Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Surlyboi]

A death penalty is fuckstupid.

[Tannhauser]

Cryptic has a good game here (yeah I said it), but they need to ignore the tiny hardcore minority and their yelling.  Service the casuals and you keep subs.   No death penalty for PVE.  At most for PVP remove respawing after three deaths.

Sidebar:  If you're an Escort, go Fleet Actions.  As a cruiser I was always in the bottom five of the list.  Last night in my escort I came in first. No idea how I did it, just flew around and pew pew pew and the blues dropped like rain.

[tmp]

The requirement to be grouped when starting a fleet prevents my usual gang of casual players from coming together. We can't get enough people on at the same time.

Is there a Fleet13 I could join?

EDIT: Note to Cryptic, fix that absurd requirement plz. K, thx.

Hmm i thought that's a pretty normal practice for grop forming in MMOs but then i never really made one in any game. But in any case the players typically just form a group with few random people who are willing to help, make the guild/fleet/whatever with that and then the random people leave.

Granted, given this workaround exists it's not a very sensible hoop to maintain, yeah.

[Shatter]

Cryptic has a good game here (yeah I said it), 

Stopped reading after I read that, the game is shit with no longevity and to top it off its made by a shit company

[Surlyboi]

Cryptic has a good game here (yeah I said it), 

Stopped reading after I read that, the game is shit with no longevity and to top it off its made by a shit company

So speaketh the fucking Oracle.

Please enumerate the shit qualities of this game, oh wise one.

[Stormwaltz]

The fights are going to be a hell of a lot more gripping if you don't spawn back in five seconds after you die.

Yeah, what the hell are all those FPS games with respawn thinking?

Maybe spawn tickets in PvP/raids wouldn't be bad. But no death penalties. Don't disincentivize casuals from doing something they're already disinclined to try.

The requirement to be grouped when starting a fleet prevents my usual gang of casual players from coming together. We can't get enough people on at the same time.

Hmm i thought that's a pretty normal practice for grop forming in MMOs

It's possible I've only played the exceptions. AC, CoX, EVE, and LotRO allow it at will.

[tmp]

It's possible I've only played the exceptions. AC, CoX, EVE, and LotRO allow it at will.

Ahh weird; i know EVE had that but was under impression LotRO required a fellowship to form a kinship, from the occassional "i need X more people" requests in Bree. That was right after the game launch though, maybe they changed it since then.

[Shatter]

Cryptic has a good game here (yeah I said it), 

Stopped reading after I read that, the game is shit with no longevity and to top it off its made by a shit company

So speaketh the fucking Oracle.

Please enumerate the shit qualities of this game, oh wise one.

Cryptic

[Surlyboi]

So, in essence, you've got nothing.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.

[Pennilenko]

I'm going to stay away from this thread, because I am having fun with this game, and there are several people here who would convince me that I am not.

This game is fun.

[Ghambit]

All this death penalty stuff has already been hashed and re-hashed over and over during beta.  Why Cryptic hasnt just put the system in is kinda beyond me - well, maybe not... it's Cryptic.

Anyways, the prevailing thinking is to actually "turn on" the crew death penalty for space combat.  e.g. Rather than having an actual death penalty per se, you simply have item degradation - which translates into a death penalty anyways because when you blow up, so does your crew.  This crew is only regained via particular items or buying them back in port/replicator.  (HEY!  Finally a reason to even have credits in the 1st place, aside from the broken exchange).  This gives actual meaning to the hazard system (already in place; prevents crew from getting hurt/dying when the hull is hit hard) and crew regeneration items, aside from just regaining hull quicker (which is meaningless, because dying and coming back is way quicker than waiting for your hull to regen).

As for the ground elements, most pvp battles are objective or resource based, so having any penalty associated with them is pretty well stupid.  The FFA types already have "tickets" for the most part because they're counting kills yes?

[Stormwaltz]

Anyways, the prevailing thinking is to actually "turn on" the crew death penalty for space combat.  e.g. Rather than having an actual death penalty per se, you simply have item degradation - which translates into a death penalty anyways because when you blow up, so does your crew.  This crew is only regained via particular items or buying them back in port/replicator.  (HEY!  Finally a reason to even have credits in the 1st place, aside from the broken exchange).

