I think he was joking. Text-based sarcasm is usually lost on anyone other than whoever wrote it.
As for this thread, I see a lot of "I have to grind X..." or variations on that theme. Did Cryptic sneak in and remove the "Exit" button from the game? If you aren't having fun, then don't do the grind. If enough people quit doing it (and buying things assocaited with the grind) then Cryptic would have to do something else to get you to come back, play and spend money, right?
But if you think about it, the grind always led somewhere. For instance in Everequest, the grind was built into the leveling (which made getting a new level something to celebrate, back in the day). By the time you were done leveling, you had a couple of months to work on the end-game dungeon and learning to beat the boss, then farm the goods til the next expansion. While that was going on, that MMO's developers were busy making the next expansion and continuing the cycle.
With STO, its grinding for the sake of the next grind.
I don't think you played EQ in it's 'heyday' when the Grind in EQ was JUST a Grind. (And I spoeak from experience as a Monk who sat in Lower Guk for two days straight hoping for a Raster spawn, but getting nothing but Black Gnolls.) Tnhe grind and harsh DP and forced grouping mechanics were only tolorated when it was the only MMO of it's kind for a period; and it's why WoW (which had everything EQ had because the WoW Devs had actually played EQ, and saw what SOWE had done right and done wrong from thne player's perspective - and overall improved on what EQ developed.)
It's funny too - because back in the heyday of EQ, unless you were a Cleric (Druid in a pinch) - A LOT of your in game time was sitting at a zone in point, broadcasting to zone:
"Level XX <Class> LFG" <-- mosty players had that macroed. And aside for sitting there waiting for an invite - yiou occassionally had to get your butt up and zone out when some fool group screwed up and brought a train of MOBs to the zone.
Of course if you had a pre-made group, you weren't immune to still havin g to wait, as most zones had player defined 'camps' (places in a zonme that had a good MOB spawn rate and where one grpoup could 'farm' EXP and gear - and actually 'camps' were indeed respected buy all as you were all in the same leveling treadmill - BUT, sometimes a night was spoent taking your group and looking fgor a non-taken 'camp' somewhere and mosat nights you'd zone in - call out the camp names for that zone, but see some group resond with 'taken' - so, there were indeed nights when even with a premade you could find a good camp spot after a couple hours and had to log empty handed.
Also, as a veteran on MANY EQ Plane (Fear and Hate), TOV and Planes of Power raids, sorry - but the 'end boss' fights required ONE strategy - DPS until dead (and use any explpoit SOE didn't ban your Guild over.) <--- This was the only way to beat most SOE boss mob encounters.
SOE also had a habit of designing am 6 month gear progression (or zone key requirement Grind) so that they could claim content was in at release that wasn't (and usually took punitive action against any Guild that got to a new piece of end game content that SOE had been claimuing was in the game and working - even after a high tier guild posted screenshots and combat logs to teh contrary, etc.
^^^
That was SOEs management strategy for all it's MMOs in a nutshell. It's also why I'll never play any MMO (F2P or not) developed or administered by SOW. John Smedly has nothing but contempt for MMO players, and i'll wager the only reason he's still at SOE is no other MMO developer would have him.
But sorry, I would never hiold up EQ as an example of how to design an MMO grind. EQ in it's heyday makes modern 'Asian grind' style MMOs look like a cakewalk in comparison, and a 'grindy' and STO has gotten it's no where near the grind level EQ was bacck in that game's heyday.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
While I know the Nagus dailies are just supposed to be throw-away missions to get our daily dilithium, I really miss being able to quickly test my build in a short encounter against a few ships.
Probably, people are already getting worn out, and S6's only real update was the fleet starbases. It reinforces my opinion that they should have focused on more than just fleet starbases in S6, for example, they should have fixed PvP as well, to give people more to do. Right now fleet starbases are of only interest for people in fleets, therefore S6 doesn't address the other players in the game who aren't in fleets, but if they had also updated PvP in the season update, then it would affect all users. S6 is the weakest season update yet.
With S6 now here I am more aware than ever that this game is just a never-ending grind
after 1900 hrs of play and over $400 I am getting very tired - when do you know it's time to throw in the towel?
