Season 9 Dev Blog #29 - Exploration Cluster Removal

xxxseadog117xxx

Thank you cryptic, at least you made foundry doors....


But you better restore exploration before the hate grows.

cerberusfilms

"For those who will miss the opportunity to explore these particular locations, we will be adding doors to the Foundry so that player-created missions can make use of these settings. The limitless nature of the potential missions that can be created using the Foundry as well as the high quality of content that Foundry authors continue to deliver are both exactly in line with the original goals of Exploration Clusters."

Long overdue and welcome addition

kirimuffin

For those who will miss the opportunity to explore these particular locations, we will be adding doors to the Foundry so that player-created missions can make use of these settings.

This... is actually a really elegant solution. I like it. I mean, it's not a substitute for procedurally-generated missions, but I'm sure you (Cryptic) will need time to make a new exploration system anyway. (You are still making a new system, right?)

hypl

Farewell Third Borg Dynasty. You will be missed.

starkaos

A Star Trek MMO without an exploration system is not Star Trek. Implementing a Foundry system to the Season 9.5 version would just be a bandaid fix and we would need a decent Exploration system ASAP.

pwlaughingtrendy

With all the updates to Season 9.5 on the way, Lead Content Designer, Charles Gray discusses the upcoming changes to Exploration Clusters in the latest entry of the Season 9 News Dev Blog series.

Link to the blog.

~LaughingTrendy

saedeith

I just don't see how removing the cluster mat farm and daily improves the quality if the game when there is no replacement.

hypl

Brace yourselves, cries of doom inbound!

*raises shields*

dirlettia

Heres to hoping missions we keep running over and over for the rep grind in PVE will be among those missions selected as awarding dilithium

sunfrancks

hypl wrote: »

Brace yourselves, cries of doom inbound!

*raises shields*

We're going to need a bigger boat! :eek:

virusdancer

When going to a cluster/nebula/etc, one had the option to check both the Current Map and the Operations Department Head for certain DOFF missions. Because you were actually in a different "sector" map, the options for the Ops Head reflected the possibility of getting a DOFF mission for that Current Map that might not be available from the Current Map list. Basically, you got two rolls/chances for it to be there.

With the cluster/nebula now part of the standard sector block instead of its own sector, is this something that is planned on being maintained - or - will Ops Heads just pull from the normal sector block list and thus not provide that additional opportunity for those particular DOFF missions.

My apologies if this has already been answered. I remember it being brought up as an issue, but I do not recall any answer.

Thank you.

worffan101

Well, I don't like it, and I hope that there's a major overhaul on the horizon.

ATTN Devs, Trendy, Smirk, anyone: Can you confirm that Expansion 2 will contain a revamped exploration system?

thegreendragoon1

While I appreciate the developers desire to remove substandard content, I feel that removing content like this forces players into repeating the same handful of queued missions, increasing player burnout, and only serves to make the game feel smaller and more linear. That's a terrible thing for an MMO.

You're only making the game smaller and less an MMO.

sfc

How did a non-Community Manager post a thread in here, let alone before Trendy?

adwynyth

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

While I appreciate the developers desire to remove substandard content, I feel that removing content like this forces players into repeating the same handful of queued missions, increasing player burnout, and only serves to make the game feel smaller and more linear. That's a terrible thing for an MMO.

You're only making the game smaller and less an MMO.

This. In full.

capnmanx

A Foundry door? That's what it's being reduced to?

This is a solution to nothing! The Foundry has been there all along for anyone who wanted to use it. I won't deny it could do with being made more accessible, but that should not come at the expense of any other feature of the game; especially one as important to the theme of Star Trek as exploration.

Besides, I thought the clusters were being removed because of quality issues. You guys think leaving it to Foundry authors is going to do anything to fix that? Or do you just not care since Foundry missions can't be used to farm materials?

If there was a problem with the clusters, then you needed to fix the clusters; not do away with them and not even bother replacing them. :mad:

zathri83

Should have removed pvp instead.

ashkrik23

I may be compelled now to actually go for the exploration accolades since they are tracked by doff missions.

capnmanx

nakedsnake001 wrote: »

How did a non-Community Manager post a thread in here, let alone before Trendy?

Thread merge; this started off in the crafting blog thread.

hypl

nakedsnake001 wrote: »

How did a non-Community Manager post a thread in here, let alone before Trendy?

Those first posts were in the larger sticky thread before being moved down here. They were made before this thread, so they appear before Trendy's post.

sfc

virusdancer wrote: »

When going to a cluster/nebula/etc, one had the option to check both the Current Map and the Operations Department Head for certain DOFF missions. Because you were actually in a different "sector" map, the options for the Ops Head reflected the possibility of getting a DOFF mission for that Current Map that might not be available from the Current Map list. Basically, you got two rolls/chances for it to be there.

With the cluster/nebula now part of the standard sector block instead of its own sector, is this something that is planned on being maintained - or - will Ops Heads just pull from the normal sector block list and thus not provide that additional opportunity for those particular DOFF missions.

My apologies if this has already been answered. I remember it being brought up as an issue, but I do not recall any answer.

Thank you.

That sounds like an exploit, which is probably part of the reason these clusters were removed.

vegeta50024

worffan101 wrote: »

Well, I don't like it, and I hope that there's a major overhaul on the horizon.

ATTN Devs, Trendy, Smirk, anyone: Can you confirm that Expansion 2 will contain a revamped exploration system?

Unfortunately, They won't be able to say anything about expansion 2 until the NDA that Smirk and Trendy are under is finally lifted. That's basically what keeps them from saying too much about The day will come when Smirk and Trendy will be able to open those floodgates and tell us what's in store.

kirimuffin

nakedsnake001 wrote: »

That sounds like an exploit, which is probably part of the reason these clusters were removed.

This is how it works on all sector space maps, though...

turbomagnus

To add in my own 0.2 EC; the fact that dilithium requirements increase with every new addition to the game (Fleet Starbases, Embassies, Mines and Spires - Omega, Nukara, New Rom, DJC and now 8472 Reps - Kit modules, etc.) and one of the primary sources of in-game dilithium is being removed seems...

Counter-productive, simply. Especially considering that the whole "Add Dil rewards to storyline missions" concept from a few years back - something that would probably counteract part of the negative response to the Exploration Cluster removal - never came to pass.

therealguru

Once again, devs team decide and imposes it's decision to us.

how will we be able to get the cluster doff assignement ?

always bad choices to reduces the pleasure of playing

juniortruss

I personally am sad about the removal of these exploration systems. I really liked doing the daily there for dilithium. Even though it was a crude system, istill liked that it was a somewhat random experience each time you entered a new system. I think that we are going to need a replacement for the exploration sectors pretty fast. While its not a deal breaker for me (though it is really sad) Other players who aren't as committed to STO might get angry enough to stop logging in. I really think the best thing is to make sure we get a replacement fo this sytem. Expansion 2 would be good. Any later and I think a lot of players start dropping off. Anyway, thanks for the great game and hard work Cryptic guys. And thanks for reading these posts and taking advice from the players.

starfish1701

It's a shame these are going.

When I was new to the game, I spent a lot of time in them. I liked the randomness of the missions (even though there were only a small handful).

If each season, just one new type had been added to the pot I think they would have been more popular.

I hope we get to see a re-imagined version sometime in the future.

suaveks

I'm 100% against the removal of Star Cluster content, regardless of its actual quality.

You're removing a substantial portion of PvE content without introducing ANYTHING in its place. Your only excuse is "steadily improving quality of mission content available throughout STO", which is true only if you consider the fact that this content consists of a couple of Feature Episodes a year and a bunch of repetitive queued missions people are mostly grinding for Marks. Oh, and a couple of battlezones that drop your framerate to single digits even on high end rigs.

With S9,5 you're not even introducing a single new mission. The whole thing seems to revolve solely around new crafting and shiny stuff behind timers, paywalls and RNG. I can't wait to see how you'll market this joke on a trailer...

thutmosis85

With the release of Season 9.5, the Star Trek Online team is continuing with our commitment to improve the overall quality of the game for all players

Soooo .... removal of Crafting Revamp ... sooon ?

fireseeed

Should have scrap PVP and Crafting, both of which are largely unused and certainly unlove and both have had multiple overhauls and devoted the time wasted on those, on building a better exploration system which is the whole point of star trek and should be bases of any star trek game.

Considering the hype No Mans Sky is creating you can't claim exploration doesn't sell games.

sfc

suaveks wrote: »

I'm 100% against the removal of Star Cluster content, regardless of its actual quality.

You're removing a substantial portion of PvE content without introducing ANYTHING in its place. Your only excuse is "steadily improving quality of mission content available throughout STO", which is true only if you consider the fact that this content consists of a couple of Feature Episodes a year and a bunch of repetitive queued missions people are mostly grinding for Marks. Oh, and a couple of battlezones that drop your framerate to single digits even on high end rigs.

With S9,5 you're not even introducing a single new mission. The whole thing seems to revolve solely around new crafting and shiny stuff behind timers, paywalls and RNG. I can't wait to see how you'll market this joke on a trailer...

Two words.

Expansion Two.

Plus Season 8.5 didn't get a Trailer, this won't either. There are no paywalls either unless you call Diltihium paywalls.