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Compared toother games we have it pretty nice
lanceandragon
Member Posts: 32 Arc User
We the players of Star trek Online have it very easy compared to many of the other MMOs out there when it comes the pace of acquiring end game equipment and resources As STO is many peoples first MMO they have little or no reference . Let us compare to some of MMOs.
Crafting: What if we had to roll off for the crafting packs at the end of the queues. One pack for 10 people at the end of CCE. it would not be very friendly. Or if they were static spawns in an open world and some the items were on random cool downs based when the item was last collected. Yes you can open the packs and not get a very rare material, it just means you can relax while your cooldown resets and enjoy other content. The only that limits the amount of crafting you can do is time, not some arbitrary level or amount of areas you can craft.
Lockouts: Imagine if we could only queue up and complete each elite queue once a day and the fleet action maps once every 3 days. Sure there would be a random elite queue you could do but you could get something you are not specialized in and are completely unprepared for. If this was an open world mmo waiting for randomized long respawns. Mostly all of STO time gates are out in the open for you to see and are not hidden by game mechanics. All queued content stays relevant and is not locked out from as your progress in the game.
Reputations: The rep system has undergone a major evolution since its first launch, gone are the scaling costs. What if some of the more popular reps were locked behind the more mind numbing ones and the gear you got from them was just considered starter gear and was replaced with the first drop of loot you got from completing a queue. The reps here are straightforward in what you have to do to improving them. There is no cryptic quest text one what you have to do and get.
Gear Drops: Cryptic has experimented with fixed loot tables that everyone has seen in other games. They lead to cases where you could run the same instance 300 times without ever seeing the item in your loot bag. You could see and only have it taken from because the dice did not like you that day. Now you have a gurantured measure of how much work you have to do with any item set. no relying on dice to agree with you or other players after the same item. We have been given a system where we control the progress of our equipment and not have it dictated to us by the luck of the draw. With the new upgrade system we can find own personal favorite pieces of gear and never worry about it losing relevance to you.
The Grind: Every MMO require a time investment it is the nature of the beast. All progress in the grind is very visible and easily noticed. Doing a reputation project gives very clear feedback on your progress. It is not hidden behind some message you get when your click at a contact. There are games where you have to login every day and, if you do not you will lose progress in any long term progression. There is very little competition for resources and objectives. The ability to acquire resources is easily unlocked with in a few level after starting your character. Ultimately it becomes a grind when progress is not apparent and STO does a good job making every bit of progress visible. No running the same content for that one drop and not seeing drop, then having to wait a week to get chance at it again
Bug Fixes and Patching: There maintenance cycle of STO is pretty short compared to others, barring unforeseen problems at might happen. Bugs are an inescapable part of any system as complex an MMO. Serious bugs are caught relatively quickly and fixed. Some games can not fix bugs till there next major update and that could be months away. The hardest part of bugs is them to replicate in the testing environment so they can see what is causing the issue. Sometimes you just have to play around the bugs. The Devs to listen to do and care about this game.
STO is a very forgiving to its players compared to the other games on the market. They want you to play it and feel accomplished as you do so. We could have it much worse then what people think we have it. The changes they have coming with Delta Rising are going to do wonders for the game. If something doesnt work right they will adjust.
Crafting: What if we had to roll off for the crafting packs at the end of the queues. One pack for 10 people at the end of CCE. it would not be very friendly. Or if they were static spawns in an open world and some the items were on random cool downs based when the item was last collected. Yes you can open the packs and not get a very rare material, it just means you can relax while your cooldown resets and enjoy other content. The only that limits the amount of crafting you can do is time, not some arbitrary level or amount of areas you can craft.
Lockouts: Imagine if we could only queue up and complete each elite queue once a day and the fleet action maps once every 3 days. Sure there would be a random elite queue you could do but you could get something you are not specialized in and are completely unprepared for. If this was an open world mmo waiting for randomized long respawns. Mostly all of STO time gates are out in the open for you to see and are not hidden by game mechanics. All queued content stays relevant and is not locked out from as your progress in the game.
