As for the upgrade price I was suprised it was 700 considering that upto 1000 was put out there. I was exdpecting the worst there but was happy at the price.
You do understand that they manipulated your expectations there with a marketing trick, right?
Okay I hate the sneaky move now my farming is useless normal pve ques rewards and 240 dil will bankrupt me badly as not much money to spare ohh sorry that what u wanted, more money sank into the game. Now Maki g high end stuff is out of the question as i can't squire the advanced stuff lovely thank you alott for fubaring the game hmmmm swtor may be downloaded today.
1) Periods are your friend
2) Have you tried other methods, like, say, the Voth Battlezone or the Undine Battlezone or Foundry?
- Great voice over work from the Voyager cast
- New music (at last!) in the Delta Quadrant
- Overall improvements in presentation, such as the map
- Overall, an enjoyable storyarc and nicely varied story missions
- Exciting Specialistion system and Starship Mastery, adds freshness to the game
- Intel officers have added some variety to ground BOFF combat
- Fair(ish) price for T5-U upgrade
The Bad
- A few too many patrol missions posing as 'story content'
The Ugly
- The insane changes to queues and the OTT difficulty
- Foundry not working at present, which I miss
- Reduction across the board for more time and work but less rewards
- Way too many things that require dil now but precious little ways to obtain it
Only thing that really annoys me is the leveling up, i hit level 52 and was only one bar into it, so i have a grind now before i can continue the story line. Apart from that it's all gravy.
Bad:
1) Random [mod] with upgrading weapons, etc.
2) No option to upgrade kit modules.
3) Sending diplomatic envoy, high rank starfleet officer, after some spice for soup.
∆ Intelligence skills are akin to the specialty consoles. Useless 95% of the time, and then they look cool for 15 seconds.
My Romulan is having great success with Surgical Strike (as opposed to Fire At Will or Beam Overload) with her Antiproton beamboat. It syncs well with Attack Pattern Beta (both have 15s duplicate ability cooldowns, and 30s self cooldowns) plus that new SDO lets APB heal.
The fact that Intel seating allows for Surgical Strike also allows the Eclipse cruiser to have 2xTT, 2xAPB, and still have two attack buffing abilities (2xSurgical Strike). That means that instead of a 4-Tac ability cruiser that cries out for A2B, it's not needed.
Intel officers are an excellent concept, and I think it's the start of them recognizing the importance of offensive abilities (especially in light of the buffed enemies) and taking steps to ensure that Aux2Bat isn't necessary to ensure sufficient (6-7) offensive seating (which up until now meant Tactical seating) on many ships.
at lvl 50 where? have you been to the ground battle zone lately? dead.
It's a new expansion. Everybody and their mother are in Delta Quadrant, this shouldn't be a surprise. When the shininess of the new hotness wears off, people will be going back to the easy Dilithium gains of the BZ.
As it is playing, crafting now needs a new revamp and reduction to it's costs, to many things need it now (if you are carrying your sets up to DR standard) and the fun runs out with the dilithium, none of it is really "needed" for anything, but in it's current state
How long to upgrade all rep sets, old quest items, and what not, um, riiiiiiight. personally, great level increase, awesome fun along the way, but the the cost is well over stacked.
As it is playing, crafting now needs a new revamp and reduction to it's costs, to many things need it now (if you are carrying your sets up to DR standard) and the fun runs out with the dilithium, none of it is really "needed" for anything, but in it's current state
How long to upgrade all rep sets, old quest items, and what not, um, riiiiiiight. personally, great level increase, awesome fun along the way, but the the cost is well over stacked.
I recommend they stop kicking the dead horse lol
Are you using basic upgrades? because those stink.
i don't use those, when you have almost the whole game in bank, or anyone who has almost all and does want to switch things up, or, even those who want to try making a lot of stuff just to explore the mystery items that will come out of them, the cost is double what is sane in DR. with any, upgrade type.
I will be linking it to all my friends and fellow players who have all expressed like views as shown in the show about how the F2P game industry is in danger of going down the plug hole.
