Voyager's mission wasn't exploration of the Delta Quadrant, nor were they trying to explore the Delta Quadrant. Voyager was trying to get home, and that was the actual point of the show, watching these people try to get home. The "exploration" of the Delta Quadrant was just an unavoidable consequence of trying to get home.
This compared to ENT, TOS, and TNG, who were out to explore, as that was part of their missions.
> @mattjohnsonva said: > > And that take us very nicely back to why the Foundry is/was so important and so unique.
If were truly important, and by important I mean to the longevity of the game looking at it objectively, then it would have a quantifiable impact on the amount of users and revenue coming in. It is clear from the decision that this is not the case, no company would knowingly do something detrimental to it's own profits (even EA and Bethesda thought what they were doing would bring money in).
This is not to detract from the importance the foundry had on its dedicated community. Just that said community was never large enough to sustain the game by itself.
'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.'
Cryptic has established a precedent with the outright removal of two systems now. I think it likely that more will follow. It isn't a conspiracy theory when there are now multiple occurrences of the removal of gameplay systems.
The two systems Cryptic has removed were systematically broken and non functional, with little in the way to be able to fix them, or at least make them profitable.
Fleets fit none of those criteria. And Cryptic has already talked about, while they might not make another fleet holding, they will likely create another kind of project or systems for fleets to continue to contribute to.
It takes 3 points to define a plane... or a trend. PvP is for all intents and purposes is gone. That would be 3. No further fleet holdings would be 4.
After enjoying playing this game for close to a decade (and having taken note of many trends and behaviors over time), I really hope Cryptic is able to prove sirsitsalot wrong. This is not necessarily a criticism of them, as people with jobs usually answer to those that own the business.
Sometimes taking a 'defend at any cost' approach just lengthens a thread But we're all entitled to an opinion and this is darn near the only PvP left... enjoy yourself.
If they can remove a system or feature that one group enjoyed, they can also remove the system or feature that you enjoy...
After enjoying playing this game for close to a decade (and having taken note of many trends and behaviors over time), I really hope Cryptic is able to prove sirsitsalot wrong.
And believe me, I want to be proven wrong. I want it so badly. Nothing would make me happier. I want STO to be the best game it can possibly be. I've wanted that since it was announced. I've been a part of this community for as long as there has been a community to be a part of. I am still here in spite of the bad news about the Foundry. I will not stop telling it like I see it. If someone wants me to tell things a different way, then they need to show me something different.
But yeah... I really hope I am wrong.
I will say this much: STO is not a failure. If it were, it would not have lasted nearly as long as it has. Mediocrity does not mean failure. But just think... If it has been successful in mediocrity, would it not be even more successful if it actually were to fully strive for the greatness I know it could be? I think so...
Remember those old telephone answering machines that used a small magnetic tape cartridge? It was a looped tape so all the machine could say was the same thing over and over again.
It takes 3 points to define a plane... or a trend. PvP is for all intents and purposes is gone. That would be 3. No further fleet holdings would be 4.
I would like to make it clear that Cryptic's comment about "possibly no further fleet holdings" was made in the context that the reason why they are unlikely to do so is because the development team's ideas on progression systems has moved beyond that kind of model.
The dev who made the remark also said in the same discussion that, if they don't make another fleet holding, they will likely introduce a new something to allow fleet members to keep donating to the fleet. The comment was not made in the context of "we are done adding onto fleets" but in the context of "we have moved on from that way of adding onto fleets"
I also think that we have what 5 - 6 fleet holdings now? Released over almost 7 years now. I feel cryptic are well aware that established fleets could potentially handle a new fleet holding, maybe, after this colony. However, I also feel that they are aware that trying to make a new fleet now, is a lot of work if said fleet is aiming for those holdings to be maxed out.
Sure, people can use armada system and invites. But that doesn't really solve the problem. The problem being, that like the reputation system, once you have added a lot to said system over the years, it reaches a point where it is too much.
