Support NeoGAF

[Walshicus]

Ground Combat

• Shooter Mode: "FPS" style targetting system introduced. Optional alongside "RPG" mode.
• Combat Speed: Trash mobs now easier to kill, bosses harder. Shields capacity has been reduced and weapon damage increase.
• Borg: Now the Borg will adapt to your energy weapons after a semi-random number of hits. Players must now use "remodulator" consumable to work around this. In addition, Borg Elite mobs now have the ability to assimilate players with low health. The player's vision will distort, avatar will change to include borg cosmetics and control will be removed until killed by Bridge Officers or team mates.

Qo'nos

• New Geometry: The old Council Building has been reworked, and expanded to include the First City. You're now presented with a city far closer to that presented on the shows.
• New "Area" Missions: A number of NPCs have been added with a string of missions introducing the player to the new Qo'nos layout.

UI and UX

• Voice Chat: Players are now able to voice chat with team and fleet mates.
• Auto-teaming: Joining a PvP session will result in players being automatically assigned to teams.
• PvE Queus: Fleet actions are now accessible through a queue system. Going forward Special Task Force content will also be gated this way. This makes it easier to join a full session.

Graphics

• Textures: Better compression techniques allow textures to be displayed with 4x better resolution. Overall framerate improved dramatically.
• DirectX 11: Groundwork has been laid to support DX11 in the near future.

Upcoming Season 4 Content

• Borg Invasion: A series of events will soon kick-off bringing the Borg invasion of the Alpha Quadrant to the fore again. New Deep Space Encounters have been mentioned, along with events to defend an as yet unknown homeworld from invasion.
• Duty Officers: Effectively a conversion of the basic "card collect" meta game, Duty Officers [DOFFs] are new way to represent the bulk of your crew. DOFFs can be sent on assignments with rewards and risks, and offer static bonuses to your performance.
• New Skill Progressions: Along with the DOFF system, a number of new skill paths are being provided. Diplomacy already exists for Federation players, but Klingons will have access to "Marauding". Other categories include "Medical", "Science", "Colonial" and "Military" among others. Progression grants additional DOFFs, items and abilities.
• Department Heads: Bridge Officers [BOFFs] will be promotable to head the six departments [Tactical, Security, Engineering, Operations, Medical, Science]. Bonuses to performance will be available.
• First Officer: Similar to the Department Head system, a single BOFF will be allowed to be promoted to First Officer, with an additional active power provided.
• Feature Series 4: This has been confirmed to take place in Cardassian space, possibly coinciding with a revamp of Deep Space 9. The first episode has been completed, with developers intending to release the series at such a point that they can guarantee no more than a 2 week delay between future series.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Not mentioned there, but the C-Store has been revamped too. Looks nicer, organized better, and you can buy things from the web rather than just viewing items and being able to buy points for in-game use. You can choose to limit what you're viewing by what's on sale, maximum price, or what you don't already own.

Also a few useful things to purchase added in. For $3ish (I think) you can increase a character's inventory by 12 items. There's a similar thing for increasing bank size.

 

[NihonTiger90]

Love the changes. Shooter mode is so intutitive once you get used to it and breaks up the RPG feel of ground combat. So glad I subbed back for a month, at least.

 

[Salami Inferno]

I'm glad you guys are liking it! Above and beyond the praise, we're continuing to clear out any of the new bugs that were introduced with Season 4.

In fact, we have a new build going tonight that addresses a good number of them.

 

[The Technomancer]

I'm glad you guys are liking it! Above and beyond the praise, we're continuing to clear out any of the new bugs that were introduced with Season 4.

In fact, we have a new build going tonight that addresses a good number of them.

Alright, we got someone from STO on here! I love how GAF just kind of accumulates people from the industry.

Can I ask what you do at Cryptic?

 

[Salami Inferno]

I'm a producer on the project. I manage builds, several teams, and recently I produced the team that handled the new ground combat system.

I use this same name on our official boards if you've been by there.

 

[Walshicus]

I'm a producer on the project. I manage builds, several teams, and recently I produced the team that handled the new ground combat system.

I use this same name on our official boards if you've been by there.

Welcome to Gaf!

Definitely enjoying much about S4. Only complaints would be how easy it is to die when a mob is beneath you a la Cutting The Cords ground section. Perhaps height difference should offer defence buffs?

 

[Carcetti]

Trekker here. Season 4 is so refreshing, I even do fleet actions now.

