A few recent reddit posts for those that don't read /r/sto

thegrandnagus1 · May 2021

For context, all of the following comments came from this post about why they make more ships than missions.

That said, the following are posts from the CM AmbassadorKael and a dev Trekhead:

ambassadorkael wrote:

Hi there! This is a common enough complaint that I'm gonna respond: the team that makes ships is not the team that makes episodes and tfos. In fact, episodes are made by the work of five different teams: Content Design, Environment Art, Systems Design, Character Design, and Animation. Ships are done by Systems Design and Ship Art. Both teams are working around the clock to give you more stuff. The team making episodes begins working on the episodes for the next release before the current release comes out, and are often finishing it just before it goes live. The episodes take that much time to complete. The ships aren't taking time away from the episodes. They're worked on in parallel.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyl86r0/

ambassadorkael wrote:

I've mentioned this on the stream before, I think, but our parent company's marketing team likes to be tight lipped on that stuff until launch, so the media publishes their articles, and then players can go play right that minute. So I can announce things like TFOs and Boxes in advance, but not story details.

And yeah, it's pretty much done, but there's playtesting and refining left.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gylm67l/

ambassadorkael wrote:

Putting aside how combative this post is, what you're actually asking for is for us to shut down the game. The missions, we do because we love them and because you love them. But they don't pull in a huge amount of players and they don't make the game any money. We could monetize them, I suppose, but none of us would want to put story content behind a paywall and I don't think you want that, either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gymbyru/

ambassadorkael wrote:

What if I told you the content and missions *is* getting the same amount of attention?

The thing I tried to explain above, and will do so again here, is that making new missions and TFOs takes longer and takes more teams and people than making a new ship. It's not either or, right now, it's and. Firing the ship team wouldn't get us more missions. Making less ships would just mean the game makes less money, and then when we inevitably have to lay people off or move them to another team, you'd get even *less* content.

There's this fantasy in this thread that we could turn around tomorrow and say, "Change everything! Make fourteen missions a year!", but that's just not feasible, or how game development works.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyr1knk/

ambassadorkael wrote:

We get large boosts to the player base on the days content drops, yes, but as someone mentioned below, that's a lot of casual players who drop in for a day or two, and then forget we exist for a month. That means they're not playing, and they're not purchasing things. Again - we do missions and TFOs because we love them, and because you love them. We get to be storytellers in the Star Trek universe, that's amazing. But we *also* have to make sure everyone gets to eat, or in my case, pay for their kid's preschool. So it has to be *and*, not *or*, as it currently is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyr1ukw/

ambassadorkael wrote:

The systems and content teams, combined, have about double the people as the ships team. And they're working their butts off to get you the content that you are getting. That's the point of my original post here - it takes longer to make that stuff, *and* that stuff doesn't pull in purchases, which means there's no way to justify hiring more people to do it.

Over 75% of the team is probably focused on new missions and new content 90% of the time.

Also, calling Trekhead disingenuous is kind of out of line. The man's taking time out of his day to come here and explain the details of game development to you. Saying, "You're lying," back at him kind of sucks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyr2c1r/

trekhead wrote:

Content brings people to the game, systems get them to stick around.

People pop in to play new episodes, which takes a few hours. Then they either stick around to engage the current event, do Admiralty/DOFFing/Reps/Endeavors if they aren't maxed out, or do Fleet activities or TFOs for fun. Folks come play new missions, and then they leave just as quickly if they don't have other things to do.

One of the realities of game design is that players will always consume content faster than you can make it. A new mission is a big "splash," it draws attention because people want to experience the new story, but then it's done. Long-tail systems that take a while to complete, like a reputation or a Recruit transponder list of tasks, give players something to do when they come back the next day, week, or month.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyoezir/

trekhead wrote:

I hope you don't take it poorly when I say that you're wrong on several points.

2020 was a very good year for STO; all of our information says that people are still participating. Keep in mind that internet posts like forums and Reddit typically account for something like 2% of the player base: Comments that you see online are not a representative sample. We track how often people log in, how long they play, when new players arrive, when people make new characters, and so on. This gives us a good idea of what people like, when they log in, what they play, and what gets them to spend more time playing. It also tells us when a small number of people on the forums say "This is bad and nobody likes it" but our server stats show that people... actually play it a lot.

