This is just one of those things that simply has me beating my head against my desktop because it makes absolutely no sense at all, and I really have to wonder WTH the devs are thinking.
This is just a repeat of what they did to the exploration missions. What irks me the most about all of this is the complete lack of interest in what players have to say. Every time I see a planed "revamp" like this I've checked the forums, and the majority opinion is a rejection of whatever decision the developers have made. Why should we even bother playing if the wishes and views of the client
So Cryptic has decided to monetize the rewards of those missions as well? Some of the mission rewards in the Romulan story arc are unique; with those missions deleted, we will only be able to hope that they will be offered in the Lobi store at least.
Another fine example of Cryptic taking the path of least effort, and negating work that was already satisfactory to the players. Less is NOT more...:mad:
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac 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
Once again players are confronted with the old one step forward, two steps back approach.
What is the point in erasing 11 missions? So what if they're not perfect? At least it's something.
When the exploration missions were deleted I was pretty bummed. While it is true that they were repetitious and under-developed, it allowed for some casual game play, and the void in plot gave me a change to do a little in-head role-playing to make it more engaging. I would rather have something I can work with than nothing at all.
This time however we see the erasure of missions that were completely acceptable. These four new missions I'm sure will be great, but they won't tie in every mission from the original roster. What about "Ghost Ship?" What about "Trapped" and "Saturday's Child?" These missions were all fine in their own right, and I appreciated that they were stand alone episodes. Not everything has to fit in to the over-arcing plot in Star Trek Online. Improving a handful of missions doesn't mean you have to cut everything else just because it's on the same page. It's completely unnecessary. What is happening now is ostensibly Cryptic trying to zest-up a recipe and improve upon it, but in doing so their throwing out every other part of the meal. Fine, turn these missions from a Reuben to a steak dinner, but at least the Reuben had fries and a drink. No one wants just a steak.
It seems to me that this is the newest tactic in the company's rapidly manifesting "Pay to Win" approach. Leveling up past level 50 and doing well requires exorbitant amounts of money and there isn't even one Tier 6 ship available for free. The removal of these missions shows a lack of interest in content. By trimming down everything to the bare minimum number of episodes all their doing is alienating Trek fans and casual players who appreciated the content and streamlining it so that you reach a point where paying money becomes more and more of a necessity. I have no problem with benefits for paying customers, but by next year I'm afraid the only people who will bother are the ones who have already made a gratuitous investment they don't want to abandon.
It does seem quite obvious that's the direction they're taking STO, and it's unfortunate that at the rate they're going they are likely to drive a large portion of the playerbase away from the game. Less casual content, more content that requires being level 60, requires elite gear, requires months of grinding or hundreds of dollars in Zen. This isn't the STO I want to play. They have begun the slide down the slippery slope and I really fear there is no turning back at this point. It will be very interesting to see what the game looks like by its 6th anniversary (provided I'm still actually following it in another year).
And not for nothing, but the Breen carrier from the Winter Event was a free T6. No word yet on what the anniversary ship will be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's also a highly scaled down T6.
For whatever it's worth, I definitely will miss Saturdays' Child... It wasn't a bad mission at all despite it not being strictly within the Romulan storyline. Hopefully an enterprising foundry author can rebuild it and maybe get it at a spotlight mission.
I get that the Romulan storyline needed to be adjusted, but as usual the dev team is taking a very heavy handed approach to the situation. Tweak the stories, condense missions where it makes sense but if it doesn't need to be touched leave it alone.
With the craziness surrounding the "gear race" and all the ridiculous hoops that have to be gone through to remain competitive at lvl 60 end game "team grinding" I'm finding my playtime on STO to lean back towards interesting Foundry missions and perhaps replaying the old story missions. Hopefully Cryptic doesn't completely kill that off as well...
While it's good that older content is being revised to improve its quality, I really like the idea of retaining the older missions in game as legacy content. A source of XP and a time capsule for what was.
Removing such a large source of XP, beneficial for new players/new alts, seems like a really bad idea. It's a shame official new missions and story content are so difficult to generate. I guess I am becoming the kind of player who only wants to show up for events and new missions. I have been okay with the previous grinds for reputation because of the rewards and time involved. The upgrade and specialization grind just aren't compelling enough for me beyond what I can get as I go along. Not sure if the crowd around Argala means I am in the minority, but this new direction is not working for me.
Popping in to add yet another voice to the "please stop removing content" chorus.
I liked Saturday's child and ghost ship, and several of the others. Please find some way to make them patrols or something. Losing them is really sad.
