I left the last part of June, but not before spending $2k in 7 months. Well played PW...well played.
At least you eventually gave it up...there are plenty of people who can't say the same. I'm surprised, though. Being a lifer since, well, ever, I've easily put in over $400. But $2,000? That's downright PAINFUL. I really can't blame PWE at that point. A few hundred, maybe. But thousands? Dude...Kudos on moving on, though. No small task.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
This is literally the biggest problem with the game right now. Doffing, Crafting, Queued missions, Reputation, Starbases, literally everything is based around waiting. Sure everyone complains about Grinding, but we aren't even grinding anymore! This is what Star Trek Online is now. Watching a clock. All we're doing is waiting for a timer to tick down.
You can't fail anymore.
Believe it or not there was a time when this game was hard. Hard to believe I know, in fact, the only reason I believe it was because I was there. TRIBBLE up an STF once meant loosing what could have been an hour or more of play time. Not anymore! The Mirror event station will never be destroyed, the cargo ships will keep coming no matter how many are blown up, the entity will never run away, so on and so forth.
Ever since season six there has been a massive drop in overall skill and teamwork because you don't need it anymore. Keep wailing away, you'll finish eventually.
I think these two points are funny. Simply because I remember the original content and its hilarious that you want the ability to fail, yet complain about the wait involved with current content.
If I remember correctly. I do have trouble with my memory at times. There was a very long wait to get back into an STF whether you passed it or failed. I also dont remember them being all that difficult if you followed the predescribed steps to get through it.
When X2 rolls around, being the much-hyped hope for the future, it will tell me whether the game is going up or down. It's where all the development time and money is going, so there will be no better indicator.
Respectfully , I disagree .
If the surge in in-game population , stuff 2 buy , stuff 2 do & the promo effort that has gone in to X1 is any indication , it's the worst time to "get a sense" of anything .
Because if I go by X1 , there was an euphoria by long time players as well , as for example there were tons of ships in orbit of Quo'nos -- something we older players thought to be impossible .
(kudos to Stahl)
Another example : I only started to play LoR (tp level a Rom) months after LoR debuted (because I was very much opposed to the idea of "heroic Romulan underdogs" aka the Rommy Maquis) .
But I was still entertained by stuff in LoR outside of the Rommy story line .
The mechanic that I suspect X2 will introduce will be "away teams in Space" -- aka you will have permanent NPC ships to command as a "Fleet Admiral" (level increase) .
I hope that this is true , but I also hope that there will be multiplayer and single player content to support this mechanic , as we've witnessed plenty of time the introduction of a new mechanic , only to be not supported/developed further as Cryptic moves onto their next project .
This I am cautiously excited toward X2 , but I have zero expectations and I don't plan on buying into the pre-planned hype .
At its release I will also re-evaluate the 5/10 rating I gave STO in my farewell video yesterday,
Sorry to destroy you illusions, but: This was always the main "theme" in STO:
- @Beta: Waiting for access to content past level 20
- @Release: Waiting for login & hotfixes;
- @1 week after release: Fed: Waiting for content past DS9; Klingons: waiting for content (only PVP & cluster missions for leveling!)
- @Season 1: Waiting for the 20h timer, to do the (3) STFs, waiting for days/weeks to get purple equipment (52 requisitions per piece, max. 1-2 requisitions per STF)
&c &c.
Therefore: STO has always revolved around waiting.
We are so disappointed that fleet migration is expected to another game.
Less CE, extinction dilithium store, new R&D disappointing, bad new duty officers window
We are willing to pay but not for random items. To sell a product, it must be good, you must listen to shoppers.
With less players, less gain for Pwe. Change your politic please otherwise STO is dead.
Chacha Skull Squadron leader
You know, I had several paragraphs of reasons why my enthusiasm is gone too... but meh. I deleted them. Basically, the uniforms don't make up for the disappointment that Season 9.5's crafting revamp and doffing UI scope creep became. I initially looked forward to the crafting revamp... then I saw the crafting revamp, I saw the doffing UI, and I saw the removal of the Cluster maps. Then I wasn't looking forward to it anymore. Then it was here. Yay.
[EDIT] Honestly, I think I spent more time looking for a funny forum post tonight than I spent playing... but there were some awfully good ones. Didn't find the one I was looking for, but the process made me laugh. Thanks Smirk, I needed that
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.
It's worse than that ... , it's gotten to the point where hippiejohn is angry !
HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!
was angry.
I realized I valued my inner peace too much.
One day of raging was enough.
STO just isn't worth giving two shots and a hop about anymore.
I've already started trying out different games to find a new home.
But these forums.
Man, these forums.
Too much entertainment here.
EDIT : To clarify, STO (under it's current leadership isn't worth two shots and a hop)
All that it would take to get me to come back would be some indication that the EP actually , oh I don't know ... existed, and that the lead designer be someone who respects their playerbase, and doesn't Troll and insult them.
to the OP. I couldn't have said that any better myself.
I've gone from spending hours, late into the night/early morning playing STO to my routine now of logging in, setting off reps and logging out.
I never regretted going life time....till now.
And when the current toons have finished their reps there will be nothing for me to log in for. That makes me incredibly sad. Seriously sad because I loved this game.
Unfortunately the time gate is now the new god to Cryptic. I'm sure someone at some point will jump in and say "well all MMO's are like that", and that maybe true - It doesn't, however, make it the right.
Going by the current attitude to the player base, the build quality of some of the content (load outs :rolleyes:) and their seemingly unwavering intention to milk this IP to the max then I cannot get excited about Ex2.
The competition is heating up. Elite: Dangerous is close to Beta and that will be the one that finally draws me away. Wise up Cryptic, you've starting to lose long term loyal players/customers, shifting to short term "spend-a-lot" customers, but I guess that's where the money is these days
I'm still happy and wanting to play the game. As I still look forward to getting on my next chance. However they done a few things I wasn't happy about, but what game hasn't.
Crafting: Good to see the revamp. But don't like the wait, to get all schools open. Or how it takes a while to make something. But they can improve on it in the future.
