The Star Trek Online grindfest.

TheOctagon

Just curious how many people are still playing STO after the latest patch took away FMs from The Foundry missions.

The last patch ((Thursday)) is the latest in Cryptics and PWEs quest to turn a fun game into a daily grindfest for enough Dilithium, Romulan Marks, Fleet Marks, EC's and Lobis just to make it to the NEXT day, which normally takes 4 or 5 hours a day for a casual gamer. Then maybe you have time to chat with your friends and fleetmates.

D.Stahl, in his last thread explaining why they removed FMs from The Foundry without replacing said marks anywhere else in the game, gave so many non-answers I had to take an asprin after I tried to read through the convoluted mess that was his post. Please, read it for yourself...

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=552391

There has been an underlying tension within the game since PWEs aquisition, mainly due to the fact, IMO,  it is PWEs established goal to turn every game into a grindfest of one sort or another. Bugs that have been within the game since beta, have never been fixed and every new season has added even more to the point if you start a new character, you have to plan your characters advancement around these bugs. Their newest sector Tau Dewa is riddled with bugs starting at Red Alerts and continuing right through the newest Romulan missions with no fixes in sight. This last patch added even more bugs that at the time of this posting have not been fixed, although players have found workarounds for most them. Thank goodness the players are smarter than the developers...

This latest decision by Cryptic and PWE basically sounded the death knell for fleets of under 25 members establishing starbases within 3 to 4 years. Gated content holds diehard players back from endgame content and with the removal of FMs from Foundry missions, starbase upgrades are almost impossible to grind at higher levels. ((Unless your in a 200+ member fleet in most cases.)) Honestly, at this point I don't see the game being around that long and I think the only real reason that people are still playing is because it is Star Trek, and that soon will wear thin...

In closing, if they can mess up the number one Sci Fi franchise in the world in less than the 3 years its been around, whats that say for Neverwinters future...

simplius

first of all,,im afraid star trek is the second biggest scifi  IP,,after star wars

second,,you dont need any of those things to play the game,,only if you want end game progression

third,,grinding is the very nature of mmos,,STO still has a bigger variety, than other mmos

space or ground combat?or perhaps even a a mission without combat at all?

if you want grind,go to an eastern mmo,,,that ll show you , what a REAL grind is

after that experience, you will sing a praise hymn to star trek online

ktanner3

Grindfests are always a part of themepark games. It's one of the negative consequences you always have to deal with if you're going to partake in them. It's just so much tougher in this game because there's only one faction that has a fully developed storyline with little branching  off from it. So there's little reason to roll an alt unless you just love that federation storyline. 

I haven't touched this game in a long time even though I keep in on my computer. Just can't get past the sluggish gameplay to continue playing for any long period. I'm sure I'll eventually get to top level some time before the game shuts down. 

Esquire1980

I can't even think of an MMO without some "grind" to it. to be honest.  However, STO is becoming a grind MMO thats for sure.

I'm not a large fan of developers taking something away from players that they have gotten used to it as a mechanic and I was 1 that ran the 6 sec foundry missions  made by a guildy.  But, to be honest, (I'm in 1 of the largest fleets out there (4 different fed fleets treated as single fleet) and I have the rest of my toons in a storage fleet and that has even made tier 1.5 as of now so it's not impossible.

Grinds have never scared me much.  OP should of seen the jedi grind in SWG back in 03/04.

Agent_Joseph

after, Seasson 5 ,STO is hard core asian based grind

cagan

I actually reinstalled and played for 2 days after 1 year break. It is good to know that nothing changed

Except I was getting more lockboxes and more spam messages saying "XXX got another ship from a lock box! yay"

I tried some of the new missions, and then tried to play some of the old buggy ones I got stuck in, in which I got in stuck again cause it bugged again

I also looked at the shop to see if I can buy anything new...Nope, maybe some more new ship designs...

I will definitely come back and try again next year to see what kind of awesome changes are made...