More like lose/lose.... Since there are so few aspects of the original game people actually still use.
seriously... half as many story missions, no foundry, no doffs, no reps, no gear at all except plain boring gear, and that only went up to mk10 purple.
I can't visualize wanting to play that except as a novelty.
Then you have a limited imagination, because I (and others I know) would return to STO and play Rebirth.
Why? 1 word, 6 letters: PLAYABLE PVP FTW
Endless grind, OP and unbalanced abilities, dilithum and EC sinks... I don't know why you think these are actually good additions to STO...
The real question is if you would PAY to do so. If not.... then Cryptic has no reason to cater to your whims.
As for lolPvP.... this was back when Phaser teams with FaW were the terror of PvP since they could knock all subsystems offline indefinitely.
For example, we have a console in the game that lets players do literally millions of points of damage, it's so bad that they can one shot a creature designed to take on a team of 10 players.. and this gets through testing?
What console is that? PM me because I want to buy one. I'm serious.
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
For example, we have a console in the game that lets players do literally millions of points of damage, it's so bad that they can one shot a creature designed to take on a team of 10 players.. and this gets through testing?
What console is that? PM me because I want to buy one. I'm serious.
Resolved an issue that was allowing the damage bonus from Particle Focuser consoles from the Fleet Research Lab to benefit from damage bonuses themselves.
Very well written and very well explained. While many of my issues with this game deal with their pricing schemes (I can buy The Elder Scrolls Anthology - all 5 Elder Scrolls games and all the DLC - for the same price as a single T6 ship), as I have rarely witnessed the infamous lag expounded upon of late, this is a major issue. I Tribble-tested Season 10.5. I tested the Krenim consoles. The behavior seen out of them in recent days was not present, to my knowledge, on the test server. While I may not see the lag myself all that often (even when I use AP:B), I have seen videos of it, and it is a problem that needs to be resolved. I have not bought a T6 ship for ZEN (excluding the Delta Pack, which I regret), and I don't intend to. While I enjoy this game, its present state is not at a point where I feel comfortable supporting it financially. I bought my LTS late December 2011 (as I didn't want to lose BOffs or inventory to the F2P conversion), and only the fact that I have had it so long has made it worthwhile. I paid $200, meanind that my LTS paid for itself by February of 2013, and the stipend received from it has made it valuable. But, it is NOT worth the price being asked.
The Dilithium economy is experiencing severe demand-pull inflation, evidenced by the drop in Dilithium Exchange prices during dilithium weekends (when dilithium supply increases and drives the cost down), and they refuse to increase the refining cap (even temporarily during a Dilithium weekend, which would work GREAT). They admit openly that science vessels do not sell well enough to warrant making new ones, and yet ignore the fact that the cause is their own pricing scheme. They add solid content and more money-makers, and yet old issues remain unfixed. They release more and more absurdly powerful alien ships, and yet refuse to allow people to make their character certain ways because it "breaks immersion." And the worst part is... This is Perfect World's most profitable title, eclipsing the flagship game for which they are named. Because no matter how terrible things get, people keep buying. There are few ways to see that this gets fixed, but I will work actively toward those ends. I love this game. I want to see it at its best.
Very nice and detailed letter. You bring up some great points. As someone who has been playing since open beta I can say that STO has changed A LOT over the last 5+ years. To understand where we are at now we must understand where we came from. Keep in mind the next paragraph is in NO WAY making excuses for the aggravations of the came, however it might give a TIIINNY bit of insight to those who don't know what I am about to say.
Cryptic bought the rights to make STO from another company and they had I believe alittle over a year to make the game. I won't bore anyone with the details, however this one simple thing may have at least SOMETHING to do with the way the game is now. I have some experience in building and rebuilding IT systems at small companies and I can say if you don't start with a STRONG SOLID foundation then things can go downhill quickly. While the game has improved SOOOOOO much over the last 5 years, it seems we are getting to the point that the foundation can not fully support the house that cryptic has built. I'm pretty sure that STO is NOT the first MMO to have experienced this, but lets be honest, Cryptic is a smell/medium MMO company and may not have the resources that other MMO builders have.
As someone who bought a 1 year subscription after 30 minutes of playing the open beta,, THEN a year later bought a lifetime sub I can say I have NO regrets in my investment. As someone who owns 90% of the ships in game,, many of them T-5 I can say I was upset for a little while when T-6 came out, however,, I have bought 90% of the T-6 ships as well. Now I am NOT bragging, nor do I expect something " special" from cryptic for all the money I have invested. However like the OP pointed out,, paraphrasing here,, The foundation is showing some cracks,, and my wallet is less likely to open for the time being. This is a double edged sword. Cryptic relies on ship sales AKA ZEN sales to support the game,, however if ship sales decline because of issues with the game, they may not have the resources to fix those issues. I agree with the OP that a decision needs to be made by whoever can make said decision: Put off episode/shiny things production and put more resources into stabilizing the game? Or continue on schedule, and hope nothing else seriously goes wrong. One thing I am puzzled by is a couple months ago it was announced that a network upgrade was taking place. Yet while leg and rubberbanding improved for a while,, just recently it has come back with avengance, yet like the OP pointed out there has been very little to no communication on this from the devs. Perhaps its a small percentage of the playerbase that is having these issues? The other night I logged in and tried to walk but couldn't more than two steps,, heck even CHAT wasn't working.. I turned down my GFX settings and POOF everything worked great. PERHAPS a suggestion to the DEVs would be new recommended resource list, as well as a " IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM, TRY THIS" Thread. With all this said I am here for the long haul. I will never talk down to ANY developer of this game for several reasons. The main reason being I'm not a game developer, I highly dislike someone telling me how to do my job, and I try my hardest NOT to tell others how to do there's.
