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What keeps you playing STO?
borticuscryptic
Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
Hello, STO'ers!
I recently asked a question on my Twitter feed which ended up getting a lot more activity than I had expected... it quickly became obvious that you players have more thoughts to share on this subject than I initially anticipated.
So, in the interest of further inclusiveness, I'd like to also ask the same question here on the forums.
If I were to talk about "retention" in STO, what does that make you think about? What mechanics/systems/content/rewards/progression make you want to keep logging in, and keep playing? What aspects of the game motivate you?
I'd primarily love to hear about what aspects of current game are motivating to you, but wishlist items are also OK. We all want to make a game that you enjoy logging in and playing on a regular basis, so your thoughts on this are appreciated.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to voice your mind!
---
If you'd like to see what others are sharing on this subject, here's the Twitter feed:
And there's also a thread on the STO community on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/8k3oz2/if_i_were_to_talk_about_retention_in_sto_what/
I recently asked a question on my Twitter feed which ended up getting a lot more activity than I had expected... it quickly became obvious that you players have more thoughts to share on this subject than I initially anticipated.
So, in the interest of further inclusiveness, I'd like to also ask the same question here on the forums.
If I were to talk about "retention" in STO, what does that make you think about? What mechanics/systems/content/rewards/progression make you want to keep logging in, and keep playing? What aspects of the game motivate you?
I'd primarily love to hear about what aspects of current game are motivating to you, but wishlist items are also OK. We all want to make a game that you enjoy logging in and playing on a regular basis, so your thoughts on this are appreciated.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to voice your mind!
---
If you'd like to see what others are sharing on this subject, here's the Twitter feed:
And there's also a thread on the STO community on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/8k3oz2/if_i_were_to_talk_about_retention_in_sto_what/
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
0
Comments
Two big, huge words:
FACTION PARITY
I honestly believe the game has lost its direction regarding faction parity and balance with the loss of Dan Stahl.
-KDF Homeworld is a maze, ESD & Romulan Command easy to navigate (ESD in particular has everything in a small area, whilst KDF has to run all over the place and use a transporter)
-6 years before KDF & RRF got any Science Ships worth any value (KDF Had Varanus Only, Romulans had a Massive Reconnaissance Science Vessel with Cruiser Mobility)
-No T6 Faction Frigate Carrier for KDF or RRF, FED got Jupiter (KDF had this first in the Vo'Quv)
-KDF has a Story Arc that is almost a Decade old with no remaster in sight (FED has had several Remasters of old episodes)
"Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are … you are my son and the one true king." (Mufasa)
No life.
Star Trek fan.
Cross game chat with Neverwinter and Champions Online. It's nice being able to keep in touch with folks, no matter which of these games they play.
The fact that the game is extremely solo friendly, but not solo exclusive. Sometimes it is nice to do team content.
The ships.
The story. Some complain that it's bad in places, horrid in others and downright silly at times. It makes me wonder if they ever watched any of the series. While I admit some of the stories could be better, they are far from the worst I've experienced.
While I don't DOff or do Admiralty as much as I used to, it's nice to have alternate ways to make progress.
I do like the Specializations and Reputations, but I do believe it's getting to be a bit much on the Rep front. 11 current reps with another coming in the new expansion. I have no idea how you could keep adding new equipment for new story related content without them, but I do feel there needs to be some sort of consolidation. A new player comes in and sees they need to catch up on 12 Reputations, it can seem a bit daunting and might scare them off. And all the different "currencies" for the Reps, so much space being taken up.
Perhaps, take a few of the older Reps and make them all take some new type of Mark, a Universal Mark. Add them in to older queues as rewards, but have them reward slightly less, say 25% less. This way, players can run whatever old stuff they can to get the UM's to finish their Reps. And if they want to only do a few, leave the old Marks there as well, but at their current level. That way they might want to specialize and finish faster. Just a quick idea.
As far as retention goes, I'd have to say more content released closer together rather than further apart. I get that the longer you work on content, the better it is and rushing stuff out the door rarely is as good. But with nothing new, folks leave and only come back when there is new stuff. After a while people forget to keep looking for something new and then they forget to come back at all. Kind of how some TV shows go on winter break and show reruns and then when the show returns in the spring, their audience is a fraction of what it was. People got used to nothing new and stopped caring.
