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surgh
Member Posts: 45 Arc User
in The Academy
OK, so I played the game YEARS ago, like when it first came out. Played a....that worked out -NOT-
Anyway, thinking of giving the game a try again, possibly try Klingon. How is the state of the game, klingons in particular. I am not really into PvP, may do a bit but mainly into PvE.
Has the game become more a solo thing (I hope not because, well, mmo....I prefer groups). I remember almost nothing about thew BOFF's or any of that. Where to start ?
Is it really viable for a new player to come back now, or...not worth the time.
Anyway, thinking of giving the game a try again, possibly try Klingon. How is the state of the game, klingons in particular. I am not really into PvP, may do a bit but mainly into PvE.
Has the game become more a solo thing (I hope not because, well, mmo....I prefer groups). I remember almost nothing about thew BOFF's or any of that. Where to start ?
Is it really viable for a new player to come back now, or...not worth the time.
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Season 13 introduced new competitive queue missions and related reputation system. I have not played any of these missions yet though, but they do require a bit of teamwork from what I hear. It's not PvP, it's more like two teams pitted against each other; the winning team is the one that complete all the objectives first.
All factions (Fed/KDF/RR) have around 40 - 45 unique missions mixed in with some shared missions. However, once you get into the Cardassian story arc all factions will have the same missions in the same sequence. Prior to the release of Delta Rising the KDF and RR got very little attention from Cryptic; I read there was a period of like 18 months where Cryptic did not bother to release a single KDF T5 starship. With the release of Delta Rising Cryptic had to release new ships for the KDF and RR because the level was raised from 50 to 60 and Tier 6 ships were the new shiny.
There more T6 ships for the Fed than the other factions, but at least last Cryptic finally released faction specific Science Vessels for the KDF and RR something that players have been asking for since I started playing back in Jan 2014. In the recent past Cryptic has released T6 ships for all factions at the same rate. The exception is the Temporal Ship Pack which was mostly for the Fed faction because it tied into the 2016 Agents of Yesterday expansion where players could create a 23rd century Fed character.
Is STO viable for new / returning players? In general, yes. However, if you want to group up with other players, then I recommend to look into joining a fleet. Some fleets actively play the various end game queue missions in private sessions. Is it going to be worth your time? Only you can answer that and the only way to find out is to actually play the game. I like the single player aspect of the game, and I like that fact that I can jump into a battlezone / queue missions where I can silently play with others players to complete objectives and get rewards.
If you are into maxing out DPS as high as it can go, then the game is going to be very grindy. If you are more of a "casual" player that is fine with doing 15k - 30k in a Tier 6 starship, then the game will not be grindy.
If you can find some friends to play, or join a good, active fleet, you can do most of the content in a group. Some missions are solo only, others that can be team played aren't set up all that well for team play and are better run solo anyway, but group play is definitely possible for most of it.
I'm going to directly quote jag now "Is it going to be worth your time? Only you can answer that and the only way to find out is to actually play the game."
It will cost you absolutely nothing but some of your time to jump in and give it a go. And it will never cost you anything but your time unless you decide you want to spend money on some of the "shinies", none of which are needed to play all the content the game has to offer.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
As I understand it, Klingons are no longer the "PvP" faction, so you now have just as much PvE access as a Klingon as you do as Federation or Romulan.
In terms of the journey from 1 to 60 there are no missions that require a group and everything can be solo'd. As such, you don't really bother trying to make a tank, or support role ship, as this will just make all the mission content tedious.
When you get to 60, the end game content is (again) PvE queues and again, the game doesn't really support different roles, so the end game is (Again) mostly about damage, so don't make a tank or support ship. And once you are bored of doing PvE queues there is literally nothing else to do except wait for the next episode, level alts, or try PvP.
Nonetheless, you will want to join a relatively active fleet as being in a fleet is the only way to get - or spend - fleet credit, which is the only path to some of the better end game gear. Also, being in an active Fleet/Armada means you might actually spend enough time doing PvE queues with a regular group that building a support role ship might be viable.
Finally with regards to the above, your choice of profession doesn't really matter, any captain can fly any ship, your captains chosen profession will give you an edge in terms of damage (tactical), survivability (engineering/science) or crowd control (science).
@Winters83 has an excellent "Lets Play" series on YouTube in which he levels a strictly free-to-play only character from 1 to the end game (
Crucial episodes are:
12 - Intro to the DOFF system
17 - Intro to R&D
23 - early Leveling up / Skills (level 20)
24 - Dilithium mining
42 - levelling up and skills (level 30)
46 - level 40 skills
...
He flys a tactical captain with a focus on weapons based damage, but again, the skill tree works just as well for a engineering or science captain.
"To the Stars, despite adversity"
So, have been watching his "Lets Play" and must say, I am almost convinced enough to try the game again. Few more questions if I may, I am still debating Klingon or Fed. How is the "Klingon side" in terms of pve, pvp etc ?. Whats the Klingon population like ?
Also, I understand its free-to-play, but generally, any mmo I play I like to sub, for a few reasons, one being that I believe people should get paid for their work, and subbing is paying their salary, and two, usually the free-to-play is pretty crippled. What are the benefits of subbing vs free-to-play in this game ?
And last but not least, joining a fleet etc, are there "newbie friendly" fleets out there ? I dont want to spam general chat with "looking for fleet" or something similar. General chat or Zone whatever its called in this game is normally pretty.....er....toxic/stupid/whatever-the term you want to use is. I guess in a fleet I would be looking for people to answer "dumb newbie questions" and grp with at times.
Thanks
The content is pretty much the same for fed/kdf/rommie. Differences of note:
*the introductory story arc missions, those first dozen or so missions are faction specific, after that all factions play the same story arcs;
*feds have more ship options (particularly science ships);
*some Duty Officer assignments are faction specific (kdf get looting assignments, fed get diplomatic);
*Fleet queues, those queues that use player fleets' starbases, pop more quickly for fed.
PVP... Well we're all part of the alliance now. PVP is in the form of war games and your faction is pretty irrelevant in the games. So it follows that excepting those fleet queues, you're likely to see both kdf and fed ships on your team.
You get the same content in STO whether you're silver or gold. There are some perks for being gold though. Since I'm a lifer I take some things for granted like the increased Energy Credit cap and account bank, but there are also some other things like respec tokens and extra inventory space on ranking. However all those perks can also otherwise be purchased with Zen for those who aren't gold members. Suffice it to say that except for some veteran perks that require you to be subbed for so many 100s of days you can get most stuff either by subbing or straight from the Zen store.
Where Cryptic is making their money from are things like ships and lockboxes, which eventually comes down to someone, sometime getting Zen. *Even if you're a gold member* Zen will have to be used for that aspect of the game. Now part of your subscription fee I believe gives your some Zen, but only part. I'm not sure if this is still true, but a while ago the consensus was to subscribe while you were leveling up for the tokens and such and then go silver once you hit the level cap and take the Zen you got while gold to keep the Energy Credit cap.
The spamming actually went mostly the other way with fleets obnoxiously recruiting for members. I got so sick of it that I had to turn general chat off. You'd be snapped up in seconds if you broadcast "looking for fleet" in chat. But you may want to check out the section of the forum dedicated to recruitment first.
I'll cover those in order the best I can, but save Faction for last.
Silver (F2p) the cap is 10,000,000 EC, which can sound like a lot but it's not, a lot of stuff you might want to buy in the exchange is a lot higher than that. Gold (subscriber) the cap is 1,000,000,000 EC, and, believe it or not, some of the very rare and high demand ships go for even more than that.
Although I am a "lifer" I am a very casual player. Some days I might log in and just play a single mission on one of my toons that hasn't finished all the story arcs yet, other days I'll play for hours, running missions, doing STFs etc. And some days I jut log in, collect my R&D and DOFFing rewards, start a new batch and log off. The key thing I think you are looking at though is the STFs, STOs equivalent of a WOW "raid". They can run anywhere from 30 seconds or so on up, the longest I myself have ever been in was maybe 15 minutes and that was running an Elite with Fleet mates, and only one of us was really at a stage to be running an Elite (it wasn't me either lol). STFs aren't even available to play till you hit level 50 so as a casual player they would be well into the future.
The lifetime sub is a one time large payment and you are then subscribed for the life of the game without ever paying anything again (unless you really want to buy something from the C-store). It has all the same benefits as a regular subscriber plus a few extra perks, one of which is you get immediate access to all the veteran rewards that a regular subscriber only gets after anywhere from 100 days to 800 days of being a subscriber. On PC it normally costs $299.00 USD, basically what you would spend staying subscribed for almost 2 years. If you wait for a sale it drops to $199.00 USD. I have no regrets at all over getting my lifetime sub although even on sale that was a hard amount to scrape up.
Finally, Faction..... this is STO, you can have your cake and eat it too....errr.... you can drink Chateau Picard, Bloodwine, and Romulan Ale, you aren't limited to only one. I started with a Fed toon, then a Klingon, then a Fed aligned Romulan, then a KDF aligned Romulan, at this point I now have a Tac, Sci and Eng toon in each of those categories with multiples of a few. Feds have the greatest number of ship choices, with KDF and then Romulans trailing way behind in that aspect. Doesn't matter which one you pick, after a certain point all Factions are happily (???) allied and the missions are the same no matter what faction you are, there are slight "nods" to the fact that you might be a Klingon or Romulan to be found but also at that point, the mission choices and dialogues are decisively Federation oriented so "immersion" as a KDF or Rom toon just ain't happening. The game is still quite fun, I just wish my Klingon had the choice of actually acting and talking like a true Klingon instead of being all kissy, kissy, lets be friends.
