I must say that I cannot disagree with those pointing out that it is problematic that we get so little feedback on bugs.
Some bugs really are either game breaking or have some big impact in other ways. Three of those that I have reported - in some cases multiple times - a long time ago come to mind.
2. There are bugs with some of the S31 ships where they get huge target boxes if they're in swarm mode. The issue wasn't fixed (although a Dev did state that they had trouble recreating the bug in their test environment), but another ship with the same, broken feature was released through a gambling box.
And these are just three examples of bugs that I have reported myself and which haven't been fixed or in some cases not even acknowledged. I tend to believe others when they're saying the same thing.
I can't say I blame my fellow players for adopting a rather cynical attitude when they're regularly told to go to the Bug report section, but very little then seems to happen there at the same time. I'm not saying that no bugs get fixed at all - lots of things do get fixed of course.
But I can certainly understand why some players get annoyed when they spend money on the game, try to be active and participate in events, spend even more of their own time on writing bug reports - and then don't get any response at all.
Whilst I acknowledge that some of the concerns raised were acknowledged, said acknowledgement included snarky remarks and repeat accusations of 'venom'. Sorry - No. Criticism doesn't = venom. There were some valid points raised, some of which I'll concede were addressed, and it's not unreasonable for customers - many of whom have put a LOT of money into the game (and whom you are expecting to continue to do so) - to complain about a shoddy service.
Anyway, I think I'm done here since I suspect that, if it doesn't get edited or removed, the only response to these comments will be snark and something to the effect of 'stop being venomous'.
Here's the thing... there can be legit concerns or criticisms, but when its surrounded by attacks... it gets drowned out. Not everyone is going to want to sift through pages of rage to find people posting something serious. Human nature will assume its more of the same, and eyes will glaze over.
In some cases its literally smack, smack, smack, smack, legit post, smack smack smack smack, ect.
There's only so much rage posting people can take, and if there's a ton of it around legit concerns, its the equivelent of a room full of angry people shouting and screaming, and your that one honest post just raising your hand like back in school. It gets lost in the noise.
This is another big problem. How do we figure out what is legit through the rage? There are times where legit concerns are even in the same post as rage.
There is criticism, and then there is constructive criticism. Its all in how it is presented. Surrounded by rage... it gets lost. What's needed is level heads. Not flamethrowers. As highlighted above, whenever Cryptic does come to the table, the flamethrowers come out. Its no wonder they don't show up often because even if there are legit concerns, the flamethrowers are out in force. Sometimes people have actually resorted to threatening postures to bring up concerns. "Do this or X. Fix this or Y." Legit concerns maybe... but wrapped in venom that clouds the issue.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Although you do have a point the community does too when player of the community go in a add toxic to a good post you always shut down the whole post instead of just removing the toxic parts of it and move along. SO again it is a two sided issue not just the community but everyone involved in that community and the staff and representatives of the staff everyone has blame and everyone is guilty of there part in it and the current situation also.
From a moderator standpoint, if 90% of a post is venom and cutting it out makes the remaining post not make sense... at that point it would just be easier to nuke the whole post than try and make whats left make sense. We're not trying to put words in peoples mouth so to speak. And then there's posts that have the venom in the same sentence as the legit concern. How do you edit that?
"[toxic redacted] is broken [toxic redacted]."
That makes no sense. There's a point where we just can't salvage a post even if there is legit stuff in it. While this is a bit of an extreme example, there are posts like that we have to deal with one way or another. They may say what the issue is, but its so integrated with the venom that... how do you deal with that? How do you make it work without turning it into swiss cheese? And then we have the issue of people coming after us for censorship when that is not the case or they are the ones that violated forum rules.
Its not as black/white as people make it out to be. None of this ever is. Its all shades of gray. The only thing that really is that clear cut is rule violations. Either you broke the rules or you didn't.
When it comes to moderator action... for us it is reactionary. We are reacting to the actions of others. If we have to get involved, someone's already crossed the line.
