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To whom it may concern at PWE/Cryptic
webdeath
Member Posts: 1,570 Arc User
Dear D Stahl and whom ever it may concern in the Cryptic and Perfect World Entertainment division of Star Trek Online.
I am writing this today because of personal feelings with the way Star Trek Online has been released in the last 365 days. As a Life time Subscriber, I felt that it was time to speak up and say my opinions about how the Development has been of Star Trek Online from a point of view that relates to not just the ordinary subscriber, but also from the view of some one who enjoys Player vs. Player and who has been doing so since the game was released in February of 2010.
Originally, when the game was first released, the Player vs. Player part of the game was entertaining. It was fun to just join a Que of Federation vs. Klingon, and be able to not only get into a match right away, but even level up that way. Sure there were Powers both on the Ground and In space that probably were either too powerful, and could make the experience unpleasant, or not powerful enough and made them unnecessary. But those days were probably the best the game had seen in PVP.
At that time in space there were the following PVP Maps: Solar Wind, Capture and Hold, Assault, Briar Patch, Cracked Planet and the ?Open? PvP Map known as Ker?rat or N?vak for the KDF Faction. Most were fun, though some got little play time due to how the Que system worked, and Assault was at the bottom of the List. So some where between when Season 1 and Season 2 got released, a new Que system was invented, how ever that ment the Space Assault map disappeared. With no mentions as to why it was removed.
Mean while, the map Ker?rat got altered slightly to where Klingons and Federation would warp into the location where the Klingons usually spawn in. A few bugs were squashed, but not some of the glaring ones, such as Borg spawning in Nodes. Or the fact that since the Zone was introduced, there have been no barriers along the edges of the Maps.
In the game it?s self how ever, what is known as the PVE or Player vs. Environment parts of the game, new Maps were developed, new Stories introduced, New Missions created, even new Ships were placed in the game. A Foundry was invented and created to give players a way to create their own stories. Almost Two years later there is Thousands of man hours of work devoted to the Player vs. Environment sections of the game. Yet, when you look at Player vs. Player, nothing has truly changed.
Player vs. Player has the same Space and Ground maps it has had since Shanty Town was introduced for the Ground part of the game. Ker?rat still has the same bugs it has had since introduction. We still have the same maps to PVP in.
Then comes the way Powers and ships are deployed into the game. I am reminded of the 2800 Featured episode, while watching STOked, and their former Host turned Developer had helped develop the Jem?Hadar set, and when the bug from the shield and Duty officer combination got discovered he said ?Oh well, I guess it?ll be OP in PVP.. ? This was of course not the Production eposide and was during the Live Stream. But lately that statement style has become almost the way I see how the Development of this game is when PVP is concerned. (And the 3 piece set bonus that comes from that set does not even work, and has been reported to not work. The Bonus called Victory is Life)
What I mean is, if you look at the Cryptic Store low level Tier ships that come with Consoles, the Consoles, while having been tweaked, and slightly balanced, really hasn?t had any consideration towards the Player vs. Player part of the game. Then you have the Skill Revamp. And once again it was released before even making sure that it was not breaking skills in ways it shouldn?t. Which the Player vs. Player community had to discover the hard way.
Then new Ships get released, and once again they get released with out checking to see what kind of effect that it would have on the Player vs. Player part of the game. Such as the Atrox, and it?s Advanced Danube Shuttle pets. It introduced how bad Chroniton and Phaser procs had become.
When they released the STF Gear, all shields have a resistance vs. Plasma energy damage. Which completely reduces the effectiveness of an entire Energy type in Player vs. Player. Yet another set, has an effect called Tetryon Glider, that while it was tweeked, is still one of the most annoying effects in the game due to it?s ability to, with a 5 man team considered, drain a players shields perhaps too fast.
All of this was done and created with the consideration of Player Vs Environment first, and would probably still be as broken as it is now if it were not for Player vs. Player. Yet, Player vs. Player has been not only ignored, but when we did start to get perhaps some hope of being not only given the attention that we?ve needed for over two years now, and now not only has Gozer, the developer who was taking his time to work on PVP, is leaving, but there has been no information on what ever happened to the statements from Dstahl before Season 6 was released on what ever happened to the Player Vs Player development that was being done. Which included new Maps and new styles of playing in PVP.
