Personally I think people have overlooked one phrase I have come across that pertains to business
"You have to spend money to make money."
IMHO Cryptic does not want to, or has been told to spend as little on the other factions as possible and that is a mistake because it tells the players that the other factions are secondary and that the players should not play them.
What I would like to happen is cryptic spending a couple of seasons on filling in the Klingons and Romulans to the extent that the federation is at. Do I think that will ever happen, no. If this happens and the Federation still has the most players then they were right to focus on them otherwise it is just a self fulfilling prophecy
We're more likely to see a Playable Iconian "Traitor" super race as a "faction" much like the Romulans, right down to exclusive missions and faction selection, with even more hilariously powerful ships, than we are to ever see a season dedicated entirely to KDF or Romulans.
Not that I wouldn't mind though; I'd pay to play as a hilariously OP Iconian Traitor to their own kind, sacrificing allies in missions in favor of stopping his own kind from bringing further ruin to themselves and to others, with Iconian faction-only super ships that feature super cores that have the Singularity powers with the higher power output of regular warp engines and a higher max cap.
I would also like to point out - since Cryptic has started to added faction-agnostic content and added the early KDF levels again, the KDF is not underdeveloped story-wise anymore. You could go from 1 to 50 with the available missions (DR changes that in regards to level 51 to 60, but it does so for all factions).
The number of ships may be lower, but that's it. So Cryptic can see: "If we make a KDF ship for x, we gain n * x in sales after t time." If we make a Fed ship for x, we gain m * x sales after time t." If m>n, then Feds are more lucrative.
And you cannot say that just because a faction gets less ships that it should affect the sale of an indvidual ship much - you can still only fly one ship per character at a time, and if there is a cool ship for a player, then it's cool regardless of whether there are 20 others or none to choose beside it.
THat doesn't mean that they always have to pick Fed ships to make - the people that buy the KDF ships may not buy the Fed ships, so as long as n > 1, there is something to gain, and there si also the risk of "market saturation" for the Feds - again, you can only play one ship at a time, so buying every ship is just of interest to collectors, but there are non-collectors that buy ships, too.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Aww, c'mon man. All Star Trek TV/movie has been from the Fed perspective. It's what was "fed" to us (pun intended) from the start.
So that justifies that they completely ignore the RR and KDF? That justifies that the only time they ever get anything new is when it comes hand in hand with something Feds get? That justifies them making a crappy RR or KDF ship that goes down in flames sale wise and claim they don't make them ships because sales suck?
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
It's already been said by others, but it seems it just doesn't sink in -- the primary reason that most people play Feds is due to the nature of the Star Trek franchise, not the amount of content available in-game for any given faction. Star Trek has always been about Starfleet, the Federation. It focuses on a Federation ship (or station) and its crew. Yes, there are other species and 'factions' present in the stories. But they are either there as antagonists or as supporting cast. Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and such are indeed 'part of Trek' but they are never the central focus. Maybe we feature them in an episode or two, but that's hardly the same as creating a whole series, or number of series, about them.
That nature means that most people who are Trek fans are focused on Starfleet and the Federation. There are niche groups who are indeed exceedingly focused on Klingons or Romulans, et al. But those are just that -- niche groups that will never come close to the size of the mainstream population of Starfleet-oriented viewers.
It also means that, in terms of canon and background material, a great deal more exists to draw upon regarding Starfleet than exists for those other species/factions. That can make development of Starfleet content much smoother/easier than trying to create new content for the other factions basically out of thin air.
Myself, I still don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves and insist upon playing only one faction. The game contains all three factions and all three are playable by everyone -- none of them are mutually exclusive. From a certain standpoint, if you refuse to explore all of the gameplay available, it becomes you, the player, who is at least partially responsible for limiting the value you get out of the game content. Yes, you're never going to get 'full value' out of your money if you choose only to ever play KDF. But in making that choice, you take at least a part of the responsibility for that upon yourself. I have characters in all of the factions -- maybe you should give it a try sometime.
