Jokes aside, how about teaching by example? For example the 'alien' ships we pilot in some missions - build them to a theme (for example the dyson as a torpedo/cannon boat) - load it with a build that works such as doubled powers ect and let the player see the bones of a build actively (or if not, how about a mission in the t5 ship range where the player is tasked to test ships in combat - each ship type having a build suited to it, with an accolade for completing a run in each ship type..that way the new player could see what a build is)
Heck, expand it further and give every dil/requisition ship a basic build to begin with - add to the ship seller (maybe in the ship skin list) a suggested build to give newbies an idea of a basic build for that ship type... or make an extra shipyard npc (an old retired admiral who likes ship watching in their twilight years) who suggests builds, wanting to pass on their knowledge to the Next Generation (pun intended) - even explaining semi advanced techniques such as aux2bat
As for ground..why not in the acedemy have an ex instructor in the same ilk, teaching the ground games minutae such as exploit/expose, advantages to aiming/crouching, rough advice on enemy weaknesses and so on
Besides mechanics, the acadamy history should be updated to include whats happened in sto (only unlocking after the relevant arc is cleared) - bonuses if the player captain is referenced in the events
Ya know, something that could solve ALL of these issues is if the devs do a weekly dev stream discussing CURRENT builds, showing beginners the basics, and basically answering STO 101 questions. But the devs would HAVE to do so WITHOUT using ANY dev cheats to boost their characters in ANY WAY. They would have to play the game just as a new player would.
This way EVERYTHING can be started and explained from the basics.
Ya know, something that could solve ALL of these issues is if the devs do a weekly dev stream discussing CURRENT builds, showing beginners the basics, and basically answering STO 101 questions. But the devs would HAVE to do so WITHOUT using ANY dev cheats to boost their characters in ANY WAY. They would have to play the game just as a new player would.
This way EVERYTHING can be started and explained from the basics.
Sounds like a leftist way to solve a problem. It sounds nice on paper. It's actually a horrifying solution when put into the works.
Builds and metas are the follow-ups of the game design. If devs play the game, they'd push the meta in one direction or into the other. Also by involving into that, they'd pull out the liberty of choice regarding metas or builds that STO has offered lately.
Most of the solid build choices can do elite, half of the builds can do advanced and any item kitbash can do normal queues.
Guess hand-holding can ruin a gameplay experience after all, since having the advanced/elite gameplay knowledge is no longer such a bounty as one would consider after discovering it by experimenting and by engaging the community.
Thats why I suggested there should be an npc that offers basic builds to learn from... if they want to cookie cutter it, they'd have to look at the help in order to do so and in turn learn about the builds
say it with me how, "Beam Overload, Cannon Rapid Fire and Torpedo High Yield are Worthless for ninety percent of content."
because they are.
I beg to differ. I've got a toon flying the Bajoran Interceptor, with all the forward weapons being cannons (including the Quad Phaser Cannon from a Defiant!), and Cannon Rapid Fire eats bad guys like hot water on a snowman. (Then I've got a 360 Beam, a Photon Torpedo, and a minelayer aft, idea being that those are the weapons firing as I set up my next attack run; the mines are also good for any other baddies in the area.)
say it with me how, "Beam Overload, Cannon Rapid Fire and Torpedo High Yield are Worthless for ninety percent of content."
because they are.
I beg to differ. I've got a toon flying the Bajoran Interceptor, with all the forward weapons being cannons (including the Quad Phaser Cannon from a Defiant!), and Cannon Rapid Fire eats bad guys like hot water on a snowman. (Then I've got a 360 Beam, a Photon Torpedo, and a minelayer aft, idea being that those are the weapons firing as I set up my next attack run; the mines are also good for any other baddies in the area.)
It doesn't matter what you have, this thread was for suggestions on what can be taught better. It's not here for you to nit pick other peoples suggestions, if you have something you think should be taught better then make a suggestion and stop taking the thread off topic.
If you want to debate the validity of a loadout, we can happily do that in another thread. It's rare that these guys ask any of us for input, can we please agree to try not to convolute the thread?
The thread is asking what can be taught better. And so many people in here are making blanket statements about what will and will not work, as absolute incontrovertible fact, and the fact that I've been flying around with these "bad" builds without a moment's trouble proves that these statements are wrong.
Should we start a thread on how to teach newbies false blanket statements about things? Because that seems to be what some folks desire here...
1 ) How damage builds
2) Better idea of how systems interact (how does Drain beat drain, control beat control)
3) The intricacies of the power system and how it 'refreshes' especially in regard to weapons.
4) Inertia - what is it?
A big part of this is, if you get a piece of gear, what makes it 'better'?
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
1 ) How damage builds
2) Better idea of how systems interact (how does Drain beat drain, control beat control)
3) The intricacies of the power system and how it 'refreshes' especially in regard to weapons.
4) Inertia - what is it?
A big part of this is, if you get a piece of gear, what makes it 'better'?
1 ) How damage builds
2) Better idea of how systems interact (how does Drain beat drain, control beat control)
3) The intricacies of the power system and how it 'refreshes' especially in regard to weapons.
4) Inertia - what is it?
A big part of this is, if you get a piece of gear, what makes it 'better'?
Inertia has always been somewhat murky to me as well.
Without getting into the whole DPS debate above, it would be nice to get ships with working examples of builds.
E.g. a B'rel (or any BoP) with a torpedo build. Flying a cruiser with a Turret/single cannon build etc.
The skill planner website has plenty of examples.
Also, explain the difference between weapon types with the prime example being Dual Cannons vs Dual Heavy Cannons.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
1 ) How damage builds
2) Better idea of how systems interact (how does Drain beat drain, control beat control)
3) The intricacies of the power system and how it 'refreshes' especially in regard to weapons.
4) Inertia - what is it?
A big part of this is, if you get a piece of gear, what makes it 'better'?
Inertia has always been somewhat murky to me as well.
Without getting into the whole DPS debate above, it would be nice to get ships with working examples of builds.
E.g. a B'rel (or any BoP) with a torpedo build. Flying a cruiser with a Turret/single cannon build etc.
The skill planner website has plenty of examples.
Also, explain the difference between weapon types with the prime example being Dual Cannons vs Dual Heavy Cannons.
All of that would be nice, I have been playing for years and still don't fully understand the inertia stat.
I think part of the pervasiveness of BFAW is: it is easy. And not just easy to learn....it is easy to teach. There is no explaining deeper concepts like timing ability activation, active DOFFs, and the first level manual gets handed to you during Tutorial.
K'gan even gets BFAW training manual in the KDF tutorial...which he can't use because the starter BoP does not come with beams. And the cannon abilities are not available at those levels, anyways. :::peeved:::
That manual in the Tutorial could be changed to Emergency Power to Engines. And have them watch as the ability is activated, point out how power gets added to the engines in the power level status window? They can see it...ooooo, they have to look at the power levels UI. You can, also, explain why the line is yellow because it is temporary boost given by the activation. Then from there talk about how all levels can be manually changed, as needed. And low levels is where you can actually SEE it.
Those are the kind of connections your current tutorial is NOT making, right now. And it would be easier for more advanced stuff, if players had some of the more basic interactions between abilities, gear, etc, already in their heads.
++++++++++++++
The stuff the guys are advocating for in this thread, the build stuff are for higher level characters....is, actually, better done person to person in the game. Don't take that away from the players.
It is about the only thing left where players talk and help each other with, inside or outside the game itself. In other words, they are not doing it in the team related missions, which is what Patrickngo is trying to point out, I believe. I don't think you can point out things during a team mission any more, because it goes sooooo fast...there is no time to talk. Matter of fact, it is distracting to chat.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Been here since the game went F2P, yet even after all this time I still have issues understanding the space skill tree, most of my captains have been set up with what I think "feels" right for them.
