Ten Forward Weekly 10/9/2019:

somtaawkhar · October 2019

From out fine friends at Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/dfqehn/ten_forward_weekly_09102019_the_uss_franklin/

Franklin:

Technically a prime timeline ship.
Ship was known for taking off and crashing.
It has pilot station because it pulled some fancy flying in movie and miracle worker station because it's a miracle it took off at all.
Console should work good vs. Hur'q.
Console buffs... electrical damage. That's peculiar.
Also Hull Capacity, both +17%.
No, console doesn't play actual music.
Trait makes it so that if you activate evasive maneuvers or brace for impact you get the other (like Gagarin's combat skills).

Random:

Updates for Lifetime subscription for Dominion may come next month.
Cryptic had no foreknowledge of Seven dual-wielding rifles.
They'll probably give them to us.
Next seasonal event would use new event system.
"Next event will be familiar, but different".
More event about completing past seasonal events soon.
They're testing something game-breaking (stability-wise) on Tribble server. Hair physics is among those things.
No current plans about upgrading fleet-grade ships (like T6 flagships) to full-spec.
Mike agrees that some unserious crossover with Neverwinter (like vanity shield of off-duty outfit) would be fun.
Mike, upon experiencing visual clutter of multiple abilities, including Badlands tornado: "If you can tell what's going on, you're not me".
There was some issue with tutorials. they're fixing it.
They're fixing "Frozen" mission right now.
Negotiating right about stuff from different Star Trek games is complicated 3-way hurdle.
Cryptic thinks that patrols are good place to experiment.
They're heavily considering ground patrols.
Cryptic plans to create DIS KDF. Those plans are vague.
They're considering removing the injury system.
KAEL EXPERIENCED BORG GROUND ADVANCED! (during random TFOs) (Specifically Infected: Manus) He (and Jesse) understood what we grumble about and experienced just how outdated those TFOs are.
Mike almost accidentally left his team mid-TFO because he didn't expect it to be THIS long.
Chat called Mike deadweight of the team. Jecce corrected chat that Mike is injured weight of the team (Mike accumulated many injuries during that one TFO).
AND THEN HE ACTUALLY ABANDONED HIS TEAM WITH THE WEAK EXCUSE THAT HE HAVE TO WORK HIS WORK.

peterconnorfirst · October 2019

I was really looking forward to the Franklin but seeing its stats does not make me feel like wanting to spend 1B EC for it. That’s too bad but not spending/grinding is kind of a win as well for me here at the moment so all’s fine. I mean what am I suppose to do with that ship anyway, play the new patrols?

By the way thanks a lot to the maker of this is sum up. Not having to watch livestreams but still getting the vague information provided out of it saves people who have a problem with second hand embarrassment a lot of trouble. I must confess though that the comedic aspects of the last few entries outweigh that obstacle this time so I might give the stream a try.

markhawkman · October 2019

I liked how Jesse explained what those node devices were for. It wasn't a bad idea, just prob needed a few tweaks. A Borg ability that summons a temporary turret that makes them near invuln… I like it.

I'mma go tweet Jesse.

smokebailey · October 2019

If the Franklin is another RD box ship, where one has to fork out one and a half billion, forget it.

Ground patrols sound good.

sharmutashlikha · October 2019

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

By the way thanks a lot to the maker of this sum up. Not having to watch livestreams but still getting the vague information provided out of it

I second this. Thanks Som, your efforts are much appreciated!

sharmutashlikha · October 2019

somtaawkhar wrote: »

sharmutashlikha#2072 wrote: »

I second this. Thanks Som, your efforts are much appreciated!

They are not my efforts, they are the efforts of the people on Reddit.

I just post them here.

...and that's an effort in itself, take pride in the fact you're the one to bring this vital information to the official forums

markhawkman · October 2019

somtaawkhar wrote: »

Things like the First Federation, or the Sheliak, or the Gangster Planet, would make for some great patrol content.

