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Cardassian Revamp Episode 1

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  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,405 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    dragnridr wrote: »
    Those are the type of episodes that many people DO enjoy. Mainly because it's more than just kill x enemies, then cutscene, and episode over.
    The ensign retrieving his holonovels was fun because it was mission based. Not just pew, pew, pew.
    Escorting the Rapier, again, is mission based.
    The Riker's son mission, yeah, killing the turrets is a pain, but it's still fun, and again, you're escorting someonesomewhere. Mission based.
    Cage of fire: Not once have I or any of my friends have any problems with the BOFFs committing suicide.
    And escorting the engineer to shut down the self destruct.....
    You see a pattern here........
    If you think escorting slow-moving, stupid NPC entities and shooting many things while covering them is "mission-based" (I don't think you know what it means) and fun, then i understand why you enjoy these.

    Escort mission+many pew pew pew+repetitive ugly environments=triple bane of many players.
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  • gulberatgulberat Member Posts: 5,505 Arc User
    gradii wrote: »
    shevet wrote: »
    So, just as with the Romulan arc, anything not directly related to the Grand Vision will be deleted? Pretty much as I expected.... Tell me, at what point does Cryptic expect to reach its goal of removing every remaining trace of fun from this game?

    Play the Cardassian Arc as it is now and tell me it's "fun" again.​​

    It's only NOT fun because of how absurdly difficult it can be for non leveled characters. I liked most of those missions.

    Even when playing correctly-levelled and armed characters, it's -as Seven would say- "offensive" to fun.

    Take, for example, the freaking mission where you have to escort an ensign (who, I'm pretty sure, was an Undine pretending to be attacked) just so he can sloooooowly retrieve his holonovels. Or the Rapier where you have to escort, all the way back an ugly wormhole, an annoyingly slow escort with enemies that somehow managed to enter from the Bajoran side of said wormhole. Or the one with Thomas Riker's son and those pointlessly-long-to-kill giant turrets after you had to keep traveling across the space map killing ships and scanning moons. Or the Cage of Fire one where your Boffs can commit suicide and be unable to retrieve unless you kill yourself. Or the Shutdown one where you have to protect the engineer that somehow managed to activate DS9's self-destruct system. Or these Cardassians corridors and rooms EVERYWHERE in this arc.

    Really, the only good stuff are "The New Link", the "Tribble with Klingons" and "the Other Side" missions, and some parts of the rest, like the confusing gas that allows your dumb BOffs to kill each other, the ending of Cracks in the Mirror, and the plot of Seeds of Dissent. The rest must be sent to Noye for existence wipeout.

    I am beginning to think if Seeds of Dissent gets wiped out, I will write a story for it myself to not only preserve it in some form but add my own touch to it. With my main being a Cardassian, it will resonate with him. I don't think I personally have time to go the Foundry route, but I hope someone does.

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  • dragnridrdragnridr Member Posts: 671 Arc User
    dragnridr wrote: »
    Those are the type of episodes that many people DO enjoy. Mainly because it's more than just kill x enemies, then cutscene, and episode over.
    The ensign retrieving his holonovels was fun because it was mission based. Not just pew, pew, pew.
    Escorting the Rapier, again, is mission based.
    The Riker's son mission, yeah, killing the turrets is a pain, but it's still fun, and again, you're escorting someonesomewhere. Mission based.
    Cage of fire: Not once have I or any of my friends have any problems with the BOFFs committing suicide.
    And escorting the engineer to shut down the self destruct.....
    You see a pattern here........
    If you think escorting slow-moving, stupid NPC entities and shooting many things while covering them is "mission-based" (I don't think you know what it means) and fun, then i understand why you enjoy these.

    Escort mission+many pew pew pew+repetitive ugly environments=triple bane of many players.

    The escorting parts are fun. It's the environments that need a revamp. The Missions themselves are worth keeping because they are telling a major story arc. I am all for revamping the missions, just never in favor of replacing 4 or more missions for less missions.

