If storyline is all that important, then explain to me why TOR end up the way it is now? TOR's storyline arc is probably second to none in MMO space but yet its in dire straits now? Thats because the endgamers got really bored with the lack of progression after hitting max level.
Finishing up a KDF content for a few people sucks up valuable resources which should be channeled towards making more meaningful endgame content and giving KDF more ships, costumes, etc. It shouldn't be spent on making a lowbie content.
And no, i will not argue with you if you'd come here and tell the devs to stop making repetitive endgame grind, they infact should stop making repetitive endgame grind. They should make creative endgame content. So, by all means start a thread about it and i will be the first to support you.
Focus on a lot more things like newer content, KDF science ships, Vesta equivalent for KDF, Steamrunner equivalent for KDF, more uniform variants, more KDF playable races, and generally for FED/KDF do something worthwhile for PVP, make crafting viable again, fix some of the persistent bugs reported consistently by the players (battle cloak bug, for example).
TOR is in dire straits because they spent so much on VO that even with a fairly large playerbase at the outset, they couldn't recoup what they spent.
However, as I noted in a couple of posts, I would be perfectly happy myself with a large amount of episode content at max level. I don't need to level, but I do want to play good, solid mission content that has some storyline meat to it.
But I am also aware that a large percentage of players actually enjoy leveling. A large percentage of players do not, they just want to go straight to endgame.
Part of the problem is that players want to progress, but what constitutes "alternate progression" in endgame content often comes down to repetitive grind. It's like MMO companies lose their creativity when they hit max level.
In the fantasy MMO I play, reputation can be gained by grinding, but it is also gained by questing. In other words, there are a variety of ways to level rep, traits, and so forth that fit multiple playstyles.
Why can't it be both? I agree I'd like more endgame KDF-specific storylines - maybe something along the lines of shifting political alignments by the great houses (perhaps tied to Romulans and along the lines of "The House Always Wins").
I'd also like to see some Marauding missions like "Break indigenous population's will" that's a combination of combat, manipulation (like Kor's mission in "Errand of Mercy") and crushing insurgencies. Could be end game, could be lower level...
That said, streamlining a 1-20 level so that new players don't always have to start out a Fed would be a nice option. Perhaps they can work their way backward over time or allow players to start at level 10 but have to do a lot of PVE vs Fed/Romulans/True Way, etc.
But I dunno, I'm not a writer. With the limited time I have to play, I'm still grinding away on both tiers. By the time I'm through with that (and grinding for XII gear), it will be Season 8 and I'm sure I'll still be busy.
That is because even starting at Lvl 20, there is not enough content to fulfill the needs to level a KDF. There needs to be more.
With 2 max and 2 near max, your statement that there isn't enough content to level them effectively isn't true. I started a brand new character when the dominion lockbox was announced. This was an alien KDF character. With casual play, he was brig general the day after the box came out. Doff, combat missions, IOR, episodes, etc... All add together to produce a quick leveling experience.
I agree that the mission content of being able to develop your character from 1 to 20 would be so much better.
In my fleet there is a sense of urgency where everyone rushes to get their character up to level fifty just so they can take part in the end game content which kinda ruins the experience a little.
KDF should be embraced but it is kinda catch 22 really, fewer players play this side because it hasn't been fleshed out and it won't get fleshed out till more start playing.
Cryptic should not waste time on creating 1-20 KDF content.
When was the last time you played Stranded In Space? How about when was the last time you played Doomsday Device when you WEREN'T trying to get a Hargh'Peng?
KDF will be finished when they've added enough missions to justify letting us start a KDF character from level one. And we need our own tutorial and opening cinematic as well.
"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
No, even leveling Fed lowbies is a drag. You've got a max rank alt and you're doing the shark circle in an underpowered Miranda without almost all the abilities you're used to? Nobody really enjoys that after the first 2 or 3 times doing it.
I do. You need to stop speaking for everyone else.
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
If storyline is all that important, then explain to me why TOR end up the way it is now?
They launched pay to play in an era where pay to play is basically dead as a business model.
Then switched to probably the most greedy, microtransaction intensive free to play system I have ever seen (paying to unlock single pieces of gear that you earn in game).
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Hmm so if KDF got 1-20 content BUT no improvement to their endgame content (no klink vesta, no klink steamrunner, no costumes, no new ships), the KDF will then be finished?
Good luck trying to convince players to stick to a KDF side which offers lousy endgame experience. They'll probably start moving to FED who has all the endgame goodies.
