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STO beta testers, lets + and - this game
Securion
Member Posts: 206
Everyone of us who have played the beta; Lets tell all others what we think is + and what we think is - with STO.
+ Space combat is fun and looks and sounds VERY good. Especially the sounds of explosions will make you fall outa your chair if you have a subwoofer.
+ Bridge officers. Think advanced "pets". Very fun to "level" them up and get them good skills and equipment.
+ Auto-move on map... Wanna go somewhere? Bring up the map, click system list, double click system and ship starts moving in that direction. Easy.
- Lack of content. And we are not talking about "its in the begining of this games life, there will be more content later" kinda stuff here, we are talking MAJOR lack of content! Another year of content creation and this game would have been OK. As it is right now its going to get repetative REALLY fast. We are talking a week or two here people... 
- Bugs. I have played MMOs since UO and this is the worst so far. Ive never seen so many bugs in ANY game tbh. Ever.
- The price. They want people to pay AAA price for a "shake-and-bake" type of "indie" game? Are they joking? AND they want us to pay a monthly MMO fee without providing any real MMO features in the game? Seriously? But wait, whats that...? Microtransactions as well...?!?!? WTF!? 
To sum it up: Another year (or two really) in development and this would have been a kick ass game. As it is right now its a 25-50% of a game with an incredible amount of potential that will fail utterly because of a greedy companys wish for quick cash.
What do you other beta testers think?
Comments
+ Character/Ship Customization
- Everything Else
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
+ Character generator. "Make-your-own-alien" is a cool feature that meshes well with Star Trek lore
+ Ship customization also cool and meshes well with Star Trek
+ Space combat is decent. Would be more fun if enemy AI was up to snuff and the devs understood the weaponry of Trek
- Bridge officers are simply another tool bar and cannon fodder
- No content, except "blow stuff up"
- No diplomacy. No option except "blow stuff up"
- UI issues, such as communication popups while in combat, which forces your ship to stop dead while under fire. Not a bug but poor design
- This game has only a passing relation to anything Star Trek
- Yes, the price. No way is this worth $50 plus monthly fee.
Another thing is.. There is no law that says you have to charge $15 monthly for a subscription MMO.. Since STO in my opinion is 1/2 the game it should be, It may have been in their interest to charge $9 a month and up it later AFTER content is added to bring it up the value other MMO's charge..
So true. It's a myth that charging monthly fees makes for a better game. These companies are making all the profit they need from selling the keys. That $15 a month is just another way to leech off extra money from gamers. Example: Guild Wars. If you are going to start bashing that game, then you should seriously step back and take a look at what game we are talking about here in this thread.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
Well I beta tested it and got to the t2 ship.
What I hate about the beta and the game
Sapce combat - same design as pirates of the burning sea very bad and slugish until you upgrade to type 2 engines.
Officer pets AI - Half the time they get bugged on ground missions and your half the zone away before you realize they dont work
Zones - half the space zones that I tried to go into for missions, bugged and or crashes constantly. Nothing like having the message the server is not responding only to be kicked out to the log in screen. I hate all these instance zones good way to crash your comp.
UI controls, need I say more ugggg
Inventory management, looks like its ripped off from lotro, only so much stuff you can put in your inventory and half of it dont stack, I.E. Food and Drinks tons of different types. Oh and give your officer pets any of that inta use when you give it to them.
Total lack of socialization skills other than chat talk in the local zone area.
Things I did like about the beta.
Customize your ships A+ very cool
Art work in space very cool, art work of combat very cool
Toon creation very cool.
So all in all I give STO an F+. Yes after today when open beta ends it will be deinstalled by my system. I will add more negitive rep to Cryptic as they were already on my list of folks not to trust. Now they are on the list to never ever buy anything from them ever.
I know some folks are going to love it becasue it is Star Trek, im voting with my wallet. For those who love it and are going to play it I wish you lots of luck your going to need it.
Same as I would have put. I would only add two more things.
+/- Starship combat, while being admittedly great fun, mainly amounts to closing to within 10k and seeing who can turn the fastest while strafing the other guy's weakest shield and timing the special attacks offered by your officers.
- The "loot" that drops from enemy ships REALLY needs tweaking. Last night, after taking out Battleships and Cruisers one after the other, I counted the loot up as I got it and I got TWENTY-TWO assorted Batteries (very few of them Shield Batteries, which is the only ones I bother using) four assorted vendor trash things like Medical Supplies and Communication Arrays, and ONE pretty meh weapon system. I want more - and better - weaponry if I am killing that many ships.
Does Open Beta count?
If yes
+ Ship combat, awesome.
+ Customization. Might be irrelevant for purists, I personally love it
+ Trek feeling. I know many of you guys think it has too much combat for Trek; Still the stuff that is there all feels very much like ST, especially dialogue.
