I love how some of you think your little level wall is gonna bother me. Cute. It won't.
I think it is more an issue of you not understanding what the wall is yet.
The game levels very fast from 1 to 50 - especially if you did it with a Delta Recruit and got all the bonuses from that Event. Then it gets much slower from 51 to 55, and much slower still from 55 to 60.
Your coming into this with a souped-up Delta Recruit so everything can seem much quicker to you then it was to others.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Only way to get gear is thru crafting,nothing like raids even exist in this game so what is this mythical creature of whom you speak of? end content? never hear about it...at least here,all you do at 60 is grind for specialisation points,yyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!
In total agreement
There is ZERO End game content in STO
no base building , no exploration , no diplomacy with races we cant meet...no need for food air resourses for building...no player economy no territory control
basically put your rat on the wheel and keep running is what STO is all about
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
You keep whining about leveling too fast, you obviously care.
55 - 60 takes as much xp as 1- 55, with much less content to get it from.
Yes, yes, but you see - I believe her point is that she's such a hardcore/old-school MMO player that the spec point grind will also seem like a breezy walk in the park. Because casual noobs/entitlement/modern gamers don't understand real effort/etc.
I love how some of you think your little level wall is gonna bother me. Cute. It won't.
Does it really stretch belief that levelling prior to level 50 might be considered too fast and levelling from 50-60 might be considered too slow?
The Devs flat out told us they intended level 50-60 to go slower. And it does. There are missions you need in the DQ that are level gated. Not high enough level? Can't advance through the storyline. Go replay.
I am not hitting an XP wall on my alts because they haven't played through every single pre-DR mission yet and they're getting full XP for those. Plus my veteran bonus.
I *did* hit the wall on my main, who'd done every other mission up until then and didn't have extra missions to do. I had to do what everybody else does in that situation and do repeat missions in the Delta Quadrant and elsewhere.
I would have hit the wall on my KDF alt, except I was aware of the "gap" and intentionally ran extra patrol missions.
That didn't bother me much. But replaying missions can get tedious at times, you must admit.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I think it is more an issue of you not understanding what the wall is yet.
No, I think it's more an issue that too many people here lack sufficient perspective, history, and exposure to both current and past MMOs other than this one. If STO's the only game where you've spent any meaningful amount of time playing endgame content, then sure, the wall you hit in your 50s and beyond is going to seem like a horrific outlier, because you've gotten used to the rapid pace of leveling up to that point. The reality is that not only is STO's endgame grind ordinary, it's actually pretty tame compared to the most popular MMOs--and the leveling prior to that wall is much faster than most.
It is entirely possible that the OP is not bothered by the prospect of hitting that wall not because she doesn't understand it--but because based on the games she says she plays, she's used to far worse grinds than STO's.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
No, I think it's more an issue that too many people here lack sufficient perspective, history, and exposure to both current and past MMOs other than this one. If STO's the only game where you've spent any meaningful amount of time playing endgame content, then sure, the wall you hit in your 50s and beyond is going to seem like a horrific outlier, because you've gotten used to the rapid pace of leveling up to that point. The reality is that not only is STO's endgame grind ordinary, it's actually pretty tame compared to the most popular MMOs--and the leveling prior to that wall is much faster than most.
It is entirely possible that the OP is not bothered by the prospect of hitting that wall not because she doesn't understand it--but because based on the games she says she plays, she's used to far worse grinds than STO's.
I do not think it is that type of perspective issue at all. I think most of us believe 1 to 50 is too fast and 51 to 60 is too slow. Many of us feel like the game should be re-experienced from 1 to 60. That way you have more time with your T1-T4 ships while playing - that you are not out-leveling ships in 4 /played hours. It would also increase a player's incentive to buy low-level C-Store ships.
But the biggest issue to 51-60 leveling is lack of Content. The OP has not experienced that because she is using an XP accelerated Delta Recruit and so made it to Cardassia at level 52 rather then level 44. The odd are she will be 56 by the time she gets into the Delta Quadrant - where the level 50 missions are. She probably is not going to experience the endless grind to get from the level requirement unlock of one mission to another. She will probably make it all the way to 60 without needing to grind something 5-10 times just to get enough XP to unlock the next mission.
