I really don't know why people think "Grind" is a good thing. Repeating tasks over and over may appeal to a certain type of personality but it doesn't appeal to everyone.
I've asked before "why does this game NEED grinding?" and the two typical answers I get are:
1 - Because people would run through the content once and leave
2 - Because other MMO's have grinding. MMO [insert name] is worse.
The first one is a load of nonsense. I've played for years before the people at Cryptic found a copy of MMO Economics For Dummies with a few pages missing and applied their logical fallacy planning to the game.
The second one is just as ridiculous. If you complained about being mugged and were told "Everywhere has crime. Someone was killed last week" as a way of trying to explain that mugging is a good thing, what would you say to that?
Grinding isn't content. It's "Busy Work" and it's lazy. I don't know why people choose to ignore that fact.
ok, your analasys is completely flawed...first: the 2 points are depending on each other, meaning they are basically the same and must be seen as one. An MMO is not a single palyer game you play for 2 days and never look at it again the rest of your life. MMOs create ongoing revenue to keep developing new content...you are using sl
Best Grinding ever:
1. not repetitive in content .. make grinding a non janitor experience .... make it 10 episodic missions 8 space 2 ground.. part of a story...such that at the end of it you finish story and gett the anniversary prize. No need to hire real trek talent for it ...they are too expensive ...just get people with good diction .
2. make sure that when lock box and r and d box ships get available you also supply 2 new ships of each faction that can be bought from store. Dont spread it out so shamelessly making us all feel that you are just spreading out content like thin butter on a lucrative dumb TRIBBLE trek population ;-)
So Dust to Dust is the newest one but why only one and then revamped the Romulan Mystery Series. So just playing those over again because they're been updated with higher hulls, weapons, ground weapons and armor.
We need more missions more newer content. I don't like repeating older missions. I do like to be surprised when playing though. Just don't know what to expect. This is what I call fun. Grinding daily was fun at first. Over month after month kinda gets to the point you find something else to do. I really like STO but I am waiting for mor content that is fun to do. Make it so hard to do will push players away from the game.
I've been working on being a level 4 Ambassador it's a very long grind. I am level 3.4 now. Still got a couple 10,000 or more to go.
I gave up on the delta quadrant after leveling through the missions. No point sitting around Argala even if it gives you the most XP per run. I went back to the Solenee sphere and do Undine space runs to mess around. I get less XP but I also get marks, dilithium, and the undine special marks as well when planet killers die.
Does this sound crazy? I don't think because in that zone I see people and they aren't just sitting there waiting for their next Argala run. They're moving around and shooting at the same things I'm shooting at. I can jump in and save someone or I can sit back and watch the fun while picking off specific targets I want.
In short, I have fun and let my doffs worry about the level grinds with their assignments. I wish they would make a zone like this for the Delta Quadrant for delta marks, might be more enjoyable going there. Space, not zombie ground zone.
I agree that STO's biggest problem is lack of content. Its always been like that. Its the main reason why people only login for events. Then go back to better games like ESO. ESO is filled with content and exploring. You get xp for exploring in ESO. Something that a Star Trek game should have had from the beginning.
I agree that STO's biggest problem is lack of content. Its always been like that. Its the main reason why people only login for events. Then go back to better games like ESO. ESO is filled with content and exploring. You get xp for exploring in ESO. Something that a Star Trek game should have had from the beginning.
I respectfully disagree. If you want content there is years worth in the foundry. I think a common reason people log in during expansions, seasons, updates etc is to see if things are fixed.
"Nope, this is still broken, broken, this is broken, not fixed....guess I'll try again next time."
Cryptic's metrics tell them they bring in a lot of money during an expansion/season, but I bet the income gap between that and the average income is continuing to widen as time goes on.
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot the ever present "wtf bug is this...never seen this before"
Most "grind" is self inflicted. Some people feel compelled to have *everything* and will sit for months on end in a single instance to get their spec tree filled out.
A little grind is either not optional or, at least, is "required" to get some rewards. Examples include the events like the current ship grind of omega particles.
