Ask Cryptic: The October Edition

so far i haven't had any problems, other than finding different ways to get dilithium now. it will all come around. gotta go check out Arwens shop

Anyone know how many marks those deferi missions give? They're supposed to give omega marks now, and since they still have dil they may be preferable to STF's

The chat system is bugged. I currently don't have an option to chat in fleet, but I can see other people's fleet chat.

oh i just hate bugs ... where is my can of Raid

The bitchers have carried the day! STF's are getting dil back. Normals will be about the same, elites will lose about 10%. Either way, better than none at all. Rejoice.

So here are the changes we'll be making in a maintenance build by the end of this week.
Normal STF runs will grant 480 Dilithium
Elite STF runs will grant 960 Dilithium
Space Fleet Action runs will grant 480 Dilithium
Ground Fleet Action runs will grant 640 Dilithium

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=447051 for full details.

And I just started gettign my KDF marauder set up to corner the dilithium market.

Oh well, more dilithium is good.

I heard about that yesterday and was very excited! This just proves that if we sing loud enough our voices will be heard.

Yeah, well... I kinda wonder if the whole thing wasn't staged.

I mean, they made a lot of unpopular/unwelcome changes this patch: They made doff reassignment repressively expensive, they added 1k to the general recruitment doff assignment arbitrarily, they more than doubled the length of most other recruitment assignments, they converted the STF system to the new rep system and in doing so they stripped you of all the drops you had earned, replaced them with the new currencies at a truly terrible conversion rate, and on top of that stuck them in box and are holding them hostage till you go through the new reputation content. They nerfed/are-nerfing the officer reports mission, basically taking 1.5k free dil daily out of our pockets.

Then they were talking about reducing the dil drops for STF's, right? People complained and said the reduction was too harsh, so they raised the new adjusted dil rates. Then suddenly, with no forewarning, nothing on tribble, no blog, ect, they strip dil from STF's completely for the release. Of course people go up in flames, then just a day after they backtrack and revert it to exactly the rate they had said they were going to go with just a few days ago...

I don't know, maybe I'm just cynical, but it all seems too pat to me. I can't help but suspect they threw in something horribly repressive that they intended to back down on from the very start, just to distract attention from all the other repressive changes they made. Because now no one's making a fuss about all the rest. The "masses" are all content, because there was some bad change, and they cried out, and it was reversed. And they're too busy basking in their moment to remember all the other changes for the worse that happened along with it.

We currently have energy credits, dilithium, Lobi Crystals, Latinum, Reputation, Fleet Marks, Fleet Credits and Zen.
Have I missed any of the "currencies"? They seem to be overcomplicating the game economy when they don't have enough resource types to justify it.

If I am a Fed I should be using Fed "currency", be it credits or whatever, to purchase Fed gear from vendors or the game system. This would extend to using fleet provisions to obtain gear from the fleet base.

Provisioning the base should be a matter of throwing raw materials and assigning personnel to it. Dilithium could be a raw material for that, but shouldn't be currency. After all we are all part of Star Fleet and at the end of the day the base belongs to them.

Working with non Federation member races would require a second universally recognized currency. Latinum would work here. Special high end gear that would require you to be on especially good terms with that race. This is where you would use the reputation system. Unfriendly races such as Romulans, Remans, Breen, KDF etc. would require reputation to trade any gear at all with them. High reputation could grant discounts when purchasing gear from non Fed races as well.

KDF would use their own currency, and acquire reputation and latinum to allow trade with Fed and other races outside their empire.

All Exchange transactions would be outside official Federation control, and would use latinum.

Unique gear, bonus gear, enhancements such as extra bank space, officer packs, special Boffs, extra character slots, foundry mission building slots, weapons and ships would be purchased through the Zen store. Subscription members and lifetime members would get a Zen stipend. FTP and PTP members could of course buy Zen for cash. No more grinding for an in game resource that could be used to convert to Zen.

