Like alot of the other's, the game being Star Trek is a big part of why I play. I perfer to play solo, so the story missions, battlezones, and patrols are where I spend most of my time.
There are alot of different ways to look at the ship building system in the game. I like to find the weakness in a ship and try to balance it out. Others go for dps or the holy three. Sometimes these different ways don't play togather very well but the fact that they all work in game is one of the best things about it.
I started playing because it's Star Trek with no monthly fee. I stopped playing for a year because I realized I wasn't playing a game so much as working a job to unlock a game. I came back from the break because it's Star Trek. I keep playing because if I'm away for more than a week I'll miss out on limited-time unlocks, like the Risa corvette, Risa luxury cruiser, and DSD that I will never ever have.
However, I do understand that loss aversion is a more powerful force than enjoyment, and DAU metrics are vital to any free service's financial stability.
How does "loss aversion" factor into a free game? If I were to drop the game and walk away, the only "loss" I'd experience would be of the TOS package I actually spent cash money on - everything else was only an investment of time, and I'm well aware of the sunk-cost fallacy.
If the game isn't fun, Farranor, why are you concerned with getting more free stuff in it, even though you're not going to use it because you don't enjoy it? This makes no sense to me.
Because I have been here since launch and have basically everything I could ever want or need, the new equipment added is really just busy work for me that gets me to log in for a few minutes to do the grinds and that's about it. I'm still funneling money into the game to get new ships, but that's really just the completionist in me doing it.
I am, however, really looking forward to this expansion and playing a Jem'hadar who has a head start on the grind. By the time I was done with my Romulan, delta and temporal recruits grind to 60, I didn't really have a lot of desire to play them anymore. I am hoping that having a big selection of T6 ships and starting at 60 will make me not sick of looking at my new toon so quickly and hop back to my main.
The fact that the game is extremely solo friendly, but not solo exclusive. Sometimes it is nice to do team content.
^ I agreed with this guy a lot. Below are some of my key retain points.
• Free to play model. You can be competitive and enjoy the game regardless of the size of your STO budget. I have had my account since 1/23/2011 but really started when it went free to play.
• There's been continuous positive improvements over the years. (ESD revamp, account wide things)
• I'd play even without a lot of new content just because I'd get into doing the foundry more.
Speaking for myself. Top three things that I would like that I can think of:
• Auto fill for admiralty even if it meant cutting rewards for admiralty a bit or paying a one time zen cost to unlock the auto fill option.
• Accolade tracker. Shows what ones can be earned, retired, ect.
• Account wide EC & refined dil in the assets tab.
"Power Creep" - Yes I know it's bad for the game long-term, but I just love upgrading my ships to kill stuff faster.
The non time-gated space 'queues', mostly ISA and KVA; KVA is my favorite but ISA drops faster.
Different ships and different builds, one for each 'toon', I try to have no two builds alike and even play the weaker ones occasionally.
Hate:
Big system-wide 'nerfs' in response to small problems that needed 'tweaking'.
Time-gated missions, they kill the impulse to fight hard, and get boring very quickly.
The feeling that, a lot of the time, the Devs don't listen to us and impose stuff on us that we just don't want (Note: this post is an encouraging counter to that). Examples are 'the landing pane', the colony fleet holding', 'the power rebalance (some builds just felt naff after that one)', 'the Season 9 changes to reputation powers' (so redundant in light of the Specializations that followed)', and 'Time-gated missions (again)', you know a lot of us don't like them yet you seem driven to make us spend a lot of time doing a small number of missions when we'd like to spend, probably. even more time, doing lots of missions (and it's not controlling 'resources' or 'marks' - with the 'Admiralty system' farming's never been so easy).
Like to see:
More stuff for 'carriers' and 'pets'.
Power curve roll-back (both of them).
More different rules for PVP and PVE, (in particular FBP, it like (all but 2) of the Sci powers are next to useless against the 'low DPS, but super high HPs of the AI).
How does "loss aversion" factor into a free game? If I were to drop the game and walk away, the only "loss" I'd experience would be of the TOS package I actually spent cash money on - everything else was only an investment of time, and I'm well aware of the sunk-cost fallacy.
If the game isn't fun, Farranor, why are you concerned with getting more free stuff in it, even though you're not going to use it because you don't enjoy it? This makes no sense to me.
If I take a break and come back again, there will be items (weapons, consoles, ships, etc.) that I may want to use for whatever reason (like the DSD warp core for touring) but won't be able to acquire because they were only available during limited-time events. Such events run almost constantly, so I play continuously to avoid experiencing that loss. If I quit permanently, those lost opportunities wouldn't matter, but I really like Star Trek, so I'm very unlikely to do so.
Plus, logging in every day gives me lots of dilithium. That'll come in handy if the C-Store ever offers something I'm interested in. I was initially grinding for things like inventory space and doff slots, but I've learned to work around the limited inventory space, and doffing hasn't been a very key component in making 8k dilithium per day per character since Admiralty came out. I still hold out hope that one day I'll come across something I find worth buying.
FIRST BY A LARGE MARGIN is Episodes, i.e. story content. I play with a few friends, and I can easily say that my group will log in when there is a new story mission that we can play together (and potentially RP in), and when there isn't, I log in much less.
Secondly, I will log in during social events that we like to play together (summer event and winter event come to mind), even if the story content is a little lighter.
Finally, I will log in if there is a new reward I find appealing to work towards. For instance, if the Sompek Pulsewave were to come back, I'd try and get it this time. I'm currently working on the Phaser Torpedo now. But the last rewards I really liked before that torp was the Naussican Set back in "Echoes of Light" and the Tsunkatse gloves. Haven't had much reason to grind out new gear other than those few things.
TL;DR - I will definitely play and spend the most when there is story content I can play with a group. I might log in if there is social content or an appealing reward.
EDIT: Also a suggestion...if doing story content more than once a month is too prohibitive, I would recommend bringing in a new procedural generated mission system with generic scenarios such as aid the colony, initiate first contact, repair satellites, and the like. I know there was something like this at one point (but it could've been better RE: Borg Dynasty), and my friends and I would RP the heck out of these and add to our own stories. (I know the foundry is a thing, but a lot of the foundry missions I've played are more like 2 hour fan-fics than something that gave us this kind of experience...open to anyone who can disprove this.)
First, there's the story. I keep coming back to see where the narrative is taking us.
Then, there are my characters. I've maxed out my character slots at 54 and I still want more. (Hint, hint. Increase the cap. ) New Reputations, new ships, new costumes, all have me coming back to develop new characters or revamp older ones.
Events and the rewards that come with them, moreso now that they are moving to account unlocks.
