I don't think smart phone addiction is a good thing and while I have a smart phone, I don't use any of the "smart" features but that's another topic.
But some things should remain unchanged,that is why mmos should ALWAYS have the grind...now if you cant hack it and if you want instant gratification go play WoW,for 60 bucks you can have an instant level 90 character all geared up...you will have no clue how to play him thou but sure lay on your laziness on 4 people in a dungeon when its time for you to dps/heal/tank and the results are pathetic.
Getting back on topic, as proven by the many incompetent players in STO, grinding to maximum level doesn't automatically equate to being good at the game. I've seen level 60 characters, looked at their ships and asked myself "How did they make it through the story missions?". Now even if I were interested enough in WoW to spend 60 quid on a max level character I would at least bother to learn not to be totally incompetent, okay I'll probably still be called a noob and perhaps rightly so but I would at least try.
For a first time player leveling may seem fast looking at 1 to 50, but after leveling a couple of delta recruits I say it is good, maybe slow. For an experienced player it is not interesting to do missions with a slow flying Miranda with just one torpedo and two beams. You want to leave that phase with its limitations as soon as possible.
Also, as someone said, the NPC's level with you. You cannot out pace the game. The game out paces you in the Delta Rising expansion and that really needs a fix. So fast leveling, I see no down side. I see one in slow leveling. I remember having to kill mobs for xp in WoW so you could go to the next zone. Do we really want that? Oh, wait, we have it in DR.
Leveling is in my view an outdated game mechanic. It is for a learning path, but we don't need a learning path through the whole game. It also serves as a mechanism to lock content behind a level barrier and that has only a purpose for a first time play through and even there we can discuss it.
If I buy a book, a cd/dvd, I can skip the first chapters. numbers, scenes, if I want. Not in an MMO, no, if you want to play with the big dudes, you have to play a little dude first. Let the players decide what they want and how. If the game is good, they will play.
First, I'm female. Second, I'm actually completely serious and not baiting anything or anyone. I really am Level 52 and not even done with the Cardassian storyline (have one episode left in it).
I'm old school. I was born in 1980. I grew up playing Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Ultima. D&D0, no hand holding in games at all, and true challenges.
Now the challenge is easy to get in this game by turning difficulty to Elite, but I still feel like I'm not EARNING anything. I gain skill points too fast and don't get to savor a new rank for as long as I'd like to. Level 60 doesn't feel like an accomplishment now because 1-50 was SO SO SO fast. For the first 20 levels, I gained one after every single mission. It just seems out of whack.
Why are people obsessed with speed now? Gotta do everything faster. I wanna stop and smell the roses. If the changes I suggested aren't good for all people, it should at least be a character option to halve skill point gains (or turn it off altogether). Even if the skill points don't change, I absolutely believe the ranks should. The current ranks make zero sense. Rear Admiral Lower Half is stupid and goes against canon, and Fleet Admiral at 60 just makes me think "too many cooks in the kitchen". Or maybe Advanced will be like now, with Elite giving 25% more.
Honestly, if I go deeper into my suggestion, I would halve skill gains on Normal mode, down 25% in Advanced, and current amounts on Elite since Elite currently doesn't really reward you extra at all (I ran the same mission on both Normal and Elite and there was almost no difference in the loot).
Then you change the ranks a bit. For one, Rear Admiral Lower Half IS NOT A REAL RANK in STAR TREK, get rid of it and change it to what it's supposed to be according to the shows: Commodore. Then divide them as such:
First, I'm female. Second, I'm actually completely serious and not baiting anything or anyone. I really am Level 52 and not even done with the Cardassian storyline (have one episode left in it).
I'm old school. I was born in 1980. I grew up playing Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Ultima. D&D0, no hand holding in games at all, and true challenges.
Now the challenge is easy to get in this game by turning difficulty to Elite, but I still feel like I'm not EARNING anything. I gain skill points too fast and don't get to savor a new rank for as long as I'd like to. Level 60 doesn't feel like an accomplishment now because 1-50 was SO SO SO fast. For the first 20 levels, I gained one after every single mission. It just seems out of whack.
Why are people obsessed with speed now? Gotta do everything faster. I wanna stop and smell the roses. If the changes I suggested aren't good for all people, it should at least be a character option to halve skill point gains (or turn it off altogether). Even if the skill points don't change, I absolutely believe the ranks should. The current ranks make zero sense. Rear Admiral Lower Half is stupid and goes against canon, and Fleet Admiral at 60 just makes me think "too many cooks in the kitchen". Or maybe Advanced will be like now, with Elite giving 25% more.
Honestly, if I go deeper into my suggestion, I would halve skill gains on Normal mode, down 25% in Advanced, and current amounts on Elite since Elite currently doesn't really reward you extra at all (I ran the same mission on both Normal and Elite and there was almost no difference in the loot).
I'm female, too, and I was in high school when you were born. I've played all manner of RPGs, from the earliest tabletop stuff (still have all the first printing first edition AD&D books and D&D stuff from before that) to contemporary eye candy MMOs. I do not agree with you that leveling in this game is too fast. Until I made my first Alt post-DR, I was actually concerned that the leveling from 50-60 was too slow, but now I have changed my view of that. I think leveling in STO is about right -- although I do agree that it can be frustrating to barely have time to get used to a ship before it's time to move on to the next one.
