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New patrol missions among worst content in game imo
kagasensei
Member Posts: 526 Arc User
I have to say, the new patrol missions are among the worst, most dreary, most boring, unimaginative content released in a long long while. In contrast to previous patrol missions, these are part of the official story progression ("Friends in Unlikely Places" and "Friends in all the Usual Places"), and they are unbelievably dreary, much more so than any previous counterpart. Even on normal difficulty setting they are nothing but an never-ending killing frenzy.
One wave after another, or 10 (!) Hierarchy ships firing at you at once (in Normal difficulty)... ridiculous and simply incredibly boring.
I know STO is nothing but a "space combat simulator" (DStahl), but keep this type of "content" away from players who despise it. Putting it into the official story line disgruntles a lot of people I would imagine.
One wave after another, or 10 (!) Hierarchy ships firing at you at once (in Normal difficulty)... ridiculous and simply incredibly boring.
I know STO is nothing but a "space combat simulator" (DStahl), but keep this type of "content" away from players who despise it. Putting it into the official story line disgruntles a lot of people I would imagine.
Post edited by kagasensei on
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perhaps they should have been kept as missions you find rather than part of the mission chain to aid the sense of exploration over linear progression but they can still be skipped if you dont like them effectively making them optional. i just wished a few were ground ones.
... wouldn't mind if those weren't actually "mandatory" to play ... but it's either that or even more repeating Patrols in Tau Dewa ... even the ancient Patrol Mission from 2010, which they chose to remove from story progression btw, had more variety ...
... they could have made at least O N E Ground Patrol i.E. , I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but one wouldn't hurt ...
It's been years since part of a game was this frustrating to play.
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
The one with the shuttle craft which was required, looks like Risa fly high floating maze, but worst one yet. I don't see the point throwing that one in there. Should be a mission on it's own since it more a race taking from the Tom Paris one.
Time will only tell!
It was, wasn't it!
Funny how that happened, and yet they put in the exact same mission type into the game..... lol
the space part of this game almost always involves shooting a bunch of targets until they die. very hard to get round that. you can adjust it to be more varied but it still involves killing x number of targets.
the quality of the exploration clusters was low, not just because it was 5/5 though but because it was buggy, buildings floated above the ground, groups did not spawn, the stories made no sense. many of the non combat ones were awful etc.
there are lots and lots of patrol missions still left in the game, mainly on the federation side that are kept here. less o on the kdf and roms but they are still kill 4 or 5 targets but when you play them you at least know they work and they make some degree of sense.
That's the thing with with DR-Patrols ... they didn't ... after the 15th Scan/Talk to X, Shoot Y x 5 - Patrol in a row ... I would have killed for one of these stupid Exploration Cluster Missions like : just fly around Planet & Scan 5 Satellites ... beam down to Planet X Scan 5 Artefacts, Shoot Y x 5 if necessary etc ... but sadly, no variety at all ...
... hell even the 2010 Patrols had stuff like "Beam down to investigate Cargo bays" / "Beam down question Miners & answer questions, accordingly" etc ... wtf happened ?
The thing is, Cryptic is better than this. Two outstanding missions for me were the diplo meeting at the Talaxian mine and the retaking of Leiset. You put missions like that side by side with patrol missions and it just doesn't make any sense.
That's why I included DStahl's quote: "STO first and foremost is a space combat simulator" - people playing this game should not forget that, while being treated with several game components that deviate from that pattern...
However, emphasizing this said pattern to a degree of extreme boredom, predictability, ridiculousness (thinking about how you are supposed to save individual Kobali, but shot and kill 10s of 1000s of Kazon, Malon, Hierarchy etc.), and ultimately frustration is not sensible. Even more so, if those "missions" feel mandatory, because they are official story missions... Sure you can skip them, but once you realize this is another one of those dreary patrol routines, you might already have completed the first map or wave. Cancelling then adds even more to the frustration.
My suggestions:
1) If Cryptic feels it is important to have these "mission" being part of the official story line, then please mark them with a "Patrol" label.
2) Cut down on the number of ships spawning per wave, specifically at Normal difficulty. Even compared to older patrols, the amount is ridiculous.
STOWiki admin.
I tell you what happened, the DR patrols qualify as a daily for Delta Marks. So, they "had" to make it at least a little "challenging".
Meeeh can't be it ... just make a picnic under Kobali Prime's City Gate ... tadaa 60 Marks ... :P
What have you done, you fool ! Don't tell them ! :mad::P:D
Luckily they are not mandatory. I'm not running any more characters through them. These missions are easily my biggest gripe with the expansion.
Anyway, there is a reason why people are grinding tau dewa patrol and not redoing the DR patrol. They give more xp, are easier, and just as bori... I mean, fun !
system Lord Baal is dead
Sounds like your Computer became sentient, because he couldn't take it anymore ...
