"Sphere of Influence" and the Mission Placement

inferiority · December 2013

Currently, "Sphere of Influence" sits as the first mission in a group of level 50 missions. This seems like a logical position given that it's meant to feed in to the level 50 story arc of the Solanae Dyson Sphere and the Omega Particles.

However, if it's to remain there, then the mission rewards need adjusting.

The level-less Warp Core should be restricted to level 50+ (currently it's 40+)
The level-less Anti-Proton beam should be restricted to level 50+ (currently no restriction)

What I'd like to suggest is that the mission be re-placed to the end of the "Romulan Mystery" story arc.
For all 3 factions, this will:

Put the mission just before level 40 is reached.
Allow level 40 equipment to be gained at level 40.
Place a decent 'gap' between the discovery of the Omega Particles and the Solanae Dyson Sphere story-arc.
(This gives the impression that the Romulan Republic, Klingon Empire and the Federation have been in talks over what to do about the Omega Particles)

The only flaw with this suggestion is that Shon would be a temporal anomaly being in command of the Enterprise F here; in command of the Belfast when we encounter him at Deep Space Nine; and then in command of the Enterprise again.
The "cleaner" solution is to put the whole "Second Wave" series at the beginning of the "Cardassian Struggle" and follow it with "Sphere of Influence".
"Sphere of Influence" will need some slight modification so that Captain Kurland is the mission giver and receiver instead of D'Tan.

clearbeard · December 2013

Since you don't find the gateway you use in Sphere of Influence until late in the New Romulus reputation, and you can't even access the reputation system until level 50, the mission is in its proper place at the very end of all the current story missions, restricted to level 50. I'd agree with revamping the rewards to fit this level, but that would mean it's inconsistent with all the other auto-leveling items in the game. Plus there are many many other missions with worthless rewards that need updating more.

inferiority · December 2013

So, now, players can get to level 50 and start the Gateway & then Dyson Sphere missions before they get around to discovering it during the Reputation system. EVen that way doesn't make sense.

laddyluna · March 24

it is a nice mission but it is bug rigt now The color memory puzzle is not displaying

inferiority · March 24

It's annoying that the current bugs around stuff not showing in the game is present.
However, this thread didn't need a new post given it's age.
It was nice to see this though, and see that the mission storyline has been resolved.

phoenixc · March 24

They need to get rid of the remaining level restrictions, not impose more. Linear, plot-on-rails storytelling works great on passive media like books and screenplays because the story is about someone else, and while it is not ideal in single-player games it works OK because they are a more one-and-done kind of thing (though the games with branching plots depending on player actions do have a certain amount of additional replayability).

Over time though, it turns out that MMOs work best with looser constraints. The ones that last the longest seem to be the ones that either started out with, or shifted to, a more open-world sandbox-like format partially because of community (which is what was originally thought to be the main driver) but more because of the same "shuffle factor" that makes songs seem to lose their shiny faster on a fixed-order playlist compared to those same songs shuffled around.

On older games like STO where the majority of players have settled into endgame long ago and have collected more stuff than they could ever use on one character that replayability factor is even more important than it is on a newer game where the majority are still going through the base content and new content drops can almost keep up with staving off boredom. That is the reason for all the Recruitment events, to keep players engaged with the game with fresh characters full of new potential. And for that you need multiple paths to make the most of replays, which means the ability to shuffle the mission arcs around (which we sort of have now, though there are a lot of rough spots and bugs left over from the more linear days).

In addition to the replayabililty factor, STO seems to have a lot of theme-based roleplayers (though the DPS "roll-players" seem to be the most vocal in the forums) and they face a lot of arbitrary barriers as it is since the kind of theme gear (both space and ground) that they depend on for a lot of the difference in feel is almost always from missions, reputations, lobi, or just exorbitantly expensive on the exchange.

With the Reputation level-wall that means that the majority of the non-whale roleplayers only have missions as sources for their theme-based gear and many (myself included) end up doing a kind of "pre-play" gathering phase of hopping around the mission list getting equipped with the right theme gear (or as much as possible anyway, kludges are a necessary evil in that) before going back and threading through the mission arcs in a serious, story-oriented way.

baddmoonrizin · March 25

necro /thread

"Sphere of Influence" and the Mission Placement

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