pssssttt...as long as you are revamping: I would not be unhappy if "Of Bajor" suddenly disappears.
Motion seconded.
Branching sub-missions are a neat mechanics, but it suffers too heavily from "Admiral Errandboy" syndrome. Personally lighting every Bateret altar in town? Arguing with rowdy Klingons? Don't we have, a ship with, I don't know, a crew, who could do that better and faster?
Lighting altars with your ship weapons may be over kill.
"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
I'm also glad that some of the older missions are slightly adapted. I hope, for instance, that some of the cutscenes from Diplomatic Orders are either removed or made skippable.
I'm personally hoping that at least half of the fat from "Doomsday Device" is trimmed.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
Any recruitment objectives that require removed missions will be automatically completed.
That is nice. Anytime withdrawing content completely is risky given players possible attachments to it. So as players can still earn the limited time episode rerun rewards, if/when that happens again hopefully, & complete any recruitment event achievements this seems fine. Players might have to initially seek a certain mission out more than before, but nothing that sounds too exertive.
The list of all those missions didn't seem convoluted to me to require this, but hopefully this will just improve the quality of life play in STO. I'm still impressed with the last missions/episodes enhancements Cryptic implemented. The last three or four STO announcements I can think of have surprisingly been awesome imo for STO & us players. Nicely done!
@ambassadorkael#6946 any chance the KDF missions in the early levels get an update too?
and while Im bugging you, will my KDF-hadar ever get access to the mission so I can get the vov'wyl doodad?
KDF-allied Jem'Hadar have had access to all of the missions, except for Terminal Expanse, for weeks now.
My Fed-Allied Jem'hadar has still the same problem.
(I managed to play the mission from Available tab, however after the first completion, you cannot replay it as it isn't showing up in the episodes tab.)
Back on topic though: So I see we're removing missions to improve the quality of the game again, aren't we? Wonderful. I second the question by frtoaster ofhow exactly those new "side missions" will be available. The benefit of the mission journal is exactly that you can select a mission and later transwarp to it directly. Mindlessly flying around trying to find a mission sounds like another stage of Doffing that you already managed to TRIBBLE up so many times I lost count.
Anyway, I know you're doing all that so you don't have to try and fix the aforemention bug with Terminal Expanse not showing up at all in the episode tab.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
pssssttt...as long as you are revamping: I would not be unhappy if "Of Bajor" suddenly disappears.
Motion seconded.
Branching sub-missions are a neat mechanics, but it suffers too heavily from "Admiral Errandboy" syndrome. Personally lighting every Bateret altar in town? Arguing with rowdy Klingons? Don't we have, a ship with, I don't know, a crew, who could do that better and faster?
Lighting altars with your ship weapons may be over kill.
On the other hand, beaming down a few BBQ lighter cubes on each altar would be a neat exercise for the transporter team
Glad some of the early stuff is getting a polish. Some of them really need it.
Of the arcs being removed from the Journal, not sad at all to see The 2800 go. Such a long, boring arc. And as much as people complain about Of Bajor, that is actually the one mission I like the most of that arc, which really isn't saying much. It is the easiest and quickest to complete of those missions. Second Wave is just long and boring, more so if you do the side quests. Operation Gamma got severely broken when the level cap went to 65 as the enemies scale to 65, but the shuttle doesn't seem to. Getting two-shot by the Jem'Hadar fighters while trying to take down the worker bees is doable, but not fun. Facility 4028 isn't so bad, except for the insane distance you need to run and the BOff pathing issues that keep your BOff stuck and unable to follow a lot of the time. I don't think I need to even mention the issues with Boldly They Rode. Kurland, no longer here... in the Journal.
Wasteland is probably one of my favorite arcs in the entire game, sad to see it relegated to "find it if you can" status. Huge outdoor map, mostly ground related so I can at least understand why some folks dislike it. To me, it's a blast and I run it on every alt and will continue to do so.
Spectres is a fun little arc, but totally not needed in the narrative. I'll probably still run it once in a while though.
I don't really care for the Breen arc, but it's definitely better than The 2800. I'll probably run it for the Cluster Torpedo mission reward. Other than that, meh.
It will be interesting to see how some of the missions that are getting cleaned up actually play once the work is done. New visuals are nice and some new faces are always welcome.
One thing I just don't get though is why some missions are being removed while they are being worked on. Missions have been changed in the past without needing to completely remove them from the game. I have a bad feeling about this, to be honest. We've heard similar lines of "we're taking it down to work on it or to find a better replacement" in the past and the content, or it's supposed "better replacement" was never seen or heard of again.
