Dear Borticus,
Mr. Randall I would like to take a moment and thank you personly for your work on STO. Working on a much loved properly like Star Trek Online is much like playing for a major league sports franchise. We love you and sing your praises when things are going well, and of course it doesn't seem to take much for your loving fans to turn on you. I want you to understand that your work over the past few months has been very appreciated by many of the games fans. Frankly when I look back on 3 years of game development now, more possitive things have happened in the past handful of months then we have seen since the launch.
2+ years of broken promises is a hard act to follow. However I believe you have done a fine job. You have come to the community and asked opinions, taken your own time to explain issues in detail I know I didn't expect to see from a developer. More over you have taken that feedback, fused it with your own good ideas... and have really improved the game. It is for that reason that I felt I needed to post and thank you.
I won't be making any bad time jokes... No McFly Jokes, No 1.21 Gigawatt ISO charges here... (ok really someone could have fought to get a orange life vest jacket thrown into the lockbox... lol) I won't speak to the balance of the new lockbox toys... frankly I havn't really played around with or been beat up by them yet... I'll come back to them later at some point.

What I would like however is for you to let your contemporaries at Cryptic Studios Know that I have recently decided to Resub... I have resubed for 3 months, after that who knows. Perhaps I will continue perhaps I will go back to silver status. I made the decision on the strength of a handful of changes... many of which I know you had a hand in... I love Trek... I love STO warts and all.
In no real order here is a list of fairly recent changes that I feel have made this game so much more enjoyable.
1) Torpedo Global Cool Down Elimination.
- I know not every one loves torps, but for those of us that always have... what a fantastic change.
2) Torpedo Overhaul
- Yes it sucks to see miss animations... but its much more realistic... really though I love the new plasma torps... we have all had fun with spread a real alternative and great spam clear.
3) Mine Overhaul
- Sure tric mine dmg can be debated... however mines are more usable... less spammy... on the whole this has been a good change. again thank you.
4) Mine Pattern Overhaul
- Sort of goes with the last point... but really never though I would fine a Dispersal Pattern on one of my ships... kudos.
5) Doff System
- This one is controversial with PvPers... however I will say that I love the new dynamic. Balance wise we need to look at overall healing from BFI doffs... and it would be great if a handful of doffs (special ones here) could be recategorized to only allow one per ship instead of the 3 stack... however system as a whole is a major win.
6) Acc corrections
- Again there will be people that complain about this as X or Y power isn't as potent when they work properly... however this was a long standing bug that has mostly been corrected. I understand there are still a few issues with it and I hope in time they will be ironed out as well.
7) Skill Tree Revamp
- It is NOT perfect NO... it has however allowed me to honestly move from ship to ship with out needed to respec every single time. For that alone its a win. We can debate the finer points and how sci fits in or doesn't fit in... again on the whole WIN.
8) F2P Conversion
- This goes back a bit... but I left before the f2p launch for 4 months or so.. came back had a ton of dilithium on all my toons thanks to converted currency... had free bonus BOFFs on a few of them... and over all came back to a F2P game with enough ZEN to outfit myself with a ton of toys and ships... Thank You Cryptic For doing it right and rewarding long time customers.
9) F2P System
- To be honest I couldn't really think of many good reasons to sub... other then support you guys. You have made the game very playable as a returning player. I have never really felt penalized for deciding to end my subscription. I know from experience that not every Game Developer is that forgiving. Again Thank you Cryptic.
10) Fleet System.... Which I mostly HATE.

- I am not a big fan... I contribute to help my freinds (and myself) unlock what we want from the bases... really its a major grind. However what it has done that I LOVE is create a real economy in this game... there are consumables that are really consumed for a purpose... which gives them value... In any MMO I have ever played you tell with in 5 min if the game is alive and kicking by simply visiting the market. STO always has 10 people crowded around 10 consoles in 10 zones... and the market moves. The game is alive... and that is a very good thing.
11) Bug Fixes....
In the past we have waited months to even have someone take our reports seriously... there are now at least people that perhaps on there own time try there best to gague the pulse of PvP. To understand what is Flavor of the month and why... and we have seen fixes for many of those things. For that I am a bit hopeful... I know recently a few annoying ones that where squashed seem to be back... however in general at least someone is paying attention to the issues.