As for wishlist items: I'd like to see the return of a revamped Exploration System.
And one other thing that I keep wishing for and I hope to one day see get further development is Ship Interiors. It's something that I will continue to advocate until the server shuts down.
It's too bad that something isn't being done with ship interiors, because most of Star Trek took place on the ship. I think it's something that would be worth investing development time in, because the work put into it could then be used as a basis for so many other things: episode mission maps, PVE/PVP queue maps, etc.
I've said before that I'd love to see Starship Interiors done the way Fleet Starbases are done, but scaled to a personal level. Fleet Starbases have their various leveling projects and cosmetic projects. Starship Interiors could work the same way with project inputs scaled to the individual rather than an entire fleet. Leveling one's Starship Interior would give a player access to more things: Bank, Email, Tailor, etc. Cosmetic projects could allow for decor in the Captain's Quarters, Ten Forward, or even allow to toggle between TOS, TMP, TNG, and 2410 aesthetics.
*more in the spoiler tags to hide the Wall of Text
Fleet Starbases have holdings that can also be leveled and have cosmetic projects. On Starship Interiors this would be represented by adding new decks, for example:
Crew Deck: Captain's Quarters with possible Tailor access and trophy displays. Ten Forward with a variety of games that we've seen played in Star Trek and possibly a dance floor. Assign quarters to various BOFFS, visit them and they could give you a daily mission to be done aboard ship.
Life Sciences: a menagerie for storing and displaying pets bought and earned, possible breeding projects for said pets to be unlocked, games for scanning, detecting, identifying life forms.
Stellar Cartography: scanning games for locating, identifying various stellar phenomenon.
Sick Bay: triaging patients game (similar to the Kobali triage mission) for crew members that wander into Sick Bay.
Shuttle Bay: small craft that we own could be displayed here, switching to small craft could be done here, traveling to Fleet Holding could be done here, queueing for shuttle PVE/PVP could be done here, perhaps some unique shuttle piloting/racing missions could be done from here.
Engineering: engineering diagnostic games (warp field, plasma flow adjustments), detecting problems on the ship somewhere then going there and fixing it, a Jefferies tube scavenger hunt type game (using a blank map like Temporal Ambassador), crafting of unique items available only here.
Allow our designated Department Heads to be assigned to occupy the relevant station on board, ex) CMO would be in Sick Bay, Chief Engineer would be in Engineering.
Allow us some (at least limited) choices on crew composition. Perhaps using toggles for species, uniforms that they wear. These options could also be made available through cosmetic projects. Personally, I'd love to see the DOFF roster used to determine crew composition. Allow a toggle or slider for number of crew on a given map with 0 being an option as well. Interacting with random crew members could yield a daily mission or unique DOFF assignment.
The maps themselves could be used to update older episode missions that take place aboard a ship and future missions that need to take place aboard a ship. Also, ship boarding/repel boarders PVE/PVP queues could use the maps as well.
Additionally, the Starship Interiors maps would be separate and independent from the bridge, so one could use the bridge of their choice. There could be an option to sync visuals between the bridge and interior for ships that only have a bridge and no other decks to re-skin those decks with the same aesthetics. For example, using a Hirogen ship would re-skin the Starship Interiors deck maps using Hirogen textures, using a Tholian ship would re-skin them using Tholian textures.
Unless there is a way to connect them via map moving in the turbolift, unique ship interiors would be retained as they are. They just wouldn't utilize this system. So your full TOS, Defiant, Voyager, etc. interiors would be retained and could be used separately. This proposed Starship Interiors system would be the new default interior for your ship, though. There might be uproar about that, but it's the best way to preserve previous ship interior/bridge purchases with (hopefully) minimal uproar. Perhaps have those purchases automatically unlock texturing/lighting aesthetics to give them an extra bonus. So, those canon interior aesthetics could be applied to the new interiors. It wouldn't be an exact TOS interior, but it would look like that era. It wouldn't be an exact TNG interior, but it would use that aesthetic. It wouldn't be an exact Tholian interior, but it would fit that style.
The deck/room layouts would be generic, so that they could be easily used for missions. As it is, doing a 5-man Starbase defense, the queue randomly chooses a Fleet Starbase from among the participants. Whatever level/visuals that base is in is the map that's used. Same would go for a potential 5-man ship boarding/repelling queue maps. Someone in the team's ship map will be used. The layouts are all the same, but the look might be different.
Yes, FED, KDF, and ROM would need 3 separate layouts, but only for the crew deck and engineering deck. New decks added, like holdings, could be a generic corridor with rooms branching off. What would make them unique would be the skin that's applied to them: a Starfleet skin, Klingon skin, Romulan skin as the basic default look depending on the character. Other skins would be unlocked via cosmetic projects, C-Store purchases, Lock Box ships, etc. The Reputation System could be tied into it, too: Tier 5 Reputation Project that allows for unique Starship Interior visuals.
Oh, and this would be a per character system, not account wide, unless a certain purchase unlocks for the account.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
For me, a major part of what is keeping me in the game is the ability to fly starfleet ships. I like the starfleet aesthetics of ships that don't necessarily look like hardened combat vessels, but elegant sculptures (with some exceptions where the shapes are all kinds of unappealing), my long-standing favourite being the Heavy Cruiser (non-advanced). This coupled with the ability to kitbash most of them gives me the chance to try to put together the perfect ship (the only thing that would be better than what we currently have would be a SPORE-style ship editor, where you could use any parts of all the ships you have unlocked and go kitbash-crazy).
The second part is trying out different "theme" builds (although that sometimes involves waiting and waiting for a new kit module, weapon or ship part). I have cold specialist, toxic specialist, electro specialist, tactical kinetic specialist, engineering kinetic specialist, melee specialist, drone specialist, turret specialist, plasma specialist, shield healer-tank, "The Avatar" (different elemental kit modules)... In space I have a plasma torper, control freak, power drainer... And so on, and so on.
And even though I got myself the LTS, I don't invest in buying ZEN, which means I have to work for the ships and items and unlocks that I want, and then, of course, it feels much more gratifying, when I finally get the thing I was after (like the 1,4bil EC Connie). It takes long to get what I want - longer, than it takes for new ships and new features to appear, so that there is always something to chase. If I dished out cold hard cash to have everything just like *that* (even if I could), I probably wouldn't be nearly as active as I am. As long as those things stay within the "achievable" realm, and don't become the ever-out-of-reach "carrot on the stick".
I play STO because the ground content is not bad and this is the only game with space content that has an intricacy level that I enjoy. I STAY in spite of some changes over the years, like the cross-faction console idiocy.
The one big drawback is the lack of true Faction Diversity.
