STO questions

[Simon_Jester]

...That would actually be cool. Can we get confirmation on this?

[RogueIce]

...That would actually be cool. Can we get confirmation on this?

In a manner of speaking. The Bug Hunt Queue is the main announcement, and while I don't think Cryptic has directly said it yet, according to people who have played Dragon's Deceit they are indeed the same ones.

[RogueIce]

So I've been thinking about what to tell new players, coming fresh to the game, when they ask who they should start with.

I never want to say "go Romulan" first, mainly because they really do have the best story content overall. The problem being that if you go Fed/KDF after starting Romulan, it'll be one heck of a letdown. While they do have decent opening arcs, they go downhill from there: the non-FE Fed Romulan Mystery Episodes suck and it's like hitting a wall there. The KDF stuff isn't bad, but there's not a lot of it until you start hitting the cross-faction Nimbus arc and FEs...and then the Cardassian missions which also suck.

Thus for a more consistent approach to leveling, the Romulans are the best story-wise - until they hit the Cardassian Front but I suppose if you're doing them for the first time they're not as bad, but repeating them blows.

The problem, though, is the lack of context you'll have for the endgame story if you're not a Romulan. Because seriously, that's the one that actually explains shit. Fed fails hard here: you wouldn't even know there's a "Romulan Republic" or that they're good guys until you hit 50. You've had zero mention of them. And "Installation 18" is especially bad because you'll see the Tal Shiar, doing these experiements, meet the Elachi...and that's it. You roll right into your Romulan Mystery missions but they have nothing to do with what you just learned about them the mission prior. KDF is also in the same boat but at least their next run is the FE which is more about the Remans anyway, and when you do get to the Tal Shiar at least it's pretty quick about introducing you to the Iconian element. And the revamped Klingon episodes do at least have a mention or two of the Romulan Republic as being a thing, so there's that.

So honestly if you want to have any context to, well, anything about the endgame story you need to play the Romulans. Because then you learn about these good guy Rommies, you learn about how New Romulus is a thing (which is important since the whole Dyson Sphere thing kicks off there), you'll see the Elachi and know what they're about, "Installation 18" will actually make sense and not be just a random WTF moment, etc.

Except then you've basically spoiled yourself on all the good leveling story missions which can make rolling a Fed or Klink something of a drag. But if you start off as Fed or Klink you're going to lack a lot of the meaning, importance and context behind most of the endgame story.

So what are your thoughts on all of this?

[Steve]

Good points.

I expect they will eventually overhaul the Romulan and Cardie front missions like the others, but that's a lot of content to do and they have to divide labor with projects for new content as well.

[Simon_Jester]

What's bad about the Cardassian Front missions? They're a bit disjointed, but I didn't really have a problem with them. Then again I have poor taste.

To be fair, I guess I can think of a few criticisms:

1) Klingon and Federation captains getting a lot of identical missions, despite the fact that they'd have very different strategic priorities. Since I played as a Fed officer, I didn't notice this at the time.

2) Federation captains getting some interesting unique missions, but Klingons not getting them. Since I played as a Fed officer, I didn't notice this (again).

3) If you're a Fed officer, I can't speak for Klingons, but this is going to be your first experience of being an admiral who's getting ordered around by quest-giver "captains." Seriously, while DS9 may have been a captain-ranked command during the events of the TV series, if it's going to be the main logistics hub and clearinghouse for all Federation operations in or near Cardassian space, maybe they could put an admiral there, just like they have T'nae watching the Romulan front? Someone who would actually have the rank to go with the fact that they routinely coordinate groups of ships or give you instructions that send you into harm's way half way across the quadrant.

4) This is probably just a pet peeve of mine, but Deep Space 9 is a really crowded place, and as such seems to take forever to load and drops to agonizingly high lag and low frame rate on my admittedly el cheapo computer. Since the Cardassian Front stories have you going to the main DS9 hub several times during the storyline, I felt like I spent about a third of the whole time spent playing that story staring at Deep Space Nine loadscreens. This is in contrast to, for instance, the Klingon War storyline where you explicitly don't have to repeatedly go back to Earth Starbase to advance the plot.

