In any case, they need to mix it up. Rotate the "special missions" from week to week, increase the variety of mobs, and even have random events occur; why NOT have Undine or Borg or whomever do a random incursion to ESD, unannounced? TRIBBLE like that is super amazing.
This is all stuff that can be done with minimal effort with existing in-game assets and queues.
I'd actually like to see the large 10-20 man queues shut down and restored to their old "Persistent Instance" format that they originally had when the game launched.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
In my opinion i say scrap the hole pve queue
but leave a few elite missions and turn everything
else into Adventure/battle zones. Same thing with Pvp
queue. They should just scrap it and have 1 or 2 pvp
Adventure/battle zones.
Way to much content in this game that not being used.
Last time they removed content (apart from the Breach) was when they removed the Exploration clusters. People (myself included) weren't too happy about that, and I can see why. Removing something because not everyone might play it, is a bad idea.
Lack of player participation was not the main reason. The main reason was the amount of data the exploration clusters actually took up. It was somewhere around 200k missions. IIRC one of the devs said it was actually over half the size of the total game data.
I know, I meant to say two different things actually. The 'Removing something because not everyone might play it' part in my earlier reaction was a reply to those that are calling for certain queues (or even the majority of the queues) to be removed from the game.
I'd actually like to see the large 10-20 man queues shut down and restored to their old "Persistent Instance" format that they originally had when the game launched.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
you can do private instances with less people. You don't even need 5 to do a private of Breaking. I once attempted it with only 2. Unfortunately these were poorly geared mid-20s characters on the tribble server. If we'd been using max level chars with good gear we'd have probably crushed it.
I'd actually like to see the large 10-20 man queues shut down and restored to their old "Persistent Instance" format that they originally had when the game launched.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
you can do private instances with less people. You don't even need 5 to do a private of Breaking. I once attempted it with only 2. Unfortunately these were poorly geared mid-20s characters on the tribble server. If we'd been using max level chars with good gear we'd have probably crushed it.
Private instances just aren't the same.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
Either way of going with higher or different, unique rewards for stfs, or solo playable stfs. We need to see more interesting mechanics used in stfs that need more than dps to conquer, while also seeing more of a narrow closer spread of reward payouts for the stfs to make it that one set of stfs are more cost effective than others.
Not sure how doing a private instance with less than 5 players is much different than doing a pug with less than five, other than if you think that you would need to invite players you know well. I used to put out blank invites to do private stf runs that any random player could pm to join, which is pretty much almost what a pug run is in the end.
if players are worried that current group content being opened up to solo play would somehow sound the death knoll for group content, whilst also invalidating, or somehow making it less of an mmo, what exactly does that suggest to you about the current group content, or content period? if no further 'valid' arguments can be raised about the idea, more questions need to be asked as to why it would be a more interesting prospect to be played solo than in group, and why group play needs to be enforced in a game, when people should want to group up and play.
I think a good parallel is from Lotro. You can run retaking Pelargir solo or in a group of six. It's about the equivalent of ISA, though it takes about 15 minutes either solo or group. I group every time because it gives 2000+ marks in a group and less than 1000 solo.
i think that is a great example of how a dual system can work, the option is there to run solo, but with group providing the greater rewards, it makes sense that many, if not most, would likely opt for a group run when the player numbers permitted. i think much of the queue frustration in sto, is down to players being unable to run what they want, when they want. providing the solo option may not initially help the group queues, but it would alleviate some of the player tension and maybe result in players queueing for a group run, even if only for a few minutes before electing to go solo... now if they also added the ability to start the instance with 2 or 3 players.
I'd actually like to see the large 10-20 man queues shut down and restored to their old "Persistent Instance" format that they originally had when the game launched.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
you can do private instances with less people. You don't even need 5 to do a private of Breaking. I once attempted it with only 2. Unfortunately these were poorly geared mid-20s characters on the tribble server. If we'd been using max level chars with good gear we'd have probably crushed it.
