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Feedback on Boldly They Rode and The 2800
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I thought I'd give some feedback on my experience with "Boldly They Rode" and the whole "2800" series in general now that it's complete. Let's start with the most recent featured episode:
Boldly They Rode
This is probably the most exciting installment in this featured episode series. It's a great way to put the series to bed with a very action-oriented endgame. The EVA on DS9's hull was interesting; a definite change of pace that the game needed and holds up well. Movement is very realistic, with no running or jumping (since doing so would risk flying off into space). While this easily could have made this part of the mission a chore to get through, the ability to use your thrusters to maneuver to different NAV points makes up for the loss of running ability.
I wasn't too fond of the Bird of Prey crashing into the station's hull; aside from the fact that there is no way that could happen the way it was depicted in an actual zero-gravity environment, it just seemed to make the external EVA longer than it needed to be. You've already got sensors and isoleniar rods (as they're called in Cardassian stations) to re-route, and electro-static discharges to dodge. Combine these things with the relatively slow pace of the EVA and I think my point is easy to see. I will concede though that it made for some very nice visuals.
The fight inside the station can be frustrating at times. You can only fire your weapon when you have the Jem'Hadar targeted and he's not shrouded! Hopefully this can be fixed because otherwise the interior combat would be solid.
The fleet battle is much better and is a pretty by the numbers affair. It was nice to finally get some good space combat, something which this series didn't seem to focus on too much.
Finally we get to beam down to DS9 and talk to some of the major NPC's of this series. The dialog with Kurland and Loris is fairly routine, but I was looking forward to talking to Captain Shon of the new Enterprise. Apparently he survived the last episode! That was unexpected considering how the Belfast went out in "Facility 4028"; but the beauty of this plot twist being in a game rather than a TV episode is that it can easily be fixed. Anyways, I was hoping to see some information on what happened to the Enterprise-E, but unfortunately we don't. Hopefully we'll get some answers about that in the future.
I was satisfied with the Female Changeling's voice in this installment. As I noted in my review for "Facility 4028," the voice over for the Female Changeling was just too far off from Salome Jen's (the original DS9 actress who played the role). Thankfully, in this episode the voice sounds much closer to the original. It's not a carbon copy, but it's close enough. The Jem'Hadar's behavior is also much more satisfactory. This is how renegade Jem'Hadar behave! Nicely done.
Overall, not a bad little episode. Some minor details here and there that could be worked on in a future patch, but still a great ride.
The 2800 as a whole
So now that "The 2800" is complete, what is the final verdict? Well, it's definitely a satisfying end to the so-called 2011 Content Blackout. Four out of the five episodes of this series are solid with interesting game play and nice visuals. The series has everything from raw ship-to-ship combat, ground combat, a shuttle mission, and even a little diplomacy. Some may take these things for granted, but keep in mind that STO has faced criticism for having repetitive game play, even by MMO standards. The fact that "The 2800" obviously tries to break away from that is praise worthy. And lets not forget that this series blessed us with the stunning prison map from "Facility 4028."
It's not a perfect series though. The Dividian series is in no danger of loosing it's status as my personal favorite right now. There are plot holes here and there, and "Of Bajor" is outright boring and long-winded (funny coincidence that this is the problem with Deep Space Nine's worst episodes huh?). Still, the series offers some diverse game play, some very nice rewards, and a decent story line that will leave players satisfied.
Boldly They Rode
This is probably the most exciting installment in this featured episode series. It's a great way to put the series to bed with a very action-oriented endgame. The EVA on DS9's hull was interesting; a definite change of pace that the game needed and holds up well. Movement is very realistic, with no running or jumping (since doing so would risk flying off into space). While this easily could have made this part of the mission a chore to get through, the ability to use your thrusters to maneuver to different NAV points makes up for the loss of running ability.
