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What is Grind, and what is BAD grind?
patrickngo
Member Posts: 9,963 Arc User
A lot of posters (*myself included) have railed about the grind.
The grind this, the grind that...
What is grind?
Grind, is killing rats, to bring the skins, to an NPC, for coppers to change into gold to buy the part that you use to make the parts for that epic set of gizmodunthis.
EVERY MMO OUT THERE IS GRINDY.
we're talking actual MMO's here, not RTS or FPS games like HALO or Starcraft.
so, STO is an MMO. There will be Grind.
So...what point is it no longer a breach of ettiquette to complain about the grind?
This is much simpler.
'tis when it feels like grind.
when it feels like you're in a rat-box experiment, pushing the red button for some pellets.
Grind isn't difficult-it's just aggravating-but it's only aggravating when it FEELS LIKE GRIND.
many people re-run games with fixed storylines over and over and over again, without it feeling like grind. The entire plot of the first two Mass Effect games can be run 'straight through' linearly...and most people will choose to go back and hit what they missed, or replay things, and it still feels fresh.
Your WoW players, go back, over and over again, sometimes swearing at the computer as they break the vow they made never to touch it again...
because there's grind there, but it doesn't FEEL like grind.
Your motive is more than racking up a couple more points to fill a slider-bar (as one player in another thread described it).
So...what happened?
STO is a linear railroad from Level 1 to 50, if you play story missions, you can play 1 to 50 on your given faction's toon, and experience very little change, you'll also progress roughly 1 level per mission. This conditions a palyer's assumptions about what the game feels like.
Seriously, it does. 1-50 is supposed to take about 35 hours according to Geko-time, to complete.
51-60 takes about 35 hours, accordign to Geko-time, to complete.
MANY times as long, in other words-roughly 50 missions worth of time assuming a 1-to-1 ratio as you level up.
To do Ten "Missions" (well, really 5, the others are Patrols, which aren't really missions so much as poorly concealed time-sinks.)
I haven't gotten to gearing yet, this is to get raw levels.
it's a lot of red-bull, for not a lot of content. The Patrols are as unvarying as the storyline missions, and even incorporate bits of story into them...the same bits. Over and over and over, because you can't just go through it once, check the box, and be done.
we're nowhere near gearing yet, much less spec points.
It's like a big, empty warehouse, with a few goods scattered here and there, and the lights off.
should be fun, right?
mmm...not according to the reaction in the forums, or reactions seen in actual game.
something wrong here.
whatever could it be?
could it be because repetitive grinding...that feels repetitive and grindy, isn't much fun??
F2P, and even Sub based games, have a metric they use involving the time a player spends in the game, and how much they spend from their real-world wallet.
most F2P games want to increase the time-in-game because it inspires 'impulse buying', and impulse buying, in turn, establishes a habit pattern-people feel 'invested' in the game, they want it to prosper, they want to 'support it' they don't want to 'throw good money after bad".
That's the intent.
where it gets screwed up, is when your effort to keep them playing, feels like an effort to keep them logged in, a naked effort, a choke-chain.
Punishing them.
one reason we have prisons is that people don't like being punished.
well...most people don't.
there are those outliers...
Presume, now, Cryptic wants you to play the game, not just hang out int he forum, ********.
How did they go about inspiring you to play the game, instead of hanging out in the forum ********?
There are two ways to get people playing the game instead of complaining about game-play...
1. New, engaging content-this works pretty well. (See the Steam numbers for Legacy of Romulus and Delta rising on their release days...)
2. slowing down progression.
Slow progression isn't necessarily bad. It can encourage players to 'smell the roses' and try new things...
but...
you've got to have new things for them to try, and in sufficient quantity, that they're not feeling like their progression is being slowed.
that feeling, that sense of being "held Back" is the essence of the negative feeling of "Grind."
which is something that a developer should definitely be concerned about. Too grindy, and people WILL write you off, they won't log in, they won't spend money, some of them will withold the monies and logging in quite vocally, which WILL turn off new people, and push fence-sitters to the wrong side of the barrier.
an that's what "Grind" is-when it's "Felt" grind.
see, here's the problem set down simply.
minus the time-gating, all of Delta Rising could be played out in about six or seven hours. all the missions, plus the patrols.
It's supposed to fill 35 logged-on-hours.
this is a problem.
"but wait! what about the New, Qued missions!?" you ask?
Okay, add fifteen minutes.
now what?