I'd actually like to see the large 10-20 man queues shut down and restored to their old "Persistent Instance" format that they originally had when the game launched.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
you can do private instances with less people. You don't even need 5 to do a private of Breaking. I once attempted it with only 2. Unfortunately these were poorly geared mid-20s characters on the tribble server. If we'd been using max level chars with good gear we'd have probably crushed it.
Private instances just aren't the same.
Usually they're better.
Nah, only if you want everything to be predictable and don't like surprises
People are still making too much of this artificial solo/multiplayer schism as if this were an either/or choice. Yes, it's an MMO. Yes, it has group content. No, these points are not particularly relevant here.
My point is not that everything has to be soloable. My point is that the arbitrary static team sizes are A-- Arbitrary, and B-- Static when they don't need to be. The game can scale and there's no defensible reason why every mission shouldn't.
The queues suck because you can't get the one you want to pop. You are forced to 'game' the queues, casting a vote for which one you want to play as if it's a popularity contest (it is). If by some miracle the correct number of players actually queue for it and stay queued for it, you have to hope that everybody is watching to join and didn't go for a bio-break.
I am not dramatizing this because for some of the missions this is exactly the experience you can expect to have. All because the game will. not. let. you. ignore. an. arbitrary. limit. for the sake of gameplay.
If they all had the same rewards, you would still have this issue that some missions are more to your taste than others but you can't play them when you want to. But they don't. You want X marks? Then you can play these queues but not these.
I can even sympathize with the guy who said let them start with fewer players but don't change the difficulty. I disagree, but I get where he's coming from. Advanced and Elite possibly shouldn't scale down, but Normal really needs to. How else are new people going to get their feet wet?
I don't want or need solo-versions of group missions. It shouldn't be necessary. I just want the blinking queue I want to play to pop quickly on Normal where there's no drama over optionals and fails and quit wasting my time so I can get the marks I need. Arbitrary limits on team size defeat that goal. They need to go.
I like the queues. I used to enjoy playing them. But these days it's impossible to get anything to Pop that isn't an event, Crystalline, or ISA. I use the DPS channels with some success. But even the DPS channels are 99% ISA and whatever event is going on. Here's a list of things that I believe have killed the queues and possible solutions to those problems.
PROBLEM 1: Players would rather get crafting mats from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 1: Force crafters to do the stinky queues.
PROBLEM 2: Players would rather get rep marks from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 2: Force rep mark grinders to do the stinky queues. For some reason, double mark gains and mark costs, resulting in nothing but inflated numbers.
PROBLEM 3: Players would rather get rep marks from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 3: Force rep mark grinders to do the stinky queues.
PROBLEM 4 There's really no reason to do the queues.
SOLUTION 4: Add some achievements and costumes.
PROBLEM 5: There's really no reason to do the queues.
SOLUTION 5: Add some achievements, costumes, and rep marks.
Well there you have it. Feel free to agree with me or crucify me. Or add your own ideas. Personally, I miss the days in which I could just run any queue, because the vast majority of them would pop within 2-3 minutes.
As you can see, I think that most of the problems you outline boil down to "the queues stink so nobody plays them," and most of your solutions boil down to "make queues look good by comparison by trashing their competitors/rivals." I'm sure that achievements, costumes, and some extra marks would attract some people to the queues who wouldn't otherwise have bothered, but I'm not sure it would be enough to revitalize the queues.
The main problem is that online games are expected to keep producing fresh content. Without enough fresh content, existing content has to maintain its replay value. STFs simply don't have enough replay value to keep the queues active. Other MMOs have a similar problem (dungeons aren't exactly easy to churn out, after all), which they solve by providing substantial rewards to players who invest some minimum effort in that tiresome content, generally in the form of bonus currency of some kind on a daily or weekly schedule.
Finally, this is only an issue because this content requires a group. You can play a given solo story episode even if no one else in the world is playing it at that moment, but unpopular group content becomes inaccessible.
One really easy solution in my opinion would be just to pick a block of 5 or more queues and have them give a bonus and rotate it each day or every few days at least. Give people some incentive to play the less played ones.
