STO Beta Review by Morloth

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Twystyd
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STO Beta Review by Morloth

Postby Twystyd » Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:43 pm

Morloths Beta review on the Epic Fail Boards

Well I am going on the assumption that the closed beta NDA is over so I will share what I know and like about the game as well as some dislikes.

First its divided into two different playstyles, space and ground. So with this your character skills are separated into two sets.
Character customization is very diverse once you look at everything you have to choose from that makes up how you approach combat both on the ground and in space.
You can choose a pregen standard Trek race or you can create your own including what traits that race has.
Next you choose one of three specializations: Engineer, Tactical, Science

Engineer is about keeping your ship alive through the use of shield boosts and other power allocation shifts. On the ground they focus on making turrets and mines as well as healing allies shields.

Tactical is straight forward combat through damage increases and modifcations to your weapons. On the ground they get grenades and martial arts moves.

Science is more about using your ships systems in different and creative ways such as shield draining and detecting cloaked ships. On the ground they focus on healing hp and other things (haven't played one yet so can't say much about them).

In a more wow/war sense the engineer is the hunter/engineer (duh), the tactical is the rogue and can do some tanking, and the science is support.

The next step in defining your character happens at level 10 when you are promoted to Lieutenant Commander and get to choose your first ship.

The three ship classes are Cruiser, Escort, and Science.

Cruisers are large with large power reserves and crew complements. They have equal weapon slots forward and aft and tend to do well with broadsiding tactics. They also have the best defenses (hull and shield) Cruisers have more engineering stations than science and tactical.

Escorts are the damage dealing ship, they are fast and maneuverable but have the weakest defenses. They are also the only class of ship able to slot the high damage cannon type weapons. They have more tactical stations than engineering and science.

Science vessels are built for support they are in between cruisers and escorts but have more science stations so they can pull of more tricks that effect other targets rather than straight damage and power allocations.

The next notable thing about defining your character is your bridge crew. You can have any number of bridge officers and up to 4 of them can join you in ground combat. They are limited to use on your ship by their rank and their specialization. Each tactical, science and engineering station on your ship can be manned by a bridge offficer and each station allows your bridge officer to use a specific skill up to the rank of the station. So a lieutenant commander at a ensign station can only use his ensign power, but if put at a Lt. Cmdr. station he can use his ensign power, Lt. power, and Lt. Cmdr. power.

Each bridge officer has 8 skills that are randomly selected from the pool for their specialization. 4 ranks of skills with one ground and one space skill at each rank. So you can promote your officers and they can use their ground skills although their space skills are still limited by station on the bridge.

Bridge officers can be obtained through quests or bought for merits (the abstract standing with starfleet) you then activate a bridge officer and either have him join the crew or train one of your crewman a new skill (replaces the old one). All bridge officers are customizable but unless they are of the "unknown" race you will be limited to what race they are.

There is also equipment that further defines your character as well as your ship. There is a variety of armor, shields, and weapons that you can equip your captain and bridge officers with. Captains get the benefit of being able to equip two weapons at once and they can also equip kits which give you different powers such as some martial arts skills or the ability to make a turret that restores allies shields.

For your ships there are different engines, shields, and other similiar things. There are also consoles which go into the bridge officer stations and provide static boosts such as magnifying powers and providing better damage resistance. Also there are a variety of weapons such as torpedoes that are good versus hulls and beam arrays that do better against shields, weapons have lots of different damage types as well as effects.

So you can make a science officer and put him in an escort and he would play a lot differently than if he was in a cruiser.

Klingons differ from the Federation in that they level up through pvp. Their ship selection is also more limited. Klingons have the advantage of being able to use any bridge officer in any station, doesn't matter their specialization.

So all in all you can make very different characters for any role you want. During CB I played a tactical officer in an escort and was tearing things up really quick. My roomate played an engineer in a Cruiser and was a great tank and also had an ability that restored my shields so if I started to take too much damage he could save my ass.