There is no more Red vs Blue and that is a shame.
But, that could be reversed by adding a full-on OpFor in the Borg Collective faction.
There is one overwhelming positive, and that is:
The Dev team executes the game, exceptionally well.
The presentation is very impressive and the quality of the experience is almost OP.
The Devs can be proud of their work.
I do intend to enjoy the content I find...enjoyable...for the foreseeable future.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Why I'm still here afte 8yrs... There's not another Trek MMO out there. I have a LTS.
I DO like the game, but the 'improvements' Cryptic does (like the Landing page and the PvE Queue Page) & all the persistent bugs that have been around for years make it really hard to keep liking it.
Honestly, there seemed to be more care about the actual game from the Devs before the F2P and lockboxes came. Ya know... back when the C-store sold things that didn't fall under the P2W category. Ship skin, bridges, and other cosmetic things. Now the top 3 things the Devs care about are lockboxes, lockboxes and, I forget... oh wait! Lockboxes.
STO has gotten too much 'busywork' with Doffing and Admiralty. I have 8 toons and could spend 3hrs JUST DOING THAT each day. Do I have to? No. Is there a better way to get Dil and etc? No. So I do 'have to'. Doffing is not fun.
STO has just turned into DPS Online.
Rep Grinds are ok when they are fresh and people are doing them. But those elite marks have to go. What happened to needing less currencies? Why make me have to exchange currencies from normal to elite marks? Why make it a once-a-day thing? At 100 marks each, just increase the payouts on Advanced/Elite accordingly and just drop them. Just more TRIBBLE taking up space in my bags.
I really liked the somewhat frequent Featured Episodes. But now we get 3-5 episodes per Season. So 95% of a players time now is repetitive grinding of the same 3 queues. One of my favorite games way back was the Xenosaga Trilogy. That game was almost more cut scenes than game!
Pew pew pewing with ships, grind grind grinding with admiralty. It's not actually fun for me at this point, it's just addiction and passing the time for my lonely life.
1. Buying new account-wide unlock for starships with my Zen Points (also used cre dit ca rd a few times if the STO offer was enticing enough), to mix/match special starship consoles to customise our playstyle/experience. Playing with shiny new ship/console toys!
2. Bad News: we'll stay away from this Victory Is Life (ViL) packages, because all T6 Jem'Haddar ships require T6 Ship Mastery unlock to enable account-wide ship unlock.
***When we buy a Z-Store (C-Store) ship, we expect it to be account-wide unlock. Please do not implement T6 Ship Mastery unlock going forward! Otherwise no more ship purchases from us. Thanks.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
***When we buy a Z-Store (C-Store) ship, we expect it to be account-wide unlock. Please do not implement T6 Ship Mastery unlock going forward! Otherwise no more ship purchases from us. Thanks.
Um... maybe from you, but you don't exactly speak for the community.
I can see WHY they did it that way. They are, first and formost, Dominion faction ships. The Mastery Unlock can probably be seen as some kind of reward to the "allied" faction (account unlock) for helping fight the Hur'q. Or some other lore reason like that. The Dominion is not just going to GIVE their top of the line ships to the Federation and Klingon Empire, two powers who fought a full blown war with the Dominion, and WON. They gotta earn it sort of thing.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
First and foremost: THANK YOU, SIR, for asking for our opinions and listening! It's been AGES since a Dev did that! Have a case of Romulan Ale, on me!
As for why I still play:
1. It's Star Trek (although that's becoming less true with time as faction diversity vanishes. The D in IDIC stands for Diversity, you know).
2. It's solo friendly. As far as I'm concerned it's mostly a MSORPG, and that's fine by me!
3. TOS. Thank you for AoY, I wish there was more of it without Daniels, the Not Cool, and that Temporal Cold War nonsense. I have replayed Shadow of Cestus more times than I care to admit because it's the only mission in the game WITHOUT 24th+ century stuff in it - Just the Star Trek I grew up with.
4. Romulans, Klingons, Gorn, etc. I just wish that we were still getting missions where they played like something other than Starfleet officers. Fortunately, for that we have:
5. The Foundry! THANK YOU for implementing this and keeping it going! It's where I find most of the missions I most enjoy.
6. Formerly, the Exploration missions. I loved those random little procedurally generated things! You never knew what was waiting in the next system. I am still sorry it's gone!
7. The hope that someday you'll release an endgame Connie, T'Liss and D-7 in the C-Store, and I'll be happy to buy ships again. Plain vanilla Tac/Eng/Sci seat ships without specialization gimmickry would be a joy!
Thank you again for asking for feedback and listening - that deserves respect!
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
6. Formerly, the Exploration missions. I loved those random little procedurally generated things! You never knew what was waiting in the next system. I am still sorry it's gone!
Eh... while they did have a few nods to things in Trek... it was mostly "scan 5 things" or "kill 5 enemy groups". I did like the non combat ones as it was a nice change of pace, but then we get the ever popular artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty, and every once in a while a bugged enemy group that spawns UNDERGROUND and can still shoot you.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I like to play engaging, none-time-gated, team oriented PvE contend with reasonable rewards to progress my characters and evaluate their progression so far.
Perhaps some less repetitive in nature?
Instead of an mirror event where players are encouraged to play the very same map 14 times daily in a row how about something else for a change? Tzenkethi, Tholian, Herald events where players also tend to a certain enemy groups for a time but can use at least a bit of variety of - existing - maps to tend to the next 14 days?
Klicky activities like Admiralty, Doffing and crafting are needed to keep alts viable at endgame in a reasonable timeframe and are appreciated as such but also consume much time when done in sum by now.
How about some ease here?
Cut available doff slots in half and double the rewards throughout the bank? Double the sum of craft-able consumables and upgraders per slot?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
6. Formerly, the Exploration missions. I loved those random little procedurally generated things! You never knew what was waiting in the next system. I am still sorry it's gone!
Eh... while they did have a few nods to things in Trek... it was mostly "scan 5 things" or "kill 5 enemy groups". I did like the non combat ones as it was a nice change of pace, but then we get the ever popular artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty, and every once in a while a bugged enemy group that spawns UNDERGROUND and can still shoot you.
I'm not saying they were perfect, or not susceptible of improvement, but they DID provide repeatably unexplored, unknown content. Which was something the vaunted post-Iconian War "exploration" mission didn't, as the same Lukari will always be there.
You want players to repeat content? Don't make us grind the same FE 4 times in a row per character for different rewards, or the same queue 14 times in a row per character for a DIL/Mark jackpot. Give us content that is DIFFERENT each time it's run. Like the old exploration systems. You wouldn't need to bribe us with rewards so much, if you'd just actually give us GAMEPLAY. It's supposed to be a game, not a job. Make it FUN again!
