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After some thought I think I'm just craving more STO, new STO.
(Flaming, trolling, accusatory comments moderated out. - BMR)
*I do think there's less new content in total- but the new content that does come is the best content so far.
*I miss the old days of each story arc being more involved and new game mechanics being added.
*I also have anxiety that STO wont be around forever- and I want it to be refit to be more attractive to modern/younger gamers.
(Flaming, trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
The rest of my tone and suggestions are probably just death anxiety.
I have sat with this for the better part of a year- maybe more. I wanted to be measured and to give the benefit of the doubt to the STO team.
I have followed and watched all the live-streams with Mike and co'.
I have listened to the "reasons" given for reoccurring requests from the player base being denied, and I do not accept the reasons. They are excuses. And very weak ones at that... (I'll get to this later.)
Star Trek Online is at it's most popular and as Devs and community leaders have both mentioned "It's most successful point since launch."
The Game is now resting on it's laurels and it's going to crash because of it.
A very successful business man once told me that if you work hard, and get very lucky you will hit a "boom" in business. A boom is like a wave of unparalleled success that only happens once, maybe twice in an entire life of a business. If you're smart you will ride the crest and work even harder than you did before, to both gain as well as develop new connections and opportunities during said boom.
~
This latest "Bug hunt event" really was the final straw for me that lead to finally writing this.
The Halloween "event" (another recycled old event with a recycled old prize) nearly got me here but I held back, well I can't hold back anymore.
For the past few years Star Trek Online has cut back on content in every measurable way. Most of the "prizes" are old prizes being billed as "exciting content". It only appeals to the new players as most of us core player-base have seen all of these items (I own most of them) for years now. I imagine this kind of thing has happened in other free MMORPG's before but I am not a gamer and STO is my fav' game so I don't know what, if any, term would be used to describe the cheap tactics being used on the loyal core player base for STO.
And it IS a cheap tactic being used on us.
I have spent probably thousands of dollars over 12 years to attain all legacy content in STO. I have supported this game with suggestions and my continued logins. I bring new players to the game every chance I get, and gift cool lock box items to new players to inspire them with both generosity and how fun some of the unique weapons and ships can be. I really want to see this game live on. There's no reason it can't given the revival of Star Trek.
Here is what is being done wrong:
- Almost no new content.
- New Story Arcs that are short with it's episodes spaced out months apart. And less than a new story per YEAR.
- Ships that are ugly and nobody wants.
- No new weapons or costumes.
- Insulting the fans and core player-base by billing us with "exciting new events/content" while regurgitating half a decade old missions that have been *slightly* redressed.
-The new Picard season 2 Uniforms and Phasers and Bridge interior should have been implemented by now. (I hesitate on this criticism because obviously they are coming to the game. They are so epic they can't be overlooked. But give us a REASON why they aren't in the game already, not an excuse. Pretend you're a fan and that you want the same things we do, and explain to us why we don't have them- use what Pike called "Radical Empathy.")
****
- (Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
****
- Implementing everything in lockbox gambling systems and "prize packs" (Flaming/trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
Here is what should be done right according to a dedicated player:
- Hire new developers/expand your team, (Flaming comments moderated out. - BMR). I realize you're making bigger money, that's why you can hire bigger names like Wil Wheaton... (Flaming, trolling comments moderated out. - BMR) You should invest some money back into the content generation so that the game continues to grow.
- When Playerbase KEEPS asking for unique bridge's and to make ship interiors useful - DO IT!!!!!!!!! (Flaming, trolling comments moderated out. - BMR). MAKE SHIP INTERIORS USEFUL AND GIVE US NEW BRIDGE PACKS PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF!!!! We can buy them. We can compete for them. The ships in star trek, including their interiors are a core aspect of trek. The ship was ALWAYS a character in the show- no different than any cast member. It was the future we all wished we could live in now. I want my ship interior to be as useful, if not more so than Earth Space Dock, or DS9. I want it to be a social hub. Maybe a fleet admiral's ship would be the interior all fleet members could come to. That's just a small idea. Get a think tank on it. ASK THE CORE PLAYER-BASE FOR SUGGESTIONS. Fleet members get their own private quarters on their fleet admiral's ship that can be decorated. I mean come on guys... It's STAR TREK. The ship is the most important thing!