So, I am sure they are researching ways to still add to fleets, but also generate PLO (Player Log On's), but also potentially allow another monetary stream for cryptic, but still keeps the essence of the great F2P model Cryptic has.
I am also sure, with this whole foundry stuff, cryptic did a ton of analysis over expenditure to profit margins of the foundry. As well as did analysis on potential ways to get profit from the foundry with new additions or systems. Sunsetting a system, I am sure was a decision not taken lightly by Cryptic or the CEO responsible for the decision.
However, it was a decision that had to be made. While logic and emotion I am sure they took on board regarding this choice, in the end, you need to be logical when making these type of calls.
Burden of Command, which is something most commanders and Star Trek Officers/Captains know well. Sometimes, you need to make the horrible call, and the impossible choice.
> @somtaawkhar said: > PVP being TRIBBLE is all on Cryptic though, and it could be fixed.
I love how through pages and pages you go on and on about how this that and the other systems are bad or beyond fixing ..., but PVP ... sure, that old system (older than the Foundry), ya that could be fixed .
So how about a No to that . Rebuild from scratch ? Perhaps . Is that likely ? As likely as STO 2.0 is.
But you know what, never mind. I feel like I've been baited here . Please, by all means continue to tell us (unironically) that the Foundry removed is the best thing ever and the players love it ... x17 .
I don't even much care about the fate of the foundry, TBH (it's a nice, and unique, feature, but I've barely ever used it) - I just hate being fed dishonest BS.
> @sirsitsalot said: > nrobbiec wrote: » > > > @mattjohnsonva said: > > > > And that take us very nicely back to why the Foundry is/was so important and so unique. > > If were truly important, and by important I mean to the longevity of the game looking at it objectively, then it would have a quantifiable impact on the amount of users and revenue coming in. It is clear from the decision that this is not the case, no company would knowingly do something detrimental to it's own profits (even EA and Bethesda thought what they were doing would bring money in). > > This is not to detract from the importance the foundry had on its dedicated community. Just that said community was never large enough to sustain the game by itself. > > > > > The thing is that those who are most upset by the decision are part of the potential customer base. Cryptic has marginalized them, first by neglect, and now by total removal of a feature that subset considered to be important. > > Pay attention here. The people who considered the explorations system to be important were marginalized, first by neglect and then by total removal of the feature they considered to be important... See a pattern? > > The people who consider PvP to be important have been marginalized, thus far by neglect... See where I am going? > > The people who consider the fleet system to be important have been marginalized thus far by neglect, though they have gotten fleet holdings, but those can be partially monetized by spending Zen on the morr than signigicant Dilithium amounts needed to complete projects. At least it's a bone being thrown to them. But how long until Cryptic can no longer be bothered to add new holdings. Cause they sure don't seem to be in any hurry to produce fleet-specific content... > > Cryptic has established a precedent with the outright removal of two systems now. I think it likely that more will follow. It isn't a conspiracy theory when there are now multiple occurrences of the removal of gameplay systems.
I really enjoyed the old exploration missions way back when. They were fun little diversions but added nothing when you really think about it. Officers also got lost on them all the time due to pathing and clipping issues.
But this does lead back to the original point what difference did removing them make? Did the game die? No. Did it end up in any form of jeopardy? No.
These things are ultimately just that, diversions. They're not the core of the game which is the story content.
Oh, you mean like the Foundry, thousands of interesting missions provided for free to Cryptic by humans. And they are scrapping it - a company with that level of ineptitude doesn't deserve to continue and certainly doesn't deserve my money.
QFT. In the right hands, the Foundry is a treasure trove of content. Ok, the quality is uneven but that could have been remedied with a more stringent QC process. Add some better hooks to the game and you have gold. The three missions per system was a very good start to mesh the foundry missions more fluently into the game. I always felt that the mission search window, hidden deep withing the UI, was handicapping the entire experience.