They definitely increased the Pay to Play aspect. Massive dilithium sinks. You cannot get a tier 6 without spending real cash. I would say that STO no longer qualifies as "Free To Play". (WOW claims to be free to play because you could play up to level 20 free but that doesnt fit most peoples definition)
The upgrade system is a massive dilithium/ec sink upgrading 7 weapons from mk 12 to mk14 costs you about 113k dilithium and 105 superior upgrade kits. (this is for standard weapons, fleet/rep/special weapons seem to cost even more.)
If you can't make superior upgrade kits yourself the current exchange prices means you would have to pay 93 million ec (at current prices that is equal to 40 master keys or 4000+ zen or 640000 dilithium at current exchange rates) and even if you can make them yourselfs due to the removal of the old estf's there will be much less rare/vr makes in the exchange meaning the price is gonna go up.
i don't use those, when you have almost the whole game in bank, or anyone who has almost all and does want to switch things up, or, even those who want to try making a lot of stuff just to explore the mystery items that will come out of them, the cost is double what is sane in DR. with any, upgrade type.
Yeah, I'm not planning to upgrade every piece of gear I have. that does sound like it will take a long time.
The upgrade system is a massive dilithium/ec sink upgrading 7 weapons from mk 12 to mk14 costs you about 113k dilithium and 105 superior upgrade kits. (this is for standard weapons, fleet/rep/special weapons seem to cost even more.)
If you can't make superior upgrade kits yourself the current exchange prices means you would have to pay 93 million ec (at current prices that is equal to 40 master keys or 4000+ zen or 640000 dilithium at current exchange rates) and even if you can make them yourselfs due to the removal of the old estf's there will be much less rare/vr makes in the exchange meaning the price is gonna go up.
Once I unlock my ec cap; I fully plan to unload such things on the market...until then, I continue stocking up and, leveling the various R/D branches just for the accolades/traits. After a few test runs on making items, I found 1 out of 5 to actually be, somewhat useful. But, that's just me.
They definitely increased the Pay to Play aspect. Massive dilithium sinks. You cannot get a tier 6 without spending real cash. I would say that STO no longer qualifies as "Free To Play". (WOW claims to be free to play because you could play up to level 20 free but that doesnt fit most peoples definition)
Not entirely true.
I bought my T6 Guardian, yesterday. Farming dilithium on three characters for about 2 and a half weeks. I figure 4 more weeks will get me either the raptor or, a romulan bird.
At the current moment, have 3 choices for spending Dilithium:
1) Convert all to buy one ship.
2) Use them all to upgrade one or two sets of gears I use.
3) Use them to buy reputation rewards.
The Dilithium cost in this game is way too high. Granted, I see the dev giving us more opportunities to earn Dilithium, but unless you grind everyday, players who have schools and jobs will never catch up unless they decide to spend $30 real money on a single ship.
Story wise, the patrol missions are a drag but at least they tried to connect them with the Ferengi subplot. The rewards for these patrol missions are a bit mediocre. By lvl 50, you'd at least have one good set of gears and players have a set play style with their own gears and consoles set up they like to play with. These rewards are not a very good incentive because it doesn't make the players want to use them. If these were unequally Delta Quadrant weapons or gears as rewards then yes.
The story missions that isn't patrol are better. They have unique items that feels like they can only be earned from that particular story.
Honestly, the things they did right in this expansion would FAR outweigh the negatives if they just fixed the PVE Ques.
The Advanced Ques are game breaking, everything else is either fantastic or at least tolerable.
Yep, that's the line for me too. Between the rewards reduction and optional objectives becoming mandatory on Advanced, PvE queues are officially not worth it anymore to me. I had planned on getting the Delta Pack once I got some money in, but I don't think I can justify it if this doesn't change.
Admiral Katrina Tokareva - U.S.S. Cosmos, Yorktown-class Star Cruiser Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Hearing Lenard Nimoy's voice again
Elements of the story
Nelix
The Doctor
The Specialization System: I'd like to see a Communications one.
Progressing to level 60
The Bad:
The difficulty of level 60 enemies in Elite space queues.
Laggy/FPSing DR Patrols/Bug Hunt/Battle of K. missions.
Hour long patrol missions.
Adventure Zone Delta mark rewards; including game bugs that reward me for zones I have not even played.
This is the most mark deficient reputation I've grinded.
Feeling like non-particle gen. science abilities are not keeping up with lvl 60 enemies.
Game bugs leading to me not getting posted rewards.
R&D upgrading return on investment. The botched rollout and the dil sink.
