Content - regularity, gameplay, or overall direction of episodes/arcs/holdings/reputation
I.. guess.. content? I imagine having a new space battlezone or some more interesting deepspace encounters might keep me playing/start playing actively again.
I do not like queues/forced-group content - I like open-social content where people can come and go like it's a living, breathing universe instead of a scripted story on repeat(My first character was leveled almost exclusively via the planetary patrols/exploration - they were maxed before even completing the first story arc). Furthermore, I confess that the whole Iconian War Story Arc has been really.. tiresome.. with its abstracted arbitration. Long, tedious ground battles where we slaughter Heralds by the hundreds upon hundreds; kick the Iconians to the curb in every engagements; yet we still 'lose' due to dumb plot developments and deus ex machina that leave my face firmly planted in my palm after each episode.
With all that said, there are two things that are really turning me off to the game as a whole right now:
1.) User Interface. I'm not referring specifically to the GUI, but rather how the UI functions mechanically. Trying to use emergency abilities(hyposprays, rolling) doesn't work unless you're doing absolutely nothing else(not even firing your weapons). I'm soo tired of having to scroll through my entire crafting inventory every time I want to sell junk at a vendor. Why does the game steal my cursor whenever I transport somewhere(forcing me to alt-tab instead of simply moving my mouse to another window while the game loads)? It's the little things that all add up to a big mess of "is it really even worth the hassle?"
2.) Rampant Feature Creep that's poorly thought out/undeveloped on top of slowly eroding core game mechanics. Lockboxes are a big culprit here; they constantly introduce new one-off additions that destabilize conventions and the integrity of the game as a whole(What even is the identity/purpose of an "escort" or "cruiser" anymore?). To be fair, Reputations and the mastery/specialization systems are equally guilty of adding bloat that makes the game less cohesive and more obscurely fragmented.
I do not like queues/forced-group content - I like open-social content where people can come and go like it's a living, breathing universe instead of a scripted story on repeat(My first character was leveled almost exclusively via the planetary patrols/exploration - they were maxed before even completing the first story arc).
I thought of saying something about how there's a lack of opportunities for roleplaying, but that's kind of an understatement. The entire game is designed so that roleplaying is not possible. There are three storylines that converge into one, and the only narrative decision a player can make in the entire game is whether their Romulan character will work with the Federation or the Empire. I find it bizarre that people will talk about roleplaying in STO at all, and I have to assume that they have no idea what a roleplaying game actually is. If you can't make a decision that affects the narrative, it's not a roleplaying game. This is, however, baked into the design at every level, and is beyond fixing.
Content - regularity, gameplay, or overall direction of episodes/arcs/holdings/reputation
1)gameplay. the current gameplay is totally boring, i could use other words, but i don't want to be banned from the forums.
2)+ the lacks of things to do when you are lvl60 and you have done the new FE; this is why i write currently in the forums
3) the grind associated to the r&d and upgrade systems
Content - regularity, gameplay, or overall direction of episodes/arcs/holdings/reputation
I ultimately play this game for the content. In a lot of ways the quality of the content has greatly improved. But there's been a trend lately in the storyline where we're being reduced to spectators who don't really contribute much to the outcome. Previous missions felt a lot more interactive.
Inattention to immersion was and is an ongoing issue, including when our characters are forced to do and say things that we feel they wouldn't do. A certain amount of that is going to be unavoidable, I think. But the devs need to be more mindful that all of the endgame content is cross-faction and those factions consist of various member races which generally respond in different ways. Even that has improved to a small extent, where there are often acceptable responses for KDF characters as well as Fed. But when there are gaps, they are usually glaring and jarring.
For example... when a low-ranking Klingon officer starts mouthing off to a Dahar Master, the correct response is to ask that officer whether they prefer a beating or to shut up. Even better, allow you to administer that discipline as desired. Bad plotting forces you to stand there and take it like Starfleet. Is that fight unnecessary to the mission flow? Yes. Does railroading the player like that break immersion? Yes, and mighty unsatisfying, too.
Bugs and a bunch of other stuff also affect immersion. Like when I recently replayed a mission and half the characters including my own were sunk waist-deep in the floor during a cutscene. But it's the content that keeps me playing and allows me to forgive annoyances like these as long as they're not crippling gameplay.
PVP - these or other issues, specifically how they relate to PVP
Grinding has always been an issue of STO. However, since DR launched (last october) it has exacerbated to an extreme level. There is NO real content to justify the much added grindfest.
Other - If you aren't having as much fun, but the reason has nothing to do with what is listed
Not enough Trek feeling for me. And it's going always worse.
The devs should invest in creating a better exploration system instead of releasing expansions loosely based on species who appeared on one of few episodes.
But we know the whole plot revolves around one that was only named in the show.
That standing, giving us an option to play a more trek type of game such as explorating strange new worlds for equal rewards would go a long a way.
Unfortunately the exploration system featured mostly deserted planets with a clickie gameplay or a preset number of enemies to kill.
I still hope that in the future they will review the system and come up with something better.
I still dream from time to time about using the Gateway to doff off-game in spare minutes as we were told
Admittedly, many of these are overlapping, confounding, or tend to play against each other. But overall, what (at the moment) is your most significant barrier to enjoying the game more.
NOTE: If you are going to add follow-up comments, please don't just complain; take the time to explain what the problem is and how it might be fixed.
Grind - EC/XP/Dilithium/Marks requiring multiple replays of single missions
Other than PvP i'd vote for all of them. One thing you haven't got in the poll is the R&D/Upgrade system and costs. If you don't hit UR or Epic early when upgrading Rep gear such as the Iconian Warp as an example, it can cost if you continue anywhere between 300-400k dil to get to UR if you are very unlucky. Also the inability to pick our own mods, i don't know if this is being addressed or not ?.
Can i change my mind. My biggest concern is PWE ownership of Cryptic and the lack of Quality and Control we have been seeing with content releases, Bugs, breaking existing content, Server stability/Lag. The game is geared in nearly every sense to make money, but feels like its being run on a shoestring.
Its the type of thing that happens when the existing company is bought out, They are downsized and forced to repay the cost of the purchase of them by the parent company by raising prices and becoming more monetised, and more often than not the product the parent company bought them for suffers a decline in quality in the process.
People I know keep disappearing going to other games. That's a little worrisome.
Because they are wise people and the most important issue of the game, BUGS, are the reason they leave. On the contrary to all these guys in this poll that only vote for things that are far less important, the people you know are smarter than that, they dont want a game with a terrible quality department. I dont care about balance or content if i know im playing using 75% of broken skills and abilities. Or why will i care about something that is not bugs if i cant even fire my cannons when playing?? or visuals. Seriously, in the past year almost half of my ships have something broken in their visuals. This escapes me. The Karfi cant show dyson visuals, it dissapears sometimes for no reason. The Romulan command cruisers is missing an engine trail. Sometimes it looks ridiculous. The behaviour of the Shar Telln pets never was fixed, why the hell i want to fly a carrier if i literally cant use the pets??
I mean, guys, seriously?? so, you want more broken rushed content over the broken one we already have?? i dont get you. Why you guys play this game?? we reached a point that people is enjoying a broken game if they have more shinys to buy and more content to play??.... incredible.
Some guys will say that 90% of this poll is filled with kids... no offense, but it is what it looks like. I know i will maybe banned for saying all of this, but i just cant understand it. I mean, how many grown up players are playing this game??
I dont care about balance or content if i know im playing using 75% of broken skills and abilities. Or why will i care about something that is not bugs if i cant even fire my cannons when playing?? or visuals. Seriously, in the past year almost half of my ships have something broken in their visuals. This escapes me. The Karfi cant show dyson visuals, it dissapears sometimes for no reason. The Romulan command cruisers is missing an engine trail. Sometimes it looks ridiculous. The behaviour of the Shar Telln pets never was fixed, why the hell i want to fly a carrier if i literally cant use the pets??
Thanks for adding these comments. Personally, I am not aware of the vast majority of bugs that seem to be affecting other players. I also don't experience the crippling lag others do. I guess the point I am trying to make is that one player's experience isn't universal. It is sort of like the "I have a sandwich so you shouldn't be hungry" kind of idea.
With regard to bugs, one problem that keeps getting pointed out is that bugs get reported in the bug forum, then are never acknowledged. Tickets are generated in-game but no one ever looks at them. Some bugs are full-blown exploits that get hushed up either because Devs don't want players using them or players don't want the fun spoiled.
@kittyflofy a question I have for you (and others most concerned about bugs) is if you would feel better knowing that a bug is acknowledged as a known issue, or at least being looked into. Do you think a better bug-reporting system would ease your concerns?
Power Creep - new powers/traits/specializations/items/ships significantly more powerful
Lag and Bugs I think are temporary... but the issue I've found that is causing me to care less and less is the power creep. I feel the game is just outpacing my ability to remain competitive doing the content required to remain competitive...
Maybe it's the grind but I just feel like I keep playing to improve my ship/char in order to get whatever the next "thing" is, knowing that soon that thing will be replaced with the next "thing". It feels like a vicious circle. I started playing my alts some, thinking I would just level them up but that only showed me just how behind my alts are compared to my main.... and how far my main is behind those who put several hours a day into the game.
I'm not saying that's now how it's "supposed" to be, and that it's how many people prefer it to be... I'm just saying it's causing me personally to lose interest. I guess I feel like I've fallen behind and the task to catch up isn't worth the effort... :-/
Thanks for adding these comments. Personally, I am not aware of the vast majority of bugs that seem to be affecting other players. I also don't experience the crippling lag others do. I guess the point I am trying to make is that one player's experience isn't universal. It is sort of like the "I have a sandwich so you shouldn't be hungry" kind of idea.
With regard to bugs, one problem that keeps getting pointed out is that bugs get reported in the bug forum, then are never acknowledged. Tickets are generated in-game but no one ever looks at them. Some bugs are full-blown exploits that get hushed up either because Devs don't want players using them or players don't want the fun spoiled.
@kittyflofy a question I have for you (and others most concerned about bugs) is if you would feel better knowing that a bug is acknowledged as a known issue, or at least being looked into. Do you think a better bug-reporting system would ease your concerns?
Well, you need to play far more and more to start discovering all the bugs. Some players will never notice bugs until they know how all the mechanics work and when they learned almost everything they should know about the game. You dont have lag? you never played a tholian red alert, or another crowed stf. Period. You dont experiment any bug?? you must be playing another completely different game, or you really dont care at all about em. Is that simple. If we talk about other mmorpg , where you could see a few bugs here and there, but they are fixed in a decent ammount of time, i will not be complaining about it, because thats normal. But what is happening in STO isnt, unfortunately. Not only bugs are not fixed, but they keep introducing new ones and breaking other things without fixing the previous ones. And this is happening since ages ago. You dont see it? well, i never saw something like that in any videogame. Honestly.
The problem is not the bug-reporting system, the problem is the lack of quality in the development department. It will not matter at all if they make another bug report system if they have the same management, nothing will change.
About new content??? people just dont get it. If you keep ignoring and messing up with the base code of the game without fixing it or cleaning it, and you keep adding more and more content without fixing it, things will always get worst. But nah, people want more and more content, they dont care at all lolz. Actually i am almost amazed that people keep complaining about if one trait is not working or if this console set is not working or watever, i mean, if they really dont care about it why they keep complaining in the bug forum? that is what i dont understand lol.
I mean if we got so far, why to report any bug at all? i mean, it will be better for the cryptic team so they can just focus once for all only in releasing new content. No "fake" fixes to anything no known bugs no aknowledge bugs, nothing. Im pretty sure we will have even more content every week. Or maybe not, honestly i dont think they waste too much time fixing things anyways lool. I wish i was wrong. I love this game and my only regret is that it could have been an amazing star trek legacy, but i will be embarrashed if i were the CBS guys. I think this IP deserves so much much more...
Other - If you aren't having as much fun, but the reason has nothing to do with what is listed
OP, a lot of those things you listed are significant issues. My #1 issue is how Alt-Unfriendly STO has become. The slower rate of XPs for leveling past 50 and now the cost of upgrading makes Alt Play a serous hassle since Profits Rising hit.
If you were one to play with a character or two only, then you probably aren't feeling any of thse kind of issues. But players here have had plenty of alts because the game prior was very friendly for it. Now, you are NOT getting anywhere on specializations and upgrading if you intend to play with a bunch of characters.
Content - regularity, gameplay, or overall direction of episodes/arcs/holdings/reputation
Content - We need more. I barely made it to lvl60 on my main character without a bonus XP event. We need at least enough content to get us to lvl60. I feel that we don't get enough XP from PVE STF style missions to off set that. Oh and plus they need to fix the in game bugs lol
I barely made it to lvl60 on my main character without a bonus XP event. We need at least enough content to get us to lvl60.
You've got to be kidding. My characters all made level 60 before I'd gotten through half the story missions. If anything, it's a problem that levelling is so rapid that you've hit max level before you've even started working out how the skills function in gameplay.
Lag/FPS - rubberbanding, disconnects, or graphics slowing down FPS
The crippling lag, fps drops and misfires are just out of control right now. They permeate every other option listed on that poll and make running content frustrating and embarrassing. And as time goes on and more systems are added, it seems to get worse.
Other - If you aren't having as much fun, but the reason has nothing to do with what is listed
I'm very concerned about the way customer service issues are "handled", particularly when real money is at stake. The C-Store forum is littered with cautionary tales. I simply do not feel comfortable spending real money in this game.
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
Balance - ships/careers/powers being OP or UP, lacking counters, or being viable at all
I go with Balance.
We have 12 weapon mods (not counting [arc] and [borg]) of which there is 1 everyone wants [CrtD], 1 kinda good [pen] 2-3 kind of seen as consolation Prices if you already have CrtD]x3 and the dirty rest no one wants.
At least half if not more of the starship skills are useless and many of those that are not only see use on specialized PvP builds with barely anyone playing PvP, and in STFs you need DPS, more DPS, someone maybe kinda Tanky as long as there is still enough DPS and some CC, with DPS.
I think better balance would allow for PvP to become an interesting part of the game (not much of a PvPler myself, but I see the merit of having an active community) and STFs could be made more challenging without relying on "Well, it had 10k HP, now it has 30K HP, that's a challenge, right?
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Comments
I do not like queues/forced-group content - I like open-social content where people can come and go like it's a living, breathing universe instead of a scripted story on repeat(My first character was leveled almost exclusively via the planetary patrols/exploration - they were maxed before even completing the first story arc). Furthermore, I confess that the whole Iconian War Story Arc has been really.. tiresome.. with its abstracted arbitration. Long, tedious ground battles where we slaughter Heralds by the hundreds upon hundreds; kick the Iconians to the curb in every engagements; yet we still 'lose' due to dumb plot developments and deus ex machina that leave my face firmly planted in my palm after each episode.
With all that said, there are two things that are really turning me off to the game as a whole right now:
1.) User Interface. I'm not referring specifically to the GUI, but rather how the UI functions mechanically. Trying to use emergency abilities(hyposprays, rolling) doesn't work unless you're doing absolutely nothing else(not even firing your weapons). I'm soo tired of having to scroll through my entire crafting inventory every time I want to sell junk at a vendor. Why does the game steal my cursor whenever I transport somewhere(forcing me to alt-tab instead of simply moving my mouse to another window while the game loads)? It's the little things that all add up to a big mess of "is it really even worth the hassle?"
2.) Rampant Feature Creep that's poorly thought out/undeveloped on top of slowly eroding core game mechanics. Lockboxes are a big culprit here; they constantly introduce new one-off additions that destabilize conventions and the integrity of the game as a whole(What even is the identity/purpose of an "escort" or "cruiser" anymore?). To be fair, Reputations and the mastery/specialization systems are equally guilty of adding bloat that makes the game less cohesive and more obscurely fragmented.
A margin of improvement is needed across the board.
2)+ the lacks of things to do when you are lvl60 and you have done the new FE; this is why i write currently in the forums
3) the grind associated to the r&d and upgrade systems
I guess I would categorize that as "Other"
Inattention to immersion was and is an ongoing issue, including when our characters are forced to do and say things that we feel they wouldn't do. A certain amount of that is going to be unavoidable, I think. But the devs need to be more mindful that all of the endgame content is cross-faction and those factions consist of various member races which generally respond in different ways. Even that has improved to a small extent, where there are often acceptable responses for KDF characters as well as Fed. But when there are gaps, they are usually glaring and jarring.
For example... when a low-ranking Klingon officer starts mouthing off to a Dahar Master, the correct response is to ask that officer whether they prefer a beating or to shut up. Even better, allow you to administer that discipline as desired. Bad plotting forces you to stand there and take it like Starfleet. Is that fight unnecessary to the mission flow? Yes. Does railroading the player like that break immersion? Yes, and mighty unsatisfying, too.
Bugs and a bunch of other stuff also affect immersion. Like when I recently replayed a mission and half the characters including my own were sunk waist-deep in the floor during a cutscene. But it's the content that keeps me playing and allows me to forgive annoyances like these as long as they're not crippling gameplay.
The devs should invest in creating a better exploration system instead of releasing expansions loosely based on species who appeared on one of few episodes.
But we know the whole plot revolves around one that was only named in the show.
That standing, giving us an option to play a more trek type of game such as explorating strange new worlds for equal rewards would go a long a way.
Unfortunately the exploration system featured mostly deserted planets with a clickie gameplay or a preset number of enemies to kill.
I still hope that in the future they will review the system and come up with something better.
Grind - EC/XP/Dilithium/Marks requiring multiple replays of single missions
Can i change my mind. My biggest concern is PWE ownership of Cryptic and the lack of Quality and Control we have been seeing with content releases, Bugs, breaking existing content, Server stability/Lag. The game is geared in nearly every sense to make money, but feels like its being run on a shoestring.
Its the type of thing that happens when the existing company is bought out, They are downsized and forced to repay the cost of the purchase of them by the parent company by raising prices and becoming more monetised, and more often than not the product the parent company bought them for suffers a decline in quality in the process.
Because they are wise people and the most important issue of the game, BUGS, are the reason they leave. On the contrary to all these guys in this poll that only vote for things that are far less important, the people you know are smarter than that, they dont want a game with a terrible quality department. I dont care about balance or content if i know im playing using 75% of broken skills and abilities. Or why will i care about something that is not bugs if i cant even fire my cannons when playing?? or visuals. Seriously, in the past year almost half of my ships have something broken in their visuals. This escapes me. The Karfi cant show dyson visuals, it dissapears sometimes for no reason. The Romulan command cruisers is missing an engine trail. Sometimes it looks ridiculous. The behaviour of the Shar Telln pets never was fixed, why the hell i want to fly a carrier if i literally cant use the pets??
I mean, guys, seriously?? so, you want more broken rushed content over the broken one we already have?? i dont get you. Why you guys play this game?? we reached a point that people is enjoying a broken game if they have more shinys to buy and more content to play??.... incredible.
Some guys will say that 90% of this poll is filled with kids... no offense, but it is what it looks like. I know i will maybe banned for saying all of this, but i just cant understand it. I mean, how many grown up players are playing this game??
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Anyway, with the game at the age it's at, I wouldn't expect much in the way of changes until the thing dies.
Thanks for adding these comments. Personally, I am not aware of the vast majority of bugs that seem to be affecting other players. I also don't experience the crippling lag others do. I guess the point I am trying to make is that one player's experience isn't universal. It is sort of like the "I have a sandwich so you shouldn't be hungry" kind of idea.
With regard to bugs, one problem that keeps getting pointed out is that bugs get reported in the bug forum, then are never acknowledged. Tickets are generated in-game but no one ever looks at them. Some bugs are full-blown exploits that get hushed up either because Devs don't want players using them or players don't want the fun spoiled.
@kittyflofy a question I have for you (and others most concerned about bugs) is if you would feel better knowing that a bug is acknowledged as a known issue, or at least being looked into. Do you think a better bug-reporting system would ease your concerns?
Maybe it's the grind but I just feel like I keep playing to improve my ship/char in order to get whatever the next "thing" is, knowing that soon that thing will be replaced with the next "thing". It feels like a vicious circle. I started playing my alts some, thinking I would just level them up but that only showed me just how behind my alts are compared to my main.... and how far my main is behind those who put several hours a day into the game.
I'm not saying that's now how it's "supposed" to be, and that it's how many people prefer it to be... I'm just saying it's causing me personally to lose interest. I guess I feel like I've fallen behind and the task to catch up isn't worth the effort... :-/
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Well, you need to play far more and more to start discovering all the bugs. Some players will never notice bugs until they know how all the mechanics work and when they learned almost everything they should know about the game. You dont have lag? you never played a tholian red alert, or another crowed stf. Period. You dont experiment any bug?? you must be playing another completely different game, or you really dont care at all about em. Is that simple. If we talk about other mmorpg , where you could see a few bugs here and there, but they are fixed in a decent ammount of time, i will not be complaining about it, because thats normal. But what is happening in STO isnt, unfortunately. Not only bugs are not fixed, but they keep introducing new ones and breaking other things without fixing the previous ones. And this is happening since ages ago. You dont see it? well, i never saw something like that in any videogame. Honestly.
The problem is not the bug-reporting system, the problem is the lack of quality in the development department. It will not matter at all if they make another bug report system if they have the same management, nothing will change.
About new content??? people just dont get it. If you keep ignoring and messing up with the base code of the game without fixing it or cleaning it, and you keep adding more and more content without fixing it, things will always get worst. But nah, people want more and more content, they dont care at all lolz. Actually i am almost amazed that people keep complaining about if one trait is not working or if this console set is not working or watever, i mean, if they really dont care about it why they keep complaining in the bug forum? that is what i dont understand lol.
I mean if we got so far, why to report any bug at all? i mean, it will be better for the cryptic team so they can just focus once for all only in releasing new content. No "fake" fixes to anything no known bugs no aknowledge bugs, nothing. Im pretty sure we will have even more content every week. Or maybe not, honestly i dont think they waste too much time fixing things anyways lool. I wish i was wrong. I love this game and my only regret is that it could have been an amazing star trek legacy, but i will be embarrashed if i were the CBS guys. I think this IP deserves so much much more...
If you were one to play with a character or two only, then you probably aren't feeling any of thse kind of issues. But players here have had plenty of alts because the game prior was very friendly for it. Now, you are NOT getting anywhere on specializations and upgrading if you intend to play with a bunch of characters.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
We have 12 weapon mods (not counting [arc] and [borg]) of which there is 1 everyone wants [CrtD], 1 kinda good [pen] 2-3 kind of seen as consolation Prices if you already have CrtD]x3 and the dirty rest no one wants.
At least half if not more of the starship skills are useless and many of those that are not only see use on specialized PvP builds with barely anyone playing PvP, and in STFs you need DPS, more DPS, someone maybe kinda Tanky as long as there is still enough DPS and some CC, with DPS.
I think better balance would allow for PvP to become an interesting part of the game (not much of a PvPler myself, but I see the merit of having an active community) and STFs could be made more challenging without relying on "Well, it had 10k HP, now it has 30K HP, that's a challenge, right?
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
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