[SC] How upgrading became MORE expensive

Discussion in 'General Archive' started by Bakjam, Nov 12, 2019.

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  1. Bakjam

    Bakjam User

    At the release of the new upgrade system, it was hinted that it would be a direct upgrade from the previous system as the obvious penalty of having to collect resources AND paying more uridium (for GG) than you had to in advance were completely ignored:

    "The good news is that there aren’t any upgrade fails anymore. Instead, upgrading items will take longer than they did previously."

    While I am a huge fan of no longer having to wait until upgrade hour and even then being able to upgrade only a few items, I am not a fan of the exponentially increasing upgrade cost which in the end make upgrading much more expensive and time consuming than before.

    But before making any more statements, let's look at the facts. Let's compare the cost of upgrading an item to level 16 before and after the release of the new upgrade system.


    Old upgrade system for 1 level 16 item (at 100% efficiency): 104,250 uridium (without rebate) --> 78,187 uridium (25% rebate) --> 52,125 uridium (rebate + upgrade hour)

    http://www.bigpoint.com/darkorbit/board/threads/upgrading-cost-charts.12614/

    New upgrade system for 1 level 16 item: 52,001 uridium (without rebate)

    Looking at these stats only it seems the new upgrade system is the clear winner. However unlike the old upgrade system, additional resources are required in the form of ABR and indoctrine oil.


    Extra cost new upgrade system for 1 level 16 item: 299 ABR + 42 indoctrine oil

    Now some of you may argue that you get some ABR for free which is true and a nice addition. But don't forget that the additional cost as stated above counts for every laser you have to upgrade.

    So if you have 36 lasers and 20 b03 you will need:
    56 x 299 ABR + 56 x 42 indoctrine oil = 16,744 ABR + 2352 indoctrine oil

    As you can imagine it takes a ton of time, gates and rebate packages to obtain these resources at a fair price.


    Now to all the sharp fellows out there: I'm not saying it is a rip-off to introduce something new and charge money / time / uridium for it. I mean that is basically the reason why this game still runs and it is just the way it is.
    However I am saying that it is a rip-off to improve something that apparently wasn't good enough and to charge a huge fee for doing so.

    In my opinion there was nothing wrong with the old upgrade system as you could always bypass the chance aspect by upgrading at 100% efficiency without paying a ridiculous amount of uridium or resources.
     
  2. Nobody seems to understand the point in the extra resources.

    A new resource that isn't extremely hard to obtain (daily log-in gives 720 this month alone) and I-oil can be obtained in Q-zone, giving it purpose again. Also the helix packages are updating soon to give more oil.

    The additional resources were so nobody can immediately have all the newest equipment (full Bo3) or fully upgrade everything immediately (full lvl 16 prom, full lvl 16 bo3).

    People complain too much for a game that doesn't charge us $30-$40 just for access to new content -cough cough- Destiny -cough cough-
     
  3. Bakjam

    Bakjam User

    I would much rather pay $30-40 for an update that is worthwhile (which I agree, is in the eye of the beholder) than for this one. The thing is that we once again get very slight upgrades (the ability to upgrade some lasers and b03 shields) rather than sidegrades, which is then used to justify an increase in upgrade price for all items! The slightly higher bonus per upgrade level is (in my opinion) not enough to justify this.

    So rather than only increasing the cost for b03 and the new lasers, all items are now made more expensive to upgrade, even the ones which could be upgraded much cheaper before.
     
  4. Bakjam you missed the real gravy on it. The drones cost that to upgrade also. Can you see noobs in the QZ gate? Seriously? So basically they are screwed. All the battlewagons botting in the lowers did move to the x-7 maps though. And if you think they needed time to upgrade the items you have not played the game long.

    They already had LOTS of alloy to do gates and lots of indoctrine oil. I have to plod through getting the alloy but you should see how fast the gigs get locked and shot when Im trying to build resources.

    Very poorly thought out plan. The lasers should never have been allowed to level. And the drones should never have had a new item added to level them.
     
  5. Bakjam

    Bakjam User

    I guess yet another valid piont against the new upgrade system: increasing cost of drone upgrades.
     
    -oversoulpaul- likes this.
  6. yup, now you have to have the new resource ABR to do an upgrade that previously you did not need. Also,, if you want to skip that 60+ hour wait to get an fll prom laser upgrade, it's about 1500+ iso-chrat per minute... based on what I saw in the upgrade chart
     
    Maddust and -oversoulpaul- like this.
  7. Old upgrade system was terrible this one is a lot better.

    Qzones are key here, you can easily farm them and get a ton of gates, and finish them in 5-9 minutes and get decent rewards for them, on top of the new stuff and oil, you're making 5k uri every gate.

    Honestly this is a pretty good system they just put it and I can actually upgrade stuff without taking out a loan.
     