The Klingon campaign has you going back to, er, the Klingon capital several times... but for me at least said Klingon capital was less laggy; likewise Starbase 39 on the Romulan Front. I know this may not be something the developers could reasonably have foreseen or compensated for when writing the story missions, mind you. But seriously, it IS a problem if the plot forces everyone playing the single-player campaign to repeatedly get dragged through the same high-lag bottleneck.

[Steve]

1) Klingon and Federation captains getting a lot of identical missions, despite the fact that they'd have very different strategic priorities. Since I played as a Fed officer, I didn't notice this at the time.

That's because those missions were Fed-only. They were tacked on to the Klingon faction to give them more material for leveling since they didn't have time to add more PvE content for the Klingons.

2) Federation captains getting some interesting unique missions, but Klingons not getting them. Since I played as a Fed officer, I didn't notice this (again).

Yeah, the Klingons only really get the anti-True Way and anti-Mirrorverse missions, and not all of thsoe IIRC.

3) If you're a Fed officer, I can't speak for Klingons, but this is going to be your first experience of being an admiral who's getting ordered around by quest-giver "captains." Seriously, while DS9 may have been a captain-ranked command during the events of the TV series, if it's going to be the main logistics hub and clearinghouse for all Federation operations in or near Cardassian space, maybe they could put an admiral there, just like they have T'nae watching the Romulan front? Someone who would actually have the rank to go with the fact that they routinely coordinate groups of ships or give you instructions that send you into harm's way half way across the quadrant.

When the Cardassian Front was first made, it was for Commander and Captain-level players primarily, with only the last few missions being RALH level missions.

Still, a good point about DS9's fleet-hub role.

4) This is probably just a pet peeve of mine, but Deep Space 9 is a really crowded place, and as such seems to take forever to load and drops to agonizingly high lag and low frame rate on my admittedly el cheapo computer. Since the Cardassian Front stories have you going to the main DS9 hub several times during the storyline, I felt like I spent about a third of the whole time spent playing that story staring at Deep Space Nine loadscreens. This is in contrast to, for instance, the Klingon War storyline where you explicitly don't have to repeatedly go back to Earth Starbase to advance the plot.

Yeah, it is annoying how many missions require you to directly go to DS9 for any reason. The two that take place on DS9, sure.

The Klingon campaign has you going back to, er, the Klingon capital several times... but for me at least said Klingon capital was less laggy; likewise Starbase 39 on the Romulan Front. I know this may not be something the developers could reasonably have foreseen or compensated for when writing the story missions, mind you. But seriously, it IS a problem if the plot forces everyone playing the single-player campaign to repeatedly get dragged through the same high-lag bottleneck.

Fewer KDF players, and nobody really goes to Starbase 39 more than a couple of times. DS9 was the main end-game hub for a while with the Omega vendors there and such.

[Elheru Aran]

This is probably mostly a RPG mechanics issue, but I always had problems with all the back-and-forth. Go to DS9, go to [insert destination here], complete mission, return to DS9, rinse and repeat. You would think you could simply report in, get an acknowledgement that you've completed your mission and move on to the next one without having to return to DS9. I could live with it in LOTRO-- no subspace communications there, so it makes sense-- but you never saw the Enterprise popping back to the Starbase at the end of each mission...

EDIT: I suppose it's useful for players who tend to pick up a lot of stuff as they go, as they can throw stuff up on the Exchange or whatever. Not much point, though, IMO.

[RogueIce]

What's bad about the Cardassian Front missions? They're a bit disjointed, but I didn't really have a problem with them. Then again I have poor taste.

Mostly that they're missions left from when the game was first designed, Cryptic having come a long way since then, and it shows.

They're probably not too bad the first time through (I vaguely recall that, and I got through them easy enough I guess) but the second, third, fourth, fifth and so on times you play them (if you have alts like me and Steve have alts )? Yeah, they can drag a bit. More so than the later created missions like the Featured Episodes.