It's worked for most of them, they will never break any records, but in the content I play stuff dies and my toons usually survive, so I'm happy with them especially as most have mk12 or 13 VR gear.
Hasn't worked for my lone engineer, he's an original Delta recruit that's flying the T6 Intel Assault Cruiser, he hasn't had any serious game time in several months so I hadn't noticed there was a problem with him.
Started playing him again this week and was wondering why it was taking so long to kill anything, then I saw the damage stream coming off a target in front of me, several misses then a hit, followed by several more misses and a hit, my torp spreads were killing the targets faster than my BFAW3 was.
After some google info hunting and trawling through skill planner, I gave myself some ideas to try out, took my toon over to Tribble for some testing (thankfully he wasn't affected by the map transfer bug that the rest of my toons were).
Now his damage streams are just that, hit after hit, it's rare to see a miss, and the damage each is doing is twice what it was, still got some Boff skills to change but other than that I'm now happy enough with him.
For me teach players how to get the most out of their skill tree is way more important than what you have equipped on the ship, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, this game is about killing things, and you can't do that if you can't bloody hit them.
@bejaymac I give you applause that you have gone through and figured it out for your Engineer.
What would you think if I told you: I know people who don't use their skill tree at all?? And they do fine.
So, gear (rarity, mark, type: Loot, Lockbox, etc), skill, traits and synergy with each other does has a lot to do with it, too.
It is something that can be learned in a Tutorial? It takes what you did: studying and observing.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The point of my posts, Cold, is that you advocate not for teaching people how to play, or how to build ships, but how to play your way, and how to build your ships. Had I been confronted with such a thing at the beginning, I might well not have played the game at all, because from what I've seen your style of play is completely incompatible with me.
Same applies to you, quite frankly, Patrick. You have your playstyle, and that's good - but I have mine, and other people have theirs, and your insistence that we're having badwrongfun would drive people away. Perhaps you feel that a smaller playerbase whose goals are all compatible with your own would result in a "better" game - but it would certainly be a poorer game, both as a value and in terms of incoming capital.
STO has a ton of systems in the game, and we're looking to revitalize how we teach them to you. What do you think would be the most important part of STO to teach to a new player, that we don't currently show off well?
I'm talking about the kind of things that you need to know to succeed in the game, but players generally find out by, say, coming here rather than learning organically through gameplay.
At the start it could be made clearer that ship class is unrelated to player class. An Eng does not need to fly a Cruiser. Like others have said nowhere does the game explain that there are different types of damage boost. 10% cat1 is not the same as 10% cat 2.
There is a massive difference between a tank and a healer. That is something the game never explains and many players get confused about.
Another big area you are missing at the start of the game is nowhere do you explain the difference in ships. For example Sci ships get a bonus to shield hitpoints and shield regen. Cruisers get a bonus to hull hitpoints and hull regen, Escorts get a penalty to shields and shield regen but have a bonus to turn rate and speed e.c.t. Ships class’s follow a set of rules but players have to figured out the difference between a cruiser, battlecruiser, dreadnought cruiser and so on. Many player still do not know the difference and do not know why the shield hit points and regen change when you fit the same shield to different ships.
You no longer show off the differences between player classes anymore. The best missions in the game are the starting missions and your class makes a difference to how they play and what options are in the mission. Then you advance though the missions till you get to the more recent ones which are over simplified and dumbed down to the point where player class is irrelevant and replaying the missions is made boring as there is only 1 path.
One of my big worries is you revamp the great starting chain of missions and make them as bad as the more recent dumbed down missions which have poor replayability.
Personally I think you are making a mistake focusing on the starting content as that is some of the best content in the game. The real problem is the lack of end game content which is in a worse shape than when the game first shipped. End game content has gone backwards and this is one of the big factors hurting player retention. There is a ton of great starting content and so much mid content you can get lost. But there is barely any team work end game content left. The games feels about 30% starting content, 68% mid game content, 2% end game content.