None of these is a proper antagonist though. You'd need a third party as the driving force of the action.

wideningxgyre · October 2019

* Updates for Lifetime subscription for Dominion may come next month.

I'm very excited to see what they have in mind. I really liked Manticore, Duvqu', and Dinaes. They were fun ships to fly in their day.

fleetcaptain5 · October 2019

First, thanks for the info OP.
______

I hope they'll replace the injury system with something else, instead of just removing it. It should be made more significant somehow, but a penalty for dying (other than waiting a few seconds) should definitely be part of the game.

As for Borg ground content: that's still one of the best parts of the game. In my opinion.

fleetcaptain5 · October 2019

Also, I hope that they will also add something to the lifetime benefits for the other factions. I don't really play the Dominion faction.

A Kelpien playable species with increased run speed as species-trait or something like that would be nice.

westx211 · October 2019

I'm glad that the dev's finally saw how terrible the Borg missions are nowadays. Maybe they'll retool or remove the adapt mechanic sometime soon, or just revamp them. I would like an opportunity to earn the optional accolade at some point if they want to make elites again

saurializard · October 2019

azrael605 wrote: »

Kelpians are off limits by order of CBS as prior to mid season 2 Discovery they were a primitive species.

*cough* *cough* Pakleds *cough* *cough*

saurializard · October 2019

Firstly, that was a joke. Secondly, that's all.

ltminns · October 2019

You're heading down a rabbit hole.

sthe91 · October 2019

fleetcaptain5#1134 wrote: »

First, thanks for the info OP.
______

I hope they'll replace the injury system with something else, instead of just removing it. It should be made more significant somehow, but a penalty for dying (other than waiting a few seconds) should definitely be part of the game.

As for Borg ground content: that's still one of the best parts of the game. In my opinion.

I disagree with a penalty for dying. This is not EVE, this is STO. Just as I disagree with people who want you to have to repair your equipment after using it for awhile.

baddmoonrizin · October 2019

CBS may have initially said no to Kelpiens, but Cryptic keeps asking.

protoneous · October 2019

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/dfqehn/ten_forward_weekly_09102019_the_uss_franklin/
KAEL EXPERIENCED BORG GROUND ADVANCED! (during random TFOs) (Specifically Infected: Manus) He (and Jesse) understood what we grumble about and experienced just how outdated those TFOs are.

Mike almost accidentally left his team mid-TFO because he didn't expect it to be THIS long.

Chat called Mike deadweight of the team. Jecce corrected chat that Mike is injured weight of the team (Mike accumulated many injuries during that one TFO).

Not healing minor injuries between re-spawns will rapidly make a player combat ineffective. There's an in-game tutorial on this.

Practicing on normal level queues first can make sense.

After running something a few times things normally go a lot smoother.

Having to be aware of and do a few simple things versus just shooting everything is one thing that can make some TFO's so rewarding. Something to be mastered versus something on a timer. A challenge.

I don't believe what was quoted above has anything to do with the TFO being "outdated".

peterconnorfirst · October 2019

fleetcaptain5#1134 wrote: »

As for Borg ground content: that's still one of the best parts of the game. In my opinion.

Of course it is!!!

The only thing one can argue is the graphics which dont look as good compared to newer maps but what kind of a biggie is hat supposed to be in this game from 2010? How easy could it be fixed?

The issue of players (or even devs/comunity manager or whatever) seems to be the tasks of those maps which require rudimentary aspects of team play in order to work. The game- and team-play quality limbo of newer releases went on and on over the years and reached its new low with the patrols we got this season. God they are so simple, so boring, so bad. They are so unworthy to be part of a videogame, any game. Next we get ground ones, lol. I wonder how trivial they are supposed to be?

Players have been navigated in STO season by season to smooth sailing in a bathtub and the moment they realize there is open water left somewhere they completely panic out and cry for those maps to be closed down.

"Dated" is just an fill in word here for "I cannot cope with it because I'm bad at online games (and certainly should not program them)".

