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  • burstorionburstorion Member Posts: 1,750 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    I hope the following missions also get removed from the game as they are nothing but filler:

    Friends In Unlikely Places
    With Friends Like These...
    Know Your Enemies
    Better With Friends
    Taking Care Of Enemies

    Thanks in advance.

    Agreed - they are not even quality filler at that, more just a cheap, time efficient way to say 'look at all these missions we added with our expansion guys!' (although I bear no malice towards the design of the ships, maps, ect when I say 'cheap', I mean merely the 'shooting gallery x5' design)

    I wonder if the new rom mysteries missions will be patrols with tacked on storyline...
  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    What do you think of what another poster suggested about leaving some of the standalone filler type missions in place tagged to their system like Patrol missions? For example, you go to the proper system and get a prompt to enter the system and it begins "Saturday's Child". This costs nothing really to implement and it leaves some extra things to do in the game for those who want to.

    It would also allow people to collect the accolades in them, if any.

    There's already far too many accolades that are just plain unavailable for new players/toons.
  • erei1erei1 Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    I hope the following missions also get removed from the game as they are nothing but filler:

    Friends In Unlikely Places
    With Friends Like These...
    Know Your Enemies
    Better With Friends
    Taking Care Of Enemies

    Thanks in advance.
    Agreed, they are not, as cryptic would say, on par with the current standards of quality we came to expect from STO.
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  • ktyrrellktyrrell Member Posts: 261 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I can tell you what would have fixed Divide et Impera from the start:

    First of all, it lacks context with the Romulan Star Empire/Republic story. Are there innocent medics in the Empire? Even when the game launched, the integrity of the Romulans has been a muddled affair. They blew up their own homeworld. It's only been recently we've seen some sense made of that.

    But we'll sidestep that just a bit:

    What Divide Et Impera needs is a sting element.

    What do Starfleet officers do whenever someone is behaving suspiciously?

    They "play along" and set a trap. It's a classic "subplot turned third act surprise" structure.

    We get assigned Zelle, right? Then maybe T'Nae pulls us aside, informs us to keep an eye on Zelle, and requests that we get our weapons recalibrated at Sierra 39's armory.

    If we investigate there, we see that there has been an odd change to our weapon frequency.

    T'Nae accompanies us with Zelle.

    We proceed on the mission. At various points, we get opportunities to object but if we do, T'Nae insists on going forward but sends us off on side assignments. The side assignments reveal that this is a deserted Romulan installation, abandoned months ago. As we get deeper in, we discover that the station has been outfitted with holo-emitters. None of the Romulans there are real. Our weapons have been recalibrated to fight Undine. We learn that T'Nae is using us to draw out Zelle.

    The entire thing is a ruse. T'Nae has been playing a part to isolate and out Zelle. The Romulan Republic provided us with the station after capturing it from the Tal Shiar.
    please create that foundry Mission :o
  • gulberatgulberat Member Posts: 5,505 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    I hope the following missions also get removed from the game as they are nothing but filler:

    Friends In Unlikely Places
    With Friends Like These...
    Know Your Enemies
    Better With Friends
    Taking Care Of Enemies

    Thanks in advance.

    In my review I actually have a proposal on how to get some meatier episodes out of the Benthan and Cooperative arcs...but in their current form yes, they are unnecessary filler.

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  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I don't get it, so "Filler-Missions" are a bad thing now, yet DR Patrols are the most rewarding Content (aren't those the archetype of Filler-Missions).

    Filler-missions as represented by the old Romulan series aren't constructive. They're there simply to provide a buffer between the FED series and those later Romulan missions that have something to do with the setting/plot of STO. FED starbase alerts against the Tal Shiar would do that job just as well (if a bit more repetitively.)

    DR patrol missions build setting. Each one describes a little bit of the Delta Quadrant and how that's getting along with the events of Delta Rising. There unquestionably is a direct relationship between episodes and patrols as what you do in the one informs what happens in the next set of the other. Patrols use plot developments to move the setting of the DQ while Episodes use that changing setting in order to move the plot. If you take patrols out you cut those connections and the main missions series then has a much more difficult time of trying to function (because you will only be able to take the background for granted, forcing a "tell, don't show" approach where we have a "show, and we'll keep showing it you until you complete these waves" now.)

