test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Suggestion: more content like Nimbus III
dewolf13
Member Posts: 67 Arc User
As I was going through the Nimbus III content again with a new character, I was struck with how immersive this zone was, inspiring a great feeling of adventure with a nice story arc and cool environment.
It would be grand if some more quest arcs could be laid out in that way on independent/unexplored planets (i.e. not including Bajor, New Romulus, etc.), for other gritty adventures, rather than the usual combat zone format (e.g. Dyson ground battlezone, Defera ground battlezone, etc). Anyone else have a particularly good impression of Nimbus III quests and environment?
And while I'm at it, let me take the opportunity to reiterate how nice it would be to have a way to change BOff outfits on the fly like one can for the player character, as for Nimbus (as an example) I always put my away team into less conspicuous and more desert-appropriate garb for their underworld investigation shenanigans, to blend in with the seedy locals and desert environment. But it always involves traveling to some hub beforehand, and then afterward to change back into service uniforms. Would be super convenient and add more depth to immersion and role-playing (as an RPG...) if that could be done more easily, as one would in reality -- change on the ship before beaming down. Then the tailors can still be useful hubs for creating and managing wardrobes.
As a final aside, why was Nimbus removed from the main episode arcs anyway, as a prelude to the Romulan/Tal Shiar episodes? Seems silly.
It would be grand if some more quest arcs could be laid out in that way on independent/unexplored planets (i.e. not including Bajor, New Romulus, etc.), for other gritty adventures, rather than the usual combat zone format (e.g. Dyson ground battlezone, Defera ground battlezone, etc). Anyone else have a particularly good impression of Nimbus III quests and environment?
And while I'm at it, let me take the opportunity to reiterate how nice it would be to have a way to change BOff outfits on the fly like one can for the player character, as for Nimbus (as an example) I always put my away team into less conspicuous and more desert-appropriate garb for their underworld investigation shenanigans, to blend in with the seedy locals and desert environment. But it always involves traveling to some hub beforehand, and then afterward to change back into service uniforms. Would be super convenient and add more depth to immersion and role-playing (as an RPG...) if that could be done more easily, as one would in reality -- change on the ship before beaming down. Then the tailors can still be useful hubs for creating and managing wardrobes.
As a final aside, why was Nimbus removed from the main episode arcs anyway, as a prelude to the Romulan/Tal Shiar episodes? Seems silly.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I don't really understand that though.
I mean, I get that designing a whole new zone can be more work than making an episode. But I suspect that an adventure or battlezone has a lot higher replay value.
Most of the existing zones are quite a few years old now - yet they're always populated. Even if it's just for the large rewards or to do endeavours. I doubt the same can be said about most episode arcs.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
This needs to be changed.
I had the same issue with the Breen arc, from which I wanted to get the snow grenade for my Andorian toons. It makes no sense to make existing content so hard to find.
Even if they're not put back on the main tab - which by itself is a defendable decision if they prefer to reserve that for newer/other content - then at the very least creating buttons at the actual locations of the missions (like in orbit of Nimbus or Defera itself) would help. Add a contact button so you can just begin the mission when you're in the system itself - we have those for all patrol missions and many other missions.
Or they could just remove all the double stuff from the 'available' tab in the mission journal. That would be a huge improvement too. Right now it's a mess and even if some of the Nimbus and Defera episodes are there, they're really hard to find - because even stuff like the Terran and Discovery arc episodes are in there, even though those have their own arc on the main tab of the journal.
Keep the main tab as it is, but remove everything that's already there from the 'available' tab so that that one only contains the stuff they don't want in the main one.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Personally, I prefer large map open world content, (especially if the AI is set up for flexible emergent behavior like Defiance was before their devs wrecked it by trying to force that game into a simpler, more linear lobby-format), and Nimbus III has enough of the open-map feel without being as gameshow-like as the others (probably the most important, and unfortunately difficult, thing in making a successful battlezone is to make it seem natural for the setting instead of contrived) to be a good change of pace. That might be beyond the capacity of the STO team nowadays with all the personal cuts over the years making them too shorthanded though.
What saves STO from being too stale and static is the way that you can take multiple paths through the mission list along with all the events introducing new stuff along with the older TFOs and patrols. Widening that mission list into even more of a tree by adding some of the better "available" tab stuff (like Spectres along with some of the "pulled for revamp" stuff back into the main mission tab instead of trapping it all behind that endgame-only wall would help a lot with that flexibility too,
Huh. That's actually... Pretty accurate now that I'm thinking of it.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
It would certainly help if they lowered the max number of players in an instance there, so that new, empty instances are opened up faster too.
For zones like the Voth zone, you need a large number of players. On Nimbus, a large number of players is usually the last thing you want.
It would also make more sense, given that the storyline is about lawlessness and all sorts of dangers outside the walls of the city. That general atmosphere becomes much more obvious if there aren't two dozen Starfleet captains running around at the same time, clearing the entire map of all those dangers...
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
The question on investment is whether the total population increased when they added a new zone vs. subdividing a niche, and how much each zone grew in population over its predecessors (presuming more know-how and sophistication would lead to each one getting better). With each new zone you might not have an increase in total engagement but a spreading of an audience with the old, punchier content (ex. Dyson, Nimbus) retaining the bulk of the population.
