Perhaps it does not have to be as grand in scale as a Wow raid but a challenging scenario with a boss who isn't a push over is called for. In Champions, during certain events, if the boss wipes your team it ends the event and you have to Q again.
What is there was a small colony that was under attack by the borg or w/e defending key points and protecting colonist would be the first objective. If you loose so many colonist the mission is falied, and if the boss manages to wipe out your team the mission is failed ala Champions. Make it very difficult and add a small chance for the boss to drop a unique item found no where else.
There are many creative paths that do not require a lot of dev time or effort that could be pursued to provide a unique challenge for the most skilled players.
Like say the current No Win Scenario that offers a unique accolade/title and is actually semi challenging perhaps?
see, i told you that bringing up the "W" word would cause ranting all over your thread.
STO has still lots of potential to implement PVE group content and PVP maps/scenarios...it is no shame in takinf concepts for those from other games including WOW.
personally i'd love to see a "DOTA-like" PVP map...reworked kerrat where borg actually made sense
Some new STFs with a story arc...
elite modes for certain missions like azura nebula
It's a shame that the only intelligent thing from the OP is the thread title, because personally I agree this game is missing end game content. If you really want to nerd it out you can pretty much go from 1-50 in a few days and really don't even need to bother with the episode missions to do it. But that's also were the true problem with this game begins.
The tutorial shouldn't just be about how to play the game, but should also introduce players to the back and current story. Why is the federation at war with the klingons, how did the borg get such a foothold in our part of the universe, etc. Forget the endless grind of the "end game" for a moment and really look at the whole game, and you'll see where the real problems are.
Star Trek takes a ship, a crew and through the storylines you experience their adventures, struggles, development, downfalls, redemption and so many other aspects of "daily life" and again all through the storytelling in each episode/season. The storyline in STO is nothing more than a disconnected 1-50 mess that you can completely skip and/or never finish.
How many of you even know that there's a promotion ceremony mission? There's no explaination as to why the missions you're going on are important story wise or even why you go from fighting Klingons to fighting Romulans to Cardassians...etc.
every episode mission should have the backstory to it and at the end of that episode chain there should be something linking it to the next chain of episodes. Right now the only one that comes close to any of that is the 2800 series where you go to DS9 for a conference and then the Dominion forces reappear so they become priority and then you go about fighting them for awhile. There's not even a cease fire between the Federation and Klingons while you have to stop to go deal with the Borg.
I know this seems to have nothing to do with the discussion of "end game content", but in actuality it has everything to do with it. If you don't even have a cohesive story from 1-50 then how can you possible create anything to keep players interested after lvl 50. The simple short answer is, you can't, and that's why we have the endless grind of meaningless dribble that is the current end game content.
I'd like to see some more group queue missions. They're bringing back CE, and that's good, but more variety would be nice.
Also, some 10 player missions would be nice. Even in a large and active fleet, organizing 20-man fleet actions is very difficult sometimes, but 5-man is too small.
I don't think a single STO player will honestly say, 'no, we don't need more endgame content' but OP, it doesn't need be YOUR idea. You are coming off as a complete TRIBBLE, and the WoW mentality is most certainly not welcome here. I left WoW and came here to stay, because this game (for me) does so many things right. Players of other MMOs shouldn't barge in here and demand THIS game be changed to cater to what YOU are used to, learn and enjoy the new or get off the ride. That being said, there be room for improvement, and we do lack a proper endgame. I would love to have some bigger and badder endgame content added.
STF's are okay, but there are not enough of them. I would support the idea of making a weekly mission of the 'old STF's' available to challenge, that would be awesome. I wasn't around for this and the idea of having space and ground together in one big mission sounds like a blast. I put Terradome teams together to play such content! I don't care about the rewards, I've got myself mostly geared out anyway, I want to challenge harder content and USE the stuff I have. And PvP doesn't count, I never have been much of a PvPer. I know I am not alone in this feeling. It just doesn't appeal to me and is not what I would call true endgame content.
But we have an expansion coming! Who knows what challenges await us there? I look forward to it and hope we can have the option of longer and more difficult endgame encounters! Bring on some boss baddies and epic style STFs, I'll be ready to give 'em all I got!
P.S. to any dev that might read this: cheap one-shots DO NOT equal challenge. Be a bit more creative in that area please.
Quite frankly the end game is perfect for those of us who have a life. I have a wife, two kids, and a job. I no longer have the time or desire to spend hours upon hours away from my family for a digital trinket. STO has offered a way for me to obtain end game rewards with as little as an hour a day commitment. It's refreshing to see a game company take a stand and say, our rewards are obtainable by even the most casual player.
