Yeah, originally it was pretty much mission, patrol, mission, patrol (where the patrols were 5 locations) for the entire campaign with hefty chunks of downtime between the missions to grind out the next level from the meagre amounts of xp given. Especially after they nerfed the xp from patrols into the ground as a backlash from players grinding those as the only viable levelling tactic.
Patrols were also used to pad out playtime in the delta quadrant because they were spread across the entire zone rather than clustered so unless you paid for the quick travel you spent a lot of time in sector space simply going from north to south and back again.
Yeah, originally it was pretty much mission, patrol, mission, patrol (where the patrols were 5 locations) for the entire campaign with hefty chunks of downtime between the missions to grind out the next level from the meagre amounts of xp given.
Though to be fair, that was mostly an effect of the previously existing level cap of 50. Just playing through the content would have given (almost?) all players high enough levels to tackle the requirements, it's just that hundreds of thousands of XP were thrown at the cap before and thus people who played it all were at 50 than 60, as they are now. Still, the transition wasn't smooth at all, but for a new player it never was a problem, even with low patrol XP and without admiralty.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
The things that got me about it was that there was barely any actual story content in what was branded the biggest expansion to get to 60 and the cap of 60 is misleading as with the specs being added the cap at launch of delta grinding was actually 90+.
Wouldn't have been so bad if they'd done enough stuff to level to 60 without forcing people into grind. But at the same time with the often wobbly writing in STO maybe it was a blessing, such as the very handy holdy "stealth" grapplegun mission.
There's still some of those delta missions that require relogging and creative platforming to get past broken sections so maybe more content would have been a VERY bad thing overall.
No mission should be skippable at all the first time through, and certainly not on ToS toons which need them to earn the Temp Transponder rewards (which is still locked out!).
If I had not been able to skip Operation Gamma I would never have been able to play any further missions. sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Operation_Gamma
Not ever player can waltz through every single mission with ease.
Some missions pushed my patience, but those were the ones from which I learned the most.
For me it wasn't a specific mission, but a specific ship. Back in Season 5 it took a long time to get past Admiral T'Nae and Starbase 39. The previous mission awarded insufficient exp to advance, so you had to do patrols or grind earlier story missions for gear and exp, then T'Nae would call out of the blue with another mission. I loved it because it was so very Trek.
But the Mogai Warbirds...
Imagine a ship that could out-turn a T3 science ship while dumping plasma torps. But wait! There's more! This ship would also do its best to stay in your rear arc, and it would use Tractor Beam on you just as a shield face fell.
Fighting this ship was where I learned power management, how to save and time the use of BOff powers, and how to break the endless 'Spiral Of Death' maneuver which the Mogai forced on me. By tier 4 I was able to deal with them, until I met the D'deridex plasma rain generator. But by then I knew it was a matter of finding the key to surviving and defeating them.
Had I been able, I likely would have skipped much of the Romulan arc. It would have resulted in a much worse player than I am today. I had similar experiences in Kobali ground, but I approached it as a learning exercise. By the time my Romulan character completed the Kobali adventure zone, I don't think I respawned more than a handfull of times all told with my klink, sci-fed, or my tac-rom characters. Kobali ground isn't that hard, but it's hard enough to keep you on the edge of your seat while doing it.
Even if you can skip missions, you shouldn't. Not because of the exp or the loot, but because if there is a mission that's annoying you, the chances are real good that you still have something to learn from them, and doing them until you figure out what that is will teach you to be a better player.
I actually like the Kobali ground missions as well as the Kobali story. I do agree that the Delta arc is long, and some times tedious, but what is there once you have finished the missions? End Game is all about grinding; there is no story; there is virtually no content; it's all repetition. I get that people want to hurry to End Game to feel like the accomplished something or become part of the End Game community. I do think that once a mission has been completed on a character then the option for skipping should be available on all other characters. Whether the Devs decide to do this is something I will not hold my breath for. Best to just enjoy traveling through the game if you are new.
It's a game, it's not a second job or degree. People should not be forced to play missions they don't find fun.
Because they won't. They'll just quit and play something else.
I actually agree; however, you overlook one important fact: we're here to play Trek, not generic space game. If you want to play Trek, this is the only game in town. Speak as you will about the choices of developers or players, but you can't change either. What you could change is your attitude.
Every game is a grind once you've done all the content. The only point to end game is to keep busy until there's new content. You as the player must make choices about how you approach the game.
You say it's not a degree, but I say, who wants to keep playing a game once all the challenge is gone? How many games of Tic-Tac-Toe have you played lately? STO, for all its flaws, is a game with depths you can continue to explore even after you have 'done everything there is to do.'
