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Should weekly episodes be for Vice Admirals only? May contain spoilers
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I was thinking after Frozen, the weekly episode, that the episodes should only be available for vice admirals, not as end game content but for the continuation of the storyline that STO have set out for us. If you are at the Vice Admiral rank, the wording and actions from bridge officers contradict to what you have already witnessed in previous missions.
There have been references in the episode Frozen about the demons of light and darkness, which in turn are Iconians. There have been several references to the Iconians over several missions starting from Taris, a commander ranking mission. The other references appear later on at a higher rank.
It makes no sense that the characters of a Vice Admiral rank or even a Starfleet Admiral would recognise these mentionings. Admiral T'Nae said there are NO facts to support what Obisek has told the Vice Admiral, but I have received several of these references in the past, along with an Iconian ship destroying some Borg Cubes. Surely Starfleet command would of known about this.
Also there were some contradiction in the first Devidians mission where a crew of a Vice Admiral did not recognise the flashing white lights of the Devidians and were surprised of what they were, however the crew had encountered them during a commander level mission.
The Breen missions work fine, in my opinion, as they seem to fit outside the main storyline and could happen at any point.
I appreciate that you can look at this on the flip side that, as these episodes are from level 6 onwards and do fit into the story line in perfectly and its the Vice Admirals who are replaying mission from the past, even though it is from the past. I also appreciate that players don't want to miss out on the goodies that are released too.
I just feel that a little more thought needs to go into how the new episodes read, on ones perception of the timeline.
There have been references in the episode Frozen about the demons of light and darkness, which in turn are Iconians. There have been several references to the Iconians over several missions starting from Taris, a commander ranking mission. The other references appear later on at a higher rank.
It makes no sense that the characters of a Vice Admiral rank or even a Starfleet Admiral would recognise these mentionings. Admiral T'Nae said there are NO facts to support what Obisek has told the Vice Admiral, but I have received several of these references in the past, along with an Iconian ship destroying some Borg Cubes. Surely Starfleet command would of known about this.
Also there were some contradiction in the first Devidians mission where a crew of a Vice Admiral did not recognise the flashing white lights of the Devidians and were surprised of what they were, however the crew had encountered them during a commander level mission.
The Breen missions work fine, in my opinion, as they seem to fit outside the main storyline and could happen at any point.
I appreciate that you can look at this on the flip side that, as these episodes are from level 6 onwards and do fit into the story line in perfectly and its the Vice Admirals who are replaying mission from the past, even though it is from the past. I also appreciate that players don't want to miss out on the goodies that are released too.
I just feel that a little more thought needs to go into how the new episodes read, on ones perception of the timeline.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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I think it's an irrelevant conversation to have. I wouldn't say that you are wrong but the fact of the matter is that we all need additional content and the devs don't have the resources to do the weekly series for only vice admirals in addition to creating content for everyone else. Down the road I would agree that end game exculsive content should/must be created and I think dstahl has mentioned that doing that is on the schedule.
I play mainly a few FEDs and don't like to play KDF because of the lack of content on that side but those who play KDF need those missions to level their KDF toons up.
Better leave these missions accessible to almost every level out there.
Agreed, I remember the Devidian arc had alternative dialogue if you hadn't completed missions with Drake before, so we know the missions can adapt to different levels. Best to keep them that way.
I started the Romulan series on a new alt at appropriate level to get the missions and by that time I had already completed the Iconian mission to Iconia and had uncovered the Undine imposter and had completed the Hobus/Reman Storyline - so I expect most people who read the missions will have an enjoyable walk into the story of these new missions.
As for future missions, and I think you mean follow on from current end-game - well I would be very suprised in the Iconians were to turn up in a series. They are most likely going to feature in their own Season by which time it should be new content and that means from VA+ (mostly) imo.
The featured series are a part of the ongoing development, a part that is getting good funding at the minute iirc Dstahl, but a part nonetheless. They will hardly launch our arch-nemesis in 5 missions or less for LT. grade people with no experience of the ongoing storyline of Cardassian, Borg and Undine space.
Yes the Breen missions work fine for the reasons you mentioned. I agree about the devidians, I think the Ghost Ship mission in during the romulan mission-line, but its not a biggie - they were skirting the edge with Franklin Drake though because we had not even met him (Cardassian space iirc) and when we do meet him now he doesn't know us iirc... lol -- well thats not so true, he has been keeping an eye on us, and then we get a chance to talk about S31 etc in that cool holodeck.. *cough* ... but em, yeah its not tied in together all so well because of the low level nature of the featured missions.
But I feel it is a necessary evil. They must be low enough to get new people in reasonably soon, decent enough to entice VAs, and balanced enough with story not to jump ahead too far at that level.
As it IS, we have terrible mission progression due to the way we get our missions... they are given via level versus completion... right now you can get the final mission in a series without even having started the first mission! All because your rank meets the requirement... it makes for very bad mission progression imo.