Reputations: The rep system has undergone a major evolution since its first launch, gone are the scaling costs. What if some of the more popular reps were locked behind the more mind numbing ones and the gear you got from them was just considered starter gear and was replaced with the first drop of loot you got from completing a queue. The reps here are straightforward in what you have to do to improving them. There is no cryptic quest text one what you have to do and get.
Gear Drops: Cryptic has experimented with fixed loot tables that everyone has seen in other games. They lead to cases where you could run the same instance 300 times without ever seeing the item in your loot bag. You could see and only have it taken from because the dice did not like you that day. Now you have a gurantured measure of how much work you have to do with any item set. no relying on dice to agree with you or other players after the same item. We have been given a system where we control the progress of our equipment and not have it dictated to us by the luck of the draw. With the new upgrade system we can find own personal favorite pieces of gear and never worry about it losing relevance to you.
The Grind: Every MMO require a time investment it is the nature of the beast. All progress in the grind is very visible and easily noticed. Doing a reputation project gives very clear feedback on your progress. It is not hidden behind some message you get when your click at a contact. There are games where you have to login every day and, if you do not you will lose progress in any long term progression. There is very little competition for resources and objectives. The ability to acquire resources is easily unlocked with in a few level after starting your character. Ultimately it becomes a grind when progress is not apparent and STO does a good job making every bit of progress visible. No running the same content for that one drop and not seeing drop, then having to wait a week to get chance at it again
Bug Fixes and Patching: There maintenance cycle of STO is pretty short compared to others, barring unforeseen problems at might happen. Bugs are an inescapable part of any system as complex an MMO. Serious bugs are caught relatively quickly and fixed. Some games can not fix bugs till there next major update and that could be months away. The hardest part of bugs is them to replicate in the testing environment so they can see what is causing the issue. Sometimes you just have to play around the bugs. The Devs to listen to do and care about this game.
STO is a very forgiving to its players compared to the other games on the market. They want you to play it and feel accomplished as you do so. We could have it much worse then what people think we have it. The changes they have coming with Delta Rising are going to do wonders for the game. If something doesnt work right they will adjust.
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I agree that we the players have it real easy in STO, as compared to other games. I played World of Warcaft for 8 years and I find that all of the points listed above are quite correct. Sadly however, I know that there will be the trolls and haters that will start complaining about this post right away. For people like that, I only have one thing to say to you --- GET OVER IT CUPCAKES!!! This game could be much worse and a lot tougher to play. If that does not make sense to you then my motto ingame is the only advice I can leave you. "WYSIWYG AND IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THAT THEN STFU!!!!!!!
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The reason being, people in here and gamers in general are extremely fickle.
They moan about every change that comes along, yet they are first in line to try it when it lands. They cry out that 'they'll never spend another penny until Cryptic change their ways!' then they run off and buy the entire Delta pack.
They still moan about the R&D system, then they say wonderful comments like 'this system sucks...so I'll only level it on one toon'. Right now it's all about the cost of upgrades and guess what? Yup, still sinking the Dil and spending the EC.
They threaten to quit, some actually follow through only to re-appear a few months later or when a new season shows up. Some in fact manage to stay away, find better games and enjoy them.
To think how much better the gaming industry in general would be if we all were wiser consumers - but our own behaviour needs to change first.
It's because there are too many people who grew up thinking they are special snowflakes because their parents were afraid of getting the police called on them for disciplining their children for acting like rotten brats. Instead they got participation trophies and other inane motivators that led them to the idea they are entitled to everything Cryptic produces for FREE and no one is going to tell them otherwise, or else they will throw themselves on the floor and hold their breath till mommy buys them a JHAS, hot pockets, and mountain dew.
I blame either their parents or their complete lack of common sense. Its why the Kardashians are more important these days then anything related to politics, unless its 9/11 or the 4th of July then all of a sudden everyone is a flag waving freedom loving patriot who has no clue who their state senators are or who the vice president is.
