dont need to you made your point about what this thread is very clear not once but twice and that to find ppl who agree with you on "exploration missions were being used to beat the system"
Considering the truths that are coming out in this thread you look kinda silly.
It's an easy dilithium farm...especially when ran by those with an army of alts.
It's also a way to quickly farm the cluster DOff missions.
So go on pretending you all do it for the "exploration" all you want. It's obviously not true.
keep in mind what you think is the truth and alts............. then they should make the game to where no one can have alta because alts are used to beat the system your very on logic
dont need to you made your point about what this thread is very clear not once but twice and that to find ppl who agree with you on "exploration missions were being used to beat the system"
The exploration missions were really, really terrible. Most of the people who are upset were using freighters on an alt account to invite all their characters around for doffing, which isn't really an exploit but was probably getting out of hand.
I have some hopes related to exploration in expansion 2. There isn't a whole lot else to do in the Delta Quadrant.
The exploration missions were really, really terrible. Most of the people who are upset were using freighters on an alt account to invite all their characters around for doffing, which isn't really an exploit but was probably getting out of hand.
Exactly.
But they'll deny it to their dying day. And they'll just whine about they liked the content.
Also, it's really easy to farm Dilithium if you don't do the combat missions.
Also, it's really easy to farm Dilithium if you don't do the combat missions.
Sorry still no ... especially since the Dilithium Reward is on a daily basis ... "Oh boy what should I do ... getting 1440 every 20 hours from Exploration Clusters, or 8000+ within 1h of Dino Tagging"
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Sorry, exploration is not profitable, so what little there was, will now be removed from the game. Bye.
The problem is that exploration would require REGULAR publishing of content. They did it for a while and then let it die, not even fixing the extremely bugged missions that have been in there since since they were first introduced. They did it for free, at least without having the player to pay directly to play the content.
They need to pay the designers and devs for their time to be able to create quality content on a regular basis.
They could get creative and, dare I say it, create Exploration Reputation and tie in Dilithium and maybe even C-Store stuff... but... they would still have to create REGULAR content for it because players would want to explore NEW places, not the same ones OVER And OVER and OVER again. This would be a big time sink that would take them away from creating things that they directly profit from, like MORE ships.
The only way around this is to ask the player to pay for the content directly, either through grinding and RL $$$. Players would reject this idea, from a game that content is available without directly paying for it.
So there you have it, in an MMO that wants to profit and offers "free" content on a semi-regular basis, you can't have exploration.
Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home' SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
Exploration doesn't necessarily need scripted content, at the recent e3 No Man's Sky features automatically generated environments, space dinosaurs, starships and alien wildlife - sounds like what the exploration missions should be.
Well, there's something like 850 Accolade points for accolades that many people will never be able to finish. Also, Star Trek is sort of supposed to be about exploration. Instead of working on a useless update to a crafting system that no sane person would use, it might have been better to field some ideas to make exploration more fun and not just get rid of it.
But they'll deny it to their dying day. And they'll just whine about they liked the content.
Also, it's really easy to farm Dilithium if you don't do the combat missions.
It wasn't really an easy way to farm dilithium. It was a stupid way to farm dilithium, and anyone smart used other methods.
When Cryptic says "these missions were terrible and new players were finding them and getting a bad impression of the game," they're telling the truth. Combined with very few people actually playing them, that's reason enough to remove them.
Sorry, exploration is not profitable, so what little there was, will now be removed from the game. Bye.
The problem is that exploration would require REGULAR publishing of content. They did it for a while and then let it die, not even fixing the extremely bugged missions that have been in there since since they were first introduced. They did it for free, at least without having the player to pay directly to play the content.
I don't think they ever added new exploration missions. The missions we have now were pretty much what we had since launch, I think. Except maybe plus a few bugfixes (which, as you said, they eventually gave up on, at least seemingly.).
It seems a waste of time to set the team on making a few "scan 5 missions", and anything more than that - well, we know how long it takes for them to make a good featured episode - a good exploration mission would take just as much time. You could make shorter missions and more of them, but in the end, the overall content will not be more - and with featured episodes, they advance the storyline, which is something many are interested in.
Playing foundry missions should have a special exploration cluster interface - so that missions can be designed to start in the exploration clusters and you will get them offered when you approach one of the cluster nebulaes. (Be it random or with the usual foundry interface, except filtered for missions starting at this point). That may be almost a quick-win... (I suspect it's not that quick).
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Considering the truths that are coming out in this thread you look kinda silly.
It's an easy dilithium farm...especially when ran by those with an army of alts.