It is simply a matter of perspective. New players - especially DR players - have a very different perspective on the leveling in the game then some of us older players.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
IMO. Level 57 to 60 is most fun ever and the players love it. There is your leveling too fast problem. I have 25 toons level 60. I have no "Life". How do you kill a man with "No Life"? Take away his "Saved up Pearls". But, hey I got more spec points. So at least they gave me a life line. Picture ocean with dude floating 20 meters from last years Risa cruiser with rope in his hand.
I'll be honest, so far I'm liking the speed of 50-55 a lot. Doesn't seem slow to me, seems pretty good. I wouldn't mind if 30-55 felt like 50-55.
Well, again, that is because you are leveling it when you have Content. You are currently doing level 40-50 missions at 54 because of your DR bonuses. If you had gone to the Delta Quadrant at level 50 you would be in the middle of your 54-55 grind to get enough XP to unlock the next mission. After you had done Argala 10 days to get enough XP to unlock a new Mission you might feel differently.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I have half a mind to keep this thread going now just to report my progress. And I'm not even playing all day every day as I have other things to do as well.
Currently mid 54 and just finished the Borg arc, but that's also the shortest arc in the game.
I just don't have ADHD and couldn't care less about endgame. Oh, and I'm not saying we should make the game more grindy, I'm saying we should focus more on non-endgame. That includes more non-endgame content. :rolleyes:
EDIT: And I do believe they need to get rid of the level gates. Putting story content at max level literally makes zero sense.
I have alts. I believe my condition is ADOCD.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
No, I think it's more an issue that too many people here lack sufficient perspective, history, and exposure to both current and past MMOs other than this one. If STO's the only game where you've spent any meaningful amount of time playing endgame content, then sure, the wall you hit in your 50s and beyond is going to seem like a horrific outlier, because you've gotten used to the rapid pace of leveling up to that point. The reality is that not only is STO's endgame grind ordinary, it's actually pretty tame compared to the most popular MMOs--and the leveling prior to that wall is much faster than most.
It is entirely possible that the OP is not bothered by the prospect of hitting that wall not because she doesn't understand it--but because based on the games she says she plays, she's used to far worse grinds than STO's.
I have played older games. I celebrate the death of their model. Games like WoW no longer use the grind model being proposed by some old timers. WoW is almost always deliberately setup around the entire leveling process taking around 48 hours of play. They have almost always sped leveling and removed some redundant content to make the early levels shorter.
They also have about twice the story content needed to hit the new cap in an expansion and have ever since Wrath of the Lich King. Every expansion, they speed up and retune lower leveled content because more levels is not really intended to take more time and they shoot for more story content than is needed to hit the cap.
Delta Rising had about half the content released with it that was needed to hit the cap without bonus XP and about a quarter of the content you'd see in a WoW expansion which has generally close to two complete paths to the new level cap.
Most of the people talking about leveling being too fast pretty transparently:
- Used DOffs -- which is not a typical playstyle
- Played during a bonus XP event
- Played a linear content track on a new alt (not accounting for people who started at a high level with less content or the relative monotony of leveling an alt)
- Have not hit the level cap (55-60 will take you about as long as 1-50)
- Are making comparisons to a style of game design that is dead in the west and, speaking as a longtime player close in age to many of the posters here, I think it deserves to be dead and I hope that some elements of the games of my youth stay dead forever and are forgotten to the sands of time
OR
- Are making comparisons to an eastern style of game design, which might have some merit in Neverwinter but which has considerably less merit with Champions and STO, which are predominently made up of IP that is not really very successful outside of the Americas and Western Europe. Fantasy is big in China and South Korea. Star Trek and super-heroes are NOT (although one could argue that they have an alternate super-hero tradition that can be catered to with slight variations) so you can't perfectly apply Korean MMO design here
I'll be honest, so far I'm liking the speed of 50-55 a lot. Doesn't seem slow to me, seems pretty good. I wouldn't mind if 30-55 felt like 50-55.
Just remember, 50-55 takes as much xp as 1-50, 55-60 takes as much as 1-55, so twice what 50-55 took. And that's just to hit 60 the first time. Then you've got at least 36 more level 60s to gain.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Leveling too fast = this OP is a troll and nothing more, 1-50 are somewhat ok but 51-60 are insanely long drawn out and then you have spec points to earn.. Alts are no longer playable due to the endless need for grind..
