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Anyone else want to see new lower stakes story missions?
o0kami87
Member Posts: 590 Arc User
Okay, I know for a game exploration and science isn't a heavy seller, combat and explosions are. That being said, isn't it odd for a group of explorers to end up in war after war with higher and higher stakes? First the system, then your territorial border, the quadrant, the unaverse, the multi-verse. I grew up on TNG and reruns of TOS, higher stakes (Outside of a movie here and there) didn't start out until DS9 and Enterprise. Yes there was a war between the Federation and Klingons in TOS but that wasn't the focus, it was one ship, a lot of the issues the crews faced where a bit more... personal. I personally would love to see a story line where another captain takes a "who's the better captain" challenge a little to far, or a Klingon is trying to blow your ship into pieces, for no other reason than he thinks you insulted his mother or something. Having to help a Romulan settlement defensive systems up to protect the village from a incoming natural storm on the planet.
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I didn't grow up with TNG and TOS, I grew up with Voyager and Enterprise. Although those shows had overarching stories, most of the episodes still dealt with smaller, more relatable challenges.
Even when there was a big conflict or existential threat, like the Temporal Cold War, most of the episodes actually dealt with a part of that conflict. Like the Xindi arc, which was basically one entity (the Xindi Council) threatening Earth with destruction. And within that Xindi Arc, there were also again smaller stories, dealing with inter-personnel conflicts between the MACO's and Starfleet (ok, just Reed actually
There were a few allies and of although everything was embedded within a broader storyline, a significant part of the episodes were just about that one battlefield, so to say, within the broader war.
Even when the Temporal Cold War itself became the main focus of the story with the Na'kuhl, it was still very tangible (New York, the Second World War, Earth's history hanging in the balance).
The problem, in my opinion, isn't so much that we have big threats and large-scale conflicts. We can have that. But they could and should be played out on smaller scales. That way, you could have the same universal threat as the background for the stories you want to tell. There's no need to remind people every episode that there's a threat to the entirety of existence, or that the future of the entire Federation is at stake. That Klingon trying to blow our ship to pieces may well have reasons that are related to those larger scale conflicts - betrayal in an earlier battle, political schemes of factions opposed to the Empire participating in the Alliance's efforts etc. - but those conflicts themselves - another one every month - don't need to be the focus the entire time.
Edit: funny thing is, Enterprise even had that. Even though the entire Xindi arc was about to start, ENT's creators still reserved some time to bring back an old Klingon adversary of Archerm just to show how dangerous his mission was going to be.
Even DS9 - by far the most serialised of the series - had episodes that dealt, for example, with the discovery of an Iconian gateway. And although the war was part of the reasons why the things done were being done and specific choices were made - the story of the episode itself could well have been placed in another setting. I.e. the big, overarching threat was there, but it could be played out in a more localised setting and conflict on a smaller scale.
Long story short: yes, the omni-threat thing is becoming boring and annoying. If there must be an overarching, omni-present threat, have it be the same one and build enough lower-stakes stories around it that are somewhat related, but also good stories on their own. It wouldn't hurt to shift the focus every now and then, not from one existential threat to another, but from one small story to another one, even if they're part of the same, larger conflict.
What I want to see is missions where the player character isn't a mindless drone for whatever the voice talent of the fiscal quarter is. Given the player's rank and position, it should be assumed that they're busy with their own business but also carving out the time to work WITH the current plot characters. I'd rather see iconic characters of the shows being badass and getting things done on their own while the player is also doing equally awesome things towards the same goals. It'd be a far more engaging experience than the helpless princess complex the game has fallen into with its celebrity talent.
Of course, the devs probably favor the "save the universe" at the moment because the NuTreks tend to be action-hero things with over-the-top season metaplots and in theory they could bring in the most new players because the shows are still relatively live.
Even SNW with its loose arc-episode structure is plagued by the ship-on-a-pedestal nonsense and a bit less but still significant amount of "save the universe/Federation/whatever that the other NuTreks do, so STO will probably continue with the high-stakes stuff as well for the foreseeable future.
From RP player perspective it is even more important, as a lot of new stuff which is happening in STO can't be much implemented in interplayer game and RP players still play random captains in huge universe.