    Now, I will eat my word if the missions are MUCH BIGGER with more emphasis on your character's career and alliance. There needs much more quality in their missions, but not at the cost of losing Delta recruit rewards, mission rewards, XP loss, and the loss of accolades. The Romulan Arc revamp is a perfect example of how NOT to revamp. They removed many missions that weren't always about plinking away at baddies to get the cutscene to end the mission. They had story but they got removed because it wasn't about DPS.
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  • vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,336 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    dragnridr wrote: »
    And they SHOULD be shorter then the old episodes, the old episodes were-only long because they were filled with way to much TRIBBLE like this.
    Take, for example, the freaking mission where you have to escort an ensign (who, I'm pretty sure, was an Undine pretending to be attacked) just so he can sloooooowly retrieve his holonovels. Or the Rapier where you have to escort, all the way back an ugly wormhole, an annoyingly slow escort with enemies that somehow managed to enter from the Bajoran side of said wormhole. Or the one with Thomas Riker's son and those pointlessly-long-to-kill giant turrets after you had to keep traveling across the space map killing ships and scanning moons. Or the Cage of Fire one where your Boffs can commit suicide and be unable to retrieve unless you kill yourself. Or the Shutdown one where you have to protect the engineer that somehow managed to activate DS9's self-destruct system. Or these Cardassians corridors and rooms EVERYWHERE in this arc
    Which is a quantity > quality approach to game design, aka, bad game design.
    dragnridr wrote: »
    Those are the type of episodes that many people DO enjoy. Mainly because it's more than just kill x enemies, then cutscene, and episode over.
    The ensign retrieving his holonovels was fun because it was mission based. Not just pew, pew, pew.
    Escorting the Rapier, again, is mission based.
    The Riker's son mission, yeah, killing the turrets is a pain, but it's still fun, and again, you're escorting someone somewhere. Mission based.
    Cage of fire: Not once have I or any of my friends have any problems with the BOFFs committing suicide.
    And escorting the engineer to shut down the self destruct.....
    You see a pattern here........

    All these missions are MISSION BASED, yet people are complaining that they are padded. If that is the case, remove the damn forced patrol missions in the Delta Arc. They are just padding to make the Delta Arc longer than what is needed. Stop trying to kill older missions when they are just needing a facelift, not removal.

    The missions needed more than a facelift. Most in the arc are just that bad.

    Badlands: Joshua Riker attacking turrets barehanded, abandoning you when you get to the shuttle area so you can fight the True Way. Why not just have him punch and kick all the cardies that attacked him?

    Suspect: Served as a reminder that there is still a threat of the Undine out there, when we only had a couple episodes that were really dedicated to them pre-Solanae Dyson Sphere.

    War Games: Unless Suspect was to covertly warn you that there was going to be an Undine takeover of a ship, the missions just seem out of place other than to have them take place in the Alpha Quadrant.

    Shutdown: Poorly explains why there are Jem'hadar groups also with the Undine, unless they are all supposed to be Undine.

    Rapier: All this mission does tell us that the dominion are still willing to be aggressive towards the alpha quadrant, capturing any alpha quadrant ship that appears to come through it.

    Forging Bonds: This mission is designed to have us deal a blow to the True Way/New Dominion alliance by destroying weapons they're building in an abandoned mining facility.

    The Long Night: The True Way are on Empok Nor and we have to go in there and clear them out in order to prevent them from controlling a station to rival Deep Space 9.

    The Tribble with Klingons: Like War Games and Shutdown, this mission is mostly just here because it takes place in the Alpha Quadrant. Really has no real addition to the story (aka it's filler).

    Tears of the Prophets: This is where the Storyline will actually be focusing on in the revamp with the True Way intending to give the Terran Empire the Orb for some purpose. I'm glad this is getting a makeover.

    Crack in the Mirror: This is the second of the three mirror universe stories pre-revamp that may or may not make it through the revamp. Known for being the 2nd time DS9 is under siege in the story arc, this time by the Terrans without any explanation of how they originally got their butts on the station in the first place.

    The New Link: This arc is known for being all over the place and the fact that this story comes in between the Mirror Universe arc just brings that point home. We discover the location of a hatchery of Jem'hadar, essentially shut it down and make piece with the alpha quadrant New Link who want to be left alone. Supposed to close out the New Dominion part of the Arc.

    Seeds of Dissent: Another mission that gets put in front of the Mirror Universe arc. This time we have to put a stop to remaining True Way Cardassians that are trying to gain a hold of the Cardassian Union by limiting the amount of a medicine needed by the Cardassians to treat a disease that only affects them.

    The Other Side: Finally after two missions, we finally get to close out the mirror universe arc. I hope we can somehow get mirror Ja'rod and B'vat to be in the revamps, along with the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and maybe even the Romulans here too (since we have ships from them in the game).