    Basically, it a very childisih point that "oh, because some missions that glue together other missions are being removed that means ALL missions that fit this glib interpretation should be removed as well." The question is how those missions are functioning, do they do something which other missions need in order to work [in a literary sense]. You need to think beyond the most obvious impulse and look at how this part of the word is functioning.

    And quite frankly the answer on the old romulan missions is no (with a few exceptions, mostly involving Taris, there's no connection between them and the Romulan story STO is trying to tell eslewhere.) Throw them into Star Trek Starfleet Command 3 [with appropriate gameplay tweaks] and they'll work just about as well. DR patrols on the other hand are integral to DR. You can't remove them without killing the host (ie. the expansion).

    Think of it as the difference between your appendix and your vertebral column. Sure, the latter is repetitive, but you need it for the system to work properly.
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  • ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    I hope the following missions also get removed from the game as they are nothing but filler:

    Friends In Unlikely Places
    With Friends Like These...
    Know Your Enemies
    Better With Friends
    Taking Care Of Enemies

    Thanks in advance.

    200% agreed. They can leave the patrols, but either remove the wrappers, or re-add the alpha quadrant wrappers for consistency. The quality of these missions is barely above the exploration clusters, and no better than the old patrols. Some of the old patrols were actually quite good. If they don't make the cut - the DR ones should not be "story missions" either.

    The missions they are killing - most I will not miss. Taking 12 and giving 4 though is a little harsh, and some of the filler missions actually weren't THAT bad (Project Nightingale and Saturday's Child I actually enjoyed on the first play through). The mission rewards of these missions were also pretty decent, unlike...cough cough, the Cardassian Arc.

    That said, removal of the alpha quadrant patrol wrappers a long time ago, then exploration clusters, then adding in the DR patrol missions was more or less a slap in the face to "product quality". Gulberat detailed in his review how those patrols could have been actual missions, had the time be taken to make them good.

    Also - removing 12 and adding 4 means we're losing 8 FULL story missions. Most were horrible, but they are pulling more or less the same amount of story content that DR ADDED. I'm not advocating for leaving these missions intact - far from it. They were bad. Very bad. Also, if the revamped Borg missions were anything to go by, the new ones will be great. However, bringing in only 4 to replace 12 isn't really a fair trade. I'm saying there should be MORE content in a revamp.

    The argument could easily be trotted out that there was not enough "time". The answer to that would be the revamp could have been postponed to the next release, and given more time to be more fleshed out. We're already getting Secondary Deflectors and the BOFF revamp - more than we got in S9.5. We accepted 4 missions for I believe it was 7 or 8 with the Borg revamp, now we're getting 4 for 12. Even the DR storyline seemed - rushed and unfinished, despite being very high quality. Given the middling quality of the Cardassian Arc - do we really want to accept 4 for 13 or 14? Eventually we'll have nothing left to do.
  • hartzillahartzilla Member Posts: 1,177 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    There unquestionably is a direct relationship between episodes and patrols as what you do in the one informs what happens in the next set of the other.

    Not really, it usually seems that the story missions ignore some of the things you did in the patrols. Honestly it just feels like some of the Delta races were dumped into patrols just becuase the devs didn't feel like giving them a story mission.
    If you take patrols out you cut those connections and the main missions series then has a much more difficult time of trying to function

    Considering one patrol mission has you make a choice that should logically affect the story and the story missions pretty much ignore it, I think you might be over exaggerating it a bit.

    Really I've only seen one patrol mission that was plot important. Usually the patrol missions were stand alone missions that didn't really intersect with the plot and only vaguely if they did with one exception.
  • js26568js26568 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    Many many words

    Clumsily lumping together 4 or 5 system patrols, sticking a page of text at the end and calling them a "Mission" is an insult to the players and far below the quality of the rest of the game.

    I'd be embarrassed if I came up with that. I can only theorise that the developers were forced to do it by constraints of time or constraints of budget.
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  • psycoticvulcanpsycoticvulcan Member Posts: 4,160 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I have no problem with removing bad content, but I wish they'd add more good content to replace it.
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    "Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    I hope the following missions also get removed from the game as they are nothing but filler:

    Friends In Unlikely Places
    With Friends Like These...
    Know Your Enemies
    Better With Friends
    Taking Care Of Enemies

    Thanks in advance.