It's not unknown that Geko has a clear bias for the federation, which I can understand, the majority of the userbase is fed, but here is something to think about.
You say people make feds most, well yeah, if you keep making primarily and mostly fed content (namely more ships, more customization options, more costumes, the list goes on) then yes, people will want to make federation characters, which in turn makes you create more federation-directed content.
I mean over the course of the year you had the gal-x package and all that good stuff, the patrol retrofit and such.
Over the course of the last few lockboxes more and more of the unique consoles the kdf had over the fed had been given away, less incentive to create KDF.
At the release of DR now, federation gets a whopping 6 T6 ships compared to 2 for KDF and 2 for Romulans.
To me the answer seems obviously leaning toward the federation. And if you want to know what true suffering is, you play a kdf science officer as your choice of ships is incredibly limited, to that point I mean you have literally no choice in the end game without either saving up millions of EC or spending money. The "free" dyson can't get gotten anymore except with 600 lobi, have fun saving that up, then there is the lockbox temporal vessels, again gambling or paying at what the moment is 200+ million for one. The advanced dysons cost 2500 zen, the Varanus non-fleet costs 2000 zen, your best bet for a science ship is to save for the fleet varanus as you can save enough dil-to-zen for a few fleet modules and save enough EC on the remainder of what fleet modules you need.
Then of course the kdf has something of what I would call a slanted allocation of ship types. The most iconic ship of the klingons is the Bird of Prey, in fact, going back to my own childhood memories of star trek, I knew about the bird of prey before I really understood what the klingons were, the ship stuck in my head more than the race. What the KDF has in abundance is battlecruisers, the KDF is swimming in battle cruisers, the only non battlecruiser kdf ship I remember ever being advertised was the dyson and thats a cross-faction ship anyways, and I been playing for over a year and a half.
This goes back to why a raptor got a T6 over the BoP, the most iconic KDF ship style, which is also the ship that was used for stealth, ambushes, scouting and reconnaissance, you know, ACTUAL INTEL! Now don't me wrong, the Mat'ha raptor is a decent ship but I can actually number quite a few people who were scratching there head along with myself as to why a raptor got T6 first over a BoP.
You show bias toward the federation because you make content for the federation and to a point almost only for the federation, along with mishandling the KDF. Then when people PREDICTABLY join the federation because of all the content being made for them in a staggering disproportionate manner, you can turn around and go "SEE! PEOPLE LOVE THE FED MORE!". And frankly your logic is just plain silly.
I would add to this that there are also many more choices of playable races for the feds, so if you are new and making your first character, that is something I think glaringly sticks out. But your point is quite clear.
That said, not everyone can relate well to the Klingon culture. I didn't enjoy playing them. For those that do, I think they are at least doing a decent job of sticking to that spirit -- no diplomacy doff missions, instead marauding, as an example.
Every Star Trek series took place from the perspective of the Federation. I don't think it is surprising that even without this circular logic that most would choose to play them.
Every Star Trek series took place from the perspective of the Federation. I don't think it is surprising that even without this circular logic that most would choose to play them.
Yes, it's a choice. The thing is if people choose KDF or RR it feels like we're being punished just because we didn't choose "what most people choose"/the faction that gets the most attention.
But to create alternatives then not give them solid support seems counter intuitive.
If that were the scenario, which it isn't. To pretend the KDF faction has remained static and untouched since February 2010 up until the launch of Delta Rising is simply untrue.
We can argue over what constitutes the vague definition of 'solid support' till the cows come home, but when it comes to business decisions, Cryptic knows which side of their bread is buttered. And it's the Federation.
Anybody who believes the KDF and Romulan Republic are completely ignored are either delusional or blind.
Maybe not as paid attention to as the Federation? Perhaps. But it's hard to blame Al Rivera for who the target demographics are.
And it isn't Romulans or Klingons. They throw both of those factions a bone when they can, but both of those factions are outweighed by the financial opportunity Federation players present.