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
At least we don't have to pray to the Random Number Gods to get a drop in STFs like WoW players have to for gear when they do raids.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Story is the type of content that always brings me back at some point. I once took a multi-year hiatus from the game, but seeing the Dyson Sphere content, I got excited again and have been playing the game a lot since then.
What also worked great where the first Delta and the first temporal Recruitment. The account unlocks are just too attractive to pass up. I have a lot of characters (though not as much as some other players), and having something to speed up their advancement a bit helped a lot.
The Summer, Winter and Anniversary Event also were great, because they granted new ships. Due to the Admirality Cards for them, they are always useful, but some are also really cool (sometimes literally). I am still waiting for that Risan Yellow Science Vessel Submarine, though.
What also tends to work are events like the crystalline Catastrophe or Mirror Invasion. What I like about them is that they are a reliable way to advance any single character's reputations and dilithium. The account unlocks for special items that are now available too are great. Though not all rewards are equally exciting for all characters, I really don't want to use the same weapon on every character.
Another aspect I like about this type of event is that the associated queued content is always well visited and there is no issue "getting it done". What they are missing in my opinion is a way to get not just Choice of Marks, but also Choice of Elite Marks. Because the latter can be very hard to get if the only access to them are via a Battle Zone that is considered broken and Queues that are rarely played.
Something that also always gets me exicted are simply new ship custome options. I am specificaly saying ship costume options and not just "ships", because I love it when I can customize a ship I already have with some new parts. New Materials, new warp nacelles, new patterns, that could all work as a nice incentive to me. New ship releases are always interesting, of course.
---
Overall, something I would like to see that might help retention:
- A "Queue of the Day/Week/[TimeFrame]" that rewards a choice of (elite) marks, that funnels the entire player population to it. It could use something similar to the week-end event currency that can be used to buy certain things. Say, the earnings of a week of play can be used to gain a lump sump of Dilithium, a box of marks, a box of elite marks, a set of R&D Materials or something like that.
- An Account Wide Event Currency or Point Score system that can be earned by any character on the account, and can unlock stuff that can be used on either any single other character, or all characters on the account. Say, every X points you get something new unlocked for your entire account (say, some Fleet Dilithium or Reputation Dilithium, a new trait), and every Y points you get an allowance to claim something once on any single one character (a box of elite marks, a set of rare consumables.) of that account. (So the next time you got Y points together, you can get the same item or reward to a second character and so on.)
The benefit of some account wide reward system is that I can play whatever character I am in the mood for, and can still help another character on that account (which might motivate me to play that character later.)
I also liked the idea of having some server-wide stuff to do, objectives that the whole community can work toward and once completed, will give everyone a temporary or permanent benefit.
Say, a new Exploration Sector Block. You gain exploration points for the server and your account by doing story missions, repeatable patrols, queues, duty officer assignments and admirality assignments. The account points work as described above. If the players in the game have made enough exploration points, they might unlock a single one-time use of reputation or fleet Dilithium, and they unlock some server-wide buff that lasts for a few days. As the server points build up, Cryptic might also release new story reveals or something like that tell us more about that exploration cluster. Maybe Cryptic will coincide new story mission releases with the exploration block, and provide timed bonus rewards for playing these missions if the players manage to reach a certain point threshold. (And every few days or weeks, this resets.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Events, pretty much. The regular rewards are too generic and not needed for anything so it's pretty much just the time-limited stuff that actually encourages playing.
Also character customization, but there the clothing restrictions often spoil my fun.
Because since the time I play (7 years) there has been good work but mostly a lot of bad work, always the same thing that comes back, graphics problems, server problems with unlikely pings, many compatibility problems with other software like Nvidia and other voice transmission software as they do not want to be optimized for this game so it is poorly programmed.
My personal opinion, rather than adding content again and again and again, apply yourself to make this games enjoyable, fluid and playable in the best conditions. Once done, the new content will be welcome.
Remember you the good team with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, every problem could be solved as professionals and logic .........
Thanks Borticus for giving us the opportunity to have someone dedicated to reading our opinions!
So what keeps me playing:-
1. It's Star Trek.
2. It's Free to Play! (Even though I'm LTS now and I've been playing many years). You can go very far in this game without paying a penny, and none of the playable content is locked behind a paywall!
3. It's got more content than the vast majority of games ever made (Even those we pay for!). 160+ Unique episodes plus lots and lots of side-quests, battlezones, PvE's, etc.
4. Still great graphics for a 12 years old engine. Despite being aged, has been through 3 or 4 major updates, although the loss of day/night cycles was disappointing. The past couple of years has seen some fantastic environments with-in episodes.
5. Tons upon tons of customisation. Hundreds of ships and a vast array of equipment. Impossible to compute the possible combinations! Easily upgradable, but doesn't require high-end gear to complete end-game content.
6. It has the Stars of the TV series in it. It's great to interact with them. The 'Voyager' Intro of the Delta Arc still gives me a grin when I replay it!
7. Numerous different ways of earning currencies (some would say too many). With 'some' patience', nothing is out of reach in this game. The EC and Dil-Ex markets are mostly player influcenced, but a free player who puts in the effort can live well in this game.
8. Some magnificent storytelling.
9. Ground combat is pretty decent.
10. Space combat is easy (too easy in alot of cases), but there is way, way too much visuals going on!
11. Great community.
12. Fast Levelling. And I mean VERY FAST! My last toon hit 60 in 28 hours of game time!!
13. It's on the Consoles too! Yes, yes, I play on the Xbox One as well as the PC! The XB1 version is 'lazy' play due to all the auto-triggers. I prefer the PC as it allows a more tactical play due to the keyboard binds and my choice of timing.
What I don't like:-
1. Ship Combat is not 'realistic' to canon. Lack of proper canon hardpoints and weapon arcs. Torps should be classed as Heavy weapons and not mixed in with Energy weapons. An NX class, even at T6 should be no match for a Universe Class, and a T6 Connie shouldn't have as many weapons either! Complete lack of 'engineering' common sense with HP's, turn rates, and basically ship physics! Damage modelling could use a massive revamp too. Let's see physical damage being done to our ships! End the silly 'injury upon defeat' and make it 'live damage/live repairs' for a more interesting and 'realistic' experience'. Anyone who played 'Starfleet Command' knows this was an awesome feature for a 2003 game!
2. Removal of Exploration was wrong! It should have been left in. We have had nothing to replace this feature, even if it wasn't the greatest!