    These are not filler. As they add to the story as you find more info what is going on in the area. And it tells how the Vaaduar got into power.

    They only become filler since you have to do them over again for exp to gain levels. However just like other missions. They all become either filler or a grind to get your gear. As after you did it once, they are nothing but filler.
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  • js26568js26568 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    farmallm wrote: »
    These are not filler. As they add to the story as you find more info what is going on in the area. And it tells how the Vaaduar got into power.

    They only become filler since you have to do them over again for exp to gain levels. However just like other missions. They all become either filler or a grind to get your gear. As after you did it once, they are nothing but filler.

    The page of text at the end of each of these "missions" does not justify their use as FILLER. Filler they are and filler they will always be. They're place-holders. Someone did not have the time or money to create actual missions so they did this instead.
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I just wonder if they keep the story with why the moon exploded and took out Romulas. I really thought that was a good way to finish that part of explaining why it happen. Or a little rework of it, to make it better yet.

    To me that was the best part of it.
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    The page of text at the end of each of these "missions" does not justify their use as FILLER. Filler they are and filler they will always be. They're place-holders. Someone did not have the time or money to create actual missions so they did this instead.

    After a mission is done, they too become filler. As a wall of text to flip past quickly. To do it over again for the gear. Only missions I redo is for the gear if I need it. After that I don't go back and redo them unless I'm leveling another character. So those as well are nothing but filler. Or in this case to use them for EXP to gain levels.

    Those "fillers" you call are actual missions and adds to the story and what is going on.
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  • mrtsheadmrtshead Member Posts: 487 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    js26568 wrote: »
    Clumsily lumping together 4 or 5 system patrols, sticking a page of text at the end and calling them a "Mission" is an insult to the players and far below the quality of the rest of the game.

    I'd be embarrassed if I came up with that. I can only theorise that the developers were forced to do it by constraints of time or constraints of budget.

    I disagree with your assessment that the grouping of the patrol missions is clumsy - honestly when I played it the first time I was struck by how much more thoughtful and plot-engaging the DR patrols were compared to the relatively context-less missions in Tau Dewa, for example.

    Consider that the first set of patrol missions sets up a sense of rising tension - something is wiping out the Borg and causing enough havoc in the quadrant that previously minor raiders like the Kazon are becoming a bigger problem. Or consider the interactions with races like the Hazari or the Hirogen - as the patrols progress we see our relationships with the Delta quadrant races incrementally changing (especially with the Hirogen). Or what about the sub-plot with the Ferengi arms dealer who causes us so much grief? Or the missions we get from the Romulan intelligence officer? Or the entire plot line between the Octanti and Cooperative?

    If your objection is that you felt that there wasn't enough variety in game play between the different patrols, that's fine. I definitely wouldn't have minded having some ground missions to do, and honestly some of the patrols are actually pretty interesting, like the one where you have to fight in the middle of a bunch of solar flares, or the one where you need to set up the defense turrets to protect the Talaxian convoy. Still, it is true that the patrols don't have the length or depth that we expect from full missions.

    Taken as a whole, though, I do think the missions grouped together by the wrapper actually do a good job of building the story between the "main" missions, and they definitely worked for me to create a sense of the impacts the Delta Alliance was having in the quadrant, as well as providing potential hooks for future stories (someone should definitely make a foundry mission that explores what happens if Vaadwaur refugees go to the Alpha quadrant). Maybe if the wrapper missions more explicitly forced players to do the patrols in a specific progression, and/or the repeatable patrols had some minor differences in dialogue (like "We've been asked to perform regular sweeps of the system to ensure no further criminal elements take hold...") it would be more clear, but as it is I still feel like there's an obvious distinction in the level of storytelling between the DR patrols and previous patrols. In fact, I'm not sure the DR story line would work at all without them.
  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    mrtshead wrote: »
    I disagree with your assessment that the grouping of the patrol missions is clumsy - honestly when I played it the first time I was struck by how much more thoughtful and plot-engaging the DR patrols were compared to the relatively context-less missions in Tau Dewa, for example.