- New Weapons with different weapons FX every month or two. Maybe even a re-working of the combat system to include a more First Person Shooter Style. (this is hard to do at this stage of the game, DO IT. Most difficult things are worth the work. This re-engineering of ground combat is necessary for STO to survive. Lets have ground combat at least rival Fortnite. There's no reason not to. Put MONEY into it.)
- Bring back exploratory space, but this time don't have 3 "randomly generated procedures." Let players build ground starbases with pre-fabricated structures and orbital weapons platforms. Let it be possible for your starbase to be taken over, and the purpose of deep space exploration be for mining a new game resource. Real Player vs Player Sector wars can begin to break out in "deep space." Only Admirals can attain the ability to venture beyond the frontiers into unknown space and set up colonies.
-Space weather, ion storms, supernovae (this can be a once per year game event where a star in unknown space is about to go nova and all player bases will be destroyed in that sector- evacuations and raids an be held) Real Nebulae with real effects on the ship if you try to fly through it. Etc...
- Bring back old missions that you have locked away. I realize you have problems with the old missions being compatible or looking as good as new content, but give a side quest tree with all the original game content.
- Finally, NEW story Arc's both A-plot and B-plot, aim for 4 stories per year. Quarterly. 2 Main stories (each containing up to 3 episodes) with a major theme and bigger actors. And 2 Side-stories (also containing 3 episodes) with no-name actors and characters. Is it a lot of work? -Yes, it is. So to quote Captain Jeilico: "Get it Done."
(Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR). At the end of the day you've only been producing the occasional new Ship Model and 3 episodes per year for the past while. I could let it slide with the Pandemic (but then again in a sense the pandemic made this game MORE popular so it really should be the opposite) But now it's time to get back to work guys.
Let this game Live Long & Prosper!
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
The new Red/Blue Shift and V'Ger arc is among my absolute favourite. It's truly excellent work.
I think it's strange and unfortunate that the game slowed down, when it should be pumping out more around these amazing stories. We should have had the new ship interiors almost at launch of the Red Shift missions.
We should have new Terran Weapons that are sadistic, not some 6 year old rifle that fires a standard federation orange beam... I mean come on....
The introduction of the Nexus Mission with Laforge and the accurate Galaxy class and Phaser Rifle from TNG were awesome. That's the kind of thing we should be seeing 3 to 4 times per year.
4 Story Arcs, each containing 3 episodes gives us One Episode for every Month of the Year.
Hire whoever you need to and "Get It Done."
The game will grow if ground combat is a Fortnite dressed as Star Trek. Player vs Player ground combat zones could emerge and become amazing end-game fun zones.
Useful Ship Interiors that act as chat rooms (with both voice and text) for large swaths of friends to spend entire evenings "chilling" as well as new in game friends to "meet" and socialize would completely transform this game.
That's called an addiction.
Depends who & why. 12 years is a long time, and I make good money. I play very casually too. I throw money at the game because I support it. I don't play other games. I probably spend less than an average gamer over a decade, except I put it all into Star Trek Online... That was intentional. Your comment adds absolutely nothing to this conversation. You're trying to attack me to somehow dismiss my ideas. Not gonna work kiddo.
Also, reading your history of comments you're quite negative and snarky. I do notice you want to point out the problems in the most concise way possible. Sometimes brevity is too lacking... I think ultimately you and I are on the same "team."
I realize I have used the word snark a few times now... I also realize my original post has snark in it. I am responding somewhat emotionally to the fact that I feel abused as a part of the core playerbase.
