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So, my thoughts on S9 and generally the game.
voporak
Member Posts: 5,621 Arc User
So you all forumites who know me at all, know I don't rant. Well I reached a breaking point today. First, let's back up a bit to around two weeks ago. I was frustrated, and I came really, really close to making my character "stick his head in the warp core."
I almost quit the game.
I was frustrated for a number of reasons, which I will get into when I talk about my thoughts on the game. Today, I came back from a couple days at camp to see the news of a new lock box, a new rep, and a level cap increase. I got pushed waaaaaaay over the edge, until I came to this, this post here. Is it to the devs, players, or both? It's to whoever reads, honestly. If you don't, I don't care, it's no skin off my nose. (Same goes to anyone who wants my stuff.) I just need to let it out.
So why was I frustrated? That's the big question, isn't it... so onto my thoughts about the game and the upcoming season. Three main things: grind, power creep, and game quality. Yes, those are in fact extreme generalizations of all the forum complaints. I'll break it down for ya, about what is irking me.
The grind. The beast. The sink. Whatever you wanna call it. Yeah, grinding is a part of MMOs. All of them. It's fine. It's okay. To a point. Unfortunately we've gone way past that point though, we've transcended into some grinding hell beyond. It doesn't take much to level a character, it is easy to get level 50. But then there's the starbase, with its gigantic resource cost on all three tracks. And the embassy. And the mine. And the spire. I can't emphasize enough how gargantuan the grind is for just these alone, putting everything else aside.
Of course, then there's the lock box stuff, with all 9 (soon to be 10) incarnations. All with their own stuff, their own EC or dilithium grind to buy off the dilithium exchange or plain old exchange. Let's not forget about the reputation too, the second biggest monster after the starbase and its minions. There are 4 (soon to be 5) of them, each with their own more than a month grind, and then way beyond that to get the stuff to buy the items from them. The sponsorship helps a little, but doesn't help the ludicrous item prices.
So, obviously I don't HAVE to grind this stuff, it IS unnecessary to fighting the wimpy NPCs. But it is necessary to even get on a competitive level for PvP, which I love. Let's bridge the gap to there with the second topic...
Power creep. The byproduct of the grind. It's what happens when new shinies come in and make more ways to overpower the player. If you don't believe in power creep, look at ISE. People used to need the 10% rule or they'd fail. Now people can do it in just around 1 minute, TRIBBLE the 10% rule. Now, if power creep is introduced, naturally harder NPCs come around to balance it out. Nope. I'll get into it further when I discuss game quality, but for now I'll leave it at that since NPCs don't share in the power creep, players get more and more supper bosted (alright, for those of you not familiar, that means super boosted).
It doesn't matter, does it? They are just NPCs, who cares what ludicrous garbage we throw at them in stale missions. Well guess who the sick old man is that gets piled under all the trash? Yep, that's right, and if you don't like PvP that's probably because of how it's gone completely underwater in power creep.
PvP, eh? Yeah see there was this time way back when, there was nothing but loot/exchange gear and it was genuinely fun. Now, well, it's not quite as fun. Just to not get roflstomped, forget being somewhat skilled, you gotta do that entire grind, all of it. I say somewhat, because as it stands half of PvP is clicky buttons. Cloaks and clickies. The Romulan decloaks, presses 4-7 clickies and you're dead. Oh, and there's the scimitards, and any ship loaded up with aux2noonecares and BFAW. Cycle them keybinds... yep.
It's all about balance. Balance can never be perfect, obviously, but anything resembling balance got set on fire, put out with whips, then fed to a dog. Romulans came along and salted the carcass of the dead horse's wounds, being more powerful than either faction could ever be. Crit, cloak, and cycle [keybinds/macros] is what it's become. There is the monster of Aux2Bat/FAW/Marion/DEM but let's just leave it alone and keep it simple at it being so stupidly better than quite literally anything else. So thanks to Rommies and the grindy shinies, PvP becomes a crapfest for seeing who can dump the most garbage and cycle them keybinds faster. Yes, there is skill, but it is not as relevant as it used to be.
Let's talk game quality now. First off I want to point out that NPCs move like a barn and can't hit the broadside of one, so thus if you can pewpew them to death faster it means jack squat (except that you're on top of the grind). Difficulty here means piling on more health and more one shot wonders. Their AI lacks common sense and, well, they are just plain slow and stupid. It's like a Pakled is piloting those things.
