I think Cryptic is having a midlife crisis. Are we rebuilding from a war that supposedly wiped out almost the entirety of our fleet and ravaged the galaxy, are we exploring, are we being invaded by the Mirror Universe, are we being invaded by Tholians, are we being invaded by the Nakuhl and the Krenim, or are we becoming time diplomats?
The game has been a wreck since season 11 launched. Queues have died down almost completely, 3 wars have started at the very beginning of this time of "peace and exploration", this new focus of "exploration" is nothing but watch some cutscenes fo.5 minutes and mash down space and the one key for the next 20 minutes.
I miss doing the old exploration dailies, was always nice exploring uncharted systems and landing on planets and doing scans and such, or exploring abandoned space stations and star systems, all without ever having to shoot at something ground or space. Those felt more Star Trek like.
I wonder why those were removed.
Would've been a good way to tweak those and give players an incentive to do them after finishing the Iconian War story.
We were told, we would be going back to being explorers and that we would be focusing on rebuilding the alliance after the war. Now we are going right into another major baddie without having done any of that? ...../sigh
Yeah we were supposed to go back to being explorers then, we discovered a new race and the tholians happened so were back to commiting galactic genocide in the name of galactic peace lol
All glory to the Terran Empire i guess, cause we sure arent the federation.... Im not asking for the old exploration system just some missions based around discovering new things. Lots of the best Star Trek episodes are finding something new, new planets, comets, asteroids, alien races, space faring creatures, spatial anomalies, etc etc plenty of ways to work in some combat or no combat. All of that kind of stuff could be done while "rebuilding" our alliance cities/ships.
Jumping straight into a temporal war is not exactly how I would try to rebuild or explore which is exactly what the devs said this next arc was supposed to be about.
I hate doing this but its bugging me now @pwlaughingtrendy .... do talks like this ever actually happen among the Cryptic crowd?? Do discussions like these on the forums ever make up to their eye level? I see a ton of the same types of topics over and over but Cryptic seems blind/deaf/dumb to these constant complaints and requests and discussions
If we got a purely noncombat/exploration episode, I can just imagine the "discussions" over game balance...
one WHOLE episode? no combat at all?? I think the forum would have 1/4 the population from sudden heart attacks and the remaining population would be out with pitchforks and torches because their zomfg dps was useless and they couldnt drool on their spacebar to advance
Be more severe than pitchforks and torches, we'd be talking "DoooOOOooom" levels of devastation...
Because how much of the populace already is complaining about 20 second unskippable cutscenes in that "liberate the Borg then watch everyone's big-bad dreadnoughts show up" STF? And now this whole mission would be nothing but that type of stuff?
Either that, or it'd become "the most played mission evah" because you'd get "gobs" of XP and loot for doing nothing but clicking random boxes on your screen...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
They stated in a devblog or discussion thereof that the "New Dawn" and "exploration" is supposed to be "time". So the featured episodes which are no different from any other mission in-game aside from the scenery used is your exploration. You will like it.
EDIT: The funny thing is, every time the topic comes up the argument runs in circles and is killed with "everybody has a different understanding what "exploration" means" which is however a cop-out. "Exploration" in video games and especially in STO is a somewhat set term that describes what people have to expect. Here's a hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
Explore - venturing into unknown maps, wether they are truly randomly generated or hand-crafted with random events happening is not all that important. But some unknown factor has to be part of it, not replaying the same map over and over again.
Expand - Needs some creativity for STO, but building a colony, outpost, trade route or diplomatic relations, be creative. Even if it's simply a personal progression but something we can work on and something that's not a slider based and time-gated menu.
Exploit - Getting something out of it, mandatory in a game entirely based on transactions.
Exterminate - Of course, combat can and should be a part of it. STO is an arcade action game, not a Star Trek simulator.
Add to that that STO had exploration - the clusters. When people they "exploration" in regards to STO they mean that, it's a term that has already been coined and using it to promote New Dawn was in the best case an unlucky choice of words and in the worst case a blatant ruse.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Somehow I don't think all those Epic phaser banks and Epic shields are going to be very useful in pure "exploration." Where's my Epic long range sensor bank? Where's my Epic universal translator? Hmm.
There must be a reason Bird Watcher Online and Shopper: Aisle Quest didn't do very well. And fiction aside: neither did Earth and Beyond, where exploring was 1/3 of the game, and trading another 1/3.
They stated in a devblog or discussion thereof that the "New Dawn" and "exploration" is supposed to be "time". So the featured episodes which are no different from any other mission in-game aside from the scenery used is your exploration. You will like it.
EDIT: The funny thing is, every time the topic comes up the argument runs in circles and is killed with "everybody has a different understanding what "exploration" means" which is however a cop-out. "Exploration" in video games and especially in STO is a somewhat set term that describes what people have to expect. Here's a hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
Explore - venturing into unknown maps, wether they are truly randomly generated or hand-crafted with random events happening is not all that important. But some unknown factor has to be part of it, not replaying the same map over and over again.
You left out something. In 4X games you typically annex the locations you explore, thus for it to be "meaningful" exploration you have to be able to go back. Which the exploration clusters did not allow.
Expand - Needs some creativity for STO, but building a colony, outpost, trade route or diplomatic relations, be creative. Even if it's simply a personal progression but something we can work on and something that's not a slider based and time-gated menu.
Um, it's a menu/slider thing in 4x games too.
Exploit - Getting something out of it, mandatory in a game entirely based on transactions.
*points at fleet stores*
Exterminate - Of course, combat can and should be a part of it. STO is an arcade action game, not a Star Trek simulator.
Add to that that STO had exploration - the clusters. When people they "exploration" in regards to STO they mean that, it's a term that has already been coined and using it to promote New Dawn was in the best case an unlucky choice of words and in the worst case a blatant ruse.
Somehow I don't think all those Epic phaser banks and Epic shields are going to be very useful in pure "exploration." Where's my Epic long range sensor bank? Where's my Epic universal translator? Hmm.
There must be a reason Bird Watcher Online and Shopper: Aisle Quest didn't do very well. And fiction aside: neither did Earth and Beyond, where exploring was 1/3 of the game, and trading another 1/3.
Earth and beyond, still got the t-shirt from the fan meet in DE.....Toot toot
Hate to say this, but if you want real exploration, with scanning and discovering new planets, creatures, lifeforms... Then you may want to buy yourself a PS4 and check out No Man's Sky. Looks like Metroid Prime on steroids.
it wouldnt be star trek without a good genocide! I mean, dont you remember how picard, janeway, and the others wiped out entire planets in each episode? that was real star trek! after 11 seasons we are still not on that level, but cryptic is working hard to find new species for us we can mass murder.
oh and if you want exploration... maybe they could make some kind of torturing chamber, where you do medical experiments with prisoners of war and explore how much pain they can bear, or how how many organs you can remove before they die. that would give "prisoner" doffs a good use tho.
I think "Explore and Expand" themes would work well in STO, and they don't have to exclude any and all combat.
First Contact with a xenophobic warp-capable race, for example. That could play out over a half-season of FE's.
Establishing an outpost which is then attacked by pirates (or the aforementioned xenophobes) is another good possibility. The player is invested in a certain amount of work establishing the outpost and then has to defend or avenge it. Or even more interesting, be faced with the choice to try to establish peace with the attacker.
Anything that involves a Prime Directive conflict. A war between two xenophobic space-going races. Etc.
Even a pure exploration mission could involve defending against primitive lifeforms. An away mission on a distinctly inimical planet could result in lots of action. A shuttle crash followed by fighting your way to a remote location where rescue is possible.
Alas, we'll have to wait until Season 12 and likely beyond for anything like that.
This has and always will be a combat game but the newer content is much more trekkie then ever before. Combat is not the main focus as much, hell we even solved the Iconian war by righting a wrong that didn't involve combat.
Starfleet secretary to Starfleet President: "Sir, I have a request from the True Way to go to war. Shall I slot thme in after the Na'kuhl?
