I have boldly gone where many have gone before me and ventured into the open beta of Star Trek Online. (Thanks Ninthbatter and Polygamerous!) I wasn’t able to explore every nook n’ cranny in the beta considering I didn’t have a key until the final weekend, but I did get enough time to share my initial thoughts and feelings.
Overall my impression of the game is pretty mixed from the time I did get with it. Space combat is very strategic and enjoyable, but unfortunately the ground missions need a lot of work. I was also a bit overwhelmed with the interface as so much is thrown at you from the beginning. Now don’t fret, the tutorial/starter area does a decent enough job at teaching you to play, it’s just a shame that your first 15 minutes or so are spent on foot which is definitely the weakest part of the game.
I don’t want to be too nit-picky, but the feel of movement during any on foot segment is pretty poor. It might be related to my computer’s ability to process these sections, but control feels sluggish and clunky beyond any performance issues. I also wasn’t impressed with the environments (especially on away missions) given the graphic/processor load during these segments; they’re dull and generally not interesting.
While I wasn’t impressed with the environments, ground combat is where the game takes a huge step backwards. Ground combat is excruciatingly dated and feels very … non-epic. You’re given the ability to roll to “avoid” attacks and go into an aim mode but neither of these tactics are put to great use. This is exacerbated by the exceptionally dumb AI of your away team and the clunky interface to issue commands to them.
There were many times where my away team would just run straight into a room full of baddies as soon as I would execute any command to initiate combat; I’d slowly approach a corner and set up a potential LOS pull and have it go to waste. Ground combat pretty much turns into a chaotic mess with little need to utilize strategic positioning as the enemy AI is just as dumb as your own team’s. Everyone just stands around shooting/hitting each other with the occasional dodge and/or jump. Why in the world do the enemies jump like fleas anyways?
I’m not expecting full-on action/shooter combat mechanics, but even an inkling of them would have gone a long way in making ground combat a lot more epic feeling. Hopefully the away missions get more involved and/or difficult where having other players/captains with you on an away mission as you progress through the game becomes important. However my gut tells me that they won’t ever approach the mechanics present in other MMOs where ground combat is the focus of the game.
Where STO does shine is with the space combat. Positioning, strategy, and executing maneuvers by chaining abilities at the right times are rewarded in this aspect of the game. More importantly is that space combat is fluid and FUN. Once you gain the ability to hit evasive maneuvers to position your ship for a high yield photon torpedo launch after creating a hole in your enemy’s shields you’ll be hooked. Space combat single handedly ensured that I’ll be giving STO a fair shake once it goes live.
I cannot stress enough how rewarding the space combat feels after progressing your “ship’s strength” through skilling up your bridge officers. Skill investment is tantamount to progression in STO which is a new experience for me. I’m used to gaining experience and leveling up, but in STO you have to spend multiple types of points to progress beyond the usual equipment upgrades. This is an area where the game didn’t do a good job of explaining itself to me.
Some of it is fairly straight-forward, but it is pretty easy to get overwhelmed with your options early on and potentially spend points erroneously. When I was spending points to skill-up my character, I didn’t even notice that there was a scroll bar in the menu interface that had MANY more types of skills to dump points into. So this is definitely an area that Cryptic needs to improve or allow “respecs” to allow players to fix early mistakes. My biggest piece of advice is to pick up an engineering officer FIRST and spend all your points in improving his/her ability to send emergency power to the shields. It’ll drastically improve your survivability early on especially if you get overwhelmed as you’ll be apt to do. You can thank me later ^^;
Another gripe that I’m going to share is with the currency used in STO; there are TOO MANY types of currency in this game at the outset. You have your points for skilling up and energy for items, merit points to buy officers, abilities for officers, ships, and who knows what else. Then there are multiple badges from completing missions in various sectors and even artifacts from scanning anomalies that can purchase items as well.
Very confusing and hard to keep track of while attempting to familiarize yourself with the game. I was overwhelmed with all the various forms of currency in the game and I think Cryptic should think hard about simplifying things. I’ll have to write down every single form of currency present once the game goes live with the head-start so I can better wrap my head around it.
Finally there are issues with the server stability and Cryptic’s gross under-estimation of the pounding the beta servers would take. This isn’t Cryptic’s first foray into the MMO market and with an IP as popular as Star Trek is there is no excuse for just how badly they estimated the beta participation would be. I’m hoping this isn’t a sign of what could potentially be a huge disaster for the head-start before the game officially goes live. I could understand server stability issues once the game is live for everyone, but it’ll be a hard pill to swallow if those of us that have pre-ordered the game to gain access to the head start are left out in the cold.
Despite all of the rough edges I experienced in the beta I remain hopeful that Cryptic can capitalize on the sheer potential of STO. Their track record hasn’t been stellar so far with their previous games, but I’m hoping that they’ll address some of the more glaring issues with the game and put some polish into the game. They have a solid card in their hand with the space combat and if they can find a way to improve the ground combat STO could very well become a great MMO.
