I'm glad this thread was written, because I think I finally understand what the current anti-DR protest seems to be about. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like what the naysayers are really against is MMOs in general, or at least what the MMO genre almost universally is these days.
You're right , you are misunderstanding if you base your understanding of the dissatisfaction of the playerbase solely on this post .
Ultimately every MMO is a hamster wheels that depends on grinding.
No news there .
But no one is "forcing you" to repeat the content, so long as you are willing to accept that you don't really need that next McGuffin.
And here we get to the point that you don't get .
The leveling between levels 50-60 include a hell of alot of grinding just to get to the next story mission , which may or may not be a grind (patrol) mission .
For reference , LoR included some 40 missions + 6 KDF missions +several Rom / KDF tutorial missions .
DR had 12 missions + 6 patro ( grind missions) -- all of which by far did not cover the leveling between 50-60 , so you had to grind other content hundreds of times .
DR next to LoR looks sad , lonely and pathetic .
And that's without going into the XP and Dil nerfs , the HP overshoot , the player manipulation via *more* timegates on old content to "freshen things up" , and the individual pet peeves of the players .
... all in all , the best expansion ever , and the players "love it" ...
Totally agree with the OP. As I said in another thread, if your game design revolves around metrics for the sake of reporting instead of gaming for the sake of fun, just code a simulator and be done with it.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
Very valuable stuff one should actually go back and read.
I get what you are saying, and it I think it puts into words in ways I couldn't about how I feel about not just this game, but why I had also bought an Apple product and never looked back. I hold more value to these devices than just getting a smart phone, tablet, or computer from any other name.
It is also how my employer wants to do business, they don't want our customers coming back because we are the cheapest (I don't think we are); but that we give them higher quality products than our competition.
I get what you are saying, and it I think it puts into words in ways I couldn't about how I feel about not just this game, but why I had also bought an Apple product and never looked back. I hold more value to these devices than just getting a smart phone, tablet, or computer from any other name.
It is also how my employer wants to do business, they don't want our customers coming back because we are the cheapest (I don't think we are); but that we give them higher quality products than our competition.
Interesting. Personally I agree on the quality product thing, even to the point of Customer Service, but I wouldn't associate that with Apple. The Service is good, but it's way overpriced for the products and the services like iTunes. I've got free software that plays all my music and catalogues it better than iTunes, I have a phone that works faster and more reliably than an iPhone. I have a PC, not a frakkin' Mac because compatibility and performance are far higher on PC than Mac (plus it has more than a single button mouse ).
However I'm also not Apple's target audience. I know what I want from a product before I got to buy it. I know how to build and fix PC's as it's my job. I also know how to use a mouse with more than 10 buttons
I don't want everything done for me, just like I'll take a manual car over an automatic every time. I'll even go to the lengths of custom designing a lot of the item's I wish to have like car body's, computer peripheral's and cases. If I do something I want it to be in the most efficient and enjoyable manner, hence why I'm very annoyed with STO's direction after DR
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
The leveling between levels 50-60 include a hell of alot of grinding just to get to the next story mission , which may or may not be a grind (patrol) mission .
Nobody's forcing you to play the story missions, either. Nothing in this game is mandatory, I think even the tutorials come with a skip button these days.
STO isn't sandbox. If it was then the R&D wouldn't be gated the way it is, the Upgrade system wouldn't be gated with Time AND Dil, the STF's wouldn't be gated with such harsh timers, the rewards across nearly all areas would be more beneficial...
It's just a short list, but I could go into a lot of detail on most parts of STO to highlight why it's just a bunch of poorly designed hamster wheels compared to some of the better designed MMO's out there. Make it fun, make the game have a bit of challenge but make it reward the player in a meaningful manner and the playerbase will for the most part be happy. Currently boredom outweighs happiness...
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Interesting. Personally I agree on the quality product thing, even to the point of Customer Service, but I wouldn't associate that with Apple. The Service is good, but it's way overpriced for the products and the services like iTunes. I've got free software that plays all my music and catalogues it better than iTunes, I have a phone that works faster and more reliably than an iPhone. I have a PC, not a frakkin' Mac because compatibility and performance are far higher on PC than Mac (plus it has more than a single button mouse ).
However I'm also not Apple's target audience. I know what I want from a product before I got to buy it. I know how to build and fix PC's as it's my job. I also know how to use a mouse with more than 10 buttons
I don't want everything done for me, just like I'll take a manual car over an automatic every time. I'll even go to the lengths of custom designing a lot of the item's I wish to have like car body's, computer peripheral's and cases. If I do something I want it to be in the most efficient and enjoyable manner, hence why I'm very annoyed with STO's direction after DR
At the risk of thread derailment: fyi, I can totally wipe OS X, I know someone who does on each new Mac they get; but I won't, the games I play are Mac compatible or some (1 or 2) easily enough run via Parallels or Boot Camp (Windows has a similar function to my knowledge). And the mouse issue? I have a Logitech Proteus Core gaming mouse:P (also, settings for the Apple mouse allow for differentiation of left and right click and the wired one has another button on either side).
Also, I never will say the iPhone is the end all be all of phones. Some people will bemoan the price for more memory on them, and at that point I would tell them they should go to that tablet sized phone anyways as in most cases where people have asked me because they do a lot more than just check out websites on their breaks.
Back on track: you only prove the point that VALUE is an important term, the plot that Cryptic and/or PWE have lost.
