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A Letter to Subcommander Kaol
stelakkh
Member Posts: 185 Arc User
Dear Subcommander Kaol:
I appreciate that you need help with the Dyson sphere held in the Tau Dewa sector, but please, bear the following in mind:
I do not wish to help you. The activities in the Dyson sphere are tedious and boring. The reward system set in place was clearly designed by not just monkeys, but STUPID monkeys who obviously have no concept of how rewards or the point behind them actually work.
You see, the rewards you and the Romulan Republic are willing to give me for fighting the Voth are, in fact, items to use while fighting the Voth.
Since I have ALREADY fought the Voth successfully by the time you give me the rewards that help me fight the Voth, your rewards are pointless, poorly thought out and just plain not worth the effort.
In addition to this, there isn't a single Captain in my stable who doesn't have gear and items that aren't already far superior to the things you are willing to give - making your rewards pointless, poorly thought out and just plain not worth the effort, AGAIN.
Further, some of the missions you wish me to take part in are somewhat confusing when it comes to knowing just whether or not I have actually "won" or "lost," said mission. When your thoughtless creators made things so that you're unclear if the objective is achieved, it makes it less fun to participate because you don't know whether or not you're succeeding.
Finally, the things you ask me to do are boring, pedantic and repetitive. They require no critical thought, no style, no strategy. All I do is pull my trigger by mashing it repeatedly. That's not fun. Not if you have a brain.
So, in closing, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP POPPING UP ON MY SCREEN EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I LOG IN. It's annoying, as is the rest of the whole Romulan Dyson Sphere thing - because your creators didn't think things through, made just one more grind and already clutter my screen with enough garbage and popups that many of us complained about over four years ago.
Thank you, Subcommander.
Stelakh
Vice Admiral
U.S.S. Protectress, Commanding
I appreciate that you need help with the Dyson sphere held in the Tau Dewa sector, but please, bear the following in mind:
I do not wish to help you. The activities in the Dyson sphere are tedious and boring. The reward system set in place was clearly designed by not just monkeys, but STUPID monkeys who obviously have no concept of how rewards or the point behind them actually work.
You see, the rewards you and the Romulan Republic are willing to give me for fighting the Voth are, in fact, items to use while fighting the Voth.
Since I have ALREADY fought the Voth successfully by the time you give me the rewards that help me fight the Voth, your rewards are pointless, poorly thought out and just plain not worth the effort.
In addition to this, there isn't a single Captain in my stable who doesn't have gear and items that aren't already far superior to the things you are willing to give - making your rewards pointless, poorly thought out and just plain not worth the effort, AGAIN.
Further, some of the missions you wish me to take part in are somewhat confusing when it comes to knowing just whether or not I have actually "won" or "lost," said mission. When your thoughtless creators made things so that you're unclear if the objective is achieved, it makes it less fun to participate because you don't know whether or not you're succeeding.
Finally, the things you ask me to do are boring, pedantic and repetitive. They require no critical thought, no style, no strategy. All I do is pull my trigger by mashing it repeatedly. That's not fun. Not if you have a brain.
So, in closing, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP POPPING UP ON MY SCREEN EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I LOG IN. It's annoying, as is the rest of the whole Romulan Dyson Sphere thing - because your creators didn't think things through, made just one more grind and already clutter my screen with enough garbage and popups that many of us complained about over four years ago.
Thank you, Subcommander.
Stelakh
Vice Admiral
U.S.S. Protectress, Commanding
![http://uileag.com/STO/STODeath.jpg[/SIGPIC]](http://uileag.com/STO/STODeath.jpg[/SIGPIC]){kind=link}
Actual Join Date: August, 2008
Post edited by stelakkh on
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Comments
Honestly, it's not the him giving orders that's the problem (there's a whole chain-of-command argument to be had, not that it makes sense for an O-5 to be given that billet in the first place). The problem is he, like everyone else, treats the player like a totally green ensign when by the time they get to him they've likely flown more combat missions than he has.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
*Bows and salutes*
Thank you for this, good Sir!
I was planning to make a rant of my own about this honorless petaQ constatnly popping out on my viewscreen, but you've beat me to it.
