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Taken by surprise (new episode) discussion
fleetcaptain5
Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
1. The Borg are pretty annoying now on the ground. I haven't checked the older ground missions yet, but I hope they weren't changed too. Meleeing them is almost impossible now that they
tend to explode and some targets need to be shot first - such enemies tend to put melee'ers at a disadvantage.
2. Although I feared
she wouldn't make it, I'm glad Kummaarke survived.
3. I was surprised by our new ally. Positively surprised.
At first I thought they'd be mirror Tholians, or some species related to the Borg, given the geometrical shape of their ship. Then, when seeing its legs, I thought of mirror Iconians perhaps. It was great to see the heavenly creature and the introduction of a new, Cryptic-designed (right? or are they from some other source?) species. I look forward to seeing more of them, their introduction was really captivating, almost on the same level as when we first saw M'Tara. But this new species is of course, so far, much friendlier. It's nice to see some new species - especially from the mirror universe - that aren't out to destroy us.
Their design also made first contact like how first contact should be. Instead of a human with pointy ears or some antennae, you really got the impression that it's an actual alien species. That's not easy to pull off anymore after +50 years of Trek with all its diversity in alien species, so well done!
Their design also made first contact like how first contact should be. Instead of a human with pointy ears or some antennae, you really got the impression that it's an actual alien species. That's not easy to pull off anymore after +50 years of Trek with all its diversity in alien species, so well done!
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
As for the new Borg
(As somebody who doesn't really like melee gameplay in SciFi, I cannot comment on your observation, but I can see how especially the nodes might be annoying)
The ships hit harder and soak up more damage/actually seem to regenerate (which would be cool) and gave me my first ship injury in quite some time, however it feels more like a numbers game.
Episode gameplay
The "align conduits puzzle" was a bit slow as well IMO, the final ground boss was nice but the mechanics were meh.
Space was space, though in the final battle the second cube staying just outside of firing range and waiting until his buddy melted was a bit off, though par for STO course.
The "new ally", as you call them
I am curious as to how they will develop. It would be nice to just meet someone friendly, last time were the Lukari, before that the Deferi, so Cryptic creations have a bit of a track record, however, the entrance was a bit too powerful to not make them possible enemies later on. And a twist would not be unheard of.
Also, I see a lock box ship on the horizon which might just give the Vonph a run for the title of "most unwieldy ship" ...
All in all I found the story well crafted but in places trying too hard and not too original. The gameplay, especially the ground part, especially especially the Jeffreys part, felt a bit drawn out.
On the plus side, at least for me in the first playthrough, it wasn't just "see how many abilities you can push out before everything melts down" but a bit tougher, though not the strategic paradigm change I guess.
Possibly a 7 or 7.5 out of ten? Replay value may diminish though for the more lengthy parts. Still better than "stand here and shoot for five minutes and it doesn't matter if you hit, just wait for the timer three times" as in Home ...
The forced slow down in the Jeffrey Tubes was annoying as was the fact that a certain character was not assimilated by some random act of Q. I blame this divergent quantum signature OR his counterpart was assimilated already.
Well, that one actually is easy from a security perspective - if somebody somehow gets a hold of a password (for example because people are saying it loud and clear ...), they cannot open everything with it.
Also, somebody had to let their inner nerd loose - first password was digits of pi, second was digits of Euler's number, didn't recognize the later two. (Though, do not do this in real life ...)
The white shoulders seem to mark ship CO position not command branch (Quinn doesn't have them despite being very much in command branch as the head of Starfleet operations or what ever his position was), so the red stripe is correct for him.
EDIT:Command branch is more then just ship COs (and possibly XOs), most of admiralty is on it (only admirals with special tasks like head of Starfleet medical or head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers wouldn't be on it). You also go junior command branch officers or enlisted personal that work in tasks related to command even if they don't personally hold a command.
For the rest, spoiler territory (though if you haven't played the new episode and clicked on a forum discussion of the new episode...the consequences are on you)
Overall I felt this episode needed another heavy pass. There's some major things like Kim accompanying us in the Jeffries tubes that defused a lot of potential tension. That tension also wasn't executed on in any meaningful way but for an scripted bit with an obvious outcome (eg. there was no combat, a key element in survival horror tropes the bit is playing to used to break tension with excited gameplay for extra effect). Protracted and needless was the effect instead. The allies at the end of the mission immediately put also me in mind of Mass Effect and in particular what always left me feeling cold about a couple prominent species. The name too is almost a parody of that style of alien, doing anything to subvert expectations would have payed huge dividends here.