> @mattjohnsonva said: > nrobbiec wrote: » > > > These things are ultimately just that, diversions. They're not the core of the game which is the story content. > > > > > That was hard to read, try using the quote button so it's clear where your contribution starts and others ends. >
That was using the quote button miss sassy pants. On mobile it looks different.
I really enjoyed the old exploration missions way back when. They were fun little diversions but added nothing when you really think about it. Officers also got lost on them all the time due to pathing and clipping issues.
But this does lead back to the original point what difference did removing them make? Did the game die? No. Did it end up in any form of jeopardy? No.
These things are ultimately just that, diversions. They're not the core of the game which is the story content.
The original "exploration" content was legendary. It was promised to be procedurally generated and different every time. Perfect Star Trek exploration and all. Not a diversion but the core experience, endgame and so on. Well it was flawed, to put it mildly. It all went like
- Scan/Kill 1 thing
- Scan/Kill 3 more things
- Scan/kill 1 final thing.
The maps were always the same. Plain space, outdoor in green and desert flavor, and empty caves/bases with the same layout.
Then there were the bully planets. You entered and they treated you like dirt, gave you an ultimatum to bring 10 something or else. You complied and then they said, "Good, now be gone.".
It was clear that Cryptic filled some generic data into a random generator and let it run. It spit out thousands of all the same missions. They didn't even test run them because there were plenty of missions that bugged out for one reason or another (like objectives being under the ground or at great heights).
And the exploration boiled down to ships moving around in an empty fish tank, scanning POI-s, popping up in pre-determined locations. You could stand in one place and spam the same spot if you wanted to. Not exactly polished or refined content. Cutting this, practically X thousand small variations on the 5 rudimentary template missions was not a loss.
Cutting thousands of unique, human made, very creative and painstakingly hand crafted unique missions is a loss. Whoever come up with removal of Foundry has clearly no vision and treats a gaming company like a factory that cranks out nuts and bolts by the truckloads.
I doubt that. The fish tank approach was a failure from start. We knew it, they knew it. It was an inspired idea to get around the rushed nature of the development. At that point, any possible content was badly needed to somehow hide how barren and bare bone the game was. Tribble breeding as highlighted content, how dumb that is?
If I check other games who tried procedural content, I can't really tell one where it worked well. They ended up as boring, bland, shallow, repeating. For any good result, you have 100 bad ones. Now if someone test plays all the of them, take the better ones out, and then add the final touches by hand, well, that would work.
The other problem was persistency. Random missions popped up randomly. You visited a random planet and you never ever heard from them again. It is like the exploration of a bucket of stones. You take one, look at it for a minute and toss it aside. The foundry and the mission chains solved this issue.
If there was something better than the fish tank for exploration mission doors and hook the foundry better onto the game, that would solve the problem of the sameness of the "exploration". If I recall correctly, the presence of the Foundry was one of the force behind the removal of the "exploration" content.
Oh, you mean like the Foundry, thousands of interesting missions provided for free to Cryptic by humans. And they are scrapping it - a company with that level of ineptitude doesn't deserve to continue and certainly doesn't deserve my money.
QFT. In the right hands, the Foundry is a treasure trove of content. Ok, the quality is uneven but that could have been remedied with a more stringent QC process. Add some better hooks to the game and you have gold. The three missions per system was a very good start to mesh the foundry missions more fluently into the game. I always felt that the mission search window, hidden deep withing the UI, was handicapping the entire experience.
It was and those points we in the community were raising for a very long time. However Cryptic was never able to capitalize on the Foundry beyond the volunteer updates, top 3 system, critical fixes, and CM-driven community events (Kael has done a lot for us but not all CM's incorporated the Foundry into their arsenal over the years.) They didn't make it an active development priority which (from my position) seems to have allowed it to slip further and further from their ability to manage. The more they waited, the more remote it became and the more impossible it was to maintain it over the long term.
