Sorry Starfleet, it's not you, it's me...

edwardianed

I'm a Federation aligned Romulan, so I can't speak for the KDF but I don't feel like a faction. I have plenty of content which I enjoy, I have just about enough ships, I have uniforms and equipment and all that jazz, but I still just feel like a Starfleet officer in a Warbird.

I understand that the alliances make things easier for the devs, and I would happily agree that in terms of content, the Romulan Republic is as fleshed out as a faction, but it's has no separation. I was really looking forward to the camaraderie, independence and gameplay rejuvenation that a third faction would bring (especially to PvP, not that I honestly expect the devs to care about that), but alas despite all the shiny newness that was great for a while; it's still the same old game.

I enjoy the same old game, but it's getting stale and I can only see two ways of preventing that: either pump out regular new content (which the devs either have not the time or inclination to do) or flesh out team based activities, both PvE and PvP therefore allowing players to essentially create their own source of ever changing content.

A vs B becomes very routine, A vs B vs C vs A creates variety; and variety is the spice of life.

erei1

While they still need to do a lot of work on the old dialogue in the game (you are called fed half the time by NPC, and treated as one, even by Romulan), and need to make full Romulan fleet, they are on the good track IMO.
There is work to be done, but I hope nobody expected to have a full faction just like that, it's a huge work, and they also did a revamp to an existing faction (KDF) along the way.

The Romulan only missions are awesome, ships are goods to. Now, they need a lot of polish. Considering they took 3years to complete the KDF, you can expect the same for the Rom.

linyive

edwardianed wrote: »

I'm a Federation aligned Romulan, so I can't speak for the KDF but I don't feel like a faction. I have plenty of content which I enjoy, I have just about enough ships, I have uniforms and equipment and all that jazz, but I still just feel like a Starfleet officer in a Warbird.

I understand that the alliances make things easier for the devs, and I would happily agree that in terms of content, the Romulan Republic is as fleshed out as a faction, but it's has no separation. I was really looking forward to the camaraderie, independence and gameplay rejuvenation that a third faction would bring (especially to PvP, not that I honestly expect the devs to care about that), but alas despite all the shiny newness that was great for a while; it's still the same old game.

I enjoy the same old game, but it's getting stale and I can only see two ways of preventing that: either pump out regular new content (which the devs either have not the time or inclination to do) or flesh out team based activities, both PvE and PvP therefore allowing players to essentially create their own source of ever changing content.

A vs B becomes very routine, A vs B vs C vs A creates variety; and variety is the spice of life.

I agree.

While the Romulan missions are extremely enjoyable, the after-faction missions and endgame becomes very stale. Even though Cryptic will eventually flesh out the c-store items, the Cardassian, Spectre, Borg, and Breen missions will remain constant. KDF side of the game has the same problem, and that is why I deleted my Orion.

I have a level 50 Romulan/Federation officer, and it feels too much like a redressed Federation/KDF officer.

Once you get past the Romulan and Klingon exclusive missions, their endgame is exactly the same as the Federation faction.

Before your post caught my eye, I was debating about deleting my Romulan officer. I didn't know how to sum up my feelings. You hit the nail on the head.

I think its time to finish up my Federation Engineer, so I can move onto something entirely new.

erei1 wrote: »

While they still need to do a lot of work on the old dialogue in the game (you are called fed half the time by NPC, and treated as one, even by Romulan), and need to make full Romulan fleet, they are on the good track IMO.

There is work to be done, but I hope nobody expected to have a full faction just like that, it's a huge work, and they also did a revamp to an existing faction (KDF) along the way.

The Romulan only missions are awesome, ships are goods to. Now, they need a lot of polish. Considering they took 3years to complete the KDF, you can expect the same for the Rom.

KDF and Romulan faction problems are related to the after-faction missions and endgame. As a result of not making them faction exclusive, the after-faction missions and endgame content have become disengaging. Regardless about how much they tweak the faction exclusive content, the problem with the KDF and Romulan factions will remain.

Breen missions, Borg missions, Cardassian missions, Spectre missions, Starbase grinding, and Reputation system grinding are the same across all three factions. All three factions give you a feedback loop of the same exact experience.

