Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!)

[Scout101]

We can go as much, or as little, into it as you like, but in general, the storyline for this game hasn't moved much since the initial launch. Couple of the FEs started to move things a little, but they backed off of those (from a 'weekly', to 3-4 a year, to taking more than a year off, to getting one and then telling us it'll be another year for the next one).

Focus has been systems over substance, and not always actually finishing that system before moving on.

Feeling more and more negative about this game, which is disappointing considering how excited I was to start it. They tell us they doubled the team, but things aren't coming out any faster, and they still use the small/limited staff excuse, so it doesn't appear to have helped. Instead, we're offered more lock boxes and exciting opportunities to buy $25 ship skins. Maybe one of the guys doing the artwork there could spend 5 minutes and fix the 700-day vet reward before someone earns the 1000-day?

Just feel like instead of moving things forward and innovating in the game a bit, we're being offered shiny distractions to keep us from noticing that they AREN'T moving forward. That's where the deck chair comment comes from.

They focus on systems, but for all the effort that takes, it doesn't distract for long, and they don't appear to take much in the way of feedback or Tribble testing into account anyway. Used to be a more excited team, they'd tell us what's going on, what they're working on, etc. They've now deleted the calendar, don't tell us much of anything (to keep the disappointment down when they drop things), and when they're not ignoring the feedback, they're telling us we're wrong (STF drops)

When they are employing a writer to develop stories, where are the stories? When there was a 1+ year drought, why wasn't there a backlog of that person's work they could feed us after? If they doubled the team, why not more people working on mission content?

Thing's just gone from a fun game to an Asian grindfest. Thus far, though, they've stayed pretty repetitive with what we can do to grind, and whent you get the end-game toys, there's nothing to do with them anyway.

Glad PWE's making money at the moment, but unsure of how long they can keep it up. They've wrung most of the fun out of the game, and whole focus is on the micro-transactions from the F2P players now. they got a big boost by going from P2P to F2P, but they've now worked on burning those folks out by sticking with systems and grinding (the one FE is pretty much the only story mission that's come out since they joined in January). What's the NEXT big push to spark people up again? Can't keep beating us with the lock boxes forever...

Looking forward to the next two seasons, as they appear to be promising a return to actually giving us missions to do. We'll see how much of that comes to fruition. Would be nice if they started to change things up more, rather than just tweaks. Move the calendar forward a year. End some of the little conflicts (Fed vs. klingon war should be turned off by the time you reach level 50 in favor of the Brog/Udine issues). Focus on the new threats, have the universe changed to reflect the reality from the FEs rather than everything being a one-off with a reset button. During the DS9 FE was a good example. They abandoned DS9 and set up a temp base on Bajor. Didn't force the player out of the zone until the next mission, though. Why set up the bajor base and then not have you use it? Can't have been too hard to have an on/off switch based on stories completed...

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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Can't have been too hard to have an on/off switch based on stories completed...

Quite hard, actually. It took Blizzard with all their resources five years to implement a system for that, and they never even tried to retrofit past content to it.

Your other points are well taken.

[Scout101]

Admit I'm not a programmer, and certainly wouldn't expect them to retrofit it to a ton of things, but as part of the FE design? maybe i'm over-simplifying it, but was thinking more like how the transwarp gate to Borg space works; doesn't work until you reach level (whatever. 40 maybe?). Was thinking along the lines of a trigger that locks DS9 once you finish abandoning DS9, and then doesn't turn it back on until you retake the station. Probably a million other things linked into DS9 that make it harder, i guess, but it was just a little thing anyway, wasn't intended to be the big part of the discussion.

Does bring up another question, though: updating the STO year/date. How much retrofitting has to happen now to move the date forward, stop the Klingon war, etc? Maybe there's a way to skip around it, so you still experience all that when you start out, but for people at end-game levels, it is just no longer a factor? Lots of stuff tied to that, and makes sense as a static game, but they can't stay like that and move the story along. eventually , we NEED to move forward, or just wring the rest of the money out of the game and call it a day...

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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Admit I'm not a programmer, and certainly wouldn't expect them to retrofit it to a ton of things, but as part of the FE design? maybe i'm over-simplifying it, but was thinking more like how the transwarp gate to Borg space works; doesn't work until you reach level (whatever. 40 maybe?). Was thinking along the lines of a trigger that locks DS9 once you finish abandoning DS9, and then doesn't turn it back on until you retake the station.

Yeah, that'd be easier. It would break all kinds of other missions that involve DS9 that people might want to do in between, so it'd be a decision not entered into lightly, but it'd be a lot easier technically than phasing.