Grind for dilth
Grind for EC
Grind for Fleet marks
Grind for Fleet credits
Grind for EDC's
Grind for XP
Grind for CXP
Am I missing something? What is the big insentive to stay and keep plowing time and money here?? Let me know if there is something else to do other than grinding and the same old stuff?
Its a big grind because its a F2P game. You have to make people grind so they play longer and buy more stuff.
Grind for dilth (buy it with Z Points)
Grind for EC (But Z store stuff and sell it on the exchange)
Grind for Fleet marks (Buy boosters off the exchange or buy lockboxes)
Grind for Fleet credits (buy resources for EC)
Grind for EDC's
Grind for XP (buy XP booxsters)
Grind for CXP (Buy CXP boosters)
The only thing you can't really buy is EDC stuff. And if you're complaining about having to grind so much spend 15 bucks (the old monthly sub price) on boosters and such and make your life easier. Or did you expect everything for free as a silver player?
Not all users PvP, just like not all users are in fleets. The only universal content in any MMO can only be found in its cash store.
Agreed. I don't touch PvP; nobody in our small family/friends fleet touches PvP. Statistically, in MMOs that include strong PvE story/missions, PvP is a much smaller percentage of the overall playerbase.
For myself, if five-man often repeated Fleet Mark missions and the like is all we have to look forward to content-wise, it will be a major disappointment.
Hamster-wheel content is not sustainable fun for me. I think these missions are great as *part* of the overall content; variety is good.
However, my wife and I went lifetime in STO because we enjoy the mission/storyline content and were looking forward to future updates. We didn't go lifetime initially; we did it at the first anniversary event sale during the time when the Engineering Reports were touting more story content, multiple Featured Episodes per year, and fleshing out the Klingon storyline.
Immersive storylines with Starbase missions, Duty Officers missions, occasional dailies, some exploration and patrols provides a good mix. But the storylines are the tie that binds them all together. Remove or diminish the storyline aspect, and the other content goes from fun change of pace to monotonous repetition.
I don't think you played EQ in it's 'heyday' when the Grind in EQ was JUST a Grind. (And I spoeak from experience as a Monk who sat in Lower Guk for two days straight hoping for a Raster spawn, but getting nothing but Black Gnolls.) Tnhe grind and harsh DP and forced grouping mechanics were only tolorated when it was the only MMO of it's kind for a period; and it's why WoW (which had everything EQ had because the WoW Devs had actually played EQ, and saw what SOWE had done right and done wrong from thne player's perspective - and overall improved on what EQ developed.)
Yes, I played in Everquest from Oct 1999 til May of 2003 on the Tallon Zek PvP server (shortly after they split up the Zek server into the 3). Got 2nd place in the Best of the Best as a Level 57 Paladin. Even became a GM on the Maelin Starpyre server for a short time.
But you're equating Grinding with camping. We've all done it, like sitting for weeks on end for the Ancient Cyclops to spawn, or weeks camping Quillimane for his cloak. Though you likely did that while on a safe PvE server, while I had to enter "hostile" territory and battle for my camps.
Grinding in EQ was as I said, unless you forgot those "hell levels" where it felt like an eternity to get. Sitting in popular spots to get groups
But sorry, I would never hiold up EQ as an example of how to design an MMO grind. EQ in it's heyday makes modern 'Asian grind' style MMOs look like a cakewalk in comparison, and a 'grindy' and STO has gotten it's no where near the grind level EQ was back in that game's heyday.
You have your opinions, and I have mine. But I will say this, I can look back at EQ as something fun (even though it really ended up being a pain). STO is the same, something fond with a bunch of frustration.
Its a big grind because its a F2P game. You have to make people grind so they play longer and buy more stuff.
Grind for dilth (buy it with Z Points)
Grind for EC (But Z store stuff and sell it on the exchange)
Grind for Fleet marks (Buy boosters off the exchange or buy lockboxes)
Grind for Fleet credits (buy resources for EC)
Grind for EDC's
Grind for XP (buy XP booxsters)
Grind for CXP (Buy CXP boosters)
The only thing you can't really buy is EDC stuff. And if you're complaining about having to grind so much spend 15 bucks (the old monthly sub price) on boosters and such and make your life easier. Or did you expect everything for free as a silver player?
Or if you're a Lifer spend your stipend.