Cryptic made the best effort they could to save the Foundry, but (from my PoV now) long-term management at the highest level let their most unique and powerful asset slip by focusing the company instead on developing systems and content which followed the red queen principle in evolution (ie. perpetual effort to simply retain one's place. The Foundry, if it had been more supported, could have provided a way to mitigate for that.)
Moving forward, there are lessons Cryptic can learn from Foundry authors and the place to start is their mission structure, progression, asset use, and use of character. They follow a formula and that could use more variation (now that the PC will be lacking for alternative content.) Ie. while direct substitutes or fixes for the Foundry system are not tenable for the foreseeable future there's nothing stopping you guys from developing missions in the style of the best Foundry content (varying the expected pattern) besides your priorities. At the very least, try mixing things up more.
> @somtaawkhar said:
> PVP being TRIBBLE is all on Cryptic though, and it could be fixed.
I love how through pages and pages you go on and on about how this that and the other systems are bad or beyond fixing ..., but PVP ... sure, that old system (older than the Foundry), ya that could be fixed .
Call it a matter of personal priorities. Note though: the problems facing exploration and PVP are not the same that are facing the Foundry now. Cryptic reached a point where they were literally unable to maintain the feature owing to challenges of its legacy code and how that was interacting with the game now (ie. becoming increasingly broken. Exploration (on the one hand) did not have these issues. Instead it was vestigial feature which requires a major design update to return to the game (1:1 return is not in the cards.) It's removal is more analogous to the removal of certain missions from renovated arcs or memory alpha (just at a larger scale) than it is the Foundry.
See. blog: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/6002963
Cryptic's been considering exploration 2.0 for a while but nothing achievable has yet been announced (it's a big design challenge.) Perhaps though with the top 3 system gone there will be more of an onus on Cryptic to develop more content to randomly populate sector blocks with, but that's the extent of exploration's connection to this thread.
As for PVP, it's its own category. You can compare legacy issues and big fix priorities but there's additional layers of gameplay design issues which fundamentally restrict its potential application to STO. This is not a game built or balanced for competitive PVP multiplayer (though it may be used for the purpose thanks to a auxiliary deathmatch mode from an era in gaming when those were relatively common), whereas the Foundry was viable and complimentary to STO's core gameplay format when it was fully functional (keeping it functional being the core issue to this thread.)
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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!
Compared to most MMORPGs, STO releases content at a fairly fast pace. Most MMOs make you wait 4-5 months between new content, Cryptic cut that down to two since Delta Rising, and now they are doing something MONTHLY, be it a new TFO, new missions, or a new gameplay system. If you think Cryptic releases new content at a nsials pace, then most other MMOs much seem to move at a glacial pace.
Seriously?
In the last 12 months of ESO we have seen the following:
Dragon Bones - 2 dungeons
Wolfhunter - 2 dungeons
Murkmire - concerns a previously unexplored region of Black Marsh, the story is about a dead clan of Argonians
Wrathstone is about getting two parts of a mysterious tablet.
Update 17 - includes a new outfit system, two new battlegrounds, a home storage system, and additional gameplay features such as a new level-up experience, and combat improvements such as refinements to Synergies, the removal of area-of-effect caps, changes to block costs, and more.
Summerset - a full expansion pack based on Summerset Isle
That's about 50 hours of content, much of it repeatable. In June they will release Elsweyr, another 30 hours of content.
STO releases two missions every 3 months, that's about 90 minutes worth of content based on 45 min each playthrough, at that rate you're talking 6 hours a year, or around a tenth of the content from ESO.
I can't comment on other MMOs because I don't play them. Of course, as has been said before, Cryptic is nowhere near the size of Zenimax and don't have paid for episodes, although most of the above are free for subscribers. That's their choice, they scrapped subbing, they went F2P, and have concentrated on a grind model with microtransactions, they live off ship sales as their employee noted in the Glassdoor review quoted earlier in this thread. The foundry filled the huge gap between content releases because a couple of hours every quarter an interesting experience does not make.
