Regarding Dark Project mats.

[Foambreaker]

Only the second world PvP development since the game came out and there are babies crying.

 

Talk about selfish.

[MillionsKNives]

-snip-

 

It might do you well to read past the OP to get a real sense of the scale of the mats required. Particularly the posts which outline the amount of time it will take to actually accomplish it.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with you in theory, but the reality is nowhere close to what you paint. It would take reducing the mats by somewhere in the order of a factor of 10 to get even close to what you describe.

 

Also, yes the general idea behind your post has been discussed already, and it boils down to this. No one is going to grind that long. Endless grinds don't encourage anyone other than the hardcore of the hardcore, and so most will give up quickly when there's no end in sight.

Edited August 14, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[Rithoma]

It might do you well to read past the OP to get a real sense of the scale of the mats required. Particularly the posts which outline the amount of time it will take to actually accomplish it.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with you in theory, but the reality is nowhere close to what you paint. It would take reducing the mats by somewhere in the order of a factor of 10 to get even close to what you describe.

 

Also, yes the general idea behind your post has been discussed already, and it boils down to this. No one is going to grind that long. Endless grinds don't encourage anyone other than the hardcore of the hardcore, and so most will give up quickly when there's no end in sight.

 

I did read the calculations and even though they ignore some factors, I still think the bigger the project is the better. I get that some people wanna grind everything as fast as possible and I do realize that this will be very, very difficult and time consuming.

 

Yet, I think as a long term project the guildships will be awesome and even the most casual player can contribute by running the content every now and then. And not just for the next few weeks, but, well, for a bit longer than that. This is the only thing that qualifies the stronghold update as an expansion, in my opinion. It will be a permanent addition to the game and not just a seasonal event.

[azudelphi]

I did read the calculations and even though they ignore some factors, I still think the bigger the project is the better. I get that some people wanna grind everything as fast as possible and I do realize that this will be very, very difficult and time consuming.

 

Yet, I think as a long term project the guildships will be awesome and even the most casual player can contribute by running the content every now and then. And not just for the next few weeks, but, well, for a bit longer than that. This is the only thing that qualifies the stronghold update as an expansion, in my opinion. It will be a permanent addition to the game and not just a seasonal event.

 

I agree it should be a long term thing, but my issue mostly comes from the fact that Dark Projects are used for more than just the guild unlocks. I think someone found that to have their own ship unlocked as a decoration will cost approximately 4.5 mil because the total prices on Dark Projects are insane.

[MillionsKNives]

I did read the calculations and even though they ignore some factors, I still think the bigger the project is the better. I get that some people wanna grind everything as fast as possible and I do realize that this will be very, very difficult and time consuming.

 

Yet, I think as a long term project the guildships will be awesome and even the most casual player can contribute by running the content every now and then. And not just for the next few weeks, but, well, for a bit longer than that. This is the only thing that qualifies the stronghold update as an expansion, in my opinion. It will be a permanent addition to the game and not just a seasonal event.

 

I really don't think you did, because this isn't on the scale of weeks or months. It's years and decades. No one is going to put in years of dedicated effort to get the materials required. These aren't just things you pick up while going about your business, it takes an organized effort to run the operations. Even doing pug operations casually, occasionally winning a material, it will take effectively forever.

 

At a rate of doing 60 operations a week (plus a ton of flashpoints), it will take 2 years of constant grinding just to get enough of the purple materials to max out a single ship.

Edited August 14, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[jedip_enguin]

Which is your favorite of the season two rewards?

 

Oh snap! Shots fired.

[LanceCorporalDan]

I really don't think you did, because this isn't on the scale of weeks or months. It's years and decades. No one is going to put in years of dedicated effort to get the materials required. These aren't just things you pick up while going about your business, it takes an organized effort to run the operations. Even doing pug operations casually, occasionally winning a material, it will take effectively forever.