One last note about the community reaching out to the DEVs on the forums. I see way to many threads that are basically " THIS GAME SUCKS! THE DEVS SUCK!" ETC ETC ,, and all I can say is,, if multiple people that you didn't know, that you didn't work with, and that don't know your job told you " YOU SUCK." EVERYDAY would you put forth 110% into your work? I've posted positive things about the game before and been a called a Crytpic Fanboy.. REALL? All i'm saying is perhaps a higher level of civility when filing a grievance will get the Devs attention more than essentially yelling at them and telling them they suck.
Not sure how on topic this longwinded boring post of mine is,, however it is my two cents, take for what it is.
HAVE A LOOOOOOOVELY DAY!
*************************** Fleet Admiral In charge of Bacon Fighting 5th Attack Squadron The Devils Henchman
In closing, I’m not writing this as a rally cry to members to boycott Cryptic and follow my example. I am simply expressing my opinion and will continue to do so on the STO forums as well as Reddit forums and other MMO forums, in the various communities I am in, on Social Media and as co-host on The SHOW. You guys make whatever decision you want but ask yourself this question first, “Does this company truly deserve my hard earned cash when they won’t even guarantee any level of acceptable service or don’t make me feel valued in any way, shape or form?” I can’t imagine anyone saying yes to that question although I know there will be those out there that say they don’t care and that’s fine and dandy. After reading this wall of text, you now know that I am someone who is saying they don’t deserve anymore of m y money and I care that I don’t feel like a valued customer despite my lifetime subscription purchase.
Thank you for your time and I welcome and constructive comments the playing community and Cryptic may have on anything that I have said.
Snipey47a
A concerned STO Lifetime Subscriber.
the rest of it is well known as it is, so thats hardly news as for this last bit quoted, basically you dont like the way they are doing things and so you wont spend any more money, thats your call but i dont see cryptic taking any notice of your rant no matter how well presented it is or how long that wall of death text is.
I don't really expect them to either. That still shouldn't stop me from saying anything though.
Very well written and very well explained. While many of my issues with this game deal with their pricing schemes (I can buy The Elder Scrolls Anthology - all 5 Elder Scrolls games and all the DLC - for the same price as a single T6 ship), as I have rarely witnessed the infamous lag expounded upon of late, this is a major issue. I Tribble-tested Season 10.5. I tested the Krenim consoles. The behavior seen out of them in recent days was not present, to my knowledge, on the test server. While I may not see the lag myself all that often (even when I use AP:B), I have seen videos of it, and it is a problem that needs to be resolved. I have not bought a T6 ship for ZEN (excluding the Delta Pack, which I regret), and I don't intend to. While I enjoy this game, its present state is not at a point where I feel comfortable supporting it financially. I bought my LTS late December 2011 (as I didn't want to lose BOffs or inventory to the F2P conversion), and only the fact that I have had it so long has made it worthwhile. I paid $200, meanind that my LTS paid for itself by February of 2013, and the stipend received from it has made it valuable. But, it is NOT worth the price being asked.
The Dilithium economy is experiencing severe demand-pull inflation, evidenced by the drop in Dilithium Exchange prices during dilithium weekends (when dilithium supply increases and drives the cost down), and they refuse to increase the refining cap (even temporarily during a Dilithium weekend, which would work GREAT). They admit openly that science vessels do not sell well enough to warrant making new ones, and yet ignore the fact that the cause is their own pricing scheme. They add solid content and more money-makers, and yet old issues remain unfixed. They release more and more absurdly powerful alien ships, and yet refuse to allow people to make their character certain ways because it "breaks immersion." And the worst part is... This is Perfect World's most profitable title, eclipsing the flagship game for which they are named. Because no matter how terrible things get, people keep buying. There are few ways to see that this gets fixed, but I will work actively toward those ends. I love this game. I want to see it at its best.
Not for me it wasn't. And if it had been, I'd have picked up on it, since I was constantly re-stacking it with tons of heals and documenting the changes in weapon tooltips. The objective being to see how long I could consistently maintain the buff.
Very nice and detailed letter. You bring up some great points. As someone who has been playing since open beta I can say that STO has changed A LOT over the last 5+ years. To understand where we are at now we must understand where we came from. Keep in mind the next paragraph is in NO WAY making excuses for the aggravations of the came, however it might give a TIIINNY bit of insight to those who don't know what I am about to say.
Cryptic bought the rights to make STO from another company and they had I believe alittle over a year to make the game. I won't bore anyone with the details, however this one simple thing may have at least SOMETHING to do with the way the game is now. I have some experience in building and rebuilding IT systems at small companies and I can say if you don't start with a STRONG SOLID foundation then things can go downhill quickly. While the game has improved SOOOOOO much over the last 5 years, it seems we are getting to the point that the foundation can not fully support the house that cryptic has built. I'm pretty sure that STO is NOT the first MMO to have experienced this, but lets be honest, Cryptic is a smell/medium MMO company and may not have the resources that other MMO builders have.