3. Removal of Gateway. Look, this feature could have been made great if it included doffing and admiralty, and more people would have used it, especially those who have many characters and can't get to our computers.
4. The AFK system. It doesn't go far enough. People openly brag about AFK'ing events and circumventing the system. There should be a system that detects and auto-kicks players because they ruin PvE runs.
5. Too much choice of PvE Queues and Multiple Choice Marks Boxes. We're flooded with PvE's now, and with the Multiple Choice Pack of Marks, people just run Borg RA's to get the Marks, so there's very little appetite to run anything long than 2 minutes. Do what you have done on the Consoles and remove the RA's, but restore the old hourly 'events' system to highlight other queues and give bonus marks on them. The Multiple Choice Packs are a big reason in why queues are so quiet these days.
6. Too much time doing Doffing and Admiralty!!!!!
Post edited by leemwatson on
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Once upon a time, there was also something very different that kept me coming back to STO. And that was PvP. Not for the epeen and stuff like that - but because it was different every time you entered a game. You don't know what builds the opponents would bring, or how they would interact. But nowadays, I really can't be bothered for PvP anymore, for two reasons:
- It tends to be too imbalanced.
- The gear requirements are too steep. I can probably satisfy the gear requirements for a few select characters, but hte problem is - if I want to tweak a build or try something new, I need a different set of equipment to be competitive. And that just kills the fun for me. I want to try something new immediately, maybe even during the match if I need to counter a build. But that is all completely impractical now.
I guess that was a bit appeal of the old exploration system, too. It was repetitive on some level and it was bugged, but before you entered the map, you didn't know which of the few mission templates you might be hit with, and what the map would look like. Nowadays, the Space Patrols are the closest to the same mission types (at least the Space Pew Pew missions the explorations system had), but I know always exactly what I can expect ,and which of them gives the best rewards.
(That said: The Argala mission is one of the best patrols in the game not just because it gives a ton of ship XP, but also because it changes up who you're fighting. I find that refreshing. It's also something that helps the Tau Dewa Patrols - i know what I'll expect, and they all follow the same template, but the enemies change, and that's fun.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
There are alot of different ways to look at the ship building system in the game. I like to find the weakness in a ship and try to balance it out. Others go for dps or the holy three. Sometimes these different ways don't play togather very well but the fact that they all work in game is one of the best things about it.
However, I do understand that loss aversion is a more powerful force than enjoyment, and DAU metrics are vital to any free service's financial stability.
If the game isn't fun, Farranor, why are you concerned with getting more free stuff in it, even though you're not going to use it because you don't enjoy it? This makes no sense to me.
Best F2P model on market.
Great Events (Risa, QWW, Anniversary, Recruitments...)
Great Storyline...
And... Im not Star Trek fan (I like new Star Trek movies, didn't see any Star Trek series)... Playing this game not coz its Star Trek.
Because I have been here since launch and have basically everything I could ever want or need, the new equipment added is really just busy work for me that gets me to log in for a few minutes to do the grinds and that's about it. I'm still funneling money into the game to get new ships, but that's really just the completionist in me doing it.
I am, however, really looking forward to this expansion and playing a Jem'hadar who has a head start on the grind. By the time I was done with my Romulan, delta and temporal recruits grind to 60, I didn't really have a lot of desire to play them anymore. I am hoping that having a big selection of T6 ships and starting at 60 will make me not sick of looking at my new toon so quickly and hop back to my main.
^ I agreed with this guy a lot. Below are some of my key retain points.
• Free to play model. You can be competitive and enjoy the game regardless of the size of your STO budget. I have had my account since 1/23/2011 but really started when it went free to play.
• There's been continuous positive improvements over the years. (ESD revamp, account wide things)
• I'd play even without a lot of new content just because I'd get into doing the foundry more.
Speaking for myself. Top three things that I would like that I can think of:
• Auto fill for admiralty even if it meant cutting rewards for admiralty a bit or paying a one time zen cost to unlock the auto fill option.
• Accolade tracker. Shows what ones can be earned, retired, ect.
• Account wide EC & refined dil in the assets tab.
"Power Creep" - Yes I know it's bad for the game long-term, but I just love upgrading my ships to kill stuff faster.
The non time-gated space 'queues', mostly ISA and KVA; KVA is my favorite but ISA drops faster.
Different ships and different builds, one for each 'toon', I try to have no two builds alike and even play the weaker ones occasionally.
Hate:
Big system-wide 'nerfs' in response to small problems that needed 'tweaking'.
Time-gated missions, they kill the impulse to fight hard, and get boring very quickly.
The feeling that, a lot of the time, the Devs don't listen to us and impose stuff on us that we just don't want (Note: this post is an encouraging counter to that). Examples are 'the landing pane', the colony fleet holding', 'the power rebalance (some builds just felt naff after that one)', 'the Season 9 changes to reputation powers' (so redundant in light of the Specializations that followed)', and 'Time-gated missions (again)', you know a lot of us don't like them yet you seem driven to make us spend a lot of time doing a small number of missions when we'd like to spend, probably. even more time, doing lots of missions (and it's not controlling 'resources' or 'marks' - with the 'Admiralty system' farming's never been so easy).
Like to see:
More stuff for 'carriers' and 'pets'.
Power curve roll-back (both of them).
More different rules for PVP and PVE, (in particular FBP, it like (all but 2) of the Sci powers are next to useless against the 'low DPS, but super high HPs of the AI).
My thanks (and respect) for listening.
If I take a break and come back again, there will be items (weapons, consoles, ships, etc.) that I may want to use for whatever reason (like the DSD warp core for touring) but won't be able to acquire because they were only available during limited-time events. Such events run almost constantly, so I play continuously to avoid experiencing that loss. If I quit permanently, those lost opportunities wouldn't matter, but I really like Star Trek, so I'm very unlikely to do so.
Plus, logging in every day gives me lots of dilithium. That'll come in handy if the C-Store ever offers something I'm interested in. I was initially grinding for things like inventory space and doff slots, but I've learned to work around the limited inventory space, and doffing hasn't been a very key component in making 8k dilithium per day per character since Admiralty came out. I still hold out hope that one day I'll come across something I find worth buying.
FIRST BY A LARGE MARGIN is Episodes, i.e. story content. I play with a few friends, and I can easily say that my group will log in when there is a new story mission that we can play together (and potentially RP in), and when there isn't, I log in much less.
Secondly, I will log in during social events that we like to play together (summer event and winter event come to mind), even if the story content is a little lighter.
Finally, I will log in if there is a new reward I find appealing to work towards. For instance, if the Sompek Pulsewave were to come back, I'd try and get it this time. I'm currently working on the Phaser Torpedo now. But the last rewards I really liked before that torp was the Naussican Set back in "Echoes of Light" and the Tsunkatse gloves. Haven't had much reason to grind out new gear other than those few things.
