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The story is fairly good by MMO standards, and mostly held back by grossly incompetent writers insisting to cram a half-dozen or so major galactic conflicts into less than 2 in-story years (less than the DS9 Dominion War, for comparison).
However, Cryptic streamlined old content so much what is being presented as the main story doesn't entirely make sense anymore. That's because some fairly story-critical missions are now completely optional, and you're not all that likely to find them unless you know where to look.
Due to level cap increases balanced around old players with top-of-the-line gear, level progression for actual new players is somewhat broken. If you don't have anyone helping you out, you'll outlevel you gear fast than you can realistically compensate. That doesn't really matter early on, but levels 51-65 can be a bit punishing if you don't have any help.
The playerbase, on the other hand, is healthy enough, so if you actually ask, you'll find a bit help. The Steam forums are not generally the best place for asking, though.
P2W, technically not even possible in a game where PvP is pretty much dead. For PvE, it's possible to play just with whatever stuff you get for free, though buying a T6 ship that fits your play style does make things easier. (There's events for free T6 ships, too, but those may or may not fit the way you play.)
Overall, worth trying if you personally enjoy the story and gameplay, because you absolutely don't need to buy anything early on.
Is it worth playing? It's a Star Trek themepark, in theory set after TNG/VOY/DS9, but in practice the setting is just background, there is nothing to stop you running around in ST:ENT MACO gear for example. (well, apart from the insane price tag) Which is just as well, because there's a fair amount of "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold" level writing... (thankfully just like the shows, the good outweighs the bad.
Ships? About the only Fed-ships missing are background blips from Wolf 359. Every canon Rom ship is in, and most Klingon ships are in.
Shows? Barring ENT (which even then has a few bits; Daniels shows up a few times, there's a T6 NX and T6 NX-Refit, the ship that would have been in had ENT been renewed for 5 seasons, and there's uniforms, but basically no story content) every show is represented in a significant way, although some of the hero ships are very pricy and realistically a new player is not going to obtain ships like the T6 Connie; the Ferengi won a cultural victory in STO's timeline. (Edit to add - although, if you would like to learn how, I can post some advice; it's not that it is impossible to earn these levels of EC, it is that most people's grinds have terrible payouts...)
But, it is free to play, with arguably the best model going (it is not very F2P player friendly right now though; unless you build up a massive economic engine like I have, expect to be building towards a T6 ship over months because the Dil/Zen exchange is screwed) and, there is an event on right now that awards a T6 ship; you might not be able to finish the project this year now, but come next year you can finish it then. (there's usually 3 events each year that award ships, and there are also freebie events on a once or twice a year basis)
Other players? You are as involved as you want to be; you can join a Fleet (the equivalent of guilds and such like) of players and be social, and there is no shortage of other community groups too, and equally, you can play the whole game as a singleplayer game, barring the odd TFO and highly populated areas. As someone who once helped run a Fleet, I'd say find a Fleet who is active when you are, as being in a Fleet that is active when you aren't on is pretty boring once you run out of singleplayer stuff you want to do. But, as said, competitive PvP is a non-starter, not unless you have a high credit limit...
Apart from the 20gb download - if you plan to stay, you will want to download the whole thing instead of relying on the on demand patcher - you may as well try it. Either you'll like it, or you won't.
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Or end up 5 and a half years later feeling "I like the game, but I am disappointed about how it has changed since 2014, and I wish I had known then what I know now..."
Unless one meets someone like you, The Arcady.
Sincerely, you're an asset to this forum dude.
Star Trek Online (STO) is a free to play MMORPG for Windows PC.
I have been playing on and off since the start of Star Trek Online. I have 1 account that i paid money on and 3 accounts that are Free to Play only.
Positves:
STO is great if you want to play for FREE as a simple starship captain in the Star Trek MMO universe. You don't have to pay any real money to experience the complete Star Trek universe.
You can make 6 different faction captains : Federation, Klingon, 23rd Century Starfleet. , Discovery Era Fed, ( Jem'Hadar and Romulan, choose between Fed or KDF allignment ) on 1 free account. There are three classes of captains: Science = Support or Special Damage, Engineering = Tank, Tactical = DPS.
The level cap is now level 65, afterward you earn specialization points when reaching another level. Plenty of extra specializations and traits you can add to your captain to improve ground and space combat. You can mix your skill points between the three class trees.
It is easy enough to get to level 65 by playing all the episodes. Cryptic has put out seven full expansions for STO and adding smaller episode updates often.
PWI does give away stuff for STO. Check the website news often, check the store, attend in-game events, check your email. Check google for reward codes, either free or for donations on other websites.
Basic gear is plentyful in mob loot drops. Mission rewards and Faction Reputation grinding provide your higher tier gear. Crafting is the way to really improve your gear with grinding. Participate in an established guild to buy best gear with in-game guild currency.
Plenty of free cosmetic customization is available for your captains, bridge crew and ships.
Plenty of PVE missions that are soloable and a few Co-Op PVE battle areas. Plenty of missions and areas for you to explore with you and your four bridge crew. There is player created missions in the Foundry to try out. Plenty of Events to play throughout the year.
Free players get a free basic ship each rank up to tier 5, each modeled after classic ships from Star Trek universe. You can buy some extra tier 5 and 6 ships from the exchange, if you can earn enough energy credits or if you find free giveaway codes or earn enough dilithium. Completing tier 6 of every Faction Reputation will earn you a Fleet module to pay for any Fleet ships.
Has mini-game that you can send your duty officers and your fleet of ships on their own missions offline and you reap the rewards of their success and other mini-games for different activities.
STO is Free to Play friendly, with fewer limitations added to free accounts as other games. Usually the e-mail / chat unlocks with 21 plus hours in-game. Inventory and bank is big enough, has in-space access to bank and email. Free players have enough slots in the Exchange to sell items. Once you earn enough dilithium, you can earn store coin to buy improvements to your free account.
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Negatives:
Free to play accounts are limited in number of bridge officer slots, smaller bank, and bags space, and only have one free tier 5 ship.
The game is still very buggy, but it has been expanded, nerfed, simplified, reworked, and changed over the years. The game is pretty laggy at times. Lately, the devs keep breaking old things and not fixing much. Game client crashes and disconnections happen sometimes. But when the game works for you, it is great.
If you are into playing PVP, forget about PVP, new players will die every time in a match with veterans, DPS crazy players and whale players. Matchmaking is non-existant, and nobody in their right mind queues for public pvp anymore.
PWI is milking this game for money, but if you can buy PWI money cards they can be used to buy STO stuff. This game has Lootboxes with very low chances of getting the best stuff. You can grind for the in-game currency to convert to store coin, but it is equivalent to a part time job. Cryptic sells lifetime subscriptions at regular intervals.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it's hardcore P2W.
I am unable to find another example of an MMO that is more P2W than STO is.
Every piece of equipment is fully upgraded to Epic Mark XV gear. I have set pieces that you can only get from the lobi store. I have consoles that only come from C-Store ships. 7 of my 8 guns are diffusive tetryon weapons that only drop from the tzenkethi lock box.
Pay to win is that - pay to win. Advantages that can only be bought for money, and that are so powerful an otherwise equal free player cannot match them. The only thing you have even a slight argument over is Lobi items, because lobi comes from lockboxes or promo packs - which are C-Store items. The rest of your post actually makes you look worse.
What STO is, is pay to skip most timegates. (but not all of them; Reputation progress for example, is one they have refused to monetise, and I've seen people requesting being able to pay to skip that one)
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Now, not only are you ignorant, but you are really poor at managing your funds; by claiming hundreds of dollars for a single ship, what you are admitting is you are incompetent at handling money, because I'd fund a fleet for that. Let's break this down: (I'll get to the free to play mechanics later)
I don't know what options to buy Zen you have in your country, I only have English figures as the store won't let me see anything other than UK £, so that is what I will use.
£169.99 buys 24000+3600 Zen (note that from time to time Cryptic run sales on Zen) I'll assume that the equivalent USD option is $200 as £169.99 is roughly $200 US.
27600 Zen, which can potentially be obtained at a discount, is sat on until Cryptic runs a Key ring sale. Not only do you get the 20 keys, but Key Ring Bundles, have instant Epic XV tokens too. That's 12 Key Ring Bundles, which gives you 12 upgrades that are effectively free, as most people will tell you to just buy keys and not hold out for the key ring bundle that makes the method really viable.
Now, not only do you get 12 Epic XV tokens, but also 240 keys.
Which at 4 million EC each (I'll grant that it has been a while since I checked this) is 960m EC, which is enough to out right buy a lockbox ship, and the ~3-400% markup applied epic XV gear straight from the exchange where applicable, and still have a huge amount of change left over that you can use to play the EC market.
Claiming that you spent hundreds of dollars, and only got one ship out of it just means you have not got a clue what you are doing financially, and I pity you for your wasted capital.
For me, I'd be looking to Epic XV all of the characters I actually play of my 22 level 65 characters for that kind of investment (granted, that is only 8 or 9 of them) and now I will cover how I would do that.
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OP - this is the bit that will be of interest to you if you decide to stay.
First of all, timing:
The anniversary event has these things called Omega molecules. Basically, play a minigame, get these Omega molecules, then R&D them into Omega Tech Upgrades.
These tech upgrades have the second best (pedantically third, but you can't get Tribble upgrades on Holodeck) upgrade chance, after the aforementioned epic XV upgrade with the bundle.
Then, you wait for an upgrade weekend, and get all the stuff ready before then.
When upgrading:
If you are using crafted gear, or lockbox weapon drops, start upgrading from Mk II. (with lockbox weapons, open them on a level 9 or so character, do not open them on your high levelled characters) And also, do NOT try looping round after Mk VIII or Mk IX, because the cost gets hideous if you do. If it doesn't go Epic by the time the Omega tech upgrade runs out, abandon it. (this is much, much cheaper, if wasteful; you may find you can sell the failures, but it isn't likely)
If it does go Epic, you then use Phoenix upgrades to push the mark increases; they are the best value for resources spent, even for a max level crafter criting every time, superior tech upgrades can't come close on value for investment.
With gear that can only start at Mk XII at best, or has very high obtaining costs, then you will have to do it the expensive way of going Mk XV to Mk XV, or, obtain multiples and do the upgrades from Mk XII-XV. The latter is better if the obtaining is easier. Going back to the key ring bundle upgrade, it is these items you use it on.
Total cost? After writing off failures as a total loss, you should be getting Mk XV lockbox weapons for around 10-12m EC, 8m EC if you were using crafted weapons. If they got to UR at least, then it's worth researching trying to sell them to recoup costs.
Now, you can upgrade when there isn't an upgrade weekend, but why pay twice as much for the same asset?
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"But CBR JGWRR, I'm a new player who doesn't have 22 level 65s to spam admiralty and another 13 level 11s to turn in contraband with, and doesn't have Delta, Temporal and Gamma recruits and doesn't have 5 years worth of freebie ships, and whatever else, what can I do?"
Glad you asked.
This is where we go back to the pay to skip timegates thing - you either wait and get the thing for free, or, you pay to have it now. The ONLY purely paid for items on STO are the Lifetime Subscriber items, and no one says those are overpowered, because nearly all of it is cosmetic items fundamentally.
Now, we'll consider the C-Store that I mentioned earlier.
The C-Store uses Zen. Now, Zen can be bought, and I have already explained the best use of Zen to convert into EC (to clarify, just in case it isn't obvious, Energy Credits; even though that EC is used the way the shows used gold pressed latinum) which you can then convert into other resources.
It can also be obtained by buying Zen with Dil on the Dil/Zen exchange. Now, the rates are really bad for a Dil grinder right now; I remember thinking that it was expensive when it got to a third of what it is currently...
But, that doesn't change that, over a period of just over four months, a single character can buy a C-Store T6 ship. (remember - ship sales are frequent enough that you should consider the price as at 20% off, not full price, just have patience and wait for the sale)
Whereas, paying money just meant you got the ship 4 months earlier. I'm not judging either way, STO *needs* both kinds of player, just stating the options. I also would not spend 2400 Zen on a T6 ship, as I would say that the Zen is much better off being invested elsewhere in your account - the Elite Starter Pack for definite if it is still available. (not to be confused with the Elite Services Starter Pack, which has single character use only) If that isn't, EC cap removal and the account bank, and more character slots.
And again, I've already mentioned it, but it bears repeating: several times a year, Cryptic runs "grind for a month, get a ship" events - Summer, Winter, and the Anniversary. Also announced today is a new event awarding an Elachi ship (Cryptic's expansion upon the mushroom-like aliens from an ST:ENT episode) which together means that even someone who is purely a free player can get a T6 ship.
As a new player therefore, by say, end of December this year, you could reasonably have 3 T6 ships, and by then they'll also, hopefully, run an upgrade weekend.
With a new player, you'll have to use superior tech upgrades as I doubt they'll rerun a phoenix weekend in time and unless you are very good at investment funds you won't have the EC for Omegas, however, the principles remain the same, what changes is you have much lower upgrade odds, and realistically, you could consider settling for UR rather than Epic.
Lastly, EC generation: Playing the market is the best way. Right now, we have the summer event; Lohlunat Favors are dropping down into the viable buy pricepoint, and by December they should recover to their usual value, meaning every Favor gotten now is pure profit.
Using rental floaters, which you will want to replace, you should be able to get 3 characters through the Horga'hn Hunt, which is the best paying event on the cycle. Do it 3 times a day and one dance, and you get a stack of 999, which later on in the year and into next year, you can sell for 10m EC plus.
Stockpile (and then liquidate at the right time) enough of them, and you could get enough to buy a Lobi or Lockbox ship off the exchange.
The other advantage of the Horga'hn Hunt is that on a random basis it gives you bird eggs. It is hit and miss - some of my characters haven't had one, another one of my characters has 20 of them - but, each bird raised is either 60 marks of your choice, or 100 marks of your choice should they become a tufted bird. That is, it the two weeks left, that's potentially one Reputation supplied with enough marks to get to T6 with the bonus for completing T5 included.
I have to stop here as I have to be awake early in the morning; if there's a point you want more details on, say so, because despite possible appearance to the contrary I am being concise, and there is a bit of simplification of the processes going on. But, you can summarise all of this as one sentence - STO is not pay to win, it is pay to skip timegates, because instead of grinding for years building up, you could blow a week's wages and fund your gameplay for the rest of the game's lifespan. Either way, the final result is available to everyone should they put the effort in, which is the way it should be; apart from the LTS, there is no item a free to play player cannot get. It just takes longer, as Cryptic's business model relies on people getting bored and skipping the wait.
Edit for typos.
No, STO is the most P2W game in the entire MMO industry.
Fact.
I've dropped probably over $1000 in STO over the years I've been playing it. I had a hardcore gambling addiction, and STO was my poison.
No one can tell me STO isn't gambling. The P2W formula of it exploits addiction.
Everything you could do to progress in the game as a $ value assigned to it to skip the grinding.
For ♥♥♥♥♥ sake look at the dilithium store. WTF is the point of it, other than to provide addicts with an easy way to progress?
The experience boosts, the reputation mark boosts, the fleet credit boosts, the fleet mark boosts, there are OTHER boosts! I can't remember them all, because STO is DROWNING IN BOOSTS!!!
Then the upgrade system, which requires BOOSTS and DILITHIUM.
Then there's the lockboxes.
This is a game packed with slot machines.
Repeat after me: P2W is not a synonym for 'unethical', P2W is not a synonym for 'greedy', P2W is not a synonym for 'exploitative', and P2W is not a synonym for 'gambling-like mechanisms'.
Therefore, no matter how heavily STO is leaning into unethical, greedy, exploitative gambling-like mechanisms, that doesn't actually make it P2W.
If you're not prone to exploitative gambling-like mechanisms, and aren't an ego wanker obsessing over being top dog in a dead PvP environment,you can do just about anything in STO without spending much at all, so it's not P2W.
TL;DR: Don't incorrectly conflate P2W and loot boxes.
It certainly does. I dropped the money and I have all the best stuff.
I'd be willing to bet I'm at the top 1% of players when it comes to awesome stuff.
How many have a rechargeable shield battery? You won't find it on the exchange because it costs more than the 2 billion EC cap. If you want one now you have to trade multiple ships for it. I bought one years ago when they could still be bought on the exchange. How did I pay for it? Selling master keys.
$$$ for the win. That's what I did.
You didn't read the (whole) reply, did you?
Too bad, I personally think a bout of asswhooping has never been dealt more graciously and explicit than this.
No asses have been whooped. He just posted ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
You're in denial.