Why does STO have to be challenging? There should obviously be challenging content that is completely optional, but as a whole, the game should not be challenging. It should be fun and present a decent story that we enjoy.
The only thing missing from this game is more non-combat missions. Not sure about the number, but I would think that there was more non-combat episodes than combat episodes and most of the combat episodes had just a small group to defeat rather than hordes of enemies.
I think part of the problem is there's too much 'DPS-focus.'
There are a dozen types of damage (plasma, exotic, Poleron, kinetic etc). Beyond their ability, they're all the same. And most enemies will react the same to phaser damage as to antiproton.
Having certain energy types actually be more or less effective for different species would help. Having the Borg become ever more resistant to damage types would help, and the more it's used the quicker they build up resistance (so 5 antiproton ships would have a harder time than 5 ships each with a different energy type, kinda like ground).
We've already had something a little similar, with the Mogai in S'harien's Swords.
Having 'shortcuts' for each of the job types and/or ship types would help (or rather, having it so that without a balanced team, you need to do more, making it harder) moves things away from EngEscort DPS ships, and also spread things out. Have some of the longer stuff be finding some info spread amongst a bunch of npc ships maybe, to unlock a puzzle, the answer and the location shifts each time. Or a random start isolinear puzzle, or another minigame, where the team collectively has to do well, and needs at least 4 contributing
It might make it a little more of a craps shoot, but it will also give a bit of ship diversity out there. I don't know about anyone else, but I have my 'ship', and I stick to it. My breen ship has phased poleron weapons, both borg sets, the omega torp set, the romulan hyper torp+set, and I've not needed anything else. I would guess thats the same for everyone else. Each character has one ship we use 99% of the time (the other 1% is the small-craft)
It also means that yeah, you might have a lower DPS ship, but you will help missions in ways that more than make up for that lower DPS. And that could add more challenge.
I just want a piece of content that makes me think about what I'm doing where I can meet an NPC that throws science skills at my ship and when I make an error it has a good enough AI to capitalise on my mistake, the Elachi were a good attempt though not good enough, their Virals weren't coordinated and thus (until I met their pre-nerf battleships) I was able to simply float around and laugh at them, Now if they had timed their VM to coincide with their forward arc blast thing that did a fair amount of damage... THAT I would have enjoyed :P
As it is I can do elite STFs in a CMDR ship with only common Mk X gear and with decent gear I could probably do it in a Miranda so I think something has to change, endgame NPC damage is either "did you see that little light?" or "Well that was that" There is no thought to it, either faceroll the lot or get blown to spacedust regardless of what you do. If they upped the low damage to the point that you need an RA ship at least to survive in endgame content and lowered the high to eliminate the capability to kill things in 1 hit and then threw some skills (disables, heals, resist skills and the like) to the NPCs and removed the Borg's immunity to sci skills it would allow for more player build diversity while increasing the challenge of endgame content.
I find the idea of nanite probes in CSE having feedback pulse amusing :P
Comments
The only thing missing from this game is more non-combat missions. Not sure about the number, but I would think that there was more non-combat episodes than combat episodes and most of the combat episodes had just a small group to defeat rather than hordes of enemies.
There are a dozen types of damage (plasma, exotic, Poleron, kinetic etc). Beyond their ability, they're all the same. And most enemies will react the same to phaser damage as to antiproton.
Having certain energy types actually be more or less effective for different species would help. Having the Borg become ever more resistant to damage types would help, and the more it's used the quicker they build up resistance (so 5 antiproton ships would have a harder time than 5 ships each with a different energy type, kinda like ground).
We've already had something a little similar, with the Mogai in S'harien's Swords.
Having 'shortcuts' for each of the job types and/or ship types would help (or rather, having it so that without a balanced team, you need to do more, making it harder) moves things away from EngEscort DPS ships, and also spread things out. Have some of the longer stuff be finding some info spread amongst a bunch of npc ships maybe, to unlock a puzzle, the answer and the location shifts each time. Or a random start isolinear puzzle, or another minigame, where the team collectively has to do well, and needs at least 4 contributing
It might make it a little more of a craps shoot, but it will also give a bit of ship diversity out there. I don't know about anyone else, but I have my 'ship', and I stick to it. My breen ship has phased poleron weapons, both borg sets, the omega torp set, the romulan hyper torp+set, and I've not needed anything else. I would guess thats the same for everyone else. Each character has one ship we use 99% of the time (the other 1% is the small-craft)
It also means that yeah, you might have a lower DPS ship, but you will help missions in ways that more than make up for that lower DPS. And that could add more challenge.
Thoughts?
As it is I can do elite STFs in a CMDR ship with only common Mk X gear and with decent gear I could probably do it in a Miranda so I think something has to change, endgame NPC damage is either "did you see that little light?" or "Well that was that" There is no thought to it, either faceroll the lot or get blown to spacedust regardless of what you do. If they upped the low damage to the point that you need an RA ship at least to survive in endgame content and lowered the high to eliminate the capability to kill things in 1 hit and then threw some skills (disables, heals, resist skills and the like) to the NPCs and removed the Borg's immunity to sci skills it would allow for more player build diversity while increasing the challenge of endgame content.
I find the idea of nanite probes in CSE having feedback pulse amusing :P