Aaaaaand then there's the plethora of broken, unfinished, and useless stuff (Note: This is not an insult to the devs, as I will explain further down.). I'm not even sure what FDC voting rights are, because evidently they've been broken so long that no one knows now. ESD is getting a makeover, that's nice, but what about all those other places in the game...? Like DS9? The Gal-X's phaser lance is off-center, how long would it take to move it? And wandering NPCs, well their pathing looks so artificial that it's almost painful to look at (not to mention the predictable cutscene conversations due to the 5 or so emotes that are recycled).
I know PWE has to make money, but come on... I'm not sure what goes on between them and Cryptic, but from what I can tell they are being pushed so hard to pump out grind that none of this stuff can get improved. (Again, I think the devs do a good job at what they do (99% of the time)) It's all about shinies and money, if you make the surface look good you can hide the unfinished interior. It just gets really tiring to see the same stuff ignored and left broken and pathetic for years.
Enough of dissecting the salted horse carcasses, I'm going look to S9 and beyond. So far, from what I've seen, it's honestly just more of the same. Grind, power creep (are seasons a contest to see how many times we can stab PvP?
), and broken stuff left broken. Supposedly a new rep and lock box, it's the same tired points for those. Case closed.
...Wait, I forgot sumptin... Oh yeah! There's also apparently a level cap increase. Um wow, my first thought was "Really, we did not need that!" There's no point to such a thing except bringing on more grind to completely get new level gear/convert existing gear. And the usual byproduct, a supper supper bosted level of power creep. This creature, the level cap, is exactly the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm wondering, is it a blank slate so we can start fresh on the grind in some kind of mad 2-year cycle?
I've got assorted bits of miscellaneous thoughts too, so I'll stuff them in their own little paragraph. *Ahem* Storylines to nowhere, Tholians solve all, ARC (I leave this critter here because it's something all of its own that I just want to stay away from right now), perpetual 2409, stale missions that consist of just shooting mobs of NPCs and some F clicks here and there, and my favorite of all: Power creep has even hit sector space speed!
That's it. I'm done. I feel a little better now, and that's what matters. I had to let off a rant sometime, so here it is folks.
I almost quit the game.
I was frustrated for a number of reasons, which I will get into when I talk about my thoughts on the game. Today, I came back from a couple days at camp to see the news of a new lock box, a new rep, and a level cap increase. I got pushed waaaaaaay over the edge, until I came to this, this post here. Is it to the devs, players, or both? It's to whoever reads, honestly. If you don't, I don't care, it's no skin off my nose. (Same goes to anyone who wants my stuff.) I just need to let it out.
So why was I frustrated? That's the big question, isn't it... so onto my thoughts about the game and the upcoming season. Three main things: grind, power creep, and game quality. Yes, those are in fact extreme generalizations of all the forum complaints. I'll break it down for ya, about what is irking me.
The grind. The beast. The sink. Whatever you wanna call it. Yeah, grinding is a part of MMOs. All of them. It's fine. It's okay. To a point. Unfortunately we've gone way past that point though, we've transcended into some grinding hell beyond. It doesn't take much to level a character, it is easy to get level 50. But then there's the starbase, with its gigantic resource cost on all three tracks. And the embassy. And the mine. And the spire. I can't emphasize enough how gargantuan the grind is for just these alone, putting everything else aside.
Of course, then there's the lock box stuff, with all 9 (soon to be 10) incarnations. All with their own stuff, their own EC or dilithium grind to buy off the dilithium exchange or plain old exchange. Let's not forget about the reputation too, the second biggest monster after the starbase and its minions. There are 4 (soon to be 5) of them, each with their own more than a month grind, and then way beyond that to get the stuff to buy the items from them. The sponsorship helps a little, but doesn't help the ludicrous item prices.
So, obviously I don't HAVE to grind this stuff, it IS unnecessary to fighting the wimpy NPCs. But it is necessary to even get on a competitive level for PvP, which I love. Let's bridge the gap to there with the second topic...
Power creep. The byproduct of the grind. It's what happens when new shinies come in and make more ways to overpower the player. If you don't believe in power creep, look at ISE. People used to need the 10% rule or they'd fail. Now people can do it in just around 1 minute, TRIBBLE the 10% rule. Now, if power creep is introduced, naturally harder NPCs come around to balance it out. Nope. I'll get into it further when I discuss game quality, but for now I'll leave it at that since NPCs don't share in the power creep, players get more and more supper bosted (alright, for those of you not familiar, that means super boosted).
