Exploration:
Pressing of various buttons depending upon the mission.
"F" spam
Walking/piloting
Aiming (if anyone does this at all)
in rare cases minigames
Wait a sec... Exploration has 2 more criteria than current content... So that's why it's not up to current standards it takes a more thinking...
By that logic, the next thing in line has got to be pvp.
A2BFaWLoL Scimitars in PvP: Spacebar Spam. Not sure if there's even piloting involved in getting from spawn to enemies, that can't be handled by adding "speed up" to the spacebar macro, since Beam boats go at all angles...
That gets us down to 1 criteria. Means all that's gonna be left is "doffing for the Rommie BOffs, support B'Tran, and the lockbox kit necessary to make the build and PvP. Rest of game = superfluous... :P
But of course, the current big thing - battlezones - has more criteria than Scim-v-scim. And we don't hear of "battlezone revamps" coming anytime soon... :P
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
It's where the secret high-difficulty content was hidden, to prevent the wailing and gnashing of teeth caused when ultra-casual spacebar-mashers thought they might have to actually learn to play.
Actually I think it was where you guys were using a bunch of alts farming dilithium doing the non-combat cluster missions. I know haw fast you can complete them if you just drop the combat missions.
Though I believe the two systems are not the same. The Crafting system doesn't seem to need map designers, for example - it's all about systems and UI. Maybe Expansion 2 requires a lot of map and character art (tacofangs mentioned that he's busy with that), but less systems and UI, it could very well be that this is why they picked Crafting now.
I actually wonder if Cryptic would need map designers for the crafting system. If it is just replacing the old ones with the new ones, then they don't, but if they need to remove each of the old resource nodes and add the new resource nodes, then they will need to.
I actually wonder if Cryptic would need map designers for the crafting system. If it is just replacing the old ones with the new ones, then they don't, but if they need to remove each of the old resource nodes and add the new resource nodes, then they will need to.
Hmm. Interesting... Placing a resource node would not be as much effort as creating a new map, on the other hand, there are tons of maps. Maybe it can be done automatically at some point? "Always put 3 nodes in each map, always 2 kms in a random direction from a mission interact spot". But maybe that way still lies unreachable nodes and stuff like that...
I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just add crafting materials as an additional type of thing that can drop from NPCs. (It could have its own seperate chance, so it doesn'T "cost" you anything else). But of course, that means no scanning mini-game... Or does it?
It would make sense to me to find crafting mats in the debris of starships. Possibly more than it makes sense to get it from anomalies.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Do you understand why they never got around to improve them?
By some estimates, the mission count is what - 3000 to 4000? Each mission consists of at least one map that is directly important and needed to be looked at.
Let's look at their map productivity in Season 9:
In Season 9, what did they add to the game:
- Undine Space Zone (one map)
- 3 mission revamps (roughly 3 maps each)
- 2 Undine Space Missions (1 map)
- 1 Undine Ground Mission (1 map)
- 1 New featured episode (4 maps)
- 1 Earth Space Dock revamp ( 1 map)
Let's be generous and say this have been worth 100 revamped exploration maps. That would still require them 30 to 40 seasons spending all their effort just to fix all those exploration missions.
Imagine for the next 10 to 40 years, Cryptic is doing nothing but revamping exploration missions. Maybe they could give us a new reputation each year and new ships and lockboxes (since I assume most of this type of content creation is not related to space maps) - but no more story advancement in this time, because the map designers and writers are busy fixing exploration missions.
And when would you actually start to see a notable impact - after a year, 20-40 exploration missions up to current standards. Say 15 %. So every time you do an exploration cluster mission, you have a 15 % chance to find a new, improved map.
Do you consider that a useful use of their resources?
Just in case you were wondering - no, I don't.
I think it would be a good use of their resources to create a new Genesis system that produces better results than the old one. I think that's not entirely infeasible. (But I am not sure how well such a system can avoid BOFFs falling through floors, if they old one couldn't. But I think one can devise a system where the Borg won't suddenly create a 3rd Dynasty or where plants don't look like stones.)
I wouldn't have said that fixing up the old missions was necessary.
Adding in new better quality stuff would be the way to go, since lack of variety is one of the big problems with exploration missions.
If they cut down on the number of almost total duplicate missions as they went, the chances of getting one of the new better missions would go up. The relatively small number of remaining original missions, would just pad things out a bit; while overall or average quality would increase, along with mission diversity.
What goes next? Marauding and Diplomacy. I'm confident Marauding specifically will get hit hard by the Devs at some point this year. Think about the massive amount of Dil, EC, Contraband etc. people farm with all their KDF alts.
So you are just saying you rather have a better exploration mission than a better crafting system.
hat's okay, but it's just a personal preference - the Devs can't do wrong or right in that regard - they can just pick one and do it. You know what they picked.
