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Stale?
Chatter among some of my fleet, several of whom (like me) have played for several years. Game play is feeling stale. I love Trek. I enjoy this game, but it seems we wait a LONG time for something new and fun to pop up (maybe once a year?). Voyage feels stale. Gauntlet feels stale. Events are stale. Collections are stale.
I don't want to imply I'm quitting or just show up to whine, but I'm curious if others are feeling this way. If so, this is my canary in the coal mine for DB.
I don't want to imply I'm quitting or just show up to whine, but I'm curious if others are feeling this way. If so, this is my canary in the coal mine for DB.
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I can’t imagine that that would be *that* labor intensive we should have to wait months and months for that, but what do I know?
I still find voyages fun. Trying to set a new PB time has kept me interested. Though, I switched fleets a month ago and the new one was 14 levels below my old one so that's killed my voyage time greatly and has irritatingly set me back.
I'm looking forward to the new Mega and the possible new crew we may see from it. I'd say give it some time. Try to set a goal for the month/year, and see if that doesn't help.
Nothing yet.
But as I always say: Game development takes time, especially if you want to create something bigger like say a new feature. Especially for DB - since they are a small team. Also I hope the future of STT will prove me wrong, but I don´t feel this game is their biggest priority anymore...
I'm not a coder so I have no idea how difficult these changes are, but it seems we wait longer and longer for new Gauntlet award crew (and most everything else in it is weak sauce). We don't even see a variety of traits show up in Gauntlet. Voyages are just supply fodder. Exclusive crew was nice but, again, that's been a while. And the last collection was...when?
To be clear, I spend money on the game. I'm sure I don't qualify as a "whale," but I'm getting a big YAWN too much lately.
Collections are great!
When they add new ones.
The temporary achievements were pretty decent and achievements are good in general. I've found myself being incredibly lax on the Gauntlet since I have all 4 at 5/5. A new Gauntlet character would help things along.
- nothing happened in gauntlet for a long time
- the inventory improvement was, well, it looked like it was done by someone who hasn't played the game
- the expedition mechanics make me believe that no dev made it to threshold ever
- daily rewards, dabo, voyage, dilemma (old schematics), scan, arena rewards, faction stores look kinda 4 years old with some minor tweaks here and there (I know not everything is that old)
Not-so-stale, or rather well done:
- Campaign
- Single skill birthday legendary (Bones) with a great way to get him to 4/5 - personally I'd like to see this happen with more TOS crew buried as 1* crew
- Honor sale with citations
I'd argue that as a moderately successful mobile game they should be offering up STT 2.0 about now. That would be a ground up rebuild of the code onto something modern, with only half the mechanics, but all resources and cards carried over. And a slew of new things to discover.
But back on planet earth, all I'd really hope for is a few new big features and events each year. Considering the code and database are old and spaghetti, and would need at least 1x full time game developer, that's the least they could do.
QoL improvements are slow, misguided and a fraction of the potential. While we are fed reruns/flashbacks/repeats with the promise of greater things, expectations build ever higher.
In the amount of time it's taken 7.4.0 to have oozed out of its dirty little pit with it's small QoL improvements, we should have been given 7.5 and onwards.
I'm sure some folks feathers will be ruffled by my opinions, yet again, but so be it. The OP is right, game is getting stale.
I think you're spot on. Star Trek appears to be entering a renaissance. This is the mainstream mobile game for it and that big investment that made news seems to be doing nothing
I am not a game developer but I do have experience with large amounts of data. There would be no carryover of existing crews and ships, a move that would alienate the exact and only people who would otherwise be happy to sign up for a rebuilt game. Even if they were to only carry forward active accounts and those of anyone inactive for, say, 90 days or less, that’s a phenomenal amount of data and the import/export process would be a nightmare. Imagine the support tickets that would result...no, that’s not going to happen.
I feel like that's just inevitable though - I've been playing for years, I don't have to put in maximum effort because I've already built a strong crew, so I can just coast off that strength. Ultimately the game's about resource management, and I've managed my resources to the point where it's pretty much self-sustaining given a minimum input of effort on my part. Anything 'fresh' also means more effort for me to keep on top of it, and I don't know if I'm going to want that, or just decide that whatever the new reward is, I can do without it.
Mind you I'm not a high-paying player these days so I doubt whether someone like me stays or leaves affects DB's bottom line much if at all. I've put decent money into the game in the past, but right now I feel like I get more 'value' in content - ongoing gameplay, and new crew being added - than I'm putting in with just my monthly card, so I don't feel bad about being disposable, I feel like I've gotten a good deal in my time with the game. But there's games I play obsessively every day until I've exhausted them, and games I just do my dailies with one eye on another screen playing youtube or something at the same time, and STT's the latter.
Good point. While I can easily satisfy myself with the many hundreds of hours of ST from the last 50 years, we're in the midst of a big resurgence of the franchise with DSC, PIC, S31 and other shows being discussed.
Time to step it up DB.
Building up a bunch of Gold cites last month was great, and I just immortalized EV7 & IS Picard, so there was a nice rush of immorts for me this past week or so.
Yes, I have been feeling it too for many months, as we have had this thread before, and vented our boredom there (over the summer was it?)
As for QoL upgrades, besides what has already been mentioned, I have noticed the graphics have had some upgrades over the last system update or 2, which I have been pleasantly surprised about. This makes me hopeful for other things being worked on in parallel to these graphics changes.
All in all, I'm hopelessly addicted to the game, stale or not. With very few Star Trek outlets, it is a comfort to go to the familiar screen every day for some ST Zen.
Basicly they just seem to try and find a way to combine some traits, and an ability in new ways. But without making so big a change they close all the holes too fast.
But it presents a problem that's hard to answer. Look at the forum feed back to events. It almost seems to become contradictory. People ask to be given something to do. But very quickly they begin complaining it's just a bunch of time wasting tapping. Skirmishes and expeditions give people something to do. But within a couple days the comments become about how the game makes them physically ill because it requires too much tapping. Most of the things I see people asking for as "improvements" to the game are things that simply make success more likely, or cut their level of effort and daily tap requirements down.
What would make the game less stale? Do people want the game to require them to play more? Do they want the game to require them to simply log in more often? Do people actually want new content that requires them to tap more often? Does the game feel stale because new content is repetitive? Does the game feel stale because at a certain point the only thing left to do in the game is welcome a new thing to collect? Do you loose interest because it's repetitive or because legendary goals are set up to take so long you don't feel the sense of accomplishment as often as l you did when most of your goals were Super Rare?
I think a lot of the issues are that a lot of the game is designed to deal with low to mid level players. Cadet missions, Arena, Gauntlet, and Voyages seem to be designed to feed items to players as they build. Where they do address the potential interest of high level players it seems like token busy work. There are few new 1* and 2* characters. Why should there be? The existing ones are enough to keep new players busy, and high level players don't need new weak characters. So all new characters are 4* and 5*. The only thing to engage high level players is a new thing to collect and it has to be something better or potentially better than they have to get their financial or playing interest. The game seems to have designed itself into a corner.
Somehow it needs to present high level players with something to do that impacts the game, but not by giving them something new to collect and level. What do high level players want as a challange? Some form of challenges exclusive to them. Would a new character to shake up the gauntlet really get and keep your interest? I don't think so. The same people who already find the gauntlet boring won't suddenly find I interesting. They didn't loose interest because they were using the same characters to win. They lost interest because winning didn't mean anything to them any more. I play it in the hopes of getting the exclusive gauntlet drop. But once I get it, if I ever do, what would be the point afterward? A new power creep card isn't a real solution.
Hmmm LotRO shut down several underpopulated servers and migrated all characters to an existing destination server of each affected player's choice. It was no forced process, the players had to trigger it. This balanced the server load and inactive players remained untouched.
My whole STT account fits into a .json file with not even 3 million letters. This is really nothing given that maybe 200k active players might have to be migrated.
But this is all theoretical. There is zero indication that a code rebuild is going to happen or even is planned in the far future. Actually I do not think that this is ever going to become reality. STT is a cash cow with the minimal investment possible to keep it running.
