test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Devs and Criticism.
dark4blood
Member Posts: 1,192 Arc User
Now I have had my fair share of complaints about STO, but I have also said some good things when I felt they have done something that improved the game. It seems lately, everything after Season 8, that the Devs have been getting hammered with nothing but negative news. I want to explain why I have been very disappointed with most things after Season 8 forward, and hope that the Devs understand that I am not attacking them but bringing up questions for choices that have led to this game being played MUCH less by my fellow fleetmates and other players in other fleets.
Now, one of the most basic problems since Season 8 has been the weekday play, basically there really isn't any. Remember dailies where the hour changed and you got new bonuses or even new missions available for that hour, welp they are gone, and replaced by nothing. I said, nothing as weekend bonuses DO NOT encourage players to play during the weekday. This was never really explained as to why dailies were not only removed but also NOTHING was added to replace that gap during the weekday period. I have never heard of an MMO that operates only on the weekend? How has this effected player moral, well everytime something is changed or removed many believe it will be as bad or worse than removing dailies, leading me to my next criticism that has left players in a negative mood.
Mirror missions, where are they? These were some of the most played missions in the game, even if Cryptic thought they were only an exploit, wouldn't it have been better to lower the rewards than remove them completely. This also applies to the new Mirror Invasion mission, is it only going to come back twice a year? This was one of the missions that broke the monotone grinding built into STO, yet it was removed for...
Lastly, communication, communication, communication. Now I AM NOT talking about the recent Expansion 2 teasers and leaks, that is fine by me because now people are talking about something other than having nothing to do in STO. I am talking about BUGS, and listing game breaking things other than nerf issues, and immediate weapon balancing.
I can list 5 game breaking bugs that never come up in KNOWN ISSUES sections of patch notes:
1.) Disappearing BOFFs from stations when warping into space map for the first time, wow this is a bad one. This bug is so bad players have made their own solution of marking their BOFF names with an additional number to remind them of BOFF placement on the ship.
2.) Disappearing shields and weapons attack animations during intense battles. This is a weird one because STO's graphics to a downgrade in Season 8 yet it seems like my graphics card is working harder to do the same missions. I have tested this with other games and it seems like the new programing after Season 8 is not using resources correctly anymore thus screen heavy actions require more dedicated graphical power.
3.) Disappearing Planet Destroyer in Vicious Elite mission that prevents player from completing optional and getting accolade. This has been here for a while, with all the nerfs you would think this obvious problem would have been addressed.
4.) Exchange making player restart their search with every purchase, yeah this has been going on since Season 8 also, but at least they addressed how slow the exchange was moving since Season 9. Now go back a littler further to when the exchange work correctly and it would be great.
5. This is my most TRIBBLE me off BUG that makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to not address IMMEDIATELY! Dilithium/Zen stuck on exchange market with the error message "failed to cancel diltihium offer, Internal error" Now this is money, money I can't use to buy fleet ships, upgrade crafting, or turn into zen for C-store purchases. WHY the world is this not in known problems? I literally can't put any zen purchase or sale up without 5000 zen worth being stuck on the market even when it is past the number it should have sold at. Cryptic just keeps clearing the sale at each update, normally Thursday, but usually by that time I have lost 500 zen in exchange rate or 20000 diltithium.
These issues may seem like small issues to some, maybe even the Devs, but I and other players are not asking for you to immediately fix these issues. I don't want Devs to personally respond to this thread, that is not your job and I realize that, what I want is a change in policy when it comes to your customer service response to major problems in the game. This is a simple as listing these bugs as known issues at the end of weekly updates, as many of these bugs ARE NOT NEW, they are bugs that have been around for the better part of a year. Even if Devs made a separate section called Bug confirmation, I would be happy, I know how hard it is to fix bugs in an constantly evolving game, but you must show customers you are trying.
Nerfing things like weapon powers, skills and crafting while still not addressing game breaking bugs does not make for good customer service. It shows a priority that is dismissive to players, and leads many to rant about things that aren't really important due to sheer frustration, i.e. multiple crafting que nerf which made sense due to announcement of mk xiv weapons. This was actually a necessary nerf considering some players will have the ability to make MK XIV weapons before they can even use them. With a little customer service this could have been handled better by improving the amount of clicks to craft at the same time as removing multiple ques of the same school.
The above is a suggestion on how to minimize the backlash Cryptic has been receiving each new Season update. Thus, if no attempt is made to address the notification and reasoning part of game updates, Cryptic an look forward to more "privileged" gamers complaining about ever new change coming down the pipe. There needs to be a serious change when it comes to addressing players, more than asking them what they want for the next Season update through a controlled poll.
Now, one of the most basic problems since Season 8 has been the weekday play, basically there really isn't any. Remember dailies where the hour changed and you got new bonuses or even new missions available for that hour, welp they are gone, and replaced by nothing. I said, nothing as weekend bonuses DO NOT encourage players to play during the weekday. This was never really explained as to why dailies were not only removed but also NOTHING was added to replace that gap during the weekday period. I have never heard of an MMO that operates only on the weekend? How has this effected player moral, well everytime something is changed or removed many believe it will be as bad or worse than removing dailies, leading me to my next criticism that has left players in a negative mood.
Mirror missions, where are they? These were some of the most played missions in the game, even if Cryptic thought they were only an exploit, wouldn't it have been better to lower the rewards than remove them completely. This also applies to the new Mirror Invasion mission, is it only going to come back twice a year? This was one of the missions that broke the monotone grinding built into STO, yet it was removed for...
Lastly, communication, communication, communication. Now I AM NOT talking about the recent Expansion 2 teasers and leaks, that is fine by me because now people are talking about something other than having nothing to do in STO. I am talking about BUGS, and listing game breaking things other than nerf issues, and immediate weapon balancing.
I can list 5 game breaking bugs that never come up in KNOWN ISSUES sections of patch notes:
1.) Disappearing BOFFs from stations when warping into space map for the first time, wow this is a bad one. This bug is so bad players have made their own solution of marking their BOFF names with an additional number to remind them of BOFF placement on the ship.
2.) Disappearing shields and weapons attack animations during intense battles. This is a weird one because STO's graphics to a downgrade in Season 8 yet it seems like my graphics card is working harder to do the same missions. I have tested this with other games and it seems like the new programing after Season 8 is not using resources correctly anymore thus screen heavy actions require more dedicated graphical power.
3.) Disappearing Planet Destroyer in Vicious Elite mission that prevents player from completing optional and getting accolade. This has been here for a while, with all the nerfs you would think this obvious problem would have been addressed.
4.) Exchange making player restart their search with every purchase, yeah this has been going on since Season 8 also, but at least they addressed how slow the exchange was moving since Season 9. Now go back a littler further to when the exchange work correctly and it would be great.
5. This is my most TRIBBLE me off BUG that makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to not address IMMEDIATELY! Dilithium/Zen stuck on exchange market with the error message "failed to cancel diltihium offer, Internal error" Now this is money, money I can't use to buy fleet ships, upgrade crafting, or turn into zen for C-store purchases. WHY the world is this not in known problems? I literally can't put any zen purchase or sale up without 5000 zen worth being stuck on the market even when it is past the number it should have sold at. Cryptic just keeps clearing the sale at each update, normally Thursday, but usually by that time I have lost 500 zen in exchange rate or 20000 diltithium.
These issues may seem like small issues to some, maybe even the Devs, but I and other players are not asking for you to immediately fix these issues. I don't want Devs to personally respond to this thread, that is not your job and I realize that, what I want is a change in policy when it comes to your customer service response to major problems in the game. This is a simple as listing these bugs as known issues at the end of weekly updates, as many of these bugs ARE NOT NEW, they are bugs that have been around for the better part of a year. Even if Devs made a separate section called Bug confirmation, I would be happy, I know how hard it is to fix bugs in an constantly evolving game, but you must show customers you are trying.
Nerfing things like weapon powers, skills and crafting while still not addressing game breaking bugs does not make for good customer service. It shows a priority that is dismissive to players, and leads many to rant about things that aren't really important due to sheer frustration, i.e. multiple crafting que nerf which made sense due to announcement of mk xiv weapons. This was actually a necessary nerf considering some players will have the ability to make MK XIV weapons before they can even use them. With a little customer service this could have been handled better by improving the amount of clicks to craft at the same time as removing multiple ques of the same school.
The above is a suggestion on how to minimize the backlash Cryptic has been receiving each new Season update. Thus, if no attempt is made to address the notification and reasoning part of game updates, Cryptic an look forward to more "privileged" gamers complaining about ever new change coming down the pipe. There needs to be a serious change when it comes to addressing players, more than asking them what they want for the next Season update through a controlled poll.
Post edited by dark4blood on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I used to be one of those types that posted pro-Cryptic rants (I know that's not what you did, I'm just saying) and talked about how awesome STO was to my friends.
The latest changes only make sense when viewed as part of a plot by a disgruntled ex-employee.
The latest changes could not personally irritate the living daylights out of me more if they had been scientifically designed specifically for me. Now, I don't for one second think that's what actually happened, but the end result is IDENTICAL.
They've ignored us for months if not years, and they aren't going to start now.
We wanted better crafting, they gave us the mess that we have now.
We wanted better Doffing, so they replaced the old one with THE NEW AND CRAPPY CRAFTING SYSTEM. No, why would we need a select/deselect all button in a list of over 20 Doff Profs, of course we would much rather have to do EVERYTHING manually. Or I could let my Department Head send Mirror Hakeev on that Mining Mission which may kill him, OF COURSE I would choose to do that.
Every iteration of this game brings LESS functionality than before. They are *actively downgrading* this game, and I'm sick of acting like it's okay. I only wish I was subbing so I could enjoy not subbing, but I bought a life sub back before all of this turned to perfect dust.
But credit where it's due: They nailed the Risa Ship for alt accounts this year. Sadly, that one thing doesn't carry over into every other field.
Doesn't happen every time. I find that during early morning hours where I am (low East Coast load, practically no West Coast load), the Exchange updates very quickly. The issue seems to stem from server load.
what mining mission? purples dont die they only go to sickbay.
they can only be lost in the specific missions that require exchanging. and even those now dont autoselect the doffs (well one does but that is a bug)
Look, this sideways expansion it's all fine and dandy, and having a nice little level cap is great you'll get someone people back. Honestly though? Can I get a raid? Please, a nice two to three hour even where five man and/or ten man teams run through things getting gear? Reputation systems as you can do them while leveling up, and aren't end game content.
See I remember back when STFs were two to three hours and you had to sit down and work through them.
All I want is End Game, that's it where are the raids?
Because it's a sad fact when DC Universe Online has a better raiding system than Star Trek Online (Oh wait, we don't have a raiding system!)
Races Wanted: Half-Orc | Gnome | Warforged
And execute for incompetence... which auto selects blue/purple... and reverts when I manually change it to a white...
This thread may eventually join the ranks of those. Unfortunately.
That's a terrible cop out. My post isn't about moderation. It's about feedback and criticism.
When one dev (Al Rivera) goes on a podcast and berates the players for ranting on the forums and not giving any useful feedback, it opens up this entire can of worms.
The criticism from Al rings completely hollow when:
- Criticism and feedback on the Tribble forum is wholesale ignored.
- Criticism and feedback on this forum is completely excised and removed.
The entire process is being shown as pointless.
Why test on Tribble? It won't be listened to. The problems/bugs/issues will go live anyways.
Why bother to offer feedback on here? It'll all get swept up under a rug.
No, this isn't about moderation. This is about the feedback process. It got lost along the way. And that's going to cause problems with this game. Especially as they try to release an expansion.
It's sad. Really just sad.
Your post was made solely because a thread was removed by a Dev - and you made two references in the only two sentences the post had about having a thread closed/removed. If the thread in question had not been removed you never would have posted what you did. Thus your post was about moderation, not criticism.
And you are very aware that there are thousands of posts on this forum that criticize Cryptic which are never removed, so clearly Cryptic does not take offense to criticism - at least not until it crosses a line that insults the Devs or other players.
Remember when Rep projects didn't give boxes?
Remember when you have to get to T5 to unlock mk12 gear in reps?
Remember back when Rep projects required you to buy commodities?
Remember back when Rep projects COST dil to start?
I could go on but I think I've listed enough examples of changes based on player feedback.
My character Tsin'xing
I don't know about you but I'm done empathizing with them. Some bugs have been around for so long that there is simply NO reason for them to still exist.
Correction: nerfing without explanation. Their bug fixes are explained to us for the most part. Why aren't the nerfs? Of better -- why so many ninja nerfs?
In the grander scheme of things, the bottom line comes before the customers who provide it. in simple terms, THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THEIR PRODUCT. As long as it makes money they have no reason to.