If anyone has any questions just ask and I will answer to the best of my ability.
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Postby TrollFunk » Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:50 am

Have been in beta for alittle over 2 weeks now and all i can say is;

Polly don't like that cracker!.

TF
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Postby Twystyd » Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:57 pm

Agree Funk.
Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion



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Postby Hall » Mon Jan 25, 2010 4:15 pm

Cryptic fucking sucks at mmorpgs, they use the same formula and they fail every fucking time.

Cryptic = Awesome Char Generator , Instance overload, Repetitive Gameplay, no heart no fucking soul.
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Postby Sirion » Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:03 am

Hall wrote: Repetitive Gameplay, no heart no fucking soul.


Sounds like pretty much every mmo to grace the globe, and it saddens me. Deeply.
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Postby Zeratulx » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:25 am

SW:TOR is the last hope for me with MMO's if that flops I'm just gonna play D3 or SC2.
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Postby Supreem » Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:14 am

Hall wrote:Cryptic fucking sucks at mmorpgs, they use the same formula and they fail every fucking time.

Cryptic = Awesome Char Generator , Instance overload, Repetitive Gameplay, no heart no fucking soul.


Agreed. I played for a few days got bored and quit never to return. Thank god for open beta. Saved me 50$.
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Postby Twystyd » Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:42 am

Zeratulx wrote:SW:TOR is the last hope for me with MMO's if that flops I'm just gonna play D3 or SC2.


I'm really hoping SW:TOR will be good man. I am not holding out much hope until either that or the Bilzzard MMO comes out PC wise. I'll probably try MAG and the FF MMO on PS3.
Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion



I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer. -Woody Allen

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Postby Sirion » Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:42 pm

A couple friends of mine have been talking to me about MAG lately. Sounds pretty interesting, but it's been so long since I've played a FPS (think pre DAoC minus the PS beta) that I'm not even sure it would be enjoyable.

Honestly, Ceregon and I have been playing DAoC on this Ywain server cluster and while it's not the same in terms of community or whatnot that it was back on Merlin, the action is still there and it has been pretty fun for that. Aside from that I've lost faith in pretty much every company's ability to make an MMO that captures what I personally want in a game, namely a form of endgame that's dynamic enough to hold my interest which typically is going to involve some form of a pvp endgame. Every PvE endgame I've ever tried has inevitably left me wanting and bored, after doing encounters 2-3 times I'm tired of grinding for gear and it's most certainly no longer entertaining. Meh.
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Postby Twystyd » Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:12 pm

Sirion wrote:A couple friends of mine have been talking to me about MAG lately. Sounds pretty interesting, but it's been so long since I've played a FPS (think pre DAoC minus the PS beta) that I'm not even sure it would be enjoyable.


Nice. We should get a thread going on who is all playing. It's obviously going to be better if we get a group or even a guild of us going. I know Nailzz is in and I'm sure Zera is bored as fuck. It would be awesome to have you and Scott play. I'll even hit up Kim, Chrissay and Derek...I just found out they have PS3's. Add your PSN names when you guys get a chance.

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Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion



I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer. -Woody Allen

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Postby TrollFunk » Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:22 am

Go GO WH40K MMO. :sleepy:
"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down! - Alan Partridge"

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Postby Supreem » Wed Jan 27, 2010 1:59 pm

TrollFunk wrote:Go GO WH40K MMO. :sleepy:


I'm actually tired of looking forward to MMOs. Every MMO I get excited about ends up letting me down. From now on I don't even bother following upcoming MMOs, I just wait till they are released or in open beta and give them a shot.
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Postby Elfdroper Gravelender » Fri Jan 29, 2010 5:45 pm

Playing wow and enjoying it abit. Pretty casual just Wintergrasp and bg's mostly with my Feral druid. Ganking in WG has become a lot of fun being a stealth class and all. And people are so clueless in wow i just run heads over lol.

It's so easy to gear now most 80's have pve and pvp sets. :toothy10:
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