I would, however, prefer ground content added to the patrols, as it's where I thrive, and in general,there was far too little ground content in DR, in general. Even Bug Hunt feels considerably easy on higher difficulties, than the equal difficulties are in space.
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100% agreed.
Exploration was removed because the mad-lib missions were "not up to par".
Patrol wrappers in the alpha and beta quadrant were removed and de-emphasized (inconsistently I may add) because the patrols were boring and not needed to level anymore.
We get an expansion that is supposed to be as story rich as LOR. We get more patrols, and now the wrappers are part of the storyline.
Granted, the story makes more sense than the mad-lib missions, but some of the execution is equally ridiculous (I'm thinking of one of the patrol bosses, I won't spoil it any further).
I don't mind the patrols per se - but I do mind seeing other content chopped or reduced in significance, then seeing equally thin content take its place. With all the levelling I have to do now, I'd love to just warp out to B'Tran, fight the Vito'D a bit, and earn myself some dilithium and anomalies in the process.
Also - some of the early Federation space patrols were more imaginative than what I've seen so far (resolve dispute with the miners, investigate sabotage on a starbase, etc). Perhaps the wrappers should be added back in for those early missions as well? (If the argument is it may scare new players off because it's mundane, I'd counter that it just prepares new players with what to expect with new content at endgame).
The new story missions I've played so far are amazing. The patrols are...meh. OK I guess, if they plan to release 3-4 every month.
Time will only tell!
These missions sound great!!!
Where can I find them???
Here's to YOU and ALL YOU DO!!!
Ah yeah, for real and quoted for truth, Tau Dewa for the Win!
I won't play them unless there are some great rewards attached to them.
I actually fell asleep trying to finish them on Tribble.
This cost me countless hours I could've been spending in a certain other system...hitting autofire, and gaining 1/4 of a level while going to make a sandwich, and for what; short-term narcolepsy, and loot that I never use?
No thanks.
If we're getting new "Patrols"; great.
However, attaching them to the story kinda seems like filler episodes in an anime; just there to fill space while the manga [original writer] catches up.
I also do not understand why the Exploration Clusters were taken out.
I do not mind replacing them with the DOff missions, but maybe this could just be done once you reach Captain, and you could still actually EXPLORE the old way [Cluster Exploration Missions] until that point?
A specific goal for reaching Captain, other than a new ship, and some more fun, interesting stuff to help you level up until then.
Also, some more Ground content wouldn't hurt either.
Maybe they could replace these Patrols (just in the story; not in the game) with some Ground content...or Ground "Patrols"
The current state of space/ground ratio is definitely unbalanced, even though I welcome it from the old "3-acts: Space, Ground Space" layout.
However, some of the AI used for certain DR Ground missions is too good to NOT do this...in my honest opinion.
Mundane sure. But I wouldnt compare them to mundane missions the Captains had to go through.
Mundane in the Series was [Go To Nebula X: Study Nebula for 2 Months], [Patrol System G: Smugglers Using Asteroid Belt as Staging Point], [Escort Scientist Y: Rare Star Event To Occur], [Go to Sector P: Update Star Charts]. These were the typical not worthy of an episode unless something out of place happened type of missions youd expect. And even heard mention of. Most wouldnt have required the Starship to even fire one single shot, let alone kill people. The most theyd have had to do was disable a Smugglers ship and arrest them.
And honestly. To break up the monotony it would of been nice to have had some of these in the game. They would of served well as Exploration missions and would have actually made sense. Compared to the Collect 5 Data Samples/Scan 5 X,Y,Z which we were supposed to believe was the best Scientificesque missions Cryptic could give us. Of course Studying a Nebula for 2 months would be out of the question. But theres ways of implying time has passed. Games do it all the time. But the fact that no one at Cryptic thought these would of been interesting and immersive is a reflection of why the Exploration Clusters failed. Why Patrol Missions have always been on the long list of things players dont enjoy.
Cryptic is just too short sighted to see that theres more to Star Trek then blowing ships up. And their game is more then capable of supporting the sort of missions/quests that would of been different, interesting merely for the immersive side of things and broken up the mundane.
Quick?!
They're the only space missions in the game which take me 3-5 hours to complete.
1 hour for each system, and yet they only reward you for the same as a 1-hour mission, including the Intel one.
Also, "interesting"?!
Here's some more pew pew, and some throwaway story that doesn't make sense if you don't run these systems in a certain order.
You find THAT interesting?
I don't even want to think about how new characters with leveling gear are supposed to do those Mission.
They are also really annoying in a Group, randomly you get Mission that can't be done in a Group, other just bug out in a gtoup and None are really Balanced for Groups with the double spawns, though all this is also true for the non-patrol DR Mission.
The Story is Kind of OK, but as that is only like <10% of the leveleing you do, the whole DR is extremely bad on the Content side.