TL;DR - I will definitely play and spend the most when there is story content I can play with a group. I might log in if there is social content or an appealing reward.
EDIT: Also a suggestion...if doing story content more than once a month is too prohibitive, I would recommend bringing in a new procedural generated mission system with generic scenarios such as aid the colony, initiate first contact, repair satellites, and the like. I know there was something like this at one point (but it could've been better RE: Borg Dynasty), and my friends and I would RP the heck out of these and add to our own stories. (I know the foundry is a thing, but a lot of the foundry missions I've played are more like 2 hour fan-fics than something that gave us this kind of experience...open to anyone who can disprove this.)
First, there's the story. I keep coming back to see where the narrative is taking us.
Then, there are my characters. I've maxed out my character slots at 54 and I still want more. (Hint, hint. Increase the cap.
Events and the rewards that come with them, moreso now that they are moving to account unlocks.
As for wishlist items: I'd like to see the return of a revamped Exploration System.
And one other thing that I keep wishing for and I hope to one day see get further development is Ship Interiors. It's something that I will continue to advocate until the server shuts down.
It's too bad that something isn't being done with ship interiors, because most of Star Trek took place on the ship. I think it's something that would be worth investing development time in, because the work put into it could then be used as a basis for so many other things: episode mission maps, PVE/PVP queue maps, etc.
I've said before that I'd love to see Starship Interiors done the way Fleet Starbases are done, but scaled to a personal level. Fleet Starbases have their various leveling projects and cosmetic projects. Starship Interiors could work the same way with project inputs scaled to the individual rather than an entire fleet. Leveling one's Starship Interior would give a player access to more things: Bank, Email, Tailor, etc. Cosmetic projects could allow for decor in the Captain's Quarters, Ten Forward, or even allow to toggle between TOS, TMP, TNG, and 2410 aesthetics.
*more in the spoiler tags to hide the Wall of Text
Crew Deck: Captain's Quarters with possible Tailor access and trophy displays. Ten Forward with a variety of games that we've seen played in Star Trek and possibly a dance floor. Assign quarters to various BOFFS, visit them and they could give you a daily mission to be done aboard ship.
Life Sciences: a menagerie for storing and displaying pets bought and earned, possible breeding projects for said pets to be unlocked, games for scanning, detecting, identifying life forms.
Stellar Cartography: scanning games for locating, identifying various stellar phenomenon.
Sick Bay: triaging patients game (similar to the Kobali triage mission) for crew members that wander into Sick Bay.
Shuttle Bay: small craft that we own could be displayed here, switching to small craft could be done here, traveling to Fleet Holding could be done here, queueing for shuttle PVE/PVP could be done here, perhaps some unique shuttle piloting/racing missions could be done from here.
Engineering: engineering diagnostic games (warp field, plasma flow adjustments), detecting problems on the ship somewhere then going there and fixing it, a Jefferies tube scavenger hunt type game (using a blank map like Temporal Ambassador), crafting of unique items available only here.
Allow our designated Department Heads to be assigned to occupy the relevant station on board, ex) CMO would be in Sick Bay, Chief Engineer would be in Engineering.
Allow us some (at least limited) choices on crew composition. Perhaps using toggles for species, uniforms that they wear. These options could also be made available through cosmetic projects. Personally, I'd love to see the DOFF roster used to determine crew composition. Allow a toggle or slider for number of crew on a given map with 0 being an option as well. Interacting with random crew members could yield a daily mission or unique DOFF assignment.
The maps themselves could be used to update older episode missions that take place aboard a ship and future missions that need to take place aboard a ship. Also, ship boarding/repel boarders PVE/PVP queues could use the maps as well.
Additionally, the Starship Interiors maps would be separate and independent from the bridge, so one could use the bridge of their choice. There could be an option to sync visuals between the bridge and interior for ships that only have a bridge and no other decks to re-skin those decks with the same aesthetics. For example, using a Hirogen ship would re-skin the Starship Interiors deck maps using Hirogen textures, using a Tholian ship would re-skin them using Tholian textures.
Unless there is a way to connect them via map moving in the turbolift, unique ship interiors would be retained as they are. They just wouldn't utilize this system. So your full TOS, Defiant, Voyager, etc. interiors would be retained and could be used separately. This proposed Starship Interiors system would be the new default interior for your ship, though. There might be uproar about that, but it's the best way to preserve previous ship interior/bridge purchases with (hopefully) minimal uproar. Perhaps have those purchases automatically unlock texturing/lighting aesthetics to give them an extra bonus. So, those canon interior aesthetics could be applied to the new interiors. It wouldn't be an exact TOS interior, but it would look like that era. It wouldn't be an exact TNG interior, but it would use that aesthetic. It wouldn't be an exact Tholian interior, but it would fit that style.
The deck/room layouts would be generic, so that they could be easily used for missions. As it is, doing a 5-man Starbase defense, the queue randomly chooses a Fleet Starbase from among the participants. Whatever level/visuals that base is in is the map that's used. Same would go for a potential 5-man ship boarding/repelling queue maps. Someone in the team's ship map will be used. The layouts are all the same, but the look might be different.
Yes, FED, KDF, and ROM would need 3 separate layouts, but only for the crew deck and engineering deck. New decks added, like holdings, could be a generic corridor with rooms branching off. What would make them unique would be the skin that's applied to them: a Starfleet skin, Klingon skin, Romulan skin as the basic default look depending on the character. Other skins would be unlocked via cosmetic projects, C-Store purchases, Lock Box ships, etc. The Reputation System could be tied into it, too: Tier 5 Reputation Project that allows for unique Starship Interior visuals.
Oh, and this would be a per character system, not account wide, unless a certain purchase unlocks for the account.
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The second part is trying out different "theme" builds (although that sometimes involves waiting and waiting for a new kit module, weapon or ship part). I have cold specialist, toxic specialist, electro specialist, tactical kinetic specialist, engineering kinetic specialist, melee specialist, drone specialist, turret specialist, plasma specialist, shield healer-tank, "The Avatar" (different elemental kit modules)... In space I have a plasma torper, control freak, power drainer... And so on, and so on.
And even though I got myself the LTS, I don't invest in buying ZEN, which means I have to work for the ships and items and unlocks that I want, and then, of course, it feels much more gratifying, when I finally get the thing I was after (like the 1,4bil EC Connie). It takes long to get what I want - longer, than it takes for new ships and new features to appear, so that there is always something to chase. If I dished out cold hard cash to have everything just like *that* (even if I could), I probably wouldn't be nearly as active as I am. As long as those things stay within the "achievable" realm, and don't become the ever-out-of-reach "carrot on the stick".