Every gamer can see that and would laugh out loud if it would not be so sad.

rattler2 · October 2019

protoneous wrote: »

I don't believe what was quoted above has anything to do with the TFO being "outdated".

Well... considering that the Borg STFs are literally the first ones in the game, and are the oldest, in many areas they are showing their age.

peterconnorfirst · October 2019

Oh my god.

Against my better judgment I watched the last 30 mins or so of the stream as IGA was on. I have not seen such a bad gaming performance by anybody in STO in I don’t know how long.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind players in the learning process who don’t know it all yet but knowing we have a community manager who is in some way involved in communication between players and Devs or even in the decision making process of this title at such a skill level is scary beyond words. He should have at least a slight idea what to do or bring a tiny bit of a talent, especially when making a stream out of it. Considering he isn’t even paying attention it’s even audacious in light of the other team mates whose time is being wasted.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

The issue of players (or even devs/mods or whatever) seems to be the tasks of those maps which require rudimentary aspects of team play in order to work. The game- and team-play quality limbo of newer releases went on and on over the years and reached its new low with the patrols we got this season. God they are so simple, so boring, so bad. They are so unworthy to be part of a videogame, any game. Next we get ground ones, lol. I wonder how easy they are supposed to be?

No one minds teamwork so long as its good teamwork. Pahvo Dissension, or Operation Riposte, are examples of good teamwork in a TFO. The Borg ground TFOs are visually ugly, tediously long in terms of map length, and the "teamwork" in them is pretty basic, and uninteresting. Not to mention really dumb mechanics like the boss room force fields. There is nothing good about them from a design standpoint.

Assault on Terok Nor is a better ground TFO then the Borg TFOs.

Actually no. The situation is that the old maps don’t play by themselves and provide more fun the better a team gets at playing them. They only suck in bad teams which perceive the content as bad then. Your stream here is a great example. One of the best maps in game sucks like the worst map in game. This is not thanks to the Dev who designed it, its sole thanks to the player who messes it up and who leaves it in the end: Our community manager.

“Once again, Captain Leaver”.

Oh my god.

vegeta50024 · October 2019

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

Oh my god.

Against my better judgment I watched the last 30 mins or so of the stream as IGA was on. I have not seen such a bad gaming performance by anybody in STO in I don’t know how long.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind players in the learning process who don’t know it all yet but knowing we have a community manager who is in some way involved in communication between players and Devs or even in the decision making process of this title at such a skill level is scary beyond words. He should have at least a slight idea what to do or bring a tiny bit of a talent, especially when making a stream out of it. Considering he isn’t even paying attention it’s even audacious in light of the other team mates whose time is being wasted.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

The issue of players (or even devs/mods or whatever) seems to be the tasks of those maps which require rudimentary aspects of team play in order to work. The game- and team-play quality limbo of newer releases went on and on over the years and reached its new low with the patrols we got this season. God they are so simple, so boring, so bad. They are so unworthy to be part of a videogame, any game. Next we get ground ones, lol. I wonder how easy they are supposed to be?

No one minds teamwork so long as its good teamwork. Pahvo Dissension, or Operation Riposte, are examples of good teamwork in a TFO. The Borg ground TFOs are visually ugly, tediously long in terms of map length, and the "teamwork" in them is pretty basic, and uninteresting. Not to mention really dumb mechanics like the boss room force fields. There is nothing good about them from a design standpoint.

Assault on Terok Nor is a better ground TFO then the Borg TFOs.

Actually no. The situation is that the old maps don’t play by themselves and provide more fun the better a team gets at playing them. They only suck in bad teams which perceive the content as bad then. Your stream here is a great example. One of the best maps in game sucks like the worst map in game. This is not thanks to the Dev who designed it, its sole thanks to the player who messes it up and who leaves it in the end: Our community manager.

“Once again, Captain Leaver”.

Oh my god.