For my part as a Mod, if I am directly involved in an argument... I choose not to activate my Mod Power if things cross a line. I will ask another Mod step in who is not involved and let them decide. And I will be clear on when I use my Mod Power by activating the different color font to get attention as that is visible and gets attention. I do not speak for Cryptic in any official capacity like Kael can (as I am a volunteer), nor can I say for certain when things get released or what is being looked at by the Devs. I am part of the Mod Team that helps try and keep the peace, and helps Kael out here on the forums as best we can. Things like the Video Archive thread and the Q&A thread we spoke with Kael about as a way to help make things more accessable. Hell... the Video Archive was my idea, and I did poke Kael when I noticed we were a few months behind on the YouTube channel's Livestream vids.
It may not look like it to some, but we do pass things up the chain. Once its "on Kael's desk", that's where our knowledge ends on the trail. From there it is out of our Mod hands and we are no different than a normal forumite. We have our own views and opinions on things, and we are more than happy to help people as best we can. But... that also comes with a bit of a target on our backs because we are the Mod Team, and thus seen by some as more official and open to the same criticism as the Devs. Which we are not. In many cases when it comes to information, we're no different than normal forumites, with the same level of information. We may pass on information as we learn it, but we are not all knowing, and we are not "mouthpieces" who HAVE to have nothing but positive words.
We can get just as frustrated as you guys. Best example is the forum changes. And it gets compounded when we also have to try and be a filter for usable information.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
FIXED - Bugs that were on the list but fixed since the last report.
IN PROGRESS - Currently in active process of being fixed.
PRIORITY 1 - Scheduled to be among the next group of bugs to go to IN PROGRESS. These would be mission critical issues, among which would include things impacting something with monetization associated with it.
PRIORITY 2 - Lesser than Priority 1, but does have an impact on gameplay.
PRIORITY 3 - These would include minor bugs that are more inconveniences rather than game-breaking. Graphical glitches associated with costumes that have no monetization attached.
ACKNOWLEDGED - These would be new bugs that have been acknowledged since the last update to the list, but have not been assigned a priority yet.
The list would be a stickied and closed thread on the bug report forum.
In the patch notes for the game, all bugs listed in the status list, except for the ones that have been fixed need to be included in the list of known issues.
If we had something like this. I think a lot of negative sentiment would be... uhm... Negated.
This is a great idea, and it give the players the opportunity to request that an issue be escalated. sure, maybe the romulans stuck in the floor in First City is just annoying but if suddenly all the KDF players said fix this, there is documentation that the devs did as asked by the players, it will be a lot better for them to say look YOU wanted X fixed so we had to slide Y back a few cycles
I skimmed the thread. I am not on facebook, have not logged into twitter in an age, so I do not know if those formats are "official", but I also get the impression the devs are active on reddit..
Reddit
Welcome to r/STO!
This is the unofficial community subreddit for Star Trek Online, the licensed Star Trek MMO. Share your glorious (or hilarious) in-game adventures through stories and screencaps, ask your game related questions, and organize events with your fellow Captains. This subreddit is not affiliated with Cryptic, Perfect World, Gearbox, or Embracer Group.
so the question begging to be asked is why are the devs spending time on the UNOFFICIAL forum and ignoring the OFFICIAL forum???
I will just say one thing.. I have always been respectful when interacting directly with Cryptic staff and have always encouraged others to follow suit in the interest of fostering further communication. The hostility comes when we are met with promises of 'better communication' immediately followed by long bouts of total silence.
Some people have been respectful with the staff, others have been more aggressive, but both methods have garnered the same result and that's a quick return to the status quo. It's easy to just blame the player base for being 'toxic,' but the truth is that the issue is more complex then that. When people feel ignored, they lash out, maybe that's not a proper response but it's one that comes natural for most.
At this point, we have had so many promises for better communication, more accurate updates and press releases, and more willingness to listen.. none of which have ever been realized. The promises don't mean anything anymore and only actions will mean anything at this point. You can expect the player base to be largely negative and to continue to be unhappy until that happens.
Continuing to not listen and then calling players 'toxic' for being upset is counter productive.
Here's the thing... there can be legit concerns or criticisms, but when its surrounded by attacks... it gets drowned out. Not everyone is going to want to sift through pages of rage to find people posting something serious. Human nature will assume its more of the same, and eyes will glaze over.