Doff: They need to make the selection like the old one. So I don't have to scroll and scroll to find my Doff to use. Where they was in like groups based on their skills. Now it takes me longer to find. Plus the recommended is broken as it just picks ones out of random that shouldn't do those missions. So now I have to choose each one. Where before I would hit accept since it was the ones I wanted at times.
Boff: We gained 2, you forgot the Voth. I have used mine on the ground missions of the reworked Borg story. He was very good and didn't die. If you don't count the party wipe on that one mission. But that was due to me not paying attention. I'm not sure on the Xindi. He is expensive and only for 1 character. I rather have it unlocked on all and future. Like the C store. They did that, I would buy him in a minute.
Ships: Glad to see some new ships. I got plenty for my characters now. The new mirrors helped on the void on some. Specially me spending a ton of recourses and begging the fleet to allow a purchase. Lot less headache, so I like seeing Mirror ships.
Battles: The Voth was good they was challenging. I died several times dealing with them at first. They still gave me a good beating at times. Specially my nemesis the battleship that popped up. As for the ground. I wished they did throw in some ground missions. That is one thing I loved about the Romulan one. You had both to do. The new 8472, there is nothing there to make me do it. Specially a story line. If the story was there I would. About no new missions for the current patch. I can understand. Plus I still have other characters to catch up. So I can rest my main for a small bit and use my others. Now I got a good chance to get my Romulan geared up.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
This is literally the biggest problem with the game right now. Doffing, Crafting, Queued missions, Reputation, Starbases, literally everything is based around waiting. Sure everyone complains about Grinding, but we aren't even grinding anymore! This is what Star Trek Online is now. Watching a clock. All we're doing is waiting for a timer to tick down.
I think that's why I love the battle zones. And the borg STFs - no waiting. The Borg STF Queue is very fast, the Battle Zones have no wait times at all (unless you count the time it takes for some interacts to complete, but it's "busy waiting" - you shoot stuff - that's the kind of waiting i like.)
And I also think that's the biggest flaw with the Crafting revamp. 1 year to wait until you reach max level doesn't really matter - what matters is that you don't actually craft interesting stuff while you get there. Fix that.
DOFFing takes forever to grind to max - but who cares, you have results every day, you can get new DOFFs regularly.
But I am not really suffering from dead enthusiasm. I like the game still, and have fun playing it. But there are things that should be addressed.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Yeah...I think of myself as a somewhat decent supporter, I mean I spend some RL money here and there and I usually in Cryptic's corner...but more and more it just gets harder and harder.
I know I got pretty damn angry after 9.5...but I don't know...it's kinda hard to stay away as stupid as that sounds. I may take long breaks but I come back...if this game wasn't based on Trek I would of gone and never came back...but I love Trek to much. I grew up with it...it's one of the few memories I have of my full family...
But yeah...as time goes on it does get harder and harder to come back from, they just neglect everything in the name of money...including 2 out of 3 of the factions :mad:
^This in spades, you and I could be cut from the same cloth on this.
Myself and others have tried to provide reasonable feedback thar gets ignored, tried being the voices of reason in a storm of hate and for what?
I don't know anymore, I don't want to quit either but don't know if I can go on, I know people joke about the doom and I don't want to turn this into a doom thread and I don't think the game is doomed, but if ever there were clear sings that need to be taken notice of then this is it.
I have not lost my enthusiasm. Though the last few major moves and nerfs have been disappointing, especially the crafting, which could have been really cool. The time, and maybe more importantly, the expense really crushes it.
It's a very common theme now "the game used to be so much harder in the early days." Maybe it was and maybe not so much, but all games seem to experience this complaint on the forums. If true it must be what the majority want. I personally notice no difference in 2 1/2 years.
As far as guilds/kins losing members, this is another common theme across all games. Most people only play for so long. New people come. So old guilds leave and new one form. It gives the impression to old timers of great loss but I don't think it's accurate. For example, I was starting to believe some of the forum hype about Lotro losing tons of players. Well, after 1.5 years I finally am getting to the end areas and it's festival time. The place is packed. And figures were recently released showing the game is doing well. Point is these perceptions can be inaccurate. I see tons of people wherever I go on here.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I dont play STO because of the game itself, only because i have (found) some fleet mates and we have a good time on voice chat/playing together. If they decided to move on to another game, ...you get the point.
Of course i agree with all the op said, but what bothers me more is that NOBODY seem to be worried about cryptic avoiding all quality control of the game. Who cares if the game is grind, who cares if the game is a waiting machine, i dont care. What i care is about the important things. Quality control. No bugs, no fails, and that things that are released kept a minimum quality in the time they are released. Do you really i care about having to grind over and over again, or to wait to the clock, knowing that the entire game is plagued by bugs everywhere, and that cryptic will never do nothing to fix em or to apply some quality control on everything they do?? lol.
Again, i dont care about the mechanics of the game. Because when a company doesnt give a fxxxxx about keeping the game with quality standards, the way the game is being developed doesnt matter at all. Why i am going to ask cryptic to change the way they do things, if the most important thing that nobody cares about, the quality of the stuff, is not going to improve? lol. Yes, op i agree with all you said, but you guys always forget the most important things. Quality control.
Its like if everyday i read a post like this one, no one even mention all the fails and bugs this game have. I guess nobody cares at all. At first i was wondering why this game was the most bugged one i ve ever played in my entire life. Why the company behind it was doing nonthing to fix bugs. But now i am finished to understand it. If players of course will never care about it, cryptic will never be worried about releasing content at high quality standards. So, keep going, people, yeah, too much grinding and too much waiting but thats not the real problem of the game.
QM (Quality Management) is very expensive, because it costs a lot of time. Therefore almost all software developers have a definite point when they simply stop the quality control. It is the point, where the product satisfies the majority of the customers. Investing into QM further than that point is a waste of time & money.
If my friends list is any indication, this game is bleeding. It's gotten to the point where long-time voices of reason are just giving up.
They have never been voices of reason, they have been blindly defending so long.... and now they are opening their eyes and actually looking at what they have been defending.....
Like I have said in the past, F2P is the savior of STO..... but its also its curse.
+1 to the original posters comments ... and I'll add a side note.
