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Quality over Quantity
bonwatnam
Member Posts: 20 Arc User
I like this game, and star trek in general, so recent events have me worried. I'd like this game to continue strongly, but i fear that it won't, and here is a few reasons why.
Several bugs, that affect large numbers of players have been left unfixed for inordinately long times. I understand that the game is offered as free to play,however, it also offers subscriptions, and therefore should hold itself to the same standard as other subscription based games.
A few bugs I've noticed for a long time:
fleet chat including fleet channels from other characters that are in different fleets (so u can end up with a confusing mess of fleetchat), this issue seems connected with switching characters, rather than logging out, then in again.
Channel swapping, when switching characters, channels such as fleet and team can go missing (tho typing /f or /fleet first enables you to type in fleetchat). You might see these things as minor bugs, but chat is central and integral to building a good fleet, without adequate and reliable chat systems, any mmo can fail to engender a true community feel, even with good and dedicated players.
Console interaction and short characters, you have to jump on top of them usually, sometime inch around looking for that "sweet" spot to use the bank/exchange ect.
Bridge officer and character spawning, they can spawn inside walls, floors, somewhere off map (they then usually die), /stuck doesn't always work to free your character, and has no effect for bridge officers.
Kit visibility on KDF characters, well, kits have none on KDF.
Missions that fail on the last requirement, some episode missions fail (randomly) to complete, despite all requirements being met.
There are many many more, but I'll move on.
Another reason I worry for the future of STO is that cryptic seem to be overlooking opportunities to expand the richness of game play, by simply adapting the current systems, for example.
The ability to upgrade lower tier ship, this would allow for a greater variation is ships being used, and no doubt increase the number of lower tier zen store ships being purchased. Upgrading could be done using ship modules, or some other similar token.
Splitting impulse and warp engines, Having them separated would again allow for a more personalized game play experience, and they are after all in star trek, two entirely separate systems, using different methods for propulsion.
Starbases seem under used, I think one of the main reasons for this is that if you enter a pve or pvp queue while on your base, when you leave the event, you end up in sector space, outside the base. This severely hampers the ability for fleetmates to hang out at the base, as they would DS9, or any other social map (I'm assuming fleet bases/embassies are meant to be social maps too)
The Exchange, I was tempted to put this with the bugs, but really, a lot of the problem here is lack of attention to detail. Finding one thing to make the exchange much better is difficult, because there are so many things, from making posting items easier for multiple stack or items (such as commodities, colonists prisoners ect), to improved search, allowing for "fuzzy" searches (like disruptor beams for 50K EC or less). fuzzy searches would help make the current 500 items returned on searches, leading to a seemingly random cherry picking of posted items, less of an issue. Also, direct fleetbank to exchange sales, with income going directly into fleet EC balance would be very popular.
All the above centers around making what already exists in-game better and more useful.
Please Cryptic, make more of what you have, rather than just more of the same.
Several bugs, that affect large numbers of players have been left unfixed for inordinately long times. I understand that the game is offered as free to play,however, it also offers subscriptions, and therefore should hold itself to the same standard as other subscription based games.
A few bugs I've noticed for a long time:
fleet chat including fleet channels from other characters that are in different fleets (so u can end up with a confusing mess of fleetchat), this issue seems connected with switching characters, rather than logging out, then in again.
Channel swapping, when switching characters, channels such as fleet and team can go missing (tho typing /f or /fleet first enables you to type in fleetchat). You might see these things as minor bugs, but chat is central and integral to building a good fleet, without adequate and reliable chat systems, any mmo can fail to engender a true community feel, even with good and dedicated players.
Console interaction and short characters, you have to jump on top of them usually, sometime inch around looking for that "sweet" spot to use the bank/exchange ect.
Bridge officer and character spawning, they can spawn inside walls, floors, somewhere off map (they then usually die), /stuck doesn't always work to free your character, and has no effect for bridge officers.
Kit visibility on KDF characters, well, kits have none on KDF.
Missions that fail on the last requirement, some episode missions fail (randomly) to complete, despite all requirements being met.
There are many many more, but I'll move on.
Another reason I worry for the future of STO is that cryptic seem to be overlooking opportunities to expand the richness of game play, by simply adapting the current systems, for example.
The ability to upgrade lower tier ship, this would allow for a greater variation is ships being used, and no doubt increase the number of lower tier zen store ships being purchased. Upgrading could be done using ship modules, or some other similar token.
Splitting impulse and warp engines, Having them separated would again allow for a more personalized game play experience, and they are after all in star trek, two entirely separate systems, using different methods for propulsion.
Starbases seem under used, I think one of the main reasons for this is that if you enter a pve or pvp queue while on your base, when you leave the event, you end up in sector space, outside the base. This severely hampers the ability for fleetmates to hang out at the base, as they would DS9, or any other social map (I'm assuming fleet bases/embassies are meant to be social maps too)
The Exchange, I was tempted to put this with the bugs, but really, a lot of the problem here is lack of attention to detail. Finding one thing to make the exchange much better is difficult, because there are so many things, from making posting items easier for multiple stack or items (such as commodities, colonists prisoners ect), to improved search, allowing for "fuzzy" searches (like disruptor beams for 50K EC or less). fuzzy searches would help make the current 500 items returned on searches, leading to a seemingly random cherry picking of posted items, less of an issue. Also, direct fleetbank to exchange sales, with income going directly into fleet EC balance would be very popular.
All the above centers around making what already exists in-game better and more useful.
Please Cryptic, make more of what you have, rather than just more of the same.
Post edited by bonwatnam on
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The good part of it is, if you compare this game with other games that are currently under active development and updating, this one has very few bugs.
However as for voice chat. It should work of course. But it is very rare for an MMO like STO to have in game chat. I never got it to work simply because it never recognized my Turtle beach mic on my headset. I was once or twice able to hear others. It was so stat-icky and horrible sounding I abandoned the Idea of finding a headset that worked. That being said I do believe that a voice chat system that's works well would help the STO community. But it is not a vital part to play the game. My fleet has a Mumble channel and it works very well. I would suggest joining a fleet with voice chat. As this is not a thread about fleets I will not say which fleet I am in. But if you PM me I will tell you.
As for growth and Quantity of Quality. I would go with Passable quality. Meaning 90% of missions should work well 99.9% of the time.
To me this is better then no new content. As for Quantity they are making progress as far as you can now get Experience and item drops and some Dilithium in some foundry missions.
I believe the FOundry to be the only true future for STO! As once the game is no longer updated the Foundry can still live on. As long as there is still new missions being written there will be a reason to play. Also the more they integrate the Foundry missions into the game. And if the authors are able to stick to canon and the current time and story line then Cryptic and Perfect world would not object to most of the content.
Yes there are a number of things they could ad to the game for a lot more longevity. But they may never get around to these things as I see them. But if anyone asks me I will say what I think.
Right now I would not worry about the Future of STO. There are still an awful lot of people playing and I am quite certain Cryptic and Perfect world are making a fair amount of money off the free to play model!!
Please reconcile the above statement with the fact that today's new content resulted in massive login queues and record-pushing channel sizes. If that's "dying" and an "exodus", I'll take two of them, with a side of chips.
So, you're saying the Login Queues we had today must have been players LEAVING STO? (Sorry, but after the events of this afternoon, anyone who thinks the game is dying and no one is playing it obviously isn't paying attention to actual events in reality.)
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..."
Although I disagree that the game is dying. I think its currently at a crossroads. Yes, more missions (none foundry ones) would be nice, but I think making the current features and content work, or work better is a more immediate issue.
I was talking about text chat, not voice. I too am unable to make voice chat function, but far worse, I'm sometimes unable to make text chat function. This is entirely separate from chat server crashes (which effect all channels, and mails, and friends lists, and therefore easily discernible).
I agree wholeheartedly with your point, However, I would prefer that in addition, you addressed at least one of the points made in the OP.
Also, login queues can be both a good sign, and a bad one. it does show an increase in numbers playing, but it also shows that the current system is near capacity. I'm sure that some of the known game bugs eat up a lot of sto system resources, thereby reducing its potential capacity (with current hardware). Fixing these bugs would lay a far firmer, and more stable foundation for growth in player numbers, while making the game cheaper per player to host (ie less overheads). Yes there are short term costs to fixing bugs, but the long term gain, just in system management, let alone user contentment, is at least a zero sum outcome at worst financially, plus increased goodwill, and user numbers.
not with much of anything else that was said though.
but then again, how much Quantity is there ?
i don't think either is really good enough at the moment.
5 Story Missions and DLC Map Pack in form of a Season isn't really that much.
Looking at the quality of said maps, yah how about fixing the voice overs of Obisek if you play The Vault Ensnared on KDF side? can't be more than swapping a few file urls... reported multiple times... nothing happens.
I have to this day not been able to play the Tau Dewa Red Alert because it's bugged...
With every Ship that gets released i have instant pet peeves. Is JamzJamz so rushed that he can't be bothered to set the warp out flashes of the Dreadnought in the right spot? or to have the Ambassador Class turn around the actual center of the Ship, instead of the center of the engineering section?
Didn't we have TWO Ship guys on the team? (one for making new stuff, one for fixing/polishing old stuff?) Did the 2nd one get re-assigned again?
it's the small things, they pile up, and by now it is an unfixable mess.
Every eyesore, every UI glitch that gets resolved helps so much to enjoy the game more, yet the Patchnotes are usually 2 - 7 lines per week, at that speed they will not be able to keep up.
This time they didn't even complete fixing the mess that Season 7 left behind.
so no, the quality is not where it should be, and with the few missions that got released over the past year, it feels more like 2 DLC map packs you get for Call of Duty for maybe 15 bucks a pop, for an MMO that is not really enough quantity of anything.
i have patience, i can wait for it, but at some point i would like to see some stuff happen.
Having too many customers is almost never a bad thing. You can't economically increase server capacity for a spike unless you've designed the system from day one to make that possible, which is horribly expensive and tends to force you to do ALL your scaling horizontally instead of vertically, but you can generally spend to meet long term demand since it comes with long term income.
EVERY MMORPG goes through occasional queue spikes, including the 800 pound Mugato on the block. You weather the spikes as best you can, and try to expand capacity for the long term growth. If they can't stay ahead of them with their budget, STO shouldn't even bother trying.
That being said, they did an admirable job of handling the situation, making the decision to yank the Foundry out temporarily and having employees take advantage of the new performance numbers to make more code fixes. (At least I'm assuming that's what led to today's patch, based on the timing, and my usual juxtaposition of my many years of experience in the business and shameless willingness to leap to wild conclusions without fear of contradiction.)