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It's not fun on this server.
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Put in the most simple terms, it's not fun here. The loot is anemic, the progression is slow, the Starfleet Academy is not easy to understand. What do the data chips do? I click on them and they disappear. I don't remember all of the political intrigue that brought us here. I have done all of these missions before, and what is not broken, seems to take longer. It is an irritant, and I already have a job in real life, so I don't need this. I am not going to pay to work, or even worse... pay to go back to High School (Starfleet Academy).
This game has gone from something that's semi-enjoyable to irritating on Tribble. Maybe I won't have to live the life of Tribble when it hits Holodeck, because I am a lifer. Up to now, I bought things on the C-Store, and enjoyed leveling a Captain in different ways. Now I just want to go back to Holodeck, and enjoy what I have before it all changes. Will we be insulated from this as gold members?
Perhaps if I had leveled high enough to try the Duty Officers, I might find something redeeming. I made it to 11, but 12 is a mighty drag. Sorry.
I hope most responses disagree with me. Somebody ought to be enjoying this.
This game has gone from something that's semi-enjoyable to irritating on Tribble. Maybe I won't have to live the life of Tribble when it hits Holodeck, because I am a lifer. Up to now, I bought things on the C-Store, and enjoyed leveling a Captain in different ways. Now I just want to go back to Holodeck, and enjoy what I have before it all changes. Will we be insulated from this as gold members?
Perhaps if I had leveled high enough to try the Duty Officers, I might find something redeeming. I made it to 11, but 12 is a mighty drag. Sorry.
I hope most responses disagree with me. Somebody ought to be enjoying this.
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The accolade you get is random, so it won't most likely match the midterm question of the day though.
So, the longer you collect them, the easier it will become completing the Lore Mission daily.
You can also share/trade data chips with other players, if you start to get duplicates...
It is a trading card system, not to dissimilar to the the more functional "Doff Cards".
You have summed it all up. "It's not fun on this server". Many of us have been playing for quite a while. I was playing another MMO that had gone F2P and had lost its "fun factor". I was forced to either join a major guild and raid all the time or use their Store if i wanted to advance. I left. I came to STO as a casual gamer. I don't have a lot of time and this was a great way to relax.
I have taken a Captain all the way to VA on Holodeck just casual gaming. This has always been one of the great benefits to STO. You can make it all the way up the ranks as a casual gamer. I didn't use the C-Store to help me to progress. It wasn't needed. There were lots of fun missions to go do. I never found much use for the exploration missions. I was advancing fast enough that by the time that I got around to completing all the regular missions, I was ready to move up to the next rank.
I do understand STO combining all of the Marks, Emblems, etc. into a single currency. That makes sense. I have to spend time just changing from one to another to get the item that I want. That doesn't add to my fun. I liked the sound of this when I heard about it. I can even understand them trying to make the exploration missions more relevant and useful. Like I said, I skipped almost all of them.
I agree that some grinding is needed in all games. Sorry, it is the nature of the MMO beast. But FORCING us to daily grind for currency to buy ships, gear and other goodies is BS.
Cryptic needs to work on finding a good balance between making money and keeping the game fun. Right now, we are not there. There is another sci-fi based MMO coming out in December. I will hang until then to give them a chance. If they can't get it together, then I wish you all happy gaming and I am out.
The only thing worth doing on it is sending the Doffs on missions, which is 10 minutes a day. Leveling is not fun, the loot is too scarse and low level, and things are expensive.
No thanks.
I feel like the game is fighting against me, when all I want to do is simple things. I want to fill my console slots. Oops, can't, no dilithium. I want to go get another engineer since my last four bridge officer drops have been friggin identical tactical boffs. Oops, can't, no dilithium. I'm not a gold farmer, I do not enjoy coming home from work and spending my free time grinding for a glowy purple moon rock. Just let me play.
They seem to have taken out the "fun" (enjoyment) in favor of the C-store in this build. I seriously doubt this type of development is going to bring that playerbase they're going after as there are too many choices now in the MMO market to grind your way thru this type of development. It does seem, from reading these forums, that it will cost them most of the playerbase they have. (seen that before, too)
Cryptic, this didn't work all that well for SOE when they tried CHANGING their game for a non-existant playerbase they didn't have at the expense of the playerbase they did have. (CU, NGE, C6CD) LA bailed at NGE, 1 month later, to start talks with Bioware on TOR, the playerbase they were looking for never showed, and after all 3 CHANGES, even the existing playerbase was so low that life-support was not financialy viable anylonger - hense 12/15/11 and the closure of SWG. Do you all really want to run that risk as well?