Who remembers the daily mission to play Foundry missions? That was removed to find a way to make it a better experience. It's been 3-ish years and still no word on when it'll show up. (hint: probably never) Or how about the Exploration system. They took that out because it didn't live up to the standard at the time and we were told a replacement was being looked into. That replacement seems to have been a void because there's been no word on when or even if it's still being looked into. (hint: likely long shelved and they hope we just have short memories)
I hope this isn't yet another content purge. Just set the missions off to the side and allow access to them like you already seem to be doing with the older arcs, don't flat out remove them. Please?
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
Glad some of the early stuff is getting a polish. Some of them really need it.
Of the arcs being removed from the Journal, not sad at all to see The 2800 go. Such a long, boring arc. And as much as people complain about Of Bajor, that is actually the one mission I like the most of that arc, which really isn't saying much. It is the easiest and quickest to complete of those missions. Second Wave is just long and boring, more so if you do the side quests. Operation Gamma got severely broken when the level cap went to 65 as the enemies scale to 65, but the shuttle doesn't seem to. Getting two-shot by the Jem'Hadar fighters while trying to take down the worker bees is doable, but not fun. Facility 4028 isn't so bad, except for the insane distance you need to run and the BOff pathing issues that keep your BOff stuck and unable to follow a lot of the time. I don't think I need to even mention the issues with Boldly They Rode. Kurland, no longer here... in the Journal.
Wasteland is probably one of my favorite arcs in the entire game, sad to see it relegated to "find it if you can" status. Huge outdoor map, mostly ground related so I can at least understand why some folks dislike it. To me, it's a blast and I run it on every alt and will continue to do so.
Spectres is a fun little arc, but totally not needed in the narrative. I'll probably still run it once in a while though.
I don't really care for the Breen arc, but it's definitely better than The 2800. I'll probably run it for the Cluster Torpedo mission reward. Other than that, meh.
It will be interesting to see how some of the missions that are getting cleaned up actually play once the work is done. New visuals are nice and some new faces are always welcome.
One thing I just don't get though is why some missions are being removed while they are being worked on. We've heard similar lines of "we're taking it down to work on it or to find a better replacement" in the past and the content, or it's supposed "better replacement" was never seen or heard of again.
Who remembers the daily mission to play Foundry missions? That was removed to find a way to make it a better experience. It's been 3-ish years and still no word on when it'll show up. (hint: probably never) Or how about the Exploration system. They took that out because it didn't live up to the standard at the time and we were told a replacement was being looked into. That replacement seems to have been a void because there's been no word on when or even if it's still being looked into. (hint: likely long shelved and they hope we just have short memories)
I hope this isn't yet another content purge. Just set the missions off to the side and allow access to them like you already seem to be doing with the older arcs, don't flat out remove them. Please?
They've talked a bit about Exploration on Priority one in the past. It's not an easy system to do, considering they wanna give a system that is worthy of feeling like you're finding new things, but not have it feel also like it's going to eventually repeat on you.
I suppose I don't mind them cutting out some of the fat in order to make the main story missions more enjoyable, but I am surprised to see some missions removed. "Wasteland" for example is actually fairly significant, considering it involves hunting for Thalon Triggers, introduces us to Obisek and has our first official encounter with the Elachi. Of course Starfleet and KDF characters don't really interact with the Elachi all that much compared to the Romulan Republic... so maybe they could remove "Wasteland" from their primary missions, but leave it primary for the Republic since it relates to them more? Starfleet and KDF characters can still have the option to complete "Wasteland" as a side mission, but only the Romulans do it as part of leveling up.
"Breen Invasion” is another odd choice to remove. Personally I think these missions could use an update, but not a complete removal. It's the story which introduces us to the Preservers. I suppose they don't play a HUGE role in the story, but we do discover their connections to the Iconians and return to the Lae'nas system later in the game. I hope the removal of this mission from the main story doesn't confuse new players when they return there in the Iconian story line.
I can see "The Lost Dominion" being a side mission, but the 2800 should remain as a main mission . It might derail the main story a bit, but that's sort of the entire point of the mission. It's an unexpected ghost from the past which we're all forced to deal with. It also involves us making contact with present day Dominion, introducing us to Wayoun and involves us freeing the Female Changeling from Prison. Not to mention it's the introduction to the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F. These are all important events which will be revisited later in the game. It should be more than a side mission.
I suppose this all comes down to how they implement the side missions though. How easy will they be to access and most importantly, will they be implemented in a coherent way? If you've never watched Deep Space Nine before, do you jump into the Dominion War in Season Six and then jump back to early seasons afterwards? I would sure hope not. So the side missions should be introduced in a way that makes sense to the story.
Wasteland is probably one of my favorite arcs in the entire game, sad to see it relegated to "find it if you can" status. Huge outdoor map, mostly ground related so I can at least understand why some folks dislike it. To me, it's a blast and I run it on every alt and will continue to do so.
The issue with Wasteland is that either there's no one there (and then open parts are a bit of a slog) or everyone is there (and there's not enough spawns for everyone, which is worse.)
Making it optional can help at least with the latter.