So with everything above being said, it brings me to the biggest questions of all. Why are we still using your game for our PVP Fun? And why have you not rewarded some of the PVP community?s hard work with helping to find the Bugs, broken effects, and other issues that have cropped up with more actual PVP Content? (While new ships can be considered PVP Content, it is not the Content that I am referring to)
With the release of the newest information for a Tholian Lockbox, I think back to the way the game was 2 Years ago. And while some things are better, I start to wonder.. Why should I bother buying into these new Lockboxes, when I know the following will be true?:
They will not have any time on Tribble to shake out the bugs.
They will have No Consideration for PVP or game play Balance.
They will have ships that over shadow most ships in the game in some way by either becoming better then, or drastically improved vs. the normal versions.
If any of the Development Staff, or Dsthal reads this post, I have to ask first the following.. Why does this happen? Do either of you actually PVP in the game? Do you play in an Organized Fashion while PVPing? And what are you going to do to finally make PVP actually fun again?
While I am doubtful that I would receive a response that will give an answer that will actually stick and be true 2 weeks from now, I do have hopes that I will perhaps see a reason to not only spend my money further on Cryptic, but continue to look forward to the future that Star Trek Online could hold.
Thank you for your time.
@Kilawpilath
(Note: I know I left out many of the current bugs that have been released in Season 6, and seems to happen when ever a new Season gets released.)
I am writing this today because of personal feelings with the way Star Trek Online has been released in the last 365 days. As a Life time Subscriber, I felt that it was time to speak up and say my opinions about how the Development has been of Star Trek Online from a point of view that relates to not just the ordinary subscriber, but also from the view of some one who enjoys Player vs. Player and who has been doing so since the game was released in February of 2010.
Originally, when the game was first released, the Player vs. Player part of the game was entertaining. It was fun to just join a Que of Federation vs. Klingon, and be able to not only get into a match right away, but even level up that way. Sure there were Powers both on the Ground and In space that probably were either too powerful, and could make the experience unpleasant, or not powerful enough and made them unnecessary. But those days were probably the best the game had seen in PVP.
At that time in space there were the following PVP Maps: Solar Wind, Capture and Hold, Assault, Briar Patch, Cracked Planet and the ?Open? PvP Map known as Ker?rat or N?vak for the KDF Faction. Most were fun, though some got little play time due to how the Que system worked, and Assault was at the bottom of the List. So some where between when Season 1 and Season 2 got released, a new Que system was invented, how ever that ment the Space Assault map disappeared. With no mentions as to why it was removed.
Mean while, the map Ker?rat got altered slightly to where Klingons and Federation would warp into the location where the Klingons usually spawn in. A few bugs were squashed, but not some of the glaring ones, such as Borg spawning in Nodes. Or the fact that since the Zone was introduced, there have been no barriers along the edges of the Maps.
In the game it?s self how ever, what is known as the PVE or Player vs. Environment parts of the game, new Maps were developed, new Stories introduced, New Missions created, even new Ships were placed in the game. A Foundry was invented and created to give players a way to create their own stories. Almost Two years later there is Thousands of man hours of work devoted to the Player vs. Environment sections of the game. Yet, when you look at Player vs. Player, nothing has truly changed.
Player vs. Player has the same Space and Ground maps it has had since Shanty Town was introduced for the Ground part of the game. Ker?rat still has the same bugs it has had since introduction. We still have the same maps to PVP in.
