A few of the above posts made me realize something about the issue of advancement/leveling up:
Before DR, I would always find something to do. First there was the latest story arc as the most obvious, then the reputation system, and then, to work out what the rep equipment's underlying benefits were and grind out the right ones on the right toons. Once I'd done that, I'd settle back into some patrols, Foundry, maybe some PvE and so on, maybe even hanging around various places (Drozana, DS9, ESB, Qo'nos) and just chatting, helping new players level up by teaming on old missions...
Point being, I didn't need to be "told" how to progress my toons, I just did whatever felt right for that toon. I (and I would presume, many others) find the mechanics changes detract from this self-directed advancement, rather than enhances it?
I'm having quite a bit of fun. Mainly by pacing myself and just taking my time doing whatever I feel like in the moment. I only just got to 60 on my first character a few days ago and still haven't gotten any spec points past that. Only have 2 pieces of gear at MK XIV so I'm still very much working on my ship. No major problems here.
Let's see. Before DR i had 3 toons, 1 tac, 1 eng and 1 sci. All with full MKXII fleet and rep gear. They were anxiously waiting for DR. After launch, I just mothballed 2 of them. No way am I going to slave over dilithium to upgrade all their gear. They are now doffing their way where no other toon has doffed before.
And even if I did get all my gear magically upgraded what would be the point ? No reason to do advanced STFs. Even if magically all the pugs became good players with good gear - or I went only on fleet runs - what would be the point ? There's no rewards to any STF that would make up for the time and effort needed.
Well, there's the mats you get from the advanced STFs, if you are lucky enough to get them, which are used to upgrade your gear.
I replayed that last Solanae episode yesterday...and I've upgraded EVERYTHING I have, to make my ship as powerful as it possibly can be. Admittedly, I didn't get killed much at all, but it took me TWO HOURS to finish the episode, because the Undine have been made ridiculously too strong. It stopped being fun almost immediately for me, as have the Delta Quadrant patrols. So much effort and mind-numbing tedium...and not even for any worthwhile rewards. There's just no enjoyment in playing, because it feels geared to hard-core players, who have nothing else to do but play around the clock. You can't log-in for half a hour of fun anymore.
I like Kobali Prime but now not overwhelmed by Delta Rising tbh. I don't think we needed the cap increase and time could have been spent on other fun things.
Chasing cowardly Vaardwar all over the map box while slowly pew pewing their outrageously inflated hit points away = NOT fun.
When I lose the faith after chasing the blasted toads around the map, I take a timeout to enjoy the 45th annual forum flame extravaganza! It refreshes my batteries, allowing me to chase toads again. :eek:
When I lose the faith after chasing the blasted toads around the map, I take a timeout to enjoy the 45th annual forum flame extravaganza! It refreshes my batteries, allowing me to chase toads again. :eek:
I enjoy the forums while waiting for the excessive amount of s l o w d i n g screens and massive amount of timegating telling me when I can play missions.
Oh and also during the unnecessary, action stopping movies during STFs.
Plenty of fun thanks. Some of the advanced queues still need some work but im enjoying the story, the harder difficulty in places. the new ships and specialization points.
ive always said, if you are not motivated to play then chances are you need a break even if its a long one. trying to force yourself to have fun rarely works and misses the point of a game.
Couldn't have said it better myself. For the most part, I am really enjoying DR.
I do have two pieces of feedback:
I agree Advanced/Elite(particularly queues) need some tweaking to their Tedium:Reward ratio. Advanced/Elite just aren't worth the time vs. payoff and not having the VR materials and Neural Processors, etc on Normal means new players are going to have a hard time getting the Rep gear they need in order to compete in the Advanced/Elite queues.
I also think the might need to look at the cost of the upgrade system (both in terms of material costs and dilithium). I think the current metric is good for a single character, but the system is prohibitive for Alts. I deleted half of my characters for DR simply because the cost of the upgrades were more than I was willing to invest in Alts. That translates into less need to buy bank slots, DOff slots, and a host of other items for Alts from the Zen store, so lost revenue.
Overall, I think it's good, but some tweaking to rewards/costs is still VERY essential.