    Consider that the first set of patrol missions sets up a sense of rising tension - something is wiping out the Borg and causing enough havoc in the quadrant that previously minor raiders like the Kazon are becoming a bigger problem. Or consider the interactions with races like the Hazari or the Hirogen - as the patrols progress we see our relationships with the Delta quadrant races incrementally changing (especially with the Hirogen). Or what about the sub-plot with the Ferengi arms dealer who causes us so much grief? Or the missions we get from the Romulan intelligence officer? Or the entire plot line between the Octanti and Cooperative?

    If your objection is that you felt that there wasn't enough variety in game play between the different patrols, that's fine. I definitely wouldn't have minded having some ground missions to do, and honestly some of the patrols are actually pretty interesting, like the one where you have to fight in the middle of a bunch of solar flares, or the one where you need to set up the defense turrets to protect the Talaxian convoy. Still, it is true that the patrols don't have the length or depth that we expect from full missions.

    Taken as a whole, though, I do think the missions grouped together by the wrapper actually do a good job of building the story between the "main" missions, and they definitely worked for me to create a sense of the impacts the Delta Alliance was having in the quadrant, as well as providing potential hooks for future stories (someone should definitely make a foundry mission that explores what happens if Vaadwaur refugees go to the Alpha quadrant). Maybe if the wrapper missions more explicitly forced players to do the patrols in a specific progression, and/or the repeatable patrols had some minor differences in dialogue (like "We've been asked to perform regular sweeps of the system to ensure no further criminal elements take hold...") it would be more clear, but as it is I still feel like there's an obvious distinction in the level of storytelling between the DR patrols and previous patrols. In fact, I'm not sure the DR story line would work at all without them.

    I agree with you. They provided a nice story to show what is going on in the area. The first time through was very well thought out and good story. Unlike the other 2 patrols they had little to do with adding to the story of the Dyson and Romulan Reps.

    I hope this allows the Foundry people to add to it. As I do play theirs as well.
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  • mikoto8472mikoto8472 Member Posts: 607 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    tacofangs wrote: »
    The point of this was to revamp the whole Romulan arc, and improve it. Yes, that means some of the old (largely filler) missions get removed. But what it means (hopefully) is that the story is told in a better, more enjoyable way.

    We already did this kind of thing with the Tutorials, and the early Fed missions. This is a pretty similar process.


    Taco, please could you and the other Devs consider sparing Saturday's Child please? Its one of my favourite missions and is a nice tie-back to TOS.

    That being said I do look forward to seeing what replaces these missions since the revamped tutorials were wonderful things to play.
  • thunderfoot#5163 thunderfoot Member Posts: 4,540 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    The Romulan Mystery FEs are some of the best in the game. They are well thought out and while a lot of them are stand alone, not all of them are. Revamping this story line to make it fit better within STO is an idea I am not unhappy with. As long as it is done with the care and attention to details given to the new tutorials. Replacing good missions with ones which are not so good is something I hope the Devs take the time and spend the money to avoid.

    Perhaps some of the better current ones could be retained as HoloDeck only missions? Or retained to be trotted out from time to time as Special Events? Be a shame for people who have just begun playing STO to be unable to play "Divide et Impera" or "Swords of S'harien" aas they are right now.
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  • cryhavok101cryhavok101 Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    So the romulan mystery arc has 15 missions that KDF can not play. They are being removed and replaced with 4 missions that KDF can not play. W.T.F. why would you develop these four missions for only 1 faction? You are changing it up anyway, why not add the missions in to both factions. Then one of them has a net gain instead of still being behind on the volume of content.
  • mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    Not every episode has to tie into an overall plot arc about how the evil Iconians want to take over the galaxy. Was every single episode of TNG part of one huge plot arc? No. Lots of stuff happens in space. Most of it is entirely unrelated. Please delist these from the episode journal progression and leave them in place like the old patrol missions.

