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Thoughts from a 6-year player
in The Bridge
Star Trek has always been in my blood, so this game was destined to seek me out. I remember when it was a long hard slog to do even the simplest things. In the Before Time there was no arena, no gauntlet, no replicator, no fleets, no voyages. I remember when events weren't even a weekly occurrence. And if you wanted to check if something was available in a faction shop you had to warp to Every. Single. One. Now the game has changed almost beyond recognition. So many new features! And yet still so many bugs and annoyances.
Star Trek itself is changing beyond recognition. I enjoyed DSC and Picard but Paramount's decision to make the shows harder for fans to watch has dulled my enthusiasm. And that whole debacle a few years ago when they were suing fans for making their own shows was pretty ugly. That's just not how to treat fans, especially when Star Trek wouldn't exist in any form today without the tireless efforts of fans fighting for its resurrection 40+ years ago. Now there are so many new shows on the horizon it feels like there's a factory cynically churning the stuff out. I'm weary of it all.
The game reflects some of this changing landscape. Even 5 years in, I would still get excited about events and tried hard to get my favourite characters. But the more time passes, the fewer characters I'm going to recognise or care about. George & Gracie were my Holy Grail and - well, there they are, swimming and singing on my ship.
What dismays me most of all is the bombardment of LTOs and other pop-ups when I'm just trying to play the actual game. I don't understand why they need to leap in front of me when I'm recalling a shuttle, forcing me to inadvertently click a "buy" button and then have to cancel it. And reopening the game to rid it of annoying bugs (like crew notations still showing 1 when I've already fused a character) just means I have to run the gantlet of those pop-ups again. It's completely destroyed any sense of immersion I used to have in the game. I feel like I'm in the world of Minority Report instead of Star Trek.
Others have said it better, but let me add my voice to theirs: Events are stale and objective events are just resource-burning busywork. There's no actual "gameplay" - just tapping, tapping, tapping. And however much I may want that 10-pull reward, it's just not worth all the tapping. Especially when I'll only get some schems, airlock blues and invariably an all-frozen behold. The struggle is real for those of us with deep crew, and it feels like punishment for our loyalty.
I do like the innovation of crew retrieval, especially as a long-time player with hundreds of characters. And collections, while not actually giving all those crew anything to DO, at least add a little more interest if not strategy. But those are the only aspects that feel aimed at those of us who have been here almost since the beginning. I wish there was more to do. I wish there was more FUN.
I also wish this post could have been more positive, but I set out to explore my feelings about the game and there it is. Maybe it's time to hang up my uniform and retire to some lovely warm planet. One where I can swim with George & Gracie.
Star Trek itself is changing beyond recognition. I enjoyed DSC and Picard but Paramount's decision to make the shows harder for fans to watch has dulled my enthusiasm. And that whole debacle a few years ago when they were suing fans for making their own shows was pretty ugly. That's just not how to treat fans, especially when Star Trek wouldn't exist in any form today without the tireless efforts of fans fighting for its resurrection 40+ years ago. Now there are so many new shows on the horizon it feels like there's a factory cynically churning the stuff out. I'm weary of it all.
The game reflects some of this changing landscape. Even 5 years in, I would still get excited about events and tried hard to get my favourite characters. But the more time passes, the fewer characters I'm going to recognise or care about. George & Gracie were my Holy Grail and - well, there they are, swimming and singing on my ship.
What dismays me most of all is the bombardment of LTOs and other pop-ups when I'm just trying to play the actual game. I don't understand why they need to leap in front of me when I'm recalling a shuttle, forcing me to inadvertently click a "buy" button and then have to cancel it. And reopening the game to rid it of annoying bugs (like crew notations still showing 1 when I've already fused a character) just means I have to run the gantlet of those pop-ups again. It's completely destroyed any sense of immersion I used to have in the game. I feel like I'm in the world of Minority Report instead of Star Trek.
Others have said it better, but let me add my voice to theirs: Events are stale and objective events are just resource-burning busywork. There's no actual "gameplay" - just tapping, tapping, tapping. And however much I may want that 10-pull reward, it's just not worth all the tapping. Especially when I'll only get some schems, airlock blues and invariably an all-frozen behold. The struggle is real for those of us with deep crew, and it feels like punishment for our loyalty.