Missions: Sure, I enjoyed these, although I had to get to lvl 58+ first in order to play through them unbroken. If I had to play them with grind in between them all, I expect the story would be too disjointed for good memory of what is happening.
Specialization: It was interesting to see what this gave me, although the recent skillpoint nerf has put a damper on getting more.
Mastery: The starship traits were interesting, but skillpoints are now too slow to really work at grinding more.
Queues: There is no fun in Advanced or Elite. My fleet tried several Advanced queues, ones we could previously beat easily, but failed every time, often from missing the optional timer by a matter of seconds. This constant failure is demoralizing.
Talaxians for Lifetime Accounts: This is the most fun I've had in Delta Rising. Myself and several friends made Talaxians, and began running them through the early missions. Cracking Talaxian jokes is especially amusing.
Fun? If you want to have fun, forget visiting the Delta Quadrant. Start fresh characters with some friends, and go have a good time.
I'm still having fun, but LoR was the better expansion by far. The Delta Quadrant content is ok - I'm no huge fan of the patrols, but I can live with them. The story missions are nice, I like the voice work, and its nice to have enemies with varied tactics that require you to think about what you're doing. Even the XP walls, I can ultimately live with. The problem many of us have is that we only have the DR missions to get from 50 to 60, while if you play a new toon from the start, I suspect you'd be OK as you'd have a ton of the old missions left to go when you hit 50 (last time I hadn't even started the Cardassian front yet). The specialization trees and upgrades are meant to be long-term projects and I'm fine with that. I'm a casual player, and so long as my ships remain functional, I can live with them not being the best. The slow process of improving them suits me fine.
My problem - and worry - is the difficulty increase. Especially the queued events that I used to have fun with, I can no longer play. The advanced levels are just too difficult now, the PUGs I used to play with will no longer work for them. I won't play content that will cause me to fail most times, I just don't have the time for that nor dol I wish to trouble the expert players that I can't keep up with. This will likely cause the game to become tedious quickly, as I'd have to focus on repeating the same content more, and I'll likely lose interest in that eventually. If only the old Elite versions of the queues had just been turned into the new Advanced ones with no alterations, I'd have no complaints whatsoever.
It's a pity; I like STO, but I'm worried about how long I'll stay interested.
played the game for 2 solid years before it became the same o same o grind everyday. Then took a 9 month break from it before i came back. Looks like i came back to soon. I will check back in after the winter event is over and see if Craptic has returned the XP back to where it was before DR.
Plenty! Both story arcs were very enjoyable to me and it was fun bringing my canon builds up to speed to beat the new challenges. The AI for the new enemies is great and combat almost feels the way I want it to now. I never wanted to be melting ships in seconds and had to purposely hold my builds back to get the feeling I wanted -- now I don't have to as much, which is nice.
I really don't see anything this expansion did "wrong" outside of putting the Advanced queues outside the skill range of the average player. The patrols might've been a bit boring at times, but they were still the best patrol missions I've played. The specializations might be too powerful, especially the "escorts don't die" attack pattern expertise.
NONE. I am having ZERO fun playing STO at the moment.
I am getting so angry not just because the difficulty level of group pve queues has increased, but because the pve queues are so much harder it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to pug a pve queue with a random group of players.
The only time I have fun anymore in the game is when I'm hanging out with a group of friends who know what they're doing and don't quit a pve mission just because the mission is difficult.
I understand the devs wanted to make the game more challenging for end-level players, but now it's IMPOSSIBLE for newbs, casual players, or pugs to get anything done in a pve queue.
This directly impacts everyone else because then you are left with only 2-3 players in a 5-player queue and cannot finish the mission.
I don't want to spend the rest of my days scheduling time with my friends so we're all in-game at the same time to run pve queues. If STO is going to survive the pve queues have to be easy enough (at least on the normal and advanced levels) to make it so pugs can join and won't get fed up and quit.
I am so freaking ANGRY at this game, the devs, and many of the players right now because I can only finish about 1 out of every 10 pve queues I join (again, unless I'm running queues with friends).
There is nothing fun about WASTING TIME in a group PVE queue when 2 or 3 out of 5 players in your team quit because it's too difficult and them make it impossible for the other players to finish the mission.
