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Content: at what point does quantity become more important than quality?
fakemirage
Member Posts: 24 Arc User
I'm going to start with an illustration. It's by no means perfect or a 100% direct comparison, but I want to make a point.
Let's say you are really hungry. Stomach growling; all that stuff. Someone gives you the most delicious french fry ever cooked. It's absolutely fantastic. But after you eat it, you are still hungry. As good as it was, it just wasn't enough. The point? Sometimes quantity is more important than quality.
So, this game. Content doesn't come as quickly as it used to in the old days. We are frequently reminded that the new content is of a much higher quality. And I agree, it is. But at what point is high quality content simply not coming fast enough to keep someone interested in a game?
We are about to get an expansion with 7 episodes. I pose this question: what if it was just 1 episode. Would you be happy with an 1-episode expansion if it was a really great episode?
For you personally, at what point is quantity more important than quality?
Let's say you are really hungry. Stomach growling; all that stuff. Someone gives you the most delicious french fry ever cooked. It's absolutely fantastic. But after you eat it, you are still hungry. As good as it was, it just wasn't enough. The point? Sometimes quantity is more important than quality.
So, this game. Content doesn't come as quickly as it used to in the old days. We are frequently reminded that the new content is of a much higher quality. And I agree, it is. But at what point is high quality content simply not coming fast enough to keep someone interested in a game?
We are about to get an expansion with 7 episodes. I pose this question: what if it was just 1 episode. Would you be happy with an 1-episode expansion if it was a really great episode?
For you personally, at what point is quantity more important than quality?
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Nostalgia glasses or fact? When was this, and how many episodes?
It's just not possible for Cryptic to release an episode a week, and if you want quantity there is the Foundry.
What you need to do is play other games besides STO. Play STO until you're tired of it, then play something from Steam, GoG, Humble Bundles, and/or consoles.
And yes, WoW puts their stuff out in full on expansions, but you got the same, if not more, in the manner of quests when The Burning Crusade came out, for example. Or Everquest. Even City of Heroes/City of Villains had an awesome expansion with Going Rogue. LOTRO was another one that had massive releases with its expansions.
Me, I'll always take quality over quantity every time, even if I have to wait longer. I'd rather have the nice, high end steak with duckfat potatoes, everything cooked to how I want it, over a ride to McGagh's any day.
A better way to put it, would be to classify content releases similar to paint jobs for miniatures. You have Slop 'n' Go, Tabletop Quality, and Museum Quality. STO for a long while, has been of the Slop 'n' Go bracket. A few glimpses of Tabletop Quality, and nothing Museum Quality for ages.
I can't tell. Are you saying the OP is wrong in the statement you quoted? Because here is a direct quote from Geko in his latest P1 interview:
He is admitting they don't put out content as quickly as they used to, so if you are trying to say that isn't true then you must be saying Geko is wrong.
That's not what the OP is talking about. He is saying would you be satisfied with the best french fry in the world (something small) if it still left you hungry afterwards?
And I notice no one in his thread has been brave enough to actually answer his question. Is there anyone here willing to claim they would be happy with a ONE episode expansion if it was very high quality?
I'd love for the "I'll take quality over quantity any day" people to answer that question without trying to re-phrase it or wiggle their way out, but I doubt any of them are brave enough to do so.
Yes, I'd accept 4 of the "mega-episodes" like Surface Tension over 8 of the early ones that were not much more than system patrols.
Anything is better than Of Bajor...
For the first year of WoW:Legion there was a steady stream of content patches, one of which (the one that added the planet Argus to the game) added more content than the entirety of AoY did to STO. Yes, there is now somewhat of a slump while we wait for BfA to drop in six months, but there's simply no comparing STO to WoW in terms of frequency or quantity of content.
Now, I really can't say this is entirely the STO team's fault. STO, unlike WoW, was built heavily around scripted missions, making their development a very long process compared to traditional MMOs with open world quests. They tried a solution to this, which I personally enjoyed a lot, in Delta Rising with the patrol missions, however the overall negative community reaction to those (seriously unjustified imho) has pretty much guaranteed they will never attempt that again, which is sad because I think 5 - 15 patrol missions would have done WONDERS to flesh out the Iconian war and actually make it feel like a serious underdog struggle.
I love STO, and I love it's cinematic style, but MMOs need a healthy balance between quick quests and long story driven quests, and that's something STO simply does not have. I will always favor quantity over production value, and I will continue to be highly critical of STO's steady decrease in quantity of missions added in each "expansion" they release. Many here will likely disagree with me, but I'd rather see them quit bringing in Trek actors and instead use that money to ramp up development of new content. If you give me a choice of 6 fully voiced missions or 9-12 missions that I have to read, I'd gladly take the extra missions.
I login about every six months or so, play the two missions I've missed, and then either go back to WoW or put on my nostalgia glasses and play through some old games. Sometimes I'd like to stick around and play more STO, but there's just not enough mission content to hold my interest.
Well there is a really large issue with the idea of going for quantity over quality, which is the playerbase's rate at which they consume content. Even a game like WOW that has a team much larger, and creates alot more content in their game is not able to keep up with the rate the players consume the content they create.
I would rather ask if you would rather be hungry after eating that same delicious fries, or be full an yet grossed out by how terrible those soggy greasy fries you ate were. Hell it would be like eating junk food that has no nutritional value, but fills you up in the end what good is it though. I would rather have less content of better quality, over getting more content of a reduced quality, since there is no way for them to create enough content to satisfy the playerbase desire for more of it.