Now we get to Gearing and all those things that you already ran repetitive content (ques and the like) to do...
Y'know, Rep, Fleet Holdings...these aren't content. They're gateways to content, they're access, they're 'things', they're filling a slider bar, meant to enable you to play the content better, which translates as FASTER.
and...
They're even configured that way. When STF's first appeared, it was a single, six hour long marathon raid. Ground and space, all of it, one go.
it was content.
Over the years, the STF's were broken up-first into three two-part missions "Infected", "Khitomer" and "cure".
It was divided again, into six missions...and you had to run all six, if you wanted a full set of your Borg, KHG, or MACO gear.
meant that you had to vary what you were doing, to get the goodies.
then came Rep...and with it, a way for you to just run ONE of those six fifteen-minute missions. Infected Space, and you'd get ALL THE SAME GEAR that someone else had to previously run all six missions to get.
but you had to repeat it, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
but that was okay, there were things you could do BESIDES Infected Space with it, like PvP, or foundry, or just standing around on ESD looking 'cool', telling Gorn jokes, and rantihg about politics.
but people started noticing the grind, finding any and every way they could to reduce the amount of time they had to endure playing the same thing, over and over and...
yah.
because STF's were about getting gear. Rep system? about gear.
Gear to do..whatever, but the point of the content was to get the gear.
So they expanded the Reputation system, and people running the one or two cherry missions in each rep, started looking for ways to shorten the time they had to re-play that stuff. it even became something of a competition in it's own right-the DPS channels came about, time-trialling to see how fast you can clear a mission you've played more often than you've paid sales tax.
Well...what this told the Devs with their 'golden metric' of time to money, is that progression needed to be slowed.
and people bitched, and the feeling got GRINDIER as a result.
because it WAS.
Instead of finding ways to make those missions that were "popular" (mostly because they could be finished rapidly) more engaging, complex, or variable, Cryptic opted for time-gates.
This increases the time spent, but it also alienates a portion of the player base.
as the gating, the grinding, the variabilty and the complexity and variety is reduced, that portion gets BIGGER.
Cryptic's next move, was to turn to disincentivizing some play. shifting the rewards structure around, but they never let go of increasing the grind via time-gating.
this is negative reinforcement. Aversion therapy...and more players feel alienated, they're losing their sense of investment. (as seen on the forums)...
comes Legacy of Romulus, you get a big spike-but it could have been anything, Legacy of Cardassia, legacy of yarnwork, doesn't matter-it was NEW.
Cryptic did a pretty good job on LoR, they put a lot of effort into the low-level quests not only for Romulans, but finished the low-level work for KDF. this provided Variety...at least, until all the missions fell into the "Fed cut and paste" ranges at higher levels.
There are many, many fed players with KDF alts gathering dust who stopped because the missions were identical at higher levels-they tried KDF, enjoyed up to the point the unique missions stopped, and said 'TRIBBLE it."
but they did it in the first place, because it was something DIFFERENT.
Romulans did a bit better-being custom-to-order for the DPS racing in Rep systems, they thrived with mechanics designed specifically to grant them an advantage, and a structure that meant tehy were still contributing to their Fed-side fleets while in play.
but it ends up degenerating back into the grind, because...well...at fifty, what was there left to do except whatever new slider-bar the devs devised for you to fill?
and fill it as fast and efficiently as you can, because...well, just because. more time gates, more delay.
more Grind.
we're not up to Delta Rising, but this is starting to turn into a pattern, and the history on the forums can tell you a lot about how that pattern's built itself.
if we're not at the tipping point, the developers at Cryptic can thank Gene Roddenberry-because the game FEELS like a grind now. Time/reward ratio is down, content is repetitive, variation and variabilty are on life support, PvP-that thing Geko hates, is on failing life-support, and PvE ques are empty except fro the two or three most time-efficient missions. (good luck finding people to run "Mine", or "Hive"!)
AND IT'S ALL GRIND...excuse, the perception of grind. The feeling of being held-back, of having to...do a chore, instead of play, during your play time.
The grind this, the grind that...
What is grind?
Grind, is killing rats, to bring the skins, to an NPC, for coppers to change into gold to buy the part that you use to make the parts for that epic set of gizmodunthis.
EVERY MMO OUT THERE IS GRINDY.
we're talking actual MMO's here, not RTS or FPS games like HALO or Starcraft.
so, STO is an MMO. There will be Grind.
