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Have played for about 3 days now and...
ashlar
Member Posts: 2 Arc User
Initial impression was that i loved the premise of the game, and then i couldn't get it to start until i saw the suggestion online to start it in safe mode.
Got in game and didn't know that i could choose the era and started a AoY game. In the first mission of AoY the game bugged on the part where you get the rifle... my thoughts were that it is a new game, (found out today that it isn't new), and they will get the bugs out eventually. I looked for fixes and while i found several people with the same issue, i didn't see any fixes.
I really wanted to play and decided to start a new character and that is when i realized that you could choose the era. Started a Starfleet game and got to level 11, utterly loving the game, driving my wife and daughter crazy with my raving about it. During this time, the screen constantly was popping up that this and that player got x ship from kelvin timeline and i started wondering about the temporal agents and all the other things that npcs were talking about and got on the web to learn more.
From what i saw, it seemed that i needed a AoY char to be a temporal agent and decided to give it another go. This time i waited impatiently for each part of the instructions to pop up and discovered that what went wrong before is that i had picked up the rifle before the second npc did, thus bugging it.
I am now level 19 on the AoY char and while i still love the game, i have come to feel how shallow the game is. I love the missions, ground and space, but star trek has always been about the characters, even while surrounded by extraordinary situations and events, still living their lives, going to the holodeck, vacations, etc. Star Trek is not a steady diet of adrenaline.
I decided to go to Risa for a break as it was on the way to a mission. When i got there, at first i was loving the scenery and the float belt rental. After exploring everywhere i could think to look i realized that while the few npcs that you could talk to were all talking about this event or that... There was literally zero leisure activities i could do on an entire planet that is dedicated to entertainment. No racing, sailing, games, videos, history, there is nothing to do on Risa... no fun interactions at all except for a cool floater that has no practical use at all (and later disappears).
From what i can see now, and PLEASE correct me if i am wrong, STO, with all of the lore, history, technology and wonderment of Star Trek available to draw on, the ability to give players a taste of what it might feel like to live in that fantastic universe... is instead just a war game. You shoot at things on the ground, you shoot at things in space and pick up everything you can, greedy for ever increasing power.
Is this description of a shallow shooter game correct or am i missing something?
I can accept the bugs and constant learning about some new aspect of the game to micromanage, all the while feeling that everything presented to me is half finished in content, context or execution...
My problem is just that it is crazy to me that there is so much available to do in missions, but every other aspect of life in the star trek universe is apparently completely missing.
Since what drew me to the Star Trek in the first place was a deep wistful desire to live there, to face those challenges, surrounded by that caliber of people, to stand for and live those values... if this is accurate, i still like the game and will play it upon occasion, but it will never be a place that i just want to spend time in and that just feels tragic.
Got in game and didn't know that i could choose the era and started a AoY game. In the first mission of AoY the game bugged on the part where you get the rifle... my thoughts were that it is a new game, (found out today that it isn't new), and they will get the bugs out eventually. I looked for fixes and while i found several people with the same issue, i didn't see any fixes.
I really wanted to play and decided to start a new character and that is when i realized that you could choose the era. Started a Starfleet game and got to level 11, utterly loving the game, driving my wife and daughter crazy with my raving about it. During this time, the screen constantly was popping up that this and that player got x ship from kelvin timeline and i started wondering about the temporal agents and all the other things that npcs were talking about and got on the web to learn more.
From what i saw, it seemed that i needed a AoY char to be a temporal agent and decided to give it another go. This time i waited impatiently for each part of the instructions to pop up and discovered that what went wrong before is that i had picked up the rifle before the second npc did, thus bugging it.
I am now level 19 on the AoY char and while i still love the game, i have come to feel how shallow the game is. I love the missions, ground and space, but star trek has always been about the characters, even while surrounded by extraordinary situations and events, still living their lives, going to the holodeck, vacations, etc. Star Trek is not a steady diet of adrenaline.
I decided to go to Risa for a break as it was on the way to a mission. When i got there, at first i was loving the scenery and the float belt rental. After exploring everywhere i could think to look i realized that while the few npcs that you could talk to were all talking about this event or that... There was literally zero leisure activities i could do on an entire planet that is dedicated to entertainment. No racing, sailing, games, videos, history, there is nothing to do on Risa... no fun interactions at all except for a cool floater that has no practical use at all (and later disappears).