After all, who do you think came up with the current DPS is king meta? Who will come up with the next meta that must be nerfed, or the previous Science is king meta? Some guys who hit max, then really started to learn how to play.
The Kobali are a noble race that we can learn from. All characters should have to play through the Kobali missions without exception.
I wish that things had worked out differently in the Delta Quadrant. The Kobali are corpse stealing necro-freaks and I'd far rather have joined with the Vaadwaur to wipe them out.
The Kobali are a noble race that we can learn from. All characters should have to play through the Kobali missions without exception.
I wish that things had worked out differently in the Delta Quadrant. The Kobali are corpse stealing necro-freaks and I'd far rather have joined with the Vaadwaur to wipe them out.
"The Kobali are a noble race that we can learn from." Is it bad that I immediately knew, without seeing the name, that a Dental wrote that? :P
It's a game, it's not a second job or degree. People should not be forced to play missions they don't find fun.
Because they won't. They'll just quit and play something else.
Indeed.
Geko needed to pad his Delta Rising metrics, and show that we were all busy missioning in the Delta Quadrant. So he did what he always does: sit behind his screen, finding ways to slow down/frustrate the players. One aspect about this I never understood, though. I mean, show who?! Our Chinese Overlords? I mean, surely Cryptic are not so deluded as to fool themselves with these artificial hold-them-back mechanisms.
Anyway, Dilithium Rising is far behind us: whatever reasons they deemed necessary to block players, mid-way, those no longer apply; so, it's time to lift the annoying hindrances.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
All that aside...it's worth pointing out for the topic that Kobali warzone wrapper missions can now be skipped (looking at the option right now). If that wasn't there when the OP was made then I'd attribute it to a bug with the new wrapper scheme or a design oversight. That's apparently been rectified, so take continued discussion in that light (the issue of the thread has been resolved.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
How did you have trouble with Operation Gamma? I've replayed that literally hundreds of times.
So did I in the meantime. Well, maybe not hundreds of times, but quite a few times. And it's easy.
Wasn't on my first playthrough though. I was new to the game, had barely a clue about mechanics, but everything worked smoothly, more or less. Some enemies I had to really grind down, others were blowing up at my command. I didn't have any special gear from reputations or fleets or lockboxes or zen ships or crafting or other toons donating them. I only had what was given as mission rewards and what enemies dropped. I also was skilled for sci fun. And probably not even remotely adequate at that.
And then OG came along. I have heard that for others it was different, but for me it was the first part at DS9 - a shuttle mission, I still don't like shuttles, where you have to get some enemies down on a timer for I think the first time. My skills didn't help here. My weapons probably were a green Mk IX cannon without console support and a hargh peng torpedo (yeah, I know). And the third worker bee didn't want to die in time, resetting the whole mission. And when I got it whittled down, there were these kamikaze attacks destroying my ships by the other guys in the area.
Once you understand your mistakes, the next 99 times will be easy. When you start having good gear to pass around, even more so (drop an Aceton Assimilator). But some missions, as others have described, are helping you in finding out what you're not doing great so far. And until you find that out, you may struggle.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
All missions should be skippable. There was indeed one (and a very annoying ground one, at that), in the middle of the Delta rep, you can't skip. It was the direct result of Geko making sure his metrics would absolutely show the success of Delta Rising, and that the players were loving it! It was a rather passive-agressive move, and should not happen again.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Not saying they're right or wrong...but why make a few of the DR missions skippable...why make every other mission skippable...but not a certain few not skippable...the ones before mission and future missions which give nice free stuff?
There's actually quite a few non skippable ones. Though all the others are either "Meet Admiral Random at Deep Space Whatever to introduce you to the arc enemy" or "Wrap up the arc with guy at place", so don't require any actual gameplay and will be done in 5 minutes at worst (when you have a long way to travel).
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Comments
Patrols were also used to pad out playtime in the delta quadrant because they were spread across the entire zone rather than clustered so unless you paid for the quick travel you spent a lot of time in sector space simply going from north to south and back again.
bloodpact.net
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
-Michelangelo
Though to be fair, that was mostly an effect of the previously existing level cap of 50. Just playing through the content would have given (almost?) all players high enough levels to tackle the requirements, it's just that hundreds of thousands of XP were thrown at the cap before and thus people who played it all were at 50 than 60, as they are now. Still, the transition wasn't smooth at all, but for a new player it never was a problem, even with low patrol XP and without admiralty.
Wouldn't have been so bad if they'd done enough stuff to level to 60 without forcing people into grind. But at the same time with the often wobbly writing in STO maybe it was a blessing, such as the very handy holdy "stealth" grapplegun mission.
There's still some of those delta missions that require relogging and creative platforming to get past broken sections so maybe more content would have been a VERY bad thing overall.