Bring back the end game content that was rewarding to play, takes team work and time. The most fun I had in STO was the original end game raids which there are now zero raids left in STO. The original Crystalline Entity and original No Win scenario that required team work. (not the rubbish No Win revamp). You used to feel like you accomplished something doing those and they could be failed. Not like the recent content that is so easy and simplified it’s completely unrewarding to play, boring to replay. Stop with the snowflake content that doesn't have an accomplishment feel to finishing it. Yes you need some snowflake content, but Star Trek has moved to far into the casual content. We have got the stage where doing content is so easy and simple there is not feeling of accomplishment anymore. You need a mix of casual and end game content, right now there is next to no real end game content. Its all casual.
It is something that can be learned in a Tutorial? It takes what you did: studying and observing.
That's just it, I'm a "button pusher", I've never been able to learn from a manual or from watching a video, I have to learn by doing.
But as someone who has been in the game modding and 3D rendering communities for roughly 20 years, I know that most people just can't learn things the same way I do. They need manuals or video tutorials, but even then many of then still need their hand held, and shown how it's done, and sometimes they have to do that several times before it "sinks in".
So having some thing or place that explains (and not in geek/nerd speak either) how all of this works is needed for many of the players.
@pottsey5g I agree. I can see the low level missions being about basics and part of the basics is knowing about Sci and Eng and Tac (that is what the BOFFs are made of). But bringing in more interesting high level content to accentuate playing in a team is good, too.
I think a lot of people are lamenting the loss of team work and want it back.
But, everyone is going to have to be patient and work toward that goal. Not just the Devs, either.
Regular players are stuck in a rut.
Because, for the last 3 (???) years it has been "Play a Tac, Play a Tac, Play a Tac". So, everyone has a Tac.
"Kill IT before IT kills you" has been the TEAM mantra. Yes, that is the TEAM make up, too...there is no briefing or coordination needed when all anyone need do is bring the DPS. Instruction and easiest to find advice is all for DPS even the skill tree.
And it follows : the fastest and the most played content is going to be that content that allows people do the one thing they have all specialized for. It is like a feedback loop....push DPS and nothing else....everyone floated to the maps that was for them.
Plus, these "team mates" never learned how to look out for the other guy. Who cares if someone falls behind, if I can carry them, they don't matter. OR, if the other players are masking my problems with their DPS, so nothing is wrong. It is not really a team. It is everyone for themselves. There needs to be a shift in thinking there.
It is going to take a while to turn this ship around.
Realistically: Does the average player have an alternate ship...as in an Eng or Sci or Tac ship (or even an alt character)....to jump to that is set up and ready to go for Crowd Control or Healing or Tanking etc..etc...without having to reconfigure everything?
Edit: Laundry Day....I can't get to the big computer to play STO...so I am on my Chromebook blathering.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Trouble with the game is that the VAST majority of the missions/queues/battlezones consist of literal swarms of spam mob zerg rushes which AOE is THE king to deal with.
Sure you'll come across a boss ship like the Tac Cube in ISA but your AOE's will work just as well here and you absolutely needed them in the rest of the mission, so why slot anything else.
If you want to make single target builds or even single target abilities relevant then you need to move away from the queues that have us fighting off half the Gamma Quadrant or whatever the current bad guy is. This game railroads players down certain sets of abilities because they are the best for dealing with some pretty wonky mission/queue design.
It's just too bad that the BoP is, due to 'endgame' level design, next to useless and a drag on the team unless it's spamming AOE sci effects with torps-and then, it's a less useful option than any science ship that doesn't cloak.
As a scibopper (Kor), I refute that remark - when you have a ship that can pack EVERY slot with science (well, okay on mine its 9 epg using sci/faux sci powers), its very effective as long as you don't give a fig about dps due to the points where you only have torpedos as every sci power is on standby
Zoom in cloaked hit QSM then fire kemocite torpedos including clusters, use photonic shockwave then subspace boom, sic2, structural analysis and endothermic beam 1, turn and fire grav well then ssv - radbomb the group (the backwards ship trait) with he, scramble sensors (it counts as it makes enemies damage each other) to allow escape (optional full decloak for more damage but I find it too risky)
Add science power consoles and a bop is a horrendously powerful science machine...as long as you realise its primary nature is to rush in to nuke groups and debuff the blazes out of them before peeling off to heal then repeat
Comments
Its the answer to everything!
Jokes aside, how about teaching by example? For example the 'alien' ships we pilot in some missions - build them to a theme (for example the dyson as a torpedo/cannon boat) - load it with a build that works such as doubled powers ect and let the player see the bones of a build actively (or if not, how about a mission in the t5 ship range where the player is tasked to test ships in combat - each ship type having a build suited to it, with an accolade for completing a run in each ship type..that way the new player could see what a build is)
Heck, expand it further and give every dil/requisition ship a basic build to begin with - add to the ship seller (maybe in the ship skin list) a suggested build to give newbies an idea of a basic build for that ship type... or make an extra shipyard npc (an old retired admiral who likes ship watching in their twilight years) who suggests builds, wanting to pass on their knowledge to the Next Generation (pun intended) - even explaining semi advanced techniques such as aux2bat
As for ground..why not in the acedemy have an ex instructor in the same ilk, teaching the ground games minutae such as exploit/expose, advantages to aiming/crouching, rough advice on enemy weaknesses and so on
Besides mechanics, the acadamy history should be updated to include whats happened in sto (only unlocking after the relevant arc is cleared) - bonuses if the player captain is referenced in the events
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This way EVERYTHING can be started and explained from the basics.
Sounds like a leftist way to solve a problem. It sounds nice on paper. It's actually a horrifying solution when put into the works.
Builds and metas are the follow-ups of the game design. If devs play the game, they'd push the meta in one direction or into the other. Also by involving into that, they'd pull out the liberty of choice regarding metas or builds that STO has offered lately.
Most of the solid build choices can do elite, half of the builds can do advanced and any item kitbash can do normal queues.
Guess hand-holding can ruin a gameplay experience after all, since having the advanced/elite gameplay knowledge is no longer such a bounty as one would consider after discovering it by experimenting and by engaging the community.
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It doesn't matter what you have, this thread was for suggestions on what can be taught better. It's not here for you to nit pick other peoples suggestions, if you have something you think should be taught better then make a suggestion and stop taking the thread off topic.
If you want to debate the validity of a loadout, we can happily do that in another thread. It's rare that these guys ask any of us for input, can we please agree to try not to convolute the thread?
Should we start a thread on how to teach newbies false blanket statements about things? Because that seems to be what some folks desire here...
Yes, but you just won't allow it.
Yes, do that.. we can argue all day in that thread. Otherwise, make a suggestion or shut the TRIBBLE up.
2) Better idea of how systems interact (how does Drain beat drain, control beat control)
3) The intricacies of the power system and how it 'refreshes' especially in regard to weapons.
4) Inertia - what is it?
A big part of this is, if you get a piece of gear, what makes it 'better'?
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
that.
Inertia has always been somewhat murky to me as well.
Without getting into the whole DPS debate above, it would be nice to get ships with working examples of builds.
E.g. a B'rel (or any BoP) with a torpedo build. Flying a cruiser with a Turret/single cannon build etc.
The skill planner website has plenty of examples.
Also, explain the difference between weapon types with the prime example being Dual Cannons vs Dual Heavy Cannons.
All of that would be nice, I have been playing for years and still don't fully understand the inertia stat.