And to those who want to drag Korean grindfests out for comparison, NO. Bringing out the worst examples you can think of in order to "prove" that it's "not so bad here" is a bit of a False Dilemma (to say the least). Sure, it could be a lot worse, but that's not the same as saying "It's fine." There is already a little too much grind in STO, but at least it's grind for something other than levels.
lol you want to play a grinding game you should of tried legend mir 2 when that was around, man, I think that game needs balancing out more in general with levelling, 1st few levels play by in a mater days - make the C Store ships you buy quite obsolete quickly (shame really ), I don't mind the level 50+ grinding, I think up to this should be similar maybe not as long but defiantly longer than it is now.
... OBJECTS DON'T LOSE MOMENTUM IN SPACE AND THEREFORE DROPOFF DAMAGE FROM CANNONS MAKES ZERO SENSE.
I thought it had to do with energy dissipation, not momentum. But I'm terrible at those science stuff, so someone else can correct me.
But I digress. There's something else I'd like to point out.
Leveling from 1-50 is great and fast because one story mission gives you roughly one level. When you couple that with DOFFing, then you have a very fast progression like the OP suggests.
However, there is a point that all story missions are over. Then you have to resort to DOFFing plus patrols and other stuff that are not as rewarding as story missions. Replaying missions is not worth the time spent, but then, anything that isn't story missions isn't. And the Cardassian arc is horrible XP-wise, let alone replaying it.
In my opinion, it is a mistake to give the main chunk of XP at mission completion. I would decrease that reward but increase the XP given by enemy defeats (everywhere) to compensate. That way, most content in this game feels somewhat rewarding, as it should be.
But some things should remain unchanged,that is why mmos should ALWAYS have the grind...now if you cant hack it and if you want instant gratification go play WoW,for 60 bucks you can have an instant level 90 character all geared up...you will have no clue how to play him thou but sure lay on your laziness on 4 people in a dungeon when its time for you to dps/heal/tank and the results are pathetic.
"MMOs should always have the grind"..... seriously, I'd like to know why some people are championing endless busywork (grind) as a positive gameplay mechanic. As I mentioned before, grind served one major purpose in the original old-school subscription games - it kept people playing longer, so they needed to pay more sub. In the new era/in Korean uber-grind games, that morphed into having an utterly absurd level of grind, to sell more cash shop XP Boosters.
Oh, yes - one other reason that MMOs have always added more grind, particularly at end-game: so that they'd have something for players to do while they worked on the next content patch. Gotta bog people down in rep grinds, in weekly-lockout/rare-loot-drop raiding, in farming crafting mats; because the devs can't possibly create more real content as quickly as the players devour it.
So yeah.... super grinding isn't a good mechanic for players, just for the devs. (And seriously - grinding endless basic content doesn't really teach you the skills for end-game group content. It's, as mentioned, mindless busywork.)
edit: oh, right. There is one "positive" to grinding for at least part of the playerbase. It lets the l33t d00ds feel all macho & exclusionary.... "If you don't have the Perseverance and Dedication to slog through 300+ hours of grind to hit max level, you're Not Worthy to be part of our Exalted Company."
---
Also, I see people constantly throwing out the "lazy modern gamers want instant gratification!" one. While some of that may be true, there's also a couple other factors here.
1) Many "modern" gamers are now older working folks, who've gamed forever and want to keep doing it.... but since they aren't high-school & college slackers anymore, they can't play a game that requires several hundred hours just to get to the "endgame".
2) MMO companies realized at some point that they wanted new players to be able to play the new content they put out - that if they left things as it was, a new player would say "Well, they're hyping how cool Brand New Expansion Of Doom is.... but I'll have to get through months & months of the Old And Inferior Expansions to get to try it." - and they'd likely lose a sale. So yeah, many of the larger MMOs started speeding up the leveling process of "old" content so that they could sell their new content to people. That's not instant gratification, it's smart business. They want to gain new customers, even in the fifth year of a game. Not make is such an impenetrable experience that the only direction the customer base goes is down.
Sorry about the necro in the old thread, I've made a new one.
The speed is WAY (and I mean WAY WAY WAY) too fast. I only used my Doffs and did the story missions, and I'm Level 52 without even being done with the Cardassian storyline.
you still have to reach level 60, complete reputations and specializations and if that is not enough think about the equipment... even if usually no one include the equipment into leveling actualy you need a good equipment to play advanced and elite!
Frankly I do not think that building "ex novo" a new toon is fast or easy, for sure not for a new player.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
New Lunar Republic
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
Oh my God I laugh so hard I heard this I don't even know where to begin wait yes I do your old school you were born in 1980 like that makes you some old wise can wizard lol look to me old school is if your first videogame was an Atari, and that's before Coleco vision in the video football games made by Tiger... But I'll leave that alone for now.... Here's an idea if it's too fast for you then put it on Elite and then go from there oh and by the way you just hit 50 so 50 to 60 is a super grind tell me how you like that grind, and actually following the naval rank structures Rear Admiral Lower Half isn't stupid, and you have to remember this is a videogame you have to shoehorn things in in order to make the game playable in this game strayed from Canon a long time ago so please don't bring canon up....... anyway nevermind my head just exploded what I saw 1980 like that was some godly number that should be bestowed with the title of old-school by the way my magic numbers 1967
I agree that it is funny. Only if you consider everything in the post is a reference to STO. IF you take into consideration that the post your laughing at is about MMOs in general then the laughter fades. I can see where she is coming from. Compared to other MMOs, Star Trek Onlines leveling is super easy and super fast. Even on elite. In most MMOs leveling from 1-60 takes around a month or 2 and thats if you play everyday. I wonder how long it would take you to level 1-60 in sto if you plalyed everyday. 3 days , maybe 4. So yeah sto's leveling is laughable. Tbh though, is sto a mmo. when is the last time you and your fleet sceduled a match or pve. I've been in a fleet now for 2 years and I don't think I've did it 1 time. In other MMO's its everyweek or more. Tunnel vision is a killer, I think thats what may have happned here.
