If you compare STO 2015 to STO 2010, you can see how the game has become hardcore. STO used to be a stress free environment. Prior to the arrival of the reputation systems and fleet holdings, STO was all about socializing, casual c-store purchases, partying, role playing, and pvp matches.
Its only hardcore if you make it out to be. What stress? If I'm stressing playing a game. I'm leaving. That is when the fun is gone. This too is player created.
Socializing, some store purchases, partying, RPing, and PVP matches. Still in the game, I still do all those things. Minus the PVP since I don't do it.
The Reps, are very easy and fun to do. Try doing the same handful of missions every day for 40 days straight just to get your Rep done. On here, I do a run or 2. And I have enough points to turn in for a week. Then repeat the next week.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
This game is extremely casual-friendly. As long as you don't turn up the difficulty setting and don't go into the queues helpfully labeled "Advanced" or "Elite" (=not casual), you can pretty much play any way you feel like and still succeed.
Exactly. As a casual myself, it always tickles me pink to hear players who clearly aren't casual speak for us and our experience and what we might be thinking.
This game is actually a lot more casual friendly now than it was from before I took my hiatus. Before the break, there really wasn't much for us to do other than to play out episodes and level up. Once you reached top rank and completed episodes, that was it. You pretty much dropped out and didn't come back until a new season came out. Now there's all this other stuff to keep us occupied in between episodes, like the adventure zones, Rep system and the Foundry (which always existed, I know, but has become made to be a much more integral part of the gaming experience than from before my break).
My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
There is an important point that I think is being lost by many who keep trying to compare STO to what it was before Delta Rising: this argument means absolutely nothing to players who joined -after- DR, or who didn't put in enough time before then to have a full understanding of what the endgame was like then.
Think about it: they have no frame of reference for what you're talking about. None. You can go on at length about monetization and how this thing is more grindy or that barrier to entry is higher, but ultimately it still means nothing to someone who didn't experience it. They can only judge the game on its own merits by its current state, not by comparing it to what was.
And in that current state, on its own merits, the game is still one of the most casual-friendly I've ever played, for reasons I've already listed.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
End game content in MMOs is never about the casual player.
We've seen online games for near thirty years try to balance PvE with PvP, and Casual with Hardcore. The only workable solution has ever been, separate the two groups.
Inevitably that leads to PvP players complaining because they don't have enough squishy targets, PvE players complaining that their PvP-designed gear is tedious and no fun against HP sponges, hard core players complaining they don't get enough attention, and casual players wanting the end game experience without being committed to analyzing and defeating their opponent beyond the BFG of Lameness.
All things considered I think Cryptic has a done a better job than most of their competitors in putting lanes out for the different player types. And it is clear they are nowhere near done yet - for example we are now seeing PvP-flagged equipment. Fantastic step in the right direction, which of course will lead some to complain NOW they have to level up different paths. Ah well.
A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?"
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides."
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along."
Well, the Man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said:
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?"
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey's feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
"That will teach you," said an old man who had followed them:
Moral of Aesops Fable: Please all, and you will please none
Pretty sure the Devs want people to play more, not less. More time in game = more opportunity to sell you something. The timegates are there to help level the playing field for everyone.
I'm pretty sure you're using the wrong definition of "play more".
They want us to log in regularly and develop a habit, so that we get hooked and it becomes a part of our routine. They don't want us to have marathon sessions because then we'll just burn through all the content, hence all the timegates.
There is an important point that I think is being lost by many who keep trying to compare STO to what it was before Delta Rising: this argument means absolutely nothing to players who joined -after- DR, or who didn't put in enough time before then to have a full understanding of what the endgame was like then.
Think about it: they have no frame of reference for what you're talking about. None. You can go on at length about monetization and how this thing is more grindy or that barrier to entry is higher, but ultimately it still means nothing to someone who didn't experience it. They can only judge the game on its own merits by its current state, not by comparing it to what was.
And in that current state, on its own merits, the game is still one of the most casual-friendly I've ever played, for reasons I've already listed.
Eh. I've been here since the end of beta. It's more casual-friendly than it was before the introduction of reps (note: Reps are good. They give guaranteed effort-to-reward investment, as opposed to praying for random drops, which doesn't), and the biggest problem with the game's casual-friendliness now is the broken Advanced queues. Which Cryptic has acknowledged and is fixing.
I think it's pretty casual. I've been playing since beta and I remember when Omega STFs first came out having to seriously grind them and then hoping for something other than deflector salvage to drop.
I have 11 characters. Two created for the recruitment event. Of the other nine, seven have been around for years, only one has made it to 60, because I play casually. I might be on for 12 hours a day, but usually I just fly around, do some doffing, run a queue now and then. Shoot I have never even been to any the Delta Quadrant yet. I haven't completed the storyline missions on any character, my Klingons haven't even completed the first Fed/Klink war missions. But by golly they all dress fabulously. So I feel pretty safe about assuring folks that you can indeed play this game casually and have tons of fun.