This system would consolidate currencies based along existing faction/empire lines with one universally recognized currency for cross faction trade and make Zen a real world money transaction only, whether via paid player granted stipend or free to play credit card transaction.

Foundry missions could be play tested by the Devs and go through a QA process to check against Star Trek canon, complexity, playability and difficulty. Missions that met published criteria could be moved out of the Foundry and into main stream content with the devs assigning a minimum level and putting appropriate rewards into the mission. The Foundry author would be "paid" in Zen and his Foundry slot would be freed up.

Did I miss anything? I think I will post this on the STO forums also.

They also appear to have lengthened the cool down timers on Marauding Doff assignments and contraband generating Doff missions in general.

Gordon_Lightfoot wrote:Did I miss anything? I think I will post this on the STO forums also.

You didn't really simplify it all that much. If you sub ec for "fed currency" they only currency you're eliminating is dil. However, dil makes sense as a "currency" for the same reason latinum does: it's unreplicatable. In fact, dil is probably makes more sense on a certain level as it has intrinsic value; it can be used in various technologies such as warp engines. Latinum has no use except as a basis of exchange, so only has whatever value is assigned to it.

I agree that latinum makes more sense as a medium of exchange in game, and even for purchasing valuable items from npc's and cross faction items. Latinum was used not just by the ferengi but by other races as a medium of exchange in the shows. It'd make sense if you could trade/use it for things, especially more things than some holo-emitters and silly, ugly trophies. I mean, we actually saw people dealing in latinum for weapons and exotic items. But we can't, no, we get trophies.

I wouldn't have faction specific marks at all, I'd instead have an xp-like listing for them. Something like the commendation ranks for doff assignments and such. Once you get to a certain rank with your reputation then you can go either requistion (free items) things from their faction or else it'll open up vendors you can trade with exchanging latinum for whatever items.

But, at least on the fed side, there really shouldn't be any currency. That starfleet/the humans don't use money was emphasized several times. So regular consumables, replicator items, basic commodities, doffs, ect... If we're trying to make the game follow the canon then none of that should really have an associated cost. I don't recall much mention of klingon economy, but the current system is actually contrary to the canon on the fed side.

It's also kinda odd that with the exception of EC, we can't trade any of these currencies. I mean, latinum and dil, these are physical objects. Yet I can't give them to someone else?

I do disagree about being able to convert some form of ingame currency to zen. I dislike micro-transaction models set up like this, because I don't like there being rewards you can't get for, you know, playing the game. Paying for something outright that you can earn through other means, that's one thing. That's like a convenience tax.

Gordon_Lightfoot wrote:They also appear to have lengthened the cool down timers on Marauding Doff assignments and contraband generating Doff missions in general.

I really hadn't noticed this. I seem to be getting in about as much contraband as normal. I'm not sure about the timer cooldowns as I've not paid attention, but there's so many different assignments it's never really seemed an issue. There's the 2-hour ones, the 45-minute ones, and the 8-hour ones. Between them it seems like there's always some available to me.

I honestly find it much more difficult to fill my assignments on the fed characters. Because, with a handful of exceptions, once I got diplo rank 4 I find the diplo assignments useless. I pretty much won't do an assignment unless it has more of a reward than 5 dil, and that leaves 90% of the diplo assignments out.

verbena wrote:Yeah, well... I kinda wonder if the whole thing wasn't staged.

I mean, they made a lot of unpopular/unwelcome changes this patch: They made doff reassignment repressively expensive, they added 1k to the general recruitment doff assignment arbitrarily, they more than doubled the length of most other recruitment assignments, they converted the STF system to the new rep system and in doing so they stripped you of all the drops you had earned, replaced them with the new currencies at a truly terrible conversion rate, and on top of that stuck them in box and are holding them hostage till you go through the new reputation content. They nerfed/are-nerfing the officer reports mission, basically taking 1.5k free dil daily out of our pockets.

