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Star Trek Online or "Space Grinders Online"?
proteusblack
Member Posts: 40 Arc User
I'm looking for that Star Trek Episode where Jean Luc Picard is going through his 20th repeated run of a war mission with his crew in an on-going battle to save... his reputation points and get that cool new fore weapon laser for the Enterprise and hit TIER 4 FINALLY, after destroying dozens and dozens of raiders who all happen to not want to respond to hails, inevitably forcing the enterprise to attack and destroy them over and over again, so they can get drops of hirogen lock boxes and MK X shields to sell on a federation market, before going back out to a system, beaming down to a planet and shooting everyone on sight who does not comply with their demands.
Alas, I can't seem to find it. Hmm....
So, onto my question....
If you could describe playing the game in a way that was more in line with the Star Trek that we all know, a way that eliminated or at least minimized constant grinding and fighting from hunger for the best ships, equipment, and reputation the whole time, what would it consist of? What would one do on the game to make it feel more adventurous and less repetitive? What kinds of missions and tasks would one take up? How frequently, or infrequently would one play the game in order to keep it fresh?
How does one play it like its Star Trek, and not a mere space grinder?
Alas, I can't seem to find it. Hmm....
So, onto my question....
If you could describe playing the game in a way that was more in line with the Star Trek that we all know, a way that eliminated or at least minimized constant grinding and fighting from hunger for the best ships, equipment, and reputation the whole time, what would it consist of? What would one do on the game to make it feel more adventurous and less repetitive? What kinds of missions and tasks would one take up? How frequently, or infrequently would one play the game in order to keep it fresh?
How does one play it like its Star Trek, and not a mere space grinder?
Post edited by proteusblack on
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It's simply not humanly possible to create "enough" interesting varied PvE content for a game. No development team has ever managed it, ever, and none could. Even games like DDO and EQ2 which have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of unique quests (400 and 900 respectively IIRC), still have grind, because quests are always burnt through quite quickly, in relation to the amount of time and effort and Q&A it takes to make them.
It may be possible in the future with advancements in AI and procedurally-generated content - in which case, the game-world invents itself as it goes along, much like the real world, and you are put into randomly varied (but constrained) situations, just like in the real world.
But for the foreseable future, while it takes a bunch of artists, designers, programmers, and a Q&A team, who all have to be paid a living wage, to develop unique PvE content, grind is always going to have to be the filler in these types of games.
You just have to mentally blank out some of the stuff going on around you, and some of the stuff you're doing, and eke out whatever immersion you can get from time to time (e.g. my favourite immersion times are when I'm doing Exploration missions, that's about as Trekky as it gets for me, at least it's like standard TOS episodes in miniature).
It's the same with every MMO, and it will always be the same in every MMO. Only in a single-player game could you get the dedicated kind of immersion you're looking for; but then you'd miss out on the "living" feel of a game with other players. And of course single-player games are all incredibly short in comparison.
Foundry content, as above-mentioned, is an option. The Foundry does stretch out the viable PvE content a fair bit. Although the quality is variable, there are probably about as many decent player-made quests as there are dev-made quests (though they aren't always made to the same standard as the dev-made ones, most of them have good enough stories).
The main option to get around this, though, is to rp in an rp Fleet. With rp you are able to interact with a bunch of people in a more proper Star Trekky way (as the group of you conceive it), with all the dev-made stuff as a backdrop. With proper rp, you even don't have the nameplates of people around you, so you don't "know" immersion-breaking things like, e.g., that everyone running around is a Vice-Admiral, etc.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
indeed, similar thing going on for me, im watching the closer from discs and TUSC on youtube, the sebring 12hours. its monotonous, grinding well except the sebring race earlier that had a lot of crashes and caution flags. yet i get through the day watching it. STO grind is a lot more interactive, so it cant be that bad, however i have at times i have grinded away until early next morning at times gotten so tired im literally playing a game half way asleep very close to just falling fully a sleep. so dont go that far
also forgot, got a widelands game later on with someone else, that game is just dull and not really looking forward to hours at it, but it happens.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
That might be true.
I mean everything is grind. Leveling is grind. Gaining money is grind. If not for those things, why even play? PPl need something to do.
So grinding per se isn't a bad thing. And I think the Reputation system is a very good approach in general.
Two things about that:
a. The current state of STO is INCREDIBLY alt-unfriendly.
Its not even that bad of a grind if you do it with one char, but if you have multiple its just discouraging for many reasons.
b. Why while it is true that no Development team will EVER create ENOUGH content for some people, STO makes the absolutely inexplicable mistake of
- not using the content it has
- even removing content
- having content with inexplicable low rewards.
Story mission replays do neither give marks nor dillithium. Increased difficulty is hardly rewarding. Foundry rewards are thin at best. Patrol missions are not used. STFs get removed and dumped down to TRIBBLE (why not keep both versions)? Story missions get removed. Old Mirror event got removed.