And to not seize financial opportunities is poor business. If there is a choice in devoting labor hours to something Fed-related or KDF related on the schedule, they will typically lean Federation since it affects more players.
It's nobody's fault at Cryptic for people preferring the Federation. You have Gene Roddenberry to thank for that.
There is Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory who is completely brilliant when it comes to science, games, and other knowledge, but a complete idiot when it comes to social interactions. Then you have some completely brilliant people that believe in the strangest things.
Usually it comes down to them specializing their knowledge so they are great at one thing, but don't have a clue about other things. The problem is that some of these people believe that since they are so knowledgeable in one thing, they mistakenly belief that they are knowledgeable in other areas as well without realizing their ignorance of such matters.
Yes, I did notice the word "usually" in there. Some folks manage to be one or the other from one moment to the next. You also sometimes see otherwise intelligent people doing unbelievably stupid things, or stupid people somehow achieve a moment of brilliance. Sadly, the former tends to be more common than the latter. :P
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.
There is Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory who is completely brilliant when it comes to science, games, and other knowledge, but a complete idiot when it comes to social interactions. Then you have some completely brilliant people that believe in the strangest things.
Usually it comes down to them specializing their knowledge so they are great at one thing, but don't have a clue about other things. The problem is that some of these people believe that since they are so knowledgeable in one thing, they mistakenly belief that they are knowledgeable in other areas as well without realizing their ignorance of such matters.
So you're saying that people are human beings capable of being weak in some areas and strong in others.
Yes, I do believe that is a trait of our species.
But to go with the hyperbolic argument that Al Rivera is somehow manipulating or coercing players into playing the Federation against their will while simultaneously slamming the guy for being an incompetent jerk who can't do anything right is cognitive dissonance at its finest.
You simply can't reconcile something like that. Yet, here we are. Doing the mental gymnastics of how someone can be a devious malicious mind-controlling supervillain who controls people's STO habits like a puppetmaster pulling the strings while making nothing but bad decisions because he doesn't know anything about people or how to please them, and simply wants to destroy the game and the spirits of its playerbase.
Myself, I still don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves and insist upon playing only one faction.
Alts.
The biggest thing the game could do to promote factions is to make alts less painful.
They have done this some with reps but, for my money, my interest and resource levels are pretty much capped with one alt with one ship.
I think having one set of Mk XIV UR gear needs to make a second set cheaper. Having one lockbox ship needs to make a second copy cheaper. Rep sponsorship's buffs aren't enough for me to play alts.
Skillpoint boosts for alts below my main's skill level.
On top of discounts for having maxed on one character, you need incentives on each side. Singularity core and raider mechanics do this some, although KDF needs more T5U/T6 raider options.
I think an ideal approach there would be to:
- Make mastery starship trait unlocks accountwide or somehow transferable between characters via in-game purchasable token.
- Create more ways to use specialists on more ships, including some means of getting T5U ships upgraded to use specialists.
- introduce faction specific primary specializations on par with Intel and then make the ONLY way to use those across faction be to max one. So, for example, I max Targmaster on a Klingon alt and I get an accountbound token I can send to my Fed main to begin the Targmaster specialization and begin using Fed Targmasters. But the requirement to level a Klinon to progress my Fed incentivizes playing both. On the whole, you need to get people to play Klingons as a means of enhancing their Fed in some way to get around the main/alt psychological barrier.
Yes, I did notice the word "usually" in there. Some folks manage to be one or the other from one moment to the next. You also sometimes see otherwise intelligent people doing unbelievably stupid things, or stupid people somehow achieve a moment of brilliance. Sadly, the former tends to be more common than the latter. :P
That's what happens when people use absolutes like "complete idiot" or "completely brilliant".
Complete leaves no room for interpretation. They are either completely one thing, or completely the other.
The point is people are human beings who are generally neither one nor the other, but if someone is going to make such accusations, they're going to be faced with the uncomfortable reality that maybe they're just being hyperbolic and venomous for the sake of being hyperbolic and venomous.
