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...Should I come back and do the recent missions?
kestrellius
Member Posts: 462 Arc User
So. It's been...quite a while since I played STO. The last time was just after DR launched, and I hadn't played much for a while before then. Basically, well...this game is an MMO. They kind of suck by nature. (And, indeed, most of this game's problems would vanish if it were a single-player RPG. But that's a different topic.) I just didn't feel like grinding, or farming, or anything, so I left. The game has its high points, but I hadn't been playing much, and it felt like I had too much catching up to do.
I decided I probably wouldn't be coming back when the Iconian War arc started, simply because I noticed they'd replaced the old Obex aesthetic with the still-kind-of-cool but decidedly inferior look of the Herald ships. And gave them purple weapons for some reason. I'd sort of been looking forward to fighting spidery black ships shooting antiproton beams, so I just lost interest.
Imagine my surprise several weeks ago when I decided to read about the state of the game on a whim and learned that the IW arc had concluded. I mean, that was quick. However, from what I've read, it does sound like they went in an interesting direction with the Iconians and the end of the war. (I'd sort of expected it to just be "Okay, uh, the Iconians are here. We...we should kill them, I guess?". The entire point of them for so long was simply "bad guys in the background", so I didn't expect them to actually characterize the Iconians beyond that when they arrived.)
Now, the single-player missions were always this game's strongest point. Basically, I just wanted to get peoples' opinions: should I return and play through Delta Rising and the Iconian War? Is it worth a bit of experience grinding?
I decided I probably wouldn't be coming back when the Iconian War arc started, simply because I noticed they'd replaced the old Obex aesthetic with the still-kind-of-cool but decidedly inferior look of the Herald ships. And gave them purple weapons for some reason. I'd sort of been looking forward to fighting spidery black ships shooting antiproton beams, so I just lost interest.
Imagine my surprise several weeks ago when I decided to read about the state of the game on a whim and learned that the IW arc had concluded. I mean, that was quick. However, from what I've read, it does sound like they went in an interesting direction with the Iconians and the end of the war. (I'd sort of expected it to just be "Okay, uh, the Iconians are here. We...we should kill them, I guess?". The entire point of them for so long was simply "bad guys in the background", so I didn't expect them to actually characterize the Iconians beyond that when they arrived.)
Now, the single-player missions were always this game's strongest point. Basically, I just wanted to get peoples' opinions: should I return and play through Delta Rising and the Iconian War? Is it worth a bit of experience grinding?
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Comments
Below 60 if you read the news page the level requirements for DR are being lowered soon, so you might not need to grind for it even if you are only 50 now.
I enjoyed playing both the DR and Iconian missions.
My character Tsin'xing
Anyway yeah I'm like level...fifty-two or something?
I would absolutely recommend playing the missions. I can't promise you will like them all, but overall the conclusion of the Iconian War was pretty satisfying IMO.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
STO got a lot of things wrong along the way, but when they do something right, they do it RIGHT. The conclusion of this story was definitely them getting it right. The Iconian War missions more than made up for the disappointment that was DR, easily on par with Legacy of Romulus, in fact I liked it better.
You might want to wait a touch longer as the others have said, as they're going to lower the level bands for the newest missions, so it might make it a better experience for you if you need to play some gear catch-up and/or get reacquainted with the game.
The most important thing of course is that you still somewhat like playing the game itself, otherwise it becomes just a chore. Then, the level issue (a big complaint back in the day) is going to be resolved soonish, but if you don't want to breeze through all the missions, that's just fine.
Before the Iconian arc there's of course the Delta arc, and I do not know whether you can just skip it if you wanted. The first mission, Mindscape, arguably is the best of the lot, but it suffers from a turn in bug - sometimes you just can't. In other missions you do not get a lot of new things gameplay wise, but there's a solution to the Eric Cooper mini arc and some argue that the main enemy is handled better than Hakeev here. And there is the "love it or hate it" mission "Dust to Dust" ending it, which some think is one of the best gameplay wise, some consider one of the worst, due to the three puzzle parts it includes, which for once aren't "find the right combo on a console". (I am strictly in the "love it" department here, even though the puzzles make no sense storywise): If you like to play STO I strongly recommend playing it just so you can form your own opinion.
Other drawbacks to the Delta arc: quite a few missions are just "do a patrol here", "do a patrol there", "oh, do another patrol". A small craft mission that is again "love it or hate it" (here I am a hater). And to mention the elephant in the room: your main ally are the Kobali, and quite a lot of people find them and what they are doing revolting and were upset about being railroaded to help them. Your mileage may, as always, vary of course.
The Iconian arc is in my opinion quite strong storywise. There were a lot of complaints about the immersion into the Iconian war, which is supposedly major, because not everything else in the game stopped working while the episodes were featured. (I didn't really manage to state that in a neutral tone, was I?), but when you now play them in a row that shouldn't be a major issue. A shipload of cutscenes (some not skippable which is only a problem on reward driven replays) and some see signs of KOLC (Klingons of limited competence) in some of the NPCs.
But yes, the end DOES give you closure about almost every dangling thread regarding the iconians, and although some people were decidedly not happy, the large majority seemed to consider it a very good ending - @vampeiyre has put it quite well, it was the most Trek way to do it, and in my opinion was the best possible way to do it - where I define "best possible" as "better than any suggestion made by others". (One especially funny complaint was that STO is all about pew pew and that the end didn't feature a large enough battle, although there was one, in direct run on sentences.
So if you're losing sleep over how it all ends, you really should do the final mission, and it kind of needs the Iconian ones before to be set up properly.
That being said, not all of the Iconian missions are of the same quality (though people tend to disagree which ones are good and which aren't) and if you get your hopes too high, you will be disappointed.
All in all: the overall experience in my opinion is: quite a few more missions of higher average quality than the earlier ones you know, with some more or less turds in between for good measure, and a rewarding ending to the whole storyline. But it still is STO. Whether that's good or bad depends mostly on your opinion
Later on, it fleshes out the war with the Vaadwaur - you actually see the damage they inflict and the threat they present as you help evacuate people, repair ships that fell to Vaadwaur attacks. You see that not all Vaadwaur want to be part of a war.
The Delta Rising Patrols basically add exactly what the Iconian War was missing - the background stuff that really fleshs out things. We never see the real fallout of the war for the civilian populations in the Iconian War because we only have story-focused missions that advance the main plot.
even though the game needs all the players it can get, it doesn't really need players who's only reason for returning are so trivial as the one you mentioned in your opening post because if this is your only reason for returning it just not reason enough, the game has just not changed that much since you left to make it any more enjoyable for you now then it was then, especially if you need all of us to convince you its the right move.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I can understand people wanting to be talked into coming back. Sometimes everyone needs a little bit of external validation. No matter who they are.
Just one more thing and I'm done. This place is more interesting with you here than it is when you are not.
Long answer: hell yes.