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Do you think STO deserves more?
cavalerius
Member Posts: 126 Arc User
The Star Trek franchise is a multi-billion dollar industry that first started in 1966. Since then, it has created a fan-cult of well over 10 million people, or shall I say Trekkies. That easily overtakes Star Wars or any other Sci-Fi franchise in popularity and price.
Unfortunately, Trek content has been brought to a trickle in recent years with no new TV series currently airing. The only content is the JJ-verse Trek which just doesn't cut it for most fans, and then there's Star Trek Online.
Now you'd think that a game based on the Star Trek IP would become a legend, especially since it is the only Prime-verse content being released. Just think of all of those potential fans sinking money into Cryptic. However after five years of work, the game still resembles other casual MMO games that exist in the heavily over-saturated MMO market with only a few Trekkies being tapped for income. In terms of immersion, complexity and fame STO is no where near WoW or Eve Online, and it is to soon be overtaken by Star Citizen and Destiny.
Do you think this is alright for Star Trek, a well established franchise to take a back seat in today's entertainment sector? Do you think STO deserves more, or should it simply wither away into the shadows?
Unfortunately, Trek content has been brought to a trickle in recent years with no new TV series currently airing. The only content is the JJ-verse Trek which just doesn't cut it for most fans, and then there's Star Trek Online.
Now you'd think that a game based on the Star Trek IP would become a legend, especially since it is the only Prime-verse content being released. Just think of all of those potential fans sinking money into Cryptic. However after five years of work, the game still resembles other casual MMO games that exist in the heavily over-saturated MMO market with only a few Trekkies being tapped for income. In terms of immersion, complexity and fame STO is no where near WoW or Eve Online, and it is to soon be overtaken by Star Citizen and Destiny.
Do you think this is alright for Star Trek, a well established franchise to take a back seat in today's entertainment sector? Do you think STO deserves more, or should it simply wither away into the shadows?
Beta Antares Shipyards advanced Starship development project.
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SUPPORT LOGICAL FEDERATION STARSHIP DESIGNS!
Post edited by cavalerius on
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Comments
Over take Star Wars???? I would Reaaaaaalllly like to see the numbers on where you pulled that one out of.
Not till the Nu Trek did Star Trek really start being mainstream.
CRUISERS NEED A 206% HULL BUFF
As for STO? It will wither and die. Their main source of revenue is ships. Soon they will run out of different ship layouts (BOff seating, console slots, etc.). So they will either:
A) Stop selling ships: the game has no more money and dies.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Yeah, Trekkies on the whole are one of the older fandoms. A lot of them aren't gamers, and fewer of them are hardcore raiders. I'm not sure I'd still be playing this game if I had to work for two months for every single piece of gear I wanted. I don't need a game that's a second job.
Also, Destiny is overhyped and if Star Citizen ever reaches a state that can even charitably be called "finished" (let alone deliver on all it's promises), then I'll eat my hat. Reminds me of when every thread was about how SWTOR was going to come in and wreck our ****, and look how that turned out.
Do you have actual proof that the only revenue is ships? Ships are a one time buy for each person that buys one. That one time $15-$25 every couple of months is not what keeps it going. All the little purchases, Lock boxes, keys, subs, ect help out also. I would think if it were to "wither and die", we wouldn't be seeing FE like the last one, increased graphics, ect. All that cost more and more money.
As to the OP, STO is a game, designed by fans, and played by fans. It didn't set out to carry on the franchise of Star Trek. That would be up to CBS and Paramount. So it holds no responsibility to be "better" for Star Trek. I'm personally just happy that we have this world to play in as fans of Trek. Gives us something else besides re-watching series and movies.
What are lockboxes based around? What are the only items added consistently to the C-Store? It's pretty obvious.
It's still silly, because F2P games make a lot of money by having no barriers to entry. The goal is to bring in new people to buy the ships, not just to release them. I've talked to more new players in the past year than I have in the two years before that, since STO is actually coming off of it's most successful year yet.
Of course, ship releases ARE a big deal, which means they'll have to design around the limitations of the BOFF/console system . . . after they've put out all the ship combinations . . . after they've put them out for all factions . . . after they've put in some kind of upgrade system . . . after they've revamped BOFF powers.