I wasn't too fond of the Bird of Prey crashing into the station's hull; aside from the fact that there is no way that could happen the way it was depicted in an actual zero-gravity environment, it just seemed to make the external EVA longer than it needed to be. You've already got sensors and isoleniar rods (as they're called in Cardassian stations) to re-route, and electro-static discharges to dodge. Combine these things with the relatively slow pace of the EVA and I think my point is easy to see. I will concede though that it made for some very nice visuals.
The fight inside the station can be frustrating at times. You can only fire your weapon when you have the Jem'Hadar targeted and he's not shrouded! Hopefully this can be fixed because otherwise the interior combat would be solid.
The fleet battle is much better and is a pretty by the numbers affair. It was nice to finally get some good space combat, something which this series didn't seem to focus on too much.
Finally we get to beam down to DS9 and talk to some of the major NPC's of this series. The dialog with Kurland and Loris is fairly routine, but I was looking forward to talking to Captain Shon of the new Enterprise. Apparently he survived the last episode! That was unexpected considering how the Belfast went out in "Facility 4028"; but the beauty of this plot twist being in a game rather than a TV episode is that it can easily be fixed. Anyways, I was hoping to see some information on what happened to the Enterprise-E, but unfortunately we don't. Hopefully we'll get some answers about that in the future.
I was satisfied with the Female Changeling's voice in this installment. As I noted in my review for "Facility 4028," the voice over for the Female Changeling was just too far off from Salome Jen's (the original DS9 actress who played the role). Thankfully, in this episode the voice sounds much closer to the original. It's not a carbon copy, but it's close enough. The Jem'Hadar's behavior is also much more satisfactory. This is how renegade Jem'Hadar behave! Nicely done.
Overall, not a bad little episode. Some minor details here and there that could be worked on in a future patch, but still a great ride.
The 2800 as a whole
So now that "The 2800" is complete, what is the final verdict? Well, it's definitely a satisfying end to the so-called 2011 Content Blackout. Four out of the five episodes of this series are solid with interesting game play and nice visuals. The series has everything from raw ship-to-ship combat, ground combat, a shuttle mission, and even a little diplomacy. Some may take these things for granted, but keep in mind that STO has faced criticism for having repetitive game play, even by MMO standards. The fact that "The 2800" obviously tries to break away from that is praise worthy. And lets not forget that this series blessed us with the stunning prison map from "Facility 4028."
It's not a perfect series though. The Dividian series is in no danger of loosing it's status as my personal favorite right now. There are plot holes here and there, and "Of Bajor" is outright boring and long-winded (funny coincidence that this is the problem with Deep Space Nine's worst episodes huh?). Still, the series offers some diverse game play, some very nice rewards, and a decent story line that will leave players satisfied.
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Comments
The EVA was dull, in fact I very nearly stopped playing after only a few seconds because I knew it was going to be dull and long.
I think it was KOTOR that had a similar eva section and it is often recalled as the very worst bit of that game (with good reason), i feel the same here. As its the start of the episode I feel it put me in a negative frustrated mood right away which was a shame.
the interior combat was ok I'm not a fan of the ground combat in this game so I wont go in to any detail here other than it was better than the eva imo.
The space combat was more or less what I expected but not sure starting you in the middle of the enemy fleet makes much sence. In fact the first 30 seconds of that fight are pretty silly as you work out where you are whats happening and what your against whilst having to tank 20+ ships.
I will replay this section in an escort as it was a bit drawn out in my oddy that has almost no dps and hope for better results allthough I expect the inital spawn point to just result in death.
Overall it wraps the story arc up nicely and from a story point of view works well. I still think the eva doesn't work as enjoyable gameplay however.
As for the Enterprise showing up with the andorian captain it threw me a little, first off was oh that guy is alive how? secondly and why is he thanking me for saving his crew? I seem to recal being forced to run away and not help at all in the last episode.
please do something about the EVA its long and boring and because its boring it feels even longer than it is
I'm pretty patient with the puzzle solving, as long as I don't get horribly lost, so I don't mind the spacewalk at all. The puzzles were quite reasonable. Overall, I'd say the mission was good, and I didn't encounter any bugs. I'd be a little annoyed at the final battle if I had to worry about a death penalty, but I don't, and it was fun to watch all those ships going at it.