However, I think that the current glut of events is having a similar effect on a lot of players. Event burnout. I don't mind the weekend events too much, but I am getting real tired of these 14/21 day events, like the current Mirror Invasion. Is there any way you could make these events weekend events, needing just 3 tokens to finish? I'm fine with losing the 50k dil and the huge chunk of marks. I just get so tired of running the same map day after day for 2 weeks. And I'm sure others are as well.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
After that, new ships, costumes, playable races, beams, weapons / toys.
New space queues, but we need something like Final Fantasy XIV's "Dungeon Roulette" where you get significant bonus rewards for playing 2 random queues a day.
Things I'd like to have because "Space Barbie is the real endgame":
Unlock all costumes for doffs, including off-duty. If I want a merc away team or bikini attack squad that isn't Orions then let me.
Figure out some way to make beam colors match. Developers have said a simple, single "visual weapon slot" is too hard to implement, but think about other approaches like being able to re-engineer individual weapons to change their visual effect. I really hate having an episode reward Omni beam show a different visual than the rest of my beam set.
This game is also where I have made some pretty great friends that are like family. Overall it's been a great story that has allowed me to get behind the controls of various space ships I've only seen on TV, or read about in books. I've always appreciated a good alien conspiracy story also and this game brings thoughts to the forefront of what actually could be out there. I'm sure some folks probably think I'm insane after that comment but meh. Great game, good story, plenty to do if you want to, and for the most part the community is very tame compared to some other games I've played.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
-The storyline, which is why im a bit sad that with every addon ther are less missions added sop yeah story would be the TOP reason
-events, if the rewards are desireable and match the time invested
maybe answer an unaksed question: what KEEPS me from playing
top reason here are BUGS BUGS BUGS! they seem to come in at a higher rate than they re fixed
that the known bugs lsit is so empty depite bugs that have been in the game so long is kinda meh
I would also paly more if lockbox ships were accwide unlocks and/or if there was a way to have thair T6 traits among the account endless GRIND for stuff I want also keeps me from playing
As far as thing that push me away from playing the game more, I think the largest obstacle at this point is that I would wholly like to play kdf far more, but because my friends who play the game play federation almost exclusively I'm pushed into playing in a way I would rather not. I'd just like the option to be able to join a party with federation characters as my kdf ones like I can with fed or fed-rom characters.
As for things I've seen other people drop the game for. The depth of play in the early game is pretty lacking. I know it's helpful to start with simple play and expand as you progress through the game, but the progression is a bit slow. Particularly, while leveling the only things that change mechanically is the number of slots you have as you get new ships. On the ground side, you just marginally improve your numbers as you advance. you hardly get any kit modules as you go through the story and the ones you do get are more often than not just an upgrade for the one you already had.
The pricing model might need some work too, $30 for a single piece of content which is functionally a skin with an arrangement of slots attached is probably asking a bit much from most people. I've also seen a lot of issues with people being disappointed when reaching 50 and discovering that they have not as the game has taught them to expect, gotten a new ship and have instead been paywalled from a large portion of the game's remaining content. (Edit: It's worth noting that this issue should be diminished with the release of ViL with the addition of the free t5 ship and t5-u upgrade)
These are both things people I know have quit the game over so I hope you find this helpful in some way.
Aside from that the only thing I can suggest is interacting more with your community. Just talking to your players can have a huge impact on how players view your game, just look to warframe for an great example of this. Simply asking your players questions like this are a good start though.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Good points, I forgot to mention that endgame being both solo- and casual-friendly are key points for me. I don't want to be forced to group up to continue the story progression, or be forced to use XIV epic gear in min-maxed builds to feel like I can join a normal queue.
Going back a long time for example getting rid of the real combined STF ground and space raids was a big mistake. The lack of challenge caused people to leave. STO could do with some real raids being added back in.
Downgrading the graphics for example the new galaxy map while bigger looks graphically far, far worse than the old map. I miss the old suns, solar flares, nice looking solar system. While the new larger map is nice, graphically it looks worse then when the game first shipped. Its like flying though a space map from a 10 year old game.
The icon revamp from many years ago is another system that got redesigned and made worse. In the past I could quickly glance at a tactical console and tell just from the icon what precise weapon it boosted. Years later and the now not so new icons are still a massive step backwards and I have to hover over each icon one at a time to see what it does.
Moving forward more recently. The revamped queue UI is still worse than the old queue UI. The new UI doesn’t work as well and is more frustrating to use. This has driving players away from queues.