That said, I'm glad to hear you got Denise back for some more voice work, she makes a greatvillain and based on the Borg and Klingon revamped missions, I'm looking forward to playing these new ones.
Losing Saturday's Child and Ghost Ship will be a tragic loss, they should be moved to patrol missions.
If (and only if) the rumor I heard about Divide et Impera was right, well, it might fit /later/, just not currently. The rumor I heard of it was that it was originally intended to be a 3 part arc and intro the idea of Undine mind control (basically what Cooper and Egg were doing), and that the events of Impera were basically forced because it was the Undine doing the forcing, rather than bad game mechanics. Just that with the hurry-up attitude of coughing it out quickly, they canned the other two parts for time and left that in.
If said rumor is true? It should either be removed or the other two parts added.
While I'm always glad to see revamping, the loss of 11 missions is sad.
Exactly what he said.
I mean I love your handcrafted missions Cryptic; the modern ones are far above the usual MMO quest quality but IMO STO has a serious lack of non-timegated contend that invites for logging in to just play whenever the players have time & desire to do so.
I have noticed that several "missions" from the Delta Quadrant arc are just rewrites of older missions that were removed. I can definitely see a "cleaning-up" of some of the stories they are taking out of the Rom Arc to be used later as recycled material for a coming season 10 release.
So, in essence, we won't get less content, but we won't get more either. They'll take away these 11 episodes, clean 'em up, add some new dialogue, and turn them into Season 10...
That's what I'm thinking is what will happen...
CM
"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science." - Edwin Hubble
But the other fourteen episodes have been distilled down into four episodes, completely reworked to flow more neatly together and lead into the Featured Episode series.
Is Cryptic nerfing the amount of xp you gain as you level from 1 to 50?
"Star Trek: Online" is slowly becoming "Star Trash: Online".
I have noticed that several "missions" from the Delta Quadrant arc are just rewrites of older missions that were removed. I can definitely see a "cleaning-up" of some of the stories they are taking out of the Rom Arc to be used later as recycled material for a coming season 10 release.
So, in essence, we won't get less content, but we won't get more either. They'll take away these 11 episodes, clean 'em up, add some new dialogue, and turn them into Season 10...
That's what I'm thinking is what will happen...
CM
Cryptic has been recycling old material for a long time.
No, it isn't. Do you know how expensive it is to create digital effects and models and sh*t? It's much easier to just make starships and warp real and have the players believe they are just playing a game.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Look, I'm all for seeing revamped episodes, and I was definitely hoping for a "clean-up" of the Romulan episodes, but seriously???
Condensing 14 episodes into only 4 is a crime, and is ridiculous. I can see the need to maybe combine one or two in the process, and completely rework some of them (as was done with "Task Force Hippocrates"), but to remove 10 episodes just because you're too lazy to update them all? That's right, I said it.
It's great that there are new VOs from Denise, and I'm sure the 4 new missions will be entertaining, but still, I am utterly disappointed by the removal of all the others. Unless you can give us a definitive reason behind it (other than "they don't fit in the Romulan Republic arc" TRIBBLE), I will continue to view it as a failure on the devs' part.
Well I'm not happy with the removal of these missions loss of content and gaining very little in return not a good day for STO I'm not crying Doom but its the beginning of the digging of the grave now
I heard somewhere on these forums, that there was a potential new developer coming in for STO? Is there any fact or truth to this?
I tried to find the missions last night w/my main toon who is ROM lvl 59. Guess what! They are NOT There for Her!
FED ONLY!!
If the Romulan mystery was not available before on a Romulan character, why did you assume it would be become available after the revamp?
The Romulan faction specific missions are not available to Federation and Klingon players either.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I wouldn't mind 14 episodes being condensed into four if they were all being condensed. But leaving us with four and cutting out episodes just because they don't contribute to the main arc is ridiculous. Please keep the ones that work as standalone missions, like the Hirogen ones!
I tried to find the missions last night w/my main toon who is ROM lvl 59. Guess what! They are NOT There for Her!
FED ONLY!!
There's a trick to playing your allied faction's storyline missions as a Romulan. You have to be teamed with a player of that faction. They won't be able to share the mission but you can still follow them into the mission instance and get the achievements.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
There's a trick to playing your allied faction's storyline missions as a Romulan. You have to be teamed with a player of that faction. They won't be able to share the mission but you can still follow them into the mission instance and get the achievements.
I can't imagine they didn't know we would hate the loss of content, even if the new missions are a higher quality.