Well, in all fairness, Kael/Mike being the Community Manager, its his JOB. I know part of the job seems like he should know the game, but since there's so many aspects to the game, its not fair to assume that he knows everything.

You also have to remember that he doesn't play the game full time. He interacts with the devs so that he knows what needs to be going up for the day (if anything), he likely sits in on meetings for the next updates so he has knowledge of what's coming down he pike and works with the devs to figure out how they will arrange the blog scheduling. He also interacts with us as often as he can. When he does play the game, he is usually showing stuff off like a new ship (kitted out by Jette), playing new content or going into stuff that he thinks we may find interesting.

You also have to remember that he also has a life outside of the game. He has a wife and a baby to take care of, so playing the game full time isn't in his top priorities.

We should count ourselves lucky that he's been doing the livestreams. Under LaughingTrendy, we were lucky if we even got a livestream (I think they had only a few with her, one of which was Chase Masterson). Kael does the livestreams in order to give us a chance to interact with him for and one of the devs for a couple of hours a day while they go and show off something.

gaevsman · October 2019

somtaawkhar wrote: »

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

Actually no. The situation is that the old maps don’t play by themselves

Yeah man, the new maps totally play themselves... which is why if you sit around and do nothing during Operation Riposte, or the Mycelial Crisis, you fail every objective! No TFO plays itself, you can win in the time allotted, or auto-fail an objective after a certain point, and move onto the next one, but neither of those is "the map playing itself". If the map played itself you would automatically win, and get full rewards, for doing nothing, which doesn't happen anywhere.

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

One of the best maps in game sucks like the worst map in game.

The opinion that the Borg TFOs, especially the Borg ground TFOs, are some of the best maps in the game is a minority one. Even in the days before the reputation system, the Borg ground TFOs were considered awful, and most people only played them because they were forced to do so in order to get the tech items needed to buy the MACO/OMEGA/Honor Guard gear.

Those old Borg TFOs are horrible!!, i played them to get the rewards back in the day, and remember saying "Never do this again!!", is not challenging, is tedious!, no thanks!

davefenestrator · October 2019

One improvement in newer story episodes, TFOs and patrols is marker beacons. In the old content you just had the map, which sometimes glitched and failed to show the hot-spot circles. Or it showed them, but the objective was way up or down in the z-axis .

Even if you love the Borg ground TFOs, it's fact that their logic could be improved to make objectives clearer and their graphics could be updated to modern (for STO's engine) standards.

protoneous · October 2019

Well, in all fairness, Kael/Mike being the Community Manager, its his JOB. I know part of the job seems like he should know the game, but since there's so many aspects to the game, its not fair to assume that he knows everything.

Kael/Mike is a super guy and great Community Manager with a history of going out of his way to help others.

You also have to remember that he also has a life outside of the game. He has a wife and a baby to take care of, so playing the game full time isn't in his top priorities.

Nothing here that isn't shared by many of us. He was also still sick or at least recovering as well yet still trying to solo a live stream as his co-host was too sick to participate. That's a huge effort on his part for the community in itself.

It's not about him it's about what was unfortunately publicly demonstrated for others as an unprepared newer player in advanced queues, which then turned not only the livestream but it's reddit synopsis into an opinion piece for yet more unprepared players.

If you go into any advanced queue without being basically prepared expect to encounter problems and for things to take far longer than expected.

Perhaps an 'essential basics' list of tips could be of some help here?

spiritborn · October 2019

protoneous wrote: »

Perhaps an 'essential basics' list of tips could be of some help here?

It probably would, it was even suggested a while back, but the problem there is that there's some people here in the forums who take any hints what so ever as "elitists forcing their way to play on others" so those ideas seem to very quickly die out.

There's also the issue of determining what's "essential" and what's not. A basic overview similar to the overview section in the WoW dungeon journal could be helpful for STO, no detailed tactics or ability explanations, but an overview that would tell the essentials you need to know for the TFO (like the trigger lines in IGN/IGA).

Ten Forward Weekly 10/9/2019:

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