 

At a rate of doing 60 operations a week (plus a ton of flashpoints), it will take 2 years of constant grinding just to get enough of the purple materials to max out a single ship.

 

I think this is under the assumption that these expansions of the ships were meant to be acquired through one approach. It's clear bw meant for multiple avenues to be taken to all contribute and not just ops or mats alone. So with all of these options open, it would hardly take decades.

Edited August 14, 2014 by LanceCorporalDan

[Brewski]

I did read the calculations and even though they ignore some factors, I still think the bigger the project is the better. I get that some people wanna grind everything as fast as possible and I do realize that this will be very, very difficult and time consuming.

 

Yet, I think as a long term project the guildships will be awesome and even the most casual player can contribute by running the content every now and then. And not just for the next few weeks, but, well, for a bit longer than that. This is the only thing that qualifies the stronghold update as an expansion, in my opinion. It will be a permanent addition to the game and not just a seasonal event.

 

You are missing the primary point, which admittedly is not obvious in the OP. The problem is not the overall time it takes to update the ship. It's also not the fact that there are differences in time and effort between the two paths to upgrade your ship. The problem is that the difference in scale between the two paths makes one path useless.

 

The crafting/PvE option will quite simply never be used to upgrade your guild ship given the current schematic formulation. There's simply no point. The grind involved to add a room to your ship through conquest is insignificant when compared to the grind through level 50 ops and crafting. Players tend to follow the path of least resistance, so if one path takes a large guild 100 hours of play time over 3 months, and the other take 1000 hours of playtime over two years, which one do you think they will use?

 

What will happen if there are no changes is that people will exhaust the current stockpiles of mats, and then never craft them this way again. The few Dark Projects that are crafted will be used by people to buy their class ship for their stronghold, and the only viable path to upgrade your guild ship will be through conquest.

 

Now that would be fine if the intent is to only allow updates via conquest, but if that were the case, why provide a crafting route at all? Just drop it completely.

 

If they do intend crafting and PvE Ops to be a viable method, they should either dramatically lower the rare mat costs, or at the very least offer alternate schematics allowing you to use a variety of materials from a variety of ops. That way there is at least a variety of grinds you can combine to slowly work your way there. I mean, I still enjoy EV, but who really wants to run it 100 time in a row to the exclusion of all other content just to grind this out?

 

My current working theory is that Bioware is fully aware of the effects, and is using the existing schematic option to drain the economy of excess materials from these four categories before offering alternate schematics. That way they can get rid of the thousands of extra mats in player inventories before putting the cost at a more reasonable level.

 

But then maybe I'm just an optimist.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Brewski

[Sabatus]

So with all of these options open, it would hardly take decades.

 

Indeed, it will only take having no life.

[MillionsKNives]

I think this is under the assumption that these expansions of the ships were meant to be acquired through one approach. It's clear bw meant for multiple avenues to be taken to all contribute and not just ops or mats alone. So with all of these options open, it would hardly take decades.

 

They were meant to be acquired through more than one approach. And that approach is "anything other than crafting". Just about anything would get you a completed ship faster than crafting, including sitting around doing nothing.

Edited August 14, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[LanceCorporalDan]

Indeed, it will only take having no life.

Sure. If you go solo and take only one route.

 

They were meant to be acquired through more than one approach. And that approach is "anything other than crafting". Just about anything would get you a completed ship faster than crafting, including sitting around doing nothing.

 

I never said crafting was the quickest. It is in fact absurd.

 

They were meant to be completed by multiple approaches taken, all contributing together to the end goal. Not just one approach on its own. And with that mindset, I have no problem putting forth the effort.

Edited August 14, 2014 by LanceCorporalDan

[MillionsKNives]

-snip-

 

I can't really say I disagree with anything here. If it is true though that BioWare is explicitly doing this to remove excess crafting materials I think it would go a lot farther to their goal if they were to actually make crafting viable. If people think it's a viable method they'll be more likely to put in the time to gather their (and their guildmates') materials and craft out the parts they can. It seems obvious enough that with either method people would first reach for the materials they already have. But the way things are now I think that most won't even put in the time to use those up. At least I won't be. I'll be using the mats for things like class ships instead.