It doesn't matter, does it? They are just NPCs, who cares what ludicrous garbage we throw at them in stale missions. Well guess who the sick old man is that gets piled under all the trash? Yep, that's right, and if you don't like PvP that's probably because of how it's gone completely underwater in power creep.
PvP, eh? Yeah see there was this time way back when, there was nothing but loot/exchange gear and it was genuinely fun. Now, well, it's not quite as fun. Just to not get roflstomped, forget being somewhat skilled, you gotta do that entire grind, all of it. I say somewhat, because as it stands half of PvP is clicky buttons. Cloaks and clickies. The Romulan decloaks, presses 4-7 clickies and you're dead. Oh, and there's the scimitards, and any ship loaded up with aux2noonecares and BFAW. Cycle them keybinds... yep.
It's all about balance. Balance can never be perfect, obviously, but anything resembling balance got set on fire, put out with whips, then fed to a dog. Romulans came along and salted the carcass of the dead horse's wounds, being more powerful than either faction could ever be. Crit, cloak, and cycle [keybinds/macros] is what it's become. There is the monster of Aux2Bat/FAW/Marion/DEM but let's just leave it alone and keep it simple at it being so stupidly better than quite literally anything else. So thanks to Rommies and the grindy shinies, PvP becomes a crapfest for seeing who can dump the most garbage and cycle them keybinds faster. Yes, there is skill, but it is not as relevant as it used to be.
Let's talk game quality now. First off I want to point out that NPCs move like a barn and can't hit the broadside of one, so thus if you can pewpew them to death faster it means jack squat (except that you're on top of the grind). Difficulty here means piling on more health and more one shot wonders. Their AI lacks common sense and, well, they are just plain slow and stupid. It's like a Pakled is piloting those things.
Aaaaaand then there's the plethora of broken, unfinished, and useless stuff (Note: This is not an insult to the devs, as I will explain further down.). I'm not even sure what FDC voting rights are, because evidently they've been broken so long that no one knows now. ESD is getting a makeover, that's nice, but what about all those other places in the game...? Like DS9? The Gal-X's phaser lance is off-center, how long would it take to move it? And wandering NPCs, well their pathing looks so artificial that it's almost painful to look at (not to mention the predictable cutscene conversations due to the 5 or so emotes that are recycled).
I know PWE has to make money, but come on... I'm not sure what goes on between them and Cryptic, but from what I can tell they are being pushed so hard to pump out grind that none of this stuff can get improved. (Again, I think the devs do a good job at what they do (99% of the time)) It's all about shinies and money, if you make the surface look good you can hide the unfinished interior. It just gets really tiring to see the same stuff ignored and left broken and pathetic for years.
Enough of dissecting the salted horse carcasses, I'm going look to S9 and beyond. So far, from what I've seen, it's honestly just more of the same. Grind, power creep (are seasons a contest to see how many times we can stab PvP?
), and broken stuff left broken. Supposedly a new rep and lock box, it's the same tired points for those. Case closed....Wait, I forgot sumptin... Oh yeah! There's also apparently a level cap increase. Um wow, my first thought was "Really, we did not need that!" There's no point to such a thing except bringing on more grind to completely get new level gear/convert existing gear. And the usual byproduct, a supper supper bosted level of power creep. This creature, the level cap, is exactly the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm wondering, is it a blank slate so we can start fresh on the grind in some kind of mad 2-year cycle?
I've got assorted bits of miscellaneous thoughts too, so I'll stuff them in their own little paragraph. *Ahem* Storylines to nowhere, Tholians solve all, ARC (I leave this critter here because it's something all of its own that I just want to stay away from right now), perpetual 2409, stale missions that consist of just shooting mobs of NPCs and some F clicks here and there, and my favorite of all: Power creep has even hit sector space speed!
That's it. I'm done. I feel a little better now, and that's what matters. I had to let off a rant sometime, so here it is folks.
I ask nothing but that you remember me.
Post edited by voporak on
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Comments
It's not hard to do.
Now there's an idea.
I did decide to stop grinding. But if I do, I will get hopelessly behind the grind, which is necessary for PvP. Now as I stated, I do love PvP. I don't want to have to give it up but perhaps I will at S9.
Why do you love pvp in a game that doesn't care about pvp? This is the weirdest paradox of STO. Everyone grinds to get stuff they don't actually need, and tends to completely ignore the types of gameplay that actually needs the stuffz.
I don't get it. It's all psychological "I got the betest stuffz so I'm awesomesauce." Stop being a guinea pig in a game that never actually rewards you for it.
PvP does need a revamp. And if S9 doesn't have it, S10 certainly will need to.
Because I want to be part of those cool Star Trek battles. I want to be that awesome captain like Sisko. I want something harder than the stale NPCs. That's why I want to hold onto PvP. I've done foundry work and love it, but I also love PvP.
Me too. 1v1 PvP battles are where this game feels it's most Trek.
Well, if your goal is pvp, then I can respect that. But, being an awesome captain, at least in my book, requires thinking and not button mashing to get a shiny to improve your stats. You are not experiencing Star Trek Online like I experience Star Trek Online.
Your way is far more profitable for Cryptic, so thanks for supporting the way I play the game in order to have fun.
For the record, the ship setups I run do not rely on clickies and the like (somewhat though, that is obviously the nature of the beast). I experience STO in more than one way, and I am frustrated at what one of those ways has become. And please don't call it "your way" because (look, I don't want to start a fight so I will leave it at the following and end it here) I find it rather insultive, since I make foundry missions too and RP both in-game and on the forums.
Have a good night.
I wasn't trying to be "insultive." Just saying that if you want to experience Star Trek online, you should play the game in a way that does that for you, personally.
Then let go of the grind.
Let go of the starbase. Let go of the mine and the spire.
Get back to the Star Trek aspect of the game. It's all still there.
The changes coming for them make all of them a bit easier. They're really at this point only a time gate. Which is artificial and in place to keep you logging in. If it bores you, skip it.
Organize PVP amongst friends. That way the competitive edge doesn't bug you as much.
Let's not look at ISE. It's the easiest STF in the game and it's years old. You can do it blindfolded by now. I sure can. Yeah, it makes a heavy handed example of what you're talking about.
But switch that to Storming the Spire. Look at the powercreep in that one instead of ISE.
Here's PvP in a nutshell. Since releasing Shantytown back in 2010, the ONLY map they've released for PvP has been Shuttle PvP.
It's not at the top of their design schedule. Since 2010.
I've been reading that for 14 years. Everquest was all about balance.
But really? No. These games are not about balance. The players don't even want balance. The players want a competitive edge. Everyone does.
Old engine. Old game. Compared to Titanfall or Elder Scrolls Online STO might look a little shabby.
This is what I've seen:
1- ESD is dumbed down, but has pretty drapes and stuff.
2- Kits are way different. But overall kind of the same.
3- The new Space missions for the Undine are NOTHING like ISE.
Level cap increase most likely is being internally tested because they plan for it to be part of the next really big "expansion." That's not season 9. People are seriously jumping the gun on that.
For me, the first contact missions are where this game really feels Trek.
Also sometimes the Exploration missions do too.
Sisko was a station commander who got caught up in a war and stuck dealing with omniscient beings and a whole huge religious thing.
That stuff he did with the Defiant was sooooo secondary to the rest of the character's story arc.
He's not THE Sisko because he could pew pew his way through the Jem'Hadar attack ships at the battle of Cardassia.
He's THE Sisko because the Prophets chose him for something much more grand than flying a ship.
No its because he grinded enough dilithium to buy the "Be the Emissary Bundle".
What really scares me though, is that I was one of the people that truly didn't believe a Romulan faction was coming last year. Well, look how that turned out... :rolleyes:
Now that is just pure gold...
Think along the lines of reaching level 50, then having to max out a certain number of reputations before being allowed to proceed further. And when queueing, you would only fight against other L50 players, and anyone with L51 and up would fight each other. Also, this way you would be able to stay at L50 if you desired, since rep is voluntary.
This could mitigate the powercreep factor to some degree, since without max rep, you'd have no reputation sets, and no rep passives.
I'm at a loss as to the fleet equips and the fleet-level 10-console ships, though. If only the fleet stuff had come alongside a boost in the level cap, it would have been easier to handle.
As it is, PvP discrepancies can be partially explained by the difference between a fresh L50 and a veteran L50, and the fact that they are not separated. A fully repped and geared-out captain is a pseudo-L60, really.
And don't think your fleet holdings will sell mk xiv stuff just like that. No, you will have to upgrade every single fleet holding. And I imagine the same will be true for reputation. They will most likely introduce a new tier vi for every one of them.
So no, there's really nothing positive I can think of about the level cap increase.
Many things killed PvP for me, amongst which are completely unbalaced ship classes and end-tier ships, then keeping up with all the rep.grinds to stay competitive of which I got burned out at a certain point.
