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Preechr posted:http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=21626261&postcount=59 With the right of the $8 preacher's title I bought ages back for other reasons, I hereby pronounce my science character and her faithful starfruit khellid to be pixel-bug and pixel-wife. May the awful fanfic writing commence.
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Jan 9, 2015 22:17
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:12 |
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STO's been going through a rough patch lately. Ever since DR dropped it seems like all cryptic can do is nerf the fun things, add grind everywhere, and hide everything behind the worst kind of p2w monetization schemes. But it looks like the declining player numbers, the empty queues, and the official forum sig protest* are finally having an effect. Although it might not seem like it, cryptic has been paying attention to all the complaints and suggestions for improvement, and they're now ready to implement the changes that the players so desperately want. That's right, we're getting new bridge officer ability icons! Finally, our long nightmare is over. *Which is hurting the devs' feelings.
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Jan 9, 2015 23:58
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Oh now my game is saved, buying 3 life time subs. I am glad they decided that new content and bug fixes were sidelined for important things.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:03
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Oh good, after all, a real problem this game was having was I wasn't having to re-learn and re-memorize enough things.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:18
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g0del posted:STO's been going through a rough patch lately. Ever since DR dropped it seems like all cryptic can do is nerf the fun things, add grind everywhere, and hide everything behind the worst kind of p2w monetization schemes. But it looks like the declining player numbers, the empty queues, and the official forum sig protest* are finally having an effect. Although it might not seem like it, cryptic has been paying attention to all the complaints and suggestions for improvement, and they're now ready to implement the changes that the players so desperately want. I'm guessing for some of the devs it really is emotionally distressing to know they may not have a job within six months at this rate.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:21
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isn't that taco guy just an artist though? i'm sure he can find another job.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:25
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Berke Negri posted:I'm guessing for some of the devs it really is emotionally distressing to know they may not have a job within six months at this rate.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:25
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So much pain and suffering in that post.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:40
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g0del posted:That thread really is a great read. Taco is amazingly whiny about the sigs, and somehow manages to completely misunderstand why people use them. I really don't envy anyone working at Cryptic right now.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:50
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Asimo posted:No, the problem is I'm sure the devs and CMs are perfectly aware why people are pissed off Are you sure? It's been proven repeatedly that they don't play their own game.
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Jan 10, 2015 02:16
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Mondian posted:Are you sure? It's been proven repeatedly that they don't play their own game. They're also wholesale chopping out content now too. I assume its because it was too easy to level without spending money on XP boosters or something. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=21651331#post21651331 Episodes which have been removed are: “Under the Cover of Night” “Minefield” “Divide et Impera” “Saturday’s Child” “Preemptive Strike” “Hunting the Hunters” “Project Nightingale” “Ground Zero” “Ghost Ship” “Friend of My Enemy” “Trapped” 
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Jan 10, 2015 03:08
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Oh yeah, the tribble patch is up. The BOFF training thing is... frankly, almost effortless. You make a PADD (500 dil, 2500c, a handful of uncommon mats), you make the training manual (no cost besides the PADD), and then you use the manual on the BOFF (for a trivial amount of expertise). There's no randomization involved, and since the PADDs and manuals can be sold on the exchange there's no need to ever actually spend dilithium either. This is pretty much a straight usability improvement and good on Cryptic for it. Also, the new spec is "Command Officer" which seems focused on team buffs and exposes, sort of how Intel had a lot of focus on flanking. Secondary deflectors are in after like a loving year, are crafted in the science crafting skill, and basically all the available science boats get a slot for it. Most of the Fed Romulan story arc got excised and a handful of new missions have been added that apparently tie in with the actual Romulan faction missions better. Nothing of value was lost. Also full auto rifles were fixed. 
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Jan 10, 2015 03:12
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Asimo posted:No, the problem is I'm sure the devs and CMs are perfectly aware why people are pissed off and doing sigs like that, but at the same time can't do anything about it because PWE is incompetent and running the company into the ground. Tacofangs, a STO dev posted:The thing with the sigs, is it isn't any one sig that's so terrible I cry myself to sleep at night. It's that the abundance and persistence of them is just grating over time. Like I said, they feel like little jabs at the whole dev team for a single comment most of us had nothing to do with. That is wearing, and after a while, makes me not want to subject myself to it anymore.
