If it's not worth your time, you don't need to do it. And you can still play STO!
Oh boy another "if you don't ... then don't" - Strawman ... yes I can still play STO ... but they just wasted a whole "Expansion" imho ... if they keep doing that, than no I "can't" still play STO, because there is nothing left to play (& enjoy) ... it's an MMO not an 4h COD Clone, it should "evolve" & introduce new stuff worth my time, etc ... if it doesn't, there is no reason for all these fancy $30 Ships & other investments I made over time etc ...
I don't think most people are asking for instant max levelling. just more balance in the rewards.
if there is a patrol I can do in 10 minutes for 5000 sp, why can't I get 30,000 sp for doing a 1 hour Foundry mission.
At least then I can do different missons instead of the same patrol a few hunderd times
"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
Douglas MacArthur - Quote on the dedication plaque of the U.S.S. Ranger NCC-97332-A Armitage class Fleet Heavy Strike Wing Escort.
My three contraband-farming Marauders all got to level 60 via doffing. Took between two and three weeks. But I hardly use those characters for anything else. I used to- two of them have lockbox/lobi ships that cost a ton of EC. But, yanno. Gear upgrades.
I don't think most people are asking for instant max levelling. just more balance in the rewards.
if there is a patrol I can do in 10 minutes for 5000 sp, why can't I get 30,000 sp for doing a 1 hour Foundry mission.
At least then I can do different missons instead of the same patrol a few hunderd times
Absolutely. I can run a patrol for 9k XP in 5 minutes (an amount that will be doubled soon if the Tribble patch is to be believed)... or I can replay a story mission for 3k XP in 20 minutes. Or I can play an Elite queue like BHE for 2k XP in 10 minutes. Why the disparity? Why the kick in the head for playing actual content instead of repetitive nonsense?
Devs have said, in the past, that the main reason we don't get more "featured episode" story missions is that they have no replay value compared to mark-earning queues. In response, players have suggested adding better replay rewards- generally in the form of dil. But large amounts of XP on replay would be a pretty enticing reward, too. Heck, let us choose between a box with 480 dil or 40k XP for replaying story missions, and playing Foundry missions. Then everyone wins.
But why be obsessive about being maxxed out? Imagine they had never added specialization points. You went to Level 60 and that would be it. You would do whatever you wanted. Why is it psychologically impossible to ignore those other 50 pseudo-levels that grant you specialisation points? Why is so difficult to see that as a kind of "extra reward"?
I guess psychologists have smart answers for that. Or maybe not, and they are eagerly studying the phenomena and writing papers about it. And if not even that, they really should.
Nothing obsessive about it....just the goal. No one wants to wander into a queue with a substantial disadvantage vs the others they are partied with. Its why people hate P2W models.
If you are cool with it, all good. But at least acknowledge at least there are some that don't feel the same and won't feel the same regardless of what rarionalizations are thown at them.
7,900,000 skill points needed to get from level 60 to level 110, effectively all the spec points, and even with your doubling of the patrol rewards, that still requires 887 Argala patrols on average PER TOON. Just to put that into perspective, this is what 887 Argala Patrols looks like:
Argala Patrol ...
Ok, one Argala run is how long? 10 minutes on average with a good ship / build ?
And you can take time out for other fun things, like Dilithium grinding, crafting, the Reputations, Event grinding. It should relax you for the next Argala Patrol.
Line 35: [11:16] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 47: [11:19] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 57: [11:21] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 73: [11:24] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 83: [11:26] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 97: [11:31] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 109: [11:33] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 119: [11:36] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 131: [11:39] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
16245 XP in 23 minutes on Kobali doing Open Missions.
16245 XP in 23 minutes on Kobali doing Open Missions.
Am I missing something?
In my case, you're missing the zero interest I have in playing Delta Rising coupled with the cynical nerfing of XP everywhere else to force people to play Delta Rising, which is what resulted in those figures you have. Now if only they spent all that time they spend nerfing and removing options on fixing game-breaking bugs...
I level once a day with active duffing alone, not even touching a single patrol. If you do that as well, you will surely not have to do even 500 Argala's. Considering there's so much other stuff to do (Investigate Daily Foundry Reports, Fleet Alert, Borg Red Alert, Episode Replay etc), you can level up without getting bored to deaf for sure.