I wouldn't be surprised if old missions were changed to reflect how Discovery has retconned the TOS era. Cryptic strikes me as being undermanned for all the stuff we'd like them to do/fix, so going back and changing anything that isn't broken makes me leery; especially when rolled into something like "Age of Discovery".
I will just have to have my Character who picked up Romulan and Cardassian Arc Episodes that were eliminated, pick up the soon to be deleted Klingon War Arc Episodes as well.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Hey, can you let us get the Ophidian Cane and Shard of Possibilities again? Since you're touching up all the old stuff anyway, it would be pretty nice.
Regardless, I am looking forward to an overhaul with some of the old missions. There were a few tedious spots I have in mind that could definitely use the touchup. I do wonder what this all means for level requirements though. It won't matter much if the missions are removed from the journal if you still have to do them to get into the later content.
They've talked a bit about Exploration on Priority one in the past. It's not an easy system to do, considering they wanna give a system that is worthy of feeling like you're finding new things, but not have it feel also like it's going to eventually repeat on you.
Because EVERYONE loves recovering artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty for the umpteenth time! YAY!
I wouldn't be surprised if old missions were changed to reflect how Discovery has retconned the TOS era. Cryptic strikes me as being undermanned for all the stuff we'd like them to do/fix, so going back and changing anything that isn't broken makes me leery; especially when rolled into something like "Age of Discovery".
I don't see it as a total retcon of the TOS era. Visual update maybe, but not a total rewrite. I personally see the Discovery Connie as a retcon of the Cage one. If it also happens to retcon the standard... makes turning her into the Refit a bit easier as the pylons are already swept back. But honestly I don't see a rewrite of the era because we're dealing with a different ship than Enterprise. Its not that different from having TNG and DS9 running together. They didn't really affect each other unless there were instances of crossover. Other than that... we got two independant stories in the same universe following two different crews.
Granted that's my personal opinion on it, but it still makes sense.
Also apparently the "Individual ship assignment badges" were a continuity error according to the TOS crew.
So the Starfleet "Enterprise" Delta being used everywhere is supposed to be canon.
One thing I just don't get though is why some missions are being removed while they are being worked on. Missions have been changed in the past without needing to completely remove them from the game. I have a bad feeling about this, to be honest. We've heard similar lines of "we're taking it down to work on it or to find a better replacement" in the past and the content, or it's supposed "better replacement" was never seen or heard of again.
Who remembers the daily mission to play Foundry missions? That was removed to find a way to make it a better experience. It's been 3-ish years and still no word on when it'll show up. (hint: probably never) Or how about the Exploration system. They took that out because it didn't live up to the standard at the time and we were told a replacement was being looked into. That replacement seems to have been a void because there's been no word on when or even if it's still being looked into. (hint: likely long shelved and they hope we just have short memories)
I hope this isn't yet another content purge. Just set the missions off to the side and allow access to them like you already seem to be doing with the older arcs, don't flat out remove them. Please?
QFT. That oft-repeated line of the Devs' always reminds me of the Grinchy Claus's lie to little Cindy Lou Who: "There's a
light on this tree that won't light on one side. I'm taking it back to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there, and I'll bring it back here."
thomasselkins' points above are good ones, too. Sidelining these missions WILL make it confusing when players reach the callbacks to them in the missions you're not sidelining. The Preserver Archive (which itself was the scene of the beginning and end of the Delta Recruitment), the freeing of the Founder, and so on.
There are three things that could make this a bit more palatable, however:
1. Make the FE rewards permanently available, instead of limited time runs only. Just make them "Can only equip one" items like other rewards. My AoY and Jemmie would both love to get the Cane and Shard, and the Breen BOFF would be nice on a Dominion crew.
2. Now would be a great time to bring back previously cut missions, and make them side-quests as well. I would love to see "Saturday's Child" and "The Tribble With Klingons" once more!
3. Now that Wasteland is optional, perhaps you can make Tovan Khev dismissable at last, since finding his bloody sister is no longer part of the main storyline.
I have to admit at first I was a bit wary of the streamlining announcement, given that the removal of the exploration clusters in order to "streamline" the experience has left a bad taste in my mouth in the past.
However, if this is implemented the way I'm reading it, it could possibly be a good thing - having random story arcs pop up in their respective locations may give a breath of new life to sector space and I think that's a good thing. Would be a nice addition to the stellar anomalies, red alerts and 'tour the galaxy' for sector space and utilize it a bit more. Plus it would feel more in line with some of the Star Trek shows - the Enterprise goes in a system to scan/explore/investigate something, than all of a sudden something happens and we get a story - an ST episode. I like that. And tbh, some of the arcs were really out of place in the storyline, especially 'Spectres' right when the Federation-Klingon war was heating up and the Nimbus III missions as well felt a bit out of place for the Federation and KDF, though it's good that the Romulans get to keep them as a part of the primary storyline, cause they're essential to propel their story forward.