Boldly They Rode was without a doubt one of the most tedious episodes in STO - and as one of those F2P noobs who's already reached VA, I can remember the others pretty well. I can't think of another episode I would actually hate to replay.
The EVA thing was a nice idea, but my lord did it get old fast. If movement had been a little faster and had more environmental hazards it could have been an interesting bit of platforming, but no, it turned into "Select beacon, trigger ability, select beacon, trigger ability, interact with object, select beacon, trigger ability" - if we'd had some automated defenses or some enemies to face (Explained away as "Jem'Hadar don't often need to go EVA" - how convenient) then we could have had some First-Contact action. I could even draw my weapon, but alas, no targets. I can't imagine anyone having fun in this section after the initial novelty wears off.
Inside DS9? severe deja vu from Second Wave. Run around in a circle, kill jem'hadar. It was frustrating, but not challenging or fun. Being able to salvage supplies was a nice touch though.
The battle in Ops wasn't really that great either. Fighting shrouded Jem'Hadar in a confined space never works out all that well
and the space finale? More ships does not make it more fun, especially when they were all crammed together like that, it either turned into AOE spam/multitarget attacks or just flying off and letting the fleet deal with it. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't challenging, it was just boring - not only boring, but an utter waste of the new Enterprise's unveiling, it got lost in the scrum of ships and I couldn't make out what it was doing. The Odyssey got a better intro than the Enterprise.
I really hate for my first post to be so negative, but this episode suffers from a bad case of thinking that more = better.
What's better than an interesting little spacewalk section? MORE SPACEWALK!
What's better than the few Jem'Hadar you fight in Second Wave? MORE JEM'HADAR!
What's better than the few ships you fight off the first time? MANY MORE SHIPS!
Sorry, but it doesn't work like that, the corresponding sections in 2W were much better than they are here, and the spacewalk was unnecessarily dragged out.
As far as the 2800 as a whole goes? It's been great, some interesting new features, some nice rewards, interesting new environments and a good continuation of a dangling thread from DS9. Voice acting was good and the characters were mostly great, especially Loriss.
Very let down by the finale though, every other episode I've replayed ad nauseam , but the finale I got sick of halfway through.
(Hi everyone!)
Whatever the next event to trigger after you rearrange the isolinear chips is - it won't trigger. I can't get the objective "use the control junction to the right" to complete.
They need to better emphasize that the navigation points need to be targeted to jump to them with the EV suit on, I can see a lot of new players getting frustrated with that. It wasn't frustrating for me, just a little boring to be honest. As a veteran, I think just a tad more clarity on what to do would help our newer players out.
The Jem'Hadar inside the station shrouding made it hard to target them and annoying at times, but that mechanic is intentional though and had it's intended effect.
The space battle was not balanced well and very fast paced, again I'm sure this was intended effect/feeling they were going for, but it didn't feel fun.
That Andorian punk gets to captain the Ent-F!?? Pft, my credentials are better, they should have given it to me.
This EVA sequence is awful. I didn't think a featured episode could get any worse than the dumb shuttle-required ones, but kudos to Cryptic for figuring out how to do just that.
EDIT: And now, having finally gotten inside DS9, it's nice to have an endless, impossible wave of enemies that keep killing me over and over. Thanks for giving us the ability to don personal shields and armor that are beyond worthless. This mission is chock full of epic fail.
The trick on the iso-rods / slider puzzle is to look at how they are lined up and read the control options on shifting one row across or down
And there weren't endless waves of enemies within DS9, groups of three for the most part that are very easy to dispatch with a weapon that can target more than one enemy at a time (dual pistols for example
In summary this story reminded me of the best and the worst of the romulan campaign. If you are enough of a trekkie/trekker/whatever you choose to self identify as you will usually be able to recognize plot point inconsistencies writers may have missed or not considered. I try to look at the big ideas presented that make me find the overall presentation enjoyable. The general feel and flavour are critical and the overall consistency of an arc are the things that I enjoy the most.