At a very rough level, one of the simple distinctions is acquisition and retention. Acquisition is stuff that brings in new people or returns lapsed people: Big expansions, marketing pushes, tie-ins to new shows, stuff that makes people who haven't played the game in a long time or ever go "Oh, I should check that out." Retention is stuff that gets people to stick around and keep playing: Having lots of stuff to do, especially things with lots of rewards along the way that take a long time to master and fully complete, like Reputations and Recruitment tasks. We routinely study this sort of stuff, it's not news to us.

Now, a sidebar into your negative comment of "treating console players like second class." We work hard to get everything that's on PC over onto console. The hurdle is that on console, we are not in charge of what we can release and when. We can make a release and say that we want to put it out on the console, but then it has to go through the appropriate console release process with Microsoft or Sony. We don't get to just say "Hey, new expansion, patch it on the Xbox!" Thus, console updates will fall behind PC because releasing them is not solely up to us. We want console players to have access to the whole game and to all of the great stuff that we have to offer, it just requires approval from people beyond our team.

I usually avoid responding to negative commentary because it rarely goes well, but I figured that this would be good stuff for people to know.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyvspgx/

trekhead wrote:

So y'know how I mentioned how on console we don't get to decide release dates? We don't get to make final decisions about money on them, either. We're literally not allowed to do things like giveaways and promotional stuff without first clearing it through our console partners. That also means that sometimes when we want to charge such-and-such price, we have to negotiate with the console holders, because they get part of the money from the transaction, so they get a say in how we sell things on console.

As far as opinion data, as I noted before, we watch a lot of data about what people play, how long they play, what they replay, how many people complete a given event, how many people play overage (bonus rewards after completion), how many people buy out the event, etc. This tells us a lot: We watch what people actually do. (That's one of the problems with opinion polls, too: What people say and what they do are often different.)

This is not to say that your personal feelings and experiences are invalid. They simply may not match what our data says about what other people playing the game are experiencing, what they like, where they get stuck, what they play and don't play, and what they return to. Ultimately we have to make our strategic decisions based on that kind of overall data: Where are people spending their time, effort, and money? What are they doing in the game, and how can we focus on that?

Then it's the balancing act of a schedule that requires us to generate new material (because if we don't release new things, people stop playing), to develop things that will continue to make money so that we can stay in business (because the alternative to that is that the game shuts down and everyone here loses their jobs), deal with old maintenance issues (because making new stuff means that we constantly tweak our code and data so we must go back and fix old stuff that no longer works with it), and collaborate with CBS' upcoming releases (because when new Star Trek comes out we gotta be on board!). This has to be scheduled across multiple departments: Even if we had, say, a hundred designers working on missions, all of those missions would feel very much the same if we only had two environment artists, and thus had only a couple of maps to use for them!

Ultimately, the choices that we make are based on these limitations: What can we get done? Whose approval is required (CBS, Sony, Microsoft)? What do we need in order to keep operating as a business so that we can continue to make more stuff? What will track with Star Trek and resonate with it in current material and/or in historical elements? The choices that we make won't always match up with what a given person wants, and that's the hurdle of a game that has lots and lots of players. Sometimes we can't do things that lots of people want, because we have to work with business partners and they have a say, too.

At the end of the day, after doing overtime, when I go home I want to feel good about the work I did, like I gave people a decent Star Trek story, like I created something that people will enjoy. I spend a lot of time on this and do a lot of thinking about it. I put a lot of effort into it, and so does the rest of our team. Nobody here is just "coasting" and putting in minimal effort; we have a team of Star Trek aficionados who are working hard to bring the experience from the screen to the game and to do the best that we can with the resources that we have.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/nffmny/devs_pls_give_us_more_content_not_ships/gyzukmp/

END OF DEV POSTS

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

vegeta50024 · May 2021

You need a gold star for putting all that up! I think those links will need to go on twitter too later.

