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Age of Discovermeh
profwho86
Member Posts: 24 Arc User
So... I wasn't too impressed with the Age of Discovery Expansion. There, I said it. To be honest it was kinda hard to do. The reason is because I was pretty hyped about it. After all, y'all did a great job in hyping it up. Still... I found it to be underwhelming and for the most alarming of reasons, of which I will dispense now...
Now, some players don't like Discovery, and I get that. I, personally, think it's a cool little romp. After all, real Trek died just before Star Trek Nemesis and it's kinda cool to see some of these new interpretations. So when the pack was announced, I was kind of excited. Especially with the promise of a new tutorial. But what we got was the same tutorial script we had, but with Tilly instead of Flores and a few new lines here and there. Now, don't get me wrong, the tutorial that was there was pretty good. And I liked how the devs were able to Disco it all, but let's not pretend like it was simply a reskin of something we already had. There was really nothing "new" about it. Maybe I just looked into the marketing incorrectly?
Then there is the lack of a special event tied to it. Like the Temporal Agent of AoY, or the Delta Recruit of Emergence (was that the Voyager stuff? I forget, but y'all know what I mean). Giving no real reason to make a Discovery Captain save for the initial interest and for fans of TRIBBLE. Add to that, the lack of content. Three episodes? (including tutorial at this point because one was removed?) Now, I know the devs weren't given a lot of room to maneuver through the STDverse quite yet, but still...
Finally you get to the bugs. These are relatively small (at least for me), but they are emersion-breaking. Little things like the cursor being present and jittery in the middle of the screen during cutscenes... The Female Discovery Uniforms being unable to change the color of the collar (won't even change to whatever color you change the jacket to, like they had before)… And the incorrect BOFF skills (although that has been fixed, I believe). The ship was not intuitive to find from the Starter Pack (although it was later fixed) and then the (completely my issue) sniper rifle in the box, when the full auto rifle is worlds cooler. ...Really that last one is just my personal opinion, I know it's not a game-breaking thing and I don't really hold it, but thought I'd mention it while I was here.
In conclusion, I've been around since day one and have seen this game grow and grow. I have seen the ups and the downs and the occasional "whoops!" moments. It has, indeed, been a long road... However, I just feel that y'all kinda dropped this one before handing it to us. Now I'm not asking for some kind of compensation or anything silly like that. I just ask that you guys get to fixing these bugs at least and maybe give us more incentive to play our Disco-Caps. I haven't been able to bring myself to play past the tutorial and the game has been out since the 9th. I check every day, and there is little to no word (I can find) about addressing these issues save the first Patch after release.
Anyhoo… This is one fan's opinion. But I am interested to know if anyone else feels the same on any of these points and if (maybe) we can get some word from a Dev about whether or not these fixes are on the near schedule?
Now, some players don't like Discovery, and I get that. I, personally, think it's a cool little romp. After all, real Trek died just before Star Trek Nemesis and it's kinda cool to see some of these new interpretations. So when the pack was announced, I was kind of excited. Especially with the promise of a new tutorial. But what we got was the same tutorial script we had, but with Tilly instead of Flores and a few new lines here and there. Now, don't get me wrong, the tutorial that was there was pretty good. And I liked how the devs were able to Disco it all, but let's not pretend like it was simply a reskin of something we already had. There was really nothing "new" about it. Maybe I just looked into the marketing incorrectly?
Then there is the lack of a special event tied to it. Like the Temporal Agent of AoY, or the Delta Recruit of Emergence (was that the Voyager stuff? I forget, but y'all know what I mean). Giving no real reason to make a Discovery Captain save for the initial interest and for fans of TRIBBLE. Add to that, the lack of content. Three episodes? (including tutorial at this point because one was removed?) Now, I know the devs weren't given a lot of room to maneuver through the STDverse quite yet, but still...
Finally you get to the bugs. These are relatively small (at least for me), but they are emersion-breaking. Little things like the cursor being present and jittery in the middle of the screen during cutscenes... The Female Discovery Uniforms being unable to change the color of the collar (won't even change to whatever color you change the jacket to, like they had before)… And the incorrect BOFF skills (although that has been fixed, I believe). The ship was not intuitive to find from the Starter Pack (although it was later fixed) and then the (completely my issue) sniper rifle in the box, when the full auto rifle is worlds cooler. ...Really that last one is just my personal opinion, I know it's not a game-breaking thing and I don't really hold it, but thought I'd mention it while I was here.
