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How did we go from over 30 episodes for an expansion to 6?

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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    For all the people parroting "quality over quanity", I have 1 very simple question for you:

    What is the minimum number of missions you would accept for an "expansion"?

    From LOR until now, STO's expansions are shrinking at an exponential rate. If the trend continues, the next expansion would have even less than 6 missions. Again, what is the absolute minimum amount of missions an "expansion" could have before "quality over quantity" just doesn't work anymore?

    Yeah, you aren't going to get any "honest" answers to your question. The previous poster just tried to side-step it with their "zero" answer. But the truth is, we all know calling 6 episodes(great or not) an "expansion" is getting ridiculous. The white knights would defend a 1 episode expansion and still shout "quality over quantity!".


    I love it when anything which can't be measured in 'number of episodes' is supposedly a 'zero' answer. Whereas the latter is exactly the warranted answer: an expansion is not just about the amount of extra episodes. An expansion, loosely defined, is 'A substantial addition to the game; one which materially impacts the flow and content of the game -- beyond mere patches or the odd occasional new episode.' And that's exactly what ViL is. New ships/bundles, new ship mechanics (wingmen), a new 'Fraction', new leveling, higher Mk, and, last, but not least, new content. Good content.
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  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    You know what's funny, I haven't even gotten to the episides yet. Partly because I've got to fix the sound system and mostly I'm too busy grinding for zen for more ships, Cardassian playable race, more character slots, as well as doing the Gamma Rep, leveling up ships, and so on, that I don't have time to play the episodes.

    Another funny thing is I only rolled up a Romulan Republic character (I went with a Reman, I enjoy their working class everyman mixed with Nosfaroto vampire vibe, like if Dracula was a coal miner), and did the episodes like a month ahead of the ViL Expansion. Seriously I only focused on the KDF episodes during LoR, because I wanted to unlock the Remans from the rep, only to forget to do once until very rescently.

    I actually enjoyed most of Delta Rising, their were a few dud episodes, but there were some great ones too.

    AoY is now the only expansion I haven't really played the episodes for, but I did buy the Chronos, which is a wickedly fun ship.

    Honestly just playing the ques and battle zone and with the new species and ships and the Jem'hadar intro mission has been a blast (aside from the rubber banding I was suffering from before, which has mostly been resolved).
  • celticvengencecelticvengence Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    I wasn't around for the Delta Rising's release, though I recall playing through it at points just thinking "I wish this was over already." Meanwhile with Victory is Life I ended it wanting more missions. Given a choice between them I'd rather have ViL where the missions are good and so I want more than having more missions were I keep wanting them to be over.

    Now mind, I'd have liked say two more missions in ViL at release, so it didn't feel over too soon. To the question of too few for an expansion, I think less than 6 missions would have felt too few for an expansion launch I think.
  • coqaunandos117#2576 coqaunandos117 Member Posts: 65 Arc User
    To the question of too few for an expansion, I think less than 6 missions would have felt too few for an expansion launch I think.

    At least one person finally has the guts to be honest and admit the obvious. Props to the one honest person in this thread.
  • dongemaharudongemaharu Member Posts: 544 Arc User
    Getting such a large number of the original actors from DS9 is worth it to me. Although I don’t really know if there’s a budgetary correlation or not.
  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    > @celticvengence said:
    > I wasn't around for the Delta Rising's release, though I recall playing through it at points just thinking "I wish this was over already." Meanwhile with Victory is Life I ended it wanting more missions. Given a choice between them I'd rather have ViL where the missions are good and so I want more than having more missions were I keep wanting them to be over.
    >
    > Now mind, I'd have liked say two more missions in ViL at release, so it didn't feel over too soon. To the question of too few for an expansion, I think less than 6 missions would have felt too few for an expansion launch I think.

    Delta Rising had some good missions, I mean the ones with Tuvak, Seven, the one with Kolobi Harry Kim and last episode and Argala is probably the most replayable episode in the game (do the patrols count as episodes?).

    I mean yeah there was a fair amount of duds and filler, but DR still had its gems.

    I can't compare it to ViL I'm putting off the episodes till I can hear them.
  • avoozuulavoozuul Member Posts: 3,196 Arc User
    The facial animations aren't yet perfect though, some of them look utterly weird.
  • lordgyorlordgyor Member Posts: 2,820 Arc User
    > @coqaunandos117#2576 said:
    > celticvengence wrote: »
    >
    > To the question of too few for an expansion, I think less than 6 missions would have felt too few for an expansion launch I think.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > At least one person finally has the guts to be honest and admit the obvious. Props to the one honest person in this thread.