There was nothing wrong with them. Denise's presence will certainly improve them, but why not do something entirely new? If people aren't replaying the old missions it's because Cryptic has put so much grinding between us and the fun that no one cares to spend time on reruns. If they expect us to pay to not grind then losing content is just one more reason to not care.
The staff for this could have been used to make more original content. In what universe was this was the priority?
Soo.. Did they assume that throwing Denise Crosby at us would somehow excuse 11 missions worth of XP that we're going to be losing? That is a LOT of XP for a new character, and I just don't see how they're going to fill that void. Granted, I usually hit level 50 around the Cardassian arc, so perhaps they're trying to slow down levelling so that you're actually hitting level 50 around the Undine arc as they "intended"
TRIBBLE you and your artificial levelling slowdown, Cryptic. I was excited for a revamped series when I saw the Facebook post, but now I'm just disgusted. Cutting 11 episodes is an egregious waste of game content.
Having now replayed (for the first time on my second federation character) the mission arc, I've got to say I am going to miss "Under the Cover of Night", "Saturday's Child" (Though it wasn't the mission I thought it was. The mission I thought it was does not and never did exist - Must have been a foundry job) and definitely "Ghost Ship". The last one was a good follow up to the Dividian Arc, though the very last bit was a bit silly.
"Hunting the Hunters" and "Trapped" I can definitely see being repurposed to fit the Delta Quadrant. Especially as it seems Cryptic are determined to remove the Hirogen from the Alpha Quadrant.
"Friend of my Enemy"... If it were reworked so that it was explicit that the Remans were part of Taris' group, it might do, though its contents are no worse than Obisek's plot to use Thaleron weaponry. "Project Nightingale" isn't bad, but with the reworking of the Romulan Empire from a 2D 'destroy everything and everyone' faction back to a semi-cunning race, it doesn't wholly fit. That said, it wasn't a bad mission, but nothing really stood out.
"Minefield" was pretty weak. it was... Alright, but that's about all. Given the arrogance of the scientist involved though, it would be a good place to have inserted Dr Cooper. And lastly "Divide et Impira"... If it had some of the game mechanics from the Romulan episode "Mind Games" it would be salvageable, but that's about it.
... So anyway, that's my opinion of it from replaying, and I'll hope to see some of these missions again in some form, though I won't hold out much hope.
I've started a new Fed toon on tribble and just worked into the new romulan mystery content. So far it's good quality with the exception of a few bugs, but the progression of XP isn't enough. It's just like the DR content in that you will have to replay missions or do patrols to level up because you don't progress fast enough to contimue on as you complete the story line.
Judging from the tribble notes the overcharged plasma sniper rifle (may just have butchered the name) can be upgraded. It's a fun weapon so it's on top of my upgrade list.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Comments
This is just a repeat of what they did to the exploration missions. What irks me the most about all of this is the complete lack of interest in what players have to say. Every time I see a planed "revamp" like this I've checked the forums, and the majority opinion is a rejection of whatever decision the developers have made. Why should we even bother playing if the wishes and views of the client
Another fine example of Cryptic taking the path of least effort, and negating work that was already satisfactory to the players. Less is NOT more...:mad:
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
It does seem quite obvious that's the direction they're taking STO, and it's unfortunate that at the rate they're going they are likely to drive a large portion of the playerbase away from the game. Less casual content, more content that requires being level 60, requires elite gear, requires months of grinding or hundreds of dollars in Zen. This isn't the STO I want to play. They have begun the slide down the slippery slope and I really fear there is no turning back at this point. It will be very interesting to see what the game looks like by its 6th anniversary (provided I'm still actually following it in another year).
And not for nothing, but the Breen carrier from the Winter Event was a free T6. No word yet on what the anniversary ship will be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's also a highly scaled down T6.
I get that the Romulan storyline needed to be adjusted, but as usual the dev team is taking a very heavy handed approach to the situation. Tweak the stories, condense missions where it makes sense but if it doesn't need to be touched leave it alone.
With the craziness surrounding the "gear race" and all the ridiculous hoops that have to be gone through to remain competitive at lvl 60 end game "team grinding" I'm finding my playtime on STO to lean back towards interesting Foundry missions and perhaps replaying the old story missions. Hopefully Cryptic doesn't completely kill that off as well...
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Removing such a large source of XP, beneficial for new players/new alts, seems like a really bad idea. It's a shame official new missions and story content are so difficult to generate. I guess I am becoming the kind of player who only wants to show up for events and new missions. I have been okay with the previous grinds for reputation because of the rewards and time involved. The upgrade and specialization grind just aren't compelling enough for me beyond what I can get as I go along. Not sure if the crowd around Argala means I am in the minority, but this new direction is not working for me.