Not if they're being PAID to BE a Community Manager. Hell, I work in IT support for a Government agency. I have to put up with a lot of angry pissed off people at times. Do I enjoy that aspect, no; but IT COMES WITH THE JOB.
IMO - A lot of times, Kael's attitude toward his job comes across as if its his hobby. He can't be bothered to pay attention when he's proofreading copy, etc. (And yes, I know he has a condition, but when he's being paid to do something maybe a little extra effort and concentration is warranted?)
I play a number of MMOs and he's a CM who has the most excuses I've ever heard for why he can't do the job duties as required.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
To be fair, uniforms are a declaration of allegiance that goes beyond their functional aspect, on a practical level they are just clothes so there is little reason to wear the uniform of a different nation on a regular basis. And characters like Worf who are racially alien but serve directly in a fleet outside of their race's usual nation wear the uniform of the service they are in (though sometimes with foreign accessories), not a foreign one.
There are a few rare edge cases (usually due to practical game considerations) of course, where using a part of a different nation's uniform can simulate some other agency's or service's uniform from one's own faction better than the regular uniform parts can, but wholesale swapping of uniforms would tend to go against the theme even more than the plethora of different era/parallel/whatever versions of the faction uniforms does now. And the shows have firmly established that exchange officers wear their own nations' uniform, not the ones of the nations they are the guest of.
Another edge case is one where an entire ship and crew are detached and put under the command of an allied service but are still technically supported by their original nation. I have several of those, like a (mostly) Kobali crew and their ship (a Nihydron destroyer so far since that elite phoenix token to get the Samsar remains elusive) assigned to the Federation Starfleet as a token of Alliance solidarity, and a number of Dominion ships and crews (though that is mainly because a canon Dominion setup is impossible in their own faction due to the lack of Vorta in the character generator). While they can be done there are significant problems beyond just the uniforms (in fact in both of those examples the uniforms are already available).
On the other hand, ships have a non-trivial value to a nation which captures them, and there is at least some precedent for putting them to use in the service of the capturing nation in the shows (though except for the Romulans in TOS it was usually done for deception there), and even more if you take into account the fact that the show was originally a projection of the Victorian era tall ship stories into the future since flipping captured ships like that was the norm in those.
Probably the reason it was not seen more often (besides a model budget constraint) was the tendency of the ships to blow up when damaged badly enough to render them unable to fight.
I finally got around to seeing how bad the damage was to the ships using Shi'kahr parts and sadly had to discharge all of them except for one that was mostly Centaur where the new saucer did not look too silly and could sort of fit the character motif with those forcefield-covered bays in the front considered launch and recovery bays for work and offensive drones.
On a slightly lighter note, on a different character I experimented with the Reliant/Miranda kitbash kit and came up with one (another Centaur variant) that was all Centaur except for the new eyeball-pod rollbar that has a sort of buglike alien vibe to it that has some possibilities:
Nothing else really worked that well since the new skin is just too definitively TNG to fit with the rest of the kit (which mostly uses Movie era and some DSC-like cues), especially any attempt to use those highlighter-marker nacelles, though the bussard pattern the DSC materials give (especially the blue and white one), might have made up for that a bit if it sparkled or swirled instead of looking like a static photograph. The new pylons are similarly useless with the rest of the kit except when deliberately trying for a silly overtly-mashup look.
Comments
Some bugs really are either game breaking or have some big impact in other ways. Three of those that I have reported - in some cases multiple times - a long time ago come to mind.
1. There is a bug in Gravity Kills that literally renders the mission unfinishable and forces players into a leaver penalty. https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/comment/13713120
2. There are bugs with some of the S31 ships where they get huge target boxes if they're in swarm mode. The issue wasn't fixed (although a Dev did state that they had trouble recreating the bug in their test environment), but another ship with the same, broken feature was released through a gambling box.
The issue isn't totally game-breaking, but it is quite annoying if you're unable to select any target whenever someone with such a ship is even merely present on the map. https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1254564/intel-promo-ship-needs-to-have-its-targeting-box-reduced
3. There are ships - that are bought with real money - that have traits that simply do not do what they're supposed to do. Making them far less effective, and even almost useless if you got the trait because you have a certain build in mind but things just don't work the way they're supposed to.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1266111/photonic-diversion-feedback-pulse-missing
And these are just three examples of bugs that I have reported myself and which haven't been fixed or in some cases not even acknowledged. I tend to believe others when they're saying the same thing.
