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sto review of the year 2014
r24681012
Member Posts: 173 Arc User
i have to say this year sto has very doom and gloom true there is good reason for it i for one have be more disappointed this year then previous years
Delta rising for me has been the main talking point this year ok we had new levels new ships etc thats all good but with that came the bad relentless grinding ,stf's screwed up etc also not forgetting before dr the new R & D System
for me sto this has been a year of ups and downs mainly downs but there is till hope for 2015
how do you guys think sto has been in 2014 and what are your hopes for sto in 2015
Delta rising for me has been the main talking point this year ok we had new levels new ships etc thats all good but with that came the bad relentless grinding ,stf's screwed up etc also not forgetting before dr the new R & D System
for me sto this has been a year of ups and downs mainly downs but there is till hope for 2015
how do you guys think sto has been in 2014 and what are your hopes for sto in 2015
Post edited by r24681012 on
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I'm going to have to be really optimistic for this, cause I have little hope left, but;
The above would be a good start.
While I'm sure that the game will be around for a while, its golden age has set. And its really sad. Cryptic, instead of choosing the path less traveled, building a breathtaking layered gaming experience - chose the easy road and essentially gutted their engine to replace it with "projects" instead of storyline. "Projects" are unfulfilling, bottomless pits and do not ensure longevity of players attention. Human beings are not pigeons, but the developers have turned the game into some twisted Operant conditioning chamber.
Term in Psychology: "Slot machines and online games are sometimes cited as examples of human devices that use sophisticated operant schedules of reinforcement to reward repetitive actions." They should be ashamed of themselves. I hope they sleep well at night, when they realized that they are setting-up the next generation of gamblers. If I had a child, they would be banned from playing this game.
I remember when there was fellowship between the developers and the community. Community sponsored events, blogs, Spotlights, etc.
Now there's nothing but what the PW propaganda machine puts out.
I am frustrated that the reputations + crafting + specializations have resulting in a grindy system when EVERYTHING worth having now has to be paid in some kind to grind, if not outright RL money.
Not at all what I expected from the game. Also, given the fact that I have been asked to upgrade old content for like the 4-5 time, what says that all this is going to even be relevant in a short while and I have to forked out more just to upgrade again.
Basically had to read between the lines with the "ending of the war" which basically meant the ending of any content for the Klingon and Romulans which as the ugly cousins have been banished from the premises.
Spot on.
This game is designed to condition young players to the false belief that a 2.5% chance, or X chance, is a 'high chance,' repeatedly reinforcing this notion with 'critical hits' and 'critical chance' as seen from multiple weapon systems firing for long periods of time to succeed in the game. This conditions the unsuspecting player to try out their 'luck' at the lockbox and R&D quality upgrade systems, falling for the gambler's fallacy (false belief that the probability increases with more attempts, even if 1st probability is equal to the nth). Probability of success is constantly reinforced, as from the very rare players who receive a ship on their 4th box who are vocal about it (nevermind the other 98% of those who never received anything worthwhile other than lobi and resources), and the in-game announcements of winners of ships, including lobi ships, out of an unknown but very large player base, perhaps some of which may even be hollow accounts designed for this very purpose. The print for these boxes says 'players will receive EITHER x lobi/resources OR ship grand prize, nothing about the actual probability, and whether the probability is truly even random.
The entire in-game economy is designed for players to be happy about others dumping huge amounts of $ for what's essentially a rental price of the equipment subject to being modified or terminated whenever the game becomes too saturated for profit and so goes offline in favor of perhaps a STO2 which will be more grindy and more expensive given the financial success so far. Buying lobi ships off of the exchange is not exactly 'the right way to do it', since if everyone did that, no one would be buying into the lockbox system at a rate high enough to want to trade or sell ships they don't plan on using, and there'd be no lobi items on the exchange at all.
This is the same reason players are encouraged to grind endlessly in addition to paying: driving up the perceived market value of in-game items, so that dilithium gotten through playing and grinding is used to buy up the existing zen that had to be made available from players buying dilithium with cash. Less zen on the market means higher value of in-game items, even more excessive grinds to acquire zen, which leads to frustration or a stalemate, unless at least some of those frustrated players decide to buy dilithium and lobi, keeping the free-to-play aspect alive for others. Dilithium converts into EC as well, but not the other way around, so this Dilithium/Zen to Cash economy accounts for everything else in the game, including accelerated leveling up, etc.
That's my understanding of the system as set up by PWE.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Then came grind-a-versery ... Season 9.5 (Crafting grind-a-thon) and now DR the ultimate frontier of grinds. Yeah ... I think I see a pattern too.
- Judge Aaron Satie
You will be waiting a long time for that one. This is officially "The Year of Hell" for STO ... until next year.
- Judge Aaron Satie
2014 will be known as The Year Of (Not So) Awesome.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
sorry to all for meddling if anyone can read my message can agliutarmi saying to a moderator if I unlock more because I can not respond to the Messages sorry thanks to all
*clicks on link - says HTTP 404 Not Found*
Yeah, I don't wanna crash on your optimism or anything but....
I like it. Of course at this point ANYTHING for T6 rom or klings will do.
not a bad assessment
games in general, have been taken over by people who don't really care about games or art or community or entertainment, only money. whoever is calling the shots is very very very short sighted
there are many easy fixes here, but it seems there is _zero_ motivation. fixes that would improve the experience and would draw players and probably increase $$ transactions because people would be happy to spend
quite frankly, it's as if they want to tank the game to dump the lifetime subscribers, and then maybe sell it or start over. or both.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Apart from all that,the game has been great,its only DR that was a disaster,and was far too small.
Its been said that many of us have levelled up far too fast.
Well what does cryptic/pwe expect? that we go along like snails?
The reason many have levelled up quickly is because of game enjoyment,that meaning that many play for long hours. I am one of those.
If cryptic think that we will only play an hour every 1 or 2 days,then they are nieve.
They should be grateful that this game has hard core trekky fans.
However, cryptic nerfing right left and centre is no fun at all for the players, and cryptic need to understand, that theres only so much we can take. More fun and less grind is needed here, to keep players in this game. Stop the nerfing all the time,players are getting TRIBBLE off with it.
New content is badly needed soon,and maybe old content revamped, with bigger better more valueable rewards, no rubbish stuff as we are currently getting.
How about opening up the whole galaxy, and allow us to explore and find new planets,moons and asteroids etc. Using borg apertures etc(transwarp gates) as a means of getting around everywhere.
Startrek music is needed in this game,to make it more dramatic.
Reliant attacks and stealing the enterprise are 2 such areas of music.
The game needs alot more regular maintenance, to keep bugs down and fewer.
Not a once a week maintenance bug patch. The same thing needs to be done regards the servers,to stop these server not responding problems that occur worldwide.
It'll definitely make it to 2018. This game has virtually no competition in the niche it's carved out for itself. (super casual, space ship combat game, also the IP caries weight to draw players in)
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
3 more of anything to fill the traits. A science ship would be nice but even a bop could do that... it used to be the only way to do that. But... no T6 bops either.
I would have and did say this up until November.
Now I say it really depends on how profitable PWE demands the game be. If they accept a trickle then, sure, it'll make it for a good while. But if they demand exponential profits (as corporations do these days) I worry about making it to summer. We will make it to the anniversary. Beyond that I am cautiously pessimistic.
I personally had tremendous fun here in 2014. Had a blast on Risa and in Q's. I very much enjoyed the Delta storyline.
I don't care about the slow spec points - though since most people do I support an easing on this.
My one desire is to end the failqueues (I continue to try to coin the phrase). I am not optimistic about this. I expect to have my answer on this sometime in March - as well as an indication of whether we can make it through the summer with hope for the future.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
In my eyes, the high point for it was the release of Surface Tensions. it was stellar, plot advancing storytelling that had me engrossed and back caring what happened in STO.
Too bad they couldn't keep that up. DR storytelling was relatively good, but it kept being hobbled by all the bad gameplay-consideration issues that had been introduced with the expansion.
I'll only believe the game is in it's final months when they release a Borg lockbox. If they ever release an Iconian lockbox, then I'll believe the game is in it's final weeks.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Coming soon. Cryptic put the Borg Cooperative in DR to get around the "no Borg ships" edict. You'll be seeing players flying Co-Op probes or spheres within 6 months.
There's no shortage of cool options for new aligned mini-factions:
- The Cooperative [Borg]
- The Cardassians
- The Dominion (although to be honest, this is scraping the bottom of the barrel)
As for technical enhancements:
- new UI would go leaps and bounds in improving the game
- better fleet management tools
- revised doffing structure, ui, available doffs
- revised chat infrastructure
- I still hold out for a next-generation engine. The drawback, STO players like legacy computers
As for Expansions:
- Series-based Episode arcs - redlo classic episodes, with multiple alternate endings
- True PvP System, with public rankings etc. Give it a reason to exist.
- True Game Balance - stop the DPS slide (ok, Ok, I'm dreaming here).
- Remaster all STF's. Add a new, random set of events for each.
As for the game itself: MAKE IT FUN AGAIN.
'Cause as it stands now - I spend more time here discussing the shameful mess DR was launched as, than actually playing the game.
But who knows what's coming? D'Angelo has to deliver consecutive quarters of financial growth. If DR was their biggest success to date, what have they got left to entice money from my wallet?
Looking for a good thread?
GG Cryptic.
dnirg eht nioj
I don't doubt the game will survive (if they keep CO running they will keep STO running), but what remains is nothing more than a facebook/browser game. Greed killed this game.
Greed was part of it .
The lack of a Kirk / Spock mental dynamic at the top was the other .
Gecko & D'Angelo on the top are like a Vulcan and a Borg drone trying to create "fun" .
And in their mind's , I'm sure that allying with body snatchers totally one upped the fighting with organ snatchers that Janeway did ... .
"...fun shall now commence ...! "
-- 7 of 9
However, this year also had its setbacks. 9.5's R&D and DOFF "improvements" were a joke, and Delta Rising's story arc was spoiled by grindy patrol missions we were forced to play and the ridiculous amount of XP that was required to progress in the storyline.