As far as it goes, I am fine with the event-grinds to earn a high quality reward. The breen carrier, for example, was very much worth doing for me, boring as it was. The anniversary ship isnt very good for me but I will grab it for the trait because there are NO OTHER SHIPS or traits to be had for my factions, I have to take anything I can get for free just to get 4 ship traits (that make sense... carrier pet healing on petless ships is not helping).
As for self inflicted grind --- no, not for me. I won't do it much. I did it a little to get a few points, and then moved on. Ill do it again in time to get a few more points. I won't ever have full spec trees, but I will have fun. I guess I am only modestly goal oriented -- I don't do things just for the rewards... it has to be either fun to do OR the reward needs to be worth the boring repeated content. In the case of spec points, its not worth it to me.
The fact is that someone, somewhere within Cryptic stopped asking "are players having fun?" and just started looking at the numbers of players logging in.
TL/DR I do not accept your proposition that the missing content in this game can be made up for by reader's stories. This is a Cryptic apologist's stance and doesn't wash wtih me and a bet many others.
I agree there. If you went to a restaurant and they gave you a very tiny portion of food you'd complain. You wouldn't say "Ah, it's ok, there are ingredients in the kitchen I can use to make my own food" would you?
It seems very bizarre to me when people try to explain away a lack of original content by saying "play the foundry"
It's interesting that your post started with this - - but then went on to agree with me.
Thanks.
your comprehensive reading skill is lacking.
you state 2 problems which are essentially the same...then you compare it to robbing, which makes sense to nobody but yourself.
as i said, MMOs (especially f2p) can't really exist without any form of repetitive content and timegating...if it weren't so, there would be a whole lot of f2p MMOs that don't have any form of grind.
then you made no distinction between different kinds of grinds, because there are actually much worse MMOs out there. Having 1500 missions where 2/3 is collect "5 of this or that" is not really unique story content. STO has about as much story focused quests/missions as any compareable MMO out there. One STO story mission is basically worth 4-5 quests in those other MMOs and the story delivery is much more coherent due to the "episode like delivery"
The fact is that someone, somewhere within Cryptic stopped asking "are players having fun?" and just started looking at the numbers of players logging in.
It's a shame.
please, go ahead and pull your statements out of your TRIBBLE...makes you look real smart and informed.
also, you can go ahead and state in your response that I totaly agree with you.
If you are referencing my earlier post regarding the number of quests in ESO then your above statement is so fundamentally flawed that I have to assume you have never played ESO.
Even the very shortest and simplest of quests in ESO are wrapped around a rich storyline that feeds into and works in tandem with the main quest for that region. Whilst it's true that you may be asked to find a dagger, a sword and a shield, often they will all be in the same single location and when you return to hand over the requested items either they will thank and reward you or you may find they are no longer present having been torn up by a werewolf and things of that nature.
All quests/missions must by their nature have you do something, and that something must make sense within the game world you are in, so clearly it's fight this dragon or shoot these Kazon, but it's how those individual stories relate to the whole and the imaginative and distinct flavour of each new adventure that sets it apart from STO.
Furthermore, in an ESO quest there are multiple things to do even within a small quest, you may spot some crafting material to gather, there will be lore books to find, hidden treasure chests, random items in wardrobes and desks, sometimes extremely rare motifs worth a serious amount of gold. And then there is the world itself, you can climb to the top of the tower you are exploring and gaze over the incredible vista below, or wander off course and find yourself inside some totally new area you never knew existed.
What ESO have done, and I dare say WoW and perhaps others, is find a way to bring pure exploration, treasure hunting, interesting narrative, world bosses, and amazing scenery inside even the lowliest of quests. There are many many different accolades for exploration, I don't think STO has any and yet Star Trek was ALL about exploration. And after 5 years how far have we explored? It took Janeway 7 years to get back from the Delta quadrant, now we can do it in 2 seconds, there is no exploration at all in STO, nothing of interest once you've played through the meagre content once.
PvP used to be why we pushed ourselves to get the best of the best, but PvP has never been supported in this game and is now more or less completely dead.
STO still has a lot of potential, I don't think the people in charge care though, whilst we would love to explore new worlds for signs of life, Cryptic would sooner explore new methods of monetisation for signs of dollars.
no, i wasn't specifically referring to ESO since i have not played ESO...but i have played atleast 10 other MMOs in the last 12 years, mostly f2p, that all fall under my categorisation. And since STO is 5 years old, i rather compare it with those than with brand new titles, especially when they have atleast 10 times (presumeably) the budget of STO.
Now i know that many MMOs that are released nowadays are really leaving behind that "storyline quest chain supportet by 10 grind quests" approach to quest design.
also consider this: At the time the feature episode approach cryptic wanted to implement for STO was genius. Not only did it have that star trek episode "character" but also was a step away from the zone hub quest grind normaly found in other MMOS. 5 years ago, that was actually fresh!
Unfortunately they had a to small team to deliver them on a regular basis so they had to implemented dumb grinds like cluster missions.
The foundry was a huge invention too, and as i recall one of the main reasons why PWE purchased the studio. In my opinion though they are not doing enough to promote good foundry content.
They should really start building up some competitive foundry designing with rewards for the authors.
I'm one of the few people who will say that grinding is not a bad thing. Most of life in fact is grinding, that is, at least where I am from, means the work you put in to get what you want. Got no problem with grinding. However, it does get boring when the variety is lacking. I'm hopeful the new Top 3 Foundry missions will add some variety but they will need to add more XP and Exp to those missions. I'd like to see a revamp of older adventure zones to add more ground and space missions (Tholian adventure zone is one example of this, no space repeatable and then on the Undine side, other than STFs no ground adventure zones). I'd like to see some attention with the queues, maybe make normal queues solo play just for the sake of adding some variety to obtaining the things I need (XP, Exp, Dil, EC).
So not a problem with the grind but I play video games to add entertainment to the grind.
Every MMO needs grinding, you can't make unique content that never ends. Grinding in an MMO by definition is repeating the same task over and over to earn rewards.
For example, take in Rift, there is a weekly quest to defeat 20 bosses in Nightmare Rifts. Seems like a boring grind, but, each rift is different, each round is different. They've created so many random variables that you never know what is going to happen, it always keeps you on your toes, thinking, adapting.
In STO your content is exactly the same this time, as last time, as next time, and it wasn't really hard the first run through, and now the 50th run through your brain is trying to escape your from head. Its boring, its a GRIND.
It really does defeat the fun of alts for me some times. Between all of the things I need to grind out, it's taking way too long on my main. For the amount of grinding there is, as well as the amount of things to grind for, i can't really justify playing some days. Not when you take in to account that they want you to play the new content, so they will sometimes nerf the old, or some missions become obsolete and never queue because of this. By the time I would be able to complete a grind, there would be a few new ones ready to fill it. If this were content, or missions, or storied episodes, that would be fantastic, but all i can do is replay the same few missions over and over ad infinitum. That's not fun. As a game, isn't that the most important factor?
Maybe, if they allowed all points and currencies to be shared across the account, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe, if they upped the rewards for all missions (instead of the ones they want populated for metric purposes), then the queues wouldn't be so dead. There are numerous ways to alleviate the grinding, yet all they do is add more grinding, despite (or to spite) the amount of threads in the forums which stand against it. It's the same with the bugs. More is being added with out addressing the existing, which just makes things worse for all.
There are reasons the forums here are so negative. A lot of people aren't happy, and a lot of people are just complacent, making excuses just because this game "isn't as bad as others". Some people actually enjoy the grind, and I don't want to deprive them, but at the same time, it's become a bit much for most other players. A lot of people freely admit, that the only reason they come back is because of the IP, or because they've been here since beta, so it's hard to leave something they've put that much time into. If that's the only reason people give for playing your game, that doesn't really say much for your game. More so, when the game itself has so many great things to offer that are simply being overshadowed by the negative aspects of it.
I've said it numerous times, but there are better ways to handle this. There are better ways to get people to log in, and there are people that are even giving better ways to make money. People are telling cryptic how to better take their money, and no one at the company seems to listen. Instead, it's just nose to the grindstone.