If I had not been able to skip Operation Gamma I would never have been able to play any further missions.
sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Operation_Gamma
Not ever player can waltz through every single mission with ease.
For me it wasn't a specific mission, but a specific ship. Back in Season 5 it took a long time to get past Admiral T'Nae and Starbase 39. The previous mission awarded insufficient exp to advance, so you had to do patrols or grind earlier story missions for gear and exp, then T'Nae would call out of the blue with another mission. I loved it because it was so very Trek.
But the Mogai Warbirds...
Imagine a ship that could out-turn a T3 science ship while dumping plasma torps. But wait! There's more! This ship would also do its best to stay in your rear arc, and it would use Tractor Beam on you just as a shield face fell.
Fighting this ship was where I learned power management, how to save and time the use of BOff powers, and how to break the endless 'Spiral Of Death' maneuver which the Mogai forced on me. By tier 4 I was able to deal with them, until I met the D'deridex plasma rain generator. But by then I knew it was a matter of finding the key to surviving and defeating them.
Had I been able, I likely would have skipped much of the Romulan arc. It would have resulted in a much worse player than I am today. I had similar experiences in Kobali ground, but I approached it as a learning exercise. By the time my Romulan character completed the Kobali adventure zone, I don't think I respawned more than a handfull of times all told with my klink, sci-fed, or my tac-rom characters. Kobali ground isn't that hard, but it's hard enough to keep you on the edge of your seat while doing it.
Even if you can skip missions, you shouldn't. Not because of the exp or the loot, but because if there is a mission that's annoying you, the chances are real good that you still have something to learn from them, and doing them until you figure out what that is will teach you to be a better player.
Because they won't. They'll just quit and play something else.
I actually agree; however, you overlook one important fact: we're here to play Trek, not generic space game. If you want to play Trek, this is the only game in town. Speak as you will about the choices of developers or players, but you can't change either. What you could change is your attitude.
Every game is a grind once you've done all the content. The only point to end game is to keep busy until there's new content. You as the player must make choices about how you approach the game.
You say it's not a degree, but I say, who wants to keep playing a game once all the challenge is gone? How many games of Tic-Tac-Toe have you played lately? STO, for all its flaws, is a game with depths you can continue to explore even after you have 'done everything there is to do.'
After all, who do you think came up with the current DPS is king meta? Who will come up with the next meta that must be nerfed, or the previous Science is king meta? Some guys who hit max, then really started to learn how to play.
I wish that things had worked out differently in the Delta Quadrant. The Kobali are corpse stealing necro-freaks and I'd far rather have joined with the Vaadwaur to wipe them out.
"The Kobali are a noble race that we can learn from." Is it bad that I immediately knew, without seeing the name, that a Dental wrote that? :P
Indeed.
Geko needed to pad his Delta Rising metrics, and show that we were all busy missioning in the Delta Quadrant. So he did what he always does: sit behind his screen, finding ways to slow down/frustrate the players. One aspect about this I never understood, though. I mean, show who?! Our Chinese Overlords? I mean, surely Cryptic are not so deluded as to fool themselves with these artificial hold-them-back mechanisms.
Anyway, Dilithium Rising is far behind us: whatever reasons they deemed necessary to block players, mid-way, those no longer apply; so, it's time to lift the annoying hindrances.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Yep, they are a nice bunch of body snatchers lol...
(calm down, I got your sarcasm.)
So did I in the meantime. Well, maybe not hundreds of times, but quite a few times. And it's easy.
Wasn't on my first playthrough though. I was new to the game, had barely a clue about mechanics, but everything worked smoothly, more or less. Some enemies I had to really grind down, others were blowing up at my command. I didn't have any special gear from reputations or fleets or lockboxes or zen ships or crafting or other toons donating them. I only had what was given as mission rewards and what enemies dropped. I also was skilled for sci fun. And probably not even remotely adequate at that.
And then OG came along. I have heard that for others it was different, but for me it was the first part at DS9 - a shuttle mission, I still don't like shuttles, where you have to get some enemies down on a timer for I think the first time. My skills didn't help here. My weapons probably were a green Mk IX cannon without console support and a hargh peng torpedo (yeah, I know). And the third worker bee didn't want to die in time, resetting the whole mission. And when I got it whittled down, there were these kamikaze attacks destroying my ships by the other guys in the area.
Once you understand your mistakes, the next 99 times will be easy. When you start having good gear to pass around, even more so (drop an Aceton Assimilator). But some missions, as others have described, are helping you in finding out what you're not doing great so far. And until you find that out, you may struggle.
push butan, complete mission
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Not saying they're right or wrong...but why make a few of the DR missions skippable...why make every other mission skippable...but not a certain few not skippable...the ones before mission and future missions which give nice free stuff?