I can't say I blame my fellow players for adopting a rather cynical attitude when they're regularly told to go to the Bug report section, but very little then seems to happen there at the same time. I'm not saying that no bugs get fixed at all - lots of things do get fixed of course.
But I can certainly understand why some players get annoyed when they spend money on the game, try to be active and participate in events, spend even more of their own time on writing bug reports - and then don't get any response at all.
https://old.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/pexh7c/why_rsto_was_private_on_aug_30_or_how_dare_you/
Here's the thing... there can be legit concerns or criticisms, but when its surrounded by attacks... it gets drowned out. Not everyone is going to want to sift through pages of rage to find people posting something serious. Human nature will assume its more of the same, and eyes will glaze over.
In some cases its literally smack, smack, smack, smack, legit post, smack smack smack smack, ect.
There's only so much rage posting people can take, and if there's a ton of it around legit concerns, its the equivelent of a room full of angry people shouting and screaming, and your that one honest post just raising your hand like back in school. It gets lost in the noise.
This is another big problem. How do we figure out what is legit through the rage? There are times where legit concerns are even in the same post as rage.
There is criticism, and then there is constructive criticism. Its all in how it is presented. Surrounded by rage... it gets lost. What's needed is level heads. Not flamethrowers. As highlighted above, whenever Cryptic does come to the table, the flamethrowers come out. Its no wonder they don't show up often because even if there are legit concerns, the flamethrowers are out in force. Sometimes people have actually resorted to threatening postures to bring up concerns. "Do this or X. Fix this or Y." Legit concerns maybe... but wrapped in venom that clouds the issue.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
From a moderator standpoint, if 90% of a post is venom and cutting it out makes the remaining post not make sense... at that point it would just be easier to nuke the whole post than try and make whats left make sense. We're not trying to put words in peoples mouth so to speak. And then there's posts that have the venom in the same sentence as the legit concern. How do you edit that?
"[toxic redacted] is broken [toxic redacted]."
That makes no sense. There's a point where we just can't salvage a post even if there is legit stuff in it. While this is a bit of an extreme example, there are posts like that we have to deal with one way or another. They may say what the issue is, but its so integrated with the venom that... how do you deal with that? How do you make it work without turning it into swiss cheese? And then we have the issue of people coming after us for censorship when that is not the case or they are the ones that violated forum rules.
Its not as black/white as people make it out to be. None of this ever is. Its all shades of gray. The only thing that really is that clear cut is rule violations. Either you broke the rules or you didn't.
When it comes to moderator action... for us it is reactionary. We are reacting to the actions of others. If we have to get involved, someone's already crossed the line.
For my part as a Mod, if I am directly involved in an argument... I choose not to activate my Mod Power if things cross a line. I will ask another Mod step in who is not involved and let them decide. And I will be clear on when I use my Mod Power by activating the different color font to get attention as that is visible and gets attention. I do not speak for Cryptic in any official capacity like Kael can (as I am a volunteer), nor can I say for certain when things get released or what is being looked at by the Devs. I am part of the Mod Team that helps try and keep the peace, and helps Kael out here on the forums as best we can. Things like the Video Archive thread and the Q&A thread we spoke with Kael about as a way to help make things more accessable. Hell... the Video Archive was my idea, and I did poke Kael when I noticed we were a few months behind on the YouTube channel's Livestream vids.
It may not look like it to some, but we do pass things up the chain. Once its "on Kael's desk", that's where our knowledge ends on the trail. From there it is out of our Mod hands and we are no different than a normal forumite. We have our own views and opinions on things, and we are more than happy to help people as best we can. But... that also comes with a bit of a target on our backs because we are the Mod Team, and thus seen by some as more official and open to the same criticism as the Devs. Which we are not. In many cases when it comes to information, we're no different than normal forumites, with the same level of information. We may pass on information as we learn it, but we are not all knowing, and we are not "mouthpieces" who HAVE to have nothing but positive words.