+ Easy travelling and maneuverability. I know many will - again - disagree, but long and complicated travelling really screams "waste of time" for me.
+ Overall sounds. Music and SFX are very good
_______________________________________________________
- Animations. Looks a lot like other Cryptic titles and they really sucked animationwise.
- Lack of mission diversity. More puzzles or plot twists would be good. As it is now all you do is interact and kill.
- Henchmen are too good. Playing with other real players is awesome, and it's a shame your NPCs do a better job than the average player.
Buy or don't buy? - If instancing and tight-knit design doesn't bother you. Buy. It really comes down to this choice. If you fundamentally have no problems with instanced games like, for example AoC, this game might not be the second coming but will definitely entertain you for a reasonable amount of time.
If you're a dedicated gamer looking for a home for the coming years, like Everquest or Vanguard or EvE, you probably want to stay away, wait and see where STO's going.
Based on experiences up to ltcmdr8:
+ ship combat: best it could possibly be for 3rd person 2.5D, IMO. Enemy boarding crews and heavy torpedoes(shoot them out of the sky or you're probably screwed) add alot of suspense.
+ ship look customization: colors for markings and metal types for some shade options. Nobody can make a ST IP breaking polka dot cruiser, another +. Now, if engines and dishes you install had some different looks rather than just the few custom engine options, I'd give an A+ here. Even SWG JTL had this.
+ Character/crew look customizations: Some great options, here. Can choose the traditional ST uniform looks, or take the look of the armor you wear. Your choice.
edit: + Character/crew skill customization: still getting the hang of it, but I like that you can train them in certain skills and slot different ones for different situations.
+ Replicator: No more having to dock to sell off or buy supplies! It gobbles up your unusables like a Mr. Fusion, giving you energy creds, and even makes some basic stuff.
- Heavy instancing: Still trying to figure out why the galactic map even requires several loadscreens. Seems like they're in odd places, too. Sirius and Regulus, for example, where most of your early missions cross that border.
- Ground game combat: It's pretty bad when I'm giddy when I beam down and I don't have to shoot at anything. It somehow manages to be both easy and amazingly slow. The average Centurion, with their shield regen, can require over 100 shots to take down, and they're fairly common. But they don't do much damage either, so it's just a long slog til he falls over dead.
- Crafting(?): So far in my experience, there is no crafting. It's just a complicated token turn-in of nodes you mine, for stuff that's inferior to drops and mission rewards. Despite my being able to use Mark III and IV items, I can only turn in anomalies for Mark I and II items. WTH?
- Downtime activities: there aren't any.
- Bugged to Bermuda. Nuff sed.
+ Space combat: Fun combat with a lot of nice tactical abilities granted by bridge officers and cool looking instances. Ultimately though it plays like a single player game.
+ Character creation: I put this in the plus column but considering their track record in this department it is pretty much expected out of Cryptic.
- Ship creation: I put this as a minus mainly because the options for ship creation are limited by ship tiers. I cannot, for example, captain a Vesper class cruiser using a Miranda class saucer or ShiKahr nacelles. The other options also seemed out of place for a Federation ship as they amount to little more than custom paint jobs. I honestly expected more considering how well Cryptic did with character creation in CoX, CO and STO.
- Star Trek feel: The game is definitely Star Trek related but the only missions that made me feel like a Star Fleet officer were the ones that required no combat whatsoever. Sadly a large number of the missions are combat oriented which, while entertaining and fun, seemed less like Star Fleet and more like the Rebellion.
- Too linear: There seemed to be far too many guidelines for mission completion. This made me feel less like a starship captain and more like a grunt. Go to planet A in Sector B and complete C, D and E and then report back. I even found myself wanting to take my bridge crew to task for informing me, their captain, of when my mission was complete.
It would have been nice to be given a general command like investigating a loss of signal from a deep space repeater station and let me as captain decide how to resolve the situation. Instead I warp in and am informed that I MUST defeat the Klingon ships before I can beam to the station and defeat more Klingons on the station to resolve the situation.
Perhaps the station was raided by an alien race that spends 20 years of their lives in a torpor deep underground on the planet that the moon orbits. When they woke up and found the station they assumed that they were under attack and responded in kind. At this point it is my choice as captain to respond with military might or diplomatic grace. Either option should be viable for mission completion.
- Limited role play: I was personally unhappy to hear about the bridge crew pets. I was hoping that you could select to play an officer (tactical, engineering, science or medical) and join a ship’s crew for teaming and role playing. Instead I wind up trapped on a ship with a team of automatons flying from one combat zone to the next with little reason to interact with other live players.
I think Cryptic realized this and that is why some instances will force you into a fleet. Even then though there is little in the way of inter-ship communication or strategizing. Fleet members simply get on an intercept course for the nearest enemy and open fire when they get in range.