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Jan 10, 2015 03:20
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Nah, I stand by my statement, having dealt with poo poo like this on different sides. It's less about what's being said and more what's implied. It's not exactly a secret that players are pissed off about upgrade costs, XP grinds, and especially lovely queues, and it doesn't take a dev metric to see how empty the queues are lately. There's no doubt in my mind that the developers are fully aware of the issues but unable to do anything about them either due to PWE meddling or some incompetent producer, since they've made a lot of other accessibility nerfs around the core issues (nerfing enemy HP, reducing upgrade rush costs, etc) that don't actually solve the underlying core issue. So then you get to the petulant CMs, and again the response there says enough. Players are pissy and whiny all the time, this isn't really a new thing or even an unprecedented level of it. If the company behind the scenes was working fine it would be trivially easy to make some announcements like "yes we're looking into things and changes will be coming soon" or "we've heard your complaints but our data shows X and Y so things are actually okay although we'll keep an eye out", or some other polite encouragement. But then you look at them not doing anything like that now and it can only be because they're not allowed to (for whatever reason), and comments about "abundance and persistence" and "most of us had nothing to do with" and so on that just... screams at there being frustration at an inability to do anything meaningful at their job. I dunno, it all seems obvious to me from looking at it, but maybe I've had the "pleasure" of experience in toxic work environments. 
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Jan 10, 2015 03:47
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g0del posted:This doesn't sound like someone who knows why people are using the sigs. He also goes on and on in the thread about how the sigs are useless because they don't give any constructive criticism. But the sigs didn't get big on the forums until after people had posted constructive criticism, over and over and over while cryptic kept doubling down on the nerfs. Yeah it was this. Signatures likes "everyone loves Delta Rising and its the best expansion ever" came well after the feedback was given and ignored. Sounds like a routine attempt at blame shifting and/or attacking the messenger.
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Jan 10, 2015 06:10
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Oh yeah, there's one catch to the PADD/skillbook crafting. It takes four hours (or you can queue a job with five that takes 20), so I suspect Cryptic is hoping that everyone will be impatient and rush them for the usual absurd dilithium cost I guess. I can't imagine it being a big deal if you're willing to wait a day or two for the market to be flooded anyway. At least as cash sink catches go, this is still pretty inoffensive.
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Jan 10, 2015 06:34
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Asimo posted:Oh yeah, there's one catch to the PADD/skillbook crafting. It takes four hours (or you can queue a job with five that takes 20), so I suspect Cryptic is hoping that everyone will be impatient and rush them for the usual absurd dilithium cost I guess.
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Jan 10, 2015 07:36
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DancingShade posted:Yeah it was this. Signatures likes "everyone loves Delta Rising and its the best expansion ever" came well after the feedback was given and ignored. Plus the "Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it" line is a direct quote from the game's lead designer. Are the protest sigs childish and immature? Probably. And I'm sure they're frustrating to a guy like Tacofangs, who clearly likes interacting with players and who is responsible for some of the parts of DR that nobody dislikes. I feel bad for him, and a lot of the devs who just make the things they're told to make and mostly do a good job. But... as a company, they did this to themselves.
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Jan 10, 2015 07:46
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Iskander@steampunker7
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Jan 10, 2015 07:47
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"I'm going to RP a murderer with 23 counts of sexual misconduct"
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Jan 10, 2015 07:57
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My character's pain threshold rating is: EWWWWWWWW!!!!!
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Jan 10, 2015 08:12
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DancingShade posted:They're also wholesale chopping out content now too. I assume its because it was too easy to level without spending money on XP boosters or something. Kinda funny because that whole chain is currently sort of lampooned by the current featured foundry mission. It's a convoluted time travel + mind control explanation for why so much poo poo doesn't make sense but also very wordy and serious so you can't really tell if it's tongue in cheek or genuine. "Did you ever wonder why we kept following orders when it was so obvious at that point that she was actually Undine?" "Oh, it was mind control!" "I had always wondered why the federation would mass such a huge fleet and preemtively invade Romulan territory like that, it's so uncharacteristic. Now I understand, she was amplifying her mind control powers." Captain Candiru fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 08:20
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g0del posted:Do existing boffs at least keep their current skills? Because that's about the only reason I could see for not being willing to wait a few days. Keep in mind that the unlocks are per-boff rather than global unlocks, so just slot them with what you'd use anyway.Captain Candiru posted:Kinda funny because that whole chain is currently sort of lampooned by the current featured foundry mission. It's a convoluted time travel + mind control explanation for why so much poo poo doesn't make sense but also very wordy and serious so you can't really tell if it's tongue in cheek or genuine. "Did you ever wonder why we kept following orders when it was so obvious at that point that she was actually Undine?" "Oh, it was mind control!" "I had always wondered why the federation would mass such a huge fleet and preemtively invade Romulan territory like that, it's so uncharacteristic. Now I understand, she was amplifying her mind control powers."
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Jan 10, 2015 09:14
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hello, bijor is now canon and i am now in charge of story writing at pwe.
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Jan 10, 2015 09:25
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Any of you actually use the loadout feature? Does it actually work? Like half of the search results for details about it are forum threads about how it's broken. I don't really have inventory room or bank space to mess around with it. If I save a loadout are the items in my inventory at least flagged so I don't accidentally turn them into cash?
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Jan 10, 2015 09:30
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Captain Candiru posted:Any of you actually use the loadout feature? Captain Candiru posted:Does it actually work? Captain Candiru posted:If I save a loadout are the items in my inventory at least flagged so I don't accidentally turn them into cash?