As is I think experiences with the Groncra space battlezone soured the team on large form, elaborate content as they reached some pretty stern limits about how well the engine's able to cope with those systems (Groncra still doesn't work quite right...). However, adding more content (ex. more attached missions, activities) to existing zones hasn't been discussed and might be the best path forward here. 1. you get to take advantage of emphasizing more big content gameplay to vary cadence and excite players with more than the bare minimum routine each season and 2. you aren't having to build a whole new zone under a severe risk of it never really coming together. Worse case: you scale back if things prove inviable and repurpose the content being built for a patrol or mission. But in the best case it's popcorn content that punches above its weight in integrating with existing content to make the whole zone more appealing. Better than a single patrol simply slotting into a menu list.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
The main issue with Gon'cra is that you can't STOP a recap of a zone by the Tzenkethi like you can in all previous battlezones. It WILL flip even if you're sitting in the zone, which means as soon as the first zone is capped by players, you've started a clock to finish the zone. That means you need pretty much a full instance to complete within the time limit imposed by the forced recap of the first zone. Not only that, even if you do get to the Dreadnaut phase, you STILL have to pull the things out to make them vulnerable, which itself takes time. Without enough players to hit maybe two at once, all doing the mechanic, you might not even have TIME to kill the Dreadnauts.
If they made it so players can stop a recap of a zone it would make Gon'cra line up more with previous zones. But as it stands now... its a race once that first zone is capped.
Gamma Quadrant... is glorified queued patrols in specific highlighted sectors. And its not randomized. You know EXACTLY which one you're going to in each of the sectors, and its repeat until the bar is full.
Adding an episode or two in the time they could have developed an exploration/battle zone is unlikely to add significant numbers to the total population either.
And currently existing players who might have played one episode are unlikely to play two of them just because there is a new one. The new audiences vs spreading existing ones isn't purely a consideration for exploration zones, it applies to all types of content.
So, because that reasoning can be applied to any specific type of content, it doesn't really answer the question when trying to determine between their preferences for one type of content over the other. E.g. why this type of content, and not that one? Why no exploration zones, why only episodes and TFO's?
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Narrative and gameplay designer preferences coupled with what's needed to maintain interest in core content that keeps players engaged. There's two groups (per Ten Forward). 1. infrequent players who only log in for new seasons. This is where episodes come in. 2. regular players who need short, repeatable content to maintain grinding intensively over time. New episodes and TFOs are about upkeep so they form the minimum ground floor of what STO needs to not start bleeding players away. The residual space the team has to work with (which goes into things like patrols) is where they can play with buffing engagement. Way back this had the bandwidth for zones but with the team size reduction, Gron'cra's face-plant, and changes in management there isn't any appetite to create new ones.
Patrols are an attempt to give players more diversity in regular grinding habits but I don't think they're at a point of ever-increasing growth per interest (most commentary I see with STO practically ignores them but for ship leveling and event completion requirements). This is where you can make a strong argument for trying something different, ex. expanding on existing adventure/battle zones (without wholly revamping them, which I think the art team's first reaction would be to engaging with *any* old content which needs to be tapped down as it really, really doesn't fit the team's current bandwidth, strategic needs, or how important graphical fidelity is to a game's popularity these days. See. Halo Infinite vs. Fortnight for example, and the F2P genre isn't seeing successful newcomers with fancier graphics sliding in to elevate STO's expected bar. Most new live services have died or stagnated to obscurity in the last year, Legends was not an anomaly. It's a growing trend.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Gamma's not as bad, travel time is less but it's still getting there, crossing the quadrant 2-3 times to get to where you need to be then waiting for it to spawn.. it's a PITA. and back to Gon'Cra.. for the love of GOD shorten the capture time/requirements for the computer cores. there's what 2-3 stages 4-5 minutes each???
Best way to avoid the long slog back is to keep the last watch-the-recording mission from the reputations on hold instead of turning it in, and it takes you right to DS9 without having to wait for the regular transwarp cooldown.
You can do the same with Drozanna by keeping the talk-to-the-spy mission (I forget the name offhand) on hold, though the station should really be on the regular transwarp list too since seems to be the default "privateer" hangout (and as such, a very popular hangout for Orions).
Nimbus III is the easiest of the bunch to return to like that since it hangs up in the "replay" section of the jobs floater forever so you don't have to leave a mission hanging like the other two, though getting there in the first place is iffy if you are Federation since that bug is still crawling around. Nimbus just does not have much in the way of services though, so it is not a great hangout.
I am not sure why Gamma is even considered a battlezone since it is really just three really annoying to get to TFOs with a capstone TFO if you complete the three regular ones. If they were not set up as quasi-TFOs that add even more thumb-twiddling on top of the time wasted travelling between them, the place would probably be more popular than it is.
I think it was during the Iconian War. Big, game-wide events with boosts (like bonus experience events) decided by the overall participation of the playerbase.
The Gamma Quadrant Battlezone is clearly a close relative of that same system.
Although we've never seen that system return in its original form, the Gamma Quadrant was not the first attempt of meta events that reacted to player actions. And even with the resources available at that time, it was possible to make such a system even bigger than what we have in the GQ now.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
I just did the Kobali Front on console for my Delta Recruit and it's still more annoying than fun with the constant respawning of the troops. I'd much prefer a story episode where you clear an area and it stays cleared.
The bright side was that my overpowered science captain was able to solo the final area mission, which was almost impossible back in the Delta era.
New Romulus was (to me) much better balanced, and the story parts are solo areas with your full team.