The more likely scenario is that Al Rivera is just like any other person, neither malicious nor a certified genius. That he is capable of making good decisions that people like, and capable of making bad decisions people don't like.
And that instead of focusing on each decision on a case-by-case basis it is mentally easier to write him off as either a completely evil mastermind or an incompetent idiot, despite the contradictory nature of holding both of these beliefs.
There's a tutorial from the start (much better than the Federation one - I might add).
There are less ships but after the Bortasqu failure (which I think it wasn't) came two solid ships - the Mogh and Mat'Ha. I don't need dozens of Klingon ships. For every 5 Starfleet ships give me 2 GOOD KDF machines.
Yet, here we are. Doing the mental gymnastics of how someone can be a devious malicious mind-controlling supervillain who controls people's STO habits like a puppetmaster pulling the strings while making nothing but bad decisions because he doesn't know anything about people or how to please them, and simply wants to destroy the game and the spirits of its playerbase.
But isn't the reason feds have alot more content the fact that they have a lot more content? I mean by that how many races make up the federation and how many make up the klingon defence force? Each race has it's own ships, weapons, etc that they made independently and gave ideas towards and while the kdf may even have as large an empire (idk my canon knowledge lacks here), they are much more controlling and less open to suggestion than the feds. I don't know the whole picture across all canon star trek, but another aspect might even be that we have seen a lot more fed stuff so we know it exists while the klingons are 1 of many opponents so we have a smaller picture.
Yes I've got to agree with that the pro-Fed bias is fairly clearly affecting the ability of STO to gain more players into both KDF and Romulans.
the lack of a science ship for KDF? I'm in two minds about this. I've got a KDF Gorn sci, in the Korath as it is (was/pre-Dyson decision) the most science-focused ship available. Alternatively, I understand the focus of Romulan ship design away from Federation Tac/Sci/Eng classes into "Warbird" with slight adjustments. KDF doesn't match that in terms of a strong, obvious design philosophy. As someone else said, KDF seems to focus on having highly flexible ships that are used across a wide range of missions, so an obvious fix could be to have KDF-specific Ship-Kits. Scientific mission? Throw on a kit. Recon? Throw on the super-stealth kit. Fleet action? The weapons or shields hardening kit. Could also lead to some very interesting KDF-only missions... Deep Space K7 Recon anyone? Odd weapons like that bio-neural missile would make sense as a kit addition for example.
Furthering the Romulan faction so it is more of a stand-alone should be on the drawing board too. I don't have a problem with the whole 'alliances' thing personally and understand that it was useful as a way to introduce Romulans, but it needs some housework - for example, Romulans are meant to have alliances with both Federation and KDF, yet my KDF-allied Romulan can do duty officer missions involving military attacks on Federation outposts. I could overlook it early on, but as it's stayed there it's starting to look like it's been totally forgotten.
The most obvious fixes to this would be account-wide bonuses of some description for having established (mission-completed toons) in all three factions. Missions should be either unique, or with some sort of faction-specific bent to go with the career bent (which are also, sadly lacking beyond a few missions like SS Azura). Adding the option to have Foundry writers add this would likewise go a long way to improving the situation, considering that Foundry has an awful lot of content. Though fixing Foundry's mission listing index would be helpful first.
In terms of missions themselves, I think that someone pointing out how Fed-focused DR is, shows how this could have been done. The KDF aren't going to be that fussed about the Kobali, unless they considered the Vaadwaar to be dishonorable. Having my KDF tac getting all frowny and upset at the Kobali over their death rites with Harry Kim was a bit odd. Even then, having Harry Kim as Fed's science liaison and a KDF General as the military leader may have played out better. Then with the Romulan skulking around the patrols stirring up trouble? Could have played out nicely. That's what people mean by too-Fed focused. A lot of the options are there staring us in the face... but they're just not being picked up on.
a lot of folks saying they grow up seeing the fed side, or basically something to that effect so they want to be the kirk and picard and I get that.
