[Sorotia]

The game has a obvious target now, and it's your wallets.

The quality is constantly going down while cash grabs constantly going up...I've noticed so many small and large bugs pop up recently. It took them almost a year to finally do something about the nasty rubberbanding. The story is progressing at a snails pace and it has taken us longer to deal with 150 year old Klingon rebels than it has the likes of the Borg, Undine, and even the Iconians.

First I had problems with things disappearing from my promotions tab and now I have things popping up as available that I claimed in the past and I get a error when I click on them. I see all these bugs popping up but they're just more concerned with adding things to the c-store or the gamble boxes. Instead of content we get recycled events over and over and in the case of Synth one, it's lazy and generic...and you practically get punished for doing it correctly.

The main reason I've been playing this game for like 8 years is because it's Star Trek...but more and more it's starting to feel like even that isn't enough to keep me around if all they care about anymore is making the game one big cash grab where anything else isn't of any priority. They've worry about making more and more systems that had no interaction with monetized

It's just getting to the point where it feels like all I'm doing is STO is grinding...either a billion+ ec for a lootbox ship I want...day after day after day for the event stuff I want...dilithium trickling in slowly or if I grind it I get piles and piles of ore to refine

More and more I can't help but wonder if it's time to walk away...if I do stick around I know I'm gonna stay for the winter event and anniversary...so do I walk away now or be even more burnt out by 4 months more of grinding?

[Jestersmith]

When feels like this hit me in game i normally just take a break for a few weeks or so. For me, i always feel that after investing so long in the game to walk away means i wasted my time so when the enjoyment starts to wain and waiver i drop out for a week or 2 or reduce my time to say an hour. Either way its really a personal choice to how and what you will do.

[Hippieslayer555]

I fully admit, the only reason I play STO is it's because it's Star Trek. If this were another generic space MMO with no established IP to carry it, I feel like it would have died out ages ago.

I love walking around DS9 and getting a chance to visit the bridge of Voyager, but if any other game could offer me that I'd drop STO in a heartbeat. As a F2P player, I honestly think I'm an after thought to Cryptic. Sure I don't blame them for going after money, they need to keep afloat somehow; but they have been far too greedy for far too long now.

I really think it's time to let another Dev have a go at Star Trek. STO had a good run, but the game is really starting to show it's age.

[Solace]

This sounds like a classic case of burnout of STO. I've recently gone through this, my view would be to take a break and pop during special events and play once a day.

[Bar'ol]

What you do besides the events? I mean plenty to do especially if you get into the rp scene. Find a fleet that rp or perhaps start it here. If you only focus on said events it will get dry and want to break. Playing with others I know helps. I've had to find other fleets with alts to achieve what I've described. Not many here that actually play sto that much anymore or its more do event and log off. I've been playing since launch myself as well due to it being Trek but finding those hidden gem communities in sto really helps, imo.

I enjoy my time here as well so dont misread what I'm saying. Just perhaps do content with others or different scene would refresh the game for you.

[jdcollins]

What the game needs is to get more "fresh faces" involved. The base of the player group is made up of older fans...and they are getting frustrated with the stagnant mindset of Cryptic when it comes to maintaining the game.

In the past they would hire developers long enough to create content then let them go to save money. The problem with that is those people would program their work into the engine, in their unique style and be gone without leaving information on how to alter or add to what they did. A new dev comes along and plugs their content in, runs into issues of compatibility and places whatever patches are needed to make everything continue to work. Then they too would move on to work somewhere else. Over time you end up with a server that is full of broken, mismatched, and quick patched bits of software that cause slowdown and rubber banding as it tries to correct itself.

To keep the game going Cryptic has to nickel and dime the existing player base just to keep afloat.

If more, younger people started playing and complaining, showing Cryptic that the player base is growing, as opposed to remaining steady or dwindling, they would be more inclined to hire and keep talent that could not only come up with more and better content, but fix what is already there as well purge out all of the 'garbage' that causes the issues we all complain about. Maybe with a growing fan base and volunteers they would be inclined to create a new server that would carry the game for years to come.

That's my two cents anyway.

[Buckaroo]

For the last several years I've only been on once a day to do the dailies, and when the dailies are done I don't log on. I agree, the only reason I've stuck with this game since the BETA is because it's based on the STAR TREK universe which I grew up loving. I haven't given any money to them since Jem'Hadar were introduced, and I don't think I'll be spending anything more on it in the future at all.

Star Trek Online could really benefit from a complete overhaul, in my opinion. I think they've done a great job with some of the stories and tying some of the plots to the TV shows and movies. I've enjoyed feeling like I'm in the Star Trek world and affecting what's going on, but there's always a limit.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of new Star Trek games coming out anymore, so options are limited.

[Scarlett]

This sounds like a classic case of burnout of STO. I've recently gone through this, my view would be to take a break and pop during special events and play once a day.

This. It's what I do

[Petrarch]

That's the old cycle of burnout in there, but Cryptic are making ever more obvious grabs for cash nowadays and more and more content is hiding behind a paywall, with the stuff that isn't taking months at a time to get there. I've not really classed the endless string of events as content for some time now and they've been going on for far too long now regardless. Long gone are the days when you had dozens of ships sitting in sector base, lined up and ready to join the new featured episode the moment it went live. Remember those days? We got 1 a week instead of 1 or 2 every 6 months or so.