These threads are happening because that's what always happens during down-seasons between big releases. Devs get busy and put out a season with a new mission or two, a new rep, and a new fleet holding, and then go to work on the next big update while the forums begin to slowly lose their minds. It's been like that since Season 7.
i would never place trek above all the other great sci fi series out there, lets not forget these others. all this stupid debating about trek vs sw and such, we are all one in the same, space opera nerds and proud of it and sometimes someone gets a bizarre idea about how they see something in canon and create something around it only to mutilate, butcher and destroy its soul for a pretty penny, many fans dont like that type of thing because its a perversion to the established canon. some series was more flexible then others like star wars until they had to hire that awful jar jar abrams and invalidate EU just for the hell of it so he can try to control the series for his own gain like he tried with trek. he failed with trek because those who saw the canon trek dont like the way he destroyed it, some see the major plotholes, large enough earth can fit through it, others because they hated jj from the start and knew nothing good would come from it it. (to be clear on my end i dont consider jjcrapverse canon and no matter who or what anyone states im not paying any attention to it, he tried to destroy star trek and thats unforgivable. however some of his series outside sci-fi have been grand like person of interest, season 3 was fantastic to watch. he isnt any good at sci fi and his lens flares but he can do somethings well, lost was good as were a few others of his work).
as far as trek goes though, for now there is probably gonna be a few decades before cbs passes it off to another person or tv station that will take the risk to push for another prime universe series, and look at the difference in time between tos end and tng starting, almost 20 years, after tng a whole slew of sci-fi came recently ending with stargate. but as far as trek series goes it ended with enterprise not long ago in 05. there is still life yet in trek, its not a dead duck and cbs would be even more foolish to destroy the whole franchise considering its a gold mine.
notice i havent stated anything about the films in great detail? thats paramount who controls that, cbs cant do nothing about that bit. if paramount want to get another trek film out, they can, but its entirely upto them what happens next beyond Orci's trek 3.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
They've done things with this engine that I didn't think they'd manage to pull off. While there are certainly rough edges, things like the new ESD blow me away. And the story has gotten progressively better, keeping in mind the limits within which they're working with this engine and the continuity so far.
(For example: I'm sure they would have LOVED to make Romulans a full faction, but with the game having been rushed into production in the first place with 1.5 factions and the engine and everything else only written for two, that would be almost impossible to pull off without jacking up the game and stuffing a new engine under it. Then they'd still need to figure out how to "take away" an allied faction after it's no longer needed, or junk the existing story.)
So the short-term is taken care of, but it will no doubt wither and die at some point.
After that, I believe a clean-sheet STO2 is the only salvation. I'm not optimistic that it'll happen, nor that it would be any better in terms of the content-to-grind-and-pay ratio we have now, especially if PWE is still in charge. But at this point, STO has gone too far to fix he big things, and the little things keep piling up, despite Cryptic's best efforts. (And I truly believe they're giving their all, within the limitations of the mothership's edicts.)
If an STO2 did happen, and PWE didn't manage to ruin it before it even got written, here's what it would have to have to succeed (dons flame-proof hazmat suit):
- NO F2P! I don't fault F2P players, but there simply isn't enough money in content when you have a game dependent on selling shinies. Traditional for-pay expansions help a little, but you still can't have a content-based game that's F2P. The math just doesn't work.
- Modest realistic targets. Don't try to be the next WoW. Every game does and every game fails. Remember, when WoW launched, it wasn't trying to be the next EverQuest (the king at the time). They had a flexible plan with modest targets that would make it profitable, with a plan to scale up if it took off. (Granted, the actual response outdid all of their plans, and they ended up scrambling anyway, but at least they knew which direction to scramble.)
- True 3D space. I'm sorry...this was one of the most-discussed things over the first couple years of the game, and it's no less true now than it was then: space is 3D and you need to be able to see and experience that for real. People manage to navigate in 3D in shooters, drivers, fliers...they'll manage it here.
- More than two factions and no full-out war. At its core, and at a minimum, Star Trek has always been about the cold war between three major factions: Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. That's when Trek is at its best. You never know which of the other two will stab you in the back, or which one will make a good temporary ally until somebody gets greedy or stupid. I'd like to say "the more factions the better", but practicality limits this. If four of five could be done without breaking the bank, so much the better. But at a minimum, you have to do the Big Three.
- PvP and PvE that works. Yes, this is hard. Balancing becomes twice as hard. But SWTOR manages it. I can't speak to WoW, as I haven't played that since shortly after launch. And SWTOR has to work their butts off to manage it, and still nobody's happy if you read the forums. But the continued presence of plenty of people in both PvE and PvP there says that they're succeeding to some extent.
- For PvE: tons of story that's accessible to single- or multi-player. SWTOR caters too much to single-player. STO gives up depth in favor of multi-player friendliness and, in the later FEs, pulls an abrupt about-face and dumps multi-player ability completely. STO actually used to have tons more quantity of story, but half the quality wasn't so good. System patrols and exploration sectors used to be a big part of leveling. Yes, they sucked compared to the rest of the content, and it was the right decision to eliminate them. But with them in the game, the QUANTITY was right.
