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[HOUSE DIVIDED] "The Centre Cannot Hold" and "Khitomer Discord" Feedback and Discussion
ambassadorkael
Member, Administrator Posts: 2,679 Community Manager
Let us know what you think of the two new episodes here!
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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And I love how the Mo'kai computer virus from pre-TOS is still somehow more advanced than an ICONIAN probe, to be able to take the ship over fully instead of killing it. Grade A cow manure right there. Especially since your own missions established that Starfleet had been EXPOSED TO IT BEFORE.
Or did your overlords at CBS demand that they be that strong by comparison to ANYTHING else?
As I've stated in other threads, Summer Event offered a change of pace from the usual shoot ships, shoot ground , shoot ships again, and again, and again in 6 sets of 3.
Lots of really long episodes that I kept looking at my time for when it might be over, which felt not nearly short enough.
Summer Event provided a nice break from the repetitive game play that is STO, which has been pushed aside with no real improvements in a long time. It is really difficult to look at the new content (given so much attention) without true animosity for what it pushed aside to make room for in a year that feels like lots of waiting, waiting, and MORE waiting. Had I had Rise Summer Event first maybe my opinion might have been different. I spent all of June waiting for Summer Event in July, especially July 4th weekend. Very disappointed with STO to bump something we looked forward to in favor of content we had absolutely no interest in seeing until after regular scheduled events like Summer Event happened on time first.
So, visually the new episodes looked spectacular. Visually the best new content I've seen of the Klingons. Aside from the look the episodes were really long, and I hated it all so much. Every window message was a reminder - " WAIT LONGER FOR SUMMER EVENT" which really irritated me.
So that's as best as I can do to compliment something that has delayed Risa Summer Event which I believe needs far more improvements since the removal of the day/night cycle because of lighting 2.0.
Literally during every space battle I sighed thinking, when will this end? I can't wait, but have no other choice.
In addition, the ending where we just leave and don't explain anything doesn't make sense. These are people we fought alongside in the Iconian war. A war based on our very extinction. None of them should ever have doubted our innocence and they all should have offered us the chance to speak regardless of our faction. And then when we disable them we just leave? Why don't we talk to them? They're disabled and we destroyed all other ships there is no threat, it would be logical to just speak and talk it out with them, show them the evidence. This mission feels poorly thought out overall.
like...i'm seriously hoping the player character got knocked out during one of the fights or something and is actually in a mo'kai lab being brainwashed, because the only other alternative here is someone at cryptic seriously needs to be given the boot and replaced with a writer who can actually write a COHERENT plot!
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
While the epic curveball at the end of the second episode hits you out of left field... I have a feeling more will become clear as the story progresses. I'm not going to jump on the "WTF" bandwagon until I get the full picture and can judge the whole arc in full context.
J'Ula is just an ally of necessity. I know my Discovery character is going to hate her guts, but... when you've been made out to be the enemy by one of the most powerful people in the quadrant... you kinda don't have very many options.
The only thing I will rage against... IS THE GOD DANG CLIFFHANGER!
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Edit: Regarding J'Ula becoming an ally she is an ally of convinience, our characters even fed ones outright state "this does not make us friends". Such things happen in real life too USA and USSR were allies during ww2 even though they were enemies before and after said conflict.
The lag and rubber banding caused me to die multiple times as I hit powers that went on cooldown but failed to work as I bounced out of range. Then hit heals that went on cooldown then failed to work from lag so I died. Then I had the well-known bug where the enemy disappear and reappear. The bug where the NPC is still firing just not drawn by the game engine until you get point blank range so you cannot target them. So, you have to guess where in combat to fly. Same bug we get a lot in Hive TFO.
Remove the lag and bugs and I would have rated it 7 or 8 out of 10. With all the problems it’s a 2 out of 10.
Khitomer Discord - Much better.. an actual REAL episode. Strong cut scenes, excellent voice acting, a good mix of story and action.. it was overall up to the high standards that Cryptic has established recently. The plot twist is a bit.. confusing, I have my issues with how quickly people that should have known better seemed to turn against me. I am going to let the rest of the story flesh out though before I make a full judgment on that. The story isn't complete, so I'll wait until I have that complete image to judge the overall storyline, but in general.. I liked this episode.
The Center Cannot Hold. - 2/10. The story parts were good, but having us run a chain of patrols does not count as a Feature Episode. The rewards for this episode are not up to par, a Mark XI Blue item? Really?