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Jan 10, 2015 09:39
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Seems like a really awesome feature in principle but I think I'll just skip it.
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Jan 10, 2015 09:51
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do people change their weapons and gear still? does pvp still even exist now?
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Jan 10, 2015 10:01
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Acer Pilot posted:hello, bijor is now canon and i am now in charge of story writing at pwe. Resubbing all fifteen of my accounts.
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Jan 10, 2015 10:01
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Acer Pilot posted:do people change their weapons and gear still? does pvp still even exist now? Don't worry, the game does that for you so you get all the excitement of your gear ending up in your inventory without actually having to change gear yourself!
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Jan 10, 2015 10:27
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Captain Candiru posted:Any of you actually use the loadout feature? Does it actually work? Like half of the search results for details about it are forum threads about how it's broken. I don't really have inventory room or bank space to mess around with it. If I save a loadout are the items in my inventory at least flagged so I don't accidentally turn them into cash? At least it's still better than the previous system, which was "swap it all manually by hand every time you change ship". 
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Jan 10, 2015 10:32
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Asimo posted:Secondary deflectors are in after like a loving year, are crafted in the science crafting skill, and basically all the available science boats get a slot for it. What do they do?
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Jan 10, 2015 10:37
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Soviet Commubot posted:What do they do?
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Jan 10, 2015 10:40
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Ground traits and the commando spec make all the more difference on ground than Mk XIV gear does I feel. Like you can squeeze that extra 50 DPs upgrading your ground weapons but what really makes a difference is not dying instantly.
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Jan 10, 2015 10:41
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Oh yeah, you can buy manuals for rank 1 and 2 skills from the old boff skill vendors, and the new Command skills are up there. Trick is... the manuals don't tell you what the skills do in their tooltips.  At least you can see the names, and I don't think anyone's listed these yet, so here you go.Space Ensign: Overwhelm Emitters, Concentrate Firepower, Reroute Power from Life Support Lieutenant: Rally Point Marker, Subspace Interception, Needs of the Many, Ambush Marker Lieutenant Commander: Phalanx Formation, Call Emergency Artillery, Suppression Barrage Ground Ensign: Take Cover, Hammer and Anvil, Overwhelm Shields, Shock and Awe Lieutenant: Strategic Analysis, Delegated Devastation, Timely Intervention Lieutenant Commander: Coordinate Bombing Strike, Return Fire, Sanctuary Bunker What do they do? Who knows! Since character copy's down and you can't give a bridge officer a command spec yet anyway. The command spec also notes you can get captain kit module versions of these two, so presumably we'll see another rep in the near future.
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Jan 10, 2015 11:47
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So presumably this means there'll be a new class of boff skills that won't work in "universal" slots?
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Jan 10, 2015 12:07
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Yeah, the Command Officer is another primary specialization just like Intel. Which means a whole assortment of new ships and officers As for ships... well, it's not a coincidence they're adding this around the time the Anniversary is hitting. Prepare for a Dyson style freebie with some c-store deluxe extravaganza.
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Jan 10, 2015 12:15
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Has STO gone beyond trainwreak? Do they just keep launching more trains into the broken train making a bigger crash in an attempt to fix it? And who the hell is more broken? The Devs, Perfect World, Or the players?
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Jan 10, 2015 12:22
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SugarAddict posted:
Yes.
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Jan 10, 2015 12:32
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:12 |
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SugarAddict posted:
"I have the solution! Lets add a bunch of new toys and hide it all behind another 30 spec point grind and c-store purchases!"  Anyway... I also crafted a few of the secondary deflectors on a lark. It looks like the special ability on the Dyson deflector (the shield drain/heal when you tyken's rift etc.) is actually unique to it, so there's still some reason to keep it around if you had it. You can pick from three different varieties and you can start at Mk II and work up like most other crafting stuff. Main trick is the skills picked seems to be random, and there's one other unusual mods they have (maybe limited to the crafted ones like [Pen] and [Arc]?). The three varieties are... Deteriorating: Basically the non-dyson one we have now, radiation DoT with tachyon beam/tyken's rift/CPB/energy siphon/viral matrix. Inhibiting: Deals a single spike of radiation damage after 4 seconds to targets of jam sensors/tractor beam/TBR/scramble sensors/GW Resonating: Adds 2.5% shield hardness and reduces damage to shields by 2.5% for 15s after using HE/PH/TSS/ST/mask energy signature/photonic officer. Some of the special mods I saw were... +25% chance for subsystem targeting to knock a system offline 0-10% defense debuff against your sensor analysis target, scaling over time Improves Sensor Analysis healing buff by 20% Improves Sensor Analysis damage buff by 20% ... There's probably another potential mod or three there but I couldn't be assed to make more than ten as a test.  Looks like quality upgrades add another randomly-picked skill, too. This won't be as obnoxious as trying to get CrtDx4 weapons but you'll probably be making a few of these if you want something really specific.
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Jan 10, 2015 12:38
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