Sorry about the necro in the old thread, I've made a new one.
The speed is WAY (and I mean WAY WAY WAY) too fast. I only used my Doffs and did the story missions, and I'm Level 52 without even being done with the Cardassian storyline.
I think everything is too fast, truth be told. I feel like I only get to be a Lieutenant and other ranks for a couple of days real time before my next promotion. I feel cheated and cheap and I get to be a Fleet Admiral, the highest rank in Starfleet, at Level 60. Star Trek is not like [other] MMORPGs and shouldn't be thought of as one. I would personally suggest the following changes:
First, halve he amount of XP given by EVERYTHING. Mobs, missions, Doffs, everything. Halve it. Then you change the ranks a bit. For one, Rear Admiral Lower Half IS NOT A REAL RANK in STAR TREK, get rid of it and change it to what it's supposed to be according to the shows: Commodore. Then divide them as such:
In addition, there should be actual challenging quests for the promotions from Commodore onward. Keep the level limit at 60 for now, but the ranks above Level 60 can be used for further expansions in the future
I am in total agreement with the OP on this one. Levelling is way too fast.
I'm 40, I've been playing games since the 70's, so I know what I'm talking about, especially as RPG's are my favourite genre. RPG levelling in the vast majority of RPG's is always a grind and the amount of XP usually increases per level. Levelling to 50 in a week (15-20 hours of game play doing episodes) is way too fast, should be double that. 50 onwards is about the right pace.
The problem with alot of the guys and gals, who say it's too slow, is they lack the patience and appreciation of achieving another level! They want everything yesterday. Then there's the added annoyance of the very same people who complain that they deserve MORE free stuff or the free stuff isn't good enough. Absolutely they are ungrateful people!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
The problem with alot of the guys and gals, who say it's too slow, is they lack the patience and appreciation of achieving another level! They want everything yesterday. Then there's the added annoyance of the very same people who complain that they deserve MORE free stuff or the free stuff isn't good enough. Absolutely they are ungrateful people!
Or, it could be more about how new episodes are locked behind a level 60 gate. Further that whether you are a kid in school or an adult at work, normal people (AKA those who don't spend every waking hour playing a single game) don't have time to A: level every character to 60 or B: play each FE during its run on every alt so as to bypass the level gate.
If you had bothered to read the enitre thread most of OP's points were adressed and she even agreed that the level 60 gate thing is a problem once she found out about it.
Since many of us have always played this game as Star Trek fans, in a ST tv drought, the real reason we are here is for the new episodes not to play an MMO. One might then say "Play something else." But be honest, we all know there are very few "good" story driven or space sim Star Trek games and most of those are so old we have all played them to death. (I'm looking at you SFC and Armada series ) And previously STO was always run so if you wanted a MMO experience you could grind your days away at endgame, but if you just wanted to casually play episodes on a RP alt (And we are not bothering other players I might add) it was an option as well. If I could access them all at even level 55 (Right before the grind to 60 starts), I would not care less if most of my toons never made it to 60, on that front I and many others are not in a hurry. Further I could care less about earning spec points fast as while they provide nice perks, they are not really game changers if you are geared well enough. And no one can say you really need to be 60 to do the story content either, as lets face it nothing in this game is really that difficult and you can always lower the difficulty further if you are someone who gets stuck.
And finally, yes one could just replay episodes on an old character or one who caught the FE, but what about new players who have to get to 60 before playing many missions the first time, or new toons that missed the FE but we still want to RP their stories all the way through. Afterall the story might be the same, but my Joined Trill Sci does things alot differently than my Lib Borg Engi.
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
I thought it had to do with energy dissipation, not momentum. But I'm terrible at those science stuff, so someone else can correct me.
But I digress. There's something else I'd like to point out.
Leveling from 1-50 is great and fast because one story mission gives you roughly one level. When you couple that with DOFFing, then you have a very fast progression like the OP suggests.
However, there is a point that all story missions are over. Then you have to resort to DOFFing plus patrols and other stuff that are not as rewarding as story missions. Replaying missions is not worth the time spent, but then, anything that isn't story missions isn't. And the Cardassian arc is horrible XP-wise, let alone replaying it.
In my opinion, it is a mistake to give the main chunk of XP at mission completion. I would decrease that reward but increase the XP given by enemy defeats (everywhere) to compensate. That way, most content in this game feels somewhat rewarding, as it should be.
I'm pretty sure it does, last I checked energy weapons basically work by imparting their energy into the target, be it thermal, kinetic, electromagnetic and so on, to such an extent as to cause damage to the target on a molecular level. As a result it doesn't really follow the same 'rules' as a solid projectile weapon in that even in space, you're still going to eventually have the energy bolt/beam/whatever dissipate or disperse to the point where it just doesn't have the impact to do any meaningful damage any longer.