Well we are not getting a expansion with 7 episodes, we are getting the seven episodes to start the expansion, and there is a huge difference between those two things. One implies we are not getting any more content updates after those seven episodes, an the other implies that those seven episodes are merely the beginning. Here is a question for you would you rather have a single toy that you enjoy playing with anytime you pick it up, even months later, only tiring of it if you play with it too much in a short time. Or a set of toys that bore you almost right after you start playing with them, and are really shallow in their concept as well.
The scale is so fundamentally different the comparison is meaningless. If you really want to go there STO has three zones, all shared by all factions. There are five side quests and the story quests, again the same for everyone. When a WOW expansion hits it adds a new continent with multiple zones, quests, raids' countless items, things STO doesn't have by design.
For me personally the balance in STO is off. Yes the episodes are well done but I personally only play them once. They have no replayability aside from rushing through them for rewards. I'd prefer less prominent voice acting or (broken) cutscenes but more variety in gameplay instead.
To keep the faulty food analogy going: I'd prefer a well rounded meal with a little bit of thos and a little bit of that which becomes a favourite I'll eat from time to time over masses of junkfood that make me sick OR the gilded truffle that's fun to try once but that I'll never order again.
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one perfectly cooked chip or a packet of badly cooked chips half undercooked, almost raw and the other half overcooked to the point there isn't a chip to eat, just the skin that had crisped up?
Quantity by itself is never enough, it must meet some sort of minimal standards in quality. this way at least those badly cooked chips can be thrown away and replaced with a packet of chips that are cooked well enough that you can't complain.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
BUT that is a stream of ships to rerun existing content with.
Whereas actual content that in theory should have the most longevity like the tzenkethi BZ arrives as a buggy mess and still hasn't been fixed. They had some interesting ideas for that zone but because its a mess I don't find much enjoyment in it even for a mindless way to level a ship.
Yes there are also new episodes but of late those have been a tad lacklustre in the writing and execution so that, combined with rerunning them for a month for the rewards on various alts, makes me much less likely to return to them.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
You seemed to have skipped the capitalised BUT of the second sentence where I thought it was fairly clear that I don't consider ships, lockbox or otherwise, to be content.
Do I also need to clarify that the steadiness of the stream is less to do with "contents" but how regular it is?
As with food, quantity should only be as much as you really need, and quality should be everything your body needs. As a Martial Arts Instructor, I also ascribe to these values in my teachings.
Recently there have been more excellent missions, with the odd middling one, but personally, I would prefer a one a month schedule. I am glad we are getting 7 in one drop though. I do however, have the patience of a saint, and have faith in Cryptic's ability to produce decent content. They've kept this game going 8 years after all!
Delta Rising could have been much better yeah. I think if they cut half of the level gains out or actually filled the grindy parts with actual story content it would have been much better and not drove so many people crazy.
The problem was the balance. A meal has to be well balanced, something from each food group. Having so many patrols so far apart was blatant filler. Having just one of those in between would have made for a better experience in my opinion. But I also liked the clusters. Fancy voice over with expensive actors is the cherry on top, not the nutritious part of the dish.
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Certainly size was accurate with the new quadrant being added, even if it was mostly time padding based fly from one end to the other to do patrols because we lacked the content for 5 levels let alone 10 so try we'll hide it as much as we can.
> Pretty sure delta grinding got marketed as the biggest ever rather than best.
>
> Certainly size was accurate with the new quadrant being added, even if it was mostly time padding based fly from one end to the other to do patrols because we lacked the content for 5 levels let alone 10 so try we'll hide it as much as we can.
Indeed. Also, the DQ never got DOFF assignments - it's literally empty space with travel times.
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Here is what everyone in this thread, and especially you, is missing:
It shouldn't be a choice between 2 bad EXTREMES.
It shouldn't be a choice between 1 awesome french fry that still leaves you hungry or a bunch of nasty fries that leave you sick.
NEITHER of those are good options.
The happy medium is not a single perfect fry, but rather a bunch of "pretty good" ones that fill you up.
IMO, this game has gone too far in the "single fry" extreme. Yes, the episodes are really good. But they are so few and far between at this point it's essentially like a drop of water when you are thirsty.
No, I don't want them to rush to have a crappy episode every single week. But how about 1 a month?
Is 12 episodes in an entire YEAR really too much to ask for?
Have a nice day. — StarSword-C
And people who want massive quantities of content no matter the quality have the Foundry to play in.
Except we have the Foundry. Honestly, I don't see this question as mattering to STO since if you hold that we get quality missions from Cryptic and acknowledge the terrifying volume of UGC missions out there; then we have extremes in both areas without the customary zero-sum trade-offs.
If someone chooses not to acknowledge the Foundry as "quantity mission content in STO" (somehow), and opt to still hold Cryptic accountable for adding greater quantity (in spite of what we already have)...well that is a choice and thereby ultimately falls back on the player. They're exercising a personal preference, and it may be up to them (as individuals) to branch out rather than asking the developer to shift priorities and start making unnecessary trade-offs to fill already satisfied niches (basically, wasting time, money, people, and opportunities for nothing new except "Cryptic-approved" cheap missions...as if spotlighting didn't exist either.)
You know what, I'll sum my opinion of this topic with just a weary sigh.
No, it did. However, after an update some time back their distribution was glitched out. You'll find DQ doff missions right at the border to where the two separate sector blocks used to be split.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
If an amateur (in so far as it's not their day job) can produce a better player experience with both writing and gameplay, on their own than a team paid to do that same task then something isn't quite right.
this guy wins the thread