Then comes the way Powers and ships are deployed into the game. I am reminded of the 2800 Featured episode, while watching STOked, and their former Host turned Developer had helped develop the Jem?Hadar set, and when the bug from the shield and Duty officer combination got discovered he said ?Oh well, I guess it?ll be OP in PVP.. ? This was of course not the Production eposide and was during the Live Stream. But lately that statement style has become almost the way I see how the Development of this game is when PVP is concerned. (And the 3 piece set bonus that comes from that set does not even work, and has been reported to not work. The Bonus called Victory is Life)
What I mean is, if you look at the Cryptic Store low level Tier ships that come with Consoles, the Consoles, while having been tweaked, and slightly balanced, really hasn?t had any consideration towards the Player vs. Player part of the game. Then you have the Skill Revamp. And once again it was released before even making sure that it was not breaking skills in ways it shouldn?t. Which the Player vs. Player community had to discover the hard way.
Then new Ships get released, and once again they get released with out checking to see what kind of effect that it would have on the Player vs. Player part of the game. Such as the Atrox, and it?s Advanced Danube Shuttle pets. It introduced how bad Chroniton and Phaser procs had become.
When they released the STF Gear, all shields have a resistance vs. Plasma energy damage. Which completely reduces the effectiveness of an entire Energy type in Player vs. Player. Yet another set, has an effect called Tetryon Glider, that while it was tweeked, is still one of the most annoying effects in the game due to it?s ability to, with a 5 man team considered, drain a players shields perhaps too fast.
All of this was done and created with the consideration of Player Vs Environment first, and would probably still be as broken as it is now if it were not for Player vs. Player. Yet, Player vs. Player has been not only ignored, but when we did start to get perhaps some hope of being not only given the attention that we?ve needed for over two years now, and now not only has Gozer, the developer who was taking his time to work on PVP, is leaving, but there has been no information on what ever happened to the statements from Dstahl before Season 6 was released on what ever happened to the Player Vs Player development that was being done. Which included new Maps and new styles of playing in PVP.
So with everything above being said, it brings me to the biggest questions of all. Why are we still using your game for our PVP Fun? And why have you not rewarded some of the PVP community?s hard work with helping to find the Bugs, broken effects, and other issues that have cropped up with more actual PVP Content? (While new ships can be considered PVP Content, it is not the Content that I am referring to)
With the release of the newest information for a Tholian Lockbox, I think back to the way the game was 2 Years ago. And while some things are better, I start to wonder.. Why should I bother buying into these new Lockboxes, when I know the following will be true?:
They will not have any time on Tribble to shake out the bugs.
They will have No Consideration for PVP or game play Balance.
They will have ships that over shadow most ships in the game in some way by either becoming better then, or drastically improved vs. the normal versions.
If any of the Development Staff, or Dsthal reads this post, I have to ask first the following.. Why does this happen? Do either of you actually PVP in the game? Do you play in an Organized Fashion while PVPing? And what are you going to do to finally make PVP actually fun again?
While I am doubtful that I would receive a response that will give an answer that will actually stick and be true 2 weeks from now, I do have hopes that I will perhaps see a reason to not only spend my money further on Cryptic, but continue to look forward to the future that Star Trek Online could hold.
Thank you for your time.
@Kilawpilath
(Note: I know I left out many of the current bugs that have been released in Season 6, and seems to happen when ever a new Season gets released.)
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by webdeath on
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And how about an answer there Devs?
Banshee
Bloodthristy
Guild - <Lords of The Dead>
LvL 60 CW-Dragon Server
Anyway, I think I covered most of my Gripes that are extremely important above. And if I do get lucky and get Developer conversations here, even DStahl himself, great. If I don't.. Well I'll try to not look too hard into that either. I just think that they should know how I feel and know what my thoughts are on not only the game, but the PVP part it's self. Since that is what is extremely important to me.
PS: Some other things I didn't mention that bothers me is how they didn't add PVP elements to what looks to be 2 of their biggest attractions of the game: The Foundry, and Starbases. Foundry should allow creation of PVP Maps. Even if you don't get EC/Dilithium for it, it would be nice to have such an option. And Starbases dropped the ball not having it avaliable right off the bat. And if it doesn't get some form of PVP option, my opinion, is that STO may lose more players from the PVP Community that are still here then they did previously.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Indeed, it would make things feel a little more like 'space'. I love the missions where several planets are on the map and you're able to fly around them if needed, and have large asteroid fields and whatnot. It makes things feel more like actual space.
R.I.P
There are a couple of things, though...
The special consoles will tend to create opportunities for new tactics and surprises. Not all of them, certainly, and game balance is still a concern no matter what. But "static" PvP where nothing unusual is possible doesn't help the game. Personally, I think "surprises" like those are VERY Trek.
Yes, the game still needs more maps and PvP features and Cryptic needs to allow more testing time before they release some of this stuff into the wild. But I don't think they should stop putting out new consoles.
On the subject of the lockbox ships, I have to point out that they, too, represent opportunities for something new. If not for them, we'd see the same old ships flying around everywhere. There would be no room to pretend that PvP was anything but Starfleet and Klingons.
But now, you might be Klingons chasing down "Ferengi Privateers", or Starfleet confronting "True Way Cardassians" in their galors. Yes, I know that the captain is really a Starfleet or KDF captain, but having different kinds of ships allows people to pretend that there are lots of factions and have the illusion that the galaxy really is diverse.
Yes, the ships need to be reasonably balanced. And yes, when there are a dozen D'Koras parked outside Earth Spacedock it does spoil the illusion to some degree. Given some time and imagination from Cryptic, maybe there will be ways to deal with that kind of thing.
For example, what if some of the fixed PvP areas had the feature of allowing people to switch ships before entering PvP? What about making battles between "Cardassians" and "Tholians" possible like that?
Or, if we were allowed to switch ships in sector space without visiting a dock, people could easily fly their D'Koras around and switch over to their BoP's before entering Qo'noS space. They could even gate it by only making it an option in certain places. Thus helping to maintain immersion.
Heck, they could even force the issue by excluding certain ships from certain zones and making you switch ships before you can enter them. For example, only allowing Federation ships to enter Sol so that people have to switch out of their Galors, D'Koras, and Orb Weavers before they visit ESD. I imagine that's too much trouble for Cryptic to implement for too little benefit, but it's possible.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
When Season 6 Launched, they had to take the game down 3 seperate times for maintenance. Sure it should be expected. It broke the private PVP Ques. It broke KDF UI in some areas. It even damaged some maps with Performance hindering effects. (Empire Defense against Romulans, Cardassians, and Borg for example)
This is not the first time that a release has done these types of things. An actual running gag amongst my self and some of the PVP players I run with, is when ever a relase is dropped to live, how long will, or how bad will PVP be broken..
Now the same thing is coming with the Lockboxes too. When ever a Lockbox or new Ship from a RNG based device is dropped, since it gets 0 testing time on tribble, we figure at least one of the ships released will be Overpowered at first.
Anyway.. I'm not going to rant, or whine about something being broken, and how it needs to be fixed with out some form of comment about why it's broken and how it should be fixed.
PVP. Gozer made his assessment about it and he was probobly right. It probobly has gotten so bad in design terms that it probobly could be dropped from the game. How ever, despite how bad it is, there is one good thing to say about PVP. It can still be fun to play. But it needs ALOT of work.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
If it does EXACTLY What it does in PVE.. It will once again be yet another "Oh darn, it is OP in PVP.. Oh well!" situation that will just push more and more against the PVP community.
Is it your Goal to alienate the PVP community with some of these powers that get released? I mean there is no way to test it, since you never put Lockbox items on the Tribble Server before Release. So the question Asked at the beginning of this paragraph would have to stand since there is no way to answer that question with the way things currently are.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
A: A lockbox Giver/Master Key Giver on tribble.
B: A Lobi Crystal Giver on tribble who gives Stacks of 100 with a 5 minute cool down.
C: All of the above.
Oh well, I guess Transfering a Character to tribble with a Master key on DS9 and buying Tholian Boxes, then storing them in the account bank and deleting/retransfering the character is another short cut to testing it. But would have been nice if there had been an eaiser way to test the new Tholian lock boxes. But thank you for allowing us to do so.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Every time something hits tribble or just goes straight to live blowing past tribble, you almost always have to release a patch 24-48 hours later to fix things you missed in the last patch.
If your going to use Tribble as a Preview Server, and not only ignore Bug reports, and rush the updates live, then just call Tribble a Preview server. Sure most of the bugs might not be Game Breaking and such, but then again in some areas, like again PVP, it might just be that way. Yet because of this policy no one I know that PVPs even bothers to transfer a character over to tribble to test anything because it's known "Why transfer to tribble and test it when it'll be Live tommorrow?"
This sort of policy hurts the community because when you release something like this to the live stream and then it breaks the live stream it makes you seem like you are unprofessional. Your game has been in live production for 2 years. And has surived a great deal so far. Don't keep shooting yourself in the foot with poor community handling by delaying promises till they feel like they will never get met. And one of the biggest promises that has been delayed for 2 years now has been "Don't worry, we're going to make PVP Great in Season X"
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
join date: Jan. 2012
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
You do realize that the test server is a totally different enviroment than the live server. Tribble is a controlled enviroment. Introducing new code to the live server can have different effects than they would have on tribble. Tweaking the code to work properly on live can't be done until it is actually on the Holodeck. It is just the way coding the game works. It is annoying, but every single MMO has this problem from EQ to World of ********. Sometimes new content rolls out without a hitch, sometimes they have to do multiple server resets or maintenance to get it to function correctly. This is not a new issue. If you can write code for an MMO that never ever has a bug or causes an ingame issue I'd worship you as a god. But, seeing as that will never happen I'll keep my prayers on hold for the time being.
(haha, the censored the full name of WoW)
why dont they test the code in an environment that is identical to the one there going to use it in? that like testing tires underwater and then being surprised they dnt work on the road so well............
join date: Jan. 2012
Seriously though, look to Dark Age of Camelot and even Planetside for inspriration. RvR would push STO over the top for me.
Edit: Interestingly enough, the initialism for "Dark of Age Camelot" is censored on this forum.
lol
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
WTF? You still see a future? All I see is game shatting (camera) bugs being ignored in favor of emergency lockbox description fixes... How can their be any possible future with this prioritization?
How can one PVP when one can not see?
Do these people even realise that a person that can not play, will not buy???
I observed the progress STO went in the last months. STO isn't a game that makes fun to play anymore. Players are forced to grind especially when they are doing PvP. You didn't fix major bugs in gameplay but if there is a chance to create Dilithium via Foundry like it was it'll fixed in 2 day and the Dil exchange get shut down in meantime. In my eyes you guys are just dishonest with the community. YOu had the test weekend for episode 6 and in the same week it went life. Why didnt you guys fixed the reported bugs? What lead me to the next question when you even didnt fix the bugs why you need a Tribble Server? Testing is irrelevant when you bring all those bugs life e.G. not working Hazard (clearing plasma burn only works by oneself not when one gives it away to another player)
Your gameconcept is reduced to "How can we get more money from players?" Thats it all.
Your Lockboxbullsh.. is so useless and even those Ships.
I can remember an answer from a Dev whe he was asked why the LB Ships doesnt find the way into the C-Store (now Z-Store). The answer was so dishonest. "We doesnt want to see only the LB Ships in game." WTF you guys just didnt bring the ships in the Store because you want ppl to buy the LBkeys and spent all of their money for a chance to get a ship and not just 20 $. The Lobis and the other TRIBBLE in the boxes are not worth 125 Z-points.
I kow that this post will not be long life and I also know that I'll get a forum ban for this but it must have been said.
You failed
I can only imagine the nightmare of coordinating everything that needed to happen at the same time.
That integration had to involve the new code base for Season 6. If Cryptic had needed to keep it separate, it probably would have taken months extra and we would have seen a "featureless" release first.
It had to happen on a certain schedule, and it did. The ONLY thing that could or should have stopped it would have been something that made the entire game utterly unplayable. Or worse, made multiple games unplayable. The only thing that might have been in question was whether or not certain features shipped out on time or not.
We've seen these code merges before. From the Dev perspective, they're an ugly necessity. From my point of view, this went a heck of a lot smoother than the last one.
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