Those guys that I spent the last few weeks tweaking and fine-tuning the appearances, names, biographies, skills, and equipment of? I could lose those?

If they do that, they better make it possible to get them back exactly the way I customized them.

[Riggswolfe]

Anyways, the prevailing thinking is to actually "turn on" the crew death penalty for space combat.  e.g. Rather than having an actual death penalty per se, you simply have item degradation - which translates into a death penalty anyways because when you blow up, so does your crew.  This crew is only regained via particular items or buying them back in port/replicator.  (HEY!  Finally a reason to even have credits in the 1st place, aside from the broken exchange).

Those guys that I spent the last few weeks tweaking and fine-tuning the appearances, names, biographies, skills, and equipment of? I could lose those?

If they do that, they better make it possible to get them back exactly the way I customized them.

He's talking about the nameless crew, not the bridge officers.

[Stormwaltz]

He's talking about the nameless crew, not the bridge officers.

*blink*

There's nameless crew?

What do they do?

[Rishathra]

It's that little bar underneath your shield settings, that looks like a bunch of people standing in a row.  More crew = faster hull regen, and supposedly, more efficient working of everything on your ship, whatever that means.  If the bar is orange, that means injured crew members that regen over time, even in combat.  Black means dead, and only regen out of combat.  Supposedly, this was not always the case and you had to go back to a starbase to 'buy' new crew to replace the dead ones.

[Draegan]

They took out slavery? :(

[Daeven]

Will this awsomeness come with the current mechanic of "here! Eat a random +35BoP"? Or not? Just curious really.

[Ghambit]

I personally think the crew replacement mechanic is ingenious and creative.  It's just they didnt frakkin finish what they started.  They put everything in place to do-so, and then chickened out for the sake of ultra-casual play.  And there's potential there for a LOT of meta if they just turn the damned thing on.

I mean, half the purpose of being/having an Engineer (or any of the damage-related skill trees) is mitigating and repairing damage... yet currently there's little reason to do-so, because it's smarter to just DIE and spec pure dps.

Imagine the tension that stupid simple crew-health bar would have on the game.  It's like having item degradation that you can watch and address on-the-fly.  As well, cleansing abilities will have meaning.

For the ground stuff, the only reason I'd think of a penalty being smart is just to take advantage of tricorder resurrection and/or healing, etc.  You're unlikely to get healed or ressed in PvP-ground 'cause again, you may as well just respawn ready to go.  The simple fix is as was said in here, just dont allow people to come back with full health.  At the very least you should have to use one of the million and one hyposprays invading ones inventory.

[Lantyssa]

Sounds like Wounds on your HAM bar.  It was unpopular the first time it was tried.

I do think it is an interesting idea, can could work with a better implementation.  I have no confidence in most teams managing to figure out how to do so.

[tmp]

I personally think the crew replacement mechanic is ingenious and creative.  It's just they didnt frakkin finish what they started.  They put everything in place to do-so, and then chickened out for the sake of ultra-casual play.  And there's potential there for a LOT of meta if they just turn the damned thing on.

For what little it's worth, EVE ships don't have crew as resource (even though the backstory gives their ships crews of thousands in case of battleships+) precisely because the devs thought having crew people as some sort of generic "space gas" you refill at the station just wouldn't do these guys justice.

[Daeven]

Either of those scenarios sound fine really.  When I hear "death penalties" I immediately go into EverQuest flashback mode and drown kittens.

[Shatter]

So, in essence, you've got nothing.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.

- too many instances and loading screens
- no world immersion feeling
- despite one big space feels like a single player game
- ground combat visually and technicaly looks like a crap, and is boring as hell
- the whole game is way too repeative
- non-friendly IU, especially map section with missing quest markers, etc
- the klingon side is unfinished, nothing to do except repetitive pvp.
- no skill respec
- skill cap
- the micropayments (now Klingons nd Ferengi(sp), but I can bet there will be much more + respec too Im sure later
- too complicated skill system - I really wish to know what exactly I'm picking to skill up. e.g. Field Theory +5, wth it does? this game need serious tooltips, without it, only devs know what such skill can do. And thats not only for skill system window, many items has weird variables.
- no autofire on all weapons in space, and no autofire at all in ground combat
- the game is unfinished
- GM's never reply to tickets
- Gold spammers even in the game mail system....
- cant play Borg unless you bought lifetime

want more?

