Sleepers - the Borg cube is still OP; this is the third toon to go thru the mission, and this time I did manage not to die. This feat was only achieved thru judicious use of all abilities, devices and singularity boosts available. From the start of the fight, I rarely had any shields and was barely keeping my hull at anything close to 50%. The so-called derelict cube fights like a fully operational cube and the NPC support is almost useless in taking aggro off of the player's ship. This still needs to be retuned or have more NPC ships come in to support.
The next mission (cannot remember the name) involving the rescue of another colony had definite pathing problems on two of my Boffs, Khev kept getting stuck in terrain and I almost had to "baby" walk him to the last of the four evac sites. Another Boff just plain disappeared at the second evac point. This bug is new since the other two time I went thru this mission I had no problems keeping my ground team together.
Overall, the game ran fairly smoothly, however there still seemed to be some rough edges. The whole experience seemed like it was a well written game, but it still felt as if it was in the beta stages overall. After moving from one mission to another, The video would show the previous area shortly after the "fade in" as if the video memory wasn't refreshed. Also, the ship turned erratically, as if it had a problem deciding on which angle it was at. During combat, the warbird would not bank smoothly, and sometimes would not bank at all. There was no description or help over what the new charge up ability was, and had to learn from playing. The beginning had me believe that there was an alternate choice to be ruled under Seyla, but when I skipped the tutorial, It went straight to the fleet. The text faded in and out too quickly, and I had a hard time keeping up. I did not see any warp cinematics, and the warbird seemed to just go from start to very fast without any trails or visual warping.
Some of the fonts looked a bit too big, and the edges of the UI are overy contrasting looking like it's a basic menu type system and a temporary setup. Character avatar selection was a bit confusing, but I eventually learned where the buttons were. Selecting from the pictures gave a nice indication, but the list from the old version seemed to be a bit better. The presets for the head seemed out of place and un-needed which added to the confusion of the customising screen.
Mission "cloak and dagger" the mission text eludes to the mission involving Remans, which is what used to be in this mission but there are none now, given how Remans hate bright light and how bright the environment is it may be better to to change the mission text to refer to a Romulan separatist group instead of repopulating the map with Reman characters.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
K why you you are sopose to be a tal.shar you look at the link pad and it says you get plans to go to the replcter and make a tar'shar uniform i did'nt find it so i was running around in my dress.now if you are sopose to be tal'shar we should have to dressthe part .cause if you go down to a tal'shar basnot wearing there uniform they would shot you first then ask you waht you wanted
Right, so... I played "Revelation" and "Mind Games". I'm a little hesitant to get into these. Firstly because there is a lot that is wrong with them, and secondly because other people seem to think they are okay so I feel like maybe I just didn't get it?
But, here goes anyway.
First off, we're told by our new Tal Shiar handler that they want us to investigate anomalies in "staffing manifests". So, they've got some people that are in the wrong place, or too few, or whatever. Our first officer sifts the data and tells us something is probably going on in Hobus. Instead of just saying "We should go to Hobus", tell us WHY. Are there discrepencies with passenger manifests in and out of that system? There's a lot of missing and redacted data... What kind of data? Give us some context here. "I found a pattern" and then "We should go to Hobus" doesn't sound like an officer giving the captain a brief upon which to make a decision.
When you get there, data indicates the presence of a base. It does? Is the same data that we haven't heard anything about? The lack of motivation feels like I'm being led around by the nose here. Tovan needs to explain his thought process.
We scan the system, isolate the background signals, and then scan the system again. We find a something. Let's check it out. "The contact is a Romulan ship. What are they doing here?", my crew doesn't wonder. "They're charging weapons!", they fail to exclaim. Is nobody else on my ship surprised to that a Romulan ship fired on another Romulan ship without any attempt at communication?
"I wonder what they are trying to prevent us from finding". Who is 'they'!? Why does my crew seem to know who we're up against but I don't?
"This is probably an ambush, sir". Which is why I was cloaked. Emphasis on was.
Scanning the planetoid, I'm told that we can expect resistance. But at this time we don't know who's down there.
Up to this point, the mission is written by somebody who already knows what's going to happen and what's going on. It's NOT being written as if it's from the perspective of somebody who is trying to figure things out e.g. our character. Our Tal Shiar handler makes it sound like we're hunting down a suspicious clerical error to hide a mole, and then suddenly we're engaging multiple warships and a large asteroid base with no indication about who or what they are. Importantly, nobody seems to think this abrupt shift in our mission is at all strange.
We're handed the name "Taris". Perhaps I should point out that as a new player joining STO for the Romulan campaign, I have no idea who Taris is. The whole revelatory paragraph is frankly poorly written. It should read something more like "Here's an authorization for research materials from Taris... The same Taris who was a Praetor of the Empire? Wasn't she responsible for the subspace weapon that destroyed Romulus? Wait. She is here. Here, on this station! We have an opportunity to bring this monster to justice!"
Speaking of poorly written... "Assault the command room". My first officer should never presume to give me orders.
As Taris explains her position, it would be nice to know what, exactly, she thought she was doing for the benefit of all Romulans. "I thought I was doing something for the greater good" is completely unsympathetic since it lacks context. Also, her comment about appealing to the Iconians makes her look like a complete idiot. Hakeev was working with them, and Hakeev built the bomb (at least in her version of the story). Why would the Iconians help in any way.
Why are the Tal Shiar assault troops hostile to us? We're here as agents of the Tal Shiar, and they knew we were coming. At their request.
The ending was kind of silly. We have no idea where that gateway leads to, we don't know how to operate it, and it takes the same amount of time to yell in your commlink "Get me out of here!" as it does to run across a room into a big alien portal.
What should have happened is that the Tal Shiar ships would have set up a transporter inhibitor field. Your crew escapes back to your ship in a shuttlecraft, but you stay behind first to operate the shuttle bay controls and then to blow up the gate. As the facility starts to explode, a Tal Shiar assault squad runs up and says "It's all coming down! We need to get out now!" (remember, the Tal Shiar are not hostile because they think you're one of them). In the confusion, you get beamed to Hakeev's ship instead of your own. Except Hakeev knows you're not who you seem...
(Mind Games starts here)
Continuing the theme: A neat idea, but the execution is not very good.
First off, don't show us the indoctrination. Tell us "Hakeev is very creative". "Let me show you what my masters have taught me". Hakeev raises some device, and then the screen flashes white. As we fade to black, we hear disturbing mechanical and grisly sounds with no visuals. Then we wake up in the detection block.
Do not give us an inner voice.
The fact that we have an inner voice instantly tells us firstly, that we are still we, and secondly, that the indoctrination isn't working. Don't give the player this information. The player shouldn't be sure whether they are still controlling their original character or somebody else. For that matter, change the mission segment to something innocuous like "A day at the office". We should wake up, think "Wow my head hurts", and then we immediately get a message from our handler that we are supposed to be reporting for our duty assignments. Give us a friend to escort us there, somebody sympathetic. The food is terrible, when are we going to get paid, did you hear about that brawl the other day? Hakeev should be trying to ram into our head this alternate identity, and he will do that by giving us supporting illusions like those of having persistent friends and affairs as a Tal Shiar agent.
Nobody should mention conditioning, or indoctrination. Because you don't know anything about that and Hakeev wouldn't be eager to tell you. "You" just completed your special training, and now you are ready to take your proficiency tests.
At the morality decisions, we don't have an inner voice. Take the color coding off the choices and mix them up. Give us some "duds". The morality choice needs to make sense in the context of our forced reality. In our conscious reality we are a Tal Shiar agent and we should have no problem with picking up the pistol. But our subconscious (emphasis important) will balk at shooting somebody we recognize. Our choices at this point should be "Yes, sir" (accept the brainwashing), "Who is this prisoner?" (hesitate/dud), and "Wait, don't I know her..." (reject brainwashing).
Every time you reject the brainwashing, you're "punished" by the screen going all bloomy and whobbly, and the situation will slightly alter itself. Continuing the example, if you initially reject the brainwashing, you are punished and then Satra is replaced by somebody with a different name. It's still Satra, but our programming has been adjusted and refined so that we don't recognize her as Satra. That's how you play mind games.
This continues until Khimek tells you to go to the med bay. When he knocks you out and deprograms you, now is when you throw in the exposition about the programming you received, and the player is relieved to know that they are still themselves. Khimek needs to provide some kind of proof that he is who he says he is since both the player and the character should be suspicious as hell for more shenanigans, and he also needs to mention that he's giving the player a covert in-ear communications device.
After that, the rest of the mission is fine.
So... Yeah. Mind Games. It's an interesting premise but it could benefit from some RADICAL overhauls. Remember: I'm tough because I love you.
Quoting all of this because it deserves it. Thank you for writing it and posting it, it states the issues better than most of us could. Cryptic, please take these concerns seriously, and the alternative options proposed.
I will just ditto the comments about the story not holding together and assuming that the player knows too much already about Taris. But I have some of my own to add on Mind Games:
This is an important episode and concept because it's definitely true to who the Tal Shiar are and the ideas behind some of the better episodes of Trek out there, but because of the potential and because it's such serious stuff it really needs to be handled with care. Some will argue it's just a video game and some will argue players are just going to click as fast as they can but Sci-Fi especially is about more than that and y'all know it or you wouldn't bother.
I liked the dynamic of having choices change underneath me. That allowed me as a character and a player to keep resisting, but still have the story advance outside my control. Yes, it removes agency from the player, but it does so in a way that doesn't require the player to become complicit. Having the later options require me to go along, however, is horrid and will prevent me from playing this mission with my real characters. That removes agency in that I have to go along to advance the story, but worse than that it requires the player (not just the character) to choose to do these things. And having that mechanic change as I go actually works in the direction of conditioning *the player*.
Some will claim that's good storytelling because it extends the theme beyond the game itself, but I disagree. It's a railroad, and I daresay any pen and paper player would walk out of a game where the DM told them they were required to do something completely opposed to their idea of their character's alignment without some kind of saving throw chance. Again, having the player push one button and something different happen was a reasonable way to accomplish the conditioning aspect you want without making things overly complicated or doing a real branching plot.
I also object to the later parts that provide injuring or even euthanizing the prisoner as the only green option and then using the borged prisoner as a prop to create a distraction as the way forward. Those are moral quandaries of their own and the latter happens after our indoctrination is past, so it's presented as just the obvious thing to do.
No, this is not something you'd see on a normal TNG episode. They dealt with these topics but you never saw someone give in to the brainwashing and you rarely saw them succeed in carrying out their orders. Picard cried as Locutus, you knew he was in there fighting. Geordi resisted the Romulan order to kill fake O'Brien and was ultimately stopped before he hurt anyone real. Picard always insisted he saw four lights, no matter what he really perceived. Our heroes resist as long as they have any option in front of them, they don't ultimately choose to do the evil thing to progress the railroad plot.
PS: This is the first thing that prompted me to post since coming back from a hiatus and I haven't checked my profile settings or dealt with the forced forum name change stuff but I've been LTS since open beta, FWIW.
At the close of the sequence on Drozana Station (where we have just met with the Klingon Intelligence officer and we are set to infiltrate the Tal Shiar), we receive a Tal Shiar uniform and an isolinear chip. To receive this reward, we must speak with the Romulan Republic Intelligence officer, who presents these, the XP, etc., while she praises us for a job well done.
Then, the next window pops up to offer the beginning of "Enemy Action" tabs. When you click on the mission tab, she instructs you to "meet [her] on the Drozana Station in the Eta Eridani Sector block"...while are standing in the lounge, on Drozana Station, LOOKING RIGHT AT HER!
She then "presents" you with an isolinear chip ("...here, take this isolinear chip...") - that you already received as an award from the close of "Inside Job!"
Now, I chose to ally with the Klingons, but also in this sequence, she informs us that "our allies in the FEDERATION" are going to stage an attack on the Tal Shiar outpost. Satra explains the attack further on the way to the outpost, but says (correctly) that "...the phony KDF attack..." will commence momentarily.
So, in short, it seems some of these sequences are disordered (and the one redundant and unnecessary), and there is a disconnect between our alliance choices and the set dialogue.
Having said that, these missions and all the Romulan content thus far have been fantastic - thanks! Can't wait until launch, but a little more spit and polish might make it shine all the more!
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge (...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
Loved the arc for the most part. Mind Games in particular was just elegantly evil. Two things in the arc though that might need tuning.
Cloak & Dagger, my boffs had a lot of pathfinding problems throughout the ground part of the mission. I ran it several times, and every time someone got stuck around the fountain in the middle of town and just stayed there. I don't know if they don't recognize it as an obstacle or what. Second, the two big Tal Shiar mob groups around that same fountain, if you die and respawn there, because of the close proximity I aggroed both at once. That was....unpleasant.
Revelations, the dialogue with Taris, my captain seemed to make some large logic leaps and jump to conclusions, and make some pretty wild accusations without any evidence against Taris. I as a player may know more based on the Federation-character Romulan arc, but my Rom captain didn't have any of that information, just knew everything anyways. Plus some of my dialogue selections seemed to jump even further into the tree, skipping even more. That whole conversation, while creating a potential new light on things, was just scattered and random. With more build-up and back-and-forth it could have been one heck of a plot twist too.
So I'm playng through temporal ambassador again, and here's what I noticed. My shoulder reank thingys where still there over my tholian work outift. And.. Hiven was laying in bed claiming to be Satra. Everyone else seemed to be who they were at least.
I notice the hand drawn map is still in that little corner of your contact window. At this point I suppsoe that must be working as intended. I find it small and annoying to use, and if it was my first time through it might be a problem... but, that's jsut my opinion on the matter, and maybe I'm the only one.
I'm happy to finally begin playing through something new! :^D
I have played this twice before and found it challenging, but not imbalanced; played it today and it was a killer. As soon as I started the battle my shields were stripped and I think I got one-shot. The second go saw my shields stripped again and an impossible time trying to recover shields and hull (to no avail). The third time I kept some distance and allowed what was left of my NPC allies to deal with the big behemoth (the one that I think is OP). This time it ended with me still being alive.
I definitely think this space battle is now imbalanced (don't know why); it is even worse than the Borg Cube OP in "Sleeper".
Maybe I had aggroed the masses against me the first time, but I sure didn't do that the second time I died in seconds. Devs, how about making fights challenging and balanced for the level of the character. :eek:
I am really liking the content here, and the graphics are fantastic. Having said that, there are some things that seem out of sorts:
First, during "Hidden Agenda," why is it that Tovan Khev communicates with us from the bridge - in fact, stating that "they will be monitoring our progress from the ship," yet he is with the away team? Further, if he is with the away team, why is it that every time we communicate with OPS, it is with him...as he is standing on the bridge of the ship?
Hmm...might be time for one of those random officers that you only see once in a season to make an appearance?
And, on the Borg cube - not that I minded entirely, because they are a real pain in the backside - did the Borg forget how to adapt since they have been in this "coma state?" Went in with modulator at the ready, but never had to use it. In fact, I was able to take all of them out with just a very basic ('Common' quality) phaser. Just didn't feel very...Borgy.
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge (...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
You get an isolinear chip as a reward for a mission, which briefs you on your next mission. You should get it when you talk to Tal'Mera to get that next mission (Enemy Action)
Revelation: Taris and her involvement with Iconians is mentioned before any evidence of her involvement with them is found
Mind Game: In the cutscene at the beginning, Sela's cloak billows as she turns. However, it doesn't turn with her, and ends up clipping through her body
Mind Game: The corpse of the fake Satra remains visible after the holodeck is deactivated
Starting "In Shadows" arc. Using the May 14th patch (and Fed career) in these two.
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AN INSIDE JOB
Observations: Nice, it's Star Trek's Frank (like TV's Frank but with less Manos: The Hands of Fate). Pretty risky for S31 to work with non-Fed talent but can't say I am surprised.
And that's its, plus my reward is clothes.
Issues/Bugs: In the Isolinear Chip you receive, on the first page second paragraph: With access codes with obtained from operatives already inside the Tal Shiar..." -> the bolded "with" should be chained to "we've".
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ENEMY ACTION
Observations: Is Denise Crosby going to do VOs for any other sector blocks? Because Psi Velorum would be extremely sensible given her role.
Anyway, another nice little set-piece space battle. I do have to say that the dev team has done rather nicely with mixing up these space battles. You aren't floating around for 15 minutes doing nothing in these Romulan operations if you don't want to.
The ground mission is however even more fun this time around, with an emphasis on "stealth" (at least as much as the game engine can handle) and negotiation. Uh, the Fed captain's serial code is #24601. Ultimately it's a reference to Les Miserables (and may directly be such) but is it possibly also a reference to the first "System Shock" game as well?
Apparently there was an option to go over prisoner databases that was grayed out for me. It might always inaccessible, but if its not, having additional secrets unfold through multiple playthroughs is an excellent way of increasing mission replayability.
Overall a very strong mission, a great way to kick off this arc.
Issues/Bugs: Tal'Mera tells me she needs to talk to me on Drozana. But I'm already there after the last mission?
Why is the teleport beam a red Phaser rather than a green Plasma beam? Especially since the firing sound is for Plasma weapons.
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OTHER NOTES:
Leaving Drozana space map, re-enter Eta Eridani block as if I am exiting warp.
There are a few major issues with Enemy Action
1. There was once case where a fed ship was able to see through my cloak, even when it should not have been able to, and I didn't auto decloak either.
2. The decoy ship is bad, it is too powerful for a decoy, badly placed (it was stuck in the station the whole time and difficult to target), also, whenever I engaged it, the Fed ships in the area all engaged me, overwheming me. I got blown up 3 times while trying to destroy it.
3. The fed ships keep interfering with jamming sensors and comm arrays (perhaps allowing the player to do those while cloaked)?
1. Is the away team supposed to be on the borg cube, if so, how do you explain the Tal'Shiar ignoring 4 Republic officers? Also, that makes the whole argument about the player having insufficient security clearance moot.
2. When decoding the mainframe. the Borg file says it is scanning for Omega. This is incorrect. The borg's designation for the particle is Particle 010. Omega is the Federation's name for Omega
Observations: So your new boss is the girl giving Hakeev the business early on in special Romulan-Iconian mission set. She was an interesting but unexplored side character, and she had a good voice actress so hopefully we will hear a little of her later on as well.
The mission itself wasn't too bad, although the first space section was a bit tedious (the Elachi/Borg text was nice though). Inside the cube itself it gets rather better, between the revelation and of course the Borg coming back online. The "defend the head guy" battle at the end started easy but with the sudden appearance of several Tac Drones it had quite the difficulty spike.
The final battle was tough, but it should be. Using the Singularity powers in a cube battle, even on Normal demonstrates the true potential these abilities will have in STFs.
Issues/Bugs: N'Vek is using Tovan's name during his first on-screen appearance.
Blue Fed warp effect again.
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CLOAK AND DAGGER
Observations: This one starts with the promise of one heck of a moral dilemma. The situation is so dire that Tovan's voice actor flubs his lines, he's so upset.
A quick space combat, with a longer and (while entertaining) somewhat difficult ground section. Dealing with the shuttle guards isn't too bad, but the guard patrols in the center are killer. But those walkers are neat, aren't they. And they come up as enemies as well, which makes me both excited and unnerved.
The bomb was a pretty good demonstration of why the other factions freak out over these kinds of devices at the beginning of their run of the old Rom-Ico arc. The twist at the end...I didn't really like it honestly. Not so much because of the result for the colonists, but you'd think top leadership would have something better to do than essentially following around their employees in their car making sure they are doing their job. But then again, Romulan paranoia games...
Issues/Bugs: Tovan's VO, when he is suggesting beaming down to help the colony, redoes his last line a couple of times after he has a brain freeze. Might want to finesse that audio in Audition or Sound Forge (or whatever you guys use for sound engineering).
When I left the Maiori's house, my some of my BOFFs got glitched into the scenery, I believe.
The ending text; Tovan spoke, but it was Satra's portrait and name.
"empress"? So many people in the Romulan Empire refuse to capitalize titles...
Observations: We've been here before, this mission is not new territory, although it's with a cloaking device and voiceovers now.
But that's before we beam down. No longer does the base look like a grounded Romulan ship, in fact it actually looks like a base now. With proper doors and everything.
Until we actually reach Taris. Now THIS is excellent. We now add context to her actions, and with a voice over as well. Plus it adds some background to Hakeev. Did you get Carolyn Seymour for this? It's been awhile since I've seen the episode so I've forgot her voice. Lots of revelations here, that is for sure.
Actually, this mission is completely different from it's Fed counterpart. It's a prequel in fact, a rather well done one as well. The ending is superb. Easily one of the top missions for STO.
Issues/Bugs: After killing the D'dredrix just before going over to the planetoid, Satra chimes in "We've located a strong energy signature form the planetoid I've marked on the map.". Should be "from" instead.
After getting the download on Computer Beta done on the ground map, Tovan mentions Taris. While we all know she's the baddie her by this point, in the context of this mission she hasn't even been brought up before at all. So why does Tovan mention her now?
Then again, you can see Taris on the ground map screen, so maybe he just looked at the automap. Sort of ruins the surprise for newbies though.
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MIND GAME
Observations: Iconian gateway emergency jumping doesn't work out as well for us as it did Picard. In fact it's rather the opposite. Crosby is extremely effective as Sela when she's not trying to be sociable. Seems she knows the truth about Hobus and is pro-Iconian. That's bad.
Next sequence...for weaker stomachs it will be the stuff of nightmares, but for me it was engrossing. I suspect there will be many players however that immediately try and fry the Ephocs (sic?) though.
Once you get the crazy pumped out of you, the mission still is superb, and while not the same as the preceding sections still leagues different from the majority of STO missions.
Nice start to the space mission with the Iconian ship flying away in the background. And then you have the big battle. Personally I think in comparison to the ground missions, the space section was a bit of letdown. Still, a worthy sequel the previous affair and another top STO mission.
If you mean the Security Checkpoint, I've looked there. If you mean the room visible through the window in the Security checkpoint, I can't get in there.
ok, so I got myself almost through this arc and...
... and first of all I'm stuck during "making lemonade" the "aerolization device" thing won't activate, so a bug, one of those making mission unfinishable, so please take look a this
at the beginning it's said my cover identity supposed to outrank a subcommander, while everyone refers to me as centurion all the way to the end which causes inconsistency
I was actually hoping I could switch sides during this mission and finally ditch this lame republic, but apparently I can't - shame, but think about it please
now for the good part: testing weapons on eppohs was... rewarding, watching wretched pests die made me smile and feel there are still good things in life,
btw when KDF players can expect a change in new romulus adventure zone from eppoh tagging to eppoh stomping? with pet targs and mastiffs hunting those little vexation of a creatures?
edit: game crashed just now while submitting this post
edit 2: I verified game files and run the 'lemonade' again, finished with no fuss, so no idea what might cause this bug
If i were asked.. "What mission i wanted to see more of?" I would answer "Mind games". This mission of abduction is really in depth and is true trek, or, i should say Romulan and Cryptic should keep this up as it simply works.
I have seen many games with a horror theme and a few have caught my Eye whilst others are acadish, so to speak. Regardless of how game dev's put an effort into the realistic gore scenes there's a major point in LoR that other games have liked to impress me, Its the voice acting, the Emotion and the realization to reference with the characters story and how they feel that is shown in this ark of LoR that exceeded the call of a good old fashioned Emotional bond that the player develops with their character before a horror point in a story!. I did not see this in STO Before LoR and so am quite proud of the effort of the VO especially from Denise Crosby and the Guy who play's Toven Kiev, now thats something:cool:
Whether other users agree with me or not that the VO in LoR is Amazing, i Push Cryptic to look at this and really consider staying with this level of game story telling as it is quite compelling and worth saying Cheers to Cryptic and the VO Cast, High praise yes but we want more of this story and i have a really good feeling that the rest outside of the closed beta will agree and will want more of this level of gameplay story.
One other thing i want to point out here is something that other users have pointed out and its Choice of Decisions in the story that have consequence (EG. Choosing to ally with fed or Kingon) to the overall story. I have only played a few games with this feature and seeing this in STO really impressed me to the possibility's if it were Expanded upon?. A way that i'd like to see this is reward Variation so that the better choice we make the better the reward Thus makes the game far more replayable in a storyline sense. For a quick example of this, why not get a reward like the "Shard of possibilities" for Defusing the Situation of not insulting Tran in the Breen ark? LOL, but thats just an idea.
Lastly but not least, Cryptic, Please re- do all of the missions in sto to this level of Quality And VO please! and Put STO into the Fast lane.
Comments
The next mission (cannot remember the name) involving the rescue of another colony had definite pathing problems on two of my Boffs, Khev kept getting stuck in terrain and I almost had to "baby" walk him to the last of the four evac sites. Another Boff just plain disappeared at the second evac point. This bug is new since the other two time I went thru this mission I had no problems keeping my ground team together.
Some of the fonts looked a bit too big, and the edges of the UI are overy contrasting looking like it's a basic menu type system and a temporary setup. Character avatar selection was a bit confusing, but I eventually learned where the buttons were. Selecting from the pictures gave a nice indication, but the list from the old version seemed to be a bit better. The presets for the head seemed out of place and un-needed which added to the confusion of the customising screen.
Overall, looked good though.
Quoting all of this because it deserves it. Thank you for writing it and posting it, it states the issues better than most of us could. Cryptic, please take these concerns seriously, and the alternative options proposed.
I will just ditto the comments about the story not holding together and assuming that the player knows too much already about Taris. But I have some of my own to add on Mind Games:
This is an important episode and concept because it's definitely true to who the Tal Shiar are and the ideas behind some of the better episodes of Trek out there, but because of the potential and because it's such serious stuff it really needs to be handled with care. Some will argue it's just a video game and some will argue players are just going to click as fast as they can but Sci-Fi especially is about more than that and y'all know it or you wouldn't bother.
I liked the dynamic of having choices change underneath me. That allowed me as a character and a player to keep resisting, but still have the story advance outside my control. Yes, it removes agency from the player, but it does so in a way that doesn't require the player to become complicit. Having the later options require me to go along, however, is horrid and will prevent me from playing this mission with my real characters. That removes agency in that I have to go along to advance the story, but worse than that it requires the player (not just the character) to choose to do these things. And having that mechanic change as I go actually works in the direction of conditioning *the player*.
Some will claim that's good storytelling because it extends the theme beyond the game itself, but I disagree. It's a railroad, and I daresay any pen and paper player would walk out of a game where the DM told them they were required to do something completely opposed to their idea of their character's alignment without some kind of saving throw chance. Again, having the player push one button and something different happen was a reasonable way to accomplish the conditioning aspect you want without making things overly complicated or doing a real branching plot.
I also object to the later parts that provide injuring or even euthanizing the prisoner as the only green option and then using the borged prisoner as a prop to create a distraction as the way forward. Those are moral quandaries of their own and the latter happens after our indoctrination is past, so it's presented as just the obvious thing to do.
No, this is not something you'd see on a normal TNG episode. They dealt with these topics but you never saw someone give in to the brainwashing and you rarely saw them succeed in carrying out their orders. Picard cried as Locutus, you knew he was in there fighting. Geordi resisted the Romulan order to kill fake O'Brien and was ultimately stopped before he hurt anyone real. Picard always insisted he saw four lights, no matter what he really perceived. Our heroes resist as long as they have any option in front of them, they don't ultimately choose to do the evil thing to progress the railroad plot.
PS: This is the first thing that prompted me to post since coming back from a hiatus and I haven't checked my profile settings or dealt with the forced forum name change stuff but I've been LTS since open beta, FWIW.
Then, the next window pops up to offer the beginning of "Enemy Action" tabs. When you click on the mission tab, she instructs you to "meet [her] on the Drozana Station in the Eta Eridani Sector block"...while are standing in the lounge, on Drozana Station, LOOKING RIGHT AT HER!
She then "presents" you with an isolinear chip ("...here, take this isolinear chip...") - that you already received as an award from the close of "Inside Job!"
Now, I chose to ally with the Klingons, but also in this sequence, she informs us that "our allies in the FEDERATION" are going to stage an attack on the Tal Shiar outpost. Satra explains the attack further on the way to the outpost, but says (correctly) that "...the phony KDF attack..." will commence momentarily.
So, in short, it seems some of these sequences are disordered (and the one redundant and unnecessary), and there is a disconnect between our alliance choices and the set dialogue.
Having said that, these missions and all the Romulan content thus far have been fantastic - thanks! Can't wait until launch, but a little more spit and polish might make it shine all the more!
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge
(...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
Cloak & Dagger, my boffs had a lot of pathfinding problems throughout the ground part of the mission. I ran it several times, and every time someone got stuck around the fountain in the middle of town and just stayed there. I don't know if they don't recognize it as an obstacle or what. Second, the two big Tal Shiar mob groups around that same fountain, if you die and respawn there, because of the close proximity I aggroed both at once. That was....unpleasant.
Revelations, the dialogue with Taris, my captain seemed to make some large logic leaps and jump to conclusions, and make some pretty wild accusations without any evidence against Taris. I as a player may know more based on the Federation-character Romulan arc, but my Rom captain didn't have any of that information, just knew everything anyways. Plus some of my dialogue selections seemed to jump even further into the tree, skipping even more. That whole conversation, while creating a potential new light on things, was just scattered and random. With more build-up and back-and-forth it could have been one heck of a plot twist too.
Otherwise though, good arc.
I notice the hand drawn map is still in that little corner of your contact window. At this point I suppsoe that must be working as intended. I find it small and annoying to use, and if it was my first time through it might be a problem... but, that's jsut my opinion on the matter, and maybe I'm the only one.
I'm happy to finally begin playing through something new! :^D
I definitely think this space battle is now imbalanced (don't know why); it is even worse than the Borg Cube OP in "Sleeper".
Maybe I had aggroed the masses against me the first time, but I sure didn't do that the second time I died in seconds. Devs, how about making fights challenging and balanced for the level of the character. :eek:
First, during "Hidden Agenda," why is it that Tovan Khev communicates with us from the bridge - in fact, stating that "they will be monitoring our progress from the ship," yet he is with the away team? Further, if he is with the away team, why is it that every time we communicate with OPS, it is with him...as he is standing on the bridge of the ship?
Hmm...might be time for one of those random officers that you only see once in a season to make an appearance?
And, on the Borg cube - not that I minded entirely, because they are a real pain in the backside - did the Borg forget how to adapt since they have been in this "coma state?" Went in with modulator at the ready, but never had to use it. In fact, I was able to take all of them out with just a very basic ('Common' quality) phaser. Just didn't feel very...Borgy.
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge
(...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
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AN INSIDE JOB
Observations: Nice, it's Star Trek's Frank (like TV's Frank but with less Manos: The Hands of Fate). Pretty risky for S31 to work with non-Fed talent but can't say I am surprised.
And that's its, plus my reward is clothes.
Issues/Bugs: In the Isolinear Chip you receive, on the first page second paragraph: With access codes with obtained from operatives already inside the Tal Shiar..." -> the bolded "with" should be chained to "we've".
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ENEMY ACTION
Observations: Is Denise Crosby going to do VOs for any other sector blocks? Because Psi Velorum would be extremely sensible given her role.
Anyway, another nice little set-piece space battle. I do have to say that the dev team has done rather nicely with mixing up these space battles. You aren't floating around for 15 minutes doing nothing in these Romulan operations if you don't want to.
The ground mission is however even more fun this time around, with an emphasis on "stealth" (at least as much as the game engine can handle) and negotiation. Uh, the Fed captain's serial code is #24601. Ultimately it's a reference to Les Miserables (and may directly be such) but is it possibly also a reference to the first "System Shock" game as well?
Apparently there was an option to go over prisoner databases that was grayed out for me. It might always inaccessible, but if its not, having additional secrets unfold through multiple playthroughs is an excellent way of increasing mission replayability.
Overall a very strong mission, a great way to kick off this arc.
Issues/Bugs: Tal'Mera tells me she needs to talk to me on Drozana. But I'm already there after the last mission?
Why is the teleport beam a red Phaser rather than a green Plasma beam? Especially since the firing sound is for Plasma weapons.
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OTHER NOTES:
Leaving Drozana space map, re-enter Eta Eridani block as if I am exiting warp.
Transwarp drive uses blue Federation effect.
1. There was once case where a fed ship was able to see through my cloak, even when it should not have been able to, and I didn't auto decloak either.
2. The decoy ship is bad, it is too powerful for a decoy, badly placed (it was stuck in the station the whole time and difficult to target), also, whenever I engaged it, the Fed ships in the area all engaged me, overwheming me. I got blown up 3 times while trying to destroy it.
3. The fed ships keep interfering with jamming sensors and comm arrays (perhaps allowing the player to do those while cloaked)?
2. When decoding the mainframe. the Borg file says it is scanning for Omega. This is incorrect. The borg's designation for the particle is Particle 010. Omega is the Federation's name for Omega
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SLEEPERS
Observations: So your new boss is the girl giving Hakeev the business early on in special Romulan-Iconian mission set. She was an interesting but unexplored side character, and she had a good voice actress so hopefully we will hear a little of her later on as well.
The mission itself wasn't too bad, although the first space section was a bit tedious (the Elachi/Borg text was nice though). Inside the cube itself it gets rather better, between the revelation and of course the Borg coming back online. The "defend the head guy" battle at the end started easy but with the sudden appearance of several Tac Drones it had quite the difficulty spike.
The final battle was tough, but it should be. Using the Singularity powers in a cube battle, even on Normal demonstrates the true potential these abilities will have in STFs.
Issues/Bugs: N'Vek is using Tovan's name during his first on-screen appearance.
Blue Fed warp effect again.
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CLOAK AND DAGGER
Observations: This one starts with the promise of one heck of a moral dilemma. The situation is so dire that Tovan's voice actor flubs his lines, he's so upset.
A quick space combat, with a longer and (while entertaining) somewhat difficult ground section. Dealing with the shuttle guards isn't too bad, but the guard patrols in the center are killer. But those walkers are neat, aren't they. And they come up as enemies as well, which makes me both excited and unnerved.
The bomb was a pretty good demonstration of why the other factions freak out over these kinds of devices at the beginning of their run of the old Rom-Ico arc. The twist at the end...I didn't really like it honestly. Not so much because of the result for the colonists, but you'd think top leadership would have something better to do than essentially following around their employees in their car making sure they are doing their job. But then again, Romulan paranoia games...
Issues/Bugs: Tovan's VO, when he is suggesting beaming down to help the colony, redoes his last line a couple of times after he has a brain freeze. Might want to finesse that audio in Audition or Sound Forge (or whatever you guys use for sound engineering).
When I left the Maiori's house, my some of my BOFFs got glitched into the scenery, I believe.
The ending text; Tovan spoke, but it was Satra's portrait and name.
"empress"? So many people in the Romulan Empire refuse to capitalize titles...
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REVELATION
Observations: We've been here before, this mission is not new territory, although it's with a cloaking device and voiceovers now.
But that's before we beam down. No longer does the base look like a grounded Romulan ship, in fact it actually looks like a base now. With proper doors and everything.
Until we actually reach Taris. Now THIS is excellent. We now add context to her actions, and with a voice over as well. Plus it adds some background to Hakeev. Did you get Carolyn Seymour for this? It's been awhile since I've seen the episode so I've forgot her voice. Lots of revelations here, that is for sure.
Actually, this mission is completely different from it's Fed counterpart. It's a prequel in fact, a rather well done one as well. The ending is superb. Easily one of the top missions for STO.
Issues/Bugs: After killing the D'dredrix just before going over to the planetoid, Satra chimes in "We've located a strong energy signature form the planetoid I've marked on the map.". Should be "from" instead.
After getting the download on Computer Beta done on the ground map, Tovan mentions Taris. While we all know she's the baddie her by this point, in the context of this mission she hasn't even been brought up before at all. So why does Tovan mention her now?
Then again, you can see Taris on the ground map screen, so maybe he just looked at the automap. Sort of ruins the surprise for newbies though.
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MIND GAME
Observations: Iconian gateway emergency jumping doesn't work out as well for us as it did Picard. In fact it's rather the opposite. Crosby is extremely effective as Sela when she's not trying to be sociable. Seems she knows the truth about Hobus and is pro-Iconian. That's bad.
Next sequence...for weaker stomachs it will be the stuff of nightmares, but for me it was engrossing. I suspect there will be many players however that immediately try and fry the Ephocs (sic?) though.
Once you get the crazy pumped out of you, the mission still is superb, and while not the same as the preceding sections still leagues different from the majority of STO missions.
Nice start to the space mission with the Iconian ship flying away in the background. And then you have the big battle. Personally I think in comparison to the ground missions, the space section was a bit of letdown. Still, a worthy sequel the previous affair and another top STO mission.
Issues/Bugs: None that I could tell.
Crosby has lines in Mind Games? They only time I heard her speaking was the Allegiance mission (and obviously sector block/level up)
... and first of all I'm stuck during "making lemonade" the "aerolization device" thing won't activate, so a bug, one of those making mission unfinishable, so please take look a this
at the beginning it's said my cover identity supposed to outrank a subcommander, while everyone refers to me as centurion all the way to the end which causes inconsistency
I was actually hoping I could switch sides during this mission and finally ditch this lame republic, but apparently I can't - shame, but think about it please
now for the good part: testing weapons on eppohs was... rewarding, watching wretched pests die made me smile and feel there are still good things in life,
btw when KDF players can expect a change in new romulus adventure zone from eppoh tagging to eppoh stomping? with pet targs and mastiffs hunting those little vexation of a creatures?
edit: game crashed just now while submitting this post
edit 2: I verified game files and run the 'lemonade' again, finished with no fuss, so no idea what might cause this bug
I have seen many games with a horror theme and a few have caught my Eye whilst others are acadish, so to speak. Regardless of how game dev's put an effort into the realistic gore scenes there's a major point in LoR that other games have liked to impress me, Its the voice acting, the Emotion and the realization to reference with the characters story and how they feel that is shown in this ark of LoR that exceeded the call of a good old fashioned Emotional bond that the player develops with their character before a horror point in a story!. I did not see this in STO Before LoR and so am quite proud of the effort of the VO especially from Denise Crosby and the Guy who play's Toven Kiev, now thats something:cool:
Whether other users agree with me or not that the VO in LoR is Amazing, i Push Cryptic to look at this and really consider staying with this level of game story telling as it is quite compelling and worth saying Cheers to Cryptic and the VO Cast, High praise yes but we want more of this story and i have a really good feeling that the rest outside of the closed beta will agree and will want more of this level of gameplay story.
One other thing i want to point out here is something that other users have pointed out and its Choice of Decisions in the story that have consequence (EG. Choosing to ally with fed or Kingon) to the overall story. I have only played a few games with this feature and seeing this in STO really impressed me to the possibility's if it were Expanded upon?. A way that i'd like to see this is reward Variation so that the better choice we make the better the reward Thus makes the game far more replayable in a storyline sense. For a quick example of this, why not get a reward like the "Shard of possibilities" for Defusing the Situation of not insulting Tran in the Breen ark? LOL, but thats just an idea.
Lastly but not least, Cryptic, Please re- do all of the missions in sto to this level of Quality And VO please! and Put STO into the Fast lane.