I'm 29 and grew up with star trek, especially the older movies, and I have literally zero desire to make a federation character, I have one main character after a year and a half and I love my gorn to death. I have a fed-aligned rom alien and she's only level 13.
to me fed looks like... tons and tons of content, but the races all look the same and the ships all look the same (at least most of them).
kdf has varied looks in what few races they have, along with the kdf using designs from other races like the gorn, nausicaan, and orion, even their ancient enemies the Fek'Ihri. I swear it almost seems like kdf promotes diversity more than the fed does.
Comments
"You have to spend money to make money."
IMHO Cryptic does not want to, or has been told to spend as little on the other factions as possible and that is a mistake because it tells the players that the other factions are secondary and that the players should not play them.
What I would like to happen is cryptic spending a couple of seasons on filling in the Klingons and Romulans to the extent that the federation is at. Do I think that will ever happen, no. If this happens and the Federation still has the most players then they were right to focus on them otherwise it is just a self fulfilling prophecy
Not that I wouldn't mind though; I'd pay to play as a hilariously OP Iconian Traitor to their own kind, sacrificing allies in missions in favor of stopping his own kind from bringing further ruin to themselves and to others, with Iconian faction-only super ships that feature super cores that have the Singularity powers with the higher power output of regular warp engines and a higher max cap.
The number of ships may be lower, but that's it. So Cryptic can see: "If we make a KDF ship for x, we gain n * x in sales after t time." If we make a Fed ship for x, we gain m * x sales after time t." If m>n, then Feds are more lucrative.
And you cannot say that just because a faction gets less ships that it should affect the sale of an indvidual ship much - you can still only fly one ship per character at a time, and if there is a cool ship for a player, then it's cool regardless of whether there are 20 others or none to choose beside it.
THat doesn't mean that they always have to pick Fed ships to make - the people that buy the KDF ships may not buy the Fed ships, so as long as n > 1, there is something to gain, and there si also the risk of "market saturation" for the Feds - again, you can only play one ship at a time, so buying every ship is just of interest to collectors, but there are non-collectors that buy ships, too.
So that justifies that they completely ignore the RR and KDF? That justifies that the only time they ever get anything new is when it comes hand in hand with something Feds get? That justifies them making a crappy RR or KDF ship that goes down in flames sale wise and claim they don't make them ships because sales suck?
That nature means that most people who are Trek fans are focused on Starfleet and the Federation. There are niche groups who are indeed exceedingly focused on Klingons or Romulans, et al. But those are just that -- niche groups that will never come close to the size of the mainstream population of Starfleet-oriented viewers.
It also means that, in terms of canon and background material, a great deal more exists to draw upon regarding Starfleet than exists for those other species/factions. That can make development of Starfleet content much smoother/easier than trying to create new content for the other factions basically out of thin air.
Myself, I still don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves and insist upon playing only one faction. The game contains all three factions and all three are playable by everyone -- none of them are mutually exclusive. From a certain standpoint, if you refuse to explore all of the gameplay available, it becomes you, the player, who is at least partially responsible for limiting the value you get out of the game content. Yes, you're never going to get 'full value' out of your money if you choose only to ever play KDF. But in making that choice, you take at least a part of the responsibility for that upon yourself. I have characters in all of the factions -- maybe you should give it a try sometime.
Besides, that doesn't have anything to do with my post.
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I would add to this that there are also many more choices of playable races for the feds, so if you are new and making your first character, that is something I think glaringly sticks out. But your point is quite clear.
That said, not everyone can relate well to the Klingon culture. I didn't enjoy playing them. For those that do, I think they are at least doing a decent job of sticking to that spirit -- no diplomacy doff missions, instead marauding, as an example.
Every Star Trek series took place from the perspective of the Federation. I don't think it is surprising that even without this circular logic that most would choose to play them.
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Nope. They're usually either one or the other.
Yes, it's a choice. The thing is if people choose KDF or RR it feels like we're being punished just because we didn't choose "what most people choose"/the faction that gets the most attention.