Khitomer Discord - 8/10. Parts of the story are a bit confusing but the overall episode structure was well done. Cut scenes and acting are top notch, scenery and art were great, the mix of action and story was on target. An overall fun episode and well done. Again, the rewards are not up to par, Mark XI Blue items are not the established norm with past episodes rewarding Very Rare and even Ultra Rare items of higher mark. This part should be adjusted.
I'm a KDF player and I'm already fed up with the Klingons. Speech after speech of honour and how it is a good day to die, an honourable death, a Klingon death and yet J'Ula has run from every engagement over the last year. Then she makes a speech about cowardice, its complete rubbish. Even after all this and hearing the Klingons carp on about honour I have no idea what they mean by the word, hell even my Cardassian seems to occasional starts shouting about it often followed by a Klingon word for no doubt honour.
So enough with honour being the buzz word for every time a Klingon does anything, even they must see its hypocritical and just makes them look stupid. Nobody is going to buy your talk of honour when you run from engagement after engagement and use cowardly computer viruses to set off warp core breaches. Yes fight to win but then don't make anyone sit through a boring rant about honour which then has people cheering as it makes the story have no connection to the game.
Speaking of which, I don't know if there is some deep secret smarter part of the story but it seems the guy that pops up on my view screen and starts the majority of my missions has in the course of one single story episode gone and declared you public enemy number 2. I just played the story and it felt like I had no control or agency in what was going on.
You have a captain that for most people has killed more people that the borg, saved the galaxy 2 or 3 times lead the fight in 15 or so campaigns and then cant think their way out as soon as a transporter isn't available and may or may not be totally expendable, I stopped caring when the big bad we have been hunting for a year can in defeat outsmart my Cardassian Intelligence Officer into forcing me to work with her.
Can we at some point have our captains as little more than a bruiser that stands on the side line while events unfold and then follow along with whatever named individual tells them what to do then off to go beat up someone as that is our entire role in the story then back to standing at the side listening to long rants that really don't mean anything.
YES, totally agree. I did not hate disco, it was a generic scifi show wearing the skin of Star Trek. Enterprise worked for me as a prequel as it respected the show's bible and I loved the gradual introduction of equipment and such we were used to in TOS and TNG+
Again I agree, some mission have just become a total uninteresting grind (Illusions of communications final battle comes to mind) but as for the visual pew pew, that again bugs me, I have reduced vision so most of the time I just have to hope Tab works for me to target stuff.
Removing the day/night cycle was such a huge step backwards, making the game less dynamic. I used to love hanging out on Risa and Bajor.
I did the 2 missions yesterday, and i'm really disappointed. why?
- they are too long only because the missions don't have a real timing.
- too many useless fights
- boring stories without interest
- fights are too easy, no challenge at all.
the old missions were better: shorts missions in taller episodes
the way of they make missions should be modified and they should use other games as example.
but the devs have done a really good job for the revamp of the maps and characters.
It is hard to come back to STO after playing intensely at Mass Effect 3, a game with choices, very good fights and well writen stories, so cya, maybe for the next episode or if Risa has been improved; have fun.
I noticed a typo the dialogue of one of the first Klingons you talk to. She says Nuqneh in the text instead of nuqneH.
For 'Centre', it was a reasonable episode to set-up the second, but there could've been more meat on the story-telling bones. As it's mostly fighting this gets a solid 6/10. The first act needed more klingon showboating in the chambers and the 'patrol' stages could've had a bit more in storyset as happened in the next episode.
For 'Discord', well this has more curve-balls than a game of Baseball!! It all seems convoluted, but it has an insidious streak worthy of the Tal-Shiar and Obsidian Order. Left thinking 'what the holy hell is going on?'. Episode has some great cut-scenes and leaves you with 3 sides to a Civil war. 9/10 for this.
All-in-all played fine with no issues.
I have a feeling he also planned on both the player and Martok not surviving either. Maybe he feels the player's becoming a bit of a threat due to all the victories the player's racked up, and Martok is still technically a threat to his power. And with how friendly the player is with Martok... if they ever had reason to speak against him, their words would have more power.
The fact J'mpok barely gives us a chance to explain says to me he was caught off guard by our survival and had to improvise in order to paint us as traitors. I mean technically we achieved our objective in "capturing" J'ula... but we survived when we weren't supposed to.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Starting off, we find everyone in the great hall acting a fool. J'Ula cries and whines about her honor and how J'mpok is a coward over the Hur'q crisis, even though J'Ula has constantly been running away from every fight she starts. She talks about how Martok is the true chancellor, even though he himself has said he didn't really care; if he did, he would have done something about it. Then J'Ula calls everyone useless for being friends with the Federation, even though that alliance is what saved the entire galaxy. Then we get the random patrols cut and pasted into the mission. Apparently this old Klingon virus is good enough to completely turn Federation ships against us, even though the player interact takes 2 seconds and purges the virus completely. Then the Starbase is destroyed, and J'Ula gloats about how fun it is to kill humans. That Starbase probably had a few hundred civilians onboard, but whatever. Then, she launches an attack on the Quvat civilian shipyards (Specifically stated in the mission to be civilian shipyards). She's basically evil in every regard. Then they blow up an entire city.
