In the next entry of out Path to Free-to-Play Dev Blogs, Stephen D'Angelo introduces us to Star Trek Online's new Mission Journal UI. Now available on Tribble for testing! Make sure to check back for another entry in our Path to F2P Dev Blog series soon!
If you get a Federation character from start to level 11, we'll give you a free 8 hour XP boost item.
To be honest, that doesn't seem very useful for the majority of people who are likely to help test on Tribble. I would imagine most of those people already have at least one character at level cap, if not more. On the Fed side, it doesn't really take all that long to hit level cap anyway, especially with the XP boost in the Borg DSEs and the 15-minute XP boost item you get for completing the Borg Invasion Daily. I suppose if it's not Bind On Pick-Up, that might make it a little more useful (mail it to your KDF toon?).
(Also, still hoping we can get an RSS feed for these Path to F2P posts.)
Nice to see the rewards are being listed. While they aren't crazy awesome I still think they are pretty decent.
I'm just going to assume the Ship slot is an account wide unlock. So please feel free to crush my hopes if you desire.
Also that's good to know that playing a KDF toon gets you a second set of rewards. I'm looking forward to earning those as well.
The new mission box looks cool, and I did hate having to "talk" to so many NPCs to get just a simple mission. I can imagine the casual players found it even harder to use then us here on the forums. Guessing by the screen shot I'm going to guess that took you a few months to setup up.
To be honest, that doesn't seem very useful for the majority of people who are likely to help test on Tribble. I would imagine most of those people already have at least one character at level cap, if not more. On the Fed side, it doesn't really take all that long to hit level cap anyway, especially with the XP boost in the Borg DSEs and the 15-minute XP boost item you get for completing the Borg Invasion Daily. I suppose if it's not Bind On Pick-Up, that might make it a little more useful (mail it to your KDF toon?).
(Also, still hoping we can get an RSS feed for these Path to F2P posts.)
To add to this some of us still have one from the 1 year anniversary on each of our VAs these things are just gonna be sitting around in storage until the level cap gets increased whenever that's coming.
As a bonus, within the three weeks following when the F2P build is live, we'll be giving out awards to your character on Holodeck based on what you accomplished on Tribble. If you get a Federation character from start to level 11, we'll give you a free 8 hour XP boost item. If you get to level 31, we'll give you a reasonably large chunk of dilithium (exactly how much depends a bit on how the economy tunes up in testing, but this will be a meaningful award). And if you get a character to level 51, we'll give you a bonus ship slot and a unique title that only the most elite Tribblers will have. This award only applies to Federation characters that freshly started on Tribble. It does not apply to characters that transfer in once we open up character transfer.
I am assuming that the testing rewards are account-wide? If not, can they be transferred to an alt? I'd rather give them to a Klingon toon, particularly the XP boost. At any rate, this gives me a bit more of an incentive to test my *** off.
If you get a Federation character from start to level 11, we'll give you a free 8 hour XP boost item. If you get to level 31, we'll give you a reasonably large chunk of dilithium (exactly how much depends a bit on how the economy tunes up in testing, but this will be a meaningful award). And if you get a character to level 51, we'll give you a bonus ship slot and a unique title that only the most elite Tribblers will have.
Ok, I think its just said in a confusing way but I want to be sure, do we have to wait to start leveling the character after F2P goes live or can we start now if we would like the rewards? The way it was worded it seems like we have to wait till its live first or we wont get the bonuses for getting the characters to 11, 31 and 51.
The only negative I have to say about this is that most people will be doing whatever is fastest to level on. And that means, NOT the Duty Officer System I suspect. I believe Heretic wanted feedback on that aspect of the system.
Ok, I think its just said in a confusing way but I want to be sure, do we have to wait to start leveling the character after F2P goes live or can we start now if we would like the rewards? The way it was worded it seems like we have to wait till its live first or we wont get the bonuses for getting the characters to 11, 31 and 51.
This starts on TRIBBLE as of now. They want as many people playing the F2P Test Server as possible for load testing, bug reporting and feedback.
The only negative I have to say about this is that most people will be doing whatever is fastest to level on. And that means, NOT the Duty Officer System I suspect. I believe Heretic wanted feedback on that aspect of the system.
Defend missions and high xp missions only for me
Although i have noticed the missions im playing so far have a huge xp payout
The only negative I have to say about this is that most people will be doing whatever is fastest to level on. And that means, NOT the Duty Officer System I suspect. I believe Heretic wanted feedback on that aspect of the system.
But likely people who are going to power level will still hit the duty officer system to make it go that much faster and once people max out a toon some will be curious enough about the new STFs to give them a go. These rewards don't necessarily rule out further rewards for progress in the DOff system and STFs. They may still be yet to be announced. I'm too lazy to dig up the reference but it seems like Heretic did mention that we would get rewards for testing the DOff system based on how many commendation categories we ranked up and how far we ranked them.
