Official Feedback Thread for Streamlining the Mission Journal

coldsnapped · September 2018

Please use this thread to post all feedback and issues found in regards to our streamlining of the mission journal.

Streamlining the Mission Journal:

With the launch of Age of Discovery, we have chosen to update the story experience throughout the episode journal.
We’ve moved a number of episodes which occurred before the Delta Quadrant Arc out of the required mission journal flow.
- These episodes will still be available via hand-off missions in the Available missions tab.
In addition to this, Task Force Operations will be unlocked at lower levels as players progress through the episode arcs.
- Task Force Operations is the new name for PvE Queues.
These changes mostly impact Federation captains but some changes were made for Klingon and Romulan Captains.
This is still a work in progress.
For more details, please visit the Streamlining the Mission Journal blog at: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10993953-streamlining-the-mission-journal

sfc · September 2018

The removed story arcs cannot be replayed anymore. Please tell me there will be a way to somehow? Those episodes have sets attached, and a lot of replay value.

sthe91 · September 2018

I don't agree with this streamlining of the Mission Journal. Leave it alone! Instead just update the missions, the lighting, etc. Also, this OP needs to be more specific, on what is being moved around to the Available Missions. It is elaborated on the News page but not in the OP. Also, fix the preview of the episode missions. After getting through missions, at some point the preview does not work. So there is some coding issue there. Thanks.

drogyn1701 · September 2018

Mission journal is in pretty bad shape. On numerous characters I can't even access it. The "Hail Starfleet" button is greyed out. This includes characters that had been transferred previously and one I just transferred today. On the character I can see the journal on, many buttons to play, replay or skip missions were missing, several arcs are greyed out when they are not on Holodeck, and there was nothing whatsoever in the Available tab. I'd post a screenshot, but I just logged back into that character and the button is greyed out like the rest.

Edit: looks like you can get to the journal by double clicking in your objectives window. Here's some screenshots of the same character on Tribble and Holodeck.

Tribble

Holodeck

Also in way of general mission journal feedback: Please please please let us skip every mission. Unskippable missions are progression blockers and an annoying hindrance to those of us with alts. Rewards that we want are buried under sometimes up to a dozen unskippable missions that we've played a million times.

toiva · September 2018

As I wrote in the patch thread:

toiva wrote: »

If it wasn't obvious, yes, dumping stuff in "available tab" is a terrible idea. That tab is a mess, one that actually would use some streamlining, unlike the "episodes tab".
And yes, bloody make sure the missions are replayable, because "available tab" doesn't really allow that now except for dailies.

Personally, I'm all for an "optional/sidequest tab" being added with the missions in question. Working exactly like the "episodes tab" (preferably without recurring bugs, though).

where2r1 · September 2018

Sorry, it is taking me a while to get to STO at all today. But an easy one to start with on my KDF...the gray buttons are missing completely on Tribble.

Transwarp is completely missing...will that option no longer be available?

Is the removal of the gray "Hail" button on locked mission a change you are making to the UI? That is fine. No one told us that was going to be done...so that is a change we see as an error. As something is missing.

I am not used to seeing it that way.

++++++++++++++++++

Level 65 character...."The Borg Advance" arc missions have never been unlocked, not a single mission completed, ever. This character still needs to complete "Breen Invasion".

Notice: Hail buttons are gray ON HOLODECK:
https://i.imgur.com/LsLIvDz.jpg

Notice: No buttons at all...it is just blank ON TRIBBLE:
https://i.imgur.com/edqcpel.jpg

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So, lets jump forward to the "New Romulus" mission arc.

Level 65 character....
Completed New Romulus Reputation (some missions are completed because of this).
Not finished with the "The Borg Advance" (the arc that needs to be completed before New Romulus would unlock for a new character).
Completed with "Yesterday's War" mission arc (which blocks older characters from missions further down the list).

This is on HOLODECK: https://i.imgur.com/EYpjtql.jpg

Notice: First mission "New Romulus Aid" is not unlocked.
Can "Replay" some of the NR missions completed, previously, before all the moves.
And, the mission "The Atlai" has a "Hail" because the requirement for it must be "Warehouse" completed.

This is on TRIBBLE: https://i.imgur.com/eyc9y5O.jpg

Notice: First mission "New Romulus Aid" is blank.
"Task Force Operations: New Romulus" is newly added has a "Hail" because "Staging Area" is done (and has a skip button, thank you).
"Hidden Camera" is not unlocked because "TFO:New Romulus" not done...is blank.

You confused, yet? LOL! I leave this here.

NOTE: On Tribble I copied:

1 Level 65 KDF, 1 Level 12 KDF Delta Recruit.
1 Level 65 Rom/KDF, 1 Level 12 Rom/KDF Delta Recruit.
1 Level 65 Fed, 1 Level 14 Fed Delta Recruit.

I have a lot of stuff to look at and compare. LOL!

markhawkman · September 2018

This seems like a good time to make those rep cutscene missions skippable. Obviously there are some that really don't make sense to skip, but all those that do nothing but tell you to go and read the assorted messages on the DS9 ops computer? those missions were nothing but a story diversion the first time, and quickly got boring.

where2r1 · September 2018

OOOooOOPs...

Just an FYI for you guys....

I got click happy with the new Doffing Tutorial that popped up on my Level 12 Romulan Delta Recruit...and went ahead of the steps in the tutorial flash cards.

It is now stuck in the available listing but can't be completed.
I will copy her back over and actually follow along properly.

garhdo · September 2018

A lot of good missions, including missions that are of a high quality such as the 4800 or have been supported after going live with voiceovers from Veteran Star Trek actors like LeVar Burton, Aron Eisenberg and Alexander Siddig, have been removed indefinitely, or are now no longer on the mission tab - making them harder to acquire and very easy for new players to miss. There needs to be a tab on the Journal to help in finding these missions, especially as some offer very interesting story content, rewards or unique challenges that can be easily missed otherwise. Such a tab could also be used to encourage players to head to Battlezones like Nukara by including the story missions from them, in a similar manner to the Kobali and New Romulus missions in the episodes tab.

The whole change seems incredibly unnecessary except for the Task Force, but that should include more of them. The missions could easily have been left as they were, with the Klingon War content updated in full once all the missons were completed.

jordan3550 · September 2018

Just patched Tribble and I get the error

Fatal error: direct3d driver returned error code (E_INVALIDARG) while creating vertex shader

I was able to get on Tribble the day before. Now I can only get to the cryptic loading screen on the Tribble server

Cryptic error ticket: 131640930

My system

Windows 7
Intel hd 3000
6gb
64b

Last time I encountered a direct3d error with Tribble it patched over to holodeck and many users weren’t able to get in the game. I think that was back in March

pwecangetlost · September 2018

Lumping everything in the awful available missions tab and hiding things away just feels like a truly terrible move. I'm all for updating and improving the mission themselves, but this streamlining of the journal is worse the more I see and hear about it. My feeling at the moment is that this is something that really does not need doing to the game.

tunebreaker · September 2018

I agree with others, just putting those to "available" tab (which is already filled with random TRIBBLE) is not a good option. And while some missions are quite annoying (Of Bajor and Boldly They Rode come to my mind), most of the stuff you are trying to hide under the rug is actually really well crafted. Much better story and mission design than whatever you have after Delta Quadrant missions.

Plus, several of the removed missions actually contain important information that's going to be relevant in later storyline missions. For example, without Defera arc, why would we care about Iconians blowing up the Preserver planet?

Not a fan.

tobywitczak · September 2018

I created a map of Current Mission’s Journal and the New Mission’s Journal. Items in red are those episodes that are to be removed but are supposed to make it back into the game. I create a New Optional Secondary Mission Journal that has all the removed missions and where I think they should go in the overall timeline. In addition, I did a deep dive and pulled in all the Legacy of Mission Journal (yellow) These were part of the original arc and but were removed from the game when the story arcs were updated. A lot of the Legacy seem to make their own self-contained mini arcs, but don’t have any influence on the larger picture, but it would be nice to have for revisiting and doing a deep lore dive.
attachment.php?aid=2600

How this all works. From the Mission’s Journal all Main Missions are shown as they are now, but to the right of the name there is an arrow now, this arrow when clicked will justify and pull down the arcs/missions that were removed from the main arc, because a lot of the missions make up their own mini arcs, I grouped them together. Obviously this is just a WIP, name locations are TBD. Also there is a seconds nested justify arcs for legacy missions.
attachment.php?aid=2599