[Der Helm]

Is there a free trial yet ? I am bored this weekend.   

[GenVec]

- cant play Borg unless you bought lifetime

Haha, what? I'd never heard mention of this.

They might as well put a big "IDIOT IRL" flashing sign above their heads.

[Merusk]

I'm going to stay away from this thread, because I am having fun with this game, and there are several people here who would convince me that I am not.

This game is fun.

Don't let 'em get to you. There have been people trying to convince us we're not having fun in WoW, either, for years.

[DaZog]

I personally think the crew replacement mechanic is ingenious and creative.  It's just they didnt frakkin finish what they started.  They put everything in place to do-so, and then chickened out for the sake of ultra-casual play.  And there's potential there for a LOT of meta if they just turn the damned thing on.

I mean, half the purpose of being/having an Engineer (or any of the damage-related skill trees) is mitigating and repairing damage... yet currently there's little reason to do-so, because it's smarter to just DIE and spec pure dps.

Imagine the tension that stupid simple crew-health bar would have on the game.  It's like having item degradation that you can watch and address on-the-fly.  As well, cleansing abilities will have meaning.

For the ground stuff, the only reason I'd think of a penalty being smart is just to take advantage of tricorder resurrection and/or healing, etc.  You're unlikely to get healed or ressed in PvP-ground 'cause again, you may as well just respawn ready to go.  The simple fix is as was said in here, just dont allow people to come back with full health.  At the very least you should have to use one of the million and one hyposprays invading ones inventory.

The problem is, I won't be doing Deep Space Encounters, and I definately won't be doing Crystalline Entity if they make losing crew meaningful.

DSE still have that problem with the Very Tough rape fleet that appears before the instance resests that just loves camping the zone-in. Sometimes you can get lucky and hit Evasive and book it out of range, but once you start getting into Romulans and up, there's no escape.

And CE is designed to make you die and die and die while Cryptic trollfaces. They'd have to completely redo that encounter.

[Shatter]

I'm going to stay away from this thread, because I am having fun with this game, and there are several people here who would convince me that I am not.

This game is fun.

Don't let 'em get to you. There have been people trying to convince us we're not having fun in WoW, either, for years.

Even in the games current state I can see people having fun, the question is how long will it last. 

[Tannhauser]

So, in essence, you've got nothing.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.

- too many instances and loading screens
- no world immersion feeling
- despite one big space feels like a single player game
- ground combat visually and technicaly looks like a crap, and is boring as hell
- the whole game is way too repeative
- non-friendly IU, especially map section with missing quest markers, etc
- the klingon side is unfinished, nothing to do except repetitive pvp.
- no skill respec
- skill cap
- the micropayments (now Klingons nd Ferengi(sp), but I can bet there will be much more + respec too Im sure later
- too complicated skill system - I really wish to know what exactly I'm picking to skill up. e.g. Field Theory +5, wth it does? this game need serious tooltips, without it, only devs know what such skill can do. And thats not only for skill system window, many items has weird variables.
- no autofire on all weapons in space, and no autofire at all in ground combat
- the game is unfinished
- GM's never reply to tickets
- Gold spammers even in the game mail system....
- cant play Borg unless you bought lifetime

want more?

A lot of what you mentioned is just your opinion.  I have the opposite view in most cases.  Yes there is ground autofire, I use it all the time. You did pick out a couple of valid points though, like the murky skill system and the crap UI.  Maybe it's because I'm a big ST nerd, but this game compares favorably against any other MMO out there, except WoW.  They do have a ways to go, but I'm honestly excited to see what cool Trek lore they put in next. 

I'm sorry you have a burning hatred against Cryptic.  But what are you gonna do?  Burn your house down and crash a small plane into their building? 

[Surlyboi]

So, in essence, you've got nothing.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.