Personally I'm more of a Klingon fan than a Romulan fan, so I would love to see more Klingon centered content, not just slightly modified Federation content. I can understand though that time is always an issue, so perhaps once every few seasons just add a KDF mission we can all play that is specific to the empire.
I'd also like to see all the missions working correctly. I know some of them haven't been working since Season 3 or so especially a lot of the random ones when you explore the star clusters.
One suggestion I would have is to remove the faction specific PvP queues, and just let everyone queue up together. Federation & Klingon. It makes it fairly hard for KDF players to level in PvP when matches only pop every so often. Combining all the PvP queues would help the queue's pop much faster.
Also I don't think there is a FA daily on the KDF side, which hinders the amount of content available for play. Adding a daily for FA's on the KDF side would also help the level grind and give people something else to do and get rewarded for it.
Anyway that's just a few ideas I think that would help flesh out the KDF branch. Honestly just a little spit and polish could go a long way. The whole experience leveling a KDF character just seems very broken, and hard to do. The KDF should be focused on PvP so adding some missions centered around that may be some quick and dirty ways to address that.
Realistically they don't need to create 1-20 content for Klingons, it's already there as the Klingon and Fel'Kari content, all's they need to do is release episodes which take place after these and bump them down the levelling queue a little.
The point of level 1-20 content is not for existing players of either faction.
Currently, all new STO players start with Fed. They then invest time in a Fed character before unlocking KDF. I would wager that most players are disinclined to discard progress, which would reduce the amount of players willing to make a second character to join the KDF.
Cryptic should not waste time on creating 1-20 KDF content.
When was the last time you played Stranded In Space? How about when was the last time you played Doomsday Device when you WEREN'T trying to get a Hargh'Peng?
That's what I thought.
Not the same as saying they shouldn't do more Klingon STUFF, i.e. more Klingon lore missions, more Klingon cutscenes and VO, and more Klingon flavor in the endgame content (NPC dialog edits aren't enough). I am a huge fan of missions like the Fek'lhri arc. Nobody really wants to level lowbies anymore -- consider the number of you that were busily leveling Klingon alts last weekend when Q was here.
I agree COMPLETELY !
If they create 30 missions (example) I'd rather them be between lvl 25 and 50 where they're needed instead of between lvl 1 and 25 where they'll only be played once, or for gear to sell. I can only think of 2 or 3 ships that are needed as well, no need to waste resources creating ships that won't be used from non-existent canon.
KDF will be finished when both are accomplished and they become as viable from level 1 at the tutorial, to level 50 will all reps maxed out, in a fleet ship with the best endgame weapons. A KDF player should have roughly the same amount of content as a Fed player, with variations based on each faction's theme and atmosphere.
The problem with KDF right now is that there's absolutely no incentive to play them unless you absolutely want to play them. If you play STO, you have to play as Fed first, and by the time KDF is unlocked the average player isn't going to care because they've already gotten halfway to the level cap as Fed. The 15% or 16% or 18% or whatever number Stahl keeps throwing around as the KDF player base is a number created by STO's lack of support for KDF, not a true sign of how many people are interested in KDF to begin with. You take someone new to the game and have them play for the first time and they're immediately exposed to Fed with no other option. The idea of playing as KDF doesn't cross their mind until they've already invested their time and energy into their main character. Give KDF some viable 1-20 content and make them available at the very start, and that new player will be more likely to choose KDF because now it's in their mind right away. If KDF was a viable fully fledged faction on par with Fed right from launch, then that playerbase would probably be in the 30s, maybe even over 40%.
If you do decide to play as KDF, what is there to do? You get the same featured episodes, maybe two-thirds of a season's worth of KDF-exclusive episodes, and that's it. Once you hit the level cap, you have the same amount of mission content as Fed in terms of endgame STFs and fleet actions, but there's a lot less variety in what you can do due to the lack of ships compared to Fed. There's no unique options. KDF isn't even half a faction right now, and it needs to either get the same amount of content as Fed, or just cut it completely.
Alot of players are perpetuating the myth that when your fed reached lvl25 and unlocks the ability to create a KDF toon, the toon is starting from scratch. Thats simply NOT TRUE. Their new KDF toon is already at level 25 with unallocated skill points appropriate for that level and an empty bank. The rank progression speed to lvl 40 more than make up for the lack of assets in the newly created toon, as well funds and gear can be easily transferred from their Fed toon.