I like the queues. I used to enjoy playing them. But these days it's impossible to get anything to Pop that isn't an event, Crystalline, or ISA. I use the DPS channels with some success. But even the DPS channels are 99% ISA and whatever event is going on. Here's a list of things that I believe have killed the queues and possible solutions to those problems.
PROBLEM 1: Players would rather get crafting mats from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 1: Force crafters to do the stinky queues.
PROBLEM 2: Players would rather get rep marks from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 2: Force rep mark grinders to do the stinky queues. For some reason, double mark gains and mark costs, resulting in nothing but inflated numbers.
PROBLEM 3: Players would rather get rep marks from anywhere but the queues, because the queues stink.
SOLUTION 3: Force rep mark grinders to do the stinky queues.
PROBLEM 4 There's really no reason to do the queues.
SOLUTION 4: Add some achievements and costumes.
PROBLEM 5: There's really no reason to do the queues.
SOLUTION 5: Add some achievements, costumes, and rep marks.
Well there you have it. Feel free to agree with me or crucify me. Or add your own ideas. Personally, I miss the days in which I could just run any queue, because the vast majority of them would pop within 2-3 minutes.
As you can see, I think that most of the problems you outline boil down to "the queues stink so nobody plays them," and most of your solutions boil down to "make queues look good by comparison by trashing their competitors/rivals." I'm sure that achievements, costumes, and some extra marks would attract some people to the queues who wouldn't otherwise have bothered, but I'm not sure it would be enough to revitalize the queues.
The main problem is that online games are expected to keep producing fresh content. Without enough fresh content, existing content has to maintain its replay value. STFs simply don't have enough replay value to keep the queues active. Other MMOs have a similar problem (dungeons aren't exactly easy to churn out, after all), which they solve by providing substantial rewards to players who invest some minimum effort in that tiresome content, generally in the form of bonus currency of some kind on a daily or weekly schedule.
Finally, this is only an issue because this content requires a group. You can play a given solo story episode even if no one else in the world is playing it at that moment, but unpopular group content becomes inaccessible.
Yeah, old stuff gets left behind as new stuff comes out. the current queues are all old stuff by now.
...My point is not that everything has to be soloable. My point is that the arbitrary static team sizes are A-- Arbitrary, and B-- Static when they don't need to be. The game can scale and there's no defensible reason why every mission shouldn't...
I don't want or need solo-versions of group missions. It shouldn't be necessary. I just want the blinking queue I want to play to pop quickly on Normal where there's no drama over optionals and fails and quit wasting my time so I can get the marks I need. Arbitrary limits on team size defeat that goal. They need to go.
The only problem with this idea is that if you reduce the amount of players required to start from10 to 5 (or 5 to 3 or whatever), you'll have the same people complaining 5 is too many.
One really easy solution in my opinion would be just to pick a block of 5 or more queues and have them give a bonus and rotate it each day or every few days at least. Give people some incentive to play the less played ones.
And this.
There's no reason we should have "featured" queues that are featured for months.
@ the Topic of single player queued missions: why not add a option to select the Team Size in a Private Match? 1 to 20 players for each Queue. Add in a incense for Team play, like getting elite rewards only if you do it in the Standard Team size or higher on advanced difficulty.
Example:
Stardard Advanced Queue: 5 Players
Reward: 720 Dil, 1 Elite Reward (like BNP), 60 Marks + Daily Bonus Marks
-
1 Player: recieves Reward 1/5 of the standard reward (144 Dil, zero Elite Reward, 12 Marks, no Daily Bonus Marks)
2 Players: each receives 2/5 of the standard reward
3 Players: each receive 3/5 of the standard reward
.
.
.
20 Players: each Player receives 4x the Standard reward
of course, the Mission must scale with the Teamsize, that could give Massive Battles for 20 Player Teams. You could even add further Optionals at certain Player threshold and maybe Random Events (example: Let the Tal Shiar try to Capture the Borg Gate in ISA) into the queues to spice it up...