Absolutely annoying - No Kaol, I don't want to take your stupid mission because it will just fill up space in my missions tab. No Kaol, I don't want to go to the sphere and watch STOrassic Park. I just want you to friggin' scram from my viewscreen and not bother me again when I log in! :mad:
Options - Basic - "Disable Mission Auto-Hail"
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
You... you uh... you kind of missed the point.
not to mention, every MMO's basic endgame has grind in there somewhere - and Cryptic is a fairly small company, so they don't have the time/manpower to do otherwise
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Not my point by a long shot.
My point was, is and will be that Cryptic generally doesn't think ANYTHING through when it comes to STO.
Small company or not (and I really don't care. They have the biggest science fiction franchise in history on their hands, so if they're not up to the task they shouldn't have taken it on back in 2008 - not to mention City of Heroes was actually a great game), they display time and again how they just throw things into the game (dinosaurs with lasers on their heads? What are their story writers, three years old?!) to get it out quickly without a care about whether or not it's pointless from the perspective of a player who can think.
And yes, there's grind in every MMO. But STO's end-game content is NOTHING BUT GRIND because there really IS no end-game content. Because they didn't think through what would happen at the end of the game. They just threw STFs at us after the game was already out and live.
As to the Sub-Commander giving orders to an Admiral thing (which goes again to show how little thought they put into anything even in Beta) - we complained about that over four years ago, too.
You...you uh... *silently prays*
I quit playing a few months ago because of the fricking reputation grinds which were tedious and made no sense. Way too much grind and they haven't learnt because they are adding another one, Undine/ 8472 Counter Reputation. I play World of Tanks now which is a game which is thought out and has a pretty fun grind.
I don't think it has anything to do with learning, sadly.
I'm pretty sure there are two factors involved in this situation.
1: Cryptic are answerable to PWE. PWE cares about nothing but the amount of money they can swirl out of your wallet and into their pockets. It's what they're known for: Shoddy games designed to make you buy things in the store.
2: Cryptic didn't really much care at the beginning, but to compound that now must cowtow to their evil PWE overloards.
I saw this coming when PWE bought Cryptic. I'd be willing to bet a lot that it'll only get worse from here.
Signed Rear Admiral Admiral Sholly(yes I made one toon me. got bridge bunnies to boot!)
CO 99th Persuit Squadron
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
A true member of the Romulan Republic would be completing the missions they were assigned to complete, because they were assigned. They wouldn't be complaining about the lack of compensation received.
And again, small company; they can't do everything they want, or we want. Plus whatever they want to do inevitably has time/money constraints, so there's not a lot of wriggle room in the first place. And this includes well-thought schemes, given their inexperience
All of which simply isn't a problem imo; the game's enjoyable regardless
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Sub-Commander Kaol,
Similarly to how you have contacted the admiral. I wish for you to please reconsider contacting me at every one of your conveniences. I do not have the clearance to travel to the Dyson sphere at this time.
Yours
Captain Trelundar
U.S.S. Venture
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Except I DON'T want to help Subcommander Kaol, in case that wasn't apparent. That's the vital key. So any "logic behind it" is out of the window.
And again, I don't care how big or small Cryptic is. The problems in the game were there at the beginning, before they were under the thumb of PWE.
In case you (or anyone else participating in the thread) weren't here at the beginning, here's a little history (because despite the date under my name here on the forums following the PWE reset, I've actually been a member since August of 2008, and been playing since Beta over four years ago. I remember what went on.):
Atari (the game's publisher at the time) offered Cryptic a $20,000,000US bonus if they got the game out on time and, by X date, had Y amount of revenue from the game.
Unfortunately, that meant only 18 months' time to get the game out of the door., meaning there was no chance to develop a new engine on which to base STO.
So, they took the game engine from Champions Online, skinned it for STO, and rushed the game to launch.
When the game came out of Beta and went into "Headstart," where those of us who pre-ordered had a few days to be in game before official launch, the servers were down more than they were up - literally. "Headstart" was nearly worthless to us because the game wasn't available due to constant server downtime.
Then launch came. People blew through the nearly non-existent content in a few days, and then there was nothing to do because there was no end-game content.
They blamed this on the threat of losing the contract for the IP, saying CBS (owner of the franchise) had a set date and if the game hadn't launched, CBS would have pulled the plug.
I'm not sure whether this is true or not, but I frankly don't believe it. There was no Star Trek MMO out there. If CBS had pulled the IP from Cryptic they'd have either had no Trek MMO at all, or would have had to wait for ANOTHER developer to develop a game - meaning still more time for any Star Trek Online to exist. So it doesn't make sense at all, if CBS was in the market to cash in on the game. I firmly believe that it was the desire for the 20 million that pushed Cryptic to make STO what it is.