It's nice that you stick up for all aspects of what Cryptic do, but you are flogging a dead horse here Som. Go back and read the hundreds of comments, no matter how much you try and convince others they did the right thing your arguments are falling on deaf ears because we are almost all annoyed and angry that the game has come to this. A software company who admits they cannot service parts of their own game, a game that collapses under a myriad of bugs on every release, on each platform, a game that is just one huge grind to enable ship and character improvement and yet offers nowhere to fully test and utilize those improved characters and ships. They have never reintroduced previous elite content such as the Borg STFs, so folks can no longer get their elite MACO and OMEGA costumes and besides HSE, which is way too easy nowadays, there are no real challenges left in the game other than foundry missions - and now they are removing that too.
Let's just look at some of the problems:
Broken PvP system
Broken Cutscenes
Broken Lighting
Broken Effects (such as the warp out mix of DSC and standard)
Broken Costumes
Disorganised palettes
Broken auto navigation in sector space
Broken teaming
Constant disconnects on map transfer
Missing missions
Unlocatable missions on some factions, e.g. Jem'Hadar
Broken outfits, e.g. Vanguard EV suit on just about anything other than Oddy uniform
Broken fleet holding fill - doesn't show until next one is slotted
Broken ship tailors at most social zones - way too dark
Broken gravimetric torp on Borg cubes
Broken cloak on dialogue (since like forever)
Broken overflow bag
Broken email indicator
Buggy exchange when searching for DOFFS
Broken instance search (pressing O)
Broken and missing accolades
Broken and bugged queue system
and a ton more
Then there are the things that are started and never developed further
New Romulus looks the same today as it did years ago!
No new Faction specific missions, ie no continuing development of the Romulan story, the Jem'Hadar story, the ToS story, only the DISCO characters are continuing to get updated.
Then there are the stupid things like level 50 battlezones for the Dyson sphere
No update to the fleet system, like the much-requested armada mail since it was introduced.
100,000 fleet admirals running around everywhere mining dilithium
A totally pointless cooldown on transwarp abilities
Space effects so out of control you can't even see your ship half the time unless you're in a J
Insane damage from torpedoes of enemy ships from time to time on any difficulty level
Patrols that you can only play once unless you drop before handing in effectively removing even more content
Oh, the list is endless, but you know what made it all worthwhile? Playing the latest adventure from one of your fleet mates in a group, once you'd figured out the workarounds to let you actually play as a team because that is broken too.
They've removed the most worthwhile aspect to the game, it will now only appeal to people up until they reach end game and realise there is no endgame, the endgame in STO is now space barbie and epeen displays, it's not PvP because that's beyond broken, it's not Elite STFs because they are mostly gone, it's not the elite battlezones because there aren't any. And now it's not the challenging missions written in the foundry because they are removing it.
So you see why your defence of Cryptic is falling on deaf ears? And believe me, if it wasn't 2:25 am I'd be thinking up a shed load more examples but I'm tired, tired of people defending the indefensible, tired of being taken for a fool and tired of shelling out cash for something that never delivers. Well there's an answer to that, and if others think like I do, and I believe there are many who do, then Cryptic had better wake up and smell the coffee because things are about to get real.
Wow! You said so many things I was concerned about saying because I assumed I would be banned for it. Bravo. You are not alone in your opinion. Despite my extreme displeasure with the progress of the development of the game I always have hope the next big thing will change things. This despite knowing PWE is not a company that develops high quality games but only grinders for maximum revenue streams. I know as I live in China now and I have to deal with Cryptic blocking me and the tech I need to use is illegal here so I actually run the risk of going to jail and being deported as well as of course losing my job to play STO. Maybe I'm too much of a trek fan...
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Ie. while direct substitutes or fixes for the Foundry system are not tenable for the foreseeable future there's nothing stopping you guys from developing missions in the style of the best Foundry content (varying the expected pattern) besides your priorities. At the very least, try mixing things up more.
