test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Early Klingon Faction Thoughts
System
Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I've seen a few other people post about Klingon gameplay under the F2P model on Tribble, but I don't see one ideal place for feedback, so I'm creating my own threads.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Hall of Warriors. I don't understand starting at level 17. You start in the Hall of Warriors and take a mission to get your crew members. After two fights, you accumulate over 1,000 XP and are instantly promoted to the next rank. I found that unsatisfying. I didn't feel like defeating two officers in the Hall of Warriors was worthy of gaining an entire level. SUGGESTION: Start new Klingon characters at level 18 and give them a smaller amount of XP for completing that fight. Alternatively, have them do more in the Hall of Warriors and have the NPCs there provide more Klingon flavor by talking about what it means to be a Klingon.
2. There is no tutorial. I've seen a lot of references to the "Klingon tutorial." Klingons do not have a tutorial. They have a single mission to gain a few bridge officers followed by a tour of First City. You don't learn how to do anything during this phase. Furthermore, the tour of the city leads you to a bunch of places that have nothing for you to really do or any really need to be there, such as the slums. SUGGESTION: If Klingon warriors are going to have to do this content, bump them up another level to 19 and reduce the amount of xp this guided tour of Qo'noS gives. There is enough xp here for another level. I'm not sure how a tour of Qo'noS makes a warrior more battle adept or proficient with his/her ship.
3. The starting ship. The starting ship is not really adequate. You are ready to launch with the Qul'dun BOP at level 18 or 19. The ship has some green level two gear and weapons. The problem I had was that I went to the Kahless Expanse and some of the Exploration sectors, and I found that after several battles, I had a lot of down time just waiting for the crew to repair the ship between skirmishes. SUGGESTION: Since the Klingons are getting a ship towards the end of a rank (Lt. Commander), they don't get the time to appropriately outfit that ship with adequate gear. The PvE enemies scale to their level, but have an advantage in gear. Therefore, give the starting Klingon ships Tier 4 gear.
4. Bridge Officers. You don't get enough crew when you start a Klingon. By that, I mean you have no variety. Federation characters have had several opportunities to get additional Bridge Officers from level 1 to 17. Not to mention, they have resources to buy additional bridge officers over that time and are awarded additional bridge officers at various levels. As a Klingon player you have no flexibility with what is offered at this point, and you can't change your BOff's skills because you have no resources. SUGGESTION: Either double the amount of BOffs available (not the slots on the ship) with sufficient variety, or let new Klingon players select two additional BOffs at level 19 or the conclusion of the tour of Qo'noS. SUGGESTION 2: Offer Klingon players a way to retrain two or three of their new BOffs skills free of cost if you don't want to give them additional BOffs.
5. Dilithium. I'm guessing this was a bug perhaps, but I ran an Empire Defense mission and an exploration daily after I launched, and I was awarded with no dilithium as a result. I hit level 21 last night, and even with the stipend of dilithium, I didn't have enough to get a new ship. Having played the Federation some on Tribble, I know that Federation characters get enough dilithium to pay for their first upgrade. SUGGESTION: Klingon characters should get their first ship upgrade without any additional grinding of dilithium, just the same as Federation characters. Give Klingon characters enough dilithium when they hit Commander to buy their first upgrade. Also, if those defense and exploration missions are supposed to award dilithium, then I would suggest fixing that as soon as you can.
Overall, things aren't as bad at level 21 as I thought they would be, but they need some improvement. Implementing some of the changes I suggested above would go a long way towards making the Klingon experience more enjoyable. I haven't purchased my new ship yet, and I haven't played any of the Klingon episodes. I'll post another update once I have the chance to do so.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Hall of Warriors. I don't understand starting at level 17. You start in the Hall of Warriors and take a mission to get your crew members. After two fights, you accumulate over 1,000 XP and are instantly promoted to the next rank. I found that unsatisfying. I didn't feel like defeating two officers in the Hall of Warriors was worthy of gaining an entire level. SUGGESTION: Start new Klingon characters at level 18 and give them a smaller amount of XP for completing that fight. Alternatively, have them do more in the Hall of Warriors and have the NPCs there provide more Klingon flavor by talking about what it means to be a Klingon.