Unknown · May 2021

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westx211 · May 2021

I'm not sure the devs understand replayability. Like look at Swtor for example, There is endgame stuff. There are events and other things somewhat similar to STO. But I have replayed each class story in Swtor soooo many times now, the story keeps me coming back, I love replaying it and seeing how things play out. I would say the story keeps me more engaged than the endgame(Despite how Swtor actually can have some fun endgame with raids), more engaged than the events(Which some of them can be decent fun and have very interesting rewards)

With Sto some of the story is interesting, but because of how the game is designed I feel less encouraged to replay it. Doing the same mission multiple times for a set is tedious due to how a lot of the missions are designed, some of the story doesn't really encourage replayability and of course Sto can't mimic how the choice system in swtor functions, but I feel like they're really really underselling the potential engagement new episodes could bring.

peterconnorfirst · May 2021

Thanks for linking those here op.

rattler2 · May 2021

I think the core issue is that Cryptic inherrited STO from Perpetual, and was in an intense time crunch to get SOMETHING out. Honestly its a miracle we got anything at all. Now here we are, 11 years later. STO's come a long way. Might not be the best, but... she's at least got some fight in her. If the game had been given proper time to develop under a higher end Developer, I have no doubt STO could have rivaled TOR in ambition and story. But the troubled history kinda gimped the game early on.

STO may have its flaws, but... still gotta give credit for what has been accomplished in a game engine that wasn't meant to do some of the things STO does. Cryptic's done alright with the hand they were dealt. They're not Square Enix, but... do what you can with what you got. *shrug* And what we got... is a game that has lasted 11 years, with no sign of slowing down. Gotta count for something.

Can I get proper Assault Phaser firing sounds now?

darkbladejk · May 2021

First, props to the OP for putting this together for folks, as it contains alot of stuff folks needed to see.

For STO, it's definitely not perfect as there are some glaring things that could use some polish in my book, but no game is perfect and has its flaws. However I believe STO gets right far more than it gets wrong. STO is one of the only true free to play games out there. There are very few ships I game I don't own at this point, about 10 in fact purely because I haven't gone for them yet or have no desire to do so. I have quite a bit of high end equipment on my toons and my ships, often multiple ships and boffs fully kitted out on each toon. Everything I have now, someone starting the game tomorrow could eventually have as well save for a few odds or ends that won't matter anyways in the long run. All that's required is a little time and effort. Very few "free to play" games out there today are truly free to play and as open as STO is with its content and ability to acquire items in game. I'm a founder in SWTOR that's been with that game since closed beta, and while I enjoy SWTOR and STO both, I far prefer STO's free to play model generally vs that of SWTOR. With SWTOR they pretty much nickel and dime you just to have certain basic functions in the game you should be able to access at all times. While you could unlock a good portion of it through one time payments, you're looking at well over $250 to do it, plus you still would have to pay around $20-$30 weekly to maintain some of those unlocks last I totaled everything up.

I mention this first as the free to play business model of STO is often a complaint I see people post here on these forums. People often get hung up on "but SWTOR has account unlocks for everything, STO should as well." While I wouldn't complain if the box ships or similar were account unlocks out of the gate, that's purely the low hanging fruit in SWTOR's model compared to STO. Folks also forget why SWTOR is able to do the things they do with those items and all the other nickel and dime restrictions that come with it, which thankfully STO doesn't have.

Would I love more missions and such, absolutely I would, and I'm betting most folks here would also. However for me I prefer quality over quantity. I would rather have a game with say 8 good missions vs a game with 50 missions and only 4 of them being worth anything. If folks want quality then it takes time to do quality. Of course I would love quality and quantity if I can have both, who wouldn't. However if I have to pick then I will pick quality each time. Cryptic is no EA or Blizzard, but they do well with what they have.

I've never developed anything at the big studio level like any of the Cryptic team has, but I've done quite a bit of work creating maps and mods for older games. For awhile it was actually common for me to see some of my maps in the EA recommended section for Timesplitters Future Perfect. I've also made a good bit for Star Trek Armada II's mod community and similar. Recently tried my hand at Space Engineers modding. Whether it's at the studio level like what the Cryptic team does, or the small time modding level like what I do, I can attest to what they're saying with level design and similar. Sometimes the stuff you think would suck and folks don't care for ends up doing very well, and sometimes the stuff you think will do great, ends up being the stuff that tanks. Some of my maps I created in Timesplitters I never would have thought would get anywhere ended up being some of my most popular stuff. For Cryptic I'm sure they can think of several items that fall into similar categories. Too many folks underestimate what it takes to make stuff for a game. Even what one things would be a simple mod for a game can end up taking far more work than one planned for. The thruster/engine mod I created for Space Engineers, I have about 40 hours into developing that thing and balancing it the way I wanted. If something that minor took me 40 hours, I can only imagine what some of the stuff takes for Cryptic to do that they deal with. Some of it may look simple but it's not always the case.