Lots of threads already about the rewards gutting, extreme difficulty, dilithium costs, and the general bugginess that prevent us from moving forward. I know Cryptic is working on a solution, just as they did before.
I'm particularly looking forward to other players insights into how to use some of the new gear and ships effectively. For the moment - bugs and all - DR's a lot of fun.
So some first thoughts on the new release:
The Good
∆ The voiceover lineup was very good.
∆ Feeling like a newb again in impossible to finish STF pugs.
∆ T5-U ships work much better than expected. Absolutely NO NEED for XIV gear.
∆ The new KDF Raptor is a monster with an OP console. THIS is worth buying.
∆ Episodes that require a little thought. YES. Love it. Well done cryptic.
∆ Music, backgrounds and the Borg debris fields. Nice touch.
∆ The variety of new races to deal with. Awesome.
∆ Captain specializations - cool. Ship Mastery - about damned time
∆ New ships.... Still hovering in the good column. Just don't think they're worth buying in the Ops Pack.
The Bad (or Meh)
∆ Talaxian Duty Officer Management. About as fun as going to the bar for Scotty.
∆ 700 Zen upgrades. Should have been 500 Z. I would have upgraded more ships.
And the Ugly
∆ Boringly long slug fests with every villian. Found myself wondering about revisiting other games.
∆ Mission BUGS - The Calavry has 100's of players jumping instances. Update: being fixed tomorrow.
∆ Difficulty increases has all but killed the PvE queues. Pugging has become near impossible.
∆ Rewards gutting. A cheap move when you're adding dilithium sinks (astronomical sinks).
∆ Intelligence skills are akin to the specialty consoles. Useless 95% of the time, and then they look cool for 15 seconds. Huge buyers remorse with the Operations Pack.
My Two Bits,
Admiral Thrax
Updates: Bug fixes inbound for The Calvary
One week in and my feelings have not changed.
The general poor communications from Cryptic; the slap-dash attempts to update problems that had been previously ignored, and the resultant 'thoroughly researched solutions' have left a bad taste in my mouth.
All the good content in the world doesn't balance the game changes. The game is now out of the reach of the casual player. You can't compete at the endgame unless you spend money, or devote your life to STO. The fun is gone, and players ARE leaving.
I'm more sad and disappointed more than anything else. STO has great potential, but it's squandered under it's current leadership. Exploration? No, we'll leave that to our playerbase to come up with an alternative. Diplomacy? No thank you, here's XIII phaser banks. Development? Well, let make it so expensive, a player will have to work for a year to get anything of real value.
Star Trek Online is not for the casual gamer.
Congratulations. Have the balls to call it what it is... Free to Try. Anything else at this stage is a lie.
NOTE: I saw these way before DR came out, but I hoped they would be addressed.
THE VERY BAD
The main problem is the leves.
at level 40 you can use mk9 mk10
at level 45 mk11 opens up
at level 50 mk 12 opens up
at level 51 mk13 opens up<----IT IS HERE WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
This is because at level 50 the rep system opens up as well. There is no time to use the mark 12 equipment, because by the time you can afford it it will be useless.
1-the incentive to aquire and use it is gone.
2-the ability to gain it is gone advanced is just too hard for a tier 5 starting ship. Which before you could possible do.
3- Aslo remember that FTP people only keep their old T4 ships, unless they got a free t5 one from an event. These ships even with easy to aquire mk10 vr gear cannont do the pve's to get rep special items neeeded for the rep gear. So they can longer advance in the game and will leave as players. The addition of T6 ships costing money has turned the game back into pay to win as the FTP person is now 2 whole tiiers behind. They don't even get and old t5 ship reward to even give them a chance to play.
4-players leaving the game means no server activity, which means less possible money coming in, which means less people talking to other to play with them, which means the games eventual death.
FLEET GEAR PROBLEM
Fleet gear which was to be the top of the line is now no where near what it should be. This was suppose to be top end gear now its just a dil and EC sink for upgrading.
1- What DR did was move the end stuff and top of the line stuff to the middle. This was happening before DR as the dyson armor eclispes even mk13 (upgraded) fleet armor in raw power. I upgraded my fleet only toon build to find this out.
2- The huge dil cost for fleet gear only to have to pay even more dil and ec for it to be used end game is now totally ridiculous in price.