From what i can see now, and PLEASE correct me if i am wrong, STO, with all of the lore, history, technology and wonderment of Star Trek available to draw on, the ability to give players a taste of what it might feel like to live in that fantastic universe... is instead just a war game. You shoot at things on the ground, you shoot at things in space and pick up everything you can, greedy for ever increasing power.
Is this description of a shallow shooter game correct or am i missing something?
I can accept the bugs and constant learning about some new aspect of the game to micromanage, all the while feeling that everything presented to me is half finished in content, context or execution...
My problem is just that it is crazy to me that there is so much available to do in missions, but every other aspect of life in the star trek universe is apparently completely missing.
Since what drew me to the Star Trek in the first place was a deep wistful desire to live there, to face those challenges, surrounded by that caliber of people, to stand for and live those values... if this is accurate, i still like the game and will play it upon occasion, but it will never be a place that i just want to spend time in and that just feels tragic.
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l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Other than that there is not much meaningful leisure and social activity unless you get involved with roleplay which I never have, though I have the same outlook as you seem to have.
You might join a fleet that focuses on this. I know some have contests and hide and seek and scavenger hunt etc.
The main point of the game is the story which is quite extensive. Then you grind for various things and kill many things.
For me most of the game is in my imagination - thinking of stories for my now 7 captains.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Secondly, as far as gameplay mechanics, it is essentially a war/action game. BUT, the overarching episodic story that is told through the missions is very much in the spirit of Star Trek, and I think you'll very much appreciate where it goes and how it gets there, if I'm reading your personality and concerns properly. The story is what makes this better than a simple space shoot'em up.
You can lay on the lounges on the Beach if you want to relax.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I thought it was just "get out of 23c" before Wednesday. I mean you get the transponder no matter what and regardless of level, so long as the arc is done.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
I assume PWE (parent company) has figured out the way to make money with Star Trek is to cater to the group of players who are trying to "build up" their "fire power".
So, the game has become about: complete the same battles over and over at the end....with fancier "stuff" that come out at intervals. Upgrading it to the highest quality, using the system made exclusively to do just that....make your "guns" bigger.
I guess, if you are in a fleet with leaders that run various "activities"....but considering everything is based on battles in the game.....I would suspect that is probably what they are gathering to do.
++++++++++++++
Risa HAS activities...but only during the "Lohlunat Festival"...which runs every summer.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Lohlunat_Festival
And there is a similar festival during winter, "Q's Winter Wonderland".
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Q's_Winter_Wonderland
One of the main draw to these events is: new ship that is rewarded for repeating one of the activities at them and collecting tokens.
I really enjoy these events. The complete event. The winter event is more combative....but combat with snowballs is, well, funny to me.
To illustrate the point of the type of players that this game has been drawing of late: there are players who only fly in for 5 mins a day to Risa or Q's WW (to do the "ship thing" during the event. And that is all they bother with. And then, there are the people who can't even make it to do the event for 5 mins...so Cryptic changed the requirements that one character can unlock said ship for all characters on an account.
In other words, they despise it so much....they don't want non-combat.
I don't see this culture changing any time soon.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Every MMO is about increasing your damage. Then you get to the point where even "at level" enemies go up in two seconds, leading to an arms race between frustration features (kill the distortion kind of mobs) and the reality that not everyone has a maxed out T6 armed to the teeth.
So a fresh 60 is not going to have "fun" as much as having frustration and the solution is NOT "well, you go and do everything else up to that point and max out professions and max out reputations and THEN YOU CAN PLAY THE GAME!!!"
I keep saying this kind of thing--Borg encounters should not be done within a minute. They're the frickin' BORG.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
The Undine and Voth are much more capable of resisting than the Borg's "futile" line suggests. And the KDF, Romulan Republic and Federation have all learned quite a bit. So the Borg? Eh, they're not "the freakin borg" anymore.
From the tutorial videos i have seen thus far i can definitely see that the game is geared towards war, but i think i see a way of making chained event areas that are not innately combat based with it. Not sure yet how far i can get with creating interesting non-combat stuff though. I guess time will tell!
Bug fixes come as devs find the time to apply them once they are able to identify how to fix it.
Definitely an annoying bug that hopefully gets fixed.
They had to do something in order fit the theme of Star Trek within the context of an MMO. They do have plans to bring back the exploration feature of the series. They just need to have time to perfect the system.
As someone else mentioned, the map you visited is an event map that is available year round, but the events only come around the beginning of June to about mid July. When it is active, you have activities that you can do such as the floater course to earn yourself a free T6 ship, sandcastle building, horga'hn statue searching for Lohlunat favors (which can be turned in for stuff from noncombat pets to outfit unlocks and kit modules), PvP hoverboard racing for tropical tags that can be turned into Risian Feather Monkeys which can be raised to Adulthood and turned in for reputation marks and finding bird eggs during the Horga'hn hunt which you can hatch and raise similarly to the monkeys.
There is also a winter event that comes around from the beginning of December to mid January that Q sponsors. Q takes you to his winter wonderland that is populated by a few breen, gingerbread people and snowmen & snow borg (snorg if you hear people talking about them). Like the Risian event, you have the chance to earn a free T6 ship too, but this involves running an icy track. You also get access to winter items, including special weapons that are used for events that take place in the Winter Wonderland. You use these weapons to battle the snowmen who want to hurt the gingerbread people. The newest event like this involved you helping to save the gingerbread village on the map from being frozen and keeping their guardian, the snowconian, alive. There is also a PvP ice race where you compete with other people to win winter epohh tags that you can trade in to get a winter Epohh (a New Romulan animal) and raise fully to turn in for Reputation Marks. There's also winter themed kit modules, outfits and icy boots that you can wear year round.
There is one other event, the anniversary event, that takes place around the 2nd of February (which is the day the game was released) in which Q appears again to liven up our mortal lives. As with the summer and winter events, the anniversary event features a ship that can be earned, though in less time than it takes for the winter and summer events since they tend to release a Featured Episode which rewards 400 event vouchers that go towards the earning of your ship. The remainder have to be earned through the collection of Omega Particles (a limited time mini game) by visiting 3 locations chosen (to collect a yellow, red and blue omega particle). You can collect these particles outside of the daily mission and you can save these particles up to turn them into Omega tech upgrades which are useful for upgrading your items without dilithium cost.
This game does draw on the lore and history of Star Trek. The only problem is that they have to fit it in the context of an MMO which will involve fighting. We know Star Trek is about exploration but you can't just do that and expect to make an MMO without fighting.
What keeps me coming back is the fact that they have periodic events throughout the year and there's likely going to be something else coming for the 50th anniversary that we haven't seen yet, plus probably another season update on the way (last time they did an expansion, the year had what we call season 8.5, Season 9, and season 9.5 before Delta Rising was released).
Keep in mind that Star Trek isn't a universe. It isn't even particularly consistent within itself. It is the end product of a team of well paid writers, producers and creators taking a week or more to plot/layout less than an hour of storytelling. The end result is pre-determined, it is foolproof, no one can come along and press the wrong button to mess it up. This is the nature of fictional presentations.
An MMO, by it's very nature, has to be simple, repetitive, accessible to the vast majority of potential players. It has to work the same way for everyone because those players pretty much expect it to. It has to be moderately foolproof in that you can't leave lots of open 'sandbox' approaches to problems for people 'to solve on their own' because coding things at a gaming level simply isn't that sophisticated. And there would be too many ways for it to break or fail, and people would complain.
You aren't going to face and solve those amazing challenges, surrounded by people of that caliber, because virtually every player you are actually surrounded by isn't particularly skilled at those sort of things. They aren't really even very skilled (on average) at the fairly simple space combat, ground combat, and puzzle-solving that actually does make it into game.
Understand, I am not putting people down for that. It's a game, people play it for some relaxation and fantasy and escapism and to get a little adrenalin going. They don't need to train 4 years in an advanced academy to do so.
What STO does is include a lot of 'stage props' and storytelling background that you can use your own imagination to insert yourself into the Trekverse with. It's combat-oriented because that's what MMO's do, it's the one thing that is consistently effectively programmable.
The game as it stands takes a ton of graphics, 3D design, environmental and game mechanics work to make even an hour or so of playable content. And they provide most of it free... it's somewhat surprising they even manage to do as much as they do.
