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Unintended Consequences
nuqi
Member Posts: 38 Arc User
I have ten characters of which I consider three to be 'mains.'
I used to log through them all every day... spend an hour or two clickfesting DOFF assignments and craft progression... maintaining the reputation climb where relevant and trying to do at least one 'daily bonus' mark mission on each character and perhaps even some episodic content, if I felt like it and had the time. Fairy-steps, right?
Then I'd turn to my mains - one Fed and two KDF - and run STFs either with PUGs or fleetmates... you know... actually do something that wasn't a grind or adminny clickathon... have fun and put my feet up... which is what I tend to use entertainment products for.
Every game aspect was progressing... though some agonisingly slowly (crafting... this is simply insane). I admit that my tolerance levels were dropping pre-DR as it was becoming work/task led rather than fun but hey... most of my characters are being polished for 'end-game' and I know the MMO drill, so. I still had fun.
Then... out came Delta Rising. I dil'd the pack and started my three mains on the episodes and Delta rep climb. I found myself having less and less time to spread around, so concentrated on my oldest Fed character to get her through mastery on four ships to fill out the trait slots. Since DR release, I have had to concentrate almost exclusively on this character. Despite this, specialisation is incomplete.
I ran all capable characters through the Mirror event each day but apart from the brief spurt this provided, progression slowed and slowed. I was putting in the same amount of time per day (which is more than average) but getting almost nowhere and since the event ended, I've not had the time to do the enjoyable, fun things as my in-game time is spent mindlessly clickfesting.
I upgraded gear on my three mains at great dil/EC expense... then had to concentrate on one as the contents of my wallet shrivelled... making the acquisition of more dil/EC marked and constant.
The game was clearly descending into 'not-fun.'
And then came the 'redistribution nerf.' Progression bars now moved pixel by pixel, even on the one character I had the time, energy and will to keep ploughing forward. I click 'complete' on a DOFF assignment and even with screen magnification, can hardly perceive any progression bars moving at all.
By the time the club gear was gifted... quite frankly, I couldn't give a single cahone, let alone two. Yet another Intrepid? That too.
I found myself salivating over vids for Black Desert... even contemplating a free couple of weeks on Final Fantasy XIV... logging back into The Secret World and funking on down with Ricky Pagan (best MMO NPC ever)... and then booting up Tera to bounce around on the new Reaper class (which felt energetic and engaging as my new Elin cartwheeled about).
I really do feel as though I am being pushed away from STO. I don't want to go... as I've said before, I have fleetmates here and where else are you congratulated by Leonard... but there's only so much pip-squeezing I can take before I relent and go elsewhere.
Somewhere along the line, STO developers have lost their link to their baby... which has become a pure time sink focused upon an incentivised points-distribution system and no longer a game played for fun. Frankly... it's insulting to call DR an expansion and the repeat patrol stuff 'content.'
It is THE most repetitive MMO I have ever played and Delta Rising the thinnest 'expansion' I have ever experienced.
My Fed main finished Delta rep today. Damp squib. I am really struggling to muster the will to complete specialisation on this character, let alone any of the others.
Sure, I can ignore all of this and just log to play STF's over and over... but that would ruin what little fun the game offers to me.
This isn't a problem with me... or with 'burnout.'
Turn the game around, please. Stop concentrating on and tweaking ever-downwards the time-sink, puny-point-by-point progression to nowhere.
Reward your players for the time and money they spend on the game and give them more fun in the Star Trek universe. You don't have to look too far for inspiration... some of the episodes and storylines already in the game are popular for a reason... just don't make us repeat it ad nauseum until it becomes stale and cobwebby.
Entertain us... and we'll stay. Surely not too much to ask for from a game.
I used to log through them all every day... spend an hour or two clickfesting DOFF assignments and craft progression... maintaining the reputation climb where relevant and trying to do at least one 'daily bonus' mark mission on each character and perhaps even some episodic content, if I felt like it and had the time. Fairy-steps, right?
Then I'd turn to my mains - one Fed and two KDF - and run STFs either with PUGs or fleetmates... you know... actually do something that wasn't a grind or adminny clickathon... have fun and put my feet up... which is what I tend to use entertainment products for.