I miss the old MMO drop mechanism (iRO had it, and sto used to) where you finish a queue (or boss NPC) and if you're lucky you get the drop. Lotta people didn't like that mechanic but it keeps you coming back. Maybe change the algorithm a little so it *can* drop a rep item (not 100% of the time) and have said rep item be random from a predetermined list of items. It would add interest to queues and not break the rep mechanic.
I miss the old MMO drop mechanism (iRO had it, and sto used to) where you finish a queue (or boss NPC) and if you're lucky you get the drop. Lotta people didn't like that mechanic but it keeps you coming back. Maybe change the algorithm a little so it *can* drop a rep item (not 100% of the time) and have said rep item be random from a predetermined list of items. It would add interest to queues and not break the rep mechanic.
No thank you.
Yes thank you.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I miss the old MMO drop mechanism (iRO had it, and sto used to) where you finish a queue (or boss NPC) and if you're lucky you get the drop. Lotta people didn't like that mechanic but it keeps you coming back. Maybe change the algorithm a little so it *can* drop a rep item (not 100% of the time) and have said rep item be random from a predetermined list of items. It would add interest to queues and not break the rep mechanic.
Yes please (just to be a counterweight to @valoreah )
But seriously, drops and drop chance is what keeps people coming back. Diablo II just received a new patch (1.14) today. Almost 16 (sixteen) years after release. Still a very healthy online community (it IS infested with spam and bots because Blizzard doesn't enforce rules very well though, you need some ignore code to get around that). Why? Because the gameplay is genius and easy to learn but complex enough to provide lots and lots of replayability and longevity. This is what STO needs.
Either worthwhile drops (I wouldn't drop regular rep gear - keep everything for the rep shop as it is, but add a MK IV veteran drop per queue, a beefed up gold version of the rep gear) or open ended randomized gameplay. Diablo 2 technically offers both.
^ 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
I like the queues. I used to enjoy playing them. But these days it's impossible to get anything to Pop that isn't an event, Crystalline, or ISA. I use the DPS channels with some success. But even the DPS channels are 99% ISA and whatever event is going on. Here's a list of things that I believe have killed the queues and possible solutions to those problems.
*snip*
Well there you have it. Feel free to agree with me or crucify me. Or add your own ideas. Personally, I miss the days in which I could just run any queue, because the vast majority of them would pop within 2-3 minutes.
I substitute your madness with sanity:
INCREASE STF rewards.
I'd even bring back the random Borg Def/Eng/Shield, too.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
But seriously, drops and drop chance is what keeps people coming back...
It's what keeps some people coming back, mostly those who IMO are glutton for punishment. MMOs where I needed to run a dungeon 150+ times to eventually get a drop I needed (assuming no one else wanted/needed to roll for it) I uninstalled and never looked back. Just about everyone in our fleet is the same.
I must agree with valoreah. I have had my fill of guaranteed efforts resulting in random rewards. I will not bother chasing any shiny that's walled behind a RNG ever again. Same reason all of my equipment upgrades stop at MK XIV regardless of rarity, why I have never bothered with the current incarnation of the crafting system, and why I immediately discard all lockboxes. It's a cheap mechanic to inflate metrics and bolster microtransactions, and I'll have no part of it.
But seriously, drops and drop chance is what keeps people coming back...
It's what keeps some people coming back, mostly those who IMO are glutton for punishment. MMOs where I needed to run a dungeon 150+ times to eventually get a drop I needed (assuming no one else wanted/needed to roll for it) I uninstalled and never looked back. Just about everyone in our fleet is the same.
I must agree with valoreah. I have had my fill of guaranteed efforts resulting in random rewards. I will not bother chasing any shiny that's walled behind a RNG ever again. Same reason all of my equipment upgrades stop at MK XIV regardless of rarity, why I have never bothered with the current incarnation of the crafting system, and why I immediately discard all lockboxes. It's a cheap mechanic to inflate metrics and bolster microtransactions, and I'll have no part of it.