Moving forward again the splash screen which is just getting more frustrating the more I see it.
The 8 hour sales which to be fair it looks like you have fixed but again during the past year those flash sales have been very frustrating to part of the player base.
The NWS another great mission that got redesigned and is now terrible and unfun. All the great space content STO used to have that required team work has been removed from the game or redesigned into a worse format. Back in the day team work and players doing support builds was often required and welcome in groups. Now teamwork and support builds are pointless and often hurt more then they help.
The Breach another good mission that got dumbed down and redesigned into a boring format. The teamwork and skill got removed. The first part of the trench run is now effectively 1 player fly's in a straight line form point A to point B. The other 4 players sit and wait, how is that a good multiplayer map design? The old one was far more fun before the redesign. The old one benefited teams that work together and split into different groups.
What I am trying to say is it’s not just about doing things to keep use playing. There have been a lot of changes which are frustrating and making us play less which in turn hurts retention. To many bits of great content have been dumbed down to much and over simplified or in the case of NWS redesigned into a less fun version. Making everything easy and simple it not good for retention. Casual content is good but STO has gone to far into the extreme of casual content. You need a mix of casual content and none casual content to keep retention high. Sto now has less none casual content then when it first shipped. 8+ years on and STO has gone backwards in this regard. EDIT: look at the colony simulation. That wasn’t casual content and look how popular it is.
On the positive side the shear volume of combinations of spaceships, gear and traits is what keep me interested.
What keeps me playing is the story episodes. I can get really bored in between episodes as pvp and pve don't necessarily interest me all that much. To combat this, I started creating themed toons to amuse myself. TNG toon, VOY toon, Mercenary, Liberated Borg, Tal'Shiar, Rom Republic, Section 31, etc. Every toon gets a unique flagship and bridge crew with appropriate uniforms, bridges, weapons, etc.
I will do pve if there is a decent reward associated with an event or something. But very rarely do them just cause.
These are all changes that you disliked, and no one can say you're wrong for feeling that way. But not everyone is going to agree with you either.
I prefer the look of the new graphics. I do have a GTX 980ti and maxed settings.
I have no problem with them. I first started playing in 2012 then left for 2013 and came back in mid-2014.
I'm still undecided on this one, I don't love the new UI, but for example the cooldowns list was a great quality of life improvement. Queues were already dead so I'm not convinced the new UI made any difference there.
They acknowledged right away that it was only supposed to appear for your first character. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.
Yes, the "disabled" ship rushing to suicide itself is a major bug in NWS that should have been fixed by now.
I agree, it's just tricky to decide that a change is "worse" when sometimes it's just you or me that dislike it not the majority of players.
Now this may not be popular and I know back in the day, plenty of people hated unique random drops (aka Borg technology). But what this game needs is exactly that.
In other MMOs, why do players run the same queue or instance for the 30th, 40th time? Not because they like them that much but because they want that special, class specific, unique, epic piece of equipment. It's emotions which make you stick to a game. Anger and frustration over not getting that drop you were hoping for, hope that next time it might happen and lavish joy when the day has finally arrived and you have completed your gear set. I have never again felt such a true sense of accomplishement like on the day I had completed my first Borg technology set.
As a side effect, queues would fill up again. Even people who are not really looking for unique drops would get the opportunity to play the queues for marks or dilithium again. And for anybody who really doesn't like unique random drops there are still plenty of reputation space and ground sets to choose from.
1.) I like chatting with Frtoaster and my Fleet Leader. I wish the chat worked more smoothly(?). I am not sure what I am asking for with this, it just seems a bit awkward to use at times. There are broken weirdness....for example: I can not send /tell @Frtoaster when I first sign in....I have to wait for him to PM me???
2.) I like things I can do by myself AND chat at the same time: Which is why I like the Summer and Winter Events so much.
Even though I am doing the Dance Party or fighting snowmen...I can still CHAT. Shoot, there is usually enough time on the clock so I can chat during Flying High and the Ice Race is no problem because it is easy to restart it.
Also, missions and patrols that have a map change or otherwise a pause in action. So, that I can say Hi!
3.) I like being able to run battles and missions by my self because, I need to practice.
Which is another reason I like Winter and Summer events....because each activity is slightly different and allows me to work on different aspects of playing a video game....which I am not real good at. I don't join in pug Teams because it is just too much for me to keep track of what is going on. And I DON'T want things dead in 5 seconds because it basically means I am not really doing anything.