In conclusion, I've been around since day one and have seen this game grow and grow. I have seen the ups and the downs and the occasional "whoops!" moments. It has, indeed, been a long road... However, I just feel that y'all kinda dropped this one before handing it to us. Now I'm not asking for some kind of compensation or anything silly like that. I just ask that you guys get to fixing these bugs at least and maybe give us more incentive to play our Disco-Caps. I haven't been able to bring myself to play past the tutorial and the game has been out since the 9th. I check every day, and there is little to no word (I can find) about addressing these issues save the first Patch after release.
Anyhoo… This is one fan's opinion. But I am interested to know if anyone else feels the same on any of these points and if (maybe) we can get some word from a Dev about whether or not these fixes are on the near schedule?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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I personally went in to enjoy it, and I did. I look forward to the other episodes. It wasn't any more difficult than any other content, though the new Walker in the Starter Pack helped out a lot, even with its common E-L phasers.
It is entirely possible that their focus in Age of Discovery is making STO welcoming to new players and players who may come over driven by interest in the show. In which case (except for some bugs and wobbles, which tends to happen in any new release regardless of developer) I would say they have succeeded. The AoD stuff has some cool factor and some 'welcome new folks' factor.
My own business background however says "Your existing customers are your most valuable resource. An existing customer is worth a half-dozen 'potential new customers' because they have already demonstrated their willingness to buy your services, and they are the easiest for you to reach to encourage them to purchase more."
Existing STO customers tend to already have Fed captains that they have put hundreds of hours of development into. I would suspect that, given a free character slot (thank you, free slot!), most of the existing player base is well aware that they can create a Romulan, KDF, Jem'Hadar, Cardassian, or whatever captain in that slot, and gain "something extra" beyond Yet Another Fedling; be it more Admiralty ship cards, better space traits, experience bonuses, access to cloaking ships, whatever.
Or just create nothing and focus on their existing characters, who will always be well ahead of any new, plain jane Fed. The new content is nice, of course, but you can experience that (except the tut) on any captain. The new ship is nice... again any Fed char can use it, and of course you will quickly be past level 40 and never fly it again.
Then we have the Starter Pack, which I mentioned in another thread. The fact that it can only be purchased on a straight-Fed (not Fed'Hadars or RomuFeds), and that the Inv slots can only be claimed on the purchasing captain mean they are missing a lot of sales they might otherwise have made.
Personally, I believe that even a small 'bonus' for newly created Age of Discovery captains (say, a Temporal Displacement ground/space trait that gives a +3% Accuracy and +3% Defense/Dodge bonus), as well as making the Starter Pack more accessible would likely have resulted in double the number of AoD captains created by existing players, and perhaps some additional Zen sales as well.
Not all new content needs to be Legacy of Romulus scale... but on the other hand, 'same old same old with a tiny sprinkle of new on it' doesn't really sell all that well.
Okay, see, it was me. Thank you for the clarifications.
I enjoyed it for what it was. Like I said, I liked what they did with it, I just expected more (but probably shouldn't have considering the fact Cryptic was pretty open about it not being a full expansion afterall. My mistake.)
I'm pretty sure this is bunk as far as an MMORPG is concerned. Existing customers inevitably depreciate with time. Even the most loyal players (ie. whales) are subject to burn-out, flagging interest, and content saturation. You need to cater to new folks as well for your business to survive long-term (making a statement that they too are welcome, there's no favoritism which could result in crappy service and poor deals for all but a cherished few.) In Cryptic's case, that means following up an expansion dedicated to the end game (seriously...we just had 6 end-game missions drop, following a long arc stretching back from season 12, and we're complaining that 3 tied to an alt-FED starting experience is a bridge too far?) with a new starting experience.
Don't keep hitting the same note, vary the cycle and with it the population dynamics.
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!
Be honest there for a moment: did you really expect that to mean re-lack-of-imagination-ed?
They didn't even bother to adjust the boff traits, for crying out loud. Garbage is as garbage does.
New maps, cutscenes, dialog, objective staging, ect. to bring to life an alt-version of the tutorial that plays both to a new audience and the nostalgia of veteran players (for me it strongly harkened back to my first experience with FED tutorial 2.0.) But no, let's just complain about boff traits. Those are what matter most in visual story telling.
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!
Did I miss Cryptic announcing this was now a visual novel? Because if not, keep your strawman argument for why it doesn't matter if content in a game sucks as content in that game.
Visual story telling = game (by obvious implications that there is a story and its being presented through a visual medium, it's an all encompassing term which I didn't think would cause any issues here) and I've cited specific reasons for why it doesn't suck (cause you know, supporting an argument is generally better than arbitrary whining. Though, do go on pulling at straws like boff traits being the same between tutorials. With enough tries you might arrive at a cogent discussion point.)
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!