We can get just as frustrated as you guys. Best example is the forum changes. And it gets compounded when we also have to try and be a filter for usable information.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
This is a great idea, and it give the players the opportunity to request that an issue be escalated. sure, maybe the romulans stuck in the floor in First City is just annoying but if suddenly all the KDF players said fix this, there is documentation that the devs did as asked by the players, it will be a lot better for them to say look YOU wanted X fixed so we had to slide Y back a few cycles
Reddit
Welcome to r/STO!
This is the unofficial community subreddit for Star Trek Online, the licensed Star Trek MMO. Share your glorious (or hilarious) in-game adventures through stories and screencaps, ask your game related questions, and organize events with your fellow Captains. This subreddit is not affiliated with Cryptic, Perfect World, Gearbox, or Embracer Group.
so the question begging to be asked is why are the devs spending time on the UNOFFICIAL forum and ignoring the OFFICIAL forum???
Some people have been respectful with the staff, others have been more aggressive, but both methods have garnered the same result and that's a quick return to the status quo. It's easy to just blame the player base for being 'toxic,' but the truth is that the issue is more complex then that. When people feel ignored, they lash out, maybe that's not a proper response but it's one that comes natural for most.
At this point, we have had so many promises for better communication, more accurate updates and press releases, and more willingness to listen.. none of which have ever been realized. The promises don't mean anything anymore and only actions will mean anything at this point. You can expect the player base to be largely negative and to continue to be unhappy until that happens.
Continuing to not listen and then calling players 'toxic' for being upset is counter productive.
Not if they're being PAID to BE a Community Manager. Hell, I work in IT support for a Government agency. I have to put up with a lot of angry pissed off people at times. Do I enjoy that aspect, no; but IT COMES WITH THE JOB.
IMO - A lot of times, Kael's attitude toward his job comes across as if its his hobby. He can't be bothered to pay attention when he's proofreading copy, etc. (And yes, I know he has a condition, but when he's being paid to do something maybe a little extra effort and concentration is warranted?)
I play a number of MMOs and he's a CM who has the most excuses I've ever heard for why he can't do the job duties as required.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
There are a few rare edge cases (usually due to practical game considerations) of course, where using a part of a different nation's uniform can simulate some other agency's or service's uniform from one's own faction better than the regular uniform parts can, but wholesale swapping of uniforms would tend to go against the theme even more than the plethora of different era/parallel/whatever versions of the faction uniforms does now. And the shows have firmly established that exchange officers wear their own nations' uniform, not the ones of the nations they are the guest of.
Another edge case is one where an entire ship and crew are detached and put under the command of an allied service but are still technically supported by their original nation. I have several of those, like a (mostly) Kobali crew and their ship (a Nihydron destroyer so far since that elite phoenix token to get the Samsar remains elusive) assigned to the Federation Starfleet as a token of Alliance solidarity, and a number of Dominion ships and crews (though that is mainly because a canon Dominion setup is impossible in their own faction due to the lack of Vorta in the character generator). While they can be done there are significant problems beyond just the uniforms (in fact in both of those examples the uniforms are already available).
On the other hand, ships have a non-trivial value to a nation which captures them, and there is at least some precedent for putting them to use in the service of the capturing nation in the shows (though except for the Romulans in TOS it was usually done for deception there), and even more if you take into account the fact that the show was originally a projection of the Victorian era tall ship stories into the future since flipping captured ships like that was the norm in those.
Probably the reason it was not seen more often (besides a model budget constraint) was the tendency of the ships to blow up when damaged badly enough to render them unable to fight.
On a slightly lighter note, on a different character I experimented with the Reliant/Miranda kitbash kit and came up with one (another Centaur variant) that was all Centaur except for the new eyeball-pod rollbar that has a sort of buglike alien vibe to it that has some possibilities:
Nothing else really worked that well since the new skin is just too definitively TNG to fit with the rest of the kit (which mostly uses Movie era and some DSC-like cues), especially any attempt to use those highlighter-marker nacelles, though the bussard pattern the DSC materials give (especially the blue and white one), might have made up for that a bit if it sparkled or swirled instead of looking like a static photograph. The new pylons are similarly useless with the rest of the kit except when deliberately trying for a silly overtly-mashup look.