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My take on the Tholian missions.
eradikitten
Member Posts: 13 Arc User
So I played through both green and yellow tholian missions on Tribble today, and felt compelled to write up my experience.
To start out with, I think the environmental suit should default to "on" as I watched half a dozen people (Including myself, admittedly) rush out of the transporter and immolate. Amusing, but stupid design.
Most of the Tholian missions reminded me of typical MMORPG "Get 37 sabertoothed shrew pelts" type missions. This is a BAD thing. When you start feeling like other MMOs you've lost some of the fun and uniqueness that draws me to Star Trek. Further, the yellow level missions weren't difficult to solo in the least (My character was a l50 with a blue XI shield using the ferengi whip) In fact the "Rescuing Redshirts" (Or whatever it is called) mission was the easiest of the 5 missions I worked on.
The other Yellow mission I could not complete due to all of the portal devices being flipped and not resetting in the instance I was on. I switched instances and flipped a couple portals but I remained stuck at 14/15.
The Dilithium Mining mission outright pissed me off. If I wanted to go dilithium mining, I'd do it at the mining event in Beta Ursae. It really doesn't have a place in the most dangerous environment in the Trek universe, much less in combat. Further, even on a good run you aren't getting great amounts of crystals, so what it says to me is "Do this recycled minigame 15-30 times while doing your other missions." Again bad gameplay.
To start out with, I think the environmental suit should default to "on" as I watched half a dozen people (Including myself, admittedly) rush out of the transporter and immolate. Amusing, but stupid design.
Most of the Tholian missions reminded me of typical MMORPG "Get 37 sabertoothed shrew pelts" type missions. This is a BAD thing. When you start feeling like other MMOs you've lost some of the fun and uniqueness that draws me to Star Trek. Further, the yellow level missions weren't difficult to solo in the least (My character was a l50 with a blue XI shield using the ferengi whip) In fact the "Rescuing Redshirts" (Or whatever it is called) mission was the easiest of the 5 missions I worked on.
The other Yellow mission I could not complete due to all of the portal devices being flipped and not resetting in the instance I was on. I switched instances and flipped a couple portals but I remained stuck at 14/15.
The Dilithium Mining mission outright pissed me off. If I wanted to go dilithium mining, I'd do it at the mining event in Beta Ursae. It really doesn't have a place in the most dangerous environment in the Trek universe, much less in combat. Further, even on a good run you aren't getting great amounts of crystals, so what it says to me is "Do this recycled minigame 15-30 times while doing your other missions." Again bad gameplay.
Post edited by eradikitten on
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join date: Jan. 2012
Was quite dissappointed ... though the place itself and Tholians are a "fresh look".
Oh, and I like watching my Avatars burning, drowning etc.
Makes my little Joffrey inside happy
+ GOOD:
* The Tholians look good
* The environment is interesting
- BAD:
* Combat is boring. The Tholians sometimes fire back, but it's clunky and slow and little fun.
* Grindy. Kill 250, bring 30, yeah well okay but see above, it's really boring!
* Dilithium Mining in a combat zone: Doesn't really fly. It has the annoying quality of integrating a so-so minigame into more missions and recyling it, but it doesn't fit here at all.
In general:
While there are potentially good parts like fighting the Tholian Commander and exploring the base this doesn't appeal to me at all.
-> I will be back to DOffing and ignore this like the Borg Defera stuff.
You must find a way to create more engaging ground content, this is so dull. It's dull from the very beginning and long term nobody will bother with that.
Please come up with something different for future ground activity hubs, really.
The tholians aren't that difficult, I agree. But then again STO in of itself isn't that difficult combat-wise. I wouldn't mind if they were a little tougher and less buggy (mechanics wise, I'm very much aware they're insect-like by nature).
The second medium-level mission not completing is a known bug and is probably going to be fixed whenever Cryptic gets around to it.
The mining game is useful. People have asked for more non-combat stuff in STO to have an important part, and Cryptic delivered. Sure, it's recycled dilithium mining, but it's not combat. Cryptic should be encouraged to do more non-combat play in order to succeed in mission content. Yes, it's repetitive. On my best I get 30-45 crystals a game. For the 500 crystals needed, so it's not that much.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
This is the worst garbage missions they have come up with yet.:mad:
the Things you geht from the Missions not really good, please make a special tholian weapon or a tholian set.....
Greets cgrn1987
You mean like they already have? =P
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
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Quest hub grinds are quite possibly the worst of modern day MMORPG designs, there is no reason to copy that design.
The only redeeming value is that the Hard missions are at least available from the beginning and doesn't require the easy/medium to be completed.
The problem I ran into was that I was told to equip the suit. I had no idea I needed to activate it first, and promptly got immolated.
IF you aren't even going to try, start Foundry contests that are CLOSED to the general public and let the community drive the content with direction from the developers, then overhaul that!
WTH?! Stahl
Up until now, I've been an advocate in the belief that STO will improve given more resources. Then we get this...
Please make this grind end. I'm asking for a phaser to the temple at this point!
Are the skins of the Tholians interesting? The environment? The combination of the mining and combat? Sure, all of those a great strides, but beyond that its the same boring, cluster-[expletive] grind -- and that made me instantly want to turn it off.
Is that what we're going for? I've done that for the last 50 levels! No amount of new armor or weapons are going to make this mechanic more interesting.
A compelling Tholian story is what we need. An antagonist, or even a group of antagonists, with names and identities that are memorable and IMPACT the quadrant.
I'd almost advise you to quit development and force all your developers to spend some time in GW2 -- even GW1.
In no manner am I discounting the work that's been done, even if it seems like another rage post, but seriously, this type of content needs to go.
I'm already bitterly disappointed with the STFs, as when I finally got around to them, their continuity was so chopped to bits that its impossible to even tell in which order they go. How am I suppose to care?
I pray for this games sake that Season 7 starts to actually make this game come alive. I'm at that tipping point.
All of that said, however, it's likely worth doing at least once.
Whoever did the character animation for the Tholians is brilliant. Some of their movements and their 'death' actions are hilarious. I don't know if they are intentionally hilarious or not, but either way, I found it spectacular.
And I don't want to be modded again, so I won't comment on the 'white goo' the Tholian Lt. covered me in.
500 years in the future and we still look like schmucks when getting our ID photos taken...
Here before PWE (and hopefully) here long after PWE is gone.
What this game needs is PvP, NOT PWE.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I assume the respawn rate is high because the instance cap is low - so, the Tholians that would be attacking you while mining (particularly patrolers) should be themselves under attack from other players on their own missions. Unfortunately, its not the best design once the population numbers go down.
The issue of having to have all your team get to the same instance is extremely tiresome. Granted, this is a result of high populations in low capacity instances and should fix itself later on - but for the moment its appallingly tedious. I had hopes that the map transfer popup would remedy this i.e. when one team member runs into either of the hard mission locations it pops up a transfer option for the rest of the team to join them in that same room - but this doesn't seem to work very well at all.
Aside from those two points, I think the mission dialogue and reason for doing things is quite well explained. I particularly enjoy the interior Hard defensive mission. I really like the environments and the style and behavior of the Tholians.
* I will also say that I have been experiencing many bugs - such as kills not registering - but they are clearly unintended.
Interrupt the game, fine. But let us keep what we've already mined.
500 years in the future and we still look like schmucks when getting our ID photos taken...
My character Tsin'xing
I have a question of my own--Is there a list of the loot we can get doing these Tholian ground grinds? (I've been playing quite a bit but I mostly get EV suits.)
The STOWiki hasn't been helpful.
In life that has been corrected.