Every game aspect was progressing... though some agonisingly slowly (crafting... this is simply insane). I admit that my tolerance levels were dropping pre-DR as it was becoming work/task led rather than fun but hey... most of my characters are being polished for 'end-game' and I know the MMO drill, so. I still had fun.
Then... out came Delta Rising. I dil'd the pack and started my three mains on the episodes and Delta rep climb. I found myself having less and less time to spread around, so concentrated on my oldest Fed character to get her through mastery on four ships to fill out the trait slots. Since DR release, I have had to concentrate almost exclusively on this character. Despite this, specialisation is incomplete.
I ran all capable characters through the Mirror event each day but apart from the brief spurt this provided, progression slowed and slowed. I was putting in the same amount of time per day (which is more than average) but getting almost nowhere and since the event ended, I've not had the time to do the enjoyable, fun things as my in-game time is spent mindlessly clickfesting.
I upgraded gear on my three mains at great dil/EC expense... then had to concentrate on one as the contents of my wallet shrivelled... making the acquisition of more dil/EC marked and constant.
The game was clearly descending into 'not-fun.'
And then came the 'redistribution nerf.' Progression bars now moved pixel by pixel, even on the one character I had the time, energy and will to keep ploughing forward. I click 'complete' on a DOFF assignment and even with screen magnification, can hardly perceive any progression bars moving at all.
By the time the club gear was gifted... quite frankly, I couldn't give a single cahone, let alone two. Yet another Intrepid? That too.
I found myself salivating over vids for Black Desert... even contemplating a free couple of weeks on Final Fantasy XIV... logging back into The Secret World and funking on down with Ricky Pagan (best MMO NPC ever)... and then booting up Tera to bounce around on the new Reaper class (which felt energetic and engaging as my new Elin cartwheeled about).
I really do feel as though I am being pushed away from STO. I don't want to go... as I've said before, I have fleetmates here and where else are you congratulated by Leonard... but there's only so much pip-squeezing I can take before I relent and go elsewhere.
Somewhere along the line, STO developers have lost their link to their baby... which has become a pure time sink focused upon an incentivised points-distribution system and no longer a game played for fun. Frankly... it's insulting to call DR an expansion and the repeat patrol stuff 'content.'
It is THE most repetitive MMO I have ever played and Delta Rising the thinnest 'expansion' I have ever experienced.
My Fed main finished Delta rep today. Damp squib. I am really struggling to muster the will to complete specialisation on this character, let alone any of the others.
Sure, I can ignore all of this and just log to play STF's over and over... but that would ruin what little fun the game offers to me.
This isn't a problem with me... or with 'burnout.'
Turn the game around, please. Stop concentrating on and tweaking ever-downwards the time-sink, puny-point-by-point progression to nowhere.
Reward your players for the time and money they spend on the game and give them more fun in the Star Trek universe. You don't have to look too far for inspiration... some of the episodes and storylines already in the game are popular for a reason... just don't make us repeat it ad nauseum until it becomes stale and cobwebby.
Entertain us... and we'll stay. Surely not too much to ask for from a game.
Post edited by nuqi on
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It doesn't help that the "bonus" episode was written by someone that hasn't researched the material at all. Not gonna give spoilers here, so don't ask for details except via PM.
... and we will have front row seats to witness the results of their unintended consequences play out , both in the winter event and during the 5th anniversary ... -- well at least those of us who choose to stay that long ...
I hope Cryptic is listening. But we all know how that goes.
Sitting on hundreds of thousands of dil. Millions of ec. Tens of thousands of Fleet marks. Might try my hand at a bit of crafting, if I ever get anything to lvl 15. I used to chase the tail of the DPS dragon. But no more. STF pugs? Don't even bother anymore. My guess would be a 60% faliure rate on advanced. What's the point?
Turn it on, roll the doffs, donate a bit to the fleet, say "hey" to a few people, refine some dil.
Then go see what the wife is watching on the Estrogen Channel. The Horror!
I'm not burnt out. I have the time and $ to play. Just want a reason for it to be fun again.
At least it seems that the Devs listen to the many complaints. They are going to reduce the material costs for crafting soon. That is something. They looked at skill points. Well, they messed it up, but maybe that was some bug, so there is still hope.