If that were the scenario, which it isn't. To pretend the KDF faction has remained static and untouched since February 2010 up until the launch of Delta Rising is simply untrue.
We can argue over what constitutes the vague definition of 'solid support' till the cows come home, but when it comes to business decisions, Cryptic knows which side of their bread is buttered. And it's the Federation.
Anybody who believes the KDF and Romulan Republic are completely ignored are either delusional or blind.
Maybe not as paid attention to as the Federation? Perhaps. But it's hard to blame Al Rivera for who the target demographics are.
And it isn't Romulans or Klingons. They throw both of those factions a bone when they can, but both of those factions are outweighed by the financial opportunity Federation players present.
And to not seize financial opportunities is poor business. If there is a choice in devoting labor hours to something Fed-related or KDF related on the schedule, they will typically lean Federation since it affects more players.
It's nobody's fault at Cryptic for people preferring the Federation. You have Gene Roddenberry to thank for that.
There is Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory who is completely brilliant when it comes to science, games, and other knowledge, but a complete idiot when it comes to social interactions. Then you have some completely brilliant people that believe in the strangest things.
Usually it comes down to them specializing their knowledge so they are great at one thing, but don't have a clue about other things. The problem is that some of these people believe that since they are so knowledgeable in one thing, they mistakenly belief that they are knowledgeable in other areas as well without realizing their ignorance of such matters.
Yes, I did notice the word "usually" in there. Some folks manage to be one or the other from one moment to the next. You also sometimes see otherwise intelligent people doing unbelievably stupid things, or stupid people somehow achieve a moment of brilliance. Sadly, the former tends to be more common than the latter. :P
So you're saying that people are human beings capable of being weak in some areas and strong in others.
Yes, I do believe that is a trait of our species.
But to go with the hyperbolic argument that Al Rivera is somehow manipulating or coercing players into playing the Federation against their will while simultaneously slamming the guy for being an incompetent jerk who can't do anything right is cognitive dissonance at its finest.
You simply can't reconcile something like that. Yet, here we are. Doing the mental gymnastics of how someone can be a devious malicious mind-controlling supervillain who controls people's STO habits like a puppetmaster pulling the strings while making nothing but bad decisions because he doesn't know anything about people or how to please them, and simply wants to destroy the game and the spirits of its playerbase.
Alts.
The biggest thing the game could do to promote factions is to make alts less painful.
They have done this some with reps but, for my money, my interest and resource levels are pretty much capped with one alt with one ship.
I think having one set of Mk XIV UR gear needs to make a second set cheaper. Having one lockbox ship needs to make a second copy cheaper. Rep sponsorship's buffs aren't enough for me to play alts.
Skillpoint boosts for alts below my main's skill level.
On top of discounts for having maxed on one character, you need incentives on each side. Singularity core and raider mechanics do this some, although KDF needs more T5U/T6 raider options.
I think an ideal approach there would be to:
- Make mastery starship trait unlocks accountwide or somehow transferable between characters via in-game purchasable token.
- Create more ways to use specialists on more ships, including some means of getting T5U ships upgraded to use specialists.
- introduce faction specific primary specializations on par with Intel and then make the ONLY way to use those across faction be to max one. So, for example, I max Targmaster on a Klingon alt and I get an accountbound token I can send to my Fed main to begin the Targmaster specialization and begin using Fed Targmasters. But the requirement to level a Klinon to progress my Fed incentivizes playing both. On the whole, you need to get people to play Klingons as a means of enhancing their Fed in some way to get around the main/alt psychological barrier.
That's what happens when people use absolutes like "complete idiot" or "completely brilliant".
Complete leaves no room for interpretation. They are either completely one thing, or completely the other.
The point is people are human beings who are generally neither one nor the other, but if someone is going to make such accusations, they're going to be faced with the uncomfortable reality that maybe they're just being hyperbolic and venomous for the sake of being hyperbolic and venomous.
The more likely scenario is that Al Rivera is just like any other person, neither malicious nor a certified genius. That he is capable of making good decisions that people like, and capable of making bad decisions people don't like.