"The 2800" was an enjoyable offering. It was a story rooted in DS9 and the Dominion. Because there was a consistent vision throughout the offfering it kept me interested for the most part. The only component that really hurt was "Of Bajor". My criticism being it was a tedious sequence of "go fetches". Collectively the parts fit together where other story arcs didn't seem to acheive that dovetailing. Both the klingon and romulan stories pulled this off as well subsequent arcs had me wondering what does this have to do with XXXX?, and why should my character care? A nice return to a focused story.
Visually this campaign was brilliant. The people in the eye candy department went to town and it showed. Bajor, the prison and the EVA walk in particular were all great looking additions to the environments. I'm looking forward to what you have waiting in the wings.
There was a bad part to my memories of the final romulan mission. The EVA while nice looking did concern me. I hopped a ledge that I probably shouldn't have and figured I blew my game. Surprisingly I got back on track okay but other posters seemed to have done something similar and hit a block. This reminds me of the "railriding" issues I had on the catwalks. Karukan was a uncooperative and died exactly when he shouldn't have. The open space in OPs had my character getting the guts flanked out of him from go. He died. Quite often. My targets shrouded and flanked and Karukan wouldn't get his wretched carcass out of my face. When I thought I had finally killed his sniping lackeys I gave him a beating only to miss his last friend who blew my side off as I death blowed him. I respawned to an empty ops with no exits and no Karukan alive to kill and put a tick in the mission box. I have to start the mission again. I didn't mind the EVA once but under the circumstances I'm not thrilled about a repeat.
The underwater bit on Manaan, as I recall, when you find that Star Map in the secret Republic kolto harvesting plant on the ocean floor. Otherwise known as "about ten minutes of my life I want back". I think the big tips in favor of "Boldly They Rode", however, were the reaction thrusters - you didn't have those in KotOR. Did the trip outside on DS9 take a while regardless? Yes. Was moving around in the suit sluggish without the thrusters? Hell, yes. Would I change a thing about it? Honestly...no.
On other bits: I see people go "aww, these stupid iso-chip puzzles" or complaining about the codes for the sensor recalibration bit - or, in past series, the whole brouhaha with the codes on the satellite in Coliseum, or the musical consoles on Drozana during the Devidian series. But honestly, puzzle-type games don't bug me quite as much. The reason? I grew up on Myst and its sequels, and have played most of the series (the only one I have not touched at all is End of Ages) multiple times in the two decades or so since the original was released. In that series, tedious puzzles were par for the course (especially in Revelation...Serenia just SUCKED).
I thought the series as a whole was well-done and somewhat exciting towards the end, and as someone who enjoyed some of the latter episodes of DS9, it did answer a few things. But that said, I couldn't help but think there was always this feeling of something missing. I can't put my finger on it, though...perhaps it was the not-so-glorious appearing of the new Enterprise, in as something of a cameo right at the end, like the cavalry charging over the hill at the end of those cheesy Westerns. (Hmm, maybe that was where something was missing - where the hell is the brand-spanking-new Klingon flagship in all this, eh?)
There were a lot of things to like about the series, but I do feel it wasn't a coherent set of missions like the previous three series. Of Bajor seemed very much like filter and din't add much to the overall story like the other episodes did. Also, it was never fully explained why the Prophets sent the fleet back into the wormhole - sure they wanted to restore what they had changed but why now? The quadrant is in an even worse state than it was in 2374 with the Klingon war, Borg return and Iconian meddling - seems the Prophets are rather sadistic.
Also, Loriss came off as dumb. I can buy the Jem'Hadar not accepting defeat, but Loriss' excuse in Of Bajor that she is following a Founder's order and won't budge until she hears otherwise seems out of character to other Vorta we have seen. Sure, they are slaves to the Founders but they aren't stupid. Loriss would have expected DS9 to already be under Dominion control when they arrived and should have immediately suspected something was wrong and once she had reviewed historical files should have been smart enough to realise the orders she received were out of date and the Founders had countermanded whatever orders she had taken by signing the Treaty of Bajor.