Perhaps, Cryptic might want to try the EQII model of F2P. Put in all your C-Store leading development onto tribble and launch that as F2P and leave Holodeck the way it is for subbed accounts. You might get your existing playerbase to keep on subbing while finding out if that playerbase your looking for is going to show up or not.
I'm hoping that I/all of us playing can make a difference by saying what isn't working for us before this all goes live. The dev need to find the right balance of the old way and how they have thing now on tribble. I really hope they do.
the crafting should be fixed soon they have stated that the odd numbers only was a mistake and many of the other issues they are aware of so hopefully it will be a matter of time and we will see the fixes roll in and shape this F2P build up.
Not to slam you by any means soloman but if your are saying grinding is needed and acceptable then turn around and say making us do the grinding is BS how would you recommend them going about the process? Honestly not trying to flame you just thinking you might have some cool ideas
I'm mostly on Holodeck doing a final replay of the original versions of the story missions then trying to get a lot of badges so I get a nice amount of dilithium when the changes go live. Luckly I have a VA fed so I won't have to worry about the ranking problems.
I have read what they said about the crafting, but if you look hard enough, even the white gear you can buy with EC is done the exact same way, all odd levels. To be honest, I think this is "working as intended" and when they seen the player backlash, they might just be re-thinking that part of F2P as a result. From my testing on tribble, it seems that all of these CHANGES are based on getting ev1 to the C-Store, both F2P and subs, makes no difference.
While you can not level on exploration missions at early levels due to the daily limit once you get a few ranks you can do several a day and at least right now on tribble it takes a mission or two to level at most so your progress can be very fast if you want it to be but that does skew up the whole grind out dilithium while you level bit...
tribble is a TEST server to test out f2p features and new features of the game.
Levelling.. Fed side, I got a VA, and a commander, KDF side I got a Lt.General..
You gents obviously did not read the relase notesm you have not read the dev logs. You came to tribble expecting to find a fullly fleashed out new STO and you didn't. Here it is week 3 about to start and your not having any fun.. Well, lets see, I know what you guys are doing wrong and I'm having a great deal of FUN.. in fact I'm having an utter blast over here playing and bug hunting on tribble.
To Level. Stop worrying about getting gear from mission. Especially the featured mission.. follow the mission arc and you will level. You will level fast.. Very very very fast. Ify you find you need gear go do some anamalie grinding.. raise your crafting, make the gear you need..
Excuse heard: But its all odd mark gear crafting is broken whine whine pew pew.. SO WHAT. You want gear go make it.. It surely beats nothing wouldn't you say. My KDF is doing STF's now grinding toward the Honor Guard sets. ALL of my ships weapons are crafted, all of my ships consoles are crafted, so are the engines, shields and sensors. My toons personal shield is crafted, and so is its armor, and kits, and weapons. Same same for my Feddy VA. I"M DOING STF's.
NONE of what is currently on tribble is finalized.. the current levelling system will NOT be going to holodeck.. it is set up on tribble specificly so you can level fast. If you are not leveling fast it is because your not following the PLAN. Follow te Plan, and get levelled so you can test the real content READ the blogs, READ the release notes, GET the CLUE.. ok? Its real simple.. theres a few missions that have problematic bugs and thier ARE work arounds.. ask other player that are ahead of you POLITLY for assistance. You may have to ask more then one, but someone will likely assist you. Do not assume that they will help you with more then that one issue. Tel them thank you and let them go on thier way, they have thier own things they want to be doing and you need to repect that.
The only reason my Commander rank fed is not levelling is her job is to DOFF till she drops.. She has advance from Commander one to Commander6 JUST by turning in DOFF missions. Xp awards may be a little high for DOFF missions!
Now, you have attention, you have been clued on what to do, go forth and do it, and stop whining on the forums becasue YOU didn't take time to read the release notes and don't get that this is not a new server, but is a BETA TESTING server..... if you qwant the "real" STo its on Holodeck.. Tribble is an INCOMPLETE WORK IN PROGRESS.. and will have much added to it over the next 2 months before F2P goes live.
But it ain't here yet.
Why expectations are disappointed in regard to the loot is because of the faster level advancement, while item values have been lowered on resale. At Commander level, players count on equipping their ships with Mk V and VI gear... but will have to settle for IV at best because game progression-wise, they are still advancing through the Klingon Front - and thus get Klingon front gear and confront lower level enemies than them, which result in lower level loot drops that end up feeling unimpressive.
However - having said all that, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now because in the past, Cryptic has shown a wonderful knack for listening to their players' feedback and changing the game accordingly. I just hope that the new EP and PW will allow that to continue and will not try to force unwanted changes on the playerbase.
There is not logical reason to keep or make the crafting odd only so my opinion is that it was a bug and will be fixed. Even for F2P and the new economy there really is no reason to do that to the crafting system and yeah it would reduce some backlash giving people a way to make gear they can use and lesson the strain on the dilithium grind.