I do like the innovation of crew retrieval, especially as a long-time player with hundreds of characters. And collections, while not actually giving all those crew anything to DO, at least add a little more interest if not strategy. But those are the only aspects that feel aimed at those of us who have been here almost since the beginning. I wish there was more to do. I wish there was more FUN.
I also wish this post could have been more positive, but I set out to explore my feelings about the game and there it is. Maybe it's time to hang up my uniform and retire to some lovely warm planet. One where I can swim with George & Gracie.
"There are two types of beings in the universe - those who dance, and those who do not."
28
Comments
Especially the new objective events. Not even bothering some weeks - it's not always convenient to fuse 3 crew and immortalise one in the 2 day window - a bit of forward planning helps but it's forcing me to play the game in a way I don't want to play it. Also having to run (eg) Commander arena battles - have long since stopped playing these as getting "spammed" by valueless schems is more trouble than it's worth at this point.
Obviously there are good points - there must be if I'm still spending money after all these years, but I think not for much longer as it's feeling more and more like a stale cash cow.
The events were exciting to me for about 3 years. That first Captain Proton was something special. Then I think somewhere around when Discovery came out the game's population exploded and I could no longer place in the events. Yes, I could still now in skirmish and galaxy but back then it required about 6 hours of tapping. Now it's what, 60 hours? No thanks. I don't really understand how anyone could stomach that.
I really have no solutions. Maybe some kind of personal mega expedition that is pretty challenging. I dunno. But I'll hang out and get the 8 to 10 4star golds they give each year until the lights go out.
The whole problem is that the developers are currently in a phase where the agenda is obviously not geared toward player retention. I think there is a sweet spot for revenues from players that trails off after players have developed their rosters enough. So the developers are focussed on the player group that spend the most, which are the ones that are developing rosters. The true irony here, is that those players WOULD NOT EVEN BE PLAYING THIS GAME IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE ABUNDANTLY AVAILABLE RESOURCES THAT WERE DEVELOPED AND MAINTAINED BY PLAYERS.
If every veteran captain, rank 40 and above, were to suddenly quit this game, and every player made resource were to suddenly vanish, the complexity of this game would overwhelm the players and I suspect they would not even bother with it. There would be no leaders to chase on the leader board, and the overwhelming aspects of honor debt would absolutely cripple this game.
The veterans are the only things keeping this game going. And we get no respect and no quarter for it. This is my beef with the game developers. They have no respect for what they are taking advantage of. Comment moderated - ~Shan
They teased a "new feature", but I can promise it will be similar in scope as crew retrieval. There won't be much, if any, new "content". There won't be anything new for players to actually do with their crew.
And the sad realization, is that all of the collecting is really just a compulsory exercise. You cant take the pixels with you when the game ends, and sadly, you cant currently really even use the pixels in the game as there are simply no real ways to utilize a roster with a lot of immortalized golds.
That, and the ongoing quality/communication issues are the biggest issues in the game. They will undoubtedly lead to its end, if unaddressed.
I placed #112 last week. I didn’t do 60 hours of tapping.
Back in the day to get a 2/5 you had to place in the top 25. Now it’s top 750 which is much, much less effort.
Generally, the game gives you more chores to do but its also mostly easier. It would still be nice if they added a new game play feature. Objective events are certainly not it. Even the month long objective events are silly although getting a 4/5 for the trivial amount of effort they take is nice.
I think you're looking back with rose-coloured glasses if you think this is change beyond recognition.
1) Paramount went out of its way to make Trek harder to watch for fans outside the US back in the '90s. For instance, in Australia they had TV deals requiring that episodes air behind VHS releases. That got them money in the short-term from fans who had to pay a stack of money for a couple of episodes at a time, but meant that episodes aired on TV years behind, late at night. It's one of the reasons why Trek's popularity is so US-centric - they cared more about short-term money from existing fans than creating new ones. It's far easier for many people to watch now than it was back then.
2) Their legal action against Axanar is not "suing fans for making their own shows", it's taking action against a grifter who has exploited Trek IP for his own gain and still failed to produce anything of substance after years of fundraising - not to mention burned his bridges with pretty much everyone he's worked with.
In the '90s, Paramount was shutting down Trek fan sites all over the place.
3) If there was ever a "factory cynically churning the stuff out", it was when Trek was putting out 26-episode seasons with the writers tightly constrained, not to mention the array of licenced products. They completely ran the franchise into the ground. At least now there is quite a bit of variety in the material.
As to the substance, yes the game is very stale and desperately needs more to do - and being able to collect one crew member once a month ain't it.
I'm curious how many hours you estimate it would take for top 1000 galaxy. I'd be willing to go maybe 8.
This is best sentence in this forum for a quite some time....
I believe it’s 6 hours or less. Think I got a top 750 with 4 hours of effort.
Depends on your crew and the rewards. I squeaked just into the top 1500 to get a Faltorpan Spock and it probably took me 6-8 hours. Maybe even more.
Having a well developed 5* is a huge boon for a Galaxy. Getting Lt Ogawa last week was helped along by having a 5/5 COP Picard.
6-8hs for top 1.500? So you only can do 100k or less per hour in a galaxy?
I can do 400k an hour(instant cash in of rares) in a galaxy event.
So Top750 is doable in less than 3hs.
Requires a fast device and connection though.
With the new objective events I don’t even use the new 4* crew during their one week of usefulness, since I have a deep enough roster that I can afford to keep them in limbo until the next make-work project begins once the event is over - fuse, immortalize, freeze, repeat. At this point I don’t even know why I bother getting new crew at all.
They have also gotten super stingy about free crew slots, despite introducing more new crew than ever before, which only exacerbates the situation. Crew are useless in a crew collecting game.
I just hit 5 years and am wondering if I will make it to 6, with nothing else to achieve in this game except collecting them all…
Maybe for the seventh anniversary, we can get an avatar of the scarecrow.
I can score well but I was just pointing out one particular event with a desirable crew required more work than other similar events. A faster phone would be nice though.
I have been on and off for the whole time, I have seen the times without voyages, gauntlet, retrieval, cadet warps, way more expeditions, etc. and I have seen the modern era as well.
The new objective events would be okay and it would be possible to prepare for them ... if they started on time AND if there was SOME variation in the tasks.
Yes, the objective events are a beta, but more often something went wrong than right. So often I've heard the sentence "someone should be on stand-by for this new feature to work reliably" and I agree. The game is generating enough revenue that the developers could afford to have someone on stand-by during the beta phase to make sure everything is going right.
But that's exactly it: The least effort possible for the most revenue possible, that's the goal ... and that's what I can no longer support or look at. This is Star Trek. Star Trek is not about benefit, it's about making humanity better. While I understand that developers and even company bosses are workers just like I am and need money to feed themselves and their families, I think the greed from the higher-ups (not from the devs, but from the company that is publishing and advertising the game) knows no limits.
Also, I wish I could have seen everything that was posted before it got moderated (if it was just insults, it's all fine if it gets removed). All I can hope is, and I trust in Shan as I have before, that we can have a freedom of speech even when it's about criticism of the way the game is taking or has taken.
If so many long-time players voice the same opinion, and if I was a developer or a distributor, I would be deeply concerned. I would be inviting some of them for a staff meeting and give them a platform to post their suggestions and wishes how to improve the game in a way that it stays beneficial for the ones who are working on / for it, but also in a way that the players have more FUN playing the game rather than just rinse and repeat.
We need more event types (gauntlet-based, voyage-based) and combinations (hybrids) with these new types of course. We need even more small offers with citations inside, there's simply too much crew sitting on 1/5 FE status or 2/5 FE status, without ever seeing the end of the tunnel for them. They eat up valuable space in the roster and still they are too precious to just throw away after having spent thousands of chronitons and resources to level them up.
It's been going for 6 years. However, if there is no immediate change in policy about inclusion of long time members or at least of heavy spending members and listen to their ideas, those members could just go away and we might not see an 8 year anniversary anymore, let alone a 10 year anniversary. If the distributor sees no more raise in revenue, they might just cut the game off with a finger snip, like Q would. It's up to the developers (and if the distributor is interested, them as well) to save this sinking ship!