How can we, when the foundry is gone? Do you mean writing them out like stories or are you referring to something else in the game? I don't see how we can develop missions.
I'm suggesting Cryptic should develop more Foundry-like missions to compensate for the loss of more variable content (while also finally bringing this to the console audience.) And to be clear, I'm not suggesting ports (just adopting design lessons for what the STO format is capable of from Foundry missions.)
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!
...I always have hope the next big thing will change things...
How old are you? You should really stop believing in miracles. Games should be judged on WYSIWYG bases, not on some vague hope of possible future potential. Is it good, fun and fleshed now? If not, and you are not playing some cheap early access game, then what you see is the sum total of the best effort of the developer team. If it is lacking then the team is lacking and you can't expect improvements.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
>
> And that take us very nicely back to why the Foundry is/was so important and so unique.
If were truly important, and by important I mean to the longevity of the game looking at it objectively, then it would have a quantifiable impact on the amount of users and revenue coming in. It is clear from the decision that this is not the case, no company would knowingly do something detrimental to it's own profits (even EA and Bethesda thought what they were doing would bring money in).
This is not to detract from the importance the foundry had on its dedicated community. Just that said community was never large enough to sustain the game by itself.
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.'
After enjoying playing this game for close to a decade (and having taken note of many trends and behaviors over time), I really hope Cryptic is able to prove sirsitsalot wrong. This is not necessarily a criticism of them, as people with jobs usually answer to those that own the business.
Sometimes taking a 'defend at any cost' approach just lengthens a thread
Indeed.
I also think that we have what 5 - 6 fleet holdings now? Released over almost 7 years now. I feel cryptic are well aware that established fleets could potentially handle a new fleet holding, maybe, after this colony. However, I also feel that they are aware that trying to make a new fleet now, is a lot of work if said fleet is aiming for those holdings to be maxed out.
Sure, people can use armada system and invites. But that doesn't really solve the problem. The problem being, that like the reputation system, once you have added a lot to said system over the years, it reaches a point where it is too much.
So, I am sure they are researching ways to still add to fleets, but also generate PLO (Player Log On's), but also potentially allow another monetary stream for cryptic, but still keeps the essence of the great F2P model Cryptic has.
I am also sure, with this whole foundry stuff, cryptic did a ton of analysis over expenditure to profit margins of the foundry. As well as did analysis on potential ways to get profit from the foundry with new additions or systems. Sunsetting a system, I am sure was a decision not taken lightly by Cryptic or the CEO responsible for the decision.
However, it was a decision that had to be made. While logic and emotion I am sure they took on board regarding this choice, in the end, you need to be logical when making these type of calls.
Burden of Command, which is something most commanders and Star Trek Officers/Captains know well. Sometimes, you need to make the horrible call, and the impossible choice.
> PVP being TRIBBLE is all on Cryptic though, and it could be fixed.
I love how through pages and pages you go on and on about how this that and the other systems are bad or beyond fixing ..., but PVP ... sure, that old system (older than the Foundry), ya that could be fixed .
So how about a No to that .
Rebuild from scratch ? Perhaps .
Is that likely ? As likely as STO 2.0 is.
But you know what, never mind.
I feel like I've been baited here .
Please, by all means continue to tell us (unironically) that the Foundry removed is the best thing ever and the players love it ... x17 .
Not giving up my career as a physics professor to go work for a video game company, sorry.
The software system I work on is six million lines of source code, not counting comments or the stack of other libraries and frameworks it's built on top of.
I don't even much care about the fate of the foundry, TBH (it's a nice, and unique, feature, but I've barely ever used it) - I just hate being fed dishonest BS.
> nrobbiec wrote: »
>
> > @mattjohnsonva said:
> >
> > And that take us very nicely back to why the Foundry is/was so important and so unique.