Reply: Tell them we're free Nov-Dec 2410 or March 2411. Oh and please notify the Q we need to reschedule the war with them until 2412.
Back to war yet again. I know war finds you but come on! We're running out of bad to fight guys and how is the alpha quadrant or it's powers still standing? We've been at war technically since 2405 and I know the Dominion war lasted around 4 years (including the buildup) with additional skimrishes but already we've had full scale wars with the Klingons ,Borg, Undine, Voth, Iconians, now Krenim and Na'kuhl? That's on top of the skirmishes with Cardassians, Romulans and Breen and the Vaadwuar...war or not all in thr space of 2 years! We've taken on the baddest guys in Star Trek lore, laughed it off and now we're going in to temporal enemies.
We're is the exploration?? Probably where the community feedback on wanting more pew pew and repetitve grind is ><.
Honestly its a terribly missed opportunity.
I mean a post-war scenario would be perfect scenario to throw us against the criminal underworld of STO, no doubt profiteers would be taking advantage of refugees and planets in need of aid.
Don't say smart things around here. But yeah Gecko and Cryptic can't help themselves. More lockboxes and rep.grind on the way. No time to let you explore and the company not making their money off you.
Starfleet secretary to Starfleet President: "Sir, I have a request from the True Way to go to war. Shall I slot thme in after the Na'kuhl?
Reply: Tell them we're free Nov-Dec 2410 or March 2411. Oh and please notify the Q we need to reschedule the war with them until 2412.
Back to war yet again. I know war finds you but come on! We're running out of bad to fight guys and how is the alpha quadrant or it's powers still standing? We've been at war technically since 2405 and I know the Dominion war lasted around 4 years (including the buildup) with additional skimrishes but already we've had full scale wars with the Klingons ,Borg, Undine, Voth, Iconians, now Krenim and Na'kuhl? That's on top of the skirmishes with Cardassians, Romulans and Breen and the Vaadwuar...war or not all in thr space of 2 years! We've taken on the baddest guys in Star Trek lore, laughed it off and now we're going in to temporal enemies.
We're is the exploration?? Probably where the community feedback on wanting more pew pew and repetitve grind is ><.
The storyline is turning into a bad joke. And it's getting worse with every new season.
If they'd at least let the timeline progress a bit further and not have this new Temporal War take place in the same year that the Iconian War and many other conflicts took place and ended, it MIGHT be a bit more realistic. Right now it's just plain stupid to jump from one war to another war in less than 1 year, and even more conflicts in less than 2 years total.
If Cryptic wants their storyline to actually represent some of Trek canon and be even slightly believable, they'd better come up with a solution. It's getting more difficult to take the game's main storyline serious with the addition of a new conflict or even major wars every new season.
Either add some non-combat stuff, one season long or have it only feature some minor conflicts, for example a planet-wide war if there has to be war. This would also allow us to explore said planet.
Edit: It's not like not adding any new or adding only some minor combat stuff for one season would be a problem anyway. There's plenty of pew pew in the game already, and those PvE queues are not going anywhere.
I don't think Cryptic will add anything about exploration etc. It is much more easier for them to add shooting stuff using existing game mechanics and designs and monetize stuff with better combat statistics than stuff they released earlier.
It's quite sad to see how STO design and story line are simple and unimaginative. Especially if you look at games like TSW or (blasphemy) SWTOR...
S11: Not exactly what it says on the tin, but technically, if you squint hard enough...
We got Cardassian arc that actually has 1 (one) mission with Cardassians playing an important part (also one with a fake Cardassian and one with a sorta important Cardassian NPC that's actually from The 2800.) At least its KDF version has some truth in advertisement, there's definitely The Dominion, even if no one really dominates anyone by the end of it, but "Dominion return to status quo" just isn't quite as alliteratively catchy.