As someone who bought a 1 year subscription after 30 minutes of playing the open beta,, THEN a year later bought a lifetime sub I can say I have NO regrets in my investment. As someone who owns 90% of the ships in game,, many of them T-5 I can say I was upset for a little while when T-6 came out, however,, I have bought 90% of the T-6 ships as well. Now I am NOT bragging, nor do I expect something " special" from cryptic for all the money I have invested. However like the OP pointed out,, paraphrasing here,, The foundation is showing some cracks,, and my wallet is less likely to open for the time being. This is a double edged sword. Cryptic relies on ship sales AKA ZEN sales to support the game,, however if ship sales decline because of issues with the game, they may not have the resources to fix those issues. I agree with the OP that a decision needs to be made by whoever can make said decision: Put off episode/shiny things production and put more resources into stabilizing the game? Or continue on schedule, and hope nothing else seriously goes wrong. One thing I am puzzled by is a couple months ago it was announced that a network upgrade was taking place. Yet while leg and rubberbanding improved for a while,, just recently it has come back with avengance, yet like the OP pointed out there has been very little to no communication on this from the devs. Perhaps its a small percentage of the playerbase that is having these issues? The other night I logged in and tried to walk but couldn't more than two steps,, heck even CHAT wasn't working.. I turned down my GFX settings and POOF everything worked great. PERHAPS a suggestion to the DEVs would be new recommended resource list, as well as a " IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM, TRY THIS" Thread. With all this said I am here for the long haul. I will never talk down to ANY developer of this game for several reasons. The main reason being I'm not a game developer, I highly dislike someone telling me how to do my job, and I try my hardest NOT to tell others how to do there's.
One last note about the community reaching out to the DEVs on the forums. I see way to many threads that are basically " THIS GAME SUCKS! THE DEVS SUCK!" ETC ETC ,, and all I can say is,, if multiple people that you didn't know, that you didn't work with, and that don't know your job told you " YOU SUCK." EVERYDAY would you put forth 110% into your work? I've posted positive things about the game before and been a called a Crytpic Fanboy.. REALL? All i'm saying is perhaps a higher level of civility when filing a grievance will get the Devs attention more than essentially yelling at them and telling them they suck.
Not sure how on topic this longwinded boring post of mine is,, however it is my two cents, take for what it is.
HAVE A LOOOOOOOVELY DAY!
Great post. Thank you for your support.
I think you are onto something about the graphics engine.. you should see the endless amount of PhysX and Shader errors...
See this first image, this is the date taken 2 seconds after pressing Engage on the launcher. Already a shader error:
And her is an example of a PhysX error that is almost continous sometimes. This particular moment was during the same boot up as the above image and choosing one of my toons that warped into Sol System.
During a PVE there is lots of yellow.
And finally, this was taken 2 mins ago... it is the top right corner of my screen showing my mem usage, milliseconds per frame, my location, other stats and a warning that I am exceeding memory budget limits! I have more than a gig of ram, 32 times more. My GPU is a GTX 970 and my cpu is a i7-5820k.
So maybe the graphics engine is playing a role here. The big question is, will STO run with Direct X 12? Many people are about to move to it. No word from Cryptic on compatibility as far as I am aware.
snipey47a how about no log in day/s protest,maybe 3 days,but you need 80% of the players..can we do this??belive me i like what you wrote,but i really dont belive you will achive someting with this post..you need to kill some metrics..its all about metrics.
Like I said, I am not trying to rally people. This post is simply me giving customer feedback to a business I have transacted with.
Besides, such demonstrations rarely work. The coordination between the players wouldn't be possible and in reality it is not something that would encourage Cryptic to engage with us further.
Not for me it wasn't. And if it had been, I'd have picked up on it, since I was constantly re-stacking it with tons of heals and documenting the changes in weapon tooltips. The objective being to see how long I could consistently maintain the buff.
Then a transport from Dev to Tribble server after you tested it must have overwrote the original transport that put them on tribble initially.
Also, the excessive scaling of damage only happens when the stack reached 5 and you got an extra stacks and you were buffing your cat 2 buffs. Large jumps never occur when moving from stack 3 to 4 or 4 -5. Only at 5 when another proc happened.
So are you a focus tester for the 10.5 season? It would be interesting to know if the testing was structured with specific set of test scripts for you to run and feedback to those scripts recorded in some sort of rational quality management system. If you aren't or can't share that I understand.
I think the other issue is that since we only talk about it in here that it is contained in here. This isn't the case as my post has gone onto Reddit and several other MMORPG websites as well as Facebook, Twitter and when I get around to it other social media also.
Quoted because of the value of your statement and efforts.
Without our continued support to Cryptic both by playing and paying, and without this feedback to truly let them know we value a service that has somewhat more acceptable standards of quality for as many people as possible, the state of this game would no doubt be much worse off than it is now.
Getting locked out of the game because of severe directX crashes, rubberbanding during special events, persistent lag in certain STFs that lasted for months (command ship abilities that trickled through every instance crippling server capacity), tray lag that's persisted and irritates every second of gameplay since day 1 of playing (one point five Years ago), random game crashes SNRs and disconnects, User Interface FPS lag, excessive use of polygons and graphics effects diminishing FPS some more (delta rising missions) are some of the most severe of problems that I'd assume get prioritized for fixes and improvements.
To those saying this is normal for an aging code, please remember there are other MMORPGs and other MMOs out there, and while I don't have time to be playing others, my experiences with a small handful of them has never been so punishing as Star Trek Online has from 2014 to present.