In fact, they even went through the trouble of making a Foundry content creation tool so you can even MORE effectively fiddle with the underpinnings of the Trekverse and create whatever kind of story you think is needed. Or you can, simply by flying around sector space, sample creations made by other people.
Is it like being part of a Trek episode or movie? Not even close, really. That's not something anyone else can package for you. Is it something a person who enjoys futuristic themes, storytelling, space flight and resolving conflict with a hot blaster can have fun with? Sure thing.
unfortunately there is more war stories in lore ...
Fleet leader Nova Elite
Fleet Leader House of Nova elite
@ren_larreck
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
True. As much as some of us might want problems to solve that would require deep thought or even *gasp* research, that just isn't plausible in a game where players complain about anything more complex than pressing 'F' at things.
Although IMO, when people complain puzzles that only need basic 1st grade math to solve are too hard (the temporal probes), they really do deserve to be put down for that.
Maths is not my strong point at best of times
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I think, or hope at least, that as you go along you'll discover, just like I have over the years, that this game has a lot of layers to it. While it may seem like a repetitive shooter at times (and it does feel like that a lot throughout the storylines) I've been continually impressed at some of the complexities that have come along and how deeply they've dug into the lore for some of the stories in the game. There are things that are frustrating, but if you hit one of those spots, there's always other fun things to do to take a break from those bits for a while.
But the Foundry missions are definitely where you need to go for the real "Star Trek" feel. As has been mentioned, there's limits to how much they can do to keep the mass audience happy (though I really think they are underestimating the players at times, and could push the envelope with a bit more unique storytelling techniques) but the Foundry authors are some of the best storytellers in fandom and you'll find something for everybody in there.
Hope you continue to have fun. A lot of folks around here take themselves a bit too seriously, and seem to forget that "fun" really the point of a game after all.
MMOs, especially F2P, is all about arcade action and purchasing goodies to speed up the process. It has always been this way - slay monsters, earn currency and loot, rinse and repeat. STO is exactly this old formula just clad in a Star Trek skin. You have amyriad of references to the shows and such (so much in fact the game abandoned virtually all originality and is just a chain of show references at this point) but ultimately you progress by shooting five groups of enemies on every map you are while you red the story bits that may or may not be a good story in your opinion.
STO isn't bad at what it does, but it's also far from what I'd call a complex and deep gaming expeirence. It's rather shallow. Entertaining and at some places rather impressive, but still shallow and unfortunately for the most part wasted potential.
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Captains' Skill affects Bridge Officer Powers which affect Damage and Defense, which are affected by Ships Power Levels, which are enhanced by Traits...
Each aspect of the game is simple and straightforward, but after many years of STO I'm still learning how to make them work together more effectively.
Keep your head and arms inside the vehicle and enjoy the ride!
The ambitions were commendable - but the technology just wasn't there yet. I'm not sure it is even today. (What we could really use is a strong AI programmed to be the Game Master, but that's still out there on the horizon of theory, not even a solid dream yet.)
Meanwhile, although the missions are combat-heavy, reading all the flavor text can help put them into a Trek context, especially since the revamp of the Romulan Mystery arc ("Divide et Impera" was a real mood-killer, I tell you what).
Sorry, but I have to step in here and break a lance for the old Exploration system. Yes, what you describe happened, just like there was a third Borg dynasty in the B'Tran cluster (because the Borg slipped into the table of aliens and one of the flavor texts that only would fill in the blank of the alien species had a third dynasty, appearantly). But you are writing as if it was the norm. Landing on a unplayable planet was hardly as frequent as people make it out to be and even better if that happened you simply restarted the mission. You know there are some episodes in STO right now that have you spawn under ground if you die in a curious spot? It happens, it's part of the game.
On the other hoof I could tell tales of landing on a planet and encountering some random aliengen aliens that looked different and surprised you with their strangth of weapons and abilities, actually making you reconsider your approach, required you to lay ambushes with your BOFFs you would command manually, create bunkers with engineers or plaster them with sci debuffs, picking off one enemy at a time. Fresh approaches like this happened just as well.
The Exploration clusters were just a tiny little glimpse at how a sandbox element of the game could look like. It wasn't random, it was just a bunch of maps, true. But that's really all that's needed, a dozen maps but with lots of random modifiers and not the same five opponents all the time. It would be a start.
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