We got "return to exploration." It's again 1 (one) mission, even if it's a very good one... I'm still impressed by how much accurate RL science they managed to slip into the technobabble. In 2 others we explored... um... We didn't... Too busy shooting Tholians, Krenim and Na'kuhl...
it wouldnt be star trek without a good genocide! I mean, dont you remember how picard, janeway, and the others wiped out entire planets in each episode? that was real star trek! after 11 seasons we are still not on that level, but cryptic is working hard to find new species for us we can mass murder.
I must have missed those episodes, but if it's true, and why would you lie, then STO is really not that much Star Trek... I have yet to commit a real genocide or wipe out planets. I feel cheated of the real Star Trek experience!
All I get to do is to fight combats against military ships. They could at least have me blow up some passenger transports.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
it wouldnt be star trek without a good genocide! I mean, dont you remember how picard, janeway, and the others wiped out entire planets in each episode? that was real star trek! after 11 seasons we are still not on that level, but cryptic is working hard to find new species for us we can mass murder.
I must have missed those episodes, but if it's true, and why would you lie, then STO is really not that much Star Trek... I have yet to commit a real genocide or wipe out planets. I feel cheated of the real Star Trek experience!
All I get to do is to fight combats against military ships. They could at least have me blow up some passenger transports.
Well, RR arc involves us tacitly condoning thalaron-bombing a planet (and it doesn't end well...) and all factions actually do fight transports at some point, in one case we even blow them up afterwards, possibly with crew still on board (Granted, those were True Way transports.)
Comments
The game has been a wreck since season 11 launched. Queues have died down almost completely, 3 wars have started at the very beginning of this time of "peace and exploration", this new focus of "exploration" is nothing but watch some cutscenes fo.5 minutes and mash down space and the one key for the next 20 minutes.
I wonder why those were removed.
Would've been a good way to tweak those and give players an incentive to do them after finishing the Iconian War story.
Yeah we were supposed to go back to being explorers then, we discovered a new race and the tholians happened so were back to commiting galactic genocide in the name of galactic peace lol
Jumping straight into a temporal war is not exactly how I would try to rebuild or explore which is exactly what the devs said this next arc was supposed to be about.
Be more severe than pitchforks and torches, we'd be talking "DoooOOOooom" levels of devastation...
Because how much of the populace already is complaining about 20 second unskippable cutscenes in that "liberate the Borg then watch everyone's big-bad dreadnoughts show up" STF? And now this whole mission would be nothing but that type of stuff?
Either that, or it'd become "the most played mission evah" because you'd get "gobs" of XP and loot for doing nothing but clicking random boxes on your screen...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
EDIT: The funny thing is, every time the topic comes up the argument runs in circles and is killed with "everybody has a different understanding what "exploration" means" which is however a cop-out. "Exploration" in video games and especially in STO is a somewhat set term that describes what people have to expect. Here's a hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
Explore - venturing into unknown maps, wether they are truly randomly generated or hand-crafted with random events happening is not all that important. But some unknown factor has to be part of it, not replaying the same map over and over again.
Expand - Needs some creativity for STO, but building a colony, outpost, trade route or diplomatic relations, be creative. Even if it's simply a personal progression but something we can work on and something that's not a slider based and time-gated menu.
Exploit - Getting something out of it, mandatory in a game entirely based on transactions.
Exterminate - Of course, combat can and should be a part of it. STO is an arcade action game, not a Star Trek simulator.
Add to that that STO had exploration - the clusters. When people they "exploration" in regards to STO they mean that, it's a term that has already been coined and using it to promote New Dawn was in the best case an unlucky choice of words and in the worst case a blatant ruse.
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There must be a reason Bird Watcher Online and Shopper: Aisle Quest didn't do very well. And fiction aside: neither did Earth and Beyond, where exploring was 1/3 of the game, and trading another 1/3.
We're exploring new ways to kill entire planets worth of mobs and ways to TRIBBLE up time, dimension and space!
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My character Tsin'xing
Earth and beyond, still got the t-shirt from the fan meet in DE.....Toot toot
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Sarcasm Font and color[ font="Trebuchet MS"][ color=#FF61F4][ /color][ /font]
Then you may want to buy yourself a PS4 and check out No Man's Sky.