Though I believe the two systems are not the same. The Crafting system doesn't seem to need map designers, for example - it's all about systems and UI. Maybe Expansion 2 requires a lot of map and character art (tacofangs mentioned that he's busy with that), but less systems and UI, it could very well be that this is why they picked Crafting now.
Well that depends how they do it, given the huge advancement in procedural generation of content over the last few years, most of the work would be done with programmers expanding upon genesis or by building a completely new procedural engine for generating new maps, missions and so forth. You would need to add more materials for the engine to work with but that can be added over time, a couple of testers to test the new maps would be handy as well.
OP's title question is based on a flawed premise; namely, that removing one aspect due to poor quality somehow automatically entails removing more things. Emotional and illogical argument.
OP's title question is based on a flawed premise; namely, that removing one aspect due to poor quality somehow automatically entails removing more things. Emotional and illogical argument.
medtac's response is based on an obvious failure to take into account that this is the aptly-named Cryptic we're talking about. :P
OP's title question is based on a flawed premise; namely, that removing one aspect due to poor quality somehow automatically entails removing more things. Emotional and illogical argument.
You are living in a dream world ... they already removed content like:
1. Terradome
2. Old STF
3. Mirror Event
4. Any challenging content ... except maybe NWS
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
OP's title question is based on a flawed premise; namely, that removing one aspect due to poor quality somehow automatically entails removing more things. Emotional and illogical argument.
You obviously have either not played the game in the last two years or have not paid attention in the last two years. Either way, your comment is based on ignorance.
Actually I think it was where you guys were using a bunch of alts farming dilithium doing the non-combat cluster missions. I know haw fast you can complete them if you just drop the combat missions.
The two best ways to farm dilithium remain the Voth battlezone, or a private PvP queue.
What goes next? Marauding and Diplomacy. I'm confident Marauding specifically will get hit hard by the Devs at some point this year. Think about the massive amount of Dil, EC, Contraband etc. people farm with all their KDF alts.
The Diplomacy system is dying with 9.5 as well. The clusters and Memory Alpha, both going away, are where all the diplomacy missions were.
You obviously have either not played the game in the last two years or have not paid attention in the last two years. Either way, your comment is based on ignorance.
Typical vagueness followed by an ad hominem. Post better please.
OP's title question is based on a flawed premise; namely, that removing one aspect due to poor quality somehow automatically entails removing more things. Emotional and illogical argument.
Here's some logic for ya, you green blooded hobgoblin:
The premise for removing the content has nothing to do with raising average quality. That's a misdirection tossed out by a Cryptic Developer, as they do, which some crazy people have lapped up.
The logical reason for removing this content is that the content gives players too much access to crafting resources.
How do we know this is the logical reason?
1- Patrols and Enemy Contacts are just as old as the Exploration Clusters. Just as low quality. And take up tons of space as well. But they are staying around.
2- The exploration clusters are being removed right in the same update that the new crafting system debuts.
Here's some logic for ya, you green blooded hobgoblin:
The premise for removing the content has nothing to do with raising average quality. That's a misdirection tossed out by a Cryptic Developer, as they do, which some crazy people have lapped up.
The logical reason for removing this content is that the content gives players too much access to crafting resources.
How do we know this is the logical reason?
1- Patrols and Enemy Contacts are just as old as the Exploration Clusters. Just as low quality. And take up tons of space as well. But they are staying around.
2- The exploration clusters are being removed right in the same update that the new crafting system debuts.
Here's some logic for ya, you green blooded hobgoblin:
The premise for removing the content has nothing to do with raising average quality. That's a misdirection tossed out by a Cryptic Developer, as they do, which some crazy people have lapped up.
The logical reason for removing this content is that the content gives players too much access to crafting resources.
How do we know this is the logical reason?
1- Patrols and Enemy Contacts are just as old as the Exploration Clusters. Just as low quality. And take up tons of space as well. But they are staying around.
2- The exploration clusters are being removed right in the same update that the new crafting system debuts.
Logic yo! LOGIC!
That seems definitely more paranoid than logical.
If they just woried about resource nodes in exploration clusters they could probably actually write a script that removse all those resource nodes and grumble something about "technical difficultiies, will be solved at a later date". They would of course still create anger, but at least if someone asks where the big exploration is in STO, they'd point to exploration clusters and say it's all there.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
If they just woried about resource nodes in exploration clusters they could probably actually write a script that removse all those resource nodes and grumble something about "technical difficultiies, will be solved at a later date". They would of course still create anger, but at least if someone asks where the big exploration is in STO, they'd point to exploration clusters and say it's all there.
O ... M ... G
You can't be serious. YOU are the one that said there were too many maps for the dev team to handle. Now you're saying they could just write a script?
Make up your mind.
