test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The Long Haul.
System
Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I think its time we had a frank discussion about the future of STO.
Im not talking about Atari dropping Cryptic, or the acquisition by Perfect World. Im not talking about the possibility of a F2P model or a hybrid micro transaction/subscription for content model.
Im talking about the real long-term viability of the game itself.
In the past year or so, weve seen people rage-quit, stealth-quit, and just plain lose interest. Some of the major issues have been addressed (Sector Space), some will be addressed soon (ground combat). But one of the prime causes has not been.
Im talking about the step-faction. The KDF. No game that I am aware of has succeeded on the market (with any kind of economic model) with 1 1/4 factions. The main reason stated so often by people who dont play on the KDF is that theres nothing to do over there that cant be done just as well on the Fed side.
The disparity between the Factions is well documented, by red_shirt_ as well as Peregrine_Falcon. Arguments that it was meant to be this way or that the KDF was never meant to be a full faction have been thoroughly debunked.
All the unique ships, all the flavor of the KDF has been unsuccessful in promoting the KDF Faction to the player base. People who would play KDF often dont because of the grind. And while I recognize that there are some players who wont, under any circumstances, play a KDF character, I believe those players are in the minority.
Recent efforts by the Devs to encourage KDF play have seemingly fallen on deaf ears (while the revamp of Doomsday allowing Fed Players to fly a B'Rel BoP was well-intentioned, I have yet to see/hear of one Fed Player who has rolled a KDF toon after doing so).
Featured Episodes may (eventually) grow so numerous as to make a full PvE progression possible without grinding, but seeing as how those missions will also be freely available to the Feds, theres no reason for anybody to go roll a KDF toon to do missions theyve likely already done as a Fed multiple times over.
The Foundry has added a great many very well-done missions to the KDF. But with the only experience coming from a daily which requires a player to complete three of them, a KDF player is better off (advancement-wise) doing one mission replay for more experience.
More FEs, improved Ground Combat, Veterans rewards.. The Gorn revamp, the Borg DSEs.. None of them will add anything to the KDF that will encourage a Fed Player to roll & level a KDF toon.
To put it simply, the course this game is on, adding only Fed or Faction-Neutral content, will doom this game to failure over the long-term.
Thus, I propose the following:
While work should continue on the Featured Episodes, future Veterans rewards, and other dual-faction efforts, I think the resources that would be put towards Mission revamps beyond the STF revamps should be rerouted to create KDF PvE storyline missions. Nothing overwhelming, nothing of the same quality of mission revamps, merely a number of PvE missions similar (in quality and number) to the Fed PvE Storyline missions, with comparable Experience rewards to match.
This should be done in order to relieve the "grind" that discourages so many from bothering to roll or level a KDF character. Considering that any work would occur after the KDF gain access to the entire Galaxy Map, KDF PvE could take place along all the borders they share with the Federation, the Romulans, and the Cardassians. Indeed, to save time & energy, the tiers of advancement could be similar, with T1 & T2 dedicated to Klingon internal strife between the various Houses and sub-factions (Gorn, Nausicaans, Orions), T3 dedicated to Romulan Affairs, T4 to the True Way/Alpha Jem'Hadar, and T5 to the Borg/Undine (without many changes, I might add).
TL;DR: Dual-Faction Content should remain stable, but single-faction content development (non-fluff) resources should be redirected to the KDF after the STF revamps are done.
Im not talking about Atari dropping Cryptic, or the acquisition by Perfect World. Im not talking about the possibility of a F2P model or a hybrid micro transaction/subscription for content model.
Im talking about the real long-term viability of the game itself.
In the past year or so, weve seen people rage-quit, stealth-quit, and just plain lose interest. Some of the major issues have been addressed (Sector Space), some will be addressed soon (ground combat). But one of the prime causes has not been.
Im talking about the step-faction. The KDF. No game that I am aware of has succeeded on the market (with any kind of economic model) with 1 1/4 factions. The main reason stated so often by people who dont play on the KDF is that theres nothing to do over there that cant be done just as well on the Fed side.
The disparity between the Factions is well documented, by red_shirt_ as well as Peregrine_Falcon. Arguments that it was meant to be this way or that the KDF was never meant to be a full faction have been thoroughly debunked.
All the unique ships, all the flavor of the KDF has been unsuccessful in promoting the KDF Faction to the player base. People who would play KDF often dont because of the grind. And while I recognize that there are some players who wont, under any circumstances, play a KDF character, I believe those players are in the minority.
Recent efforts by the Devs to encourage KDF play have seemingly fallen on deaf ears (while the revamp of Doomsday allowing Fed Players to fly a B'Rel BoP was well-intentioned, I have yet to see/hear of one Fed Player who has rolled a KDF toon after doing so).