I hope I am right to
ATTN CAPTAIN:
YOUR NOT ON HOLODECK< HOLODECK WAYS OF PLAYING DO NOT APPLY.
the mission loot has not been adjusted because there is no need to do so The mission progression is set up to get you levveled.. do the mission progression under FEATUERD missions. Do Daylies and special missions that offer Dilithium. You will need to Dilithium to get your next tier of starship as you rank up.
If you want gear go craft it.. it will be sufficient. You can do the mission arc missions with white gear and the few worthwhile drops out there as you do the mission arc. You want to level up crafting for getting you gear to handle end game content.
Maximize your crafting so you can make Mk XI purples/blues at VA/LtG both for your ships and awat teem toon for ground combat. Your only other option for top end gear is spending Dilithium for em.. Craftings faster and esier so go do it.
There is a mssive easy mode set up to level players You can get to level 51 in 40 hours of play if your a reasonable expert player.. If you have some fleet buddies it can help make up for any lack of skill. If your not to level cap on tribble by 60 hours of play its because your not interested. You almost connot help but get to the level cap if you do the featured mission arc.
I know ALL about betas. I haved participated/tested and provided feedback in about 10 betas now, from 2002 to current, including STO and now TOR.
The largest portion of a beta is finding that developer mindset. What do they want you to do? Where is the development heading? Is there any underlying precept? In this "beta", the total extent of the development CHANGES lead to the C-Store in it's entirety. They are NOT making a new game here, they are CHANGING an existing one to comply with their requirements of looking for another playerbase they do not have while making a decision knowing full well (just via reading these forums) that it very well could cost them most of their existing playerbase, just from the feedback in these forums and even this particuliar thread.
Existing subs will remember the way "it used to be". Doesn't really matter if all the development was even "good" or not, they will remember the "old" game that they became used to. In the case of STO, it was a casual game that 1 could log onto, play for a short time, get some instant gratification, and get out and come back later to do it all again. This form of development takes most of that and throws it out the window in favor of a C-Store model or an "grinder". To be honest, I have no big deal against grinding. I played SWG when it didn't have a quest in it at all. For my jedi, I "ground" rancors, grawls, and dath spiders till I was blue in the face as that was the only gameplay available to do what I wanted to do. SWG had also the simulator aspects and other non-combat profs to play when you just could not bear to swing that saber anylonger, also. This game does not have those aspects. It's a kill, kill, and after that, more kill type of development mindset which leads it to more of the "casual" type of gameplay except for the sturdiest of power gamers.
It's the CHANGED game that will affect the existing playerbase, that all are P2P atm. Most will not be able to get over what they used to have, some will, if your 1 of them, more power to you. I watched people on the SWG forums at CU, NGE, and C6CD say some of the exact same things your saying here. All of which went to the addage of "shut up and play". There were defenders even on NGE. It really didn't make much of a difference as just a couple of short months later, aprox 200,000 players (over 2/3rds of the complete playerbase) made their goodbye mails and left the game as a result.
They won't fix things if you don't tell them its broken. They can't read minds.
Seriously everytime there is criticism about something on tribble we have people poping in and chastizing the people making complaints like its a cardinal sin not to like something the Devs do and then make ad homium attacks about the complainers being lazy or spoiled or something.
People the Devs aren't some fragile thing that breaks if you look at it wrong, their (I assume) adults who can handle criticism. Also the customer is always right as the saying goes. We are the customers.
In other games, I had lots of fun in betas. I don't believe a public test is successful without fun. An alpha perhaps.
I am glad that you are having fun! The mission has been accomplished for you.
That has nothing to do with specific game mechanics. I'm happy to work around things that currently aren't as intended or to deal with incompleteness, even if it's inconvenient or involves things I'd never do in the live game. I understand completely about working out kinks and I'm content to help do that. I'm not on Tribble to have fun. I'm not playing the test character I'm using for that purpose.
But, it's important feedback to say that, as a whole, if the game that ends up going live has the general feel of the one on Tribble, I won't enjoy it and I can see myself having a hard time continuing to play.
Again, this isn't about specific game mechanics. It's about the general drift of those mechanics, and I don't believe that, when so many changes are pointing in the same direction, all the tweaking of details in the world would change anything. The game seems more tightly controled, linear, prescriptive, and unfriendly to different playstyles or player choice.
The DOFF system is a huge exception here. But the fact is that it stands out so much both because it's great and because it seems so unlike the rest of the changes in the game.
If what ends up going live even has passing resemblance to what's on Tribble, all of these things will still be true. Beyond the particular mechanics that can be adjusted, beyond the bits and pieces that don't currently work, I think Cryptic is showing us their overall vision of the game in F2P mode, and it's that vision that makes me uncomfortable.
