I actually found these missions surprisingly fun and enjoyable, if not without a few flaws. And I HATED Knowledge is Power, and only find Leap of Faith fun if I pretend to ignore J'ula. These two missions felt much more well balanced and paced. J'ula while still a useless hag, was mostly not as annoying, except for one really stupid bit at the end. There were a few new twists to the combat missions. It's pretty clear that those back to back ship fights at the start of Warriors of the Empire are the new Patrol Missions. Which is why we don't beam onto the stations. They did the same thing with the J'Ula's Discovery story arc. I actually didn't mind it as much this time. They actually seem like good patrol missions. So glad to have them. Something new to level ships with.
The Positives?
Some of the ground sections are actually fairly decent and a bit more challenging than I was expecting. I especially liked the Quo'Nos section where they added a few more side mission/story beats so it didn't feel like an endless parade of nonstop enemies in spawn point after spawn point (looking at you Knowledge is Power), the side bit with the Orion Smugglers gave purpose to the never ending waves of Klingons. Well done.
The voice work is top notch. Although why do all of J'ula's people speak with bad tv show Russian Accents?
The Negatives?
Akaar is almost almost a decent boss fight, but in the end feels a bit anticlimactic. Especially since he just dies and everything goes to cut scene leaving you a spectator.
The whole "Bring Back L'Rell to lead the Klingons" still feels unbelievably idiotic. It's like saying 'We've created a Clone of Martin Van Buren to lead the US!!!!" It's just completely stupid. L'Rell was 200 years before the current Klingons. Nobody would recognize her. She would be an oddity. One that could barely feed herself as she's never seen a replicator. What makes it worse is the Klingon that probably should be Chancellor is right there, Remember Kagran? The dude that led The Alliance through the Iconian War? The one that figured out the solution? The Right Klingon for a new century?
It feels like there is something missing as an epilogue. What happened to J'mpok in Grethor? And maybe some closure with Gowron?
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
I'm just going to do Leap of Faith to refresh my memory, before I then do the new missions.
I'll post a little later what I thought.
Didn't think Warriors of the Empire was all that bad, was actually fairly good. Just off to try A Day Long Remembered, before then likely going to sleep.
There is no future content for the foreseeable future.
Do you mean by CBS or Cryptic? CBS has Lower Decks S2, Picard S2, DSC S4, Section 31, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy either come out this year, or in development to come out next year,
Cryptic has already said that they had a story arc involving Mirror Leeta planned for after ViL, and while that got delayed so they could do the DSC content, they are going to get back it it once the J'ula story is over, and now its over. So they have content planned as well.
We have already seen the artists posting images of the revamped 2409 Federation interior kit they are making for the next arc.
CBSViacom is also facing a huge cash crunch and debt spiral, at the same time they seem to be facing off against a hostile takeover play from NBCUniversal/Comcast.
Not much chance of that happening unless the FCC has been totally gutted. None of the big three can legally take over one of the other two, nor can the same entity (corporate or real) legally own two of those networks at the same time.
The voice work is top notch. Although why do all of J'ula's people speak with bad tv show Russian Accents?
I think has to do with taking a few pounds of the rubber off the actor's faces so they can actually move their mouths right, thus necessitating something to distract people from the difference in their speaking.
Not played it myself yet. Local chat was full of people talking about how boring it was to play so I guess a lot of people thought that for some reason.
I liked the episodes well enough. Although the hidden timers are really getting tiresome and it felt like they didn't have enough content to fill whatever minimum gametime requirement they were given by the managment (collect 50 tetryon detonators, 5/10 at a time, ugh!).
I'm not sure about the story though. I had some issues with a couple of points:
We are for the most part extras. J'ula L'rell and Martok are the main characters. Which is fine for an episode or so, but this has been going on for quite a while now. Ever since we joined forces with J'ula.
The idea that after all this time, there's still a Federation made detonator at the center of Qo'nos is ridiculous. Why wasn't it disarmed? Why did nobody ever use it to his/her own advantage before? Was it forgotten after L'Rel died and just recently rediscovered? It doesn't make any sense.
And then there's L'rell as Chancellor. The last time we had a long-dead icon (Kahless) trying to take over the empire, it was made very clear this would lead to a civil war. Understandably, there would be Klingons who believe she really is L'rell and others who think she's just a puppet clone made by J'ula. There's precedent after all. And the monks can't be trusted.
There was one thing that "bothered" me at the end in a more funny way, especially considering the context of the scene.