I had high hopes for this arc but so far it's leaning towards the least interesting possible projection of the last episode from the Terran arc, plus a new Lukari-type species to play multiversal nanny to the player character (we don't seem to be given any latitude these days for self-directed action in plot or mechanics.) Rather than the players own misadventures in time/space creating multiversal problems, we just have a big bad doing bad things again and an expanding cast of senpais to notice us as we push more buttons and clear out more rooms for them. A simple point to make is that you can have an NPC tell the player what to do through a conversation reaching consensus between them rather than just being told what to do. Better yet, you can have the player come with an idea from time to time and relay that to your NPC's for directing them. In writing the player well, for a game like STO, you need push-pull to build an impression of genuine human reactions (which builds the bedrock of emotional connectivity that comes from having NPC's in the first place, and cameos especially). You don't even need the NPC involved at all on occasion. See giant plasma jet? Fix plasma jet. Don't? Enjoy death as you walk into it, now pay attention to your environment and problem solve.
None of that's here.
We can't have a moment of reflection on the player character (ex. FED facing the Borg again, watching another captain's home be torn apart with the underlying question of how would we deal with that), but Cryptic felt Bright Eyes needed a few lines of ancillary combat dialog in defense of Starbase 1. Did it move the world, character, or our relationship to them in any way? Nope. He's just there. That's broadly how this episode came together. A bunch of things are just there and their connectivity comes about through circumstance with no specific purpose in mind but to just have these things be there. Lukari tech on Kim's ship? No freaking idea from the episode, just there so Kumarkee can also be there in one scene with something nominally to do. Kim losing crew? Just there, providing grim-dark scifi atmosphere without doing a thing to reflect on his character, your relationship to his character (after everything we've done), or even the ability to express sympathy for the man. The inclusion of this character went no where beyond forced tragedy, stylized for the moment and given zero gravity after (we gun down his crew without comment or an attempt to save them, despite damn well having the tactical capability to). It comes off as exploitive character tragedy, leveraged for the moment only. Are the Borg connected to the Na'kuhl portal? Nope, they're just doing things because they can. And now that's apparently the big threat, following another multiversal invader with a much more organic, directed, connective, and interesting reason for being here.
These are all just references or allusions, I don't get the sense from any of this assemblage that there's a big story that I should feel involved with (especially in how Cryptic is writing for the player these days, removing all self-direction). It's leaving me feeling fairly disconnected from STO and uninterested to see where this goes. Multiverse at stake? C'Qer-Wesley posed the same level of threat if you thought about it for two seconds, which created compelling context for stopping it despite a more immediate focus. No one had to spell out the big picture, because it was intuitive and fit given characterizations and lore. Flatly asserting the Borg Kingom could spell the end of everything should absolutely have been a red flag that another go was needed on the episode and arc's plotting. Being that blunt should NOT have been needed if the first order story telling job was done well, and marks a vacuum of intervening stakes between our immediate survival and the fate of every universe. Something else, operating at a smaller scale, should have been involved in your plot prior, providing rational motivation for action across your narrative, should have been tripped before you got to the furthest reaches of infinity and said, "Yeah you got to save all of that." (which is a drama free scenario minus the option to summon an Age of Dark, a la Dark Souls)
The intro blogs for last season were a lot more compelling than the content that followed. I hope Cryptic can recover but this feels a lot like a story stalling out, pulling it's punches for the sake of fanservice (see. heavy First Contact allusions here at the expense of direly needed narrative time. Easy production note: cut it, critical needs aren't being met elsewhere in telling this story), and broadly falling to its most comfortable habits.
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!
Couldnt agree more, although barring that I think the new borg interiors & everything else was really tribbling good. The designs/graphics were crisp & was all a lot moodier.
That tube scene though really lets it down, its totally counter productive to trying to build a tense scene when everything moves at that snails (gated) pace.
Time padded poking of a panel while nothing else happens to try and build the tension when we already know it's going to fail at the last minute.
We get a map of the borg cube, grey fuzz and therefore pretty useless, yet somehow on a ship we should know the map for are met with static while in the tubes.