Nobody's forcing you to play the story missions, either. Nothing in this game is mandatory, I think even the tutorials come with a skip button these days.
STO is all sandbox.
then you might as well quit.
there is nothing else to do in this game, it only pretends to be a sandbox. there's no actual sandbox content for it to be one anymore, after cryptic removed feature after feature to railroad you into doing patrols and story missions.
i guess you can sit around on esd and contribute to its overall bile that is the zone chat.
skip button doesn't appear until you finish tutorial at least once. it's there to allow you to get right into the game and its story missions/patrols without having to redo tutorials that can't teach you anything new.
Now clowns, that's another story. They scare the crap out of me.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
I accept I could be oversimplifying or completely missing the argument/issue. But it seems that the real question some people are asking themselves is "do I want to play MMOs any more."
That has been my assessment of various forum complaints since the beginning.
Actually, there are two subtypes of them:
1. The first type clearly wants to play Halo or similar. Something with no level progression, where they can just pick up all the gear off the floor the first time they play and where nothing is gained over time. Because apparently repeating the same thing is only "grinding" if you get something out of it.
2. The second type wants a job. To get "fairly compensated for their time" no matter what they do or how successful they are at it. And lthey want their "fair compensation" to buy them everything, because its not fair if they have to actually be good at the game to be good at the game.
That has been my assessment of various forum complaints since the beginning.
Actually, there are two subtypes of them:
1. The first type clearly wants to play Halo or similar. Something with no level progression, where they can just pick up all the gear off the floor the first time they play and where nothing is gained over time. Because apparently repeating the same thing is only "grinding" if you get something out of it.
2. The second type wants a job. To get "fairly compensated for their time" no matter what they do or how successful they are at it. And lthey want their "fair compensation" to buy them everything, because its not fair if they have to actually be good at the game to be good at the game.
Not too far off but I think you are looking at it from a slightly odd viewpoint.
I don't want a game to feel like a job, STO does. It doesn't give enough in return for the time investment in the game. If I play Elite Dangerous I've got billions of star systems to explore or trade in or whatever. My return for game time isn't just measured in credits or dilithium earn't. It's more of a feeling on what I did during that time. Did I just do the same thing over and over without getting much for it? Was there a skill involved (like in an FPS where fast reactions and high levels of concentration are needed)? Was there rewards for progress within the environment etc...
When you read a book, if the writer can't write you stop. If it's a good read though you carry on, but if it's a real amazing read you can't put it down! Exactly the same applies to Gaming, emotion is central to it. Focus too much on numbers and not enough on emotion and you are left with STO in it's current state. Trigger those emotional states of "Oh man that was cool" or "Damn that was awesome, let's try it again" then you have people willing to spend cash too. However give them something that resembles a tax return and they'll be off doing something else faster than you can say IRS...
Oh and a sandbox is based around emergent gameplay. STO has NONE of that. It's all scripted and tightly controlled. Veer off the path and watch out for the EXPLOIT Bat...
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Nobody's forcing you to play the story missions, either. Nothing in this game is mandatory, I think even the tutorials come with a skip button these days.
STO is all sandbox.
When I think of the perfect sandbox game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas always springs to mind. I can go and explore, I can hunt down criminals, I can steal a helicopter or a harrier jet and blow things up, I can play pool, gamble in the casinos...
This game is the polar opposite of that experience for me. If you really really think this is a sandbox game then I suggest you pick up a copy of GTA: San Andreas and re-educate yourself.
Oh and a sandbox is based around emergent gameplay. STO has NONE of that. It's all scripted and tightly controlled. Veer off the path and watch out for the EXPLOIT Bat...
I will add that while it's an unpopular position among people who use the terms "sandbox" and "theme park", I am a fan of "theme park" games. (Most people who are avoid those terms.)
You know what's a good super-old school theme park game? The Megaman series. Duck Tales. Super Mario Bros. (although each entry in the series got progressively more sandbox-y, especially from Mario 64 on). For me, the pinnacle will always be Super Mario Bros. 3 which was a theme park with some sandbox-y elements.
A theme park has a heavy emphasis on themed environments with themed rewards which are often funhouse ride-like in nature. You have a linear track dungeon with several ways to get from point A to B and visually distinct areas. There are a few parts of STO I would say have nice attempts at a theme park flow. Ground STFs. The ground adventure zones (although lack of fall damage and those walls probably interfere with the environment). Bug Hunt. The best of these really pale before the theme park attractions I see in other games but some of that appeal is there.
I think very highly of Universal and Disney World/Land. I know that if STO aspired to that, it wouldn't satisfy a lot of people but I would be reasonably happy. Meanwhile there are IPs that would be perfect for that, such as:
Gauntlet
Megaman
Double Dragon
Ninja Turtles (They're associated with a version of the Double Dragon arcade scroller style gameplay, which has influenced their modern games; as a gaming IP you expect that style of play)
Disney's Duck properties (again, the emphasis is often on a world or atlas that would involve linear moves through exotic locales to acquire zone thematic treasure, whether you're talking Uncle Scrooge or any of the comic-based Duck properties or Darkwing Duck)
G.I.Joe
He-Man
Barbie (although the combat would likely be different; though it would be kinda cool to see somebody try to make a hack and slash RPG with a Barbie-flavor to it)
Back to the Future
Kingdom Hearts
DC/Marvel Comics
These all involve heavily themed "playset" environments that work well as a kind of themed ride exhibit and while it isn't emergent, you can make the rides fun if they're well engineered.