Edited August 14, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[MillionsKNives]

Sure. If you go solo and take only one route.

 

 

 

I never said crafting was the quickest. It is in fact absurd.

 

They were meant to be completed by multiple approaches taken, all contributing together to the end goal. Not just one approach on its own. And with that mindset, I have no problem putting forth the effort.

 

But the problem is that it doesn't contribute. Anything that crafting will currently contribute to the process is so minuscule that it's irrelevant.

[Brewski]

I can't really say I disagree with anything here. If it is true though that BioWare is explicitly doing this to remove excess crafting materials I think it would go a lot farther to their goal if they were to actually make crafting viable. If people think it's a viable method they'll be more likely to put in the time to gather their (and their guildmates') materials and craft out the parts they can. It seems obvious enough that with either method people would first reach for the materials they already have. But the way things are now I think that most won't even put in the time to use those up. At least I won't be. I'll be using the mats for things like class ships instead.

 

Personally, I plan to sell every DP I craft for exorbitant levels of cash, because the prices will likely be incredibly high, and there are always some people willing to pay outrageous sums for this kind of thing.

 

Then I will sit on my giant piles of credits and wait for Bioware to adjust the crafting recipes to something more reasonable.

 

On that note, I wonder if I can buy a "Giant pile of Credits" decoration for me default stronghold and then let my characters roll around in it. That would be fun.

[LanceCorporalDan]

You are missing the primary point, which admittedly is not obvious in the OP. The problem is not the overall time it takes to update the ship. It's also not the fact that there are differences in time and effort between the two paths to upgrade your ship. The problem is that the difference in scale between the two paths makes one path useless.

 

The crafting/PvE option will quite simply never be used to upgrade your guild ship given the current schematic formulation. There's simply no point. The grind involved to add a room to your ship through conquest is insignificant when compared to the grind through level 50 ops and crafting. Players tend to follow the path of least resistance, so if one path takes a large guild 100 hours of play time over 3 months, and the other take 1000 hours of playtime over two years, which one do you think they will use?

 

What will happen if there are no changes is that people will exhaust the current stockpiles of mats, and then never craft them this way again. The few Dark Projects that are crafted will be used by people to buy their class ship for their stronghold, and the only viable path to upgrade your guild ship will be through conquest.

 

Now that would be fine if the intent is to only allow updates via conquest, but if that were the case, why provide a crafting route at all? Just drop it completely.

 

If they do intend crafting and PvE Ops to be a viable method, they should either dramatically lower the rare mat costs, or at the very least offer alternate schematics allowing you to use a variety of materials from a variety of ops. That way there is at least a variety of grinds you can combine to slowly work your way there. I mean, I still enjoy EV, but who really wants to run it 100 time in a row to the exclusion of all other content just to grind this out?

 

My current working theory is that Bioware is fully aware of the effects, and is using the existing schematic option to drain the economy of excess materials from these four categories before offering alternate schematics. That way they can get rid of the thousands of extra mats in player inventories before putting the cost at a more reasonable level.

 

But then maybe I'm just an optimist.

 

I agree, they should lower mats cost.

[Rithoma]

I really don't think you did, because this isn't on the scale of weeks or months. It's years and decades. No one is going to put in years of dedicated effort to get the materials required. These aren't just things you pick up while going about your business, it takes an organized effort to run the operations. Even doing pug operations casually, occasionally winning a material, it will take effectively forever.

 

At a rate of doing 60 operations a week (plus a ton of flashpoints), it will take 2 years of constant grinding just to get enough of the purple materials to max out a single ship.

 

Thank you. Your numbers are actually validating my point.