I STAY in spite of some changes over the years, like the cross-faction console idiocy.
The one big drawback is the lack of true Faction Diversity.
There is no more Red vs Blue and that is a shame.
But, that could be reversed by adding a full-on OpFor in the Borg Collective faction.
There is one overwhelming positive, and that is:
The Dev team executes the game, exceptionally well.
The presentation is very impressive and the quality of the experience is almost OP.
The Devs can be proud of their work.
I do intend to enjoy the content I find...enjoyable...for the foreseeable future.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I DO like the game, but the 'improvements' Cryptic does (like the Landing page and the PvE Queue Page) & all the persistent bugs that have been around for years make it really hard to keep liking it.
Honestly, there seemed to be more care about the actual game from the Devs before the F2P and lockboxes came. Ya know... back when the C-store sold things that didn't fall under the P2W category. Ship skin, bridges, and other cosmetic things. Now the top 3 things the Devs care about are lockboxes, lockboxes and, I forget... oh wait! Lockboxes.
STO has gotten too much 'busywork' with Doffing and Admiralty. I have 8 toons and could spend 3hrs JUST DOING THAT each day. Do I have to? No. Is there a better way to get Dil and etc? No. So I do 'have to'. Doffing is not fun.
STO has just turned into DPS Online.
Rep Grinds are ok when they are fresh and people are doing them. But those elite marks have to go. What happened to needing less currencies? Why make me have to exchange currencies from normal to elite marks? Why make it a once-a-day thing? At 100 marks each, just increase the payouts on Advanced/Elite accordingly and just drop them. Just more TRIBBLE taking up space in my bags.
I really liked the somewhat frequent Featured Episodes. But now we get 3-5 episodes per Season. So 95% of a players time now is repetitive grinding of the same 3 queues. One of my favorite games way back was the Xenosaga Trilogy. That game was almost more cut scenes than game!
2. Bad News: we'll stay away from this Victory Is Life (ViL) packages, because all T6 Jem'Haddar ships require T6 Ship Mastery unlock to enable account-wide ship unlock.
***When we buy a Z-Store (C-Store) ship, we expect it to be account-wide unlock. Please do not implement T6 Ship Mastery unlock going forward! Otherwise no more ship purchases from us. Thanks.
Um... maybe from you, but you don't exactly speak for the community.
I can see WHY they did it that way. They are, first and formost, Dominion faction ships. The Mastery Unlock can probably be seen as some kind of reward to the "allied" faction (account unlock) for helping fight the Hur'q. Or some other lore reason like that. The Dominion is not just going to GIVE their top of the line ships to the Federation and Klingon Empire, two powers who fought a full blown war with the Dominion, and WON. They gotta earn it sort of thing.
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As for why I still play:
1. It's Star Trek (although that's becoming less true with time as faction diversity vanishes. The D in IDIC stands for Diversity, you know).
2. It's solo friendly. As far as I'm concerned it's mostly a MSORPG, and that's fine by me!
3. TOS. Thank you for AoY, I wish there was more of it without Daniels, the Not Cool, and that Temporal Cold War nonsense. I have replayed Shadow of Cestus more times than I care to admit because it's the only mission in the game WITHOUT 24th+ century stuff in it - Just the Star Trek I grew up with.
4. Romulans, Klingons, Gorn, etc. I just wish that we were still getting missions where they played like something other than Starfleet officers. Fortunately, for that we have:
5. The Foundry! THANK YOU for implementing this and keeping it going! It's where I find most of the missions I most enjoy.
6. Formerly, the Exploration missions. I loved those random little procedurally generated things! You never knew what was waiting in the next system. I am still sorry it's gone!
7. The hope that someday you'll release an endgame Connie, T'Liss and D-7 in the C-Store, and I'll be happy to buy ships again. Plain vanilla Tac/Eng/Sci seat ships without specialization gimmickry would be a joy!
Thank you again for asking for feedback and listening - that deserves respect!
Eh... while they did have a few nods to things in Trek... it was mostly "scan 5 things" or "kill 5 enemy groups". I did like the non combat ones as it was a nice change of pace, but then we get the ever popular artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty, and every once in a while a bugged enemy group that spawns UNDERGROUND and can still shoot you.
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Perhaps some less repetitive in nature?
Instead of an mirror event where players are encouraged to play the very same map 14 times daily in a row how about something else for a change? Tzenkethi, Tholian, Herald events where players also tend to a certain enemy groups for a time but can use at least a bit of variety of - existing - maps to tend to the next 14 days?
Klicky activities like Admiralty, Doffing and crafting are needed to keep alts viable at endgame in a reasonable timeframe and are appreciated as such but also consume much time when done in sum by now.
How about some ease here?
Cut available doff slots in half and double the rewards throughout the bank? Double the sum of craft-able consumables and upgraders per slot?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I'm not saying they were perfect, or not susceptible of improvement, but they DID provide repeatably unexplored, unknown content. Which was something the vaunted post-Iconian War "exploration" mission didn't, as the same Lukari will always be there.
You want players to repeat content? Don't make us grind the same FE 4 times in a row per character for different rewards, or the same queue 14 times in a row per character for a DIL/Mark jackpot. Give us content that is DIFFERENT each time it's run. Like the old exploration systems. You wouldn't need to bribe us with rewards so much, if you'd just actually give us GAMEPLAY. It's supposed to be a game, not a job. Make it FUN again!
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What also worked great where the first Delta and the first temporal Recruitment. The account unlocks are just too attractive to pass up. I have a lot of characters (though not as much as some other players), and having something to speed up their advancement a bit helped a lot.
The Summer, Winter and Anniversary Event also were great, because they granted new ships. Due to the Admirality Cards for them, they are always useful, but some are also really cool (sometimes literally). I am still waiting for that Risan Yellow Science Vessel Submarine, though.
What also tends to work are events like the crystalline Catastrophe or Mirror Invasion. What I like about them is that they are a reliable way to advance any single character's reputations and dilithium. The account unlocks for special items that are now available too are great. Though not all rewards are equally exciting for all characters, I really don't want to use the same weapon on every character.
Another aspect I like about this type of event is that the associated queued content is always well visited and there is no issue "getting it done". What they are missing in my opinion is a way to get not just Choice of Marks, but also Choice of Elite Marks. Because the latter can be very hard to get if the only access to them are via a Battle Zone that is considered broken and Queues that are rarely played.