And I think you could cater to a subset of Trek very well in this style fully understanding that you're making a tradeoff that will not model other aspects of Trek as well.
But by and large, STO isn't a sandbox or theme park.
It's a carnival. And a carnival is not a theme park.
A theme park focuses on creating clearly themed, moody spaces and activities with high intrinsic motivation. Each purchase is designed to be some kind of treasured memory or memento. It asks, "How do we create activities for the guest to enjoy?" Heck, the customer IS a guest. The employees are often described as cast members, including the custodial, maintenance, and kitchen staff. But the paths are clearly roped off and linear unlike a sandbox with the guest encouraged to go to the exhibit or ride that they want to visit.
A carnival focuses on putting a minimum of effort into the theme of any one space with most thematic decor being a one size fits all affair. The focus is on extrinsic rewards and flattering users for their skill while engaging them in games of chance, typically with a goal of making more sales than the customer would consent to if they realized what they were spending. It asks, "How do we engage the customer psychologically?" Nobody at the carnival is a guest. You're a customer. Booths have themed activities. Focus is on quick and easy thrills.
I know someone will mention casinos. I think casinos are inbetween carnival and theme park. I think your casinos in undeveloped nations skew towards the extreme end of the carnival scale. Casinos in the 20s through 60s did as well. Criminal casinos tend to.
Most modern chains like a Harrah's are actually closer to theme parks. They run on very low profit margins, as low as 3% for some games. They emphasize other entertainment. They also tend to have adopted some attitudes about social responsibility. They deliberately refrain from taking the full advantage possible from addictive practices and behavioral psych techniques. A growing trend is actually marking what you think a customer can comfortably spend and trying to hit that target with the customer. And the customer is called a guest. You want to maximize profit per customer but you focus on building a friendly relationship with them and you'd rather they leave with money in their pocket and come back 4 times a year.
SimLife is all sandbox. STO is in no way, shape, form, permutation of, or in the wildest imaginings of a demented Risian standing in the middle of Central Park a sandbox. It's so not a sandbox, the Mirror Universe version is a literal box of sand.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
SimLife is all sandbox. STO is in no way, shape, form, permutation of, or in the wildest imaginings of a demented Risian standing in the middle of Central Park a sandbox. It's so not a sandbox, the Mirror Universe version is a literal box of sand.
See... I don't think STO is a theme park either. I outlined why I think it is more carnival than theme park and why I think theme park vs. carnival is a good distinction.
But now you have me thinking what are the most sandbox elements of STO, just to be contrarian.
The Foundry is fairly sandbox, from an author's perspective.
Adventure zones have sandbox elements.
And I could go into this more but I think space presents issues with sandbox AND theme park that ground does not, probably heightening the carnival approach. When I interviewed for a game design job once, I was asked to extrapolate on whether I preferred space or ground and why. I think STO's combat mechanics for space are more unique in the MMO genre and are better implemented. But space works against sandbox play because it is TOO sandbox-y to be an effective theme park but also to provide a minimum amount of intrinsic value for long, sustained play. Pure space would just be an almost blank grid I could maneuver in 3 dimensions. As such, environments lack character, definition, and meaning, particularly outside of combat. Whereas on the ground, you could wander around aimlessly and derive pleasure from scenery more. And the pleasure you derive from that scenery could be refined and sculpted into an effective theme park experience.
I think some of the design issues (and this could turn into a dissertation if I start accounting for playtime, enemy HP values, etc.) come down to us traveling through space and landing on the ground to fight.
And psychologically, design objective wise (time spent, type of actions taken when analyzed at a ludic level, etc.)... It's backwards. It'c completely backwards.
We should be traveling on foot and triggering space battle encounters, not traveling through sector space and beaming down to planets.
Content is quickly consumed because space travel is more disorienting, his faster, is hard to model with adequate map sizes, would be boring if adequately modeled. None of these would be as much of an issue if travel was done on the ground.
Meanwhile, space combat is intrinsically more liberating, it works better as a diversion, etc. A short fight could still work on the ground but a meaty fight does work better in space.
The closest we get to what I'm thinking about is Nimbus, where you have lengthy walks in order to arrive at missions that wind up in space a couple of times. The whole flow is much better. The exploration is more satisfying.
Yes, yes, I realize the IP considerations that work against that but those could be (or could have been) dealt with.
Yes, yes, I realize the IP considerations that work against that but those could be (or could have been) dealt with.
How so? For Star Trek, the "story" starts in space, goes to ground, then goes back up (DS9 notwithstanding).
I agree that Nimbus III is a great example of the 'vastness' that ground experience can be. To me, Nimbus reminded me of my EQ days
For space, I think EVE Online has a very good system in place that not only creates a sense of "largeness", for lack of a better term, per 'zone' but also for traveling to other zones in a continuous experience, without loading screens. Travelling across the galaxy in EVE would take several hours, I'm sure. Would something like that be feasible for STO? Maybe, unless there was a gateway system that bypassed Warp Speed travel. But it sure would be more immersive.
Have you really played EVE as a new player lately because honestly, that is not how I'd characterize EVE or it's playerbase.
