Star Trek Online is the long running MMORPG from Cryptic Studios and published by Perfect World Entertainment, a free to play game set in the iconic universe of Star Trek, here players get to command their own ship in one of three rival factions (The United Federation of Planets, The Klingon Defense Force and the Romulan Republic). The game, no doubt because of the enormous franchise pinned to it, still has a fairly active playerbase and has a lot of strong elements to it, but for us there’s a few things that we’d really love to see changed, without getting into too fine details, to really help improve the overall gameplay. So, with our next “What Would You Change About…?” here is our list:

• Combat DPS - The game focuses too much on DPS builds. Now there may be a lot of argument on this, but, from our experience it really does feel like the classes/roles that players can pick up in game, particularly for PVP, really just have no relevance anymore and the only thing that matters is DPS output. Playing as a “tank” or even a Science ship trying to provide CC really feels like banging your head against the wall, like even a high level build still becomes redundant in comparison to the DPS style gameplay. Whilst all games can suffer from a certain level of “OP”ness from the class or build of the month, Star Trek Online has unfortunately gone one further and made it an entire playstyle that is now only viable due to poor hull, shield and healing balance.


• Content Beyond 50 - Completing the level 50 story-arc shouldn’t stop the story. It most definitely feels like there is a sudden “end” when you hit level 50, with a truly intriguing story-arc that carries you throughout the games levels once players get a final resolution to the main storylines the game goes nowhere insofar as “what happens next”. Sure new content and expansions can continue this, or add another dynamic, but that means waiting years in reality for anything that will majorly progress the game. In the games story-arc (mini-spoiler ahead) ultimately the Federation and Klingons are allied, at least in terms of the story, however the mechanics themselves don’t support it and the game remains a three way faction fight. Having some greater threat that level 50 players could work towards, where they look at the other lower characters who don’t yet see the bigger picture, and letting players of all factions work together to build up the story that way and ultimately giving players the ability to actually go “…where no man has gone before” and beginning their own (albeit smaller scaled) “five years mission”. That said…


• No Cross Faction Tech Sharing - Whilst they may be allies we don’t think players should tech share between factions. The “Alliances” in Star Trek have typically been against the greater threat, and the factions have typically spent more time at war than they have at peace (and the peace time doesn’t always last), so the “sharing of technology” and allowing one faction to “commission” the permanent use of another factions ships and tech just honestly doesn’t seem very Star Trek’y. But…


• We Do Want Cross-Faction Grouping - Canon and story-line aside, we’d like to see cross-faction groups for Adventures and Battle Zones. Whilst keeping the divide in some ways is a good thing, we do think that overall the game would benefit to breaking down some of the faction walls, that’s pretty much the situation in the TV shows and movies for the most part; the lines are constantly skewed. The fight for a common cause as seen in these features actually MAKES SENSE to allow players from both factions work together, but it is restricted, and yet cross-faction tech sharing is allowed, which we can only presume is a financial decision to give players the chance to purchase more ships. The constant blurred line in STO with what you can do with rival factions and what you can’t is rather frustrating and at times nonsensical.


• The Foundry - We’ve been spoiled by Neverwinter’s Foundry system. Perfect World developed both Star Trek Online and Neverwinter and launched them just over three years apart from each other, but in that three years of developing Neverwinter it was clear to see that the Foundry system had been given a MAJOR upgrade to the developers newest title. Unfortunately for Star Trek Online fans anyone who tried out the new sparkly Neverwinter Foundry 2.0 were left feeling quite salty, but hopeful for a Foundry update that never came. Whilst we don’t expect to ever see the same Foundry system implemented into STO due to the sheer technical logistics behind it; STO being a much older game we don’t begin to imagine it’s as simple as porting it over. However, it does feel like the Foundry 1.0 has been left to gather dust and even the new ideas and tools implemented in the Neverwinter Foundry would hugely improve the now dates STO system.


• More Jedi - The game has a distinct lack of Jedi. Need I say more? Star Wars rules.

These are some of the things that we would change about Star Trek Online, but what do you think? What would you change about this game? Would you add anything else to the list? We await your opinions! Let us know!!!!!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2015 at 10:38 am and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.