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

[Timelord_Victorious]

Sovereign +1 is confirmed as coming (without ETA, but sounds pretty definitive and not far off).
Also: http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...6&postcount=12

[Scout101]

Agree that a change to how you queue up would be beneficial, but still think this is all avoiding the real problem.

The problem ISN'T that these things are too easy. Anyone without enough experience still gets slaughtered and frustrated. Problem is that thousands of people have played these missions hundreds of times each. We've mastered them, for the most part. It's not a problem of Pure DPS being the exploit, it's that people have run these so many times (and because of drop rate, have to KEEP grinding them), so they've figured out the easiest way to get through one as fast as possible.

the game didn't get easier, it's just it's mostly populated with experts. They used to be hard, but after you've run KASE 100 times, is there really anything left to challenge you? CSE and CGE were almost impossible for most people when they kicked the new STFs off. think back now, when was the last time you even FAILED one of those (excepting when you decided to go with a PUG team, or just got a 'tard in your group that wouldn't listen. Or a AFKer, I guess)? I stopped doing the Cure missions for a while because they were too hard, but between weapon loadout and having the strategy perfected, can't even remember the last time I failed it, now.

Tweaking the rules isn't going to change much. it'll be hard for a little while, but because we have to grind these out, someone will figure out the new optimal setup, or the exploit that was missed, and they'll be in the same boat.

It's time to admit that these have been completely used up, accept them for what they are, and make a NEW set to work on. Otherwise, this'll just eventually snowball to the point where it's all 1-shot enemies and you have 45 seconds to finish the mission before failure just so people can't beat it "easily" anymore.

they've already been cut down from "fun" to "grind", don't make them suck to the point where people just quit. I'm already close on one character. I've got the Borg Deflector/Engine and the MACO XII shield, so that's the optimum at the moment, no reason to keep trying to grind XII other than to complete the set. Which I keep trying for, but even when I get the other pieces, not sure that I'm gonna use them. Until after they tweak the set bonuses for the 10th time and make them more useful again...

[Timelord_Victorious]

I am trying to complete the ground sets for the costume options mostly.

And the accolades..
Its just the grind the missions x number of times accolade and the drop accolades which are left. All the skill accolades i got..

[intrinsical]

In defense of Cryptic, I'ld say that players often misjudge the amount of work required to bring a mission to the live servers. Something like the Friday the 13th "Hearts and Minds" episode probably took at least a man-month's work. Adding a new STF is going to take at least half a man-year's worth of work.

I know so because I have tried to create my own web-based space game in the past. Its no longer being developed, but you can still login to the test game via a google account at http://extrasolar-dev.appspot.com/ . As a reference, it took me 3 years to get the game to the stage it was when I abandoned it. The time is inclusive of writing the game design docs, creation of art assets, programming, developing processes and a whole lot more. For instance, it took me over half a year to develop a process to create planets that looks satisfactory. It took another 3 months to churn out a set of 30 planets, consisting of each image in various sizes (to simulate distance) and at various rotation angles.

These things takes time, as dstahl have eluded in a recent post:

In defense of the kind soul who spent their own personal time making this mission quite some time ago but was asked if they would hold of publishing it so we use it for a fun little Friday the 13th event - that person doesn't deserve the crap laid on them by this thread.

Since F2P launched we have seen one of the most intense 5 week Feature Episode series, a new fully produced KDF episode, a remade KDF Fleet Action, an updated FED/KDF Fleet Action, a Star Trek themed Holiday accompanied by a sale, entirely new worldwide missions on Defera, a fun little friday the 13th episode, and next week you are getting a level 51 shuttle 5 man mission.

On top of that Season 6 is under heavy development which will bring a new Defera like ground invasion, several new 5 man events, new 20 man Fleet events that take place at your starbase, along with starbase construction missions, the start of the PVP overhaul, new Foundry content and anything else like tonight's episode that someone on the team wants to spend their own after hours time making.

So while I can understand the frustration of the last year, since we launched F2P, it has been a lot more content and a lot more on the way.

I can appreciate skepticism, but the hate dumped on an employee who made something fun for everyone to do on Friday the 13th is a bit much.

p.s. lock boxes and rewards in them don't take "mission" resources - they take systems and costume resources (some of which can even be outsourced). Software and Content teams are doing nothing but making new game features and mission content every day = i.e. Season 6

They just released F2P three months ago and changed executive producers. I'm sure they are very aware that long time subscribers are sick of the current set of STFs and new f2p players are starting to be too familiar with STFs. Cryptic want to release new STFs too and I remember reading someone in Cryptic saying that they're trying to push out "Into The Hive" STF as soon as they can.

Give them time.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Problem is, they underestimate the work that needs to be done, as well. They announced Into the Hive (and Children of Khan for that matter) way back when the other 4 STFs were released originally.
At that point they have set up certain expectations and couldn't or wouldn't deliver.
The reason is clear, a whole lot of other stuff has come up and is keeping doing so.
They really should learn not to announce things until they are done.
They did the same thing with the last FE. Stahl himself was boasting episode one is nearly finished and that he test played it almost a year ago. Next thing we know DeAngelo doesn't know anything about that and work in it had only just begun (end of last year) to the point where they barely were able to release it on the target date in a very buggy state.

