STO question

[Bork359]

Posted this in the wrong forum yesterday - oops I'm new.

So I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even know Star Trek Online existed until yesterday. I've played WoW in the past and after a few YouTube videos I'm considering giving it a shot. However I have a couple questions that I wasn't able to find answers to that I need answers to first.

So how exactly does it work when starting a new character with regard to choosing what era you start in? I know the game is old and several expansions have been released. Does that mean I can start in the DS9 era and play through the Victory is Life storyline first? Or, is your starting era merely cosmetic and you have to start with a ToS storyline? Once you finish a storyline, do you progress to the next one or do you choose your next era?

Also how does it work with all of the other players in the world if everyone can start in a different era? Do the players intermingle between eras, and how does that work?

 

[Orphalesion]

Posted this in the wrong forum yesterday - oops I'm new.

So I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even know Star Trek Online existed until yesterday. I've played WoW in the past and after a few YouTube videos I'm considering giving it a shot. However I have a couple questions that I wasn't able to find answers to that I need answers to first.

So how exactly does it work when starting a new character with regard to choosing what era you start in? I know the game is old and several expansions have been released. Does that mean I can start in the DS9 era and play through the Victory is Life storyline first? Or, is your starting era merely cosmetic and you have to start with a ToS storyline? Once you finish a storyline, do you progress to the next one or do you choose your next era?

Also how does it work with all of the other players in the world if everyone can start in a different era? Do the players intermingle between eras, and how does that work?

After the tutorial all players start in the same era: post-Hobus in the early 25th century.

The TOS start just has the tutorial mission and the first chapter take place in the TOS era, after that you time-travel into the same era as everybody else, but you get to keep the ship and uniform from your original era, the same is true for the Discovery era start.
Th turorial missions have seve

 

[matthunter]

What Orph said - only the TOS and DSC characters start in any era other than 2409/2410, but will then end up there for one reason or another. The Dominion characters are not DS9 era but native to 2410.

 

[Bork359]

Is it worth getting into? I was excited at first but after more research, it looks like the game is severely lacking of multiplayer group content, like dungeons and raiding. From what I gather almost everything in the game is solo-able. Is that right? How does it stack up to something like Classic WoW?

 

[NCC-73515]

Does it have first person view now? I stopped playing because I got sick of the over-the-shoulder view XD

 

[matthunter]

No, you have the remote 3rd person and close-in over-the-shoulder when in Aim mode (which I never bother with unless a mission needs me to move my BOFFs using rally points).

 

[matthunter]

Is it worth getting into? I was excited at first but after more research, it looks like the game is severely lacking of multiplayer group content, like dungeons and raiding. From what I gather almost everything in the game is solo-able. Is that right? How does it stack up to something like Classic WoW?

There are multiplayer missions but small group (usually 5 players) - these are called Tactical Fleet Operations and most of them are over within 15min (often a lot less if you end up in a PUG with a bunch of the play-to-winners who can DPS down Borg Dreadnoughts in seconds, as I did this morning whilst TRYING to take enough damage to actually get the "Repair X Hull Damage" endeavour). I think the largest group mission is 20 players but is more of the "hold off waves of enemies as long as you can" type of thing.

 

[Noname Given]

Is it worth getting into? I was excited at first but after more research, it looks like the game is severely lacking of multiplayer group content, like dungeons and raiding. From what I gather almost everything in the game is solo-able. Is that right? How does it stack up to something like Classic WoW?

If you're looking for WoW type "Raid" content, you'll be dissapointed. This game is 'casual' to the extrem, and there is very little content (there is some but not much) that requires real/coordination between team members.

The content is also level locked so a lot of the more involved content you won't see until your character hits 60-65.

There's also no real 'travelling' to participate in endgame content; you either join a random queue, or pick one from the list; and when enough players 'join' the content launches, and you're transported directly into it; and then deposited back to where you were. The largest type of 'Task Force' content is 4 groups of 5 member teams (20 players total) - and you can join randomly, or form your own team of players.

I've played almost every MMO out there starting back in 1999n with EverQuest - and if 'challenge' is your thing, STO would be a waste of your time.

But if you just want a casual easy going (albeit grindy if you want to earn something in gam - but STILL nowhere near as grindy as some of the WoW stuff (circa BC or WoTLK <-- I quit WoW around 2009 and never went back ) that's set in the Star Trek Universe an d allows you to mix and match what you like with respect to ships/characters, you might find it interesting.

But it' definitely not a "WoW clone" and doesn't really play like WoW, so you'll need to learn a whole different set/style of game mechanics.

The challenge for most 'more hardcore' types are trying to REALLY max out their ship/character DPS - and they have player run sites that keep track of that kind of thing.

(And sorry if that seems like a long/roundabout response, but people's playstyles and expectations are so varied these days that giving a simple "Yes" or "No" to a "Is it worth my time" is IMO a waste of time for anyone but the person asking to answer for himself.

As for me, it definitely scratches my "Star Trek' gaming itch (and I burned out of Hard Core raiding in WoW myself). I've been playing since it was in closed beta in 2009 and still enjoy it to this day - and yes it has A LOT of faults; (but so does every MMO I've ever played) and its nice to have a game where you can spend a little as 20m minutes in a day and feel like you progressed in some way.

If you like Star trek in general, I'd say give it a try. It's F2P so it the mechanic really bother you, all you lost was some time and bandwidth DLing the game.

 

[NCC-73515]

When I stopped playing a few years ago, it was frustratingly repetitive.
Warp to a new planet - 30 min space battle - beam down - 10x5 min ground battle - rinse and repeat

 

[Orphalesion]

Is it worth getting into? I was excited at first but after more research, it looks like the game is severely lacking of multiplayer group content, like dungeons and raiding. From what I gather almost everything in the game is solo-able. Is that right? How does it stack up to something like Classic WoW?

I never really went into the co-op or PVP content, so I only played the Single Player Campaign (never finished it though) and I genuinely enjoyed some of it (particularly the Romulan Republic and new Romulus stuff) But after a while it just felt like a repetitive slog to me.
To me the appeal it really had was mostly that it was a continuation of the Main universe timeline, but that was before we had new Trek.
In my opinion the first couple chapters of each faction are pretty fun, after that all factions share the same storyline (with only minor differences) and the excitement and fun takes a nosedive.

Plus now they have this awkward position where they are clearly a different continuity from the universe of LD and Picard, but still kinda try to conform and reference it. Like, they removed a character because they died in Picard, event hough the events that led to their demise could never have happened in the same way in the STO timeline.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

It’s just best to think of STO as a giant sandbox game mixing and matching Star Trek ingredients in any which way.
With some semblance of fan fiction story sprinkled in.

 

[matthunter]

Yes, the merging of the storylines across factions is a bit shoehorned, especially for the non-Fed/Klingon factions ("you must choose an ally"). The Romulan storyline is the most immersive and personal. The Temporal one (TOS character initially) would be, but there's a LONG gap before you SHOULD access the rest of the Yesterday's War/Future Proof missions if you want to keep the storyline coherent (with the exception of Temporal Ambassador which ideally should be played just before or just after Empress Sela).