Holodeck ticket 4,798,939 (submitted on 12/14/2018)
The "Welcome Back" screen appears each time I log in to a character.
1. If I log in to the same character multiple times within the same game session, I see the "Welcome Back" screen each time I log in.
2. If I log in to different characters within the same game session, I see the "Welcome Back" screen on every character.
3. If I restart the game client and log in to the same characters again, I see the "Welcome Back" screen again on every character.
This bug has occurred several times before. It started happening again after the patch on 12/13/2018. The patch notes for 12/13/2018 say:
Resolved an issue that was causing the Welcome Screen to no longer appear when first logging in.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11019223-pc-patch-notes-for-12/13/18
But there is nothing "first" about it. It's neither first in a "per account" sense nor in a "per character" sense. At the time of this writing, the morning of 12/14/2018, I see the "Welcome Back" screen on each and every login. The only exceptions are my level 6 Romulan and level 6 Reman, who don't see the "Welcome Back" screen at all. I suspect that the "Welcome Back" screen does not appear until after you finish the tutorial, where the meaning of the "tutorial" extends beyond the initial mission on Virinat for Romulan-faction characters.
Steps to reproduce
1. Choose two characters who have completed the tutorials for their factions. Let's call them A and B.
2. Start the game client and log in to your account.
3. Select character A and click "Play". Observe that the "Welcome Back" screen appears.
4. Press Esc and click "Change Character".
5. Select character B and click "Play". Observe that the "Welcome Back" screen appears.
6. Press Esc and click "Change Character".
7. Select character A and click "Play". Observe that the "Welcome Back" screen appears.
8. Exit the game client. Then repeat steps 2 through 7.
History of the bug
On 05/10/2018, the "Welcome Back" screen was added to the game; the main menu (accessed by pressing the Esc key) was also changed to show the same information as the "Welcome Back" screen. The patch notes for 05/10/2018 say:
Landing Page
- The new Landing Page will spotlight some features within Star Trek Online and provide quicker access to what is on the page.
- This new page will appear upon logging in and when exiting the game by use of the Esc key.
- Players who are below level 10 will not see this page upon log in.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10898193-pc-patch-notes-for-5/10/18
As far as I'm aware, the last statement above was never correct. I see both the "Welcome Back" screen and the new main menu on my level 3 Ferengi. As far as I can tell, the determining factor is not character level, but whether you have finished the tutorial.
On 05/10/2018, Ambassador Kael wrote:
Hey folks, we'll be making some changes to the landing page in an upcoming update - it was intended to only appear once per account, not once per character.
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13365511/#Comment_13365511
Shortly afterward, the "Welcome Back" screen was changed to appear only once per account per game session.
On 06/14/2018, a patch was released which was supposed to fix an issue with the "Welcome Back" screen appearing on every map transfer.
Resolved an issue which was causing the Landing Page to appear upon every map transfer for many players.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10926453-pc-patch-notes-for-6/14/18
But after the patch, players noticed that the "Welcome Back" screen was once again appearing on each character login. On 06/15/2018, Farranor wrote:
After the patch today that was supposed to prevent the landing page from showing up on map transfers, the landing page is once again showing up every time I switch to a new character.
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13383998/#Comment_13383998
A few days later, the bug went away by itself without a patch. On 06/18/2018, I wrote:
On Thursday night and Friday morning, every time I ran the game client, I saw the "Welcome Back" window on every character I logged on to (except for low-level Romulan-faction toons). Since other people reported the same thing, it definitely wasn't just me. There was no selective reinterpretation; it was clearly bugged. If you didn't see it, maybe you logged on after they changed something. I'm no longer seeing the "Welcome Back" window on every character, and I'm pretty sure I've done nothing on my end to change that. I'm starting to think it's a server-side switch that has to be flipped manually after every maintenance.
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13385241/#Comment_13385241
The bug returned on 06/28/2018, but there is no mention of the "Welcome Back" screen or the landing page in the patch notes for that date.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10939673-pc-patch-notes-for-6/28/18
On 06/29/2018, I wrote:
I'm seeing the "Welcome Back" screen on multiple characters per game session again. Is anyone else seeing this?
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13390050/#Comment_13390050
After some discussion, we discovered that the bug behaved differently this time. On 07/03/2018, I wrote:
1. The "Welcome Back" window will appear the first time you log on to each character after [the] patch.
2. The first character you log on to after the starting the game client will see the "Welcome Back" window. Any other character will not see the "Welcome Back" window if he or she has already seen it once after the patch.
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13391701/#Comment_13391701
On 12/13/2018, the bug has returned once again. This time, the "Welcome Back" screen appears every time you log in to a character; it doesn't go away no matter how many times you log in to the same character or how many times you restart the game client.
Waiting for a programmer ...
Comments
Some of those later recurrences of it showing up on multiple characters are part of an undocumented behavior of the Landing Page that appears to be intentional, that it shows up for every character after any of the panes of the thing have changed, and this is what I suspect is causing the occurrences now. There are multiple events being advertised through the Landing Page right now, and it's shuffling between them, sometimes even swapping them among the top and bottom left side panes. With that, you are likely to get a different version of the thing from the last version that you saw for every character that you log in.
When ads for multiple events scroll through on the STO Welcome Page, it effects how often the program displays it to players on character log ins? There, also, seems to be some correlation between the position of the different ads on the various panels in the Welcome Page. He has observed this happen on several occasions since the inception of the Welcome Page to the STO program.
As far as I knew....it only displays once per character sign in, and stops on subsequent sign ins with the same character. Except in the circumstances as anodynes has noted.
@ambassadorkael#6946 @chrian#9670 or @engineerb4#4806
Also, see this thread: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1245721/login-screen
Quote edited by me for clarity sake.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
At some point, as noted, it stopped appearing every time I switched characters.
Since the last patch, it's started appearing every time I switch characters - essentially reversing the earlier patch/solution.
I can't even run the race for the winter ship without getting hit by the lag. The day before the patch, everything was fine. After the patch, lag everywhere and getting the race in is a PITA. It's doable, but not fun and definitely adds an element of frustration at times. Not fun.
Thankfully, aside from DOff'ing and doing the race for the ship, I've taken a break from STO for a while. But it'd be nice if this were fixed before I come back full time for the Anniversary event.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Hi Anodynes,
I believe you may be onto something here. Quoting you from the other thread:
Login Screen
I just spent the last half hour with my shipped parked in the Sol System, logging in to the same character over and over. The "Welcome Back" screen appeared 52 out of 60 times and did not appear 8 out of 60 times. Your hypothesis that it's related to advertisements of temporary events would explain why the bug stopped happening on previous occasions without a patch. In any case, the design is still flawed. First, even if they do have new events to advertise, there is no reason we need to see that on every character. Second, the exact permutation in which the ads are shown should not matter.
Captain Sean 'Sigil' Montgomery, U.S.S. K.A.R.R. 2.47 NCC-200000
Here's some more data after the Tholian Red Alert has ended, but before the Elachi event starts. I once again logged in and out 60 times with my ship in the Sol System, keeping track of how many times the "Welcome Back" screen appeared and did not appear.
appeared: 45 out of 60 times
did not appear: 15 out of 60 times
The difference between this time and last time is the number of choices for the two long panels on the left.
last time: 3 choices
this time: 2 choices
The number of choices for the two short panels on the right stayed the same: 2 choices both times.
Ugh, you are a glutton for punishment. LOL!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I did some more testing. Data for the old tests and the new tests are included below. For tests 3 and 4, I also kept track of the number of the times the "Welcome Back" screen was exactly the same on consecutive logins (same announcements, same order). The "Welcome Back" screen appeared 59 out of 60 times in test 3. The conditions for test 3 and test 4 were slightly different: I did not collect all my doff assignments before starting test 3. I'm not sure whether that made a difference or whether test 3 is merely an outlier.
Common to all tests
All tests were conducted by logging in to the same character over and over again in the Sol System. The "Welcome Back" screen has 2 long panels on the left and 2 short panels on the right. Each panel shows a different announcement.
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Oh, don't worry. I've been having snowball fights all week.
Common to all tests
All tests were conducted by logging in to the same character over and over again in the Sol System. The "Welcome Back" screen and the main menu both have two long panels on the left and two short panels on the right. Each panel shows a different announcement.
Differences between the tests
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4
Test 5
Test 6
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
For us guys with multiple characters it is nothing but an unwanted spam hurdle we have to jump over anytime we want to play STO.
I'm sure guys with 1-5 characters don't even take notice of it as its not continually in you're face as someone with 32 characters or more to manage.
I hated it when it 1st arrived and I continue to hate till the day I either move on or the game comes to its natural end.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1245721/login-screen
However perfectworld cryptic had only this to say. (In short they don't care that's its broken again and they are telling you to send it as a suggestion lmao)
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and apologies for the late response due to the high volume of tickets we currently have in our system.
I'm sorry to learn that you're not happy with the landing page showing up every time you log in on a character. I apologize for the inconvenience that this may have caused you. We do forward feedback and suggestions quite often to the developers. I also recommend posting this in our official game forums to discuss with the Moderators and Quality Assurance team. Our Development Team and Community Teams check the forums often as well. Here’s the link to the forums:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/categories/sto-feedback
Let us know if you have further questions or concerns.
Regards,
Ovric
Game Master
Perfect World Entertainment
In short they don't care that's its broken again and they are telling you to send it as a suggestion lmao
Common to all tests
All tests were conducted by logging in to the same character over and over again in the Sol System. The "Welcome Back" screen and the main menu both have two long panels on the left and two short panels on the right. Each panel shows a different announcement.
Differences between the tests
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4
Test 5
Test 6
Test 7
Test 8
Test 9
Test 10
Vanilla, don't eat my post.