Realistically they don't need to create 1-20 content for Klingons, it's already there as the Klingon and Fel'Kari content, all's they need to do is release episodes which take place after these and bump them down the levelling queue a little.
"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
Cryptic should not waste time on creating 1-20 KDF content.
When was the last time you played Stranded In Space? How about when was the last time you played Doomsday Device when you WEREN'T trying to get a Hargh'Peng?
That's what I thought.
Not the same as saying they shouldn't do more Klingon STUFF, i.e. more Klingon lore missions, more Klingon cutscenes and VO, and more Klingon flavor in the endgame content (NPC dialog edits aren't enough). I am a huge fan of missions like the Fek'lhri arc. Nobody really wants to level lowbies anymore -- consider the number of you that were busily leveling Klingon alts last weekend when Q was here.
I agree, aside from getting some unique reward items, there's next to no reason to go back to old missions. And at this point, most of the KDF players asking for a 1-50 KDF content are probably level 50 anyway - so what's the point?
More work should be directed at new ships and costumes for the KDF, and furthermore into a 1-50 or 20-50 level Romulan faction.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
This is my opinion, and I'm not suggesting everybody else will share it, but here it is:
I believe the KDF will be finished when the war storyline is resolved at a certain point in the progression of a Federation character, and NEVER APPEARS in later missions, and the KDF "faction" is a minifaction of Federation play that unlocks after that level, where upon achieving that level you can play a Klingon afterwards in both Federation content and special Klingon-only missions that advance a Federation/Klingon alliance storyline.
The only place there should be any division between Klingon and Federation play otherwise is inside PvP zones, and even there the backstory should involve either 2409-era story, wargames, or renegade houses.
Perhaps early gameplay could unlock reputation with a faction, the Tier 5 mission reward for which is unlocking Klingon play.
This is a one-faction game. It's time to stop trying to shoehorn a second (or lord help us a third) faction into it. Give us Federation Klingons, Federation Romulans, and Federation Cardassians.
But not Borg, or Tholians, because the former are the undead (which doesn't mean they can't get better, there's canon precedent) and the latter are nasty bugs who should be exterminated.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
This is my opinion, and I'm not suggesting everybody else will share it, but here it is:
I believe the KDF will be finished when the war storyline is resolved at a certain point in the progression of a Federation character, and NEVER APPEARS in later missions, and the KDF "faction" is a minifaction of Federation play that unlocks after that level, where upon achieving that level you can play a Klingon afterwards in both Federation content and special Klingon-only missions that advance a Federation/Klingon alliance storyline.
The only place there should be any division between Klingon and Federation play otherwise is inside PvP zones, and even there the backstory should involve either 2409-era story, wargames, or renegade houses.
Perhaps early gameplay could unlock reputation with a faction, the Tier 5 mission reward for which is unlocking Klingon play.
This is a one-faction game. It's time to stop trying to shoehorn a second (or lord help us a third) faction into it. Give us Federation Klingons, Federation Romulans, and Federation Cardassians.
But not Borg, or Tholians, because the former are the undead (which doesn't mean they can't get better, there's canon precedent) and the latter are nasty bugs who should be exterminated.
While the KDF was allied @ times w/the Federation it's never been subserviant to the Federation. Presenting the KDF as a Fed mini faction makes it appear as such.
Further, I don't agree w/calling this a one faction game. It was never sold as such and there are distinct shops and Fleet rewards. There are Captain and Boff races that are reserved for each faction. There are distinct dailies to grind various resources. There are distinct Foundry missions for each faction. There are distinct storyline missions for each factions. There are distinct Doff missions both in terms of rewards and storyline. There are distinct Doff missions in the DS9 FE for each faction. The KDF being incomplete doesn't mean it's not seperate. It was never designed as such, and it's not "shoehorning" to finish it.
Again for casual players there's only time to grind out Rep system et al for 1 toon. In order to even have a chance to be balanced in terms of player base numbers there needs to be no gated entry into the KDF and it's early missions need to be of high enough quality and distinct enough playstyle to keep players engaged.
They could slowly add the Romulan Faction by having a "defection" option at the end of the rep system. This way it's only for max level toons and those toons don't need to be started from scratch in terms of grinding. It also keeps the Devs from having to put resources into starting a 3rd faction from scratch. They can start @ max level.