Please, step away from your computer, and enjoy your life, and your significant other.
On one hand, I agree with Ravin, it is nice to have a game that itsn't going to kill me if I step away for a bit, or an hour, or a day, or even a week.
I also agree with voicesdark, about the overall lack of story in the game, and it shoudl be found in there somewhere other than a guessing game, and should be expanded on. Honestly, if I care to, I should care about something in this game other than how much DPS I put out. I should have the option to care about why we aren't finghting the KDF anymore, or how we kinda are but not, or whatever it is. Some missions do this better than most, but they are never tied together.
But on the other hand, I also think that there should be something in the game, that is not a resource sink, that would eventually give me something unique that I can use in the game. Like maybe a quest story line that is personal, maybe career specific, where I go here and there, following some trail of story and at the end of it, I get something special. Maybe make one for five players, so a group can do the same thing.
For example, EvE Online has a series of missions linked by story that take you out to a high risk area of space and at the end, you get a special ship. Or SWTOR has their group missions that aren't that hard or take that long (at least the one's I've been on) and that give you a shot at unique loot. But I would vote for something like that, solo or group content, with a decent story, and a special reward. Maybe split up into 15 minute chunks for easy playing. Not like half the end game content we have now where its go here and blow stuff up, or even worse, the chunks of story that got butchered when the STFs were split up.
I think this game needs harder endgame content. The Trek Universe offers so much potential. Ask a Star Trek fan that does not yet know STO about how he imagines an end-game fight in a Trek MMO would be like and he'll imagine giant Borg cubes keeping a whole fleet busy, Doomsday devices or devastating anomalies. Then you show him an EliteSTF with 5 players parking their ships in space and watching autofire for 2 minutes after activiting some buffs and you can just feel the disappointment in the room without even needing to look at their faces...
But threads like this, in the way the OP presented it and ehem, defended it, hurt the cause more than they help...
Until we get such content STO remains a fantastic (and free!) side game. More serious players should just look for second game that fills the niche for epic battles and optimized gear and rotations. I play TSW for that myself. There are enough choices for all tastes out there. Many for free by now.
It seems that the Devs aren't exactly listening to us... They're actually gonna nerf most Borg vessels' torpedo damage (not to mention they claim they finally fixed the invi-torps)...
So much for challenging content...
The thing the OP is asking for raid content similar to WoW. But that begs the question why did WoW create the raid content that they did, what value did it add to the community or the better question how did it help them make money?
Simply put the raid content kept the hardcore raider crowd interested in the game for a longer period of time. Hence the time gating. Hence the 'gear check' style encounters that forced you to farm Location A for a month to progress in Location B so you can get the key for Location C. That entire time those players are paying their $15 a month to get their 'exclusive' rewards.
And it even gave a carrot to the casuals to progress as far as they could within that system albeit at a slower pace which is why they then created alternative 'casual friendly' time gated and/or gear checked progressions like daily quests. All to ensure they got their monthly sub.
But STO is a F2P game. So what does STO do to create that carrot to drive desire and get money? Lock Boxes are the first part of the equation. Trading time for in-game money (Zen Exchange) and creating a time-gated progression system that can be bypassed is the other half.
You see Cryptic doesn't really care if you sub, or even if you log in every day really. So why on earth would they create content and spend valuable money/resources to create something only a fraction of the playerbase will use or care about if they will not generate revenue from it? They won't.
At the end of the day STO exists for the sole purpose of generating revenue. Now that's not entirely a bad thing as revenue = more content can be created to generate more revenue and so on. But it also means development will be focused upon things that generate that revenue. Creating 'elite' raid content with 'exclusive' rewards does not generate revenue. Creating 'expensive' content for 'cash' does and that is what they will continue to do along with increasing the number of players who spend cash that is not their own by keeping it desirable to trade Zen for Dilithium for those who wish to avoid the grind aspect.
Will they create content with higher difficulty for those who simply desire a challenge? Absolutely hence No Win and Hive. Will they attach exclusive rewards to that content? Absolutely not, it would devalue other rewards such as lockboxes where they make revenue.
Let me phrase this as a question. What will make more money for cryptic.
Putting an OP escort like the Bug in a lotto box for Zen
OR
Putting an OP escort as a reward for content only the top 5% of the playerbase will ever bother to complete
And that is why what the OP wants will NEVER HAPPEN
OP, one type of end game has never really been developed (PvP), another story driven content (at one point refered to as Weekly episodes) apparently is too costly to release reguarly, as mentioned by other posters "elite random drops" are now random chance based purchases.