3- Fleet credits are becoming harder to get now. I am actually thinking about starting my own fleet with a few friends just so I can earn some or give them a chance to earn some...but the dil costs will kill me which is why i can't do it. My fleet pretty much stopped doing projects it has tons of provisions not being used. This also makes it hard for the FTP person to aquire stuff in game and be able to continue playing.
THE CRAFTING SYSTEM
While like the new system there are just things that are missing from it.
1-the old system allowed you to build kits. While i don't care about the kits. I do feel you should be able to build the modiules for the new kits. Let the person buy the kit from a vendor or find them in game, and let them build modules for it using R&D.
2-The system maxes out at mk12. The game goes to mk14 now so the cost to make mk12 really seems too expensive now and not worht the time. Its just too hard now to get the componts with the hard PVE's. The cost dos not justify the time and eveybody sees that. Eventually the supply on the auction will go down or stabilize at some super high price probably.
3-The DR expansion made R&D only useful for level 40 and below. I say this becuase at lvl 40 I can use mk10. I had a new toon, crafted VR mk10 equipment...NOTE:this equipment is equal to uncommon mk12..a nice boost even for FTP people. I could do an eltie at lvl 50 before DR, after DR i coudl not do an advanced. The scale went beyond may power. So R&D is useless because I need to do the advanced to get the materials to make mk12 vr stuff but i can't do them so why continue progressing.
...THE UGLY ZEN GREED
I could before go out to almost any store and buy a PW card for $20 which is 2000 zen. Now I have done this and know others who have sent such cards to FTP friends. Now though T6 ships are $30...yet the older ships which are now even less useful have not come down in price. Why? Only greed can explain this. I say this because is costs $7.50 for the upgrade for a T5 ship so all ships actually have increased in price by $5-$7.50 as of the DR release.
THE GOOD
While I love the continued expansions and the flow of new content that PW is doing....i cannot help but think they are trying to bite off too much at a time.
This is like 3 expansions at one time, which is too much for any company to do in few months.
I give you credit for trying to do the impossible...yet you forgot Mr. Phelps that should you fail you will be disavowed.
No one saw this coming when PWE obtained STO? really? REALLY?! we all should have seen this coming, This happens to EVERY game/company PWE obtains, you can get everything in game free, of course but now what would have taken a week of hard farming on 5 chars will now take...2-3 months of hard grinding/farming to obtain due to new dil sinks,
PWE: how shall we bring in more money today?
PWE: I know! We'll add duyrability to ships and equipment next oh and warp plasma while we're add it and require it to use Dilithium to repair and recharge!
Let's face it, They will milk the game for all its worth then cut funding and move on to the next cash cow.
IMHO opinion, DR has failed horribly. I know that it is still new and there are bugs that need to be fixed. But if the game continues the way it is, the customer base will fall hard and may not recover. The missions have TRIBBLE for rewards, elites have no incentive or reward, and the biggest problem with the game, TOO MUCH OF A GRIND!
No one saw this coming when PWE obtained STO? really? REALLY?! we all should have seen this coming, This happens to EVERY game/company PWE obtains, you can get everything in game free, of course but now what would have taken a week of hard farming on 5 chars will now take...2-3 months of hard grinding/farming to obtain due to new dil sinks,
PWE: how shall we bring in more money today?
PWE: I know! We'll add duyrability to ships and equipment next oh and warp plasma while we're add it and require it to use Dilithium to repair and recharge!
Let's face it, They will milk the game for all its worth then cut funding and move on to the next cash cow.
I said it when it happened, i said we will finish with a phone game model and the worse it will some player who will applause that.
Honestly i hope they will continue in that way, milking the cow until everyone is tired of that and so close this game. And at this moment we will can hope a game than Star trek deserve.
Beceause now this game lose the trek and become star grind.
Cryptic sold their love of the game, their soul to pwe and now is time they have to pay for that
I don't really have much to criticize about the new expansion.
the good:
- the missions are interesting. Even the patrol missions are tied into the story. I like them.