I realize also CBS has a leash on Star Trek Online and treats it like an fan fiction that has to "rent the license."
Our team has to deal with a lot of restrictions. I don't count those restrictions as "excuses." Those would be reasons...
CBS is foolish for not funding Star Trek Online to act as a branch for advertising. At the very least STO should have access to freely use the license for star trek and in turn any models and content CBS likes can take for free and make it canon.
The STO team needs to get better representatives to negotiate with CBS properly. You don't charge your star athlete rent. You PUT THEM UP. You help them. CBS is NOT helping Star Trek Online.
That I'll say in defence of our team.
And lets get some negotiations open to get that dynamic changed so the game engine can be refit to at least match Fortnite in ground combat and something like more massive multiplayer open space combat in the stars.
We NEED A BETTER MUSICAL COMPOSER FOR THE GAME. STAR TREK IS A SPACE OPERA.
The music is abysmal these days.
Ground Combat isn't that hard to learn but it does need to be interjected a lot better than it currently is. To some people they don't touch Ground Combat in general because they think you need a whole college course to understand it when in reality it needs to be re-taught to understand. It needs to be fixed. there needs to be hardpoints like Headshot, Legshot, Armshot Etc. there should also be No-Power Ground Melee zones like what was planned back in 2011.
In 2022 the only Episodes[Story Missions] that we got are Red Shift, Blue Shift, The Calling and Eye Of The Storm. and Cryptic Studios as well as MFatum know damn well I want to see all the locked missions that are old and from launch brought back. Especially Past Imperfect because it has loot Federation Characters don't have access to and have not had access to since it was put behind a lock.
The Event Campaigns are nice. 3 and 4 have been probably my favorite thus far and they are nice for ongoing things. As for ships in the C-Store with a lot of attention going back on the Mirror Universe I thought it would have been a good time to bring back Miles 'Smiley' O'Brien's son in his Typhoon Class missions as well. I don't mind the new ships with new consoles and new skins. that's all nice and dandy. they also used to come into the C-Store a lot more pre-pandemic as well.
Re-Engineering was something that was added about 2-3 years ago. it costs 400 Dil for one spin and goes up with however many things you want to spin. Warp Cores, Kit Frames and a bunch of other things are UNABLE to be Re-Engineered. That would help a lot of the repeatability of the game. People will come back to re-engineer old items. frames and whatnot. this should have been implemented back when Re-Engineering was Introduced.
I have tried to get my points accross without using useless buzzwords or stuff like that. I hope I have done well. I know what I say doesn't really get attention anymore. there are like 5 Endgame Connies in the game. that was really what I was known for back when I was hella active in the forum.
Peace Out.
/B-Money
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This is not true.
Older things are only added to the (ridiculously expensive) Mudd store - and in some cases, the Phoenix store. Event prizes are always new.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
I do somewhat agree with this. Most new content isn't that unique. See for example: Defense of Starbase One (literally a part of an featured episode) or some of the patrols (also pieces from episodes).
However, the problem here is the same it has always been: content takes a long time to produce, and little time to fly/run through. This will likely never change as it's simply a fact that every game maker has to deal with.
My preferred solution is therefore that they increase the replay value of content, by making slight alterations. Different mechanisms in the same mission, different environments and settings for (mechanically) the same mission and so on. Some things you suggest, like adding nebulae with effects, could be an interesting way of doing this - like we had in the Crystalline event missions long ago.
This is highly subjective. Some people have been asking for the Norway and a T6 Nova for a long time for instance, I'm sure they would disagree with this claim.
This is limitedly true - new uniforms have been added, just not as many as back when we still also got them through reputations and so on.
Personally, I don't see the added value as much in adding even more costumes or weapon types since, at some point, acquiring yet another set simply renders something you already owned more or less obsolete. There's a big reduction in marginal value here, which is also true for ships to some extent (at least those can come with unique consoles or new mechanisms).
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
This is easier said than done. I'm sure they would have done this already if they could and are continuously looking at what is possible.