  8. Whats hilarious about the QZ is when you realize 4-5 in the gate are specials. I noticed 3 ships flying strange this weekend and when we came out of the gate they went right in and sat in the green. No talking no responses. Seen them farming in the x-7 when in there too. Oddly after 11pm they show up fighting like you would not believe dropping instas, mines and perfect x4/rsb combos in fights. Its almost like someone made a way for them to do it without using any keys or skill.
     
    -oversoulpaul- likes this.
  9. **Scarab**

    **Scarab** User

    the new upgrade system is still flawd, only 1/2 of my items show up, and the boters (cheats) were bragging they had over 500 Q gate cpu's.
    so once again the boters get all the rewards. ( makes you wonder who sells the bots ?) cough, cough DO.
     
    -oversoulpaul- likes this.
  10. Bakjam

    Bakjam User

    I strongly disagree considering the amount of ammo that it sucks up. Besides, 5K isn't that much, you can easily farm that by shooting some Kristallons. Moreover, in my opinion oil isn't the (biggest) problem: that is the increasing cost of ABR.
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2019
  11. jukime

    jukime User

    both sides have each own opinion.. i think all of this upgrade was made to balance to any player from newbie and the elite..
     
  12. Yes but at the end of the day, before this new upgrade system I wasn't able to upgrade a dang thing because I am now a 100% free player, and after this upgrade system was implemented I can easily upgrade my stuff to level 16 just by farming for Qzones, which are completely FREE to farm.

    Darkorbit really went in the right direction, however Darkorbit tends to take two steps back for everyone one step forward, looking at you battle pass....
     
  13. Bakjam

    Bakjam User

    Everything in DarkOrbit is free if you've got time on your side. Unfortunately time isn't always on our side, some things just take too long. But I guess the new system works for at least one player :p
     
  14. Spectrum

    Spectrum User

    I think new upgrade system should be "applied" only for top gear ( i mean that i-oil and also so much abr for upgrade) not for upgrading drones.. it only puts new players at disadvantage.. they have to do lots of thing in eraly game to get thorugh hard times.. but when they have to farm ABR also Oil in quarantine map it is another step from BP to make them stop play this game.. farming one thing can became too boring.. why prolong this proges by putting oil and abr on everything you wants to upgrade.. just think before you put something in game BP....
     
  15. Sorry, can't agree on that; I feel like it is now a loan and a very long time to do basic upgrading.
    The use of q-zone is a crock... full bo2 shields lvl-16; get popped in 3 shots from the super npc that sits in there.
     
  16. Whoever did it has no idea regarding game mechanics. Its like they have a meeting and only think about the players who have everything and/or use the shadow tools. A new player level 1-17 isnt going to have ABR or oil. To level the drones and rocket launcher is now closed.

    The last 2 levels of the drones are not possible on a regular player. They have to walk away as its now too high a cost and most high power players are not helping anyone low build anymore. The maps were empty before but now they are REALLY empty.
     
    Maddust likes this.
  17. Making Prometheus lasers upgrade able was the worst decision in this whole patch. It's already hard to farm a single one now uber UFE top rank players will always overpower anyone that doesn't have full upgraded prom lasers.
     
    Maddust likes this.
  18. Hi, longtime noob here. (2009)

    Having used the old upgrade system I can say it was way too expensive. I basically couldn't grind enough uri for it all, and even if I could there was still other things like my pet that I needed to unlock which took priority in uri expenses.

    When I came back from hiatus my drones were lv8, rocket launcher was lv5 and everything else was 1-3. Now I'm at lv 12 drones, 8 rocket launcher with ten lv5 prometheus and five lv5 bo3. I've gotten a lot more lf4s with the higher drop rate and despite some bad luck I had in zeta will probably still complete my havocs way faster than I would have before the drop rate increase on those. Once my drones are lv 13 I'll hold those there and get all my bo3/prometheus up to lv 10, then collect the needed I-oil to get the drones up to lv16 if I don't have it for free by that time. Once lasers and shields hit the I-oil requirement I'll ignore upgrading them and focus on getting more instead. If I'm really at the point where I'm maxed out on prometheus and BO3 and have everything else then the long slog to lv 16 is fine I think.

    Basically the power ceiling has gone up, yes, but the rate you're able to climb up has also increased. So effectively nothing has changed. Things might seem unfair, but it's really always been like this. Climbing the first 2/3 of the upgrade ladder cheaply and hitting a wall for that final edge is good balance and how it should've worked all along.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2019
  19. Maddust

    Maddust User

    I will upgrade my last 4 drones to lv 16 and thats it. I will not waste BK keys on prometheus laser and I will not waste abr+oil or log discs, schism crystal. and do you know why. because DO recycles items a lot. I bet new lasers or what ever will need log discs again.
     
  20. EvilHotDog

    EvilHotDog User

    Closing as thread is inactive.

    EHD
     
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