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

[Scout101]

Let's make it easy for you, then: Prior to their change, every character got a VA ship token at promotion, yes? THey've removed that. THen they took away the 250 emblems that you got for paying for this mediocre game for 500 days. Then they want to blow smoke up our ass and tell us that the new big reward is that they'll allow us to get the VA ship token again. Yay? Used to get that PLUS 250 emblems, now they've graciously decided to let us have the toekn back.

Great for characters that hadn't made VA yet, I guess (other than not getting the 250 emblems, which was a great reward). For characters that already are VA, you get neither the ship NOR the emblems, and they're still calling it a reward. What's the reward, exactly?

I'm confused about what they're saying, honestly. You keep parroting that most of the toons aren't above CMDR or so, but also that their main focus to this change is to slow down progression, as they want to cite some guy with a weekend and a case of redbull that could get all the way through. Is leveling a problem or not?

Only way, IMO, that you can show stats that say most are CMDR or below is if you count every inactive account, or count secondary toons that don't get used much by regular players. I.E. shady math you're only using to try and convince yourself of something you know doesn't really mean what you want it to.

Trying to wrap my head around how you can read this thread lately, or ANY thread in the STO forums, or any review/press about this game lately, and come away with positive feelings. This thing is being run into the ground, and they're switching between ignoring their customers and telling them that everything is great!

Hell, even the biggest appologists on the STO forums have either gone quiet or started questioning things. It's getting ugly, and Cryptic just isn't listening.

It's all geared towards the hypothetical new F2P player who will appear and start dumping money on the game. Problem is, STO doesn't really appeal to hardcore MMO gamers. Alot of grind, and getting worse. They're killing crafting. VERY repetitive gameplay. Almost no social aspect. Just BEING F2P isn't enough anymore, the whole market is going that way, you have to compete with the game itself, not just that it's free. And the game is a lot more for casual players, and they're killing that.

But please, keep telling us everything is fine, most players are happy with the changes, and new content will be here soon!

 

[syberghost]

Let's make it easy for you, then: Prior to their change, every character got a VA ship token at promotion, yes? THey've removed that.

No they haven't; none of your characters who received that have had their token removed.

 

[syberghost]

But please, keep telling us everything is fine, most players are happy with the changes, and new content will be here soon!

Nice straw man. Please quote me on those.

 

[Scout101]

Feel free to re-read your own posts, but you've been pretty much nothing but a STO shill since you started posting in these threads. Wasn't so bad when things were actually going alright in the game, but it's looked pretty silly as we enter month 8 of the content drought, the developers alternate between ignoring the players and telling them that they'll love the new changes (and soon!), etc.

Tell me, as the guy running (I assume?) the STO IRC channel, what's been YOUR take on how the customer base is feeling about things recently? If it hasn't either gotten quiet as people quit playing, or alternately if the mood from those left hasn't grown increasingly frustrated/hostile, I'll eat the DVD that STO came on. There's no way you can feel things are going well here, but you seem intent on sticking to the company line...

 

[Scout101]

Let's make it easy for you, then: Prior to their change, every character got a VA ship token at promotion, yes? THey've removed that.

No they haven't; none of your characters who received that have had their token removed.

Nonsense. For anyone that's already VA, it's a complete non-issue. They're obviously not going to take the ship away (never said that, speaking of strawmen), but you don't get another ship either. Or emblems, etc.

For players that aren't VA yet, understanding is that if they ever actually launch the F2P model, taking the VA token away is EXACTLY what they are doing. And the special reward for being a paying customer for 500 days is that they won't take it away from you.

So again: If you're already VA, you get no emblems and no new ship token. If you aren't VA yet, you get no emblems, and they've graciously decided you can still have the ship token. W00T!

Still think that's a pretty shitty 'reward'. Especially from the perspective of this imaginary new F2P customer. For the new guy, they'll have to subscribe for 16 months in order to get the VA ship comped. Pretty good chance that the primary toon for any new player will never get that token, as they'll have to get a ship before then. I guess for a new player's 2nd or 3rd toon, maybe it'll help?

 

[syberghost]

Feel free to re-read your own posts, but you've been pretty much nothing but a STO shill since you started posting in these threads.

So, instead of trying to defend your strawman, you're just going to reiterate it. Figured.

 

[Scout101]

Right, I'm going to go through 14 pages of this thread, and a couple hundred of the last one, and grab bits of all your posts. If you'd like to make a much quicker counter-example, though, feel free to quote a single post of yours where you say anything less than positive about Cryptic or the game in general. Bet you can't find one... No reason for me to spend that much time going through all your posts, as I'm sure you'd then dispute them one at a time, tell us they were out of context, etc.

Instead of trying to distract us on this tangent, though, care to comment about any of the REST of the posts?