    Cage of Fire: The final of the original Cardassian Struggle missions, this mission has you having to stop a bajoran-cardassian hybrid from trying to call forth the pah-wraiths. Still got the True Way to deal with here too.

    I'll honestly be glad to see 3/4ths of the missions go if it means we get a better connected storyline in the process.

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  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,405 Arc User

    The Undine missions are the worst, especially because Cryptic felt a need to ram one or two in EVERY arc.
    -Ohh man look! The Undine have replaced this Vulcan ambassador!(Diplomatic Orders)
    -Ohh man look! The Undine have infiltrated the Klingons!(Stop the Signal)
    -Ohh man look! The Undine have infiltrated Federation operation near Romulan Star Empire!(Divide et Impera)
    -Ohh man look! The Undine have infiltrated Federation operations in the Alpha quad!(War Games)(Shutdown)

    And then, in Season 11, the Undine have infiltrated Iconian Operations and T'Ket is one of them!

    "Everyone is Undine! I'm Undine! You're Undine! She's Undine!" --Captain JonTron of the U.S.S. Jacques.

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  • gulberatgulberat Member Posts: 5,505 Arc User
    @vegeta50024 I'm a bit confused as to why it's a problem to you that Seeds of Dissent is dealing with internal Cardassian problems...or maybe I'm just misreading, which is certainly possible.

    To me at least, that episode was truer to DS9 than a lot of the rest of the arc because whether or not people liked those plots on DS9, that's what the show did a lot and what I considered a strength. Seeing the effects of the Cardassian domestic terrorists on Cardassians who do NOT support their agenda--seeing the Cardassian people as diverse and not as a stereotyped enemy. Evil is called out for what it is in the True Way but we get to see the decent normal non-terrorists too.

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  • lordinsanelordinsane Member Posts: 274 Arc User
    Rapier: All this mission does tell us that the dominion are still willing to be aggressive towards the alpha quadrant, capturing any alpha quadrant ship that appears to come through it.
    It does serve a secondary purpose in introducing one of the 2800 arc characters (which is referenced in The 2800), admittedly.
  • anodynesanodynes Member Posts: 1,999 Arc User
    dragnridr wrote: »
    brackynews wrote: »
    gazurtoid wrote: »
    Excellent and long overdue. I know there are plenty of (somewhat justified) jokes about "X was removed to improve the overall quality of the game", but these missions really haven't aged well and don't meet the standards set by more recent content.
    From what I can remember about the past bug reports I've submitted, the Fire Caverns had completely broken AI pathfinding. It was never possible for me to get my entire BOFF team through without manual waypoints.

    A welcome revamp. Carry on!

    I have never really heard of anyone having problems with the AI if the Fire Caverns. Could your ISP been TRIBBLE up the time?

    Then you either started playing after 2012, did not do the mission yourself during 2012, or were not very sociable if you did play during 2012. That was when I played Cage of Fire first, and it had the exact problem that people are describing here. Your BOffs would simply not move along the catwalks at all in that mission without you setting waypoints for them. A similar thing happens from time to time on Nimbus, but hasn't for me in Cage of Fire anytime since coming back after several months away in 2013. Perhaps I was just lucky and caught it at the times when the AI pathing was behaving. Knowing that the Nimbus problem comes and goes, I would tend to believe people if they said the Cage of Fire one is the same.
    timelord79 wrote: »
    I also expect an XP loss. Even if they double or triple the XP gained from each mission compared to the old ones, it will not be enough.
    And then each mission will have your character likely skip a level entirely which makes for less than ideal progression.
    However there is an easy solution.
    Create or modify patrol missions into repeatable ones with a one time wrapper mission that gets included into the Cardassian Struggle similar to the Delta Rising content. If you add in 3-4 of those with the combined XP of the wrapper and the individual patrols this should compensate nicely.
    One wrapper mission for each of the former sector blocks should be enough.
    The patrols already exists, just need to be made repeatable and opened for KDF and Romulans, of course. Should be doable for the next mid season update.

    The new ones will likely be around 2.5x the payout of the old ones. Klingons and Romulans will get more xp from the new series than they did from the 7 old missions, if that is the case. Only Federation characters will likely see a small decline, roughly 3/4 of the old missions' xp if we go by what happened with the similar Romulan Mystery revamp.

    If you chose to level solely with episode missions as a Federation character, you've always had problems somewhere in getting your next level. Prior to Delta Rising, it was basically every level for 4 or 5 levels in your teens. After Delta Rising, it became once at around level 10, again at around level 19, and one final time at around level 29 or 30. Klingons and Romulans didn't have these gaps. Will this open up a new gap for Federation characters before being able to access Second Wave? Perhaps, but it, like the other gaps, can be easily covered with the ample patrols that already exist for Federation characters.