The game itself is in better condition than ever imho EXCEPT the leveling
OP realize there are 160 levels (the 60 you see and the 100 you dont = specializations) pull your new player self off the forums until you have struggled for endless hours for 1 spec point then tell us its too fast.
I have played older games. I celebrate the death of their model.
A model I quite enjoy, so I'm very glad that it is not in fact dead.
Most of the people talking about leveling being too fast pretty transparently:
- Used DOffs -- which is not a typical playstyle
- Played during a bonus XP event
- Played a linear content track on a new alt (not accounting for people who started at a high level with less content or the relative monotony of leveling an alt)
- Have not hit the level cap (55-60 will take you about as long as 1-50)
The only one of those that was true for my main is doffing, which I quite enjoy--but which I also did not discover until I was well on my way towards the cap. Not going to get into debating the death or popularity of a style of gameplay that is still most definitely alive, but the assertions were at least funny enough to make me crack a smile... so thanks for that, I guess?
With that said, you're simply not making an apples-to-apples comparison if you exclude doffing or any other ordinary source of experience, while including all of the content of other games. That's blatant cherry-picking.
Doffing is just as valid a source of progression as anything else--it's simply gameplay that some people are more interested in than others, just like patrols, DSEs, or PvE queues. It's deliberately intended, per dev team statements, to be a supplement to the usual sources of experience. If you're not making any use of it, you're deliberately handicapping yourself.
Which is entirely your right--play the game the way you enjoy playing it, after all. It's your choice if you want to tap into that source of offline advancement or not, just as it is your choice whether you want to get sidetracked by patrol missions or DSEs while you're on your way from one story mission to the next. But a person doesn't really have any room to complain about a lack of content or insufficient progression if they're not even using all of the content that already exists.
I didn't have any problem running out of content, but I also didn't just rush straight through the story missions as fast as I could--I stopped to smell the roses a little, spent some time queueing, took up doffing in my mid-levels, took a break to run some patrol missions when the Cardassian arc got tedious. Maybe that's why our STO experiences are so different.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
As for 50 -> 60 i don't know, was fine for me most of the time, not to fast, not to slow.
Didn't really have any wall problems up to the last two levels, maybe because i did doffing, stf's here and there and all the story missions on elite.
Well i like it when leveling or crafting or what ever you can do/achive in an game isn't finished in a couple of days or it takes some/ a lot of work to achive something, but everything on a healthy dosis, so i didn't really start the grind for specc points anyways.
When a point shows up i'm happy, if i don't have a point after an evening of playing i'm happy too.
But thats my point of view or my way of playing this game, i can't really understand ppl who grind and grind because they want things like max. level, max. specc points as fast as possible.
BUT i can very well understand that those ppl may see leveling or specc points maxing from a different point of view and are unhappy with the amount of time you have to grind to get those things, well, as fast as (Sto)possible.
I guess its hard to find common ground when you either belong to the "to fast" or to the "to slow" faction.
Not that i want to put everyone here into any faction, there may be a lot of different reasons like available time why some ppl think progressing is to slow and so on.
That aside i think it's valid for someone to give his/her opinion about leveling to slow/to fast or Cryptic did something bad/good without going strait into "this is a troll/whiteknight whatever" mode or reacting like someone was personaly hurt because there is a different opinion popping up.
That aside i think it's valid for someone to give his/her opinion about leveling to slow/to fast or Cryptic did something bad/good without going strait into "this is a troll/whiteknight whatever" mode or reacting like someone was personaly hurt because there is a different opinion popping up.
Quoted for truth. It's not just being a decent human being... it's also the rule.
Opinion... good.
Debate... good.
Atomic Wedgie... bad.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Personally I'm torn. The OP is using a Delta Recruit toon, which had an unusual boon to help it level up.
So on the one hand, part of me thinks the OP should start over from zero with a new toon to see what those of us who started out years ago had to deal with when the Delta expansion came out.
On the other hand, part of me is curious to see what the OP would have to say after completing two Spec tree's (not counting Commando as its half a tree) and if they still believe it's too quick and too easy.
At best, you can get one spec point for about two hours of griding once you hit level 60, and that's if you don't count travel time between Patrols.
As for 'rank up too quickly' I believe Quinn tells you at the start it's basically a field promotion, which means your rank is only whatever it is while in battle. It's why at certain points in the story you are able to order around a character such as Admiral Tuvok (in battle) while he is free to ignore you completely OUTSIDE of battle.
You're rank is conditional, not official. Outside of a combat situation you are still an Ensign.
Of course the big thing is they can make ships pretty quickly, but lack competent captains and bridge crews. Standard crews don't even exist anymore (as the higher end Science ships outright have in their descriptions the entire crews sans the bridge are Holographic).
Its much like Ace Combat Infinity, where in the future industrial manufacturing has reduced the time and cost to build very high end fighter craft such as SU-32's to pocket change, but they still need pilots who can fly them.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
No, I think it's more an issue that too many people here lack sufficient perspective, history, and exposure to both current and past MMOs other than this one.
Thats probably becuase I suspect most of us don't really care what other games we probably are not playing do.
I figure a decent chunk of STO players are here becuase its a Star Trek game and could care less about how much like other MMOs it is.
How many times do I have to say I don't have ADHD and thus don't care that I actually have to put in time and work to gain those... ooo... last five levels. Oh dear, how will I survive? Honestly, once I run out of content, I'll probably just make a new alt to go through lower stuff again because this game's endgame SUCKS. Or rather is nonexistent. Again, I'm in no hurry at all.
I'm just saying that those last 5 levels will take an inordinate amount of time.
On the whole:
The early levels are fine. You want to reward people just for deciding to play.
The curve probably isn't steep enough towards the middle. I'm curious to see how that is after the DS9 sector revamp that will probably cut the number of missions there down substantially. My suspicion is that we'll see about 20 missions cut down to about 10. (Ie. 15 non-FEs become 5 more polished missions, following the Romulan example.) Now, we'll probably see the remaining 5 get XP boosts but they'll be longer and the net result will be less XP while leveling.
The DR missions have XP gaps. Big gaps. Other western games like WoW have twice the XP needed to level. DR has about half if you were caught up on missions prior to DR. And if you level a new character now, you will still have gaps. Modern, western MMOs don't have gaps.
Now, the curve being adjusted, I could see.
Heck, the game having 100 levels? Fine. HOWEVER, you have over 100 levels counting spec points and there's not enough ways to get XP aside from killing tens of thousands of enemies. Progress should be proportional to content. I'm fine with your idea of progress if it meant 60 more missions in the game. Since it doesn't, it doesn't work.
As for DOffing, a lot of the devs said they don't touch it and the EP has said he doesn't follow it that closely and that it needs a revamp. It was an alternate progression system albeit a less optimal one. You're essentially smoking with a nicotine patch on here.
i can't be the only one smelling troll coming off the op at this point. a dev should just scan the op's isp address posted to the forum, run a forum cross reference for the isp, and ban all his or her accounts.
Comments
The game levels very fast from 1 to 50 - especially if you did it with a Delta Recruit and got all the bonuses from that Event. Then it gets much slower from 51 to 55, and much slower still from 55 to 60.
Your coming into this with a souped-up Delta Recruit so everything can seem much quicker to you then it was to others.
You keep whining about leveling too fast, you obviously care.
55 - 60 takes as much xp as 1- 55, with much less content to get it from.
In total agreement
There is ZERO End game content in STO
no base building , no exploration , no diplomacy with races we cant meet...no need for food air resourses for building...no player economy no territory control
basically put your rat on the wheel and keep running is what STO is all about
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Yes, yes, but you see - I believe her point is that she's such a hardcore/old-school MMO player that the spec point grind will also seem like a breezy walk in the park. Because casual noobs/entitlement/modern gamers don't understand real effort/etc.
Does it really stretch belief that levelling prior to level 50 might be considered too fast and levelling from 50-60 might be considered too slow?
The Devs flat out told us they intended level 50-60 to go slower. And it does. There are missions you need in the DQ that are level gated. Not high enough level? Can't advance through the storyline. Go replay.
I am not hitting an XP wall on my alts because they haven't played through every single pre-DR mission yet and they're getting full XP for those. Plus my veteran bonus.
I *did* hit the wall on my main, who'd done every other mission up until then and didn't have extra missions to do. I had to do what everybody else does in that situation and do repeat missions in the Delta Quadrant and elsewhere.
I would have hit the wall on my KDF alt, except I was aware of the "gap" and intentionally ran extra patrol missions.
