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PRIORITY ONE EPISODE 181 | EPtParty
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Greetings, Captains! Youre listening to Episode 181 of Priority One Podcast, the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded on Thursday, July 3rd, 2014 and published on Monday, July 7th, 2014 at PriorityOnePodcast.com!
This week, Cookie returns from Shore Leave and rejoins Jayce and Elijah.
Around the web this week we Trek Out what has been trending in Star Trek with an official TNG Season 8 mockumentary and a new skit from Robot Chicken! In STONews, the crafting convo continues with a couple of new dev blogs, tweets, and forum posts from Cryptic. In this weeks community spotlight, were joined again by Tommy Kraft, creator of Star Trek: Horizon to give us an update on the progression of the independent film project that involves the Iconians! Towards the end of the show, well open Hailing Frequencies to see whats incoming from you our listeners.
Topics Discussed
This week's Community Question
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Do you feel that STO is starting to lack variety especially when theyre about to remove the exploration clusters?
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So what is most appealing to you of these new traits, modifiers, items what got you excited?
Let us know YOUR thoughts by commenting below!
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Yes. There's been a tiny trickle of new content over the past year. Every three or so months one new mission. The missions aren't that deep. The time gating on repetitive grind-focused content is really obvious that they're forcing things to take a specific set of time, but even then they can't keep up with the consumption of content.
Taking things away ... like memory alpha and its diplomacy missions ... like state of q and the wonderful time travel moment where you're on the saratoga during wolf 359 ... and now the exploration clusters ... it just leaves us all with less to do.
How many times can one run ISE before they just straight up lose interest?
I don't think its starting to lack variety, it has always lacked variety. I played in Beta, and then came back for the last month or so of sub before F2P, so I remember some of how it was before rep grinds. Back then, you had storyline missions for fed, about half the storyline missions for the KDF, no Roms, and endgame was running one of the four old long STF missions. And exploration clusters, which weren't that bad back then. At least, I don't remember any of the game breaking problems existing back then.
Then came F2P and the start of the the reps with the Borg STFs. I don't feel this added anything really, since they just took the existing STFs and split them up. Later on, more reps were added, and thinking about it, that didn't add much. I mean what is it really, a choice of enemies and maps. Its still zoning into a map with five, ten, or twenty other guys, and blowing stuff up. Your variety is the skin the NPCs are wearing. And for me, that's not really variety.
Adding the KDF missions and the Rom's story line missions added something, but that also isn't variety really. Its an interesting story, but story line missions were already in the game, just adds more flavors.
Even this crafting revamp doesn't really add much, we already had crafting, this just changes some of the methods and adds some shinnies. In fact, its almost a step back since to craft Mk VIII and up, you need to play elite queues. So to play this stuff, requires someone to play the old stuff. Right.
Adding variety, to me, means adding something that is not like everything else in the game. Exploration clusters, for all that they were of bad quality, at least give you a chance of a change of pace. Patrol missions, another forgot corner of this game, also give you a bit of a change of pace. Same with the Diplomacy missions that are going away with Memory Alpha, and the first contact missions with exploration clusters. They were something different than running some queue for the x time.
in my opinion, STO needs more different types of game play that are not dependent on each other. So, diplomacy missions where you actually have to think and talk to people. Random encounter missions where you go in and have to fix a sensor, or shoot the enemy of the week, or explore an ancient ruin. Crafting that doesn't require someone to play in queues to get materials one needs, and buying it off the exchange is not the answer to that. Something like that, IMHO is what STO needs at the moment.
As for the shinnies in the new crafting system, TB-116B, and that's it. I'm not going into this for traits that will be overcome by the next set of traits to come out. I'm not going to spend potentially millions of dilithium trying to get a new item with one of the new mods. And since I am not going to spend dilithium speeding up the crafting process, and I'm not going to log in every hour on the hour, I'm not going to get to the TR-116B in something like half a year, according to the calculations some people have made, and that's fine with me.
By the way, I don't think I heard anyone mention the time requirement for crafting in your show. As it stands, yes you can reach level 15 in one school in about a month without using dilithium, if you run a project for a Mk VI item once an hour, every hour, for 44 days straight. If you don't want to become neurotic, getting to level 15 with all those shinnies takes about 3 months playing four hours a day. Check the mega thread on crafting for details.
Nouveau riche LTS member
Yes. IMO it is sad that they either lost the knowledge or the dedication to improve the procedual generated content. I do understand that the reasoning is that it does not hold up against the story telling quality of the featured missions but it was the right tool to add just the bit of random chaos a IP about the infinity of space and its exploration needs.
My guess is that the short term monetary gain is not visible with such a system & the improval of such. If thats indeed the case my mantra suggestion for whomever negleted/axed it: Playing people are paying people (or for naysayers: not playing people are not paying people).
The most appealing would be the recent kit revamp. Nice to have some variations to play around there. Not excited about anything overall with all the new traits etc. Especially not the new rep system. Since the 180 turn from leveling after maxlevel to what it is now they are no login bait anymore.
I almost exclusively levelled two characters with the exploration clusters because the missions were very short and I didn't have much time to play back then. For the sake of a few dozen missions which could be created just using The Foundry, the basic mechanic of the Exploration Cluster could have been given new life. Throw in a few new maps, and random rewards and you would be onto a winner (imo).
I don't know what I find most appealing about the new traits, modifiers and items, we will have to wait and see. I want to like the new Crafting system though, and hope I can use it to get high end gear for my toons which aren't in a fleet.
Lately for variety I've been doing a little RP with some RP fleets out there and that adds to the game without having new content.
As far as the new crafting system I am hyped to see the new engineering RCS consoles and the new Beam traits and procs. However, as far as changing much of my Uber Fleet Gear and Rep Gear probably won't happen very soon or ever.
P.S. I love the idea of having random Foundry Missions attached to the Exploration Clusters. That would certainly help to add variety and get people more involved in exploring and the Foundry in general.
Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians
U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
Game Handle: Grayfox@GrayfoxJames
Website: https://www.libertytaskforce.com
Armada (STOFA Member Fleet): https://www.libertytaskforce.com/stofa
Discord: https://discord.gg/bGp9N7z
Twitter: STOFA@LTFGrayfox
Email: CSDynamix@Hotmail.com
Loved Elijah's idea about tying Foundry & Exploration more closely together, I'm all for it (best way to get true "exploration" in the game, IMO)... but, if you want to talk about "lack of variety," simply visit the tailor as a Romulan character. All this Odyssey and Bortasqu love? WHAT ABOUT ROMULANS?!
*in best Denzel Washington voice, from "Remember The Titans"* YA KILLIN' ME, DEVS! YA KILLIN' ME!!! :P
Love the show.
For those that listened live, it was much funnier -- I actually said, "This is horse [REDACTED]!"
Yes -- Universally backed -- even in the Delta Quadrant
For a new player theres a great deal of content, much of it refined.
If you're willing to venture truly in to the unknown, the foundry has many hours of great entertainment.
2-3x a year theres a a really good new episode. Seasons 8-9 have been particularly good and a lot of fun.
Overall I'd still recommend this to the casual gamer.
For a hard-core gamer - theres little to do other than grind and whine on the forums (just kidding).
Here's hoping that the crafting system will be enjoyable
While I agree with Jayce that we have a variety of settings and customization options in the game already, I also agree with azurianstar that we are starting to lack variety. Most of the missions we have consist of going to either a ground or space map, going through a few dialogue boxes and then shooting at enemies. Lately, I am wanting to play more diplomacy and lore oriented missions and am slightly disappointed that we don't have more of those. The Foundry is always an option, but in the current system it can be very difficult to find good missions.
~Vice Admiral Saskia - U.S.S. Muenzuka (Dyson Science Destroyer)~
~Lieutenant General Kalinka - I.K.S. Kazami (Negh'Var Heavy Battlecruiser)~
~Vice Admiral Lorel - R.R.W. Aureus Aquila (Mirror Mogai Heavy Warbird)~
I'm really hoping that expansion pack 2 will inject a fresh load of new story content into the game.
Omni-arc beamers appeals to me.
Those caught my eye. Then I read up on them. It's essentially a time and resource sink to be able to make one omni beam array in a non-AP flavor. But APs are already the go to super popular choice and much much easier to acquire both regular AP beam arrays and the omni AP array (which is also part of a 2 pc set).
So I don't know.
Seems like too much effort. For just one array. If you could equip more than one, then they'd be bananas. But that's not the case here.
http://i.imgur.com/pWHb0Ry.jpg
Yeah, there's always a catch.
If you recall a few episodes ago, I made comments on Exploration and gave some suggestions. Which we both think alike. True Exploration in STO has great potential, and I wholeheartedly if they done it right, it could actually bring people back in droves. And on the other hand, it could be something we look back years from now and go "they were stupid not to implement this".
It does hold great potential with the Foundry, and I probably was the first to suggest they do such a thing. For an example I mentioned in my Exploration posts, players get a lot of "land" (like they did with Everquest Next) and they develop their own world and missions. Maybe a group of players get together and create a society where you have a planet with tons of missions that rivals STO's storyline content.
And players could maybe even make rival factions, where their faction is hostile to another faction, making diplomacy a factor of who do you choose and maybe it affects other players in your faction.
Cryptic can create their own races and maybe build on canonical races that we didn't get to know. Like the Sheliak, or maybe if we go far enough into unknown space, encounter the mysterious Fen Domar, which Future Janeway wanted to avoid.
Worlds with ruins that ends up becoming a classic MMO dungeon, which could reward the first brave explorer with something nice, or a new place for players to return multiple times in hopes for a unique reward.
And of course your classic unexplored worlds that are uninhabited, which you have to scan and check if it's safe to beam down. Is it too hot or cold? Maybe the gravity is too high and can't risk beaming down and you send a probe. Maybe a world rich with resources that could be used in the new crafting? Maybe a world rich in Dilithium that rewards you with a nice 1-time gift. They admitted they used a system better than genesis when creating worlds, all they have to do is tie it into creating hundreds of new worlds
A revamped Exploration could even tie into PvP, where you could have a rare chance of encountering another player who wants that world.
Maybe even tieing to Patrols, where you are on a routing scouting mission in Federation space to check for Undine or Borg that got past the Vega blockade?
The potential is enormous, as long as the Cryptic team wants to push the envelope.
AEGIS DOFF: On Tribble forms someone posted a picture and it's a common DOFF. All I can say is that I wouldn't be surprised we hear people accidentally using it for Fleet Projects within the first couple of days. :P
From what I've seen so far, I love the foundry~ and maybe someday.... I would like to create something of my own, if I ever figure out how that is done!
I hope for some foundry+exploration content in the future !
There are plenty of us would love to help you should you choose to take that journey.
Oh I want to take the journey! I just have to get a few things finished on my character first, but I definitely want to try it.
Well -- yea --- But, my sig is actually from an old gag/bit that we used to do on the show! :-D
I could have used that "Pro-tip" 8 months ago!!!
Awe...does Elijah need a little hug? Come here! :P
P.S. Elijah did you get my message I sent on your website through the "Contact Us" form?
Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians
U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
Game Handle: Grayfox@GrayfoxJames
Website: https://www.libertytaskforce.com
Armada (STOFA Member Fleet): https://www.libertytaskforce.com/stofa
Discord: https://discord.gg/bGp9N7z
Twitter: STOFA@LTFGrayfox
Email: CSDynamix@Hotmail.com
As for variety of play...I think the game has more gameplay variety than most give it credit for but only because the endgame requires you to build currencies like dilithium and marks and you only have a few very similar options for doing so with any kind of efficiency. Add more ways for players to get dilithium and marks in-game (and possibly some method of getting Fleet Holding provisions other than spending Fleet Credits) and I think you'll start seeing fewer complaints about the variety of gameplay options (they'll still be there) and more complaining about inequalities in rewards for different styles of gameplay.
Haha, he's had that sig for a long time. Standing joke that when some new interesting feature comes up, Elijah would often say, "I'd pay 60 dollars for that!"
We appreciate donations but the Indiegogo campaign I think has some genuinely awesome pledge rewards on top of that!
Jayce
Jae'sien@xeperi
P1 Peon