2. There is no tutorial. I've seen a lot of references to the "Klingon tutorial." Klingons do not have a tutorial. They have a single mission to gain a few bridge officers followed by a tour of First City. You don't learn how to do anything during this phase. Furthermore, the tour of the city leads you to a bunch of places that have nothing for you to really do or any really need to be there, such as the slums. SUGGESTION: If Klingon warriors are going to have to do this content, bump them up another level to 19 and reduce the amount of xp this guided tour of Qo'noS gives. There is enough xp here for another level. I'm not sure how a tour of Qo'noS makes a warrior more battle adept or proficient with his/her ship.
3. The starting ship. The starting ship is not really adequate. You are ready to launch with the Qul'dun BOP at level 18 or 19. The ship has some green level two gear and weapons. The problem I had was that I went to the Kahless Expanse and some of the Exploration sectors, and I found that after several battles, I had a lot of down time just waiting for the crew to repair the ship between skirmishes. SUGGESTION: Since the Klingons are getting a ship towards the end of a rank (Lt. Commander), they don't get the time to appropriately outfit that ship with adequate gear. The PvE enemies scale to their level, but have an advantage in gear. Therefore, give the starting Klingon ships Tier 4 gear.
4. Bridge Officers. You don't get enough crew when you start a Klingon. By that, I mean you have no variety. Federation characters have had several opportunities to get additional Bridge Officers from level 1 to 17. Not to mention, they have resources to buy additional bridge officers over that time and are awarded additional bridge officers at various levels. As a Klingon player you have no flexibility with what is offered at this point, and you can't change your BOff's skills because you have no resources. SUGGESTION: Either double the amount of BOffs available (not the slots on the ship) with sufficient variety, or let new Klingon players select two additional BOffs at level 19 or the conclusion of the tour of Qo'noS. SUGGESTION 2: Offer Klingon players a way to retrain two or three of their new BOffs skills free of cost if you don't want to give them additional BOffs.
5. Dilithium. I'm guessing this was a bug perhaps, but I ran an Empire Defense mission and an exploration daily after I launched, and I was awarded with no dilithium as a result. I hit level 21 last night, and even with the stipend of dilithium, I didn't have enough to get a new ship. Having played the Federation some on Tribble, I know that Federation characters get enough dilithium to pay for their first upgrade. SUGGESTION: Klingon characters should get their first ship upgrade without any additional grinding of dilithium, just the same as Federation characters. Give Klingon characters enough dilithium when they hit Commander to buy their first upgrade. Also, if those defense and exploration missions are supposed to award dilithium, then I would suggest fixing that as soon as you can.
Overall, things aren't as bad at level 21 as I thought they would be, but they need some improvement. Implementing some of the changes I suggested above would go a long way towards making the Klingon experience more enjoyable. I haven't purchased my new ship yet, and I haven't played any of the Klingon episodes. I'll post another update once I have the chance to do so.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
I agree, however, I didn't think it was too big a deal considering 1) you don't get to choose your first ship as a Federation player, and 2) theoretically, you are in that ship for about 2 levels after you get through the Hall of Warriors and the tour of Qo'noS (I won't call it a tutorial). They way they throw around the XP at that point, you are done pretty quickly with it.
True, and Fed players are stuck with their tier 1 cruiser for ten levels too. Klingons really only have to have the BOP for four levels (17, 18, 19, 20), and really, two of those you aren't even in space. Of course, the counter argument would be that if we started at level 1, we would have had the chance to pick another ship at level 11.
My preference would have been to have Klingons start at level 25 with a ship class of their choosing if level 25 is going to be the unlock level. Otherwise, I'd want them to unlock at level 17 in this current system. However, the Devs have made it clear this isn't changing, so I'm trying to discuss things that might be doable within the scope of the current F2P model.
All that the OP said and more.
Good to know that is doable, but part of the fun of leveling up for a lot of players is getting their new ships. Without new ships, they can't increase the amount of their weapons or take advantage of new BOff powers. I don't think the Devs intended for players to have to skip an entire tier's worth of ships, but that is what a lot of people are resorting to.
Basically, I'm Captain I without promotion to captain, the dilith or discount token from captain, because i didn't purchase a commander-level ship.
Better Skills UI: Expand the drop-down menu on the Skills interface. Instead of just listing currently available BO skills by BO name, list all BO skills by rank (like how you can choose rank on the Exchange UI), and break them up into the three professions. As an extra bonus, highlight the skills your BOs currently have access to. This will not only help out the new KDFer, but will make it easier for everyone to plan builds in-game.
