test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Feedback on episode progression
System
Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Hello all.
After playing through the mission chains with some of the people in my fleet. They really dont make sense, and, they are to restrictive, and frankly, not fun. they dont allow us to play the game the way we want to, and force us to play the game how YOU want us to.
Now, I understand that Cryptic wanted us to test the game from the perspective of new players starting out, however, it is difficult to do so due to the fact that we have those previous experiences of playing the game WITHOUT the strict mission progression.
The mission progression is, at least to me and the group that I play with, hugely restrictive. I do not want to HAVE to run the devidian missions prior to running the Doomsday machine, for example.
I would hazard a bet that others also feel this way.
Now, with the large number of complaints that people are making about the silver/gold matrix, I think that a great benefit to gold members would be Freeform (borrowed that from champions) mission progression.
Yes, let gold players have the ability choose what arcs they do in what order they do them.
For example, if a gold player chooses to do the city on the edge of never arcs prior to the devidians, so be it.
I understand that some missions have follow on missions, so you could chain them together after choosing the first mission.
I appreciate any comments on this. Thanks for reading.
After playing through the mission chains with some of the people in my fleet. They really dont make sense, and, they are to restrictive, and frankly, not fun. they dont allow us to play the game the way we want to, and force us to play the game how YOU want us to.
Now, I understand that Cryptic wanted us to test the game from the perspective of new players starting out, however, it is difficult to do so due to the fact that we have those previous experiences of playing the game WITHOUT the strict mission progression.
The mission progression is, at least to me and the group that I play with, hugely restrictive. I do not want to HAVE to run the devidian missions prior to running the Doomsday machine, for example.
I would hazard a bet that others also feel this way.
Now, with the large number of complaints that people are making about the silver/gold matrix, I think that a great benefit to gold members would be Freeform (borrowed that from champions) mission progression.
Yes, let gold players have the ability choose what arcs they do in what order they do them.
For example, if a gold player chooses to do the city on the edge of never arcs prior to the devidians, so be it.
I understand that some missions have follow on missions, so you could chain them together after choosing the first mission.
I appreciate any comments on this. Thanks for reading.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Very good idea.
Also take into account that the Devidian Arc includes some spoilers for later missions that need changing with the new progression chain.
While I like Captain B'Vat's appearance as a random Klingon (new player perspective), Franklin Drake as mission giver doesn't work at all anymore.
It was borderline TRIBBLE anyway to have him show up as a guy who knew me if I haven't encountered him before, but I could at least choose to not play Devidians until after the mission with the holodeck test.
I would recommend changing his contact appearance into a Intelligence Starfleet officer who appears a bit shady at most.
That would make our investment into hunting him down after his "defection" to the Romulans even bigger, cause we already know the guy.
Maybe even hint at what's to come into his contact dialog and delete all the open Section 31 references.
We dont meet him until the Romulan areas, yet the devidian arc has not changed to reflect that. If they keep it the same, the would have to re write multiple mission text to reflect.
The chained mission progression as it stands right now is flawed for this reason. I am sure that there are many more instances like this.
You don´t meet Drake anymore. He was replaced by some other NPC.
+1 this, however it would unbalance PVP at low levels if you let some people go off and get the breen set, and other are stuck with MK IV blues and purples. (However I am a PvEr and I really want to just play my game, how I want and not have to wait until after the borg missions to get the breen set. That is one of my favorite arcs, and one I enjoy to grind.)
Then level band specific arcs, like the romulan/reman arc, devidian arc, and breen arcs. sort of like they are now.
but to make the whole game a linear progression removes the freedom of the game.
As far as unbalancing PVP goes, this will not unbalance it anymore than it already is.
I think they should have the featured epsiodes open like they are now for everyone. And then story lock the main missions for silver players.
That is essentially what I was suggesting.
It would do two things,
One, it would be a huge difference between silver/gold accounts
two, it would actually allow someone to have some illusion of replayability, by doing stuff at different times, I say illusion because either way, you still have to do the same missions, but the order could be different within a given level band.
Actually, it would be better now, since all the missions scale with level.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
And the mission progression stinks and adds a new level of boredom to gaming that has not been reach by any other game I have played besides a game that is the flag ship of the company that owns Cryptic.
In reading the latest F2P Dev blog.
It states that the missions are chained so that people dont have to go out and "Search for content", frankly, I think that takes away from the very spirit of Star Trek,back to the original Thought: Gold players should have free form mission progression. Because we *Know* where the content is ( and sadly, isnt) It makes SENSE to have a road map for silvers and new people to play through that guides them and teaches them.
Here is another suggestion....
Keep the mission UI that you have on tribble, but UNLOCK all missions within a Banded range, much like it is now. So, ALL klingon mission would be unlocked until you reach LCDR 5 or so..All Romulan missions would unlock at LCDR 5, then the cardasian missions unlock at CDR ? Etc etc etc.
