Now is a good time to make Delta Rising suck less...

conundrumnsa · February 2016

While we are revamping things...can this horrid thing be fixed please? First off, I will say I actually like the Delta rising story itself with the Vaadwaur(sp). But that story is pretty much ruined by shoving a patrol mission in between most of the real story missions. Now is a good time to jettison that mechanic. Then you can extend the leveling curve out through the end of the Iconian war arc. Adjust experience as necessary to have people reach 60 at the end of the arc with no xp boosts.

It's obvious the patrol missions were shoved in as a way to slow down progress and extend the story missions, it's time to end that. It does succeed in doing that, but it makes DR suck pretty hard too.

Also...Everquest called from 1999 and they want their lame mechanic back (hell levels).

kyrrok · February 2016

At least they can afford to remove the patrol missions that slow the game down to a crawl when you try playing them. I still have to skip more than a few when the fps drops to the point that I just can't play.

davefenestrator · February 2016

I disagree. You only need to do the patrol missions once now thanks to Admiralty and doing them once or twice doesn't slow down the story at all. Also, some of the patrol missions are at least partially related and they're pretty good if you aren't grinding them.

conundrumnsa · February 2016

davefenestrator wrote: »

I disagree. You only need to do the patrol missions once now thanks to Admiralty and doing them once or twice doesn't slow down the story at all. Also, some of the patrol missions are at least partially related and they're pretty good if you aren't grinding them.

How can you outright lie like that?

They are marginally attached to the story at best...ergo they slowdown the real story. Some of them have the seed of an interesting mission, but none are actually interesting.

But I'm not surprised, I've long since learned certain "fans" will defend absolutely anything, no matter how bad.

davefenestrator · February 2016

Start with flaming and then stoop to personal insults. That's an excellent way to support your argument.

conundrumnsa · February 2016

davefenestrator wrote: »

Start with flaming and then stoop to personal insults. That's an excellent way to support your argument.

There is no argument, you are blindly supporting an objectively bad game component, pointless "content" designed to waste time and make your expansion look bigger.

If you cut out those stupid patrol missions Delta Rising would have HALF the number of missions it currently does. Encouraging lazy and deceptive practices is a very bad idea, and I have no problem with calling out people going into fanboy mode to defend it.

trek21 · February 2016

Actually, it's true - if you do every single mission with occasional Doff sprinkled in, you can usually be at around lvl 52 before you get to the Dyson Sphere stuff. Adding Admirality missions to that mix means you can get past the Admiral rank (at least) before the Delta missions. And even if you are in the position of needing EXP, there are far greater sources of it than the patrol missions, such as the aforementioned Admirality missions.

As for storywise, the Delta missions purposefully have two elements to them: the Vaadwaur threat, and the 'assessing changes in the Delta quadrant since Voyager's time' angle. Imo, the latter is realistic since even in the shows, time passed between each episode, doing various little missions before/between the big stuff (we're just experiencing it firsthand, instead of it being off-screen/implied). That opening cinematic when we first leave to the Delta quadrant directly hinted that the latter would happen, in fact, due to the voiceovers.

seaofsorrows · February 2016

conundrumnsa wrote: »

I have no problem with calling out people going into fanboy mode to defend it.

I agree with your argument 100% and even I can see you're the one being childish here.

I support your argument, but just because someone doesn't agree doesn't make them a 'fan boy.' You're not automatically right, your argument isn't absolute and you're not all knowing so get over yourself. You presented your feeling, @davefenestrator presented his an an objective way and you attacked him because you disagree.

You actually have a good point, but you're invalidating your entire argument by acting like a petulant child.

rattler2 · February 2016

trek21 wrote: »

As for storywise, the Delta missions purposefully have two elements to them: the Vaadwaur threat, and the 'assessing changes in the Delta quadrant since Voyager's time' angle. Imo, the latter is realistic since even in the shows, time passed between each episode, doing various little missions before/between the big stuff (we're just experiencing it firsthand, instead of it being off-screen/implied). That opening cinematic when we first leave to the Delta quadrant directly hinted that the latter would happen, in fact, due to the voiceovers.

This. While one patrol in particular I hate (the one that blinds you every couple minutes), they do show the state of the Delta Quadrant after Voyager came through.

gawainviii · February 2016

ruinthefun wrote: »

conundrumnsa wrote: »

It's obvious the patrol missions were shoved in as a way to slow down progress and extend the story missions, it's time to end that. It does succeed in doing that, but it makes DR suck pretty hard too.

I think the goal was to make the progression more freeform and allow you to EXPLORE the environment rather than be led by the nose from one mission to the next until 60. It's a rather oldschool concept that, apparently, bothers many. The fact that the implementation was not great did not help.

It seems to me that the old patrol missions did that job nicely... and optionally. Keep the patrol missions as a way to explore the locations that aren't directly tied to the story... but make them optional exploration missions, not part of the story's episode missions.

fovrel · February 2016

Can't you skip them? The problem was when you were level 55, the next mission was level 56 and you had to get your bar full, before you could do the mission. Then it took you a year to get that bar full. I am overstretching things, I know. Still you had to more or less work for the xp.

Quite a few of my characters got stuck. An alt had to be piped through the already known story and also had to be grinded up for xp. It looks to me with the mission-level adjustments, you can fluidly play through the story now. Further you can skip parts or everything and still level up with the admirality system.

Some of my characters hardly did see something of Delta Rising. I leveled them up with doff, admirality and battlezones, alerts, etc.

jodarkrider · February 2016

Just a reminder - play nice & friendly - there's some alarming hostility here, and I'd prefer to not have to close the topic outright.

mustrumridcully0 · February 2016

conundrumnsa wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

I disagree. You only need to do the patrol missions once now thanks to Admiralty and doing them once or twice doesn't slow down the story at all. Also, some of the patrol missions are at least partially related and they're pretty good if you aren't grinding them.

How can you outright lie like that?

They are marginally attached to the story at best...ergo they slowdown the real story. Some of them have the seed of an interesting mission, but none are actually interesting.

But I'm not surprised, I've long since learned certain "fans" will defend absolutely anything, no matter how bad.

The patrols flesh out the world. You meet other species in the Delta Quadrant that are not primary part of the arc (like the Cooperative/Ocanti), and later you also have a few missions that flesh out the war effort itself.

These are basically the kind of mission that the Iconian Arc is missing, where countless of people complained that "it doesn't feel like a War".

seriousdave · February 2016

The patrols were an issue at launch, as was the absolutely terrible levelgating of the whole arc, but by now they somewhat fixed that imho. All the things like the admirality, the level adjustment on the episodes and the continuous revamp of older arcs (the new cardi/mirror episodes are a godsend) sure ironed out most of those early delta-gating problems.

mirrorchaos · February 2016

i dont care for the story or other content except this; the level 50-60 where the grind overtakes everything else, that i would like removed. it stalled my progress not long after it launched, even today it hasnt moved much, most of my toons are still stuck at level 50....

kodachikuno · February 2016

mirrorchaos wrote: »

i dont care for the story or other content except this; the level 50-60 where the grind overtakes everything else, that i would like removed. it stalled my progress not long after it launched, even today it hasnt moved much, most of my toons are still stuck at level 50....

I have alts that go a month or more w/o being played and yet all but two of my characters are lv60 now. Of the two remaining ones, they are 56 and effectively 58(prolly would be if I logged in and collected the DOFF and A.S.S.). If, by this point, you are still stuck at 50 or even the low 50s you're problems arent DR, there is something else going on here.

BTW I have a popcorn stand here, and Im selling, just in case darkrider's warning doesnt ward off the flames.

mirrorchaos · February 2016

not everyone is a grinder, not everyone can stand grinding or wants to put up with it. i am a casual gamer and i got zero interesting in the grind aspect. as a result only 2 characters i have been working sporadically over the months are slowly making progress, the rest have not moved since DR came in.

cirran1 · February 2016

I have take three of my delta recruits and have leisurely leveled them up. I have not done anything but doffs and playing the story line, with Starbase 24 thrown in at very low levels only. I am just finishing the Borg story line and they are all 54/55. I don't use boosters and I concentrate on just following the Episodes from start to finish in the order they are listed. I don't see how the Delta Quadrant story line is going to be an issue when I get to it.

Cirran

hippiejon · February 2016

There is no "grind" involved getting toons between 50 and 60 anymore.
If someone isn't using the Admirality System and reaping the benefits for stubborn reasons, I say let them continue to flounder. I also hated the 'grind' for levels when DR launched, but we have since gotten a system in place that eases that to the point even very casual players have multiple level 60 toons.
Even at the most basic level, Admirality is a great boon to levelling through the 50s.
Again, IF someone isn't using it, it really is ... their own fault.

seaofsorrows · February 2016

hippiejon wrote: »

There is no "grind" involved getting toons between 50 and 60 anymore.
If someone isn't using the Admirality System and reaping the benefits for stubborn reasons, I say let them continue to flounder. I also hated the 'grind' for levels when DR launched, but we have since gotten a system in place that eases that to the point even very casual players have multiple level 60 toons.

I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. The Admiralty system is a huge boost for those of us that have been playing a long time or those that spend a good amount of money. A new player won't have enough ships to do much of anything with the Admiralty system, they would be able to do what? 1 or 2 missions a day tops? They would have a total of 4 or 5 ships, their best one being the T5 freebie. If they played long enough to have an event ship or maybe purchased a ship then they might be able to pull off 3 or so missions a day.