 

What's the worst thing that can happen to any content in a game? It becomes outdated! Making a fully upgraded guildship something that will last 2 to 3 years means that this sort of content won't be outdated within that span of time, which is good. I really think even next year guild will take care of expanding their guildships.

 

Futhermore, I think I have read about some other new content being on the horizon (Manaan / flashpoint / daily area?). I'm pretty sure with any kind of new content in the following updates after the one next week, they are going to add more options to get your stuff for your guildships together.

 

@Brewski

I get your point. You are suggesting that the crafting route will become obsolete because it requires more effort than the conquest route. Is that correct?

 

Maybe see the crafting route as an additon or a bonus to the conquest route. Classic ops are run now every now and then by pugs for some comms from the weekly. Now maybe some more people will join or organize classic ops to also get some extra mats for their guildships. It might just be some additional motivation to run these ops. Of course, people will focus on the easier way, but since it can't all be done in one single approach anyway, any little extra mats will be a nice bonus for the guilds. And in the long term view, a guild might just get their next room a few weeks earlier because of the mats they collected during random classic ops runs.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Rithoma

[LanceCorporalDan]

But the problem is that it doesn't contribute. Anything that crafting will currently contribute to the process is so minuscule that it's irrelevant.

 

Yes. I have already said the mats required are too high. If they fix this then we should be fine. But until then my guild will likely do conquests since that seems the easier of the options. And then take the other playstyles we enjoy (PvP, Ops) and go to planets that will give benefits to doing those while conquering the planet. Hopefully this will make things a little smoother until BW can figure out how to properly add alternate routes of acquiring frameworks.

Edited August 14, 2014 by LanceCorporalDan

[Joesixxpack]

I'll be Capt. Obvious since some are still ignoring what is or not getting it.

 

BW wants all-in competition per their design, so of course the other means suck at start up. Deal with it.

[Sabatus]

Making a fully upgraded guildship something that will last 2 to 3 years means that this sort of content won't be outdated within that span of time, which is good.

 

This will in fact make this content outdated before it comes out. An average player doesn't spend 3 years here and he sure as hell does not want something where he needs to labor daily for 3 years to gain some cosmetic fluff that has an absurd cost/value ratio. So, dead before birth.

[Rithoma]

I agree it should be a long term thing, but my issue mostly comes from the fact that Dark Projects are used for more than just the guild unlocks. I think someone found that to have their own ship unlocked as a decoration will cost approximately 4.5 mil because the total prices on Dark Projects are insane.

 

I agree that this is bad news for all the people who planned to have everything in their strongholds unlocked by the end of next week. But obviously Bioware want to keep us busy with upgrading our strongholds and guidlships for a little longer than that. I'm certainly not one of the people who say that it is easy to make millions of credits in no time. But over the course of let's say 3 weeks 4.5 mil really isn't a horrendous amount.

 

Strongholds and guidlships are certainly not intended to be "maxed out" in a short span of time like some people do it with faction reputation, for example. They do everything to max out their reputation with a certain faction as quickly as humanly possible and then they usually don't touch that sort of content again and come to the forums and complain that there is nothing to do in the game. I guess Bioware just learned their lesson from this sort of complaints.

[Brewski]

@Brewski

I get your point. You are suggesting that the crafting route will become obsolete because it requires more effort than the conquest route. Is that correct?

 

Maybe see the crafting route as an additon or a bonus to the conquest route. Classic ops are run now every now and then by pugs for some comms from the weekly. Now maybe some more people will join or organize classic ops to also get some extra mats for their guildships. It might just be some additional motivation to run these ops. Of course, people will focus on the easier way, but since it can't all be done in one single approach anyway, any little extra mats will be a nice bonus for the guilds. And in the long term view, a guild might just get their next room a few weeks earlier because of the mats they collected during random classic ops runs.