So...what point is it no longer a breach of ettiquette to complain about the grind?
This is much simpler.
'tis when it feels like grind.
when it feels like you're in a rat-box experiment, pushing the red button for some pellets.
Grind isn't difficult-it's just aggravating-but it's only aggravating when it FEELS LIKE GRIND.
many people re-run games with fixed storylines over and over and over again, without it feeling like grind. The entire plot of the first two Mass Effect games can be run 'straight through' linearly...and most people will choose to go back and hit what they missed, or replay things, and it still feels fresh.
Your WoW players, go back, over and over again, sometimes swearing at the computer as they break the vow they made never to touch it again...
because there's grind there, but it doesn't FEEL like grind.
Your motive is more than racking up a couple more points to fill a slider-bar (as one player in another thread described it).
So...what happened?
STO is a linear railroad from Level 1 to 50, if you play story missions, you can play 1 to 50 on your given faction's toon, and experience very little change, you'll also progress roughly 1 level per mission. This conditions a palyer's assumptions about what the game feels like.
Seriously, it does. 1-50 is supposed to take about 35 hours according to Geko-time, to complete.
51-60 takes about 35 hours, accordign to Geko-time, to complete.
MANY times as long, in other words-roughly 50 missions worth of time assuming a 1-to-1 ratio as you level up.
To do Ten "Missions" (well, really 5, the others are Patrols, which aren't really missions so much as poorly concealed time-sinks.)
I haven't gotten to gearing yet, this is to get raw levels.
it's a lot of red-bull, for not a lot of content. The Patrols are as unvarying as the storyline missions, and even incorporate bits of story into them...the same bits. Over and over and over, because you can't just go through it once, check the box, and be done.
we're nowhere near gearing yet, much less spec points.
It's like a big, empty warehouse, with a few goods scattered here and there, and the lights off.
should be fun, right?
mmm...not according to the reaction in the forums, or reactions seen in actual game.
something wrong here.
whatever could it be?
could it be because repetitive grinding...that feels repetitive and grindy, isn't much fun??
F2P, and even Sub based games, have a metric they use involving the time a player spends in the game, and how much they spend from their real-world wallet.
most F2P games want to increase the time-in-game because it inspires 'impulse buying', and impulse buying, in turn, establishes a habit pattern-people feel 'invested' in the game, they want it to prosper, they want to 'support it' they don't want to 'throw good money after bad".
That's the intent.
where it gets screwed up, is when your effort to keep them playing, feels like an effort to keep them logged in, a naked effort, a choke-chain.
Punishing them.
one reason we have prisons is that people don't like being punished.
well...most people don't.
there are those outliers...
Presume, now, Cryptic wants you to play the game, not just hang out int he forum, ********.
How did they go about inspiring you to play the game, instead of hanging out in the forum ********?
There are two ways to get people playing the game instead of complaining about game-play...
1. New, engaging content-this works pretty well. (See the Steam numbers for Legacy of Romulus and Delta rising on their release days...)
2. slowing down progression.
Slow progression isn't necessarily bad. It can encourage players to 'smell the roses' and try new things...
but...
you've got to have new things for them to try, and in sufficient quantity, that they're not feeling like their progression is being slowed.
that feeling, that sense of being "held Back" is the essence of the negative feeling of "Grind."
which is something that a developer should definitely be concerned about. Too grindy, and people WILL write you off, they won't log in, they won't spend money, some of them will withold the monies and logging in quite vocally, which WILL turn off new people, and push fence-sitters to the wrong side of the barrier.
an that's what "Grind" is-when it's "Felt" grind.
see, here's the problem set down simply.
minus the time-gating, all of Delta Rising could be played out in about six or seven hours. all the missions, plus the patrols.
It's supposed to fill 35 logged-on-hours.
this is a problem.
"but wait! what about the New, Qued missions!?" you ask?
Okay, add fifteen minutes.
now what?
Now we get to Gearing and all those things that you already ran repetitive content (ques and the like) to do...
Y'know, Rep, Fleet Holdings...these aren't content. They're gateways to content, they're access, they're 'things', they're filling a slider bar, meant to enable you to play the content better, which translates as FASTER.
and...
They're even configured that way. When STF's first appeared, it was a single, six hour long marathon raid. Ground and space, all of it, one go.
it was content.
Over the years, the STF's were broken up-first into three two-part missions "Infected", "Khitomer" and "cure".