Looks like Metroid Prime on steroids.
http://www.no-mans-sky.com/
Infinitely generated universe to discover.
It'll be more Trek-like then STO.
oh and if you want exploration... maybe they could make some kind of torturing chamber, where you do medical experiments with prisoners of war and explore how much pain they can bear, or how how many organs you can remove before they die. that would give "prisoner" doffs a good use tho.
First Contact with a xenophobic warp-capable race, for example. That could play out over a half-season of FE's.
Establishing an outpost which is then attacked by pirates (or the aforementioned xenophobes) is another good possibility. The player is invested in a certain amount of work establishing the outpost and then has to defend or avenge it. Or even more interesting, be faced with the choice to try to establish peace with the attacker.
Anything that involves a Prime Directive conflict. A war between two xenophobic space-going races. Etc.
Even a pure exploration mission could involve defending against primitive lifeforms. An away mission on a distinctly inimical planet could result in lots of action. A shuttle crash followed by fighting your way to a remote location where rescue is possible.
Alas, we'll have to wait until Season 12 and likely beyond for anything like that.
Reply: Tell them we're free Nov-Dec 2410 or March 2411. Oh and please notify the Q we need to reschedule the war with them until 2412.
Back to war yet again. I know war finds you but come on! We're running out of bad to fight guys and how is the alpha quadrant or it's powers still standing? We've been at war technically since 2405 and I know the Dominion war lasted around 4 years (including the buildup) with additional skimrishes but already we've had full scale wars with the Klingons ,Borg, Undine, Voth, Iconians, now Krenim and Na'kuhl? That's on top of the skirmishes with Cardassians, Romulans and Breen and the Vaadwuar...war or not all in thr space of 2 years! We've taken on the baddest guys in Star Trek lore, laughed it off and now we're going in to temporal enemies.
We're is the exploration?? Probably where the community feedback on wanting more pew pew and repetitve grind is ><.
Don't say smart things around here. But yeah Gecko and Cryptic can't help themselves. More lockboxes and rep.grind on the way. No time to let you explore and the company not making their money off you.
The storyline is turning into a bad joke. And it's getting worse with every new season.
If they'd at least let the timeline progress a bit further and not have this new Temporal War take place in the same year that the Iconian War and many other conflicts took place and ended, it MIGHT be a bit more realistic. Right now it's just plain stupid to jump from one war to another war in less than 1 year, and even more conflicts in less than 2 years total.
If Cryptic wants their storyline to actually represent some of Trek canon and be even slightly believable, they'd better come up with a solution. It's getting more difficult to take the game's main storyline serious with the addition of a new conflict or even major wars every new season.
Either add some non-combat stuff, one season long or have it only feature some minor conflicts, for example a planet-wide war if there has to be war. This would also allow us to explore said planet.
Edit: It's not like not adding any new or adding only some minor combat stuff for one season would be a problem anyway. There's plenty of pew pew in the game already, and those PvE queues are not going anywhere.
It's quite sad to see how STO design and story line are simple and unimaginative. Especially if you look at games like TSW or (blasphemy) SWTOR...
We got Cardassian arc that actually has 1 (one) mission with Cardassians playing an important part (also one with a fake Cardassian and one with a sorta important Cardassian NPC that's actually from The 2800.) At least its KDF version has some truth in advertisement, there's definitely The Dominion, even if no one really dominates anyone by the end of it, but "Dominion return to status quo" just isn't quite as alliteratively catchy.
We got "return to exploration." It's again 1 (one) mission, even if it's a very good one... I'm still impressed by how much accurate RL science they managed to slip into the technobabble. In 2 others we explored... um... We didn't... Too busy shooting Tholians, Krenim and Na'kuhl...
All I get to do is to fight combats against military ships. They could at least have me blow up some passenger transports.
Well, RR arc involves us tacitly condoning thalaron-bombing a planet (and it doesn't end well...) and all factions actually do fight transports at some point, in one case we even blow them up afterwards, possibly with crew still on board (Granted, those were True Way transports.)