EvE has some major issues due to the design. The biggest hole is that those who have been playing say since launch have a permanent advantage over a player that started say next week. In essence due to their massive time gating of training offline etc there is no way for a new player to compete period. EvE was also actually originally a project by some university students to attempt to mimic the economy using virtual means it was not intended to be a game. In any event EvE is a sandbox of sorts, but its a sandbox with levels that are obtained by keeping a sub active. I would never recommend EvE to players because of this. The grind in EvE is insane and anyone who has issues with STO's set up will have even more issues with EvE's set up.
STO's problems revolve around the fact that in order to function they lions share of content is created with CBS in mind. The STO franchise must continually pump out something new and fresh to keep people interested because anyone but the most casual of players will chew threw it faster then they can create it so they must introduce a time gate to slow people down. Sandboxes are not popular because there is no direction and they appeal to a certain type of player. That being said any storyline type MMORPG can be used as a sandbox (hence the introduction of the foundry) it makes more sense in the long run to give players the tools within a heavily gamified game like STO to play as sandbox type players while still appealing to those that require regularly generated content by cryptic then it is to create a sandbox and nearly no content because it only caters to one player type, but the STO way caters to more then one type. So financially it is more logical to take this route for something that is not your own original IP.
freemium games are all the rage that means that well they have to build them a certain way or they will fail. That being said they have forgotten about microtransactions long ago and lost site of the original goal of creating things at a price point for more then 1% of the player base so they have kinda put themselves in a corner on this one.
Anyhow anyone who enjoys sandbox play has the tools to do a fair amount in this game already you can for a great deal of the game ignore the content unless you want a new shiny ship in which case you can either "grind for it" or purchase it in the c store.
Sorry Ummax as usual I'll have to disagree with that assessment of STO. The EvE part however is quite accurate in a lot of ways, with the exception that you can actually become competitive to a level of about 90-95% for the smaller ships in around a month without hard grind. Yes the skill progression is timegated, but the actual limitations only occur when you are pushing to be a Titan Pilot or anything of that nature.
Sandboxes by default have minimal amounts of limitations. They literally require the player to actively seek out stuff to do for the most part. Older sandbox designs were totally 100% reliant on the player, newer ones aren't. They can include suggestion and give the player idea's of what can be accomplished within it's game boundaries, in turn not requiring the player to come up with all the ideas for how to use the content. Something that is also developing nicely is the way that emergent gameplay is now being seen as a good thing and having engines and games designed to allow that emergent gameplay to flourish. It used to be a bad thing from a dev's point of view as they were deviating from the prescribed method of playing, something which is becoming increasingly archaic.
What STO suffer's from is that as STOLeviathon99 pointed out it's a Theme Park with no direction. You follow your storyline if you want, or not. You play the STF's if you want or not. You literally have the choice of what to do, but only within limited prescribed means. Even with the Foundry to create missions for other players you are still limited by the games very linear framework, deviating from it causes all manner of bugs.
The other major problem STO suffers from is quality. Look at the character animations, ship movement, texture detail and UI issues. All present since day 1, never fixed and barely updated. UI updates have increased lag and reduced usability for the most part. The only good part of the UI is the ability to adjust it to suit your needs for the most part, but even then it's still wasteful with it's screen usage.
It's far to late to turn STO into a Sandbox, however they really should be encouraging emergent gameplay when they can. The Tau Dewa patrols before the nerf got more people together in one area than seen at pretty much any time in STO's history. Encouraging that via rewards and so on would give a much better feel to the game as it's claim to be an MMO is shaky at best with it's current setup. Yes it has a lot of players within a game online, but it doesn't do a lot to get those players enjoying the content together. Grinding out missions and patrols solo (with most new missions being solo is a requirement!) does not an MMO make
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
unfortunately with your own argument and logic of a true sandbox it follows that STO can never be one because it has a story behind it already
Anyhow its possible to have sandbox elements in any game but the minute you have an IP your actually removing part of the sandbox because by nature sandboxes are generic. That being said since I have done it myself anything can be turned into a partial sandbox (i say partial because anything with a story and theme can't ever be a real and true sandbox) including STO. The elements are there in the game already all they need to do is add more layers to the foundry and even now people can create their own stories and games within STO.
As for the MMORPG definition I wont go there lol suffice it to say that under the definition of and MMORPG STO and many other games including things like farmville actually are MMO's or MMORPG's its just that a lot of people have their own criteria as to what they want in one but if you go by the true definition of it there are a lot of MMO's out there because they only require a few factors all of which STO has. You can call it chopped liver though I never worry about labels if its fun I play it I dont care either way if its an MMO, sandbox or anything else
But by and large, STO isn't a sandbox or theme park.
It's a carnival. And a carnival is not a theme park.
Gonna have to disagree. STO is a sandbox, a theme park, and a carnival (as you describe it) depending on your playstyle and the content you play.
The only constant of STO is the lack of consistency. The design lacks all consistency. It is a complete mish mash of subsystems interacting with one another. The content as well lacks all consistency and depending upon it's age, type, and designer follows it's own philosophy.
Why does some advanced content (CCA) follow the idea that one player needs to do the right thing and the rest merely need to avoid doing the wrong thing while others (BDA) requires three players to do the right thing? Why are melan so easy and quick to destroy while hirogen make you want to pull your hair out?
I could write a book on this subject. At the end of the day STO lacks any true design philosophy anywhere. Their is no consistency of gameplay experience.
Free roaming, open world and sandbox are the opposite of STO.