LOTRO and CoH are both F2P hybrids, yet both turn out new story/mission content, not just repetitive grinds.
The notion that we must grind the same relative handful of non-story missions repeatedly to get better gear, more ECs, etc., only for the purpose of allowing us to grind those same things "better" seems, well, odd to me.
If I'm going to do the repetitive grind to get better gear and such, I want something fun to do with them once I achieve those goals. What purpose is there to grinding out the best Starbase I can get if there's really nothing to do with it when I'm done? What's the point of unlocking all the cool Fleet gear if the only purpose is to unlock it, not have content to enjoy with it?
When I occasionally grind rep or traits in LOTRO, it's to better equip my characters to do the quest content. I have no interest in grinding to get better gear just to enable me to grind better.
I'm hoping it's a kind of "keep the players busy building a Starbase for the short term while we work on more meaty storyline content for Season 7" situation.:)
Edit: I do want to note that I truly enjoy the mission content in STO -- as well as some of the Foundry-authored missions. I also enjoy some of the new Fleet five-player content as well as other aspects of the game. I would not be here if I didn't (I'd just quietly disappear if I wasn't having any fun). I'm just a little concerned that recent comments and developments make it sound like advancing the story and giving us mission content in the future is no longer a high priority.
LOTRO and CoH are both F2P hybrids, yet both turn out new story/mission content, not just repetitive grinds.
CoH is only very recently F2P, and the newer content (other than architect missions, which are essentially foundry missions) seemed not particularly newer or more interesting. It has always felt grindy to me. It does have huge capacity for customization though... at least in appearance.
Individual mileage may vary of course....
Not as sure on LOTRO, since I have only recently started playing that.
Devs can only create so much content in a given time frame. It's impossibble for them to create content who's total duration without a grind is equal to or greater than the time required to devlop the next bit of content.
Obviously as one poster pointed out, PvP focused games can get around that. The continuioslly changing strategies and evolving nature of the gameplay even in a static enviroment can keep things fresh for years with minimal content updates. Thing is if you look over all the popular well know MMO's, onle EVE stands out as having a strongly PvP focused playerbase. And whilst it's on hersay, i've heard that taken as an average across all MMO's, the majority of MMO players do not do hardcore PVP. There's also the fact that this is a star trek game. he cuthroat nature of PvP and the ethics star trek are built on sit in oppossitte corners. So a hardcore PvP only game would have been virtually garunteed to drive away a good chunk of the people most likliy to be intrested in it.
Bassiclly a PVE focused MMO cannot avoid the whole endless grind mechanic. It's part of the innate nature of how MMO's work.
CoH is only very recently F2P, and the newer content (other than architect missions, which are essentially foundry missions) seemed not particularly newer or more interesting. It has always felt grindy to me. It does have huge capacity for customization though... at least in appearance.
Individual mileage may vary of course....
Not as sure on LOTRO, since I have only recently started playing that.
Actually LOTRO is just as grindy as any other MMO.
The main thing of course is much more varied ccontent and the presentation of said content. You notice the grind less becuase of this, ut it's still there.
The minimum time frame to get 1st ager's after the rel;eveant instances comes out for a regular grouop in a 4 wing plus main boss instance is 2 and a half weeks. In reality no one makes every time gated half week run, (littrially 2 runs a week max), and group compositions change constantly meaning that often it's 6 months or more before an entire kinship can gear itself out, (and all this assumes they run T2 hard mode, which is like elite, elite STF's). Just in time for the next content release.
hat said LOTRO definatly has the better F2P model. ut Cryptic is showing signs of moving in that diection with it's new lockbox's.
Actually LOTRO is just as grindy as any other MMO.
I didn't say there wasn't grind. In fact I said I did occasionally grind rep and traits. However, they still keep pumping out quest/story content including the Epic quest line several times a year. But I've never felt *compelled* to grind there for anything (I've been in LOTRO since the initial alpha, Founder and lifetimer).
The focus is story, but it does definitely have it's share of grind as well. Some updates are primarily quests and sometimes landscape, others are primarily instances and raids; both types of updates can contain new systems and tech as well. But carrying on the storyline is paramount in their development process.
That's all I'm asking for with STO. The dailies, raids, etc., are expected and welcomed, but more storyline content is crucual as well.
