CAPTAIN'S BLOG

While I think there is still room for improvement (as with everything), I really thing Cryptic deserves a hat tip with the Delta Recruit event. I know I appreciated all of the extra energy credits, dilithium, and fleet marks on the new toons I created during the event.

I wish I had had some of these items when I started a few years back with my main toon. It would have made my STO life and learning curve easier.

I think that the new additions have been great. My biggest concern is and always has been the problems that exist that Cryptic have not fixed. New content is great but the lag and amount of SNR that is happening is killing the game for most people. SNR and lag are the items that I see 90% of players complaining about. I have only gotten into game to do my R&D and maintenence items for the last few days because of the amount of lag. There have been times when the lag was due to my provider but that has not been the problem for a while now. I love all the new stuff and really love STO but if they dont fix these issues I dont see people playing the game. I read where they are announcing that they are trying to fix these issues, I hope that they succeed...SOON....before its too late.

I have mixed feelings about the changes in the game. I basically play solo missions and random group STF's. (My keyboard skills don't let me keep up with team chat and I ahven't ever learned to use voice chat). The new story missions are not bad, but there's only a couple of them, so I end up doing them over and over. I like the Delta Recruit system, and especially the fact that many of the rewards are account wide. On the other hand, there have been many more bugs since the Delta Quadrant opened up. I couldn't help but notice that the Cryptic website has been out +Experiencing problems" for the last month or so and no one seems to be fixing it. Also, when I've contacted Cryptic Support I usually get back a form letter rather than an actual answer.

My other pet peeve is that although I've been able to advance my Delta Recruit to level 60, I haven't been able to move up my other toons because of having to do replays with reduced XP and CP rewards. As a result, all but three of my toons are sitting at level 54 to 56 and my level 59 toon is still a long way from level 60.

All of that said, I have enjoyed being able to take my new character to level 60 in a reasonable amount of time.

Probably the best news lately is that Cryptic is delaying the new House Pegh content to fix the bugs BEFORE they release it. It's been ages since their new content has not brought a host of problems when it first came out. I guess they are learning from experience.

Although the delta recruit event was great, I believe this is just a rare moment in STO history. Bringing down the sector walls did not merit much. All it did was remove load screens. Exploration was NOT improved... all the worlds I go to already have been discovered. There's nothing to explore. With that being said I fell that bringing the sectors walls down is just a ploy and a sham into making the players think they are turning over a new leaf when, really, they are not. As for the featured episode rewards.... 1 spec point per account per week is a bloody joke. Especially with the post 55 grind being a complete pain... so much so that you can get mk XIV gold gear before you even hit 60. Same can be said for spec points (assuming they provide more avenues to obtain them outside of XP). So, in conclusion, it's the same strategy they've always had... "Bleed the players dry"... they are just changing up tactics so that they actually have a "healthy" amount of players to potentially bleed dry.