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not everyone who doesnt pay attention to politics is a reality show obsessed nutjob.
some of us just dont give a **** about us politics because it all boils down to two things: who has the better lies or which one will TRIBBLE us over the most?
a good chunk of modern presidents have lied to us to get us to vote for them then end up not doing what they promised. the countries always facing budget problems, yet the government wastes billions a year on the salaries of those who come up with the TRIBBLE that is giving us all these budget problems.
Weyoun is the VP, everyone knows that:P
Now that, is reason and logic... This is all too common a problem and I see this same sort of attitude and behaviour almost daily in my line of work...
And these people are gonna be our next batch of lawyers, doctors and politicians - it's actually quite scary...
Back on topic...
Agree with everything the OP said and much of it is the exact reason I am still playing STO and why I happily purchased an LTS, LoR pack and (once this week's pay hits) Delta Operations pack...
Oh! Oh I know this one. The vice president is... uhh... Kim Jong-un?
You are a seriously dangerous fellow and someone who may not be in the correct place, lol.
Bravo for speaking your mind and damn the torpedoes.
I thought is was Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Hey, let's not be hating on the Hot Pockets & Mountain Dew now,....
I agree with everything else though. :cool:
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Nice Socrates quote.
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even for seasoned players you can replay most missions as and when you feel like it and chase those missed accolades or just to explore parts you might have missed first time around in your zeal to level up, there is also no limit on ground or space based missions especially if you are FTP like with some other MMO`s out there.
I have no problem with rep here again you can take it or leave it and if you want to complete it but don't really like the rep events you can always pick up your marks elsewhere like at a summer/winter event or my doing PVE`s that award choice of marks.
crafting is another thing that is completely optional, you can craft as much or as little as you like or not at all, with the old crafting I gave it a go with one character worked my way up till I was able to craft the high end gear then see I would need to spend a heap of dilithium to buy certain materials so stopped there but I never bothered at all with my other characters and they never suffered as a consequence.
even with the new crafting I have been leveling up with the daily bonus but likely wont ever craft anything.
gear drops and game rewards are fine, most of my ships are completely fitted out with the stuff mostly mk11 & mk12, I have a few bits from rep that appealed to me but not a great deal.
I find nothing in the game a grind, even if you think to yourself I want to buy this item or that item and I will have to get X amount of dil or EC to get it its no problem, there is very little chance they will sell out so you have plenty of time to play the parts you like and enjoy as and when you feel like it to gain whatever you need to get what you want, even C-store items.
bugs are a pain but most major bugs are fixed very quickly, so there are some that have seemed to be around for ever but nothing we cant work around and the devs are mostly good at trying to put them right, if you keep you eye on the weekly updates you will often see this bug or that bug being fixed.
above all the game is very easy to play even when its hard, what I mean is there is nothing you cant really understand or work out and its surprising that I still find now I come across things I haven't done yet and pick them up very quickly, same when they put new stuff in, it doesn't take long to work out what you need to do, so when I say easy I guess I mean as in not complex.
what also amazes me sometimes is the vastness of the game, I have been playing now for three years and there is still much I have not done, you know it was only yesterday I realised I had missed an accolade on nimbus 3 'free satellite coverage for all' I had never played that bit, completely missed it, and that's just the tip of a very large iceberg.
there are many foundry episodes I am yet to do, many star systems I haven't explored, many encounter missions not taken, many more accolades yet to win.
and best of all its as free to play as you want it to be.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You know, comrade, you will have to be re-educated. :cool:
dissent is treason!
Hail Hydra! I mean Cryptic. Yes. Cryptic.
Any specific points about changes to the system or analysis of say crafting or upgrading I am going to have to go ahead and totally disagree with everything said.
From the time of f2p until last week the game has lost gameplay features and seen nerfs consistently to the point there are very stones left to stand on.
One example could be straight up deleting exploration another could be killing ground combat with season 7.
The upcoming expansion has the so far biggest nerf in time-effort-rewards we've seen to date so talking about their choices, the conclusion is their design and reducing the game is all stuff we had to try to cope with, where the best reason you could give was "well it's a free game so can't really complain can you".