Anyways, to get onto the main topic. I would have to say imho that 1-50 is a little too quick overall, and around 53/54-60 is rather more too much of a long uphill slog through thick mud in 2G's worth of gravity. (Yeah I layered on the metaphor a bit thick there perhaps, so sue me.) Honestly, I really think that they (Cryptic) should even things out, make it so that there's not such a 'wall' so to speak mid way through the 50-60 process. But also make it so perhaps sometimes you need to run say, two patrols between story missions from time to time even pre-50. Post 60. Eh, Not much to say, I don't have a huge issue with the large EXP requirements at post 60 for more Spec Points personally. But that's mostly because I look at post 60 Spec points as 'They'll happen when they happen, what matters now, is that I've seen pretty much everything on offer so far now and I can dive right into the new stuff right away or damn near.'
If Cryptic wants me to return and spend money, they would make leveling from 50 to 60 extremely faster. Once I hit the leveling wall, I stopped playing entirely. I sign in to catch up with friends; however, I am not leveling and spending money. I am just sitting idle. I haven't signed on for a long time.
As long as I am stuck behind the leveling wall, I will continue to keep my character and wallet idle. I have roughly $150-$200 to blow on "Star Trek: Online"; however, the only way I will spend money is to get over level 60. ...and, that is not going to happen anytime soon.
I don't want a 'bonus xp weekend'.
I want a permanent and long term solution.
While I may have complained about other game mechanics, the leveling wall is the main reason why I stopped spending money and playing.
In most MMOs leveling from 1-60 takes around a month or 2 and thats if you play everyday.
Eh, that likely depends on what MMOs you're thinking of. I can recall seeing people talking about being able to level a character in a couple weeks, in several of the games I've tried in the last 5 years or so. Again, this overall topic seems to be (yet another) edition of Old School MMO/Everquest fans vs the Modern MMO Industry.
Just like you're never again going to see the old-style "you have to be in a full party just to levelgrind" gameplay return, either.
But some things should remain unchanged,that is why mmos should ALWAYS have the grind...now if you cant hack it and if you want instant gratification go play WoW,for 60 bucks you can have an instant level 90 character all geared up...you will have no clue how to play him thou but sure lay on your laziness on 4 people in a dungeon when its time for you to dps/heal/tank and the results are pathetic.
Sorry, but times are changing friend. :cool: The MMO is changing and will continue to become more casual as time goes on. You see, the biggest problem with your argument is not that you are wrong, but that due to shifts in the gaming industry's business plans the landscape has been changed. More and more these days companies opt to create an MMO over a new single player game in many loved franchises. In the very least most Single Player games now have some stupid multiplayer mode tacked on, taking away development time from the core game and potential DLC, due to company mandates. As such gamers who don't actually want to play MMOs have either the choice of playing nothing or making the most out of what is offered in its place. This is why you see talk of the "MSORPG" (Massively Single Player Online Roleplaying Game) sarcastically popping up in IGN articles these days with the single player croud being forced to immigrate into MMOs.
My number one example is SWTOR, the first MMO I bothered to play. Why did I play it if I don't play MMOs? Simple, because KOTOR was one of my favorite RPGs of all time and to the great dissapointment of nearly all fans EA/Bioware decided to make an MMO instead of a normal RPG (A game that was briefly in development I might add). So there was the choice they gave - either play our MMO or move on from a series you have loved for ten years. Luckily for us single player fans we were not entirely abandoned by this new wave and SWTOR was made soloable; at least for story content; which is all some of us really want anyway. Next came ESO (Though hopefully that will not kill the real Elder Scrolls Franchise as Zenimax Online is different than Bethesda even if both are under Zenimax Media overall), and the upcoming horrible excuse for a Fable game (Some people hate them, but I still love the humor of the Fable series ) Fable Legends (Which is essentially a MOBA/Dungeon Crawler hybrid) Sadly for you, the powers that be felt this was a better solution than making two types of games, thus lumping us together for the forseeable future. And companies will continue to cater to both groups making neither truly happy.
STO, while older, is still in a simmilar position. Star Trek has always suffered from mediocre gaming experiences and while there have been gems (like SFC, Armada, etc) few have offered an RPG experience and none are new. Further in this age of no Trek tv and only JJ Trek in theaters :rolleyes:, STO, despite its flaws, is the closest thing to "New" prime universe Star Trek. (Yes, I know that is a bit of a strech). For me and a few other here at least, if you read my posts, we see no need to get to max level quick, or the need to max out spec points (I agree with you on that point completly). But where the conversation had evolved to last night with OP was the issue of needing to be at Level 60 to play new episodes if you miss the FE run. As getting to 60 is slow this makes RPing Alts through the story a major headache. I'm not saying that some people on this thread aren't simply the impatient "Me Me" type, but certainly not all of us.
EDIT: And lets face it story mode STO is always pretty easy. Further,as we know from FE runs, the missions are capable of scaling with the player. So why does Cryptic make it neccesary to be level 60 to play them? (Once again in the scenario that its a new player's character or one you missed the FE on) If they did change that I think there would be far fewer complaints about leveling, which considering your stance, should make you and others forum experience a happier one.
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
Anyways, to get onto the main topic. I would have to say imho that 1-50 is a little too quick overall, and around 53/54-60 is rather more too much of a long uphill slog through thick mud in 2G's worth of gravity.