Second mission, my ship is in orbit of the Alliance Headquarters, with absolutely no defensive satellites or stations or anything. We beam down and go through no security checks, and find out that J'Ula is suspected to be on the planet. We threaten to torture and murder a random guard with Martok (I'm a starfleet officer, what the heck?!) unless he tells us what we need to know. We find J'Ula and she's shouting at Aakar for blowing up a city of innocents, despite trying to blow up a civilian shipyard and successfully blowing up a starbase, and also trying to use the superweapon to blow up Starbase 1 (by the way, the starbase commander mentions the Klingons are targeting evac ships and the HABITAT RING) and constantly trying to launch a campaign to kill everyone in the Federation. But hey, they just have to use the magic H-word and suddenly they can do no wrong.
Then Aakar joins J'mpok somehow? As if that would help either of them? Also you're locked in a basement, and you can't just override the door controls like you've done millions of times in the past? We hail our ship, but DON'T tell them to stop J'mpok before he uses the weapon? J'mpok has a fleet in orbit now, and beams in a million troops to start murdering everyone there, including Romulan and Federation security teams and even their delegates? But no alarm sounds and the CHAIRMAN OF THE ALLIANCE doesn't know what's happening outside his door? Also he sold out the Alliance to J'Ula (the person who criticized the alliance and hates the Federation) to stop J'mpok from...doing something, even though there is no evidence he had done or would do something heinous. Reminder that 1 week ago in game time J'mpok was in a somewhat stable position with the Alliance backing him and his only threat being an old man who doesn't even want the chancellorship, and a wild terrorist hellbent on destroying the empire's greatest ally. But sure, instead of just waiting for J'Ula to leave the planet surface, or even just sending the same troops down but telling them to not murder their allies is a bad decision, and he instead wants to kill...everyone, including the many people who support him, as if Alliance headquarters is such an easy place to raze (Which it is, what the flying frick?!)
So the player is suddenly great chums with J'Ula (Again, we still hate her, but her character feels like it's someone else entirely). And we go talk to the traitorous Chairman. Then J'mpok blows up the entire HQ. With the weapon on his ship. In orbit of the Alliance Headquarters. With a full fleet of ships alongside him. And my ship. The player character decides now is a good time to grab a vulcan meditation sesh, and just stares at the wall of death as if this was something we hadn't seen before (I've faced down imminent doom plenty of times, why am I just standing here?!) Then we trip walking up a flight of like 2 stairs. And then we keep sitting there, even though standing up takes two seconds and the wall of death is slower than a Pakled's train of thought. But then J'Ula comes to the rescue! "This is no way for a warrior to die." (She tried to use this same weapon against a shipyard and an entire starbase, alongside poisoning the elachi and creating numerous rifts across the galaxy) We stare longingly into each other's eyes, because we have all the time in the world I guess, then finally WE STAND UP AND MOVE! We get to the stupidly tiny transporter room (this is a massive conference hall, right?) and stand around for a few years waiting for the wall of death to approach from the other end of the continent. Why didn't we use the front door? I dunno.
We finally get into our ship, which has just been sitting there for a while at this point, and immediately we have to blast our closest comrades out of the sky. Even though my ship was almost certainly running sensor sweeps and would have obviously tried to investigate the massive buildup of mushroom energy on the chancellor's ship that then hit the planet like some kind of weapon. And there was an entire supposed fleet alongside J'mpok. Nobody saw it? At all?
We try to talk our way out of things, considering we're supposed to be trusted companions to these captains, but they don't listen to us. We turn our friends' ships into swiss cheese, and now that there's nobody to stop us, we can send them all the evidence to show we're not guilty, including sensor data, firsthand witnesses, and the very obvious logic of "I'm Starfleet. Not only do I have no interest in Klingon Empire affairs, J'Ula also wouldn't trust me in a million years. Plus, I have a service record longer than the Lord of the Rings from just the last 2 years in the fleet, so it's reasonable to assume I can be trusted over a man who has the mycelial weapon on his ship right now."
And you know what we do? We run away. Despite insurmountable evidence and a ship strong enough to take on 3 fleets and multiple flagships, we run.
We run like honorable Klingons.