In my opinion, the KDf and Romulans have much better, and more interesting, Faction specific content leading up to the big merge. In comparison the Fed story is actually kinda bland, but not at least trying all three would almost be a crime, especially sine even a F2P player has enough toon slots to play them all, granted not enough to have a tac, Sci, and Eng in all of them though.
Hey @surgh, first of all let me say that you so much for checking out my Lets Play Series! Also thanks to @ihatepwe735 for making the recommendation!
I think you have already got some good answers RE: the Fed faction and KDF faction so I won't go into that.
I do recommend that you check out the following link. Subscription Benefits
I would say that if you are going to be playing the game for a long time. As in "years" then you are better off to go with a "Lifetime" membership. Lifetime members get every award straight away whereas normal gold or "monthly" subscribers gain the awards over time. If you do decide to go "Lifetime" then wait for it to go on "sale"! They take $100 off the normal price during a sale. They are due to have another one in the next couple of months. One good thing about monthly subscription and/or lifetime is that you get 500 FREE Zen every month. So if you are going to stay with the game for a long time it is better to make the one payment and avail of that 500 free Zen.
Regarding joining a Fleet. Obviously I'm gonna be biased but I would recommend the Priority One Armada. We are a very friendly bunch and we always have members asking questions and looking for help. I often get members asking me to help them with their builds which we do over voice. This is not mandatory but it is the best way to get help and to get questions answered.
I will say that we don't have regular PvE events planned currently because most members have all the Reputations finished and there isn't much reason for members to play PvE Queues. Having said that, we can often get totally random PvE runs pop up every now and then just out of the blue.
We do however have regular seasonal events, competition and giveaways! Our anniversary is coming up within the next month or two and we have some really big things planned with some major prizes up for grabs.
You might also be interested in checking out my video on "Fleets". You can click on the following link for that. Lets Play Star Trek Online - Fleets. This is a good video if you are not familiar with Fleets and how they work. If you are familiar with Fleets then it may not be any benefit to you.
If you have any more questions please feel free to him me up.
-Winters
=/\= ========================================== =/\=
Fleet Admiral Winters - Priority One Armada
U.S.S. Wolverine - NCC 831216
=/\= ========================================== =/\=
Armada Leader // Executive Producer // Host // Priority One Podcast
I'm actually partial to kdf for the grind at the end game rather than the beginning intro content. The biggest currency at end game is dilithium and Doffing is one of my better sources for getting it casually. KDF get a slight edge in this because of their raiding missions which reward a goodly amount of contraband and prisoners that in turn can be turned into more dilithium - resources not as readily acquired by the federation.
By all means play them all! As stated even silver players have enough character slots for one of each faction. But if I were only going to play one faction it would have to be federation - this is Star Trek after all.
Thank you for making those vids, they have been very informative. I did take some time browsing your website, and it seems very thorough and professional, something I look for in a guild ( fleet in this case). I was happy to hear that your armada has both Federation and KDF, I do like having options. I do like how you decided to go in depth on certain aspects of the game, but it is a LOT of information to absorb, if I do start to play again and join up, expect questions
I do like the option that a tact officer is not pigeonholed into a escort, engineer into a cruiser and a science officer into a science chip. I like the looks of the cruisers, Voyager etc.......thinking of going tactical in something like that, I assume that is a viable option ? Assuming I go Federation of course, not sure what the options are on the KDF side, might do a bit of looking around for that.
Fly safe.
Well, while STO definitely fits into the play-to-win mold, they have done it in a better way than most. Even as a Silver / F2P player you can be assured that you are contributing to the financial well being of STO each time you buy, or spend, Zen. Even if you don't spend any real money - If you buy Keys on the exchange, or trade dilithium for Zen, those items still represent money given to Cryptic.
You could try United Federation of Planets. (ufplanets.com) They run regular STF events, build discussions etc. All STF events are divided into tems based on number of participants with each team being led by an experienced player who knows the STF intimately and will guide player through it. STFs run are selected for the type of marks players need, or just what STF they just want to play for fun if no one needs specific marks that day.
They have multiple Fed and KDF Fleets due to the large number of members (and alt toons), and both the Fed and KDF main Fleet holdings are at max on everything so anything you have Fleet credits and ddilithium for is readily available, they have a UFPlanets chat channel so everyone that's online, even if in different Fleets, can talk to each other, and most important to me with my totally random play times, it is extremely rare to log on and not find a number of members online no matter matter what day/time it is. They don't have a minimum contribution system to gain bank/store access, instead they have a relatively short probationary period. You can be as hardcore or as casual as you like, they do a "check in" on the Forums every three months to find players that have actually totally quit. You can take a break from playing STO for as long as you want, as long as you respond to the the check in every three months on the forums, you won't be kicked.
Disclaimer, I am not a recruiter for UFP, have absolutely no "official" standing there either, in fact I am probably one of the most casual members there and most others wouldn't recognize my name if you hit them upside the head with it. Just having been in a number of Fleets, and still having toons in other Fleets that don't mind extremely casual players, I feel it one of the best, if not the best out there, especially for the casual player.