What's still not good: STFs. I ran all 3 borg STFs in row... Infected is ok. Cure is actually very fun... Khitomer Accord was terrible. It takes so damn long. We lost one member in the destroy the pillars part but I was able to compensate with transphasic bomb+orbital strike combo and we got through that. In that point it was 3 am in the morning but so what? So we went on to the final space parts and the last boss was horrible especially with 4 people now. 50 minutes of a mind-numbing bossfight where my cruiser had to tank the whole fight practically but I still nodded off to sleep a few times.

Still, it's my go-to game of casual MMOs. Very trekky.

 

[Salami Inferno]

Thanks for the feedback! Our content designer "Cryptic_Gozer" is currently working on a major STF overhaul. You should find them infinitely more accessible and playable in the coming months.

 

[NihonTiger90]

Been playing this game for about a week since the Season 4 Update. It's night and day how much better ground combat is now with the new shooter mode, and having been gone for so long, with so much content out there I haven't experienced yet.

Came over from DCUO, and right now, as much as that game got fun for a while, don't plan on going back yet.

 

[Carcetti]

Thanks for the feedback! Our content designer "Cryptic_Gozer" is currently working on a major STF overhaul. You should find them infinitely more accessible and playable in the coming months.

Thanks for the heads-up, sounds good to me.

One thing I like about STO is that it has actually improved over time a lot, so I have faith in promises like these. It's the same with Champions Online. Both games started out in pretty rough shape (Trek especially), but the stream of improvements has been very consistent and impressive.

 

[Walshicus]

Thanks for the heads-up, sounds good to me.

One thing I like about STO is that it has actually improved over time a lot, so I have faith in promises like these. It's the same with Champions Online. Both games started out in pretty rough shape (Trek especially), but the stream of improvements has been very consistent and impressive.

The direction of change is very welcome. I still think the biggest challenge is content generation - I'm very eagerly awaiting the Borg Invasion events and the new Cardassian Feature Episode series.

 

[Walshicus]

Enterprise F Reveal

 

[Ponti]

Very sleek. I like.

 

[Emitan]

I'm not the only one who made a character with an "Epic Beard" and has skirts mandatory for his all female away team, right?

 

[Walshicus]

I'm not the only one who made a character with an "Epic Beard" and has skirts mandatory for his all female away team, right?

Made an half Klingon half Andorian on the KDF with a pretty awesome beard. My Fed crew are all in "All Good Things" uniforms, and as a rule of thumb have to be 40 or over for no real reason...

 

[CzarTim]

Resubscribed to try out content creation, only to find out it is down :-/

 

[Reclaimer]

Resubscribed to try out content creation, only to find out it is down :-/

It's only down for a few days while they update all the Foundry stuff to the new Season 4 updated.

 

[Walshicus]

Well, I cancelled my subscription today over this:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=227193

I've got nothing against Cryptic selling ship skins in the "C-Store" for a modest price. I'm mildly annoyed that they're selling ships with unique but balanced bridge officer and equipment layouts, but to be honest I can live with it... What's pushed me out is that they're actively going to start selling *better* ships for cash. Pay to win basically.

Shame - I've been active for 539 days; 18 months.

 

[BattleMonkey]

That sucks, but I don't know, the game never felt like it was very competitive at all. To me that is more of an issue with the heavy pvp focused games where any noob can basically buy victory.

 

[Walshicus]

In the grand scheme of things you're in that particular ship [the Nova] for hardly any time at all. But it's the principal of the matter, that they expressly stated the store would be for cosmetic items only and that they wouldn't sell advantages. Plus they've already indicated that they have a tonne of other over-powered ships for the other tiers.

The PvP game is quite competitive; an additional bridge officer power or console can make all the difference.

 

[LProtag]

I guess these kind of things would make sense if they were going F2P, but they haven't said anything about that.

 

[CzarTim]

Man, the mission design really picked up once I reached Lt. Commander and went to the neutral zone. Unfortunately for every good thing there are always two that irk me. Constant crashes, ridiculously overpriced things such as renaming your Bridge Officers (it was cheaper to discharge my current ones and get new ones), and various other glitches/lack of polish make me feel like this game should be F2P. It's a shame, really. Lots of potential.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I guess these kind of things would make sense if they were going F2P, but they haven't said anything about that.

They hinted at it several times in the past, and after the apparently success of Champions going F2p, I would imagine its really pushing for STO to go free..... there might be some licensing issues that need to be resolved though for them to make such a transition. Wouldn't be surprised if they are working on it secretly in the background anyways, it sometimes feels like they are putting much of their game support on the cstore anyways already. And with big MMOs on the way soon, they will have more competition .... SWTOR, GW2, Tera, etc, etc.....

