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New Romulus ground seems like all ensign work
obsidiusrex
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Short version: I finally played some of the New Romulus ground missions and found them wanting.
Long version:
I don't like to test on Tribble. I used to do beta test events on the last few MMOs I've played, and found myself burnt out on content before it even went live for my normal characters. I might log in long enough to get the testing pet during test weekends, but I didn't even do that for S7 (too much RL stuff to do).
So I finally started toying around with S7 content this weekend. For starters, I loved the new Vault event, and found it worthy of a Vice Admiral character: defending a strategic location from Tholians, hunting down Weavers hips, etc. Excellent design, and a lot of fun to do.
But then I started doing ground missions on New Romulus, and I'm not sure what happened with the design. It's like more focus was spent on the aesthetics of New Romulus, and less was spent on the actual content design. At least at an introductory level.
From my standpoint, my character is a Vice Admiral, a veteran of several different theaters of action, who's fought Romulans and is now trying to help those Romulans who want peace to get on their feet. So of course, send a veteran Star Fleet officer familiar with the situation with the Romulan separatists and the Remans out to New Romulus to help out.
And then have him tag wildlife, collect water samples, and go out on security patrols.
Wait, why is a Vice Admiral doing all of this ensign work?
Of course, these activities seem to be important to New Romulus, but why is a Vice Admiral doing them? My character should be coordinating with my Romulan and Reman counterparts to send out teams of officers and enlisted staff to do these things.
Perhaps, if my character were a Science Officer, tagging wildlife might not seem so mundane. However, even for the tactical slant, wherein I'm helping the Romulans combat the random, wandering-without-much-purpose Tal'Shiar and wildlife, I should honestly be allocating other security officers to those duties (perhaps using an as-yet-undeveloped mechanism that would make such tasks interesting and worthy of gameplay), instead of running out into the wilderness with just one other officer to support me.
It just seems wonky, like no one in Star Fleet knows how to delegate authority. Certainly, the Duty Officer missions exclusive to New Romuluis allude to delegating authority to lower-ranked officers, but in a very "administrative form", bland sort of way.
If there's something I'm missing that explains why I must do everything myself (or why I have to wait until I can bring down more of my BOffs, and only for certain missions), then it's not written very well, in a believable or plausible manner. Thanks to server stability issues, I think I saw the intro cutscene at least four times (and I can replay it at anytime thanks to that console), but nothing therein, or in the following cut scene with the quartermaster) that explains why a high-ranking Federation or KDF officer must resort to collecting water samples or scanning for lifeforms, which is all something an ensign could (and should) probably do instead, while I do more important things, like coordinating security in the sector, monitoring incoming and outgoing refugees, coordinating engineering teams to building infrastructure, or a number of other things fitting of a flag officer.
In MMO terms, it's like I got to Level 50 and suddenly have to do Level 1 fetch quests again, to gather a bunch of resources that take up inventory space (buy more slots at the C-Store!) in order to marginally increase my faction reputation (after I purchase more items with ECs and run a 20-hour rep mission).
Certainly, it would be more forgivable if the content were open to lower level characters, like Lieutenants. But this is supposed to be high-level content, am I right? I didn't think low-level characters got access to the Reputation system <checks KDF character, confirms this is true, shame on me for not playing my KDF more, I know>. So I have to wait until level 50... do do fetch quests? This seems really counter-intuitive to MMO design. I didn't work a character to lvl 50 to scan a bunch of cave openings.
Will it get better? I don't know. Right now, I'm just not very interested in continuing the "busy work" to see if there's any payoff ahead, and missions befitting of a Vice Admiral. I think I'l just stick to my starship and do things that seem like they're more important and more fitting to an officer of my character's caliber, at least until I can unlock another Reputation rank to see if there's more interesting stuff that doesn't all seem like a bunch of ensign busy work.
Long version:
I don't like to test on Tribble. I used to do beta test events on the last few MMOs I've played, and found myself burnt out on content before it even went live for my normal characters. I might log in long enough to get the testing pet during test weekends, but I didn't even do that for S7 (too much RL stuff to do).
So I finally started toying around with S7 content this weekend. For starters, I loved the new Vault event, and found it worthy of a Vice Admiral character: defending a strategic location from Tholians, hunting down Weavers hips, etc. Excellent design, and a lot of fun to do.
But then I started doing ground missions on New Romulus, and I'm not sure what happened with the design. It's like more focus was spent on the aesthetics of New Romulus, and less was spent on the actual content design. At least at an introductory level.
From my standpoint, my character is a Vice Admiral, a veteran of several different theaters of action, who's fought Romulans and is now trying to help those Romulans who want peace to get on their feet. So of course, send a veteran Star Fleet officer familiar with the situation with the Romulan separatists and the Remans out to New Romulus to help out.
And then have him tag wildlife, collect water samples, and go out on security patrols.
Wait, why is a Vice Admiral doing all of this ensign work?
Of course, these activities seem to be important to New Romulus, but why is a Vice Admiral doing them? My character should be coordinating with my Romulan and Reman counterparts to send out teams of officers and enlisted staff to do these things.
Perhaps, if my character were a Science Officer, tagging wildlife might not seem so mundane. However, even for the tactical slant, wherein I'm helping the Romulans combat the random, wandering-without-much-purpose Tal'Shiar and wildlife, I should honestly be allocating other security officers to those duties (perhaps using an as-yet-undeveloped mechanism that would make such tasks interesting and worthy of gameplay), instead of running out into the wilderness with just one other officer to support me.
It just seems wonky, like no one in Star Fleet knows how to delegate authority. Certainly, the Duty Officer missions exclusive to New Romuluis allude to delegating authority to lower-ranked officers, but in a very "administrative form", bland sort of way.
If there's something I'm missing that explains why I must do everything myself (or why I have to wait until I can bring down more of my BOffs, and only for certain missions), then it's not written very well, in a believable or plausible manner. Thanks to server stability issues, I think I saw the intro cutscene at least four times (and I can replay it at anytime thanks to that console), but nothing therein, or in the following cut scene with the quartermaster) that explains why a high-ranking Federation or KDF officer must resort to collecting water samples or scanning for lifeforms, which is all something an ensign could (and should) probably do instead, while I do more important things, like coordinating security in the sector, monitoring incoming and outgoing refugees, coordinating engineering teams to building infrastructure, or a number of other things fitting of a flag officer.
In MMO terms, it's like I got to Level 50 and suddenly have to do Level 1 fetch quests again, to gather a bunch of resources that take up inventory space (buy more slots at the C-Store!) in order to marginally increase my faction reputation (after I purchase more items with ECs and run a 20-hour rep mission).
Certainly, it would be more forgivable if the content were open to lower level characters, like Lieutenants. But this is supposed to be high-level content, am I right? I didn't think low-level characters got access to the Reputation system <checks KDF character, confirms this is true, shame on me for not playing my KDF more, I know>. So I have to wait until level 50... do do fetch quests? This seems really counter-intuitive to MMO design. I didn't work a character to lvl 50 to scan a bunch of cave openings.
Will it get better? I don't know. Right now, I'm just not very interested in continuing the "busy work" to see if there's any payoff ahead, and missions befitting of a Vice Admiral. I think I'l just stick to my starship and do things that seem like they're more important and more fitting to an officer of my character's caliber, at least until I can unlock another Reputation rank to see if there's more interesting stuff that doesn't all seem like a bunch of ensign busy work.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
Post edited by obsidiusrex on
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I beamed down for about 15 minutes, ran around, saw what was being asked of me, and decided I had more fun doing the space patrol missions only. Flying around blowing up enemies to keep people safe is something a Captain would be tasked with.
This kind of ties back into one of the longer-standing nitpicks of the game... namely, that the current Starfleet regulations seem to dictate that any ship's CO must do all the dirty work.
They really should have tailored the missions to each specialization. Science captains would realistically still like taking samples and doing field work; it's why they entered the Science division. Similarly, Engineering captains would have missions where they help repair equipment, like that one Romulan shuttle sitting out in the open in the staging area that's throwing off sparks. Tactical captains would best help by training Romulan and Reman citizens in self defense, and the use of weaponry, as well as taking a look at the colony defense systems or something.
I just don't feel like the current missions realistically take my captain's expertise and experience into account, which is what all missions should do.
At least the scenery is nice- I took a dive off that long bridge over the river- got an accolade for captain damage.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
But that's an old complaint. Unfortunately they designed New Romulus to work like most MMORPG's work despite it not fitting the fiction of our characters.
What does a flag officer do in real life? Man the paperwork! BOOORRIIINNGG!!!!!!! It's an MMO you have to give the player SOMETHING fun to do....
My character Tsin'xing
^ This.
Should have capped gameplay at Captain (with only Fleet Leaders being allowed Admiral status).
Still would be nice to chose our rank - and be addressed by such in-game - however. :P
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
If I had the game to design over again, I'd probably go one further. I'd cap gameplay at Commander. I'd focus on memorable Captain NPCs we serve under.
I think Captain and above are fundamentally anti-social design choices and part of the reason we have this awkward system of our social points of connection being fleets and starbases rather than crews and ships.
You can't be in a player crew if everyone is a ship commander... And that takes away the heart of star trek, which is life aboard a ship.
That doesn't have to mean everyone can't pilot ships but I think it would work better if you took everything down a level.
Player crews, not fleets. Crew ships, not fleet starbases. Put the focus on player owned fighters and shuttles rather than ships. It would drive the narrative engine of gameplay better and speed content production while de-emphasizing the Ship Collector Online systems driven approach.
and this why i would not touch your game sorry if that hurts you but one of the reason i did come to this game was to be a admiral
system Lord Baal is dead
This is one possible solution, but not the best IMPO. I think this zone might have made more sense for ensigns, but I think that experience should equal rank progression, just like in today' military. However, putting the top ranks as admiral ranks does not make a lot of sense with "high end content" as displayed with S7.
Speaking of which:
There could have been plenty of a flag officer to do, with better writing. For example, you beam down to New Romulus and greeted by D'Tan. A Romulan officer escorts you around the place; you get introduced to the local flora and fauna, and get assesed of the situation. You get ambushed by Tal'Shiar, and help your Romulan escorts defeat them, possibly taking some into custody for questioning. Temporary NPC pets and better writing, just as one example, could have gone a long way towards making missions seem like more than busy work, no paperwork missions required.
That's another great example of how better writing and mission building could have made this content better. Heck, at least with Dilithium mining, I could write that off as a flag officer's leisure activity (like Kirk climbing mountains in his off time), except with a payoff. With New Romulus, my flag officer is obligated under Starfleet orders to collect water samples.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
You wanted a game about filing paperwork?
the red alerts spice it up and the instance missions are quite good but there does need to be more diplomacy, more puzzles, more random boss spawns that need a group, more fetch quests. more story.everything.
In many ways if they are going to make big ground zones that contain a lot of story/missions then they need to make them a little more like traditional MMO's like WoW/LotR etc. A bunch of NPC's that all give a variety of quests. whether its exploring, searching for something, hunting down an enemy, or a lost officer. They cant all be click x until you hit 100%. They are fine but you need more than that.
keep adding different things to do and different layers to the story. dstahl did say they are adding more missions there so im not too worried yet.
I think he was saying he wouldn't play a Star Trek game that wouldn't let you command your own ship. I have to agree -- playing a Star Trek MMO that limited you to a shuttle unless you were the leader of a large guild sounds really, really dumb.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
These are the Teddy Roosevelt missions of sto. Grow a mustache and say something offensive about the "primitive" natives.
Does it make sense? No, but neither does 99% of what an Admiral does in Star Trek Online compared to what an Admiral does in Star Trek.
What I didn't have in mind, as a combat admiral, is picking glowing plants so I could turn 10 of them in for some "reputation".
Edit: If I didn't have a full RL schedule, I'd take a crack at writing in the Foundry. After the brainstorming in this post, I honestly think I could come up with some better stuff for flag officers than S7.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
you or i dont know what every admiral is starfleet was doing where they where at yall only get this admirals do paperwork from TOS funny admiral ross had a ship funny admiral riker had a ship how the admiral in star trek first contact think they had one to how about wolf 359 think one had there own ship and them are just one off top of my head i recall alot going a meting picard
yall want to play this we should only be captains ok lets play captains dont get to go on away mission also you dont get be a officer unless you pass the command test how about you dont get you own ship unless you show you are worthy to command one ok lets not forget you have to go to the academy before you can do any of that not to say how many years of being a cadet? ok now dose all that sound fun?
also should we all not be put in to the Brig for all the killing we do?
system Lord Baal is dead
Quotes of the day
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Ahhhhh, the old my VC/LG character should not be doing such menial work argument.
I don't care how long you've been playing. I only care about how you play.
And remember to follow the rules.
I've created a different costume for my VA with only Ensign Rank Pins, which looks a.) like a different character (okay, it's still the same species) and b.) gives me the feeling (imagination is the keyword) that I am playing a different toon in this moment. I would like to call this "Head Roleplay" ^^.
Sure every NPC still calls me Vice Admiral but I don't care. I read everything the way I want "to read" it. It's "my" game... it's my phantasy!
This makes me even enjoy the exploration cluster missions because I can use my "playable" science officer for the scanning and my "playable" tactical officer for the shootings.
To me it works pretty well.
this^^^^^^^^^^^
system Lord Baal is dead
I'd have the tank fly the ship, not tied to command structure but rather who the helm is.
As an admiral, I order you to go to the replicator and get my coffee.
Now remember, at this time the Federation and the Klingon Empire are at war. New Romulus as an ally would greatly alter the current balance of power between these two. In addition, the relationship with the Romulans is currently tenuous, at best. It is imperative that order prevail.
Now these seemingly insignificant duties may seem like they are more suited to an Ensign. Taking water samples is important, no doubt, but should not require the skills of a Vice-Admiral. Likewise, any fool should be able to kill some wild animals or tag a few plants.
However, you must look at the situation as a whole. What if the Ensign were to accidentally foul up the water sample test? What if the Romulans used his advice and built a hydration system based on his incorrect test? This would not only injure the Romulans but would taint their perception of the Federation/Empire. This would shift the balance to your opponents and provide them with the upper hand. Likewise, if the wrong plant was tagged, the medicinal/nutritional benefits needed would be lost, and in the worst-case scenario, thousands would die because of poison. Do you really want to place such a massive burden on the shoulders of Ensigns? No! You want someone you can trust with such weighty matters, someone who has proven their talent and knowlege.
One must also consider the Undine infiltrations. What if that Ensign is secretly an Undine infiltrator? The effects could be horrific. It would certainly advance their cause to throw the current powers in the galaxy into turmoil- they would be able to use such a catastrophe to strike at the Federation/Empire's weakest time. Far better to assign a Vice-Admiral who has spent years fighting the Undine and proven beyond a doubt to be true, than to risk assigning an Undine infiltrator to a job with such massive consequences.
tl;dr
There's not really a reason for why VAs have to do stuff like that.
Haelyn - level 50 Federation Tactical Officer.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I stream near-daily at http://www.twitch.tv/grapplerbot#
That's fine, every 10 coffees, you'll earn reputation. And you may increase your rank in coffee making (the 3% critical for arabica based coffee is really good, but unlocking the cappuccino rank is a must have IMO).
Back to the topic, I found New Romulus disapointing. I was really eager to see about it, mostly because on my 3 characters, 2 of them are Romulan (alien). But in the end, you just grind fetch/kill quests. I really feel like playing GW2 with phasers. There is nothing "epic" to have an admiral collecting flower to befriend someone.... And seriously, you earn the friendship of Romulan by collecting plants and water ? I wish Starfleet knew that before.
That's really sad, because the cinematics and small missions we have each rank are well done, and fun. I'm eager to know more. Unfortunately, those are the only "story based" content of the whole S7.... And there is only 5 ranks, so that's only 5 cinematics/missions I suppose.
I though we would have to do class related mission. The tac officer training Romulan soldier, and/or fighting something (Tal Shiar, animals, whatever), while the sci would do some archeology, and investigation, and the engi would help building stuff. With a lot of minigames for that. Add some diplomacy mission, and it would have been far more interesting than collecting water.
There are actually people who enjoy not shooting 99% of the time. I find it a little distracting place when I am fed with all the repetitive grind for Omega Marks and Fleet Marks. Sure Romulan Marks are grind too, but I don't really try to force myself to do these.
I find it nice there. I feel like helping the Romulan there and btw. as you tier up reputation instances will open up - where you basically return to "shoot stuff-mode". I just wished there was a more dynamic environment placed on Mol Rihan like weather conditions and Day-Night-Cyle etc.