This isn't paranoia. This is logic. The enemy contacts are shallower lower quality content than the exploration clusters. They are all over sector space and take up a lot of disk space. The red alerts keep getting broken, fixed and broken again, proving to be an ongoing nightmare for the development team. And the maps are huge and easy for players to get lost in.
But THEY are remaining.
9.5 debuts the new crafting system. And all of the exploration clusters that provide oodles of the old crafting material are going bye bye.
But you wingnuts keep right on believing the Kryptic Kool Aid Man that this is being done because of their high standards of design quality and helping new players find their way around. OHHH YEAH!
But you wingnuts keep right on believing the Kryptic Kool Aid Man that this is being done because of their high standards of design quality and helping new players find their way around. OHHH YEAH!
Come on man ... don't be like that ... , you know that this is just Cryptic's first step in unifying all sector space into one giant zone ... .
It's happening !!
I beliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieve it's happening !!!
.... in fact it could have already happened and we just missed it ...
Good thing they removed them because in my opinion the clusters were unused, so why keep them? You can still easily farm samples in other missions even with clusters removed. Dont really understand why people use the argument of samples anyhow.
Good thing they removed them because in my opinion the clusters were unused, so why keep them?
I used them. Every time I played. I'm not the only one who used them.
I don't craft so I wasn't using them for crafting supplies.
I was using them for fun.
Keeping them would allow me to continue to have fun role playing star trek stuff in a star trek role playing game. Why is that not a good enough reason to keep them?
Keeping them would allow me to continue to have fun role playing star trek stuff in a star trek role playing game. Why is that not a good enough reason to keep them?
Because... confused newbies? Or... quality standards? - Think, snoggymack, I beg you, just think about the consequences of your egoistical star cluster fun!
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Good thing they removed them because in my opinion the clusters were unused, so why keep them? You can still easily farm samples in other missions even with clusters removed. Dont really understand why people use the argument of samples anyhow.
Unused? If you go to the Delta Volanis and Arcuanis Arm, there are always been players in them. Yes, those clusters spawn a lot of data samples, even more than missions, especially when the majority of the missions have three of those frequency games plus a number of them in the cluster itself. There is one thing that Cryptic detests and that is easy farming.
Because... confused newbies? Or... quality standards? - Think, snoggymack, I beg you, just think about the consequences of your egoistical star cluster fun!
True. I am selfish, putting my own enjoyment ahead of others. And role playing enjoyment at that. Which has been proven time and time again to have no real place in MMOs.
It's really all my fault. I'm sorry. I should herald this change as removing this content leaves so much more room for bigger and better things.
Like reputation grinds. And lockboxes. The real deal content of STO. The meat and potatoes. It's so much deeper and fulfilling killing the same borg transformer over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ... over.
True. I am selfish, putting my own enjoyment ahead of others. And role playing enjoyment at that. Which has been proven time and time again to have no real place in MMOs.
It's really all my fault. I'm sorry. I should herald this change as removing this content leaves so much more room for bigger and better things.
Like reputation grinds. And lockboxes. The real deal content of STO. The meat and potatoes. It's so much deeper and fulfilling killing the same borg transformer over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ... over.
Exactly. That's calculable, standardized fun on a constantly high quality level. Not your anarchic, confusing square shaped maps and all.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Exploration wasn't complained about much at all, until Season 2, when teaming and maps were broken. And even then the complaints were largely to fix the bugs that were put into the game with season 2, and also the complaints still didn't crack top 5 back then.
Top 5 complaints in the game first year:
1- KDF
2- Birds of Prey/Cloaking
3- PVP
4- No Excelsior
5- The Galaxy Dreadnought, and the way it was obtained
LOL, i wish those were the only complains this year.. you missed like, 50 more.. xD. You must be playing another game than sto..
Comments
A2BFaWLoL Scimitars in PvP: Spacebar Spam. Not sure if there's even piloting involved in getting from spawn to enemies, that can't be handled by adding "speed up" to the spacebar macro, since Beam boats go at all angles...
That gets us down to 1 criteria. Means all that's gonna be left is "doffing for the Rommie BOffs, support B'Tran, and the lockbox kit necessary to make the build and PvP. Rest of game = superfluous... :P
But of course, the current big thing - battlezones - has more criteria than Scim-v-scim. And we don't hear of "battlezone revamps" coming anytime soon... :P
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Actually I think it was where you guys were using a bunch of alts farming dilithium doing the non-combat cluster missions. I know haw fast you can complete them if you just drop the combat missions.
I actually wonder if Cryptic would need map designers for the crafting system. If it is just replacing the old ones with the new ones, then they don't, but if they need to remove each of the old resource nodes and add the new resource nodes, then they will need to.
Hmm. Interesting... Placing a resource node would not be as much effort as creating a new map, on the other hand, there are tons of maps. Maybe it can be done automatically at some point? "Always put 3 nodes in each map, always 2 kms in a random direction from a mission interact spot". But maybe that way still lies unreachable nodes and stuff like that...
I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just add crafting materials as an additional type of thing that can drop from NPCs. (It could have its own seperate chance, so it doesn'T "cost" you anything else). But of course, that means no scanning mini-game... Or does it?
It would make sense to me to find crafting mats in the debris of starships. Possibly more than it makes sense to get it from anomalies.
I wouldn't have said that fixing up the old missions was necessary.
Adding in new better quality stuff would be the way to go, since lack of variety is one of the big problems with exploration missions.
If they cut down on the number of almost total duplicate missions as they went, the chances of getting one of the new better missions would go up. The relatively small number of remaining original missions, would just pad things out a bit; while overall or average quality would increase, along with mission diversity.
medtac's response is based on an obvious failure to take into account that this is the aptly-named Cryptic we're talking about. :P
You are living in a dream world ... they already removed content like:
1. Terradome
2. Old STF
3. Mirror Event
4. Any challenging content ... except maybe NWS
- Judge Aaron Satie
new changes. good one!
You obviously have either not played the game in the last two years or have not paid attention in the last two years. Either way, your comment is based on ignorance.
The two best ways to farm dilithium remain the Voth battlezone, or a private PvP queue.
The Diplomacy system is dying with 9.5 as well. The clusters and Memory Alpha, both going away, are where all the diplomacy missions were.
Typical vagueness followed by an ad hominem. Post better please.
Which to my knowledge is completely unrelated to the removal of exploration clusters. To continue this discussion, please provide evidence otherwise.
And?
Here's some logic for ya, you green blooded hobgoblin:
The premise for removing the content has nothing to do with raising average quality. That's a misdirection tossed out by a Cryptic Developer, as they do, which some crazy people have lapped up.
The logical reason for removing this content is that the content gives players too much access to crafting resources.
How do we know this is the logical reason?
1- Patrols and Enemy Contacts are just as old as the Exploration Clusters. Just as low quality. And take up tons of space as well. But they are staying around.
2- The exploration clusters are being removed right in the same update that the new crafting system debuts.
Logic yo! LOGIC!
Logic? Maybe. Paranoia? Certainly.
That seems definitely more paranoid than logical.
If they just woried about resource nodes in exploration clusters they could probably actually write a script that removse all those resource nodes and grumble something about "technical difficultiies, will be solved at a later date". They would of course still create anger, but at least if someone asks where the big exploration is in STO, they'd point to exploration clusters and say it's all there.
O ... M ... G
You can't be serious. YOU are the one that said there were too many maps for the dev team to handle. Now you're saying they could just write a script?
Make up your mind.
This isn't paranoia. This is logic. The enemy contacts are shallower lower quality content than the exploration clusters. They are all over sector space and take up a lot of disk space. The red alerts keep getting broken, fixed and broken again, proving to be an ongoing nightmare for the development team. And the maps are huge and easy for players to get lost in.
But THEY are remaining.
9.5 debuts the new crafting system. And all of the exploration clusters that provide oodles of the old crafting material are going bye bye.
But you wingnuts keep right on believing the Kryptic Kool Aid Man that this is being done because of their high standards of design quality and helping new players find their way around. OHHH YEAH!
Come on man ... don't be like that ... , you know that this is just Cryptic's first step in unifying all sector space into one giant zone ... .
It's happening !!
I beliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieve it's happening !!!
.... in fact it could have already happened and we just missed it ...
Yup, Every time we run into a sector border, it is only because of lag that we still have to confirm movement.
Ha!
/10 char
I used them. Every time I played. I'm not the only one who used them.
I don't craft so I wasn't using them for crafting supplies.
I was using them for fun.
Keeping them would allow me to continue to have fun role playing star trek stuff in a star trek role playing game. Why is that not a good enough reason to keep them?
Because... confused newbies? Or... quality standards? - Think, snoggymack, I beg you, just think about the consequences of your egoistical star cluster fun!
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Unused? If you go to the Delta Volanis and Arcuanis Arm, there are always been players in them. Yes, those clusters spawn a lot of data samples, even more than missions, especially when the majority of the missions have three of those frequency games plus a number of them in the cluster itself. There is one thing that Cryptic detests and that is easy farming.
True. I am selfish, putting my own enjoyment ahead of others. And role playing enjoyment at that. Which has been proven time and time again to have no real place in MMOs.
It's really all my fault. I'm sorry. I should herald this change as removing this content leaves so much more room for bigger and better things.
Like reputation grinds. And lockboxes. The real deal content of STO. The meat and potatoes. It's so much deeper and fulfilling killing the same borg transformer over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ... over.
Exactly. That's calculable, standardized fun on a constantly high quality level. Not your anarchic, confusing square shaped maps and all.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
LOL, i wish those were the only complains this year.. you missed like, 50 more.. xD. You must be playing another game than sto..