That didn't bother me much. But replaying missions can get tedious at times, you must admit.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
It is entirely possible that the OP is not bothered by the prospect of hitting that wall not because she doesn't understand it--but because based on the games she says she plays, she's used to far worse grinds than STO's.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
But the biggest issue to 51-60 leveling is lack of Content. The OP has not experienced that because she is using an XP accelerated Delta Recruit and so made it to Cardassia at level 52 rather then level 44. The odd are she will be 56 by the time she gets into the Delta Quadrant - where the level 50 missions are. She probably is not going to experience the endless grind to get from the level requirement unlock of one mission to another. She will probably make it all the way to 60 without needing to grind something 5-10 times just to get enough XP to unlock the next mission.
It is simply a matter of perspective. New players - especially DR players - have a very different perspective on the leveling in the game then some of us older players.
I have alts. I believe my condition is ADOCD.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I have played older games. I celebrate the death of their model. Games like WoW no longer use the grind model being proposed by some old timers. WoW is almost always deliberately setup around the entire leveling process taking around 48 hours of play. They have almost always sped leveling and removed some redundant content to make the early levels shorter.
They also have about twice the story content needed to hit the new cap in an expansion and have ever since Wrath of the Lich King. Every expansion, they speed up and retune lower leveled content because more levels is not really intended to take more time and they shoot for more story content than is needed to hit the cap.
Delta Rising had about half the content released with it that was needed to hit the cap without bonus XP and about a quarter of the content you'd see in a WoW expansion which has generally close to two complete paths to the new level cap.
Most of the people talking about leveling being too fast pretty transparently:
- Used DOffs -- which is not a typical playstyle
- Played during a bonus XP event
- Played a linear content track on a new alt (not accounting for people who started at a high level with less content or the relative monotony of leveling an alt)
- Have not hit the level cap (55-60 will take you about as long as 1-50)
- Are making comparisons to a style of game design that is dead in the west and, speaking as a longtime player close in age to many of the posters here, I think it deserves to be dead and I hope that some elements of the games of my youth stay dead forever and are forgotten to the sands of time
OR
- Are making comparisons to an eastern style of game design, which might have some merit in Neverwinter but which has considerably less merit with Champions and STO, which are predominently made up of IP that is not really very successful outside of the Americas and Western Europe. Fantasy is big in China and South Korea. Star Trek and super-heroes are NOT (although one could argue that they have an alternate super-hero tradition that can be catered to with slight variations) so you can't perfectly apply Korean MMO design here
Just remember, 50-55 takes as much xp as 1-50, 55-60 takes as much as 1-55, so twice what 50-55 took. And that's just to hit 60 the first time. Then you've got at least 36 more level 60s to gain.
Leveling too fast = this OP is a troll and nothing more, 1-50 are somewhat ok but 51-60 are insanely long drawn out and then you have spec points to earn.. Alts are no longer playable due to the endless need for grind..
The game itself is in better condition than ever imho EXCEPT the leveling
OP realize there are 160 levels (the 60 you see and the 100 you dont = specializations) pull your new player self off the forums until you have struggled for endless hours for 1 spec point then tell us its too fast.
The only one of those that was true for my main is doffing, which I quite enjoy--but which I also did not discover until I was well on my way towards the cap. Not going to get into debating the death or popularity of a style of gameplay that is still most definitely alive, but the assertions were at least funny enough to make me crack a smile... so thanks for that, I guess?
With that said, you're simply not making an apples-to-apples comparison if you exclude doffing or any other ordinary source of experience, while including all of the content of other games. That's blatant cherry-picking.
Doffing is just as valid a source of progression as anything else--it's simply gameplay that some people are more interested in than others, just like patrols, DSEs, or PvE queues. It's deliberately intended, per dev team statements, to be a supplement to the usual sources of experience. If you're not making any use of it, you're deliberately handicapping yourself.
Which is entirely your right--play the game the way you enjoy playing it, after all. It's your choice if you want to tap into that source of offline advancement or not, just as it is your choice whether you want to get sidetracked by patrol missions or DSEs while you're on your way from one story mission to the next. But a person doesn't really have any room to complain about a lack of content or insufficient progression if they're not even using all of the content that already exists.