It was divided again, into six missions...and you had to run all six, if you wanted a full set of your Borg, KHG, or MACO gear.
meant that you had to vary what you were doing, to get the goodies.
then came Rep...and with it, a way for you to just run ONE of those six fifteen-minute missions. Infected Space, and you'd get ALL THE SAME GEAR that someone else had to previously run all six missions to get.
but you had to repeat it, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
but that was okay, there were things you could do BESIDES Infected Space with it, like PvP, or foundry, or just standing around on ESD looking 'cool', telling Gorn jokes, and rantihg about politics.
but people started noticing the grind, finding any and every way they could to reduce the amount of time they had to endure playing the same thing, over and over and...
yah.
because STF's were about getting gear. Rep system? about gear.
Gear to do..whatever, but the point of the content was to get the gear.
So they expanded the Reputation system, and people running the one or two cherry missions in each rep, started looking for ways to shorten the time they had to re-play that stuff. it even became something of a competition in it's own right-the DPS channels came about, time-trialling to see how fast you can clear a mission you've played more often than you've paid sales tax.
Well...what this told the Devs with their 'golden metric' of time to money, is that progression needed to be slowed.
and people bitched, and the feeling got GRINDIER as a result.
because it WAS.
Instead of finding ways to make those missions that were "popular" (mostly because they could be finished rapidly) more engaging, complex, or variable, Cryptic opted for time-gates.
This increases the time spent, but it also alienates a portion of the player base.
as the gating, the grinding, the variabilty and the complexity and variety is reduced, that portion gets BIGGER.
Cryptic's next move, was to turn to disincentivizing some play. shifting the rewards structure around, but they never let go of increasing the grind via time-gating.
this is negative reinforcement. Aversion therapy...and more players feel alienated, they're losing their sense of investment. (as seen on the forums)...
comes Legacy of Romulus, you get a big spike-but it could have been anything, Legacy of Cardassia, legacy of yarnwork, doesn't matter-it was NEW.
Cryptic did a pretty good job on LoR, they put a lot of effort into the low-level quests not only for Romulans, but finished the low-level work for KDF. this provided Variety...at least, until all the missions fell into the "Fed cut and paste" ranges at higher levels.
There are many, many fed players with KDF alts gathering dust who stopped because the missions were identical at higher levels-they tried KDF, enjoyed up to the point the unique missions stopped, and said 'TRIBBLE it."
but they did it in the first place, because it was something DIFFERENT.
Romulans did a bit better-being custom-to-order for the DPS racing in Rep systems, they thrived with mechanics designed specifically to grant them an advantage, and a structure that meant tehy were still contributing to their Fed-side fleets while in play.
but it ends up degenerating back into the grind, because...well...at fifty, what was there left to do except whatever new slider-bar the devs devised for you to fill?
and fill it as fast and efficiently as you can, because...well, just because. more time gates, more delay.
more Grind.
we're not up to Delta Rising, but this is starting to turn into a pattern, and the history on the forums can tell you a lot about how that pattern's built itself.
if we're not at the tipping point, the developers at Cryptic can thank Gene Roddenberry-because the game FEELS like a grind now. Time/reward ratio is down, content is repetitive, variation and variabilty are on life support, PvP-that thing Geko hates, is on failing life-support, and PvE ques are empty except fro the two or three most time-efficient missions. (good luck finding people to run "Mine", or "Hive"!)
AND IT'S ALL GRIND...excuse, the perception of grind. The feeling of being held-back, of having to...do a chore, instead of play, during your play time.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Bad grind = pointless busy work
Free Tibet!
The Reps are easy to do. I spend a couple days, and have enough points. To where I just turn them in during the time I only have minutes to play during the week. That way my Rep is building and go at it again for more points the following chance I get for extended play.
The Winter/Summer Events. I didn't see them a grind at all. What I saw was my character enjoying R&R from doing all those combat missions, stressing on trying to solve issues, etc. So that was much needed. And it breaks up the usual I do.
R&D. I see no grind in that. I just click and let it tick down. Just like my DOFFs.
Leveling. Granted I'm only hit Lv54 on my highest character. But so far I hadn't felt no grind. I done a few patrols and the fun ground action on Kobali. My KDF is Lv51 after the Dyson run. But he was already past half way when the DR came out. My Romulan is Lv52. But that was from the Romulan Rep since it gave more exp. So way I look at it my KDF won't have to grind as much like my Fed to level. My Romulan should be way ahead of them, since I still need to do the Borg story line, and Dyson. So she won't have much to grind at all.
To me what is a Grind. Forcing me to do the same darn missions each and every day just to gain Rep points. This is what WoW was good for and I loath Rep missions. STO showed me I can actually enjoy doing Reps again. Doing the same dungeons/raids over and over just to get more points or items to gain gear. I did that a few times on WoW, and hated it after a while. Now I don't even have time for that kind of action on STO with STFs.
However I took a more RPing approach to STO. I take my time, go slow and act out the part. Yes, I will take a while to hit Lv60, but I'm not in a race. So I'm taking my time and enjoying the game.
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but I don't "hate the game because of the grind" it's only a grind if you LET it be. if you feel you are grinding, take a walk. go play with the kids. go shopping. Smell the flowers.
And yet players were venting bile on the forums that the new, excellent missions were level-gated and they couldn't just blow through all of the new content in a weekend.
But once they did get through the content, then there was much ******** that there wasn't enough content.
How does Cryptic "win" at this?
The first post took a lot of space to admit that MMOs are by definition "grind" but never really fingered what should be in this game besides a vague "it shouldn't feel like grind."
This is my first and likely only MMO due to a love of the IP. I think Cryptic is doing a reasonable job on maintaining this as a thriving franchise. Not an astoundingly good job, but by no means a lousy job.
I enjoy playing with my ships. I have a lot of single player patrols to play in, and I've got a lot of collaborative queues (which are starting to get better at advanced as players realize they have to use a modicum of strategy to win them).
Cryptic has updated a lot of the issues of RATE of progression by greatly improving crafting by significantly reducing costs, and by upping XP rewards in several places.
I'm happy to have taken a couple weeks to get to 60 on my main and to be working my alts through the system. I liked playing out the new stories over time rather in one binge marathon where I wouldn't have enjoyed them as much. I'm content that my ships are going to take months to get to fully upgraded status.
Unlike the last 4 years in game when I was maxed with nowhere to go, my daily playing is marked by the fun of an occasional level up, a new spec point to spend, a new upgrade in place.
In the meantime I'm flying my ship, fighting enemies, and progressing over time.
Honestly I think DR is in fact the best expansion yet, for all its rough edges.
I think players used to being fully maxed in a couple of weeks are upset that progression has been intentionally slowed so that full mastery of all skills/traits/equipment is never really intended to be achieved, at least not in a couple months.
But having an unending progression for my character is a better game design choice than easily maxing everything.
The biggest issue with DR is where to even level up and do the story grind, you need to do repetative non story grind just to get to the next story content.
It would be like an author giving you a chapter in their book, then telling you that before you get to read the next chapter of the book, you need to write "I will read your next chapter" 100 times. Then when they give you chapter 2 they tell you that you won't be able to read chapter 3 until you write "I will read your next chapter" 200 times, and so on and so on.
That's when it's bad grind and not fun and bad design, when there is no longer story line progression in a story driven mmo.
sadly, it's the entitlement mentality.
I found myself hating the grind on the way to 60. Anne forced me away from the computer for a few days, and I realised that it's not that important and certainly not worth the heartache.
But what does this actually mean in terms of game content?
Engame as you've admitted is of necessity repetitive content.
The goal was to have DR new shiny missions gated in a way that players didn't burn through it all in 6 hours then complain there wasn't anything more. Cryptic, smartly IMO, decided that it was better to set it up in a way that most players would get to play through the high-quality missions over the course of weeks, not hours.
So what other way can you achieve this other than having a kind of hybrid endgame/story progression mode?
They did this before with LoR, but there they unlocked each new story with a tier of the Rom Reputation. That mode put the 5th episode out around at least a month from beginning the system.
Given that after you finish the episode content you're going to grind repeatable content anyway, why is it so terrible to simply level gate the missions so the fun stuff gets spread out, giving you exciting things to look forward to as you do the unavoidable MMO grind?
I think players have a pie-in-the-sky fantasy of having some undefinable repeatable experience that doesn't feel grindy. But what MMO has figured out what that is?
I know the Netflix modality is something that makes players feel entitled to burn through all content in one binge, whether or not it's actually the best way to design a sustainable game experience.
Now, I DID see certain patrols (and I can't remember them unfortunately) where there was some variation in the tasks you could do, depending on your luck. So I think maybe there was a bit of thought to variety but because there were so many patrols that the player was forced through, any benefit that came from that attempt just fell flat.