Steve covered most of the rest, so I'll just chime in on this one:

4) This is probably just a pet peeve of mine, but Deep Space 9 is a really crowded place, and as such seems to take forever to load and drops to agonizingly high lag and low frame rate on my admittedly el cheapo computer. Since the Cardassian Front stories have you going to the main DS9 hub several times during the storyline, I felt like I spent about a third of the whole time spent playing that story staring at Deep Space Nine loadscreens. This is in contrast to, for instance, the Klingon War storyline where you explicitly don't have to repeatedly go back to Earth Starbase to advance the plot.

The Klingon campaign has you going back to, er, the Klingon capital several times... but for me at least said Klingon capital was less laggy; likewise Starbase 39 on the Romulan Front. I know this may not be something the developers could reasonably have foreseen or compensated for when writing the story missions, mind you. But seriously, it IS a problem if the plot forces everyone playing the single-player campaign to repeatedly get dragged through the same high-lag bottleneck.

Yeah. That is annoying. At the least they could just send you to a DS9 "Mission Map" (so when you approach it in Sector Space you'd have "Approach DS9" and "Begin Mission: Kurland Sucks And Lost DS9 (Again)" options) so you don't have to go into the social zone and deal with the crowds.

[Simon_Jester]

This is probably mostly a RPG mechanics issue, but I always had problems with all the back-and-forth. Go to DS9, go to [insert destination here], complete mission, return to DS9, rinse and repeat. You would think you could simply report in, get an acknowledgement that you've completed your mission and move on to the next one without having to return to DS9. I could live with it in LOTRO-- no subspace communications there, so it makes sense-- but you never saw the Enterprise popping back to the Starbase at the end of each mission...

EDIT: I suppose it's useful for players who tend to pick up a lot of stuff as they go, as they can throw stuff up on the Exchange or whatever. Not much point, though, IMO.

Large chunks of the game are designed like this- but I think they overused DS9 because they want to show it off and get the maximum "Wow, cool, I am on a space station once occupied by The Sisko!" effect out of the fanbase.

When the Cardassian Front was first made, it was for Commander and Captain-level players primarily, with only the last few missions being RALH level missions.

Well yes, but if you have been making any use of the exciting not-the-story-missions content, it's quite possible for your character to hit Level 40 or even 50, without your ever really intending to grind or anything, before you get out there.

And it's just frustrating to have a Starfleet captain treating admirals the same way he treats commanders. It's a nitpick, but all the senior quest-givers should be admirals on general principles- highly senior officers responsible for a large reason of space.

The Klingon campaign has you going back to, er, the Klingon capital several times... but for me at least said Klingon capital was less laggy; likewise Starbase 39 on the Romulan Front. I know this may not be something the developers could reasonably have foreseen or compensated for when writing the story missions, mind you. But seriously, it IS a problem if the plot forces everyone playing the single-player campaign to repeatedly get dragged through the same high-lag bottleneck.

Fewer KDF players, and nobody really goes to Starbase 39 more than a couple of times. DS9 was the main end-game hub for a while with the Omega vendors there and such.

Exactly. Earth Starbase used to be just as bad or even worse, and is a bit less bad now for me. But the point is, it really isn't kind to the player to force them to visit a high-lag bottleneck location agasint their will on a regular basis.

The single-player content where you do stuff in and around DS9 is actually cool in my opinion.* It's just that the best of it happens with a DS9 instance that doesn't contain a hundred other players.

[You're right, though, it's less bad now that the Dyson Sphere is a thing, but I imagine that this just moved the problem, which is not the same as solving it]
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*Except for the thing where you step away from the screen and go "Wait, there are like 100 different players who are visiting DS9 ALL THE TIME; their combined force ought to be able to make the Threat of the Week run screaming for its mommy..."

[Alferd Packer]

Really? I went to DS9 last week and it was a ghost town. Guess I was just there when everyone was out on missions.