It's also a way to quickly farm the cluster DOff missions.
So go on pretending you all do it for the "exploration" all you want. It's obviously not true.
First, the Voth ground warzone is a much better source of dilithium, as there is only a single exploration daily.
Second, the only people concerned with the Doff missions are those with freighters and cell ships; who are a minority even amongst those who visit the clusters.
Third, it is in fact the least repetitive content in the game. Sure there are only a handful of mission types, but you never know which ones you are going to get; as opposed to story missions and queued events which are the same every time. This added an essential Treky-ness to the game for some of us.
Fourth, some of us have actually been hoping that Cryptic would improve the exploration someday; and the reason we are now so ticked off is that Cryptic has just demonstrated, in the strongest possible terms, that they do not care to do so (despite repeated claims that revamping exploration has been on their to do list).
Fifth, their reasons for removing it make no sense. It's not like the size of the files can be coming as a surprise to them; they made the dang thing. Who ever takes stuff out of an MMO because it's taking up too much disk space anyway? Has that ever happened in any other game?
Fourth, some of us have actually been hoping that Cryptic would improve the exploration someday; and the reason we are now so ticked off is that Cryptic has just demonstrated, in the strongest possible terms, that they do not care to do so (despite repeated claims that revamping exploration has been on their to do list).
I think Crafting is now remade the second time, and both times it was majorly overhauled, with little of the original stuff surviving.
Why wouldn't an exploration revamp result in the same thing?
Maybe the exploration revamp is actually what the expansion will bring. Maybe not. But just because they get rid of a poor exploration system doesn't mean they will never give us an exploration system again.
Fifth, their reasons for removing it make no sense. It's not like the size of the files can be coming as a surprise to them; they made the dang thing. Who ever takes stuff out of an MMO because it's taking up too much disk space anyway? Has that ever happened in any other game?
They knew how big it would be, but they didn't know how little use it would see, and how many new players it would cost them. There is a difference between 500MB content everyone plays all day, and 500 MB of content where you can show that people that played this content left your game and never came back.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Free purple doffs, either for use or to throw into the grinder to get whites for starbases. If the clusters are going away and no other source added in their place, I expect doff prices to increase significantly.
Well we don't have access to the clusters anymore, but the 19th patch notes specifically state that the related Doff missions are still there - we simply access them at the borders now
So they aren't gone
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
When Cryptic says "these missions were terrible and new players were finding them and getting a bad impression of the game," they're telling the truth. Combined with very few people actually playing them, that's reason enough to remove them.
That's what happens when you are starting up, trying to get SOME sort of content out there to keep players interested with your game. There was no real long-term plan to maintain it, just crank out (poor quality-non tested) content until you get a better idea to keep players coming back (profits) without having to do so much work (loss).
Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home' SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
I think Crafting is now remade the second time, and both times it was majorly overhauled, with little of the original stuff surviving.
Why wouldn't an exploration revamp result in the same thing?
Maybe the exploration revamp is actually what the expansion will bring. Maybe not. But just because they get rid of a poor exploration system doesn't mean they will never give us an exploration system again.
Did they ever rip crafting out without putting in something else, or even mentioning whether or not there would be a replacement? No, they didn't.
It certainly is possible that they have something new up their sleeves; I've observed elsewhere that what they won't talk about is getting rather conspicuous.
However, that hope that they would revamp exploration has been my source of faith in this game and Cryptic themselves for a few years now. The offhand and dismissive manner in which the removal of the clusters was revealed makes me think that they just don't feel that it's important; so I am not going to just take it on faith that it'll all work out anymore.
To heck with their NDAs. If Cryptic has news about exploration to share they need to do it sooner rather than later if they want folks to settle down.
They knew how big it would be, but they didn't know how little use it would see, and how many new players it would cost them. There is a difference between 500MB content everyone plays all day, and 500 MB of content where you can show that people that played this content left your game and never came back.
=> there is no difference for new players ... are you telling me everyone of these guys who got lost, already knew the 500MB Content sucked, and got lost despite of knowing it ....
It can't be both ... it's either
- "Oh boy the game client is too big & btw 500MB of bad Exploration ... nah I'll pass on that"
or
- "What's Exploration ... I'm lost ..."
_____
Besides : Patrol Missions are still in the game ... exact same design (Scan 5 Things etc, Shoot 5 Enemy Groups) ... no problems there, though ... they just removed it from the regular Mission Log ... but you can't do this with Exp. Clusters because !?! ....
