test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Do I have this right?
kirksplat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I just want to make sure that I understand this:
STO at launch: A 50 to 80 hour journey to VA, in which players had to play lots of content, even though some of it was lackluster, like patrols. Getting to VA took some work, but we got to experience most of the official content, even if there wasn't much to do at endgame. Players complained about the speed of getting to max level and the lack of endgame content. The game was "too short" and lacked "content." But, there was a reason to care about mid-level purples and even crafting.
STO now: A 10 to 15 hour journey to VA, in which players don't have to play much content at all, beyond a few missions here and there while messing with doffs. Most of the lackluster content, like patrols, is completely optional. Getting to VA takes very little work, and we're likely to hit it prior to playing the Romulan episodes. There is a lot to do at VA, since we hit it before playing captain-level missions. We can just continue on, playing the lower level content after reaching max level. And, there are our starbases. Hitting VA is kind of an arbitrary moment, when we say, "OK, well, I won't get further promoted, but I still have lots of stuff in my mission log." There is no reason to care about mid-level purples or crafting.
Do I have this right?
STO at launch: A 50 to 80 hour journey to VA, in which players had to play lots of content, even though some of it was lackluster, like patrols. Getting to VA took some work, but we got to experience most of the official content, even if there wasn't much to do at endgame. Players complained about the speed of getting to max level and the lack of endgame content. The game was "too short" and lacked "content." But, there was a reason to care about mid-level purples and even crafting.
STO now: A 10 to 15 hour journey to VA, in which players don't have to play much content at all, beyond a few missions here and there while messing with doffs. Most of the lackluster content, like patrols, is completely optional. Getting to VA takes very little work, and we're likely to hit it prior to playing the Romulan episodes. There is a lot to do at VA, since we hit it before playing captain-level missions. We can just continue on, playing the lower level content after reaching max level. And, there are our starbases. Hitting VA is kind of an arbitrary moment, when we say, "OK, well, I won't get further promoted, but I still have lots of stuff in my mission log." There is no reason to care about mid-level purples or crafting.
Do I have this right?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by kirksplat on
0
Comments
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Crafting is pointless pre-50 due to leveling speed, and somewhat obsolete due to stf gear at 50.
What is the incentive for playing what is left over? Is it any different from playing Foundry content? Once the xp is added for Foundry content, will it just make things worse, or will it make it better, since the 15 hour journey to VA can be an entirely different experience each time?
And i had another thought about crafting. There needs to be more set bonus stuff. Like a bunch. And not just shield enging deflector.
Multiple consoles, or geound armor stuff. And they need to buff all sorts of things. But more set bonuses and i betcha we would see more gear out there than borg gear.
I first started a Tac toon back around launch, and it took me a few months to level him up to 50. In the process I did the Diplo missions (old format by grinding out the exploration clusters). So when he got to 50 there wasn't much to do except the B'Tran cluster dailies.
I came back to the game about three months ago and decided to make a new character, a Sci toon, she made it to 50 before even finishing the Romulan missions.
I also made an Eng toon, and he is more than halfway to RA-Lower, and I didn't even finish the Klingon story yet.
So, your understanding is pretty spot on. If I though leveling was fast before, leveling now is, for lack of better analogy, at warp speed...
I should add that many gamers will always see Foundry missions is unofficial and so will refuse to do them. To those people it doesn't matter how good or bad any particular mission is. If it is not done by Cryptic it is just not part of the story and will be avoided.
Accolades are the primary reason for completing most official story missions imo.
You're quite right about the low and mid level items though, they have very little value.
Also now that you can get significantly better items from your fleet starbase, which requires resources such as dilithium, the crafting option is totally illogical. The only reason I can think of for a player to craft, is just so they can say "Done that, next!" which would apply to those who like to accomplish all that is available in game.
Entertainment?
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
The devs did this to make it look like endgame has stuff to do other than grind stfs until your eyes bleed...
You may be assuming a degree of foresight that wasn't there, to be honest. It really is kind of a radical change in player experience. I doubt that anyone in the dev team was like, "Hey let's make reaching max level equal the play time of grinding that miranda. Isn't that a good idea?"
"Let's make crafting irrelevant!" "Good idea, Joe."
It probably just happened, and when the numbers came in, everyone was like "wtf?"
You left out the RedBull, to make it even shorter.
R.I.P
The Foundry difference is I get a storyline to follow in foundry, even if it doesn't have the pretty toys to win for participating. or follow the STO path to 2409.
I think that once XP is given to the foundry the journey to cap will still be short and like you say, it'll be different each time. Unfortunately it will do nothing to further the STO/Cryptic storyline they have let fliunder in incompleteness and the many questiosn players have on "Why?" will still persist.
