Yeah, this 'cold' theme is kinda strange for Summer. It shows how hard creating new stuff has become, I'd say. The game is now glutted with fancy toys and making something 'different' has become a serious challenge. I wonder if there will be Breen surfboards for the Winter event?
Yeah, this 'cold' theme is kinda strange for Summer. It shows how hard creating new stuff has become, I'd say. The game is now glutted with fancy toys and making something 'different' has become a serious challenge. I wonder if there will be Breen surfboards for the Winter event?
To be honest, in half the world it actually is winter when the summer event is running.
It's strange to have it on a map with a lush forest indeed, but for those players on the other side of the world it could be nice that the events align with their climate cycle for a change.
Well, we got a TFO with a very strong emphasis on fire, but that was almost a year later. If they are going to do something else with cold after releasing this new kit frame, it will probably be associated with the Winter event.
The 'friend' Leeta is talking to seems likely to be a Medusan. Don't worry about the insanity thing. First of all, Leeta is pretty insane already. And Mirror Medusans might not produce the effect, or Terrans might have a treatment/preventative for it. They do specialize in pain and suffering. The character of a Mirror Medusan is also probably very different from the original, too. This 'friend' is probably a co-conspirator in some grander evil scheme Leeta is working on...
Yeah, this 'cold' theme is kinda strange for Summer. It shows how hard creating new stuff has become, I'd say. The game is now glutted with fancy toys and making something 'different' has become a serious challenge. I wonder if there will be Breen surfboards for the Winter event?
Not likely since there is nowhere to surf, on the other hand they could have a new line of winter shorts and cropped halter-tops...
The winter race had to glitch for me to get through it back then (no opponent) and wouldn't do it in 2018, so I peaced out. Heard Risa had a form of race for that, so PTSD made me not go there.
If they've modified it so my console isn't going to be waving at an asteroid these days, all is well.
You don't need to defend it that hard.
The Powerboard Race and Biathalon (Powerboard + Floater course) are actually a lot more fun than the hellishness that is the winter skating races.
Oh and Dev Team. We love you for all you give us, but please take a touch of healthy feedback regarding a few of the new Risian Event items
The Andorian Kit Frame, one of it's extra special powers. Helping out EV suits. While the thought of boosting EV suits is nice, this part seems kinda stupid
When you activate an EV suit, it receives significant bonuses to defense for one minute. The capacitor then recharges for three minutes before it can activate again.
You do realize that our EV suits activate automatically now, right? And this rarely happens when we are anywhere near combat. Take Nukara for instance, the place where this would likely get the most use. You beam in and your suit activates. The effect will be gone before you see your first Tholian. And to reactivate it do we have to de activate and reactivate our EV suits? Can we maybe just make this one a Clicky Ability? And not tie it to Suit Activation?
Please Tell me the Andorian Squall Module pairs with the Winter Breen Ground Set? And counts as a Cold Kit ability for its proc's and bonuses?
Oh look! Another Baseball Uniform Recolor... yay? I get why this has become an annual thing, but could we maybe throw some other new Summer Clothes up. Even if it's just recolors of existing stuff? New Hawaiian shirts for example? Or maybe a decent Skirt and Shorts piece with some new prints on them. The Tholian Silk Robes with an annual Floral Pattern dropped on them to turn them into beach wear would be nice. And not overly labor intensive. or the Borath Robes recolored and logo'd to be Fluffy Hotel Bathrobes. Remember Space Barbie is your endgame. And Risa is ALL about the Space Barbie.
...and here I am waiting for the full Kobali markings for the rest of Zhaan's body in her bathing suit (Alien Fed female with the Kobali Overall Pattern).
I don't necessarily need 'new activities', I enjoy the ones we have just fine. But the selection of prizes (more &%$#*! baseball uniforms, winter freeze powers, that ship) just aren't anything I want to earn. So no need to do any of those activities. So no need to log in to do them.
(I've got lots of Admiralty cards, so I don't need the ship for that. If I were a newer player, it'd probably be worth it for that at least. It's not good Space Barbie, it doesn't have game mechanics that I particularly care about, and I'm not a fan of it's design to start with.)
+ stats when alone can actually be very useful and good cards.
The Tanius has it. Of course it has +50 which is more than other cards have, but still. There are many assignments where the +stats can make the difference between needing another ship, or being able to do it with one card.
For players with few cards, that can be an important difference.
Of course they'd probably be more useful to others if we ever get an auto-fill/auto-select option for assignments like we have with Doffing.
They're cards I use on throw-away assignments. Except the Tanius. For everything else, they're usually lacking in one or two stats to achieve even reasonable success chances, rendering the benefit moot. And if they can't do it alone, then why would I use them at all?
