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

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Speaking of useless drops: when do you a Spire mission, you get a box that usually ends up being a console. Except you get a ton of them, and they are all bound to character. And not overly useful. Why bind them, if they aren't a must have? pointless and end up getting put in the recycle bin...

Sounds like something they might not even be aware of. Sometimes they just link up ready made loot tables and don't check the bind mechanics for each individual items, I think.
If you care enough about that you might wanna send branflakes a PM or something and/or post it on the forums.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Treated myself to a Subspace Jumper on my Plesh Brek. I am enjoying it waaay too much. Brek disappears, reappears behind enemy. Flanking damage, y'all!

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Damn, Flukie, 3 in a row?! Nice!
By the by, is it always quiet in the game, anymore?

Try the doffjobs channel. Always pretty busy.

 

[Amaris]

Thanks, will do.

 

[intrinsical]

Speaking of useless drops: when do you a Spire mission, you get a box that usually ends up being a console. Except you get a ton of them, and they are all bound to character. And not overly useful. Why bind them, if they aren't a must have? pointless and end up getting put in the recycle bin...

I actually talked about this on the forum with a dev before the launch of season 8. Officially what they wanted to achieve was to give a little reward for every progress project, but at the same time they did not want to flood the economy with useless junk. So their view is that in the least, you can sell them to vendors for some energy credits. They were also worried about flooding the economy with too much energy credits till I pointed out to them that most of the rewards were ground items that costed peanuts so they're not going to be really worthwhile rewards to begin with, they aren't going to flood the market with ec. So in the least I'm glad they doubled the prices of ground items at the launch of season 8 so these items are at least worth 10k ec per project.

 

[TheRoyalFamily]

I'll have to visit Spacedock, then. DS9 used to be the big chat hub, I guess it's gone quiet, at least as of late.

DS9 died during the summer event: everyone there went to Risa to hang out. And because of that, a lot of people I think turned off zone and local chat Then, no one went back to hanging out at DS9. DS9 used to be an important hub, but it stopped being so at some point; only player inertia kept people there.

As someone said, doffjobs channel is generally pretty active, and not nearly as combative as zone chat anywhere. Don't confuse it with doffcalls, though, since that's just for alerts about doff missions. And of course ESD is still pretty active, and there are the seasonal areas that have the more casual, talkative crowd sometimes. If you are looking for some "fun" chat you could go to Drozana; though they usually keep it in local, so you have to "luck" into the right instance.

 

[Scout101]

DS9 stopped being important when they took all the STF stuff away from there. Since that's gone, there's nothing unique left at DS9, and nothing taking place near there to make it convenient, so no reason to go...

 

[Nero's Shadow]

Just started playing it !!! And I love it so much to see and do !!!! Any good suggestions on where to visit ??? online trek fans !!!! And here's my captiain Varg Aldar

 

[Tribble puncher]

Not to be a wet blanket but is anyone else burnt out on STO? I've invested many hours in this game and I've gotten to the point now that I simply don't care. I haven't played in 3-4 months, (actually I did log in to check out the dyson sphere, but while it looked cool it was more of the same ol same ol, I was on for 10 minutes.) I would love to see alot of stuff revamped, but I just get the feeling that its all about buying the newest ships for PVP now. wheres the wonder? I want to have a back and forth with an enemy captain! I want to brain my way out of an anomaly! Outwit rogue computers! Disable a Ship and Board her! Fight off Boarding Parties! Not feel like I'm 2.5 feet tall walking around in my own ship! EARN my crews respect! Have to worry about ships supplies and persistent damage! I could go on but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to feel this way. I just want this game to get my Imagination going. I want to feel like I did when I was 9 years old watching Trek and just being amazed.

 

[intrinsical]

I hear you, and as a trekker I agree with most of what you've said. However, I do see why Cryptic (and all game companies) cannot create the type of Star Trek game you have envisioned.

Part of the reason is the same as why Picard has to take on Soran, Shinzon, the Borg Queen and Ru'afo, in person, with fist fights. To cater to the masses, Star Trek has to have more action and less story. Its why I don't really like JJ's take on Trek, why STO is all about blowing up starships and killing sentient beings, why some players downgrade my foundry missions for lacking action.

Its very clear from player's uniforms and ship names that many of the current players are non-trek fans who just treat STO as a non-trek space MMO. Even so, its pretty clear that STO is loosing more players than they are gaining new ones. Cryptic is just catering to the masses so STO is profitable, and I don't see a way around it.

 

[Rocketeer]

I agree with you two. I started a new character (Gorn tac) and tried using physical combat. I was using bite, lunge and sweeping strikes and getting my butt kicked. He just kept shooting me. Finally gave up and just shot the baddie. That's no fun. :-(

It could be fun if the bridge officers had an AI personality like in Balder's Gate. You would have to ensure that you kept their morale high or they may not follow your lead to the letter.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I never thought when i bought my lifetime sub way back at launch i would actually not want to play the game, of course back then it was not the massive grind it is now, and leveling up your first charactor was fun, even getting a second charactor was ok, third and forth really became a chore, and then they went all grind on us.