K'gan even gets BFAW training manual in the KDF tutorial...which he can't use because the starter BoP does not come with beams. And the cannon abilities are not available at those levels, anyways. :::peeved:::
That manual in the Tutorial could be changed to Emergency Power to Engines. And have them watch as the ability is activated, point out how power gets added to the engines in the power level status window? They can see it...ooooo, they have to look at the power levels UI. You can, also, explain why the line is yellow because it is temporary boost given by the activation. Then from there talk about how all levels can be manually changed, as needed. And low levels is where you can actually SEE it.
Those are the kind of connections your current tutorial is NOT making, right now. And it would be easier for more advanced stuff, if players had some of the more basic interactions between abilities, gear, etc, already in their heads.
++++++++++++++
The stuff the guys are advocating for in this thread, the build stuff are for higher level characters....is, actually, better done person to person in the game. Don't take that away from the players.
It is about the only thing left where players talk and help each other with, inside or outside the game itself. In other words, they are not doing it in the team related missions, which is what Patrickngo is trying to point out, I believe. I don't think you can point out things during a team mission any more, because it goes sooooo fast...there is no time to talk. Matter of fact, it is distracting to chat.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
It's worked for most of them, they will never break any records, but in the content I play stuff dies and my toons usually survive, so I'm happy with them especially as most have mk12 or 13 VR gear.
Hasn't worked for my lone engineer, he's an original Delta recruit that's flying the T6 Intel Assault Cruiser, he hasn't had any serious game time in several months so I hadn't noticed there was a problem with him.
Started playing him again this week and was wondering why it was taking so long to kill anything, then I saw the damage stream coming off a target in front of me, several misses then a hit, followed by several more misses and a hit, my torp spreads were killing the targets faster than my BFAW3 was.
After some google info hunting and trawling through skill planner, I gave myself some ideas to try out, took my toon over to Tribble for some testing (thankfully he wasn't affected by the map transfer bug that the rest of my toons were).
Now his damage streams are just that, hit after hit, it's rare to see a miss, and the damage each is doing is twice what it was, still got some Boff skills to change but other than that I'm now happy enough with him.
For me teach players how to get the most out of their skill tree is way more important than what you have equipped on the ship, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, this game is about killing things, and you can't do that if you can't bloody hit them.
i think it would be helpful to have a summary of the queue at the end with some informations about the performance, like there is in neverwinter.
ingame: @Felisean
What would you think if I told you: I know people who don't use their skill tree at all?? And they do fine.
So, gear (rarity, mark, type: Loot, Lockbox, etc), skill, traits and synergy with each other does has a lot to do with it, too.
It is something that can be learned in a Tutorial? It takes what you did: studying and observing.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Same applies to you, quite frankly, Patrick. You have your playstyle, and that's good - but I have mine, and other people have theirs, and your insistence that we're having badwrongfun would drive people away. Perhaps you feel that a smaller playerbase whose goals are all compatible with your own would result in a "better" game - but it would certainly be a poorer game, both as a value and in terms of incoming capital.
There is a massive difference between a tank and a healer. That is something the game never explains and many players get confused about.
Another big area you are missing at the start of the game is nowhere do you explain the difference in ships. For example Sci ships get a bonus to shield hitpoints and shield regen. Cruisers get a bonus to hull hitpoints and hull regen, Escorts get a penalty to shields and shield regen but have a bonus to turn rate and speed e.c.t. Ships class’s follow a set of rules but players have to figured out the difference between a cruiser, battlecruiser, dreadnought cruiser and so on. Many player still do not know the difference and do not know why the shield hit points and regen change when you fit the same shield to different ships.
You no longer show off the differences between player classes anymore. The best missions in the game are the starting missions and your class makes a difference to how they play and what options are in the mission. Then you advance though the missions till you get to the more recent ones which are over simplified and dumbed down to the point where player class is irrelevant and replaying the missions is made boring as there is only 1 path.
One of my big worries is you revamp the great starting chain of missions and make them as bad as the more recent dumbed down missions which have poor replayability.