I've got a lifetime sub from the day they first became available, but after an uninstall and another jump back in to look at the upgrade tokens, there's nothing there now encouraging me to go back in again. It's Trek yes, but even that shine has long since worn off for me. STO needs a big injection of something to get it revitalised, especially since most of the older existing content is all but ignored these days, but I feel that the majority of the player base goodwill has long been running dry and it's now powered through sheer force of will and luck. But even that will get tapped out at some point, then there's nothing left.

As I understand it, the game is coded like spaghetti and the current team of devs don't fully understand it as it contains a lot of legacy code from the original team. The only real way at this stage to fix all that would be to essentially scrap the existing client, move to a new engine and rebuild the entire game from scratch.

[Wallis]

This sounds like a classic case of burnout of STO. I've recently gone through this, my view would be to take a break and pop during special events and play once a day.

I agree. I did this for a few months as I recently decided to play Star Citizen, which is pretty awesome but also has quite a few bugs, and even more so after the recent 3.11 patch. I logged back into Sto recently and it was pretty ace in all honesty. I had the new Klingon episodes, plus the introduction to T6-X and I've had a blast.

Totally good to have a good break from STO now and then for sure.

[Palechimera]

That's the old cycle of burnout in there, but Cryptic are making ever more obvious grabs for cash nowadays and more and more content is hiding behind a paywall, with the stuff that isn't taking months at a time to get there. I've not really classed the endless string of events as content for some time now and they've been going on for far too long now regardless. Long gone are the days when you had dozens of ships sitting in sector base, lined up and ready to join the new featured episode the moment it went live. Remember those days? We got 1 a week instead of 1 or 2 every 6 months or so.

I've got a lifetime sub from the day they first became available, but after an uninstall and another jump back in to look at the upgrade tokens, there's nothing there now encouraging me to go back in again. It's Trek yes, but even that shine has long since worn off for me. STO needs a big injection of something to get it revitalised, especially since most of the older existing content is all but ignored these days, but I feel that the majority of the player base goodwill has long been running dry and it's now powered through sheer force of will and luck. But even that will get tapped out at some point, then there's nothing left.

As I understand it, the game is coded like spaghetti and the current team of devs don't fully understand it as it contains a lot of legacy code from the original team. The only real way at this stage to fix all that would be to essentially scrap the existing client, move to a new engine and rebuild the entire game from scratch.

They will milk it till it's dry it's like that good morning sunshine meme once it's all dry into the incinerator what's left of the game shall go

[Blaster]

STO in my opinion is one of those games that can tire you out easily. I've only played STO for like, 4-5 years, and when I first played it I played nothing else for months on end... over time the fun just dried up, some missions would take hours, either because I didn't understand builds or my ship wasn't the right tier to deal with the enemies in the missions.

Stopped playing and found a new game, came back for a few months, stopped playing. Repeat.

Its only recently I've bothered to invest money into the game, and thats due to the Xbox I bought a year or two ago, lost all my progress and characters when I switched to xbox, so I invested a bit of money into the game to get a T-6 ship, and actually started enjoying it again. I'd missed so much content I'd never played simply because I didn't understand things like builds. The T-6 helped a lot as well. I still take long breaks, just not as frequently as I used to.

Just how I felt

[Mack]

The problem is lack of focus. As many of you already feel, many feel the same - the last good expansion probably was Legacy of Romulus. Tones of episodes, as well as adventure released along with ships and what not. I suppose that was the last time they decided to do something for the veterans. The focus today is new player because you can't deny that for someone joining the game today - the story arcs + reps + TFOs as a whole package are quite thorough. As such, they just target veterans and competitive DPS people to milk money with new traits / ship consoles and don't do the great episode releases they once did... along with sunset of foundary which killed any player driven story content as well. So veterans who are not in the chase of DPS numbers are definitely ignored with little to no new content to pursue.

STO is not a bad game and for a new player there is value, but it definitely doesn't require someone like me or you to play it daily as we are doing the same stuff daily and have nothing gratifying from an end game point of view. It's good to take a break, explore other games and just play STO now and then and you will tend to enjoy it more. Especially play it with friends/community at this point for laughts - so like Solace recommended, do join the weekly event and give that a try if you can.

Should it have come to this? No. But neither you and I are the EP so we can only think of how we are going to invest and enjoy our time playing games and with STO.

UFPlanets Community today supports a wide array of games which I'm thankful for, so it's not like you have to go anywhere else either. Enjoy yourself in this community. I'm currently re-addicted to World of Warcraft in all honesty.

[Bridger]

Well for me the decision was made rather easy, so for once my time is now more limited because of school and I am putting my interest into 3d printing the Daedalus and other projects but I still play the game but in a much much more reduced way and I think this helps me staying with the game.

[Kerry Malone]

I think all the points above have been incredibly valid and valuable.

You have to remember that STO is a very old game at this point and a lot of old games struggle to keep people invested. Cryptic is basically going the way that SWTOR has gone which is to try and leech as much money out of it as they can. Subbing just isn't a lucrative finance model for them so in-game purchases is really the only way to go.

I stopped playing regularly a very long time ago, mostly because of the repitition and constant grind. I'd play if there were a group of people here in the UFP who wanted to run an event, as really the event staff here in the UFP really do their very best to take the tired and depressing content the game offers and make something interesting for the gamers here in the community. I think a lot of praise has to be given to those in SFO & HoK for the efforts they're still doing even now to keep people entertained.

STO will continue to limp on as long as people keep buying the in-game content, or until someone at Cryptic does a cash-flow analysis to see if the income outweighs the expenses of running it. At that point, the game will likely die a death.