Did nobody of you play computer games 20-25 years ago? There's basically three basic game concepts. A game that is based around storytelling, a game that is based around skill/dexterity or a game that is based around improving chances to overcome rulesets based on "rolls" or chance. A hack&slay looter has nothing to do with microtransactions or bolstering of metrics.
In the end it's of course a matter of taste, you are free to dislike the concept of a hack&slay looter, but STO is such a game already, they only removed the loot from it and replaced it with "guaranteed success" / window shopping. You now grind currency to buy something to grind more currency.
^ 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
...My point is not that everything has to be soloable. My point is that the arbitrary static team sizes are A-- Arbitrary, and B-- Static when they don't need to be. The game can scale and there's no defensible reason why every mission shouldn't...
I don't want or need solo-versions of group missions. It shouldn't be necessary. I just want the blinking queue I want to play to pop quickly on Normal where there's no drama over optionals and fails and quit wasting my time so I can get the marks I need. Arbitrary limits on team size defeat that goal. They need to go.
The only problem with this idea is that if you reduce the amount of players required to start from10 to 5 (or 5 to 3 or whatever), you'll have the same people complaining 5 is too many.
One really easy solution in my opinion would be just to pick a block of 5 or more queues and have them give a bonus and rotate it each day or every few days at least. Give people some incentive to play the less played ones.
And this.
There's no reason we should have "featured" queues that are featured for months.
This gives me an adequately evil idea. A quest similar to the current one that instead of requiring one queue to be played 14 times requires you to play every queue once. For this difficulties would not be considered separate so you'd only need to complete normal OR advanced, not both.
Comments
This is all stuff that can be done with minimal effort with existing in-game assets and queues.
I.E Crystalline Catastrophe, Big Dig, Minefield, Breaking the Planet etc worked like war zones where people could come and go as they pleased at any time.
Was a lot more fun back then and A LOT more people actually playing them. Especially since you didn't have to wait for a full team before the bloody game would even start.
I know, I meant to say two different things actually. The 'Removing something because not everyone might play it' part in my earlier reaction was a reply to those that are calling for certain queues (or even the majority of the queues) to be removed from the game.
My character Tsin'xing
Private instances just aren't the same.
Not sure how doing a private instance with less than 5 players is much different than doing a pug with less than five, other than if you think that you would need to invite players you know well. I used to put out blank invites to do private stf runs that any random player could pm to join, which is pretty much almost what a pug run is in the end.
i think that is a great example of how a dual system can work, the option is there to run solo, but with group providing the greater rewards, it makes sense that many, if not most, would likely opt for a group run when the player numbers permitted. i think much of the queue frustration in sto, is down to players being unable to run what they want, when they want. providing the solo option may not initially help the group queues, but it would alleviate some of the player tension and maybe result in players queueing for a group run, even if only for a few minutes before electing to go solo... now if they also added the ability to start the instance with 2 or 3 players.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
Nah, only if you want everything to be predictable and don't like surprises
My point is not that everything has to be soloable. My point is that the arbitrary static team sizes are A-- Arbitrary, and B-- Static when they don't need to be. The game can scale and there's no defensible reason why every mission shouldn't.
The queues suck because you can't get the one you want to pop. You are forced to 'game' the queues, casting a vote for which one you want to play as if it's a popularity contest (it is). If by some miracle the correct number of players actually queue for it and stay queued for it, you have to hope that everybody is watching to join and didn't go for a bio-break.
I am not dramatizing this because for some of the missions this is exactly the experience you can expect to have. All because the game will. not. let. you. ignore. an. arbitrary. limit. for the sake of gameplay.
If they all had the same rewards, you would still have this issue that some missions are more to your taste than others but you can't play them when you want to. But they don't. You want X marks? Then you can play these queues but not these.
I can even sympathize with the guy who said let them start with fewer players but don't change the difficulty. I disagree, but I get where he's coming from. Advanced and Elite possibly shouldn't scale down, but Normal really needs to. How else are new people going to get their feet wet?
