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A little confused.
coldelis
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
I am new to STO and I am enjoying, however I have a couple questions before I invest time and money into it. I have played WoW, Rift, FF14, Wildstar, SWTOR, Age of Conan, Aion, Warhammer Online, and many others
1) What is the end game? Is it this Foundry I keep seeing pop up and hear about?
2) To fully enjoy the game should I play Federation? I see a lot of the population is there. Is it more fleshed out? I currently play KDF.
3) I don't mind spending money on a good game at all. However, I have seen many Forum posts that the more powerful end game ships are only available through the C Store...is this true?
1) What is the end game? Is it this Foundry I keep seeing pop up and hear about?
2) To fully enjoy the game should I play Federation? I see a lot of the population is there. Is it more fleshed out? I currently play KDF.
3) I don't mind spending money on a good game at all. However, I have seen many Forum posts that the more powerful end game ships are only available through the C Store...is this true?
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Fed yea do have alot of content, or rather they get most of the focus compared to the other factions. Though I would atleast make one of each of the other factions to get to do their content too
Alwys keep in mind that most fo the cotnent can be done with any ship, and pretty much any gear if you set the ship up right. Mmost of the end=game is also dps-chasing in the dps channels an boards. If you enjoy that aspect of gaming than yeah alot of really good ships are on the c-store an lobi/ec exhange for you to get.
1) We have a huge selection of PvE maps with various difficulty settings. Playing them with friends and fleet mates got me entertained enough to stick to STO for close to 6 years now. We also have a cool DPS league where one can integrate some sporty and or more in depth team play aspects into PvE (there is a lot to learn as the game is really complex by now). There is also PvP which I hardly do cuz none of my in game friends are into it.
2) I’d start fed side as well because of the mass of the content although I never regretted to make Klingon and Romulan characters at all. I have a habit of seeing the factions as a whole instead of fed got more contend vs. kdf but each to his own.
3) It is correct that cryptic sells power directly from the zen store (not to mention lock boxes). The more power you have the easier this game gets for you to play and the faster you are going to progress. Like with other games you can spend money or spend the equivalent time in game to grind for the respective in game currencies. All is F2P. I found a mix of both to be most beneficial in my case.
I’d say give the game a shot for a while. If you only enjoy the story content and are not much for teamed PvE there is nothing wrong with returning every couple of weeks to see the latest mission and then do something else.
If you are looking for an easy fleet, give me a shout.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I personally play the game because I have loved Star Trek wince it first came out (yes I am that old) and this game allows me to (somewhat) put myself in Star Trek. My end game is playing around with different ships, careers races etc. For example, I bought the T5 Andorian ships pack (before they made T6 Andy ships) for the sole reason of creating an Andorian Captain, flying an Andorian ship, with an Andorian crew, except for some token Bridge Officers of other races just for the space traits.
I have toons of all factions and careers, and personally I think the Romulans have the better beginning story line, followed by KDF and then Feds. So personally, at lower levels I think the game is more enjoyable in that same order. At higher levels the story line is all the same no matter what faction you are so fully enjoying the game all depends on the individual. Feds have more stuff, Roms have the most powerful ships and Klingons have....well, they're Klingons lol. Make one of each, play them all up to around the Nimbus missions (I think that's about where everything merges still, someone else could maybe say for sure) and by then you should know which one you like the most. Just keep in mind for your Romulan that after you choose to side with either Fed or KDF, you can use their ships, but only until Tier 4, after that it's Romulan ships only, so you are better off sticking with strictly Romulan ships all the way so you have the "skill set" for using the Romulan ships. A side note on that, siding with the Feds and grabbing the Fed science ships as you level helps with Admiralty later on but then you hit tier 5 and and have to use Romulan ships...and all of your learning has been in Fed ships.
The Foundry, in a nutshell, player made missions, ranging from downright crappy to totally awesome. No disrespect intended to the writers/developers at Cryptic but I have played a few Foundry missions that, to me, are better than any of the official game missions. Then again, Foundry writers basically have free reign and aren't limited to content that has to be approved by committee. I am quite sure that STOs writers have come up with tons of stuff that we, the players would absolutely love, only to have it shot down. The key thing is that the Foundry offers a huge amount of content to play when you get bored with the official content, just don't give up on the Foundry when you happen to pick a few, or a number, of the not so good missions in a row.
Finally, yes, C-store are more powerful so either spending money, or grinding dilithium to convert to Zen is required to get them. With proper gear and skills you can handle anything in this game with just the free ships you get as you level so buying a C-store is not even remotely necessary to enjoy the game, but the they are sure nice to have. I don't own any myself but according to a lot of people some of the lock box ships are actually way better than even the C-store ships, but acquiring one takes a lot more...effort... than getting a C-store ship.
I have a lot of toons and I am also a member of more than few different Fleets, all of which don't mind how much, or how little, you actually play so I can give you leads on others if interested.
1. End game is STF's to be honest. But there's alot of Battlezones and other activities to do.
2. All factions are worth playing, with Romulans having a few more episodes to play than the rest, but all end up having the same to play at the end.