Edit: W/a retrait of Racial Specs, they could even have an option to retrait as Romulan if you defected.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Perhaps instead of merging the KDF into the Federation faction, we could merge them into a new "Alliance Against the Iconians" faction. Just give them the same missions and storyline from the point where the Iconians invade onward. That would be cool.
"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
"There are other forms of intelligence on Earth, Doctor. Only human arrogance would assume the message must be meant for man." (Spock) STIV: The Voyage Home
It's that same human arrogance that thinks that those of us that play this game because we can play opposite the Federation will accept assimilation of our toons into a single faction without a fight.
I agree, aside from getting some unique reward items, there's next to no reason to go back to old missions. And at this point, most of the KDF players asking for a 1-50 KDF content are probably level 50 anyway - so what's the point?
More work should be directed at new ships and costumes for the KDF, and furthermore into a 1-50 or 20-50 level Romulan faction.
You are making assumptions not based in reality. That may be true if you play a single character; however, in the past anyway, character slots were among the top selling items on the C-Store.
The fact that I have a level 50 Klingon has no bearing on this at all (I have two actually, plus three lower level).
If we get 1-50 content, I will delete all but one of my KDF characters and start them over again, because storyline content is my favorite content, period.
We keep hearing "endgame is where it's at". A number of major MMOs (including the 800 lb gorilla in the room) have stated publicly that endgame players are a very small portion of their overall playerbase (pvp is smaller than quest pve; raiders are sometimes an even smaller subset). Said statistics do not support he notion that endgame is the be-all or most important part of MMO gameplay. It's important for sure, but not the most important.
For me, if the journey isn't fun, there is no point in playing. Now, if the endgame becomes part of the journey (that is plenty of real mission content, not just hamster wheel grinds or gated by said grinds), that's another thing.
You are making assumptions not based in reality. That may be true if you play a single character; however, in the past anyway, character slots were among the top selling items on the C-Store.
The fact that I have a level 50 Klingon has no bearing on this at all (I have two actually, plus three lower level).
If we get 1-50 content, I will delete all but one of my KDF characters and start them over again, because storyline content is my favorite content, period.
We keep hearing "endgame is where it's at". A number of major MMOs (including the 800 lb gorilla in the room) have stated publicly that endgame players are a very small portion of their overall playerbase (pvp is smaller than quest pve; raiders are sometimes an even smaller subset). Said statistics do not support he notion that endgame is the be-all or most important part of MMO gameplay. It's important for sure, but not the most important.
For me, if the journey isn't fun, there is no point in playing. Now, if the endgame becomes part of the journey (that is plenty of real mission content, not just hamster wheel grinds or gated by said grinds), that's another thing.
I agree with this. I play STO because I love Star Trek and because I love getting hooked on stories. I could care less about obtaining the "best" gear if doing so isn't entertaining.
"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
For the question of the OP, I've seen it answered by several posters here (Qapla' to all of you! ) and it's basically to be on par with the Feds.
It feels like it's all about the 'blue side' everytime. That excuse that we're only 18% of the playerbase is getting old, we're part of the game too.
Having the option to start a KDF character by Lvl 1 AND have story missions to back it up that are not copy-pasted from the Feds would be great. How many FE's do the Feds have compared to the KDF?
Just basically a lack of everything, to ships, costumes, hair... C-Store things from one side to another? Ship releases? And the fact that most of the new things we are getting are in Lockboxes is an insult.
I don't want to repeat myself with other posters but I felt the need to post with so many people saying the faction is good as it is, really, it's not compared to what the other side has.
This is a one-faction game. It's time to stop trying to shoehorn a second (or lord help us a third) faction into it. Give us Federation Klingons, Federation Romulans, and Federation Cardassians.
Don't make me play a Fed if I don't want to. Besides... Let the KDF, RSE and others be unique, don't merge everything into the Federation.
The point everyone is missing is a simple MMO standard - if there are multiple factions, they should be equal in terms of quantity of content and unique in terms of quality of content (what the missions are about).
The start of level progression on ANY faction on ANY MMO is probably the ultimate decider on whether to play that faction/class at all or not, because it gives people early interest to get on with it. For example, I really like the Jedi Knight story in TOR the best, but when I tried the Jedi Consular, I hated the gameplay (because I had a different playstyle to that class) and the story (which was quite frankly terrible compared to the Knight IMO) because there just was no early interest, so I abandoned my Consular and deleted him, whereas I leveled my Night all the way up to max pretty much and enjoyed every second of it, wishing I would never complete the story.
This is the kind of feeling many people get in STO, whilst there is a huge difference between STO and TOR, the same basic princple of early interest sets the person on course for the rest of the game. A few people here have said it already, by the time a player unlocks the KDF, they have already invested a great deal of time into their Fed character - which essentially means there is a good chance they will simply overlook their KDF character (but a good possibility nonetheless to invest time in one because of the initial starting point - a warriors arena, which is unique and interesting). The rest of the game is exactly the same for KDF as it is for Fed, apart from the ships and 9 missions, which means that the player will be more inclined to be a Fed player because 1- they have invested a lot more time into developing their Fed than their KDF and 2- because KDF content was the same stuff the player had already tried on the Fed side, which means there is a good chance they will loose interest after that.
Now, if the KDF received levels 1-20 and had the same kind of progression as they do for 20-50, then, providing the early levels were interesting enough, it could easily hook players onto the KDF a lot more and invest more time into KDF than Fed - which is the opposite situation than I described above. There is nothing stopping players from creating a Fed first, but if people wanted to create a KDF from scratch, then I'd hope they would find it interesting enough for them to invest in the KDF character on a regular basis.
Some of you have described the endgame content as the end-all be-all stuff for everyone to play, making everything else pointless. Let me make this point - Fed and KDF endgame is EXACTLY THE SAME AS EACH OTHER IN EVERY WAY (except for ships and costumes pretty much) - STF's, Reputation, Adventure Zones, etc. If the situation I described in my third paragraph about a Fed player starting a KDF at lvl 20 became true, then what would be the point of playing a KDF? Take Player A, Player A would be more inclined to play Fed endgame than KDF endgame, because they are identical and the KDF offered nothing for that player to get hooked. This is situation everyone I feel keeps missing (apologies if you have already described this), with enough interesting missions and sufficient content and ships up-to-par with the Feds, the KDF would not only be most of the way being a full factions, but it would also drag a hell of a lot more players to it because they were interested enough in the content provided - Fed content on the other hand is a drag most of the time (with the exceptions of maybe a dozen missions out of like 60 or 70), whereas KDF missions can easily be unique and interesting for the KDF faction - which would provide a lot more interest.
Play my missions on Holodeck! Return of Ja'Dok Series (6 Part Series) Enemy of the Exile Series (4 Part Series) Task Force Ja'Dok Series (3 Part Series)
The point everyone is missing is a simple MMO standard - if there are multiple factions, they should be equal in terms of quantity of content and unique in terms of quality of content (what the missions are about).
The start of level progression on ANY faction on ANY MMO is probably the ultimate decider on whether to play that faction/class at all or not, because it gives people early interest to get on with it. For example, I really like the Jedi Knight story in TOR the best, but when I tried the Jedi Consular, I hated the gameplay (because I had a different playstyle to that class) and the story (which was quite frankly terrible compared to the Knight IMO) because there just was no early interest, so I abandoned my Consular and deleted him, whereas I leveled my Night all the way up to max pretty much and enjoyed every second of it, wishing I would never complete the story.
Your entire post is a bad assertion. Full Fed-KDF equality in PVE would have made sense in 2010 when the game launched. But the fact of the matter is it launched without it and we're now heading into the game's 4th year. We went F2P over a year ago now. Some new folks might come by but overall STO already has most of the players it's gonna get. And it's already lost a good chunk of the original ones. Focusing all those resources on newbie content now is throwing good money after bad.
I get that some of you love the stories and nobody's saying stories don't matter. I love them too. I can also understand why you feel threatened that we're asking for max rank content because to you, and incorrectly, lowbie content is story heavy and max rank content is mindless grind. To an extent you're right in the current shameful state of things.
However that is not what is being proposed. Just so we're clear and I'm not accused of speaking for others. A happy medium can be found...but then this is Cryptic "One Extreme or the Other" Studios we're talking about so maybe I shouldn't hold my breath that they'll do this right given the past... :rolleyes:
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
There's an easier answer: Forget 1-20. Ditch making people do an extended Fed Tutorial just to unlock KDF play. Just let them start, right away. The ability to skip 20 levels of lame garbage you end up throwing out is good enough.
Comments
TOR is in dire straits because they spent so much on VO that even with a fairly large playerbase at the outset, they couldn't recoup what they spent.
However, as I noted in a couple of posts, I would be perfectly happy myself with a large amount of episode content at max level. I don't need to level, but I do want to play good, solid mission content that has some storyline meat to it.
But I am also aware that a large percentage of players actually enjoy leveling. A large percentage of players do not, they just want to go straight to endgame.
Part of the problem is that players want to progress, but what constitutes "alternate progression" in endgame content often comes down to repetitive grind. It's like MMO companies lose their creativity when they hit max level.
In the fantasy MMO I play, reputation can be gained by grinding, but it is also gained by questing. In other words, there are a variety of ways to level rep, traits, and so forth that fit multiple playstyles.
That's what I would like to see in STO.
I'd also like to see some Marauding missions like "Break indigenous population's will" that's a combination of combat, manipulation (like Kor's mission in "Errand of Mercy") and crushing insurgencies. Could be end game, could be lower level...
That said, streamlining a 1-20 level so that new players don't always have to start out a Fed would be a nice option. Perhaps they can work their way backward over time or allow players to start at level 10 but have to do a lot of PVE vs Fed/Romulans/True Way, etc.
But I dunno, I'm not a writer. With the limited time I have to play, I'm still grinding away on both tiers. By the time I'm through with that (and grinding for XII gear), it will be Season 8 and I'm sure I'll still be busy.
Addicted: January 2012
batlh QIH 'ej!
With 2 max and 2 near max, your statement that there isn't enough content to level them effectively isn't true. I started a brand new character when the dominion lockbox was announced. This was an alien KDF character. With casual play, he was brig general the day after the box came out. Doff, combat missions, IOR, episodes, etc... All add together to produce a quick leveling experience.
In my fleet there is a sense of urgency where everyone rushes to get their character up to level fifty just so they can take part in the end game content which kinda ruins the experience a little.
KDF should be embraced but it is kinda catch 22 really, fewer players play this side because it hasn't been fleshed out and it won't get fleshed out till more start playing.
All the time.
Really?
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
FOR YOU.
Besides, the B'rel is a beast.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
"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
I do. You need to stop speaking for everyone else.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
They launched pay to play in an era where pay to play is basically dead as a business model.
Then switched to probably the most greedy, microtransaction intensive free to play system I have ever seen (paying to unlock single pieces of gear that you earn in game).
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Good luck trying to convince players to stick to a KDF side which offers lousy endgame experience. They'll probably start moving to FED who has all the endgame goodies.
I'd also like to see all the missions working correctly. I know some of them haven't been working since Season 3 or so especially a lot of the random ones when you explore the star clusters.
One suggestion I would have is to remove the faction specific PvP queues, and just let everyone queue up together. Federation & Klingon. It makes it fairly hard for KDF players to level in PvP when matches only pop every so often. Combining all the PvP queues would help the queue's pop much faster.
Also I don't think there is a FA daily on the KDF side, which hinders the amount of content available for play. Adding a daily for FA's on the KDF side would also help the level grind and give people something else to do and get rewarded for it.
Anyway that's just a few ideas I think that would help flesh out the KDF branch. Honestly just a little spit and polish could go a long way. The whole experience leveling a KDF character just seems very broken, and hard to do. The KDF should be focused on PvP so adding some missions centered around that may be some quick and dirty ways to address that.
Currently, all new STO players start with Fed. They then invest time in a Fed character before unlocking KDF. I would wager that most players are disinclined to discard progress, which would reduce the amount of players willing to make a second character to join the KDF.
I agree COMPLETELY !
If they create 30 missions (example) I'd rather them be between lvl 25 and 50 where they're needed instead of between lvl 1 and 25 where they'll only be played once, or for gear to sell. I can only think of 2 or 3 ships that are needed as well, no need to waste resources creating ships that won't be used from non-existent canon.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
The problem with KDF right now is that there's absolutely no incentive to play them unless you absolutely want to play them. If you play STO, you have to play as Fed first, and by the time KDF is unlocked the average player isn't going to care because they've already gotten halfway to the level cap as Fed. The 15% or 16% or 18% or whatever number Stahl keeps throwing around as the KDF player base is a number created by STO's lack of support for KDF, not a true sign of how many people are interested in KDF to begin with. You take someone new to the game and have them play for the first time and they're immediately exposed to Fed with no other option. The idea of playing as KDF doesn't cross their mind until they've already invested their time and energy into their main character. Give KDF some viable 1-20 content and make them available at the very start, and that new player will be more likely to choose KDF because now it's in their mind right away. If KDF was a viable fully fledged faction on par with Fed right from launch, then that playerbase would probably be in the 30s, maybe even over 40%.
If you do decide to play as KDF, what is there to do? You get the same featured episodes, maybe two-thirds of a season's worth of KDF-exclusive episodes, and that's it. Once you hit the level cap, you have the same amount of mission content as Fed in terms of endgame STFs and fleet actions, but there's a lot less variety in what you can do due to the lack of ships compared to Fed. There's no unique options. KDF isn't even half a faction right now, and it needs to either get the same amount of content as Fed, or just cut it completely.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
This makes the most sense to me.
"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
I agree, aside from getting some unique reward items, there's next to no reason to go back to old missions. And at this point, most of the KDF players asking for a 1-50 KDF content are probably level 50 anyway - so what's the point?
More work should be directed at new ships and costumes for the KDF, and furthermore into a 1-50 or 20-50 level Romulan faction.
I believe the KDF will be finished when the war storyline is resolved at a certain point in the progression of a Federation character, and NEVER APPEARS in later missions, and the KDF "faction" is a minifaction of Federation play that unlocks after that level, where upon achieving that level you can play a Klingon afterwards in both Federation content and special Klingon-only missions that advance a Federation/Klingon alliance storyline.
The only place there should be any division between Klingon and Federation play otherwise is inside PvP zones, and even there the backstory should involve either 2409-era story, wargames, or renegade houses.
Perhaps early gameplay could unlock reputation with a faction, the Tier 5 mission reward for which is unlocking Klingon play.
This is a one-faction game. It's time to stop trying to shoehorn a second (or lord help us a third) faction into it. Give us Federation Klingons, Federation Romulans, and Federation Cardassians.
But not Borg, or Tholians, because the former are the undead (which doesn't mean they can't get better, there's canon precedent) and the latter are nasty bugs who should be exterminated.
While the KDF was allied @ times w/the Federation it's never been subserviant to the Federation. Presenting the KDF as a Fed mini faction makes it appear as such.
Further, I don't agree w/calling this a one faction game. It was never sold as such and there are distinct shops and Fleet rewards. There are Captain and Boff races that are reserved for each faction. There are distinct dailies to grind various resources. There are distinct Foundry missions for each faction. There are distinct storyline missions for each factions. There are distinct Doff missions both in terms of rewards and storyline. There are distinct Doff missions in the DS9 FE for each faction. The KDF being incomplete doesn't mean it's not seperate. It was never designed as such, and it's not "shoehorning" to finish it.
Again for casual players there's only time to grind out Rep system et al for 1 toon. In order to even have a chance to be balanced in terms of player base numbers there needs to be no gated entry into the KDF and it's early missions need to be of high enough quality and distinct enough playstyle to keep players engaged.
They could slowly add the Romulan Faction by having a "defection" option at the end of the rep system. This way it's only for max level toons and those toons don't need to be started from scratch in terms of grinding. It also keeps the Devs from having to put resources into starting a 3rd faction from scratch. They can start @ max level.
Edit: W/a retrait of Racial Specs, they could even have an option to retrait as Romulan if you defected.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
"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
It's that same human arrogance that thinks that those of us that play this game because we can play opposite the Federation will accept assimilation of our toons into a single faction without a fight.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
You are making assumptions not based in reality. That may be true if you play a single character; however, in the past anyway, character slots were among the top selling items on the C-Store.
The fact that I have a level 50 Klingon has no bearing on this at all (I have two actually, plus three lower level).
If we get 1-50 content, I will delete all but one of my KDF characters and start them over again, because storyline content is my favorite content, period.
We keep hearing "endgame is where it's at". A number of major MMOs (including the 800 lb gorilla in the room) have stated publicly that endgame players are a very small portion of their overall playerbase (pvp is smaller than quest pve; raiders are sometimes an even smaller subset). Said statistics do not support he notion that endgame is the be-all or most important part of MMO gameplay. It's important for sure, but not the most important.
For me, if the journey isn't fun, there is no point in playing. Now, if the endgame becomes part of the journey (that is plenty of real mission content, not just hamster wheel grinds or gated by said grinds), that's another thing.
I agree with this. I play STO because I love Star Trek and because I love getting hooked on stories. I could care less about obtaining the "best" gear if doing so isn't entertaining.
"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
It feels like it's all about the 'blue side' everytime. That excuse that we're only 18% of the playerbase is getting old, we're part of the game too.
Having the option to start a KDF character by Lvl 1 AND have story missions to back it up that are not copy-pasted from the Feds would be great. How many FE's do the Feds have compared to the KDF?
Just basically a lack of everything, to ships, costumes, hair... C-Store things from one side to another? Ship releases? And the fact that most of the new things we are getting are in Lockboxes is an insult.
I don't want to repeat myself with other posters but I felt the need to post with so many people saying the faction is good as it is, really, it's not compared to what the other side has.
Don't make me play a Fed if I don't want to. Besides... Let the KDF, RSE and others be unique, don't merge everything into the Federation.
The start of level progression on ANY faction on ANY MMO is probably the ultimate decider on whether to play that faction/class at all or not, because it gives people early interest to get on with it. For example, I really like the Jedi Knight story in TOR the best, but when I tried the Jedi Consular, I hated the gameplay (because I had a different playstyle to that class) and the story (which was quite frankly terrible compared to the Knight IMO) because there just was no early interest, so I abandoned my Consular and deleted him, whereas I leveled my Night all the way up to max pretty much and enjoyed every second of it, wishing I would never complete the story.
This is the kind of feeling many people get in STO, whilst there is a huge difference between STO and TOR, the same basic princple of early interest sets the person on course for the rest of the game. A few people here have said it already, by the time a player unlocks the KDF, they have already invested a great deal of time into their Fed character - which essentially means there is a good chance they will simply overlook their KDF character (but a good possibility nonetheless to invest time in one because of the initial starting point - a warriors arena, which is unique and interesting). The rest of the game is exactly the same for KDF as it is for Fed, apart from the ships and 9 missions, which means that the player will be more inclined to be a Fed player because 1- they have invested a lot more time into developing their Fed than their KDF and 2- because KDF content was the same stuff the player had already tried on the Fed side, which means there is a good chance they will loose interest after that.
Now, if the KDF received levels 1-20 and had the same kind of progression as they do for 20-50, then, providing the early levels were interesting enough, it could easily hook players onto the KDF a lot more and invest more time into KDF than Fed - which is the opposite situation than I described above. There is nothing stopping players from creating a Fed first, but if people wanted to create a KDF from scratch, then I'd hope they would find it interesting enough for them to invest in the KDF character on a regular basis.
Some of you have described the endgame content as the end-all be-all stuff for everyone to play, making everything else pointless. Let me make this point - Fed and KDF endgame is EXACTLY THE SAME AS EACH OTHER IN EVERY WAY (except for ships and costumes pretty much) - STF's, Reputation, Adventure Zones, etc. If the situation I described in my third paragraph about a Fed player starting a KDF at lvl 20 became true, then what would be the point of playing a KDF? Take Player A, Player A would be more inclined to play Fed endgame than KDF endgame, because they are identical and the KDF offered nothing for that player to get hooked. This is situation everyone I feel keeps missing (apologies if you have already described this), with enough interesting missions and sufficient content and ships up-to-par with the Feds, the KDF would not only be most of the way being a full factions, but it would also drag a hell of a lot more players to it because they were interested enough in the content provided - Fed content on the other hand is a drag most of the time (with the exceptions of maybe a dozen missions out of like 60 or 70), whereas KDF missions can easily be unique and interesting for the KDF faction - which would provide a lot more interest.
Return of Ja'Dok Series (6 Part Series)
Enemy of the Exile Series (4 Part Series)
Task Force Ja'Dok Series (3 Part Series)
Your entire post is a bad assertion. Full Fed-KDF equality in PVE would have made sense in 2010 when the game launched. But the fact of the matter is it launched without it and we're now heading into the game's 4th year. We went F2P over a year ago now. Some new folks might come by but overall STO already has most of the players it's gonna get. And it's already lost a good chunk of the original ones. Focusing all those resources on newbie content now is throwing good money after bad.
I get that some of you love the stories and nobody's saying stories don't matter. I love them too. I can also understand why you feel threatened that we're asking for max rank content because to you, and incorrectly, lowbie content is story heavy and max rank content is mindless grind. To an extent you're right in the current shameful state of things.
However that is not what is being proposed. Just so we're clear and I'm not accused of speaking for others. A happy medium can be found...but then this is Cryptic "One Extreme or the Other" Studios we're talking about so maybe I shouldn't hold my breath that they'll do this right given the past... :rolleyes:
They will add some medicore missions and C-Store ships and then declare KF finished.