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[PC] Personal Endeavors!
ambassadorkael
Member, Administrator Posts: 2,679 Community Manager
Starting with our Ninth Anniversary Update, you'll be able to engage in Personal Endeavors, and work towards unlocking account wide stat increases!
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11055733
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11055733
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One of the biggest player complaints about the current endeavor system was the tasks are too small and too easy which mean the feeling of accomplishment was zero. We need real endeavors, real challengers. STO is already over packed with easy everyday content. We don’t need more, what we are lacking is the real end game challenging content which is worse now than years ago. Raids and real endeavor style content . This type of content provides a far more rewarding and accomplishment feel to it once completed. My personal feeling is STO is swinging too far into the easy/causal content and too far away from the rewarding challenging content that leaves a feeling of accomplishment. A far more healthy approach is to have a mix of both to not only attract a wider amount of player but to keep them longer.
Don’t get me wrong the overall idea is great and I am happy to see something like this added into the game. But I am worried you are making it to easy. All this easy content is not rewarding in that you don't feel any sense of accomplishment for doing it. Doing a real endeavor should feel challenging and rewarding once completed. All this causal content and dumbing everything down is taking away the accomplishment/rewarding feel of playing Star Trek Online.
Original STO beta tester.
In other words: What is the catch?
Considering how other progression systems work it'll probably come through an account skill tree which we'll be able to earn points for through personal endeavors, exclusively. I don't think the extreme case of infinite skill point claims (unprecedented in STO) can be assumed to be on the table on the basis of it not being specifically refuted.
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!
1.) This seems like a really round-about way to drive player participation. Instead of developing compelling content players are eager to enjoy, resources are allocated to developing mechanically abstract participation 'hurdles'.
2.) I.. don't like where this is likely to lead. Not only is this redundantly compounding several existing progression systems, like captain skills and the reputation system, but the account-wide 'power-creep' is going to create an even further divide in the playerbase in terms of what is reasonable/fair/challenging content and encounter design in the future. I've got a thousand yard stare just thinking about how much (more) of a nightmare the creation of future content will be, and I'm not even part of the team.
I'm trying to keep a constructive perspective, but I confess all I'm seeing is a lot of flashing warning signs. Or, maybe a closer analogy would be flashy fireworks.. that will likely burn the town down (even further).
Basically there's no realistic way for new players to fully catch up to old because that would require playing more intensively over a shorter time to make up the difference in playtime (and in direct proportion to the length of the difference and the continued rate of play by the veteran.) It's mathematically possible but unlikely the older the game gets and the longer dedicated players hold on. That said, I think it's frankly ridiculous to say that a new player can't pull themselves up to the point of being very competitive even with the incremental increase apparently represented by this system. While there is a dynamic to balance between how far the meta goes it should never be assumed to be the dominant dynamic in game design. Ie. that linear expansions should be eschewed at the cries of "but this will only contribute to the difference between new and old players!"
Even if STO locked itself down in perpetuity, there will always be a definite gap between players who are leveling, players who have leveled, and players who have min-maxed to the nth degree with time investment decisions required to bridge each gap. Players who have been a part of the STO community for a very long time may not ever reach a point of current min-maxers because that takes a certain amount of additional, intensive effort that a given playstyle may not be comfortable with. Ie. it really comes down to how you play. As long as new content is being added to STO there will always be new opportunities to min max to n+m degrees and put more linear distance between them and any other fixed reference point. That's how min-maxing works under an evolving game. Unless it becomes static (with NO added gear, traits, skills, systems, ships, ect.), the max will always be a progressing target because even if a raw power increase wasn't intended, new gear will find ways of working around old limits in simply operating in a different way. Ie. ecological replacement can also come through diversification as well as linear "power creep" (and often in more dramatic ways.)
That growth is inevitable but, this is simply plotting the extend of the maximum rather than looking at the population distribution along that range and considering what new players are able to achieve relative to it. No matter how high the theoretical ceiling gets, new players will still be able to find satisfaction in STO through the choices they make relative to those around them.
What I like about these endeavors is that they're effectively providing a new type of level cap increase where progress towards one character doesn't leave other characters on my account behind (such that I have to repeat the effort n times over to come to a comparable point to where I was prior to the cap increase.) This can lead to burn-out through repetitive content and strongly diminishing returns as the feeling of becoming more powerful through progress in systems fades after the nth time its been accomplished (it's only special when it's new to your expereince.) Here, we have a system that has the benefits of a cap increase (further growing a character) but without the drawback of the effort multiplying across multiple characters (including new ones.) Ie. while doing nothing to specifically address an inherent problem between new and established players (ie. they haven't been playing the game for the time the established players have), it does address other problems and service the needs of other players. We don't need to be fixated on the former to the exclusion of all else (and while also often ignoring other dimensions of accessibility problems which relate more directly to the experience of new players than the exact height of STO's end-game. For example: the UI) such that the different between population min and population max (of course nevermind the population average and other demographic information) needs to be specifically addressed here.