3. Whilst this is true, Ships are more cosmetic than anything. Your real power comes from your equipment. Money can speed up upgrading, but it doesn't really buy power, and this is why this game isn't pay to win. There is nothing to compete for in this game, nor can you lose anything to nefarious players.
In short. Take your time and enjoy yourself in this game.
Some reputation gear is fun to have, or looks good (the Dyson Ground armor set is one of my standards), a lot of the reputations have shields that have visual effects on your ship (Barbie).
But all that aside, there are ALWAYS people playing. Try a couple of fleets (think of guilds) and find one you enjoy (or a couple, all of my chars are spread between 3 diff fleets depending on my mood). And have fun. It's a good game, but it's pretty epic Star Trek gaming. The stories are generally great and fleshed out (def run at LEAST one Fed, one 23rd century, and one Rom too just to experience their unique story missions (sub level 30 I think, then they all merge) Just have fun. Some of the new maps they create are interesting (I love the Dyson ground map and the space map are both visually pleasant. The Dyson space map is huge and has quite a few little things hidden (besides the "found" missions.) Kobali ground map has it's own story arc (used to be required, now it's skippable, but WORTH doing at least once).
Have fun. You can play the heck out of the game, or just log in to hang out with great people. Argue in chat (PLEASE don't use zone chat for religion and politics. There are separate zones for that) DS9 is a popular hangout if you are into RPing. Welcome to STO!
2 - I play all factions equally a this point in time. I have 4 Fed, 4 KDF and 4 Romulan characters on my primary account. On my secondary "free 2 play" only account I have one character in each faction. Each faction begins with about 40 to 46 unique missions; the Romulan Republic has the most missions. However, once you get to the Cardassian Struggle story arc all factions will have the same missions in the same sequence. The Federation does have more C-Store ships to buy though.
3 - The C-Store certainly has a lot of good ships, but I suppose players can argue that the "best" ships are from lockboxes (~0.5% chance) and "Promo Pack" ships (~1% chance) followed by Lobi Store ship where you need to spend Lobi Crystals to buy them. You need to open lockboxes or "Promo Packs" to get Lobi Crystals. These ships are also list for sale on the Exchange by other players.
Note that really rare and popular ships are not listed on the Exchange by other players because there is a maximum selling price of 1.5 billion EC. These include the T6 Temporal Light Cruiser (basically the T6 version of the classic U.S.S Enterprise) and the gigantic T6 Universe Class Cruiser ( the Enterprise-J). You would need to privately trade with other players to get these ships because they want more than just a mere 1.5 billion EC for them.
1. Grinding reps, doff assignments and typical repeatable missions for dilithium, getting common doffs and selling them on for credits, where it all goes back into grinding. Additionally you can run PvE's and build your DPS nuumbers up to raid on elite.
2. Federation have the largest playerbase, but that information is years out of date. I don't know if it is still accurate.
3. optional P2W, your basic T4.5 ship or T5 ship isn't as good as a T6 ship with all the trimmings so long as you can afford to pay for it, leading to point 1 or buying zen to get it.
RNG lootboxes sometimes provide ships, but being an RNG, it is on you if you want to spend so many resources on it.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
There's duty officers: Random mooks from your crew you can send off to do stuff around the galaxy (11 level bars, and actually developing your crew can be a major project in itself)
Admiralty: Your own fleet of all the ships you've owned, like doffs you can send them off to do stuff for you (4 regions, each with a level bar and a repeating loop with a big payout at the end. They occasionally add more tracks to this system)
Reputation: Special unlocks themed to specific content sets, usually revolving around a specific enemy group (11 factions, more are added frequently, most major updates have one)
R&D: Having your doffs craft stuff for you. (8 categories, they have added a category since the system launched but it's not a common occurrence)
Equipment upgrading: Increasing the level and quality of equipment (every item effectively has two progress bars, mk levels are straightforward but quality levels are difficult and highly random, meaning the last 10% often costs more than the first 90 - quality upgrading used to be the last hurrah of development)
Reengineering: Rerolling the bonuses gear gains as it increases in quality levels (requires consuming unused equipment, kind of the new "last mile" after quality upgrades)
Specializations: Kind of like subclasses you can develop and select to augment your main career class (currently 7, more added often but not as often as reputations)
Fleet holdings: Big projects for fleets to build, unlock tons of different stuff for members to buy from costumes to weapons to entire starships as well as build up increasingly complex social maps for the fleet to use (Two major holdings with three development tracks each, five minor holdings with two tracks each and a much lower exp cap. Added occasionally but not frequently)
It's not exactly Progress Quest, but it's a lot of running around to hit daily bonuses, exp throttles, timegates, and so forth. It's pretty overwhelming to walk into it all fresh, and easy for old players to forget since we generally got new exp bars spaced out with time to fill in a set before new ones are added.
LOT harder especialy caus it takes a while to earn the dilithium to convert to zen to get the C-store ships.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard