test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Immersion in STO is lacking.
starblade7
Member Posts: 169 Arc User
After playing STO for some time now, I'm beginning to feel that the game no longer has the authentic "Star Trek" feel to it. The end-game character progression is rather unfocussed; it feels like being the saviour of the galaxy is the new ordinary. This wouldn't be a problem if it was a single-player game - but when everyone is the same hero, it feels a bit artificial.
My captain is an elite special forces commando, yet also a Vice Admiral of Starfleet (commanding... only his own ship, huh?). Every man and his dog is flying with the latest-and-greatest starship straight out of research & development - looking like it's been half assimilated by the Borg - or even inexplicably "captured" ships belonging to the Federation's long-standing enemies. It doesn't feel like battles are won through cunning strategy or bravery - just by whoever has the shiniest gear.
TL;DR: I'm looking for suggestions for ways to make the game immersive again. Is it in Foundry missions? I've tried a couple; some were ok, some weren't so thrilling. The thought of using inferior ships/equipment is rather conflicting, between the desire to make progress efficiently and the desire to make things feel (relatively) more believable. At least the Fleet Retrofits are a step in the right direction there.
Edit: The whole travel/exploration mechanic is pretty mundane as well. It doesn't feel like the great unknown, and the star cluster missions are horrendously boring and very clearly using recycled props.
My captain is an elite special forces commando, yet also a Vice Admiral of Starfleet (commanding... only his own ship, huh?). Every man and his dog is flying with the latest-and-greatest starship straight out of research & development - looking like it's been half assimilated by the Borg - or even inexplicably "captured" ships belonging to the Federation's long-standing enemies. It doesn't feel like battles are won through cunning strategy or bravery - just by whoever has the shiniest gear.
TL;DR: I'm looking for suggestions for ways to make the game immersive again. Is it in Foundry missions? I've tried a couple; some were ok, some weren't so thrilling. The thought of using inferior ships/equipment is rather conflicting, between the desire to make progress efficiently and the desire to make things feel (relatively) more believable. At least the Fleet Retrofits are a step in the right direction there.
Edit: The whole travel/exploration mechanic is pretty mundane as well. It doesn't feel like the great unknown, and the star cluster missions are horrendously boring and very clearly using recycled props.
Forget the possibility of PvP, for so much has become pay-to-win, never to be balanced. Forget the promise of exploration and research, for in the grim dark future of Star Trek Online there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting publishers.
Post edited by starblade7 on
0
Comments
"Oh no we're out gunned. Call in the fleet."
*Ten decked out escorts warp in and rain firey hell on the enemy.*
"Blood wine is on me."
They are a nice idea but badly implemented. I do remember however that I found the episodic nature of the "quests" to be quite compelling, and if only Cryptic had a higher budget and better voice acting, they could have shown BioWare how a space MMO is to be done.
In many ways I am drawn into this a lot more than I was in SWTOR, I keep getting back to STO ever since the beta even if I may take breaks here and there.
If they spent some resources in trying to make ground combat more interesting and polished those cut scenes I'd be more than happy to replay everything through. Not now though. I am hoping the Romulan and Klingon quest lines will be interesting with the new expansion.
It only got the name Star Trek name and costume to it
remove that and all you got is another 3rd party mmorpg not even recreative after a while.
in other word : it is not a good game, barely success to get 'average' in almost every video-game review you can find.
What I do is treat the game as a "Create your own Star Trek" game. It's about my crew and my ship. Don't worry about what others are flying, they don't exist. If a story mission doesn't make sense just pretend it never happened in your story. Like Divide et Impera, that never happened as far as I'm concerned. (Okay yeah, I know I harp on that mission a whole lot, but I'll continue to do so until that mission is changed or scrapped. I hate it that much.)
*cough*Anyways when it comes to story inaccuracies or explanations that I find lacking, I just make something else up more to my liking. Immersion means different things to different people, so if you're looking to Cryptic to enhance your vision of immersion, you will be disappointed. Take it into your own hands and go nuts with whatever RP you can imagine. And by RP I don't mean sitting around on Drozana with Orion strippers. I typically don't RP with anyone at all. I keep my stories and adventures all to myself. I can tell you that both my own vision of immersion as well as my enjoyment of the game has significantly increased since I started doing this. I recommend it to anyone else wanting more immersion.
Mine Trap Supporter
It's an MMO. The persistent and shared nature of an MMO makes true immersion largely impossible.
The only time I've felt "immersed" in an MMO like I can feel immersed in a movie, book, or TV show, is when it's a single player game pretending to be an MMO (like the story missions in SWTOR or GW2).
At some point you find yourself in a zone listening to people make terrible "Gorn movie" jokes or complaining about Obama, or the guy in your STF is named "The_Capt_James_T_Kirk" or whatever, and any chance at immersion is ruined. That's part of the MMO experience.
I find the game to be fairly immersive when I am by myself, running story missions alone, but running a daily or an adventure zone, STF, or any other kind of repeatable content destroys immersion, and that's not Cryptic's fault. That's what an MMO is.
Um, CBS approves EVERY storyline beforehand. As CBS owns the Star Trek IP, they're the final arbiters and have said flat out 'no' to a number of things in the past.
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..."
Well said Sir!
When I look at the New Romulus adventure zone I can appreciate what they did with the planet exploration, Having an accolade for sight seeing and they even added a mission to watch native wild life. Now it is a place to grind marks as the lust is lost on it like watching a rerun 100s of times.
When the content comes out it is awesome. Having to grind the same thing over and over is what kills the immersion. There is a couple of things I would like to see to correct this. Instead of releasing all the content of a season in one lump break it up a bit and release some of the smaller chunks over time. Also update the rewards on some of the older missions like the patrol missions to encourage people to play them for a bit. Even if it is only 480 Dilithium for a patrol mission might make people take a look.
I think that STO still has the potential to simulate the feel of Star Trek with greater credibility than it does but the individual user has to resign themself to regarding the existing game as a framework or sandbox and that the onus is on them and like-minded players to utilize it to provide one another with a gameplay experience more in line with their vision of Trek.
The first problem is finding a suitable "cast" of like-minded players. Although I have never participated occasionally I'm envious when I consider some of the roleplayers who take the extra effort and rely on one to create their own world within the STO community.
The stories they share allow them to transcend, "tac dude with all mk xii kit" and create personalties, histories and possible futures that aren't part of the STO Game as a whole but immerse them in a universe that might be more to their liking.
In addition to not being a roleplayer on STO I have no working knowledge of the Foundry. Still I can see it's potential as a series of "sets" for character interactions that are self contained and can remain completely divergent from the larger game as a whole. I think they made some recent additions to Foundry resources and I think it has potential as it is for these purposes. My limited exposure to the utility tells me it would be more widely utilized if it were more user friendly and less draconian about map construction (modules as opposed to pre fabs).
Greater immersion is possible but it takes an investment on the part of the person who wants it. The main STO universe is first and foremost an MMO driven by conventions common to that model. It is dressed in Star Trek clothes though and it it is possible to play with those if you like.
-Do we really need to top out at Admirals/Generals? It could be fixed so the players top rank is Captain/Colonel to better fit the Star Trek universe and give it the proper feel.
-Do we really need ships that are alien to the factions in the lock boxes? Like the Ferengi, Vulcan, Caitan, and Andorian ships they could've used the other playable species as a template for the lock box ships. How about a Bolian cruiser or Trill science vessel?
-Do we really need access to both faction's equipment? How about making equipment faction specific? Some equipment already is, just make it all that way.
-Does the Feds need to shoot all the time or the KDF have to use diplomacy? Or is it possible to change the dialog so it fits the faction? There's still plenty of missions on both sides to make those folks who just like to shoot stuff happy but it would be nice to offer other options.
I could list more but I think everyone gets the point. Things could be fixed so it feels more like Star Trek but that takes effort and caring on the part of the Cryptic Team.
The game itself isn't meant to be immersive. No MMO can be immersive simply because EVERYONE IS a hero. The only game that I've played where there were a few heroes amongst citizens is 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' multiplayer roleplaying. Everyone is a normal citizen with a job and there'd be a few people who are CIA agents and presidents.
The graphics are not that bad... well.. compared to other old mmos.
It depends on what lvl of immersion you're talking about. I agree an MMO can't be as immersive as a single player game where the player is the only hero and the game universe revolves around them. But immersion is possible if you follow what's the norm for the MMO universe you're creating. Stepping out of the boundaries of that universe breaks immersion and shouldn't be done. The shame of it is, is it didn't have to be that way. Cryptic could've made the game to reflect what people expect to find in a Star Trek game and it wouldn't have hurt gameplay in the least.
Therein lies the problem. There would be no way to please everyone. One of the biggest problems I see people have with this game is they aren't Kirk or Picard. Every issue with this game boils down to it. The Galaxy class is weak because it can't do what I saw Picard do on TNG. Kirk and Picard were not the same, nor was Sisko or Janeway.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
The OP wasn't talking about being an uber powerful Picard or Kirk clone. He wanted things to feel more like Star Trek such as the Federation not shooting every alien race they encounter, flying Dominion, Cardassian ships that don't fit the faction, etc. etc. and so on. There are many small things that break the feel of this game being Star Trek and have displeased many.
The biggest problem is folks either read the first or last post on a thread. If they'd bother to read down through they wouldn't post anything that has been answered two pages back.
The OP wasn't asking for virtual reality, he just wanted a few things changed so the game would feel more like Star Trek and not a space game with the Star Trek logo. Read down through all the posts on this thread and you will have a better idea what was being discussed.
I think ground combat has room for improvement, like anything else, but I don't want to have to control the camera and toon directional "steering" with a mouse like in "Neverwinter". In STO I can move my toon forward and in any direction simply from the directional cursors and my camera can chase from a wide angle. I've never understood why game designers believe a human being has to use 10% of his cognitive functions to keep his head at 0 elevation when he's walking or running.
That said - there will always be room for improvement in the game, and I hope that the Devs can try and deliver what the community wants.
Aside; I wasn't really interested in discussing game mechanics, but yes, ground combat is a bit clunky.
Edit: I don't think I mentioned it before, but hypocritical as it may sound, I own a Jem'hadar Dreadnought myself. I feel guilty about flying it from a lore perspective, but it's sure fun to fly otherwise. Perhaps that's mildly hypocritical given the subject of this thread, but as some of the people here have pointed out, it's about having the fun I want to have, right?
More NPC ships around space stations. A variety of lower and mid tier ships (preferably some named, and intractable with...see below.) Lots of shuttles.
Make Starbase orbit instances smaller so there are far less T5 ships and off-faction ships flying around.
Interactive NPC ships that give missions, duty assignments, etc.
Missions that do not involve combat or just scanning things and running around. Go play some text/graphic adventure games. About half our missions should be puzzle based and not end in shooting things.
Change the rank system so the highest you can get from leveling is Captain.
Replace some of the nameless NPCs with player's BOffs, if it wouldn't cause too much loading issues. When a player beams on to a station, perhaps a 1/10 chance that one of their BOff will be on the station as well.
Option to make Consoles invisible on our ship model like we do with weapons and gear for our character. Seeing so many ship with attached Borg gear seems odd at times. It looks badass, but some people might prefer some of that gear was invisible.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.