Something that also always gets me exicted are simply new ship custome options. I am specificaly saying ship costume options and not just "ships", because I love it when I can customize a ship I already have with some new parts. New Materials, new warp nacelles, new patterns, that could all work as a nice incentive to me. New ship releases are always interesting, of course.
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Overall, something I would like to see that might help retention:
- A "Queue of the Day/Week/[TimeFrame]" that rewards a choice of (elite) marks, that funnels the entire player population to it. It could use something similar to the week-end event currency that can be used to buy certain things. Say, the earnings of a week of play can be used to gain a lump sump of Dilithium, a box of marks, a box of elite marks, a set of R&D Materials or something like that.
- An Account Wide Event Currency or Point Score system that can be earned by any character on the account, and can unlock stuff that can be used on either any single other character, or all characters on the account. Say, every X points you get something new unlocked for your entire account (say, some Fleet Dilithium or Reputation Dilithium, a new trait), and every Y points you get an allowance to claim something once on any single one character (a box of elite marks, a set of rare consumables.) of that account. (So the next time you got Y points together, you can get the same item or reward to a second character and so on.)
The benefit of some account wide reward system is that I can play whatever character I am in the mood for, and can still help another character on that account (which might motivate me to play that character later.)
I also liked the idea of having some server-wide stuff to do, objectives that the whole community can work toward and once completed, will give everyone a temporary or permanent benefit.
Say, a new Exploration Sector Block. You gain exploration points for the server and your account by doing story missions, repeatable patrols, queues, duty officer assignments and admirality assignments. The account points work as described above. If the players in the game have made enough exploration points, they might unlock a single one-time use of reputation or fleet Dilithium, and they unlock some server-wide buff that lasts for a few days. As the server points build up, Cryptic might also release new story reveals or something like that tell us more about that exploration cluster. Maybe Cryptic will coincide new story mission releases with the exploration block, and provide timed bonus rewards for playing these missions if the players manage to reach a certain point threshold. (And every few days or weeks, this resets.)
Also character customization, but there the clothing restrictions often spoil my fun.
Because since the time I play (7 years) there has been good work but mostly a lot of bad work, always the same thing that comes back, graphics problems, server problems with unlikely pings, many compatibility problems with other software like Nvidia and other voice transmission software as they do not want to be optimized for this game so it is poorly programmed.
My personal opinion, rather than adding content again and again and again, apply yourself to make this games enjoyable, fluid and playable in the best conditions. Once done, the new content will be welcome.
Remember you the good team with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, every problem could be solved as professionals and logic .........
Best regards,
So what keeps me playing:-
1. It's Star Trek.
2. It's Free to Play! (Even though I'm LTS now and I've been playing many years). You can go very far in this game without paying a penny, and none of the playable content is locked behind a paywall!
3. It's got more content than the vast majority of games ever made (Even those we pay for!). 160+ Unique episodes plus lots and lots of side-quests, battlezones, PvE's, etc.
4. Still great graphics for a 12 years old engine. Despite being aged, has been through 3 or 4 major updates, although the loss of day/night cycles was disappointing. The past couple of years has seen some fantastic environments with-in episodes.
5. Tons upon tons of customisation. Hundreds of ships and a vast array of equipment. Impossible to compute the possible combinations! Easily upgradable, but doesn't require high-end gear to complete end-game content.
6. It has the Stars of the TV series in it. It's great to interact with them. The 'Voyager' Intro of the Delta Arc still gives me a grin when I replay it!
7. Numerous different ways of earning currencies (some would say too many). With 'some' patience', nothing is out of reach in this game. The EC and Dil-Ex markets are mostly player influcenced, but a free player who puts in the effort can live well in this game.
8. Some magnificent storytelling.
9. Ground combat is pretty decent.
10. Space combat is easy (too easy in alot of cases), but there is way, way too much visuals going on!
11. Great community.
12. Fast Levelling. And I mean VERY FAST! My last toon hit 60 in 28 hours of game time!!
13. It's on the Consoles too! Yes, yes, I play on the Xbox One as well as the PC! The XB1 version is 'lazy' play due to all the auto-triggers. I prefer the PC as it allows a more tactical play due to the keyboard binds and my choice of timing.
What I don't like:-
1. Ship Combat is not 'realistic' to canon. Lack of proper canon hardpoints and weapon arcs. Torps should be classed as Heavy weapons and not mixed in with Energy weapons. An NX class, even at T6 should be no match for a Universe Class, and a T6 Connie shouldn't have as many weapons either! Complete lack of 'engineering' common sense with HP's, turn rates, and basically ship physics! Damage modelling could use a massive revamp too. Let's see physical damage being done to our ships! End the silly 'injury upon defeat' and make it 'live damage/live repairs' for a more interesting and 'realistic' experience'. Anyone who played 'Starfleet Command' knows this was an awesome feature for a 2003 game!
2. Removal of Exploration was wrong! It should have been left in. We have had nothing to replace this feature, even if it wasn't the greatest!
3. Removal of Gateway. Look, this feature could have been made great if it included doffing and admiralty, and more people would have used it, especially those who have many characters and can't get to our computers.
4. The AFK system. It doesn't go far enough. People openly brag about AFK'ing events and circumventing the system. There should be a system that detects and auto-kicks players because they ruin PvE runs.
5. Too much choice of PvE Queues and Multiple Choice Marks Boxes. We're flooded with PvE's now, and with the Multiple Choice Pack of Marks, people just run Borg RA's to get the Marks, so there's very little appetite to run anything long than 2 minutes. Do what you have done on the Consoles and remove the RA's, but restore the old hourly 'events' system to highlight other queues and give bonus marks on them. The Multiple Choice Packs are a big reason in why queues are so quiet these days.
6. Too much time doing Doffing and Admiralty!!!!!
- It tends to be too imbalanced.
- The gear requirements are too steep. I can probably satisfy the gear requirements for a few select characters, but hte problem is - if I want to tweak a build or try something new, I need a different set of equipment to be competitive. And that just kills the fun for me. I want to try something new immediately, maybe even during the match if I need to counter a build. But that is all completely impractical now.
I guess that was a bit appeal of the old exploration system, too. It was repetitive on some level and it was bugged, but before you entered the map, you didn't know which of the few mission templates you might be hit with, and what the map would look like. Nowadays, the Space Patrols are the closest to the same mission types (at least the Space Pew Pew missions the explorations system had), but I know always exactly what I can expect ,and which of them gives the best rewards.
(That said: The Argala mission is one of the best patrols in the game not just because it gives a ton of ship XP, but also because it changes up who you're fighting. I find that refreshing. It's also something that helps the Tau Dewa Patrols - i know what I'll expect, and they all follow the same template, but the enemies change, and that's fun.)