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Life after 50 for a casual player?

valoosevaloose Member Posts: 2 Arc User
I'm a casual 30-something player who does not have vast amounts of time to grind through stuff and when I do get on it comes in 30-40 minute spurts at best.

I found STO about 2 months ago and gave it a whirl since it was free. Immediately liked it and for my casual style of gameplay it seemed to have a lot to offer. Things I really liked:
  • You could leave off missions anywhere and finish later
  • The doff activities system allowed me to advance without grinding a lot of play time
  • Advancement kept things interesting, free ships every 10 levels gave me something to look forward to
  • I'm a F2P guy and have yet to spend any money to play, I'm not opposed to doing this but I find the zen store prices to be nuts.

I'd like a new ship (my current is pretty ugly, didn't know you don't get more free ships after level 30... or at least 40 and 50 came and went without a new ship for me) and something to work towards since my "advancement" is at the end.

So I'm wondering - is there life for a player like me after 50? What kinds of things should I be looking for and trying out at this stage?

I see a lot of things in the game I don't fully understand like reputation marks and stuff like that. I do enjoy the PVE and so I've been doing that and the space missions are keeping things interesting for now.

Anyway... thanks in advance for any advice, thoughts and suggestions.
Post edited by valoose on

Comments

  • bohiapbohiap Member Posts: 535
    edited December 2012
    The doff system and reputation system are quick and easy. I spend about 5 minutes a day setting up reputation missions. That includes shopping for consumables if I need them. To get the marks I do a quick STF or Romulan patrol. The Romulan Patrol daily takes me about 30 minutes, but you don't have to do it all at once. An STF shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.

    Doing it that way you should have no problem with getting enough marks to level up. The catch is gear, it will take longer for a casual player to get the marks for some of the gear.
    It takes- IIRC- 500 marks for the Omega cutting beam, it took me an evening of STFs to get the marks for it.

    DOFF missions are quick and easy, you'll spend more time traveling to mission locations than it will to set up the missions.

    Doffjobs is an excellent resource to find missions that you're looking for-

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An0kX7PcNK-vdHRDcXNTc2UwRklJaXR5a3RQT0pHZlE#gid=115

    Both systems provide a small amount of dilithium. If you really want dilithium you'll have to grind daily missions. It can take as little as 45 minutes to hit the daily refining cap if you're using the doff system and reputation system. Otherwise if you get your dilithium from daily missions it will probably take about an hour to an hour and a half.

    If you sell dilithium on the exchange you can get zen pretty easily, especially at the current exchange rates. It may take a while, but you can have anything you want in the Zen store without giving PWE a dime.
  • acylionacylion Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Some additional notes; the above poster already covered the DOFF system in detail:

    New Ship: You should receive a new ship at level 40 (Rear Admiral, Lower Half). Admiral Quinn will offer the usual Promotion mission, and you can claim one of six Rear Admiral ships from the Shuttle and Ship Requisitions Vendor, as usual. Since the Free-to-Play transition, players no longer receive a free ship at Level 50 (Vice Admiral). In addition to this, currently the Mirror Universe Reconnaissance Science Vessel and Mirror Universe Deep Space Science Vessel are very cheap on the Exchange. Basically, crates containing these ships drop from lockboxes, and they're not hugely in demand, so you can probably buy one outright off the exchange for something like 90k energy credits or less.

    Reputation: The reputation system is a very broad new endgame content catch-all put in for Season 7, which encompasses the brand-new New Romulus content, and retroactively the old Omega STF (Special Task Force) group missions. I know the previous poster already talked about this, but to elaborate...New Romulus is a mission hub, so you can progress through the New Romulus content solo. STFs explicitly require a team to complete - they're like instanced dungeons in other MMOs. New Romulus and the STFs are how you'll get the best gear in the game. The rep system uses a user interface in addition to the actual missions you're running, but you should be broadly familiar with this sort of thing from DOFF'ing.

    Fleet Actions, Invasions, Timed Events: Chances are you haven't done all of these. They're worth hitting the PvE queues for. You can also keep an eye out for the timed event schedule, do the Vault at the right time, run around Starfleet Academy for dilithium, stuff like that.