Featured Episodes may (eventually) grow so numerous as to make a full PvE progression possible without grinding, but seeing as how those missions will also be freely available to the Feds, theres no reason for anybody to go roll a KDF toon to do missions theyve likely already done as a Fed multiple times over.
The Foundry has added a great many very well-done missions to the KDF. But with the only experience coming from a daily which requires a player to complete three of them, a KDF player is better off (advancement-wise) doing one mission replay for more experience.
More FEs, improved Ground Combat, Veterans rewards.. The Gorn revamp, the Borg DSEs.. None of them will add anything to the KDF that will encourage a Fed Player to roll & level a KDF toon.
To put it simply, the course this game is on, adding only Fed or Faction-Neutral content, will doom this game to failure over the long-term.
Thus, I propose the following:
While work should continue on the Featured Episodes, future Veterans rewards, and other dual-faction efforts, I think the resources that would be put towards Mission revamps beyond the STF revamps should be rerouted to create KDF PvE storyline missions. Nothing overwhelming, nothing of the same quality of mission revamps, merely a number of PvE missions similar (in quality and number) to the Fed PvE Storyline missions, with comparable Experience rewards to match.
This should be done in order to relieve the "grind" that discourages so many from bothering to roll or level a KDF character. Considering that any work would occur after the KDF gain access to the entire Galaxy Map, KDF PvE could take place along all the borders they share with the Federation, the Romulans, and the Cardassians. Indeed, to save time & energy, the tiers of advancement could be similar, with T1 & T2 dedicated to Klingon internal strife between the various Houses and sub-factions (Gorn, Nausicaans, Orions), T3 dedicated to Romulan Affairs, T4 to the True Way/Alpha Jem'Hadar, and T5 to the Borg/Undine (without many changes, I might add).
TL;DR: Dual-Faction Content should remain stable, but single-faction content development (non-fluff) resources should be redirected to the KDF after the STF revamps are done.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Great thread Katic.:)
I agree Klingons need more content. I agree that FEs are meant for both sides, but that individual missions and any additional story-related content should be more Klingon than Fed, up to the point where both are roughly matched. I do find that a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 Klingon versus Fed ratio should be the right one for adding content.
Still, I thought the thread was going to be about the fact that currently it's quite difficult to open a new set of levels (the VA ones, actually), because there are no 6T skills and if they did, they'd cost an outrageous 600 skill points per level, and the mess with c-store ships makes almost impossible to add a T6 ship without causing an uproar from people that spent too much money on ships in the c-store.
I thought you were talking about THAT "long haul", but I see people still are stuck with their limited views in the game, so one year from now, we will still be Vice Admirals ( or Generals ), with the same ships, and the same skills we have now. We will have more content, whopeee, which will be USELESS to advance our endgame characters. Welcome to level 51, your last stop for years to come.
TBH I have thought about the issues you bring up. But the KDF, quite frankly, is more important, and a bigger problem for the long-term health of the game IMHO.
And.. To be perfectly honest, I don't really see a T6 in the works. They stretched believability when they went to a lvl 51 cap with VAs & LGs. I doubt getting Full-Fledged Admirals or Generals would be anymore believable.
If they add a T6, I think they'll have to decouple rank from level first. And since that's something that would require a much larger revamp than anything they've done so far.. I don't see it happening short of a paid expansion or shutdown/revamp/relaunch. Neither of which is likely to happen, ever.
And to be quite frank, I've had three VAs for more than a half a year now, and I'm not done with them. Two of them have barely made a dent into the Diplomacy System, and two of them haven't touched crafting since before the crafting revamp. Just getting them properly geared for max-level play, figuring out my builds, what ships are my "go-to"'s for different kinds of play.. I'm still pretty busy at VA Fed-side.
On the other hand, I only in the past month or so had a KDF at cap, and I'm almost completely done getting him geared/specced/etc..
..And I'm absolutely loathing the grind to get my other two up to LG.
I'm not interested in rolling a Klingon character, but I might get interested in a Romulan one. So it's the game as a whole what I'm looking at, not just one faction.
I also agree that no faction can be launched currently, because the Klingons are still too badly developed, and because any future faction MUST NOT repeat the mistakes done to the Klingons. Right now Klingons are "half cooked", compared to the "almost raw" they were at launch. Still, I don't want to consider playing even a "half cooked" Romulan.
But ignoring the horrors the devs have done in the upper levels, effectively mortaging any future development of the game, is NOT the way to go.
It's like discussing the wall paper of a house close to collapse. First we need to make sure the house won't fall apart, and then we can talk about the wall paper and furniture.
What good is to have a fully fledged Klingon faction if players have left the game for lack of further character advance?