For me personally i have no idea if they could even do anything that would make me want to come back, i gave the Roms a try but it was simply the same thing i had been doing since 2010 but with diffrent skins, and i simply don't have it in me to level up another charactor so similar to the four i have already sitting there doing nothing.

What is missing from STO that games like ST Amada, ST academy, ST Klingon, SF command, that almost 14 years after their release, you can still quite happily install and enjoy to this day.

 

[Scout101]

The 'bound to character' part is what kills a lot of it for me. (Reputation system is tied up in that). I'd like to make a change, but after almost 4 years of playing, too much it tied up in the first toon, and most of it is either no longer available in the game, or took WAY too much time and effort/resources to get. So while I made KDF and ROM toons for fun (and a couple new missions) they can never really be more than that, as they'll NEVER catch up to what my first toon has.

Before the Rep system, you could at least do some STFs and try to get lucky. My first KDF toon has a decent amount of gear, and finished the Rep system for Omega at least. But it's too hard to bring more people along, and the 'sponsorship' thing doesn't go nearly far enough towards helping you bring alts along.

They really need to do more mission-content-wise. Focus less on big zones that are quickly ignored, and just put out missions once a month or whatever. They don't even have to be epic FEs every time, but give me new stuff to play and move the story. The new Sphere zone took forever to create, and was a wandering mess to actually play, so I've already grown bored with it and moved on. Like Nukara, Defera, and plenty of other places that get used hard for a month, then you never go back. Sure, the stories would get burned through too, but at least you feel like you got something out of it.

Still moving through things, but mostly just grinding Dyson Rep on my main toon right now, and running the xmas race daily. Already got the ship, now just stockpiling photos for next year. Save them up, and you stay almost a year behind. Have enough pearls (or whatever they were) to be almost done the next summer ship event

 

[intrinsical]

Its not grindy with the new "sponsor an alt" system. I started a brand new character in late November, reached level 50 in early December. 3 weeks later, the character has already completed Omega, Romulan and Dyson reps thanks to the double rep xp sponsorship bonus. And all I did was spend an hour each day playing 1 STF, tag eppohs and run around the Dyson sphere doing one mission. Now I'm working on Nukara rep, which just involves playing Crystalline Entity once per day. In just a little over one week, I'm already at Nukara tier 3. How is that grindy?

As for fun missions, have you tried playing foundry missions? The Cryptic's list of featured foundry missions are not bad, and when you've played them have a look in the STO foundry forum. There are players who maintain a list of good and fun foundry missions. For example, there is the SBUGC List of Great Missions.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

It's not the grind so much as the game getting stale after a while, even for me now.

After Legacy of Romulus which provided a nice boost I don't really feel compelled to log in anymore.
I am sure I will once the next anniversary rolls around which should be in a few weeks.
But will probably leave for a hiatus after that again.
Some time down the road i might come back for a longer stint once there is some decent new content in the game.
The Dyson sphere was interesting for a couple of afternoons and that was it.
All style, no substance.
So once I found new interests that took over what little free time I have, STO lost a lot of appeal and I realized I was only logging in out of habit by now.

 

[Amaris]

Yeah, I took a break for a month or two, came back and I've been playing the new Sphere missions. They're okay, but nothing to write home about. I did like the Romulan legacy expansion, now that was fun for me, but the Dyson Sphere stuff is just meh.

 

[Ronald Held]

At this stage the vast majority of missions I play are foundry or diplomatic.

 

[Tribble puncher]

I always think it's wierd whenever I leave the interior view of my ship, my charic. taps his badge and beams away somewhere...where did he go? did he just kill himself by beaming into space? could he just not handle seeing all the Borg Assimilated Odyssey class ships named USS Galactica or USS PWNAGE anymore?

 

[Rocketeer]

The interior of your ship is a pocket reality that exists in the zone you're currently in. I believe that any local or zone chat on your ship would still be part of the local/zone chat channel.

I assume that your ship exterior is actually just another skin for your character. You can see that when you're in the character list. It lists your character's name for the ship and then a few seconds later, the ship name loads.

 

[Tribble puncher]

I figured it was a limitation of the game engine. I've seen pics of bugs some years ago where people would beam to spacedock or Q'uonoS and instead of their Character a small version of their ship would appear! Still there are alot of little naggy things in the game engine that really kill the immersion factor. I logged on for the first time in a while last night, started looking at the foundry missions more...I'm probably gonna play a couple tonight after work. Question...If I buy a fleet ship, and then for whatever reason the fleet kicks me out or dissolves do I still get to keep said ship?