I don't see it as a total retcon of the TOS era. Visual update maybe, but not a total rewrite. I personally see the Discovery Connie as a retcon of the Cage one. If it also happens to retcon the standard... makes turning her into the Refit a bit easier as the pylons are already swept back. But honestly I don't see a rewrite of the era because we're dealing with a different ship than Enterprise. Its not that different from having TNG and DS9 running together. They didn't really affect each other unless there were instances of crossover. Other than that... we got two independant stories in the same universe following two different crews.
Granted that's my personal opinion on it, but it still makes sense.
I mean, it's not even really a retcon at this point. I get why people's attachment to the Trek they grew up with may make them a bit prejudiced towards the visual differences between the shows and they may feel like the current style of DISCO erases what was established in previous shows, but that simply is not true. It just a visual update, a new visual interpretation if you will - I mean, people have to come to terms that it's a prequel that is being made some 50+ years since the original Trek. It has to have enhanced visuals and effects in order to be competitive on the modern market and good for the eye as far as sci-fi goes. It's not like it hasn't happened before - it's the Klingon ridges in the movies and the Romulan ridges in TNG all over again.
More so, I feel that DISCO's interpretation tires to follow up on what we've seen in ENT and slowly transition towards TOS - which was visible in the Season 1 finale with the design of the Constitution Class and Pike's uniform.
We just need to keep an open mind on the use of modern tech in the movie industry and accept it for what it is - keeping the pace with the times we live in.
Additionally, there might be something with the rumors that DISCO and the new Picard show are trying to tie in the nods between the primary and the Kelvin timelines in a single timeline that would continue with/and/or after the Picard show and which would have visual designs, aesthetics and interpretations more in line with what we see in DISCO and the Paramount movies, thus moving forward the visual interpretation of Star Trek for the future. But we're yet to see if there's something to this or not.
Looking at what I need to get done with my Federation Delta Recruit.
I understand why you want to revamp the story line on the Federation side. It is like everything including the kitchen sink got shoved in this Klingon War Arc. "Specters" (with the Devidians), Temporal Ambassador, sheesh.
And I am not sure what changes happened previously that made my Delta Recruit rewards show the Klingon War Arc as not completed. I could have sworn I got past that point before....I think it was the Temporal Ambassador move.
Anyhoo...something for Cryptic to keep in mind...if you move these missions, check the progressions on Delta Recruits, please.
OH....I forgot patch on Tribble....maybe move some of my guys over there. Is Tribble unlocked for everyone?
Dinner time for me...soooooo I am gone.
"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
So the side missions should be introduced in a way that makes sense to the story.
Jessie and Kael talked about the mission updates on tonight's Ten Forward weekly. By the sound of it, players will be given a briefing by their main contact (for FED: Quinn after Klingon War arc) to the effect of "here's the main path we want you to look into but there's these other points of concern you can choose to investigate." Furthermore, missions that currently refer back to side arcs will have new dialog for players who haven't yet completed them (referring to those events as happening off screen.) For the rest: business as usual (it's an automatic adjustment, per your completion history.)
Why remove those starting fed missions that need work instead of leaving them and swapping them out when finished?
Because Age of Discovery is incoming and Cryptic wants the Klingon War arc to be a smoother, more direct parallel with what those players will have experienced. There's a revamp coming to the cut missions similar to the Cardassian, Borg, and Romulan arcs and that can't be completed in advance of AOD. So, they're doing the streamlining now (to make the most of the big release, publicity, and the incoming rush of new FED characters/players) and saving the overhaul to when it can be competently done.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
It would be nice if you added a section to the "Available" missions/eps that had this stuff still in its flowchart form, rather than moving them out altogether.
It would be nice if you added a section to the "Available" missions/eps that had this stuff still in its flowchart form, rather than moving them out altogether.
I agree with this idea. The older missions religated to the optional side of things should still be clearly marked and easy to find in the mission journal. Many of the missions that are going to be made optional contain important lore and give out useful and unique rewards. They may no longer be manditory, but they are still important.
Perhaps two sections could be made in the journal. One marked "Primary" (or some such designation) under which the manditory mission arcs are found. Another marked "Secondary" that contains the optional mission arcs.
pssssttt...as long as you are revamping: I would not be unhappy if "Of Bajor" suddenly disappears.
This is the only piece of content I would say is acceptable to be completely removed. Any other content should not be removed!
The Klingons already lack a full fledged story after the last round of gutting. Why is it when content is removed, that it happens to be some of the better content the game once had?
Well the Investigate Officer Reports (Foundry Daily) that was taken out to make it better about three years ago will be so good when it returns that sliced bread will be jealous.
Anyway, at this stage since the Featured Episode Rerun Event does not give any Lobi they should just add those four Unique items back into the Episodes for regular play. They are Unique so you can't get more than one anyway on a Character.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Every time these "streamlining content" updates happen, it always seems like there's even less STO than there was before.
I don't disagree with the need to update older content to match newer content releases, but we lose quite a bit of interconnected story and introductions that, despite early STO awkwardness, still make more sense than newer revamped re-introductions of, say, characters. Franklin Drake's original story episodes, for instance, really gave us a character we could love to hate but be forced to work with. Now he's just some guy who shows up and gives us orders out of the blue alongside a much less disreputable Section 31.
It also feels weird going forward as a player character in the game when revamps (if not straight up removals) of old content don't mesh well with later-story-but-released-prior-to-revamps content, where we're expected to feel a sense of history of something, but no longer have it due to repeated retcons from various revamps crisscrossing over each other.
Though, as it's been stated elsewhere, at least some of this for the Klingon War content is just to retcon in Discovery material. I personally don't feel that's needed, as we aren't going back to TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT to add new details to tie in directly to Discovery, unlike another "Star" franchise with their Special Editions and prequel tie-ins, and I enjoyed a lot of the earlier STO-original content, when it stood more on its own with its original cast of characters.
They've talked a bit about Exploration on Priority one in the past. It's not an easy system to do, considering they wanna give a system that is worthy of feeling like you're finding new things, but not have it feel also like it's going to eventually repeat on you.
Because EVERYONE loves recovering artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty for the umpteenth time! YAY!
Despite their silliness, at least I vaguely felt like I was doing something other than replaying the exact same short queues (if they pop, depending on which are popular at the time) or story episodes. It had some bare-bones non-combat assignments every so often that also broke up the "kill five waves of enemies" that the rest of the game basically relies on, and they were short enough that they didn't drag on with their simple objectives, for the most part.
I mostly miss those First Contact trivia assignments, back in the day when I felt the devs were really trying to come up with new things to do that didn't involve vaporizing someone we have some sort of disagreement with. I was always impressed with those little additions, and it felt a bit emptier of a game when those things went away.
I have no hope any sort of exploration that isn't strictly tied to a linear story episode will make a return (I remember when the beginning of the Tzen'kethi war arc was promoted as a "return to exploration" before we knew it'd be another galactic war), but I'm willing to be surprised someday.
I do accept Foundry as a good source of alternative missions, but it's hard to find good ones, sometimes. It doesn't always quite get the TLC it needs, either.
I wouldn't be surprised if old missions were changed to reflect how Discovery has retconned the TOS era. Cryptic strikes me as being undermanned for all the stuff we'd like them to do/fix, so going back and changing anything that isn't broken makes me leery; especially when rolled into something like "Age of Discovery".
I don't see it as a total retcon of the TOS era. Visual update maybe, but not a total rewrite. I personally see the Discovery Connie as a retcon of the Cage one. If it also happens to retcon the standard... makes turning her into the Refit a bit easier as the pylons are already swept back. But honestly I don't see a rewrite of the era because we're dealing with a different ship than Enterprise. Its not that different from having TNG and DS9 running together. They didn't really affect each other unless there were instances of crossover. Other than that... we got two independant stories in the same universe following two different crews.
Granted that's my personal opinion on it, but it still makes sense.
I, too, try to work hard to mentally fit the more confounding elements of Star Trek together, but I can't see, in the original visual canon, the Cage Enterprise going from Discovery's version of it back into the classic TOS form and then into the beloved refit of the films. It just doesn't even mesh well with the film version, in my opinion, going from all these weird gaps in the hull back into a sleeker form.
That doesn't mean I don't like the Discovery Connie design, and it's probably the closest to proper TOS it'll get, but visually...it's a lot closer in appearance to STO's Exeter-class cruiser, itself a much later generation Connie.
Still, I'd be happy if that weren't an R&D or Lockbox ship, this time. It's bigger than the TOS and TMP Connies both by a bit, but much smaller than the Kelvin Connie, so I'd like to think it'd need its own release.
Also apparently the "Individual ship assignment badges" were a continuity error according to the TOS crew.
*snip*
So the Starfleet "Enterprise" Delta being used everywhere is supposed to be canon.
The assignment badges may have been considered a continuity error internally in the real-world as per that memo, but it's one that has been overruled by canon since before and after then, right up to ENT's mirror universe episodes. I know the memo was brought out to explain Discovery's use of the "Enterprise" delta badge, but it's a bit late at this point. Anything else would be a retcon. Even STO has a wide variety of ship assignment badges to work with, which I personally adore and am thankful for.
Comments
Lighting altars with your ship weapons may be over kill.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I'm personally hoping that at least half of the fat from "Doomsday Device" is trimmed.
That is nice. Anytime withdrawing content completely is risky given players possible attachments to it. So as players can still earn the limited time episode rerun rewards, if/when that happens again hopefully, & complete any recruitment event achievements this seems fine. Players might have to initially seek a certain mission out more than before, but nothing that sounds too exertive.