Tanius is awesome. Can do up to ToD 9 on its own no problem.
The Summer Squall module is not on the vendor. But the Tsunami module is still listed as 'new' -- is that the Summer Squall mislabeled? I'm not spending 1000 lolnuts to find out. Looks like they have at least one issue for the next patch...
The new kit frame seems useless though. I probably won't be even trying it, unless I have Favours to spare at the end of the event.
There isn't much content where we use EV suits and as others have noted, its buffs will rarely apply in combat situations (it's a bit like all those very old consumables that add extra hit points for a few seconds, but which can only be activated outside of combat - when the enemy still has to punch through your shields anyway...)
The Breen frame from the Winter event simply has much better stats that can be of use anywhere. I picked up that one as soon as I created a fully Andorian-themed character a bit over a year ago.
Yeah that run around with the jetpack isn't so bad, sadly don't have much time to do much else though.
The ship is basically an admiralty card, they did that engineery thing again.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,447Community Moderator
I got the new kit module for my Cryomancer Sci. I haven't tried it yet but I predict some shenanigans when combined with Endothermic and Cold Fusion Flash.
what happened to summer sale discount? 25%? i waited and saved zen for year for 50% like last year((( big disappointment. few weeks ago was better discount with no event. guess more waiting for me( not going to waste zen for 25% off
Replacing dance instructor VO is seriously leaving me scratching my head.
What was the issue in the old VO? We've never seen non-SAG actors reflexively replaced before. See. Kurland, who's VO was just reused for the latest TFO. Party instructor Zero is a classic part of the event and to see her replaced seems...excessive at the very least. I don't think there's any quantifiable reason why the old VO didn't work, they've been a staple for so long and there's no plausible feedback that could have possible reached the team this year that the instructors had to be removed. There's also no data that could possibly point to replacing the VO as there's been no summer event without the classic dance instructors. There was no update of their lines either, no reason why they needed to get a new and SAG actor to rework the character for new lines or an expanded role. It's the exact same script.
And while the new female dance instructor actor is fine in her own right (haven't heard the male yet if he's even present), the voice direction seems very off. It's more *instruction* and less of a party atmosphere at the base of a tropical resort. Mechanically, it's far less energizing and that deficiency feeds into the functional slog of clicking on an extended series of emotes. So on top of the cultural angle of replacing a classic character there's the basic point, "This new VO doesn't work as well as previous." The audio quality might be more clear but that by far isn't the most important aspect of this bit of game design.
Overall, there's just a lot of confusion and mild disappointment here. It doesn't seem like the decision was plugged in either into the social context of replacing Zero, in particular (in the especially crass way of overwriting her custom tailored NPC) or the functional needs of the character (see. giving the actor flat direction, not getting what players need to make this activity fun). I really don't see what the team could have been thinking here even on low-probability points of speculation (ex. sudden SAG issues. Again, we *just* saw Kurland re-used).
Ie. some explanation would be nice (as this is perhaps the most baffling change Cryptic's made in years). But here's my two recommendations regardless:
1. Revert the dance instructor VO
2. Alternatively, give the instructors new character models. Overwriting personal representations of team members with new VO isn't the classiest way of handling this. Separating out the new VO to a new character is the way to go to make it not seem like you're treating their place in the community as non-meaningful. Keep the old character models around in the background, but introduce the new instructor VO as new people. Don't play at implications of disposability (especially for one of your highest profile female team members in STO history) and give your new actor the best chance possible at being accepted by the community (it's only fair for their work).
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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They changed the voiceover for Flying High, too. I don't know about anyone else, but she sounds smarmy to me.
I preferred the original in both cases. Whatever her flaws, the old dance instructor was enthusiastic.
Comments
To be honest, in half the world it actually is winter when the summer event is running.
It's strange to have it on a map with a lush forest indeed, but for those players on the other side of the world it could be nice that the events align with their climate cycle for a change.
Andorian themes should go to Winter holiday instead. Andorians will be thrilled.
Not likely since there is nowhere to surf, on the other hand they could have a new line of winter shorts and cropped halter-tops...
As for the Cnidarian event ship, do we get a Cnidarian ship interior or will it be same bridge/interior as most of the rest of ships?
/sigh
I mean, yeah - it's the easy alternative, since they just need to make new textures, no new models.
But really?