All games become grinds eventually if you play them long enough, though STO seems worse depending on what faction you play and how poorly the Devs have expanded and grown the existing story line ideas that have started but never finished.
Its time for more KDF content to flesh the faction out, more total game content that explains some of the dangling storylines that ahve yet to be revisted and work to started on the RSE so STo can truelly start becoming a multi-faction game instead of one faction and a bunch of nonsencial monster play.
Give us some story that ties the KDF into STO, give us a third faction that ties in the Romulans, give us a sense of being apart of what is going on in the STO storyline instead of feeling like a person waiting in line for thier turn to ride the tea cups.
The issues with the grinding have been stated here and i agree with them both, to summise:
The main issue with the grinding is its purpose, most MMOs get you to grind for a reason, wether is to do the harder end game content or to buy that uber rare expensive item (Veil of the sands in WoW for example) STO doesnt have this, there is no end game content to grind for, starbases are a utility at best. And alot of the items you would want to grind for, you can purchase fairly easially one way or another.
The other issue STO has is varity, theres one place you can grind at constantly, thats Nakura, or you do the new Starbase Fleetactions. Thats it, and as fun as they are, they loose flavour very quickly.
I quite often think, yeah ill play STO when i get home this evening, but when i get home and think about what im ganna do in it, i decide to play something else. STO in a sense has become a hollow shell of a game, a Grind for nothing, and no more storys to be told.
Space, the final Grind. These are the Voyages of the Starship Emerald, its continuing mission,to explore strange new grinds, to seek out new grinds, and new grinds, to boldley go where noone has ground before
With S6 now here I am more aware than ever that this game is just a never-ending grind
after 1900 hrs of play and over $400 I am getting very tired - when do you know it's time to throw in the towel?
Grind for dilth
Grind for EC
Grind for Fleet marks
Grind for Fleet credits
Grind for EDC's
Grind for XP
Grind for CXP
Am I missing something? What is the big insentive to stay and keep plowing time and money here?? Let me know if there is something else to do other than grinding and the same old stuff?
Yeah, I remember my first MMO....
Seriously, they are all like that to one degree or another. If you're spending real money, that's your problem.
Imagine if every fleet was able to crank out a T5 starbase in a few days. What would you be complaining about then? The lack of long term goals and objectives?
Personally, I'm really tired of the instant gratification mentality infesting the MMO community these days. Developers keep catering to them, to the detriment of the genre.
Seriously, they are all like that to one degree or another. If you're spending real money, that's your problem.
Imagine if every fleet was able to crank out a T5 starbase in a few days. What would you be complaining about then? The lack of long term goals and objectives?
Personally, I'm really tired of the instant gratification mentality infesting the MMO community these days. Developers keep catering to them, to the detriment of the genre.
I don't think anyone is asking for a T5 starbase or "instant gratification". What some of us are talking about is grinding for the sake of grinding, with nothing much else to do.
When my little fleet finally gets a big ol' starbase, what is there to do with it? When we grind for cool gear, what are we going to do with it? Use it to do the same repetitive treadmill we did to get the gear?
We all expect grind to be part of the game -- but only *part* of the game, not the entire focus. But as I've said before, I'm holding out that the tech and such added in Season 6 was preparatory for a story-focused Season 7. I'm hoping the current "grind" is just to keep us busy while they work on more immersive content.
It supposed to be an endgame thing to do, not a rush. They should make starbases a teeny bit more useful in the beginning and then make it take years to complete so it will just crush all of you till you get the point that its stupid to try to burn through this stuff. The ones that don't get it will bail... and the game will be better for it.
So what if it takes 7 months. If your logging in to get your fleet done before the next guy... go somewhere else. I go to work to work... I come home and play STO to idk.... pew pew pew... not work more. The new fleet events help with the pew pew pew as they bring pretty dynamic content that is repeatable. I rarely kill myself to get 1000 fleet marks in an hour.... what fun is that?
Some of you just bring it on yourself...
join Date: Sep 2009 - I want my changeling lava lamp!
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02v9EUHs30&feature=related
Cool clip. Not sure what it has to do with anything....?