The list of all those missions didn't seem convoluted to me to require this, but hopefully this will just improve the quality of life play in STO. I'm still impressed with the last missions/episodes enhancements Cryptic implemented. The last three or four STO announcements I can think of have surprisingly been awesome imo for STO & us players. Nicely done!
(I managed to play the mission from Available tab, however after the first completion, you cannot replay it as it isn't showing up in the episodes tab.)
Back on topic though: So I see we're removing missions to improve the quality of the game again, aren't we? Wonderful. I second the question by frtoaster ofhow exactly those new "side missions" will be available. The benefit of the mission journal is exactly that you can select a mission and later transwarp to it directly. Mindlessly flying around trying to find a mission sounds like another stage of Doffing that you already managed to TRIBBLE up so many times I lost count.
Anyway, I know you're doing all that so you don't have to try and fix the aforemention bug with Terminal Expanse not showing up at all in the episode tab.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
On the other hand, beaming down a few BBQ lighter cubes on each altar would be a neat exercise for the transporter team
Of the arcs being removed from the Journal, not sad at all to see The 2800 go. Such a long, boring arc. And as much as people complain about Of Bajor, that is actually the one mission I like the most of that arc, which really isn't saying much. It is the easiest and quickest to complete of those missions. Second Wave is just long and boring, more so if you do the side quests. Operation Gamma got severely broken when the level cap went to 65 as the enemies scale to 65, but the shuttle doesn't seem to. Getting two-shot by the Jem'Hadar fighters while trying to take down the worker bees is doable, but not fun. Facility 4028 isn't so bad, except for the insane distance you need to run and the BOff pathing issues that keep your BOff stuck and unable to follow a lot of the time. I don't think I need to even mention the issues with Boldly They Rode. Kurland, no longer here... in the Journal.
Wasteland is probably one of my favorite arcs in the entire game, sad to see it relegated to "find it if you can" status. Huge outdoor map, mostly ground related so I can at least understand why some folks dislike it. To me, it's a blast and I run it on every alt and will continue to do so.
Spectres is a fun little arc, but totally not needed in the narrative. I'll probably still run it once in a while though.
I don't really care for the Breen arc, but it's definitely better than The 2800. I'll probably run it for the Cluster Torpedo mission reward. Other than that, meh.
It will be interesting to see how some of the missions that are getting cleaned up actually play once the work is done. New visuals are nice and some new faces are always welcome.
One thing I just don't get though is why some missions are being removed while they are being worked on. Missions have been changed in the past without needing to completely remove them from the game. I have a bad feeling about this, to be honest. We've heard similar lines of "we're taking it down to work on it or to find a better replacement" in the past and the content, or it's supposed "better replacement" was never seen or heard of again.
Who remembers the daily mission to play Foundry missions? That was removed to find a way to make it a better experience. It's been 3-ish years and still no word on when it'll show up. (hint: probably never) Or how about the Exploration system. They took that out because it didn't live up to the standard at the time and we were told a replacement was being looked into. That replacement seems to have been a void because there's been no word on when or even if it's still being looked into. (hint: likely long shelved and they hope we just have short memories)
I hope this isn't yet another content purge. Just set the missions off to the side and allow access to them like you already seem to be doing with the older arcs, don't flat out remove them. Please?
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
They've talked a bit about Exploration on Priority one in the past. It's not an easy system to do, considering they wanna give a system that is worthy of feeling like you're finding new things, but not have it feel also like it's going to eventually repeat on you.
"Breen Invasion” is another odd choice to remove. Personally I think these missions could use an update, but not a complete removal. It's the story which introduces us to the Preservers. I suppose they don't play a HUGE role in the story, but we do discover their connections to the Iconians and return to the Lae'nas system later in the game. I hope the removal of this mission from the main story doesn't confuse new players when they return there in the Iconian story line.
I can see "The Lost Dominion" being a side mission, but the 2800 should remain as a main mission . It might derail the main story a bit, but that's sort of the entire point of the mission. It's an unexpected ghost from the past which we're all forced to deal with. It also involves us making contact with present day Dominion, introducing us to Wayoun and involves us freeing the Female Changeling from Prison. Not to mention it's the introduction to the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F. These are all important events which will be revisited later in the game. It should be more than a side mission.
I suppose this all comes down to how they implement the side missions though. How easy will they be to access and most importantly, will they be implemented in a coherent way? If you've never watched Deep Space Nine before, do you jump into the Dominion War in Season Six and then jump back to early seasons afterwards? I would sure hope not. So the side missions should be introduced in a way that makes sense to the story.
The issue with Wasteland is that either there's no one there (and then open parts are a bit of a slog) or everyone is there (and there's not enough spawns for everyone, which is worse.)
Making it optional can help at least with the latter.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Regardless, I am looking forward to an overhaul with some of the old missions. There were a few tedious spots I have in mind that could definitely use the touchup. I do wonder what this all means for level requirements though. It won't matter much if the missions are removed from the journal if you still have to do them to get into the later content.
Because EVERYONE loves recovering artifacts from the 3rd Borg Dynasty for the umpteenth time! YAY!
I don't see it as a total retcon of the TOS era. Visual update maybe, but not a total rewrite. I personally see the Discovery Connie as a retcon of the Cage one. If it also happens to retcon the standard... makes turning her into the Refit a bit easier as the pylons are already swept back. But honestly I don't see a rewrite of the era because we're dealing with a different ship than Enterprise. Its not that different from having TNG and DS9 running together. They didn't really affect each other unless there were instances of crossover. Other than that... we got two independant stories in the same universe following two different crews.
Granted that's my personal opinion on it, but it still makes sense.
Also apparently the "Individual ship assignment badges" were a continuity error according to the TOS crew.
So the Starfleet "Enterprise" Delta being used everywhere is supposed to be canon.
QFT. That oft-repeated line of the Devs' always reminds me of the Grinchy Claus's lie to little Cindy Lou Who: "There's a
light on this tree that won't light on one side. I'm taking it back to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there, and I'll bring it back here."
thomasselkins' points above are good ones, too. Sidelining these missions WILL make it confusing when players reach the callbacks to them in the missions you're not sidelining. The Preserver Archive (which itself was the scene of the beginning and end of the Delta Recruitment), the freeing of the Founder, and so on.
There are three things that could make this a bit more palatable, however:
1. Make the FE rewards permanently available, instead of limited time runs only. Just make them "Can only equip one" items like other rewards. My AoY and Jemmie would both love to get the Cane and Shard, and the Breen BOFF would be nice on a Dominion crew.
2. Now would be a great time to bring back previously cut missions, and make them side-quests as well. I would love to see "Saturday's Child" and "The Tribble With Klingons" once more!
3. Now that Wasteland is optional, perhaps you can make Tovan Khev dismissable at last, since finding his bloody sister is no longer part of the main storyline.
Anyway, just my 2 EC.
However, if this is implemented the way I'm reading it, it could possibly be a good thing - having random story arcs pop up in their respective locations may give a breath of new life to sector space and I think that's a good thing. Would be a nice addition to the stellar anomalies, red alerts and 'tour the galaxy' for sector space and utilize it a bit more. Plus it would feel more in line with some of the Star Trek shows - the Enterprise goes in a system to scan/explore/investigate something, than all of a sudden something happens and we get a story - an ST episode. I like that. And tbh, some of the arcs were really out of place in the storyline, especially 'Spectres' right when the Federation-Klingon war was heating up and the Nimbus III missions as well felt a bit out of place for the Federation and KDF, though it's good that the Romulans get to keep them as a part of the primary storyline, cause they're essential to propel their story forward.
I mean, it's not even really a retcon at this point. I get why people's attachment to the Trek they grew up with may make them a bit prejudiced towards the visual differences between the shows and they may feel like the current style of DISCO erases what was established in previous shows, but that simply is not true. It just a visual update, a new visual interpretation if you will - I mean, people have to come to terms that it's a prequel that is being made some 50+ years since the original Trek. It has to have enhanced visuals and effects in order to be competitive on the modern market and good for the eye as far as sci-fi goes. It's not like it hasn't happened before - it's the Klingon ridges in the movies and the Romulan ridges in TNG all over again.
More so, I feel that DISCO's interpretation tires to follow up on what we've seen in ENT and slowly transition towards TOS - which was visible in the Season 1 finale with the design of the Constitution Class and Pike's uniform.
We just need to keep an open mind on the use of modern tech in the movie industry and accept it for what it is - keeping the pace with the times we live in.
Additionally, there might be something with the rumors that DISCO and the new Picard show are trying to tie in the nods between the primary and the Kelvin timelines in a single timeline that would continue with/and/or after the Picard show and which would have visual designs, aesthetics and interpretations more in line with what we see in DISCO and the Paramount movies, thus moving forward the visual interpretation of Star Trek for the future. But we're yet to see if there's something to this or not.
I understand why you want to revamp the story line on the Federation side. It is like everything including the kitchen sink got shoved in this Klingon War Arc. "Specters" (with the Devidians), Temporal Ambassador, sheesh.
And I am not sure what changes happened previously that made my Delta Recruit rewards show the Klingon War Arc as not completed. I could have sworn I got past that point before....I think it was the Temporal Ambassador move.
Anyhoo...something for Cryptic to keep in mind...if you move these missions, check the progressions on Delta Recruits, please.
OH....I forgot patch on Tribble....maybe move some of my guys over there. Is Tribble unlocked for everyone?