BAM, you get to keep the "Road map" but give golds the freedom to play as they wish.
As it stands, if I CHOSE to, I could level allll the way to admiral doing exploration missions, fleet actions, and PVP. And if I wanted to go fight borg, I would have to go alllllll the way through the mission chain. At that point, my choice of how to play a game that I payed for is gone, and I am forced to play it in the order that is layed out for me.
In no other MMO that I play, am i FORCED into a complete progression of missions totally and completely, yes, there may be arcs that require other missions to be completed, but, upon getting to the level that those arcs are designed for, I can access them.
Now, I know that the missions scale, so take my example of the levelling to admiral via exploration Et Al.. from earlier... that still does not change the fact that I have to do the WHOLE THING, at admiral level, and frankly....
Stop the signal at Admiral level scares me a little bit.
I skip all of that and do the story arcs when I am severally bored.
Sometimes it is better to just do the grind your way, and once you make VA1 or LG1 go back and do the stories. I find if you follow the developers philosophy, then you end up without sufficient capital to play the game and an underpowered ship for the story.
I also feel that many of the developers do not actually play the game to the level that most players do. Sure, they have technical knowledge about how the game works systematically and know where the game will be in the long term. But they always seem clueless of how powers work, character progression is actually accomplished in STO and CO, and how the player economy functions.
That is my take on this.
I think they should worry less about when and how players play, and focus more on making the basic functionality of the game work correctly.
Personally, I do not think anyone at cryptic really understands economics and effective communications.
Thank you.
I agree. there should be freedom to choose the path that you take.
I love the idea of a progression from a story stand point but I really dont want to be "locked" into it. I would love to be able to work on the Cardassian missions now that I am Captain but I am still on the Romulan missions.
Matt
I've been around since January/Beta 2010. There are several missions/arcs I have ZERO interest in playing, especially at the rate at which I create new characters. And with the amount of content Fed Side, it's not necessary to do everything in order to reach max level.
But, as has been said, being locked into doing it one way is too restrictive.
I feel for the guy that has keep doing missions that on holodeck, he COULD bypass, and move on to the Cardassian front.
It is not fun to play a canned game, which is what appears to be happening.
Short form: Chaining story arcs reduces re-playability greatly. By reduces re-playability, what I mean is when I look at a lowbie alt and think of redoing ALL of those missions AND story arcs in sequence AGAIN, I just want to log off and play something else. Yeah, I'm a lifer so Cryptic has my money... but it'll cause subscription churn and really irritate even the silver members who just don't feel like yomping through that gorn infested swamp yet again. Oh, and all to get a prize that's likey several tiers below what I need!. Wow, it just doesn't get any better than that. Think I'll play Fallout for a while...
I mean, "so people don't have to search for content" they force me to play through arcs I'm not interested in to get to the good stuff? Smells like a time sink to me. It's not like they can't look at the list and say "Ohh! Romulans! I do that one!"
I HATE HATE HATE the chaining. Missions in a story arc I have no problem with, but I really hate it with arcs themselves being chained. Not just because a bug like Stop the Signal puts me on hold till it's fixed, but because there are some arcs I just don't feel like repeating. I've been in this game since the beta, and if I never see another swamp full of gorn rangers again, I'll be happy. Not that it's a bad mission, but because I've done it
so
many
many
times
that I'd just as soon do dailys, borg, exploration, or other events and skip it and get to this or that other arc.
Plus, I just don't like being on rails. It's like having a Dev come into my house and snatch my remote saying "I know you really want to watch The Enterprise Incident, but you're not allowed until you finish all of your Spock's Brain episode! And don't even Think of trying to watch STNG Season Three until you watch ALL of Shades of Grey. I know you think it's "just" a season end clip episode, but it's an important step in the product's creative evolution, and YOU WILL WATCH EVERY LAST MINUTE OF IT! AND DON'T EVEN THINK OF PUTTING IN DS9 INSTEAD!"
- I miss a tab for the Diplomatic & Patrol Missions.
-> Sorry my english, it's not my motherlanguage. I hope you understand what i mean.
Eg. missions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Player gets up to mission 5 then a FE comes a along and starts between 3 and 4 (3.5). The player is now beyond the mission. Does this then mean he can't advance until he goes back and does the FE? Those like myself who are at endgame anyway will have to go back and do those missions anyway so it seems to defeat the object of making it linear. Perhaps have the story arcs bunched together (so you can do part2 of an arc without doing part1 like the FE are).
More importantly is about the limited access reward at the end of the season. If previous episodes have to be played in order before getting to the new one, then how can a new player be eligible to play a new season and get the season ending reward liike everyone else. I suspect that the first-run of the season will be open to everyone, and then it will be placed in the stack for play at a specific level. It would be better to just keep the epsiodes separate from the rest of the game. I have not seen many missions that closely tie into the season episodes. The seasons are the one thng that make many player stay around, so make more and don't mess with the access to them.