Loading screens, instances you queue up for and all kinds of barriers and walls - most of which you can't even pay your way past, is the opposite of sandbox.
Exploration of a open world that can be played non-linear?
They straight up deleted exploration, come on now
Then they throw forced "optionals" in there - is there anything more linear than that?
Linear battery hens gameplay - log in on the clock and click what we tell you, in the order we tell you, when we tell you.
That is the opposite of "free" and "open", it's also the opposite of relaxing and playing
unfortunately with your own argument and logic of a true sandbox it follows that STO can never be one because it has a story behind it already
That's not technically correct. There can be story, there can even be linear elements within the sandbox as long as they are optional and don't violate the abilities of the player to create emergent gameplay scenario's. As an example things like having missions outside of standard space or in an alternate timeline to give tutorials or integrate a story/background don't violate the sandbox concept. Another example is the Single/Co-op aspect of Star Citizen will have minimal impact on your character in it's Persistent Universe, yet allow for background, storyline and other aspects to be expanded upon.
STO could allow this but it would require a massive rework of the core of the game. Not gonna happen.
Anyhow its possible to have sandbox elements in any game but the minute you have an IP your actually removing part of the sandbox because by nature sandboxes are generic. That being said since I have done it myself anything can be turned into a partial sandbox (i say partial because anything with a story and theme can't ever be a real and true sandbox) including STO. The elements are there in the game already all they need to do is add more layers to the foundry and even now people can create their own stories and games within STO.
Again I addressed the problems of limiting a sandbox to not having a storyline or theme above. A sandbox need not be generic, having sandbox elements is perfectly fine within some games. Every sandbox needs a premise and if you remove that premise all you have is an editor and nothing else. Think Garry's Mod. That's probably the truest sandbox from your point of view. I personally think that point of view is limiting and outdated now though.
The Foundry can create their own stories/missions, but not games. The limitations upon the foundry are huge, something that can't be avoided due to the nature of the engine and requirements of conformity to CBS diktat.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
How so? For Star Trek, the "story" starts in space, goes to ground, then goes back up (DS9 notwithstanding).
I agree that Nimbus III is a great example of the 'vastness' that ground experience can be. To me, Nimbus reminded me of my EQ days
For space, I think EVE Online has a very good system in place that not only creates a sense of "largeness", for lack of a better term, per 'zone' but also for traveling to other zones in a continuous experience, without loading screens. Travelling across the galaxy in EVE would take several hours, I'm sure. Would something like that be feasible for STO? Maybe, unless there was a gateway system that bypassed Warp Speed travel. But it sure would be more immersive.
Two immediate thoughts. One would be ship interiors as travel hub. The other would be to position seasons or expansions around adventure zones with doors around them that lead to space combat encounters.
Comments
You're right , you are misunderstanding if you base your understanding of the dissatisfaction of the playerbase solely on this post .
No news there .
And here we get to the point that you don't get .
The leveling between levels 50-60 include a hell of alot of grinding just to get to the next story mission , which may or may not be a grind (patrol) mission .
For reference , LoR included some 40 missions + 6 KDF missions +several Rom / KDF tutorial missions .
DR had 12 missions + 6 patro ( grind missions) -- all of which by far did not cover the leveling between 50-60 , so you had to grind other content hundreds of times .
DR next to LoR looks sad , lonely and pathetic .
And that's without going into the XP and Dil nerfs , the HP overshoot , the player manipulation via *more* timegates on old content to "freshen things up" , and the individual pet peeves of the players .
... all in all , the best expansion ever , and the players "love it" ...
I get what you are saying, and it I think it puts into words in ways I couldn't about how I feel about not just this game, but why I had also bought an Apple product and never looked back. I hold more value to these devices than just getting a smart phone, tablet, or computer from any other name.
It is also how my employer wants to do business, they don't want our customers coming back because we are the cheapest (I don't think we are); but that we give them higher quality products than our competition.
Interesting. Personally I agree on the quality product thing, even to the point of Customer Service, but I wouldn't associate that with Apple. The Service is good, but it's way overpriced for the products and the services like iTunes. I've got free software that plays all my music and catalogues it better than iTunes, I have a phone that works faster and more reliably than an iPhone. I have a PC, not a frakkin' Mac because compatibility and performance are far higher on PC than Mac (plus it has more than a single button mouse
However I'm also not Apple's target audience. I know what I want from a product before I got to buy it. I know how to build and fix PC's as it's my job. I also know how to use a mouse with more than 10 buttons
I don't want everything done for me, just like I'll take a manual car over an automatic every time. I'll even go to the lengths of custom designing a lot of the item's I wish to have like car body's, computer peripheral's and cases. If I do something I want it to be in the most efficient and enjoyable manner, hence why I'm very annoyed with STO's direction after DR
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
STO is all sandbox.
It's just a short list, but I could go into a lot of detail on most parts of STO to highlight why it's just a bunch of poorly designed hamster wheels compared to some of the better designed MMO's out there. Make it fun, make the game have a bit of challenge but make it reward the player in a meaningful manner and the playerbase will for the most part be happy. Currently boredom outweighs happiness...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
At the risk of thread derailment: fyi, I can totally wipe OS X, I know someone who does on each new Mac they get; but I won't, the games I play are Mac compatible or some (1 or 2) easily enough run via Parallels or Boot Camp (Windows has a similar function to my knowledge). And the mouse issue? I have a Logitech Proteus Core gaming mouse:P (also, settings for the Apple mouse allow for differentiation of left and right click and the wired one has another button on either side).