Any time any "challanging" PvE is added many casual players revolt. It happend to NWS and a change to a PvE ship which actually rotated boff powers and had an AI which responded to various basic situations. It's happened w/STFs moreso after Gozer left. This is a matter of Cryptic giving the majority of their customers what they want (all PvE content in easy mode).
So, your choices are a neglected unbalanced PvP system, chaotically organized Foundry files, once in a blue moon FEs, using shuttles or other lesser ships/gear in the "difficult" PvE content, and attempting to create your own Foundry mission of "difficult" PvE content (there's no ability to add PvP maps via Foundry and although requested since the Foundry was in its design phase, no desire to do so on Cryptic's part).
Since any Raiding content that is any challenge will be nerfed, perhaps you should ask for a better UI and search/organization capability for the Foundry. Then get a group of people to create the type of maps you'd like to play. If the capability isn't there to make the type of missions you'd like, ask for that (ie basic ai development/selection features/options for NPCs). But, I don't see PvP Foundry capabilities being available developed.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Best part is it doesn't even speak of the real scary old school stuff. Fear raids or say lower Guk. Oh boy now someone is gonna one up me with some ancient school UO examples
In my opininion, the reputation system is better than random drops. Reason to that: me and my friend are usually playing together, I got both XII space sets and only thing what I was missing from both ground sets was maco XII shield. In the same time, he got maco X space set. This took 2 months aproximetly.
And by the way. You who started this thread. You'we got the wrong attitude to a gaming forum.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"There is coffee in that nebula." - Kathryn Janeway
My rihansu character: S'tarleya ch'Rihan Rahaen'fvil, commander of warbird Hnoiyika
I don't believe that the reason the original STF's format was changed was because of difficulty. In fact, the difficulty was actually increased across the board and timers on respawn added.
The reason why STF's were changed from their original format was due to time. Not everyone had the appetite to sit through 3 - 4 hour sessions of a single event and then get deadlocked at the end, because of reasons mentioned in this thread like players not having the skills or the equipment to meet the requirements.
The other reason, as I believe it to be, is that not everyone wanted to play ALL the STFS in a single go. Some just enjoyed the space portion, others ground.
Personally, I found STF's in the distant past very uninviting and people far too antagonizing, always yelling and screaming orders at everyone and then beaming out at the very last minute leaving the rest of the team hanging.
Do I agree that there is the need for increased reward based on merit. Absolutely. Players need to feel rewarded and special for their accomplishments.
But, sadly the business model Cryptic decided on as "equal opportunity" and with that comes regimental, compartmentalization, and "cookie-cutters". There was a time when I use to run around Qo'noS after a KHG just to catch a glimpse of that prized armor. Now everyone kid on the block has one.
Take a look at the veteran rewards? Something as special as 1000 days was sold for a trifle to everyone.
It was also my hope that the Legacy of Romulus would bring that Arch-villian to the fore, and perhaps we might get a glimpse of the new threat. We already have seen some of their ships.
There is another point mentioned in this thread that has significant cause for emphasis.
The existing classes and roles each perform no longer support an experience where each is required to do anything significant.
STFs and game play in general needs to become one where all classes play a vital and required role. So yeah, tone-up the difficulty, and allow the STF's NPC to use powers and effects that require thought and precision from all the classes, and give these classes the skills necessary to counter them. Place obstacles, enemies, etc which will require each classes skills to overcome, not just the guy with the baddest gun.
STF missions are now zergarific and since I popped Omega T5 I havn't been back to one. Does that sound like end game contenet?
I think you still don't quite understand that this game is ruled by the Asian overlords at Perfect World Entertainment. I don't think you understand that they see end-game content as something you gamble through purchasable packs.
Its a very good business model that has generated quite a bit of revenue.
this game is ruled by the Asian overlords at Perfect World Entertainment. I don't think you understand that they see end-game content as something you gamble through purchasable packs.
Comments
Like say the current No Win Scenario that offers a unique accolade/title and is actually semi challenging perhaps?
Bah, I give up on you.
I thank you for the compliment and teaching me a new phrase!
STO has still lots of potential to implement PVE group content and PVP maps/scenarios...it is no shame in takinf concepts for those from other games including WOW.
personally i'd love to see a "DOTA-like" PVP map...reworked kerrat where borg actually made sense
Some new STFs with a story arc...
elite modes for certain missions like azura nebula
The tutorial shouldn't just be about how to play the game, but should also introduce players to the back and current story. Why is the federation at war with the klingons, how did the borg get such a foothold in our part of the universe, etc. Forget the endless grind of the "end game" for a moment and really look at the whole game, and you'll see where the real problems are.