I will stop there, I could honestly go on. There are plenty of things I love about STO right now... Many of the people that complain about STO right now log in once a week or less. It is easy to sit back and look in from other games... and pick patch notes apart. As is the case in most things in life real game experience with many of these t hings is far less dramatic as they can be when played out in the written word. Yes the game has issues as you are aware, however I thank you for working through them. I would hope people understand the game must move forward and grow, and have new things added, and yes even turn a profit. I am hopeful... I know I won't be seeing new PvP maps anytime soon... or New PvP game modes... Or Open PvP sectors.. however I am thankful that there does seem to be some drive at Cryptic to move the game forward. So in closing thank you again Jeremy, I know there are others at Cryptic involved in all the positive changes I see... however I know you have been a positive influence. So thanks again for your work, your love of STO, and also your sense of humor.
Best Regards,
Da Husanak.
Comments
We need fleet marks for pvp. We need more ec rewarded for pvp. We need edc for pvp. Doesn't have to be a lot, but at least something (10 fleet marks/match doesn't seem a big deal, 1 edc/match also). Maybe 50k ec after a game. Everythi g valuable on exchange is millions. 50k is not much. Then, the big stuff: new content: open pvp, new maps, different queuing system (premade vs premade, pug vs pug, 3-3, 2-2), revamp cap and splode, base assault, etc. maybe allow through foundry to have pvp maps.
Anyways, I'd like to join Hus and also thank you for trying to do something. I can only hope that your upper management will realize that we, pvpers bring a big contribution to this game, by supporting it and also paying good money. I am sure that through new content and rewards, more people will pvp.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
Lets all be honest anyone that has played a bunch of other MMOs knows this to be true...
STO has the best base PvP engine of any MMO on the market... that's my opinion I have played most of the rest... STO is king.
Issue is Cryptic doesn't seem to get that and they haven't for 3 freeking years.
This game could easily be the best PvP MMO on the market... without a ton of investment really. IMO Granted I'm no developer and I have no idea just how screwed up the code there working with is on the back end... Really though, this game on a fun level would eat its competition and spit it out...
Space Combat - Check
Fast Paced Combat - Check
Stun Lock Min - Check
Balance - Semi Check... I would argue its getting better not worse.. still it could be tweeked in weeks and 2-3 patches
Fun Factor - Check... there is no PvP I have played that is more fun then STO pvp
Really if PWE was to throw some money into the PvP pool I could totaly see STO Asia being a hit... it has everything going for it ... Great IP... Great Base... More then enough content.... all its missing is a real in game tie in for pvp... pull PvP into the bases... add some Contested areas (even if they jump in a non random order using something like the Event Schedual).... I think they could pull it together in a major season patch that would make STO stand out...
Frankly I can't believe the PWE havn't set Boarts bosses straight. I get that the IP brings in a huge RP crowd that has been paying the bills... but the 2 DON'T have to be divisive. They could have both easily... frankly the PvP in a Star Trek Game is perfect to pull in the RP PvP crowd. Star Dagger would love his romulans sure... but give him a real pvp system with resources, and rewards. (even if they are like fleet bounses based on won open world "events") That is the stuff that would take this thing to the next level... and frankly I don't think it would be that much work... really.
EDIT... I know I said I loved Fleet bases for creating an economy... word of warning for Cryptic... that is getting close to closing shop. Most fleets have unlocked the tiers they really care about. We have our klink ships we can give a shake about.... we have our fleet shields and weapons both sides... we will shortly have our fleet defiants (most fleets already do we where doing klink and fed at the same time).... honestly 1-2 months from now... 90% of the people grinding are done... or on Get it done when we get it done mode.
There NEEDS to be something added to continue the grind or it dies... What better way then to intro special fleet missions revolving around pvp.... heck they could even be faction wide... all fleets could contribute to projects to fund the war effort... in simple "events" on the even calander.... it could take half the fleet mark time up and no one would mind at all. Anyway I'm off topic.
i have to agree with your opinion of pvp too, its wonderfully fun as long as you dont run into the certan things that can all but ruin it. the fundamentals are great and fit together so well, only about 15% of it still need tweeking. when it was said that pvp is fail, i knew we were in trouble. its not fail, and if you think it is, then its a BAD thing that your in charge of it, you obviously have never played it, or never learned how to really play your own game.
its the reckless additions that are fail, in pve it only has to look cool, thats it. balance has nothing to do with killing npcs. but the entire game was built around a pvp system, all the stock abilities were designed to be used on other players. adding thing in that look cool for the frighteningly ignorant masses is the only thing that contributes to fail. and seriously, if you want asia, its time to focus on pvp, NOW.