    Episode Reruns, Higher Difficulty: You can also go back and replay older episode content, which will generally drop gear scaled to your new max level. It's worth noting that, right now (until Jan 14), if you rerun what were previously referred to as the Featured Episodes, you'll get special rewards like Breen and Romulan Bridge Officers. Maybe also try increasing your mission difficulty?

    Join a Fleet: There's the whole Fleet Starbase system and Embassy stuff to explore. Join a fleet, perhaps, if you haven't already. Contribute to projects, help build the starbase. You benefit from doing this, personally, since it unlocks access to vendors, better ships, and so on.

    Foundry: In addition to all of the above, you can run player-created content. STO has a very elaborate system for players to make their own missions and share them with the community. You can get rewards for these as well - first take a 'wrapper' mission offered by a regular NPC. This rewards wrapper was recently revamped, so it's actually very profitable to run player created content this way.
  • unknownmgxunknownmgx Member Posts: 65 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Hi

    stuff to do?

    New romulus this will keep you busy, but casually friendly
    it also helps level and gain marks (currency) for certain objects

    keep up the Doff missions.. great little xp earner and quick

    story episodes are great, they take 30-45 mins to finish each and give great XP


    as for a new ship.. the christmas fetival on atm gives a free ship
    best to visit q on earth and get involved.. you might still have time to get it
    without spending coin,

    otherwise, you may need to check out the 3 year anniverasry early next year
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Reputation and the Doff system. Those are the endgame players best friend.

    As for other activities, KDF side offers a nice distraction for a (short) while, and it also gives you the fastest way to get Dilithium and EC's.

    As for the Zen prices and getting a new ship, just play the Dilithium exchange in order to get Zen, and get help alleviate the costs. Prices are good these days so this would be the best time to do that. :cool:
  • twg042370twg042370 Member Posts: 2,312 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Things to do at 50:

    1. Join a fleet. Help other people buy a fleet ship. Maybe eventually get one yourself if the fleet sticks around long enough.

    2. Do STFs. Just so you can get the gear to do more STFs.

    3. KDF contraband farming. Turn in the Dil and prisoners ever few hours. Use Dil to buy Zen. Buy a new ship. Continue to have the same problem.

    4. Jog around New Romulus a few times. Breathe in the scenery. Wonder why other major planets don't have maps like this.

    5. Roll a new toon.
    <3
  • duaths1duaths1 Member Posts: 1,232 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    0 - try engineer and sci too.. the last is my favourite

    1 - love your toons. some of them

    2 - try new ships with new weapon layouts, new sets.. find the style which suits you in PVP and PVE

    3 - DOFF and reputation. get to know the Doff system, so you can earn tons of Dill, buy Zen, and finance - 1 & 2

    3a - grind for the extra ultra rare DOFF's mit quotes. Get them all!

    4 - PVP

    5 - with your favourite toon - try some foundry missions, replay FE's to get starter equipment and have some fun.

    6 - join a fleet. preferably a big one.

    7 - grind for accolades

    8 - repeat.

    9 - if you are a KDF player, lvl one Fed toon to buy him shinies..

    10 - try to have 200 mill. EC on the account so you could buy a lockbox ship off the exchange without feeling you loose something

    11 - troll around in Zone chat

    i now started reputation 5 on one of my toons, the second is stuck at 4 cause i haven't had the time to grind marks in these days..

    my best DOFF toon still has only 4 categories at tier 4. Still plenty of stuff to do here :D
  • vesterengvestereng Member Posts: 2,252 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Same reply as always, depends on what you are into.

    You might like to roleplay or be a story fixated reflector, it all depends.

    But in short yes there is plenty of stuff to do.
  • valoosevaloose Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    Thank you for the feedback, I keep my doff mission roster full but maybe I'm not doing it right, a typical doff mission seems to drop 5 dil. How do you earn "tons of dil" from doing doff stuff?

    All great suggestions guys.