I wish Kael didn't have to give the statements he did, but I'm glad he did as hopefully now it will give folks some ideas as to what goes on behind the scenes that they simply don't see.

seaofsorrows · May 2021

First, thanks to the OP for linking all that.

That all sounds fine, the only part I take a slight issue with is the idea that they create missions and TFO's for no reason other then that we all like them. That's fine, and I am sure it's partially true.. but not completely. Lets be clear about something.. TFO's and Missions make money, if they think otherwise then that's frankly nieve. The game makes money by selling cosmetics and power. Cool ships, flashy clickies, things that make bad guys go boom.

Who is going to buy that stuff if they have nowhere to use them?

Missions and TFO's are part of the financial structure of the game. I am grateful that they make them, I think that for the most part they do a good job, but with respect, I will not buy into the idea that it's done just for us and no other reason. Without TFO's and without story missions, there is no game. Making them is not optional.

darkbladejk wrote: »

I wish Kael didn't have to give the statements he did, but I'm glad he did as hopefully now it will give folks some ideas as to what goes on behind the scenes that they simply don't see.

Why do you wish he didn't have to say it? It's his job to say it, and frankly, it's about time he finally did that job. His comments help people understand, they help us put ourselves in their shoes and for once he did that.. he gave us something to work with. Crazy conspiracy theories are born in the dark my friend, they come when information doesn't flow and people are left to their imaginations to fill in the blanks. A lot of hostility toward Cryptic comes from the fact that they won't share anything with us, they won't tell us things like this so that we can empathize with the struggle on the other side.

This is the first time in a while that Kael has done what he should be doing.. communicating so we can understand. You can't empathize with someone, anyone, if they won't talk to you. I was happy to see him contribute all that, it's the most I have seen him say.. well.. ever.

jennycolvin · May 2021

seaofsorrows wrote: »

First, thanks to the OP for linking all that.

That all sounds fine, the only part I take a slight issue with is the idea that they create missions and TFO's for no reason other then that we all like them. That's fine, and I am sure it's partially true.. but not completely. Lets be clear about something.. TFO's and Missions make money, if they think otherwise then that's frankly nieve. The game makes money by selling cosmetics and power. Cool ships, flashy clickies, things that make bad guys go boom.

Who is going to buy that stuff if they have nowhere to use them?

Missions and TFO's are part of the financial structure of the game. I am grateful that they make them, I think that for the most part they do a good job, but with respect, I will not buy into the idea that it's done just for us and no other reason. Without TFO's and without story missions, there is no game. Making them is not optional.

Agreed. They make it sound like they're doing it to do us a favour, when it's actually what the game is all about: having people do stuff.

A part from that, I appreciate what the OP of that thread was trying to do but, ultimately, it was just a waste of his time, as the answers quoted here shows perfectly well, because what we got fed was nothing more than the usual drivel: we make more ships because it takes less time and it makes us money and we care about nothing else but that.

I'm actually surprised mister CM found the time to write more than two words... but he usually do when people come out with requests that make it sound like Cryptic ain't doing their job, so nothing really new about any of this.

thegrandnagus1 · May 2021

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

Unknown · May 2021

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foxrockssocks · May 2021

thegrandnagus1 wrote: »

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

I agree with 1. I'm honestly surprised so few maps are ever revisited, even just reused. We just revisited Gre'thor even, and it was an entirely different map.

For 2, just advance it to the next map. I've never had a mission lose progress once I've advanced the map. Its why you can do something like "Of Signs and Portents" and advance it to the ground stage so that you can jump into it any time you have a kill turtles on the ground endeavor.

On the devs comments:

2020 was a very good year for STO; all of our information says that people are still participating. Keep in mind that internet posts like forums and Reddit typically account for something like 2% of the player base: Comments that you see online are not a representative sample. We track how often people log in, how long they play, when new players arrive, when people make new characters, and so on. This gives us a good idea of what people like, when they log in, what they play, and what gets them to spend more time playing. It also tells us when a small number of people on the forums say "This is bad and nobody likes it" but our server stats show that people... actually play it a lot.