    I've been honest, I haven't gotten to the episides yet. Once I have I will have a better idea.
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    lordgyor wrote: »
    > @celticvengence said:
    > I wasn't around for the Delta Rising's release, though I recall playing through it at points just thinking "I wish this was over already." Meanwhile with Victory is Life I ended it wanting more missions. Given a choice between them I'd rather have ViL where the missions are good and so I want more than having more missions were I keep wanting them to be over.
    >
    > Now mind, I'd have liked say two more missions in ViL at release, so it didn't feel over too soon. To the question of too few for an expansion, I think less than 6 missions would have felt too few for an expansion launch I think.

    Delta Rising had some good missions, I mean the ones with Tuvak, Seven, the one with Kolobi Harry Kim and last episode and Argala is probably the most replayable episode in the game (do the patrols count as episodes?).

    I mean yeah there was a fair amount of duds and filler, but DR still had its gems.

    I can't compare it to ViL I'm putting off the episodes till I can hear them.
    I could be misremembering, but I think the Kobali Episode with the deceased and restored Harry Kim's was actually one of the first episodes released after DR.

    I think my favorite time in STO was the time after the DR release, were we basicaly got a new mission every month. That was fun.
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  • nimbullnimbull Member Posts: 1,564 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    Quality over quantity. Quark's Lucky Seven was the best episode, ever.

    ... and the players really do actually love it this time. No really they seem to actually love it! :smiley:
    Green people don't have to be.... little.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    Getting such a large number of the original actors from DS9 is worth it to me. Although I don’t really know if there’s a budgetary correlation or not.

    I on the other hand would be fine with no voice acting if it meant more content
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  • darkbladejkdarkbladejk Member Posts: 3,698 Community Moderator
    Some folks need to keep in mind, that this is just the start of the ViL. It's been said plenty of times now that this isn't all there is going to be and that there WILL be more episodes coming. The expansion will be just 2 weeks old tomorrow. No modern mmo releases everything at once, with World of Warcraft being a well known example. By definition an expansion is adding additional content that wasn't there previously. As such even a 1 episode expansion would be considered an expansion. At the end of each of the previous expansions we've had a fair amount of episodes to go along with queues, battlezones etc. From when we first hit the Delta Quadrant to the time we fought the Iconians at Midnight was Delta Rising. From just after Midnight to the time we fought the Tzenkethi for the first time was AoY.

    IMO several people are trying to compare the start of Victory is Life that we have now to the fully completed Delta Rising, AoY, and LoR expacs and not looking at the bigger picture. It's like comparing the foundation of a house to the fully completed product, obviously the house that is fully built will have more to it than the house that's still only a foundation.

    beyond this it seems like some folks are wanting very specific answers to questions that are very subjective in nature and i'm not sure what folks want to hear.
    "Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations

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  • toratareltoratarel Member Posts: 20 Arc User
    DR in the end launched with 14 missions (they removed 6 patrol wrappers and added 3 Kobali Prime warppers)
    After that we got 14 more missions over the next 21 months. For a grand total of 28 missions
    AoY launched with a tutorial and 12 missions. Over the next 23 months we got 9 more missions. Fora grand total of 21 missions and a tutorial.
    ViL launched with 6 missions and a tutorial. If it had lanched with 10 - 12 missions where 4 - 6 of those would have been Dominion only noone would have complained.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    Some folks need to keep in mind, that this is just the start of the ViL. It's been said plenty of times now that this isn't all there is going to be and that there WILL be more episodes coming. The expansion will be just 2 weeks old tomorrow. No modern mmo releases everything at once, with World of Warcraft being a well known example. By definition an expansion is adding additional content that wasn't there previously. As such even a 1 episode expansion would be considered an expansion. At the end of each of the previous expansions we've had a fair amount of episodes to go along with queues, battlezones etc. From when we first hit the Delta Quadrant to the time we fought the Iconians at Midnight was Delta Rising. From just after Midnight to the time we fought the Tzenkethi for the first time was AoY.

    IMO several people are trying to compare the start of Victory is Life that we have now to the fully completed Delta Rising, AoY, and LoR expacs and not looking at the bigger picture. It's like comparing the foundation of a house to the fully completed product, obviously the house that is fully built will have more to it than the house that's still only a foundation.

    beyond this it seems like some folks are wanting very specific answers to questions that are very subjective in nature and i'm not sure what folks want to hear.

    I myself have specifically said I am only comparing the content available at launch for each expansion. I laughed hysterically about AoY being marketed as an "expansion", but ViL is substantially weaker at launch and it just isn't funny anymore. IMO if they couldn't have a reasonable number of missions ready by June then they should have delayed the release by another three to six months. And you really don't want to bring WoW into this discussion ... each of their expansions adds more content than the entirety of STO, and their content patches are significantly larger than what STO calls an expansion.

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  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    The missions are easily the high point with everything else dropping behind at varying degrees and general lack of polish does show.

    VIL's mission rewards are a bit lacklustre, more melee weapons when the game doesn't do much to promote melee and the beam weapons being generic blue MK12's isn't good for a player that doesn't want to twink their jem hadar with a supply of crafted or box gear. Delta grinding pulled something similar with the rewards but at least they were given the option of a couple of mk13's. Struck me as a way of pushing the upgrading dil sink.

    Still trying to figure out why a flare would be considered to be a decent mission reward.

    The BZ is something you spend more time waiting than actually playing so is more tedious than grindings forced patrol missions. The sector map just feels big and empty while you sit about waiting for other people to wake up and click accept.

    New ships aren't content, they're something to do content with and more ships only helps highlight how cluttered and messy the store is. Wingman mechanic is good although the in mission map jumping the game does breaks the hell out of them, I think its a throwback to hangar pets despawning if they go 50km+ away, wingmen can't do that so they just fly about outside or above the map.
  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    they should of made new patrol missions... you eventually need to do a patrol for each system in the Gamma Quad to open that up system's patrol mission. That would pad the missions right? Oh also convert all the Gamma Ques into a single player mission as a teaser/tutorial so you know what to do in the regular ques/battlezones... more padding.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    tigeraries wrote: »
    they should of made new patrol missions... you eventually need to do a patrol for each system in the Gamma Quad to open that up system's patrol mission. That would pad the missions right? Oh also convert all the Gamma Ques into a single player mission as a teaser/tutorial so you know what to do in the regular ques/battlezones... more padding.

    Patrol missions would have been perfect to resolve this issue, and would have been perfect for fleshing out the Iconian War as well.
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  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    Iconian war was an arc that begged for a defend the planet, convoy, plot macguffin RA but they overlooked that.

    Patrols were removed from the levelling process to be optional due to being sub par and yet with delta grinding they came back with a vengeance and no alteration to stop them being sub par.

    Sub par or not, patrols dotted about the gamma quadrant would be something to reduce the tedium of sitting about for the majority of a BZ run through.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 4,754 Arc User
    The missions are easily the high point with everything else dropping behind at varying degrees and general lack of polish does show.

    VIL's mission rewards are a bit lacklustre, more melee weapons when the game doesn't do much to promote melee and the beam weapons being generic blue MK12's isn't good for a player that doesn't want to twink their jem hadar with a supply of crafted or box gear. Delta grinding pulled something similar with the rewards but at least they were given the option of a couple of mk13's. Struck me as a way of pushing the upgrading dil sink.

    Still trying to figure out why a flare would be considered to be a decent mission reward.

    The BZ is something you spend more time waiting than actually playing so is more tedious than grindings forced patrol missions. The sector map just feels big and empty while you sit about waiting for other people to wake up and click accept.

    New ships aren't content, they're something to do content with and more ships only helps highlight how cluttered and messy the store is. Wingman mechanic is good although the in mission map jumping the game does breaks the hell out of them, I think its a throwback to hangar pets despawning if they go 50km+ away, wingmen can't do that so they just fly about outside or above the map.

    Personally I think the mission rewards were ok. The throwing knife may be OP and the other Jem'hadar melee weapon is just a reskinned Lirpa, but we also got some new uniforms (which is quite an unique reward for an episode) and a device which allows the player to call in bank, exchange and mail terminals on all (or just social?) ground maps.
    [4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother

    [3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 4,754 Arc User
    There may have been few episodes in this expansion, but overall it still deserves to be called an expansion. As has been mentioned before, we have two (three if you count Vanguard JH) new playable species, some very interesting episodes, many new ships, new ship mechanics, and they're probably still working on the new progression system which unfortunately wasn't ready for release with ViL - but likely worked on nevertheless.