I hate (sorry, I meant HATE) everyone who was involved with the decision to ruin the PVE queues.
In the immortal words of Captain Sisko: "It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong."
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
I take my time and try and immerse myself in the universe, my characters, my lovely ships, the whole enchilada, staying out of the bloody min/max rat-race and keeping the focus on the fun of it all.
If the game is not delivering fun for you, step back and go do something else more worthy of your time. You can always come back, with a fresh perspective. I've played since beta, and have taken huge swathes of months off to enjoy other games. We really have a fairly nice game here, but too much intensity of play will inevitably burn a person out. It's totally normal.
I am enjoying playing on my science character, since with the upgrade system I no longer care about my DPS. I'm just playing the game as I want, and I love it.
My one complaint is that it's too hard to level now.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
The one toon I am using for DR content is stuck at 9.5 bars on level progression in the Kobali ground zone. I guess I am supposed to kill 50,000 vadwaur for the half a bar, but instead I am logging in periodically to run DOFF assignments until I get it then will pickup the story again. Choices are dull option 1 and dull option 2 or go run patrol mission somewhere. Life of super casual is put it on autopilot with DOFFs and play something else in the meantime.
As for what the expansion did "wrong" might think that less than half the rewards at 4x the effort counts as wrong. Also obsoleting all my old ships and gear after supporting the game with c-store purchases and fleet dil injections might count as "wrong" to some people--its not quest gear that got deprecated, its end-game bought gear that got obsoleted for the purpose of shaking money out of the fan base on arbitrary level ups. Just to name a couple of things.
There is a lot of good stuff in DR but it is overwhelmed by the hubris of the STO leadership that thinks this stuff is going to be good for the game.
Look at the steam charts and see, people are voting with their feet
I suppose I'm having enough fun to continue playing. But I have more or less given up on bothering with any of the DR content anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I like the story. I even like some of the mobs. Even Neelix isn't so... okay, Nellix is still Neelix, but at least he's not front and center 90% of the time.
I don't mind getting used to the new enemies. The higher HP's though, are bothersome. I don't even mind leveling slowly.
I do, however, mind leveling so slowly that I can't complete the DR content. What's the point of having all this great new content locked behind level restrictions? I'm at a point where I run a DR mish and then have to go do something else for 9 more bubs in order to level to run one more mish to... you get the idea.
If I'm going to have to run other content to level, then why bother running DR content at all. Since most of my time leveling ends up getting spent in queues or running content in the Alpha Quadrant, it seems that the DR content is the stuff needing to be skipped.
I find that pretty sad.
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
The XP wall prevents me from enjoying the story in any coherent fashion (started at level 50, yeah a big mistake) which is a shame.
Every other mission is just a boilerplate mission that tells me "Hey,hey! There are patrols in all the systems! Do them! They're content!"
Still, I have to admit to smirking once or twice when I was allowed to try to tell Neelix that he can go away and shut up.
The new ships and powers are not enough to keep me interested in playing much. Add to that some minor gripes with the UI (see below) and some major gripes about nearly everything being locked away behind a dil/time sink/wall I'll just log on for the events now and see if things change in the future.
The Reputation UI is still an unnecessarily convoluted mess. IE: Why do I have to use the sliders for every project? Why not make it one-click-start/buy like the DOFF UI?
Why can I buy some stuff from the rep shops while the sets need a project?
Fun is a relative term. What's fun for you may be boring to me.
Fun stuff:
Stealth nerfs to XP. Then it's not. Then it is again.
Increasing the time it takes to earn dilithium
Placing VR materials out of the reach of the casual player (you need good gear to get VR mats / you need VR mats to get good gear)
The range of rage inducing bugs. Bugs they were told about before release.
Missions that don't complete.
Loadouts that are bugged for some, but not for others.
Upgrades that ****** your item, not increase it's value.
O M F G - when did the wordd e g r a d e become a forbidden word?
Upgrade costs which preclude 1 character getting them, let alone all your alts.
3 years of playtime to get Elite Gear that's no longer elite. Heck it's not even advanced.