The whole crafting and upgrading part is one of the major problems. The massive amounts of dilithium required for this is just insane. But on the other hand, why bother? MK XII rep gear is still good enough. We can, again, hope for an improvement here or just avoid it, though.
My major problem is the alt-unfriendly nature of the game at the moment. It is OK, if I need a couple of weeks, even months, to level up (the specialization) of one or two chars, but just thinking of doing that for several chars gives me a headache (especially with new grindy content coming soon). And then on the other hand, with the insane dilithium costs of everything I kinda feel forced to have some alts for contraband farming and events like this awful mirror invasion, because with a maximum of 9k refined dilithium per day I will not get far. The vicious circle closes then by having halfhearted farming chars, which feels bad, too. I mean I play this game, because I love star trek. So I want to build chars with different backgrounds, different species, different ships, different boff crew etc. I end up with one char and 10 "slaves". I still have some hope left, that things will get better, but sadly the "one char only" principle seems to be the most reasonable way in this game for the future.
I'm going back to SWTOR which may have evil coporate overloards but is still fun to play.
Someone just used the throwaway and meaningless 'oh you are sooooo entitled' comment when I mini-moaned about the state of the game.
As if that's an argument to shut up, put up and know my place.
I AM entitled. Spending my money over and over on an entertainment product ENTITLES me to expect entertainment and if that's not forthcoming, then it entitles me to comment... and if that's ignored... well... ultimately then we all make choices... and my OP was a plea to turn things around before I - and too many others - make the choice to leave and take my entitlement (and my game-time and cash) elsewhere.
Something's rotten in the design when, in order to reach an achievement, level or reward, you are forced to repeat content... thus making it stale, UNFUN and unpalatable. The ONLY way any of the many progress bars in this game tick forward is by repeating the same stuff over and over. That in itself is a recipe for ultimate disaster but when - for the purposes of slowing players down (what? really??) the requirement for repetition goes up... then someone, somewhere is far too enamoured of their spreadsheets and statistics... and someone, somewhere has forgotten what the hell a game actually is.
To Cryptic... think of situations, events, happenings, stories, exploration, interaction... add in something compelling, attractive, interesting and perhaps even addictive (for all the right reasons, not just from metrics and psychological application)... throw in some attempt to make players smile, laugh, be impressed, challenged... and you have content that stands a chance of pleasing and maintaining a loyal customer-base. Make it fun. Entertain. This is Star Trek... so much goodwill from players is gifted to you... use it and reward it.
As a designer and a studio... if you fiddle and piddle about with accountant-like and pointless statistical tweaks that are nothing to do with entertainment and fun... you are completely wasting your own time, salaries and effort. This awful state of affairs is made even worse when that fiddling and piddling actually ends up punishing players.
Dumb. Just dumb.
I only have my main Fed up to 60, and my alts are going the way of the dinosaur, extinct....
I think I can do without the extra Dil income from my alts. Just sticking to the one char, might just make it fun again.
I was playing one of the "story line" patrols the other day on normal mind you with my Fed Tac officers in a Jem'Hadar fighter aka bug ship and even with back up it took forever. I got hit with 104k crit. then 20 seconds later 99k crit. with shields and everything I only have about 70ish K Hp in that ship. I think I died 5 times before it was done. This is the same toon and same ship that before DR I could take on Borg Cubes and do well. Now if something sneezes at me I die.
Honestly I don't think Cryptic looks at what other sites say about STO any more. Just type in reviews on STO in google. Its become one of the lowest rated MMO's out their. The only reason its alive is the Star Trek name. As much work as you have to do to run a STF now they should pay us to play or at lest give us rewards worth something. But as we have all found out it wont happen.
I and many others have spent less and less money on this game. I wonder when they will get the message and start looking to fix long standing issues they have known about for years now. Or at lest show some understand that what they are doing is killing this game. Any time you have to keep the changes you make to a game secret aka shadow NERFING or for that matter make whole lines of purchased items useless unless you spend even more money to upgrade them and wonder why a lot of players leave, get upset, rant, rave, walk away, or just delete the game. Then you have really lost touch with your player base, good business practices, personal responsibility, and have forgotten what it was like to actually play the game for fun and they wonder why the forums get cranky when they do this.
I have two LTS accounts (one was bought for my grandson who no longer finds the game fun and does not use it now) and between them I now have 18 characters. since DR released I only have time to actively play maybe 2 or 3. The rest are just doing that... Resting In Peace!