"Everything about the Jham'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Lets keep these ridiculous claims coming ... it's getting better & better further down the road ... what's next : "I lvl once a day, with the SFA Quiz only ... while cooking Filet Mignon & singing Opera" ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I level once a day with active duffing alone, not even touching a single patrol. If you do that as well, you will surely not have to do even 500 Argala's. Considering there's so much other stuff to do (Investigate Daily Foundry Reports, Fleet Alert, Borg Red Alert, Episode Replay etc), you can level up without getting bored to deaf for sure.
maybe it is that some wanted it. And some don't want it.
Now some are happy that they have a long term goal,and others are not, because they never wanted a long-term goal.
But the magics of internet echo chamber and pre-selection bias ensures that you never really hear both sides, only the one that is not satisfied right now. And we can't even tell which side is bigger, and how many neutrals exist.
I'm aware of that, I was just trying to put it into perspective for the OP.
You know what?! There's no such thing as a 'long term goal' in an MMO like ours. There *cannot* be. This is not like real life, where you go, say, to medical school, and emerge 8 years later, being a full surgeon.
Can you demonstrate this? Because there are already examples of people having long-term goals in MMORPGs.
Besides, players(not all, but a good portion) that reached endgame and got every item regularly want something to do. STO had players like that before DR. Now, if you get to endgame and get all the gear you want, you can still keep earning specialization and ranking up said endgame gear. This is a feature of DR.
This is STO, not exactly 'constant as the Northern Star.' Every six months or so they change the game drastically, or pull the rules right from under you (Trait system, anyone?). So, any realistic goal kinda has to fit said half-year time frame, max. If not, chances are what you were after either no longer exists, has been devaluated, or has simply changed too much -- and is thus something you can't really bank on, long-term wise.
Depends on the goals, really. But the fact is, in MMORPGs, if you have a character full of maxed stats and gear, unless the game has an uncommon feature, the players aren't going to have anything to do.
The above is also, btw, why R&D is inherently fail. Ceteris paribus, which is to say, if STO were *guaranteed* stagnant for like 4 years, these very long-term Epic R&D goals might work. But by then the game will have changed so much, that currently making such a 'deep investment' is simply foolhearted.
...maybe?
It's not like if the game changes, any and every investment WILL be useless in 6 months. In fact, the R&D system was designed for an evolving game in mind. The devs don't want any of our gear to go outdated in favor of newer stuff. That's why they're letting us upgrade anything, say in case Mk XVI comes out, or eventually T7. We can still keep our gear, and it can progress with us.
The point is, the devs don't want us to run out of things to do. You(not you in particular, meimeitoo) can call it a chore or 'trying to catch the carrot' if you want, but it's meant to merely exist so it'll keep people from quitting if they ran into a content end and have nothing to do.
I level once a day with active duffing alone, not even touching a single patrol. If you do that as well, you will surely not have to do even 500 Argala's. Considering there's so much other stuff to do (Investigate Daily Foundry Reports, Fleet Alert, Borg Red Alert, Episode Replay etc), you can level up without getting bored to deaf for sure.
Aggressive doffing will give 1/5 of a level a day. That includes a good 12 hour mission like shore leave or the delta one and a good amount of crits.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I'm not going to lie ans say i read all 17 pages. but what i did read is
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
Aggressive doffing will give 1/5 of a level a day. That includes a good 12 hour mission like shore leave or the delta one and a good amount of crits.
It's more than that.
On my klink i do nothing than doff atm and i gain a spec point roughly every 2-3 days.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I'm not going to lie ans say i read all 17 pages. but what i did read is
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
so what the hell do you want?
Feeling rewarded for the time invested, and not like crawling along with snail speed?
And i would really like to see / feel it again, that Alts are a viable & fun alternate way to explore and play the game.
I am not against long term goals, and i totally get why they did it, but i think we have enough stuff to strive for already. It has to be achievable (and i dont speak about the Specialization Points exclusively) until the next big thing hits the game. We are at a point where even the Hardcore players have trouble keeping up. Not to mention new players, or the previous option of playing Alts.
Now, i dont speak about the content / storys they did. Thats all great, but from a leveling, resource, player and psychological perspective, the game was much more fun before DR. And again, i get the why. Cryptic needed new long term goals and new sources of income. PWE's guideline was the focus on player attachment. Thats the actual reason for all the increases. If that was necessary, ok. The implementation is just bad for us players in it's current state.
When players start to leave, that's bad for all of us! So please dont wave around the "You all whine, cause you want it all now!" banner.