I just love Garak
that scene - you just replace the doctor as the STO player - while Cryptic plays Garak
here's another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfZQLksfbVk&feature=related
I don't think you played EQ in it's 'heyday' when the Grind in EQ was JUST a Grind. (And I spoeak from experience as a Monk who sat in Lower Guk for two days straight hoping for a Raster spawn, but getting nothing but Black Gnolls.) Tnhe grind and harsh DP and forced grouping mechanics were only tolorated when it was the only MMO of it's kind for a period; and it's why WoW (which had everything EQ had because the WoW Devs had actually played EQ, and saw what SOWE had done right and done wrong from thne player's perspective - and overall improved on what EQ developed.)
It's funny too - because back in the heyday of EQ, unless you were a Cleric (Druid in a pinch) - A LOT of your in game time was sitting at a zone in point, broadcasting to zone:
"Level XX <Class> LFG" <-- mosty players had that macroed. And aside for sitting there waiting for an invite - yiou occassionally had to get your butt up and zone out when some fool group screwed up and brought a train of MOBs to the zone.
Of course if you had a pre-made group, you weren't immune to still havin g to wait, as most zones had player defined 'camps' (places in a zonme that had a good MOB spawn rate and where one grpoup could 'farm' EXP and gear - and actually 'camps' were indeed respected buy all as you were all in the same leveling treadmill - BUT, sometimes a night was spoent taking your group and looking fgor a non-taken 'camp' somewhere and mosat nights you'd zone in - call out the camp names for that zone, but see some group resond with 'taken' - so, there were indeed nights when even with a premade you could find a good camp spot after a couple hours and had to log empty handed.
Also, as a veteran on MANY EQ Plane (Fear and Hate), TOV and Planes of Power raids, sorry - but the 'end boss' fights required ONE strategy - DPS until dead (and use any explpoit SOE didn't ban your Guild over.) <--- This was the only way to beat most SOE boss mob encounters.
SOE also had a habit of designing am 6 month gear progression (or zone key requirement Grind) so that they could claim content was in at release that wasn't (and usually took punitive action against any Guild that got to a new piece of end game content that SOE had been claimuing was in the game and working - even after a high tier guild posted screenshots and combat logs to teh contrary, etc.
^^^
That was SOEs management strategy for all it's MMOs in a nutshell. It's also why I'll never play any MMO (F2P or not) developed or administered by SOW. John Smedly has nothing but contempt for MMO players, and i'll wager the only reason he's still at SOE is no other MMO developer would have him.
But sorry, I would never hiold up EQ as an example of how to design an MMO grind. EQ in it's heyday makes modern 'Asian grind' style MMOs look like a cakewalk in comparison, and a 'grindy' and STO has gotten it's no where near the grind level EQ was bacck in that game's heyday.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Probably, people are already getting worn out, and S6's only real update was the fleet starbases. It reinforces my opinion that they should have focused on more than just fleet starbases in S6, for example, they should have fixed PvP as well, to give people more to do. Right now fleet starbases are of only interest for people in fleets, therefore S6 doesn't address the other players in the game who aren't in fleets, but if they had also updated PvP in the season update, then it would affect all users. S6 is the weakest season update yet.
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Not all users PvP, just like not all users are in fleets. The only universal content in any MMO can only be found in its cash store.
This.
People used to grind as part of the game or for accomplishment.
Can't blame everything on the asians when the westerners do it with much more gusto.
I love DLC horse armor.
Its a big grind because its a F2P game. You have to make people grind so they play longer and buy more stuff.
Grind for dilth (buy it with Z Points)
Grind for EC (But Z store stuff and sell it on the exchange)
Grind for Fleet marks (Buy boosters off the exchange or buy lockboxes)
Grind for Fleet credits (buy resources for EC)
Grind for EDC's
Grind for XP (buy XP booxsters)
Grind for CXP (Buy CXP boosters)
The only thing you can't really buy is EDC stuff. And if you're complaining about having to grind so much spend 15 bucks (the old monthly sub price) on boosters and such and make your life easier. Or did you expect everything for free as a silver player?
Or if you're a Lifer spend your stipend.
Agreed. I don't touch PvP; nobody in our small family/friends fleet touches PvP. Statistically, in MMOs that include strong PvE story/missions, PvP is a much smaller percentage of the overall playerbase.
For myself, if five-man often repeated Fleet Mark missions and the like is all we have to look forward to content-wise, it will be a major disappointment.