- Ignore the 5-10% of people who will consume the whole game in a week and then cry "where's the content?" There will always be that minority, and nothing you do will prevent them from getting bored and moving on to the next game, or staying here and crying about it for three or four years. On the other hand, ultra-casuals (another 5-10%) who complain about how it takes SO LONG to level because they play one hour every 1-4 weeks. Sorry, I'm casual, but there is such a thing as too casual. Some people don't play enough to EVER finish the game, and those are people who will eventually cancel their account three years later and give up their 15th level character. Cater to the mainstream, and find a way to capture their opinions reliably. In-game surveys that don't get in the way of the action seem to me to be the best, but it has to be done just right to strike the balance between non-intrusive and yet prominent enough to get sizable response.
- Plan for later expansion BEFORE rolling out the game, and come hell or high water, STICK TO THE PLAN. Power creep is almost invariably a symptom of abandoning a pre-made plan for expansion and asking "well, now what do we give them?" And as often as not, it's a response to slow expansion rollouts or a forced F2P transition. Make sure there's an incentive to upgrade to the latest shiniest stuff via new content without making the old stuff worthless. If you're going to let Admirals in the game, start out with the cap at Captain. Then plan for Admirals to have their own small fleets. ROLL THAT TECH INTO THE GAME, even if nothing uses it yet. Or at least work on that tech, and get it pretty close to ready before launch. Then roll out the higher level equipment, the higher character levels, and the harder content together, as a unit. You need one to conquer the other, and achieve the third.
- Keep it Trek. Cryptic's done a pretty good job of that with STO, but there are some areas where it gets a bit silly. Dinosaurs? Seriously? I know that one's been beat to death, but it's kind of blatant. And a lot of story has a "fire first, ask questions later" mentality that may be partially the war and is likely partially the initial at-launch lack of tech to do interactive story content like negotiation. Starfleet negotiates. Klingons fire. Romulans scheme. This needs to be in the very DNA of the game, and reflected in the tech so you don't need to compromise the integrity of a story later on.
- Starships need to feel like starships. Right now, everything is too...well...twitch-gamey. Watch the episodes and watch the movies. Things aren't decided by a millisecond or a tenth of a second; they're decided by a second, or two, or (think Wrathof Khan here) Kirk's failure to put the shields up for a full five seconds or so after he KNOWS it's a trap and that "oh sh*t" look has crossed his face. The trinity of career shouldn't necessarily translate to ship. Find a different way to separate the ships out, as opposed to the captains. Size, power, and armament are the keys. Science ability isn't what you think of in combat, and as a result here, it's been a bit neglected and (weirdly enough) kinda overpowered and shoehorned in.
Well, that's quite a lot more than I intended to write. Hopefully, some will find it useful. For those who will attack the author or carpet-bomb with snark, your opinion is irrelevant to me.
See you in-game.
TL;DR: There isn't one. Go back and read, or skip it. Don't worry, I won't feel a thing.
if there is to be the next big star trek mmo and cbs allowed it and it strictly defined in canon and it has far more potential then sto? then sto is a dead duck after that. its just a matter of whats around for the fanbase.
does sto deserve more? thats impossible to answer because its dictated to by the dev team and how they see it, regardless sto is set on a path and thats done. if it was to be sold to another group, then i could answer that question when we know exactly whom and what, resources and staff, their quality and so on. but yes for now, its doing well considering but at some point sto will fall in numbers far enough that pwe will kill it off, that will happen be it when star citizen comes or in a decade from now, whatever. doom thread besides the point, will it survive is another matter and will see how strong trekkies cling to the game.
the devs do seem to be putting more and more grind into it recently, more then a fair bit. but the answer depends on the player.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
But it's easier grind - reduced grind. More grind that's less grind.
Consider the Rep Grind, how that was initially, eh?
Then add in the Sponsorship Tokens.
Then remove the Commodity costs.
Then add in the Daily Bonus.
Consider the Event Ship Grind, how that was initially, eh?
Then add in a 96% discount for alts.
Consider the PVE Content, how that was initially, eh?
Then add in the various nerfs to the content.
Then add in the saturation of powercreep.
Yep, they want you to log in every day...but they realized that folks logging in and having to spend all their time on what they saw as a grind led to folks not bothering to log in.
Boom...have some quick 'n easy things for folks to do, then they can spend the rest of their time doing other stuff that they might enjoy...and it works out for both the player and Cryptic.
Leaving only that special group to complain that there's any sort of grind in the game...
They do things half-assed, push it out and move to some new-soon-to-be half-assed job. Crafting? What happened there?
They like to push out ships and not so much on the content. Despite contrary belief, PvP is a big joke and when they do PvE missions, we get a couple of solo missions and a few 5 man missions. That's it. Like stated, they like to make ships, but the bridge officer station system is very shallow and they will run out of options for ship layouts leaving them to go around in circles, or just reskinning old ships.