Also, I never will say the iPhone is the end all be all of phones. Some people will bemoan the price for more memory on them, and at that point I would tell them they should go to that tablet sized phone anyways as in most cases where people have asked me because they do a lot more than just check out websites on their breaks.
Back on track: you only prove the point that VALUE is an important term, the plot that Cryptic and/or PWE have lost.
I don't think you know the meaning of that term.
Or you are joking.
then you might as well quit.
there is nothing else to do in this game, it only pretends to be a sandbox. there's no actual sandbox content for it to be one anymore, after cryptic removed feature after feature to railroad you into doing patrols and story missions.
i guess you can sit around on esd and contribute to its overall bile that is the zone chat.
skip button doesn't appear until you finish tutorial at least once. it's there to allow you to get right into the game and its story missions/patrols without having to redo tutorials that can't teach you anything new.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
Actually, there are two subtypes of them:
1. The first type clearly wants to play Halo or similar. Something with no level progression, where they can just pick up all the gear off the floor the first time they play and where nothing is gained over time. Because apparently repeating the same thing is only "grinding" if you get something out of it.
2. The second type wants a job. To get "fairly compensated for their time" no matter what they do or how successful they are at it. And lthey want their "fair compensation" to buy them everything, because its not fair if they have to actually be good at the game to be good at the game.
With all due respect, if you really think that STO is a sandbox - you clearly have no idea what a "sandbox game" means.
Not too far off but I think you are looking at it from a slightly odd viewpoint.
I don't want a game to feel like a job, STO does. It doesn't give enough in return for the time investment in the game. If I play Elite Dangerous I've got billions of star systems to explore or trade in or whatever. My return for game time isn't just measured in credits or dilithium earn't. It's more of a feeling on what I did during that time. Did I just do the same thing over and over without getting much for it? Was there a skill involved (like in an FPS where fast reactions and high levels of concentration are needed)? Was there rewards for progress within the environment etc...
When you read a book, if the writer can't write you stop. If it's a good read though you carry on, but if it's a real amazing read you can't put it down! Exactly the same applies to Gaming, emotion is central to it. Focus too much on numbers and not enough on emotion and you are left with STO in it's current state. Trigger those emotional states of "Oh man that was cool" or "Damn that was awesome, let's try it again" then you have people willing to spend cash too. However give them something that resembles a tax return and they'll be off doing something else faster than you can say IRS...
Oh and a sandbox is based around emergent gameplay. STO has NONE of that. It's all scripted and tightly controlled. Veer off the path and watch out for the EXPLOIT Bat...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
When I think of the perfect sandbox game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas always springs to mind. I can go and explore, I can hunt down criminals, I can steal a helicopter or a harrier jet and blow things up, I can play pool, gamble in the casinos...
This game is the polar opposite of that experience for me. If you really really think this is a sandbox game then I suggest you pick up a copy of GTA: San Andreas and re-educate yourself.
Free Tibet!
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I will add that while it's an unpopular position among people who use the terms "sandbox" and "theme park", I am a fan of "theme park" games. (Most people who are avoid those terms.)
You know what's a good super-old school theme park game? The Megaman series. Duck Tales. Super Mario Bros. (although each entry in the series got progressively more sandbox-y, especially from Mario 64 on). For me, the pinnacle will always be Super Mario Bros. 3 which was a theme park with some sandbox-y elements.
A theme park has a heavy emphasis on themed environments with themed rewards which are often funhouse ride-like in nature. You have a linear track dungeon with several ways to get from point A to B and visually distinct areas. There are a few parts of STO I would say have nice attempts at a theme park flow. Ground STFs. The ground adventure zones (although lack of fall damage and those walls probably interfere with the environment). Bug Hunt. The best of these really pale before the theme park attractions I see in other games but some of that appeal is there.
I think very highly of Universal and Disney World/Land. I know that if STO aspired to that, it wouldn't satisfy a lot of people but I would be reasonably happy. Meanwhile there are IPs that would be perfect for that, such as:
Gauntlet
Megaman
Double Dragon
Ninja Turtles (They're associated with a version of the Double Dragon arcade scroller style gameplay, which has influenced their modern games; as a gaming IP you expect that style of play)
Disney's Duck properties (again, the emphasis is often on a world or atlas that would involve linear moves through exotic locales to acquire zone thematic treasure, whether you're talking Uncle Scrooge or any of the comic-based Duck properties or Darkwing Duck)
G.I.Joe
He-Man
Barbie (although the combat would likely be different; though it would be kinda cool to see somebody try to make a hack and slash RPG with a Barbie-flavor to it)
Back to the Future
Kingdom Hearts
DC/Marvel Comics
These all involve heavily themed "playset" environments that work well as a kind of themed ride exhibit and while it isn't emergent, you can make the rides fun if they're well engineered.
And I think you could cater to a subset of Trek very well in this style fully understanding that you're making a tradeoff that will not model other aspects of Trek as well.
But by and large, STO isn't a sandbox or theme park.
It's a carnival. And a carnival is not a theme park.
A theme park focuses on creating clearly themed, moody spaces and activities with high intrinsic motivation. Each purchase is designed to be some kind of treasured memory or memento. It asks, "How do we create activities for the guest to enjoy?" Heck, the customer IS a guest. The employees are often described as cast members, including the custodial, maintenance, and kitchen staff. But the paths are clearly roped off and linear unlike a sandbox with the guest encouraged to go to the exhibit or ride that they want to visit.