I know that all MMOs lose old players and gain new players, but the devs REALLY need to pay attention to the ongoing loss of the "diehard" players -- the guys and gals who previously said "I'll keep playing this game for as long as it's here." -- because they're vanishing.
I used to have a core group of about 12 friends in STO who were all "diehards" like me ... and now there are only three of us left. The others have gotten bored/fed up with things here and moved on to other games. I've heard similar stories from other long-time players who I've met.
Yes, I understand that the devs need to offer things for the new players entering the game so that you can continue to bring in new players, but STO is in trouble if the diehards don't play because you ignore all the voices of the long-time players who submit bug reports that are never addressed, point out errors with in-game models that are never fixed, or (like the OP in this thread) draw dev attention to gameplay elements that need to be improved but never are.
Having said all that, I'm sure that the devs team will just ignore this entire thread as a bunch of incoherent whining from children ... particularly after CaptainGeko's comments about the forums in the latest STOked Radio episode.
In the immortal words of Captain Sisko: "It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong."
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
While doing DOFF missions my first thought was: Well, I understand this content, but it's sort of separate from the rest of the game. It doesn't even need 3D. I wouldn't necessarily like to do that in the Game UI. I really would want to have a web browser or app on the side to do that, which I can also access when I'm somewhere else.
One would feel way more "in touch" with the game, when DOFF missions could be handled on a tablet. The recent design already hints at the fact, that they rather belong there than into the game UI. You don't necessarily need to "fly around the galaxy" to get them. A simple 2D map would do for that purpose, where you click your destinations. Maybe with a timer and alert when you get there.
The same applies to other 2D features. Handling the exchange, nowadays the crafting system. Inventory, customizing the ship. That's stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be done in the 3D game UI. I pull up the UI when I want to do 3D stuff, when I'm diving into this virtual reality fully to play missions, and have an experience. But all the stuff that implies to have to "wait", because of slowing down grind doesn't give me that experience. So it would be better to be able to carry that around.
Also not to neglect the coolness factor if your phone pops up messages from your starship. :cool:
I think that's a change that would open up many new possibilities for add ons that take STO out from the "spend the evenings in your room isolated and grinding". The future roleplay world probably isn't functioning like that, as other games already demonstrate.
We're at a point where we need to integrate. And heck, those phones and tablets have been invented after the star trek visions. And we're not the ones to fulfill the integration?
Having your own unique crew to boss around and customize is one of the most interesting parts and largest selling points of this game. And it's also one of the least used. The last thing that let you use bridge officers was the Voth Battlezone. And that was released in Season 8. We have had an entire season and two mid season updates since then that had nothing for Bridge Officers.
The new Xindi officer is really cool, but I haven't bought him yet because there's no where I can use him. Not to mention he's the first bridge officer added since the Jem'Hadar officer from almost two years ago!!!
Whilst I wont argue that the way Boffs are handelled (especially the unique ones that are locked still) is a joke, we've had the Embassy Republic and Voth Boffs between the Jem Hadar and Xindi.
Of course i agree with all the op said, but what bothers me more is that NOBODY seem to be worried about cryptic avoiding all quality control of the game. Who cares if the game is grind, who cares if the game is a waiting machine, i dont care. What i care is about the important things. Quality control. No bugs, no fails, and that things that are released kept a minimum quality in the time they are released. Do you really i care about having to grind over and over again, or to wait to the clock, knowing that the entire game is plagued by bugs everywhere, and that cryptic will never do nothing to fix em or to apply some quality control on everything they do?? lol.
Again, i dont care about the mechanics of the game. Because when a company doesnt give a fxxxxx about keeping the game with quality standards, the way the game is being developed doesnt matter at all. Why i am going to ask cryptic to change the way they do things, if the most important thing that nobody cares about, the quality of the stuff, is not going to improve? lol. Yes, op i agree with all you said, but you guys always forget the most important things. Quality control.
Its like if everyday i read a post like this one, no one even mention all the fails and bugs this game have. I guess nobody cares at all. At first i was wondering why this game was the most bugged one i ve ever played in my entire life. Why the company behind it was doing nonthing to fix bugs. But now i am finished to understand it. If players of course will never care about it, cryptic will never be worried about releasing content at high quality standards. So, keep going, people, yeah, too much grinding and too much waiting but thats not the real problem of the game.
Guess you haven't played DDO than, that game run by Turbine & Warner Bros. & heaven forbid Hasbro, heck even Wizard's of the Coast & Atari (both of these complete sell outs).
That game has, and had big named companies going for it, and yet it provides no better (in some cases worse) quality, than PWE & Cryptic.
All virtual world games have a similar setup. STO is no different. Everyone continues to work towards bettering their character/ship. It's a grind.
The problem that I'm having with STO isn't so much waiting or grinding, but once you get a character to 50 and a ship that's decked out with the best Fleet and Rep gear...where can you go for a solo challenge? Is there anywhere you can go where, when you engage the enemy in combat, you may lose the fight if you're not careful.
That would make things interesting. That would make the player step back and take a look at the way his character/ship is structured. That would make players reassess their tactics.
right on centersolace. you pretty much nailed half of the glaring problems of this game..
I keep asking why ships are the only thing they sell anymore.. why does a lock box have to come with a ship, why cant it come with some other stuff.. maybe make a ground based lockbox with boffs ground gear only..
not that I want them to stop with ships, cause I eventually want my naigera class, but.. I wouldn't mind some new flavors added to the game in other forms of interesting shinies..
I hate this log in and set it and forget it bull.. its one thing to have one or two timed things going on, but the whole game has been turned into a time based event.. even whats left of my friends list and fleet are on a timer.. they all are like, "oh, cool down for blah is up, lets hit it", wash rinse repeat..)
and yes kirk, if my friends list (which is quite sizeable) and fleet, and friendly fleets are any indication of how "well" things are going, then I guess things are not well at all. I remember a time in this game (first 2 years) that I could log on, and my friends list was busy, people asking me to queue with them, and my fleet was busy.. now, im lucky if there is 3 fleet members on, and 5 friends on in the friends list. kinda dead to me..
I also remember a time when it was hard to get into the same instance as your friends because so many would fill up very quickly.. it has been a long while since I have had to say "sorry, your instance is full, I cant xfer.."
cryptic, I would listen to the op's opinion, it is a fair, and good look at what we as players are dealing with... I know devs have a hard time seeing it as they are incharge of certain aspects of the game, and they center themselves on it.. so when they make a time gated piece of content, they are not thinking about the other departments time gated content.. but its all adding up, and the game is turning into a facebook game..
This is literally the biggest problem with the game right now. Doffing, Crafting, Queued missions, Reputation, Starbases, literally everything is based around waiting. Sure everyone complains about Grinding, but we aren't even grinding anymore! This is what Star Trek Online is now. Watching a clock. All we're doing is waiting for a timer to tick down.
Boffs have been forsaken.
Having your own unique crew to boss around and customize is one of the most interesting parts and largest selling points of this game. And it's also one of the least used. The last thing that let you use bridge officers was the Voth Battlezone. And that was released in Season 8. We have had an entire season and two mid season updates since then that had nothing for Bridge Officers.
The new Xindi officer is really cool, but I haven't bought him yet because there's no where I can use him. Not to mention he's the first bridge officer added since the Jem'Hadar officer from almost two years ago!!!
A focus on ships at the expense of everything else.
I admit I might be in the minority here, but I don't care about new ships. I have been using the same ship for three years now, and unless Cryptic adds the Arcadia to the game, I don't see myself changing any time soon. I want to buy other things. Is that such a strange request?
Everything with the potential to be interesting is in the Lobi store.
And often unfinished. With a few exceptions the lobi weapons are of not very good quality, with poor textures and models that clearly didn't have a lot of time put into them. Same with the costumes too. Why can't the KDF use the Ferengi jackets? Speaking of the Ferengi jackets, why can't Boffs use them? Oh yeah, because Cryptic hates boffs.
You can't fail anymore.
Believe it or not there was a time when this game was hard. Hard to believe I know, in fact, the only reason I believe it was because I was there. TRIBBLE up an STF once meant loosing what could have been an hour or more of play time. Not anymore! The Mirror event station will never be destroyed, the cargo ships will keep coming no matter how many are blown up, the entity will never run away, so on and so forth.
Ever since season six there has been a massive drop in overall skill and teamwork because you don't need it anymore. Keep wailing away, you'll finish eventually.
Everything feels the same.
It doesn't matter if I'm fighting the Voth, the Undine, the Gorn, the Mirror Universe or what not, they pretty much all use the same enemies, same attacks, same everything. You have little ships. Medium ships. Big ships. Big ships that launch little ships, and occasionally a reallybig ship. And they attack in that order until they die. No variation, no change in tactics, none. Same for ground too. You beat up the small stuff until the big stuff shows up and then you beat up the big stuff. There are no differences that really make any difference.
I really, really hope that E2 is worth it.
I have a lifetime, and have invested too much in this game; I regret it all.
That aside, I quitted after the anniversary; the anniversary was and is the game that came and will come.
I love Star Trek, to the point where I can put gravitational mechanics aside and enjoy a game of it. A proper game of it. This game isn't Star Trek; heck, it isn't even fun anymore.
Why have I quit STO on a break (I'll come back sometime in the future) when I had over 38 days worth of combined game play? It's too boring; non-intellectual, too easy and nothing to lose ever, at all, nada; really. Takes too much time to do anything. The first two games that I mentioned are clever, intellectual, challenging, and I can lose something, if not the entire thing. The last one is quick. STO has turned into: Who can pay the most is therefore the best; Team Fortress is super well balanced; I love it because it is about skill. I had friends on STO, but they have nearly all gone.
I have to pay for everything, or everything has a pay symbol on it. I'm not poor (not rich, but not poor), but I don't want to spend money on a videogame like that! In TF2, I've spent about £8 on it ... yet I have bought nearly the same amount of 'stuff' on STO , when that cost me £90 ... (and that is about 10 items.)
STO had potential to be a game. It had potential to be a Star Trek game.
Hopefully I'll come back from my break; this break is fun; I play intellectual games.
All virtual world games have a similar setup. STO is no different. Everyone continues to work towards bettering their character/ship. It's a grind.
The problem that I'm having with STO isn't so much waiting or grinding, but once you get a character to 50 and a ship that's decked out with the best Fleet and Rep gear...where can you go for a solo challenge? Is there anywhere you can go where, when you engage the enemy in combat, you may lose the fight if you're not careful.
That would make things interesting. That would make the player step back and take a look at the way his character/ship is structured. That would make players reassess their tactics.
That's what's missing.
well two things.. yes, most if not all mmo's are set up to have you run stuff to get better equipment. I play several mmo's at the moment.. and none of them feel like a grind.. they do a great job of designing their dailies (usually more than one set so your not doing the same ones over and over again). and they have several ways of achieving endgame loadout.. (boss, random drops, and purchasable).
most mmo's are very good at walking the line of making it feel like a grind and making it feel like less of a grind through having multiple options..
cryptic has very few options for dailies, and we have been playing the same ones for about 3 years.. further more, our endgame content is also very old, and overplayed.. the voth and undine queueable missions are not what I consider stf's.. they are no where near the caliber of them, they are just point and shoot and bang your way through missions.. which is how cryptic has been making everything..
all of our dailies, shoot em up, maybe repair some satalites, but you still end up in combat.
mirror event.. shoot em up, and click f occasionally.
crystalline entitiy, another shoot em up,, occasionally debuff if you gots the skills.
voth space zones.. shoot em up,
undine space zones... shoot em up.. (except the ground mission, you actually investigate and do your thing, before you go and shoot em up..) honestly, after you arrest all the undine impersonators, you should get the guy in the center of town, and that's it.. adding the blood bath below the city just reminded me that its a pew pew game....
stf's shootem up.. with some more shootem up side quests..
fleet events.. shoot em up, kill em all style gameplay still.. even in protecting the outlying facilities, you still shoot em up..
almost every single player mission, is shoot em up (usually 3-5 squads) beam down, scan something, shoot em up (3-5) mobs, beam back up, get threatened, shoot em up.. the end..
you get it.. this is why this game feels so grindy.. every mission is the same.. there is so very little thought put into these missions.. I feel as if the devs do not push the envelope with trying to vary things up... when I play other mmo's all the dailies vary, there are different things to do, its not all just hack and slash. they may have you pick flowers, or fix houses, or kill bandits, or save kittens.. that kind of stuff.. its veriety, which sto sorely lacks.. expecially since if you play as a fed, you basically break the prime directive on a minute to minute basis.. lol...
and, the second thing is solo content.. our dailies should be high quality solo content.. in some games, I can fail my daily, and not get the rewards.. that is perk enough to pay attention and take my time.. in an mmo, dailies are meant to be the endgame solo content.. after your dailies, you get into your dungeon crawls and what not, and that is the whole point of an "mmo" you have to play with others to get the harder stuff done.. but yes, they should step up the dailies.. (making them harder does not mean making them longer, just making it so you have to think in an encounter instead of just mashing space bar.. )
I keep asking why ships are the only thing they sell anymore.. why does a lock box have to come with a ship, why cant it come with some other stuff.. maybe make a ground based lockbox with boffs ground gear only..
Lockboxes DO come with other things. In fact, the contents of a lockbox are only slightly slanted towards space content in the form of consoles and ships. The weapon packs actually include ground weaponry with their space weaponry, much to the annoyance of people looking for one or the other.
Unfortunately, Ground has one critical problem as far as selling stuff goes: You only get ONE "unit", namely, your character, who can equip a measly 5 items: Two guns, an armor, a shield, and a kit. Compare that with a ship, where a single ship can equip nearly 30 things. Suffice it to say you can get 6 times as much stuff onto a ship as you can onto your dude on the ground.
A purely ground based lockbox would be a miserable flop.
Guess you haven't played DDO than, that game run by Turbine & Warner Bros. & heaven forbid Hasbro, heck even Wizard's of the Coast & Atari (both of these complete sell outs).
That game has, and had big named companies going for it, and yet it provides no better (in some cases worse) quality, than PWE & Cryptic.
Actually i have played it. And its far better than STO in terms of quality control. BY FAR. I also played back in the days AO C, the most bugged game ever in the story (i dont say it, its said for millions of players) and STO has passed it by far time ago lol. I ve played thousands of mmorpgs, and all of em are far better in terms of quality control than STO. Sorry its a fact like a temple. I wish this was not true.
I keep seing people complaining about this not being what they dont wanted, about timegates, about grind, about a lot of things, but i dont see people complaining about the lack of quality control cryptic has lol. Its incredible. I wonder.. why you people complain at all?? because if you are not complaining about the most important things, whats the point?? seriously?
This is literally the biggest problem with the game right now. Doffing, Crafting, Queued missions, Reputation, Starbases, literally everything is based around waiting. Sure everyone complains about Grinding, but we aren't even grinding anymore! This is what Star Trek Online is now. Watching a clock. All we're doing is waiting for a timer to tick down.
Boffs have been forsaken.
Having your own unique crew to boss around and customize is one of the most interesting parts and largest selling points of this game. And it's also one of the least used. The last thing that let you use bridge officers was the Voth Battlezone. And that was released in Season 8. We have had an entire season and two mid season updates since then that had nothing for Bridge Officers.
The new Xindi officer is really cool, but I haven't bought him yet because there's no where I can use him. Not to mention he's the first bridge officer added since the Jem'Hadar officer from almost two years ago!!!
A focus on ships at the expense of everything else.
I admit I might be in the minority here, but I don't care about new ships. I have been using the same ship for three years now, and unless Cryptic adds the Arcadia to the game, I don't see myself changing any time soon. I want to buy other things. Is that such a strange request?
Everything with the potential to be interesting is in the Lobi store.
And often unfinished. With a few exceptions the lobi weapons are of not very good quality, with poor textures and models that clearly didn't have a lot of time put into them. Same with the costumes too. Why can't the KDF use the Ferengi jackets? Speaking of the Ferengi jackets, why can't Boffs use them? Oh yeah, because Cryptic hates boffs.
You can't fail anymore.
Believe it or not there was a time when this game was hard. Hard to believe I know, in fact, the only reason I believe it was because I was there. TRIBBLE up an STF once meant loosing what could have been an hour or more of play time. Not anymore! The Mirror event station will never be destroyed, the cargo ships will keep coming no matter how many are blown up, the entity will never run away, so on and so forth.
Ever since season six there has been a massive drop in overall skill and teamwork because you don't need it anymore. Keep wailing away, you'll finish eventually.
Everything feels the same.
It doesn't matter if I'm fighting the Voth, the Undine, the Gorn, the Mirror Universe or what not, they pretty much all use the same enemies, same attacks, same everything. You have little ships. Medium ships. Big ships. Big ships that launch little ships, and occasionally a reallybig ship. And they attack in that order until they die. No variation, no change in tactics, none. Same for ground too. You beat up the small stuff until the big stuff shows up and then you beat up the big stuff. There are no differences that really make any difference.
I really, really hope that E2 is worth it.
*sigh* another entitlement claim *points to the quit door to centersolace in suggestion and then points at the sign stating "i quit threads not allowed but please come back at any point if you want"*. the devs have never responded to entitlement claims in the past, this one wont be any different.
ive stopped caring to respond about the game state as much as i used to, devs have their own way eventually. god knows what insane idea they bring next to the table and with such a track record i expect it, frankly you should of as well.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It worries me that long term contributors to the community are giving up. Last time I saw that was SWG before servers started being closed down to condense populations.
Of course i agree with all the op said, but what bothers me more is that NOBODY seem to be worried about cryptic avoiding all quality control of the game. Who cares if the game is grind, who cares if the game is a waiting machine, i dont care. What i care is about the important things. Quality control. No bugs, no fails, and that things that are released kept a minimum quality in the time they are released. Do you really i care about having to grind over and over again, or to wait to the clock, knowing that the entire game is plagued by bugs everywhere, and that cryptic will never do nothing to fix em or to apply some quality control on everything they do?? lol.
Because not everyone finds bugs all that important. What use is a bug-free game with no inch of enjoyable content?
Bugs can stand in the way of enjoyable content, shooting stuff. They aren't a positive, deisrable feature. But they are not always the top important thing.
And that's why bugs are still in the game. Or in any software, really. A removed bug does not always provide the same impact as an added feature. I'd bet that most people would be more happy about 10 uniforms, then having 10 old uniforms have less clipping issues with certain combinations. But the effort to deal with either may in fact be the same.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
At least you eventually gave it up...there are plenty of people who can't say the same. I'm surprised, though. Being a lifer since, well, ever, I've easily put in over $400. But $2,000? That's downright PAINFUL. I really can't blame PWE at that point. A few hundred, maybe. But thousands? Dude...Kudos on moving on, though. No small task.
I think these two points are funny. Simply because I remember the original content and its hilarious that you want the ability to fail, yet complain about the wait involved with current content.
If I remember correctly. I do have trouble with my memory at times. There was a very long wait to get back into an STF whether you passed it or failed. I also dont remember them being all that difficult if you followed the predescribed steps to get through it.
... or you will be back doing ISE in 2 weeks after it debuts .
Respectfully , I disagree .
If the surge in in-game population , stuff 2 buy , stuff 2 do & the promo effort that has gone in to X1 is any indication , it's the worst time to "get a sense" of anything .
Because if I go by X1 , there was an euphoria by long time players as well , as for example there were tons of ships in orbit of Quo'nos -- something we older players thought to be impossible .
(kudos to Stahl)
Another example : I only started to play LoR (tp level a Rom) months after LoR debuted (because I was very much opposed to the idea of "heroic Romulan underdogs" aka the Rommy Maquis) .
But I was still entertained by stuff in LoR outside of the Rommy story line .
The mechanic that I suspect X2 will introduce will be "away teams in Space" -- aka you will have permanent NPC ships to command as a "Fleet Admiral" (level increase) .
I hope that this is true , but I also hope that there will be multiplayer and single player content to support this mechanic , as we've witnessed plenty of time the introduction of a new mechanic , only to be not supported/developed further as Cryptic moves onto their next project .
This I am cautiously excited toward X2 , but I have zero expectations and I don't plan on buying into the pre-planned hype .
Farewell video ?
It's worse than that ... , it's gotten to the point where hippiejohn is angry !
Sorry to destroy you illusions, but: This was always the main "theme" in STO:
- @Beta: Waiting for access to content past level 20
- @Release: Waiting for login & hotfixes;
- @1 week after release: Fed: Waiting for content past DS9; Klingons: waiting for content (only PVP & cluster missions for leveling!)
- @Season 1: Waiting for the 20h timer, to do the (3) STFs, waiting for days/weeks to get purple equipment (52 requisitions per piece, max. 1-2 requisitions per STF)
&c &c.
Therefore: STO has always revolved around waiting.
Less CE, extinction dilithium store, new R&D disappointing, bad new duty officers window
We are willing to pay but not for random items. To sell a product, it must be good, you must listen to shoppers.
With less players, less gain for Pwe. Change your politic please otherwise STO is dead.
Chacha Skull Squadron leader
[EDIT] Honestly, I think I spent more time looking for a funny forum post tonight than I spent playing... but there were some awfully good ones. Didn't find the one I was looking for, but the process made me laugh. Thanks Smirk, I needed that
HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!
was angry.
I realized I valued my inner peace too much.
One day of raging was enough.
STO just isn't worth giving two shots and a hop about anymore.
I've already started trying out different games to find a new home.
But these forums.
Man, these forums.
Too much entertainment here.
EDIT : To clarify, STO (under it's current leadership isn't worth two shots and a hop)
All that it would take to get me to come back would be some indication that the EP actually , oh I don't know ... existed, and that the lead designer be someone who respects their playerbase, and doesn't Troll and insult them.
Ok, maybe that's asking a lot.
I've gone from spending hours, late into the night/early morning playing STO to my routine now of logging in, setting off reps and logging out.
I never regretted going life time....till now.
And when the current toons have finished their reps there will be nothing for me to log in for. That makes me incredibly sad. Seriously sad because I loved this game.
Unfortunately the time gate is now the new god to Cryptic. I'm sure someone at some point will jump in and say "well all MMO's are like that", and that maybe true - It doesn't, however, make it the right.
Going by the current attitude to the player base, the build quality of some of the content (load outs :rolleyes:) and their seemingly unwavering intention to milk this IP to the max then I cannot get excited about Ex2.
The competition is heating up. Elite: Dangerous is close to Beta and that will be the one that finally draws me away. Wise up Cryptic, you've starting to lose long term loyal players/customers, shifting to short term "spend-a-lot" customers, but I guess that's where the money is these days
Crafting: Good to see the revamp. But don't like the wait, to get all schools open. Or how it takes a while to make something. But they can improve on it in the future.
Doff: They need to make the selection like the old one. So I don't have to scroll and scroll to find my Doff to use. Where they was in like groups based on their skills. Now it takes me longer to find. Plus the recommended is broken as it just picks ones out of random that shouldn't do those missions. So now I have to choose each one. Where before I would hit accept since it was the ones I wanted at times.
Boff: We gained 2, you forgot the Voth. I have used mine on the ground missions of the reworked Borg story. He was very good and didn't die. If you don't count the party wipe on that one mission. But that was due to me not paying attention. I'm not sure on the Xindi. He is expensive and only for 1 character. I rather have it unlocked on all and future. Like the C store. They did that, I would buy him in a minute.
Ships: Glad to see some new ships. I got plenty for my characters now. The new mirrors helped on the void on some. Specially me spending a ton of recourses and begging the fleet to allow a purchase. Lot less headache, so I like seeing Mirror ships.
Battles: The Voth was good they was challenging. I died several times dealing with them at first. They still gave me a good beating at times. Specially my nemesis the battleship that popped up. As for the ground. I wished they did throw in some ground missions. That is one thing I loved about the Romulan one. You had both to do. The new 8472, there is nothing there to make me do it. Specially a story line. If the story was there I would. About no new missions for the current patch. I can understand. Plus I still have other characters to catch up. So I can rest my main for a small bit and use my others. Now I got a good chance to get my Romulan geared up.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I think that's why I love the battle zones. And the borg STFs - no waiting. The Borg STF Queue is very fast, the Battle Zones have no wait times at all (unless you count the time it takes for some interacts to complete, but it's "busy waiting" - you shoot stuff - that's the kind of waiting i like.)
And I also think that's the biggest flaw with the Crafting revamp. 1 year to wait until you reach max level doesn't really matter - what matters is that you don't actually craft interesting stuff while you get there. Fix that.
DOFFing takes forever to grind to max - but who cares, you have results every day, you can get new DOFFs regularly.
But I am not really suffering from dead enthusiasm. I like the game still, and have fun playing it. But there are things that should be addressed.
^This in spades, you and I could be cut from the same cloth on this.
Myself and others have tried to provide reasonable feedback thar gets ignored, tried being the voices of reason in a storm of hate and for what?
I don't know anymore, I don't want to quit either but don't know if I can go on, I know people joke about the doom and I don't want to turn this into a doom thread and I don't think the game is doomed, but if ever there were clear sings that need to be taken notice of then this is it.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
It's a very common theme now "the game used to be so much harder in the early days." Maybe it was and maybe not so much, but all games seem to experience this complaint on the forums. If true it must be what the majority want. I personally notice no difference in 2 1/2 years.
As far as guilds/kins losing members, this is another common theme across all games. Most people only play for so long. New people come. So old guilds leave and new one form. It gives the impression to old timers of great loss but I don't think it's accurate. For example, I was starting to believe some of the forum hype about Lotro losing tons of players. Well, after 1.5 years I finally am getting to the end areas and it's festival time. The place is packed. And figures were recently released showing the game is doing well. Point is these perceptions can be inaccurate. I see tons of people wherever I go on here.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Again, i dont care about the mechanics of the game. Because when a company doesnt give a fxxxxx about keeping the game with quality standards, the way the game is being developed doesnt matter at all. Why i am going to ask cryptic to change the way they do things, if the most important thing that nobody cares about, the quality of the stuff, is not going to improve? lol. Yes, op i agree with all you said, but you guys always forget the most important things. Quality control.
Its like if everyday i read a post like this one, no one even mention all the fails and bugs this game have. I guess nobody cares at all. At first i was wondering why this game was the most bugged one i ve ever played in my entire life. Why the company behind it was doing nonthing to fix bugs. But now i am finished to understand it. If players of course will never care about it, cryptic will never be worried about releasing content at high quality standards. So, keep going, people, yeah, too much grinding and too much waiting but thats not the real problem of the game.
They have never been voices of reason, they have been blindly defending so long.... and now they are opening their eyes and actually looking at what they have been defending.....
Like I have said in the past, F2P is the savior of STO..... but its also its curse.
I know that all MMOs lose old players and gain new players, but the devs REALLY need to pay attention to the ongoing loss of the "diehard" players -- the guys and gals who previously said "I'll keep playing this game for as long as it's here." -- because they're vanishing.
I used to have a core group of about 12 friends in STO who were all "diehards" like me ... and now there are only three of us left. The others have gotten bored/fed up with things here and moved on to other games. I've heard similar stories from other long-time players who I've met.
Yes, I understand that the devs need to offer things for the new players entering the game so that you can continue to bring in new players, but STO is in trouble if the diehards don't play because you ignore all the voices of the long-time players who submit bug reports that are never addressed, point out errors with in-game models that are never fixed, or (like the OP in this thread) draw dev attention to gameplay elements that need to be improved but never are.
Having said all that, I'm sure that the devs team will just ignore this entire thread as a bunch of incoherent whining from children ... particularly after CaptainGeko's comments about the forums in the latest STOked Radio episode.
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
One would feel way more "in touch" with the game, when DOFF missions could be handled on a tablet. The recent design already hints at the fact, that they rather belong there than into the game UI. You don't necessarily need to "fly around the galaxy" to get them. A simple 2D map would do for that purpose, where you click your destinations. Maybe with a timer and alert when you get there.
The same applies to other 2D features. Handling the exchange, nowadays the crafting system. Inventory, customizing the ship. That's stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be done in the 3D game UI. I pull up the UI when I want to do 3D stuff, when I'm diving into this virtual reality fully to play missions, and have an experience. But all the stuff that implies to have to "wait", because of slowing down grind doesn't give me that experience. So it would be better to be able to carry that around.
Also not to neglect the coolness factor if your phone pops up messages from your starship. :cool:
I think that's a change that would open up many new possibilities for add ons that take STO out from the "spend the evenings in your room isolated and grinding". The future roleplay world probably isn't functioning like that, as other games already demonstrate.
We're at a point where we need to integrate. And heck, those phones and tablets have been invented after the star trek visions. And we're not the ones to fulfill the integration?
Just my .02
Lyretha
Guess you haven't played DDO than, that game run by Turbine & Warner Bros. & heaven forbid Hasbro, heck even Wizard's of the Coast & Atari (both of these complete sell outs).
That game has, and had big named companies going for it, and yet it provides no better (in some cases worse) quality, than PWE & Cryptic.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The problem that I'm having with STO isn't so much waiting or grinding, but once you get a character to 50 and a ship that's decked out with the best Fleet and Rep gear...where can you go for a solo challenge? Is there anywhere you can go where, when you engage the enemy in combat, you may lose the fight if you're not careful.
That would make things interesting. That would make the player step back and take a look at the way his character/ship is structured. That would make players reassess their tactics.
That's what's missing.
I keep asking why ships are the only thing they sell anymore.. why does a lock box have to come with a ship, why cant it come with some other stuff.. maybe make a ground based lockbox with boffs ground gear only..
not that I want them to stop with ships, cause I eventually want my naigera class, but.. I wouldn't mind some new flavors added to the game in other forms of interesting shinies..
I hate this log in and set it and forget it bull.. its one thing to have one or two timed things going on, but the whole game has been turned into a time based event.. even whats left of my friends list and fleet are on a timer.. they all are like, "oh, cool down for blah is up, lets hit it", wash rinse repeat..)
and yes kirk, if my friends list (which is quite sizeable) and fleet, and friendly fleets are any indication of how "well" things are going, then I guess things are not well at all. I remember a time in this game (first 2 years) that I could log on, and my friends list was busy, people asking me to queue with them, and my fleet was busy.. now, im lucky if there is 3 fleet members on, and 5 friends on in the friends list. kinda dead to me..
I also remember a time when it was hard to get into the same instance as your friends because so many would fill up very quickly.. it has been a long while since I have had to say "sorry, your instance is full, I cant xfer.."
cryptic, I would listen to the op's opinion, it is a fair, and good look at what we as players are dealing with... I know devs have a hard time seeing it as they are incharge of certain aspects of the game, and they center themselves on it.. so when they make a time gated piece of content, they are not thinking about the other departments time gated content.. but its all adding up, and the game is turning into a facebook game..
I have a lifetime, and have invested too much in this game; I regret it all.
That aside, I quitted after the anniversary; the anniversary was and is the game that came and will come.
I love Star Trek, to the point where I can put gravitational mechanics aside and enjoy a game of it. A proper game of it. This game isn't Star Trek; heck, it isn't even fun anymore.
I play A lot of these three games: Take on Mars, Kerbal Space Program and Team Fortress 2
.
Why have I quit STO on a break (I'll come back sometime in the future) when I had over 38 days worth of combined game play? It's too boring; non-intellectual, too easy and nothing to lose ever, at all, nada; really. Takes too much time to do anything. The first two games that I mentioned are clever, intellectual, challenging, and I can lose something, if not the entire thing. The last one is quick. STO has turned into: Who can pay the most is therefore the best; Team Fortress is super well balanced; I love it because it is about skill. I had friends on STO, but they have nearly all gone.
I have to pay for everything, or everything has a pay symbol on it. I'm not poor (not rich, but not poor), but I don't want to spend money on a videogame like that! In TF2, I've spent about £8 on it ... yet I have bought nearly the same amount of 'stuff' on STO , when that cost me £90 ... (and that is about 10 items.)
STO had potential to be a game. It had potential to be a Star Trek game.
I hope STO get's better ...
well two things.. yes, most if not all mmo's are set up to have you run stuff to get better equipment. I play several mmo's at the moment.. and none of them feel like a grind.. they do a great job of designing their dailies (usually more than one set so your not doing the same ones over and over again). and they have several ways of achieving endgame loadout.. (boss, random drops, and purchasable).
most mmo's are very good at walking the line of making it feel like a grind and making it feel like less of a grind through having multiple options..
cryptic has very few options for dailies, and we have been playing the same ones for about 3 years.. further more, our endgame content is also very old, and overplayed.. the voth and undine queueable missions are not what I consider stf's.. they are no where near the caliber of them, they are just point and shoot and bang your way through missions.. which is how cryptic has been making everything..
all of our dailies, shoot em up, maybe repair some satalites, but you still end up in combat.
mirror event.. shoot em up, and click f occasionally.
crystalline entitiy, another shoot em up,, occasionally debuff if you gots the skills.
voth space zones.. shoot em up,
undine space zones... shoot em up.. (except the ground mission, you actually investigate and do your thing, before you go and shoot em up..) honestly, after you arrest all the undine impersonators, you should get the guy in the center of town, and that's it.. adding the blood bath below the city just reminded me that its a pew pew game....
stf's shootem up.. with some more shootem up side quests..
fleet events.. shoot em up, kill em all style gameplay still.. even in protecting the outlying facilities, you still shoot em up..
almost every single player mission, is shoot em up (usually 3-5 squads) beam down, scan something, shoot em up (3-5) mobs, beam back up, get threatened, shoot em up.. the end..
you get it.. this is why this game feels so grindy.. every mission is the same.. there is so very little thought put into these missions.. I feel as if the devs do not push the envelope with trying to vary things up... when I play other mmo's all the dailies vary, there are different things to do, its not all just hack and slash. they may have you pick flowers, or fix houses, or kill bandits, or save kittens.. that kind of stuff.. its veriety, which sto sorely lacks.. expecially since if you play as a fed, you basically break the prime directive on a minute to minute basis.. lol...
and, the second thing is solo content.. our dailies should be high quality solo content.. in some games, I can fail my daily, and not get the rewards.. that is perk enough to pay attention and take my time.. in an mmo, dailies are meant to be the endgame solo content.. after your dailies, you get into your dungeon crawls and what not, and that is the whole point of an "mmo" you have to play with others to get the harder stuff done.. but yes, they should step up the dailies.. (making them harder does not mean making them longer, just making it so you have to think in an encounter instead of just mashing space bar.. )
Unfortunately, Ground has one critical problem as far as selling stuff goes: You only get ONE "unit", namely, your character, who can equip a measly 5 items: Two guns, an armor, a shield, and a kit. Compare that with a ship, where a single ship can equip nearly 30 things. Suffice it to say you can get 6 times as much stuff onto a ship as you can onto your dude on the ground.
A purely ground based lockbox would be a miserable flop.
Actually i have played it. And its far better than STO in terms of quality control. BY FAR. I also played back in the days AO C, the most bugged game ever in the story (i dont say it, its said for millions of players) and STO has passed it by far time ago lol. I ve played thousands of mmorpgs, and all of em are far better in terms of quality control than STO. Sorry its a fact like a temple. I wish this was not true.
I keep seing people complaining about this not being what they dont wanted, about timegates, about grind, about a lot of things, but i dont see people complaining about the lack of quality control cryptic has lol. Its incredible. I wonder.. why you people complain at all?? because if you are not complaining about the most important things, whats the point?? seriously?
*sigh* another entitlement claim *points to the quit door to centersolace in suggestion and then points at the sign stating "i quit threads not allowed but please come back at any point if you want"*. the devs have never responded to entitlement claims in the past, this one wont be any different.
ive stopped caring to respond about the game state as much as i used to, devs have their own way eventually. god knows what insane idea they bring next to the table and with such a track record i expect it, frankly you should of as well.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Bugs can stand in the way of enjoyable content, shooting stuff. They aren't a positive, deisrable feature. But they are not always the top important thing.
And that's why bugs are still in the game. Or in any software, really. A removed bug does not always provide the same impact as an added feature. I'd bet that most people would be more happy about 10 uniforms, then having 10 old uniforms have less clipping issues with certain combinations. But the effort to deal with either may in fact be the same.