I thought for a while if there was a dedicated "team" I was on regularly...maybe that would help with the practice aspect. And, hence was looking at PvP for a time.... but have figured out PvP is, well, being min/maxed worse than PvE. And COSTLY at that. I am just too casual for it.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Im a LTS since beta and life long Trek fan. So ive seen this game in its every stage, the highs and the lows, just so you know where im coming from.
I love the space game, ship combat is brilliant and i like how deep and nuanced the building can be. I also love the story missions ( specially the newer ones. ). Although a mission every other month ish? Waaaay to slow.I'd like more story content more often but this is what helps keep me interested.
The main reason im still here though is the people ive met and become friends with over the years. To think when i met these people most were single and now are married with kids just blows my mind. 8 years, been that long already?
So although those friendships are very important on keeping me here, one thing i feel is missing.
Exploration.
I know i know, been brought up before etc, but i really do miss that feeling. Its Star Trek, we should be boldly going a bit more than we are at present. If that would have to be done through story then fine, but more please.
Otherwise im broadly happy, there are other niggles i have but this isnt the place for it.
TLDR : love space game, friends keep me here along with story ( more of please ), more exploration type content in future please.
The more I feel that I am playing the Fed, Rom or KDF captain I want to play how I want to play the more interested I am in coming back. After all if you really peel back the curtain, mostly your killing x number of NPC's or ships. Which would quickly become boring, however if I get to make choices that make my captain mine it makes it far more interesting to see where the story will take me.
So the more choice the better. But more than this it give the experience a kind of soul, where rather than being generic red shirt,
two from the left your that heroic or sly or dangerous captain that is going to get the job done your way. For me the only redeeming feature of Star Trek Discovery was Lorca, and once you go back to the very boring fed captain copy I lose interest. Now for others they may hate him and be glad to go back to a more traditional star fleet captain who stands for all the things star fleet stands for.
The wonder of an MMO is that I can play my combatant captain and another person can opt to be a diplomatic by the book captain. However if you opt to force everyone to be the same then the only people you will appeal to is the people that like the captain you have catered for. And I'd find it hard to care what happened to Eric the overly helpful by the book captain and his adventures in the Gamma quadrant where he tries to force his good natured help on everyone he meets always remaining positive and up beat just looking for the next kitten to rescue or next group of aliens to befriend.
I know you often get a lot of flack from us goons but something like this i feel goes some way to showing us you actually do want to have a game that people like us enjoy. You may not like what we say but asking our opinions is important.
Having that sort of attitude towards your players is worth it's weight in gold, it really is.
Now onto the question at hand, brutally honest i'm afraid! ...
Retention for me personally is right now is purely down to keeping the account ticking over.
I honestly have to admit i feel the game has become a bit to "set in it's ways" and is in a bit of a rut these days. I know you have the ViL expac coming but the game seems to be stuck in a formula that doesn't really offer anything new. Every season is the same old things; a new lockbox & lobi ship, new lockbox & lobi gear, a new reputation possibly which is the same old formula, rinse & repeat.
It just doesn't feel like the game is really going anywhere new, and is stuck throwing out ships and shinny toys as an excuse for new content.
New content to me means missions, yes, but also new ways to play and places to explore. Because of how STO is set up (essentially instanced maps on and interactive fast travel map of sector space) it always feels like there is little to do and explore once you get to end game.
PVE is sadly a dying game in STO these days due to multiple issues. The UI is disliked and poor to work with. The reward structure is all over the place and not encouraging playing of missions. The majority of missions and purely tactical/DPS centered spam-fests with little real challenge besides hitting your keybinds faster than anyone else. The grindy nature of the game these days means people play more for max reward-minimum effort and don't really play for the enjoyment of the mission (it's all about efficiency, playing to max out farming, afk'ing events etc.)
Now i do still enjoy certain aspects of the game.
The social side is pretty good and tbh sometimes i just treat STO like a really pretty chatroom!
The ships design guys are masters at their game and some of the canon and "own-brand" stuff they come out with is amazing and really adds to that authentic Trek feel. I love flying my canon-accurate Miranda or Soyuz classes even if they are not my most effective, they make me feel like i'm part of the IP.
Tailor options are also pretty darn good tbh, although a universal colour palette and less weird restrictions would be nice.