Now, there are certain missions I don't mind repeating. Many of them are in the Foundry. But I find that I really enjoy "Surface Tension." It helps a lot that I rack up tons of EC's along the way but the mission is FUN and so well done that I am happy to replay it whenever I need to get more EC's. If it weren't for the stupid isolinear chip puzzle that I don't seem to have the mind for, I think I would feel the same way about "Boldly They Rode." Undine Infiltration is another one I enjoy for quick and painless marks/dil/isomorphic injectors.
And Tide of Ice. I actually am getting a kick out of that one and our fleet has just had a field day with it.
Other grinds though--totally aggravating.
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However some of the best experiences I had ingame were ones where we lost people in STF's prior to DR yet still managed to complete the missions. One was a marathon Crystalline Entity which took AGES as I was running an Alt and we lost 4 out of the 10 people. It never filled up again, yet after about 40 mins we downed it. I was a fresh lvl 50 at the time with green Mk X gear so was pretty happy to succeed. More Challenge with interesting content is needed. Not damage sponges which are just tiresome to kill.
No surprises there, it's not something you could cope with given your other posts. For instance it consists of crtitcal analysis and logic...
TBH if you have kids and are playing STO you're doing it wrong. STO is a huge timesink now. Taking time away from parenting to play it is pretty poor form. There are many other games out there which can not only be played multi-player, they would be more child friendly too.
The other thing very apparent by your post is the desire to accept given rules and limitations. You certainly aren't one who seems competitive or interested in competition. Something that is a big issue now after the last 3 decades of schools trying to diminish and remove competition from the activities of children.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Bad grind: Star Trek Online after Delta Rising
Why?
- Skill point have been unnecessarily turned into a commodity hard to come by via the offered contend.
- Favoured PvE queues have been turned into pointless reward/time ratios to advertise previously unpopular contend
- Lack of challenge: Fail criteria are not challenging just making it for players of different skills harder to team up
Delta Rising could have easily been the best expansion ever. All needed for it was in game but was sadly patched out with the actual release.
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most of the things in sto that i do i enjoy and most things i want to get i can do a selection of activities to gain that thing so to me it is not a grind, i am doing differant things all of which i enjoy to get the thing i want.
many of these activities i carry on doing long after i have got the thing i was originally after just for the fun factor involved and i still get some rewards like dilithium or marks that i can turn into dilithium or even just exp & skill points so i am still getting some reward.
some things you can only do one thing but these are usually short lived so although you could say there is a very slight grind it is so slight as to be incosequencial and are still fun because of this.
therefore there is nothing in sto that i would label as a grind as such and if i did find somthing in sto that was a grind to me i simply would not do that thing as nothing in the game is compulsory.
so i choose what i want to play from the myriad of activities in sto and have fun playing it thats all i care about.
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.
But of course, it's not always that simple - some things only because something you don't like because you did it too often. Like you love Pizza, but having it every day ultimately diminishes the enjoyment (and is unhealthy).
So I think for the "grind" issues - the task itself having variability is good, having different options to grind is probably even better. In the skill point debate, people always bring up grinding Argala - but it's not the only patrol in Delta Rising. If you actually run through all the patrols, it will take quite some time until you get a repeat - but of course, Argala may grant slightly more skill points than the others.
It would be good if there was yet another good skill point source, unfortunately, the last skill point buffs were focused on the DR Patrols.
That's the "skill point grind". If I look at dilithium or marks - you can often see many ways to earn those. You can try to go for only one approach, but you don't have to. I think the special reputation items (Like Borg Neural Processors) might be bit too limited in availability, especially since the different options in queues are not equally popular. That is IMO a general problem that Cryptic needs to find a solution to. Maybe they need to add rotating bonus rewards? (Back to the old Hourly concept, but more specific).
Personally, I am pretty fond of the Battle Zones - they have a lot of variability since there are different points and different scenarios, and you may do a point solo or with others and that will alter the experience of the point - without proscribing how many players you need.
The Kobali Zone has the same potential, but unlike the Voth and Undine zones, it doesn't award the reputation special items AFAIK. So there is less motivation to go there - and not everything there can be done solo.
Yeah, same here. The funny thing is, people usually agree that grind in MMOs is a bad thing.... but they say that because it's an MMO we should just put up with it.
Being mugged is a bad thing. Should I just put up with it because crime happens everywhere?