I have spent way too much on this game for too may years to just quit and leave but I now cannot justify spending anymore on it in the current state it is in.
So with my 2 LTS accounts I will just become a F2P player and just login to see if maybe someone in-charge will actually remember what gaming is supposed to be again,
Fun and Enjoyable for the players.
Please devs and producers of Star Trek Online get in your way back machine and view what was and then make it so again!
Zeus
For the first time in three years, he's wavering.
I could not have said it better, OP.
I had been playing STO for 4 years. I was a PvP'er for most of that time, and after season 9.5 I decided to drop PvP since the level of commitment to stay up to date on my main and alts was too high for me and the total PvP neglect from Cryptic was finally getting to me.
So I decided to stick to PvE stuff, and for a while it satisfied me. My amount of playtime dropped and I stopped paying for things but I was happy.
Then DR came about, and I saw that the amount of money I would have to pay Cryptic and the amount of time I would have to dedicate to the grind was so much that after 4 years of uninterrupted playing, I finally stopped the day DR went live.
I've kept myself informed, to see if Cryptic would soften their approach, but they have doubled down on it with the XP nerf.
I really hope they change direction because I've really loved this game and I would gladly come back to it if they did.
DR changes killed the fun. DR content is a pathetic joke. I look at the amount of content in the new wow expansion and just shake my head at how thin the content in DR is. And the DR content is not even very good, I did not even get through it on my main, got to almost 58 then just lost interest, almost 60 now just from Doffing.
Lost interest in the gear upgrade grind. I have the craft skills to do, I have 800k dil and millions of EC but no interest in going through the clickathon to craft the components and then the upgrade items and wait for them to finish and queue up another round, then queue up the item to upgrade. Boring, mindless and not fun.
My other 3 toons are 56 to 58 just from doffing and mirror event runs. Never set foot in DR content. They have the crafting and resources to upgrade gear too but I have zero interest in doing it.
I am back to playing WoW, building my garrison and exploring a real expansion with all sorts things to discover.
We've been around the block and we all know that STO isn't alone in the MMO market... though sometimes it seems as though Cryptic apply patches/content/upgrades as if it WERE the only MMO around and seem to believe that players have no alternative but to swig whatever swill they're peddling.
We also know, I'm sure, that there are commonalities across the genre... no MMO lasts forever and no MMO has an endless parade of wowsome content. Some repetition and grind is to be expected.
Yet... some games offer a wider sm
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
This is true.
I've always been a Trek nut... but I enjoy MMOs. The former does not outweigh the latter, at least not for me. That said I do remember coming over all fistpumpy when I became aware that a 'triple-a' Trek MMO was being designed.
Long journey since then.
Kudos to Geko and his team! Winners, every one!
(That said, I've moved on to Rift)
I used to play PWI, then it was overly monetized and became an endless grind. Logged into PWI the other day just to scope it out and found a graveyard where there were once so many players I couldn't keep track.
Please devs, don't waste the talents of your artists and writers by focusiing so much on systems and slowing down progression that it kills the fun. We were level capped at 50 for years and everyone still played, The cap increase was not needed and for the most part not wanted. At least retool the numbers to make it fun again.
How about we organize an event with the players, where for the month of December, no one adds real world money to the game.
This would send a clear message to Cryptic and might just might shake things up a bit.
I have five toons, only one of which I have been able to get to level 60 thus far (with a reasonable amount of time/money), I don't want what would effectively be a second part time job grinding the other four.
There may have only been a dozen or so people post a reply to this post but it could very easily be used as a straw poll for the sentiments of the majority of players at the moment.
I can't say anymore that hasn't already been said, and will be ignored.
The OP reflects my feelings quite well. Can anyone else remember when games were about fun and spending money now and then was okay because of the ... fun ?
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
My List of Useful Links, Recently Updated November 25 2017!
another entitlement claim, if i had a penny jar on these forums for each time someone makes an entitlement claim i would be a millionaire by now. :P
doesnt matter what my opinion is on your point, it wont change anything until the devs decide to completely backtrack on their own community stonewalling... since that hasnt happened in the coming up 3 years since the devs last acknowledged the community, there it is.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.