I've given Cryptic the benefit of the doubt routinely before now. And I still do believe that the Devs love this game and want it to be the best it can be. I've always appreciated their hard work. And I'm willing to keep an open mind about what happens next. But--as has already been said in this thread and others--it would be irresponsible to not say that things on Tribble don't feel right, even if that ends up offending some people.
because they are apologists, who feel that if they defend the devs, they somehow make themselves seem more important, its the band wagon effect, or as I like to call it, the lamprey effect. The idea is to attach themselves to something bigger, and it allows them to stroke their own ego and give themselves the feeling of self importance.
yeah, i know i sound like I am being Snarky, because frankly, the boot licking is pi**ing me off. There are some serious problems with whats on tribble, economy being the lion's share of it, but lets not forget, the bug tracking system is screwed up, bugs that are months old are still there, extremely annoying and game play breaking bugs, the fact that with the exception of the Doff system, there really isn't any NEW content, missions, sub professions, etc. The fact that the devs say they are reading, yet ignore every suggestion that this community is asking for, or making to FIX things.
Seeing the STOked tour of Cryptic, they are concentrating on putting in more ships, and prototyping extremly new things, when in reality, the community wants, New missions, Fixes to the old bugs, and some new gameplay features, like Thomas the Cat's minigame features to add to interactions, and minigames for ship lounges and such. You could describe it as "A Series of Small things."
The fact that Thomas the Cat was hired at Cryptic and none of his work has seen the light of day makes me wonder why the heck did they hire him in the first place? I mean I'm glad the guy has a job and all, but what the hell is he doing if not what they hired him for?
I mean even the "behind the scenes" videos show all this cool stuff, and I'm asking, where the hell is it?
I recently, in the last 6 months have tendered my resume' with Cryptic, about 3 times. I have knowledge of not only 3d Modeling, but also systems and content design, as well as project management. Something that this company has failed at. Knowing me, and I've done this before, I probably wouldnt even go home my first month working at Cryptic, I would probably put a cot in the office and work just to uncluster**** this mess. I know alot of people out there applying to Cryptic have the same attitude.
Really, if any one thing could be blamed, it's bad project management, now I know some people say, well what about the acquisition? Well in reality that just determines where your budget is coming from, and is Upper management's responsibility, Your project lead and his team really are not supposed to bother themselves with that, the focus is development of your project, whatever that is.
My point in all of this is that, the dev team is understaffed, over worked, and the project is running out of control and off the rails. And there have been alot of features that while cool, we as the community weren't asking for, IE The behind the scenes videos are a perfect example of this, while cool new ships are in the pipeline, the development of these things shouldn't take precedence over older issues that need resolving., I admit they are awesome, but the community wasn't asking for at this time. Especially in light of other features we were looking forward to, and fixes to things that were broken before.
There have been many flames yes, but there have been many many many suggestions on how to fix this and other problems as well as the community suggestions of what we would like to see.
The fact is, if as devs, you truly "read the forums" and understand the people and more importantly, put away your "god mode" tool bar and play the game as normal players, then you would KNOW what should take priority, What is Broken, what works for now but could use revamp later, and what new things players are expecting in "trek" terms.
We are out here Cryptic, and we do want to make this game better, and in turn make you a better company as a result. All you have to do is tap that resource. Ignore it at your own peril.
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The Doff system has been done pretty well. It is well worth the look-see. Heritic has out-done himself. I put him right up there with AdeptStrain that used to work on SWG (now works for Bioware) on his shear determination of development and readily accepting player feedback.
But my experience so far on Tribble has NOT been fun !, I was in the first group that most of us lvled to Capt in a Tier 2 Ship due to the short full in the dilithum given, yes it's not as bad now I understand it's only 2k difference now, so at least there is some changes being made.
I like the changes to STF's as well as the faster pace but having to run it a total of 60 times for the rewards
30 for space & 30 for ground that to me is a grind and you may have to run it even more if don't get a salvage each time before it may have taken you longer to do an STF but you came away feeling you earned your reward.
haha, well hey Cryptic, good luck with Star Bore Online, with TOR coming out I cant see much people putting up with such excessive grinds even if the game becomes free.
Its such a shame our beloved STO has to die in such a obvious Money grab. "Grind or Pay" is not a good design focus guys, seriously. Nor are "New Game Experiences" as SOE learned so painfully.
the tier xp on diplomacy is no different to the tier xp for diplomacy on live.
its even easier to do as you have the doff system giving you extra. im already level 3 on diplomacy on tribble inside of 10 days. took me a hell of a lot longer on live.
Common sense would seem to be saying that it is wise to listen to those that care enough to comment.