Does bring up another question, though: updating the STO year/date. How much retrofitting has to happen now to move the date forward, stop the Klingon war, etc? Maybe there's a way to skip around it, so you still experience all that when you start out, but for people at end-game levels, it is just no longer a factor? Lots of stuff tied to that, and makes sense as a static game, but they can't stay like that and move the story along. eventually , we NEED to move forward, or just wring the rest of the money out of the game and call it a day...

Basically it'd be the same effort as writing all of that content in the first place. So, a couple of years for the full team, working 7 day weeks at long hours, including the people who've moved on to other projects within the company.

That's why Blizzard charges $60 for that kind of change, and only does it every couple of years. Cryptic doesn't have anything resembling their level of resources. Plus even Blizzard has only retrofitted changes to an entire old world once; it requires redoing EVERYTHING, and many players will never even experience most of the work, having already done the early content.

The view is that when a new player starts the game, he is in 2409. As he progresses, things change. The war cools, although it's not over.

In higher content, the story can progress. Season 7 is mostly a new zone full of new content, so that's where they'd most easily do 2410 or 2411 content; but if you want to go back and do the old stuff, you'd doing 2409 content. It's just too small a team, even at 40, to spend time redoing already-done work instead of new work, except a mission at a time for a special event.

I would like to see more progression in the storyline, but not removal of the old; they should move forward with VA missions that advance the storyline of a cease fire and eventually cooperation, with new content being cross-faction not just in the sense of "both sides can do this", but in the sense of "both sides can team with each other for this", with mission briefs being offered by two NPCs working together, one from each faction.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Those arguments are pretty much why I changed my whole gameplan to: don't wait for content, make your own.

Cryptic may officially disagree, but they turned STO into a sandbox game and I treat it as such. Hence me founding a Roleplaying fleet, where every event is an RP based event.

Haven't had such a blast in a long time with the game.

Now I don't even mind the grind in between, because suddenly there is a purpose to it.

I don't mindlessly grind anymore for some mythical piece of loot that won't enhance anything of value really.

The starbase system by itself is completely redundant and just a resource drain.
It gives people something to do as a group, but to what end?

Now the Phoenix Alliance works on the base too, but every project completed is one tiny bit more of immersiveness that helps our goal to have good RP in it.

I can only advise everyone to try it sometime...

Paying something for a shiney new ship is the same. technically you don't get anything of physical value, but the immersiveness can be infinitely better if you fly a ship that actually fits your character and story and is therefor worth it.

My new RP toon flies an Excelsior with a tactical edge, something a min/maxer would never do, they'd fly an escort.
For my character it fits, but somewhere along the line I would like to get my character an RP promotion with a shiney new ship of the line, and a Soevreign Refit would fit the bill. By the time the story is ready I will have enough Stipend points to pay for it, or invest a little dilithium to get there a bit sooner.

[syberghost]

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

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The starbase system by itself is completely redundant and just a resource drain.
It gives people something to do as a group, but to what end?

Well for one thing, it opens up the best gear available currently in the game, and more so when people get their shipyards to Tier 5.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Maybe so, but as the gear we had so far is completely satisfactory the new stuff is really only needed for the most hardcore PvPers.

I was facerolling Elite STFs in standard gear and was beating up non PvPers with highest gear with 8 level difference and crap Mk V consoles...

That doesn't mean, I am an Überplayer, just above average enough to cope with anyhing in game that is not a min/maxing player without problems.

So why do I need the best gear again I have to grind months and months for?
Well ships, anyway, the gear is not that difficult to get. But necessary it is not.

[Scout101]

Part of the problem with starbases is in thinking they're some great new thing to do. They really aren't. They're a good resource sink to get some of the currency and items out of the economy, however. If we had them when we were starting, it would be a normal part of it, and you could have dumped stuff as you collected it.

It was introduced late in the game, and plays funny when everyone's at end-level. I've dismissed hundreds of white DOFFs, and suddenly they're valuable and we need them. So they become expensive to buy, and you gotta get rid of green/blue/purple DOFFs to find the space to collect them. Works backwards, although they've tried to help by letting you break down better DOFFs to get whites. Either way, would have been easy to start with, harder to retrofit.

The gear/ships? no real desire for them on my part. My current RA escort works just fine (bought the VA defiant, but don't much care for it. not at great a loadout, lesser hull), and i've got STF gear that works fine. Full Mk XI sets, and at least a ship set of XII (STILL working on ground, only have a single piece after all this time).