Anyway... so yeah... o.0
They fixed that. The server was stable during Frozen.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that word, but I'm guessing "content". Either way, you are wrong on both accounts. Klingons were originally intended to be a full fledged faction like the Feds, but because of time restraints they were launched as PvP only. However, the Devs said from the very beginning that more PvE was on the way. So no, they were never intended to stay pure PvP.
Oh, I know. But everyone is ripping the OP a new one. I thought I'd throw him a bone. :cool:
He does need it! :cool::D
I guess I'll switch my opinion too.
Yeah I think they should be locked to VA, and you need to have purchased 50% of the Cstore as well in order to get any series rewards too.
Only 50%? You're way off. The player must buy everything available to his/her faction to even get the missions and rewards.
That's just me wanting the timeline to flow forward instead of having random time loops once you complete the game.
Spoken like a true, self-righteous Fed player.
however thats not to say i dont want some VA/LG only missions at some point. when we finally face the iconians or do some more stuff with the borg or the undine that is meant to set chronologically after all of the missions we have so far, then yes i would them to be upper level missions so the story fits. ideally to coincide with a level cap increase.
and yes all of these faction neutral missions really should be created carefully so they dont come across as set after the missions already in game because new players will start getting confused.
but locking them to upper level is just a really bad idea in the grand scheme of things.
Chronologically, all of the weeklies except the Breen already cause these plot conflicts. The Devidian series Fed side references a specific mission in the Cardassian front, when Drake tells you he'll be contacting you when he has an appropriate mission for you (and that's in the Captain levels). Klingon side it references several of their story missions up to the Commander level. The Romulan series on the Klingon side so far seems pretty standalone, but Federation side it builds from several Commander level missions. Plus it references the Breen series, and a new player has access to the Romulan series earlier than they would the Breen one.
(ie
Devidians - Level 6
Breen - Lvl 10
Romulan Renegades ? - Lvl 10/15 ?
Tholians - Lvl 20
Spoon heads - Lvl 25
Dominion - lvl 30
Terran Empire + other non important mirror universe factions - Lvl 35
Borg - Lvl 43+
Undine - Lvl 43+
Iconions - Lvl 50+ )
The Gorn, Orions and other species under the KDF do not appreciate that.
If you sit in sector space for about an hour around one of the current Feature Series systems and have a good look at the people floating around, there is quite a wide spread of player levels. High ranking players in Star Trek Online are actually in the minority. If Cryptic were to restrict the feature series', a low percentage of players would actually have access to them and from what I can see; the Feature Series' are actually doing a lot to keep people interested in Star Trek Online.
You can also argue that the Feature Series' episodes are among the most enjoyable content in the game and therefore are excellent for repeatedly replaying with friends or fleet mates in the name of fun. I have played through Mine Enemy with friends three times this week, for a total of four runs. Every time, we've all had ridiculously varying character levels. We've also run through the entire Davidian Series this week, again with varying levels among us.
In terms of leveling up your character in Star Trek Online, feature series' aside, there is a very linear path to follow. It's either play through the main story arc, grind exploration or try to grind PVP - the latter of which isn't always easy due to frequently quiet PVP Queues with waiting times of thirty minutes to over an hour.
The Feature Series' provide an excellent side bar to the original content in the game, helping to give Star Trek Online some much needed fleshing out.
A far better idea to deal with story arc inconsistencies would be to remove references within the Feature Series' to the other game content. That would allow everyone to tackle the episodes without plot holes, but honestly I think the vast majority of people don't care about the plot holes and everyone else just doesn't bother reading anyway.
Why have them develop content that basically encourages players to speed to end game only to jump on the forums and whine about nothing to do? I understand it doesn't take long to level, but i know i personally have 3 toons over a year old that are not at VA yet, just because i take my time and use them when i want something else to do. this includes feature episodes.
Bottom line, i think it would cause more drama then this game already has.
We first meet Franklin Drake in Romulan Space. He introduces us to Section 31, and we find out during our mission debrief with Admiral T'Nae that his authority may even supersede her own.
Think of all the new customers Cryptic has gained because they can do this high quality content at low levels. Think of how many look forward to doing these each Saturday with their Lt. Cmdr.
Cryptic wants these episodes to reach as many players as possible so the OP's idea is basically dead in the water. It won't happen.
I'm sure they will consider the feedback though and make sure any future stories don't depend on Fed content that shipped at launch.
This.
The game is content light as it is - robbing the Klingons and Feds rolling alts of new content would reverse all the great strides the devs have taken.
If they were really clever they could even do differant outcomes based on level of character that would make replays fun, but that makes playing with all differant level impossible so scrap that idea.
The OP made a good general point that there are plot holes. But then again would Star trek ever have plot line mistake. Oh yes there are 100's of you tube clips pointing them out, and every confrence has at least one session dedicated to them. So may be the dev's are just following Trek Law of who cares its only a TV show / Game (delete as appropriate).