Crewman dangling for far too long while harry kim is waddling slowly which removes any sense of drama from their death. We're given a name but since this is the only interaction we have with them it's meaningless, could at least have had them be in the cutscene where harry declares that some of the borg were on his crew. Cutscene with harry filling his breeches is also drawn out far too much, we enter the door to see folk in danger we'd be opening fire and not chilling in the doorway while captain brown trousers demonstrates how he got his nickname.
Way too many bridges to raise and lower in addition to the plumbing puzzle and the boss fight at the end is a rehash of shielded boss, deal with the macguffins, pewpew, repeat.
1. physical weapons are pretty much useless (Tommy guns and shotguns)
2. the answer was not to make the drone 1 million plus HP. seriously, a phaser cannon full charge mode 2 wipes almost everything else but it does maybe 1/4 damage to a tactical drone?
3. When they adapt switching to the backup weapon doesn't do anything?
4. they combined the instant re-modulation for the omega set and the normal re-modulation icon? I LIKED having them separate. I used the slow method and reserve the instant as a oh, TRIBBLE button.
I HATE the super slow motion crawl through the jefferies tube. and the devs admitted on the twitch stream is was so "we could appreciate all the cool looks" supposedly the BOFFS went a different direction, but the pets sure didn't. the tubes were stuffed full of the targs and elachi walker. PLEASE get rid of the slow down, if we want to check out the cool labels and textures, we will do it on our own.
finally, get rid of the one shot no warning antiproton blast that vapes Intrepids through full shields
And for all that time spent we could have had moments of dialog with the characters, dealing with events rather than using their cinematic trauma for spectacle. I was hopeful about Kim's return but the entire plot just brings up the question why this wasn't on Starbase One. We're there, defending it, yet the defense pivots to one ship in the fleet we could have evacuated or de-Borged with transporters across the vast array of ships and the starbase we had on hand. For what? To kill Kim's crew and give general suggestions this is affecting his character (with no work done after to pay off any of that, whiplash to DS9 for exposition at the highest scale.) Oh and we have to damsel Kumarkee, so we can put the focus on saving someone who isn't connected with the plot so we can gun down Kim's crew for funsies.
Remember the Caitian? That's who should have been on the table, or any member of Kim's crew, providing compelling, connective story points that can satisfy the immediate needs of the episode while laying groundwork for future drama. Kumarkee being the one was a bad idea riffing off protomatter as a grand, abstract stake (again) undermining any attempt made to make this a more personal, grounded story players could relate to. See also the Aetherian's spiel at the end, which was also protracted to showcase why the tailor didn't get any bug fixes this season.
Why did any of this happen? Because reasons. So much narrative connective tissue was left undeveloped for the sake of playing out a rote Borg encounter we've seen rehashed for decades across media and the worst tropes STO has on offer. Isn't this panning shot cool? Doesn't it give you the thrill of the movies? Aren't you excited to save literally everything that exists and will ever exist? Not when a major NPC, who've we've invested a lot of time with prior, just underwent a horrible situation with zero functional gravity. This is a point for a video game sabotaging its own story telling format, and reducing its own characters, to uncritically ape other media. There are things a creative work can say in reflection to First Contact that isn't just making a reference. Don't take the Into Darkness approach to worldbuilding, character development, and pacing.
Basically STO needs a heavier focus on its own narrative mechanics. This episode was a mess.
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!
I actually thought I might have saved those crewmen behind the forcefield, if it weren't for Harry arriving too late.
And yes, it was weird to see the crewman just hanging there in the floor. Almost as if he wanted to be grabbed by the Borg.
Aside from that, we do see him later. He's one of the crewmen that attack you in the final fight on the ground.
Multiverse! I don't know ... apparently we needed to end a universal threat only to deal with a multi-universal threat? The Mirror Borg pop just slightly slower than the normal Borg. They don't really come across as a ultimate evil type of bad guy.
I sort of wish that crossover between STO and the other sci-fi franchise went ahead. I'd welcome the Daleks invading STO like they did to Eve Online.
It had been such a long time since the first episode I'd already forgotten that the tholians had been given twee sounding names or why they're friendlies. Lack of a repeatable reward means I'm not going to wade through just to find the answer.
If you think about it, how were Jefferies Tubes depicted in the past? As cramped crawlspaces. Since we don't have crawl animations in STO, they adapted existing set pieces. So the slower pace does make some sense as well.
And I have no idea what blast you're referring to, but there was a point My Sagan was hit hard. Went down to 50%. No idea on the source.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I mean most Star Trek Species are usually either Human with extra bits or space Furries, The More Alien looking Aliens are usually found in Star Wars.
and even there 99% those are humanoids with weird heads.
I'm with you. Enjoyed the environments 100%. I watched the Livestream last night and they went into great detail about the changes.
Though there is no warning, they're not entirely unpredictable. They seem only to happen when spheres explode, and only hit you when you're within 5 km.
Getting rid of them entirely isn't necessary imo, but they need to be toned down. Even on normal difficulty one of my ships just dropped from 100% hull (almost 80k) with full shields (over 23k for each facing) to 15%. Granted, I don't invest a lot in defensive consoles and such, only in the hull plating and shield regeneration skills from the skill tree.
But we're talking about almost 68k damage directly to a ship's hull and a couple of tens of thousands to its shields. From one explosion. On normal difficulty.
Also, since it's distance related and hits very hard, it's going to be very easy for trolls to grief other players.
They tried to get a crossover going but it fell through (per Ten Forward). This would have been a perfect place for it.
Personally, just having angrier Borg isn't the way to go with the MU. They're already maximally antagonistic in most of Trek, so just spicing up the vocab and insisting by assertion this Borg Kingdom could threaten everything doesn't land. The principle justification is that they...did the same thing as regular borg but much less impressively. Exploding drones is not the same scale of innovation as 1) assimilating planets and 2) assimilating the undine.
There is much less immediate reason to fear these blokes than STO's own original adaptations of the Borg for 2409. Even the look is a throwback, preferring original style with a paint job over the greater degrees of body horror with STO original drones. Mirror Borg feel to me what you would *expect* a Star Trek MMO to do with the Borg if I never played STO. What the game did on release was more impressive. Yet the plot is screaming at full volume that this is somehow a greater threat than C'Qer, presenting the same kind of threat (incursion through portal, with complication added on those portals with zero pay-off on that complication so far). It's particularly saddening because we have Cryptic trying to expand the lore again with new factions and species, but the results fall far, far short of what they've done before and what we did in the Foundry (especially).
It's just a regressive mess that needed another few passes in the planning stages, in particular focusing on what players have experienced in the game's own lore and how to move on from it in interesting and compelling ways. Empathize with us and how we engage with this content, for the immediate gaming experience and the story told, not the gestures to fanservice Cryptic apparently hopes stitches everything together (because we're Trek fans and apparently only motivated by references, implausible heroics, and senpai noticed us). THE AETHERIANS HOPE TO ENLIST US IN A FIGHT AGAINST THE BORG KINGDOM WHO WILL DESTROY ALL UNIVERSES IF WE DON'T INTERVENE. Sure, and they'll do that with solaronite, threatening to explode all light if we don't join their collective (Plan 9 reference, which is a decent a lesson about how not to write stakes in scifi, especially through expository speeches).
I am absolutely certain that you could have made something a lot more compelling and interesting in the Mirror Wars series. Something went wrong in the creative pipeline for this season (even down to things like cutscene pacing, there wasn't enough critical review of directions taken). I would have no problems if next season the Borg Kingdom is more or less retconned out of the story in favor of the Aetherians or Machine Federation stepping up to big bad status. I don't think it's a salvageable idea at this stage. If Cryptic wasn't already thinking of the Machine Federation (Picard season 1), just take the drones you created for C'Qer and make them part of that. Going mirror borg, at the expense of character art dev time that could have been spent with things like QA, wasn't the right call to make with 1) what you already had in the sandbox and 2) player needs.
Ditto Aetherians, that could have just been mirror T'Ket with FAR more impact on players (and much more fun implications).
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!
One dealt "80k (110k)" damage, pretty much OHK my Mars-class escort. And it happened twice in this one run in less than 30 seconds after revive.
On the other hand, so far, it only happened in one run out of 4.
I will now shock regular Forum viewers by posting I am in total agreement with @valoreah on this topic. rofl
My agreeing with @valoreah happens more than you might think. No need for me to post when they've spoken more eloquently than I can on a topic.