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Has Cryptic improved the game?
hostile17
Member UncommonPosts: 10
Here are my thoughts (and some from those who have played the game since launch):
I am curious what others think, is this game worth playing since the improvements???
Comments
It is definitely worth the 10 bucks or w/e the retail price currently is since you get a free month.
Is it worth a subscription ? I would still say no.
You know, everybody has their own things that make the game fun for them. I have no idea if Cryptic has fixed those things for you, because I dont know what yours are. But for me, my main thing is having something new to do. And now that the Foundry has been released, I have a new mission to play every time I log on. So for me, they have improved the game alot.
It is a lot better now. Worth playing for a while if you are not into something else or like Star Trek. Still not enough to justify a sub + cash shop model long term.. considering it is still a mostly Federation faction, solo, pve game.
As a person who is playing STO. I will give you my first hand experience.
Disclaimer: THIS IS MY OWN EXPERIENCE. I DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY OF STO.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way. For me, playing Star Trek Online has been one of the most invigorating and fun times I have had playing an MMORPG. It does not follow the path of the Fantasy Genre. No magic or swords and boards. I'm a Star Trek fan but not a Trekkie. I don't eat, sleep and die Star Trek.
The space combat is out of this world. As in: It rocks. I enjoy watching the ships blow up as my Quantum Torpedoes shred their hulls apart. This is the strong point of Star Trek Online. The space combat. The variety of ships you can have is fun too. You aren't just limited to a cruiser or science vessel.
The ground combat. Mm..well. Seriously it could use some more work. Personally, and this is just me, I get a bit bored of it. As I said, I'm more of a space combat person. others like the ground combat. But to me it seems the ground combat could be better. It's hard for me to explain why I don't like it. I think the simplest way to put it is that I just don't get a great feeling from being planetside in Star Trek Online. At least, not as often as they have you beaming down to stations/ships/planets.
The quest (mission) lines I think are well done. And I mean that in terms of the story side. The entire time I did "The Vault" mission line I was like: Oh Christ...what NEXT?!?! Sitting on the edge of my seat while being chased by a Cruiser in a shuttlecraft (Those torpedoes hurt by the way). Some of the episodes really do keep you wanting more. There is a slight issue though. Cryptic took out some of the quest rewards but never changed the mission text. Why I don't know. I don't know how their developers think and I'm not going to blast them on something so petty.
There is a bit of a learning curve to the game. They have "specs" but they aren't so clear cut on what they are. So I can't really answer this but if you ask POLITELY...and the reason I stress this is because a person who acts like an ass will get berated by the helpful players...people will be willing to help explain things.
You have to look to find groups. Sitting idle in Sol sector won't get you a group. You have to make the effort to ask if people have groups. "Ninja inviting" is not well recieved by people of the community.
There is a "Mentor" program where you can match the group leaders level. So that you can level with your friends if one is a Vice Admiral. You won't be left behind.
There are things called..TSF's. Strike Forces if you want a better way of putting it. 5 people instead of 40. Like a raid. There is one issue with this though. You have to know what you're doing. You have to be well prepared and know your role. Most of the people, with the exception of a small percentage of the population, have conceded to the fact that they will never see a TSF. You have to know one of the "elitists" as I like to call them.
PvP. Hmm. How do I explain this. When I ran an "arena" as its called, it was a pleasent experience. And I'm one that despises PvP. The people in my group were very cordial. No: "L2FP NOOB!" or "U SUXXORZ! GO BACK 2 ALLY!" We actually had a good time chasing the other team and the other team chasing us. I haven't tried space combat yet in PvP so I can't readily answer this one yet.
Klingon Play: Personally, I like the Klingon Side. At this point, there isn't a whole lot to do, but from what I have heard from a fellow player, Cryptic Is working on putting more in the way of PvE quests for the Klingons.
Oh, and The Foundry is not online in STO. The Star Trek version of the City of Heroes mission creator.
All in all, I am really enjoying my time in Star Trek Online. As I said before, this is my personal experience. It may or may not be for you. If you want PvP, then you might want to look elsewhere. This is not a PvP centric game. But if you are looking for something in terms of something "out of the norm", then you might enjoy this game.
Take it for what it's worth.
In some areas yes and no. There are issues when installing it on windows 7 64 but those solutions are in the top 20 issues for a fix such as having to delete files then patch or update your sound drivers. It will take knowing how to configure your mixer correctly with Realtek. But the community is very helpful. ATI video cards may have to disable some lighting if you crash in game but STO is working directly with ATI on this. I use an ATI 5850- it varies from card to card.
Space combat is still fun. Ground combat is very RPG based in a traditional classic sense. Thats just my opinion. Space has options where it feels more like space in appearance. The zones are more populated with players. I have no problem finding groups. There is more to do with new content. Your missions still lead you to explore and engage many systems. You can solo this game but I would suggest joining a guildfleet. The missions vary on depth. This game reminds me of earth and beyond and the classic graphical UI of the old space games when PC gaming was making leaps with graphics before we have what we see now.