And finally in the mission dialoged box there is two new options, Accolades and Rewards. Clicking on either one of these with expand the mission dialoged box and show the Accolades and/or Rewards in the missions that you can still unlock, Rewards are special Rewards for unique items that can be acquired during the missions, not the standard rewards. Accolades and Rewards would be greyed out for anything that was not unlocked. If there are any Accolades or Rewards not gotten then there would be maybe and red exclamation "!" in that box.
attachment.php?aid=2601

jdciollins · September 2018

I just logged into Tribble for the first time today, and have found something I didn't like already. I was hit 4 times with random missions from the Task Force Operations. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that to be annoying. Why not have one pop up saying that there random missions available and have a choice to view a list or decline. Other wise people are going to be hammered with multiple pop ups that they have to either accept or decline...which may end up making players unwilling to log in at all.

tobywitczak · September 2018

Those random missions are the TFO you are supposed to complete before moving onto the next arc.

where2r1 · September 2018

Looks like ALL the TRANSWARP and the gray(inactive) HAIL buttons are gone on the Romulan and Federation as well as KDF Mission Journal pages.

where2r1 · September 2018

I clicked on the STO uh... STF?...TFOs in the Mission Journal.

Are these going to be REPEATABLE missions?
Are the XP and Expertise rewards able to be picked up as a "wrapper" every time it is run?
You may want to advertise that...

Another point I was thinking about this morning: adding TFOs into the Mission Journal... if the random queues fail to attract the attention needed....it may take a while for a new player to get these missions to "pop" in order to do them. It won't matter if it is located in the PvP queue UI or in the Mission Journal.

PLUS, in your Mission Journal...if you don't complete the previous mission....it does not allow you to move forward to the next.

That is pretty much what happened to me on Neverwinter. Had all these group Skirmishes and Dungeons in the mission progression...I would sign up, but never had anyone around to start it. Of course, the difference was in Neverwinter those Skirmishes and Dungeons were locked to specific level windows, except for special events. That was to keep high level players wiping the lower level content.

Here the concern would be: low level folks in those TFOs being over run by other players, never actually learning the mission. And never being able to see how their builds do or do not work because the mission got done so fast and the couldn't get a shot in edgewise...if they could even catch up to the rest.

where2r1 · September 2018

And, now, I am no longer able to access the Mission Journal from the button on the Mini Map.

I wonder if it got hung up when I clicked over to the Available tab to see what was in there.....which was nothing.

And I checked all 6 characters I have on Tribble: whatever I did....Mission Journal button on the Mini Map is gray on every single one of them.

I am signing out for a few mins and see if that resets.

UPDATE: Accessing the "Available" tab in its current state of empty, will gray out the Mission Journal button on the Mini Map on every character on Tribble.

Can be reset by signing out...waiting about 10-15 mins...sign back in.

where2r1 · September 2018

On the Klingon mission list...I like how "Specters" arc has been removed from the middle of all the Klingon story on Tribble ...the content feels more full and together.

I mean, I enjoy the Devidians and the spook factor of Bonnie Kin...but it just splits the Klingon story up.

On a glance through, though....Temporal Ambassador seems out of place, still. It's a cool mission, ship is absolutely needed down the road for Admiralty, so I can see keeping it in the main Mission Journal.

What is the "Available" list going to go by??? Or maybe replace it with "temporary duty" and "daily service" mission lists. Isn't the stuff in "Available", now, stuff that can be picked up every day? Or most of it, anyways.

eristhevorta · September 2018

"Second Wave" is part of the 2800 series and should not be part of the main story line, Toby. Other than that, I like your layout a lot!

As for the whole reshuffling of episodes etc.: If you're going to take out the older featured episode series, why not the Romulan one as well? Those are the most tedious missions to go through (Coliseum and The Vault especially) and they're not really bringing the main story forward.

I hope some day the ground portion of Starbase 24 and Klingon Scout Force will come back, and of course also the 'stolen' episodes "War is Good for Business" and "State of Q".

I also really hope that the random TFOs will have a ground and space separation.

tobywitczak · September 2018

Thanks for the feedback. I was going with what’s on tibble at the time. Second Wave was listed as part of the main arc. The layout in some way is a thread view of a spoke and hub mission arcs, basically if you complete the main arc, it opens up all the arcs for that area or at least that was what I was going for. It seems to work out pretty well, and most of the legacy episodes can be grouped together. It also lends itself to future expansion by including the legacy stuff.

I really hope they start adding back some of the other things, like the old space doc area pre-undine destruction. Those are still fun to walk around in from time to time.

robdmc · September 2018

Any plans to make all missions playable in a team? It make it hard to play the game with a friend.

badgerpants999 · September 2018

Having just completed the Second mission "Diplomatic Orders" I was surprised to just get pushed onto "Researcher Rescue". So I checked the Missions available in the Klingon War arc. There are six of them, just six (6) missions. That will put a new character at Lieutenant Commander. But only just! Unless you're planning some serious power leveling for those missions, I humbly request you put the missing missions back into the Klingon War arc. Other wise you're going to get people trying to complete the missions in the Romulan Arc with a Lieutenant Commander. And I pity the poor fool that tries that out!

badgerpants999 · September 2018

With stranded in space I liked that the second half of the mission was fighting the Klingons but, either redo the voice over for the Klingon Captain or get a female in charge!

With Diplomatic orders it was a bit shorter than I remember but, nice cut scene with the Undine showing up and transforming!

marty123 · September 2018

Am I the only one who doesn't want this?

lordsteve1 · September 2018

You need to stop Quinn hailing me constantly about these "extra" missions. I'd already done them years back on this character on Tribble but he won't stop hailing me to tell me about these wonderful new missions.

isthisscience · September 2018

It's good, though it needs a bit more adjustment to work.

1. Clearer tab names than "Episodes" and "Available". Like "Main Story" and "Side Missions" - or if you want give it some Star Trek terms like TFO, name them "Priority One missions" and something-I-can't-think-of-right-now. Or A-story and B-story.

2. If you don't make the available list easier to peruse (giving it clearer visibility of types of missions for example), for all "side" missions have a visible contact in the relevant areas that will bredcrumb you to the main arc. Not a hail person, but someone on a ground map that you can't miss that will offer these chains. It would flesh out the world without hiding the missions too much.

3. Have solo versions of the TFO available (it won't be fun playing through all these missions then having to wait an hour for a mission to pop before continuing with the story).

4. As others have suggested, maybe throw in some other non-mainstory-relevant missions that have been removed into the Available/in-world contacts. Temporal Ambassador, Survivor and Nexus should also be amongst these (from your choice or removals, it is like you're trying to hide bad looking content rather than streamline the journal - I think you should have some recent-but-not-main missions off-journal too to encourage you to ensure all these missions are well flagged. Otherwise you'll be too happy to see them become invisible.)

tobywitczak · September 2018

Burying the older content in yet another tabs where few people will look at or know exists is a bad way to handle this update. The Current Available tab is a great example of what not to do.
Here is a bunch of random things that you can do, and even if you complete said mission, it’s still there saying “hey, you should do this missions again”. So you are stuck with monolithic block of garbage missions that you have no way to know if you did them or not.
This is why I opted for the nest approach for story arc missions

isthisscience · September 2018

tobywitczak wrote: »

The Current Available tab is a great example of what not to do.

They should rebuild the available tab to be like the episode tab, rather than show it by mission giver. Minor missions can be grouped by type and kept down the bottom while demoted episode arcs will be shown at the top under their group name.

They can prioritise the more important arcs (they can kick yesterdays war into available and stick that at the top, along with other high quality ones).

Also, none of them should be on auto hail. You should just get introduced to them at the appropriate point in the plot and then let it rest.

Incidentally, New Romulus still autohails early, at level 50, rather than in story order.

captaincelestial · September 2018

Invisible/Missing Reputation tab? Starship/Shuttle Stations also missing? What happened to the Character UI?

Even the Account bank is having issues (can't retrieve items/move them to main inventory).....

Edit: Escalation and Sunrise at level 11? A character I made back when AoY was tested on Tribble that I haven't used for quite a while got these missions. Is this part of the streamlining?

Official Feedback Thread for Streamlining the Mission Journal

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