First, thanks for the closed beta invite. I've not been playing much lately due to my general disinterest in repeatable contact. I'm first and foremost a story guy and the opportunity to finally experience some new stories really appeals to me.
What follow will be my impressions, observations, and comments as I play through the content. I hope I'll have enough time to give you useful data, as my schedule is difficult.
FYI: I run maximum detail (including the advanced settings). I have a Corei7 950 with dual GTX580s in SLI. My system has 6GB of triple channel RAM and a 256GB SSD. I'm running Windows 8 Pro in a domain environment with Desktop and data redirection (though not appdata) to a server.
Anyway, here's my first session of about 45 minutes:
Character Creator
As an STO veteran, I know that everything here can be changed later (except for gender). But a new player may not and may spend a long time here thinking they may not be able to change things later. Some message informing players of their options would be useful here and may expedite getting into the game. For some, getting the character "just right" is part of the fun; and I'm sure many people take a lot of time in the character creator. But I also believe people would perhaps start playing sooner if they knew they could change almost everything about their appearance (even body structure) later and freely.
Opening Scene
Text changed too fast. Could not enjoy the scenery and read it at the same time. The scene changes were also too fast. Slower pacing is needed. You are presenting a beautiful new area here. Take your time. Also, will there be voice-over? That would help with the presentation a lot.
Characters faded in during scene transitions. The engine should fully load characters before switching scenes.
There should be a tutorial pop-up to tell the player how to move for the first time -- and to move to the NPC with the "I" over his head.
First mission
Sentence fragment "Even the bugs."
I like the "redundant" messages. Nice how his expression changes on the third. Excellent touches!
Market area
Some of the lighting is inconsistent -- the largest kiosk (and items) are very bright even though they are fully in the shade.
D'Ral
While the player obviously may not know most of the information here, a Romulan would. Perhaps the text could be changed so that the character acknowledges that he or she already knows [most of] the lore, but still enjoy's D'Ral telling the stories -- and wouldn't mind listening to a few to put off having to deal with the bugs.
I think "second-hand" should be hyphenated.
I loved her question at the end. I hope it is used somehow.
The Farm
I loved the look of this area, and the mission made sense. The only thing I'd change would be to have the bugs moving around a bit. Perhaps some non-targetable ones that move from area to area in the fields. Some movement would make the infestation more interesting. If you really want to make it awesome, have them spawn in the air, fly around, land on a pipe, then do an interaction to break it. After this interaction they'd be targetable.
Presentation of stories in UI
The last page in multi-page dialogs is presented along side the selectable options. One might select an option without actually reading the text on the left (or scrolling) since the options are presented to the player at the same time as the last page. Some sort of concluding dialog option should exist at the end of each page before presenting the main menu - maybe just another "Continue".
[end of session]
I spent quite a bit of time looking around and the colony is breathtaking. I finished fixing the pipes and then had to log off. I very much look forward to running around and exploring. Those glass-covered domes look particularly interesting.
I enjoyed the tutorial set of missions, it actually felt like 1 very long mission, but very good mission all the same. I can't wait to see it with vos, etc. I couldn't stop playing last night as soon as i found out i had been selected to be a part of the closed beta. I will think up more comments when i am not working,
In the "Neutral No More" mission there is a section called "Roadside Assistance" this is obviously a cut and paste of the Sh'marr daily from Eta Eridani, and...well it shows. In the fact that you missed some dialogue editing. The initial meet and greet sequence is quite nicely modified from the Sh'marr, except that just before the True Way shows up your BOFF makes mention of them getting to a med station...except that they're supposed to be trying to fix their warp core and looking for a new place to live, not looking for a med station because of a mysterious sickness as is the case with the Sh'marr.
made a character and played through neutral no more last night. I loved the story and mission progression through the 1st 10 levels, quite nice. The way I gather my first group of BO's by meeting them in missions is a nice touch that I hope makes its way to the other 2 factions.
bugs that i noticed. once you do pick a faction I hope I won't be stuck listening to the klingon level up VO, I'm hoping that's just till Rom ones are done.
I noticed a good bit of clipping on female uniforms once i was able to pick rom/kdf and tried to combine it with the undershirts
also hope rom emblems get put in.
there's been several more bugs but nothing that i hadn't seen posted a bunch already about VO's and such.
I kept a running log of moments I had while playing the first episode:
-=Prologue=-
-The new background scenes during dialogue are a great touch!
-Background music of Virinat suits the atmosphere very well
-Encountered a couple brief hitching issues during the transition into the Khellid hive (suspected to be related to patching, but have been a result of loading all textures)
-Another performance hiccup at the respawn point in the above mentioned hive.
-The introduction to class-specific objectives is a nice touch.
-Ship combat mechanics are nicely introduced.
-It feels like kits should be handed out and explained when you report to Commander Temer to complete "Flight from Virinat". (rather than several missions later)
-Romulans start with access to federation fighters in the 'Hanger' tab of stores.
-Formal Wear and Off-duty jackets cause the torso of female Romulans to disappear for the majority of skin colors.
-=The Helix=-
-No Issues encountered. Pleasently surprised by who the mission was themed around.
-=Crossroads at Crateris=-
-Choppy framerate on Crateris(ground) - could probably use some optimization for far land textures.
-Holy <explicitive>! A female Reman! They DO exist!
-Monbosh Battleship is a bit overtuned for novice level players(perhaps this encounter would be a good time to point out ship power levels to players).
-=Gasko Blues=-
-Misaligned door found and reported(Ticket #35,745) on Gasko Station.
-=The Search for New Romulus=-
-The Iconian comment after Gamma Eridon seemed a bit.. 'out of left field'?
-The AI/Boffs handle the Tholians(namely their mines and radiation) as poorly as ever, making the ground fight quite unenjoyable.
-=Turning Point=-
-Typo, Second paragraph of Tovan's dialogue after the cutscene with Sela: "There should [be] no allegiance with such..."
-Tovan's pathing bugged out/became unresponsible after the third bomb - upon approaching the fourth bomb, he teleported to the player and continue functioning like normal.