New Romulus is a nice done zone, but going there for marks? You need a hour for every ten marks, why would you go there?
That locks us into a mini-fraction of the PVE content already AVAILABLE to progress.
Essentially while having TONS of more content, we have:
- Infected
- The Cure
- Kithomer
- Crystalline
- No win
- Voth ground.
- Epohh tagging
as content worth mentioning in terms of progression. From probably more then 250 missions, NOT counting the foundry, we have 7 rewarding enough to bother to play them.
Thats it. Thats the final list. Thats our actual content that is usable. Of everything that IS in sto. And thats a MAJOR fail from the devs side.
I don't play every day, nor do I succumb to the craving for the latest Shiny Of The Month. If I want something, then I go and get it. Even if I have to repeat a mission a few times. But I don't try to repeat this mission twenty times in a row on twenty different toons I have rolled up without stopping or taking a break.
STO becomes a grind if and only if you let it do so.
To flip your question around a bit - I wonder what would happen if pwe/cryptic placed a new Rep system in the game and no players showed up? I've not bothered with the Dyson Sphere at all. Mostly because my 'puter isn't quite strong enough. But for cryin' out loud I just got done completing Omega, Romulan and Nukara on my primary toon and now this? No thanks, I'll pass. Plenty of other things to do in the game.
Enjoy!
system Lord Baal is dead
I only do two of those missions you listed.
The solution is to remove the need for "content" by opening the game up to emergent play: ie. sandbox. Give players the tools to create their own stories and forms of play. SWG had one of the best player-driven economies in the MMO space--as does EVE Online. That alone is enough to drive players to carve out their own niches instead of relying on the developers to churn out story-based content with every update. Then you add in things like customizable housing, bounties, meaningful social hubs, etc. and you've got a recipe for emergent gameplay.
:P
Sure lets compare STO to Eve. Grind for 6 months doing Asteroid Mining to do a PvP match, then have to go back and grind for another 6 months. Sure there are other methods to grind faster in Eve, but not everyone is able to play the market effectively.
STO players require content since Star Trek is heavily story driven. I don't recall a Star Trek episode where they just explore space. It either involves some internal problem or they encounter some new alien species. Therefore, a Star Trek MMO without story-driven content is not Star Trek.
Tell that to Elite Force. :cool:
KDF at launch, now that was a grind.
While the dominar is technically correct, looking back at it now, leveling my first and still main kdf via pvp only was probably the best time I had in sto.
Ya know, running each game's name through a search engine to see if it's also a television show isn't rocket science. :rolleyes:
I read the word "Grind" over and over in this forum. Could someone please explain the meaing of this to me?
For me - from what I do understand from most of the Forum Posts - it's close to "work".
Unfortunately I don't get why a computer game (which I personnaly use for relaxing) is called a grind or work...
I've seen so many complainments about the so called "grind" in this game/forum lately but I fail to understand where this comes from...
It's a game. It's made to be fun. I do like this game. I play it nearly ever day. Well at least for one hour or so.
What I don't get is the fact if it feels like "work"... why should I play it any longer?
Personally I've never felt like I am in the need to grind or whatever... Actually I do really enjoy all the different options the games offers right now. May it be Exploration Clusters, Borg STFs, New Romulus, Dyson Sphere and so on...
No offense... I am just curious.
Thanks.
Nahari
the content of this quote states otherwise that you got the general idea of the word. but to be clear, a grind is doing a repetitive task or doing it over and over again to the point that it essentially has no purpose beyond making your work for it the hardest way possible eventually it gets the to the point where it feels like a "grind" on your mental thinking.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
But does STO have to be? Shouldn't we demand more quality from our beloved Star Trek themed MMO? I know I want it, why follow everyone else, be unique!
JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
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You should definitely have the option to grind, if you want to. You should also have the option not to grind, if you dont. Fortunately this game gives you both options, and if you choose to do something you dont want to do, you only have yourself to blame.
One could argue though, that if you don't grind, then you aren't playing STO, because there isn't anything else to do at level 50. There aren't new storyline missions to play, the whole point of the Queue system is to grind for rep marks or other things. So if you don't grind, there's nothing left to do, and thus, you aren't playing STO. Not by choice, in this case you are being forced to not play sto because you chose not to grind.
JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Brent_Justice
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brentjustice
And that argument would be completely wrong. I play foundry missions, which are all different. By playing foundry missions, I get dilithium. I trade my dilithium for zen, which gets me things I want from the game store. Pretty much every MMO's endgame consists of getting cool new stuff, and getting the cool new stuff I want from the game store via foundry play is just as much "playing the game" as doing anything else. Now, you may not WANT to do what I do, and you may CHOOSE to grind instead. That is fine. But that is still your choice, not what you are being forced to do.
Actually yes it has. But that doesn't mean you can't "demand" more quality. And you still can be have a unique game (and should).
Grind is technically nothing bot "give the player something to work for", a goal. That isn't a bad thing as a rule. Its just called "grind" when its badly executed.