And that instead of focusing on each decision on a case-by-case basis it is mentally easier to write him off as either a completely evil mastermind or an incompetent idiot, despite the contradictory nature of holding both of these beliefs.
There's a tutorial from the start (much better than the Federation one - I might add).
There are less ships but after the Bortasqu failure (which I think it wasn't) came two solid ships - the Mogh and Mat'Ha. I don't need dozens of Klingon ships. For every 5 Starfleet ships give me 2 GOOD KDF machines.
Sorry but sometimes it sure feels like it.
The great thing about reality is it doesn't care what your emotions have to say about anything.
But isn't the reason feds have alot more content the fact that they have a lot more content? I mean by that how many races make up the federation and how many make up the klingon defence force? Each race has it's own ships, weapons, etc that they made independently and gave ideas towards and while the kdf may even have as large an empire (idk my canon knowledge lacks here), they are much more controlling and less open to suggestion than the feds. I don't know the whole picture across all canon star trek, but another aspect might even be that we have seen a lot more fed stuff so we know it exists while the klingons are 1 of many opponents so we have a smaller picture.
Nor does it care about your opinion either.
cough, cough, Romulan, cough, cough
the lack of a science ship for KDF? I'm in two minds about this. I've got a KDF Gorn sci, in the Korath as it is (was/pre-Dyson decision) the most science-focused ship available. Alternatively, I understand the focus of Romulan ship design away from Federation Tac/Sci/Eng classes into "Warbird" with slight adjustments. KDF doesn't match that in terms of a strong, obvious design philosophy. As someone else said, KDF seems to focus on having highly flexible ships that are used across a wide range of missions, so an obvious fix could be to have KDF-specific Ship-Kits. Scientific mission? Throw on a kit. Recon? Throw on the super-stealth kit. Fleet action? The weapons or shields hardening kit. Could also lead to some very interesting KDF-only missions... Deep Space K7 Recon anyone? Odd weapons like that bio-neural missile would make sense as a kit addition for example.
Furthering the Romulan faction so it is more of a stand-alone should be on the drawing board too. I don't have a problem with the whole 'alliances' thing personally and understand that it was useful as a way to introduce Romulans, but it needs some housework - for example, Romulans are meant to have alliances with both Federation and KDF, yet my KDF-allied Romulan can do duty officer missions involving military attacks on Federation outposts. I could overlook it early on, but as it's stayed there it's starting to look like it's been totally forgotten.
The most obvious fixes to this would be account-wide bonuses of some description for having established (mission-completed toons) in all three factions. Missions should be either unique, or with some sort of faction-specific bent to go with the career bent (which are also, sadly lacking beyond a few missions like SS Azura). Adding the option to have Foundry writers add this would likewise go a long way to improving the situation, considering that Foundry has an awful lot of content. Though fixing Foundry's mission listing index would be helpful first.
In terms of missions themselves, I think that someone pointing out how Fed-focused DR is, shows how this could have been done. The KDF aren't going to be that fussed about the Kobali, unless they considered the Vaadwaar to be dishonorable. Having my KDF tac getting all frowny and upset at the Kobali over their death rites with Harry Kim was a bit odd. Even then, having Harry Kim as Fed's science liaison and a KDF General as the military leader may have played out better. Then with the Romulan skulking around the patrols stirring up trouble? Could have played out nicely. That's what people mean by too-Fed focused. A lot of the options are there staring us in the face... but they're just not being picked up on.
I'm 29 and grew up with star trek, especially the older movies, and I have literally zero desire to make a federation character, I have one main character after a year and a half and I love my gorn to death. I have a fed-aligned rom alien and she's only level 13.
to me fed looks like... tons and tons of content, but the races all look the same and the ships all look the same (at least most of them).
kdf has varied looks in what few races they have, along with the kdf using designs from other races like the gorn, nausicaan, and orion, even their ancient enemies the Fek'Ihri. I swear it almost seems like kdf promotes diversity more than the fed does.