The ground combat inside DS9 was fine. I initially though: well, now things will be difficult. It's me versus a station full of Jem'Hadar. But I managed to handle the situation quite well. The little traps were a nice touch although I kept wandering after the mission: shoudn't those controls be hidden and with some heavy security to access then? After all, we don't see they on the DS9 social map.
Now the final battle on space needs a bit review. It was fine and has the number of ships that the second wave should have. But it was said there wer a fleet to arrive at DS9. And sincerely, the fleet was composed by 3 more ships more or less, if I'm not mistaken. That's not a fleet and don't givee the feel of "Sacrifice of Angels". And my little science vessel were literally oblitared several times. So my request is: more ships on that fight. It will help give the feeling of a more epic battle and help more fragiles ship to don't get blown so meany times.
And the cutscenes were really awesome. The ones on the first two episodes wasn't good. They improved on the third and fourth and on that made them awesome. And the arrival of the enterprise on the middle of the fight was very well done. It definetely remebered First Contact and it was a yet bigger surprise when we saw the Andorian Capitain on the bridge. I honestly thought he was dead on the last episode. The disapointing part is that it doesn't turn the tide of the Battle. At least not on a noticeable way. It fails on feeling powerfull, so I think it needs to be improved even if this means to overpower the enterprise (and I will emphasize the Enterprise speciffically. I'm not saying to improve the class as whole).
Overall, a awesome FE finale and one that showed what Cryptic is capable. Really good and I think it will be hard to Cryptic do a mission as good this one in the future (if a Dev read this, what I hope for, consider this a challenge
The final ground battle was highly irritating. Lets fight a shrouded Boss that holds you in a corner and drops invisible mines. not fun....
The final space battle was an effing zergfest. Anything but my cruiser went up in seconds. Eventually in my other ships I flew away and let em fight it out. so incredibly not fun.
For the whole series.... I played the series on 11 captains and doing repeats. Ive done the finale on 4. The drop tables are broken... I did a few captains on Easy, some on advanced and some on Elite.... Strangely enough the only purple item I saw and the only gold box I got (2 actually) came from easy. Loot was the same otherwise. I put up with one-shot kills to get better loot and this series appears to have the same loot table across the board.
I have 2 Melee captains that didn't fair well. Even with Mobility shields and other protections they were constantly being knocked around and had terrible times connecting blows.
Don't you guys test these in team settings before you release them?
The first one in the series was horrendous with a team, then next few weren't too bad and then the last one aslo has issues for a full team, although not as mind bendly frustrating as the first one.
All in all, I'd give the series as a whole about a 7 out of 10...
I still think the Rom series was the best so far.
Now, please let's not have to wait another year for more new missions.
My intention was to log in and play it through again with a different toon who would use the full set of ship gear in some stf and maybe some pvp. I had planed to do this since last week and was looking forward to it but I just dont want to play that EVA bit again.
This derailing of my plans has made me stop and think about what I am trying to get out of this game and tbh I'm left with no desire to continue playing. Maybe its just burnout and bad timing that it coincides with the thought of having to do that completely boring and unenjoyable space walk again maybe not.
surely your QA told you thaat this EVA is like watching paint dry and that while it does have merit in regards to story should be short so as not to drag like it does. Great concept bad gameplay.
I am also compelled to bring up something I think is related to this episode that I heard on an 'extra credits' on game design. "If you think the difficulty (as a dev) is correct its probably way to hard" this I feel relates to the end ship battle and possibly to the ground combat not just in this episode but across most of the game. I really hope this is the case as it would explain allot.