I don't want or need solo-versions of group missions. It shouldn't be necessary. I just want the blinking queue I want to play to pop quickly on Normal where there's no drama over optionals and fails and quit wasting my time so I can get the marks I need. Arbitrary limits on team size defeat that goal. They need to go.
My character Tsin'xing
As you can see, I think that most of the problems you outline boil down to "the queues stink so nobody plays them," and most of your solutions boil down to "make queues look good by comparison by trashing their competitors/rivals." I'm sure that achievements, costumes, and some extra marks would attract some people to the queues who wouldn't otherwise have bothered, but I'm not sure it would be enough to revitalize the queues.
The main problem is that online games are expected to keep producing fresh content. Without enough fresh content, existing content has to maintain its replay value. STFs simply don't have enough replay value to keep the queues active. Other MMOs have a similar problem (dungeons aren't exactly easy to churn out, after all), which they solve by providing substantial rewards to players who invest some minimum effort in that tiresome content, generally in the form of bonus currency of some kind on a daily or weekly schedule.
Finally, this is only an issue because this content requires a group. You can play a given solo story episode even if no one else in the world is playing it at that moment, but unpopular group content becomes inaccessible.
My character Tsin'xing
This
And this.
There's no reason we should have "featured" queues that are featured for months.
Example:
Stardard Advanced Queue: 5 Players
Reward: 720 Dil, 1 Elite Reward (like BNP), 60 Marks + Daily Bonus Marks
-
1 Player: recieves Reward 1/5 of the standard reward (144 Dil, zero Elite Reward, 12 Marks, no Daily Bonus Marks)
2 Players: each receives 2/5 of the standard reward
3 Players: each receive 3/5 of the standard reward
.
.
.
20 Players: each Player receives 4x the Standard reward
of course, the Mission must scale with the Teamsize, that could give Massive Battles for 20 Player Teams. You could even add further Optionals at certain Player threshold and maybe Random Events (example: Let the Tal Shiar try to Capture the Borg Gate in ISA) into the queues to spice it up...
just an idea, now hate me
Yes thank you.
Yes please (just to be a counterweight to @valoreah
But seriously, drops and drop chance is what keeps people coming back. Diablo II just received a new patch (1.14) today. Almost 16 (sixteen) years after release. Still a very healthy online community (it IS infested with spam and bots because Blizzard doesn't enforce rules very well though, you need some ignore code to get around that). Why? Because the gameplay is genius and easy to learn but complex enough to provide lots and lots of replayability and longevity. This is what STO needs.
Either worthwhile drops (I wouldn't drop regular rep gear - keep everything for the rep shop as it is, but add a MK IV veteran drop per queue, a beefed up gold version of the rep gear) or open ended randomized gameplay. Diablo 2 technically offers both.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Because I've kinda been wanting to run that scenario again.
I substitute your madness with sanity:
INCREASE STF rewards.
I'd even bring back the random Borg Def/Eng/Shield, too.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I must agree with valoreah. I have had my fill of guaranteed efforts resulting in random rewards. I will not bother chasing any shiny that's walled behind a RNG ever again. Same reason all of my equipment upgrades stop at MK XIV regardless of rarity, why I have never bothered with the current incarnation of the crafting system, and why I immediately discard all lockboxes. It's a cheap mechanic to inflate metrics and bolster microtransactions, and I'll have no part of it.
Did nobody of you play computer games 20-25 years ago? There's basically three basic game concepts. A game that is based around storytelling, a game that is based around skill/dexterity or a game that is based around improving chances to overcome rulesets based on "rolls" or chance. A hack&slay looter has nothing to do with microtransactions or bolstering of metrics.
In the end it's of course a matter of taste, you are free to dislike the concept of a hack&slay looter, but STO is such a game already, they only removed the loot from it and replaced it with "guaranteed success" / window shopping. You now grind currency to buy something to grind more currency.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My character Tsin'xing