And even if you were too lazy of math or have difficulties with math it can easily be completed by brute force.
Being good at math just gets you through the part a little faster. :rolleyes:
Yes, but WHY is it there? Just for the sake of having a puzzle that you have to stop the game and solve it?
Shouldn't a Science Officer with or without her tricorder have solved it before even a dialogue window popped up?
Maybe instead it should be your Science Officer rolling her eyes and saying "Here, I"LL do it." if the game stops for 30 seconds or a minute.
The math puzzle actually added to the immersion for me. I actually felt like my toon using a tricorder while using my phone and punching in the numbers on it.
I have to agree with all. today episode was excellent from start to finish. reading about myself was just too fun i couldn't stop laughing. Its also good to know what the emeny think of us.
I would like to say thank you to the dev's that work hard to bring as such an excellent episode. Keep up the good work.
Sorry Stormshade, I was somewhat ticked off that the mission came to a crashing halt for me.
But as I stated earlier in the thread, why is that math puzzle even there? Shouldn't my purple Science Officer have been able to solve that without even a dialogue window popping up?
It really just ruins the immersion at least for me that the game stops and you have to find a calculator or window out of the game and use the calculator function on your pc...Or find a scrap of paper and work the puzzle
All the while, my landing party is just standing around petting their tribbles.
To me, one of the best things about ST:O is the fact that many of the game missions are not typical MMO fare of "run here, kill 15 of these, rinse & repeat." It shouldn't be something extraordinary to have a puzzle (or multiple puzzles) requiring basic real life skills to solve. The mathematics in the mission were very basic, and if you didn't want to try and solve them you could just as easily have selected each answer choice until the number turned green then submitted.
Your science officer would have to have taken the time to process the equations (or punching them into a computer, like you could do via a calculator), the game is giving you the chance of solving it yourself. Why is that a bad thing?
The only thing that "bugged" me was that a 24th century computer system was being locked up by basic arithmetic.
Think of it like this - the actual calculations were so hard that the game merely "presented" you with a simpler version. Fictionally they were much harder.
Think of it like this - the actual calculations were so hard that the game merely "presented" you with a simpler version. Fictionally they were much harder.
Another thing to consider...
The math problems were so "simple" by 21st Century standards, that a 24th Century computer simply couldn't understand them. Put in another way... the computer was too smart for it's own good. It needed a much "dumber" computer to solve the problems... = i.e the players
To me, one of the best things about ST:O is the fact that many of the game missions are not typical MMO fare of "run here, kill 15 of these, rinse & repeat." It shouldn't be something extraordinary to have a puzzle (or multiple puzzles) requiring basic real life skills to solve. The mathematics in the mission were very basic, and if you didn't want to try and solve them you could just as easily have selected each answer choice until the number turned green then submitted.
Your science officer would have to have taken the time to process the equations (or punching them into a computer, like you could do via a calculator), the game is giving you the chance of solving it yourself. Why is that a bad thing?
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
I suck at math, basic or otherwise, so I had to windows out to get the answers, but I still absolutely loved this episode, puzzles and all, from beginning to end (well, the end was a bit abrupt, would have liked to at least make a daring escape with my ship rather then just suddenly popping out into sector space. But it wasn't enough for me to hate the experience.)
Once the math was out of the way, I didn't even have to consult my away team to figure out what to do. It was a pretty intuitive layout to the satellite, which made for quick work.
Loved the surprise of being beamed into a cell all by my lonesome.
Loved...hell I loved it all. More like this please!
i thought it was pretty awesome. couple of things tho......!spolierish!
why did i need my whole away team??? surely they was capture aswell? i never seemed to rescue them? lol
also on the map, the marked areas are way too small. you can hardly see them. the light grey on the sandy map i think has cause a fair few peopblems. many seem to have travel way past them..... even to the otherside of the map which is a huge 'trek' then to find nothing happens i myself wouldnever of noticed these tiny mission circles on the map if some1 had never told me. maybe the very small 1's need to be bigger or a diffrent colour.
other than that ^^ the mission was awesome and when you come out of the cave heading down to the wreckage. that view made me WOW!
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
I really wish you'd stop referring to it as "game stopping." It's nothing of the kind. You don't have to get out of the game to solve it - I did, but I chose to. Had I wanted to invest the time to solve it in my head, that was perfectly possible to do.
Why is your Science Officer not solving the puzzle? Because you, the player, are the focus of the game. Your officers could do any of the things that you're asked to do in Star Trek Online, but that wouldn't be very productive to the player.
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
I'll acknowledge we have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to the puzzles. I consider them to be immersive, you consider them to be game-stopping. I'm not sure how you take that impasse and work around it. I'd be curious to know, are there any pure puzzles in a game you find to be acceptable? Did you raise the same issue with the Preserver control puzzle in the Breen/Deferi quest line?