This is the sort of thing that bugs me. What people do and what they say can definitely be different. The problem is you don't know why someone is doing something if you ignore what they are saying, especially if they aren't saying anything.

Its also silly because in many ways there are no options. If you were a KDF player (before fly any ship) and wanted a MW ship with decent maneuverability at Cstore prices, you've got a handful of options: the Qugh. That's it. You buy it regardless of what you think about the aesthetics, whether you've even seen ST:D, because that's the only option for what you want in a ship.

What does Cryptic learn from that? Do they think it is well liked? Do people buy it just to show their RL family and friends how far Star Trek has fallen? Do they buy it because they think it is the most beautiful ship ever designed and loved seeing it in the show? If all you have is metrics you don't have anything.

It truly is a tiny minority of people that post. The problem is you literally have no other information about what people are thinking aside from what people are posting. I'm not under any illusion that it is easy to fix that, but neither should they entirely disregard what is being said.

Unknown · May 2021

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Unknown · May 2021

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captaincelestial · May 2021

reyan01 wrote: »

keepcalmchiveon wrote: »

(ok, yall said 2020 was the bomb for the game...

Actually, this statement needs to be put into context.

2020 was dominated by Covid-19. I can't comment on the measures every country put in place, but certainly in terms of the UK there were lockdowns, everything aside from Hospitals and Supermarkets were shut and pretty much everyone (with the exception of essential/key workers) was working from home. I distinctly recall driving to work and being literally THE only car actually moving and arriving to find the car park of the hospital I work at near empty.

Needless to say, this resulted in a lot of people having more time on their hands than they usually would. A lot of those people were furloughed (namely not going to work but still receiving 80% of their wage). It's fair to assume that a good portion of them turned to various online activities. Heck, I had the virus myself at one point and during the weeks I was recovering from it I spent a lot more time on STO than I'd usually have time for and indeed, spent money that I probably wouldn't have otherwise spent. I also played it a bit more than usual when my daughter had to self-isolate due to her school being shut.

So yeah, 2020 may have been a good year for STO - but it's pretty sad that the one of the reasons it was a good year for the game was, at least in part, down to a damn pandemic that killed (and is still killing) millions and kept most other people at home.

That's true, and can be said for just about every video game company during the pandemic.

davefenestrator · May 2021

westx211 wrote: »

I'm not sure the devs understand replayability. Like look at Swtor for example, There is endgame stuff. There are events and other things somewhat similar to STO. But I have replayed each class story in Swtor soooo many times now, the story keeps me coming back, I love replaying it and seeing how things play out. I would say the story keeps me more engaged than the endgame(Despite how Swtor actually can have some fun endgame with raids), more engaged than the events(Which some of them can be decent fun and have very interesting rewards)

With Sto some of the story is interesting, but because of how the game is designed I feel less encouraged to replay it. Doing the same mission multiple times for a set is tedious due to how a lot of the missions are designed, some of the story doesn't really encourage replayability and of course Sto can't mimic how the choice system in swtor functions, but I feel like they're really really underselling the potential engagement new episodes could bring.

The great SWTOR content is the launch content, the class stories. After that it's all-character, all-faction shared content just like STO.

They spent somewhere between $200 and $300 million dollars to create it. Give Cryptic an extra $200 million and they'll create some great content too, and maybe even bring back the foundry.

Unknown · May 2021

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thegrandnagus1 · May 2021

Yeah, the foundry isn't coming back to STO (officially). That said, the same thing will happen to this game that has happened to other games in recent years after they have shut down. There will be an EMU (probably several, for different versions of the game), and some of them will have the foundry. So, I guess the die hard foundry folks can look forward to that happening eventually

seaofsorrows · May 2021

thegrandnagus1 wrote: »

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

I completely agree with all of this, very good points all around.

Unknown · May 2021

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davefenestrator · May 2021

thegrandnagus1 wrote: »

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

Good points. They're going for AAA blockbuster movies every time, when they could also be releasing more Netflix "good enough" movies in between the AAAs.