I'd gladly trade slower levelling pre-55 for faster levelling post-55. :P The only early levelling that felt like a slog was 1-10 on a Fed, since all the ships in that tier for Feds are kind of meh. Everything else at low level just seems like a blur. I feel lucky if I get an appropriate chance to use a ship's special console ability even once before I'm on to the next tier.
First, I'm female. Second, I'm actually completely serious and not baiting anything or anyone. I really am Level 52 and not even done with the Cardassian storyline (have one episode left in it).
I'm old school. I was born in 1980. I grew up playing Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Ultima. D&D0, no hand holding in games at all, and true challenges.
Now the challenge is easy to get in this game by turning difficulty to Elite, but I still feel like I'm not EARNING anything. I gain skill points too fast and don't get to savor a new rank for as long as I'd like to. Level 60 doesn't feel like an accomplishment now because 1-50 was SO SO SO fast. For the first 20 levels, I gained one after every single mission. It just seems out of whack.
Why are people obsessed with speed now? Gotta do everything faster. I wanna stop and smell the roses. If the changes I suggested aren't good for all people, it should at least be a character option to halve skill point gains (or turn it off altogether). Even if the skill points don't change, I absolutely believe the ranks should. The current ranks make zero sense. Rear Admiral Lower Half is stupid and goes against canon, and Fleet Admiral at 60 just makes me think "too many cooks in the kitchen". Or maybe Advanced will be like now, with Elite giving 25% more.
Honestly, if I go deeper into my suggestion, I would halve skill gains on Normal mode, down 25% in Advanced, and current amounts on Elite since Elite currently doesn't really reward you extra at all (I ran the same mission on both Normal and Elite and there was almost no difference in the loot).
Well there Lyndsey, welcome to sto!
This however has been suggested for the entire game's life... There is no way they 'crytic' is going to change that. Doing so would cause 2 things:
1. Rage/flame in the community. (As you've seen thus far)
2. Completely break the game
I am in total agreement with the OP on this one. Levelling is way too fast.
I'm 40, I've been playing games since the 70's, so I know what I'm talking about, especially as RPG's are my favourite genre. RPG levelling in the vast majority of RPG's is always a grind and the amount of XP usually increases per level. Levelling to 50 in a week (15-20 hours of game play doing episodes) is way too fast, should be double that. 50 onwards is about the right pace.
The problem with alot of the guys and gals, who say it's too slow, is they lack the patience and appreciation of achieving another level! They want everything yesterday. Then there's the added annoyance of the very same people who complain that they deserve MORE free stuff or the free stuff isn't good enough. Absolutely they are ungrateful people!
I'm 41, I've been gaming since the '80s, and leveling from 1 to 50 is A-OK in my book. 50 is where the fun really begins, after all.
Oh, and the kids can play in -my- yard all they want.
1: Putting story content behind level 60 is bad
2: Leveling on a whole needs to be looked
3: Thanks to the speed of low levels t1-4 ships and lower level gear is next to pointless outside of consoles that can be used on t5-6 ships?
The current progression in the game is somewhat obscured, one might even say obfuscated.
Levels 1--50: You gain about one level every story mission.
Levels 50--60: It takes about as much XP to complete the last 10 levels as it does to complete the previous 50.
35 specialization points after level 60: Last time I checked, each specialization point after level 60 cost about 160,000 XP.
You can gain as many specialization points as you want, but only 45 are usable at one time: 30 for one primary specialization and 15 for one secondary specialization. You gain one specialization point for each level from 51 to 60, so you need 35 more to complete both a primary and a secondary specialization tree.
Note that I'm not counting traits unlocked by the reputation system or traits unlocked by leveling T6 ships. I'm also not counting gear, which can be quite costly depending on what you want.
Right now, the level next to your name (or pips on your collar) is not an accurate indicator of character progression.
EDIT: Another reason why some people may feel that levels 50--60 are slow is the increase in HP of NPCs. Even though levels 50--60 take about as much XP to complete as levels 50--60, it may feel slower because the enemies take longer to kill.
Seriously, I'm great with ideas, and I'd definitely listen more than they do. I'm great with ideas. Unfortunately, I've always been horrible at execution. Like, I'm a great storyteller, but a bad writer. I've got great game design ideas and great math skills, but programming is way over my head. It's frustrating. If only such a job ever existed for someone like me.
Frankly, I don't think Cryptic needs any more "idea" people. What they need is more "make sure stuff works before they release it" people. Where Cryptic frequently fails is in execution. Just look at the loadouts disaster. For months, players had to deal with resetting trays, unslotting bridge officers, unslotting duty officers, equipment ending up in the wrong slots, and so on. They fixed most of the bugs with loadouts, but I think some people may still be having problems. This season, duty officer assignments are broken in sector space. I don't know when that will be fixed. I'm guessing most of their programmers are working on the lag experienced by some players.
On a side note, while PWE/Cryptic is infinitely better than EA/Bioware in all respects (EA is the worst company in the WORLD), I don't like the censorship on the part of the Chinese here. There's no reason war craft should be censored, especially since the main reason I'd call it out is for how bad it is compared to STO and SWTOR, not to want more like it..
Guess every company does stupid things eh?
I'm guessing that the censorship came from Cryptic, since PWE wouldn't care about arguments on local forums. And the word is likely censored because of a period of endless flaming/trolling/arguments all based around talking about that MMO. (I've seen similar things on other forums - if some other company's game/product/etc is the center of lots of moderation problems, it'll get added to the banned list.)