All in all not a bad game but not what I expected and not something that says buy me and play me. In my opinion, the Star Trek IP allowed for much more. I imagined a game where the Federation, Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans were all their own separate player factions in a galaxy controlled by player actions with the Undine and Borg thrown in as NPCs to muddy the waters.
>
So true. It's a myth that charging monthly fees makes for a better game. These companies are making all the profit they need from selling the keys. That $15 a month is just another way to leech off extra money from gamers. Example: Guild Wars. If you are going to start bashing that game, then you should seriously step back and take a look at what game we are talking about here in this thread.
um
research and development
using the name star trek probably cost them a lot along with the everything else that is copy write protected
weekly/yearly salaries + overtime for artists, game designers
advertisement so the game isn't "fail" by having a small community
printing the boxes, cds, manuals, packaging materials
shipping the boxed version of the game out
stupid collector edition items to be made
hosting fees
hardware fees
you guys are fucking stupid if you think they make their money on selling a key
as far as the game goes
++ to ship combat
+ to ship customization
+ to character creator
+ to the possibility of making this game epic in the future
- to ground combat (its clunky and poor like Champions)
-to no diplomacy like stated before, would be cool if what the federation did choice wise effected the overall game (not talking about roleplay diplomacy)
-to ground combat again
-to having a bit more depth
-short pvp matches, could of been more epic (though they are fun)
/sign
But dont forget the boring mishion system every time he same
and as Klingon its just 1pve repeatable pve mish every time the same and pvp tasks
that game is just a bunch og minigames
anyhow like guild wars
+Ship Combat
+Character/Crew customization
+Ship customization
+PvP
+Rank System
+mix of ground/ship combat
The ship combat is fast, fun and there is a lot to consider in the midst of a battle. The Character generator allows you to make a character that looks like anything, even create your alien type or put your own spin on the classic Star Trek uniforms. Ship customization is fun, as well. There's lots to do. A lot of you may be surprised that I listed PvP, because I generally hate it. But in this game you have actual missions that send you into "warzones" and the fighting makes sense in both the game and the lore. That makes it alright by me. It was so much fun trying to get to the next rank, that most people didn't even pay attention to their actual player level.
-The lack of quest variety. The combat is fun, but I would have liked to see some diplomacy missions or more exploring unknown sectors. (there were a couple like that.)
thats the only issue I have with it. but there are other issues to consider that didn't effect me the way it may others
such as
instancing - some people are bothered by it. some people aren't. I actually think it makes sense in this game because of the show. For instance, at the beginning or end of an episode when the enterprise flew into a new sector of space, they warped there. Much like in the game. Also, I've never seen one episode of Star Trek where the main ship flew into a sector of space and encountered hundreds (not even dozens) of other federation ships. Its was always just them.
battle heavy - lots of people complain that the show was never this combat heavy. I beg to differ. there were always battles going on in the story. It just wasn't the main characters that were involved in them
Content - they say there is a lack of content once you reach higher levels, but I only played for a week and missions seemed plentiful up to my level. So for me this is kind of a non-issue. I'm never in a hurry to get to max lvl so by the time i make it there they will (hopefully) have more.
Bugs - lets see I played a little more than a week and reported 3 bugs...none of them game-breaking at all. But there are others here who say there were MANY and its HORRIBLE and its UNPLAYABLE. I won't say that they are wrong. I'll just say I didn't encounter them. I will also say, I've been in betas and launches where things were MUCH worse.
Overall, the game is fun, and I guess it comes down to whether or not, the issues on that last list bother you or not. If you're looking for something revolutionary to blow your mind...then pass on it. However if you can enjoy a game for what it is, rather than hate it for what its not, pick it up.
As with everyone else, can only comment on the beta as the game isn't released:
Played to Commander
+ Space combat is fun and tactical. Best played with friends, can't stress this enough!!!
+ PVP is fun and challenging once you get past the phaser-ball. Best played with friends, can't stress this enough!!!
+ Lots of Star Trek lore, feels very "Star-Trekkie", lots of fun missions and nice touches for the uber-geeks.
+ Character creation and ship customisation are excellent.
+ Graphics in space are great
+ The beta community was better than most beta communities, lots of fun and laughs in chat channels throughout the beta.
- Any pvp or forced grouping with random players seems to be disastrous and infuriating
- Ground pvp sucks, as does practiacally all the ground action.
- Lots of the missions are repetitive and boring. Most revolve around killing stuff in asteroid belts or on linear ground paths...not much fun.
- Naming policy not enforced, after seeing the USS Roflcopter, USS Merkin, USS QQmorenoob and the wonderful USS Nob Cheese i kinda lost some of the immersion.
- Everything is instanced, i mean everything. While i don't mind instancing, it would be nice to have at least one area that was open....there isn't one.