As an aside though, being casual doesn't mean you have to suck. I can hit 25k consistantly in ISA. I've only spent a couple of hours in the years I've played researching equipment, but that's all it really takes to put together a boat that can put up respectable numbers.
I might be on for 12 hours a day, ..................... .................. ................. you can indeed play this game casually and have tons of fun.
Yep, just cause I'm on 12 hours doesn't mean I'm grinding content anywhere. I can go days without doing anything productive at all. Just doff a little or spend a day dressing my toons in the latest fashions. Maybe visit my vast empty starbase. I can waste time with the best of them.
The pace of progress is fine - I'm patient - but I miss the shallower difficulty curve that existed in the reputation game before Delta Rising. There's gear from reputations that I can't obtain on new characters now, because the Advanced STFs can't be completed with a random pickup group from the queue finder. That's Mk XII level 50 gear, with ages of time and resources to be invested in it before it can even become level 60 gear. The difficulty ramp-up in Advanced STFs, particularly, looks to me like it was a solution in search of a problem.
Comments
Its only hardcore if you make it out to be. What stress? If I'm stressing playing a game. I'm leaving. That is when the fun is gone. This too is player created.
Socializing, some store purchases, partying, RPing, and PVP matches. Still in the game, I still do all those things. Minus the PVP since I don't do it.
The Reps, are very easy and fun to do. Try doing the same handful of missions every day for 40 days straight just to get your Rep done. On here, I do a run or 2. And I have enough points to turn in for a week. Then repeat the next week.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Exactly. As a casual myself, it always tickles me pink to hear players who clearly aren't casual speak for us and our experience and what we might be thinking.
This game is actually a lot more casual friendly now than it was from before I took my hiatus. Before the break, there really wasn't much for us to do other than to play out episodes and level up. Once you reached top rank and completed episodes, that was it. You pretty much dropped out and didn't come back until a new season came out. Now there's all this other stuff to keep us occupied in between episodes, like the adventure zones, Rep system and the Foundry (which always existed, I know, but has become made to be a much more integral part of the gaming experience than from before my break).
Think about it: they have no frame of reference for what you're talking about. None. You can go on at length about monetization and how this thing is more grindy or that barrier to entry is higher, but ultimately it still means nothing to someone who didn't experience it. They can only judge the game on its own merits by its current state, not by comparing it to what was.
And in that current state, on its own merits, the game is still one of the most casual-friendly I've ever played, for reasons I've already listed.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
We've seen online games for near thirty years try to balance PvE with PvP, and Casual with Hardcore. The only workable solution has ever been, separate the two groups.
Inevitably that leads to PvP players complaining because they don't have enough squishy targets, PvE players complaining that their PvP-designed gear is tedious and no fun against HP sponges, hard core players complaining they don't get enough attention, and casual players wanting the end game experience without being committed to analyzing and defeating their opponent beyond the BFG of Lameness.
All things considered I think Cryptic has a done a better job than most of their competitors in putting lanes out for the different player types. And it is clear they are nowhere near done yet - for example we are now seeing PvP-flagged equipment. Fantastic step in the right direction, which of course will lead some to complain NOW they have to level up different paths. Ah well.
I'm pretty sure you're using the wrong definition of "play more".
They want us to log in regularly and develop a habit, so that we get hooked and it becomes a part of our routine. They don't want us to have marathon sessions because then we'll just burn through all the content, hence all the timegates.
Eh. I've been here since the end of beta. It's more casual-friendly than it was before the introduction of reps (note: Reps are good. They give guaranteed effort-to-reward investment, as opposed to praying for random drops, which doesn't), and the biggest problem with the game's casual-friendliness now is the broken Advanced queues. Which Cryptic has acknowledged and is fixing.
I have 11 characters. Two created for the recruitment event. Of the other nine, seven have been around for years, only one has made it to 60, because I play casually. I might be on for 12 hours a day, but usually I just fly around, do some doffing, run a queue now and then. Shoot I have never even been to any the Delta Quadrant yet. I haven't completed the storyline missions on any character, my Klingons haven't even completed the first Fed/Klink war missions. But by golly they all dress fabulously. So I feel pretty safe about assuring folks that you can indeed play this game casually and have tons of fun.
As an aside though, being casual doesn't mean you have to suck. I can hit 25k consistantly in ISA. I've only spent a couple of hours in the years I've played researching equipment, but that's all it really takes to put together a boat that can put up respectable numbers.
u wot m8?
12 hours per day == casual playing?
wat? wher?
Yep, just cause I'm on 12 hours doesn't mean I'm grinding content anywhere. I can go days without doing anything productive at all. Just doff a little or spend a day dressing my toons in the latest fashions. Maybe visit my vast empty starbase. I can waste time with the best of them.