They didn't get the bonus, by the way, because while they met the target date, they didn't hit their target revenue.
So once more: Small or large, if they weren't up to the task they shouldn't have taken it on. But they did, I think, all to grasp that cash. They didn't care whether they were big or small.
And now instead of giving us schlock they should be concentrating on making the game better than taking it in the direction of just another grindy piece of PWE garbage. If they'd concentrated on that four years ago - or even three years ago - they might not have been bought by PWE at all.
So there you go. The "small company" argument crashed and burned.
Whether they were up to it or not is irrelevant, and remains irrelevant; it's the reality that Cryptic/PWE have it now, and that's not gonna change. And even if it was relevant, your argument changes nothing for me
The reason why? The game is still good, simply because the combat is good, the visuals are good, the story is fairly good, and grind is simply meh. All for me, obviously (Lifetime membership payed off years ago). Others like it, others hate it; just how they all go
...and when I said logic behind it, I meant for the general game populace. So of course some wouldn't want to help... but that doesn't change anything; MMO's generally have to appeal to everyone at once, customers and in-factions alike
So rather than bash them for taking on the project (something we can't change), we should work with the present, with what we can change.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Whether or not the game is "good" is highly suggestive. It's not. It's not good. The only reason I'm still around is because the people in my fleet are fun to hang out with.
I'm not a lifetime member. I bought multiple copies of the game for the pre-order items. I spent more than the lifetime subscription cost before the game was even available for Beta. I then spent the remainder up until PWE bought Cryptic and made STO F2P paying a monthly subscription. But whether or not we're lifetime, or how much money we spent, is ENTIRELY irrelevant.
And I'm not trying to change anything for you. If you enjoy the grindy nonsense, the hackneyed writing, the mindless key mashing and complete lack of sense that Cryptic makes with its decisions on rewards and other things in the game, more power to you. I don't like it, but I never said it wasn't okay for you to not like it.
We both have opinions on the game, and that's fine. I expressed mine in a tongue-in-cheek, satirical and sardonic letter from my main character to Kaol. You came in to, it seems, tell me I'm wrong because your opinion differs from mine. Perhaps I misinterpret your "small company" excuse for the game's current state. I don't know. It's tough to tell without hearing inflection. But it simply feels like "It is a small company, so you're wrong."
But the thing I'm puzzled by the most is your assertion that "...we should work with the present, with what we can change."
Unless you or I work for Cryptic/PWE and make the big decisions for them, I'm not exactly how you think we're going to change a single thing.
Neither Cryptic nor PWE care enough to listen to those of us who are saying: Enough grind. Give us real content.
The reason they don't care? All they want is money, and what they have to back them up is apologists who make excuses for them turning this game into a typical PWE F2P P2W grindfest.
Cryptic have had over four years to try and ensure that there's some real, decent content. But instead, they're going to keep adding grind without any heart or soul.
And if you want my total opinion, I'll give it (even if you don't. You don't have to read it, after all).
As a 40+ year fan of Star Trek, I would rather PWE and Cryptic let STO die and have the hope that some day a decent developer who doesn't let the greed of a hoped $20 million bonus that they failed to get, or a strict grind-game company like PWE, dictate that they turn out schlock.
I'd rather live in the hope that another company would pick up the IP at a later date and give it the attention, time, detail and thought that the biggest and most beloved science fiction franchise in history deserves.
And to get back to the point of the original post: It'd be nice if Cryptic spent time fixing things like worthless rewards that make doing things in the game pointless.
Because in the end, it's a game - the impetus to do things in the game is not to make my character happy. Whether or not my character is happy doesn't matter. He's pixels on a screen. The point is to make the player feel that doing missions in the game are worthwhile.
But with Cryptic not thinking about how rewards are pointless because you've already done what you need to do in order to get the items you need to do the things you've already done , there's no hope of there being any point to doing them at all (which may make a lot of sense, since it's just a game).
They always listen, but they can't always do things we want... including changing grind. Which, to put it shortly, is because they're a small company
You have your opinion, but you're wrong about Cryptic not caring. They do have to make money, but that doesn't change that fact
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
It goes above and beyond that though. It's not just that they can't always do things some folks want...they can't tell those people how stupid those things are either.
Kind of miss branflakes with his nifty replies of...
Always had the silent "No, dumbass..." to it.