-The diplomats at the flotilla recycle the lines spoken at Khitomer. I suspect this is placeholder text, but this is hardly sufficient enough to allow new players to make an informed decision.
-As an aside, I feel the mission cast the Klingons in a more favorable light - I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.
-Player was refered to as a Lieutenent Commander(instead of Centurion) by a Klingon VO upon reaching level 10. I presume this is placeholder, but mention it anyway.
-=Neutral No More(KDF)=-
-Bridge Officer assignments/stations were cleared upon entering sector space after protecting the S.S. Daendle.
-Bridge Officer assignments cleared again upon entered the Eta Eridani Sector.
-=Post Episode=-
-Upon logging out and back in, the Bridge Officers are not present at the character select screen.
-=Conclusions=-
Overall, I quite enjoyed the first episode, it was engaging, enjoyable and had several moments where I was genuinely impressed. Really, great work guys!
That said, I do feel the there should be another mission or two before deciding upon a faction - perhaps a humanitarian mission where you encounter and cooperate with the Federation(acquiring some supplies from them in the process?), and a raid on a renegade slave trader(freeing some romulans in the process?) mission with the Klingons. This way, the player can get an idea of the philosophies of each faction and their combat styles before committing to one.
The only gripe I have so far, is the interiors seem a little too dark in places. Not sure if it just me or not....
I think all of the ship interiors are fine with brightness, alot of interiors are supposed to be not as well lit...it creates atmosphere, the game looks better when everything isn't all bright to be honest.
Greatly enjoyed this, the only big beef I had was the timing of the cutscene text, but thats been addressed.
I felt involved in the story, invested into it and attached to the characters (apart from D'Tan, just dont like him really, no particular reason) and reaaaaaaly wanted to shoot Slamek in the face when I saw him.
As far as difficulty goes, it was fair, except perhaps "Mysterious Ship" was a bit tough, if I was a new player, (i'm not, was OB) and the Tholian Commander was a bit tough (even not being a new player)
Introduction: Very beautifully done, but was to fast to read the text.
The Village: Excellent work and nicely done. I love the lore keeper.
The Flotilla: I love how you can agree and disagree and yet welling to work with the new republic. It's good we get a lot of background history about D'Tan and his fleet commander.
The Sullivan Helix: nicely done. It remind me of one episode from the TV show andromeda, when all the life pod were link to one ship. I love how you can cut off communication with the Tel-shair ships, it felt more Romulan and more trek.
Crateris: Very nicely done, with the whole atmosphere and hearing of thunder in the background.
I said to myself, I wasn't going to have any reman on my ship, but when I first saw the female reman, I was like now that I got to have and I was shocked when she join up. Good to see what became of slamek. The way the bridge officers were introduce felt really good.
I have to say, everything that I saw and played felt very good that I don't think I can ever play my fed characters again. The warbird ship ability was just an excellent idea who ever came up with that.
Suggestion: while I know this is a close beta and all, but if I may make a suggestion. The bridge officers we get are just common once, and since we grow attach to them as our first bridge officers. Would it be possible if you guys could use the neverwinter companion system to improve the bridge officers in a form of send them to trainer school (Course) which should cost EC and some dilithum. Upon completion of a successful it's changes them from common to uncommon and so on. So we can have their traits improved or gain a new one that way. The way it feel more trek and people get more attach with the officers.
"You ask why we give our ships computer normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty?"
I only played up to meeting D'tan on the flotilla and I have to say: OMG green shinies everywhere.
The initial map is simply amazing and beautiful, the flotilla interior is gorgeous and screams romulan in every corner of the ship.
The play flow is really nice and smooth. I know about cut scenes being accelerated and no voice over, but I can see it will lead to a great product at the end.
Good to see what became of slamek. The way the bridge officers were introduce felt really good.
Actually, I believe the Cretaris mission is BEFORE the Coliseum. So this is actually what happened TO him, and how he arrived at the coliseum where we first met him (which makes me think these aliens are the Iconians, or at least servants of them).
But like another poster said, I too wanted to shoot him when I saw him. You think the lights are bright? Look at my disruptor beam.
Really like the organic way that you build your initial crew, I've only played through the initial series, but hopefully that sort of thing continues.
I did notice a couple of issues:
On the starter world, during the celebration cutscene, all characters on the platform were buried up to their knees.
During "The search for New Romulus", on Dewa 3 there is a typo/grammatical error when interacting with the wildlife "This creatures are fascinating" should be these or creature is.
Beaming back to the ship from the Khitomar station unslotted my boffs, fortunately the first fight is only one ship so re-slotting wasn't an issue, but still, there is a problem somewhere.
Finally, the contact dialogue with the Federation upon reaching Eta Eridani Sector Block seems to have changed the background on the viewscreen to some kind of colony view, despite the Captain acting as though he is still on his bridge (As per the first contact in the mission briefing). I would have a screenshot of this, but it captured without the ui, so it is just my ship and not very helpful.
Overall it is very encouraging so far, looking down the mission journal shows a good lot of unique content as well, so thumbs up!
Some details, the bo is lieutenant, set for the ground team and the tactical station.
Another question, where are the shortcuts of the bo ground skills, like photon grenade,... (in the team status) it is possible to but them into the powers tray.
Normaly I use the Mouse Wheel to accelerate my ship, I switch my keybinds to it, but it works really badly. It goes directly up, then down and up again... If I want to break it works fine, stepwise.
Smash and Grab:
Some zooming issues with the first transporter map, on minimal zoom the map will still shown, i will say in medium size.
The fire in transporter map 3, dont make damage.
Azha listening post:
On the map are missing all consoles, walls,...
First thing .. WOW... it is great to see what you have done and so far I could not find any problems... just some small things that you will fix in time I think :
- At Gasko : Hive that you need to talk with is not at the place where the mark on the map says.
- Dewa III : if you kill the Creatures the dont die, the just run out off your way and the just vanish.
- Ajilon colony : when you kill Lortrix he goes down several times and the dialog is gone, so you have to walk to Lortrix again where he felt down and talk to him again.
- General :
- sometimes you click a button and nothing happens or it happens after 3 or 4 clicks... not only on my charakter.
- the long subtitles are so fast gone like the short ones... please adapt them
- if someone is talking to anybody you just see moving there mouth but there is nothing to hear from them
- if you change the colors of your shirt at the tailor, the colors are to far in the charakter preview
- when you have choosen fed. side and your ship goes to warp, are the warp nacelle blue and not green as they should
- the libary console at your bridge shows you 2 time exit and only the first button brings you to the files you need to work at
And please, you already started to translate things into German, please translate the rest too
All those things are just little problem.. I really like to play the LoR and I will keep my eyes open for more.
I liked the missions a lot. They are well built and the abundance of dialog options is nice.
The khittomer map was the most impressive. I hope this map will be used as a social zone like qonos or ganalda.
I like the fact that bridge officers have a personality. It's too bad most of them are green quality, i will have to pick better ones later! But i like them.
Most of the encounters were really easy. I could one shot most of the ground npcs with the free weapons i got during the missions.
Also why is there no exchange in the flotilla? It's supposed to be a major romulan base but we can't use a major game feature.
Overall enjoyable, very cohesive story so far, actually makes you feel part of the new Romulan Republic
'The Search for New Romulus' > 'All Good Things Have a Price': After beaming back to the ship from the planet surface, Bridge Officer Stations were unassigned
Respecc Token: a) After completing ?Turning Point,? I used the ?Respecc Token? ? and after ?activating? traits, I am unable to commit them; also after ?activating? them, unable to ?remove? them from the list.
b) Token also reset my Space Skills, but left my Ground Skill points intact.
Love the way your initial bridge crew comes together, but would like to be able to modify uniforms...
I have just completed the missions in the "From the Ashes" arc, and here is the feedback
that I jotted down as I went along Not many bugs for me so far, the maps are really
beautiful and I am enjoying the story. Really well done with the cinematics!
Here goes my feedback - might be a little long-winded..
The Helix
The Helix itself looks good - nice flashback to the Enterprise series there. Had no issues playing through this mission.
Crossroads at Crateris
That battleship at the end was really tough and it's shields seemed to take none (or very little damage). It took me more than 10 minutes to take it down, so I'm thinking (and hoping) it might be bugged - otherwise new players will have a hard time. The mission was a nice introduction to the Remans (good to see our old "friend", Slamek), and yay for a female Reman boff!
Gasko Blues
It's kind of a giveaway that we can see the name of bridge officers we are going to get when accepting missions. Hakeev looks very static on the viewscreen behind the station commander. Some of the Tal Shiar didn't aggro when I started shooting on one of their group.
The Search for New Romulus
Well, most of us already know where the New Romulus homeworld will be.. But for new players, it's a dead giveaway that the system is actually named New Romulus. I don't suppose there is a way to phase the name of that system until it is actually decided (in the storyline) that it will become New Romulus?
Typo in one of the bridge officer notifications on the surface, after scanning a nanov: he says "This creatures are fascinating.." The Tholian ground battle was quite tough, the space battle not so much. In sector space I used the "plot a course to.." button in the mission tracker in order for it to take me to the flotilla - instead it took me to the Galorndon core system.
Turning Point
It's nice to see some familiar faces from another viewpoint. Khitomer looks great! And Jiro Sugihara is kinda funny There is not really an option to NOT investigate the ship in orbit, is there? When I beamed out into system space, my bridge officers were no longer slotted in their stations. Oh, and nice that the Kang is protecting US for a change
Neutral No More
When being hailed by Captain Harvson in Eta Eridani, he gives a "Talk" option that only repeats the message. Also it is kinda odd that he is suddenly very close to the camera in the second screen.
--
That's it for these missions I think, so far so good! Looking forward to the next arc!
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
This all great feedback everyone, please keep it coming!
I will be looking at the Tholian encounter in the Search for New Romulus to make them more fun and less "What's a Tho - DEAD" that everyone is experiencing.
Pretty much any encounter with an Ev Suited Tholian of Commander level and above turns into this, regardless of where you are or what level your character is.
Here are my first impressions of STOLOR... last night I played up through the exploration of New Romulus.
1) Character Selection Screen: I love the new crew montage - I've watched this develop since the STOLOR builds started to show up and with each refinement it looks nicer. A couple of recommendations:
*Consider starting the default zoom level just a little closer to avoid the "standing on thin air" look.
*The bridge officers don't show up unless the player has filled in his or her default away team on the "U" screen. To maximize the value of the boff montage, you might want to consider instead randomly pulling boffs from the captain's roster instead of always using the default away team. This would allow captains who haven't set up the away team to see the montage, and it would give "face time" to boffs who aren't on the away team.
2) Character Creator: All things considered, I think this is about even with the current version in terms of ease of use and functionality. I noticed that occasionally the screen wasn't refreshing when I made choices.
Unfortunately I'm out of tribble slots to go back and check, but I believe the character builder still said "race." If this is still in the build, I would recommend substituting "species," which I think is more IP-friendly.
The selection of costuming options for the Romulans is great. As others have noticed, some combinations have clipping issues, but I think this is fine - you just have to tweak the costume until you are happy, which is a reasonable price to pay for the level of customization we get. I also saw something that I was very happy to see and hope you expand upon: off-duty parts in the 'uniform' costume group.
I've talked about this before in the art forum, but I want tostrongly recommend you consider doing this for all factions. The sequestration of certain parts into the off-duty category is the root of the problems with customizing KDF renegade boffs, and more broadly the different categories prevent players from getting the most use of their endgame unlocks. If you don't believe me, take a look at how often recently the Cryptic art department has mixed and matched parts from the uniform, off-duty (mercenary pack), and STF groups to create NPCs on the Starbase, the Embassy, and New Romulus. Moving all the uniform parts to the "uniform" group would require a little bit of database work, but it would resolve a lot of problems andfurther improve your excellent customization experience.
3) Tutorial: Amazing, loved the tutorial mission. I don't have a lot of feedback because this was a great, polished experience and loads of fun. One small suggestion: when you go back to talk to your friend, he is far enough away that the 'pointer' doesn't appear on the mini-map. However, the pointer does appear for the lore NPC. This might lead some players to run to the lore contact instead. It took me a moment to think back to where my captain's friend was and backtrack to his position. You might want to consider increasing the range at which the map shows the quest pointer.
On the topic of ranges:Please, I beg you, if it's still in the STOLOR build of the game, remove Squad Support Range.One of the best features of STO is its two-way level scaling, which lets players of all levels enjoy the game. However, when the squad support range feature automatically disables level-matching, the result is almost always immediate and horrible death for the low-level players. To maximize the appeal of this game to new players, please consider retiring this feature so people can level-match without worrying about staying bunched up.
4) Missions: Helix, Crateris, Space Station, New Romulus: all fun missions with great set design and visuals. LOVE the new dialogue backgrounds. At the end of Crateris, the boss fight was fun but took a very long time to play through. You might want to consider nerfing the dreadnought at the end of Crateris a bit; if it takes me as an experienced player a very long time to complete the fight, a first-time player might find this too steep a learning curve increase.
4a) Story boffs as prizes: Great idea, I love it! The lack of characterization for boffs is something I've always considered to be an area for improvement in this game. However, I noticed that all the boffs come out as very rare quality. As a player, I think that's delightful, but at the same time as someone who thinks about game design I feel like that kind of devalues the other boffs that the player will be able to use in the future. Perhaps green quality would be more appropriate?Actually, ignore this point. I just logged in and now I see that only the first one they give you is purple. The others are green, which I think is just right.
4b) Loot tables: As a tactical captain, I get a bonus to plasma weapon damage. However, the loot tables appear to be skewed towards Federation and KDF loot. I assume this is because Romulans don't appear in the original (i.e., Fed) storyline until higher level content. All of my loot weapons are phasers and disruptors; I recommend you consider adjusting the loot tables to seed plasma weapons at an equal level with phasers and disruptors.
4c) A missing tutorial? I might have missed it, but I don't recall ever getting a tutorial activity for using the singularity core. I figured it out on my own pretty quick, but this is something you probably want to highlight for new players. Maybe insert a step into the first mission that prompts the captain to fire off his or her plasma shockwave?
That's all I've got so far... keep up the good work, guys!
Pretty much any encounter with an Ev Suited Tholian of Commander level and above turns into this, regardless of where you are or what level your character is.
C'mon! is really that hard to pay attention and see the Tholian Mine?. Once you have see it, move away, simple as that. The Tholians are an easy enemy.
C'mon! is really that hard to pay attention and see the Tholian Mine?. Once you have see it, move away, simple as that. The Tholians are an easy enemy.
Yes. Even doing the Romulan rep missions, I'm usually so busy trying to revive my BOFFs and not die from Tholian one-shots that if I do see it, it's usually milliseconds before it blows.
4) Missions: Helix, Crateris, Space Station, New Romulus: all fun missions with great set design and visuals. LOVE the new dialogue backgrounds. At the end of Crateris, the boss fight was fun but took a very long time to play through. You might want to consider nerfing the dreadnought at the end of Crateris a bit; if it takes me as an experienced player a very long time to complete the fight, a first-time player might find this too steep a learning curve increase.
4a) Story boffs as prizes: Great idea, I love it! The lack of characterization for boffs is something I've always considered to be an area for improvement in this game. However, I noticed that all the boffs come out as very rare quality. As a player, I think that's delightful, but at the same time as someone who thinks about game design I feel like that kind of devalues the other boffs that the player will be able to use in the future. Perhaps green quality would be more appropriate?Actually, ignore this point. I just logged in and now I see that only the first one they give you is purple. The others are green, which I think is just right.
Am I the only one that didn't have any issues with the dreadnought at the end of Crateris?
It took a little longer than most, but not more than a few minutes.
Did you guys assign skill points? I assigned all my skill points and maxed out my BOFF's HY1 so I could fire it faster. Also diverted power to weapons. Maybe that's why? I'm playing an engineer too.
As for the BOFF quality, I never got a purple one. Only a blue and green.
EDIT: Lol, you edited right as I was quoting. The first one may have been purple, but I thought it was blue. I'll have to check tonight.
That reminds me, looking at the character screen UI in game, I can't tell from looking at the class logo which quality the BOFFs are. Fed is pretty easy, KDF is a little harder.
I'm not entirely sure about the idea of mission storylines tying in with reward Boffs. Anybody tested what happens if you don't have said Boff commissioned?
Some feedback about the Khitomer conference mission:
1) The locked doors are fine going in, but become very frustrating when the mission requires you to backtrack. Suggestion: put reach triggers along the path that change the doors "behind" the captain from locked to unlocked.
2) The I.K.S. Kang is a Vor'cha in this mission, but it's a Tor'Khat in The Cure Found. Recommendation: change the I.K.S. Kang to a Tor'Khat in this mission.
2) Bug: This mission cleared my bridge officer assignments, so when I went to the space segment I found myself without BOFF powers in the first fight :eek:
Initially I thought it was only during the 1st set of missions, but I'm back in there for "Memory Lane" - and there's some definite lagging in-system...
Found the overall story arc enjoyable, really liked the first couple of missions the most. Would like to see some EC being made in these missions, as well as more ship style options, and more equipment options in the mission rewards. I enjoyed the way that game features and mechanics were introduced through-out each of the missions by better tying them directly into the story.
Explore The Folitila - nice intro mission.
The Helix - An alright mission.
Crossroads at Crateris - The battleship at the end could use a small nerf.
Gasko Blues - all good.
The Search For New Romulus - The commander stage could use a small nerf.
Turning Point - No information is given to the player about what they will gain by joining either faction. A small preview even would be nice.
Thank you Cryptic for the closed beta invite, I was thrilled to get my hands on the content you've come up with, and I can tell that hard work is about to pay off. I'll try and keep these thoughts to a few key areas.
1) Virinat: I think it's been said, but I'll add my voice to that chorus, the opening was absolutely beautiful. For all the detail and attention that must have gone in there, I'm saddened that we didn't get to spend more time exploring the colony while it was still intact.
2) The Flotilla: Having seen it on the map for a while, this puts so much into context knowing this is the "Earth Spacedock" for the early part of the Romulan arc. I've obviously played the game before, so I feel comfortable exploring, but it might be easy for someone to overlook a vendor and fail to get something like a kit if they don't know where to look. A couple technical issues with the tailor, it seemed a little too easy to zoom all the way out or all the way in and not see your character show up hen trying new uniforms on (I think a couple other posts identified something like that).
3) New Romulus: I'm going to skip ahead a little bit here. I think the story is great up to this point, but I'm not quite sure the bar has been cleared in terms of explaining how new Romulus got its start. I like the open questing style of observing wildlife and taking samples that we've become accustomed to previously, but I think some other players rightly point out that switchback nature of the map feels limiting--you're not really exploring, but rather just following a predefined path. I love seeing the bridge in the distance. It would have been my hope to have explored a map where I might find myself near some of the landmarks that I would come to know later. I'll hold my thoughts on the Tholians for now, trusting that how they found it first and why they're there will be explained later.
My biggest disappointment is this though: you don't return to New Romulus. You don't even really hear about it being a factor again for a while. After the effort to find it, and negotiate for it (I did love "The Undiscovered Country" aspect of preventing an assassination at Khitomer, even if I would also have liked to have been able to explore the exterior), where are you in the effort to establish and build it? What did the area of the city look like before the city was there? How did you discover the ruins? These are the unanswered questions. Later when you finally do return though, you suddenly have a fleet command there, but you haven't seen the rest of the planet. And that aspect (while I love the building) seems a little abrupt. Not being able to place that command building into context with the rest of the planet is also a little difficult.
These are my thoughts. Hope something constructive comes from them.
Just remembered a bug!
During the tutorial missions, there is either a BO popup or help text (I forget which) that states you can only cloak when not in Red Alert. However the starting ship we have has a Battle Cloak, so we actually can.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure it makes sense to have Romulan ships explode when they are destroyed after they were already sucked into the singularity. I noticed the singularity has an effect on our ship if we're too close, but perhaps it should cause the damage (like Gravity Well, but more so), as opposed to a 'warp core breach' they don't have.
Comments
First, thanks for the closed beta invite. I've not been playing much lately due to my general disinterest in repeatable contact. I'm first and foremost a story guy and the opportunity to finally experience some new stories really appeals to me.
What follow will be my impressions, observations, and comments as I play through the content. I hope I'll have enough time to give you useful data, as my schedule is difficult.
FYI: I run maximum detail (including the advanced settings). I have a Corei7 950 with dual GTX580s in SLI. My system has 6GB of triple channel RAM and a 256GB SSD. I'm running Windows 8 Pro in a domain environment with Desktop and data redirection (though not appdata) to a server.
Anyway, here's my first session of about 45 minutes:
Character Creator
As an STO veteran, I know that everything here can be changed later (except for gender). But a new player may not and may spend a long time here thinking they may not be able to change things later. Some message informing players of their options would be useful here and may expedite getting into the game. For some, getting the character "just right" is part of the fun; and I'm sure many people take a lot of time in the character creator. But I also believe people would perhaps start playing sooner if they knew they could change almost everything about their appearance (even body structure) later and freely.
Opening Scene
Text changed too fast. Could not enjoy the scenery and read it at the same time. The scene changes were also too fast. Slower pacing is needed. You are presenting a beautiful new area here. Take your time.
Also, will there be voice-over? That would help with the presentation a lot.
Characters faded in during scene transitions. The engine should fully load characters before switching scenes.
There should be a tutorial pop-up to tell the player how to move for the first time -- and to move to the NPC with the "I" over his head.
First mission
Sentence fragment "Even the bugs."
I like the "redundant" messages. Nice how his expression changes on the third. Excellent touches!
Market area
Some of the lighting is inconsistent -- the largest kiosk (and items) are very bright even though they are fully in the shade.
D'Ral
While the player obviously may not know most of the information here, a Romulan would. Perhaps the text could be changed so that the character acknowledges that he or she already knows [most of] the lore, but still enjoy's D'Ral telling the stories -- and wouldn't mind listening to a few to put off having to deal with the bugs.
I think "second-hand" should be hyphenated.
I loved her question at the end. I hope it is used somehow.
The Farm
I loved the look of this area, and the mission made sense. The only thing I'd change would be to have the bugs moving around a bit. Perhaps some non-targetable ones that move from area to area in the fields. Some movement would make the infestation more interesting. If you really want to make it awesome, have them spawn in the air, fly around, land on a pipe, then do an interaction to break it. After this interaction they'd be targetable.
Presentation of stories in UI
The last page in multi-page dialogs is presented along side the selectable options. One might select an option without actually reading the text on the left (or scrolling) since the options are presented to the player at the same time as the last page. Some sort of concluding dialog option should exist at the end of each page before presenting the main menu - maybe just another "Continue".
[end of session]
I spent quite a bit of time looking around and the colony is breathtaking. I finished fixing the pipes and then had to log off. I very much look forward to running around and exploring. Those glass-covered domes look particularly interesting.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
You guys have really out done yourselfs!
Commanding Officer USS Frontenac
Commanding Officer Enterprise NX-01
bugs that i noticed. once you do pick a faction I hope I won't be stuck listening to the klingon level up VO, I'm hoping that's just till Rom ones are done.
I noticed a good bit of clipping on female uniforms once i was able to pick rom/kdf and tried to combine it with the undershirts
also hope rom emblems get put in.
there's been several more bugs but nothing that i hadn't seen posted a bunch already about VO's and such.
-=Prologue=-
-The new background scenes during dialogue are a great touch!
-Background music of Virinat suits the atmosphere very well
-Encountered a couple brief hitching issues during the transition into the Khellid hive (suspected to be related to patching, but have been a result of loading all textures)
-Another performance hiccup at the respawn point in the above mentioned hive.
-The introduction to class-specific objectives is a nice touch.
-Ship combat mechanics are nicely introduced.
-It feels like kits should be handed out and explained when you report to Commander Temer to complete "Flight from Virinat". (rather than several missions later)
-Romulans start with access to federation fighters in the 'Hanger' tab of stores.
-Formal Wear and Off-duty jackets cause the torso of female Romulans to disappear for the majority of skin colors.
-=The Helix=-
-No Issues encountered. Pleasently surprised by who the mission was themed around.
-=Crossroads at Crateris=-
-Choppy framerate on Crateris(ground) - could probably use some optimization for far land textures.
-Holy <explicitive>! A female Reman! They DO exist!
-Monbosh Battleship is a bit overtuned for novice level players(perhaps this encounter would be a good time to point out ship power levels to players).
-=Gasko Blues=-
-Misaligned door found and reported(Ticket #35,745) on Gasko Station.
-=The Search for New Romulus=-
-The Iconian comment after Gamma Eridon seemed a bit.. 'out of left field'?
-The AI/Boffs handle the Tholians(namely their mines and radiation) as poorly as ever, making the ground fight quite unenjoyable.
-=Turning Point=-
-Typo, Second paragraph of Tovan's dialogue after the cutscene with Sela: "There should [be] no allegiance with such..."
-Tovan's pathing bugged out/became unresponsible after the third bomb - upon approaching the fourth bomb, he teleported to the player and continue functioning like normal.
-The diplomats at the flotilla recycle the lines spoken at Khitomer. I suspect this is placeholder text, but this is hardly sufficient enough to allow new players to make an informed decision.
-As an aside, I feel the mission cast the Klingons in a more favorable light - I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.
-Player was refered to as a Lieutenent Commander(instead of Centurion) by a Klingon VO upon reaching level 10. I presume this is placeholder, but mention it anyway.
-=Neutral No More(KDF)=-
-Bridge Officer assignments/stations were cleared upon entering sector space after protecting the S.S. Daendle.
-Bridge Officer assignments cleared again upon entered the Eta Eridani Sector.
-=Post Episode=-
-Upon logging out and back in, the Bridge Officers are not present at the character select screen.
-=Conclusions=-
Overall, I quite enjoyed the first episode, it was engaging, enjoyable and had several moments where I was genuinely impressed. Really, great work guys!
That said, I do feel the there should be another mission or two before deciding upon a faction - perhaps a humanitarian mission where you encounter and cooperate with the Federation(acquiring some supplies from them in the process?), and a raid on a renegade slave trader(freeing some romulans in the process?) mission with the Klingons. This way, the player can get an idea of the philosophies of each faction and their combat styles before committing to one.
I think all of the ship interiors are fine with brightness, alot of interiors are supposed to be not as well lit...it creates atmosphere, the game looks better when everything isn't all bright to be honest.
I felt involved in the story, invested into it and attached to the characters (apart from D'Tan, just dont like him really, no particular reason) and reaaaaaaly wanted to shoot Slamek in the face when I saw him.
As far as difficulty goes, it was fair, except perhaps "Mysterious Ship" was a bit tough, if I was a new player, (i'm not, was OB) and the Tholian Commander was a bit tough (even not being a new player)
The Village: Excellent work and nicely done. I love the lore keeper.
The Flotilla: I love how you can agree and disagree and yet welling to work with the new republic. It's good we get a lot of background history about D'Tan and his fleet commander.
The Sullivan Helix: nicely done. It remind me of one episode from the TV show andromeda, when all the life pod were link to one ship. I love how you can cut off communication with the Tel-shair ships, it felt more Romulan and more trek.
Crateris: Very nicely done, with the whole atmosphere and hearing of thunder in the background.
I said to myself, I wasn't going to have any reman on my ship, but when I first saw the female reman, I was like now that I got to have and I was shocked when she join up. Good to see what became of slamek. The way the bridge officers were introduce felt really good.
I have to say, everything that I saw and played felt very good that I don't think I can ever play my fed characters again. The warbird ship ability was just an excellent idea who ever came up with that.
Suggestion: while I know this is a close beta and all, but if I may make a suggestion. The bridge officers we get are just common once, and since we grow attach to them as our first bridge officers. Would it be possible if you guys could use the neverwinter companion system to improve the bridge officers in a form of send them to trainer school (Course) which should cost EC and some dilithum. Upon completion of a successful it's changes them from common to uncommon and so on. So we can have their traits improved or gain a new one that way. The way it feel more trek and people get more attach with the officers.
The initial map is simply amazing and beautiful, the flotilla interior is gorgeous and screams romulan in every corner of the ship.
The play flow is really nice and smooth. I know about cut scenes being accelerated and no voice over, but I can see it will lead to a great product at the end.
Actually, I believe the Cretaris mission is BEFORE the Coliseum. So this is actually what happened TO him, and how he arrived at the coliseum where we first met him (which makes me think these aliens are the Iconians, or at least servants of them).
But like another poster said, I too wanted to shoot him when I saw him. You think the lights are bright? Look at my disruptor beam.
I did notice a couple of issues:
On the starter world, during the celebration cutscene, all characters on the platform were buried up to their knees.
During "The search for New Romulus", on Dewa 3 there is a typo/grammatical error when interacting with the wildlife "This creatures are fascinating" should be these or creature is.
Beaming back to the ship from the Khitomar station unslotted my boffs, fortunately the first fight is only one ship so re-slotting wasn't an issue, but still, there is a problem somewhere.
Finally, the contact dialogue with the Federation upon reaching Eta Eridani Sector Block seems to have changed the background on the viewscreen to some kind of colony view, despite the Captain acting as though he is still on his bridge (As per the first contact in the mission briefing). I would have a screenshot of this, but it captured without the ui, so it is just my ship and not very helpful.
Overall it is very encouraging so far, looking down the mission journal shows a good lot of unique content as well, so thumbs up!
http://www.abload.de/img/highyield_ground9kszf.png
Some details, the bo is lieutenant, set for the ground team and the tactical station.
Another question, where are the shortcuts of the bo ground skills, like photon grenade,... (in the team status) it is possible to but them into the powers tray.
Normaly I use the Mouse Wheel to accelerate my ship, I switch my keybinds to it, but it works really badly. It goes directly up, then down and up again... If I want to break it works fine, stepwise.
Smash and Grab:
Some zooming issues with the first transporter map, on minimal zoom the map will still shown, i will say in medium size.
The fire in transporter map 3, dont make damage.
Azha listening post:
On the map are missing all consoles, walls,...
- At Gasko : Hive that you need to talk with is not at the place where the mark on the map says.
- Dewa III : if you kill the Creatures the dont die, the just run out off your way and the just vanish.
- Ajilon colony : when you kill Lortrix he goes down several times and the dialog is gone, so you have to walk to Lortrix again where he felt down and talk to him again.
- General :
- sometimes you click a button and nothing happens or it happens after 3 or 4 clicks... not only on my charakter.
- the long subtitles are so fast gone like the short ones... please adapt them
- if someone is talking to anybody you just see moving there mouth but there is nothing to hear from them
- if you change the colors of your shirt at the tailor, the colors are to far in the charakter preview
- when you have choosen fed. side and your ship goes to warp, are the warp nacelle blue and not green as they should
- the libary console at your bridge shows you 2 time exit and only the first button brings you to the files you need to work at
And please, you already started to translate things into German, please translate the rest too
All those things are just little problem.. I really like to play the LoR and I will keep my eyes open for more.
The khittomer map was the most impressive. I hope this map will be used as a social zone like qonos or ganalda.
I like the fact that bridge officers have a personality. It's too bad most of them are green quality, i will have to pick better ones later! But i like them.
Most of the encounters were really easy. I could one shot most of the ground npcs with the free weapons i got during the missions.
Also why is there no exchange in the flotilla? It's supposed to be a major romulan base but we can't use a major game feature.
'The Search for New Romulus' > 'All Good Things Have a Price': After beaming back to the ship from the planet surface, Bridge Officer Stations were unassigned
Respecc Token: a) After completing ?Turning Point,? I used the ?Respecc Token? ? and after ?activating? traits, I am unable to commit them; also after ?activating? them, unable to ?remove? them from the list.
b) Token also reset my Space Skills, but left my Ground Skill points intact.
Love the way your initial bridge crew comes together, but would like to be able to modify uniforms...
that I jotted down as I went along
beautiful and I am enjoying the story. Really well done with the cinematics!
Here goes my feedback - might be a little long-winded..
The Helix
The Helix itself looks good - nice flashback to the Enterprise series there. Had no issues playing through this mission.
Crossroads at Crateris
That battleship at the end was really tough and it's shields seemed to take none (or very little damage). It took me more than 10 minutes to take it down, so I'm thinking (and hoping) it might be bugged - otherwise new players will have a hard time. The mission was a nice introduction to the Remans (good to see our old "friend", Slamek), and yay for a female Reman boff!
Gasko Blues
It's kind of a giveaway that we can see the name of bridge officers we are going to get when accepting missions. Hakeev looks very static on the viewscreen behind the station commander. Some of the Tal Shiar didn't aggro when I started shooting on one of their group.
The Search for New Romulus
Well, most of us already know where the New Romulus homeworld will be.. But for new players, it's a dead giveaway that the system is actually named New Romulus. I don't suppose there is a way to phase the name of that system until it is actually decided (in the storyline) that it will become New Romulus?
Typo in one of the bridge officer notifications on the surface, after scanning a nanov: he says "This creatures are fascinating.." The Tholian ground battle was quite tough, the space battle not so much. In sector space I used the "plot a course to.." button in the mission tracker in order for it to take me to the flotilla - instead it took me to the Galorndon core system.
Turning Point
It's nice to see some familiar faces from another viewpoint. Khitomer looks great! And Jiro Sugihara is kinda funny
Neutral No More
When being hailed by Captain Harvson in Eta Eridani, he gives a "Talk" option that only repeats the message. Also it is kinda odd that he is suddenly very close to the camera in the second screen.
--
That's it for these missions I think, so far so good! Looking forward to the next arc!
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
Pretty much any encounter with an Ev Suited Tholian of Commander level and above turns into this, regardless of where you are or what level your character is.
1) Character Selection Screen: I love the new crew montage - I've watched this develop since the STOLOR builds started to show up and with each refinement it looks nicer. A couple of recommendations:
*Consider starting the default zoom level just a little closer to avoid the "standing on thin air" look.
*The bridge officers don't show up unless the player has filled in his or her default away team on the "U" screen. To maximize the value of the boff montage, you might want to consider instead randomly pulling boffs from the captain's roster instead of always using the default away team. This would allow captains who haven't set up the away team to see the montage, and it would give "face time" to boffs who aren't on the away team.
2) Character Creator: All things considered, I think this is about even with the current version in terms of ease of use and functionality. I noticed that occasionally the screen wasn't refreshing when I made choices.
Unfortunately I'm out of tribble slots to go back and check, but I believe the character builder still said "race." If this is still in the build, I would recommend substituting "species," which I think is more IP-friendly.
The selection of costuming options for the Romulans is great. As others have noticed, some combinations have clipping issues, but I think this is fine - you just have to tweak the costume until you are happy, which is a reasonable price to pay for the level of customization we get. I also saw something that I was very happy to see and hope you expand upon: off-duty parts in the 'uniform' costume group.
I've talked about this before in the art forum, but I want to strongly recommend you consider doing this for all factions. The sequestration of certain parts into the off-duty category is the root of the problems with customizing KDF renegade boffs, and more broadly the different categories prevent players from getting the most use of their endgame unlocks. If you don't believe me, take a look at how often recently the Cryptic art department has mixed and matched parts from the uniform, off-duty (mercenary pack), and STF groups to create NPCs on the Starbase, the Embassy, and New Romulus. Moving all the uniform parts to the "uniform" group would require a little bit of database work, but it would resolve a lot of problems and further improve your excellent customization experience.
3) Tutorial: Amazing, loved the tutorial mission. I don't have a lot of feedback because this was a great, polished experience and loads of fun. One small suggestion: when you go back to talk to your friend, he is far enough away that the 'pointer' doesn't appear on the mini-map. However, the pointer does appear for the lore NPC. This might lead some players to run to the lore contact instead. It took me a moment to think back to where my captain's friend was and backtrack to his position. You might want to consider increasing the range at which the map shows the quest pointer.
On the topic of ranges: Please, I beg you, if it's still in the STOLOR build of the game, remove Squad Support Range. One of the best features of STO is its two-way level scaling, which lets players of all levels enjoy the game. However, when the squad support range feature automatically disables level-matching, the result is almost always immediate and horrible death for the low-level players. To maximize the appeal of this game to new players, please consider retiring this feature so people can level-match without worrying about staying bunched up.
4) Missions: Helix, Crateris, Space Station, New Romulus: all fun missions with great set design and visuals. LOVE the new dialogue backgrounds. At the end of Crateris, the boss fight was fun but took a very long time to play through. You might want to consider nerfing the dreadnought at the end of Crateris a bit; if it takes me as an experienced player a very long time to complete the fight, a first-time player might find this too steep a learning curve increase.
4a) Story boffs as prizes: Great idea, I love it! The lack of characterization for boffs is something I've always considered to be an area for improvement in this game. However, I noticed that all the boffs come out as very rare quality. As a player, I think that's delightful, but at the same time as someone who thinks about game design I feel like that kind of devalues the other boffs that the player will be able to use in the future. Perhaps green quality would be more appropriate? Actually, ignore this point. I just logged in and now I see that only the first one they give you is purple. The others are green, which I think is just right.
4b) Loot tables: As a tactical captain, I get a bonus to plasma weapon damage. However, the loot tables appear to be skewed towards Federation and KDF loot. I assume this is because Romulans don't appear in the original (i.e., Fed) storyline until higher level content. All of my loot weapons are phasers and disruptors; I recommend you consider adjusting the loot tables to seed plasma weapons at an equal level with phasers and disruptors.
4c) A missing tutorial? I might have missed it, but I don't recall ever getting a tutorial activity for using the singularity core. I figured it out on my own pretty quick, but this is something you probably want to highlight for new players. Maybe insert a step into the first mission that prompts the captain to fire off his or her plasma shockwave?
That's all I've got so far... keep up the good work, guys!
C'mon! is really that hard to pay attention and see the Tholian Mine?. Once you have see it, move away, simple as that. The Tholians are an easy enemy.
www.divisionhispana.com
Am I the only one that didn't have any issues with the dreadnought at the end of Crateris?
It took a little longer than most, but not more than a few minutes.
Did you guys assign skill points? I assigned all my skill points and maxed out my BOFF's HY1 so I could fire it faster. Also diverted power to weapons. Maybe that's why? I'm playing an engineer too.
As for the BOFF quality, I never got a purple one. Only a blue and green.
EDIT: Lol, you edited right as I was quoting. The first one may have been purple, but I thought it was blue. I'll have to check tonight.
That reminds me, looking at the character screen UI in game, I can't tell from looking at the class logo which quality the BOFFs are. Fed is pretty easy, KDF is a little harder.
1) The locked doors are fine going in, but become very frustrating when the mission requires you to backtrack. Suggestion: put reach triggers along the path that change the doors "behind" the captain from locked to unlocked.
2) The I.K.S. Kang is a Vor'cha in this mission, but it's a Tor'Khat in The Cure Found. Recommendation: change the I.K.S. Kang to a Tor'Khat in this mission.
2) Bug: This mission cleared my bridge officer assignments, so when I went to the space segment I found myself without BOFF powers in the first fight :eek:
Explore The Folitila - nice intro mission.
The Helix - An alright mission.
Crossroads at Crateris - The battleship at the end could use a small nerf.
Gasko Blues - all good.
The Search For New Romulus - The commander stage could use a small nerf.
Turning Point - No information is given to the player about what they will gain by joining either faction. A small preview even would be nice.
1) Virinat: I think it's been said, but I'll add my voice to that chorus, the opening was absolutely beautiful. For all the detail and attention that must have gone in there, I'm saddened that we didn't get to spend more time exploring the colony while it was still intact.
2) The Flotilla: Having seen it on the map for a while, this puts so much into context knowing this is the "Earth Spacedock" for the early part of the Romulan arc. I've obviously played the game before, so I feel comfortable exploring, but it might be easy for someone to overlook a vendor and fail to get something like a kit if they don't know where to look. A couple technical issues with the tailor, it seemed a little too easy to zoom all the way out or all the way in and not see your character show up hen trying new uniforms on (I think a couple other posts identified something like that).
3) New Romulus: I'm going to skip ahead a little bit here. I think the story is great up to this point, but I'm not quite sure the bar has been cleared in terms of explaining how new Romulus got its start. I like the open questing style of observing wildlife and taking samples that we've become accustomed to previously, but I think some other players rightly point out that switchback nature of the map feels limiting--you're not really exploring, but rather just following a predefined path. I love seeing the bridge in the distance. It would have been my hope to have explored a map where I might find myself near some of the landmarks that I would come to know later. I'll hold my thoughts on the Tholians for now, trusting that how they found it first and why they're there will be explained later.
My biggest disappointment is this though: you don't return to New Romulus. You don't even really hear about it being a factor again for a while. After the effort to find it, and negotiate for it (I did love "The Undiscovered Country" aspect of preventing an assassination at Khitomer, even if I would also have liked to have been able to explore the exterior), where are you in the effort to establish and build it? What did the area of the city look like before the city was there? How did you discover the ruins? These are the unanswered questions. Later when you finally do return though, you suddenly have a fleet command there, but you haven't seen the rest of the planet. And that aspect (while I love the building) seems a little abrupt. Not being able to place that command building into context with the rest of the planet is also a little difficult.
These are my thoughts. Hope something constructive comes from them.
During the tutorial missions, there is either a BO popup or help text (I forget which) that states you can only cloak when not in Red Alert. However the starting ship we have has a Battle Cloak, so we actually can.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure it makes sense to have Romulan ships explode when they are destroyed after they were already sucked into the singularity. I noticed the singularity has an effect on our ship if we're too close, but perhaps it should cause the damage (like Gravity Well, but more so), as opposed to a 'warp core breach' they don't have.