- Klingons are undeveloped pvp alt class, they are almost the same as the LOTRO monster play classes....pointless and always lacking the kit of the feds.
- Ramming Speed.....i don't even know where to being with whats wrong with this i-win button. Basically one guy can headbut the Crystaline Entity and kill it in one shot....
- Boarding Parties.....unless this is broken beyond belief, it'll be the one must-have ability in pvp.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
I agree totally with that statement - it jsut about sums up STO entirely. The only caveat I would add is to question whether Cryptic, with a year or 3 years, could do any more - that are just showing themselves to be small minded, simplistic, and basically a micky mouse developer with Champion's and now STO.
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Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
Intel Core i7 Quad, Intel X58 SLi, 6G Corsair XMS DDR3, Intel X-25 SSD, 3 WD Velociraptor SATA SuperTrak SAS EX8650 Array, OCZ 1250W PS, GTX 295, xFi, 32" 1080p LCD
What I hate:
- Fully Instanced
-Bugs
-No content
-Universal chat
-monthly fee
-With holding content for more money
-Limited time offer ripoff tactics (liife sub)
-A million and one Pre-order offers
-no Pre-order items at head start if you bought a box
-uber build for pvp
-scaled down pvp to 5 vs 5
-Klinks Cloak make space pvp boring and slow wating for them
-klinks excape from battles very easily
-What ensign ever got full command of their own starship?
-warp speed looks/feels like full impulse speed, slow...
-The feel of a single player game
-the game is just a grind to get a new ship
-The customzsation of a ship has no effect on its preformance.
-Ground weapons are way out of wack.
-Ground war is a stand still engineer battle
-klinks have nothing to do in game but pvp.
-cash grab
Likes:
- char customization
-The CE box looks nice
To those two points, you might as well get some red shirts (TOS joke).
Also I'm surprised that they didn't price it at $47.47 (Star Trek franchise joke).
Guess it's late for me to continue this torrent...I hope you all had your fun in open beta.
Sad that this game is not as good as it is hyped. I really liked the ship PVP but it soon got boring with the same old same old.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
Could you explain it? I'm sorry to say I don't get that one.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
+ Space Combat
+Ship-Character customization
+Grapics/Sound
+Bridge crew / Away Team
+ Lenard Nimoy narations )
- Heavily instanced
-Ground combat is to slow and drawn out...They need to increase DPS on both ends about 200%
-Not enough content (will change)
-PVP needs ALOT of ballancing
+ Space combat
- Ground combat
If the future model for MMOs, this is certainly what WoW is planning after Cataclysm, and quite a few other non-mmo games is DLC then you don't need more than a month or twos content at launch as it will be patched in on a regular basis, assuming the game makes money and is actively developed. STO can work as a good mmo game, but we'll see won't we this year.
+ Ship Combat is awesome
+ Skill system is complex and flexible
+ In-system artwork is stunning
+ Ship customization is neat
+ Music is great (the most ST thing about STO IMO)
- COMBAT ONLY FOCUS (ie: not Star Trek)
- Everything is instanced, even social hubs such as Spacedock and DS9
- No 'world'
- Sector space is, as said before, a tiny shoebox (which I found a novel approach to longrange travel at first, then it quickly became quite tedious as you spend MOST of your time there)
- Missions are hastily put together and have very little depth (at least in the ranks I played). Very much like CoH but not as fun.
- Ground combat is clunky and un-fun
- $1 extra a month for foreign currency to subscribe (I'm a Canadian, and our dollar is pretty much at par with USD right now, why should I pay $16.50? Cryptic doesn't take a hit when non-US residents subscribe). It's a money grab.
- Currently, the game is still buggy as hell.
Total opposite here, and the ground combat wasn't a "+" but it was better than the space combat, pretty much all the rest is negative
+ character customization
- everything else
+ Game complexity.
+ Graphics in max details looks really nice have good performance ( space only )
+ Star Trek feel ( at least for me )DS9 Quark bar for example.
+ Nice pve content for Federation.
+ Klingons as playable race.
+ Game have very good potential.
- Unfinished Klingons ( which i will prefer to play ) and i got lag only on Klingon side..
- Ground PvP combat its really unfinished yet and really clunky.
- Lots of bugs ( but i can see Cryptic is fighting with them all the time )
- Ground missions graphics do not match space one.
I'm end with buyng pre-order for STO after 3 weeks of beta testing , this game have really good potential in it all its now in devs hands to sail in good directions , i will see after free month.
I won't echo what others have said as I agree with them I will only add
+ no elves, dwarves or orcs
If cryptic doesn't add content I think there will be a rapid turnover of players with very little attention. So far I like the game, even though I didn't get much further than early t2. I will probably get a couple of months of gameplay and if content isn't updated I will move on to something else.
It's not free - you paid for it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2