3 years of collecting ships that have little to no value long term.
Being called an exploiter. Then being punished for it, only to have everything given back. (definition of an abusive relationship)
Buying a lifetime subscription so you can help them debug,
Mission difficulty is based on how long you it takes for combat.
No Exploration. No Diplomacy. No brave new worlds.
Miscommunication. You'll get Delta Marks. No Delta Marks.
And there's more:
Romulan and Remans trapped on earth. 18,000 ec to beam out.
Reman captains don't get to use shipmaster at all.
Intelligence costumes are for GOLD MEMBERS ONLY... I bought them (OPS pack) only to be told 'no' by the tailor
Differences in the ship boff layout from the ops pack advertising, and what actually shows up
Comments
Before DR, I would always find something to do. First there was the latest story arc as the most obvious, then the reputation system, and then, to work out what the rep equipment's underlying benefits were and grind out the right ones on the right toons. Once I'd done that, I'd settle back into some patrols, Foundry, maybe some PvE and so on, maybe even hanging around various places (Drozana, DS9, ESB, Qo'nos) and just chatting, helping new players level up by teaming on old missions...
Point being, I didn't need to be "told" how to progress my toons, I just did whatever felt right for that toon. I (and I would presume, many others) find the mechanics changes detract from this self-directed advancement, rather than enhances it?
Mine Trap Supporter
Let's see. Before DR i had 3 toons, 1 tac, 1 eng and 1 sci. All with full MKXII fleet and rep gear. They were anxiously waiting for DR. After launch, I just mothballed 2 of them. No way am I going to slave over dilithium to upgrade all their gear. They are now doffing their way where no other toon has doffed before.
And even if I did get all my gear magically upgraded what would be the point ? No reason to do advanced STFs. Even if magically all the pugs became good players with good gear - or I went only on fleet runs - what would be the point ? There's no rewards to any STF that would make up for the time and effort needed.
Well, there's the mats you get from the advanced STFs, if you are lucky enough to get them, which are used to upgrade your gear.
Oh wait....
Only use 1 toon now, deleted 3, 2 left.
Upgraded my ships, lucky 10 lock box only 2 fleet, will prob delete 4 locked box ships.
Upgraded 1 set of kit for my ships, mix of xiii xiv, done by selling v/rare & rare r&d materials & buying off the exchange, dont do r&d.
Ques are dead,(maybe they will pick up again) fleet projects have come to a stand still, in fact no point in being in a fleet kit wise now.
Having FUN is not allowed, GRIND yes FUN no.
*takes check from PWE and leaves*
Heeellllloooooo, upgrade system still isn't 100% functional.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I like,,,,:)
PS hope the check dont bounce,,,,,,
LoR felt like more like a proper expansion to me
Chasing cowardly Vaardwar all over the map box while slowly pew pewing their outrageously inflated hit points away = NOT fun.
When I lose the faith after chasing the blasted toads around the map, I take a timeout to enjoy the 45th annual forum flame extravaganza! It refreshes my batteries, allowing me to chase toads again. :eek:
I enjoy the forums while waiting for the excessive amount of s l o w d i n g screens and massive amount of timegating telling me when I can play missions.
Oh and also during the unnecessary, action stopping movies during STFs.
Those things are also = NOT fun.
Couldn't have said it better myself. For the most part, I am really enjoying DR.
I do have two pieces of feedback:
I agree Advanced/Elite(particularly queues) need some tweaking to their Tedium:Reward ratio. Advanced/Elite just aren't worth the time vs. payoff and not having the VR materials and Neural Processors, etc on Normal means new players are going to have a hard time getting the Rep gear they need in order to compete in the Advanced/Elite queues.
I also think the might need to look at the cost of the upgrade system (both in terms of material costs and dilithium). I think the current metric is good for a single character, but the system is prohibitive for Alts. I deleted half of my characters for DR simply because the cost of the upgrades were more than I was willing to invest in Alts. That translates into less need to buy bank slots, DOff slots, and a host of other items for Alts from the Zen store, so lost revenue.
Overall, I think it's good, but some tweaking to rewards/costs is still VERY essential.
Specialization: It was interesting to see what this gave me, although the recent skillpoint nerf has put a damper on getting more.
Mastery: The starship traits were interesting, but skillpoints are now too slow to really work at grinding more.
Queues: There is no fun in Advanced or Elite. My fleet tried several Advanced queues, ones we could previously beat easily, but failed every time, often from missing the optional timer by a matter of seconds. This constant failure is demoralizing.
Talaxians for Lifetime Accounts: This is the most fun I've had in Delta Rising. Myself and several friends made Talaxians, and began running them through the early missions. Cracking Talaxian jokes is especially amusing.
Fun? If you want to have fun, forget visiting the Delta Quadrant. Start fresh characters with some friends, and go have a good time.
STO Resources: <Ship Comparison - All Tiers + Small Craft + Hangar Pets> <Damage Resistance>
<R&D + Upgrade Costs> <Duty Officer Finder> <Suliban Doff Reqs> <Fleet Costs> <Rep Costs>
<Keybind Tour the Galaxy> <Fleet / Armada Management> <Currency Exchange> <Other STO Links>
I mean, sure, it's your time to waste, but why waste it? Find something you do like. Enjoy that. Surely the taste of bile isn't that delicious...
My problem - and worry - is the difficulty increase. Especially the queued events that I used to have fun with, I can no longer play. The advanced levels are just too difficult now, the PUGs I used to play with will no longer work for them. I won't play content that will cause me to fail most times, I just don't have the time for that nor dol I wish to trouble the expert players that I can't keep up with. This will likely cause the game to become tedious quickly, as I'd have to focus on repeating the same content more, and I'll likely lose interest in that eventually. If only the old Elite versions of the queues had just been turned into the new Advanced ones with no alterations, I'd have no complaints whatsoever.
It's a pity; I like STO, but I'm worried about how long I'll stay interested.
Vice Admiral Mathrias | U.S.S. Utrecht (Blockade Runner Retrofit)
Vide Admiral Kyurin | U.S.S. Cairhien (Fleet Dreadnought Cruiser)
Vice Admiral Kiarl Leftrin | U.S.S. Aegir (Fleet Recon Science Vessel)
--= Starfleet Strategic Command =--
I really don't see anything this expansion did "wrong" outside of putting the Advanced queues outside the skill range of the average player. The patrols might've been a bit boring at times, but they were still the best patrol missions I've played. The specializations might be too powerful, especially the "escorts don't die" attack pattern expertise.
Are you talking about them hitting you with continuous Tractor beams or the running away part?
They should try to make enemies that don't have a Tractor Beam for a change.
The running away bit is new, but annoying along with the outrageous amount of hit points everything has.
I am getting so angry not just because the difficulty level of group pve queues has increased, but because the pve queues are so much harder it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to pug a pve queue with a random group of players.
The only time I have fun anymore in the game is when I'm hanging out with a group of friends who know what they're doing and don't quit a pve mission just because the mission is difficult.
I understand the devs wanted to make the game more challenging for end-level players, but now it's IMPOSSIBLE for newbs, casual players, or pugs to get anything done in a pve queue.
This directly impacts everyone else because then you are left with only 2-3 players in a 5-player queue and cannot finish the mission.
I don't want to spend the rest of my days scheduling time with my friends so we're all in-game at the same time to run pve queues. If STO is going to survive the pve queues have to be easy enough (at least on the normal and advanced levels) to make it so pugs can join and won't get fed up and quit.
I am so freaking ANGRY at this game, the devs, and many of the players right now because I can only finish about 1 out of every 10 pve queues I join (again, unless I'm running queues with friends).
There is nothing fun about WASTING TIME in a group PVE queue when 2 or 3 out of 5 players in your team quit because it's too difficult and them make it impossible for the other players to finish the mission.
I hate (sorry, I meant HATE) everyone who was involved with the decision to ruin the PVE queues.
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
Since Casuals make up the majority of customers, the game should be tailored to their playing style.
I have switched to normal Ques now and would hope everyone else that dislikes the new difficulty does the same.
Give em some numbers they can understand, leave the Advanced and Elite ques empty for awhile, then they will get the point.