Grind, grind, grind...
Hey, I heard you like some grind with your grind...
I like my coffee, like my Star Trek: Freshly Ground...
I wouldn't mind it if the grinding was made to be fun and not tedious. With the recent XP and reward nerfs to the STF's and level 50+ gains, it's beyond boring. I feel like the game has become TOO expensive in terms of both time AND money. What rubs me REALLY raw is that we subscribers have to grind as much as freebies. We paid AT LEAST $15/month for not much benefit. This is in addition to the optional shinies in the C-Store.
Agreed. Too much work. I feel like I'm in another job instead of video game trying to have fun.
Comments
ok, your analasys is completely flawed...first: the 2 points are depending on each other, meaning they are basically the same and must be seen as one. An MMO is not a single palyer game you play for 2 days and never look at it again the rest of your life. MMOs create ongoing revenue to keep developing new content...you are using sl
1. not repetitive in content .. make grinding a non janitor experience .... make it 10 episodic missions 8 space 2 ground.. part of a story...such that at the end of it you finish story and gett the anniversary prize. No need to hire real trek talent for it ...they are too expensive ...just get people with good diction .
2. make sure that when lock box and r and d box ships get available you also supply 2 new ships of each faction that can be bought from store. Dont spread it out so shamelessly making us all feel that you are just spreading out content like thin butter on a lucrative dumb TRIBBLE trek population ;-)
We need more missions more newer content. I don't like repeating older missions. I do like to be surprised when playing though. Just don't know what to expect. This is what I call fun. Grinding daily was fun at first. Over month after month kinda gets to the point you find something else to do. I really like STO but I am waiting for mor content that is fun to do. Make it so hard to do will push players away from the game.
I've been working on being a level 4 Ambassador it's a very long grind. I am level 3.4 now. Still got a couple 10,000 or more to go.
Time will only tell!
Does this sound crazy? I don't think because in that zone I see people and they aren't just sitting there waiting for their next Argala run. They're moving around and shooting at the same things I'm shooting at. I can jump in and save someone or I can sit back and watch the fun while picking off specific targets I want.
In short, I have fun and let my doffs worry about the level grinds with their assignments. I wish they would make a zone like this for the Delta Quadrant for delta marks, might be more enjoyable going there. Space, not zombie ground zone.
I respectfully disagree. If you want content there is years worth in the foundry. I think a common reason people log in during expansions, seasons, updates etc is to see if things are fixed.
"Nope, this is still broken, broken, this is broken, not fixed....guess I'll try again next time."
Cryptic's metrics tell them they bring in a lot of money during an expansion/season, but I bet the income gap between that and the average income is continuing to widen as time goes on.
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot the ever present "wtf bug is this...never seen this before"
Thanks.
Free Tibet!
A little grind is either not optional or, at least, is "required" to get some rewards. Examples include the events like the current ship grind of omega particles.
As far as it goes, I am fine with the event-grinds to earn a high quality reward. The breen carrier, for example, was very much worth doing for me, boring as it was. The anniversary ship isnt very good for me but I will grab it for the trait because there are NO OTHER SHIPS or traits to be had for my factions, I have to take anything I can get for free just to get 4 ship traits (that make sense... carrier pet healing on petless ships is not helping).
As for self inflicted grind --- no, not for me. I won't do it much. I did it a little to get a few points, and then moved on. Ill do it again in time to get a few more points. I won't ever have full spec trees, but I will have fun. I guess I am only modestly goal oriented -- I don't do things just for the rewards... it has to be either fun to do OR the reward needs to be worth the boring repeated content. In the case of spec points, its not worth it to me.
It's a shame.
Free Tibet!
I agree there. If you went to a restaurant and they gave you a very tiny portion of food you'd complain. You wouldn't say "Ah, it's ok, there are ingredients in the kitchen I can use to make my own food" would you?
It seems very bizarre to me when people try to explain away a lack of original content by saying "play the foundry"
Free Tibet!
Question: How can I Grind less.