I'm still not understanding why "Shooter mode by default" is considered a good idea for new users in the tutorial. The very first thing you have to do is read the "Help" floater, which has a scrollbar. in shooter mode, you can't scroll it. Next up, you have to walk to, and chat with the department head for your particular division (Chief engineer for Engineering)... and again, a button pops up that says something like "Report to Chief Engineer".. which you can't click, because you're in shooter mode.
Why is shooter mode on by default?
And why isn't the first task learning about turning on and off shooter mode?
I'm still not understanding why "Shooter mode by default" is considered a good idea for new users in the tutorial. The very first thing you have to do is read the "Help" floater, which has a scrollbar. in shooter mode, you can't scroll it. Next up, you have to walk to, and chat with the department head for your particular division (Chief engineer for Engineering)... and again, a button pops up that says something like "Report to Chief Engineer".. which you can't click, because you're in shooter mode.
Why is shooter mode on by default?
And why isn't the first task learning about turning on and off shooter mode?
I have to agree. I mean, I know this is the kind of thing beta testing is for, but they did internal testing before now so how did they even think that made sense?
nice... too bad that Tribble server is practically unplayable... I know for a fact I'm not the only one getting discon'd every few seconds... then popped back to a location no where near where you got D-Con'd from...
unplayable. also, I've already reported 18 bugs... I don't consider disconnecting a bug. that's a server issue.
I have to agree. I mean, I know this is the kind of thing beta testing is for, but they did internal testing before now so how did they even think that made sense?
The problem is that these sorts of decisions get made by people who are intensely familiar with the game's control system. I haven't really played STO in a couple of months at least, and I've never used shooter mode and wasn't familiar with how to turn it off. I found the opening moments of the tutorial extremely frustrating (moreso since local chat wasn't reaching anyone, so I couldn't ask for help, and eventually had to press M for map, to get the mouse so I could switch to zone chat).
But I'm an explorer of GUIs.. I sort of hunt and peck through menus and things. But I can imagine new users "just trying the game because it's free" getting super fed up with STO before ever making it to Captain Taggart.
I have to agree. I mean, I know this is the kind of thing beta testing is for, but they did internal testing before now so how did they even think that made sense?
We were complaining about it a lot in TTS... evidently there are 2 bugs: The Help UI has the wrong keybind listed, so Enter doesnt change the pages, and the engineer NPCs interact bind is missing, so you can't hit F to talk to him.
Still, its horribly layed out.. I loathe it a lot. They seriously need to take a step back and consider what Shooter mode means to new players, and how it represents interacting with the UI to brand new players (hint: Its bad)
But I think this is falling on deaf ears. We've complained about how lackluster Shooter-mode ended up being, and they're still pushing it. And why not? New people will adapt to something broken and deal with it, we certainly have for 18 months now. And in the end, only us 'oldtimers' will care about old RPG mode.
Not much comment on the "rewards" - I hope you have more planned - thats hardly good enough for forcing paying customers to Beta test for 2 months (if they want new content) - AFTER a 6 month content gap already.
Roll that stipend out 2 months early, offset that subscription cost.
I can see that some people are disappointed in the initial set of awards on Tribble. These awards are just for simply leveling up. There will be other awards tied to other targets announced as we release content and features. Keep your eyes on the Path to Free-to-Play postings for more to come!
We're sorry about the stability problems today. Fixes are already working through internal QA.
Please head over to the Tribble forums to share your opinions on the tutorial and other content. The opinions being shared here are important to us, and they're more likely to be turned into game changes if they are shared in places where the dev team is watching.
I can see that some people are disappointed in the initial set of awards on Tribble. These awards are just for simply leveling up. There will be other awards tied to other targets announced as we release content and features. Keep your eyes on the Path to Free-to-Play postings for more to come!
We're sorry about the stability problems today. Fixes are already working through internal QA.
Please head over to the Tribble forums to share your opinions on the tutorial and other content. The opinions being shared here are important to us, and they're more likely to be turned into game changes if they are shared in places where the dev team is watching.
Stephen.
Executive Producer, Star Trek Online
Okay, now that i can understand.
May I suggest that in the future, you add that kind of thing to the original post.
I can see that some people are disappointed in the initial set of awards on Tribble. These awards are just for simply leveling up. There will be other awards tied to other targets announced as we release content and features. Keep your eyes on the Path to Free-to-Play postings for more to come!
We're sorry about the stability problems today. Fixes are already working through internal QA.
Please head over to the Tribble forums to share your opinions on the tutorial and other content. The opinions being shared here are important to us, and they're more likely to be turned into game changes if they are shared in places where the dev team is watching.
Stephen.
Executive Producer, Star Trek Online
We would probably receive any and all posts you make better if you would enhance your image with an Avatar
The only negative I have to say about this is that most people will be doing whatever is fastest to level on. And that means, NOT the Duty Officer System I suspect. I believe Heretic wanted feedback on that aspect of the system.