The Admiralty system is great, I'm a big fan.. but it really is designed to reward big spenders and long time ship collectors. It provides little to no value to new players.

The good news is, they don't need it. The last time I made a new character, even without any bonus XP weekends I was well into the 50's for my level before hitting the Delta Rising missions. If they removed all the patrol missions and just changed all DR story missions to Level 50 or higher, it would all be easily fixed. They could leave the Patrols in as optionals but they don't need to be part of the story line. At the very least, if they remain in the story arc, they should be skippable. I have to agree with the OP that they really drag down the entire DR arc which honestly isn't that good to begin with.

jbmonroe · February 2016

skollulfr wrote: »

hippiejon wrote: »

for a new player, its simply another way they are left behind to the concertina effect

From sciencedirect.com : "Concertina phenomenon is a transient angiographic series of narrowings during percutaneous coronary intervention in a tortuous vessel induced mainly by a stiff guide wire."

Until now I'd never seen the similarity.

mirrorchaos · February 2016

as others stated, admiralty only works when you have the ships.

but the doff system is a grind in itself, i never saw the point in it and i occasionally use, but not in great amounts.

samt1996 · February 2016

You get plenty of free ships for Admiralty by leveling and doing events. It works better if you buy more but it is by no means necessary and unlike duty officers ships are account unlocks. Plus there's lots of cheap mirror ones and such on the exchange.

peterconnorfirst · February 2016

mirrorchaos wrote: »

as others stated, admiralty only works when you have the ships.

but the doff system is a grind in itself, i never saw the point in it and i occasionally use, but not in great amounts.

Sorry to hears so, admiralty + doffing = ~6000 Dil/day/toon in roughly 5 minutes for me.

I usually do it with a cup of coffee or while having phone.

Yes you need to have a solid desk of ships but considering how countless many we got for nothing from cryptic the past years it should not really be an issue for anybody who is longer in STO than a few months.

If I take other benefits like XP, crafting mats, EC and fleet marks into account this activity is THE one way ticked out of the grind in this game.

It gives a chance for alts and repaired the Damage of Delta Rising almost entierly.

thetanine · February 2016

conundrumnsa wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

Start with flaming and then stoop to personal insults. That's an excellent way to support your argument.

There is no argument, you are blindly supporting an objectively bad game component, pointless "content" designed to waste time and make your expansion look bigger.

If you cut out those stupid patrol missions Delta Rising would have HALF the number of missions it currently does. Encouraging lazy and deceptive practices is a very bad idea, and I have no problem with calling out people going into fanboy mode to defend it.

You're expressing your OPINION of Delta Rising. Not everyone is going to agree with you, no matter how you perceive It, Them, or They!

mirrorchaos · February 2016

samt1996 wrote: »

You get plenty of free ships for Admiralty by leveling and doing events. It works better if you buy more but it is by no means necessary and unlike duty officers ships are account unlocks. Plus there's lots of cheap mirror ones and such on the exchange.

through leveling there are 6 ranks, so 6 ships plus a shuttle you get through leveling. that alone by itself wouldnt be enough to make the system work. as you implied yourself through what you wrote, you basically confirmed it wont work unless you can get ships to do it.

samt1996 · February 2016

Yes but you CAN get more ships with some effort. Three nice T6 ships per year for example or C-Store give aways or all the ones on the exchange (of varying prices) or the hero ships for grinding it out to max or now the free ones they are handing out as mission rewards.

dalolorn · February 2016

mirrorchaos wrote: »

samt1996 wrote: »

You get plenty of free ships for Admiralty by leveling and doing events. It works better if you buy more but it is by no means necessary and unlike duty officers ships are account unlocks. Plus there's lots of cheap mirror ones and such on the exchange.

through leveling there are 6 ranks, so 6 ships plus a shuttle you get through leveling. that alone by itself wouldnt be enough to make the system work. as you implied yourself through what you wrote, you basically confirmed it wont work unless you can get ships to do it.

Then there's a second shuttle you can get for a pittance (Danube, Kestrel, Toron all cost 20-30k EC) - not to mention you'll want to buy those anyway if you don't have a C-Store shuttle, because they're simply better than the freebies. (However, you get only 5 leveling ships, and that's if you count the starter ship. There's also the Ambassador/Kamarag you get during Temporal Ambassador, I guess...)

Then there's the occasional giveaway - there's been enough of those to more than double the roster size of a 'pure' F2Per on any faction. Then there's the events, which give you endgame-level ships within 25 days. It's both tragic and infuriating that you can't get the ones from previous events, but the potency of the event ships cannot be ignored, and it's not like they're not fairly decent ships in their own right even without Admiralty, so you'll probably pick them up as they come along.

Now is a good time to make Delta Rising suck less...

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