The Andorian Kit Frame, one of it's extra special powers. Helping out EV suits. While the thought of boosting EV suits is nice, this part seems kinda stupid You do realize that our EV suits activate automatically now, right? And this rarely happens when we are anywhere near combat. Take Nukara for instance, the place where this would likely get the most use. You beam in and your suit activates. The effect will be gone before you see your first Tholian. And to reactivate it do we have to de activate and reactivate our EV suits? Can we maybe just make this one a Clicky Ability? And not tie it to Suit Activation?
Please Tell me the Andorian Squall Module pairs with the Winter Breen Ground Set? And counts as a Cold Kit ability for its proc's and bonuses?
Oh look! Another Baseball Uniform Recolor... yay? I get why this has become an annual thing, but could we maybe throw some other new Summer Clothes up. Even if it's just recolors of existing stuff? New Hawaiian shirts for example? Or maybe a decent Skirt and Shorts piece with some new prints on them. The Tholian Silk Robes with an annual Floral Pattern dropped on them to turn them into beach wear would be nice. And not overly labor intensive. or the Borath Robes recolored and logo'd to be Fluffy Hotel Bathrobes. Remember Space Barbie is your endgame. And Risa is ALL about the Space Barbie.
Though...LESS baseball, MORE swimwear, please.
(I've got lots of Admiralty cards, so I don't need the ship for that. If I were a newer player, it'd probably be worth it for that at least. It's not good Space Barbie, it doesn't have game mechanics that I particularly care about, and I'm not a fan of it's design to start with.)
The Tanius has it. Of course it has +50 which is more than other cards have, but still. There are many assignments where the +stats can make the difference between needing another ship, or being able to do it with one card.
For players with few cards, that can be an important difference.
Of course they'd probably be more useful to others if we ever get an auto-fill/auto-select option for assignments like we have with Doffing.
Tanius is awesome. Can do up to ToD 9 on its own no problem.
Original STO beta tester.
And although I stated earlier that I probably wouldn't be flying the new 'ship' much, it does look good on Risa in all its colourful innocence.
There isn't much content where we use EV suits and as others have noted, its buffs will rarely apply in combat situations (it's a bit like all those very old consumables that add extra hit points for a few seconds, but which can only be activated outside of combat - when the enemy still has to punch through your shields anyway...)
The Breen frame from the Winter event simply has much better stats that can be of use anywhere. I picked up that one as soon as I created a fully Andorian-themed character a bit over a year ago.
The ship is basically an admiralty card, they did that engineery thing again.
We're going to need new upgrade tokens soon, ones that allow us to use at least 7 kit modules.
What was the issue in the old VO? We've never seen non-SAG actors reflexively replaced before. See. Kurland, who's VO was just reused for the latest TFO. Party instructor Zero is a classic part of the event and to see her replaced seems...excessive at the very least. I don't think there's any quantifiable reason why the old VO didn't work, they've been a staple for so long and there's no plausible feedback that could have possible reached the team this year that the instructors had to be removed. There's also no data that could possibly point to replacing the VO as there's been no summer event without the classic dance instructors. There was no update of their lines either, no reason why they needed to get a new and SAG actor to rework the character for new lines or an expanded role. It's the exact same script.
And while the new female dance instructor actor is fine in her own right (haven't heard the male yet if he's even present), the voice direction seems very off. It's more *instruction* and less of a party atmosphere at the base of a tropical resort. Mechanically, it's far less energizing and that deficiency feeds into the functional slog of clicking on an extended series of emotes. So on top of the cultural angle of replacing a classic character there's the basic point, "This new VO doesn't work as well as previous." The audio quality might be more clear but that by far isn't the most important aspect of this bit of game design.
Overall, there's just a lot of confusion and mild disappointment here. It doesn't seem like the decision was plugged in either into the social context of replacing Zero, in particular (in the especially crass way of overwriting her custom tailored NPC) or the functional needs of the character (see. giving the actor flat direction, not getting what players need to make this activity fun). I really don't see what the team could have been thinking here even on low-probability points of speculation (ex. sudden SAG issues. Again, we *just* saw Kurland re-used).
Ie. some explanation would be nice (as this is perhaps the most baffling change Cryptic's made in years). But here's my two recommendations regardless:
1. Revert the dance instructor VO
2. Alternatively, give the instructors new character models. Overwriting personal representations of team members with new VO isn't the classiest way of handling this. Separating out the new VO to a new character is the way to go to make it not seem like you're treating their place in the community as non-meaningful. Keep the old character models around in the background, but introduce the new instructor VO as new people. Don't play at implications of disposability (especially for one of your highest profile female team members in STO history) and give your new actor the best chance possible at being accepted by the community (it's only fair for their work).
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!
I preferred the original in both cases. Whatever her flaws, the old dance instructor was enthusiastic.