Of course, it's more hilarious/sad on the forums where the autocensor will detect parts of words.... so you end up not being able to talk about the new drapes you put up on your windows, because of all the letters after "d". :rolleyes: (that particular example is from the WoW forums, of course. :P)
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I don't think smart phone addiction is a good thing and while I have a smart phone, I don't use any of the "smart" features but that's another topic.
Getting back on topic, as proven by the many incompetent players in STO, grinding to maximum level doesn't automatically equate to being good at the game. I've seen level 60 characters, looked at their ships and asked myself "How did they make it through the story missions?". Now even if I were interested enough in WoW to spend 60 quid on a max level character I would at least bother to learn not to be totally incompetent, okay I'll probably still be called a noob and perhaps rightly so but I would at least try.
Also, as someone said, the NPC's level with you. You cannot out pace the game. The game out paces you in the Delta Rising expansion and that really needs a fix. So fast leveling, I see no down side. I see one in slow leveling. I remember having to kill mobs for xp in WoW so you could go to the next zone. Do we really want that? Oh, wait, we have it in DR.
Leveling is in my view an outdated game mechanic. It is for a learning path, but we don't need a learning path through the whole game. It also serves as a mechanism to lock content behind a level barrier and that has only a purpose for a first time play through and even there we can discuss it.
If I buy a book, a cd/dvd, I can skip the first chapters. numbers, scenes, if I want. Not in an MMO, no, if you want to play with the big dudes, you have to play a little dude first. Let the players decide what they want and how. If the game is good, they will play.
This one knows what's up.
lol "uber"
Back in my(our?) day, it took us a month for ONE LEVEL.
You kids have it easy today.
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Dr. McCoy's rank was Branch Admiral. Just sayin'.
I'm female, too, and I was in high school when you were born. I've played all manner of RPGs, from the earliest tabletop stuff (still have all the first printing first edition AD&D books and D&D stuff from before that) to contemporary eye candy MMOs. I do not agree with you that leveling in this game is too fast. Until I made my first Alt post-DR, I was actually concerned that the leveling from 50-60 was too slow, but now I have changed my view of that. I think leveling in STO is about right -- although I do agree that it can be frustrating to barely have time to get used to a ship before it's time to move on to the next one.
And to those who want to drag Korean grindfests out for comparison, NO. Bringing out the worst examples you can think of in order to "prove" that it's "not so bad here" is a bit of a False Dilemma (to say the least). Sure, it could be a lot worse, but that's not the same as saying "It's fine." There is already a little too much grind in STO, but at least it's grind for something other than levels.
I thought it had to do with energy dissipation, not momentum. But I'm terrible at those science stuff, so someone else can correct me.
But I digress. There's something else I'd like to point out.
Leveling from 1-50 is great and fast because one story mission gives you roughly one level. When you couple that with DOFFing, then you have a very fast progression like the OP suggests.
However, there is a point that all story missions are over. Then you have to resort to DOFFing plus patrols and other stuff that are not as rewarding as story missions. Replaying missions is not worth the time spent, but then, anything that isn't story missions isn't. And the Cardassian arc is horrible XP-wise, let alone replaying it.
In my opinion, it is a mistake to give the main chunk of XP at mission completion. I would decrease that reward but increase the XP given by enemy defeats (everywhere) to compensate. That way, most content in this game feels somewhat rewarding, as it should be.
STO Screenshot Archive
"MMOs should always have the grind"..... seriously, I'd like to know why some people are championing endless busywork (grind) as a positive gameplay mechanic. As I mentioned before, grind served one major purpose in the original old-school subscription games - it kept people playing longer, so they needed to pay more sub. In the new era/in Korean uber-grind games, that morphed into having an utterly absurd level of grind, to sell more cash shop XP Boosters.
Oh, yes - one other reason that MMOs have always added more grind, particularly at end-game: so that they'd have something for players to do while they worked on the next content patch. Gotta bog people down in rep grinds, in weekly-lockout/rare-loot-drop raiding, in farming crafting mats; because the devs can't possibly create more real content as quickly as the players devour it.
So yeah.... super grinding isn't a good mechanic for players, just for the devs. (And seriously - grinding endless basic content doesn't really teach you the skills for end-game group content. It's, as mentioned, mindless busywork.)
edit: oh, right. There is one "positive" to grinding for at least part of the playerbase. It lets the l33t d00ds feel all macho & exclusionary.... "If you don't have the Perseverance and Dedication to slog through 300+ hours of grind to hit max level, you're Not Worthy to be part of our Exalted Company."
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Also, I see people constantly throwing out the "lazy modern gamers want instant gratification!" one. While some of that may be true, there's also a couple other factors here.
1) Many "modern" gamers are now older working folks, who've gamed forever and want to keep doing it.... but since they aren't high-school & college slackers anymore, they can't play a game that requires several hundred hours just to get to the "endgame".
2) MMO companies realized at some point that they wanted new players to be able to play the new content they put out - that if they left things as it was, a new player would say "Well, they're hyping how cool Brand New Expansion Of Doom is.... but I'll have to get through months & months of the Old And Inferior Expansions to get to try it." - and they'd likely lose a sale. So yeah, many of the larger MMOs started speeding up the leveling process of "old" content so that they could sell their new content to people. That's not instant gratification, it's smart business. They want to gain new customers, even in the fifth year of a game. Not make is such an impenetrable experience that the only direction the customer base goes is down.
you still have to reach level 60, complete reputations and specializations and if that is not enough think about the equipment... even if usually no one include the equipment into leveling actualy you need a good equipment to play advanced and elite!
Frankly I do not think that building "ex novo" a new toon is fast or easy, for sure not for a new player.
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Now, i have this nice shed here, if you would please follow me behind it we can... finish this....
THE TREE OF WOE: A quiet place to think about what you did!
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
I agree that it is funny. Only if you consider everything in the post is a reference to STO. IF you take into consideration that the post your laughing at is about MMOs in general then the laughter fades. I can see where she is coming from. Compared to other MMOs, Star Trek Onlines leveling is super easy and super fast. Even on elite. In most MMOs leveling from 1-60 takes around a month or 2 and thats if you play everyday. I wonder how long it would take you to level 1-60 in sto if you plalyed everyday. 3 days , maybe 4. So yeah sto's leveling is laughable. Tbh though, is sto a mmo. when is the last time you and your fleet sceduled a match or pve. I've been in a fleet now for 2 years and I don't think I've did it 1 time. In other MMO's its everyweek or more. Tunnel vision is a killer, I think thats what may have happned here.
I am in total agreement with the OP on this one. Levelling is way too fast.
I'm 40, I've been playing games since the 70's, so I know what I'm talking about, especially as RPG's are my favourite genre. RPG levelling in the vast majority of RPG's is always a grind and the amount of XP usually increases per level. Levelling to 50 in a week (15-20 hours of game play doing episodes) is way too fast, should be double that. 50 onwards is about the right pace.
The problem with alot of the guys and gals, who say it's too slow, is they lack the patience and appreciation of achieving another level! They want everything yesterday. Then there's the added annoyance of the very same people who complain that they deserve MORE free stuff or the free stuff isn't good enough. Absolutely they are ungrateful people!
Or, it could be more about how new episodes are locked behind a level 60 gate. Further that whether you are a kid in school or an adult at work, normal people (AKA those who don't spend every waking hour playing a single game) don't have time to A: level every character to 60 or B: play each FE during its run on every alt so as to bypass the level gate.
If you had bothered to read the enitre thread most of OP's points were adressed and she even agreed that the level 60 gate thing is a problem once she found out about it.
Since many of us have always played this game as Star Trek fans, in a ST tv drought, the real reason we are here is for the new episodes not to play an MMO. One might then say "Play something else." But be honest, we all know there are very few "good" story driven or space sim Star Trek games and most of those are so old we have all played them to death. (I'm looking at you SFC and Armada series
And finally, yes one could just replay episodes on an old character or one who caught the FE, but what about new players who have to get to 60 before playing many missions the first time, or new toons that missed the FE but we still want to RP their stories all the way through. Afterall the story might be the same, but my Joined Trill Sci does things alot differently than my Lib Borg Engi.
I'm pretty sure it does, last I checked energy weapons basically work by imparting their energy into the target, be it thermal, kinetic, electromagnetic and so on, to such an extent as to cause damage to the target on a molecular level. As a result it doesn't really follow the same 'rules' as a solid projectile weapon in that even in space, you're still going to eventually have the energy bolt/beam/whatever dissipate or disperse to the point where it just doesn't have the impact to do any meaningful damage any longer.
Anyways, to get onto the main topic. I would have to say imho that 1-50 is a little too quick overall, and around 53/54-60 is rather more too much of a long uphill slog through thick mud in 2G's worth of gravity. (Yeah I layered on the metaphor a bit thick there perhaps, so sue me.) Honestly, I really think that they (Cryptic) should even things out, make it so that there's not such a 'wall' so to speak mid way through the 50-60 process. But also make it so perhaps sometimes you need to run say, two patrols between story missions from time to time even pre-50. Post 60. Eh, Not much to say, I don't have a huge issue with the large EXP requirements at post 60 for more Spec Points personally. But that's mostly because I look at post 60 Spec points as 'They'll happen when they happen, what matters now, is that I've seen pretty much everything on offer so far now and I can dive right into the new stuff right away or damn near.'
If Cryptic wants me to return and spend money, they would make leveling from 50 to 60 extremely faster. Once I hit the leveling wall, I stopped playing entirely. I sign in to catch up with friends; however, I am not leveling and spending money. I am just sitting idle. I haven't signed on for a long time.
As long as I am stuck behind the leveling wall, I will continue to keep my character and wallet idle. I have roughly $150-$200 to blow on "Star Trek: Online"; however, the only way I will spend money is to get over level 60. ...and, that is not going to happen anytime soon.
I don't want a 'bonus xp weekend'.
I want a permanent and long term solution.
While I may have complained about other game mechanics, the leveling wall is the main reason why I stopped spending money and playing.
Eh, that likely depends on what MMOs you're thinking of. I can recall seeing people talking about being able to level a character in a couple weeks, in several of the games I've tried in the last 5 years or so. Again, this overall topic seems to be (yet another) edition of Old School MMO/Everquest fans vs the Modern MMO Industry.
Just like you're never again going to see the old-style "you have to be in a full party just to levelgrind" gameplay return, either.
Sorry, but times are changing friend. :cool: The MMO is changing and will continue to become more casual as time goes on. You see, the biggest problem with your argument is not that you are wrong, but that due to shifts in the gaming industry's business plans the landscape has been changed. More and more these days companies opt to create an MMO over a new single player game in many loved franchises. In the very least most Single Player games now have some stupid multiplayer mode tacked on, taking away development time from the core game and potential DLC, due to company mandates. As such gamers who don't actually want to play MMOs have either the choice of playing nothing or making the most out of what is offered in its place. This is why you see talk of the "MSORPG" (Massively Single Player Online Roleplaying Game) sarcastically popping up in IGN articles these days with the single player croud being forced to immigrate into MMOs.
My number one example is SWTOR, the first MMO I bothered to play. Why did I play it if I don't play MMOs? Simple, because KOTOR was one of my favorite RPGs of all time and to the great dissapointment of nearly all fans EA/Bioware decided to make an MMO instead of a normal RPG (A game that was briefly in development I might add). So there was the choice they gave - either play our MMO or move on from a series you have loved for ten years. Luckily for us single player fans we were not entirely abandoned by this new wave and SWTOR was made soloable; at least for story content; which is all some of us really want anyway. Next came ESO (Though hopefully that will not kill the real Elder Scrolls Franchise as Zenimax Online is different than Bethesda even if both are under Zenimax Media overall), and the upcoming horrible excuse for a Fable game (Some people hate them, but I still love the humor of the Fable series
STO, while older, is still in a simmilar position. Star Trek has always suffered from mediocre gaming experiences and while there have been gems (like SFC, Armada, etc) few have offered an RPG experience and none are new. Further in this age of no Trek tv and only JJ Trek in theaters :rolleyes:, STO, despite its flaws, is the closest thing to "New" prime universe Star Trek. (Yes, I know that is a bit of a strech). For me and a few other here at least, if you read my posts, we see no need to get to max level quick, or the need to max out spec points (I agree with you on that point completly). But where the conversation had evolved to last night with OP was the issue of needing to be at Level 60 to play new episodes if you miss the FE run. As getting to 60 is slow this makes RPing Alts through the story a major headache. I'm not saying that some people on this thread aren't simply the impatient "Me Me" type, but certainly not all of us.
EDIT: And lets face it story mode STO is always pretty easy. Further,as we know from FE runs, the missions are capable of scaling with the player. So why does Cryptic make it neccesary to be level 60 to play them? (Once again in the scenario that its a new player's character or one you missed the FE on) If they did change that I think there would be far fewer complaints about leveling, which considering your stance, should make you and others forum experience a happier one.
I'd gladly trade slower levelling pre-55 for faster levelling post-55. :P The only early levelling that felt like a slog was 1-10 on a Fed, since all the ships in that tier for Feds are kind of meh. Everything else at low level just seems like a blur. I feel lucky if I get an appropriate chance to use a ship's special console ability even once before I'm on to the next tier.
Well there Lyndsey, welcome to sto!
This however has been suggested for the entire game's life... There is no way they 'crytic' is going to change that. Doing so would cause 2 things:
1. Rage/flame in the community. (As you've seen thus far)
2. Completely break the game
I'm 41, I've been gaming since the '80s, and leveling from 1 to 50 is A-OK in my book. 50 is where the fun really begins, after all.
Oh, and the kids can play in -my- yard all they want.
1: Putting story content behind level 60 is bad
2: Leveling on a whole needs to be looked
3: Thanks to the speed of low levels t1-4 ships and lower level gear is next to pointless outside of consoles that can be used on t5-6 ships?
Levels 1--50: You gain about one level every story mission.
Levels 50--60: It takes about as much XP to complete the last 10 levels as it does to complete the previous 50.
35 specialization points after level 60: Last time I checked, each specialization point after level 60 cost about 160,000 XP.
You can gain as many specialization points as you want, but only 45 are usable at one time: 30 for one primary specialization and 15 for one secondary specialization. You gain one specialization point for each level from 51 to 60, so you need 35 more to complete both a primary and a secondary specialization tree.
Note that I'm not counting traits unlocked by the reputation system or traits unlocked by leveling T6 ships. I'm also not counting gear, which can be quite costly depending on what you want.
Right now, the level next to your name (or pips on your collar) is not an accurate indicator of character progression.
EDIT: Another reason why some people may feel that levels 50--60 are slow is the increase in HP of NPCs. Even though levels 50--60 take about as much XP to complete as levels 50--60, it may feel slower because the enemies take longer to kill.
FYI, you can't out level missions and you don't have to take the new ship. You can take it as slow as you want.
Frankly, I don't think Cryptic needs any more "idea" people. What they need is more "make sure stuff works before they release it" people. Where Cryptic frequently fails is in execution. Just look at the loadouts disaster. For months, players had to deal with resetting trays, unslotting bridge officers, unslotting duty officers, equipment ending up in the wrong slots, and so on. They fixed most of the bugs with loadouts, but I think some people may still be having problems. This season, duty officer assignments are broken in sector space. I don't know when that will be fixed. I'm guessing most of their programmers are working on the lag experienced by some players.
I'm guessing that the censorship came from Cryptic, since PWE wouldn't care about arguments on local forums. And the word is likely censored because of a period of endless flaming/trolling/arguments all based around talking about that MMO. (I've seen similar things on other forums - if some other company's game/product/etc is the center of lots of moderation problems, it'll get added to the banned list.)
Of course, it's more hilarious/sad on the forums where the autocensor will detect parts of words.... so you end up not being able to talk about the new drapes you put up on your windows, because of all the letters after "d". :rolleyes: (that particular example is from the WoW forums, of course. :P)