Priority One; Episode 169 Al Geko interview

bitemepwe

Geko mentions a bunch of outdated missions from the early years of STO that he wishes to breathe new life into, one of those mentioned was the Fek'lhri front storyline.
A series of missions dealing with the Fek'lhri invasions, the Emperor Kahless and the Klingon afterlife.
BLOOD OF THE EMPIRE: There are reports of a battle in the Norgh system. You are sent to help.
DESTINY: Chancellor J'mpok wants you to report to Qo'nos to discuss the Fek'lhri threat.
AFTERLIFE: Emperor Kahless wants you to travel to Boreth. He tells you what to do in order to stop the Fek'lhri.
the GATES OF GRETHOR: (not to be confused with the Gates of Stovokor) Now in Grethor, you must face the four spectres of Cowardice, Treachery, and Dishonor then stop Molor from returning to the land of the living.

Any KDF player worth his honor has played these missions already and most Klingon fans find them to be top notch in story and graphics but since Geko has mentioned his desire to breathe fresh life into them what changes or additions would you like to see?

ooiue

Blood of the Empire:-

- Replace old Qo'nos map with the First City
- Replace old Shipyard with new one (albeit optional, it could the reason why the new one exists, idk, it'll just look better IMO)


Um.... other than that, I don't really know. There is a lot of combat in all the missions, but I personally like it that way (it is a KDF mission and I enjoy ground combat).

The Gates of Gre'thor mission seems fine to me in terms of combat, but the others do sometimes feel a little bit grindy.

Now that these missions might have an update in passing, I actually don't know what I would change xD, I like already - just a few updates to the maps and objects as mentioned above would do nicely

gulremal

They should fix that awful staircase glitch/texture screwup in the Great Hall map in "Blood of The Empire". It's really shameful such thing managed to slip by.

mimey2

Call me paranoid, but while I wouldn't be against redoing them to bring them to a higher quality, I would be worried the very story that is often praised would be made worse somehow.

shpoks

I don't really have much to say on the topic besides the floor and stairwyas in the Great Hall on Qo'noS in the 'Blood of the Empire' mission need fixing, because to a new player expericneing that the game would look like it's still in beta.

One other thing that I'd mention is the AI and the difficulty of the 'spirits' in Gre'thor, especially Molor. They need to be made a bit more difficult and be blessed with a better AI, so the combat would feel like really facing spirits and demons in the Klingon hell, rather than just roflstomping them. Especially Molor, Molor has always been the easiest to deal with and that doesn't sound right.
As it is, the final Fek'ihri boss when you return from the meditation back on Boreth is quite more challenging to defeat than all the mini-bosses in Gre'thor and that just doesn't seem right to me.

Other than that - I'm not really sure what more they could or need to do with these missions. This story arc is very good, highly praised and really doesn't need much work.
If they want to work on enhancing exisitng KDF storylines, they need to take a look on the mission right after the attack on Utopia Planetia when we liberate prisoners from a Federation penal facility. As it is, I go in with a shuttle, then confront Miranda Class ships one by one, blowing them up one by one even though there are like 10 of them flying around me - the 9 other ships don't seem to care that I'm blowing one of their comrades up. Now that's just stupid.

ashkrik23

Molor needs to be harder considering he's supposed to be te main boss besides Fek'lhr.

jestersage

Tie it further with the iconians. Give the KDF kar'fi an iconian upgrade as a hint of thigns to come.

bitemepwe

jestersage wrote: »

Tie it further with the iconians. Give the KDF kar'fi an iconian upgrade as a hint of thigns to come.

Possibly add a mission that kinda eludes to how the Fek'lhri of Klingon folklore where given life by the Iconians?

mimey2

I do agree that Molor is REALLY easy to kill.

A recommendation just for the future for anyone playing that series, especially while in Gre'thor:

Only go in with bat'leths. Especially if you are a Klingon and/or have Klingon BOFFs with you. It's a lot more enjoyable instead of running around, blasting things with weapons and skills.

Or do what I am planning to do in the near future: Solo them. Especially fighting the specters, Molor, and Fek'ihr. Fek'ihr is gonna be the hardest though honestly to take down by yourself. But the others would be an enjoyable fight.

shpoks

jestersage wrote: »

Tie it further with the iconians. Give the KDF kar'fi an iconian upgrade as a hint of thigns to come.

I don't want them to tie the Fek'ihri with the Iconians. Everything is so tied to the Iconians, it's slowly becomming boring. Then need to leave an opening for other possible storylines after we deal with the Iconians, and I want to believe that STO will last much much longer.

The Fek'ihri are a great opening to the return of the Hur'q. In the final episode there's a hint about this, when your science officer finds residual Hur'q DNA in the remains of Fek'ihr.
It could be a great KDF based storyline around the reurn of the Hur'q to seek revenge on the Klingons that banished them and forged an Empire by learning from their left over technology. Since there is a new accord, the other factions could be involved in the Hur'q conflict, furthermore - the last we heard of the Hur'q was from the Gamma Quadrant which also provides an opening to expand STO in that direction as well.

warmaker001b

From playing the old mission, I do miss the old Qo'nos map.

omegaphallic

How about the episodes acknoweldge that the Character might not be Klingon, and find some way of tieing the other races into what's going on.

shpoks

omegaphallic wrote: »

How about the episodes acknoweldge that the Character might not be Klingon, and find some way of tieing the other races into what's going on.

That would be wonderfull, but I'm not sure it's possible(not in terms of achievability, but more in terms of Cryptic interest and their calculations on cost efficency).
I don't remember 100% what it was about, but I remember Mr.Stahl saying that this would be very difficult and rewardless to implement a year or so ago.