Alternatively:
Start Klink BOs at Lt.: For the duration of this half-arsed farce of a "compromise," new Klingon BOs should start at Lt. rank. At least this way, new KDFers can see what tier 2 skills will benefit them immediately. I only offer this as a cop-out suggestion, and I will interpet it as such if actually implemented.
...there may have been some snarkines in that last paragraph. I would apologize if it weren't for the fact that I'm holding back as much as I can...
The need to grind dilithium for their first ship is nonsense. The Commander ship should be free, period.
The BOFF situation is horrible. Granted it is a bug and should be fixed, but that only helps if the KDF can actually train their BOFFs. Unfortunately if BOFFs need dilithium to train (which makes no sense whatsoever), this will again be nonsensically hard for a starting KDF which has to fill out more BOFF slots with more powers so they are battle ready, whereas a starting Fed does not have that problem because they have the difficulty curve of a LT.
The KDF should get DOFFs immediately as well. Anyone who has gotten to Fed 25 already knows what they want to about DOFFs so why should the KDF have to level to get them?
The starting KDF equipment is also terrible. Granted, having leveled a Fed, it is probably better than what my Fed had at the same level, but that is no excuse. MK 4 greens would be enough. But we need a choice in kits.
I think the best solution here is probably to give a number of free tokens for a KDF player to buy some free equipment when they start out. Bound and unsellable of course to prevent exploitation, but the KDF right now is thrown right into the fray with very underpowered equipment, forced to grind for basic stuff, and without the luxury of fighting weak LT level enemies.
A tour of the city and tidbits about how things are done on teh KDF side of things is fine, no real tutorial is needed.
Currently, I agree the KDF is like pulling nails out of a board with your teeth. It's painful and pointless.
The best thing that can be done is to start the new KDF character at lvl 1. You go through a quick series of quests that level you up quickly, offering rewards equal to what a Fed player would have gotten by that level.
No reason why you couldn't just 5 grades at once on a simple tour the city mission.
By the end of it all, you'd be lvl 18, have a decent selection of officers, skill points, BO points and equipment to get you started. And make sure that you get a new ship, at least a Lt.Com. Would be a great place to throw in a mission that questions the player on tactics and recommends a ship for them. Raptor or Cruiser or BoP based on how they answered. Then, as a reward they get a token to choose a new ship of their rank.
It is difficult to get what you need to complete missions when you start out on KDF. I was watching my entire crew getting killed over and over...9 respawns before I quit trying...just to complete a stupid explore mission. I was way under equipped to defeat these mobs. Not only with gear but skills as well.
And dont' get me started on how we had no chance at all to complete the Red Alert Distress Call that 10 of us were in. The unimatrix one shotted us all, we never even dropped it's shields. Yeah...that was such great fun. What a waste of time it was.
THe KDF have been the afterthought faction since this game was born. I would think that with all the demand on making it better we'd at least get to start out equally to the Fed...but it's not so. RIght now, I'd rather start at level 1 and work my way up than to start at 18 with almost nothing. It would honestly be easy to be lvl 1 than this.
I really hope something is done...unless this is some attempt to finally kill off the KDF faction for good.
The XP bar is bugged and only shows commendation progress but I *still* keep bringing it up to see when my captain will get his next officer option. I would'a figured that at Cmdr 8 I would have more options than the three common Boffs I gained going through the first two story line missions. (Running a Raptor one officer short thinking 'just one more level' to go.) Not a huge issue with possible recruitment from the duty officer system or I guess I could spend honor, but as the OP pointed out by the time a fed has reached 28 he has probably dismissed more recruits (with opportunities for untrainable skills) then all the recruits a kdf gets in total. As another suggestion, how about filling the recruitment list with a number equal to the awards a fed would get going from 1-17?
Plus, without BO training working right now, its basically impossible to play as a klingon until these two issues are fixed...
I had the same troubles yesterday with my Gorn.
Better they chagne the start to be Commander 1 with a ship to choose from and MK VI white gear, then the MK II stuff they have now.
both Kolikos' and MinosOne's suggestions would make the whole process a lot less painful.
Right now when you start on the KDF side you fall into a big hole, coushion the fall please, Cryptic.