[gforce]

Hello everyone!

So, it's been years since I last played STO, and now that I'm looking to get back into it, I'm wondering which faction is the most fun to play these days, especially from a PVE standpoint. I remember the Klingon faction not having any real content outside of pvp back when I last played STO, which meant that the Federation felt like the only faction with with significant pve content. Is it still that way today, or have they added a few more missions in?

[Hevach]

Klingons and Romulans both have a full campaign, however a great deal is shared, and a fair amount of the shared content seems to be more written from a Federation perspective, though some does feel better from a Klingon perspctive.

The Klingon campaign has my favorite tutorial, but my least favorite overall. I put Fed and Romulan campaigns at a tie, the early parts of the Romulan campaign are pretty cool and while I like the Fed campaign overall better, it drags a bit. On the other hand, one of the cooler things about the Romulan campaign (a boff with his own storyline intertwined with yours) is something a lot of people get annoyed about later on (after his story you're stuck with a boff at the top of your list who you can't rename, discharge, or customize as you wish).

There's also a fourth option, 23rd Century Fed. This isn't a faction, but a 10 mission alternative to the Fed tutorial taking place in the 23rd Century with some fun diversions throughout time and space (including the Kelvin Timeline from the new movies). At the end temporal events insert you into the 2409 timeline taking the place of a character lost at Vega, so basically at the start of the regular Fed campaign but with ten missions of experience and loot under your belt. TOS Feds get TOS beam in and scanning animations, but otherwise get access to all the Fed ships and content.

Everybody has the same endgame content, so in the long run, which of the three you pick ends up being more about ships. And Feds still get a pretty commanding lead there, as it seems everything that comes out lately is a multi-faction 3/9 ship pack, or a Fed ship period.

[Zairu]

Personally, I enjoy playing as a Romulan the most. They are the most unique of the 3 factions as far as their ships go mainly being singularity cores, and their abilities I feel make up for some of the power level issues that occur from only having base 40 in each stat.

In the end everything Hevach said is correct, go of what you think is the coolest to you, be it looks wise or abilities.

[aceman67]

-snip-

The disparity between the factions is easily explained by the fact that the source material is predominately Federation due to all Star Trek canon material being written from the Starfleet perspective.

As for the shared elements of the campaign being written for the Federation, that is because it originally it was only written for the Federation, as the KDF didn't have its own campaign like it does now until the launch of Legacy of Romulus, nearly 4 years after the game launched. Hell, if I remember correctly, KDF wasn't even playable at launch intitially, but I could be wrong. You can lay the blame for that at Atari's feet, as they are the ones that forced Cryptic to release an unfinished product.

The release of ships is also tied to player population: More people play fed, so Cryptic and PWE are going to focus on what is going to make them the most money, and since this is a F2P game...

It sucks, but it is what it is, unfortunately.

All that being said: I had the most fun with my Delta Operative Federation character, followed by the Temporal Operative 23rd Cen. Federation, then my Romulan Federation. I'm holding my opinion on KDF because I never finished the KDF campaign to date.

[Sul-Matuul]

I’ve enjoyed all of them to be honest, but after a certain point they are all the same anyway.

I think in defence of Cryptic they are now releasing ships for each faction every time a new ship is out so no longer is one faction left to suffer from lack of ships, at least not at T6 anyway.

[Mack]

I'm a Starfleet kinda person, however I do like the Klingon side from game perspective. I currently find myself playing on my Klingon characters more as well.

[Bar'ol]

KDF; I like the stories that kdf side has till it mixes in with fed junk. IE: DS9 and what not. I personally hate how the story goes to alliance lol. On dev perspective it was bound to happen so they only have to create one episode for all three factions but yeah. Now there is a rumor of fourth being developed. Another one that will be ignored. Stupid feds

[Gustav]

I like the kdf story arc the best honestly, but the 23rd century feds are a close second

[Silynn]

Overall, I liked the Federation story (from introduction to 50) the best, as it was the most complete overall. The Romulan and Klingon kind of drop off around the low Lieutenant ranks.

I admit that it is due to the Romulan and Klingons being sort of unfinished and half-done. They are not true full factions like the Federation in my opinion, which is sad.

[Ned'ya]

I have played all three and the Fed is by far the most complete in terms of content, KDF have come a long way since launch, and with the introduction of the Romulans it was nice to have faction specific story arc's, however after this they seem to loose a bit of personality as the game appears to forget you're a KDF or Romulan character.

[gforce]

Thanks everyone! It sounds like the Federation still has the most content and most development, with the Klingons being more fleshed out than they were, but still a little bit short on some of the missions once a character reaches a certain level. And the Romulans being...well, Romulans.

[Braden]

I really love all of them. If you're looking for a really active faction go for the Federation or a Romulan-allied Fed.

[Hevelin]

I enjoyed the Romulan story line the most. Yes, the Fed side has the most content but the Romulan story really dug into what's it's like to fight tyranny from the inside. And I absolutely love their ship capabilities which require more subtlety than the Fed side. For me, the KDF side was disappointing; a bit too stereotypical in terms of character development..which is why I went with an alien instead of Klingon for my KDF faction toon.

But then one of my most favorite characters is my KDF-aligned Romulan Science captain. Go figure.

[Mack]

I loved the Klingon introduction and warrior story lines the most. Especially the one where you are in the Sto'vo'kor. Yup, definitely Klink.

[Dark]

I feel a Rom-Fed has the best overall PvE content, in the sense that it seems to have the most cohesive narrative.

The Romulan campaign seems far more interwoven with the faction-agnostic content, what with Sela and her ilk, and the connection goes all the way up to the Iconian arc. The faction-agnostic content (as already noted) skews towards Fed since the Star Trek franchise is about Starfleet, so being Fed-aligned meshes well. Being Romulan also handily excuses those "Would a Starfleet captain really do this?" moments.

For the faction-exclusive campaigns, I think the KDF is the most fun - with the caveat that it only really works if you play an actual Klingon - with the Temporal being a close second just for all the references and general neato-ness.