- Environments and system maps look fantastic
- Captain specializiations are a welcome long term motivator
- the Voyager revamp (exterior and interior) is a job very well done. I hope this will soon be available as part of the Voyager bundle (T6 Voyager + Interior ;-)
- Ships of the Delta quadrant races look fantastic
- the Kobali Adventure Zone is one the best looking ever made. I just wish doing missions there after having reached lvl 60 would be more rewarding in terms of marks and dilithium. I fear in its current state it's going to end up like Nimbus. When your missions are done there's no reason to go back again.
- the voiceovers add a lot to the atmosphere of the Delta Quadrant
- Vaadwaur are a challenging and credible opponent
and some critique/suggestions:
- DOFF assignment and research project completion lags (THEY ARE DRIVING ME NUTS !)
- the nerf to dilithium rewards and removal of item rewards for queued events
- Randomness of modifiers added through crafting
- I would have wished for at least one or two peaceful missions that didn't involve killing and destroying (first contact mission)
- more unique doff missions in the Delta quadrant
- greater variety of daily missions
NOTE: I saw these way before DR came out, but I hoped they would be addressed.
THE VERY BAD
The main problem is the leves.
at level 40 you can use mk9 mk10
at level 45 mk11 opens up
at level 50 mk 12 opens up
at level 51 mk13 opens up<----IT IS HERE WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
This is because at level 50 the rep system opens up as well. There is no time to use the mark 12 equipment, because by the time you can afford it it will be useless.
1-the incentive to aquire and use it is gone.
2-the ability to gain it is gone advanced is just too hard for a tier 5 starting ship. Which before you could possible do.
3- Aslo remember that FTP people only keep their old T4 ships, unless they got a free t5 one from an event. These ships even with easy to aquire mk10 vr gear cannont do the pve's to get rep special items neeeded for the rep gear. So they can longer advance in the game and will leave as players. The addition of T6 ships costing money has turned the game back into pay to win as the FTP person is now 2 whole tiiers behind. They don't even get and old t5 ship reward to even give them a chance to play.
4-players leaving the game means no server activity, which means less possible money coming in, which means less people talking to other to play with them, which means the games eventual death.
FLEET GEAR PROBLEM
Fleet gear which was to be the top of the line is now no where near what it should be. This was suppose to be top end gear now its just a dil and EC sink for upgrading.
1- What DR did was move the end stuff and top of the line stuff to the middle. This was happening before DR as the dyson armor eclispes even mk13 (upgraded) fleet armor in raw power. I upgraded my fleet only toon build to find this out.
2- The huge dil cost for fleet gear only to have to pay even more dil and ec for it to be used end game is now totally ridiculous in price.
3- Fleet credits are becoming harder to get now. I am actually thinking about starting my own fleet with a few friends just so I can earn some or give them a chance to earn some...but the dil costs will kill me which is why i can't do it. My fleet pretty much stopped doing projects it has tons of provisions not being used. This also makes it hard for the FTP person to aquire stuff in game and be able to continue playing.
THE CRAFTING SYSTEM
While like the new system there are just things that are missing from it.
1-the old system allowed you to build kits. While i don't care about the kits. I do feel you should be able to build the modiules for the new kits. Let the person buy the kit from a vendor or find them in game, and let them build modules for it using R&D.
2-The system maxes out at mk12. The game goes to mk14 now so the cost to make mk12 really seems too expensive now and not worht the time. Its just too hard now to get the componts with the hard PVE's. The cost dos not justify the time and eveybody sees that. Eventually the supply on the auction will go down or stabilize at some super high price probably.
3-The DR expansion made R&D only useful for level 40 and below. I say this becuase at lvl 40 I can use mk10. I had a new toon, crafted VR mk10 equipment...NOTE:this equipment is equal to uncommon mk12..a nice boost even for FTP people. I could do an eltie at lvl 50 before DR, after DR i coudl not do an advanced. The scale went beyond may power. So R&D is useless because I need to do the advanced to get the materials to make mk12 vr stuff but i can't do them so why continue progressing.
...THE UGLY ZEN GREED
I could before go out to almost any store and buy a PW card for $20 which is 2000 zen. Now I have done this and know others who have sent such cards to FTP friends. Now though T6 ships are $30...yet the older ships which are now even less useful have not come down in price. Why? Only greed can explain this. I say this because is costs $7.50 for the upgrade for a T5 ship so all ships actually have increased in price by $5-$7.50 as of the DR release.
THE GOOD
While I love the continued expansions and the flow of new content that PW is doing....i cannot help but think they are trying to bite off too much at a time.
This is like 3 expansions at one time, which is too much for any company to do in few months.
I give you credit for trying to do the impossible...yet you forgot Mr. Phelps that should you fail you will be disavowed.
I have been here since Beta, This has been the best launch so far. Yes there are some minor hiccups i know you guys will fix them. But an all around congrats to the team. Thank you for more game to play. and to you haters I say bugger off.
Best launch do far?... I'm sorry, what?... I'm guessing you're trolling? This is the dumbest **** I've ever seen them do. O.o
Also, there have been several moments in the past when I've asked "did they even beta test this?" but this time, I think this question needs to be asked now more than ever.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.
Comments
You do understand that they manipulated your expectations there with a marketing trick, right?
1) Periods are your friend
2) Have you tried other methods, like, say, the Voth Battlezone or the Undine Battlezone or Foundry?
- Great voice over work from the Voyager cast
- New music (at last!) in the Delta Quadrant
- Overall improvements in presentation, such as the map
- Overall, an enjoyable storyarc and nicely varied story missions
- Exciting Specialistion system and Starship Mastery, adds freshness to the game
- Intel officers have added some variety to ground BOFF combat
- Fair(ish) price for T5-U upgrade
The Bad
- A few too many patrol missions posing as 'story content'
The Ugly
- The insane changes to queues and the OTT difficulty
- Foundry not working at present, which I miss
- Reduction across the board for more time and work but less rewards
- Way too many things that require dil now but precious little ways to obtain it
that fits sto to a T
system Lord Baal is dead
1) Random [mod] with upgrading weapons, etc.
2) No option to upgrade kit modules.
3) Sending diplomatic envoy, high rank starfleet officer, after some spice for soup.
My Romulan is having great success with Surgical Strike (as opposed to Fire At Will or Beam Overload) with her Antiproton beamboat. It syncs well with Attack Pattern Beta (both have 15s duplicate ability cooldowns, and 30s self cooldowns) plus that new SDO lets APB heal.
The fact that Intel seating allows for Surgical Strike also allows the Eclipse cruiser to have 2xTT, 2xAPB, and still have two attack buffing abilities (2xSurgical Strike). That means that instead of a 4-Tac ability cruiser that cries out for A2B, it's not needed.
Intel officers are an excellent concept, and I think it's the start of them recognizing the importance of offensive abilities (especially in light of the buffed enemies) and taking steps to ensure that Aux2Bat isn't necessary to ensure sufficient (6-7) offensive seating (which up until now meant Tactical seating) on many ships.
It's a new expansion. Everybody and their mother are in Delta Quadrant, this shouldn't be a surprise. When the shininess of the new hotness wears off, people will be going back to the easy Dilithium gains of the BZ.
Eh, we get a free T5-U ship though.
It can, just drag those icons onto your power bar.
How long to upgrade all rep sets, old quest items, and what not, um, riiiiiiight. personally, great level increase, awesome fun along the way, but the the cost is well over stacked.
I recommend they stop kicking the dead horse lol
My character Tsin'xing
+1
Thank you for this.
I will be linking it to all my friends and fellow players who have all expressed like views as shown in the show about how the F2P game industry is in danger of going down the plug hole.
If you can't make superior upgrade kits yourself the current exchange prices means you would have to pay 93 million ec (at current prices that is equal to 40 master keys or 4000+ zen or 640000 dilithium at current exchange rates) and even if you can make them yourselfs due to the removal of the old estf's there will be much less rare/vr makes in the exchange meaning the price is gonna go up.
My character Tsin'xing
Once I unlock my ec cap; I fully plan to unload such things on the market...until then, I continue stocking up and, leveling the various R/D branches just for the accolades/traits. After a few test runs on making items, I found 1 out of 5 to actually be, somewhat useful. But, that's just me.
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
Not entirely true.
I bought my T6 Guardian, yesterday. Farming dilithium on three characters for about 2 and a half weeks. I figure 4 more weeks will get me either the raptor or, a romulan bird.
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
1) Convert all to buy one ship.
2) Use them all to upgrade one or two sets of gears I use.
3) Use them to buy reputation rewards.