    New reputation, new quadrant, new enemies (which also had yet to be fully developed on the ground before the expansion was released), new recruitment event...

    And we've got a dozen new voice actors in the game, with most of them doing a great job too.

    And I'm possibly still forgetting some things. I think some people don't do this expansion justice by focussing on the fact that we 'only got a handful of episodes'. It clearly consists of much more than that.
    [4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother

    [3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
  • nommo#5819 nommo Member Posts: 1,105 Arc User
    Complacency by the staff along with less Cryptic resources probably to aide the team results in charging the same or more & receiving less.

    I'm for quality over quantity in most cases, & even though these 6 are very few, Cryptic has more tie-in episodes in the works so it leaves something to look forward to hopefully.

    Hopefully that is, because Cryptic displayed they have no problem stating one thing then reneging on doing it right before launch so any future tie-in content is just speculation even if it comes from Cryptic staff at this point.

    I think as STO gets longer in the tooth it can afford to slow down new added content a little bit, however; much of that depends upon the STO's current player demographics & more & more grinding added to STO with less & less benefit.

    If there was a surge of brand new players into STO Cryptic would probably want to focus more on brand new lower level content, but as it is most of the content probably needs to be focused on trying to retaining current higher level players.

    These last half a dozen added missions to STO have been really good & enjoyable, imo, & seem a notch above most previous ones.

    But with all the glitches, pitiful customer service, & more & more gambling implemented into STO I'd have a difficult time recommending STO to anyone nowadays besides the free version & a few good value purchases.

    I think the shinning example of Cryptic's attitude towards it's STO playerbase is the playable Cardassian for 1000 zen & it has Recalled Tactics special trait, whereas, the other cross-factions species is only 600 zen, heck even Vanguards are 600 zen & at least with them you also get some added completed Reputations lol.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 4,754 Arc User
    nommo#5819 wrote: »
    Complacency by the staff along with less Cryptic resources probably to aide the team results in charging the same or more & receiving less.

    I'm for quality over quantity in most cases, & even though these 6 are very few, Cryptic has more tie-in episodes in the works so it leaves something to look forward to hopefully.

    Hopefully that is, because Cryptic displayed they have no problem stating one thing then reneging on doing it right before launch so any future tie-in content is just speculation even if it comes from Cryptic staff at this point.

    I think as STO gets longer in the tooth it can afford to slow down new added content a little bit, however; much of that depends upon the STO's current player demographics & more & more grinding added to STO with less & less benefit.

    If there was a surge of brand new players into STO Cryptic would probably want to focus more on brand new lower level content, but as it is most of the content probably needs to be focused on trying to retaining current higher level players.

    These last half a dozen added missions to STO have been really good & enjoyable, imo, & seem a notch above most previous ones.

    But with all the glitches, pitiful customer service, & more & more gambling implemented into STO I'd have a difficult time recommending STO to anyone nowadays besides the free version & a few good value purchases.

    I think the shinning example of Cryptic's attitude towards it's STO playerbase is the playable Cardassian for 1000 zen & it has Recalled Tactics special trait, whereas, the other cross-factions species is only 600 zen, heck even Vanguards are 600 zen & at least with them you also get some added completed Reputations lol.

    Given that there is still so much to answer after the latest episode, I think it's almost certain that we'll see more episodes.

    To be fair, I think there are many new players in STO at this moment. I've PUGged some missions and there were clearly many new ones in ISA. It's something I have noticed in several chat channels as well. I disagree with the notion that there's more grind. We just got a new playable species that doesn't even have to get their own gear or fill up every reputation. Upgrading gear is easier than ever before. They've been extraordinary generous over the past couple of months/years.

    The fact that the Cardassians are more expensive, is also logical. They unlock for both factions. And players are likely less motivated to buy Vanguards because you can already play free Jem'hadar demand is likely smaller.
    [4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother

    [3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 4,754 Arc User
    Eh, to prevent the whole post from disappearing: that last sentence should read:

    And players are likely less motivated to buy Vanguards because you can already play free Jem'hadar, so demand is likely smaller - meaning that a lower price is warranted.
    [4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother

    [3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
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