Star Trek takes a ship, a crew and through the storylines you experience their adventures, struggles, development, downfalls, redemption and so many other aspects of "daily life" and again all through the storytelling in each episode/season. The storyline in STO is nothing more than a disconnected 1-50 mess that you can completely skip and/or never finish.
How many of you even know that there's a promotion ceremony mission? There's no explaination as to why the missions you're going on are important story wise or even why you go from fighting Klingons to fighting Romulans to Cardassians...etc.
every episode mission should have the backstory to it and at the end of that episode chain there should be something linking it to the next chain of episodes. Right now the only one that comes close to any of that is the 2800 series where you go to DS9 for a conference and then the Dominion forces reappear so they become priority and then you go about fighting them for awhile. There's not even a cease fire between the Federation and Klingons while you have to stop to go deal with the Borg.
I know this seems to have nothing to do with the discussion of "end game content", but in actuality it has everything to do with it. If you don't even have a cohesive story from 1-50 then how can you possible create anything to keep players interested after lvl 50. The simple short answer is, you can't, and that's why we have the endless grind of meaningless dribble that is the current end game content.
Also, some 10 player missions would be nice. Even in a large and active fleet, organizing 20-man fleet actions is very difficult sometimes, but 5-man is too small.
STF's are okay, but there are not enough of them. I would support the idea of making a weekly mission of the 'old STF's' available to challenge, that would be awesome. I wasn't around for this and the idea of having space and ground together in one big mission sounds like a blast. I put Terradome teams together to play such content! I don't care about the rewards, I've got myself mostly geared out anyway, I want to challenge harder content and USE the stuff I have. And PvP doesn't count, I never have been much of a PvPer. I know I am not alone in this feeling. It just doesn't appeal to me and is not what I would call true endgame content.
But we have an expansion coming! Who knows what challenges await us there? I look forward to it and hope we can have the option of longer and more difficult endgame encounters! Bring on some boss baddies and epic style STFs, I'll be ready to give 'em all I got!
P.S. to any dev that might read this: cheap one-shots DO NOT equal challenge. Be a bit more creative in that area please.
Please, step away from your computer, and enjoy your life, and your significant other.
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
I also agree with voicesdark, about the overall lack of story in the game, and it shoudl be found in there somewhere other than a guessing game, and should be expanded on. Honestly, if I care to, I should care about something in this game other than how much DPS I put out. I should have the option to care about why we aren't finghting the KDF anymore, or how we kinda are but not, or whatever it is. Some missions do this better than most, but they are never tied together.
But on the other hand, I also think that there should be something in the game, that is not a resource sink, that would eventually give me something unique that I can use in the game. Like maybe a quest story line that is personal, maybe career specific, where I go here and there, following some trail of story and at the end of it, I get something special. Maybe make one for five players, so a group can do the same thing.
For example, EvE Online has a series of missions linked by story that take you out to a high risk area of space and at the end, you get a special ship. Or SWTOR has their group missions that aren't that hard or take that long (at least the one's I've been on) and that give you a shot at unique loot. But I would vote for something like that, solo or group content, with a decent story, and a special reward. Maybe split up into 15 minute chunks for easy playing. Not like half the end game content we have now where its go here and blow stuff up, or even worse, the chunks of story that got butchered when the STFs were split up.
Nouveau riche LTS member
But threads like this, in the way the OP presented it and ehem, defended it, hurt the cause more than they help...
Until we get such content STO remains a fantastic (and free!) side game. More serious players should just look for second game that fills the niche for epic battles and optimized gear and rotations. I play TSW for that myself. There are enough choices for all tastes out there. Many for free by now.
So much for challenging content...
Simply put the raid content kept the hardcore raider crowd interested in the game for a longer period of time. Hence the time gating. Hence the 'gear check' style encounters that forced you to farm Location A for a month to progress in Location B so you can get the key for Location C. That entire time those players are paying their $15 a month to get their 'exclusive' rewards.
And it even gave a carrot to the casuals to progress as far as they could within that system albeit at a slower pace which is why they then created alternative 'casual friendly' time gated and/or gear checked progressions like daily quests. All to ensure they got their monthly sub.
But STO is a F2P game. So what does STO do to create that carrot to drive desire and get money? Lock Boxes are the first part of the equation. Trading time for in-game money (Zen Exchange) and creating a time-gated progression system that can be bypassed is the other half.
You see Cryptic doesn't really care if you sub, or even if you log in every day really. So why on earth would they create content and spend valuable money/resources to create something only a fraction of the playerbase will use or care about if they will not generate revenue from it? They won't.
