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What STO is missing

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I've seen and read all sorts of complaints about STO, most about lack of auto-fire, repetitiveness, etc, etc. All are a symptom of one problem. STO is an entirely soulless beast. It looks pretty, and even seems good at first, but, fairly early on, with the Miners issues quest, and the exploration farce, you realize that you've been duped.

Star Trek is ultimately about Soul, morals and investigation play a huge part of every episode, and Cryptic has sucked that right out of this game, replacing it with a hollow, but pretty, version of what the Holodeck portion of Starfleet Academy's Combat training must be like.

Crucial elements of Star Trek, like the Prime Directive, are lost in the glare of brilliant phaser/disruptor fire and explosions, and all of us, Trekkies and MMO Gamers alike, suffer for it.

No MMO franchise has ever had a better setting to ignore the "trinity" system, and make combat a part of a whole, not the whole itself, than Star Trek. Woe to us all, Cryptic took that, copy/pasted Champions, with a Pirates of the Burning Seas space fight, and then took every Trekkie in the world's money gleefully and laughed all the way to the bank.

I want to like this game more, I really do. but every time I play, I feel more and more dissattisfied, especially with ground combat, which is extremely tedious. As for a solution, I would like to see more non-combat related content, including investigation with dialogue that you can get wrong, and alter the mission; mini-games relating to science and engineering tasks; ship interiors that are not only explorable, but have portions of the game take place in them, reminiscant of actual Star Trek shows. For combat itself, I don't know how to implement it correctly, but I'd like to see less enemies during ground combat, when beam down to a planet, and see 10 groups of four "patrolling" right off the bat, something feels wrong. Especially when after completing part of the mission, it ends with more enemies continuously beaming to directly infront of you while you leave. Also, I'd like to see some non-fatal melee and phaser combat take place. I'd like to set my phaser to stun, and capture an opponent, or Cryptic willing, a crewmate driving insane by some kind of sickness.

To sum up, I believe this game has the capability to feel like Star Trek, and hopefully someday it will.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i agree - after week of playing the game starts to feel kinda hollow. The space combat is fun but ground missions are not very good.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The way I see it, there's a lot of potential. Obviously there are some things that are lacking, and I agree about there being more diplomatic-style missions. I made a few suggestions for improving the game myself:

    http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=100088

    But yeah, it basically says I want more puzzle-type missions, and missions whereby the decisions you make affect the people you're doing the mission for. So if you make a bad choice, people suffer, and you don't get any skill points etc. The Star Trek franchise has got massive potential - I just hope that Cryptic (over time) turn this game into something awesome. It can be done, but people need to stick with it I think.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Well since we are in the, "Hey look at this shiney new MMO" phase with everyone just getting their feet wet and learning the interface, ship capabilities, etc... I'm hoping that Cryptic understands what makes ST so popular is the character interaction, and have plans to do community building things... like a borg invasion of the alpha quadrant that will require players to interact/cooperate with eachother and coordinate efforts to be successful.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Well said and I totally agree.

    I am of playing star wars galaxies.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Well I am finding many great hours of fun in the forums, the actual state of the game is other peoples choices so finding fun and challenge in what ever state it is in, and any meta about that state, is part of the imagination I think goes with the series.

    It will be interesting to see how the state changes. Although it seems there are alot of hurdles, and resetting the linkage of game feel and the series, for me at least, may be a big hurdle.

    A few things in the game broke suspention of disbelief, I remember most of them, and most were commented on, after then looking at the mechanics of the game turn it into just another game, and that breaks linkage that would need to be maintained to get the game linkage fun.

    Probably have to reaproach at some point when some basic issues are addressed to see if it is possible to have that hype to enjoy game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Am I the only person that read that guys sig?

    Because it sort of wiped my thinking about his actual post out of my mind and replaced it with a wtf.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I disagree i like the space and ground combat infact i look forward to ground missions.

    This is a game TRIBBLE the prime directive.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Macerx wrote: »
    I disagree i like the space and ground combat infact i look forward to ground missions.

    This is a game TRIBBLE the prime directive.

    Prime directive is just for non-interference of pre-warp civilizations. I have yet to disintegrate a member of a pre-warp civilization with my phasers in game, so it's not really applicable. In fact, my science BO has warned me multiple times when pre-warp civilization members are close by to my away team and we boogie out of there before they see us.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I agree with you OP, though I find your signature disturbing. It has the worst grammar I have ever seen in my life.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Heh, I was expecting this to be a cowbell thread :-)



    Anyways, I think the devs may be planning to add non-combat stuff outside of press "f" at this blnking anomaly. The boards been asking for that since day 1 open beta, if not earlier.

    Hopefully we will see more diverse type of missions come this summer, though most MMOs I played (outside of crafting) it's either kill everythin or go to this blinkng thing and press gather/harvest.


    Hopefully with the unexpected support of STO, Atari and Cryptic will spend more time and thought on more content than trying to meet a possible contract deadline.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    hmm so so many threads of discontent, the best ones often have some really good suggestions. in particular i like the idea of choices made affecting the amount of skill points received.

    on the whole, cryptic's decision to nerf the game so 5 year olds could win was mistake number one. ground combat, as pointed out, is basically 10 packs of 5 mobs standing around. you need to skill at all to win, in fact theres no real way to fail at anything.

    theres no point saying what i dont like anymore, cryptic knows what could have been, sadly dispite all the forum posts and suggestions, i dont think its possible now to make this game incredible.

    to those having fun, im pleased its enough for you. i felt like it was enough for 3 weeks, then it felt like idseen it all, multiple times. had deja vu moments a lot lol
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I would love more instances that require teamwork and the use of guilds/fleets. So far I have not had any real challenges in the game or needed to team up. Without these two key features, this game seems more and more each day to be headed for my completed single player games....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Streakfury wrote: »
    The way I see it, there's a lot of potential. Obviously there are some things that are lacking, and I agree about there being more diplomatic-style missions. I made a few suggestions for improving the game myself:

    http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=100088

    But yeah, it basically says I want more puzzle-type missions, and missions whereby the decisions you make affect the people you're doing the mission for. So if you make a bad choice, people suffer, and you don't get any skill points etc. The Star Trek franchise has got massive potential - I just hope that Cryptic (over time) turn this game into something awesome. It can be done, but people need to stick with it I think.

    I agree with your thread, excellent ideas in there, and hopefully down the road this will become the game that every Star Trek fan out there wants it to be, because there is clearly already enough combat for the satisfied players out there.
    NinetyNine wrote:
    Am I the only person that read that guys sig?

    Because it sort of wiped my thinking about his actual post out of my mind and replaced it with a wtf.
    I agree with you OP, though I find your signature disturbing. It has the worst grammar I have ever seen in my life.

    The thread that I took my signature from, starring a forum member named issue, was full of nonsense like that, I maybe should shorten my sig to the best line, Klingons does not happen sober, to cut down on confusion, and general WTFing, but I literally laugh everytime I read my own sig, so I keep it. Seriously, search the forums for the user issue, you will not be disappointed.
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