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my STO experience (possibly long)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
ok let me start out by saying that it took my about 5 or 6 weeks to hit RA5, possibly the fastest leveling time of any mmo i've ever played. not a complaint bout this, it was actually refreshing to log in for a couple hours and feel like i was making real progress without sudden slow downs.

i played in OB to lt 6 just to get a feel for the game. i reached that same level on teh first day of headstart, then played for 1-3 hours each day with a couple of longer sessions here and there.

teir 1:
felt long and slow. the missions weren't that interesting and i wasn't really learning anything new that wasn't in the tutorial. the drop rate was low and i didn't earn much money so i couldn't experiment with weapons or other stuff. playing this again on my alt with tweaked out(mk2) weapons and full power to weapons and it's going by much faster. no real content gaps here, although by the end i was doing missions above my level. also skipped stop teh signal because i couldn't complete the final encounter-the friendly klingon ships didn't help at all and teh adds killed me before i could dent the dreadnought's shields. haven't tried it yet on my alt.

tier2:
felt more powerful in my cruiser here, with the added rear torp launcher. gained enough money fairly quickly to twink out my ship with mk4 gear fairly early, though i still got upgrade from missions. i think around this time i started using resilient shields which helped my survivability somewhat imho. was doing missions above my level for most of it with some close calls but no real issues. some more interesting missions here, but with much the same mobs/factions i was fighting in tier 1. ran into some content gaps here and had to grind pvp(could've done exploration though, or even DSEs)

tier 3:
definitely found my heavy cruiser more powerful. switched to quantum torpedoes which i got from pvp badges a little late in this tier. some interesting missions here, but some issues with locations, such as rator prime. didn't do teh CE, since everyone n zone chat was complaining about it and it seemed like a waste of time for alot of frustration. CE really sounded like something that should be done by a raid group imho. ran into content gaps here and again had to grind pvp or exploration. i chose pvp. while i got alot of drops and made alot of money, nothing useful, from drops or mission rewards, and nothing better than badge gear.

tier 4:
well what had been working for me before suddenly stopped working at all. my exploration cruiser felt gimpy,a nd before i rethought all my BOs and power setting i chose to fly an escort instead, which looked better and got the job done, although it felt slightly more squishy. i saw alot of other cruisers dying quite quickly at this tier as well, so it wasn't just me. just a couple interesting missions here, and more frequent content gaps, i think the first one being at capt 4, where i grinded pvp until around 6 did 2 missions then ran out again so i grinded pvp for another level. did the last few levels redoing missions i'd already done and missions above my level with a group of fleet mates in one night, took about six hours. i'll also ntoe that a bug in teh badges for shields at this tier forced me to stay with my tier 3 shields throughout this time, since they were still better than anything i was getting from drops or mission rewards, until teh very end when i switched to a covariant shields capx2, which had just 200 less hp than the best mkx covariant shields.
also my quantum torps actually did LESS damage per hit in this tier than in tier 3. against unshielded hulls ofc.

tier 5:
by this time i had switched around most of BO skills. i also started using EPS consoles here for my beam weapons and switched my power setting to full power to weapons. i found i still felt a little squishy in space, but my shield regen hadn't really suffered much and i was killed enemies alot faster. my torps were still doing less damage but my beam damage was doing great and was really comparable if not better than what i was doing with dual cannons in my escort. i started off by grinding exploration missions for the first time for badge gear, since mk9/10 stuff on the exchange was so much more expensive than other tiers. this got me to ra5 pretty quickly(about 3 days of 2 hour sessions), but i was fairly nicely geared out by this time. at RA5, i did the RA episodes with my bro, of which i think there were only like 3 or 4 and only one was interesting.

since then i've just been doing the daily along side a explore btran mission each day for badges. got my purple mkx sniper rifle on the first day and purple personal shields on teh second. none of the other purple badge gear are upgrades at all for me, unless i want to spec into anti proton weapons which i can't fully do and there are more usefull RA skills.

did infected once just to do it, with my fleet who has it on farm(they do it once per day) felt like an over long but typical wow dungeon, but without tanks or healers. just DPS and use the occasional healing pot. nothing really difficult if you have someone leading who knows the dungeon well. still not really my thing.

now for my space pvp experience:

tier 2: mostly losses, it really dawned on me when me and anothe rfed cruiser tag teamed a single BOP. fight must've taken at least 2 minutes. me using all my bo skills and being healed by the other cruiser finished the fight with 50% hull and no shields. "fedballing" seemed to have little effect. klingons could wait until we were strung out to attack or just decloak and not even focus fire burn each of us down and win easily.
fights that started out 10-0 in our favour ended 15-14 for the klingons.

tier 3: more of the same. although near the end of it we won one match thanks to teh power of science. two sci ships healing three cruiser managed to take down a klingon team which was playing badly. they DECLOAKED AT DIFFERENT TIMES ONE AT ATIME, DIDN'T FOCUS FIRE AND DIDN'T USE ABILITIES. THEY EVEN COMPLAINED THAT WE HAD NO SKILLS. WE ALSO STARTED THE MATCHED (oops caps sorry) at 3-0 feds because only one klink had spawned and we gang killed him that many times before the rest of the klingons spawned. still the match ended pretty closely.

tier 4: more of the same but in a escort. didn't feel any squishier in the escort than i did in a cruiser here. and i could actually burn down klingon shields once in a while using all my dmg buffs.

overall space pvp is terrible and some of the worst balanced pvp i've ever seen in an mmo. the REAL winning strategy for feds is just to full impulse into the klink ball as fast as possible because the reward is random. i've gotten the minimum reward for winning and the max reward for losing. the only time it's worth actually trying for feds is when you have 1-3 science ships that know what they're doing. and even then klingon will cloak until they feel you've gone afk, sometimes waiting 5-10 minutes in teh middle of the match before suddenly tipping the score in their favour again.

what does STO need? more missions at all levels. there should be an overabundance of missions at ever tier so that you can't do them all one one character. and by missions i mean more epsiodes and patrols.
endgame needs gear that is actually better for badges and STFs. not shields with 10 more regen points! also needs more story missions for people that don't want to do just dailies or STFs every day. with possibly increased merit/EC rewards.

i like the game but i feel like i've beaten it and there's little reason to log in except to talk to my fleet mates. which i continue to do after logging out after i've completed the dailies anyway. a 2 hour dungeon isn't really what i want to do. give use 15-45 minute activities that are worth doing at endgame. and finally balanced pvp. seriously spend a week or two on each tier spectating matches in space and see what's happening here.
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