I have not done PvP yet. Klingon content still needs more only from word of mouth so who knows. The games mission structure can vary. You can get missions on stations and hail star fleet from space to complete them. Other times you need to go to the station to turn them in. There is a sense of independence on where you go and what you choose to do. The mechanics are explained better than at launch so don't rush through those tutorial missions with NPC's. The game mechanics have improved. So if you like space travel, space combat, and beaming down to planets then you will enjoy it. I have not topped out yet so I cant tell you about end game content. This is my take on it as a casual player. As far as stats go, ships, and so forth I am only 30 days onto the game with play time since returning. This producer seems to really listen and is leading his team to change the game for the community. The community for the most part are very helpful. I would do the trial. I also play Age of Conan and Eve Online. STO is my casual 4th wife lol.
Has it improved based on its horrible launch, yes. Has it gained any depth, not really. There are new episodes and some artwork has been fixed like sector space but in the end, it is heavily instanced, not much need to join a fleet and the PVP is still lacking. This game would have been awesome if the business model was different. Imagine if it launched like GW with no sub and then DLC with new episodes were released each month that you could buy for $3. Throw in the cash shop and you would have a profitable business model. Even Cryptic has admitted this, internally at least, and will be launching their third game with a pricing model much like I described.
I like the game but overall it does not compare with AAA titles and should never have used the AAA sub fee and excessive item shop model. I find it dang greedy that a company that is known for its char customization limits your ship to only three choices and charges you for all the other choices when you already pay a PREMIUM monthly sub. I dont blame the devs for this but I do feel the senior management at Cryptic is terrible. Luckily we have seen Zinc, Roper and the CEO all leave. If we could just get Jack-aXX Jack E to leave, maybe things would change.
If you are on the fence about buying this one, just wait a few more months for it to go F2P. They are working on that now and I am guessing it will go that way towards the end of this year when ToR launches.
Define improved ?
If by improved you mean gameplay and mechanics of the game , then no . It's still spam spacebar ( or as some will point out hit auto fire ) or right click to activate glowy or press F. No end game . Pretty well everything restricted to 5-man groups. Heavily instanced.
If by improved you mean more content , then yes. Plenty of C-Store items , new episoides/missions , some new graphical effects masking the same envirnoment, a minimally efffective/useful diplomatic questline, new crafting mechanics and the foundry.
And this is the key point.
Better? Hard for it not to be.
Worth the $15/mo, not yet nor for the forseeable future.
A very large part of the remaining players are lifetime subs, so there is no reason for them to not play.
For someone that actually "still had to pay money" to play it, not worth it.
Buy it for some stupidly low price somewhere and play the free month, if you must, but it is in no way worth a recurring sub fee.
I hope your right cauuse after the tragedy that was CO i swore i would never give them money(I have kept my word) but i think it makes to much money for it to be converted (Atleast in the forseable future) i mean im not comparing the 2 but look at Black ops, there threads(And other supporting Black Ops threads) have been filled with so much rage and such but on most didgital download sites it has never left there top sellers list/ everyone raged over $14.99 DLC but it was #1 on the steam seller list for who knows how long and its still on the list. History has proven that people will say one thing and do another. And if they were in need of an influx of cash from there CS they would just 20-50% off which i havent seen in awhile. But i could be wrong i so hope im wrong because i loved Next generation (Deep space nine<---What got a problem with that) and i would love to play with the foundry but it alone is not worth $15 a month & CS<---There should be a way to earn everything in the CS if your gonna shell out a Premium Sub.
To be fair you can gain most of the ships in CS and some items, but the grinds put shame some of the early MMO's .
Hardly. I remember the real grinds of unlocking Jedi and getting a full suit of Mandalorian armor in SWG. STO's are nothing by comparison.
Yeah, but you are talking about things that SOE (the king of grind) intentionally made harder than the rest of the content. You may as well bring up the ultra-boss fights in FFXI; you know the ones where you are literally fighting them non-stop for 24-72 hours?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Harder? No. More time consuming? Yes. And the same is true of the emblem grind in STO.
Been there and done both and frankly it was more interesting then the emblem grind in STO. I left SWG not because of the grinding , but the whole Jedi fiasco that ensued and the changes they were about to implement. Not to mention that Jedi were suppose to be a rarity . There was a point to the grind , the grind unlocked anew venue of gameplay an new ladder to climb.
Not every game functioned in that fashion , but Cryptic throws it in hap-hazzardly , to placate the people that'll scream about all the items on the C-Store. Cryptic reeks of cynicism and contempt for the player base. Perhaps not at the level of the CR or even the Dev, but in the overall actions of the company.
What does the emblem grind get you ? A ship , which opens what ?
I didn't find much of a grind for levels. It was fairly smooth doing all the story arcs and some exploration and patrols to reach Captain. Not sure if there are any decent story arcs now though, everything seems patrol or explore of PVP. My only problem with STO is that it costs monthly to play. It just doesn't have the depth and community to spend in there full time like LOTRO, AoC and other mmos. It should have been F2P sooner in my opinion. Considering cancelling my sub again at the end of this month, just because I can't justify a monthly fee for what is essentially a single player game.
I've logged on in March after about 10 months of being inactive , being a life time and all. I did notice that they added some ships , space combat seemed smoother. Ground combat on the other hand ... in short ; could use more work.
STO is improving and since I'm already a rear admiral rank 8 and a life time sub I'll check back probably in August while I'll be on vacation.