I take my time and try and immerse myself in the universe, my characters, my lovely ships, the whole enchilada, staying out of the bloody min/max rat-race and keeping the focus on the fun of it all.
If the game is not delivering fun for you, step back and go do something else more worthy of your time. You can always come back, with a fresh perspective. I've played since beta, and have taken huge swathes of months off to enjoy other games. We really have a fairly nice game here, but too much intensity of play will inevitably burn a person out. It's totally normal.
(Join Date: Aug 2008)
I am enjoying playing on my science character, since with the upgrade system I no longer care about my DPS. I'm just playing the game as I want, and I love it.
My one complaint is that it's too hard to level now.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
As for what the expansion did "wrong" might think that less than half the rewards at 4x the effort counts as wrong. Also obsoleting all my old ships and gear after supporting the game with c-store purchases and fleet dil injections might count as "wrong" to some people--its not quest gear that got deprecated, its end-game bought gear that got obsoleted for the purpose of shaking money out of the fan base on arbitrary level ups. Just to name a couple of things.
There is a lot of good stuff in DR but it is overwhelmed by the hubris of the STO leadership that thinks this stuff is going to be good for the game.
Look at the steam charts and see, people are voting with their feet
Don't get me wrong, I like the story. I even like some of the mobs. Even Neelix isn't so... okay, Nellix is still Neelix, but at least he's not front and center 90% of the time.
I don't mind getting used to the new enemies. The higher HP's though, are bothersome. I don't even mind leveling slowly.
I do, however, mind leveling so slowly that I can't complete the DR content. What's the point of having all this great new content locked behind level restrictions? I'm at a point where I run a DR mish and then have to go do something else for 9 more bubs in order to level to run one more mish to... you get the idea.
If I'm going to have to run other content to level, then why bother running DR content at all. Since most of my time leveling ends up getting spent in queues or running content in the Alpha Quadrant, it seems that the DR content is the stuff needing to be skipped.
I find that pretty sad.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
The XP wall prevents me from enjoying the story in any coherent fashion (started at level 50, yeah a big mistake) which is a shame.
Every other mission is just a boilerplate mission that tells me "Hey,hey! There are patrols in all the systems! Do them! They're content!"
Still, I have to admit to smirking once or twice when I was allowed to try to tell Neelix that he can go away and shut up.
The new ships and powers are not enough to keep me interested in playing much. Add to that some minor gripes with the UI (see below) and some major gripes about nearly everything being locked away behind a dil/time sink/wall I'll just log on for the events now and see if things change in the future.
The Reputation UI is still an unnecessarily convoluted mess. IE: Why do I have to use the sliders for every project? Why not make it one-click-start/buy like the DOFF UI?
Why can I buy some stuff from the rep shops while the sets need a project?
Fun stuff:
Stealth nerfs to XP. Then it's not. Then it is again.
Increasing the time it takes to earn dilithium
Placing VR materials out of the reach of the casual player
(you need good gear to get VR mats / you need VR mats to get good gear)
The range of rage inducing bugs. Bugs they were told about before release.
Missions that don't complete.
Loadouts that are bugged for some, but not for others.
Upgrades that ****** your item, not increase it's value.
O M F G - when did the word d e g r a d e become a forbidden word?
Upgrade costs which preclude 1 character getting them, let alone all your alts.
3 years of playtime to get Elite Gear that's no longer elite. Heck it's not even advanced.
3 years of collecting ships that have little to no value long term.
Being called an exploiter. Then being punished for it, only to have everything given back.
(definition of an abusive relationship)
Buying a lifetime subscription so you can help them debug,
Mission difficulty is based on how long you it takes for combat.
No Exploration. No Diplomacy. No brave new worlds.
Miscommunication. You'll get Delta Marks. No Delta Marks.
And there's more:
Romulan and Remans trapped on earth. 18,000 ec to beam out.
Reman captains don't get to use shipmaster at all.
Intelligence costumes are for GOLD MEMBERS ONLY... I bought them (OPS pack) only to be told 'no' by the tailor
Differences in the ship boff layout from the ops pack advertising, and what actually shows up
Oh, and I paid to be here.