Problem could be solved by implementing again feature of Foundry, and I do not mean bring back old one, as I read there were technical difficulties which prevented devs from maintaining it in future. But creating new platform to give players ability to create own content for them, could partially solve the issue. I remember when forge was active, majority missions (Not all) were small scale encounters and sometimes on level of Star Trek general universe, for example repairing satellites, responding to natural disaster and stuff. Such feature would also increase retention of players in game, as new and new adventures could be explored and content would be generated by players for players.
Fly safe!
I agree, this is a great Idea, Canonically Federation Captains can't really respond to natural disasters on undeveloped worlds, but can prevent ones on warp capable planets like Vulcan, Qo'noS and New Romulus because of the Prime Directive, but since STO is a Video Game and Non-Canon, you can pretty much just ignore the Prime Directive altogether.
Quests can be from time to time constructed in this was, to make players feel that their faction matter, and that there is slight difference in approach. I will lay out simple quest for this matter:
1) Player enters system and notices planet going through natural disaster, but denizens of planet are in pre-Warp era. Denizens have telescopes on orbit and they notice advanced ship and start to relay on all frequencies they plea for help.
2) Player has to with minigame decypher their language and hear the message.
3) Fork: Based on faction, bridge officers will give their advices. Federation officers accenting prime directive, and KDF officers accenting that this is just how it is and they shouldn't interfere. If player listens to bridge officers, mission is completed. Player saved time and get some reward
4) Fork2: They go through all story, help the planet, knowing consequences. And on the end, their superiors contact them,
wanting players to explain themselves. Player would be presented with dialog options and behind scenes would be score counter, how much convincing it is for his faction. Based on final score would be calculated final reward.
This is quite small quest, nothing on galactic scale, but (I can speak only for myself) I think it is much more interesting, then saving galaxy from another big threat. I do not mean every quest has to be like that, and that it should be without combat, but some return to roots of what Star Trek is would be nice. I would really love to see devs to deliver stories in spirit of series, and what brought to ST people in first place. Players did these missions before, I played some of them, and they were amazing.
In the end, tools are in hands of Cryptic, and power in our hands as customers.
Fly safe! And most importantly enjoy game!
I know keep asking about the Gangsters planet, maybe after all these years they changed from 1930s Mafia gangsters into 1990s gangsters with Boombox weapons.
Actually, Dominion tactics tend more towards false flag operations, collapsing governments from the inside via disinformation and other sabotage, and just plain strongarm threats than they do to actual wars of expansion if you pay close attention to not only what is said but also how it is said (and the body language in use when they say it). In the case of the Dominion war in DS9 the dirty tricks failed, the Alpha/Beta powers would not be intimidated, and the only option left was outright war.
A fun factoid about humans from Earth in TOS is that they were ALL called "Terrans", even the ones in the main universe in TOS. That is why the Empire started by people from Mirror Earth was called the "Terran Empire".
Mark Lenard used the label 'Terran' to refer to humans from Earth as both Sarek and the Romulan commander in Balance of Terror for example, and behind the scenes info revealed that the term 'Earther' was reserved as a derogatory term (which is why the Klingons used it for the heroes and would have used it a lot more had there been a fourth and fifth season).
Apparently, later on that distinction in terms was lost and the spinoff Treks started calling just the mirror Terrans 'Terran' like it was something unique to the Mirror universe.
There are a lot of examples of the Federation fighting when necessary, and the Iconian war was just as necessessary as the Dominion war, the Klingon wars, the Earth/Romulan war and others, in fact probably more necessary and unavoidable than those others.
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Ok, so if the Dev's are saying STO is in a divergent universe how about bring Icheb back? I mean he was stationed on Deep Space K-7 on 2408. He's was removed because he was killed off in the first season of Picard in 2386 and replace with Vintrax with the March 5th 2020 patch.
Yeah, I know this will never happen just wishing a bit.
That show had some really good low-stake stories. T'Pol chasing a fugitive, non-corporeal aliens with a damaged ship replacing the crew, stigma's surrounding transferable diseases etc.
Their replay value would probably be low though.