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I don't think they ever added new exploration missions. The missions we have now were pretty much what we had since launch, I think. Except maybe plus a few bugfixes (which, as you said, they eventually gave up on, at least seemingly.).
It seems a waste of time to set the team on making a few "scan 5 missions", and anything more than that - well, we know how long it takes for them to make a good featured episode - a good exploration mission would take just as much time. You could make shorter missions and more of them, but in the end, the overall content will not be more - and with featured episodes, they advance the storyline, which is something many are interested in.
Playing foundry missions should have a special exploration cluster interface - so that missions can be designed to start in the exploration clusters and you will get them offered when you approach one of the cluster nebulaes. (Be it random or with the usual foundry interface, except filtered for missions starting at this point). That may be almost a quick-win... (I suspect it's not that quick).
So many of the Star Trek TV episodes were not story-arc based but still interesting. I'm sure that if they were motivated enough Christine would be able to create some really nice short stories.
In a recent episode of Priority One (172?), Captain Geko said that they are considering using Foundry episodes as exploration missions, at least that is what I understand. I would like to see the Foundry episodes used this way and be able to contribute more to the authors as well.
Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home' SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
Shoot Enemy XY in Adventure Zone ZY for Reputation YZ
Sorry still no ... especially since the Dilithium Reward is on a daily basis ... "Oh boy what should I do ... getting 1440 every 20 hours from Exploration Clusters, or 8000+ within 1h of Dino Tagging"
I mean that whole part of the game was just boredom incarnate...yet there are all of these people who seem to be REALLY upset they are going away.
It just makes no sense.
I don't find them at all boring. Yes, they have many bugs which need to be repaired (teammates winding up in separate instances, NPC enemies on top of buildings too high to shoot so you must either exit and do another or exit and redo the entire mission in the hope that they will be accessible when you go back in, getting stuck somewhere inside the map when you try to beam out, bad tiles, people not getting rewards for doing them apart from a little expertise and some loot drops even when they have "We Need Breathing Room" active, some less than exciting missions -- although this isn't a bug as such -- and those are just for starters), but those issues could be fixed. I love exploring the D'Kel Star Cluster; the very idea of exploring a star cluster seems very romantic to me. I love the gorgeous scenery in some of the maps in all of these exploration zones, things you don't see anywhere else in-game. I love encountering strange alien species not otherwise seen in STO. I love destroying biodomes and enemy ships. I love exploring these maps, even when all the objectives have been completed, all loot taken, and all anomalies scanned. Some of them are so stunning. To quote a song from the '60s: "How dare they try to end this beauty? How dare they try to end this beauty? Walking in space ..."
And they would see more activity if we could get rewards for each of them every day, instead of only one per 20 hours. The Empire Defense missions, for example, can all be done in the same 20 hour time period and each has a reward. I don't see any reason why I should not be able to Explore the Asleza Expanse at normal and then at Lieutenant General, then Explore the Eridon Nebula, then Explore the D'Kel Star Cluster, and then Explore the T'Ong Nebula, and get 1440 Dilithium Ore for each one (a total of 7200 Dilithium Ore). This is one of those Circular Reasoning things like "KDF doesn't give sufficient RoI, so we're not going to invest much time and effort in KDF, which means we won't get as much RoI as we could if we actually took the time and made the effort to make KDF more appealing." THAT is what makes no sense. Of course you're not going to get much profit out of a faction that gets less attention than other factions. By the same token, of course the exploration zones aren't going to be as active as other zones because of the limit on what you can get out of them.
YMMV. Thankfully, we are not identical clones and each have our own likes and dislikes.
I hope Cryptic is only taking them out temporarily in order to fix the issues I have listed above, as well as other issues I didn't include, and will add them back in later when they have been made less buggy. Better yet would be leaving them in and fixing them as time goes on.
You think all these people with 30 alts play them for fun?
So you can't do the Voth BZ with an "army of alts" ? ... please enlighten me ...
Again who are these mystery people you constantly talk of ... obviously it's nobody in the Forums ... because there is nobody whining just theorizing ...
keep in mind what you think is the truth and alts............. then they should make the game to where no one can have alta because alts are used to beat the system your very on logic
I used them for running Duty Officer missions that had a chance to obtain a purple duty officer of a known type, or a refugee that could be used to potentially obtain unbound duty officers. It is a prospecting-like feature of the game that I very much enjoy.
Comments
dont need to you made your point about what this thread is very clear not once but twice and that to find ppl who agree with you on "exploration missions were being used to beat the system"
system Lord Baal is dead
Considering the truths that are coming out in this thread you look kinda silly.
It's an easy dilithium farm...especially when ran by those with an army of alts.
It's also a way to quickly farm the cluster DOff missions.
So go on pretending you all do it for the "exploration" all you want. It's obviously not true.
keep in mind what you think is the truth
system Lord Baal is dead
Proud of your ignorance, aye.
No it's not ... if you really think this way, the Dyson BZ must be new for you ...
I have some hopes related to exploration in expansion 2. There isn't a whole lot else to do in the Delta Quadrant.
...is being shown to be true.
ICE or KVE is even easier.
No one does it for the Dil, and you don't do the missions for Doffs.
Exactly.
But they'll deny it to their dying day. And they'll just whine about they liked the content.
Also, it's really easy to farm Dilithium if you don't do the combat missions.
Shoot Enemy XY in Adventure Zone ZY for Reputation YZ
Sorry still no ... especially since the Dilithium Reward is on a daily basis ... "Oh boy what should I do ... getting 1440 every 20 hours from Exploration Clusters, or 8000+ within 1h of Dino Tagging"
The problem is that exploration would require REGULAR publishing of content. They did it for a while and then let it die, not even fixing the extremely bugged missions that have been in there since since they were first introduced. They did it for free, at least without having the player to pay directly to play the content.
They need to pay the designers and devs for their time to be able to create quality content on a regular basis.
They could get creative and, dare I say it, create Exploration Reputation and tie in Dilithium and maybe even C-Store stuff... but... they would still have to create REGULAR content for it because players would want to explore NEW places, not the same ones OVER And OVER and OVER again. This would be a big time sink that would take them away from creating things that they directly profit from, like MORE ships.
The only way around this is to ask the player to pay for the content directly, either through grinding and RL $$$. Players would reject this idea, from a game that content is available without directly paying for it.
So there you have it, in an MMO that wants to profit and offers "free" content on a semi-regular basis, you can't have exploration.
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
way he talks and looking for his witch hunt dont think he has ever done a exploration missions let alone a daily for them
system Lord Baal is dead
Do you know its cryptic we talking about, right?
It wasn't really an easy way to farm dilithium. It was a stupid way to farm dilithium, and anyone smart used other methods.
When Cryptic says "these missions were terrible and new players were finding them and getting a bad impression of the game," they're telling the truth. Combined with very few people actually playing them, that's reason enough to remove them.
I do not hate myself enough to grind out exploration accolades.
I don't think they ever added new exploration missions. The missions we have now were pretty much what we had since launch, I think. Except maybe plus a few bugfixes (which, as you said, they eventually gave up on, at least seemingly.).
It seems a waste of time to set the team on making a few "scan 5 missions", and anything more than that - well, we know how long it takes for them to make a good featured episode - a good exploration mission would take just as much time. You could make shorter missions and more of them, but in the end, the overall content will not be more - and with featured episodes, they advance the storyline, which is something many are interested in.
Playing foundry missions should have a special exploration cluster interface - so that missions can be designed to start in the exploration clusters and you will get them offered when you approach one of the cluster nebulaes. (Be it random or with the usual foundry interface, except filtered for missions starting at this point). That may be almost a quick-win... (I suspect it's not that quick).
First, the Voth ground warzone is a much better source of dilithium, as there is only a single exploration daily.
Second, the only people concerned with the Doff missions are those with freighters and cell ships; who are a minority even amongst those who visit the clusters.
Third, it is in fact the least repetitive content in the game. Sure there are only a handful of mission types, but you never know which ones you are going to get; as opposed to story missions and queued events which are the same every time. This added an essential Treky-ness to the game for some of us.
Fourth, some of us have actually been hoping that Cryptic would improve the exploration someday; and the reason we are now so ticked off is that Cryptic has just demonstrated, in the strongest possible terms, that they do not care to do so (despite repeated claims that revamping exploration has been on their to do list).
Fifth, their reasons for removing it make no sense. It's not like the size of the files can be coming as a surprise to them; they made the dang thing. Who ever takes stuff out of an MMO because it's taking up too much disk space anyway? Has that ever happened in any other game?
Why wouldn't an exploration revamp result in the same thing?
Maybe the exploration revamp is actually what the expansion will bring. Maybe not. But just because they get rid of a poor exploration system doesn't mean they will never give us an exploration system again.
They knew how big it would be, but they didn't know how little use it would see, and how many new players it would cost them. There is a difference between 500MB content everyone plays all day, and 500 MB of content where you can show that people that played this content left your game and never came back.
So they aren't gone
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
That's what happens when you are starting up, trying to get SOME sort of content out there to keep players interested with your game. There was no real long-term plan to maintain it, just crank out (poor quality-non tested) content until you get a better idea to keep players coming back (profits) without having to do so much work (loss).
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
Did they ever rip crafting out without putting in something else, or even mentioning whether or not there would be a replacement? No, they didn't.
It certainly is possible that they have something new up their sleeves; I've observed elsewhere that what they won't talk about is getting rather conspicuous.
However, that hope that they would revamp exploration has been my source of faith in this game and Cryptic themselves for a few years now. The offhand and dismissive manner in which the removal of the clusters was revealed makes me think that they just don't feel that it's important; so I am not going to just take it on faith that it'll all work out anymore.
To heck with their NDAs. If Cryptic has news about exploration to share they need to do it sooner rather than later if they want folks to settle down.
=> there is no difference for new players ... are you telling me everyone of these guys who got lost, already knew the 500MB Content sucked, and got lost despite of knowing it ....
It can't be both ... it's either
- "Oh boy the game client is too big & btw 500MB of bad Exploration ... nah I'll pass on that"
or
- "What's Exploration ... I'm lost ..."
_____
Besides : Patrol Missions are still in the game ... exact same design (Scan 5 Things etc, Shoot 5 Enemy Groups) ... no problems there, though ... they just removed it from the regular Mission Log ... but you can't do this with Exp. Clusters because !?! ....
So many of the Star Trek TV episodes were not story-arc based but still interesting. I'm sure that if they were motivated enough Christine would be able to create some really nice short stories.
In a recent episode of Priority One (172?), Captain Geko said that they are considering using Foundry episodes as exploration missions, at least that is what I understand. I would like to see the Foundry episodes used this way and be able to contribute more to the authors as well.
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
Amazing how you ignore that "army of alts" part.
You think all these people with 30 alts play them for fun?
I don't find them at all boring. Yes, they have many bugs which need to be repaired (teammates winding up in separate instances, NPC enemies on top of buildings too high to shoot so you must either exit and do another or exit and redo the entire mission in the hope that they will be accessible when you go back in, getting stuck somewhere inside the map when you try to beam out, bad tiles, people not getting rewards for doing them apart from a little expertise and some loot drops even when they have "We Need Breathing Room" active, some less than exciting missions -- although this isn't a bug as such -- and those are just for starters), but those issues could be fixed. I love exploring the D'Kel Star Cluster; the very idea of exploring a star cluster seems very romantic to me. I love the gorgeous scenery in some of the maps in all of these exploration zones, things you don't see anywhere else in-game. I love encountering strange alien species not otherwise seen in STO. I love destroying biodomes and enemy ships. I love exploring these maps, even when all the objectives have been completed, all loot taken, and all anomalies scanned. Some of them are so stunning. To quote a song from the '60s: "How dare they try to end this beauty? How dare they try to end this beauty? Walking in space ..."
And they would see more activity if we could get rewards for each of them every day, instead of only one per 20 hours. The Empire Defense missions, for example, can all be done in the same 20 hour time period and each has a reward. I don't see any reason why I should not be able to Explore the Asleza Expanse at normal and then at Lieutenant General, then Explore the Eridon Nebula, then Explore the D'Kel Star Cluster, and then Explore the T'Ong Nebula, and get 1440 Dilithium Ore for each one (a total of 7200 Dilithium Ore). This is one of those Circular Reasoning things like "KDF doesn't give sufficient RoI, so we're not going to invest much time and effort in KDF, which means we won't get as much RoI as we could if we actually took the time and made the effort to make KDF more appealing." THAT is what makes no sense. Of course you're not going to get much profit out of a faction that gets less attention than other factions. By the same token, of course the exploration zones aren't going to be as active as other zones because of the limit on what you can get out of them.
YMMV. Thankfully, we are not identical clones and each have our own likes and dislikes.
I hope Cryptic is only taking them out temporarily in order to fix the issues I have listed above, as well as other issues I didn't include, and will add them back in later when they have been made less buggy. Better yet would be leaving them in and fixing them as time goes on.
So you can't do the Voth BZ with an "army of alts" ? ... please enlighten me ...
Again who are these mystery people you constantly talk of ... obviously it's nobody in the Forums ... because there is nobody whining just theorizing ...
... some source on the actual whining, which seems to be the point of this Thread, would be much appreciated ...
dude give up your witch hunt
system Lord Baal is dead
Says the first one to imply it was a farming location.