Problem being for a lot of people it's not a free game
tl;dr wall of death text that could just be summed up; you like the game and think its better. but opinions vary wildly especially trying to compare different games.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Depends on the game you compare it to.
League of Legends takes effort to ensure heroes remain relevant without making you repurchase them via an upgrade system.
Marvel Heroes likewise has been revamping all their old character releases to keep them relevant and fun to play. They also communicate directly with the community without hiding behind fanboi podcasts. Just recently a dev did an AMA on their forums.
Warframe. Dota 2. Hearthstone. Path of Exile. I could go on.
STO is not the worst. Nor is it the best. They release content at a snails pace, some things are over priced, and they put nearly no effort to keep older items purchased updated unless it can be monetized.
The core problem I see with STO F2P development is the heavy impact monetization has on development. It always feels tacked on in a heavy handed way that detracts from what was created instead of enhancing it. Will Cryptic make more money selling upgrade tokens for T5 than they would have by keeping the T5 ships relevant? That is a massive back catalog of products they pretty much just tossed into the waste bin.
Marvel Heroes is running a 'Midtown Madness' week event right now. As part of that a limited edition fortune card is available in the store and can drop in game. The card contains nothing exclusive that grants power that cannot be found in the game, mostly cosmetics and actual fun toys (not BiS items). Those cards enhance the event, they do not detract from it.
But you are correct, STO is not the worst by a long shot. They are not bad, doesn't mean they cannot improve.
That's very much an apples and oranges case. For example there are updates coming to the Aquarius, D'Kyr, and Vesta along with the general T5-U upgrade. Cryptic does update old content (see. the lobi store gear upgrade to XII VR that came along with, but still separately, the upgrade system) though they may also be raising the level cap of a more conventionally designed MMO-RPG.
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OP, the fact that you haven't specified "other games" or laid out a comparison/contrast really makes me question your credibility. Your opinions arr your own but...some common frame of reference would be helpful here.
Crafting: You didn't mention that we can't choose the modifiers attached to the gear. Sometimes I have to craft something many times before I get the one I want/need. This uses resources that aren't guaranteed to begin with. If the only wild card was rarity I wouldn't have an issue with it.
Lockouts: I have a better solution for the lockouts. How about they don't focus so much on "repeatable content?" Oh yeah, they'll make less money on making a great game than on time sinking our money away. Nevermind.
Reputations: The reps have evolved, and they have gotten better overall. But there is one nagging thing I can't get past -- they all revolve around "repeatable content." There's no story in the early ones (like Omega and Nukara). And while there were a few new maps added when the reps were added there wasn't a lot different. Yes, Dyson was part of a mini-expansion, and Romulus was part of LoR. But the reps themselves -- play, get points, spend points, play same thing again, are all identical. It would be nice if they had something unique other than the enemies and maps.
Gear Drops: Drop rates are still horrible no matter how you look at it. It's always been that way. Remember what a pain it was to get antithorons? I'll agree that the system has evolved, but overall I haven't seen any huge improvement in the grind-to-loot-ratio.
“The Grind”: I've mentioned this several times already. "Repeatable content" should not be the game's only content. That's the direction they're going and they've already dumped FEs forever. Well, we might get a new one with X2, but FEs themselves are extinct. Any grind that doesn't make an effort to hide the grind isn't worth doing. That's about 90% of the game now.
Bug Fixes and Patching: There maintenance cycle of STO is pretty short compared to others I actually laughed at this. Bug fixes? Regularly? SINCE WHEN?? Look at the new DOff UI--it was supposed to fix some of the long standing problems with the old UI, right? Well, turns out it caused more AND kept many of the old ones. This has yet to be addressed. The closest we have is them saying they'd look at the Jem'Hadar chain and see if we can finish it on alts one day. Remember when they took out Terradome" They said it was because they would rather remove it than to fix the bugs. Same with the DS9 Fleet action. Your confidence in their bug fixing is laughable.