Granted, not everyone is like that, but it is present
I never said you couldn't have your opinion; I was simply trying to say I don't think that's the case.
There are apologists out there, but I'm not one of them; I don't devote my life to defending Cryptic or PWE. I'm simply a rare individual, with a scale of love|enjoy/like/meh/(very rare) dislike instead of the standard love/like/meh/dislike/hate, so not much affects me negatively. Because there are (currently) no negatives affecting my experience with STO, I'm frequently mistaken for one, but still.
I don't believe STO is that bad, in any form of how anyone's described it. It's not the epitome of good either, obviously, even when my view is somewhere below that, but not terrible either
The simple fact is, STO is an MMO, a game. And as a game appealing to the masses in addition to ST fans, they must make some changes based on RuleofCool/Fun/Gameplay rather than be all-canon all-the-time. It stings sometimes, but it must be done. This, in addition to being a small company, under the reality of PWE... well, we can't exactly tear out the grind and replace it.
But as I've stated, and as the dev tracker shows, they do listen to us. Don't always show it, but they do. Don't always implement what we want, or how we want it, but they do listen. So we can change things, which is far more productive than your satire post imo
So no, my post wasn't that 'it's a small company, so you're wrong'. It was far more of 'there are reasons that things are the way they are' argument. And sorry that it's derailed your thread
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
And it makes it tough - cause you read enough off it - and somebody that may not quite be doing that...it's hard not to treat them the same way. Yep, it makes it rough.
We didn't read the thread, did we?
If you had you'd have known that I actually came right out and said what the point of my original post was.
But this is "Cryptic common sense". You know, those same guys who think Romulans should have to, or would need to earn the same reputation to use THEIR OWN weapons and equipment as non Romulan factions.
You can use this argument for every reputation out there, then.
Why would KDF/feds have to earn rep to get gear from Omega/Nukara Forces too, since both task forces are being financed by their own governments? All that equipment belongs to them already, so why do it?
Also, why wouldn't Feds and KDF get romulan gear too, since their governments are already sending crapload of help to Republic, and are sending ships to protect them from RSE? Isn't that already worth the stuff - just send us schematics, we will replicate/build the stuff ourselves.
I mean, our characters are mighty heroes who successfully defended their empires from countless threats, why do even have to bother about gear? Why don't we get all the best stuff by default after doing all those great things? Do our governments want their best heroes running around with TRIBBLE they had to scavenge during their heroic actions blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah....
It's MMO. You are expected to grind for some nice stuff, even if you are paying customer.
Actually, Fed and KDF DO get Romulan gear. That's what the Romulan Rep was all about.
Now as to the Feds and KDF "protecting" the Romulan Republic. Have you not played through ALL the factions? My Romulan does far more defending the Fedearation (running Fed episodes) than my Starfleet officer does running Romulan so called "protection". Seems to me (from palying both factions) that it is the Romulan Republic spending most of their time PROTECTING the Federation.
My point is that no faction should have to spend as much earning their OWN Reputaionm as they do earning another factions reputation.
Of course, I finished a story mission last night and sat there for about 10-15 seconds waiting for the mission end hail before I remembered I'd turned them off...
--Red Annorax
Are you sure your eyes aren't just broken? Because, if you did in fact read the thread, you'd have seen this:
As well as the subsequent paragraphs in the same post where I expanded on that comment.
And I don't "think he pops up every time you login," he does, in fact, pop up every single time I log in, on every single character - except my Klingon. And judging by others who have commented on him popping up for THEM, it's not just me or my game (especially since we are playing the same game).
But again, the popup itself isn't really the point of my original post. Sorry if my coming right out and explaining what the point was in a subsequent post wasn't clear enough.
You missed my point. I was counter-arguing that KDF/Feds are already paying for that and should't be required to grind rep in the first place. Because, save the tech, what are exactly romulans bringing to the table anyway?
You wouldn't be even flying anything better than T'Liss if it wasn't for Fed and KDF resources allowing Republic build a proper fleet in the first place.
And if you actually paid attention, you'd know most of the enemies you fight are romulan enemies too. True Way was paid by Tal Shiar to attack other romulan vessels; Breen - didn't they ask for Romulus as one of demands for joining Dominion ("Never turn your back on a Breen"); Borg and Undine - general threat to anyone.
And my point is, that by making exception to reputation system, you'd open pandora's box and further complicate entire situation.