[Simon_Jester]

It's less bad now (I went back recently); it's only sometimes that bad. To be fair, the previous experience that I was complaining about was before the Dyson Sphere content was added. The end game seems to revolve around the task force locations, and the more of those that are created, the less stupidly overcrowded any one of them gets.

[Elheru Aran]

I suspect a lot of players are currently messing around with the Delta Quadrant expansion. That's probably a big reason why focus shifted away from DS9 for the moment.

[Alferd Packer]

Hmm, I find this endlessly fascinating, as I've been at the endgame for years now. All I care about is making sure I have enough DPS for the new expansion's advanced STF content. It's nice to be reminded that there's actually a plot of sorts (or rather, a series of interwoven plots).

It'll be fun to actually play the game again, advancing along with the plot, when they raise the level cap next week.

[RogueIce]

When the Cardassian Front was first made, it was for Commander and Captain-level players primarily, with only the last few missions being RALH level missions.

Well yes, but if you have been making any use of the exciting not-the-story-missions content, it's quite possible for your character to hit Level 40 or even 50, without your ever really intending to grind or anything, before you get out there.

And it's just frustrating to have a Starfleet captain treating admirals the same way he treats commanders. It's a nitpick, but all the senior quest-givers should be admirals on general principles- highly senior officers responsible for a large reason of space.

This is an unfortunate aspect of the legacy-status those missions have. They were tuned for how it was originally, a senior Captain giving orders to a Commander or newly-promoted Captain. And IIRC there was a lot less 'side content' to do at lower levels back then, so you would mostly be at the 'intended' rank.

OTOH, the new Borg front missions are given by Captain Nicholas Martin, and those are A) new (though Martin himself is not) and B) slotted firmly in the 40s. To be fair, however, one might presume he's simply giving orders on behalf of Admiral D'Vak, commander of Task Force Omega. I can't actually remember where it's stated he's supposed to be at in the game, if the game states it at all. D'Vak himself used to be a Captain, but they promoted him to Admiral so there's at least a nod to this by the developers. Since he doesn't wear a conventional uniform it's hard to say what grade of Admiral he is, but he could be a FADM since he reports to the President and Chancellor while commanding a Joint Task Force between Starfleet and the KDF. Which might also go to explain why he has a subordinate issue your mission orders, as well.

Of course this also does tie into the curious disconnect between your promotion rank and whatever you choose to see your character as. For my Starfleet officers* once I pin those Captain pips to their uniforms that's it. I'll also change their title to Captain and leave it at that, unless I use something else, but never the Flag ranks. Sometimes they have NPCs refer to you as just "Captain" but other times they use your rank. So it's weird.

I also choose to see my Romulans as Commanders (Captain-equivalent) and my one KDF as a Captain. But I don't really like the Romulan shoulder pads that much, and KDF doesn't really have any rank insignia, unless you count the sashes. So that's a nonissue for me.

*The exception is my PC outfitted in TOS uniforms. There I used RALH to represent "Commodore" since TOS had them commanding individual ships, so I see it as sort of a Super Captain for when that character reached VA.

I suspect a lot of players are currently messing around with the Delta Quadrant expansion. That's probably a big reason why focus shifted away from DS9 for the moment.

Yeah, which means Tribble actually has a population now.

If anyone really wants the experience of STO-as-single-player-game, go roll a character on Tribble when there isn't a major content update incoming.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm actually a little shy of getting back onto STO now. I haven't played in-- whoo, maybe a month and a half or more now? I think that might be a sign...

[Alferd Packer]

I'm actually a little shy of getting back onto STO now. I haven't played in-- whoo, maybe a month and a half or more now? I think that might be a sign...

Honestly, the only reason I'm still checking in daily is to do the crafting grind. Of course, that prompted me to switch from refracting tetryon weapons to Romulan plasma weapons, and now that I know I'll be able to hold my own in the upcoming expansion, I'm looking forward to it a great deal more.

