Hi there,

I'm sure I like doffing as much as the next trekker out there. but i've just been on the tribble test server and checked out the "doffgrinder" that uses 5 doffs of a lower quality and upgrades them into a new doff of a higher quality (just iterating in case anyone doesn't know what i'm rambling about).

Well they now have new dilithium prices to upgrade, and not the good kind.

common to uncommon: 600(specific race doff contact) and 500(personnel officer)
Uncommon to rare: 3000(specific) and 2500 (personnel officer)
Rare to V rare: 6000(specific race) and 5000(at personnel officer)

Also General recruitment packs now cost 1000 dilithium as well.

These changes are live on the Tribble Server. I just wanted to get the word out and wanted to know what your thoughts were to those that have not checked out the tribble server in game or in the forum notes

Regards,
PortgazD

Does grinding down (put in a green, get three white) cost dil, or still free?

Grinding down is still free. Grinding up costs more, based on the rarity.

yeah the compactor is expensive now. But that's only really an issue if you use it a lot.

Some perhaps don't use it a lot, but it's a disgrace after splitting doubles and triples of purple doffs from missions like instigate defection (Vukarno comes endlessly from there, right?) and then exchanging 5 of them for random purple doff... Very bad move from Cryptic. Very bad.

How is it bad? I get that you liked it the way is was before, but.....

and don't bother with the argument about how it will make players unhappy. Any time anything in an MMO becomes more expensive, the players become unhappy.

It's very bad. I've posted a few times about the issue, but I'll say it again.

Because of free mailing system or critical miss on the non taxable exchange, currently players can grind doffs via alts on one acc or alts spread on several accs and gather them all on some toon they pet as "the main one". That had to be stopped, okay. Cryptic had to do something, ok. Not just because they're losing money with it (multiaccs get things for free too fast, no need to widen the roster since you can keep purple chefs/bartenders/etc on non-main toons, etc).

But by adding a dil price on basic recruiting processes, instead on doff selling/giveaway, in the end the only ones who'll get hurt are new players. Old players have (not all, but many) such roster that can, again totally free, be mailed to any new account they make and they still don't have to pay a single dil. New players don't have that luxury.

Another thing to add here is the doff box obtainable in the Zen store. The problem with that one (okay, a few of those in different packs) is that you don't know what you get in the box exactly, and you definetly know there is a high chance that for 200 or more Zen you won't get at least one purple doff. By hitting new players with dil costs, Cryptic hopes new players will spend real money on doff packs. But it just won't work that way. Assuming a new player buys a box, opens it and gets the stupid blue refugee inside (which is possible), tell me, will that same player buy the box again and practically spend his real money on something useless (yes it can be swapped with a rare asylum mission, but cmon, again there is no guarantee the result will be better than a blue civilian doff)? No.

The dil cost on basic recruiting assignments is a bad move, probably pressed by some noname manager who doesn't play the game at all and can't understand all aspects of doffing. Although it's used as a countermeasure to doffing abuse, in this form it's a simple design fail.

The new dil prices would be OK if the outcome wasn't random. Submitting five rares and paying the personnel officer 5000 dil to give you a specific type of officer(e.g. deflector, security) would be fairer to the player, the new officer would still have random race & traits, but at least you would feel like you are getting an equitable deal. They could even have a headhunt mission with more expensive/selective inputs that would allow you to choose profession and race (mainly for minor species officers).

Combining this with the other existing random mechanics for doff aquisition (cultural exchanges, asylum) would give players more choice.

It takes 125 whites to make one purple,

25 X 500 for converting white to green = 12,500 for 25 greens

5x 2500 to convert greens to blues = 12,500 for 5 blues

5000 to convert the blues to one random purple, making the total cost of the process 30,000 dilithium for a single random outcome.

I don't see how that isn't ridiculously excessive by any standard.

Harry that's something everyone would love to see. I hope devs will see your idea and implement it in the game before the next season as it's awsome.

joxertm your entire post was full of BS to the point I stopped reading halfway through.

In no way shape or form was Cryptic "losing money" and dilithium is not money. Get over yourself. This doesn't stop sharing. This stops even SOLO grinding. This stops doffs, period. From the new players ranking up, to the 1000 day vets. This stops it, and along with it it stops fleet progress.

It's a bad move in every conceivable way. They are adding it as an intentional punishment, a bottleneck, because they want to make game an ungodly GRIND. This will be a game breaking "feature" if implemented as such.