Problem here is: it's not worth it - and to make it worthwhile, you need to add entirely new gameplay features. Cause even mini-games like darts only keep the playerbase entertained for so long. Adding features to interiors that are actually worth the investments likely means investing a lot of resources. Resources that could also be directed to developing existing features more - or some of the other ideas you present.
New weapons? Why? There are already more than most players ever get around to using. We need more actual content or content with higher replay value, that I agree with. More different types of FX or effects are, in my opinion, the things we need least.
A ground combat overhaul is much needed indeed. It needs to be less clumsy (especially melee). Shield-ignoring stuff needs to be an exception, cause right now shields might as well not exist anymore. Lastly: reduce the number of drones/escorts/turrets that can be active at once and tweak their effects.
Most maps (especially the smaller 'hold this area' ones like Operation Wolf) simply aren't built for dozens of drones, armies of escorts or turrets that kill everything in all directions at once. There's too much stuff that's killing enemies by itself, rendering players almost superfluous to the point half of them might as well go AFK without it making much of a difference.
This would be nice to have. But again, how realistic is it to expect such entirely new features to be developed - and how much is this worth it, considering what else could be done with those resources?
This I fully agree with. Such features could also be used to bring variety into existing maps, increasing their replay value as I've hinted at above.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
It may be good to remember that most of the 'core playerbase' you mention simply isn't around anymore.
Just look at these Forums to get a basic idea of what I'm getting at. Most older players have simply left. Many new players have taken their places. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from my own fleet, PUGs and forum activity.
For those newer players, who seem to be a much larger part of the playerbase than before, there's plenty of stuff to do. They don't need all sorts of new features, or radical changes to the game.
I've been playing almost on a daily basis for the last 10 years or so too - and you've got to remember that over such a long period of time, it's not surprising that you get bored, disappointed or experience similar feelings. Things can't stay as awesome as they were on the first day you logged on.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
We get new weapons pretty much every themed lockbox, and ALL previous kinds (other than immediate previous lockbox) are in the Infinity Lockbox. So there is no need to make new ones EVERY MONTH. It takes development time away from other things besides the fact that we already get new weapons on a pretty regular basis.
First of all... this isn't EVE or Elite Dangerous.
Second, That would be a MAJOR system.
Third, the majority of the STO playerbase seems to lean PvE and casual. This feels more like forcing PvP on the playerbase, and we've already seen how the last attempt at helping the PvP side went when Competitive Rep pretty much flopped.
Again... this isn't Elite Dangerous or EVE. STO doesn't have the manpower, funding, or potentially even the CAPABILITY within the game engine for something that significant. They've done amazing things with a game engine not designed for space combat, but it does have its limits.
I think Fleetcaptain5 was referring to the fact that a lot of the new prizes are actually very similar to some of the older ones on a system level even though the special effects and backstory are different, and they tend to be tweeked differently. Personally, I think of that as a good thing because a lot of those old consoles are either hideously expensive or completely unavailable nowadays (and in some cases even add passives to some that used to be clicky-only), but I can see how it might annoy some of the oldtimers who already have the originals.
As for ground combat, the ranged stuff is not too bad from an MMORPG standpoint, and that is the kind of game it is supposed to be. Melee needs serious work, but they proved with J'Ula's mek'leths (and before that the furadon fangs) that they can make it more dynamic and fun than the old stand still and wave a blade around stuff they used to have, they really need to keep that up (unfortunately they fell flat with Aakar's set since it returned to the old static melee style) and convert the current weapons to a more dynamic style as time allows.
And, of course, they really should reduce the size of the ranged weapons to something more realistic. Ridiculously oversized weapons is a holdover from PvP where it is done to make identifying what an opponent is going to shoot at you easier, but PvP is not very popular and lugging around a gun the size of a bass fiddle seriously detracts from the real endgame content, namely space Barbie.