Maybe they need a content "B team" that does the equivalent of Fallout New Vegas or the DLC in between Fallout 3 and 4.

odinforever20000 · May 2021

Well done Op

thegrandnagus1 · May 2021

davefenestrator wrote: »

thegrandnagus1 wrote: »

Ok, so with all of that stuff said here are my relatively simple suggestions to actually improve/increase the amount of missions they are able to make, taking into consideration all the things Kael and Trekhead mentioned:

1) you don't have to create new maps for every new mission. They have created a ton of incredible maps (like ground map on Mirrors and Smoke) that were never seen again after that mission, and that is an INCREDIBLE waste of the limited resources they have. It's ok to revisit locations we have been to before; especially if they put a ton of time into designing the location (like in the example I cited).

2) IMO some of the more recent missions feel a little too long and could probably be 2 missions instead of 1. I would prefer to be able to play 2 shorter missions with a definite end between them so I can take a break or come back later or whatever than 1 long mission that I'm starting to feel a little tiring and worry that if I leave it may not resume where I left off.

Just doing those 2 things would increase the amount of missions they are able to make with their current manpower. There are probably other "simple" ideas that could make a big difference.

Good points. They're going for AAA blockbuster movies every time, when they could also be releasing more Netflix "good enough" movies in between the AAAs.

Maybe they need a content "B team" that does the equivalent of Fallout New Vegas or the DLC in between Fallout 3 and 4.

Well...it's more like just regular Trek episodes vs movies, IMO. Yes, the big movie stories are cool (sometimes). But that's not what I want to play for every single mission. Give us smaller scale things more often, and then give us the big thing less often. That's just my personal preference, of course. But I still prefer some of the earlier content because it feel more like Trek episodes and not the big tiresome transformers battle that every new mission they release lately has at the end.

saurializard · May 2021

I swear, every time I read Kael finally giving a reply, I always expect a condescending "now, stop bothering me, you game-development clueless losers.

" to show up at the end of the last reply.

I do actually have a job, man.

That quote of him is the closest so far.

2020 was a very good year for STO; all of our information says that people are still participating.

I truly wonder why, surely it has nothing to do with a pandemic forcing people to stay home and thus having more time playing online games, and the numerous events in a row requiring a daily login to be completed.

Keep in mind that internet posts like forums and Reddit typically account for something like 2% of the player base: Comments that you see online are not a representative sample. We track how often people log in, how long they play, when new players arrive, when people make new characters, and so on. This gives us a good idea of what people like, when they log in, what they play, and what gets them to spend more time playing. It also tells us when a small number of people on the forums say "This is bad and nobody likes it" but our server stats show that people... actually play it a lot.

Once again, every time I see this justification, I just want to tell whoever said this "OK, fine, FORCE all players to take a quick survey to ask them what they want the most." I can guarantee you the vast majority will reply "I don't care about details/ I don't know what all of this is, I just want to play the game." because that's how it works, most people just want to pass time in games and take what they're offered.
You'll ALWAYS have a vocal minority and saying "it's not a representative sample" is non-sense because you simply can't have a global representative sample in the first place and global data is utterly worthless if you don't take into account the context.

You can easily deconstruct any possible "Data says" when you think about the various factors around it:
"Data says players come every day": Yes, because nearly everything has a cooldown of 20h, of course players are coming back until it's either done or they're sick of it.
"Data says bridges don't sell": Probably because 95% of the purchasable bridges are severely outdated graphically, bring nothing outside of a fancy bridge and thus you can't do anything concrete with them anyway that you can't do already in other ways.
"Data says players love the way our missions are made": That's literally the only variety we get, there is no procedural-generated content to add some variety and zero exploration or meaningful hidden bonuses. Once a TFO or mission is complete, that's it, there is nothing new to be done until the next one.
"Data says 2020 was one of our most successful years with more people logging in than before": Once again, there is a pandemic around. Of course people have more time to play to pass time.
"Data says people spend more time on our content than before": Maybe it has something to do with the various hidden timers and continuous waves of enemies you've been putting in missions and TFOs, as well as the various 14/21-day events related to them?

elijahmre · May 2021

So, I'm not particularly inspired nor impressed by these responses from the team. Quite frankly, they feel a little gaslight-y to me; especially when there is a measurable decline in story-driven content since the second half of 2018.

Of course this game needs to find ways to monetize! Of course ships are a great way to do that! But, to ignore the trending decline of story-driven content and behave as if our concerns are crazy-talk is disappointing.