But why not do them both!
The doff system only takes you sending them on missions, and that can be done during 'sandwich time' !
Comments
(Also, still hoping we can get an RSS feed for these Path to F2P posts.)
- 1 thing that can be bought (out and in game)
- 1 thing that anyone can earn
- 2 things that take forever and a character that stays on Tribble
Seriously, STO dropped like 3 points in quality in a month
I'm just going to assume the Ship slot is an account wide unlock. So please feel free to crush my hopes if you desire.
Also that's good to know that playing a KDF toon gets you a second set of rewards. I'm looking forward to earning those as well.
The new mission box looks cool, and I did hate having to "talk" to so many NPCs to get just a simple mission. I can imagine the casual players found it even harder to use then us here on the forums. Guessing by the screen shot I'm going to guess that took you a few months to setup up.
To add to this some of us still have one from the 1 year anniversary on each of our VAs these things are just gonna be sitting around in storage until the level cap gets increased whenever that's coming.
I am assuming that the testing rewards are account-wide? If not, can they be transferred to an alt? I'd rather give them to a Klingon toon, particularly the XP boost. At any rate, this gives me a bit more of an incentive to test my *** off.
Challenge Accepted
The only negative I have to say about this is that most people will be doing whatever is fastest to level on. And that means, NOT the Duty Officer System I suspect. I believe Heretic wanted feedback on that aspect of the system.
This starts on TRIBBLE as of now. They want as many people playing the F2P Test Server as possible for load testing, bug reporting and feedback.
Defend missions and high xp missions only for me
Although i have noticed the missions im playing so far have a huge xp payout
Definitely a massive improvement :cool:
Goal: Get people to test NEW content and systems
Implementation: Reward people for avoiding new systems and level gate many of them
Anybody else
But likely people who are going to power level will still hit the duty officer system to make it go that much faster and once people max out a toon some will be curious enough about the new STFs to give them a go. These rewards don't necessarily rule out further rewards for progress in the DOff system and STFs. They may still be yet to be announced. I'm too lazy to dig up the reference but it seems like Heretic did mention that we would get rewards for testing the DOff system based on how many commendation categories we ranked up and how far we ranked them.
Why is shooter mode on by default?
And why isn't the first task learning about turning on and off shooter mode?
- Complete the updated tutorial, reward
- Complete X event(s), reward
- Complete X Doff System, reward
- Reach Level X, reward
And then have the accolades only work on character that has the first one.
I do kinda have to ask, was Stahl the glue holding the fragile STO game together??
I have to agree. I mean, I know this is the kind of thing beta testing is for, but they did internal testing before now so how did they even think that made sense?
unplayable. also, I've already reported 18 bugs... I don't consider disconnecting a bug. that's a server issue.
The problem is that these sorts of decisions get made by people who are intensely familiar with the game's control system. I haven't really played STO in a couple of months at least, and I've never used shooter mode and wasn't familiar with how to turn it off. I found the opening moments of the tutorial extremely frustrating (moreso since local chat wasn't reaching anyone, so I couldn't ask for help, and eventually had to press M for map, to get the mouse so I could switch to zone chat).
But I'm an explorer of GUIs.. I sort of hunt and peck through menus and things. But I can imagine new users "just trying the game because it's free" getting super fed up with STO before ever making it to Captain Taggart.
We were complaining about it a lot in TTS... evidently there are 2 bugs: The Help UI has the wrong keybind listed, so Enter doesnt change the pages, and the engineer NPCs interact bind is missing, so you can't hit F to talk to him.
Still, its horribly layed out.. I loathe it a lot. They seriously need to take a step back and consider what Shooter mode means to new players, and how it represents interacting with the UI to brand new players (hint: Its bad)
But I think this is falling on deaf ears. We've complained about how lackluster Shooter-mode ended up being, and they're still pushing it. And why not? New people will adapt to something broken and deal with it, we certainly have for 18 months now. And in the end, only us 'oldtimers' will care about old RPG mode.
Not much comment on the "rewards" - I hope you have more planned - thats hardly good enough for forcing paying customers to Beta test for 2 months (if they want new content) - AFTER a 6 month content gap already.
Roll that stipend out 2 months early, offset that subscription cost.
We're sorry about the stability problems today. Fixes are already working through internal QA.
Please head over to the Tribble forums to share your opinions on the tutorial and other content. The opinions being shared here are important to us, and they're more likely to be turned into game changes if they are shared in places where the dev team is watching.
Stephen.
Executive Producer, Star Trek Online
Okay, now that i can understand.
May I suggest that in the future, you add that kind of thing to the original post.
BTW, I like TNG a lot too
We would probably receive any and all posts you make better if you would enhance your image with an Avatar
But why not do them both!
The doff system only takes you sending them on missions, and that can be done during 'sandwich time' !
(Anyone else think its odd that almost every move made this month keeps pushing this game worse and worse