Same here. When I heard what people were doing I thought "why are they doing that? Just play the game normally and have fun"
That worked out well for me...
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
Cryptic also would have had ample opportunities to curtaip Spec points if they want to limit them before eve 60. Give out one every other ever from 50-60. Or lockout Tier 2 Specializations from 51-60.
As another poster pointed out Cryptic ruined a good experience with the game with DR. I'm oine that is prone to altitis. I was pondering trying out a Talaxian Captain. But DR leveing has killed that through with extreme prejudice.
But to not stray totaly off topic. The increases in the Patrol rewards is a step in the right direction. But I strongly encourage Cryptic to keep going in that direction. Divorce Specialization Points and rewards from the leveling curve. Make it stand alone so your can tweak it without ruining the leveling play experience.
I'm not going to lie ans say i read all 17 pages. but what i did read is
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
so what the hell do you want?
I don't mind having months of content. However, it's a problem to me to grind the same patrol for months.
Technically, that's something I could have done before DR.
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
.
I kinda thing so, too, but I believe they also wanted to stretch out the story content - normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly. Now they can't - if they want to see them, they have to earn their skill points first and do other stuff.
We'll see if this "experiment" will be successful or not - of course, anyone on the forums may say it wasn't, but the forums are always full of negativity. And very... single-minded.
AFAIR, they did not change anything about the upgrade system for example. People were up in arms about that system and how costly it would be to upgrade gear. And now everyone focues on skill points. Did the problem solve itself somehow? Is the skill point issue really bigger?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I kinda thing so, too, but I believe they also wanted to stretch out the story content - normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly. Now they can't - if they want to see them, they have to earn their skill points first and do other stuff.
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
No, it's not utter nonsense. You don't get what I am saying.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions), and then you could log out and not come back before the next mission is released. There was no real reason for a story-minded player to keep playing STO at that point, because he already saw all the stories. Now he has to play through other stuff to get to the missions. And so he keeps playing longer.
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
None of the missions in Delta Rising were 5 minute affairs, I think.
But there are certainly examples of that in earlier missions. (One just has to think of something like Spin the Wheel that many people used to get their Lobi on those free Lobi weekends.)
It's not rocket science.
Writing isn't rocket science, but it's actually not something that everyone can do well, or something that is easy. I even strongly suspect that most rocket scientists don't write story missions. Or stories.
Anyway - even a 1 hour mission is not that long. 12 1 hour mission can still be done in a weekend. And you can ask those 1-hour Foundry mission designers how long they took to make their mission...
Getting all the required levels from 50 to 60 will take most people longer than those missions.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
No, it's not utter nonsense. You don't get what I am saying.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions)
Ehm sorry I do get what you're saying ... but what else is there to do within DR, then repeat those Missions (yes I'm including Patrols like Argala, because they're even part of the Story Progression) ... doing other stuff I "blew through" several years ago, I guess ... which defeats the whole point ...
The whole concept doesn't make any sense ... you make it sound like people complained that Story Content was so horrible and they wanted something else to do in between, which they already did the last 4 years (i.E. "horrible" Story Content) ...
... the only reasonale thing left here, is some twisted urge for people to stay, because they're not 60/"110" yet ... "blowing through (Story) Content" has nothing to with it ... "blowing through to 60" maybe ...
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
That might be true (to some degree), but those are usually the kind of people that DON'T blow through content anyway ... so what's the point ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I'm leveling things beyond 60 by doff missions. Seriously I don't feel like sitting on one toon for hours on end grinding out patrol missions. Especially when I have alts that need leveled to 60.
Fun fact, I've level 3 toons to 60 already and have 3 more in waiting. While leveling the first three the other three are around level 55 now just from doff assignments. So they have a nice head start on the mission content and don't have any extreem grinds to see through between missions. Two of those three don't have all the previous episodes done so there's extra XP from that stuff too.
Two things bug me most about Delta Rising. No T6 science ship for my Fed/Romulan science captain and the exessive grinds between story missions. Thankfully I've solved the story mission wait problem somewhat. The other is waiting on PWE to put out T6 science ships for someone other then Federation players. That is fine though, I've already spent money I ear marked for T6 ships on Steam for other games since I'm not getting my science satisfaction Romulan side.