The rep system had merit, but it's a massive grind with not a whole lot of ways to make marks that don't include running a few missions over and over again. Maybe it'd be better with a mark exchange, but they won't do that. They're not about doing the right thing.
Good thing it's free to play.
It could've been [X], instead we got [Y]. It's okay, and it's fun sometimes, but it doesn't do the IP enough justice.
Then the next expansion comes and we're all aboard the "Cryptic is Awesome!" bandwagon again. Six months later? We're back to being bored and complaining.
I think they should get a team together and go over the story content myself and make it feel more like TOR, especially in the early stuff before you learn about teams and the like and tune it both to faction and in some cases race... like for example telepaths on the ground would get the option to get an insight to the NPC's state of mind so you could use that knowledge to avoid conflict or perhaps in some situations you could use it to turn one potential enemy on another and use it as a distraction to leave unharmed etc, etc.
Continuing on that note, expand it throughout the rest of the story content, P'Jem, completely avoidable conflict, all we need is an option to investigate and take it from there.
The NPC ships should be player level in terms of capability... hull strength, shields, boff seating, etc should all be the shame as on the player version of the ship, the actual abilities chosen may be different and I think apart from scripted fights the AI should choose them upon spawning the ship although to a degree it should be randomised such that you don't get the exact same experience fighting two of a class of ship.
Talking of AI... it needs well... intelligence, it needs to fight back rather than being built to lose, it should be built such that players have to think and the difficulty level in the options should decide how well the AI chooses abilities, how well it flies the ships, etc, etc... it shouldn't decide how much health the ships have or how much damage the weapons or abilities do and they should hire a team of AI specialists to make this happen, once the AI is there it's gamewide it's a one time job then you just need to keep one of the team on to maintain it.
Personally I think some PVE queued missions should be both longer and harder as it gives you a reason then to upgrade your ships and in some cases, more reason to play the game and some of these missions should give out rep gear as per the pre-rep STFs as this again gives an incentive to play the game, you feel like you earned that bit of gear rather than blazing through 5 minutes of content, moving a few sliders and "Oh... I have this gear now" with a sarcastic "yippie" it's "I played through this and I have this thing now, yay!"
I also agree with other posters who say that ship size should determine armament and HP and the boff seating should reflect that whereas the smaller ships should get less conventional weapons and less HP but they should get non conventional weapons that are actually worth having, tricks that can put the bigger ships on compromising positions and that reduce the damage coming in such that they actually have similar capabilities but each one shine in different scenarios and there should be some scenarios (like in some of the longer missions mentioned above) where both sets of capabilites are needed for best results.
I know that somebody mentioned balance being difficult to achieve in the game. I see this as self-inflicted by the devs, they have built a game where the AI flails at you with very powerful (or very weak) weapons and little co-ordination and then tried to incorporate pvp into this system, what they found was that it simply wont go, it doesn't work.. the thing is that to anyone who looks at this immediately notices that the two systems are clearly incompatible done that way. If you reverse the premise - build balance around PVP where two people (or two groups of people if you would rather) are trying to work a way of defeating one another, this way you have a solid foundation for pvp, on this you are then free to build whatever kind of PVE you want, this doesn't have to make it a "pvp game" but it does make pvp viable in the game without overpowered/underpowered abilities or gear while maintaining the pve that currently exists and allowing for an AI to incorporated that actually challenges the player with the full range of available skills.
I've run out of things to say now...
TLDR: -
1: Story should be revamped to be based on character faction, specialisation and race (maybe even gender but that's optional)
2: AI needs a complete overhaul and the combat rebuilt to account for it giving the NPC ships the same potential as player ships
3: PVE needs more missions that test the player and occupy them for longer with their own inbuilt stories, the rewards should include rep level gear, this could include an actual rep system with shorter content as well.
4: Balance needs to be re-arranged to be built on PvP rather than PvE which would still allow for all PVE to exist as it is while fixing most of the PVP problems.
Like with SWTOR. Or TESO. Or so many of them in the past.
I'm backer for star citizen (not much, but still), since I was a huge fan of freelancer. But comparing sto to this game is like comparing a total war to cod. As for destiny, it will be console only (no pc), and a MMOFPS.
So yeah, except for the fact that both of them are sci fi and videogames, they have nothing in common.
Find better for trolling.
STO is getting what it "deserves." That's sort of how the game business works.
ding ding ding
"Let's play WOW and get snubbed by the uber cliques..er guilds and get ganked every time you run into a pvp event by a level whatever they are up to ( I quit at level 70)
or
"lets play EVE online and watch 4 weeks of grinding go down the tubes because you can't go into a non safe zone without the uber guilds ganking you...
and it's happening here (on the forum) not in game YET the Fleet cliques demanding more and more while casual players who don't WANT to contribute 8 hours a day worth of grinding to the fleet