If you play a tactical, engineer, and science officer in one faction, you will know exactly how things end in the other factions. No sense of after-faction missions and endgame content diversity. Its all the same.

lordvalecortez

Well take into account how small the Cryptic team is. This is the best they can do given their small budget and work team. And small is an upgrade from the tiny they were before. So the fact that Romulans made it into the game, even if they are redressed is a huge triumph for those that wanted Romulans for the past 3 years. That the KDF got their early levels back is great too, I guess.

But when it comes to the end of the day Star Trek means Star Fleet so anything extra is a bonus. Be happy there is another option. Many Trek games in the past only had Fed as an option.

linyive

lordvalecortez wrote: »

Well take into account how small the Cryptic team is. This is the best they can do given their small budget and work team. And small is an upgrade from the tiny they were before. So the fact that Romulans made it into the game, even if they are redressed is a huge triumph for those that wanted Romulans for the past 3 years. That the KDF got their early levels back is great too, I guess.

But when it comes to the end of the day Star Trek means Star Fleet so anything extra is a bonus. Be happy there is another option. Many Trek games in the past only had Fed as an option.

Oh, I agree. Cryptic has done a fantastic job with limitations.

However, I do not think playing the same elements over and over again, across three factions, is going to keep people interested for the long haul. We are already two weeks into the new season, and some people are already noticing its repetitious nature.

I guess "Star Trek: Online" has hit its peak, and its future will continue to be based upon reputations, embassies, and star bases. Cryptic can add a million other factions to "Star Trek: Online"; however, the after-faction missions and endgame will always be the same.

Weird. After I finished this last post, I ended up feeling a sense of closure. I wonder if I have been struggling with this exact issue, and I just needed see it with new eyes. I just did not know what I was experiencing.

lordgyor

Does no one use the Foundry? Its a huge source of content.

edwardianed

I play the foundry regularly (and not for the dilithium), I think it's a great source of content; it also serves to prove my point, as a Fed aligned Rom, I can play Fed foundry missions, but there are no Romulan foundry missions. The Romulans don't exist from a technical perspective, in terms of code they are just Fed or KDF with a green menu... and it's starting to show in gameplay.

Also, yes Dan Stahl did go on about how STO had recently had an influx of new employees bringing their total to around 50. 50 people is not hard to work with in game development terms, Bethesda made Oblivion with between 50-60 people.

oneandonlyrecce

edwardianed wrote: »

I understand that the alliances make things easier for the devs

edwardianed wrote: »

I was really looking forward to the camaraderie, independence and gameplay rejuvenation that a third faction would bring (especially to PvP, not that I honestly expect the devs to care about that)

The alliances solve may different problems. It solves the problem of all the players starting at level 0 again when it comes to creating a fleet starbase, with a Tier 5 starbase being months in furture. But some see it as solving the problem of the Devs having to create a design for a Romulan starbase and therefore being "lazy".

Another problem it solves is the potential death of the PvP queues from having a 3rd faction. What to do when there aren't enough Fed or KDF queuing for the Romulans to fight? But it comes at the cost of homogenisation of the sides, which began with the cross-faction consoles.

I don't often take my Reman to First City, preferring to stay around New Rom and the Flotilla. I would like to see some Romulan only Spotlight/Foundry missions.

I'm sure it's been said that now the main system changes are in place (F2P, Fleet and Reputation) that there will be a return to story missions. But it will always be shared content. That's just a fact of life and economy

crypticarmsman

edwardianed wrote: »

I play the foundry regularly (and not for the dilithium), I think it's a great source of content; it also serves to prove my point, as a Fed aligned Rom, I can play Fed foundry missions, but there are no Romulan foundry missions. The Romulans don't exist from a technical perspective, in terms of code they are just Fed or KDF with a green menu... and it's starting to show in gameplay.

Also, yes Dan Stahl did go on about how STO had recently had an influx of new employees bringing their total to around 50. 50 people is not hard to work with in video terms, Bethesda made Oblivion with between 50-60 people.

They will - the patch notes stated that you can make/designate a mission as 'Romulan only'. <--- The issue here though is they introduced some nasty bugs to the Foundry with LoR; and Foundry editing/creation (as well as players being able to post new ratings/comments) have been disabled since LoR launch, so no authors can create new/edit existing missions (Fed, KDF, Rom, or otherwise.)

They have stated they'll re-enable editing and player ratings once the issues are fixed; but there's been to ETA posted as yet.