And they already have a choice between MMO style and FPS style combat, though the SFX spam makes using the FPS option very iffy since you often cannot see what you are shooting at.
Trying to imitate a Battle Royal game like Fortnight for ground combat is the last thing STO should be trying, it is not a BR game, it is an MMORPG. And the combat in Fortnight is nothing at all like combat in the shows so it would not add any more Trek feel to the game than the current system does (and actually less in fact).
They would be better off adding something like the adaptive, seamless melee/HtH combat from BDO to the mix (J'Ula's set is a step in that direction already), especially if they add a "disarm" mechanic to force hand-to-hand at times just like the shows do, though it might be difficult to force the NPC AIs into HtH that way.
The often-heard small dev team thing is probably not "an excuse", I worked for a software house before (business, not game) so I know how slow things can go without enough people to do them and the tendency for companies to downsize the teams too far. And I know just how much work refactoring code can be (even with a reasonable number of people) and how much seemingly simple fixes/changes can be so entwined with other parts of the system that it ends up with a sizable backlog of things to do before that fix/change can be done.
And yes, they probably do need more people, but not just added willy-nilly. A year two ago they showed how the environment building was done in STO and it is stone-knives-and-bearskins ancient. The best bang-for-the-buck would be to update their toolset to enable them to work more quickly and efficiently.
The problem with that kind of thing of course is that it is not a directly visible to the players improvement, so like any other infrastructure thing getting funding for it is almost always a major struggle and Gearbox may not want to do something that only indirectly helps (and in the long run at that).
I think interiors have fallen victim to erroneous statistic interpretations. Yes, they never sold well, but that is likely do to a lot more factors than just the overly simplistic "people do not want them" answer that the devs usually give. For instance, confusion is a major part from I have been able to gather from chats and from threads in this forum and Reddit, people are not sure that the expensive interior they are looking at (which costs at least as much as a T5 ship in the c-store) will even work with the ship they want it for.
Most TOS fans I have talked to would use the TOS interior for most or all of their ships if they were sure it could be done, especially if it had a few extras like regular bank and EC exchange access in addition to the account bank. Even better would be the ability to use any bridge the player has access to in any ship (but that would be a lot of typing of entries for every single ship since that is another one of the older-than-dirt manual systems the devs have to contend with, from what was shown three or four years ago in a Ten Forward).
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I have not been playing fortnite a lot. I have played a total of like 3 hours in the last 2 months. And hadn't touched it for a year prior.
The reason I bring Fortnite up as an example isn't specifically for Battle Royal PvP, it's because it's a simple enough FPS style, with regular updates and new weapons and a single map instance. No more auto target, make shooting at targets real and have some stakes!
A capture the flag style or "capture the base" style game, as well as other types of games with a totally new FPS engine would breathe a lot of life in to STO.
Virtually every new player I bring to the game complains about ground combat.
Everyone gave great feedback here. The only problem is people are letting the excuses peddled in the past limit their vision.
I have heard the Dev's on livestreams say that "it is not impossible to re-tool/rebuild ground combat, and even space mechanics but it would be a massive undertaking and it's just not something we are going to do right now." > Verbatim.
That is an excuse...
The game is now just pumping out repeat content with no new mechanics or features and a lot of recycled redressed stuff.
With Star Trek about to cause some real sparks with Picard Season 3, we have the opportunity to finally breathe New Life in to Star Trek Online.
Someone from STO has to convince CBS/Paramount that it would be in their best interest to not charge Gearbox/STO for a license fee, but instead allow STO to be a branch for creativity and advertising. Give Star Trek Online some funding to expand the team and get new Tools and rebuild the game engine.
The reason PvP flopped when they introduced it before was because it was too limited and small. It lacked a certain epic quality.
If Deep Space Exploration were properly implemented with Systems that could be "taken" by a minimum of 5 players in a team (you start by setting up defence satellites and orbital facilities) - which then unlocks the ability to beam to the planets surface where it is a Fortnite style map and you can construct a ground base and mine new in game resources- this would add a new dimension to the game.