PS. The zombie dogs in 7 Days to Die are nasty. o.O
Comments
Oh boy another "if you don't ... then don't" - Strawman ... yes I can still play STO ... but they just wasted a whole "Expansion" imho ... if they keep doing that, than no I "can't" still play STO, because there is nothing left to play (& enjoy) ... it's an MMO not an 4h COD Clone, it should "evolve" & introduce new stuff worth my time, etc ... if it doesn't, there is no reason for all these fancy $30 Ships & other investments I made over time etc ...
No it doesn't ...
if there is a patrol I can do in 10 minutes for 5000 sp, why can't I get 30,000 sp for doing a 1 hour Foundry mission.
At least then I can do different missons instead of the same patrol a few hunderd times
Douglas MacArthur - Quote on the dedication plaque of the U.S.S. Ranger NCC-97332-A Armitage class Fleet Heavy Strike Wing Escort.
Absolutely. I can run a patrol for 9k XP in 5 minutes (an amount that will be doubled soon if the Tribble patch is to be believed)... or I can replay a story mission for 3k XP in 20 minutes. Or I can play an Elite queue like BHE for 2k XP in 10 minutes. Why the disparity? Why the kick in the head for playing actual content instead of repetitive nonsense?
Devs have said, in the past, that the main reason we don't get more "featured episode" story missions is that they have no replay value compared to mark-earning queues. In response, players have suggested adding better replay rewards- generally in the form of dil. But large amounts of XP on replay would be a pretty enticing reward, too. Heck, let us choose between a box with 480 dil or 40k XP for replaying story missions, and playing Foundry missions. Then everyone wins.
Nothing obsessive about it....just the goal. No one wants to wander into a queue with a substantial disadvantage vs the others they are partied with. Its why people hate P2W models.
If you are cool with it, all good. But at least acknowledge at least there are some that don't feel the same and won't feel the same regardless of what rarionalizations are thown at them.
Ok, one Argala run is how long? 10 minutes on average with a good ship / build ?
887 x 10 = 8870 minutes
8870 / 60 = 147,83 hours
lets say ~ 150 hours
150 / 10 = 15
I repeat: 15
15 what you ask?
You only need to listen to the whole official Argala Patrol Song fifteen times!
And you can take time out for other fun things, like Dilithium grinding, crafting, the Reputations, Event grinding. It should relax you for the next Argala Patrol.
SEE IT POSITIVE !!!
If you were planning on doing all your leveling via XP, then, yes, it does.
In Cryptic's defense, though (wait, wut?!) they're offering some *very* good XP doff missions in the Delta Quadrant (over 1,000 XP per Trade mission).
Line 47: [11:19] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 57: [11:21] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 73: [11:24] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 83: [11:26] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 97: [11:31] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 109: [11:33] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 119: [11:36] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
Line 131: [11:39] [System] [NumericReceived] You received 1,805 Specialization Experience
16245 XP in 23 minutes on Kobali doing Open Missions.
Am I missing something?
In my case, you're missing the zero interest I have in playing Delta Rising coupled with the cynical nerfing of XP everywhere else to force people to play Delta Rising, which is what resulted in those figures you have. Now if only they spent all that time they spend nerfing and removing options on fixing game-breaking bugs...
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Lets keep these ridiculous claims coming ... it's getting better & better further down the road ... what's next : "I lvl once a day, with the SFA Quiz only ... while cooking Filet Mignon & singing Opera" ...
No you don't, stop lying.
Can you demonstrate this? Because there are already examples of people having long-term goals in MMORPGs.
Besides, players(not all, but a good portion) that reached endgame and got every item regularly want something to do. STO had players like that before DR. Now, if you get to endgame and get all the gear you want, you can still keep earning specialization and ranking up said endgame gear. This is a feature of DR.
Depends on the goals, really. But the fact is, in MMORPGs, if you have a character full of maxed stats and gear, unless the game has an uncommon feature, the players aren't going to have anything to do.
...maybe?
It's not like if the game changes, any and every investment WILL be useless in 6 months. In fact, the R&D system was designed for an evolving game in mind. The devs don't want any of our gear to go outdated in favor of newer stuff. That's why they're letting us upgrade anything, say in case Mk XVI comes out, or eventually T7. We can still keep our gear, and it can progress with us.
The point is, the devs don't want us to run out of things to do. You(not you in particular, meimeitoo) can call it a chore or 'trying to catch the carrot' if you want, but it's meant to merely exist so it'll keep people from quitting if they ran into a content end and have nothing to do.
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
And a new meme was born.
http://i.imgur.com/cdLMA0L.jpg
Free Tibet!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
so what the hell do you want?