 

[The Elite]

I'd easily jump back in if this were to go F2P. I really liked it but I didn't think it was worth $15 a month. Also, it was glitchy as fuck when I played.

Does the game benefit from more community interaction these days? When it first launched, it didn't even feel like a multiplayer game.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I'd easily jump back in if this were to go F2P. I really liked it but I didn't think it was worth $15 a month. Also, it was glitchy as fuck when I played.

Does the game benefit from more community interaction these days? When it first launched, it didn't even feel like a multiplayer game.

Unless you actively do the fleet actions and pvp, the game feels pretty lonely and single player.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Star Trek online going F2P by the end of the year.... seems kind of short notice but yay!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/0...tainment-confirms-star-trek-online-going-f2p/

 

[WillyFive]

Hurray!

 

[Mr. Luchador]

About time!

 

[NihonTiger90]

Star Trek online going F2P by the end of the year.... seems kind of short notice but yay!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/0...tainment-confirms-star-trek-online-going-f2p/

As expected. I'll want to see how the F2P version shakes out (F2P Champions is certainly playable, as it turns out!) but my guess is the Seasonal Content is what gets locked away, but you get the rest of the game for free.

 

[Walshicus]

As expected. I'll want to see how the F2P version shakes out (F2P Champions is certainly playable, as it turns out!) but my guess is the Seasonal Content is what gets locked away, but you get the rest of the game for free.

Nah, the weekly episode series will remain open to all it seems.

Speaking of which, I'm quite looking forward to series 4 in October. We know it's set around DS9, and rumour has it, it's a sequel to Sacrifice of Angels. We'll finally get to see what happened to that Dominion Fleet...

 

[BattleMonkey]

I hope the update to DS9 really improves the place, always found it ugly and not really looking like the station from the show interior wise.

 

[Walshicus]

I hope the update to DS9 really improves the place, always found it ugly and not really looking like the station from the show interior wise.

Definitely. It needs the same love that Earth Space Dock or Qo'nos got. I hear they're even willing to reduce the scale of DS9 itself to be more in line with the shows. Seriously, you could park the USS Galaxy inside a promenade window.

FYI - they've already updated the wormhole effect.

 

[Walshicus]

So I resubscribed today and first thing I do is check on the reviews of my foundry mission.

This was the state I remember from before I left:

I'm pretty happy with this. I had some comments on spelling "errors" - actually just my use of English rather than Americanism, but otherwise cool.

I come back:

D'oh! Turns out some bugs affected all Foundry missions in a recent build. Still, an excuse to review some dialogue options etc.






Aaanyhow - it's an excuse to pimp out Starbase UGC which is a great resource for finding fun Foundry missions:
http://starbaseugc.com/

 

[Ponti]

Just did my first Borg Red Alert last night, pretty fun though I was hoping they would be a bit more difficult (considering it was in Gamma Orionis). Shit rewards for VA's. 1 emblem and a 15min skill boost. Useless

 

[Walshicus]

Just did my first Borg Red Alert last night, pretty fun though I was hoping they would be a bit more difficult (considering it was in Gamma Orionis). Shit rewards for VA's. 1 emblem and a 15min skill boost. Useless

Yeah - was far too easy. Hopefully it'll be tougher now with the max players setting fixed to 5 and they correctly level you down to 45.

That said, I'm running them for the items. We definitely need better itemisation in this game - shouldn't be able to get a purple item after five minutes of gameplay, repeatedly.

 

[Walshicus]

A nice screenshot from fighting B'Ger [as it's now known ]:

 

[Gvaz]

What...what is it? Borg? A raid boss?

 

[Ponti]

The end boss of the new Borg Red Alert random encounters. 'Boss' is a bit of a stretch though, they really aren't difficult at all.

 

[Walshicus]

The end boss of the new Borg Red Alert random encounters. 'Boss' is a bit of a stretch though, they really aren't difficult at all.

Yeah, as said before they really need to up the difficulty on B'Ger.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

Is there a date for F2P yet?. I havnt played since before crossfire and im itching to get on but im not buying a sub if its free to play next week. Not long left of 2011 and its meant to be this year.

 

[WillyFive]

Is there a date for F2P yet?. I havnt played since before crossfire and im itching to get on but im not buying a sub if its free to play next week. Not long left of 2011 and its meant to be this year.