 

Close. I am suggesting it's so ridiculously overpriced that it will never be used for that at all. Without adjustment, the few Dark Projects crafted after the initial rush will be sold on the GTN to those people willing to pay 2 million a pop so they can add the class ship decoration to their stronghold. No one will use them for guild ships, because the 1% additional boost it gives you to the speed of unlocking a room will not be worth the effort.

 

I'll be Capt. Obvious since some are still ignoring what is or not getting it.

 

BW wants all-in competition per their design, so of course the other means suck at start up. Deal with it.

 

Then why offer a crafting option at all? If their intent is to force the conquest route it would be far more efficient to simply make it the only option.

 

No, their has to be a secondary objective, and either we are missing key data or they are missing the mark on the intended effect. It's possible Bioware knows something we don't about material availability, or that they have another purpose (such as removing stockpiles), but with no comment from them seeming likely we have to operate on what we know.

 

And what I know is that selling DP's as soon as I craft them will be far better for my guild than using them to unlock ship rooms, since we can just do conquests to acquire those, and the income from selling way over priced DP's can go to replenishing the guild bank after we buy the initial ship. (Or to getting a ship for our Empire sister guild.)

[azudelphi]

I agree that this is bad news for all the people who planned to have everything in their strongholds unlocked by the end of next week. But obviously Bioware want to keep us busy with upgrading our strongholds and guidlships for a little longer than that. I'm certainly not one of the people who say that it is easy to make millions of credits in no time. But over the course of let's say 3 weeks 4.5 mil really isn't a horrendous amount.

 

Strongholds and guidlships are certainly not intended to be "maxed out" in a short span of time like some people do it with faction reputation, for example. They do everything to max out their reputation with a certain faction as quickly as humanly possible and then they usually don't touch that sort of content again and come to the forums and complain that there is nothing to do in the game. I guess Bioware just learned their lesson from this sort of complaints.

 

Several years though? That's overkill.

 

Edit: You're looking at the total amount of time the game has been out to unlock via crafting. Again, I'm not against it taking months to a year total... but the current price point is tuned too far to the extreme.

Edited August 14, 2014 by azudelphi

[Rithoma]

This will in fact make this content outdated before it comes out. An average player doesn't spend 3 years here and he sure as hell does not want something where he needs to labor daily for 3 years to gain some cosmetic fluff that has an absurd cost/value ratio. So, dead before birth.

 

Players come and go. Even people who hit level cap with their first toon next year will not just join a guild that has a fully upgraded guildship already and only hear about what it was like to get this awesome guildship. They will still be able to join the fun of helping their guild with that.

 

Yes, people will get exhausted from a daily grind at some point. But still guilds won't lose interest in expanding their ships. They are just not meant to be completed in a daily grind. But every time you don't get a group for hard ops together or your wz queue isn't popping, you can get a few guildies to continue doing something for your guildship.

[Sabatus]

Yes, people will get exhausted from a daily grind at some point. But still guilds won't lose interest in expanding their ships. They are just not meant to be completed in a daily grind. But every time you don't get a group for hard ops together or your wz queue isn't popping, you can get a few guildies to continue doing something for your guildship.

 

They are in fact meant to be completed in a daily grind, since that is the only way you can get them. Either you grind conquest points, grind commanders or grind old ops and flashpoints daily or it will take decades. There is nothing but grind in the system and even less value.

 

And I seriously doubt people will think that stories of "how we used to grind 10 hours a day for 7 hours a day for years to unlock this corridor" are cool. They will in fact laugh and tell stories of how they did something worthwhile and fun during that time.

[Rithoma]

Then why offer a crafting option at all? If their intent is to force the conquest route it would be far more efficient to simply make it the only option.

 

Because if there was only one option, then people would be complaining that there is only one option.

 

As I said, see it as a bonus, maybe just to make lvl 50 content a tiny little bit more interesting and rewarding. The conquest route is being released togehter with guildships and therefore directly linked to them. Of course, it's gonna be the main route.