R.I.P
R.I.P
It averages better than the average Foundry content, and none of it is as mind-searingly awful as the worst Foundry content. The rewards are better, which means you can make more EC in the Exchange, until you hit the cap. There's a few cosmetically-interesting unique rewards, but those are mostly in the Featured Episodes.
That and the unique level-scaled gear that you get as prizes in certain missions.
Ambassador of The Order Of Gallifrey // Representative of the 1701 Renegades
"Be the person your dog thinks you are."
No, no, no. Some of the Cryptic stuff goes way beyond mind searingly bad. I still get the chills every time I think about escorting the SS Rover again. You know the mission. The one you can complete the objectives for in less than five minutes, get up, make a sandwich, have time to digest it, come back, and if you're really lucky the Rover has caught up to you so you can actually get credit for the mission.
C'mon man, gamers don't play for entertainment. They play for sweet sweet lootz. Whatever gets them those lootz fastest with the least difficulty wins. Why do you think there's such a call for rewards to be added to Foundry missions. Its because there's a large portion of gamers who no longer care about the experience of gaming.
No... SOME of us want to add rewards to the Foundry so that we can have more incentives to play some of the awesome stories on there. I really don't care for the console clickers and think it is an insult to STO, gaming, and the Foundry.
The poster formerly known as LordOfPit, and his blog.
* Dec 2007 (CO)
* Oct 2008 (STO)
I expect they're going to do something about that.
Personally, though, I spread out my time among several alts and that helps to slow me down a bit.
I have three level 50 characters, and I'm mainly doffing with them. I'm gradually refitting each of their builds for social play.
My Caitian Tac officer just hit RA and I'm consciously trying to use him for doffing less than I do other characters.
My Ferengi Sci officer is still sitting at Captain and is mostly leveling exclusively through doffing.
I've got an Engineering officer still sitting at Lt. Commander because I'm intentionally not leveling him. And when he hits Commander, I'll probably strip all his resources and restart him.
I've got a KDF Tac officer I'm using as a packrat until I make up my mind whether or not to reroll him. He's not really leveling either.
I'm still debating about whether to start a new KDF character. I've been wanting to roll a Gorn, but I'd like to figure out where the 1-20 progression falls on Cryptic's schedule first.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Tnhe only reason to replay a Dev Storyline episode at this point is if it awards some special gear or item you want at MkXI level; meaning the most content that is replayed are the various FE episodes that have been integrated into the storyline progression.
What I will NEVER understand is: All throught the F2P conversion testing one of the Devs stated puposes was to slow down the levbeling speed of players (there's the famous Stormshade quote of: "Players can get to Level 50 in a weekend with a 6 pack of Red Bull..."); YET - withj the addition of the Doff system, Leveling became even faster. Many pof us mentioned this fact to the Dev team (and heretic did severly adjust Doff system EXP rewards for 'Critical Success' as in F2P beta, I made two levels crit successing on just 3 assignments.)
I also have to wonder just how many members of teh STO Dev team hop in and play like an actual player (which I honestly think should be a job requirement from time to time); because to me, it's obviouis DStahl actually does not, as he made a commentn that he was 'surprised' how fast it appeared players could level characters (again, something that we as players have been commenting on since the F2P changes.)
I was also dissapoint with how the 'storyline' was implement for F2P as, as the game gets oldwer, I always felt it would be nice to have 'branches you could pick (IE places when the story diverges into one or more sub paths, eventuially rejoining the 'main' line again at some point, and branching again later); as this would allow you to have multiple alts, yet have a slightly different leveling experience for each one, while still making sure the character experienced the same storyline overall.
I find it a bit sad in that I am leveling an ALT specifically to be used in amax PvP premade team; and I thought I'd try playthiough the main story; and I'm finding they have fixed and improved a lot of the progonal mission content (there's still the 'stinkers' here and there), but mechanics wise they have new graphic and ship assests, and the 'bad guys' are motre varied, etc.
In the end, I also find it interesting that (IMO) STO pushes player AWAY from doing the main storyline content - and instead pushes us all to do the more 'grindy' and easily repeatable content (and the Doff system) BACAUSE thb overall rewards ARE SO MUCH BETTER than the rewards given by the main story content.
Sorry, but who wants to spoend 30 minutes for some EXP and a green Mk VI item when via the Doff system and stuff like the Mirror Event; you can level faster, or canned Exploration, and earn enough dilithium to just buy what you want from the Dilithium store? I will NEVER understand WHY main storyline missions rewards reward ZERO Dilithium (and that's been a question and pet peeve of mine since the F2P conversion was started.)
But in the end, essentially, yes Kirkfat, you have it right.:D
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The level up process makes sense, because you need to learn your powers, and it makes sense to give them to you one at a time and give you a few missions to get used to them. I don't think they intended the level journy to be quite as fast as it is, but I was never particularly driven by leveling, personally. I know that others are.
Perhaps they are attempting to get rid of endgame complaints by making Level 50 the "Natural state" of players. And building content to that natural state, rather than having to scale it up a level chain. And looking at all the activities in the game as a buffet, rather than a sequence. So you can do any of the things in the game that YOU like. So you will keep coming back and spending money.
That puts Story missions as one of the possible meals on the buffet, rather than the hoops you have to jump through to enjoy the other parts of the game, assuming you like PVP, or coordinated high end raiding or whatever... you can more quickly get to the variety... and if you like doing missions, they are one of the things a level 50 can do.
Part of my theory is that this approach was a change in mid stream, probably as part of F2P. So they are still working on the Buffet model as a retrofit.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
While that is true, there is absolutely no reason the 2 should be mutually exclusive. You should be able to play a lengthy mission whose story you enjoy AND get rewarded based on the amount of time you just spent in a comparable way to spending it in other ways. NW's foundry is already going to scale mission rewards based on average mission time, and STO's should too.
But just how many Vice Admirals can there be in Starfleet? Can you imagine watching TNG, "This is Vice Admiral Picard" - LOL!
Last time I checked, the usual rank of ship's Captain was either Commander or Captain. Admirals are supposed to sit behind desks :mad:
Here's my radical solution - Although I fear too radical to be implemented:
You get your first ship at Ens. not Lt.
Add the rank Lt. Jr. grade
Level 50 should be CAPTAIN
Then perhaps have a level 51, which is very, very difficult to get and takes many, many months of hard work, where you can then become an Rear Admiral . . . 52, Rear Admiral Upper - and then, perhaps, after year of solid play get Vice Admiral.
Then, most ships flying around will have a captain with the rank of captain and only players who've really earned the title of admiral should be awarded it.
I doubt my idea would go down very well.... would certainly be more in line with Star Trek cannon though?
Seriously though - Starfleet with more admirals than captains?!
Just because faster leveling creates a problem doesn't mean it doesn't SOLVE a problem or that the problems it creates can't be fixed by better incentivizing mission play and replay at endgame.
The problem before is that most people quit about 15 hours in but players who reached endgame tended to have exponentially better retention AND generate more revenue, even with a dearth of content.
Besides which, I'd imagine that they needed to focus on endgame retention for the people who had been there a long time and couldn't ALSO focus on leveling content, which means they needed the playerbase to all be where they were going to focus. The alternatives would be de-leveling everyone forcibly (unrealistic) or getting everyone to endgame.
The game was initially marketed as level-less and I think probably should have been, with non-level based progression.
In any case, 40 hours is too long for a modern MMO. The trend has been towards 15-25 hours. What's needed is more engaging endgame and alternatives to leveling.
I think rep and DOffs are two approaches. DOffs will be niche, unfortunately, as long as they are not graphically represented.
In a sense, for the whole plan to become apparent, they would have needed to suspend F2P for an additional 12+ months.
Instead, what they did was drop a plan that had problems (which I'm sure they were aware of) but which had more financial benefits than drawbacks (endgame player with nothing to do is still dramatically more retainable and profitable than a level 15 player with plenty to do). And they did that, aware that it created some issues but calculating that the issues were worth it, with a longterm plan to address the new issues through fleet progression, rep, Foundry incentivizing (which has gotten delayed with Neverwinter), and mission replay improvements (see: rep).
If you can break one thing and make three things better that matter more, you deliberately break that one thing and start drafting fixes for it.
It never made sense with leveling.
I've said before, they should have tied YEAR to level and had 50 or so missions progress over 10+ years with lore updates.
In turn, rank should have been a parallel advancement track... and I still think if they're smart that they will use the work on the rep system to rip rank from level and make rank a reflection of home faction rep, divorced from level.
Well there is still the option to craft items such as AEGIS bits or MK X Kits .
Some would still prefer to do that (either for themselves or for their Fleet) instead of going to the exchange for those items .
Also , those who do craft and sell those items get some EC in return .
Well , there is the incentive of playing the FE's at least , as at times Cryptic re-runs the "special awards" for those , and it's much easier to get those when all you have to replay is one specific mission to get the award instead of doing all the FE's in 7-10 days on several toons at once (which can get to be a pretty boring race) .
Pimp Cane !!!
you have one thing wrong,
i did NOT care about crafting or getting any decent gear for the lower levels before they super charged the XP progression either.
so... what you see is right, but it was also true before that.
most players just grabbed the items that dropped from the missions until they've hit RA5 or later VA1 (now lvl 50)
Crafting in STO is obsolete by now, the Aegis Set was alyway considered less powerful than the Borg Set, even back when they came out and by now it is far easier to get the 15 EDC and playing through that one mission for the console to get the full Borg Set than it is to grind through the Crafting system only to get the Tron... aaah... Aegis Set.
And by now everything else moved on to Mk XII and Crafting is still stuck at Mk XI
Not to mention the whole Dilithium Tax Situation since F2P...