I still support the removal of these things. They were awful.
The only fun part about them is blowing up those mini bio dome things that had tribbles in them on KDF side lol.
Otherwise it was just some one facerolled a keyboard to come up a name for the generic alien inserted lol. Then the standard immunity power that was put on them to try to make them hard to kill lol.
I will never forget the KDF ones that had you kill plants that you couldn't scan on a huge map lol. Unless you spent a few hours you'd never complete the mission lol. My klingons in their early years cut their teeth in battle on plants and tribbles it was so awesome and thank god its going away after not playing it for years lol.
With all the updates to Season 9.5 on the way, Lead Content Designer, Charles Gray discusses the upcoming changes to Exploration Clusters in the latest entry of the Season 9 News Dev Blog series.
The daily missions to explore these Exploration Clusters have been removed, including the Explore Strange New Worlds and We Need Breathing Room daily missions. In order to replace these sources of Dilithium, we are looking at ways to add more Dilithium to rewards throughout the game, with a focus on adding it to rewards for single player content.
When can we expect this "Dilithium source replacement" change to take place? Soon as usual? (which generally means, anywhere from within a week, to never)
I can't believe this . Instead of improving these areas of exploration which Star Trek is All about ! They just remove it. No longer can we boldly go or explore strange new worlds. I have to ask myself am I still playing startrek ? Since season 6 and the launch of free to play you people have catered to nothing but new players except the veteran rewards deal. And are not considering you long time veterans and lifetime subscribers. You make it so people who started playing the game in 2 mints could earn the same fear we worked our asses off to earn with the introduction of the rep system , you take away people's crafting ranks and make them start over from scratch . You better change your toon or you are gonna loose a lot of veterans and lifetime subscribers. Stop catering to new players and start catering to veterans and end game players. I for one am not happy at all with this upcoming update . You have failed me yet again
OK so now i want a Dev Blog saying that they are working on an exploration re-vamp.
I agree that the explore clusters were lacking, but i did like them for a low level Fed toon. It was a good way to get Dil and exp. Now that is gone and that does suck but i understand why clusters are going the way of the dino.
NOW we just need the replacement revamp of exploration because seriously that was something that was unique in this game from all other star trek games and is something that needs to be in this game.
Q: [quoting Hartley] "Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays..."
I'll be the first to admit that the Exploration clusters are a tad generic and sub par, but at least it was something. I agree with the idea that a Star Trek MMO without exploration isn't Star Trek and I think solving a problem by eliminating it isn't much of a solution.
Yep couldn't agree more with this and other comments like it. I first heard about the removal of the clusters in Priority One Podcast's recent interview with Al Rivera re the crafting revamp, and was amazed that the hosts didn't follow up his comment about it at the time - that was the one of the biggest takeaways from everything he had to say for me (fortunately they did discuss it in the following show after feedback from listeners).
I love STO but exploration is the beating heart of everything Star Trek - remove it and all you've got is a combat simulator. Sure I get all the comments about the content in the exploration sectors not being to the same standard as the story episodes and other content, but at least here was one aspect of the game where you didn't know what was coming. Yes it was formulaic, yes a lot of it was still combat, but as a couple of folks above have said, there was an RP aspect to venturing out into the unknown that has been lost - a bit of imagination involved admittedly but at least it was there. And the clincher, as noted so many times above - why remove it altogether when you're not replacing with something better?
The best thing Cryptic can do now is at least give us some kind of indication that exploration is coming back into STO in a big way. I would be absolutely delighted if X2 really is the big exploration revamp so many of us have been waiting for, perhaps also opening up the galactic northwest into the bargain as has been mooted several times, but I fear it'll just be more combat and queued group content.
If Cryptic really do let exploration fall by the wayside indefinitely it will be perhaps one of the most callously anti-Trek things that's ever happened in STO.
"Making the game better for everyone" by removing content like Deja Q, Club 47, and Memory Alpha. :P What are we going to lose next?
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Exactly! Why remove things when you don't have better equivalents to replace them with? These are all ancient hold-overs of the original game. They aren't perfect, or the snazziest quality. Do they have to be? The game feels smaller for their removal. I often like to simply tool around the Exploration Zones. Scan various star clusters. Test certain builds or other conceptual ideas. It's a way to R E L A X.
The PvE queue's are fun, but sometimes very stressful, intense or just plain rude.
"Making the game better for everyone" by removing content like Deja Q, Club 47, and Memory Alpha. :P What are we going to lose next?
I knew Deja Q was gone and that Club 47 was probably dead....but Memory Alpha..... and now they are taking away the Clusters *and probably the Duty Officer Missions* okay **** Cryptic :mad:
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Disappointed. I've disagreed with decisions in the past, but overall the game has improved a lot over the past few years, so I never really have cause to comment. However, now I realize I should apologize. Sorry I've been playing the game all wrong, Devs. I didn't realize that me logging in and flying around exploration clusters, gathering materials, running colonization missions, and fighting random species was such a burden for you. I thought I was having fun. I guess I should be grateful that instead of taking the time to improve them you just killed them off with no replacement. Do me a favor though, will you guys? Stop calling this an MMO. Thanks. Now, excuse me, I have to go grind some boring missions I've already beat a few dozen times.
No-one here is arguing that Exploration Clusters were the cream of the content. In fact, that's part of why people are angry - they have asked and asked and asked for exploration to be revamped, and this is what happens. Maybe it will come with X2, but until they say so, this is exactly the sort of response that this kind of news deserves.
As noted, this isn't simply about the clusters being removed. It's more about them not being replaced with something else. Similarly, this also takes away easy sources of Crafting Materials and some Dilithium - ahead of 9.5's crafting upgrade - without some definitive plan to solve the problems they've created by removing clusters seems like another instance of Cryptic jipping the players.
Well put. Pretty much sums up my thoughts; well, except for the bit about dilithium and crafting mats, which I don't really care about.
Although, for me, there is also the fact that I've been totally opposed to the idea of the Foundry being used as the primary form of exploration content for years now.
Yeah, by removing content will make the quality better.......HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Before adding 9.5, Make DAMN SURE it will be worth it by removing the dil requirements for crafting. We have enough things that need dil as it is unless you are going to raise the refining limit to maybe about 20k. 8k in general isn't enough as it is for anything since most things require more than 10-20k a piece.
"We're improving a game based on an IP who since the beginning was "Exploring Strange New Worlds" by removing Exploring because Exploration sucks in this game and we're too lazy to improve it and it doesn't fit into our "Pay2Grind" payment model."
That's all I heard. Because with the same logic of "it doesn't work right so we're not going to fix it but drop it to make the game better" you'd have deleted PvP, the Klingon faction, and oh yeah CRAFTING years ago.
Yet somehow you managed to "fix" two of the above three and turn it into you Pay2Grind models... why couldn't you have done the same with Exploration, or just left it alone and ignore it like you did with PvP? It's not like you're payed ANY more attention to PvP over they years then you have to Exploration, and PvP is just as broken.
So if you're going to try and spin the "it doesn't fit our Pay2Grind" model... at least do a better job of it.
I knew Deja Q was gone and that Club 47 was probably dead....but Memory Alpha..... and now they are taking away the Clusters *and probably the Duty Officer Missions* okay **** Cryptic :mad:
No you won't remove Duty Officer Missions because that has a grind factor to it, and by Cryptic's standards... anything with a grind is good.
"Making the game better for everyone" by removing content like Deja Q, Club 47, and Memory Alpha. :P What are we going to lose next?
Well PvP is just as broken as Exploration was.. and they haven't fixed that either and they've taken away the in game lore reason for it with the end of the war... so following Cryptic's own logic... you do the math...
I'm a bit disappointed that all of you went on the offensive considering that you only have a little bit of information. If there is anything that you have learned about Cryptic is that they are committed to making the game better with each release. Exploration clusters gone? I for one am happy about that because I never go to them. I spent a lot of time scrounging for mats in clusters while I was leveling up to 60. After crafting the Aegis set, I don't use them anymore.
If removing them allows for Cryptic to reinvent or even innovate a new way to play the game, I'm all for it.
In addition to that, they earned my respect when I asked a question about exploring Feringinar on one of the live broadcasts and the dev responded by saying that you'd get quite wet. This surprised me and affirmed that while the Cryptic devs are concerned about content, they are also Star Trek fans. Who else would have known that fact without watching DS9 or paying careful attention to ST canon?
In any case, I for one am reserving judgement until we know the full details for what's yet to come in expansion 2.
Great job Cryptic - Regardless of the negative comments posted, I for one, am grateful to be able to take part in the ST universe that you've created.
So after my first post I have been reading other people's posts not know if my feelings were shard it's pretty evident that everyone feels the same way. Exploration is the heart and soul of startrek if you remove it ill just stop playing because what's the point .
If we apply that line of reasoning - Something isn't up to our standards, so we remove the entire thing- to the entire game, and if we assume that one of the standards Cryptic has set for its work is that work should be finished, then:
- The Klingon Playable Faction should have been terminated long ago
- We shouldn't have ship interiors
- Almost all story lines in the game would have to be removed
- Various episodes like 'Mine enemy' or patrol missions in Tau Dewa that had been bugged for months should have been removed
- Multiple places like the Defera Invasion Zone shouldn't exist anymore.
Yet, none of these things (luckily) happened even though it's reasonable to assume that at certain times, and in most cases for very long times, they weren't or still aren't up to certain standards.
That being said, forgive me my critic tone here, but isn't it obvious that the fact that Clusters are being removed because of not living 'up to the standard' is simply not an acceptable explanation? That things need to be improved instead of removed when they don't meet the standards?
wow, people care about this being taken out? god why.
as i recall, there's some very good reasons to trash them
1 they are TRIBBLE, this is not an opinion, its a fact. half of them are uncompletable, because interacts spawn underground.
2 they take up a ton of hard drive space, increasing download time, and not everyone has 5 terabyte drives
3 there's a mission or 2 for every cluster, it fills your mission log full of TRIBBLE, making it look like its the biggest most important part of the game, trolling anyone that doesn't know better.
4 it leaves a bad impression for new players with most ground being uncompleatable at worst, and 5 minute long walking exercises at best. who's played the mission with the borg's 3rd dynasty?
5 apparently they have metrics of a ton of new players venturing into these TRIBBLE zones, loging off, and never coming back, for the above reasons
its literally a cancer on an otherwise good game that has been surgically removed
^ Reasons 1-5 are terrible. Bugs? Fix them! Everything you described is minor. Like Risian4 said, if the rationale is to remove bugged content, STO would have to shut down.
Disappointed. I've disagreed with decisions in the past, but overall the game has improved a lot over the past few years, so I never really have cause to comment. However, now I realize I should apologize. Sorry I've been playing the game all wrong, Devs. I didn't realize that me logging in and flying around exploration clusters, gathering materials, running colonization missions, and fighting random species was such a burden for you. I thought I was having fun. I guess I should be grateful that instead of taking the time to improve them you just killed them off with no replacement. Do me a favor though, will you guys? Stop calling this an MMO. Thanks. Now, excuse me, I have to go grind some boring missions I've already beat a few dozen times.
Read this post again, mighty Implementors.
As for making Foundry the primary exploratory facet of STO, to quote Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" EVERY decent MMO has randomized content as a platform for open cooperative PvE play. This is, essentially, what RPGs are.
This decision makes no logical sense whatsoever. You have open ground environments, yes? One of which provides players with dil. Perhaps all of them should provide a little, and then apply the same idea to the random space battle options around the sector space. Make them much harder or scaled, reward very small amounts of dil, so that light RPers or just casual players don't have to do PvE content (which is linear), but rove around in gangs attacking Klingons in sector space for 50 dil a pop or something, as they choose (which doesn't feel linear!!!).
Moreover, if you want exploration to feel like intelligent exploration, simply make every non-essential star system in sector space behave like the old exploration random sector missions, rather than filling non-essential sector space with nothing but space-based patrols.
Random exploration missions were truly some of the most fun my fleetmates and friends have had in STO. I don't know what criterion for quality you use, but you surely didn't explain to our satisfaction why this content was considered any different than repeating the handful of PvEs every day, which is even more repetitive. Exploring the random planetary environments was one of the more interesting parts of the game according to the several new players I've recruited. It's all they wanted to do because it felt like Star Trek, and it was fun, and provided dil. So, again, I don't know who's calling the shots here, but he's very wrong.
Don't believe us? Poll. Simple as that. You won't get a majority of paying customers who want to see this content entirely removed, and if, as you say, your aim is to better appeal to new players, I've got a newsflash for you: if I just joined this game at 9.5 with no exploration component, I would not have stayed for nearly two years as I have. A Trek game without exploration is like a SW game without Jedis. If you want to get historical, the main reason why 99% of Trek games are notoriously bad and despised by all is that they lack exploration, which is the whole point of the show.
Ball's in your court. We know that you know there are other ways to implement prefab exploration content without clusters. And we know that you know that we know, so quit the meta-head-games, please.
Wow. That's a statement for the ages right there. "We're admitting our stuff sucks so badly that removing it entirely, with no replacement, is an improvement."
-sigh-
This - 100%
You know, I remember as a much newer player doing those exploration missions.
Yes, those missions were all the same, basic shoot-em-ups, with the occasional trace hunt.
I used to do them on elite, to test new builds.
But the environments changed. I often explored the maps, just to explore.
I definitely felt a sense of exploration doing them.
Some maps you beamed into were in twilight and you could look up at the stars, some were experiencing actual weather, (rain), some left you at the seaside, some had gigantic alien mushroom thingies to climb.
It was cool, doing them with 5 of my bridge officers, it really felt like trek.
Well at least we have the Foundry, and thank God for the Foundry authors, for it's within their purview that exploration in this game is to be kept alive.
I have to be more generous with dilithium tipping Foundry authors, their role in this game just got bumped up IMO.
Seriously, when was the last time we received a decent mission set? Instead we get adventure zones and a new line of marks we must grind. Some people like this, that is their preference. It just is not mine. I miss the 5 mission story lines we used to get. In a way Legacy of Romulus was the last great story line that we received and that has been over a year ago and was only playable by Romulans.
Taking away content and replacing with nothing YOU have created is a major cop out. You expect the player base to cover for your lack of development.
We have been told that this is once of PWE's most profitable games. If that is true, then where does the money go? It doesnt go back into development of STO so it either goes into someones pocket or it goes into the other games that PWE has been developing lately. Tell me, now many 3rd person sword hack and slash games are needed in this world. Especially ones that dont have a substantial player base and 50 years of fandom to back it up. Place the money back into STO and give us real content.
So they decide to remove the star cluster missions from the game? This is so stupid. Removing content is never a good idea. So unless the next expansion delivers something good that replaces them, I can foresee a lot of people leaving this game, and that is not good. As for me, looks like my sole source of dilithium will now have to be the Foundry, and specifically, the spotlighted ones.
You know, I remember as a much newer player doing those exploration missions.
Yes, those missions were all the same, basic shoot-em-ups, with the occasional trace hunt.
I used to do them on elite, to test new builds.
But the environments changed. I often explored the maps, just to explore.
I definitely felt a sense of exploration doing them.
Some maps you beamed into were in twilight and you could look up at the stars, some were experiencing actual weather, (rain), some left you at the seaside, some had gigantic alien mushroom thingies to climb.
It was cool, doing them with 5 of my bridge officers, it really felt like trek.
Well at least we have the Foundry, and thank God for the Foundry authors, for it's within their purview that exploration in this game is to be kept alive.
I have to be more generous with dilithium tipping Foundry authors, their role in this game just got bumped up IMO.
Implementors, please read this post however many times it takes to sink in. Having a randomized, cookie-cutter, and open Trek-like platform for just exploring and fighting with friends, ground and space, is absolutely essential for any MMORPG.
I have difficulty meeting the needs of my fleet for resources. I recently built a ship to scan data clusters. It was simple, and repetitive, but it was the closest thing to exploration this game has.
Everything is beginning to be time gated, cooled down, and needs continue to inflate.
I am a simple captain. I do not enjoy 25 man content. If I had not found a dedicated channel to STF content, I would have given up on them long ago, due to PUG teams.
I really don't like the pve queues.
Scanning anomalous readings was a way to relax, like fishing in a lake, but for data scans.
On my Romulan character, I have the atlai content for the same "feeling". Scanning Nanov is a nice respite from all the killing.
I'd remove Harry Mudd long before I ever thought about removing Exploration clusters.
I truly hope that the new content will add exploration.
I am sad to see this change.
I know that "It is too late for the pebbles to vote" But if we were, I would vote against this removal. I think it is a bad call.
I always hoped there would be more fleshing out for enemies like the Scoodians.
I'd like them to have kept at least one exploration cluster available for each faction... Tie it into a daily mission if they must, but I enjoyed the chance to either just cruise around relaxing, or slaughtering critters that don't have any deeper purpose to them.
... Are the KDF combat clusters going to stick around? After all they are very similar to the exploration clusters, except they are solely for PVE combat...
wow, people care about this being taken out? god why.
as i recall, there's some very good reasons to trash them
1 they are TRIBBLE, this is not an opinion, its a fact. half of them are uncompletable, because interacts spawn underground.
2 they take up a ton of hard drive space, increasing download time, and not everyone has 5 terabyte drives
3 there's a mission or 2 for every cluster, it fills your mission log full of TRIBBLE, making it look like its the biggest most important part of the game, trolling anyone that doesn't know better.
4 it leaves a bad impression for new players with most ground being uncompleatable at worst, and 5 minute long walking exercises at best. who's played the mission with the borg's 3rd dynasty?
5 apparently they have metrics of a ton of new players venturing into these TRIBBLE zones, loging off, and never coming back, for the above reasons
its literally a cancer on an otherwise good game that has been surgically removed
So, you're in favor of them removing broken and underused content WITHOUT first providing a replacement then?
I guess that means STO PvP is next; and could be 100% removed with your blessing then, right? And while we're at it, why not just remove that worthless Cruiser with the mega-thread detailing WHY many players consider it useless (aka the Galaxy Class cruiser) because again, why keep something that takes up hard drive storage space that nobody really uses.;)
For me the issues are:
- STO is and has been content light since it Launched.
- With Cryptic "On-Demand" patch system (enabled by default) - the "It reduces the amount of download required for a new user to play..." is honestly BS.
- While you (and I) didn't make mush use of it -- the ARE players who do; and again given my first point above, removing content WITHOUT providing replacement content doesn't make a lot of sense; UNLESS it's just being done in an attempt to bulk up usage numbers that the STO Upper Dev management see is also underused; BUT they want to continue to push the making of that PvE Queue mark grind content above ANYTHING else.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I think at this point, they are just trying to get you to drop money on Swordsman instead.
Newsflash; Not gonna happen, Cryptic.
lol Yeah, as if that would ever happen. I like space MMOs & sims, not just anything.
So what they're doing in fact is making me drop money on another venue, one that has no connecting points with Cryptic/PWE.
Comments
The only fun part about them is blowing up those mini bio dome things that had tribbles in them on KDF side lol.
Otherwise it was just some one facerolled a keyboard to come up a name for the generic alien inserted lol. Then the standard immunity power that was put on them to try to make them hard to kill lol.
I will never forget the KDF ones that had you kill plants that you couldn't scan on a huge map lol. Unless you spent a few hours you'd never complete the mission lol. My klingons in their early years cut their teeth in battle on plants and tribbles it was so awesome and thank god its going away after not playing it for years lol.
From the Blog:
When can we expect this "Dilithium source replacement" change to take place? Soon as usual? (which generally means, anywhere from within a week, to never)
I agree that the explore clusters were lacking, but i did like them for a low level Fed toon. It was a good way to get Dil and exp. Now that is gone and that does suck but i understand why clusters are going the way of the dino.
NOW we just need the replacement revamp of exploration because seriously that was something that was unique in this game from all other star trek games and is something that needs to be in this game.
Yep couldn't agree more with this and other comments like it. I first heard about the removal of the clusters in Priority One Podcast's recent interview with Al Rivera re the crafting revamp, and was amazed that the hosts didn't follow up his comment about it at the time - that was the one of the biggest takeaways from everything he had to say for me (fortunately they did discuss it in the following show after feedback from listeners).
I love STO but exploration is the beating heart of everything Star Trek - remove it and all you've got is a combat simulator. Sure I get all the comments about the content in the exploration sectors not being to the same standard as the story episodes and other content, but at least here was one aspect of the game where you didn't know what was coming. Yes it was formulaic, yes a lot of it was still combat, but as a couple of folks above have said, there was an RP aspect to venturing out into the unknown that has been lost - a bit of imagination involved admittedly but at least it was there. And the clincher, as noted so many times above - why remove it altogether when you're not replacing with something better?
The best thing Cryptic can do now is at least give us some kind of indication that exploration is coming back into STO in a big way. I would be absolutely delighted if X2 really is the big exploration revamp so many of us have been waiting for, perhaps also opening up the galactic northwest into the bargain as has been mooted several times, but I fear it'll just be more combat and queued group content.
If Cryptic really do let exploration fall by the wayside indefinitely it will be perhaps one of the most callously anti-Trek things that's ever happened in STO.
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The PvE queue's are fun, but sometimes very stressful, intense or just plain rude.
I knew Deja Q was gone and that Club 47 was probably dead....but Memory Alpha..... and now they are taking away the Clusters *and probably the Duty Officer Missions* okay **** Cryptic :mad:
I think at this point, they are just trying to get you to drop money on Swordsman instead.
Newsflash; Not gonna happen, Cryptic.
-R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Well put. Pretty much sums up my thoughts; well, except for the bit about dilithium and crafting mats, which I don't really care about.
Although, for me, there is also the fact that I've been totally opposed to the idea of the Foundry being used as the primary form of exploration content for years now.
Before adding 9.5, Make DAMN SURE it will be worth it by removing the dil requirements for crafting. We have enough things that need dil as it is unless you are going to raise the refining limit to maybe about 20k. 8k in general isn't enough as it is for anything since most things require more than 10-20k a piece.
That's all I heard. Because with the same logic of "it doesn't work right so we're not going to fix it but drop it to make the game better" you'd have deleted PvP, the Klingon faction, and oh yeah CRAFTING years ago.
Yet somehow you managed to "fix" two of the above three and turn it into you Pay2Grind models... why couldn't you have done the same with Exploration, or just left it alone and ignore it like you did with PvP? It's not like you're payed ANY more attention to PvP over they years then you have to Exploration, and PvP is just as broken.
So if you're going to try and spin the "it doesn't fit our Pay2Grind" model... at least do a better job of it.
No you won't remove Duty Officer Missions because that has a grind factor to it, and by Cryptic's standards... anything with a grind is good.
Well PvP is just as broken as Exploration was.. and they haven't fixed that either and they've taken away the in game lore reason for it with the end of the war... so following Cryptic's own logic... you do the math...
If removing them allows for Cryptic to reinvent or even innovate a new way to play the game, I'm all for it.
In addition to that, they earned my respect when I asked a question about exploring Feringinar on one of the live broadcasts and the dev responded by saying that you'd get quite wet. This surprised me and affirmed that while the Cryptic devs are concerned about content, they are also Star Trek fans. Who else would have known that fact without watching DS9 or paying careful attention to ST canon?
In any case, I for one am reserving judgement until we know the full details for what's yet to come in expansion 2.
Great job Cryptic - Regardless of the negative comments posted, I for one, am grateful to be able to take part in the ST universe that you've created.
- The Klingon Playable Faction should have been terminated long ago
- We shouldn't have ship interiors
- Almost all story lines in the game would have to be removed
- Various episodes like 'Mine enemy' or patrol missions in Tau Dewa that had been bugged for months should have been removed
- Multiple places like the Defera Invasion Zone shouldn't exist anymore.
Yet, none of these things (luckily) happened even though it's reasonable to assume that at certain times, and in most cases for very long times, they weren't or still aren't up to certain standards.
That being said, forgive me my critic tone here, but isn't it obvious that the fact that Clusters are being removed because of not living 'up to the standard' is simply not an acceptable explanation? That things need to be improved instead of removed when they don't meet the standards?
as i recall, there's some very good reasons to trash them
1 they are TRIBBLE, this is not an opinion, its a fact. half of them are uncompletable, because interacts spawn underground.
2 they take up a ton of hard drive space, increasing download time, and not everyone has 5 terabyte drives
3 there's a mission or 2 for every cluster, it fills your mission log full of TRIBBLE, making it look like its the biggest most important part of the game, trolling anyone that doesn't know better.
4 it leaves a bad impression for new players with most ground being uncompleatable at worst, and 5 minute long walking exercises at best. who's played the mission with the borg's 3rd dynasty?
5 apparently they have metrics of a ton of new players venturing into these TRIBBLE zones, loging off, and never coming back, for the above reasons
its literally a cancer on an otherwise good game that has been surgically removed
Read this post again, mighty Implementors.
As for making Foundry the primary exploratory facet of STO, to quote Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" EVERY decent MMO has randomized content as a platform for open cooperative PvE play. This is, essentially, what RPGs are.
This decision makes no logical sense whatsoever. You have open ground environments, yes? One of which provides players with dil. Perhaps all of them should provide a little, and then apply the same idea to the random space battle options around the sector space. Make them much harder or scaled, reward very small amounts of dil, so that light RPers or just casual players don't have to do PvE content (which is linear), but rove around in gangs attacking Klingons in sector space for 50 dil a pop or something, as they choose (which doesn't feel linear!!!).
Moreover, if you want exploration to feel like intelligent exploration, simply make every non-essential star system in sector space behave like the old exploration random sector missions, rather than filling non-essential sector space with nothing but space-based patrols.
Random exploration missions were truly some of the most fun my fleetmates and friends have had in STO. I don't know what criterion for quality you use, but you surely didn't explain to our satisfaction why this content was considered any different than repeating the handful of PvEs every day, which is even more repetitive. Exploring the random planetary environments was one of the more interesting parts of the game according to the several new players I've recruited. It's all they wanted to do because it felt like Star Trek, and it was fun, and provided dil. So, again, I don't know who's calling the shots here, but he's very wrong.
Don't believe us? Poll. Simple as that. You won't get a majority of paying customers who want to see this content entirely removed, and if, as you say, your aim is to better appeal to new players, I've got a newsflash for you: if I just joined this game at 9.5 with no exploration component, I would not have stayed for nearly two years as I have. A Trek game without exploration is like a SW game without Jedis. If you want to get historical, the main reason why 99% of Trek games are notoriously bad and despised by all is that they lack exploration, which is the whole point of the show.
Ball's in your court. We know that you know there are other ways to implement prefab exploration content without clusters. And we know that you know that we know, so quit the meta-head-games, please.
This - 100%
You know, I remember as a much newer player doing those exploration missions.
Yes, those missions were all the same, basic shoot-em-ups, with the occasional trace hunt.
I used to do them on elite, to test new builds.
But the environments changed. I often explored the maps, just to explore.
I definitely felt a sense of exploration doing them.
Some maps you beamed into were in twilight and you could look up at the stars, some were experiencing actual weather, (rain), some left you at the seaside, some had gigantic alien mushroom thingies to climb.
It was cool, doing them with 5 of my bridge officers, it really felt like trek.
Well at least we have the Foundry, and thank God for the Foundry authors, for it's within their purview that exploration in this game is to be kept alive.
I have to be more generous with dilithium tipping Foundry authors, their role in this game just got bumped up IMO.
Seriously, when was the last time we received a decent mission set? Instead we get adventure zones and a new line of marks we must grind. Some people like this, that is their preference. It just is not mine. I miss the 5 mission story lines we used to get. In a way Legacy of Romulus was the last great story line that we received and that has been over a year ago and was only playable by Romulans.
Taking away content and replacing with nothing YOU have created is a major cop out. You expect the player base to cover for your lack of development.
We have been told that this is once of PWE's most profitable games. If that is true, then where does the money go? It doesnt go back into development of STO so it either goes into someones pocket or it goes into the other games that PWE has been developing lately. Tell me, now many 3rd person sword hack and slash games are needed in this world. Especially ones that dont have a substantial player base and 50 years of fandom to back it up. Place the money back into STO and give us real content.
Implementors, please read this post however many times it takes to sink in. Having a randomized, cookie-cutter, and open Trek-like platform for just exploring and fighting with friends, ground and space, is absolutely essential for any MMORPG.
Everything is beginning to be time gated, cooled down, and needs continue to inflate.
I am a simple captain. I do not enjoy 25 man content. If I had not found a dedicated channel to STF content, I would have given up on them long ago, due to PUG teams.
I really don't like the pve queues.
Scanning anomalous readings was a way to relax, like fishing in a lake, but for data scans.
On my Romulan character, I have the atlai content for the same "feeling". Scanning Nanov is a nice respite from all the killing.
I'd remove Harry Mudd long before I ever thought about removing Exploration clusters.
I truly hope that the new content will add exploration.
I am sad to see this change.
I know that "It is too late for the pebbles to vote" But if we were, I would vote against this removal. I think it is a bad call.
I always hoped there would be more fleshing out for enemies like the Scoodians.
I hope Deja Q takes care of them.
... Are the KDF combat clusters going to stick around? After all they are very similar to the exploration clusters, except they are solely for PVE combat...
So, you're in favor of them removing broken and underused content WITHOUT first providing a replacement then?
I guess that means STO PvP is next; and could be 100% removed with your blessing then, right? And while we're at it, why not just remove that worthless Cruiser with the mega-thread detailing WHY many players consider it useless (aka the Galaxy Class cruiser) because again, why keep something that takes up hard drive storage space that nobody really uses.;)
For me the issues are:
- STO is and has been content light since it Launched.
- With Cryptic "On-Demand" patch system (enabled by default) - the "It reduces the amount of download required for a new user to play..." is honestly BS.
- While you (and I) didn't make mush use of it -- the ARE players who do; and again given my first point above, removing content WITHOUT providing replacement content doesn't make a lot of sense; UNLESS it's just being done in an attempt to bulk up usage numbers that the STO Upper Dev management see is also underused; BUT they want to continue to push the making of that PvE Queue mark grind content above ANYTHING else.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
lol
So what they're doing in fact is making me drop money on another venue, one that has no connecting points with Cryptic/PWE.