>
> If were truly important, and by important I mean to the longevity of the game looking at it objectively, then it would have a quantifiable impact on the amount of users and revenue coming in. It is clear from the decision that this is not the case, no company would knowingly do something detrimental to it's own profits (even EA and Bethesda thought what they were doing would bring money in).
>
> This is not to detract from the importance the foundry had on its dedicated community. Just that said community was never large enough to sustain the game by itself.
>
>
>
>
> The thing is that those who are most upset by the decision are part of the potential customer base. Cryptic has marginalized them, first by neglect, and now by total removal of a feature that subset considered to be important.
>
> Pay attention here. The people who considered the explorations system to be important were marginalized, first by neglect and then by total removal of the feature they considered to be important... See a pattern?
>
> The people who consider PvP to be important have been marginalized, thus far by neglect... See where I am going?
>
> The people who consider the fleet system to be important have been marginalized thus far by neglect, though they have gotten fleet holdings, but those can be partially monetized by spending Zen on the morr than signigicant Dilithium amounts needed to complete projects. At least it's a bone being thrown to them. But how long until Cryptic can no longer be bothered to add new holdings. Cause they sure don't seem to be in any hurry to produce fleet-specific content...
>
> Cryptic has established a precedent with the outright removal of two systems now. I think it likely that more will follow. It isn't a conspiracy theory when there are now multiple occurrences of the removal of gameplay systems.
I really enjoyed the old exploration missions way back when. They were fun little diversions but added nothing when you really think about it. Officers also got lost on them all the time due to pathing and clipping issues.
But this does lead back to the original point what difference did removing them make? Did the game die? No. Did it end up in any form of jeopardy? No.
These things are ultimately just that, diversions. They're not the core of the game which is the story content.
QFT. In the right hands, the Foundry is a treasure trove of content. Ok, the quality is uneven but that could have been remedied with a more stringent QC process. Add some better hooks to the game and you have gold. The three missions per system was a very good start to mesh the foundry missions more fluently into the game. I always felt that the mission search window, hidden deep withing the UI, was handicapping the entire experience.
> nrobbiec wrote: »
>
>
> These things are ultimately just that, diversions. They're not the core of the game which is the story content.
>
>
>
>
> That was hard to read, try using the quote button so it's clear where your contribution starts and others ends.
>
That was using the quote button miss sassy pants. On mobile it looks different.
The original "exploration" content was legendary. It was promised to be procedurally generated and different every time. Perfect Star Trek exploration and all. Not a diversion but the core experience, endgame and so on. Well it was flawed, to put it mildly. It all went like
- Scan/Kill 1 thing
- Scan/Kill 3 more things
- Scan/kill 1 final thing.
The maps were always the same. Plain space, outdoor in green and desert flavor, and empty caves/bases with the same layout.
Then there were the bully planets. You entered and they treated you like dirt, gave you an ultimatum to bring 10 something or else. You complied and then they said, "Good, now be gone.".
It was clear that Cryptic filled some generic data into a random generator and let it run. It spit out thousands of all the same missions. They didn't even test run them because there were plenty of missions that bugged out for one reason or another (like objectives being under the ground or at great heights).
And the exploration boiled down to ships moving around in an empty fish tank, scanning POI-s, popping up in pre-determined locations. You could stand in one place and spam the same spot if you wanted to. Not exactly polished or refined content. Cutting this, practically X thousand small variations on the 5 rudimentary template missions was not a loss.
Cutting thousands of unique, human made, very creative and painstakingly hand crafted unique missions is a loss. Whoever come up with removal of Foundry has clearly no vision and treats a gaming company like a factory that cranks out nuts and bolts by the truckloads.
If I check other games who tried procedural content, I can't really tell one where it worked well. They ended up as boring, bland, shallow, repeating. For any good result, you have 100 bad ones. Now if someone test plays all the of them, take the better ones out, and then add the final touches by hand, well, that would work.