[White Haven]

The thing is, the rank of the questgiver is only a problem if the writing staff are manifestly incompetent. This is, tragically, often the case. It's not at all hard to write a social or military inferior asking for assistance from a superior, or two equals asking each other for help. In fact, that makes a lot MORE sense than having quests structured as Commandments From On High, given that they're not mandatory. 'You are ordered to the Boojumstein system to suppress badly-written Kazon assclowns,' 'Naah, I'm gonna just chill here in ESD and work on my crafting skills. See ya around, Lord High Superadmiral.'

Having all your quest hooks be based around orders is just lazy. Want to get the player characters to go to the Boojumstein system on their own accord? A bridge officer reports a fragmented distress signal originating from a vector consistent with that system. Maybe a contact in Starfleet Intelligence passes them a signal intercept relating to a Kazon battlegroup that's mustering there and planning to cause trouble. Perhaps Admiral Fancyfeast's task force is fully engaged in Dogfort-suppression operations elsewhere in the sector, and he simply can't spare the assets to deal with this Kazon thing he's heard of, and they're about to hit him in the flank so he comms you to ask for assistance. Fuck, be creative, there's no reason why rank has to even enter into it one way or another. Think back to Trek itself, and how rarely it ever mattered that Picard was a captain. It mattered that he was in charge of his ship, and outside the rare 'Starfleet high command is being an asshole' episode, that was that.

Now, there's a flip side to all that. If you make the decision that your characters are going to be admirals, you need to own that. It doesn't always need to matter, but it needs to matter sometimes, or else there was no point in doing it in the first place. Is it an in-world joke, maybe seniority has gotten so out-of-control in Starfleet that 'admiral' is a devalued rank? Doesn't really work, you have two entire other navies to deal with. Now you could do that, and it'd be actually really amusing and possibly interesting if, say, the Romulans and Klingons ended up as captains, where Starfleet is flooded with 'admirals' that command fuck-all. Funny, but the ship has somewhat sailed on that on account of requiring retcons to go back and do it. And fuck retcons.

If you want to actually do the player-as-admiral, you need to either give them command of a small squadron, which they've said there are major technical hurdles to accomplishing, or you have to write in plausible reasons for the ships under your command to be elsewhere. That's not as hard as it might sound if you emphasize the fact that a quadrant is a biiiiig place and the assembled navies of the Alpha Quadrant are relatively small in comparison. Now, you need to factor it in now and again...but that lets you do it in big set-piece events like the battle over Romulus for Republic captains. Ideally, I'd work in something like a very expanded version of the duty officer system, where you get to set up and customize your forces and send them out on major assignments. That'd be a great way to emphasize the continued existence of lower-tier, older ships in the universe -- and it'd be a great way to cause asset churn by recognizing the fact that ships and men under your command can actually be lost on assignment because 'assignment' is often actually harm's way.

Now, ideally, you'd take things a step beyond that by using that to create dynamic content. The Galaxy-class USS Eisen ran face-first into a Mirror Universe battlefleet on a relatively routine patrol (critical failure!) -- you can either eat the failure and risk losing some or all of the assets tied to the USS Eisen, or you can send more assets on a rescue mission or even accept a time-limited, dynamically-generated rescue mission yourself. Admiral-rank opens up some really interesting possibilities...but they require actual thought to work with.

[PREDATOR490]

Well... I and others have suggested expanding the Duty Officer system into a Ship System. That way Admirals could feasibly be commanding lots of ships "off-screen" and sending them to do missions.
The bigger idea was to use the ships players had sitting in their inventories with missions to potentially match their loadout.

However, Cryptic clearly are not capable of pulling it off. They have effectively admitted the reason for this 'expansion' is to introduce a new tier of ships they can sell because they milked Tier 5 for as much as they could. Thus they happily introduce a ludicrous crafting grind, a whole gearing grind for new ships and have jacked the game so it is even more insanely expensive. The lotto boxes are bad enough without going into lotto crafting.

I bought the Operations Pack but I fully expect Cryptic to shaft the playerbase in short order by bringing in T6 Refits. After people have spent money upgrading their T5 ships no doubt.