So I bet not a singly line of code has been written yet for Into the Hive, but screw that it is still just around the corner ever since Season 3.
Season 6 is upon us, targeted for June, with supposedly a ton of new content.
I am willing to bet they won't make it in June and they won't put half the content into it's release... The 2800 was supposed to cone out with season 4...

I love the game, but please Cryptic, don't keep making promises you can't keep...

[JRS]

Problem is, they underestimate the work that needs to be done, as well. They announced Into the Hive (and Children of Khan for that matter) way back when the other 4 STFs were released originally.
....
They really should learn not to announce things until they are done.

Children of Khan...that sounds interesting
I take it that was supposed to be something related to the augments? I agree with you that they should not announce anything until they are sure they can manage it.

Season 6 is upon us, targeted for June, with supposedly a ton of new content.
I am willing to bet they won't make it in June and they won't put half the content into it's release... The 2800 was supposed to cone out with season 4...
I love the game, but please Cryptic, don't keep making promises you can't keep...

Who knows, maybe they but the 2800 back to the game, as part of the season 6 package.
I hope we will get those starbases for the fleets that they have been talking about. And I think there is meant to be some missions for the fleets to build/equip them(or something like that).
I would personally like to have some sort of "capture starbase" groud PvP/PvE map, Klingons vs. Federation naturally. Maybe as an extension to the Starbase 24.
Some other non-Borg STFs would be nice, too.
They could also use the foundry to create new missions or have a competition, where the winner would get his/hers mission officially published to the game.

Then there is naturally the eternal problem of the lack of (new) and original content to the KDF faction. I hope there will be some improvements to that with season 6.
We could use more missions, costume + ship options/packs...and maybe some STFs totally unique to the KDF side. That is a lot to ask, I know.
Plus Daniel Stahl has mentioned once that only around 20 percent of the players of STO are actively playing the KDF faction. If this is true, I doubt they are very eager to create any massive updates to the KDF.
I do hope that I am wrong, because I think playing Klingon(s) is a lot of fun..and cool

[Hartzilla2007]

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

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Sovereign +1 is confirmed as coming (without ETA, but sounds pretty definitive and not far off).
Also: http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...6&postcount=12

I hope it comes with an Odyssey inspired variant skin.

[Harvey]

JRS wrote:

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Plus Daniel Stahl has mentioned once that only around 20 percent of the players of STO are actively playing the KDF faction. If this is true, I doubt they are very eager to create any massive updates to the KDF.
I do hope that I am wrong, because I think playing Klingon(s) is a lot of fun..and cool

Although I only play the Klingon faction (I've invested too much into my character to create a new one), the 20% number wouldn't surprise me. There's not a lot of content, so why would people actively play their KDF characters? Not creating new content based upon those numbers is purely circular reasoning. I hope it's not true.

(Then again, my transwarp capabilities STILL don't work for the KDF player beyond level 2, even though I should have them at level 4, so I don't expect a lot from the devs at this point.)

[Trek]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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I hope it comes with an Odyssey inspired variant skin.

I can't wait for this.

[J. Allen]

A +1 Sovereign. I have to admit that sounds enticing. The Sovereign's a lovely ship, and a bit of a badass, too. It would be nice to finally change over to something as powerful as the current Excelsior. Don't get me wrong, the Odyssey is nice, but it moves like a skyscraper (because it pretty much is one), and is just lacking to me. I love my Excelsior, but after playing it for well over a year (aside from switching to another ship for a day or two), it gets really monotonous after a while.

[Rocketeer]

Ditto, I'd love to have an excuse to use the Sovereign.

[Timelord_Victorious]

The best part is, Jamjamz knows that the current Sovereign is not accurate to what was on screen. I am confident that we'll get those errors corrected.

[JRS]

Gates of Stovokor made an interview with Dan Stahl not so long ago, naturally talking about the KFD:
http://www.gatesofstovokor.com/?p=453#more-453.

I found this part interesting:

Gates: The war has been going on for some time, and many feel that it has stagnated. Then, with the recent Borg and Featured episodes, we are seeing more and more collaboration between the two factions. Does this mean the war is drawing to a conclusion? Will it be an uneasy peace?
Dan: Season 6 will see the war become more of a focus again as Feds and KDF Fleets start to establishes Starbases along the war zone.

Anyway, there is now the new Shuttle event in the game.
Has anyone tried that one out yet..and is it any good?

[Rocketeer]

The shuttle stf sounds interesting. Somebody mentioned that they plan to use the Captain's yacht, but I would probably use the Delta Flyer.

.

[Emher]

Okay, am I totally blind, or has the "fleet" tab in the menus just...vanished? I can't find it anywhere.