The other problem was persistency. Random missions popped up randomly. You visited a random planet and you never ever heard from them again. It is like the exploration of a bucket of stones. You take one, look at it for a minute and toss it aside. The foundry and the mission chains solved this issue.
If there was something better than the fish tank for exploration mission doors and hook the foundry better onto the game, that would solve the problem of the sameness of the "exploration". If I recall correctly, the presence of the Foundry was one of the force behind the removal of the "exploration" content.
It was and those points we in the community were raising for a very long time. However Cryptic was never able to capitalize on the Foundry beyond the volunteer updates, top 3 system, critical fixes, and CM-driven community events (Kael has done a lot for us but not all CM's incorporated the Foundry into their arsenal over the years.) They didn't make it an active development priority which (from my position) seems to have allowed it to slip further and further from their ability to manage. The more they waited, the more remote it became and the more impossible it was to maintain it over the long term.
Cryptic made the best effort they could to save the Foundry, but (from my PoV now) long-term management at the highest level let their most unique and powerful asset slip by focusing the company instead on developing systems and content which followed the red queen principle in evolution (ie. perpetual effort to simply retain one's place. The Foundry, if it had been more supported, could have provided a way to mitigate for that.)
Moving forward, there are lessons Cryptic can learn from Foundry authors and the place to start is their mission structure, progression, asset use, and use of character. They follow a formula and that could use more variation (now that the PC will be lacking for alternative content.) Ie. while direct substitutes or fixes for the Foundry system are not tenable for the foreseeable future there's nothing stopping you guys from developing missions in the style of the best Foundry content (varying the expected pattern) besides your priorities. At the very least, try mixing things up more.
Call it a matter of personal priorities. Note though: the problems facing exploration and PVP are not the same that are facing the Foundry now. Cryptic reached a point where they were literally unable to maintain the feature owing to challenges of its legacy code and how that was interacting with the game now (ie. becoming increasingly broken. Exploration (on the one hand) did not have these issues. Instead it was vestigial feature which requires a major design update to return to the game (1:1 return is not in the cards.) It's removal is more analogous to the removal of certain missions from renovated arcs or memory alpha (just at a larger scale) than it is the Foundry.
See. blog: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/6002963
Cryptic's been considering exploration 2.0 for a while but nothing achievable has yet been announced (it's a big design challenge.) Perhaps though with the top 3 system gone there will be more of an onus on Cryptic to develop more content to randomly populate sector blocks with, but that's the extent of exploration's connection to this thread.
As for PVP, it's its own category. You can compare legacy issues and big fix priorities but there's additional layers of gameplay design issues which fundamentally restrict its potential application to STO. This is not a game built or balanced for competitive PVP multiplayer (though it may be used for the purpose thanks to a auxiliary deathmatch mode from an era in gaming when those were relatively common), whereas the Foundry was viable and complimentary to STO's core gameplay format when it was fully functional (keeping it functional being the core issue to this thread.)
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!
Wow! You said so many things I was concerned about saying because I assumed I would be banned for it. Bravo. You are not alone in your opinion. Despite my extreme displeasure with the progress of the development of the game I always have hope the next big thing will change things. This despite knowing PWE is not a company that develops high quality games but only grinders for maximum revenue streams. I know as I live in China now and I have to deal with Cryptic blocking me and the tech I need to use is illegal here so I actually run the risk of going to jail and being deported as well as of course losing my job to play STO. Maybe I'm too much of a trek fan...
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
I'm suggesting Cryptic should develop more Foundry-like missions to compensate for the loss of more variable content (while also finally bringing this to the console audience.) And to be clear, I'm not suggesting ports (just adopting design lessons for what the STO format is capable of from Foundry missions.)
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!
How old are you? You should really stop believing in miracles. Games should be judged on WYSIWYG bases, not on some vague hope of possible future potential. Is it good, fun and fleshed now? If not, and you are not playing some cheap early access game, then what you see is the sum total of the best effort of the developer team. If it is lacking then the team is lacking and you can't expect improvements.