Personally I think you are making a mistake focusing on the starting content as that is some of the best content in the game. The real problem is the lack of end game content which is in a worse shape than when the game first shipped. End game content has gone backwards and this is one of the big factors hurting player retention. There is a ton of great starting content and so much mid content you can get lost. But there is barely any team work end game content left. The games feels about 30% starting content, 68% mid game content, 2% end game content.
Bring back the end game content that was rewarding to play, takes team work and time. The most fun I had in STO was the original end game raids which there are now zero raids left in STO. The original Crystalline Entity and original No Win scenario that required team work. (not the rubbish No Win revamp). You used to feel like you accomplished something doing those and they could be failed. Not like the recent content that is so easy and simplified it’s completely unrewarding to play, boring to replay. Stop with the snowflake content that doesn't have an accomplishment feel to finishing it. Yes you need some snowflake content, but Star Trek has moved to far into the casual content. We have got the stage where doing content is so easy and simple there is not feeling of accomplishment anymore. You need a mix of casual and end game content, right now there is next to no real end game content. Its all casual.
That's just it, I'm a "button pusher", I've never been able to learn from a manual or from watching a video, I have to learn by doing.
But as someone who has been in the game modding and 3D rendering communities for roughly 20 years, I know that most people just can't learn things the same way I do. They need manuals or video tutorials, but even then many of then still need their hand held, and shown how it's done, and sometimes they have to do that several times before it "sinks in".
So having some thing or place that explains (and not in geek/nerd speak either) how all of this works is needed for many of the players.
I think a lot of people are lamenting the loss of team work and want it back.
But, everyone is going to have to be patient and work toward that goal. Not just the Devs, either.
Regular players are stuck in a rut.
Because, for the last 3 (???) years it has been "Play a Tac, Play a Tac, Play a Tac". So, everyone has a Tac.
"Kill IT before IT kills you" has been the TEAM mantra. Yes, that is the TEAM make up, too...there is no briefing or coordination needed when all anyone need do is bring the DPS. Instruction and easiest to find advice is all for DPS even the skill tree.
And it follows : the fastest and the most played content is going to be that content that allows people do the one thing they have all specialized for. It is like a feedback loop....push DPS and nothing else....everyone floated to the maps that was for them.
Plus, these "team mates" never learned how to look out for the other guy. Who cares if someone falls behind, if I can carry them, they don't matter. OR, if the other players are masking my problems with their DPS, so nothing is wrong. It is not really a team. It is everyone for themselves. There needs to be a shift in thinking there.
It is going to take a while to turn this ship around.
Realistically: Does the average player have an alternate ship...as in an Eng or Sci or Tac ship (or even an alt character)....to jump to that is set up and ready to go for Crowd Control or Healing or Tanking etc..etc...without having to reconfigure everything?
Edit: Laundry Day....I can't get to the big computer to play STO...so I am on my Chromebook blathering.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Sure you'll come across a boss ship like the Tac Cube in ISA but your AOE's will work just as well here and you absolutely needed them in the rest of the mission, so why slot anything else.
If you want to make single target builds or even single target abilities relevant then you need to move away from the queues that have us fighting off half the Gamma Quadrant or whatever the current bad guy is. This game railroads players down certain sets of abilities because they are the best for dealing with some pretty wonky mission/queue design.
As a scibopper (Kor), I refute that remark - when you have a ship that can pack EVERY slot with science (well, okay on mine its 9 epg using sci/faux sci powers), its very effective as long as you don't give a fig about dps due to the points where you only have torpedos as every sci power is on standby
Zoom in cloaked hit QSM then fire kemocite torpedos including clusters, use photonic shockwave then subspace boom, sic2, structural analysis and endothermic beam 1, turn and fire grav well then ssv - radbomb the group (the backwards ship trait) with he, scramble sensors (it counts as it makes enemies damage each other) to allow escape (optional full decloak for more damage but I find it too risky)
Add science power consoles and a bop is a horrendously powerful science machine...as long as you realise its primary nature is to rush in to nuke groups and debuff the blazes out of them before peeling off to heal then repeat
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