It's also one of the reasons I choose to write about STO for End Gamers magazine, I enjoy the game that much, PVP especially, even if I don't always agree with the decisions that get made, I wouldn't have gotten a life time sub if I hadn't thought it wasn't worth it 2 years ago. And Oct 16th ish will be my 1,000th day. I look foward to 1,000 more I hope. Especially if there are more people like Bort/J-man working at cryptic. Brings back a few good memories about similarities with City of Heroes that I had. So keep up the good work.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Gotta disagree here to an extent. When those torp changes came in sci was pretty OP, and lowering the GCD to one second meant that sci ships were able to min/max into kinetic, run with no weapons power, and "pretty OP" was turned into "overwhelmingly OP"
Now, obviously science isn't what it used to be, and now those torp changes aren't so bad. In fact, if it wasn't for the GCD change science ships wouldn't be anywhere close to viable right now. That being said, this wasn't some kind of grand design. Cryptic made a bad balance change, and then 'did an oops' with science powers that made the prior change a good thing. That kind of development doesn't deserve praise.
The original skill tree was probably the worst designed system I've ever seen in any game. The new skill tree isn't an unmitigated disaster like the first, but it's still bad. The more powerful, broad skills tend to cost less, while less powerful and more narrow skills cost more, and the entire science tree makes no sense. They had a chance to go back to the drawing board, and they blew it. Simply being better than the worst skill tree ever designed doesn't deserve praise. There are even some things the original tree did better, like putting hull repair at the end of the tree instead of the beginning.
the ship costume tailor screen should double as your ship spec screen, here you refit your ship the same way you add points to the skill tree. how heavy duty a particle generator do you want on your ship? do you want one at all? how reinforced should your shield system be, how well equipped should your damage control be? the skill point cap is just the limit of how much equipment you can load on your ship.
im not asking for something as awesome as SFC3 had, you could copy/paste the current skill tree to this new screen at the tailor, called the refit screen, and "respec" as you see fit, as easily as you would change your ship costume. the price for respecs is outrageous considering how needed they still are, on this screen it should just cost energy credits, maybe even 100 dil. the point value of each sci skill would need reordering at the same time too of course, it aint right currently.
Frankly Sci ships should have always been viable full kinetic... its not like its a fantastic playstyle... try doing some solo PvE with a full kinetic build.
Yes I agree the skill tree has some major issues... but not having to freaking respec 3 times a week is still a major step forward.
Nothing wrong the 1 sec torp GCD in and of itself, but when it was introduced 99% of the benefit went to the ship class that was already too OP. The dev team was thinking inside a bubble and didn't bother checking how balance would be changed.
I ***** becuase I care....:P
R.I.P
That's my piece. I'll keep the rest of my negativity out of this thread. Good luck.
It's terrible but easy, and these Borg are way cooler than the mess STO and Voyager left us.
You don't praise somebody for single-handedly putting out a house fire and saving the people inside from burning if HE was the one that started the fire in the first place.
You don't thank somebody for catching you and breaking your fall if it was HE who tripped you up!
I'm not thanking Cryptic for fixing things when they should not have been ingame to begin with. If Cryptic cared even slightly they'd let us test things on Tribble in order to pick out bugs and give feedback. But that takes time that Cryptic doesen't have, and it gives players the chance to try before they buy. There's a reason the newest C-Store ships arn't on Tribble, infact I don't think any have been put on Tribble since Season 5! All so they can squeeze out a few more pennies.
Let me see some new PVP maps, let me see some PVP rewards worth a damn, let me see Dev Blogs telling us about interesting things that actually relate psitively to PVP. And most of all, they can stop lying to us saying "Oh sorry, putting Fleet Marks into PVP is too easy to abuse" when people can easily make new toons, level them slightly then get 50 free marks and about 1,500 dilithium a day for free via a certain mission we ALL do. It's patronizing.
I'd be at the very front of the pack singing my praises and patting people on the back (as I have in the past, specially with the last Featured Episodes) but first they need to make some commitments.
@Aquitaine985
Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre.
2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
I know you weren't picking on bort here, but bort and maybe few others are trying to fix this mess using the little they have. The management sucks! They are careless and should have their butts chewed! Because they are the ones that keep bs-ing us and do squat for pvp! Right mr ministry of truth dstahl? He may in fact work at CBS, there is about same truth and bs going on with their news too...
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
Chances are thier Eyes are more on Profit over balance since its a known fact they think "a little OP" sells product..........
R.I.P
bk to battlefield
As for PvP - wasted potential, with little hope of getting it fixed any time soon, if ever. :mad:
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples