I've completely given up on this storyline. From a gameplay perspective, you have completely failed to make the Iconian War even the least bit interesting. These "Tales from the War" hype it up into something that isn't reflected in the game. You just added Ferenginar, Trill, Betazed, and a host of other worlds that weren't in the game previously. You could have turned any one of them into a Space or Ground battlezone to make the war feel like it's actually hitting home. Iconian Deep Space Encounters and Red Alerts would have been nice to add and likely wouldn't have required much work. This was a huge let down, guys. Really disappointing.
Can anyone recommend any good Foundry missions that might make the Iconian War feel a bit more like a war? I've given up on the devs - the Featured Episodes keep getting worse and worse.
Anything that has an [Ico] tag is a good place to start.
The moment she noted that she was at a strategic disadvantage, she could have (and should have) withdrawn. She'd already trotted out the clichéd line about "destroying us with a wave of her [appendage]," then noted that the ol' mojo wasn't where she thought it would be. A reasoning being capable of strategy and tactics would have retreated at that point to restore her energy source.
We were disabling power nodes on the ship, not in the sphere. Clearly M'Tara was capable of creating space warps on her own for the purpose of getting around--so finding another energy source within the sphere should have been a trivial effort. (How, exactly, we know how to use that power node is never explained, other than through the Miracle That is the Tricorder--remember, they come programmed to detect nearby makeshift prisons, as we saw on Nimbus III.)
But no--instead, she "burns her essence" to create space warps for herself, and to bring in the usual gang of thralls, multiple times. (By the way, what is it with the Iconians and overuse of the verb "burn?") This is the functional equivalent of the defenders of the Alamo deciding that, having run out of bullets and arrows, they should cut off their own body parts and fling them at the advancing enemy forces. It makes even less sense when you consider that she was trying to save one ship--not the sphere itself, or anything at all of major consequence, because we've been told the Iconians have millions of ships at their disposal. Metaphorically, she ran into the middle of a busy six-lane highway to save a dropped grocery receipt and got run over by an ice cream truck. That video has been posted in the Fail channel of the Iconian analog to YouTube.
This is not the sign of an intelligent being, much less that of the leader of a group of Highly-Advanced Beings Who Once Ruled the Galaxy.
Who administered the coup de grâce? She did, by coming back one last time to die on-stage instead of allowing one of her servitors to carry her back to wherever Iconians go to twirl their mustaches for a latte and a recharge. It seems as if she could have summoned the other two at any time--but it never occurred to her to send out a "a little help here, m'kay?" query to T'Ket and L'Miren instead of lunging back in to the fray time after time?
Frankly, I've seen more thoughtful behavior from a tribble. What it shows is that the Iconians are irrational, bordering on the clinically insane. It seems like they've been that way for 200,000 years. Rehabilitation might be beyond our capabilities.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, we could have taken out T'Ket and L'Miren as well--after all, we brought over 600 Federation crew members with us, and only sent about a dozen onto that ship. The transporters were still working, so it shouldn't have been a problem to bring in a few more guns and solve those two problems--or at least find out if they're better at strategy and tactics than M'Tara was. If M'Tara was without a local energy source thanks to our shenanigans, then so were T'Ket and M'Liren. We could have had a major victory there.
Instead, we bailed out and indulged in a nice sulk.
That was the best analysis yet - she didn't just carry an Idiot Ball, she carried an Idiot Dyson Sphere!
M'tara turned herself into a "battery" for the ship. L'Miren and T'Ket were not.
Simplest solution to that would have been transfer to another Ialdon (Considering the amount of ships seen in that sphere-blotting out the sun, they probably had a few thousand of them) And then destroy/self-destruct the one the "heroes" are on.
oh how I wish for a t6 oddy the picture makes me hopeful
A picture of the burnt-out shell of an Odyssey class ship makes you hopeful for a T6 version?!
Well the least it does, it shows the Federation that even the famed Odyssey can't stand up to the Iconians in a fight like that and that it needs upgrades.
And should that happen...
Wonder how a T6 edition Odyssey will look like. Or the other flagship classes, for that matter.
And I'm not talking about the looks.
I mean... it would be the first T6 refit for a ship class that already has THREE variants on the T5 level.
will it be a single T6 ship that can use all three T5 consoles (plus maybe a fourth console for the T6 ship itself)?
or do it the painful way, and give us three T6 variants in a bundle?
Going from there, depending on how the above is imagined we'll either get a three-ship cross-faction bundle.
Or a nine-ship mega bundle...
"Ad astra audacter eamus in alis fidelium."
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"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
If the painful way means that we get 3 additional skins with kitbashing ability between all 4 skins, I pick the painful one.
It seems doubtful they would just make it a single ship. Though I think at this point it seems like we have not a tiny bit of data that suggests which direction they'd go.
The only thing that seems likely to me is that there will be some type of cross-faction bundle. It just is to obvious to release the flagships of the 3 factions together with bundle options.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Die for what you believe in. If that means letting the Iconians slaughter you, then step on up to the chopping block.
If you aren't willing to die for what you believe in, then kindly shut your trap the next time an alien race does something morally ambiguous that offends your delicate sensibilities. You've already opted out of the moral high ground.
You can't have it both ways.
I believe in defeating the iconians without the krenim weapon like we could have had a decent shot at already.
I'd gladly die trying that if the terrible writers would let me.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I do not know if most of you ever played the R-Type series video game at all... But I remember that in one of the games (R-Type Delta) there was an R-13A Cerberus you can play as. In that game when you finish the game using this ship - the end is very sad because you find yourself adrift in space, alone, with no help to pretty much die. However, when R-Type Final came out, there was a mission in the game called "Forest Watchdog" and it was Stage 3.5. In this mission, the boss is a R-13A Cerberus - how it got there, how did it come to that situation?.. Well no one knows. Back in Delta they mentioned that one was sent to investigate something and never came back, in Final it is also mentioned this ship along with also stating the military never mentioning the incident... So I'm guessing this is the same R-13A that the player used in Delta and the player's fate was to become part of the Bydo (within a tree).
To make my long post short, it would be nice to see something like this. I mean, the whole war is talking about losing just about everything... But why do I feel we aren't losing anything at all? Probably because I do not find myself dying at all at any time. Maybe if they show our ship explode or whatever and then we are recovered from a pod, or something in the timeline revives us to keep fighting - the story would be interesting... Either way, this war doesn't feel 1% anything of what it claims.
If we get "killed" or converted somehow and then recovered that could be pretty cool. think of the headcannon character development potential lol.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Well written Tales of War like this frustrate me so, because I see barely any of it in game.
A third of the fleet! Why am I not being greeted by scenes such as this one from Starship Troopers each time I return to SOL?
Can't we do temporary? Can't we do phased instances for players who are past level X or have completed mission Y - so as to preserve new player experienced timeline?
Comments
Anything that has an [Ico] tag is a good place to start.
That was the best analysis yet - she didn't just carry an Idiot Ball, she carried an Idiot Dyson Sphere!
Simplest solution to that would have been transfer to another Ialdon (Considering the amount of ships seen in that sphere-blotting out the sun, they probably had a few thousand of them) And then destroy/self-destruct the one the "heroes" are on.
What really killed M'Tara? Abysmal writing.
Well the least it does, it shows the Federation that even the famed Odyssey can't stand up to the Iconians in a fight like that and that it needs upgrades.
And should that happen...
Wonder how a T6 edition Odyssey will look like. Or the other flagship classes, for that matter.
And I'm not talking about the looks.
I mean... it would be the first T6 refit for a ship class that already has THREE variants on the T5 level.
Going from there, depending on how the above is imagined we'll either get a three-ship cross-faction bundle.
Or a nine-ship mega bundle...
-
"To boldly go to the stars on the wings of the faithful."
It seems doubtful they would just make it a single ship. Though I think at this point it seems like we have not a tiny bit of data that suggests which direction they'd go.
The only thing that seems likely to me is that there will be some type of cross-faction bundle. It just is to obvious to release the flagships of the 3 factions together with bundle options.
I believe in defeating the iconians without the krenim weapon like we could have had a decent shot at already.
I'd gladly die trying that if the terrible writers would let me.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
If we get "killed" or converted somehow and then recovered that could be pretty cool. think of the headcannon character development potential lol.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Made me sad seeing all those defiants go boom
A third of the fleet! Why am I not being greeted by scenes such as this one from Starship Troopers each time I return to SOL?
Can't we do temporary? Can't we do phased instances for players who are past level X or have completed mission Y - so as to preserve new player experienced timeline?
So frustrating...
My character Tsin'xing
Whatever you still need. Especially stuff for which you don't like doing the content that rewards it.