I liked Saturday's child and ghost ship, and several of the others. Please find some way to make them patrols or something. Losing them is really sad.
That said, I'm glad to hear you got Denise back for some more voice work, she makes a greatvillain and based on the Borg and Klingon revamped missions, I'm looking forward to playing these new ones.
If (and only if) the rumor I heard about Divide et Impera was right, well, it might fit /later/, just not currently. The rumor I heard of it was that it was originally intended to be a 3 part arc and intro the idea of Undine mind control (basically what Cooper and Egg were doing), and that the events of Impera were basically forced because it was the Undine doing the forcing, rather than bad game mechanics. Just that with the hurry-up attitude of coughing it out quickly, they canned the other two parts for time and left that in.
If said rumor is true? It should either be removed or the other two parts added.
Exactly what he said.
I mean I love your handcrafted missions Cryptic; the modern ones are far above the usual MMO quest quality but IMO STO has a serious lack of non-timegated contend that invites for logging in to just play whenever the players have time & desire to do so.
So, in essence, we won't get less content, but we won't get more either. They'll take away these 11 episodes, clean 'em up, add some new dialogue, and turn them into Season 10...
That's what I'm thinking is what will happen...
CM
"Star Trek: Online" is slowly becoming "Star Trash: Online".
Is this even a game anymore?
Cryptic has been recycling old material for a long time.
Geko and company need to be fired.
Condensing 14 episodes into only 4 is a crime, and is ridiculous. I can see the need to maybe combine one or two in the process, and completely rework some of them (as was done with "Task Force Hippocrates"), but to remove 10 episodes just because you're too lazy to update them all? That's right, I said it.
It's great that there are new VOs from Denise, and I'm sure the 4 new missions will be entertaining, but still, I am utterly disappointed by the removal of all the others. Unless you can give us a definitive reason behind it (other than "they don't fit in the Romulan Republic arc" TRIBBLE), I will continue to view it as a failure on the devs' part.
I heard somewhere on these forums, that there was a potential new developer coming in for STO? Is there any fact or truth to this?
Can they be any worse then Cryptic is now?
I tried to find the missions last night w/my main toon who is ROM lvl 59. Guess what! They are NOT There for Her!
FED ONLY!!
If the Romulan mystery was not available before on a Romulan character, why did you assume it would be become available after the revamp?
The Romulan faction specific missions are not available to Federation and Klingon players either.
There's a trick to playing your allied faction's storyline missions as a Romulan. You have to be teamed with a player of that faction. They won't be able to share the mission but you can still follow them into the mission instance and get the achievements.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
OH?
I love you...
(===========(vv)===========)
This Much!!
There was nothing wrong with them. Denise's presence will certainly improve them, but why not do something entirely new? If people aren't replaying the old missions it's because Cryptic has put so much grinding between us and the fun that no one cares to spend time on reruns. If they expect us to pay to not grind then losing content is just one more reason to not care.
The staff for this could have been used to make more original content. In what universe was this was the priority?
Nerfing is Fraud...
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
TRIBBLE you and your artificial levelling slowdown, Cryptic. I was excited for a revamped series when I saw the Facebook post, but now I'm just disgusted. Cutting 11 episodes is an egregious waste of game content.
"Hunting the Hunters" and "Trapped" I can definitely see being repurposed to fit the Delta Quadrant. Especially as it seems Cryptic are determined to remove the Hirogen from the Alpha Quadrant.
"Friend of my Enemy"... If it were reworked so that it was explicit that the Remans were part of Taris' group, it might do, though its contents are no worse than Obisek's plot to use Thaleron weaponry. "Project Nightingale" isn't bad, but with the reworking of the Romulan Empire from a 2D 'destroy everything and everyone' faction back to a semi-cunning race, it doesn't wholly fit. That said, it wasn't a bad mission, but nothing really stood out.
"Minefield" was pretty weak. it was... Alright, but that's about all. Given the arrogance of the scientist involved though, it would be a good place to have inserted Dr Cooper. And lastly "Divide et Impira"... If it had some of the game mechanics from the Romulan episode "Mind Games" it would be salvageable, but that's about it.
... So anyway, that's my opinion of it from replaying, and I'll hope to see some of these missions again in some form, though I won't hold out much hope.
It's like you can't decide what path you'll take so I just do what Sela wants to save time when playing it.
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
Although "Divide et Impira" does need a revamp to make more sense.
CM