The Dilithium cost in this game is way too high. Granted, I see the dev giving us more opportunities to earn Dilithium, but unless you grind everyday, players who have schools and jobs will never catch up unless they decide to spend $30 real money on a single ship.
Story wise, the patrol missions are a drag but at least they tried to connect them with the Ferengi subplot. The rewards for these patrol missions are a bit mediocre. By lvl 50, you'd at least have one good set of gears and players have a set play style with their own gears and consoles set up they like to play with. These rewards are not a very good incentive because it doesn't make the players want to use them. If these were unequally Delta Quadrant weapons or gears as rewards then yes.
The story missions that isn't patrol are better. They have unique items that feels like they can only be earned from that particular story.
Yep, that's the line for me too. Between the rewards reduction and optional objectives becoming mandatory on Advanced, PvE queues are officially not worth it anymore to me. I had planned on getting the Delta Pack once I got some money in, but I don't think I can justify it if this doesn't change.
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Hearing Lenard Nimoy's voice again
Elements of the story
Nelix
The Doctor
The Specialization System: I'd like to see a Communications one.
Progressing to level 60
The Bad:
The difficulty of level 60 enemies in Elite space queues.
Laggy/FPSing DR Patrols/Bug Hunt/Battle of K. missions.
Hour long patrol missions.
Adventure Zone Delta mark rewards; including game bugs that reward me for zones I have not even played.
This is the most mark deficient reputation I've grinded.
Feeling like non-particle gen. science abilities are not keeping up with lvl 60 enemies.
Game bugs leading to me not getting posted rewards.
R&D upgrading return on investment. The botched rollout and the dil sink.
The Ugly:
Non-apology apologies.
One week in and my feelings have not changed.
The general poor communications from Cryptic; the slap-dash attempts to update problems that had been previously ignored, and the resultant 'thoroughly researched solutions' have left a bad taste in my mouth.
All the good content in the world doesn't balance the game changes. The game is now out of the reach of the casual player. You can't compete at the endgame unless you spend money, or devote your life to STO. The fun is gone, and players ARE leaving.
I'm more sad and disappointed more than anything else. STO has great potential, but it's squandered under it's current leadership. Exploration? No, we'll leave that to our playerbase to come up with an alternative. Diplomacy? No thank you, here's XIII phaser banks. Development? Well, let make it so expensive, a player will have to work for a year to get anything of real value.
Star Trek Online is not for the casual gamer.
Congratulations. Have the balls to call it what it is... Free to Try. Anything else at this stage is a lie.
-calling the playerbase cheaters exploiters
-stealing playtime from ppl
NOTE: I saw these way before DR came out, but I hoped they would be addressed.
THE VERY BAD
The main problem is the leves.
at level 40 you can use mk9 mk10
at level 45 mk11 opens up
at level 50 mk 12 opens up
at level 51 mk13 opens up<----IT IS HERE WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
This is because at level 50 the rep system opens up as well. There is no time to use the mark 12 equipment, because by the time you can afford it it will be useless.
1-the incentive to aquire and use it is gone.
2-the ability to gain it is gone advanced is just too hard for a tier 5 starting ship. Which before you could possible do.
3- Aslo remember that FTP people only keep their old T4 ships, unless they got a free t5 one from an event. These ships even with easy to aquire mk10 vr gear cannont do the pve's to get rep special items neeeded for the rep gear. So they can longer advance in the game and will leave as players. The addition of T6 ships costing money has turned the game back into pay to win as the FTP person is now 2 whole tiiers behind. They don't even get and old t5 ship reward to even give them a chance to play.
4-players leaving the game means no server activity, which means less possible money coming in, which means less people talking to other to play with them, which means the games eventual death.
FLEET GEAR PROBLEM
Fleet gear which was to be the top of the line is now no where near what it should be. This was suppose to be top end gear now its just a dil and EC sink for upgrading.
1- What DR did was move the end stuff and top of the line stuff to the middle. This was happening before DR as the dyson armor eclispes even mk13 (upgraded) fleet armor in raw power. I upgraded my fleet only toon build to find this out.
2- The huge dil cost for fleet gear only to have to pay even more dil and ec for it to be used end game is now totally ridiculous in price.