Replace everything in your post that is STO-specific with things specific to your cell phone, and suddenly you realize that this problem isn't with Cryptic or even PWE; this is a culture problem. We live in a culture of profit above everything else. We live in a culture where a publicly-traded company must show growth every year if they want investors to purchase stock. It doesn't matter what it takes to show that growth, either. Many companies know that, in order to show growth this year, they have to do something detrimental to the future (which you spoke about), and then cross that bridge when they come to it.
In addition, many corporations are structured so that the people at the top know about business and profit in general, and the people at the bottom know about this business specifically (and how to take care of its customers). Unfortunately, the people at the top do not listen to, nor trust, the people at the bottom. This is corporate life with an ongoing service.
Are there exceptions? Certainly. But I can assure you that any publicly-traded company that has a reputation of putting customers first is spinning that reputation into furtherance of profit. Your example of GM vs. Toyota is perfect, because at some point in the last decade, upper management at Toyota was tired of being the second largest car manufacturer in the world, so they intentionally took some cues from the largest manufacturer: GM. What happened after that resulted in my car being recalled about five times. Quality suffered for the sake of growth. Ka-Boom.
(Probably) overheard on a cellphone call to the Board of Directors...
Then a transport from Dev to Tribble server after you tested it must have overwrote the original transport that put them on tribble initially.
Also, the excessive scaling of damage only happens when the stack reached 5 and you got an extra stacks and you were buffing your cat 2 buffs. Large jumps never occur when moving from stack 3 to 4 or 4 -5. Only at 5 when another proc happened.
So are you a focus tester for the 10.5 season? It would be interesting to know if the testing was structured with specific set of test scripts for you to run and feedback to those scripts recorded in some sort of rational quality management system. If you aren't or can't share that I understand.
I chalked the bug up to something on Holodeck that happened post 10.5, but before people had T1 Labs. If it was on tribble, it must have been one of the other patches. *shrugs* It might also have been that I was just spamming heals and not doing other buffs, now that you tell me that it's an interaction between other abilities.
I wasn't a focus tester, I just logged onto Tribble. Helped some folks from Directive 010 build the Lab on Tribble, then bought the consoles. I test Tribble how I play Holodeck, looking for bugs laymen would run into on Holodeck, and I look for data as to HOW things work. Not terribly rigid, to be sure, but it helps. And even NOT finding bugs can be helpful. When a bug doesn't occur is almost as important as when it does.
While I run into a few head-scratchers once in awhile, there's nothing in the game that I see on a daily basis that tells me the STO code base is any worse off than any other code base of its age.
Well, that's your experience. My experience as a programmer and the bugs I see go live indicate to me that Cryptic's software development cycle is broken. It's not necessarily the fault of the programmers or the testers. Management may simply be overriding the recommendations of their staff.
This I strongly suspect. Which ties to the point I'll make at the bottom...
That you found a defect on a beta server doesn't shock me. That's the point of beta servers. You can rant all you like about how it ought to have been caught on the build/alpha server, but even with automated testing there's no convergence on a bug-free outcome.
No one is complaining about bugs on the test server. I've reported bugs on the test server well ahead of the release date only to see the same bugs go live. I report them again on the live server only to see them go unfixed for months (if ever). Yes, some players only rant at Cryptic, but other players genuinely try to help them. It's just frustrating when our efforts seem for naught.
Same here--and the worst of it was when they deliberately shut the Silver players out of Tribble during testing for DR. It was like they were saying they didn't want to hear anything that could suggest they had a problem.
I have warned Cryptic time and again that if they continue down the road they are, they will experience a brain drain as their talent leaves to find other gigs where their work is not hampered by poor management and business decisions. Now, to be clear, I cannot prove that any given departure was due to this, and it is known that some departures were NOT for such reasons, such as people who left for family reasons. (A decision I absolutely support because family comes first above work, in my belief, and once that time is lost, you can't get it back.)
What I CAN say is that if I worked for Cryptic, I might begin to worry that my chances of finding a better job would be hurt by having such a buggy product, and one where the writing and gameplay was interfered with by bad management decisions, on my portfolio, and I might take the soonest opportunity to jump ship before it was too late--not just out of self-preservation, but also out of pride in my abilities and in the quality of my work. If I felt that I was not being allowed to display the best of my work, or that a broken software development cycle and severe understaffing and poor documentation of code (among other problems) meant that I would appear to be tied to a substandard product, and not to have done anything helpful to stop it from being substandard, I would think very seriously about abandoning ship both because of the frustration and because of my sense of pride.
I truly believe that if Cryptic does not get its act together, they will continue losing good people, and there are certain people I really do not want to see go (especially the art team, which is almost always on point if not outright outstanding--but the effect of their work is sometimes harmed by problems from other parts of the game). If they have NOT lost people yet for the causes I've outlined, then I believe they will, sooner than later. And when that happens (or if it has already happened), it will only contribute to this game spiraling further down.