Plus really, it's the only decent Trek game out there and you do offer it with a seriously generous F2P model that doesn't really force players to buy anything, but offers options to do so if one so wishes.
What would get me in game more though I've go to say would be making the game feel more like a living breathing version of the Trek universe. I want planets i can visit to be stunning to explore. I want to go to any faction race planet, even if it's just a basic social zone that looks the part. I want a living, breathing sector space with roving traders, marauders, enemy actions, anomalies. I want some form of procedural content to scratch my exploration itch.
I'm sure with enough effort you could get some of that feeling into the game.
This is an excellent point. I run queues in sto, but only CCA because it's got reasonable rewards for a small time investment and the red alerts for much the same reason, but they give any marks. I played STFs a ton before reputation was added, but almost never since. Even if the rewards to the queues aren't exclusive to the queue, there should be some kind of intrinsic reward for running the queue itself that you can't get through normal play as opposed to the extrinsic reward of advancing the related reputation in order to eventually get something you can use. If for example, you could get the reputation weapon types as drops from the related queues (refracting tetryon from tholian queues for example) I'd probably play them a lot more even if the drops where of a normal rarity distribution rather than exclusively vr. And of course if the queues had a small chance to drop an actual part of a reputation set without the mark and dilithium investment, I suspect I'd be playing them a great deal.
Edit: I don't think reputations are bad, but I don't think making most endgame content available exclusively through reputations is very good for the game. This is another point where I've seen people give up on the game because there's such a colossal time investment required to get anything worthwhile out of the system and there's no possible way to mitigate that barrier.
I always used to enjoy playing a Borg space tour ISE, KSE, CSE. The reason being there was a chance to get 11! Borg Neural Processors from each mission as there was a random element to the rewards. One player of the five would get massively increased rewards and that chance was a big draw. It provided ample reward for dilithium or could be used to get all the rep gear a bit more easily.
I genuinely think something similar for PVE's these days would be a step in the right direction. It needs to be something desirable, as i I want it or need it. It needs to be something I KEEP wanting to get, so either single use, OR it can be sold on the exchange. It should not be something that massively affects balance or powercreep but should still be attractive to most players.
Letting us get a chance at a random number of extra doohickeys too would be added incentive.
And letting us sell it on the exchange opens up a whole new reason for people to repeat play the queues; farm the rewards for personal use, OR farm them to sell to people unwilling/unable to farm themselves. Boom - queues fill up again.
2. New systems I hope you eventually make all ships have a first officer system that allow some more diversity particularly if it allows you some basic versions of captain powers and/or the ability to give you some specialization powers so we can get some specialization ability even without that specialization seating or just further specialization. I would also love a something like a integrated ship systems system which allows us to use up to 4 of are favorite special ship based consoles in trait form with combo bonuses that give the set bonuses.
3. New episodes I do very much enjoy the story your crafting.
4. This one you have been failing as to late, please fix public queues with out people playing this I feel less and less inclined to play this game.
5. Balance passes also help me have confidence you care about the game, and not just selling power.
6. More account bound things please, if you made lock box and promo ships account bound, I might spend more money on this game. I have far to many characters with different play styles I would like to have some of the traits of some of my lock box ships on all my characters. Please reduce unnecessary grind with starship trait and mastery being account bound.
Basically? Gameplay variety and replayable -yet not repetitive- content.
There's a billion different ways to play the game as it is now. Want to fly around instantaneously murdering enemies that are too weak even on elite? You can do that. Want to fly a carrier using nothing but turrets and fighters, opting for a tankier, more passive role in a fight? You can do that. Etc, etc. There's plenty of ships in the store and each one of them just feels like it has a unique style hidden behind it (To say nothing of specializations these days). Take, for instance, the Starfleet Dreadnought Cruiser. The options available to it are astounding. You have the Antimatter Spread, Saucer Separation, and Molecular Cohesion Nullifier available to the Tier 4, 5, and 6 Exploration Cruisers, then the T5 Dreadnought's Cloaking Device and T6's Supplemental Subsystems. You don't have to use any of them, but the options are all there, and they're all very fun to use in their own ways. The best part is that they're all unique. When I think of the Yamato, I don't think "Oh, that ship is a cruiser, which means it's bigger, has more weapon slots, but is slower and has fewer tactical damage options." Instead I think "Oh, that's the ship with a FRIGGIN DEATH LASER AND IT'S GOT A CLOAK AND IT CAN SEPARATE THE SAUCER AND IT HAS AWESOME TANKING ABILITIES AND AAAAAAAA-."