All I could think of in this scene where Klingons shout "SoS! SoS!" after they find J'mpok's body at the feet of L'Rell and J'Ula after the two traded their big-TRIBBLE knife was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNApvajlIx8
Not only boring but disgusting. Painting L'Rell as some sort of "brave heroine" is ridiculous. That cannibal, rapist, Klingorc.
Every piece of Discovery content shoved down our throats by CBS is just awful.
Me 3/4ths of the way through the second episode: "This will be a day long remembered - it has seen the end of Akaar, and will soon see the end of J'mpok."
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I found the first episode quite boring. Nothing but repetitive space combat for most of it, and endless wave mechanics at that. Then the ground section added in endless wave mechanics. There was so much trash to kill on the ground I actually completed my 20k phaser on the ground endeavor from start to finish against the Elachi with only my captain doing phaser damage.
The opening to the episode's story was contrived as well, to say nothing of the ham fisted J'ula redemption arc it continues.
Not only boring but disgusting. Painting L'Rell as some sort of "brave heroine" is ridiculous. That cannibal, rapist, Klingorc.
Every piece of Discovery content shoved down our throats by CBS is just awful.
I'd argue that TNG Klingons are Orcs while DSC Klingons are Ogres, Orcs are Honorable just like TNG Klingons and two she didn't TRIBBLE anyone, both groups consented it's just that Tyler thought she TRIBBLE him due to spoilers.
I haven't played it yet, I'll probably get to it one day but I've never been interested in Klingon content so I'm not exactly in a rush to go play it. I'm just glad the "Year of Klingon" is finally over so they can get back to things I might actually want to play.
Not only boring but disgusting. Painting L'Rell as some sort of "brave heroine" is ridiculous. That cannibal, rapist, Klingorc.
Every piece of Discovery content shoved down our throats by CBS is just awful.
I'd argue that TNG Klingons are Orcs while DSC Klingons are Ogres, Orcs are Honorable just like TNG Klingons and two she didn't TRIBBLE anyone, both groups consented it's just that Tyler thought she TRIBBLE him due to spoilers.
I can't see an orc attending to an advanced physics class to learn the Klingon equivalent of Relativity to learn how to generate a warp bubble around a space vessel. Klingons are fierce warriors, they can be very bloody thirsty when needed BUT they are an advanced spacefaring civilization. An intergalactic power. They know nuance and are not "We will kill all humans for evil sake" as they were terribly portrayed in Discovery. But again, that is a show with no hint of respect for the source material or basic good storytelling anyway.
Only played the first episode of the two and it was another longwinded one that felt like it was another of those there to introduce new patrols. The jailbreak was plodding because we get locked from beaming if red alert is active, yet oddly we could rescue the pods. Elachi always felt shoehorned in and their ground bit felt like a rehash of the TFO.
It's more julie as saviour which has always been a very poor thread to tug on. Maybe its because the whole story has taken so long to drip feed into the game but I rapidly found myself skipping the dialogue because I simply didn't care about what she had to say since nothing she's done has been to redeem herself. All her actions comes across as carrying on her crusade with a minor change to those who would be her puppets, that change being us, the player.
I hadn't actually realized there was a reward for playing these more than the choice of Tetryon Mines etc, because usually you'd play an episode and then get to choose the shield as a reward, play it again and get the armour and so on. I suppose they have their reasons, but I just played "Remain Klingon" and it was wave, wave, wave, wave, wave. It was the most one-dimensional STF I've ever played and also the longest. Genuinely, I've played "Cure Applied" faster!
I don't mind if an episode is long, because if you're enjoying it, then great! When you're playing something though and you can basically just bang your spacebar the whole time and watch the telly until it's over, then that's a pretty bad state of affairs.
I hadn't actually realized there was a reward for playing these more than the choice of Tetryon Mines etc, because usually you'd play an episode and then get to choose the shield as a reward, play it again and get the armour and so on. I suppose they have their reasons, but I just played "Remain Klingon" and it was wave, wave, wave, wave, wave. It was the most one-dimensional STF I've ever played and also the longest. Genuinely, I've played "Cure Applied" faster!
I don't mind if an episode is long, because if you're enjoying it, then great! When you're playing something though and you can basically just bang your spacebar the whole time and watch the telly until it's over, then that's a pretty bad state of affairs.
You're forgetting....this is A WAR! Epsiodes like this should NEVER be short and should absolutley be full of combat. I loved it, and it was the perfect balance of things to do.
Kudos to Cryptic on this one!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
I didn't find them boring, per se... more like extremely luckluster, but then again I hate this entire story line. And it's conclusion offers nothing worthwhile.