Members of other factions such as the Klingons, or Romulan characters or Dominion/Cardassians can raid, infiltrate or annex your system and up to 40 players (20 per team) could have epic battles for systems. Some systems being less resource rich than others- while the best resource rich systems being scattered randomly around deep space would turn Deep Space Exploration in to a game of it's own for end game users. That's where space anomalies such as nebula that are actually hazardous, Subspace vacuules (that swallow your ship and take you somewhere far away, but that also have unique goodies inside for you to salvage) and the twice per year supernova that resets all systems (destroying all player bases) happen.
Is it difficult? Yeah probably it is. Is it necessary? Yes if the game wants to expand and survive. Just making tiny alterations to how your melee attacks work wont satisfy star trek fans. Trek fans want cool energy weapons! I still want an accurate First Contact/Voyager dolphin phaser. *Props to who said hand weapons should not be cartoonishly big.
The dev's aren't going to like the ire in my post. I DO acknowledge what has been done right, and improved upon.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the game's age is showing and it's not necessary, Star Trek Online should maintain it's position as the best most popular trek game. To do so we need the team to stop thinking that things are perfect just because the game is busy... You are very lucky to have new players flooding in, now don't waste that luck PLEASE and just start expanding the game.
The Original concept for STO was to be something more like Pulsar: Lost Colony but PVP & PVE. Where you actually control a real starship from inside, using the consoles with friends and crew to man the stations. In Pulsar you can actually go to engineering or the transporter room and board enemy ships mid battle to disable them/fight their crew. Pulsar is older than Star Trek Online and developed by an indie team...
I didn't dare suggest the starships be "real ships with real interiors" that could be crewed by several players at once... But heck that would be a good idea. To actually strive to make Star Trek Online into it's original mission/intent. That would potentially give this game a 20 year life cycle.
But hey, it's up to the STO team to decide if they want to keep making money or see this game fizzle in three years.
I hope something of our discussions here make it through.
I apologize for my tone Baddmoon, I am just disappointed that content has slowed and we are given recycled/redressed things save for the occasional 3 episodes per year(ish). The game is at it's most popular, it should be more expansive not less.
And no, STO isn't about to die. Any more than it has been every time anyone else has said it is, starting with closed beta.
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Well, Perkins did say "But hey, it's up to the STO team to decide if they want to keep making money or see this game fizzle in three years."
Sorry @captainperkins, we've heard this said countless times before.
Why should Cryptic cater to the increased toxicity that FORCED PvP has brought to every PvP-centric game ever made!? STO is about co-operation, not about players having an excuse to be absolute power-crazed twits to each other. This game has survived over a decade without the need to go trash and perma-kill someone elses hard-earned stuff. The call for PvP in STO is so small that it really is not worth considering anymore, and you also want Cryptic to pump out an inordinate amount of new content on top of it all?? Maybe if someone donated $200 million+ to Cryptic, it might even be achievable....but most folk still won't even touch PvP because of it's inherent nature of it being a toxic cauldron of epeen, greed and hate, even if it's segregated in 'deep space'.
MMOs in general have adapted to the new mix by doing things like limiting or eliminating open-world PvP and other things, which has allowed the industry in general to grow by leaps and bounds. Further draining MMORPGs particularly of those oldschool players are the other-format MMO games that still cater mainly to them, mostly battle royale, survival, and economic games (Eve, though mainly economic empire building, is an innovative mix of the latter two).
The MMOs that continue to have the open-world, non-consenting PvP are increasingly plagued by gankers who do not like the survival, crafting/gathering, or pure combat of the games above and just want to troll other players, and that sours PvP for a lot of players in general, who then tend to eventually migrate to games like STO.
The result is that story-driven MMORPGs like STO have to mainly focus on the casuals to survive because the PvP players remaining in them, while tending to be bigger spenders, are usually too small a group to support the game on their own so the companies cast their nets wider to survive. And yes, if you are mainly looking at PvP activity it may seem like MMORPGs are dying, but that is definitely not the case, and STO specifically does not seem to be losing its staying power.
As for the ground combat system, the problem is not the results (that part is right on for most of the story content) it is the feel, and revamping the animations to be more dynamic and interactive along with small fixes like adding the proper closers would make a huge difference in that feel. They don't have to scrap the entire combat system and start over.
Something that could help propel the game to new heights would be to add more emergence to the game by way of adding small optional dynamic sidequests to already existing missions/maps that change depending on choices and goals in the mission (and possibly beyond if also tied in with another system like Accolades and whatnot).
Some games have even experimented with building a profile (somewhat similar to a Meyers-Briggs string) for the characters using responses to things in the scenarios and whatnot and gotten good results. A similar thing is how Bethesda did that in the older disc-based Elder Scrolls games for character generation if you used the optional question-driven method to suggest a character class that is most likely to be compatible with the player's playstyle and what they were looking for in a particular character.
Even limited emergent systems tend to make games feel more alive and dynamic if done right.
There is a (unfortunately static) start to that kind of thing with the patrols, but it could be expanded upon with new tie-in systems to make it more dynamic and interactive for a lot less expense in time, effort, and funding than making something from scratch like an EVE-esque exploration system. And something like that is incremental so the longer it goes on the more varied and richer it gets with minimal resource expenditure.
Still, the most impactful change they could do is not to the game code itself, but rather a modernization of the dev tools (which can itself be an incremental thing, so it is easier on the budget). Most successful small-dev-team games nowadays seem to be those which have the most modern tools for efficient content production and management, so it is something the team should consider for the Cryptic engine, especially since those tools could benefit three games using variants of the engine and not just STO.
You enjoy PVP and your fun is not wrong, but this is the wrong game to attempt to cram it into. (Don't bother bringing up quotes from 2002 about how STO will have PVP. Cryptic tried it, we rejected it.)
Also, you hand-wave away as "excuses" the fact that Cryptic has limited resources to put into the game, but that is reality. STO does not have the income of Final Fantasy IV, and adding more PVP or bringing back the Third Borg Dynasty will not change that.
What I'd like to see is optional stuff like cosmetics put on hold for a while to enable an increased focus on adding more raid-like content.
And what are character or ship artists supposed to do then? Sit on their hands?
This is why I don't agree with anyone saying to put a stop to one element to focus on another. You have staff who are dedicated to that element that people want put on hold, which means they don't do anything. Its like when people call for a full stop on anything but bug fixing. What is an Environmental Artist supposed to do? They don't do code, they do Environments. Asking an Environmental Artist to do bug squishing in the code is like asking a Dentist to perform open heart surgery. Medical professional yes, but wrong specialization.
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And more importantly the artist might not even know how to code, they work with 3DsMax(sic) a 3D modelling program with a visual UI, you don't need to know how to code to use that.
And the thing is that you'll still to pay the salaries of the artists who now aren't doing anything, either that or fire them and if you fire the artist, good luck rehiring the artist when you need them.
I sincerely hope that the only Star Trek MMO in town gets the attention it deserves.
Best of luck to you and also fond memories of being in the same fleet for a while back in the day.
Swarms of us noobs could attack your ship without any result. It was fun and those were the days.
I thought the game was going to grow with us but perhaps that was naïve.
LLAP
There's more than half of the uniforms/costumes that need updating and need to be fixed from clipping with other costume parts and characters. There is easily enough work there to keep them busy for years to come.
Except that ignoring any part of the game to focus solely on bugfixing or some other special interest means losing momentum in the game overall, which is not a good thing. And in STO a raid is a TFO, they seem more inclined to make more of those than anything else nowadays (or at least it feels that way anyway) so they are geared for that already (albeit with stone-age dev tools).
And I should point out that Environmental Artists are not Character Artists. Different skillset.