    One other question: What would you consider an active / large fleet? I'm in a fleet right now, but it seems like no one is ever on. On a good day, I'll see two other people logged. Not sure if they are small or if I joined a fleet where most players are on other continents / timezones. Have been thinking about looking around for something more active (haven't really gotten into fleet stuff due to this lack of other members online) but am unsure if what I am in is average or if it's worth moving.
  • gavinrunebladegavinruneblade Member Posts: 3,894 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    valoose wrote: »
    Thank you for the feedback, I keep my doff mission roster full but maybe I'm not doing it right, a typical doff mission seems to drop 5 dil. How do you earn "tons of dil" from doing doff stuff?
    Some of the missions give a base of 50 dil (eva suit practice, interrogation resistance etc)
    On a crit normal missions give 125, and those I just mentioned give 250.
    Then there is the colonization one. Relocate colonists only gives 5 dil but it gives you 5 colonists. Another one consumes 5 colonists and some provisions and gives you 500 dil.

    Between crits and focusing on high-dil rewards I can get over 2k dilithium on a good day.
    One other question: What would you consider an active / large fleet? I'm in a fleet right now, but it seems like no one is ever on. On a good day, I'll see two other people logged. Not sure if they are small or if I joined a fleet where most players are on other continents / timezones. Have been thinking about looking around for something more active (haven't really gotten into fleet stuff due to this lack of other members online) but am unsure if what I am in is average or if it's worth moving.

    According to the devs, fleets are balanced around an assumption of 25 active players. Most players feel the real needed number is much higher. My fleet (paragon expeditionary force) has about 10 people on at a time and thanks to players in europe and asia there's at least a few on at ungodly late hours US time. We just got our starbase to tier 3.

    The top fleets are currently tier 4 working towards tier 5. How's your fleet's starbase? If it's stuck at tier 1 or barely tier 2, then you have a pretty new or mostly inactive fleet. If it's 2 close to 3 then you're doing ok. If it's 3 or 4 then you have an active fleet and are just not on when they are.
  • mandoknight89mandoknight89 Member Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    The best way to earn Dilithium through doffs is by turning in Contraband. However, getting the Contraband to turn in can be a slow process unless you have a fairly good KDF Marauder.
  • natayalovnatayalov Member Posts: 21 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    I would say that spending 15 dollars a month to support the game isn't a lot of money and if you're playing then you should support the game. The cost of 3 trips to fast food? 18+ bucks, the cost of 3 movies in 1 month? 21+ bucks, the cost vs time investment of 15 bucks a month isn't that bad, do it.

    Dunno what there is to do at 50 but honestly this is a dumb question. Once you're level capped then you're doing end game stuff, eventually you'll be waiting for new content. This is true for pretty much ALL mmo's.
  • erraberrab Member Posts: 1,434 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    If you need a new ship you can get the new Breen Cruiser for free if you complete the Q's winter Daily race event 25 times and grind out 1000 signed pictures of Q.

    On paper the new Breen Cruiser looks to be one of the strongest vessels currently in the game
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    valoose wrote: »
    I'm a F2P guy and have yet to spend any money to play, I'm not opposed to doing this but I find the zen store prices to be nuts.

    According to the latest "Ask Cryptic", this is EXACTLY what they want, for players not to spend a single dime on the game.

    http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=787991
    Q: (bridgern) Is the Dilithium Exchange with the exchange rate working as Cryptic wants it to work?

    Dstahl: Cryptic does not set the prices on the Dilithium exchange. Players determine what they are willing to barter for and establish prices. Our intention is to ensure that players always have a consistent earning rate of Dilithium for a measured amount of normal game play. We monitor how much Dilithium players are earning hourly and adjust Dilithium Ore rewards accordingly. The benefit of a player driven exchange is that players with no Zen are able to trade the Dilithium they are earning so that they and can easily afford items they would not normally be able to. This allows players with no Zen the ability to get many items from the C-Store without ever spending a dime of their own money. This has been a goal of our F2P design to allow players to play and experience everything in the game without ever spending a dime. Compared to other F2P MMOs, we feel this is a very player friendly approach because the amount of Zen you can obtain via trades is only as much as the other player is willing to trade.

    :confused::confused::confused:
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