At the end of the day STO exists for the sole purpose of generating revenue. Now that's not entirely a bad thing as revenue = more content can be created to generate more revenue and so on. But it also means development will be focused upon things that generate that revenue. Creating 'elite' raid content with 'exclusive' rewards does not generate revenue. Creating 'expensive' content for 'cash' does and that is what they will continue to do along with increasing the number of players who spend cash that is not their own by keeping it desirable to trade Zen for Dilithium for those who wish to avoid the grind aspect.
Will they create content with higher difficulty for those who simply desire a challenge? Absolutely hence No Win and Hive. Will they attach exclusive rewards to that content? Absolutely not, it would devalue other rewards such as lockboxes where they make revenue.
Let me phrase this as a question. What will make more money for cryptic.
Putting an OP escort like the Bug in a lotto box for Zen
OR
Putting an OP escort as a reward for content only the top 5% of the playerbase will ever bother to complete
And that is why what the OP wants will NEVER HAPPEN
In WoW, to get end game gear you needed to farm the same 6 hour raid.
Do you got any idea how boring that is? Boring enough to stop paying for WoW once you reached the maximum level.
This is the first MMO where I can get my gear without spending 6 hours healing a guy who is hitting sunder armor on a giant lava golem.
A friend of my said : "I can raid in WoW and watch tv. I just have to spam number key 1 for fireball."
Do we want STO to be like that? No. Reputation systems are better then chance drops.
If you want to gamble, get a lockbox.
Any time any "challanging" PvE is added many casual players revolt. It happend to NWS and a change to a PvE ship which actually rotated boff powers and had an AI which responded to various basic situations. It's happened w/STFs moreso after Gozer left. This is a matter of Cryptic giving the majority of their customers what they want (all PvE content in easy mode).
So, your choices are a neglected unbalanced PvP system, chaotically organized Foundry files, once in a blue moon FEs, using shuttles or other lesser ships/gear in the "difficult" PvE content, and attempting to create your own Foundry mission of "difficult" PvE content (there's no ability to add PvP maps via Foundry and although requested since the Foundry was in its design phase, no desire to do so on Cryptic's part).
Since any Raiding content that is any challenge will be nerfed, perhaps you should ask for a better UI and search/organization capability for the Foundry. Then get a group of people to create the type of maps you'd like to play. If the capability isn't there to make the type of missions you'd like, ask for that (ie basic ai development/selection features/options for NPCs). But, I don't see PvP Foundry capabilities being available developed.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/26/the-soapbox-dispelling-the-easy-myth/
Best part is it doesn't even speak of the real scary old school stuff. Fear raids or say lower Guk. Oh boy now someone is gonna one up me with some ancient school UO examples
And by the way. You who started this thread. You'we got the wrong attitude to a gaming forum.
"There is coffee in that nebula." - Kathryn Janeway
My rihansu character: S'tarleya ch'Rihan Rahaen'fvil, commander of warbird Hnoiyika
The reason why STF's were changed from their original format was due to time. Not everyone had the appetite to sit through 3 - 4 hour sessions of a single event and then get deadlocked at the end, because of reasons mentioned in this thread like players not having the skills or the equipment to meet the requirements.
The other reason, as I believe it to be, is that not everyone wanted to play ALL the STFS in a single go. Some just enjoyed the space portion, others ground.
Personally, I found STF's in the distant past very uninviting and people far too antagonizing, always yelling and screaming orders at everyone and then beaming out at the very last minute leaving the rest of the team hanging.
Do I agree that there is the need for increased reward based on merit. Absolutely. Players need to feel rewarded and special for their accomplishments.
But, sadly the business model Cryptic decided on as "equal opportunity" and with that comes regimental, compartmentalization, and "cookie-cutters". There was a time when I use to run around Qo'noS after a KHG just to catch a glimpse of that prized armor. Now everyone kid on the block has one.
Take a look at the veteran rewards? Something as special as 1000 days was sold for a trifle to everyone.
It was also my hope that the Legacy of Romulus would bring that Arch-villian to the fore, and perhaps we might get a glimpse of the new threat. We already have seen some of their ships.
There is another point mentioned in this thread that has significant cause for emphasis.
The existing classes and roles each perform no longer support an experience where each is required to do anything significant.
STFs and game play in general needs to become one where all classes play a vital and required role. So yeah, tone-up the difficulty, and allow the STF's NPC to use powers and effects that require thought and precision from all the classes, and give these classes the skills necessary to counter them. Place obstacles, enemies, etc which will require each classes skills to overcome, not just the guy with the baddest gun.
I think you still don't quite understand that this game is ruled by the Asian overlords at Perfect World Entertainment. I don't think you understand that they see end-game content as something you gamble through purchasable packs.
Its a very good business model that has generated quite a bit of revenue.