I didn't have any problem running out of content, but I also didn't just rush straight through the story missions as fast as I could--I stopped to smell the roses a little, spent some time queueing, took up doffing in my mid-levels, took a break to run some patrol missions when the Cardassian arc got tedious. Maybe that's why our STO experiences are so different.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
As for 50 -> 60 i don't know, was fine for me most of the time, not to fast, not to slow.
Didn't really have any wall problems up to the last two levels, maybe because i did doffing, stf's here and there and all the story missions on elite.
Well i like it when leveling or crafting or what ever you can do/achive in an game isn't finished in a couple of days or it takes some/ a lot of work to achive something, but everything on a healthy dosis, so i didn't really start the grind for specc points anyways.
When a point shows up i'm happy, if i don't have a point after an evening of playing i'm happy too.
But thats my point of view or my way of playing this game, i can't really understand ppl who grind and grind because they want things like max. level, max. specc points as fast as possible.
BUT i can very well understand that those ppl may see leveling or specc points maxing from a different point of view and are unhappy with the amount of time you have to grind to get those things, well, as fast as (Sto)possible.
I guess its hard to find common ground when you either belong to the "to fast" or to the "to slow" faction.
Not that i want to put everyone here into any faction, there may be a lot of different reasons like available time why some ppl think progressing is to slow and so on.
That aside i think it's valid for someone to give his/her opinion about leveling to slow/to fast or Cryptic did something bad/good without going strait into "this is a troll/whiteknight whatever" mode or reacting like someone was personaly hurt because there is a different opinion popping up.
Quoted for truth. It's not just being a decent human being... it's also the rule.
Opinion... good.
Debate... good.
Atomic Wedgie... bad.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So on the one hand, part of me thinks the OP should start over from zero with a new toon to see what those of us who started out years ago had to deal with when the Delta expansion came out.
On the other hand, part of me is curious to see what the OP would have to say after completing two Spec tree's (not counting Commando as its half a tree) and if they still believe it's too quick and too easy.
At best, you can get one spec point for about two hours of griding once you hit level 60, and that's if you don't count travel time between Patrols.
As for 'rank up too quickly' I believe Quinn tells you at the start it's basically a field promotion, which means your rank is only whatever it is while in battle. It's why at certain points in the story you are able to order around a character such as Admiral Tuvok (in battle) while he is free to ignore you completely OUTSIDE of battle.
You're rank is conditional, not official. Outside of a combat situation you are still an Ensign.
Of course the big thing is they can make ships pretty quickly, but lack competent captains and bridge crews. Standard crews don't even exist anymore (as the higher end Science ships outright have in their descriptions the entire crews sans the bridge are Holographic).
Its much like Ace Combat Infinity, where in the future industrial manufacturing has reduced the time and cost to build very high end fighter craft such as SU-32's to pocket change, but they still need pilots who can fly them.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
Thats probably becuase I suspect most of us don't really care what other games we probably are not playing do.
I figure a decent chunk of STO players are here becuase its a Star Trek game and could care less about how much like other MMOs it is.
I'm just saying that those last 5 levels will take an inordinate amount of time.
On the whole:
The early levels are fine. You want to reward people just for deciding to play.
The curve probably isn't steep enough towards the middle. I'm curious to see how that is after the DS9 sector revamp that will probably cut the number of missions there down substantially. My suspicion is that we'll see about 20 missions cut down to about 10. (Ie. 15 non-FEs become 5 more polished missions, following the Romulan example.) Now, we'll probably see the remaining 5 get XP boosts but they'll be longer and the net result will be less XP while leveling.
The DR missions have XP gaps. Big gaps. Other western games like WoW have twice the XP needed to level. DR has about half if you were caught up on missions prior to DR. And if you level a new character now, you will still have gaps. Modern, western MMOs don't have gaps.
Now, the curve being adjusted, I could see.
Heck, the game having 100 levels? Fine. HOWEVER, you have over 100 levels counting spec points and there's not enough ways to get XP aside from killing tens of thousands of enemies. Progress should be proportional to content. I'm fine with your idea of progress if it meant 60 more missions in the game. Since it doesn't, it doesn't work.
As for DOffing, a lot of the devs said they don't touch it and the EP has said he doesn't follow it that closely and that it needs a revamp. It was an alternate progression system albeit a less optimal one. You're essentially smoking with a nicotine patch on here.