We talked about this several episodes ago on the podcast (episode 492 @ about 22:30 minute). I did my due diligence and compiled a tally of story-driven missions releases with data from STOWiki. I wanted to make sure that my rant was substantiated and backed by data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HPlqJbCLj8CqcNNAnBWzJGsB_sSy37yogh6_P1Z_fl4/edit?usp=sharing

Unknown · May 2021

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captaind3 · May 2021

Hell of a post OP.

I also like your solutions.

For instance they made that GLORIOUS Khitomer map, and they used it for more than one mission. I think it would make an excellent Alliance Social Zone. We also could use a mission where we get to know Chairman Ksenneta. While the Devs last I've heard hadn't decided on a post Klingon Civil War arc (though I'm sure they have now) I'd vote for not only finishing the old planned story arcs like the Children of Khan and Leeta, I'd also like to go back to see and deal with the aftermath of previous storylines.

And I concur that some of the new story episodes could be broken up into two shorter episodes though I also understand that the Devs want to create stories with more depth and larger scope that require a larger unbroken narrative.

I can also only imagine the Devs working on the stuff that we ask for and that they think would be a great idea too. Like actually showing the city on New Romulus or the Reman Quarter. Well, the Klingon Civil War ends tomorrow, then it's on to Risa.

discojer2 · May 2021

westx211 wrote: »

I'm not sure the devs understand replayability. Like look at Swtor for example, There is endgame stuff. There are events and other things somewhat similar to STO. But I have replayed each class story in Swtor soooo many times now, the story keeps me coming back, I love replaying it and seeing how things play out. I would say the story keeps me more engaged than the endgame(Despite how Swtor actually can have some fun endgame with raids), more engaged than the events(Which some of them can be decent fun and have very interesting rewards)

SWTOR is a strange example, because while yes, it has a great story (or 8 of them), that story was basically done at launch. After launch content was cut down from there being a different story for each class, to one story for each faction. And then that was just cut down to one story, period. And their idea of new content was taking away your companions and replacing them with a Martha Stewart lookalike (the second on in the game, actually, since there was a Darth like her), though finally they doled out your old companions back to you slowly.

Unknown · May 2021

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vegeta50024 · May 2021

saurializard wrote: »

I swear, every time I read Kael finally giving a reply, I always expect a condescending "now, stop bothering me, you game-development clueless losers. " to show up at the end of the last reply.

You can easily deconstruct any possible "Data says" when you think about the various factors around it:
"Data says players come every day": Yes, because nearly everything has a cooldown of 20h, of course players are coming back until it's either done or they're sick of it.
"Data says bridges don't sell": Probably because 95% of the purchasable bridges are severely outdated graphically, bring nothing outside of a fancy bridge and thus you can't do anything concrete with them anyway that you can't do already in other ways.
"Data says players love the way our missions are made": That's literally the only variety we get, there is no procedural-generated content to add some variety and zero exploration or meaningful hidden bonuses. Once a TFO or mission is complete, that's it, there is nothing new to be done until the next one.
"Data says 2020 was one of our most successful years with more people logging in than before": Once again, there is a pandemic around. Of course people have more time to play to pass time.
"Data says people spend more time on our content than before": Maybe it has something to do with the various hidden timers and continuous waves of enemies you've been putting in missions and TFOs, as well as the various 14/21-day events related to them?

20 hour cooldowns have been a staple of this game since started playing it and they started pushing more stuff. Another game I play uses daily timers for you to come back to the game and do stuff.

As far as procedural-generated content goes, this game HAD stuff like that in the past for exploration: Genesis. For each of the exploration clusters, an unknown system would be generated for you to do something in, such as kill enemies in space/ on ground, Scan 5 things in space, Scan/interact with stuff on ground and kill, or even good transportation to planets.

When genesis assembled the encounter, it was essentially choosing the scenario, picking a pre-determined group of NPC enemies to fight for each cluster, and choosing a map for the encounter. The issue with it though was that not every map was properly set for ground NPCs, so you had bugs where enemy groups would be in buildings, making the encounter incompletable. You also got stuff that made no sense, such as the Borg and their third dynasty.

There's really no way for them to make procedural generated story that would be anywhere as good as what they could produce. The most I see it being done is for patrol sakes where X enemy is at Y system and you have to go drive them away.

Unknown · May 2021

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