I view bridge officers in ST:O much as the heroes you can get in Guild Wars. They're fantastic to help you through your missions when you're playing by yourself, but if you want a more authentic experience, you need to play with other real people. Stick the multiplayer back in MMO, as it were. I keep a lower expectation when questing solo with BOs because it's obvious that they can't think on their own. If they did, why play the game at all when it would essentially be one objective after another handed to you complete?
The mission was great, however, the markings on the minimap need fixing. On the first run I never found the rock formation where I should hide and ran straight through to the end of the map while nothing happened. That was kind of frustrating.:D
Yeah, I've made it to this point... I'm in some sort of cave garden thing. I thought the "rock formation" was that big arch... The only other thing I saw was some random rocks laying around, I stood near them, nothing. Very annoying.
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
Hey, I'm huge on immersion myself, but I suck at math so I had to pop out myself to use the windows calc. Just pretend that it's a tricorder or something, and you're character is using it to type in the figures. Or maybe the time you're popping out to use the calc is them thinking through the problem. I highly doubt you'd get to be a captain without knowing basic math (Damn...that means I'd just be a redshirt I guess).
Otherwise life is too short to worry about it.
I get stuck in other games all the time and have to pop out to google a hint every now and then, but it doesn't stop me from playing games, and I don't start hating the developer because they made a game that's smarter then I am. In fact, the more crafty a game is like that, the more satisfying it is once I crack the code. (but that's my personal taste.)
Agreed with you on the away teams part of your statement, but unless they can have interaction that is tied to some of the personality traits that I've decided for my crew, I don't see them taking over them and making them say things that might be out of character (especially after folks were complaining about some of the comment pop ups in the last episode not working with certain species).
The environment? Fantastic details, loved the crashed ship, the cave was cool looking, enjoyed the Scorpion fighters patrolling the skies.
The story? Pretty darn good. I was expecting a twist, and it even so I was ready to slice that Reman into tiny bits. Was kind of hoping my ship would fire a torpedo at all those gathered Romulans. Maybe next time.
The music was excellent, so glad you were able to use it. THANK YOU. More music, please! Both from the shows and from your own musical wizards.
This whole series has been incredible and, in my opinion, is taking this game to a new level. If you guys can continue with this kind of quality, I'll be jaw-on-floor impressed and never play any other MMO (except the WH40k MMO, sorry, have to at least try it).
Amazing work, thank you for going above and beyond!
Doing it in a team again stripped the other members of many dialogues, and left me puzzled at many points what the frell was going on.
The fight in the arena was impressive, but for some reason I at no point felt threatened, even despite the size of that thing.
I would have liked the desert-part to be a bit longer, but that may be just me.
The final cutscene was just awesome, things went so fast, I had to replay just to understand what happened.
Seeing how we can pick up melee weapons up in there that are virtually the same quality as the c-store melee pack weapons, I should have waited to buy them. But then it's random and you might not get the Lirpa from the weapon caches in there.
The sword's jump attack is very impressive, looking forward to more funky melee weapons and specialized attacks or moves in future updates!
All in all, I really enjoyed the work that has gone into this. Thanks for this glorious episode!
I enjoyed it myself with the one exception being when the circle did not appear in my map and I thought I needed to go all the way to the stone arch.
Took me about 15 min or longer to get it all worked out.
Other than that ... loved it.
And loved the sword.
Cryptic ... put more sword skins in game please ... I'd gladly pay for a "Romulan Honor Blade" or traditional looking sword or katana beyond the alien ones.
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
You have stated the same point several times over now but clearly many people disagree and don't think it breaks immersion. We are dealing with opinions here not facts, I doubt you'll have much success continuing the same argument.
I do agree with you though. I felt the basic maths test felt a little strange, although it didn't completely ruin the experience for me. I had actually just been going through some of the original romulan missions where you fight through small armies of ground troops and thats it. I think the puzzle at the start serve to create the right pacing between combat/puzzle/RP and so was justified if not necessarily well executed.
I'll acknowledge we have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to the puzzles. I consider them to be immersive, you consider them to be game-stopping. I'm not sure how you take that impasse and work around it. I'd be curious to know, are there any pure puzzles in a game you find to be acceptable? Did you raise the same issue with the Preserver control puzzle in the Breen/Deferi quest line?
I view bridge officers in ST:O much as the heroes you can get in Guild Wars. They're fantastic to help you through your missions when you're playing by yourself, but if you want a more authentic experience, you need to play with other real people. Stick the multiplayer back in MMO, as it were. I keep a lower expectation when questing solo with BOs because it's obvious that they can't think on their own. If they did, why play the game at all when it would essentially be one objective after another handed to you complete?
Was that the puzzle that required you to use the kludgy interface to maneuver your bridge officers just right to set off the lights to form the arrows? I found a link that had a map, but you still had to stagger your zombie bridge officers just right to set off the lights because they were just 1 foot off, they would just stand and pet their tribbles.