I will also say that SOME management has changed, for a slight improvement. But I think some more serious measures may be needed--a comprehensive rethinking of game design and QA practices, and a further improvement in customer relations. Mr. Ricossa HAS been more communicative and responsive than any other EP we've had, but there is more that needs to be done to capitalize on that.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Quality Control in software engineering is a long running issue particularly in the gaming community but in business and consumer use as well. The lack of formal computer science education among programmers and basic understanding of computer science fundamentals among management/executives compounds the issue. I'm reminded of the phrase "death my thousands" and one I see time and time again as an IT project manager even in the largest of companies. QA is marginalized at best for the sake of "Agile" design methodologies. Add to that an environment that has grown far beyond its original scope and a business can become pigeon holed into only having the resources and time to focus on so much. Its poor vision and to the original poster the mention of successful companies knowing themselves is an astute observation. My opinion is the problems really became exposed with the creation of the Dyson Sphere battle zone - an immense and wonderfully designed environment for sure but so blatantly pushing the boundary's of what could be handled.
Additionally the game was designed to be reliant on developer created content. Without that new content the player base will be in even more of an uproar. There is no dynamic content to sustain a lull in new content. A while back a decision was made to give more visibility to the Foundry in hopes to supplement this missing piece but the stability issues and the bugs in the Foundry are just as prevalent if not more so - that's when its available for use by UGC authors.
The real question to ask is how long can STO exist as a MMO FTP platform where the players are so heavily dependent on Cryptic developers to create content? As long as that model exists Cryptic is obligated to spend the majority of its resources and time there.
snipey47a how about no log in day/s protest,maybe 3 days,but you need 80% of the players..can we do this??belive me i like what you wrote,but i really dont belive you will achive someting with this post..you need to kill some metrics..its all about metrics.
Like I said, I am not trying to rally people. This post is simply me giving customer feedback to a business I have transacted with.
Besides, such demonstrations rarely work. The coordination between the players wouldn't be possible and in reality it is not something that would encourage Cryptic to engage with us further.
so this post is more, well these are problems in the game ,we all know about all problems you are writing about,nothing new really ,solutions lets do nothing..you need feedback??? what you gonna do with feedback,make youtube video???
frustration post like many others or just some experiment??..walls of text and no will do any action,so post like many before with no results..
And we all wonder why game is in such state??Can i blame cryptic?? no i cant,they are just exploiting players who are playing the game,whatever they do all is fine..i really dont understand players in this game you are bithcing,but still you will continue to play this game and do nothing.
Then all is fine..
So where I say that I will no longer be opening my wallet, isn't action to you?
I think the other issue is that since we only talk about it in here that it is contained in here. This isn't the case as my post has gone onto Reddit and several other MMORPG websites as well as Facebook, Twitter and when I get around to it other social media also.
Quoted because of the value of your statement and efforts.
Without our continued support to Cryptic both by playing and paying, and without this feedback to truly let them know we value a service that has somewhat more acceptable standards of quality for as many people as possible, the state of this game would no doubt be much worse off than it is now.
Getting locked out of the game because of severe directX crashes, rubberbanding during special events, persistent lag in certain STFs that lasted for months (command ship abilities that trickled through every instance crippling server capacity), tray lag that's persisted and irritates every second of gameplay since day 1 of playing (one point five Years ago), random game crashes SNRs and disconnects, User Interface FPS lag, excessive use of polygons and graphics effects diminishing FPS some more (delta rising missions) are some of the most severe of problems that I'd assume get prioritized for fixes and improvements.
To those saying this is normal for an aging code, please remember there are other MMORPGs and other MMOs out there, and while I don't have time to be playing others, my experiences with a small handful of them has never been so punishing as Star Trek Online has from 2014 to present.
I can not disagree with anything you have stated. Personally I've been playing for 2,5 years now and if I look back at my investments the first 2 years I've spend a huge amount of money on this game mostly because A Star Trek and B Star Trek and C it was a really nice game to play. (not saying it's not nice now.. now it's something different because one chooses to make it part of ones life)
Anywho... not giving exact numbers but let's say that the first year I spent about 500Euro's on the game.. the next year I did the same and total of 1000 Euro's invested in the game... Well since 7-8 months not sure when it happend but it's when the Lag and rubberbanding started to act up to unplayable levels which made several of like minded players as myself leave the game. These are players who easily invested more than double the amount of Money in the game than I have. out of 6 Fleet admirals who would easily spend more than 500 Euro's per person a year only myself and one other is still on active. However both of us have decreased our "investements" in the game by more than 80%
This decrease in buying stuff in game is 100% influenced by the entertainment and playability of the game. One of the main reasons for the unbelievable rate of new content being added to the game must be to make up for the lack of investment per player in the game.. I could ofcourse be wrong as I do not have any numbers but one can not deny the amount of players who have stopped playing during the GREATEST EXPANSION EVER AND THE PLAYERS LOVE IT era.
I wish cryptic would listen and work on improving gameplay instead of adding new ships every month. I'm not going into the DPS creep and all that other stuff but just simple gameplay stability. Lag was gone for a few weeks but now with 10.5 it's back again.
lol i'm even *sighing* while typing this. Allmost makes me wish the game would just be killed now and some other company comes up with an improved version.
Anywho... Awesome job on describing what's annoying a lot of players Snipey cheers!
I'm on comcast the CRAPPIEST (yes cox is better) ISP out there and I'm not suffering ANY lag. It could be that there has been massive issues with weather disrupting in a lot of places. When weather has effed up lines in chicago, where by the way comcast is at it's worst, yes I suffer lag on my back end, but I have never had any lag issues with this game when people claim it's been going on, other than logging in right after maintenance finishes of which I don't do that anymore.