That's definitely not to say that ALL leveling-like systems should now be expanded through personal endeavors, but personal endeavors are a nice way of doing something similar in this instance.
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!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Two more episodes confirmed, an anniversary ship, and likely mega c-store bundle to follow in the weeks after. This is an announcement blog for personal endeavors, not the 9th anniversary as a whole (you can expect Cryptic to be leading up to that with more blogs over the coming weeks.
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 second this.
... Since when has PvP been balanced?
But ya, I agree that the stat bonuses should go, we don't need more power creep. And as much as I like more rewards, I'm worried that this is just going to make the inflation in-game even worse.
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/endeavor
Cryptic's use of the term is entirely appropriate. It may diverge from personal connotations but note that the word "endeavor" in the English language can include a task to be completed with some effort (unquantified) as well as an arduous endeavor (see. need for that additional verb to achieve that particular connotation without ambiguity or elaborating context.)
And endeavors function to direct players to that content, they are not activities unto themselves. The endeavor system simply provides a goal to complete, picked from readily available activities, for additional rewards if you require a little more direction for your playtime that day. If not, anything you might play as an endeavor is available to you through personal initiative (which is the most important thing an endeavor effectively supplements.)
Thus, it is a bit odd to be looking to this for new types of gameplay. Ie. new elite content, in particular. It's hard to see how a system like this could be modified to approach that niche except through horrendous grinding per endeavor that creates "difficulty" through nominally prohibitive requirements (and at the expense of it's current function, providing a little direction when initiative wains.) And that doesn't sound at all appealing (since that effort is only distinguishable from small tasks through volume. Again, no new gameplay.)
Inflation is natural to living systems and video games are no exception. Even if the game would remain entirely static, it would not remain as accessible to new players given that requisite strategy and skill for the highest levels would still increase through internal competition. The ideal of a perfectly balanced and eternally consistent game is rose tinted, at the very least and it's definitely not something that the devs should prioritize over all else. Evolve STO as any other alternative is untenable and quite frankly inconsiderate to new players as it assumes that they cannot enter into a game that is significantly more expansive than the one you attached personally yourself to. It's a different experience, and they key clarification here is that it isn't automatically a worse experience for having a higher ceiling as a result of "power creep."
Humans are capable of a lot and the impact of an additional skill tree probably isn't going to register for most or bring STO to a precipice which IMO isn't on the near horizon.
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’s not personal connections the word endeavour is used for real accomplishments. Endeavour is one of the core values of the company I work for and we gave out Endeavour rewards so I very much know what Endeavour means and is used for. Examples he endeavour to finish the race, or she endeavour to climb the highest mountain, they Endeavour to get over drug addiction. The noun is “serious determined effort” it can also be used as “to strive to achieve or reach” what does strive mean? The answer “to devote serious effort or energy”.
You don’t say someone did an endeavor after they have done a simple small objective, or a task that is not overwhelming. That is just not how the word is used. Worse calling those simple things endeavours is disingenuous again the people who have done real endeavours. You don't give endeavour rewards out to people who have not put in serious effort.
Quality of Life Improvements for the Mission Journal
Enhancement for the Duty Office Assignments
Enhancement for Admiralty Missions
Enhancement for Accolades and Reward
Enhancement Bridge Officers
That same definition lists as synonyms things like try, go, stab, and whack. None of these connotes serious effort.
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Try, go, stab, whack in connection with Endavor is extra exertion and extra difficulty. Pretty much opposite of what the dev blog described.
ingame: @Felisean
For instance, I've been in Borg Red Alerts were the whole team could not kill the boss ship at the end. Yet many people can solo it themselves, some killing it in seconds. (And this is not necessarily player skill, but how a character is geared. My best characters can't quite solo a borg boss ship, but they can make quick work of the mobs early on, while newly 60 characters struggle)
IF it is intended for more dedicated players of this game, yes, Devs, you need to add more challenges for them.
And BETTER REWARDS. Ones that actually denote higher standard because they finished more difficult challenges.
As for gifts of Crit or DR for people who already set up for it....come on. They are where they are in the game BECAUSE they have that already, you are re-wrapping the gift and giving it to them, again.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Pick some other hill to die on. This one is full.