The combat sections, while minimally acceptable because it's a supposed "war", were in most cases just filler content of the old and bored "wave after wave after wave on a silent timer" mechanic that I could sincerely do without.
All in all, I'm glad to be done with it and the only good thing that came out of it is that we're finally rid of J'mpok.
Everything else was just unnecessary.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
The problem is, literally every story arc turns into that.
And the problem with the above "problem" is non-combat isn't that fun either, TBH. At least, not in a game where people have paid big bucks for ships and spent a lot of time tweaking them and upgrading them just to be able to blow stuff up.
So it's really a lose/lose.
That said, I will repeat something I said somewhere else recently. I actually prefer some of the older content in the game that felt more like Trek episodes and less like mindless transformers fights. Yes, they had combat, but it wasn't this endless waves while waiting for timers thing we have now.
There really is a right balance to the amount of combat (and length of battles), and the newer content has really gone way overboard in comparison to the older stuff. The newer stuff looks great(as far as maps and cutscenes and things like that), but the experience is tiresome.
If one of the founding members of the Alliance, self-destructs into a civil war, then the other powers should have participated even in a limited engagement to ensure the Alliance survives. It would have been nice to have some patrols involve Starfleet or the Republic Navy supporting L'Rell's faction (Imperialist) against the J'mpok faction (Royalist). What about the Gorn Rebellion or other species that were conquered by the Klingons? We should have seen them breaking away, though we did see Nausicaans siding with J'mpok (He must've paid them).
The problem is, literally every story arc turns into that.
Except the majority of story arcs in STO don't involve a war.
Yeah, so let's get back to the actual point: too many of STO's recent missions involve these mindless 'transformer' battles against endless waves and timers. Whether it's technically a "war" or not, that's just not fun gameplay to many folks.
Most of the game's early content (and many of the examples you mentioned) had good balances of combat, and combat length. For whatever reason that early design balance has become lost and we are now likely to face these tiresome NPC waves in most new missions that are released.
Like I said before, the new missions are great in terms of visual quality. Cryptic has really stepped up their game on environments and cutscenes, and they deserve kudos for that. But I hope they can find a way to restrain themselves with the combat.
I think the biggest problem is that they forgot the first rule of tabletop RPGs, the GM's NPCs shouldn't overshadow the player's characters. In this case J'ula was constantly in the forefront, to the point where they even made you play her in a session, taking away from the player's character. While I understand her being the catalyst for the missions, the fact that she took front and center stage away from your characters and but the focus constantly on her was just bad form and poor writing.
I get it, J'ula is Cryptic's new focus, probably being forced into doing so by CBS. Still, there are ways to make her a focus without taking away from the player's characters, something that these writers seem unable to do.
Comments
The Positives?
Some of the ground sections are actually fairly decent and a bit more challenging than I was expecting. I especially liked the Quo'Nos section where they added a few more side mission/story beats so it didn't feel like an endless parade of nonstop enemies in spawn point after spawn point (looking at you Knowledge is Power), the side bit with the Orion Smugglers gave purpose to the never ending waves of Klingons. Well done.
The voice work is top notch. Although why do all of J'ula's people speak with bad tv show Russian Accents?
The Negatives?
Akaar is almost almost a decent boss fight, but in the end feels a bit anticlimactic. Especially since he just dies and everything goes to cut scene leaving you a spectator.
The whole "Bring Back L'Rell to lead the Klingons" still feels unbelievably idiotic. It's like saying 'We've created a Clone of Martin Van Buren to lead the US!!!!" It's just completely stupid. L'Rell was 200 years before the current Klingons. Nobody would recognize her. She would be an oddity. One that could barely feed herself as she's never seen a replicator. What makes it worse is the Klingon that probably should be Chancellor is right there, Remember Kagran? The dude that led The Alliance through the Iconian War? The one that figured out the solution? The Right Klingon for a new century?
It feels like there is something missing as an epilogue. What happened to J'mpok in Grethor? And maybe some closure with Gowron?
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I'll post a little later what I thought.
Didn't think Warriors of the Empire was all that bad, was actually fairly good. Just off to try A Day Long Remembered, before then likely going to sleep.
Not much chance of that happening unless the FCC has been totally gutted. None of the big three can legally take over one of the other two, nor can the same entity (corporate or real) legally own two of those networks at the same time.
I think has to do with taking a few pounds of the rubber off the actor's faces so they can actually move their mouths right, thus necessitating something to distract people from the difference in their speaking.