For the gameplay though, kinda boring. Target..thrust... repeat a 100 times. The two puzzles were pretty simple. The inside combat could get a little challenging by walking into two squads of stealthed Jem Hadar. I just used one of my tactical kits and stealthed and bypassed that whole monotonous part on the second run through. I picked up the explosives from one of the crates which kills all but the boss and one other Hadar in Ops while you come in from in from behind in the Office. So killing the boss was easy.
The space part again was fairly easy. I did it with my Galaxy X so swatting the escorts away like flies was no problem and fighting the Jem Hadar dred was just buff and hit and distribute shields/heal shields. Again nothing new.
The final mission was probably the best of the series though. Overall the new FE was pretty much a snorefest.
Nice writing, wonderful visuals. I absolutely loved Bajor and I really liked the visuals and background sounds in the prison facility.
The voice acting needs a lot of work. Some of the voice actors were spot on -- Kurland, for example was perfect. Some weren't. The vortas and the female changeling sounded as though either the actors or director had never bothered to actually watch Deep Space Nine and listen to the voice inflection that the original actors used. The Female changeling was much closer to the appropriate inflection in this last episode.
The computer voice in this last episode was very nicely done and a close aproximation to Majel Barret's.
There were a number of Team play bugs that were game stopping for us. At one point, I got stuck in a wall, and in the process of getting unstuck, my team and I ended up in different instances, and didn't get back into the same instance until we finally got onto the promenade.
Part of the issues with team play is that the conversations are not designed with a multiplayer focus in mind. When one person hits the final button, all the windows are closed for the whole team. This has been a continuing problem with multiplayer team play in STO, and is something I wish Cryptic would fix/change.
Overall, having new content and a new social zone is very much appreciated, and I'm looking forward to more.
I had high hopes for an exceptional experience this final episode. I was thoroughly let down.
Cons: The space walk was bugged and slow and boring
The space battle at the end was not epic or exciting...there was no lag or issues but it was just boring.
With all the ships blowinig up i would of loved to hear some voice overs. Warp Core going
critical..abandon ship...Much radio chatter
Inside Ds9 the mobs were bugged moving through the walls and getting stuck in the walls
In the Ops room there was no mobs (bug), I had to relog several times and then there were mobs
The named mob in Ops dissappeared 2 times and bugged out.
Pro: The rewards for one of the parts was nice a DOFF deck and a BO
Voice overs were ok.
In conclusion I feel that the episodic content fouund in the foundry is far sueprior to the episodic content released by the devs,
Some may say I am being harsh or over reacting. That is not entirely true. I want to like the content but it feels like they still are in the dark and not knowing what to do or that they do not play test it enough.
Score out of a possible 10 : 5
I also thought it was very nice of the Jem Hadar ship to park over top of me and wait 10 minutes for me as I figured out the chip puzzle to destroy it, rather that blow ME up.
It felt like a good balance of runnin', flyin', shootin' and testin' soil, and I have no complaints.
I thoroughly enjoyed the walk along the hull of DS9 and, despite the multicolored spaghetti that was the final space battle (in which I popped my clogs a couple of times while a) figuring out what the Enterprise was up to, and b) figuring out where the hell I was), all in all it was jolly satisfying. I learned a lot about ground combat and managed to experiment with my ship systems during the course of the episode, and I look forward to digging into the older content that I have missed.
sorry for my english)))
Seriously, I've wasted enough time even just thinking about the 2800, considering how little effort was apparently put into playtesting it. Seriously, Featured Episode?
Is that like the 'It's a feature, not a bug' type of Featured?
Meh.
Yeah, I'm hearing you - I put in a buttload of effort for the Risa Foundry Challenge #1, and came last. More people played the Klingon Missions than mine. That doesn't give me a nice feeling, or inspire me to anything at all ever. It might be fair, because maybe others put more work in, but that isn't what I'm talking about.
At the end of the day, we play because we like how it makes us feel. If it doesn't make us feel anything, or even brings displeasure, it may be time to put it down, just for a bit.
It is a shame that you were able to pin it on one mission, but hopefully you can avoid that mission.
For myself, I am questioning my Life Sub, but I know I will feel better in time.