting my life to grinding) I don't really care if it's part of a "set" or not. However, if they're gonna do that, then I think the costume options should be unlocked for everyone or unlocked some other way. In all honesty the Honor Guard and Omega (KDF) costume options are the only reason I would bother with the specialty ground sets as the Fleet options are comparable enough, stat-wise. As for the Fed side their costume options all look too much like space suits... probably wouldn't bother...

If anything, this seems like the opposite. That they want you to spend more time grinding STF's. I mean, they're saying that the sets require 60% less grind to acquire. But that figure seems to be ignoring the added dil cost AND that you have to first grind borg reputation. So honestly, I have to call bullshit on that.

In addition they're cutting the dil rewards, so if you're doing STF's for dil you've got to do more. They're also adding a fourth STF, I think. Plus trying to push people into grinding the reputation system, which requires stf/borg drops as well.

I think plenty are still going to go after the set pieces. The sets give you extra powers when you combine the pieces, so that puts them a bit ahead of regular piece-meal equipment. I think the borg/maco/ect space sets are noticeably better than most alternatives.

Weapons are different, the fleet-store weapons are better than borg. Even with the anti-borg proc, usually. They're supposed to be updating the borg weapons, we'll see how the new versions compare.

I totally agree about the ground sets, though. The STF grounds sets, I never saw the point. The exta bonuses they have are all geared to borg stuff. So really their advantage (other than aesthetics) is for doing STF's and the like. And I just can't see the point of that. I mean, I'm not going to grind so I can grind easier to get stuff that I can grind with... I'd rather just buy fleet goodies or similar and skip the ground stf's.

The costumes look good, but I wouldn't want the full outfit. I'd pay dil/zen/ec or whatever to get my hands on the cape, though.

Changing everything over to a new system? Fine. Taking what you have earned already and locking it away from you? Hell no. That's utter crap. We spent time and effort to collect those, why are they being locked away from us? Fine, say we need to be a certain level to use them again, but at least give us the option of selling them if we want.

Herewith is episode #8 of the Season 7 Dev blog from STO. It explains the Reputation system and the reason for some of the upcoming changes. It does make some sense. Be sure and peruse it...

http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=726221

So glad I got my Borg set completed last night. Taking away all your stuff and locking it up, that's not right.

Below are links to episode #9 and episode #10 of the Season 7 Development blog. #9 provides some more background on the new direction re: Romulans (though not much real, new info). #10, however, goes deeper into the changes for the new Reputation system as it relates to the new Romulan story line. A must read.

http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=728341

http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=729191

Here is a screen cap of some answers from Dstahl re: the Season 7 Reputation system.

Spent a couple hours playing around on tribble.

Did the new azure nebula queue mission where you rescue romulan ships from tholians. Was kinda fun.

Played around in the reputation screen. The rewards/benefits look nice, and the costs (for the basic tier at least, can't see what it'll cost down the line) seems pretty reasonable. One project was 300 dil, another was 900. The biggest problem I saw with it was how long the projects take. The starting projects take 1 day 16 hours to complete after you've filled the materials. At that rate it'll take a minimum of three and a half days to unlock tier one. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the higher tier projects will take even longer.

I'm probably going to have to do at least the romulan version, cause one of the things you can get is a "Romulan Plasma Flamethrower" and I want one.

Visited new romulus. It looks nice. It was fun for the amount of time I spent there, but... They basically made it into a Korean MMO. It's all about running around collecting/clicking various crap for a bunch of lazy NPC's. Over and over. Didn't see any real missions. Did see a couple areas that might have been real missions, but you needed to be higher tier to enter them so I couldn't check them out.

There's this critter running around called an ehoff or something. Cute little buggers. You can get them as pets, but like you have to do these missions where you chase them and tag them. Then you use the rewards from that to get eggs, and there's various doff assignments to "raise" it. They come in several varieties, and I rather suspect this will be a pokemon experience for many.

There's a new mini game for scanning for radiation on new romuluse. It reminds me quite a bit of the dilithium mining interface. Same deal where you match up lines and score points. The more points the more radiation samples. A couple hundred points got me like 15-ish samples. You can turn in 100 samples for 8 romulan marks (no, that's not a lot). It goes up to 30 marks for 300 samples.

Wasn't able to check out the embassy, cause I didn't have a fleet on tribble.

The cost to reassign doffs went WAY up. Whites->green is 500 dil (600 from a specific race's personnel officer), and blue->purple was 5000 dil (6000 specific race). I'm told the general recruitment assignment is 1k dill now, I can't confirm because it was on cool down for me. The specific duty officer recruitment assignments (like vulcan cultural exchange, or tactical officer recruitment, ect) had no cost associated with them, at least. But it sounds like the one that awards you the pack inventory item is going to cost you now.

The bad news is that the dil cost-of-living is going way up. You need it for starbase projects, for fleet embassy projects, for reputation projects (x2, borg and romulan), and now dil it you want to reassign your officers, and dil if you want the general recruitment doff-pack. That's not even counting anything you spend for you own items or convert to zen.

So it sounds like we are getting elements from Eve, Runes of Magic and Pokemon. It sounds like they are trying to broden thier player base, and make STO more profitable. Should be very intresting.

Romulan Refugee, sitting at his kitchen table eating from a lavish spread of foods: Vice Admiral, our crops need fertilizing. Go into the pig pens a gather steaming piles of fresh pig poop and spread it over the crops. Return to me when you are finished and I will give you a trivial reward.

I can't wait.

Gordon_Lightfoot wrote:Romulan Refugee, sitting at his kitchen table eating from a lavish spread of foods: Vice Admiral, our crops need fertilizing. Go into the pig pens a gather steaming piles of fresh pig poop and spread it over the crops. Return to me when you are finished and I will give you a trivial reward.

I can't wait.

haha thats just funny but true