A carnival focuses on putting a minimum of effort into the theme of any one space with most thematic decor being a one size fits all affair. The focus is on extrinsic rewards and flattering users for their skill while engaging them in games of chance, typically with a goal of making more sales than the customer would consent to if they realized what they were spending. It asks, "How do we engage the customer psychologically?" Nobody at the carnival is a guest. You're a customer. Booths have themed activities. Focus is on quick and easy thrills.
I know someone will mention casinos. I think casinos are inbetween carnival and theme park. I think your casinos in undeveloped nations skew towards the extreme end of the carnival scale. Casinos in the 20s through 60s did as well. Criminal casinos tend to.
Most modern chains like a Harrah's are actually closer to theme parks. They run on very low profit margins, as low as 3% for some games. They emphasize other entertainment. They also tend to have adopted some attitudes about social responsibility. They deliberately refrain from taking the full advantage possible from addictive practices and behavioral psych techniques. A growing trend is actually marking what you think a customer can comfortably spend and trying to hit that target with the customer. And the customer is called a guest. You want to maximize profit per customer but you focus on building a friendly relationship with them and you'd rather they leave with money in their pocket and come back 4 times a year.
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
SimLife is all sandbox. STO is in no way, shape, form, permutation of, or in the wildest imaginings of a demented Risian standing in the middle of Central Park a sandbox. It's so not a sandbox, the Mirror Universe version is a literal box of sand.
See... I don't think STO is a theme park either. I outlined why I think it is more carnival than theme park and why I think theme park vs. carnival is a good distinction.
But now you have me thinking what are the most sandbox elements of STO, just to be contrarian.
The Foundry is fairly sandbox, from an author's perspective.
Adventure zones have sandbox elements.
And I could go into this more but I think space presents issues with sandbox AND theme park that ground does not, probably heightening the carnival approach. When I interviewed for a game design job once, I was asked to extrapolate on whether I preferred space or ground and why. I think STO's combat mechanics for space are more unique in the MMO genre and are better implemented. But space works against sandbox play because it is TOO sandbox-y to be an effective theme park but also to provide a minimum amount of intrinsic value for long, sustained play. Pure space would just be an almost blank grid I could maneuver in 3 dimensions. As such, environments lack character, definition, and meaning, particularly outside of combat. Whereas on the ground, you could wander around aimlessly and derive pleasure from scenery more. And the pleasure you derive from that scenery could be refined and sculpted into an effective theme park experience.
I think some of the design issues (and this could turn into a dissertation if I start accounting for playtime, enemy HP values, etc.) come down to us traveling through space and landing on the ground to fight.
And psychologically, design objective wise (time spent, type of actions taken when analyzed at a ludic level, etc.)... It's backwards. It'c completely backwards.
We should be traveling on foot and triggering space battle encounters, not traveling through sector space and beaming down to planets.
Content is quickly consumed because space travel is more disorienting, his faster, is hard to model with adequate map sizes, would be boring if adequately modeled. None of these would be as much of an issue if travel was done on the ground.
Meanwhile, space combat is intrinsically more liberating, it works better as a diversion, etc. A short fight could still work on the ground but a meaty fight does work better in space.
The closest we get to what I'm thinking about is Nimbus, where you have lengthy walks in order to arrive at missions that wind up in space a couple of times. The whole flow is much better. The exploration is more satisfying.
Yes, yes, I realize the IP considerations that work against that but those could be (or could have been) dealt with.
"PLAYING AS INTENDED"
...which sucks.
How so? For Star Trek, the "story" starts in space, goes to ground, then goes back up (DS9 notwithstanding).
I agree that Nimbus III is a great example of the 'vastness' that ground experience can be. To me, Nimbus reminded me of my EQ days
For space, I think EVE Online has a very good system in place that not only creates a sense of "largeness", for lack of a better term, per 'zone' but also for traveling to other zones in a continuous experience, without loading screens. Travelling across the galaxy in EVE would take several hours, I'm sure. Would something like that be feasible for STO? Maybe, unless there was a gateway system that bypassed Warp Speed travel. But it sure would be more immersive.
EvE has some major issues due to the design. The biggest hole is that those who have been playing say since launch have a permanent advantage over a player that started say next week. In essence due to their massive time gating of training offline etc there is no way for a new player to compete period. EvE was also actually originally a project by some university students to attempt to mimic the economy using virtual means it was not intended to be a game. In any event EvE is a sandbox of sorts, but its a sandbox with levels that are obtained by keeping a sub active. I would never recommend EvE to players because of this. The grind in EvE is insane and anyone who has issues with STO's set up will have even more issues with EvE's set up.
STO's problems revolve around the fact that in order to function they lions share of content is created with CBS in mind. The STO franchise must continually pump out something new and fresh to keep people interested because anyone but the most casual of players will chew threw it faster then they can create it so they must introduce a time gate to slow people down. Sandboxes are not popular because there is no direction and they appeal to a certain type of player. That being said any storyline type MMORPG can be used as a sandbox (hence the introduction of the foundry) it makes more sense in the long run to give players the tools within a heavily gamified game like STO to play as sandbox type players while still appealing to those that require regularly generated content by cryptic then it is to create a sandbox and nearly no content because it only caters to one player type, but the STO way caters to more then one type. So financially it is more logical to take this route for something that is not your own original IP.
freemium games are all the rage that means that well they have to build them a certain way or they will fail. That being said they have forgotten about microtransactions long ago and lost site of the original goal of creating things at a price point for more then 1% of the player base so they have kinda put themselves in a corner on this one.
Anyhow anyone who enjoys sandbox play has the tools to do a fair amount in this game already you can for a great deal of the game ignore the content unless you want a new shiny ship in which case you can either "grind for it" or purchase it in the c store.
Sandboxes by default have minimal amounts of limitations. They literally require the player to actively seek out stuff to do for the most part. Older sandbox designs were totally 100% reliant on the player, newer ones aren't. They can include suggestion and give the player idea's of what can be accomplished within it's game boundaries, in turn not requiring the player to come up with all the ideas for how to use the content. Something that is also developing nicely is the way that emergent gameplay is now being seen as a good thing and having engines and games designed to allow that emergent gameplay to flourish. It used to be a bad thing from a dev's point of view as they were deviating from the prescribed method of playing, something which is becoming increasingly archaic.
What STO suffer's from is that as STOLeviathon99 pointed out it's a Theme Park with no direction. You follow your storyline if you want, or not. You play the STF's if you want or not. You literally have the choice of what to do, but only within limited prescribed means. Even with the Foundry to create missions for other players you are still limited by the games very linear framework, deviating from it causes all manner of bugs.
The other major problem STO suffers from is quality. Look at the character animations, ship movement, texture detail and UI issues. All present since day 1, never fixed and barely updated. UI updates have increased lag and reduced usability for the most part. The only good part of the UI is the ability to adjust it to suit your needs for the most part, but even then it's still wasteful with it's screen usage.
It's far to late to turn STO into a Sandbox, however they really should be encouraging emergent gameplay when they can. The Tau Dewa patrols before the nerf got more people together in one area than seen at pretty much any time in STO's history. Encouraging that via rewards and so on would give a much better feel to the game as it's claim to be an MMO is shaky at best with it's current setup. Yes it has a lot of players within a game online, but it doesn't do a lot to get those players enjoying the content together. Grinding out missions and patrols solo (with most new missions being solo is a requirement!) does not an MMO make
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Anyhow its possible to have sandbox elements in any game but the minute you have an IP your actually removing part of the sandbox because by nature sandboxes are generic. That being said since I have done it myself anything can be turned into a partial sandbox (i say partial because anything with a story and theme can't ever be a real and true sandbox) including STO. The elements are there in the game already all they need to do is add more layers to the foundry and even now people can create their own stories and games within STO.
As for the MMORPG definition I wont go there lol suffice it to say that under the definition of and MMORPG STO and many other games including things like farmville actually are MMO's or MMORPG's its just that a lot of people have their own criteria as to what they want in one but if you go by the true definition of it there are a lot of MMO's out there because they only require a few factors all of which STO has. You can call it chopped liver though I never worry about labels if its fun I play it I dont care either way if its an MMO, sandbox or anything else
Gonna have to disagree. STO is a sandbox, a theme park, and a carnival (as you describe it) depending on your playstyle and the content you play.
The only constant of STO is the lack of consistency. The design lacks all consistency. It is a complete mish mash of subsystems interacting with one another. The content as well lacks all consistency and depending upon it's age, type, and designer follows it's own philosophy.
Why does some advanced content (CCA) follow the idea that one player needs to do the right thing and the rest merely need to avoid doing the wrong thing while others (BDA) requires three players to do the right thing? Why are melan so easy and quick to destroy while hirogen make you want to pull your hair out?
I could write a book on this subject. At the end of the day STO lacks any true design philosophy anywhere. Their is no consistency of gameplay experience.
Loading screens, instances you queue up for and all kinds of barriers and walls - most of which you can't even pay your way past, is the opposite of sandbox.
Exploration of a open world that can be played non-linear?
They straight up deleted exploration, come on now
Then they throw forced "optionals" in there - is there anything more linear than that?
Linear battery hens gameplay - log in on the clock and click what we tell you, in the order we tell you, when we tell you.
That is the opposite of "free" and "open", it's also the opposite of relaxing and playing
That's not technically correct. There can be story, there can even be linear elements within the sandbox as long as they are optional and don't violate the abilities of the player to create emergent gameplay scenario's. As an example things like having missions outside of standard space or in an alternate timeline to give tutorials or integrate a story/background don't violate the sandbox concept. Another example is the Single/Co-op aspect of Star Citizen will have minimal impact on your character in it's Persistent Universe, yet allow for background, storyline and other aspects to be expanded upon.
STO could allow this but it would require a massive rework of the core of the game. Not gonna happen.
Again I addressed the problems of limiting a sandbox to not having a storyline or theme above. A sandbox need not be generic, having sandbox elements is perfectly fine within some games. Every sandbox needs a premise and if you remove that premise all you have is an editor and nothing else. Think Garry's Mod. That's probably the truest sandbox from your point of view. I personally think that point of view is limiting and outdated now though.
The Foundry can create their own stories/missions, but not games. The limitations upon the foundry are huge, something that can't be avoided due to the nature of the engine and requirements of conformity to CBS diktat.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Two immediate thoughts. One would be ship interiors as travel hub. The other would be to position seasons or expansions around adventure zones with doors around them that lead to space combat encounters.