Answer: Go forth save your pennies and buy PWE cards often.
Buy: Dilithium
Question: How can I grind less on Spec points.
Answer: Go forth save your pennies and buy PWE cards often
Buy: More purple DOFFs
Followed by this statement:
Buddy people judge you by your actions not by your words.
If like a game support it with your wallet and don't ever whine about getting something for free.
your comprehensive reading skill is lacking.
you state 2 problems which are essentially the same...then you compare it to robbing, which makes sense to nobody but yourself.
as i said, MMOs (especially f2p) can't really exist without any form of repetitive content and timegating...if it weren't so, there would be a whole lot of f2p MMOs that don't have any form of grind.
then you made no distinction between different kinds of grinds, because there are actually much worse MMOs out there. Having 1500 missions where 2/3 is collect "5 of this or that" is not really unique story content. STO has about as much story focused quests/missions as any compareable MMO out there. One STO story mission is basically worth 4-5 quests in those other MMOs and the story delivery is much more coherent due to the "episode like delivery"
please, go ahead and pull your statements out of your TRIBBLE...makes you look real smart and informed.
also, you can go ahead and state in your response that I totaly agree with you.
no, i wasn't specifically referring to ESO since i have not played ESO...but i have played atleast 10 other MMOs in the last 12 years, mostly f2p, that all fall under my categorisation. And since STO is 5 years old, i rather compare it with those than with brand new titles, especially when they have atleast 10 times (presumeably) the budget of STO.
Now i know that many MMOs that are released nowadays are really leaving behind that "storyline quest chain supportet by 10 grind quests" approach to quest design.
also consider this: At the time the feature episode approach cryptic wanted to implement for STO was genius. Not only did it have that star trek episode "character" but also was a step away from the zone hub quest grind normaly found in other MMOS. 5 years ago, that was actually fresh!
Unfortunately they had a to small team to deliver them on a regular basis so they had to implemented dumb grinds like cluster missions.
The foundry was a huge invention too, and as i recall one of the main reasons why PWE purchased the studio. In my opinion though they are not doing enough to promote good foundry content.
They should really start building up some competitive foundry designing with rewards for the authors.
So not a problem with the grind but I play video games to add entertainment to the grind.
For example, take in Rift, there is a weekly quest to defeat 20 bosses in Nightmare Rifts. Seems like a boring grind, but, each rift is different, each round is different. They've created so many random variables that you never know what is going to happen, it always keeps you on your toes, thinking, adapting.
In STO your content is exactly the same this time, as last time, as next time, and it wasn't really hard the first run through, and now the 50th run through your brain is trying to escape your from head. Its boring, its a GRIND.
All of STO is a grind. Its a major problem
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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Maybe, if they allowed all points and currencies to be shared across the account, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe, if they upped the rewards for all missions (instead of the ones they want populated for metric purposes), then the queues wouldn't be so dead. There are numerous ways to alleviate the grinding, yet all they do is add more grinding, despite (or to spite) the amount of threads in the forums which stand against it. It's the same with the bugs. More is being added with out addressing the existing, which just makes things worse for all.
There are reasons the forums here are so negative. A lot of people aren't happy, and a lot of people are just complacent, making excuses just because this game "isn't as bad as others". Some people actually enjoy the grind, and I don't want to deprive them, but at the same time, it's become a bit much for most other players. A lot of people freely admit, that the only reason they come back is because of the IP, or because they've been here since beta, so it's hard to leave something they've put that much time into. If that's the only reason people give for playing your game, that doesn't really say much for your game. More so, when the game itself has so many great things to offer that are simply being overshadowed by the negative aspects of it.
I've said it numerous times, but there are better ways to handle this. There are better ways to get people to log in, and there are people that are even giving better ways to make money. People are telling cryptic how to better take their money, and no one at the company seems to listen. Instead, it's just nose to the grindstone.
Grind, grind, grind...
Hey, I heard you like some grind with your grind...
I like my coffee, like my Star Trek: Freshly Ground...
It's too much man... too much.
Agreed. Too much work. I feel like I'm in another job instead of video game trying to have fun.