Truly the darkest point of the Breen series that I otherwise thought was quite good.
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
I disagree. Many of the better trek games have minigames/puzzles that are required to advance the plot.
Personally, I did not think this was a particularly great one, since it just required basic arithmetic rather than logical inference, but, for example, I thought the puzzles in the last featured series were quite sensible and added to the gameplay.
Was kind of hoping my ship would fire a torpedo at all those gathered Romulans. Maybe next time.
I think it would have been epic if a whole squadron of shuttlecraft launched from your ship and flew into the canyon and started blasting the Romulans just in time to save you. Unfeasible perhaps, but truly epic. Oh well. Still the best mission in the game by far.
Awesome episode (even if the waypoints on the desert map were a bit difficult to see!). I was half expecting the words "To be continued ...." pop up onscreen
So far, all STO puzzles were fair - yet exactly the type of non-combat challenge you'd hope for in a Startrek game.
The combats in this mission were little with good story elements between them to not make them tedious. Pretty cool stuff.
I loved the diverted transport, and the last-minute transport. Hakeev is definitely the vilain we will love to hate. (Though I also liked the smack-talking Breen, this one is better.)
The mission also had some of the best atmospheric maps so far.
Comments
Yes, but WHY is it there? Just for the sake of having a puzzle that you have to stop the game and solve it?
Shouldn't a Science Officer with or without her tricorder have solved it before even a dialogue window popped up?
Maybe instead it should be your Science Officer rolling her eyes and saying "Here, I"LL do it." if the game stops for 30 seconds or a minute.
The math puzzle actually added to the immersion for me. I actually felt like my toon using a tricorder while using my phone and punching in the numbers on it.
I would like to say thank you to the dev's that work hard to bring as such an excellent episode. Keep up the good work.
To me, one of the best things about ST:O is the fact that many of the game missions are not typical MMO fare of "run here, kill 15 of these, rinse & repeat." It shouldn't be something extraordinary to have a puzzle (or multiple puzzles) requiring basic real life skills to solve. The mathematics in the mission were very basic, and if you didn't want to try and solve them you could just as easily have selected each answer choice until the number turned green then submitted.
Your science officer would have to have taken the time to process the equations (or punching them into a computer, like you could do via a calculator), the game is giving you the chance of solving it yourself. Why is that a bad thing?
Think of it like this - the actual calculations were so hard that the game merely "presented" you with a simpler version. Fictionally they were much harder.
Another thing to consider...
The math problems were so "simple" by 21st Century standards, that a 24th Century computer simply couldn't understand them. Put in another way... the computer was too smart for it's own good. It needed a much "dumber" computer to solve the problems... = i.e the players
xD
Finally the game is becoming Star Trek.
Great work guys!
I felt the same way! Stupid Youtube.... couldn't find the B5 clip for "Mathematics not Zathras skill. Zathras goings now."
Because Cryptic is putting game stopping puzzles in for the sake of having game stopping puzzles? It completely ruins the immersion of actually being in a Star Trek episode when you have to pause and get out of the game to solve it.
Ok, so solving the puzzle is basic math. Why is my Science Officer or Engineer just standing around petting their tribble when just basic math is stopping them from going through a door? How did my Vulcan Science Officer get through the Vulcan Science Academy if that stopped her? Shouldn't she get rather smug and say "Here, I'll do it" if it seems to be taking some time?
For me part of the problem with this game is that your bridge officers/landing party are just zombies with phasers. They don't do anything but shoot or use an ability when a red dot appears on the map. There is no dialogue with them or between them.
Once the math was out of the way, I didn't even have to consult my away team to figure out what to do. It was a pretty intuitive layout to the satellite, which made for quick work.
Loved the surprise of being beamed into a cell all by my lonesome.
Loved...hell I loved it all. More like this please!
why did i need my whole away team??? surely they was capture aswell? i never seemed to rescue them? lol
also on the map, the marked areas are way too small. you can hardly see them. the light grey on the sandy map i think has cause a fair few peopblems. many seem to have travel way past them..... even to the otherside of the map which is a huge 'trek' then to find nothing happens i myself wouldnever of noticed these tiny mission circles on the map if some1 had never told me. maybe the very small 1's need to be bigger or a diffrent colour.
other than that ^^ the mission was awesome and when you come out of the cave heading down to the wreckage. that view made me WOW!
awesome work
Such an utterly epic mission. Great environments, situation, story. I love that it goes from night to day.
Positively glorious. So much FUN!
I'll be replaying this one every chance I get.
And I love my new blue Mk XI sword.
I really wish you'd stop referring to it as "game stopping." It's nothing of the kind. You don't have to get out of the game to solve it - I did, but I chose to. Had I wanted to invest the time to solve it in my head, that was perfectly possible to do.
Why is your Science Officer not solving the puzzle? Because you, the player, are the focus of the game. Your officers could do any of the things that you're asked to do in Star Trek Online, but that wouldn't be very productive to the player.
I'll acknowledge we have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to the puzzles. I consider them to be immersive, you consider them to be game-stopping. I'm not sure how you take that impasse and work around it. I'd be curious to know, are there any pure puzzles in a game you find to be acceptable? Did you raise the same issue with the Preserver control puzzle in the Breen/Deferi quest line?
I view bridge officers in ST:O much as the heroes you can get in Guild Wars. They're fantastic to help you through your missions when you're playing by yourself, but if you want a more authentic experience, you need to play with other real people. Stick the multiplayer back in MMO, as it were. I keep a lower expectation when questing solo with BOs because it's obvious that they can't think on their own. If they did, why play the game at all when it would essentially be one objective after another handed to you complete?
Yeah, I've made it to this point... I'm in some sort of cave garden thing. I thought the "rock formation" was that big arch...
Other than that, so far so good.
Hey, I'm huge on immersion myself, but I suck at math so I had to pop out myself to use the windows calc. Just pretend that it's a tricorder or something, and you're character is using it to type in the figures. Or maybe the time you're popping out to use the calc is them thinking through the problem. I highly doubt you'd get to be a captain without knowing basic math (Damn...that means I'd just be a redshirt I guess).
Otherwise life is too short to worry about it.
I get stuck in other games all the time and have to pop out to google a hint every now and then, but it doesn't stop me from playing games, and I don't start hating the developer because they made a game that's smarter then I am. In fact, the more crafty a game is like that, the more satisfying it is once I crack the code. (but that's my personal taste.)
Agreed with you on the away teams part of your statement, but unless they can have interaction that is tied to some of the personality traits that I've decided for my crew, I don't see them taking over them and making them say things that might be out of character (especially after folks were complaining about some of the comment pop ups in the last episode not working with certain species).
The environment? Fantastic details, loved the crashed ship, the cave was cool looking, enjoyed the Scorpion fighters patrolling the skies.
The story? Pretty darn good. I was expecting a twist, and it even so I was ready to slice that Reman into tiny bits. Was kind of hoping my ship would fire a torpedo at all those gathered Romulans. Maybe next time.
The music was excellent, so glad you were able to use it. THANK YOU. More music, please! Both from the shows and from your own musical wizards.
This whole series has been incredible and, in my opinion, is taking this game to a new level. If you guys can continue with this kind of quality, I'll be jaw-on-floor impressed and never play any other MMO (except the WH40k MMO, sorry, have to at least try it).
Amazing work, thank you for going above and beyond!
I enjoyed it myself with the one exception being when the circle did not appear in my map and I thought I needed to go all the way to the stone arch.
Took me about 15 min or longer to get it all worked out.
Other than that ... loved it.
And loved the sword.
Cryptic ... put more sword skins in game please ... I'd gladly pay for a "Romulan Honor Blade" or traditional looking sword or katana beyond the alien ones.
You have stated the same point several times over now but clearly many people disagree and don't think it breaks immersion. We are dealing with opinions here not facts, I doubt you'll have much success continuing the same argument.
I do agree with you though. I felt the basic maths test felt a little strange, although it didn't completely ruin the experience for me. I had actually just been going through some of the original romulan missions where you fight through small armies of ground troops and thats it. I think the puzzle at the start serve to create the right pacing between combat/puzzle/RP and so was justified if not necessarily well executed.
Was that the puzzle that required you to use the kludgy interface to maneuver your bridge officers just right to set off the lights to form the arrows? I found a link that had a map, but you still had to stagger your zombie bridge officers just right to set off the lights because they were just 1 foot off, they would just stand and pet their tribbles.
Truly the darkest point of the Breen series that I otherwise thought was quite good.
The end, i was waiting for my ship to decloack behind the roms and open fire for some reason.
I disagree. Many of the better trek games have minigames/puzzles that are required to advance the plot.
Personally, I did not think this was a particularly great one, since it just required basic arithmetic rather than logical inference, but, for example, I thought the puzzles in the last featured series were quite sensible and added to the gameplay.
I think it would have been epic if a whole squadron of shuttlecraft launched from your ship and flew into the canyon and started blasting the Romulans just in time to save you. Unfeasible perhaps, but truly epic. Oh well. Still the best mission in the game by far.
So far, all STO puzzles were fair - yet exactly the type of non-combat challenge you'd hope for in a Startrek game.
The combats in this mission were little with good story elements between them to not make them tedious. Pretty cool stuff.
I loved the diverted transport, and the last-minute transport. Hakeev is definitely the vilain we will love to hate. (Though I also liked the smack-talking Breen, this one is better.)
The mission also had some of the best atmospheric maps so far.