Reading comprehension ...
It's more than that.
On my klink i do nothing than doff atm and i gain a spec point roughly every 2-3 days.
And i would really like to see / feel it again, that Alts are a viable & fun alternate way to explore and play the game.
I am not against long term goals, and i totally get why they did it, but i think we have enough stuff to strive for already. It has to be achievable (and i dont speak about the Specialization Points exclusively) until the next big thing hits the game. We are at a point where even the Hardcore players have trouble keeping up. Not to mention new players, or the previous option of playing Alts.
Now, i dont speak about the content / storys they did. Thats all great, but from a leveling, resource, player and psychological perspective, the game was much more fun before DR. And again, i get the why. Cryptic needed new long term goals and new sources of income. PWE's guideline was the focus on player attachment. Thats the actual reason for all the increases. If that was necessary, ok. The implementation is just bad for us players in it's current state.
When players start to leave, that's bad for all of us! So please dont wave around the "You all whine, cause you want it all now!" banner.
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
Cryptic also would have had ample opportunities to curtaip Spec points if they want to limit them before eve 60. Give out one every other ever from 50-60. Or lockout Tier 2 Specializations from 51-60.
As another poster pointed out Cryptic ruined a good experience with the game with DR. I'm oine that is prone to altitis. I was pondering trying out a Talaxian Captain. But DR leveing has killed that through with extreme prejudice.
But to not stray totaly off topic. The increases in the Patrol rewards is a step in the right direction. But I strongly encourage Cryptic to keep going in that direction. Divorce Specialization Points and rewards from the leveling curve. Make it stand alone so your can tweak it without ruining the leveling play experience.
Technically, that's something I could have done before DR.
We'll see if this "experiment" will be successful or not - of course, anyone on the forums may say it wasn't, but the forums are always full of negativity. And very... single-minded.
AFAIR, they did not change anything about the upgrade system for example. People were up in arms about that system and how costly it would be to upgrade gear. And now everyone focues on skill points. Did the problem solve itself somehow? Is the skill point issue really bigger?
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
It's not rocket science.
I want you to read all 17 pages, then come back and try again.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions), and then you could log out and not come back before the next mission is released. There was no real reason for a story-minded player to keep playing STO at that point, because he already saw all the stories. Now he has to play through other stuff to get to the missions. And so he keeps playing longer.
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
None of the missions in Delta Rising were 5 minute affairs, I think.
But there are certainly examples of that in earlier missions. (One just has to think of something like Spin the Wheel that many people used to get their Lobi on those free Lobi weekends.)
Writing isn't rocket science, but it's actually not something that everyone can do well, or something that is easy. I even strongly suspect that most rocket scientists don't write story missions. Or stories.
Anyway - even a 1 hour mission is not that long. 12 1 hour mission can still be done in a weekend. And you can ask those 1-hour Foundry mission designers how long they took to make their mission...
Getting all the required levels from 50 to 60 will take most people longer than those missions.
Ehm sorry I do get what you're saying ... but what else is there to do within DR, then repeat those Missions (yes I'm including Patrols like Argala, because they're even part of the Story Progression) ... doing other stuff I "blew through" several years ago, I guess ... which defeats the whole point ...
The whole concept doesn't make any sense ... you make it sound like people complained that Story Content was so horrible and they wanted something else to do in between, which they already did the last 4 years (i.E. "horrible" Story Content) ...
... the only reasonale thing left here, is some twisted urge for people to stay, because they're not 60/"110" yet ... "blowing through (Story) Content" has nothing to with it ... "blowing through to 60" maybe ...
That might be true (to some degree), but those are usually the kind of people that DON'T blow through content anyway ... so what's the point ...
Fun fact, I've level 3 toons to 60 already and have 3 more in waiting. While leveling the first three the other three are around level 55 now just from doff assignments. So they have a nice head start on the mission content and don't have any extreem grinds to see through between missions. Two of those three don't have all the previous episodes done so there's extra XP from that stuff too.
Two things bug me most about Delta Rising. No T6 science ship for my Fed/Romulan science captain and the exessive grinds between story missions. Thankfully I've solved the story mission wait problem somewhat. The other is waiting on PWE to put out T6 science ships for someone other then Federation players. That is fine though, I've already spent money I ear marked for T6 ships on Steam for other games since I'm not getting my science satisfaction Romulan side.
PS. The zombie dogs in 7 Days to Die are nasty. o.O