I've said something similar before, right before the introduction of Campaigns. Which, if we're being honest, is in no way a new game mechanic or anything "fun" in the narrow sense of the word. Other than the instant-gratification of receiving something shiny. The last meaningful addition were Voyages, which in itself are little more than Shuttles. And I'm saying that fully aware of the fact that staffing ships is the last thing I actually still enjoy doing. For me personally, several aspects have become increasingly stale in the past few months:
Yes, the honor sale was great, but it was the big fireworks after a year of metaphorically slaving away. And now the process starts over again. I've since enjoyed almost constant 10h Voyages - which makes this aspect of the game a little staler as well. I've also depleted nearly all of my resources to scrape together Honor, in the hopes that this would also eventually replicate the early game experience. I have already returned to comfortable levels in all of them.
Some things would (probably) be very simple to implement and increase the enjoyment for long term players significantly:
I am writing this fully aware of how freemium games usually work. There is almost always only a certain amount of content (Missions only get so hard, Voyages can only be pushed so far towards 12h, even hoarding stuff has a cap). The remaining game mechanics are derived from pvp-competition, which is seldom skill-based, but almost always about who can spend more or who can punish their body more staying awake or mindlessly tapping away (Events, in this game). Things always get stale at a certain point in a freemium game.
What is actually baffling me is, that DB would rather pool all resources developing a new game in another franchise. Stark Trek fans are known for being extremely loyal to their franchise, and new fans are created every week, as new shows will be pushed out by the month. How they are not going all-in to capitalize on this is beyond me.
Well that is something I do not understand either.
While I don't have the answers for other questions you posed, at least for this element I believe we saw a recent answer on the forum poll requesting to remove Mondays from the weekend event length. As you pointed out, people start feeling burned out partway into the event, so making it shorter would probably help minimize that feeling.
Rewards and new things to acquire can give us something new to chase, but we're still chasing them doing the same things we've been doing. Go through the Make It So! sub-forum sometime. There are really only a few basic ideas:
1 Give us new things to collect and cheaper/easier ways to collect them.
2 Make our crews/ships stronger.
3 Make things in the game happen faster/more lucrative/less expensive.
I honestly don't see what more could be done. All there is to work with are base and proficiency stats, and ships. Between away missions, shuttles, Gauntlet, and Voyages, those things are all being used already. How else could you use those things?
Intriguing question. New things have been added in the past. Mostly to make under-used aspects relevant: Gauntlet for proficiencies, Voyages for combined stats. Event types have been added to reflect or revive underused game mechanics.
Now, nothing is keeping DB from adding another complete layer to already existing cards. A new value like base or passive ship stats. And then a game mechanic that reflects that stat. It has been done with resources (Honor, Intel, Accolades) lots of times, even relatively recently. That could totally mix up the relevance of old and/or useless cards. And every mechanic can result in a new event type, and a new way to rank the desirability of a card (like Dr. Soong suddenly being in the top10 ValueX list). Both of these would become new monetization avenues for DB.
Sure, but what kind of mechanism is there to add? Presently, each Crew Member has A skills (each with X base and Y proficiency) and B traits. I get that you're proposing either a C new attribute and/or Z new stat, but I'm unable to imagine what either could be. Voyages are pretty much the pinnacle of using all of those things.
A game aspect I've always found on the stale side ... it is interesting, but the RNG of it all just makes it too frustrating ... I still only have Locutus at 2/5 and it doesn't matter if I win a gauntlet or go on a 40+ win streak, the rewards are so utterly depressing and random that my drive to participate just dissipates slowly. The McCoy thing was great, won two gauntlets within a short period and placed top 10 for a few in a row ... but that excitement has gone again, more trainers and junk out of lootboxes.
Voyages
A game aspect I really enjoy and I put a lot of time into trying to improve the crew I own to be able to do the best that I can on them for all skill combinations ... but power creep is making that a bit ... not sure how to put it ... I'm not a big spender so I have to really focus on certain crew to slowly cite up, but each week someone comes out that makes me think ... for example, I know 100% for sure that The Keeper will benefit my squad ... but I have them 1/5 and it will take about 2 months to get them 5/5 ... and with all the new crew it just feels like I'm carrying water to the ocean. Which is why ...
Collections
The only thing keeping me really interested at the moment ... I've made the decision to just cite up crew associated with collections, no matter how crappy they are ... Assimilated La Forge is the current project ...
I know I can make 10 hrs on most voyages so just fiddling in the margins and improving my crew like that is just meh ... I'll take the bombs that DB tosses me through mega-events (greetings new Picard, even though I don't really like the card) and campaigns (EV Suit 7 is a perfectly fine addition to my crew) and improve my general crew that way.
Events
The continual slog really ... I'm more excited about reading what the new event will be (especially when they are re-runs and flashbacks!) and crew associated with it than ranking ... I enjoy Skirmishes and try to do well, and I really enjoyed the Expedition ... but the rest leave me neither hot nor cold.
My ideal scenario would be for 4 re-runs/flashback events between the current mega event and the next one in April. Let me add stars to some of my older crew, who I've grown quite fond of.
Other
I really like the fleet I'm in, nice people ... I'm not super active in chat, but I love helping out ... it was a great feeling to know that I was a part of maxing out our Starbase.
I also like seeing my fleetmates do well in events
Achievements are nice ... working on 500 immortals and lvl 90 ... but the goals I've set for this year are more interesting to try and meet. I'm still excited to try and get my last voyage exclusive (McCoy).
Anyway, don't mean to sound too sad about it all, the decision to switch to collections (last week decided it) has reinvigorated me a bit ... hopefully, it'll last.
I'd surely have been gone by now if it weren't for being in an active fleet with a lot of good people — and being able to chat with them outside of the game (which, in our case, is LINE) has made all the difference, as well. (Also, as Travis stated, having a very active forum has been a big plus, too.)
My own priorities have shifted along the way, as certain milestones were reached. What keeps me interested these days more than anything is new crew, really. And their stats don't matter as much as whether or not I like the characters and/or the artwork.
But the rest of the game is just barely holding my interest. It's not yet what I would call a slog, mind you — more like going about one's daily chores, things that need to be done or have your life fall into chaos.
There will come a time, I know, when it's all become tedious or a bore. After 3+ years, I'm surprised I haven't yet reached that point. Maybe after another year, maybe sooner... I don't know. For now I continue to enjoy building up the crew I've got left to build up, and a few very minor goals that I feel are still within the possibility of achieving.
New additions to the fabric of the game would be nice, but in the end, for me they would likely only serve as the final few drinks of "last call" before I finally pick myself up off the barstool, call a taxi, and head on home.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
I’m not exactly a creative game developer, but the possibilities might literally be endless.
Easy/straightforward: Introduce “Proficiency 2”. Another number, whether with RNG or not, that only gets used for a certain mechanic. Say, expand the “musician” trait to a spectrum. Then introduce a Guitar-Hero-esque mechanic / event format. Will breathe new life into players turning on their game sounds. Can be repeated indefinitely for further stats.
Slightly less easy: Wild card equipment slots. Create items you can switch between cards. Cards may have different amounts or types of slots. My Admiral Cartwright, holding the Gimmick of Command will be my new highest base CMD. Minuet can’t hold that item, so I’ll give her the Gizmo of Healing, giving her an additional MED slot. Items could be distributed via event fleet rewards, significantly increasing competitiveness / engagement.
More sophisticated: Real XP / fatigue. XP is so mind-numbingly underused in this game, people have probably forgotten that you actually receive it by completing missions, not only throwing trainers at a card. Cards could obtain permanently increased stats the more often you use them, or in the other direction, temporarily fatigue globally every time you put them on a shuttle / voyage / mission. Not sure how to event this, but it would make faction events a lot more strategic, and lead to players using a larger share of their crew rosters (or strategically supercharge otherwise useless cards).
Needs elbow grease: A graphical stat such as “Influence” that works like a radius on the world map. Could be used to defend or occupy planets or star systems. Could be advanced into a domination type event or fleet vs fleet PvP.
Might need a new game engine: Similar to a trading card game, use decks of cards for a turn-based PvP or PvC. Cards could receive new abilities, analogous or derived from ship abilities. Enterprise-E Picard uses “Nooooooooo!”, dealing [SEC base] damage to all other cards, stunning all “Borg” types for 1-2 rounds. Or create a turn-based ship battle system. Chess in space, only with better graphics, and a wider variety of pieces.
Other ideas/straight out rip offs of other games:
These are just crude, uncreative examples. I’m sure someone who gets paid to think of these can do even better.