    These gaps only exist if you choose not to avail yourself of the patrols, or dailies, or queues, or DOff assignments, or any other source of xp that is available to you apart from episodes. They also aren't very large, each requiring only a patrol or 2 to get past, and there are dozens of patrols available.

    The takeaway that I'm getting from this is that the best situation will be Romulan allied with the Federation, as they will still have no gaps between episodes, will probably get more xp out of the revamped arc that is coming, and will be able to do all of the Federation patrols as they wish, presumably after finishing the Dyson Sphere stories, in order to supplement their xp for the place where there are actual gaps for everyone, the Delta Quadrant arc. As it stands now, they already get almost a level more than Federation or Klingon characters out of the pre-Delta Rising episodes.
    This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
  • vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,336 Arc User
    gulberat wrote: »
    @vegeta50024 I'm a bit confused as to why it's a problem to you that Seeds of Dissent is dealing with internal Cardassian problems...or maybe I'm just misreading, which is certainly possible.

    To me at least, that episode was truer to DS9 than a lot of the rest of the arc because whether or not people liked those plots on DS9, that's what the show did a lot and what I considered a strength. Seeing the effects of the Cardassian domestic terrorists on Cardassians who do NOT support their agenda--seeing the Cardassian people as diverse and not as a stereotyped enemy. Evil is called out for what it is in the True Way but we get to see the decent normal non-terrorists too.

    I didn't mean to say I had any problem with the mission itself, just where it happened to fall in the order of events. LaughingTrendy, if you are reading through this, ask the devs to at least return Seeds of Dissent to the Cardassian struggle chain polished up please?

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  • dourifdourif Member Posts: 52 Arc User
    One of these episodes better have a cut-scene on Cardassia Prime of two Cardassians on a rooftop staring at a monitor in the distance :D
  • timelord79timelord79 Member Posts: 1,852 Arc User
    lordinsane wrote: »
    Rapier: All this mission does tell us that the dominion are still willing to be aggressive towards the alpha quadrant, capturing any alpha quadrant ship that appears to come through it.
    It does serve a secondary purpose in introducing one of the 2800 arc characters (which is referenced in The 2800), admittedly.

    And the character is referenced wrong! The Vorta in the 2800 arc says, he is not the same one, cause the earlier one did not survive his encounter with us, which is wrong. We let him get away in Rapier. This is a chance to fix that mistake by having him appear and and actually get killed.
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  • potasssiumpotasssium Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    story per your murder-activities

    And that right there is why I find this game more tasteful as KDF.

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  • bioixibioixi Member Posts: 764 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    I've been testing the episode, it's quite simple actually.
    you are sent to the badlands to retrieve the orb, there you find a cargo ship being attacked by 3 frigates, you kill them and scan a nearby anomaly, a Galor pops out and you kill it, then you go to a nearby moon and destroy a Galor a 3 orbital weapons, beam down and kill 6 groups of 5 Cardassians, then face Gul Kadrek, he beams out, you beam out with the orb and are attacked by 5 frigates, you follow Kadrek and fight him but he escapes to the mirror universe and 2 waves of mirror universe ships spawn, you kill them, the end.

    There are few dialogs and they are quite dumb and short so I'm hoping they are placeholders, I mean seriously really dumb "we are the true Cardassian government, the true way, the orb is ours and you can't have it, Guards!".

    Some screenshots: http://postimg.org/gallery/2995gzui8/09edf825/
    Post edited by bioixi on
  • arkangel11004arkangel11004 Member Posts: 50 Arc User
    My only problem, as I have seen other say as well, is that 4 missions are replacing 14. This severely drops down the total game play time, as you don't dare make those missions 5 times as long as before, people despise too long of missions. I like the extended play time that we get. I will admit though, that the Cardassian arc gets long and tedious after playing it as much as i have.

    However, play time is not my main concern. Skill points are. I almost never play STFs, and never play Battlezones. All my skill points for leveling up, comes from main story content. That is all I want to play. Cutting missions from 14 to 4, removes a ton of skill points, that barely get me to where I need to be as it is. Currently, only using skill point bonus events, can I get to lvl 60 on missions, and just barely. This is out of the realm of possibility after this change. If the skill points given for four missions are recalculated to account for 14, then I'll be fine.