I don't just see the ship for its base design elements. If I did, I and a lot of other people would only use the Ops Battlecruiser, Temporal Multi-Mission Science Vessel, and whatever the meta for escorts is at the moment. But I don't do that, because every single ship is unique and awesome in their own ways, and I'd love to see more diversity than that.
The other great part is that there's a lot to do once you have a build built. Plenty of interesting story missions and characters to battle with words and death lasers. There's really a lot to do in the game. Story being the biggest draw for me.
PvE queues are okay and all, but they're almost...less worth investing in. It's always the same shooty shoot missions. Now, I really like the shooty shoot, but it's hard to go back into a queue once you've played it 4 or 5 times, because it gets a bit repetitive.
TL;DR: What retains me the most is diversity and uniqueness in all aspects of the game.
I would first like to thank you for the years of entertainment that STO has given me. It is the only game I play.
The most important aspect of Star Trek Online is that I appreciate the ability to minimize contact with the hostile PvP players and their inherent need to demonstrate anti-social and criminal behavior. Specifically, I refer to cyberbullying. I play this game for entertainment. I do not endeavor to be an acknowledged nor a respected superior player in the community. I play the game in a manner that I enjoy. In the last few years since the PvP player community has declined, the game has been much more enjoyable and less of a hostile environment for me. It has been a long time since another player has said to me, "Why do you even play the game if you don't want to get better?" or "You should just quit the game." or "Oh, you can wipe the map in PvE ques...but you also die a few times." My characters do evolve. They evolve and a adjust for new PvE content and mechanics. For hostile PvE players, the ignore function works well.
I like the fact that when current new content is realeased, it is incremental: i.e. since Delta Rising. Minor adjustments in gameplay and abilities allow successful and timely completion of the new content and ques. I also appreciate the quality of the new content - after the bugs are fixed following it's initial release.
It is satisfying for me to play the game and see the steady and gradual progression of my Fleet Holding assests. It's a constant reminder that all the grinding is at least contributing to the foundation of my account. Each Fleet Holding progression makes developing future characters faster. I like that the Fleet stores provide quick access to funtional end game gear for new characters at level 45. I really appreciate that Fleet Holding progression is not impossible as a single player, albeit on the edge of insantity.
I've always appreciated the Star Trek genre and what it represents. For me, it has always been the struggle to overcome ethnocentrism, bias, opression, greed, and arrogance. It is the genre's study of current moral, ethical, and political issues that provoke me to question my own thoughts and beliefs. Storys like "The Renegade's Regret" make Star Trek Online a forum of interactive episodes that I would have expected to come from a broadcast on TV - or streamed like ST:Discovery. Having an additional medium that might encourage people to carefully consider the consequences of their choices in life and how it affects others is a valuable and beautiful contribution to the world.
My character Tsin'xing
Especially the bonuses the rep gear adds that are strong against the enemy that reps present. I mean, if you give us gear that, say, does double damage against Species X, but most of the content that pits us against Species X is through the rep, and is effectively behind us after we get said rep gear that does double damage against Species X, then what's the point of the double damage against Species X? The answer for this would be raids involving Species X.
Oh, and don't forget the NPCs that have the rep gear on to "advertise" said rep. This is done in a decent amount with MACO(Omega rep), but there is a severe lack of ships and ground NPCs that have this gear on. Not only would it be more immersive to use the rep gear if we see game characters use it as well, it would, again, "advertise" the rep.
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Also I enjoy hanging out with friends and occasionally playing missions with them. The voice chat shenanigans that take place as we're shooting Borg or anything else can be fun. (Note I don't use the in game voice chat. Its never really worked very well for me.)
STO is also solo friendly with the story.
Things I would like to see in the future include some more customization options KDF and Romulan side, as well as some more canon ships like the Vor'cha and even the Wolf 359 fleet. I'd also like to see the return of the Kobali outfit as a reward for Dust to Dust honestly, as... we have other missions that give an outfit as a reward for the first time... why was that removed?
STO may not have been the first MMO I played (That honor goes to WoW), but... it is the one love to play and intend to keep playing until they turn out the lights. Its a bit of a passion I guess. I may not be a hardcore DPSer, but... I am good at what I do.