- too many instances and loading screens
- no world immersion feeling
- despite one big space feels like a single player game
- ground combat visually and technicaly looks like a crap, and is boring as hell
- the whole game is way too repeative
- non-friendly IU, especially map section with missing quest markers, etc
- the klingon side is unfinished, nothing to do except repetitive pvp.
- no skill respec
- skill cap
- the micropayments (now Klingons nd Ferengi(sp), but I can bet there will be much more + respec too Im sure later
- too complicated skill system - I really wish to know what exactly I'm picking to skill up. e.g. Field Theory +5, wth it does? this game need serious tooltips, without it, only devs know what such skill can do. And thats not only for skill system window, many items has weird variables.
- no autofire on all weapons in space, and no autofire at all in ground combat
- the game is unfinished
- GM's never reply to tickets
- Gold spammers even in the game mail system....
- cant play Borg unless you bought lifetime

want more?

So basically, a bunch of subjective shit and nothing of actual substance.

Really? no autofire on all weapons in space and none on the ground? No borg characters unless you bought a lifetime subscription? Boo-fucking-hoo.

So yeah, give me more, something that doesn't make you sound like a whiny little hater.

[Rishathra]

Maybe it's because I'm a big ST nerd, but this game compares favorably against any other MMO out there, except WoW.  They do have a ways to go, but I'm honestly excited to see what cool Trek lore they put in next. 

This.  I was a huuuge Trek nerd in my teens, and sort of backed off from it for a long while afterward.  Playing this game has reawakened that love.  I even like the stupid "scan five things and beam out" missions, because I like the way your character flips out their tricorder.

Another neat thing about the ground missions:  Yeah, they kinda suck because it's this tiny little instance a few hundred feet square and not really an entire planet you can explore.  However, the sheer number of terrain 'tile sets' or whatever you call them, is staggering.  I've been playing steadily since open beta and I still managed to come across two new planet themes today that I hadn't seen before.  The downside is that there are probably ten times as many terrain types as there are mission types.

Der Helm, I got a 10 day trial key if you want one.

[DaZog]

I'm enjoying it, overall. Aside from issues like DSE and CE, which are mostly just annoyances, the game is fun and relaxing for me to play.


I bought a lifetime (yeah,yeah, go ahead, laugh) hedging my bets on the fact that there's a lot of Trekkies that'll keep this going- at least long enough for me to get my money's worth.

That and judging from how Champs was run, I could see which one had priority

[UnSub]

The key thing about STO is that Cryptic only had 2 years to develop it. I'm not sure who was driving that 2 years - Atari, the contract with Paramount / CBS - but that appears to have been a hard target for release. For that release period, I think they've done better than expected. A lot of the issues I've seen with the game (content aside) come down to design decisions like player captains or being heavily instanced, and I'm personally fine with those choices.

Still haven't bought it though. Going to give it a while and see what settles down.

Reviews have been mixed - I thought Gamespot was a bit vicious with a 5.5, given that the same reviewer gave WAR an 8.5. Sales appear to be pretty good though.

[Ratman_tf]

The key thing about STO is that Cryptic only had 2 years to develop it. I'm not sure who was driving that 2 years - Atari, the contract with Paramount / CBS - but that appears to have been a hard target for release. For that release period, I think they've done better than expected. A lot of the issues I've seen with the game (content aside) come down to design decisions like player captains or being heavily instanced, and I'm personally fine with those choices.

Remember when they announced the release date and we all said say what?

I put STO in the Guild Wars category. I'd buy it and play it if there were no sub fee.

[Tannhauser]

Heavy instancing in CO and CoH bugs me, but for some reason it works in STO. 

[koro]

So basically, a bunch of subjective shit and nothing of actual substance.

Really? no autofire on all weapons in space and none on the ground? No borg characters unless you bought a lifetime subscription? Boo-fucking-hoo.

So yeah, give me more, something that doesn't make you sound like a whiny little hater.

Funny thing is that ground auto fire was turned back on with the last patch, and Cryptic's keeping the lag bug that allows you to set more than one fore/aft space weapon to auto fire until they get a way to set as many space weapons as you like to auto in a patch or two.