    And this does shrink the game, the fact that new missions are being added, doesn't make up for it as:

    1. The new missions eventually are lvl 60, which doesn't help for leveling.

    and

    2. There would have been new missions PLUS those old ones. No matter how many missions you add, there always would have been more, if the old ones were left.

    All this said, If the missions are good quality, and give the same amount of Skill points and those 14 missions, I'm all for it. Here's hoping Cryptic doesn't mess me over with this one...
  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    Delta Recruits can rest easy.

    From Sept. 17 Tribble server patch notes http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1203973/tribble-maintenance-and-release-notes-september-17-2015:
    Delta Recruit Changes:

    These changes will not interrupt progress for Delta Recruits who have not completed the Cardassian Arc.
    The Delta Recruit objective that was placed in “Crack in the Mirror” will now be placed in “Spoils of War”.
    The Delta Recruit objective that was placed in “The Long Night” will now be placed in “The Factory”.
    Objectives that require playing the entire arc are now adjusted to not require the episodes which are no longer available.
    For players who have already finished “Crack in the Mirror” or “The Long Night”, credit for completing the Delta Recruit objectives will already be granted for “Spoils of War” and “The Factory”.
  • whamhammer1whamhammer1 Member Posts: 2,290 Arc User
    While Im not a fan of the Carsasian episodes, why delete content? Just add new content!
  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,405 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    While Im not a fan of the Carsasian episodes, why delete content? Just add new content!
    So letting Delta Recruits spend even more time to unlock the already too long Cardassian arc rewards? Even Gul Madred would be horrified.

    Also, I checked the episode on Tribble:
    Not bad, but it's clear it's more of an introduction than anything else. However, it still needs some work, unlike episode 2 which is better polished. For example, the debriefing still refers to the old Badlands episode and there are collision bugs. And once again, like with House Pegh, your allies are useless and don't know what "full impulse" is, leaving you to do most of the job yourself until they slooooooowly arrive.
    Post edited by saurializard on
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  • farshorefarshore Member Posts: 353 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    While Im not a fan of the Carsasian episodes, why delete content? Just add new content!

    I killed over 700 Cardassians and Jem'Hadar replaying the arc. That doesn't even include the Terrans and Undine fakes I had to fight. The arc is boring, repetitive, and padded to the max. The entire arc plays like this; board/enter ship/station/cave, kill 50 npcs, do the thing, beam out. Nothing breaks up the monotony.
  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    Just played the this new mission on Tribble and I found it to be just plain terrible.

    I now question the logic of whomever made the decision to revamp the Cardassian Episodes and waste Development time in creating such cheap content. I've actually seen better Foundry missions. And to top it off, they deleted hours of old content for new content that literally is done in 7 minutes.
  • edited September 2015
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  • jcswwjcsww Member Posts: 6,835 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    Whilst it's great to see a revamp, it's exactly as predicted -- a considerable number of episodes removed but only 4 added in to replace them.
    Please stop shrinking the game...

    We'd love to have access somewhere to deprecated content from the Cardassian, Romulan and Klingon War arcs.

    Well stated! By the time they are done retuning the storyline for each faction, the whole game will be a total of 30 missions.

    Edit: I sure hope you aren't taking out my favorite mission from that part of the game. Empok Nor is a fun station to visit, especially in the rooms where the gas allows you to shoot your Away Team. :D I still don't understand why this never became a ground multiplayer map.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    Empok Nor is a Foundry asset. Sadly foundry does not support PvP maps. Actually... I think most or all the Cardie maps are in foundry.
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  • deeevestodeeevesto Member Posts: 6 Arc User
    I don't understand why they don't transform some of this 'old' content into dailies. Minor changes to be made to periodicity, access level and reward(s). Some soon to be deleted content suit that logic like Rappier, The Tribble with Klingon, Badlands, Suspect, Cage of Fires, The Long Night, etc. ??
    That's my 2 cents.
  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    "Fed" Only missions that a Rom-Fed can group with a Fed and get the accolades...

    Wargames - 1 Accolade
    Shutdown - 1 Accolade
    Tribble with Klingons - 2 Accolades
    Tear of the Prophets - 1 of 2 Accolades
    The Other Side - 2 Accolades

    The 1st Accolade from Tear of the Prophets did not award to my Rom when I did the mission. Was able to get the 2nd one thou from that mission. All confirmed last night by myself on my Rom-Fed toon.
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