No date yet, but hopefully they are more prepared than the DC Universe guys.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

No date yet, but hopefully they are more prepared than the DC Universe guys.

Take it they had a bad launch? was going to get it a shot aswell.

Its okay ill wait until i can get my Half Klingon Half Vulcan Captain back in to action.

Still pretty trashed no Jem'Hadar customization options. DLC with Romulan and Dominion Factions would be great but its seems klingon isnt fully done. Hopefully F2P will see a player boom and we can support it enough to get it even more fleshed out .

 

[Gvaz]

I thought the beta was pretty derivative but I'll give it a shot if it's F2P. You wont have to buy a key, will you?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I thought the beta was pretty derivative but I'll give it a shot if it's F2P. You wont have to buy a key, will you?

I don't know, but Steam and Amazon have had them on sale for under $4 before.

 

[Walshicus]

Take it they had a bad launch? was going to get it a shot aswell.

Its okay ill wait until i can get my Half Klingon Half Vulcan Captain back in to action.

Still pretty trashed no Jem'Hadar customization options. DLC with Romulan and Dominion Factions would be great but its seems klingon isnt fully done. Hopefully F2P will see a player boom and we can support it enough to get it even more fleshed out .

My Jem Hadar "alien-gen" character from launch:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=CD5D...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!283&sc=photos

And his Vorta counterpart:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=CD5D...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!282&sc=photos

 

[StalkerUKCG]

My Jem Hadar "alien-gen" character from launch:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=CD5D...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!283&sc=photos

And his Vorta counterpart:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=CD5D...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!282&sc=photos

Very good dont get me wrong you can get pretty close to them but honestly the parts are all ready in the game surely they could throw them into the character creator.

Even if you dont give us full Jem'Hadar races just have the parts. Infact i think "some" Jem'hadar parts exist.

 

[Walshicus]

I'd really like to see more parts sold for existing ships. They've got this habit of trying to sell (relatively) expensive whole new ship designs, but really I just want more parts to play with my existing models.

Speaking of kitbashes, while testing on Tribble I had no idea this combination of parts could happen on the starter "miranda/centaur/shi'kahr" class:
https://skydrive.live.com/#!/?cid=c...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!285&sc=photos

https://skydrive.live.com/#!/?cid=c...7300F4B4693&id=CD5DA7300F4B4693!284&sc=photos

 

[Medalion]

I didn't know they moved the official thread

but hey www.startrekonline.com finally set a date for the F2P, it will be delayed so it's coming January 17, 2012 just fyi

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I thought the next big batch of changes were going to come along with the free-to-play launch, but I guess not--they've just hit Season 5 ("A Call to Arms").


Just sent an email to a buddy telling about what I thought were the most notable changes; I'll post that here, though really what I linked to above isn't very wordy anyway.

*Big change in how space skill upgrades work. They felt that putting points into things like "Cruiser Captain" or "Plasma Weapons" were too restrictive and keeping players tethered to one particular setup for their character's whole existence, so this has been radically changed. Instead, there are generic upgrades that will apply to any ship you captain. Put your points into Shields, and shields will be better for any ship. Also no differentiation between Phaser/Plasma/other types of energy weapons. I'm actually not even sure if there's a differentiation between energy weapons and torpedoes anymore, either.

*All the various Emblems players could earn have been simplified. The game now has three currencies. Energy credits are the normal money. Gold-pressed latinum is just for dabo and used for "vanity items", so it can mostly be ignored. Everything else is dilithium, and any existing emblems we had should be converted to it. It's also apparently possible to do some sort of exchange between dilithium and the Cryptic Points used for the game's store, but I don't know much about that.

*Duty officer system. Seems like a combination of an extra layer of customization and the jobs you could send party members on in the original Final Fantasy Tactics. You gain duty officers in much the same ways you'd gain the regular officers on your ship, though they're more plentiful. Or you can buy bundles of them on the C-store, with most of them being "common" types--it sounded a lot like getting packs of cards. Anyway, different people apparently have different specialties which will affect things like your ship's performance, but groups of your officers can also be sent off on tasks that take a varying amount of real-world time, from several minutes to multiple days. These earn you experience in various categories (one is the Diplomacy which already existed), which then lets you get... more tasks. I assume there's some other payoff for this stuff, too.

*A new layout for seeing missions you've taken--and finally it makes you do missions within a set in the right order, rather than letting you do something like accept Klingon Front missions 3, 4, 5, 6 at the same time and playing them in reverse order so nothing makes sense.