Hamster-wheel content is not sustainable fun for me. I think these missions are great as *part* of the overall content; variety is good.
However, my wife and I went lifetime in STO because we enjoy the mission/storyline content and were looking forward to future updates. We didn't go lifetime initially; we did it at the first anniversary event sale during the time when the Engineering Reports were touting more story content, multiple Featured Episodes per year, and fleshing out the Klingon storyline.
Immersive storylines with Starbase missions, Duty Officers missions, occasional dailies, some exploration and patrols provides a good mix. But the storylines are the tie that binds them all together. Remove or diminish the storyline aspect, and the other content goes from fun change of pace to monotonous repetition.
Yes, I played in Everquest from Oct 1999 til May of 2003 on the Tallon Zek PvP server (shortly after they split up the Zek server into the 3). Got 2nd place in the Best of the Best as a Level 57 Paladin. Even became a GM on the Maelin Starpyre server for a short time.
But you're equating Grinding with camping. We've all done it, like sitting for weeks on end for the Ancient Cyclops to spawn, or weeks camping Quillimane for his cloak. Though you likely did that while on a safe PvE server, while I had to enter "hostile" territory and battle for my camps.
Grinding in EQ was as I said, unless you forgot those "hell levels" where it felt like an eternity to get. Sitting in popular spots to get groups
You have your opinions, and I have mine. But I will say this, I can look back at EQ as something fun (even though it really ended up being a pain). STO is the same, something fond with a bunch of frustration.
LOTRO and CoH are both F2P hybrids, yet both turn out new story/mission content, not just repetitive grinds.
The notion that we must grind the same relative handful of non-story missions repeatedly to get better gear, more ECs, etc., only for the purpose of allowing us to grind those same things "better" seems, well, odd to me.
If I'm going to do the repetitive grind to get better gear and such, I want something fun to do with them once I achieve those goals. What purpose is there to grinding out the best Starbase I can get if there's really nothing to do with it when I'm done? What's the point of unlocking all the cool Fleet gear if the only purpose is to unlock it, not have content to enjoy with it?
When I occasionally grind rep or traits in LOTRO, it's to better equip my characters to do the quest content. I have no interest in grinding to get better gear just to enable me to grind better.
I'm hoping it's a kind of "keep the players busy building a Starbase for the short term while we work on more meaty storyline content for Season 7" situation.:)
Edit: I do want to note that I truly enjoy the mission content in STO -- as well as some of the Foundry-authored missions. I also enjoy some of the new Fleet five-player content as well as other aspects of the game. I would not be here if I didn't (I'd just quietly disappear if I wasn't having any fun). I'm just a little concerned that recent comments and developments make it sound like advancing the story and giving us mission content in the future is no longer a high priority.
CoH is only very recently F2P, and the newer content (other than architect missions, which are essentially foundry missions) seemed not particularly newer or more interesting. It has always felt grindy to me. It does have huge capacity for customization though... at least in appearance.
Individual mileage may vary of course....
Not as sure on LOTRO, since I have only recently started playing that.
Devs can only create so much content in a given time frame. It's impossibble for them to create content who's total duration without a grind is equal to or greater than the time required to devlop the next bit of content.
Obviously as one poster pointed out, PvP focused games can get around that. The continuioslly changing strategies and evolving nature of the gameplay even in a static enviroment can keep things fresh for years with minimal content updates. Thing is if you look over all the popular well know MMO's, onle EVE stands out as having a strongly PvP focused playerbase. And whilst it's on hersay, i've heard that taken as an average across all MMO's, the majority of MMO players do not do hardcore PVP. There's also the fact that this is a star trek game. he cuthroat nature of PvP and the ethics star trek are built on sit in oppossitte corners. So a hardcore PvP only game would have been virtually garunteed to drive away a good chunk of the people most likliy to be intrested in it.
Bassiclly a PVE focused MMO cannot avoid the whole endless grind mechanic. It's part of the innate nature of how MMO's work.
Actually LOTRO is just as grindy as any other MMO.
The main thing of course is much more varied ccontent and the presentation of said content. You notice the grind less becuase of this, ut it's still there.
The minimum time frame to get 1st ager's after the rel;eveant instances comes out for a regular grouop in a 4 wing plus main boss instance is 2 and a half weeks. In reality no one makes every time gated half week run, (littrially 2 runs a week max), and group compositions change constantly meaning that often it's 6 months or more before an entire kinship can gear itself out, (and all this assumes they run T2 hard mode, which is like elite, elite STF's). Just in time for the next content release.
hat said LOTRO definatly has the better F2P model. ut Cryptic is showing signs of moving in that diection with it's new lockbox's.
I didn't say there wasn't grind. In fact I said I did occasionally grind rep and traits. However, they still keep pumping out quest/story content including the Epic quest line several times a year. But I've never felt *compelled* to grind there for anything (I've been in LOTRO since the initial alpha, Founder and lifetimer).
The focus is story, but it does definitely have it's share of grind as well. Some updates are primarily quests and sometimes landscape, others are primarily instances and raids; both types of updates can contain new systems and tech as well. But carrying on the storyline is paramount in their development process.
That's all I'm asking for with STO. The dailies, raids, etc., are expected and welcomed, but more storyline content is crucual as well.
You heared it Cryptic, we all shout it out ; WE WANT MORE CONTENT !!! lol
Allfather
Its time for more KDF content to flesh the faction out, more total game content that explains some of the dangling storylines that ahve yet to be revisted and work to started on the RSE so STo can truelly start becoming a multi-faction game instead of one faction and a bunch of nonsencial monster play.
Give us some story that ties the KDF into STO, give us a third faction that ties in the Romulans, give us a sense of being apart of what is going on in the STO storyline instead of feeling like a person waiting in line for thier turn to ride the tea cups.
Stop dangling.
R.I.P
I'd don't get how people can spend so much time on pure PVE content when it is boring as hell.
The only thing even remotely resembling endgame is PvP, and it keeps get more sour with each lame PVE feature, p2w junk added to it.
The main issue with the grinding is its purpose, most MMOs get you to grind for a reason, wether is to do the harder end game content or to buy that uber rare expensive item (Veil of the sands in WoW for example) STO doesnt have this, there is no end game content to grind for, starbases are a utility at best. And alot of the items you would want to grind for, you can purchase fairly easially one way or another.
The other issue STO has is varity, theres one place you can grind at constantly, thats Nakura, or you do the new Starbase Fleetactions. Thats it, and as fun as they are, they loose flavour very quickly.
I quite often think, yeah ill play STO when i get home this evening, but when i get home and think about what im ganna do in it, i decide to play something else. STO in a sense has become a hollow shell of a game, a Grind for nothing, and no more storys to be told.
Space, the final Grind. These are the Voyages of the Starship Emerald, its continuing mission,to explore strange new grinds, to seek out new grinds, and new grinds, to boldley go where noone has ground before
Yeah, I remember my first MMO....
Seriously, they are all like that to one degree or another. If you're spending real money, that's your problem.
Imagine if every fleet was able to crank out a T5 starbase in a few days. What would you be complaining about then? The lack of long term goals and objectives?
Personally, I'm really tired of the instant gratification mentality infesting the MMO community these days. Developers keep catering to them, to the detriment of the genre.
I don't think anyone is asking for a T5 starbase or "instant gratification". What some of us are talking about is grinding for the sake of grinding, with nothing much else to do.
When my little fleet finally gets a big ol' starbase, what is there to do with it? When we grind for cool gear, what are we going to do with it? Use it to do the same repetitive treadmill we did to get the gear?
We all expect grind to be part of the game -- but only *part* of the game, not the entire focus. But as I've said before, I'm holding out that the tech and such added in Season 6 was preparatory for a story-focused Season 7. I'm hoping the current "grind" is just to keep us busy while they work on more immersive content.
It supposed to be an endgame thing to do, not a rush. They should make starbases a teeny bit more useful in the beginning and then make it take years to complete so it will just crush all of you till you get the point that its stupid to try to burn through this stuff. The ones that don't get it will bail... and the game will be better for it.
So what if it takes 7 months. If your logging in to get your fleet done before the next guy... go somewhere else. I go to work to work... I come home and play STO to idk.... pew pew pew... not work more. The new fleet events help with the pew pew pew as they bring pretty dynamic content that is repeatable. I rarely kill myself to get 1000 fleet marks in an hour.... what fun is that?
Some of you just bring it on yourself...