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STO has a massive grindy-feeling because progression on every level feels like its at a stand-still. A player logs in for an STF. IF they complete an advanced or elite, they are awarded a pittance for the effort.
A different player logs in to do some crafting. They complete a project that took 20 hours and watch the progress bar move 1/32 of an inch.
Yet another player ligs on to do some doff missions. After filling the capacity, they complete them the next day to see a skill bar barely move.
It takes weeks to fill a reputation project on top of weeks or months to get enough ec or dilitium to get the rep gear...from missions that barely kept progression back when STFs awarded 1440 dil.
Its not any one thing. Its that they added gigantic time-gates ON TOP of reducing every form of in-game awards. I played a LOT and have multiple alts. I slowly lost the ability to gear them awhile back so I focused on 3 mains, one from each faction. Post DR, I barely could make any progress on two of the 3 so I let my Rommie fall to the wayside. After the doff nerf, I was down to only having time for my KDF main if I wanted to see any sort of progression.
Most of us have a real life. I don't have 10 hours a day to sit around playing a game. If Im lucky, I can squeeze in 2 maybe 3 hours a day. With all the gates and sinks, that leaves a feeling of virtually no progression. Thats where Cryptic is messing up with casual players. I don't want or need things handed to me. I would however like to feel like some sort of progress is being made in character/ship building. The costs of upgrading have even limited my one character to a single build with one weapon type.
I feel like many others here and in-game. I feel stuck in the mud looking at this gigantic mountain I can never hope to reach the top of. DR killed any hope of that and thats why the game feels far too heavy on the grind.
I would much rather NPC group numbers were kept down, their health cut down by probably 25% at this point and given more boff skills and weapons which would bring them more in line with player capabilities which with updated AI to account for non beam weapons so that NPC escorts can be more than a mere distraction and NPC science ships can actually use their abilities which would in turn make for a huge improvement in space combat and reduce the grindy feeling.
Although that still wouldn't fix the level gap issue that makes levelling a stop-start process, even if levelling is tuned to take a long time that should still be a fluent process so that people don't feel like it's taking forever be that through longer missions or extended side-quests or through the regular deployment of new missions. I don't see why they can't set aside a small team (a couple of environment designers, a couple of story writers, a bug fixer and maybe a character designer) who could put out a couple of missions with each patch just to keep the players busy, sure it's 3-ish days per mission to build and only 15 minutes maybe to play through them but it's new stuff coming out on a regular basis which helps prevent the game becoming static or stale and gives all the story loving people something regular to keep them around.
One could have a similar team working on new PvE queues, maybe have a new one every couple of weeks, maybe 1 per month? Overall I think those two points would be a HUGE boost to the game.
Not to mention that he'd have to play Advanced or Elite to actually notice the hitpoint numbers. If he finds it to excessive, he can do what you do in any game when a difficulty mode is too hard - you pick a lower one.
Honestly, for me the game became a grind when they stopped trying to make missions of any quality, and just added timers to them so nobody could complete things in under 15 minutes to many of the newer queues.
They need to hire someone fresh to re-evaluate this game for them, to watch what new players think, what questions they have, where they struggle and redesign from the ground up.
I guarantee that new players will be focused on:
the endless bugs
the excessive speed to level up, and with that speed inability to gear
confusing, missing and wrong in game advice on how to set up your ship (mostly non-existant)
at 50+, excessive failure rates from advanced queues because of poor ship set up
50 to 60, lack of content that rewards meaningful xp
If you questioned that player at 60 on in game systems, they'd be unaware of most things like Rep, Doffing, Crafting... The game does a horrendous job of using these systems, they just exist.
Don't even get the overwhelming amount of dilithium required for them, they can see the grind required to get there.
With Steam reporting server pop lowest its been since Sept 2012.. I'd think its time to act now
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Excluding purely user-generated content, it's physically impossible for anyone to create unique missions faster than you can play them. A game is therefore by necessity either repetition or a one-time experience. Since MMOs are meant to last a long time, they're by definition going to be repetitive.
Grind can be fun.
Grind in STO is anything but.
to "start over"? anyone recall how much time Cryptic had to slap STO together? seems to me it was in the neighborhood of 18 months. you think these forums would not be on fire if it was announce nothing would be done with the game for two years while they "fixed" it? and i use quotes because no matter what, if they did any kind of major rewrite it would have bugs. it's unavoidable.
Example of a BAD grind...to read this whole POST
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