Plenty to talk about there, but you seem to want to avoid that for some reason. Then again, that's how the STO forum has been lately, too. DEVs either ignore the complaints, ban people and close the threads, or tell us that they're giving the LTS "more love" (one of their direct quotes) as they focus entirely on the potential new F2P players (really just ways to force them to pay for micro-transactions) at the expense of the people that have been putting food on their table for the past 2 years. (Believe that "feeding their children" was one of your hyperbolic statements, no?)

 

[syberghost]

You posted eight paragraphs. I took exception to one word in one sentence, and you say that makes me a shill.

Anything less than 100% agreement with you is a shill.

 

[Harvey]

I just want the game to introduce some new gameplay content. My brother and I have been splitting a lifetime subscription, and enjoying ourselves, but in the past couple of months have barely played at all, because there isn't much left to actually do, other than repetitive scan/kill everything missions.

 

[syberghost]

I just want the game to introduce some new gameplay content. My brother and I have been splitting a lifetime subscription, and enjoying ourselves, but in the past couple of months have barely played at all, because there isn't much left to actually do, other than repetitive scan/kill everything missions.

Yep. That's by far the biggest problem with the game right now; the gameplay issues are nitpicks in comparison.

 

[Scout101]

Another question: the DS9 series is the next weekly, and we've been told they're hold it until the game goes F2P, presumably so it looks like the game isn't completely dead when new players arrive. Question being: will new players even be able to see that series? Isn't the who sector with DS9 locked out until you level up a bit? So newbies won't be able to go to DS9 in the first place?

 

[Harvey]

I think so, unless that is being changed when the game goes f2p. Honestly, it's been so long since I played for more than fifteen minutes that I can't remember.

 

[Scout101]

Would love to see the reasoning behind holding it back, then. It'll look better if the current players are running around doing that when the new F2P players arrive, I guess? Make it look like an active game instead of a ghost town full of disgruntled ghosts...

Seems like it would have been a no-brainer to release that, or whip up something else to tide people over, just to keep the current players from getting too pissed off. Unfortunately, they just went into their bunker, and we've had a game that's only existed for 2 years, but has taken 8 months of that time off...

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Another question: the DS9 series is the next weekly, and we've been told they're hold it until the game goes F2P, presumably so it looks like the game isn't completely dead when new players arrive. Question being: will new players even be able to see that series? Isn't the who sector with DS9 locked out until you level up a bit? So newbies won't be able to go to DS9 in the first place?

No only the sector with the borg and the sector with the breen are locked out until you hit certain levels everywhere else is always open.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Not even the Breen sector is locked out. You can access the sector any time. It's actually just the Borg and Undine sectors you have to be RA3 for.

You won't be able to access the missions there until you are sufficiently leveld up though.

I would imagine, forced mission progression or not, that a new Feaure Series will be level agnostic and maybe unlocked with a minimum of LC1 or so.

However, Cryptic might decide to hold the mission back a little further once FTP is released so all those new players have an actual chance to be high enough in the usual release weeks to get the special rewards.
So expect the mission a month after FTP at the earliest.

If we are lucky they rerun the other 3 (has it only been 3) before that.

 

[Rocketeer]

FTP testing is going ahead with giant strides... today the first part of the skill tree revamp has been released for testing.

Space skills have been simplified a lot.

Interesting, will take a little getting used to. Feels like a lot of detail has been lost though and that was part of the fun of STO.

The one thing that I like is the DOFF system (except that Colonists and Prisoners seem to be currently stuck). I should make Captain today or tomorrow and that's almost exclusively using xp gained from DOFF completed assignments. However as mentioned by many others, I may give up on STO if things continue to deteriorate. (never thought I'd say that) Seems like the current membership is largely ignored in favor of the future F2P crowd.
.

 

[Rocketeer]

Let's make it easy for you, then: Prior to their change, every character got a VA ship token at promotion, yes? THey've removed that.

No they haven't; none of your characters who received that have had their token removed.

I'm having a hard time understanding your logic about not being cheated.

Imagine that you worked for a company that paid retirement to any employee after 30 years and the company dropped the policy in your 29th year. You never "received" the retirement, so have you lost anything...

 

[PsychoPere]

I would imagine, forced mission progression or not, that a new Feaure Series will be level agnostic and maybe unlocked with a minimum of LC1 or so.

Which would square exactly with how the previous 3 FE series have been handled - initially open to pretty much everyone, then changed later down the road to unlock at certain levels. That's very likely what will happen with the DS9 one too.

 

[Scout101]

Annoying that they went back and changed them to make it level-appropriate gear, instead of leveling it with you. Great if you're already at VA when one comes out, but pretty annoying to do on an alternate toon that's at a lower rank. You have to do it right when it comes out to get the extra bonus gear (BOFF, weapon, etc), but the regular rewards (like the Breen set, for example) end up being throw-aways pretty quickly as you level past them. So if the reward is actually any good, you have to do the whole series 5-6 times to keep getting it, whereas it used to stay with you before...

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

To be fair, those level appropriate items are all better then the scaling ones.
If you are a Captain 1, a scaling item is scaled to Captain 1, where the fixed one is appropriate for a Captain 9 or so.