Then they were talking about reducing the dil drops for STF's, right? People complained and said the reduction was too harsh, so they raised the new adjusted dil rates. Then suddenly, with no forewarning, nothing on tribble, no blog, ect, they strip dil from STF's completely for the release. Of course people go up in flames, then just a day after they backtrack and revert it to exactly the rate they had said they were going to go with just a few days ago...

I don't know, maybe I'm just cynical, but it all seems too pat to me. I can't help but suspect they threw in something horribly repressive that they intended to back down on from the very start, just to distract attention from all the other repressive changes they made. Because now no one's making a fuss about all the rest. The "masses" are all content, because there was some bad change, and they cried out, and it was reversed. And they're too busy basking in their moment to remember all the other changes for the worse that happened along with it.

ROFL - Sounds like they been taking lessons from the "gubmint". Guess we know where Patreaus went to work after leaving the C'Ya...

Gordon_Lightfoot wrote:We currently have energy credits, dilithium, Lobi Crystals, Latinum, Reputation, Fleet Marks, Fleet Credits and Zen.
Have I missed any of the "currencies"? They seem to be overcomplicating the game economy when they don't have enough resource types to justify it.

If I am a Fed I should be using Fed "currency", be it credits or whatever, to purchase Fed gear from vendors or the game system. This would extend to using fleet provisions to obtain gear from the fleet base.

Provisioning the base should be a matter of throwing raw materials and assigning personnel to it. Dilithium could be a raw material for that, but shouldn't be currency. After all we are all part of Star Fleet and at the end of the day the base belongs to them.

Working with non Federation member races would require a second universally recognized currency. Latinum would work here. Special high end gear that would require you to be on especially good terms with that race. This is where you would use the reputation system. Unfriendly races such as Romulans, Remans, Breen, KDF etc. would require reputation to trade any gear at all with them. High reputation could grant discounts when purchasing gear from non Fed races as well.

KDF would use their own currency, and acquire reputation and latinum to allow trade with Fed and other races outside their empire.

All Exchange transactions would be outside official Federation control, and would use latinum.

Unique gear, bonus gear, enhancements such as extra bank space, officer packs, special Boffs, extra character slots, foundry mission building slots, weapons and ships would be purchased through the Zen store. Subscription members and lifetime members would get a Zen stipend. FTP and PTP members could of course buy Zen for cash. No more grinding for an in game resource that could be used to convert to Zen.

This system would consolidate currencies based along existing faction/empire lines with one universally recognized currency for cross faction trade and make Zen a real world money transaction only, whether via paid player granted stipend or free to play credit card transaction.

Foundry missions could be play tested by the Devs and go through a QA process to check against Star Trek canon, complexity, playability and difficulty. Missions that met published criteria could be moved out of the Foundry and into main stream content with the devs assigning a minimum level and putting appropriate rewards into the mission. The Foundry author would be "paid" in Zen and his Foundry slot would be freed up.

Did I miss anything? I think I will post this on the STO forums also.

Pleas do! The Devs pay more attention than a lot of folks think... and let me 2nd this motion. I think your proposal is UBER sound!

iv not been on much for season 7 but from what i saw on tribble and the other day i like the the New STF system and romualn stuff though putting stuff in a lock box you can't open for now not liking so much, and some of the reductions are good like with the DO pack making them more valuable and times longer making them harder to get it slow stuff down yes but if we could get all that so easy we finish their new stuff with in a few days and people would not have content and leave the game iv seen no problem with season 7 other then locking my stuff in a box i can't use yet.

I do see think they could be less currency and laltium should be a big one, the fed eration really did not have money just matreails to build stuff. id say get right of EC turn it into dithium and just havde latiums dith and Zen, and reputaions in your fleet (fleet credits) and the new stf system

I'm still laughing over the uproar on the forums about the new Pretty Phaser Girl on the front page who replaced Handsome Phaser Guy.

The november edition is up: http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=769201

It's pretty long, lots of stuff in there.

QAPLA! no longer qualifies for Officer Reports

Oh well, it wasn't likely to last forever.