3- Fleet credits are becoming harder to get now. I am actually thinking about starting my own fleet with a few friends just so I can earn some or give them a chance to earn some...but the dil costs will kill me which is why i can't do it. My fleet pretty much stopped doing projects it has tons of provisions not being used. This also makes it hard for the FTP person to aquire stuff in game and be able to continue playing.
THE CRAFTING SYSTEM
While like the new system there are just things that are missing from it.
1-the old system allowed you to build kits. While i don't care about the kits. I do feel you should be able to build the modiules for the new kits. Let the person buy the kit from a vendor or find them in game, and let them build modules for it using R&D.
2-The system maxes out at mk12. The game goes to mk14 now so the cost to make mk12 really seems too expensive now and not worht the time. Its just too hard now to get the componts with the hard PVE's. The cost dos not justify the time and eveybody sees that. Eventually the supply on the auction will go down or stabilize at some super high price probably.
3-The DR expansion made R&D only useful for level 40 and below. I say this becuase at lvl 40 I can use mk10. I had a new toon, crafted VR mk10 equipment...NOTE:this equipment is equal to uncommon mk12..a nice boost even for FTP people. I could do an eltie at lvl 50 before DR, after DR i coudl not do an advanced. The scale went beyond may power. So R&D is useless because I need to do the advanced to get the materials to make mk12 vr stuff but i can't do them so why continue progressing.
...THE UGLY
ZEN GREED
I could before go out to almost any store and buy a PW card for $20 which is 2000 zen. Now I have done this and know others who have sent such cards to FTP friends. Now though T6 ships are $30...yet the older ships which are now even less useful have not come down in price. Why? Only greed can explain this. I say this because is costs $7.50 for the upgrade for a T5 ship so all ships actually have increased in price by $5-$7.50 as of the DR release.
THE GOOD
While I love the continued expansions and the flow of new content that PW is doing....i cannot help but think they are trying to bite off too much at a time.
This is like 3 expansions at one time, which is too much for any company to do in few months.
I give you credit for trying to do the impossible...yet you forgot Mr. Phelps that should you fail you will be disavowed.
PWE: how shall we bring in more money today?
PWE: I know! We'll add duyrability to ships and equipment next oh and warp plasma while we're add it and require it to use Dilithium to repair and recharge!
Let's face it, They will milk the game for all its worth then cut funding and move on to the next cash cow.
"If it ain't broke, why fix it?"
The bad, I helped pay for it.
The ugly. Trying to peek over the paywall to see the future of STO.
I said it when it happened, i said we will finish with a phone game model and the worse it will some player who will applause that.
Honestly i hope they will continue in that way, milking the cow until everyone is tired of that and so close this game. And at this moment we will can hope a game than Star trek deserve.
Beceause now this game lose the trek and become star grind.
Cryptic sold their love of the game, their soul to pwe and now is time they have to pay for that
I'm out of this
the good:
- the missions are interesting. Even the patrol missions are tied into the story. I like them.
- Environments and system maps look fantastic
- Captain specializiations are a welcome long term motivator
- the Voyager revamp (exterior and interior) is a job very well done. I hope this will soon be available as part of the Voyager bundle (T6 Voyager + Interior ;-)
- Ships of the Delta quadrant races look fantastic
- the Kobali Adventure Zone is one the best looking ever made. I just wish doing missions there after having reached lvl 60 would be more rewarding in terms of marks and dilithium. I fear in its current state it's going to end up like Nimbus. When your missions are done there's no reason to go back again.
- the voiceovers add a lot to the atmosphere of the Delta Quadrant
- Vaadwaur are a challenging and credible opponent
and some critique/suggestions:
- DOFF assignment and research project completion lags (THEY ARE DRIVING ME NUTS !)
- the nerf to dilithium rewards and removal of item rewards for queued events
- Randomness of modifiers added through crafting
- I would have wished for at least one or two peaceful missions that didn't involve killing and destroying (first contact mission)
- more unique doff missions in the Delta quadrant
- greater variety of daily missions
Good post, I agree.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Campaign: The Battle of Neverwinter - NWS-DOQXFA4ZD
Prologue: A not so simple plan - NW-DCJG75B9D
Best launch do far?... I'm sorry, what?... I'm guessing you're trolling? This is the dumbest **** I've ever seen them do. O.o
Also, there have been several moments in the past when I've asked "did they even beta test this?" but this time, I think this question needs to be asked now more than ever.
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.