I'm not sure about the story though. I had some issues with a couple of points:
The idea that after all this time, there's still a Federation made detonator at the center of Qo'nos is ridiculous. Why wasn't it disarmed? Why did nobody ever use it to his/her own advantage before? Was it forgotten after L'Rel died and just recently rediscovered? It doesn't make any sense.
And then there's L'rell as Chancellor. The last time we had a long-dead icon (Kahless) trying to take over the empire, it was made very clear this would lead to a civil war. Understandably, there would be Klingons who believe she really is L'rell and others who think she's just a puppet clone made by J'ula. There's precedent after all. And the monks can't be trusted.
All I could think of in this scene where Klingons shout "SoS! SoS!" after they find J'mpok's body at the feet of L'Rell and J'Ula after the two traded their big-TRIBBLE knife was:
Every piece of Discovery content shoved down our throats by CBS is just awful.
aut vincere aut mori pro imperio
either to conquer or to die for the Empire
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
The opening to the episode's story was contrived as well, to say nothing of the ham fisted J'ula redemption arc it continues.
I'd argue that TNG Klingons are Orcs while DSC Klingons are Ogres, Orcs are Honorable just like TNG Klingons and two she didn't TRIBBLE anyone, both groups consented it's just that Tyler thought she TRIBBLE him due to spoilers.
I can't see an orc attending to an advanced physics class to learn the Klingon equivalent of Relativity to learn how to generate a warp bubble around a space vessel. Klingons are fierce warriors, they can be very bloody thirsty when needed BUT they are an advanced spacefaring civilization. An intergalactic power. They know nuance and are not "We will kill all humans for evil sake" as they were terribly portrayed in Discovery. But again, that is a show with no hint of respect for the source material or basic good storytelling anyway.
It's more julie as saviour which has always been a very poor thread to tug on. Maybe its because the whole story has taken so long to drip feed into the game but I rapidly found myself skipping the dialogue because I simply didn't care about what she had to say since nothing she's done has been to redeem herself. All her actions comes across as carrying on her crusade with a minor change to those who would be her puppets, that change being us, the player.
I don't mind if an episode is long, because if you're enjoying it, then great! When you're playing something though and you can basically just bang your spacebar the whole time and watch the telly until it's over, then that's a pretty bad state of affairs.
You're forgetting....this is A WAR! Epsiodes like this should NEVER be short and should absolutley be full of combat. I loved it, and it was the perfect balance of things to do.
Kudos to Cryptic on this one!
The combat sections, while minimally acceptable because it's a supposed "war", were in most cases just filler content of the old and bored "wave after wave after wave on a silent timer" mechanic that I could sincerely do without.
All in all, I'm glad to be done with it and the only good thing that came out of it is that we're finally rid of J'mpok.
Everything else was just unnecessary.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
The problem is, literally every story arc turns into that.
And the problem with the above "problem" is non-combat isn't that fun either, TBH. At least, not in a game where people have paid big bucks for ships and spent a lot of time tweaking them and upgrading them just to be able to blow stuff up.
So it's really a lose/lose.
That said, I will repeat something I said somewhere else recently. I actually prefer some of the older content in the game that felt more like Trek episodes and less like mindless transformers fights. Yes, they had combat, but it wasn't this endless waves while waiting for timers thing we have now.
There really is a right balance to the amount of combat (and length of battles), and the newer content has really gone way overboard in comparison to the older stuff. The newer stuff looks great(as far as maps and cutscenes and things like that), but the experience is tiresome.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Yeah, so let's get back to the actual point: too many of STO's recent missions involve these mindless 'transformer' battles against endless waves and timers. Whether it's technically a "war" or not, that's just not fun gameplay to many folks.
Most of the game's early content (and many of the examples you mentioned) had good balances of combat, and combat length. For whatever reason that early design balance has become lost and we are now likely to face these tiresome NPC waves in most new missions that are released.
Like I said before, the new missions are great in terms of visual quality. Cryptic has really stepped up their game on environments and cutscenes, and they deserve kudos for that. But I hope they can find a way to restrain themselves with the combat.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
I think the biggest problem is that they forgot the first rule of tabletop RPGs, the GM's NPCs shouldn't overshadow the player's characters. In this case J'ula was constantly in the forefront, to the point where they even made you play her in a session, taking away from the player's character. While I understand her being the catalyst for the missions, the fact that she took front and center stage away from your characters and but the focus constantly on her was just bad form and poor writing.
I get it, J'ula is Cryptic's new focus, probably being forced into doing so by CBS. Still, there are ways to make her a focus without taking away from the player's characters, something that these writers seem unable to do.