I have my opinions on the subject, but it is a lengthy explanation I'm not interested in repeating.
No there will be no future if the KDF doesnt get a REAL boost soon. Right now its dying and eventually that death will begin to spread to the FEDs as the PvP portion of the Community will lose interest as there wont be anyone different to fight against.
That.
In reality, many players, has a FED and a KDF. And more.
I have 2 VA FED and 1 LG KDF. And 5 others characters (for fun).
But as of today, I use a single character. My main character of the federation. I stopped using my KDF, because it no longer interests me (it was fun to have a LG KDF, just for fun).
Now we all expect new content, serious things to do. For many months, there's nothing to do ...
No new content, nothing
Where is the exploration ?
Ships interiors ? with fonctionnality ?
New forms of life ?
...
To put in Star Trek terms; The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one." In developing for everyone they alleviate the KDF grind and they keep the Federation players occupied. You are correct that the Klingons deserve more, and I do not like the state of the faction but a complete correction at this stage is unlikely in the extreme.
There's seriously only like 20 or 25 of them, the rest is patrol or squad-kill missions. You aren't missing that much.
Regardless, this topic has been beaten to death, and THE ANSWER IS STILL THE SAME.
They do as much as they can for the KDF. There IS NO MIRACLE coming, they won't stop work on everything else for months to "equalize" the faction. It is not going to happen.
This whole notion that they should do so is based upon a logical fallacy: That if they DID push out a lot of KDF content, the KDF population would rise in such a way to make it economical to do so.
You have _NO_ evidence that this would happen. None.
Cryptic however has indicated they have evidence to the contrary, that any KDF content they worked on resulted in "very little" population movement for the faction.
The KDF is what is it is. They will receive dev time proportional to their population, as is only logical.
You can either enjoy what is there, or you can continue to wallow in the misery of so called "unfulfilled promised" but that WILL NOT change reality.
Good day.
I'm a FED player, and I rolled a KDF after Doomsday...
If they launched with Romulans instead of Klingons, and they trated the Rom faction the way they treat Klingons, I would have rolled a Rom, and be one of most vocal people about the Fed/Rom content gap.
So I feel for the Klingons, play a Fed, and I'm actually glad they haven't launched the Roms yet.
I hope the devs have learned from all the mistakes that they have unleashed on the Klingons, and don't repeat the same mistakes they ARE DOING right now when/if they consider adding the Roms as a new faction.
Otherwise, they will have two groups of very unhappy people.
Its not that I do not sympathize with the problem but bringing it up constantly simply isn't going to resolve the problem. I think the developers have been fairly clear on their intended development path and its a reasonable one.
Didn't read this, did you?
Yes, we have, and there's 58 of them, not counting Patrols, explorations, Promotions or tutorials.
The KDF has 12. That's 46 more missions worth of PvE content. 46 more missions worth of leveling experience, 46 more sources of gear. The Feds have enough PvE content to level without ever doing a daily, a Featured Episode, or a single PvP match.
We are missing out. And we know it. We LTS KDF players paid just as much for our LTS as Fed-only players. We monthly/biannual/annual subs pay just as much. And we have less than a quarter the content or fluff.
And you want to know the kicker? You did too. You didn't pay half as much as I did for just the Feds, you paid the full amount, for two (2) Factions, and you've gotten 1 1/4.
I'm not asking them to "stop work on everything else". Read my post again.
I would like to see where the devs said KDF population didn't budge with KDF content (not fluff, meaning, when they released the 12 KDF story missions, or opened up the STFs to the KDF. The ships, uniforms, vet rewards, all are fluff) release, link to the post, I've looked for it, couldn't find it. Back up your claim.
Just like it was/is "logical" for people to treat other minorities as "lesser" in real life? Dangerous path you're treading there.
The fact that one is in a majority does not give one the right to ignore or trample upon the minority.
First off, it's not a "so called" unfulfilled promise. It is an unfulfilled promise.
You don't roll a new Fed to replay the T1 missions do you? No, you just use Mission replay. FEs do not help the KDF because they do not encourage people to roll or level KDF toons.
Dual-Faction content does not increase KDF population, if those are the "content releases" you speak of, guess what, we agree, which is why I'm calling for KDF exclusive content, but not at the cost of FEs.
That's one. Just a couple thousand more to go.
That´s not really true. I know it might be nitpicking, but on every single Fed I leveled up, i had to grind the last 4 levels in B´Tran. And I did do some dailys and all the FE in between.
While I would strongly agree with more KDF specific content, I don´t feel that the whole future of the game depends on it.
You do realize that the word is that Season 5 is going to be almost exclusively Endgame content, right? You know.. stuff to *do* at 51?
Thus you don't get any more responses from me. This discussion has been had dozens of time, the answer is the same. They'll do what they can, and harassing them doesn't help.
The content team is going to focus on featured episodes. Other development will happen as it can be fit on the schedule. Asking for them to focus on KDF missions is POINTLESS, it will NOT happen.
Not only that, you get people who might like more KDF content just fine (like me, my KDF guy is a captain, thank you very much) arguing with you because its annoying
Knock it off already.
And by the way, Dstahl himself said the thing about "the needle not moving much" on the KDF population numbers after the season with the PVE stuff. Look it up yourself, we've had too many of these threads, I couldn't possibly be bothered anymore, you should know it by now. :P
All I was saying is that catering exclusively to the majority has no moral or logical standing. I'm sorry if the comparison offended you, but acting as if that "logic" was impeccable and unquestionable was just as insulting.
And, again, I think you need to reread my post: I'm not asking for the devs to spend all their resources on the KDF, or delay bug fixes, Featured Episodes, or even C-Store fluff.
As far as I know, Gozer single-handedly remastered Stranded in Space, Diplomatic Orders and Doomsday Device. Now he's working on the STFs. All I'm asking is that instead of moving on & doing the Kuvah'Magh, or Past Imperfect or ~whatever~, instead of redoing old content, he (and whatever minor development interns/minions he commands) create new KDF content on par with non-remastered Fed Storyline PvE for the KDF. The equivalent of the current incarnations of the basic storyline missions.
That's all. That's it. You'll still get your Featured Episodes, still get your fluff, still get your remastered STFs (Endgame content!), but instead of polishing up old missions, give the KDF the bare minimum of what they should have had 18 months ago.
We ask for two things for the KDF for every three the Feds get, and we're told by Feds to sit down, shut up and be thankful for what we get.
We ask for long-overdue animation fixes (Fed Tricorders? Huh?), costume options, or ship customization, and we're told by Feds to sit down, shut up and be thankful for what we get.
We ask for one thing for every two the Feds get, and we're told by Feds to sit down, shut up and be thankful for what we get.
We ask for bug fixes for issues that have plagued us since launch (scanning errors, the infamous cloak bug), and we're told by Feds to sit down, shut up and be thankful for what we get.
We ask for ONE dev to be dedicated to basic KDF PvE after he's finished with everything we know is on his plate right now, and we're told by Feds to sit down, shut up and be thankful for what we get.
The line must be drawn here! This far, and no farther!
Okay, now thats just silly...
How much further can we retreat? An intern? An unpaid intern? The Cryptic Studios Janitor?
I'm sorry, I don't think it's silly at all.
Faction-neutral content will not buffer the KDF because people will just play through it with their Feds rather than slog through the KDF grind.
If this game is to survive, much less compete (especially with something like TOR), the KDF needs (not wants, or desires, but needs) exclusive content.
And we've been told to sit down and pretend Featured Episodes are the answer too many times. Told that 2/3 ratio (40%) of development is too much. Told a 1/3 ratio (25%) Development time is too much. Told that any development time is too much.
Gozer did the remasters in what he often called his "spare time".
You're telling me one devs spare time is too much to ask?
How about you stop equating the number of missions in a video game with the morality question of oppressing a minority.
Once we get that removed from the discussion, perhaps some rational discourse (on all of the other things you are saying that need refuting) can occur, but not until then.
The Fed majority (which is a real life group of people) insisting that all content development benefit them exclusively at the expense of the minority KDF (also a real group of people) who are already severely lacking is directly comparable to a majority in the general population demanding that the status-quo which benefits them continue at the expense of a minority.
Just because you are in the majority, does not give you moral sanction to deny, through collective action, the needs of the minority.
Just because there's more of you, does not mean you can dictate that we stop asking for content.
Popularity does not equal moral superiority.
I can't put it any simpler.
We deserve exclusive content, and we're not going to be satisfied until we get it.
Leveling up a Fed is too easy. I started a Sci toon and in 3 days had him up to CMDR 6. This was on advanced difficulty.
Your post made me raise my fist in support. But also made me chuckle, because it is a clever combo of a pretty good Trek film moment. So I think there's some silly in there. Put there by you on purpose. To generate the effect.
But I agree with your sentiment. And totally support what you're saying.
I want to support you and tell you how much I like seeing you take a stand.
I also don't want to lose yet another KDF player who cares about the faction's development enough to take said stand.
So part of me says HECK YES! Preach on! Part of me says, but be careful?
JUST MAKE KDF MISSIONS.
To post from another thread-
and we can see how content needs more time in development (AHEMseason4)
we just have to convince enough Devs as well as players to take a chance on the KDF.
Aye. There has been some 'high-profile casualties' of late.