Dinner time for me...soooooo I am gone.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Jessie and Kael talked about the mission updates on tonight's Ten Forward weekly. By the sound of it, players will be given a briefing by their main contact (for FED: Quinn after Klingon War arc) to the effect of "here's the main path we want you to look into but there's these other points of concern you can choose to investigate." Furthermore, missions that currently refer back to side arcs will have new dialog for players who haven't yet completed them (referring to those events as happening off screen.) For the rest: business as usual (it's an automatic adjustment, per your completion history.)
Because Age of Discovery is incoming and Cryptic wants the Klingon War arc to be a smoother, more direct parallel with what those players will have experienced. There's a revamp coming to the cut missions similar to the Cardassian, Borg, and Romulan arcs and that can't be completed in advance of AOD. So, they're doing the streamlining now (to make the most of the big release, publicity, and the incoming rush of new FED characters/players) and saving the overhaul to when it can be competently done.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I agree with this idea. The older missions religated to the optional side of things should still be clearly marked and easy to find in the mission journal. Many of the missions that are going to be made optional contain important lore and give out useful and unique rewards. They may no longer be manditory, but they are still important.
Perhaps two sections could be made in the journal. One marked "Primary" (or some such designation) under which the manditory mission arcs are found. Another marked "Secondary" that contains the optional mission arcs.
This is the only piece of content I would say is acceptable to be completely removed. Any other content should not be removed!
The Klingons already lack a full fledged story after the last round of gutting. Why is it when content is removed, that it happens to be some of the better content the game once had?
Anyway, at this stage since the Featured Episode Rerun Event does not give any Lobi they should just add those four Unique items back into the Episodes for regular play. They are Unique so you can't get more than one anyway on a Character.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I don't disagree with the need to update older content to match newer content releases, but we lose quite a bit of interconnected story and introductions that, despite early STO awkwardness, still make more sense than newer revamped re-introductions of, say, characters. Franklin Drake's original story episodes, for instance, really gave us a character we could love to hate but be forced to work with. Now he's just some guy who shows up and gives us orders out of the blue alongside a much less disreputable Section 31.
It also feels weird going forward as a player character in the game when revamps (if not straight up removals) of old content don't mesh well with later-story-but-released-prior-to-revamps content, where we're expected to feel a sense of history of something, but no longer have it due to repeated retcons from various revamps crisscrossing over each other.
Though, as it's been stated elsewhere, at least some of this for the Klingon War content is just to retcon in Discovery material. I personally don't feel that's needed, as we aren't going back to TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT to add new details to tie in directly to Discovery, unlike another "Star" franchise with their Special Editions and prequel tie-ins, and I enjoyed a lot of the earlier STO-original content, when it stood more on its own with its original cast of characters.
I miss that kind of stuff.
Despite their silliness, at least I vaguely felt like I was doing something other than replaying the exact same short queues (if they pop, depending on which are popular at the time) or story episodes. It had some bare-bones non-combat assignments every so often that also broke up the "kill five waves of enemies" that the rest of the game basically relies on, and they were short enough that they didn't drag on with their simple objectives, for the most part.
I mostly miss those First Contact trivia assignments, back in the day when I felt the devs were really trying to come up with new things to do that didn't involve vaporizing someone we have some sort of disagreement with. I was always impressed with those little additions, and it felt a bit emptier of a game when those things went away.
I have no hope any sort of exploration that isn't strictly tied to a linear story episode will make a return (I remember when the beginning of the Tzen'kethi war arc was promoted as a "return to exploration" before we knew it'd be another galactic war), but I'm willing to be surprised someday.
I do accept Foundry as a good source of alternative missions, but it's hard to find good ones, sometimes. It doesn't always quite get the TLC it needs, either.
I, too, try to work hard to mentally fit the more confounding elements of Star Trek together, but I can't see, in the original visual canon, the Cage Enterprise going from Discovery's version of it back into the classic TOS form and then into the beloved refit of the films. It just doesn't even mesh well with the film version, in my opinion, going from all these weird gaps in the hull back into a sleeker form.
That doesn't mean I don't like the Discovery Connie design, and it's probably the closest to proper TOS it'll get, but visually...it's a lot closer in appearance to STO's Exeter-class cruiser, itself a much later generation Connie.
Still, I'd be happy if that weren't an R&D or Lockbox ship, this time. It's bigger than the TOS and TMP Connies both by a bit, but much smaller than the Kelvin Connie, so I'd like to think it'd need its own release.
The assignment badges may have been considered a continuity error internally in the real-world as per that memo, but it's one that has been overruled by canon since before and after then, right up to ENT's mirror universe episodes. I know the memo was brought out to explain Discovery's use of the "Enterprise" delta badge, but it's a bit late at this point. Anything else would be a retcon. Even STO has a wide variety of ship assignment badges to work with, which I personally adore and am thankful for.