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
In closing, I’m not writing this as a rally cry to members to boycott Cryptic and follow my example. I am simply expressing my opinion and will continue to do so on the STO forums as well as Reddit forums and other MMO forums, in the various communities I am in, on Social Media and as co-host on The SHOW. You guys make whatever decision you want but ask yourself this question first, “Does this company truly deserve my hard earned cash when they won’t even guarantee any level of acceptable service or don’t make me feel valued in any way, shape or form?” I can’t imagine anyone saying yes to that question although I know there will be those out there that say they don’t care and that’s fine and dandy. After reading this wall of text, you now know that I am someone who is saying they don’t deserve anymore of m y money and I care that I don’t feel like a valued customer despite my lifetime subscription purchase.
Thank you for your time and I welcome and constructive comments the playing community and Cryptic may have on anything that I have said.
Snipey47a
A concerned STO Lifetime Subscriber.
the rest of it is well known as it is, so thats hardly news as for this last bit quoted, basically you dont like the way they are doing things and so you wont spend any more money, thats your call but i dont see cryptic taking any notice of your rant no matter how well presented it is or how long that wall of death text is.
I don't really expect them to either. That still shouldn't stop me from saying anything though.
then where is your reason for it if you already know they wont pay any attention? it may not stop you but if you got no reason for posting this then its spam, nothing more.
in this case; is the moon is made of cheese?
and do people turn into vampires and zombies during the night and return to human form during the daylight?
does that have any more impact then what your writing, no, but it didnt stop me from writing it either. so yeah, this thread has lost its meaning now.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
(...) so yeah, this thread has lost its meaning now.
You have to familiarize yourself with the concept of an "open letter".
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
(...) so yeah, this thread has lost its meaning now.
You have to familiarize yourself with the concept of an "open letter".
its a rant thread with elements of entitlement the rest is a wall of death text that makes no difference to the actual point. its no more important then your opinion or my opinion or anyone elses. it wont be acknowledged.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
In closing, I’m not writing this as a rally cry to members to boycott Cryptic and follow my example. I am simply expressing my opinion and will continue to do so on the STO forums as well as Reddit forums and other MMO forums, in the various communities I am in, on Social Media and as co-host on The SHOW. You guys make whatever decision you want but ask yourself this question first, “Does this company truly deserve my hard earned cash when they won’t even guarantee any level of acceptable service or don’t make me feel valued in any way, shape or form?” I can’t imagine anyone saying yes to that question although I know there will be those out there that say they don’t care and that’s fine and dandy. After reading this wall of text, you now know that I am someone who is saying they don’t deserve anymore of m y money and I care that I don’t feel like a valued customer despite my lifetime subscription purchase.
Thank you for your time and I welcome and constructive comments the playing community and Cryptic may have on anything that I have said.
Snipey47a
A concerned STO Lifetime Subscriber.
the rest of it is well known as it is, so thats hardly news as for this last bit quoted, basically you dont like the way they are doing things and so you wont spend any more money, thats your call but i dont see cryptic taking any notice of your rant no matter how well presented it is or how long that wall of death text is.
I don't really expect them to either. That still shouldn't stop me from saying anything though.
then where is your reason for it if you already know they wont pay any attention?
Can't speak for Snipey but mine would be because hope dies last.
my opinion on hope has been severely tempered recently by the passing of two people, Jules Bianchi #JB17 and Bobbi Kristina, when i saw these two go out of the picture, my opinion on hope is not as strong as it has been as i was hoping they would pull through.
but back to cryptic and this "letter"? you can wish, but if it would be answered is a whole story.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Comments
As for lolPvP.... this was back when Phaser teams with FaW were the terror of PvP since they could knock all subsystems offline indefinitely.
My character Tsin'xing
What console is that? PM me because I want to buy one. I'm serious.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
The ones getting fixed in tomorrow's patch:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#/discussion/1197837/tribble-maintenance-and-release-notes-july-28-2015
Resolved an issue that was allowing the damage bonus from Particle Focuser consoles from the Fleet Research Lab to benefit from damage bonuses themselves.
The Dilithium economy is experiencing severe demand-pull inflation, evidenced by the drop in Dilithium Exchange prices during dilithium weekends (when dilithium supply increases and drives the cost down), and they refuse to increase the refining cap (even temporarily during a Dilithium weekend, which would work GREAT). They admit openly that science vessels do not sell well enough to warrant making new ones, and yet ignore the fact that the cause is their own pricing scheme. They add solid content and more money-makers, and yet old issues remain unfixed. They release more and more absurdly powerful alien ships, and yet refuse to allow people to make their character certain ways because it "breaks immersion." And the worst part is... This is Perfect World's most profitable title, eclipsing the flagship game for which they are named. Because no matter how terrible things get, people keep buying. There are few ways to see that this gets fixed, but I will work actively toward those ends. I love this game. I want to see it at its best.
Cryptic bought the rights to make STO from another company and they had I believe alittle over a year to make the game. I won't bore anyone with the details, however this one simple thing may have at least SOMETHING to do with the way the game is now. I have some experience in building and rebuilding IT systems at small companies and I can say if you don't start with a STRONG SOLID foundation then things can go downhill quickly. While the game has improved SOOOOOO much over the last 5 years, it seems we are getting to the point that the foundation can not fully support the house that cryptic has built. I'm pretty sure that STO is NOT the first MMO to have experienced this, but lets be honest, Cryptic is a smell/medium MMO company and may not have the resources that other MMO builders have.
As someone who bought a 1 year subscription after 30 minutes of playing the open beta,, THEN a year later bought a lifetime sub I can say I have NO regrets in my investment. As someone who owns 90% of the ships in game,, many of them T-5 I can say I was upset for a little while when T-6 came out, however,, I have bought 90% of the T-6 ships as well. Now I am NOT bragging, nor do I expect something " special" from cryptic for all the money I have invested. However like the OP pointed out,, paraphrasing here,, The foundation is showing some cracks,, and my wallet is less likely to open for the time being. This is a double edged sword. Cryptic relies on ship sales AKA ZEN sales to support the game,, however if ship sales decline because of issues with the game, they may not have the resources to fix those issues. I agree with the OP that a decision needs to be made by whoever can make said decision: Put off episode/shiny things production and put more resources into stabilizing the game? Or continue on schedule, and hope nothing else seriously goes wrong. One thing I am puzzled by is a couple months ago it was announced that a network upgrade was taking place. Yet while leg and rubberbanding improved for a while,, just recently it has come back with avengance, yet like the OP pointed out there has been very little to no communication on this from the devs. Perhaps its a small percentage of the playerbase that is having these issues? The other night I logged in and tried to walk but couldn't more than two steps,, heck even CHAT wasn't working.. I turned down my GFX settings and POOF everything worked great. PERHAPS a suggestion to the DEVs would be new recommended resource list, as well as a " IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM, TRY THIS" Thread. With all this said I am here for the long haul. I will never talk down to ANY developer of this game for several reasons. The main reason being I'm not a game developer, I highly dislike someone telling me how to do my job, and I try my hardest NOT to tell others how to do there's.
One last note about the community reaching out to the DEVs on the forums. I see way to many threads that are basically " THIS GAME SUCKS! THE DEVS SUCK!" ETC ETC ,, and all I can say is,, if multiple people that you didn't know, that you didn't work with, and that don't know your job told you " YOU SUCK." EVERYDAY would you put forth 110% into your work? I've posted positive things about the game before and been a called a Crytpic Fanboy.. REALL? All i'm saying is perhaps a higher level of civility when filing a grievance will get the Devs attention more than essentially yelling at them and telling them they suck.
Not sure how on topic this longwinded boring post of mine is,, however it is my two cents, take for what it is.
HAVE A LOOOOOOOVELY DAY!
Fleet Admiral In charge of Bacon
Fighting 5th Attack Squadron
The Devils Henchman
%$#@! Just my luck
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
I don't really expect them to either. That still shouldn't stop me from saying anything though.
It was doing it on tribble the entire time.
Not for me it wasn't. And if it had been, I'd have picked up on it, since I was constantly re-stacking it with tons of heals and documenting the changes in weapon tooltips. The objective being to see how long I could consistently maintain the buff.
Great post. Thank you for your support.
I think you are onto something about the graphics engine.. you should see the endless amount of PhysX and Shader errors...
See this first image, this is the date taken 2 seconds after pressing Engage on the launcher. Already a shader error:
And her is an example of a PhysX error that is almost continous sometimes. This particular moment was during the same boot up as the above image and choosing one of my toons that warped into Sol System.
During a PVE there is lots of yellow.
And finally, this was taken 2 mins ago... it is the top right corner of my screen showing my mem usage, milliseconds per frame, my location, other stats and a warning that I am exceeding memory budget limits! I have more than a gig of ram, 32 times more. My GPU is a GTX 970 and my cpu is a i7-5820k.
So maybe the graphics engine is playing a role here. The big question is, will STO run with Direct X 12? Many people are about to move to it. No word from Cryptic on compatibility as far as I am aware.
Snipey47a
Like I said, I am not trying to rally people. This post is simply me giving customer feedback to a business I have transacted with.
Besides, such demonstrations rarely work. The coordination between the players wouldn't be possible and in reality it is not something that would encourage Cryptic to engage with us further.
Then a transport from Dev to Tribble server after you tested it must have overwrote the original transport that put them on tribble initially.
Also, the excessive scaling of damage only happens when the stack reached 5 and you got an extra stacks and you were buffing your cat 2 buffs. Large jumps never occur when moving from stack 3 to 4 or 4 -5. Only at 5 when another proc happened.
So are you a focus tester for the 10.5 season? It would be interesting to know if the testing was structured with specific set of test scripts for you to run and feedback to those scripts recorded in some sort of rational quality management system. If you aren't or can't share that I understand.
Without our continued support to Cryptic both by playing and paying, and without this feedback to truly let them know we value a service that has somewhat more acceptable standards of quality for as many people as possible, the state of this game would no doubt be much worse off than it is now.
Getting locked out of the game because of severe directX crashes, rubberbanding during special events, persistent lag in certain STFs that lasted for months (command ship abilities that trickled through every instance crippling server capacity), tray lag that's persisted and irritates every second of gameplay since day 1 of playing (one point five Years ago), random game crashes SNRs and disconnects, User Interface FPS lag, excessive use of polygons and graphics effects diminishing FPS some more (delta rising missions) are some of the most severe of problems that I'd assume get prioritized for fixes and improvements.
To those saying this is normal for an aging code, please remember there are other MMORPGs and other MMOs out there, and while I don't have time to be playing others, my experiences with a small handful of them has never been so punishing as Star Trek Online has from 2014 to present.