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  • ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    Not every episode has to tie into an overall plot arc about how the evil Iconians want to take over the galaxy. Was every single episode of TNG part of one huge plot arc? No. Lots of stuff happens in space. Most of it is entirely unrelated. Please delist these from the episode journal progression and leave them in place like the old patrol missions.

    This would be a good compromise for many of the ones being cut.

    Divide et Imperia probably should go (or maybe be moved to the foundry) though in my opinion. Your actions in that mission effectively make your starfleet hero-captain a war criminal, and unless they made it less "in your face" with what was going on (ie much stronger intel than Admiral Zelle "says so", etc), I found it hard to stomach.

    As I said in my other post though, while I expect the 4 new missions to be great - I'm not a fan of cutting 3x the content being added (regardless of quality). Especially in light of the DR patrols, which while adding story, could have been done much, much better as missions. Take them off mandatory, maybe give them to a low-priority NPC (who used to hand out patrols at SB39, they're still standing around).
  • illustriousqillustriousq Member Posts: 37 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    tacofangs wrote: »
    The point of this was to revamp the whole Romulan arc, and improve it. Yes, that means some of the old (largely filler) missions get removed. But what it means (hopefully) is that the story is told in a better, more enjoyable way.

    We already did this kind of thing with the Tutorials, and the early Fed missions. This is a pretty similar process.

    The revamp of the tutorials and the Federation KDF war arc didn't remove 12 missions and instead improved upon what was already in existence.

    There was actually a lot of interesting stuff going on in the Romulan Mystery arc that didn't have anything directly to do with the Iconian story line. A couple of very interesting characters (I would have loved to have seen all 4 admirals interacting and who oversaw what for that sector block, the Tal Shiar and Section 31 going up against each other, having Starfleet actually provide medical aid to further tie into New Romulus).

    Taking 16 mission and dropping them down to 4 is terrible and really makes the Romulan Front feel absolutely gutted.
  • welcome2earfwelcome2earf Member Posts: 1,746 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    As stated in another thread, I'm concerned about the special reward items from these missions going away. For some it might not be a huge loss as most are not upgradeable yet, but I'm concerned that once they're gone, there will never be a fix to ALLOW them to be useable at endgame via upgrade.
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  • dheffernandheffernan Member Posts: 93 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    Anything that gets rid of "Divide et Impera" is good.
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  • futurepastnowfuturepastnow Member Posts: 3,660 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I replayed the three that I was missing accolades for. I started to replay another one, then reevaluated my life and dropped it. I suppose I should to Divide et Impera one last time for war crime lulz.
  • eldarion79eldarion79 Member Posts: 1,679 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    They are essentially taking out roughly DR size content out of the game and replacing them with four missions.

    Some of those are very good missions and we don't need an arc that goes from tutorial to endgame. I like how there are different things going on in the universe besides the Iconians, the Undine and the Borg.

    There's B'Vat's personal war against the Feds, the Feds intervention in a Romulan Civil War that includes the Tal Shiar-led Imperial factions, Taris' Factions, Reman Mercenaries, Reman Nationalists, and the Romulan Colonials. We have the True Way Insurrection laced with a Terran Imperial invasion of the Beta Ursae and finally we got the Breen-Deferi War.
  • js26568js26568 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I'm not sure why things need to be on one single arc. We as players are scattered all over the galaxy. There should be other things going on.
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  • lostyuslostyus Member Posts: 208 Arc User
    edited January 2015
    I've just played Ghost Ship and it is an ok/good mission, it's not great, (but how many of the story missions are?) but it is good enough and up to par with the rest of the story missions I've played.

    So why would they want to get rid of it? It's my first time playing it and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the fact that it is (sort of) a follow up to the film Nemesis. If they keep taking stuff out of the game then all new players will be left with is the quick 1-50 leveling, and then the horrid grind.

    I would have really liked to have played the exploration clusters (I think that is what they're called), yeah they're not everyones cup of tea, and they might not have been good enough to stand alone, but for me, it would have made a nice break from the normal game, and also most Star Trek series are about exploration (the exception being DS9).

    Don't keep hacking away at the game and taking bits out, as someone who loves PVE content, these omissions are sorely missed.

    I'm actually playing through these missions as it's where I'm up to and would like to at least play them once before they are TRIBBLE out of the game.
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