*antennae twitch* ... And with that, I'll be off again for a year or two. ~ Jhamel
Hold on, I’ve just described the Kobayashi Maru!
PS, having campaigns, where the 5* isn’t even in a collection makes zero sales sense.
- OEs are a chore designed to fluff up their engagement metrics and introduce zero new gameplay.
- They've repeatedly (five times?) copy/pasted flavor text from the first paragraph of characters' Memory Alpha pages.
- They've kept going back on their word about not putting exclusive crew in LTOs.
- Entire trait lists that confirm nobody with a basic understanding vetted them (Prophet Kira, Quarren)
- Trouble keeping the basic content train running on time (OE, crew art)
and a lot of other things like repeating the Convergence Day threshold issue despite assuring us after last time that wouldn't be the case. I'm sure none of the players like to be reminded that we're a smaller group each year.
Or not getting Lower Decks right while other games do. I won't pretend to know what goes into acquiring those rights, but as a player, that's the kind of sign that maybe we're playing the wrong game.
Like most other players I'm here because I made friends from years ago and because I like Star Trek. Last year brought us a glimmer of hope with Crew Retrieval and finally some dev communication, but that's gone a bit sour as well. At this point I'm just enjoying the ride with my buddies and listening to the signals WRG is putting out that say stop spending on our game.
I wonder sometimes if the game took a wrong turn years back when focusing on churning out so much new crew every week. Much of the gameplay would be more interesting if there was limited choice and you had to try to figure out how to use your crew smartly. Plus they could have spent their time working on other aspects of the game.
For me, I've started playing another game and putting more time into that. It's fun creating a roster and figuring out how to best improve, and having challenges to overcome that is not "how many hours of tedium can I bear".
Way back when the game launched, there actually was a select group of players selected to participate on a council. It was disbanded shortly after I started playing, meaning it only lasted a few months. I don't recall the reason(s) given for disbanding it, or even if any were given. I think the Make It So! forum largely makes such a council redundant. Instead of a handful of select players brainstorming with the devs, that subforum is a chance to see just how much support an idea even has among the player base--or, at least, the base's proxies here on the forum.
Which is not to say I don't support the idea of a new council; I actually would. There are several of our fellow forum members I think could be constructive as participants. If nothing else, one benefit would be that the council members could take on a job that none of the game's owners have done regularly, and that's to just let us know outright if an idea someone has was rejected or under consideration. They could leave things that are actively being developed as "under consideration" to cut down on demands for a time table and specifics that aren't ready. Letterboxd does this with their feedback system and I think it's a key reason so many of us feel engaged by that site. A player council that, at absolute minimum, did that would go a long way toward making a lot forum members stop feeling like we're throwing messages in bottles into the sea when we bother posting in Make It So.
I acknowledge that many improvements have been made over the years (Do we all remember life before the replicator? 😆) I’m not trying to dismiss or downplay those additions, but I wish we had more. In particular, I enjoyed the missions and trying to decide what character set up would be best to pass. I wish they would find a way to expand those and evolve them in some way so it’s not just one and done scenario. Just my humble opinion…
I like Travis’ idea of a council to try and give more focus to concerns and hopes, instead of shotgunning them all over the Forums.
I started thinking that TP/WRG began milking things when they introduced Crew Retrieval and the Celestial Temple back to back. I’m not saying that these weren’t good additions, just that they were a sign that finding uses for all of these crew wasn’t a priority. Someday soon, my spending will stop, probably for good.
I have to admit, the ship ability "I don't want the game to end" on the new dahj seems like it might be a bit on the nose. Afterall, picard was the one who said that. Maybe the game is already over.
Or maybe we just had a non-trekkie person doing the QA on the game. I would give it a 50/50 at this point as well.
In lieu of the scarecrow, I went ahead and changed my avatar to Quinn:
Makes sense, since we've all been the scarecrow.
This has gotten VERY OLD! Are you listening TP? Answer: "We are looking into this (for 3 years) and will post when we have more information". Translation: "No money in it for us to fix so just deal with it"
I'd go as far as to say the game itself hasn't aged well. It is a corked bottle of wine.