There's also the fact that the 'horizontal' progression that Cryptic has been pushing with the rep.system so far is making a mess out of PvP, because new lvl 50 can be mingled with full rep. lvl 50 and the new char. stands no chance.
I really believe that they should invest in separating the equipment for PvP and PvE, and make special PvP items that work only in PvP. Heck, I'd even go as far as making a entire sector block based on territory control, with PvP objectives and missions that gives access to PvP gear based on sector control and such...
That said, this:
made me chuckle.
I cannot say too much of PvP, since I stayed away from it. When I hit level 50 (pre-season 6), I did not have the money for a Cryptic Points ship (yep, that's how they were called back then young ones :P). However, my Sovereign managed to beat the living TRIBBLE out of two sovereigns on one occasion.
Then Fleet and Reputation kicked in. I have never been the best grinder, nor have I been interested in it. My fleet back then (the-fleet-that-shall-not-be-named-due-to-the-events-of-may-16-2013) wasn't a good grinding fleet, and leadership threw everything at provisioning instead of advancement. So yeah, no top-level fleet gear for me.
This ruined PvP for me for the most part. On occasion I still can be seen in organized matches with people I know, and sometimes on ground. However, with PUG PvP, it was over for me. I went for the Excelsior (a truly great ship, I went for the looks back then) which isn't the best PvP ship around. That Excelsior has been my flag ship ever since, effectively ruling me out of PvP, which had already turned to pew-pew-pew in the matches that I joined.
All of that being said, the game of pre-season 6 is still around here. All it takes is dedication. For me, that dedication is to my fleet. And not to contribution; my total contribution will be something of 3,5 million fleet credits earned, while the other leader already has 7+ million on one of his huge amount of characters. I have never been, and never shall be the grinder. I am the team player having fun in what I do. I ignored the grindversary completely. I now only do the Mirror thing because I like the challenge. If I miss out on the eventual rewards, a bummer but well, I'll get over it.
You just need to find the challenges you like. Since you love PvP, go for it: find or create a channel with people that are up to your level of PvP, and fight against them. This way, you will never be outclassed by them.
Join the Deltas today!
there is supposed to be a new kind of matchmaker being added to the game so when you play pvp it will match your ship&weapons ect or just weapons armour ect for ground so it wont matter if your gear is tier XXXVIII or tier II you will be matched with players with approximately the same levels of stuff overall in the teams.
I agree with what other players have said, If you don't like grind don't grind, I still do all the reps when they come up but I do it at my leisure as and when I want to do it, it doesn't feel at all like a grind to me, in fact its quite fun and I`m quite disappointed when its over, still nothing stopping me from doing the rep missions and turning the points into dil when I feel like it.
I do the events like mirror and entity and such that some seem to think is also a grind but I only have 3 toons so 30-45 minutes a day and I'm done and I don't find it any bother at all and it only lasts a few weeks anyway so I tend to treat it like a break from my normal gameplay so it almost seems like a holiday.
I am also in a fleet but I don't grind for that either, if I have any fleet marks or other stuff I can donate I do, if I don't I cant simple as that.
I have donated a lot to the fleet over the time I've been in it but I have taken very little from it only a doff or two, but then I am not always chasing the latest must have gear all the time so its no bother to me if I have some spare dil or a mil or two of ec that I can stomp up to buy some stembolts or whatever for the fleet.
I find the best way to play the game and never get bored is remember these simple rules - what i want, when I want, how I want.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I never liked those. I thought they were kind of drab. Fighting tooth and nail with an equally matched opponent down to the wire, alarm bells, and shields going down.... It's intense man.
We are quickly reaching saturation point when it comes to grinds, if we are not there allready.
Why does evrything need to locked behind yet another grind??? Or lockboxes for that matter.
PWE needs to realize that the asian style grinders do not really work in western MMO games. Ok, they work, but only to a certain extent, but PWE has gone in too heavy handed here, and I fear it will only get worse...
I beg to differ, and encourage people to go back to the revamped missions and areas and have a look for yourself. They're doing a hell'uva job updating the graphics and keeping them modern. I'd even go so far as to say they're on par with ESO.
Proofz;
http://imgur.com/a/sY3IL
i find this hilarious
system Lord Baal is dead
This is what i chose to do because i do love Trek and the foundry is the only Trek thing left in this game. All the freaky looking ships players are flying is just over the top for me now. Game doesn't even look or feel like Star Trek anymore. Next its freaking Undine ships and Undine rep.
I agree, I want to know where he buys his drugs.:P