Giving STO Another Try

[JD]

I decided to give Star Trek Online another try on my PS4 and I don't know if they changed the gameplay, or if it's just more of what I'm looking for this time, but I enjoying it a lot more than the first time I tried it back when it was released.
Is all of the DS9 and Voy related stuff something that you have to build up to or can you jump right to it? I want to follow the story, so if all of that comes later in the story, I will gladly wait until I'm at that point.

 

[NCC-73515]

When they made it free to play some 5 years ago, I played until the point where you could choose the Klingons.
The battles were way too drawn out and not much happened in between. The whole game seemed to be about moving from one hour-long fight to the next. Has it changed?

 

[JD]

I haven't played much, so I don't know what it's like once things really getting going.
So far none of the fights have taken me more than a couple minutes to finish.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I recently fired up the game again only to find out that they have moved a lot of the goalposts in the game, so the ships that i had setup nicely with all good high teir stuff to hammer all the events on advanced and some at elite, are now lucky to manage to stay alive on the lowest settings now because they have pushed the cap level up and added more traits to grind out, ships are now like wet paper throwing harsh words on just the advanced level, so i can't imagine what the 3 seconds you are alive on a elite level would look like. lol

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I downloaded yesterday to give it a go. All I really want is to fly a few ships around for fun but so far it's all running round as a cadet.
Is it worth me carrying on and can I fly loads of ships without spending money?

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

^ You'll get a new ship up to Rear Admiral, if i recall from when I played. That seems like so along now.

 

[JD]

I downloaded yesterday to give it a go. All I really want is to fly a few ships around for fun but so far it's all running round as a cadet.

Is it worth me carrying on and can I fly loads of ships without spending money?​

[FONT=Open Sans]You get a ship pretty quickly once you get through the turtorial stuff. [/FONT]​

​

But after that you have to use the game's currency to get different ships.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

[FONT=Open Sans]You get a ship pretty quickly once you get through the turtorial stuff. [/FONT]​

But after that you have to use the game's currency to get different ships.

They also made a change a while back where you can use T6 ships at the starting rank so you have the option to use the same ship the whole way through the game.

 

[Jim Johnson]

I downloaded it for PS4 and tried it out. Went to the phaser training area, my character pulled a phaser out of the locker, and went to the training room. I tried equipping the phaser but it wasn't in my inventory. I had to fight them hand to hand while they plinked at me with disruptors. Glitch or did I miss a step somewhere?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Was it a Hand phaser or rifle?
There are different equipment slots for those.
Maybe it ended up in the other one and you didn’t swap?

 

[Mage]

I installed a month or two ago after having not played it for a few years. I'm now at the point in the game again where you basically can only really win space combat if you buy stuff with Zen and invest money into better gear. Which I'm not going to do.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Anyone know where I can download Armada or Legacy as all I really wanna do is fly some ships and fillet around without investing to much time or money

 

[T J]

In all honesty you can play any mission, episode or patrol in the game with a tier 5 ship using mark 12 very rare gear (very easy and cheap to get in game spending no real life money). People think you have to spend lots of real money because they don't understand the game, or they see an amazing ship doing amazing things, and they think if I can't do exactly that then I MUST have to spend money and I'm not gonna play. It's not the ship it's the build and making sure the free stuff you have works well together. You can fly a few ships around and have fun but you have to take a little time to learn what the game is about and how it works.

I'll be glad to help anyone out and even help out with gear and what not. The folks in our armada always help people get fully set up with builds that they can have a great time in. Just last night a player that hadn't played since 2014 came back and didn't know where to start. We sat down with him, asked him some questions about what he was looking to do role wise and got his the weapons, shields, engines and everything. Now he's having a blast, and we all made a new friend. He spent ZERO. We do that for everyone because we can. Nothing is asked in return except you have FUN. We have fun and help each other, that's what its all about.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I installed a month or two ago after having not played it for a few years. I'm now at the point in the game again where you basically can only really win space combat if you buy stuff with Zen and invest money into better gear. Which I'm not going to do.

It is not just the equipment though, it is also about doing the now almost unending traits skill grinds and upgrades to your charactors, ships and equipment, and that takes time and grind, a lot of time and grind, years to be honest at this point, as they have added that much into the game it is more a job than a game these days, and spending money won't solve that issue, hell i have over 17,000 zen from stipends sitting doing nothing because spending zen is only half the problem, grind and time are the issue today and the fact they keep adding more everytime they are forced to move the bar, and now that bar can never stop moving because the game is caught in a vicious circle of giving players unending grind that will eventually have player so powerful the bar has to be raised again, leaving of course all the casual players in its wake. lol

 

[Mage]

It is not just the equipment though, it is also about doing the now almost unending traits skill grinds and upgrades to your charactors, ships and equipment, and that takes time and grind, a lot of time and grind, years to be honest at this point, as they have added that much into the game it is more a job than a game these days, and spending money won't solve that issue, hell i have over 17,000 zen from stipends sitting doing nothing because spending zen is only half the problem, grind and time are the issue today and the fact they keep adding more everytime they are forced to move the bar, and now that bar can never stop moving because the game is caught in a vicious circle of giving players unending grind that will eventually have player so powerful the bar has to be raised again, leaving of course all the casual players in its wake. lol

Basically meaning I got my kick out of it for a while, and might try again in a few months with a different character if I find I have time to kill.

 

[Tirius]

^^ I'll second TJ's post with regards to being able to play the game for free. All of the content designed for single players is perfectly playable without spending irl money; I can't really judge the group stuff as I don't generally play it. My 2 main characters don't even use tier 6 ships, just because I like the designs of the ones I have on them (fleet variants, but tier 5s all the same). I'd recommend the reputation system as a good way to get better gear, some of the sets in there are quite nice. There are plenty of nice 'budget build' videos on Youtube for ideas as well.

As for the 'grind' mentioned by Haggis - true, if you are trying to get the best of the best stuff without spending money, you'll be spending a *lot* of time, a lot of which can't be avoided even with money. So my advice there is simply, don't. Play the game to have fun; better gear is always nice, but not the reason I play. I'm perfectly happy to slap the Borg around using my 10-year old star cruiser without ever considering upgrading it to something better. Sure, it might take 1 or 2 minutes longer, but I don't mind that.

 

[NCC-73515]

When I tried it years ago, there was a Dominion story happening where the fleet that the prophets removed in the wormhole suddenly reappeared, and the female founder was released from prison to help you. While I was playing, the thing stopped being available. Did that change? Can you play any of the released stories?

 

[Tirius]

You can replay almost everything, yes. Said mission was/is part of a 5-part featured series called The 2800. It used to be part of the main story questline in the Cardassian arc, but has since been moved out of that. It can still be accessed through the missions tab, same as the other featured series.

STO has once or twice revised the original mission lineup, revamping some missions and removing others. This is done mostly to bring the quaility of older content up the level of later additions, and sometimes to restructure the game's story as a whole. Other things that have disappeared over time include the small exploration missions in star clusters and the player-made Foundry missions, and the old tutorials have been replaced as well.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Anyone know where I can download Armada or Legacy as all I really wanna do is fly some ships and fillet around without investing to much time or money

You can't play either game on a current Windows 10-based computer unless you buy the games in question from the online store GOG (GOG.com) and then download them into your PC.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

You can't play either game on a current Windows 10-based computer unless you buy the games in question from the online store GOG (GOG.com) and then download them into your PC.

Thanks. I'll have a look at that