I chalked the bug up to something on Holodeck that happened post 10.5, but before people had T1 Labs. If it was on tribble, it must have been one of the other patches. *shrugs* It might also have been that I was just spamming heals and not doing other buffs, now that you tell me that it's an interaction between other abilities.
I wasn't a focus tester, I just logged onto Tribble. Helped some folks from Directive 010 build the Lab on Tribble, then bought the consoles. I test Tribble how I play Holodeck, looking for bugs laymen would run into on Holodeck, and I look for data as to HOW things work. Not terribly rigid, to be sure, but it helps. And even NOT finding bugs can be helpful. When a bug doesn't occur is almost as important as when it does.
This I strongly suspect. Which ties to the point I'll make at the bottom...
Same here--and the worst of it was when they deliberately shut the Silver players out of Tribble during testing for DR. It was like they were saying they didn't want to hear anything that could suggest they had a problem.
I have warned Cryptic time and again that if they continue down the road they are, they will experience a brain drain as their talent leaves to find other gigs where their work is not hampered by poor management and business decisions. Now, to be clear, I cannot prove that any given departure was due to this, and it is known that some departures were NOT for such reasons, such as people who left for family reasons. (A decision I absolutely support because family comes first above work, in my belief, and once that time is lost, you can't get it back.)
What I CAN say is that if I worked for Cryptic, I might begin to worry that my chances of finding a better job would be hurt by having such a buggy product, and one where the writing and gameplay was interfered with by bad management decisions, on my portfolio, and I might take the soonest opportunity to jump ship before it was too late--not just out of self-preservation, but also out of pride in my abilities and in the quality of my work. If I felt that I was not being allowed to display the best of my work, or that a broken software development cycle and severe understaffing and poor documentation of code (among other problems) meant that I would appear to be tied to a substandard product, and not to have done anything helpful to stop it from being substandard, I would think very seriously about abandoning ship both because of the frustration and because of my sense of pride.
I truly believe that if Cryptic does not get its act together, they will continue losing good people, and there are certain people I really do not want to see go (especially the art team, which is almost always on point if not outright outstanding--but the effect of their work is sometimes harmed by problems from other parts of the game). If they have NOT lost people yet for the causes I've outlined, then I believe they will, sooner than later. And when that happens (or if it has already happened), it will only contribute to this game spiraling further down.
I will also say that SOME management has changed, for a slight improvement. But I think some more serious measures may be needed--a comprehensive rethinking of game design and QA practices, and a further improvement in customer relations. Mr. Ricossa HAS been more communicative and responsive than any other EP we've had, but there is more that needs to be done to capitalize on that.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
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Additionally the game was designed to be reliant on developer created content. Without that new content the player base will be in even more of an uproar. There is no dynamic content to sustain a lull in new content. A while back a decision was made to give more visibility to the Foundry in hopes to supplement this missing piece but the stability issues and the bugs in the Foundry are just as prevalent if not more so - that's when its available for use by UGC authors.
The real question to ask is how long can STO exist as a MMO FTP platform where the players are so heavily dependent on Cryptic developers to create content? As long as that model exists Cryptic is obligated to spend the majority of its resources and time there.
Thank you for your support :-)
I can not disagree with anything you have stated. Personally I've been playing for 2,5 years now and if I look back at my investments the first 2 years I've spend a huge amount of money on this game mostly because A Star Trek and B Star Trek and C it was a really nice game to play. (not saying it's not nice now.. now it's something different because one chooses to make it part of ones life)
Anywho... not giving exact numbers but let's say that the first year I spent about 500Euro's on the game.. the next year I did the same and total of 1000 Euro's invested in the game... Well since 7-8 months not sure when it happend but it's when the Lag and rubberbanding started to act up to unplayable levels which made several of like minded players as myself leave the game. These are players who easily invested more than double the amount of Money in the game than I have. out of 6 Fleet admirals who would easily spend more than 500 Euro's per person a year only myself and one other is still on active. However both of us have decreased our "investements" in the game by more than 80%
This decrease in buying stuff in game is 100% influenced by the entertainment and playability of the game. One of the main reasons for the unbelievable rate of new content being added to the game must be to make up for the lack of investment per player in the game.. I could ofcourse be wrong as I do not have any numbers but one can not deny the amount of players who have stopped playing during the GREATEST EXPANSION EVER AND THE PLAYERS LOVE IT era.
I wish cryptic would listen and work on improving gameplay instead of adding new ships every month. I'm not going into the DPS creep and all that other stuff but just simple gameplay stability. Lag was gone for a few weeks but now with 10.5 it's back again.
lol i'm even *sighing* while typing this. Allmost makes me wish the game would just be killed now and some other company comes up with an improved version.
Anywho... Awesome job on describing what's annoying a lot of players Snipey cheers!
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
then where is your reason for it if you already know they wont pay any attention? it may not stop you but if you got no reason for posting this then its spam, nothing more.
in this case; is the moon is made of cheese?
and do people turn into vampires and zombies during the night and return to human form during the daylight?
does that have any more impact then what your writing, no, but it didnt stop me from writing it either. so yeah, this thread has lost its meaning now.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
You have to familiarize yourself with the concept of an "open letter".
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
its a rant thread with elements of entitlement the rest is a wall of death text that makes no difference to the actual point. its no more important then your opinion or my opinion or anyone elses. it wont be acknowledged.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
but back to cryptic and this "letter"? you can wish, but if it would be answered is a whole story.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.