But basically, besides a few isolated instances, the game treats you as eather an universal Starfleet Officer, a Klingon or a Romulan. These instances where species are reckognized may be an indication that it is possible to do it, but maybe it's just too much work.

greendragon527

omegaphallic wrote: »

How about the episodes acknoweldge that the Character might not be Klingon, and find some way of tieing the other races into what's going on.

True one of the few ways to revamp these eps. I'd like it if they updated the texture of the Shard Sword of Kahless.

icsairguns

I think they just need to make molor a little tuffer and fix the damn map in 1st city the missing floors looks bad.

possibly a little more direction when trying to get into grethor I remember my 1st time there I killed stuff for ages over and over before I noticed I was supposed to meditate infront of that shrine.

like somebody else said the mission they really need to fix are the rescue missions. that shuttle taking on mirandas over and over again is just silly. I know the point of it is not to be detected while interacting with the device but I have only managed that 3 times before I get detected LOL and then its fight fight fight.

I only play as a Klingon so I haven't noticed a problem with other species being called the wrong thing but I dislike being talked to as if I was federation scum. that needs fixed and a way to avoid the species issues would be just be addressed by rank, name or warrior.

and allot of people moan about KDF killing the crew of the fed ship. personally I don't have a problem killing them if it protects the mission but it maybe should have option as taking the survivors as prisoners for the slave market. now im not a slaver so I would kill them but some of these others might like that as a option.

coldicephoenix

Just the minor staircase/texture fixes.
Make Molor harder

Otherwise maybe leave it alone The episodes are fine as they are. If they want to do anything more, maybe add to it with new Episodes perhaps explaining how the events started and we get a proper closure.

This series is one that crosses fantasy with sci fi which is what makes it a hellva lot interesting than your generic scifi stories. Maybe even tie it with the Fury/Invasion series of novels if possible?

jaegernl

I've found those missions to be the most fun, actually. I'd prefer they leave them be. Especially the Fek'ihr chain was damn good.

Although, with one of the missions - for the life of me, I cannot remember the name - the floor was missing. That would be a nice addition. A floor. Happened on different characters and different PC's.

psycoticvulcan

If the Fek'Ihri are the result of technology/genetic engineering, does that mean we never actually went to Gre'thor? Where did we go? I'd like that to be addressed, or at least lampshaded.

Another thing: the invasion of Qo'noS needs to be MUCH bigger. Not just frigates in orbit, but huge fleets of Klingon and Fek'Ihri ships slugging it out "Sacrifice of Angels"-style. This is the capital of the Klingon Empire -- it needs to be huge.

Other than that, maybe just some bug fixes and reworking dialogue. Maybe make Kahless a bigger part of the story, and give him voiceovers.

cookiecrook

The Gates of Grethor arc is the best KDF content STO has in my opinion. I hope these missions are left in their current state. I would also like to see the return of one of the original missions where you went around vaporizing Tribble piles.

duncanidaho11

cookiecrook wrote: »

The Gates of Grethor arc is the best KDF content STO has in my opinion. I hope these missions are left in their current state. I would also like to see the return of one of the original missions where you went around vaporizing Tribble piles.

It is the best the KDF has to offer but it could certainly be better. The designs of STO's Chaos demons are solid but their mechanics could use quite a bit more focus. Likewise the general plot of the series is good but when you get down to the details of how missions are structured and combat laid out it's a little wanting. Removing the Breen is little more than sweeping a very crampled KDF interior (undermining the lead-up to Kahless) and once you get past the gates of Grethor you're not left with much besides some unfortunately basic RPG boss fights (which undermine STO.)

That could all be better setup and it could all be resolved in such a way that doesn't feel like such a cheap cop-out to the madness of the series (make it Q's doing, make it the KDF's Farpoint, not the assinine scheme of yet another sinister returning species from ST's general background [which can't hold a candle to the Iconians in any case and shouldn't be invoked to justify this series. Indulge in the insanity.])

duncanidaho11

f2pdrakron wrote: »

... Ugh.

To begin Encounter at Farpoint was Q judging mankind because mankind had reach a point were the Q had to take interest on them, it was NOT Q messing about just because and the series end hammer that point, the trial never ended.

Eh....That was my point. For humanity the test was in dealing with an unkown. However if the Q took an interest in the klingons then it probably wouldn't be for the same qualities (different species, different culture, though I shouldn't have to point this out.) A much more appropriate test for them may be to see how they deal with a known, their own mythology, to see if they're able to rise above it and become something more than just self-propelled weapons.

This is Q being Q, not a fixture for a mindless special event. What I mean by "indulge in the madness" is to let the arbitary breaking of reality stand as an arbitrary breaking of reality, rather than trying to weakly justify it at the end as some form of plausible bio-technological illusion.

the only flaws are that they could use some map upgrades as the monastery is just a underground level, I rather see the Boreth Monastery main levels besides just the lava caves and some cleaning up here and there in the flow, the fact the episode leads to a question is FINE, this inst MGS3 were everything have to be wrapped up, its FINE to leave questions up in the air.

Only flaws? The mission series can be easily described as a grind emboldened only by a remarkable setup. Every encounter is a hog pile of various baddies that have interesting mechanics but not aligned in a way that would live up to this series potential. FINE is one way to describe it but we could have something good if some effort was made to refine combat, level design, and plot.

Of course that's a worrisome possibility, giving up a known and acceptable quantity in order to explore an unknown potential, but of course there's episodes available of this very franchise to help you reconcile with that gap. TNG 01 for a start. :rolleyes: