I know, sounds like a stupid question, but bear with me!
I played STO for a number of months last year and enjoyed leveling up 3 different characters: a Fed engineering officer, a Klingon tactical officer, and a Fed science officer. When they reached 50, I purchased for them ships from the store, respectively, the Odyssey Tactical Cruiser, the Guramba Siego Destroyer, and the Caitian Atrox Carrier.
These are really beautiful and amazing ships, and I love them a lot. However, at some point, I got tired of doing the same space missions over and over for rewards and upgrades that didn't seem to provide a lot of benefit. Missions were easily conquered and incremental improvements were pointless. Besides, the game seemed to be pushing me towards acquiring new ships, which wasn't very attractive because I'd already shelled out money for the ones I have. And what was I going to do with those new ships but the very same things that bored me with my current ones? I didn't want to just fly around in a new "skin".
Yes, I did PvP for a while, but this aspect of the game is...underdeveloped, to put it delicately.
A year has gone by and I know new content has been added to the game, with more on the way, but I'm curious if there's content that progressively challenges players. My ships are generally decked out with rare and very rare MK XI/XII modules and weapons. Will missions continue to be fairly trivial (assuming a competent team)? I could experience the new content, but that would probably last me only about a month. Is that the best I can hope for?
The only truly difficult content is Hive Space Elite and No Win Scenario. Other than those missions, the big change since last year was the launch of Legacy Of Romulus and all that entailed.
Well you could take joyrides across the galaxy in all your ships. Do those missions you don't normally do like exploration missions and such to keep from boredom. Though I'm sure the new content coming would provide a challenge i'm sure I could be wrong but who knows.
The only truly difficult content is Hive Space Elite and No Win Scenario. Other than those missions, the big change since last year was the launch of Legacy Of Romulus and all that entailed.
The ground STFs are still pretty tough, but not relevant to ships.
One word: Foundry. You want to increase challenge there? Go to your options page and, under the Gameplay tab, increase your difficulty level.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Step 1: Create challenging content, using game theory knowledge gained in college and applied to STO.
Step 2: Publish said challenging content, offering lucrative rewards for those able to complete said challenge.
Step 3: Watch STO forums erupt in flames and hatred over how unreasonably difficult the new challenging content is, and how people work 4 jobs, sleep six hours a night, have 8 children (4 of whom require special attention), a quadripeligic spouse, and taking care of their own parents in a nursing home while simultaneously coaching the local little league baseball team can't devote 15-20 minutes of their time getting said lucrative rewards or learning how to properly do said challenge.
Step 4: Watch the conscience of Cryptic show up, and said game designers water down said content to the point you can just bash your face against the keyboard a few times and you get the best purple Mk XII stuff currently in the game. Said game theory education turns out to be worthless, said game designers contemplate why they ever took out those student loans to begin with.
Step 5: New challenging content is easily burned through in a good 10 minutes using hyper-efficient ways. Diehard gamers get bored doing the same thing over and over again while Cryptic creates new content.
Step 6: Knowing that they can't create a challenging game for fear of alienating people who can only spend 10 minutes a night on the game or are as dumb as a sack of hammers, but that they need an artificial stopgap to keep players playing while they create new content, they introduce a reputation system.
Step 7: Players complain of no challenges in the game.
Comments
The ground STFs are still pretty tough, but not relevant to ships.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Step 2: Publish said challenging content, offering lucrative rewards for those able to complete said challenge.
Step 3: Watch STO forums erupt in flames and hatred over how unreasonably difficult the new challenging content is, and how people work 4 jobs, sleep six hours a night, have 8 children (4 of whom require special attention), a quadripeligic spouse, and taking care of their own parents in a nursing home while simultaneously coaching the local little league baseball team can't devote 15-20 minutes of their time getting said lucrative rewards or learning how to properly do said challenge.
Step 4: Watch the conscience of Cryptic show up, and said game designers water down said content to the point you can just bash your face against the keyboard a few times and you get the best purple Mk XII stuff currently in the game. Said game theory education turns out to be worthless, said game designers contemplate why they ever took out those student loans to begin with.
Step 5: New challenging content is easily burned through in a good 10 minutes using hyper-efficient ways. Diehard gamers get bored doing the same thing over and over again while Cryptic creates new content.
Step 6: Knowing that they can't create a challenging game for fear of alienating people who can only spend 10 minutes a night on the game or are as dumb as a sack of hammers, but that they need an artificial stopgap to keep players playing while they create new content, they introduce a reputation system.
Step 7: Players complain of no challenges in the game.
Step 8: See Step 1.