Same problem as when complaining about grinding the STFs for the gear, anyway. Grind your ass off to get the gear, then what? Really nothing to do with it, and only place that's it's a benefit is in the mission you just grinded 1000 times to GET the gear. If you beat it 1000 times without it, you didn't need it. Plus you're sick to death of playing the mission anyway.

Grind for gear, sell us ships and gear. Fine. Gotta come up with fun ways to USE the gear, or there's no point. What good is the STF MK XII gear, outside of actually playing the STFs? Borg-modified, and no more Borg after that. so...?

[intrinsical]

If you look at most of the games released these days, such as Mass Effect, Call of Duty or Crysis, they all share one common feature. They're designed to provide no more than a week's worth of gaming content. To extend your gaming pleasure beyond a week, the game developers has to make you play essentially the same content over and over again (Eg, Diablo III, Civilization, Sim City).

The truth of the matter is it takes many man-years worth of development time to come up with a game system that players will quickly blow through in a week. Perhaps this is why I have not seen an MMO that isn't a grind-fest, especially at end-game. So to me, this isn't really a problem with Cryptic or STO but rather a problem inherent in practically every game.

[Scout101]

Maybe it's a matter of needing the grinding to be more varied/fun, then, and throw in enough side stuff that you don't always realize how much grinding is going on? And throw in just enough new story content to mix it up, so that you never go too long JUST grinding...

[J. Allen]

For me, it's that the end game content is just more pewpewpew. My chosen title is "Ambassador". I wish that actually meant something in this game. You know, say something like, "Ambassador Akarian, a diplomatic issue of grave importance has reared itself in the such and such system..." and then have me resolve the issue without having to resort to phaser blasts at 500 meters. Have it be something that takes multiple missions to complete. I'm tired of always having to shoot at things. I want the universe to feel like the Star Trek universe.

[intrinsical]

Yeah one thing that I liked about City of Heroes and Champs Online is that once in a while, it includes a non-combat mission in its main storyarc. The one time players are given a diplomatic mission in the main storyline and what happens? 2,800 Jem'Hadar crashes the party and suddenly its all combat again.

Yes there are diplomacy missions in STO, but players have either to stumble upon them by accident (or by curiosity), or they are inaccessible until the player gains a certain rank in diplomacy.

[The Castellan]

Folks, I just made an account for the game less than a weel ago, and I could use any pointers you veteren plays could give me.

My character, right now is a science officer....and I am wondering what are the best overall 4 traits, when making your character, to have? Also, how good is the TOS Enterprise in the game, I am tempted to buy it when I can. Same goes for the Oberth. Also, can the TOS Enterprise be customized and renamed as well?

[Timelord_Victorious]

The Castellan wrote:

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Folks, I just made an account for the game less than a weel ago, and I could use any pointers you veteren plays could give me.

My character, right now is a science officer....and I am wondering what are the best overall 4 traits, when making your character, to have? Also, how good is the TOS Enterprise in the game, I am tempted to buy it when I can. Same goes for the Oberth. Also, can the TOS Enterprise be customized and renamed as well?

Traits, depend on what you want to do. Concentrate on space traits. Elusive is always good, Techie is always useful, Not sure what else is available, depends on your race as well.

TOS Enterprise is ok, better then Oberth at that level, since all starter ships have the same layout.
On the other hand, enemies are so weak you will hardly notice any difference.
Don't buy both ships as it's only good for ten levels which will be done in a single afternoon.
Then you get your next tier ship already.

General advice. Don't buy any of the mid level ships from the store, as the normal free ones are more than enough to level up.
At Level 50 you can take a look at what's available.

try to level up slow (good luck with that) to learn the game play mechanics as best as you can.
You will need the knowledge at endgame.

[intrinsical]

The Castellan wrote:

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Folks, I just made an account for the game less than a weel ago, and I could use any pointers you veteren plays could give me.

My character, right now is a science officer....and I am wondering what are the best overall 4 traits, when making your character, to have? Also, how good is the TOS Enterprise in the game, I am tempted to buy it when I can. Same goes for the Oberth. Also, can the TOS Enterprise be customized and renamed as well?

From a gameplay perspective, traits don't really matter a great deal in this game as they only provide a tiny bonus. Skills are much more important in determining what your character and ship can do. This applies to your character's skills as well as your bridge officer's skills.

As for buying ships, it really depends on your goal. The game gives you a free ship at levels 10, 20, 30 and 40. The equivalent store ships are only marginally better than these free ships. So in my opinion, there's not much gameplay value in buying store ships until you're level 50.