1. You would think that (about races), and it is true for the pure F2P portion of the game, but there's a reason for STO cash shop race unlocks and NPC unlocks to be in the cash shop. Now granted, they're only that extra 0.01% better than non-cash races/NPCs, and the cash shop prices are totally overcharged. But still.
Also, while gear isn't race-locked, ships are faction-locked (which is the same as race-locked for the most part). If you bought a Federation ship in the cash shop, it's unlocked on the account for all your Federation PCs. But your Romulan/Klingon faction PCs are SOL and need to buy their own version of that ship ($$$!).
Professions, though, are better balanced than GW2. Of course, the devs have the benefit of having much less to balance given there's only a small group of skills that's actually tied to each profession.
I like Spock. :p
But I still picked engineer class over science because I'm an engineer. Most players tend to pick tactical as their first/main class because pew-pew.
2. There usually turns out to be a set that's determined to be best in slot for a particular role, as determined by the hardcore players who can crunch the numbers. However, whether the gear in question is all affordable is another thing.
2c. Putting power creep on gear isn't all that much better than specs. At least with GW2, you're getting a whole game with the HOT purchase. With STO, while some new gear are available directly from gameplay, the ones that are released alongside new ships (and the new ships themselves which determine what gear and how many you can slot) are cash shop.
To put it in perspective, the Ent-D class which was 50% on sale yesterday cost 1500 zen, which is $15. It comes with a unique console that's part of a set of three. Buying all three ships (and their console set) at normal prices is $65. And then there's the ships that are cash shop AND RNG.
5. For top tier competitive, I guess so. Not that STO is all that serious about the competitive scheme (I don't think there was any expectation of "esports" from day 1).
Honestly, I think the biggest draw of the game is the branding and the fact that Hollywood has no plans to continue the franchise in the prime timeline past ST:Nemesis. People come to see the familiar names (people, voiceovers, planets, races, ships) and play SIMs with them.
Also, if we're talking "challenging content", GW2 is probably better at it than STO. There's more modes of gameplay, and the top tier PvE is harder (high fractals & raids), with various different rewards in each mode. STO has pretty easy general PvE, and harder instanced group dungeon type stuff, and that's it.
6. There's two other things that STO has over GW2, though.
One is the test server, which is open to all users, and let people see patches before they're pushed to live. It gives people a good idea before hand of incoming changes (like the balance patch), and a high level of transparency to the dev activities. It's also supposed to help catch bugs, though there are still a number of bugs that make it past into live (which is why I'm so much more tolerant of GW2 bugs).
The other is the foundry, which is basically player made missions. It's a system that's present in all PWE productions, I think, and it's pretty good. Now, there is a bunch of missions that are just basic farm-mobs for drops instances. But there are also a good number of missions which are people indulging in world building and story telling which are pretty awesome.
7. As for what else GW has over STO, I would have to say the preview/wardrobe/transmutation system. Also the effect of many gear/items on your looks.
In STO, most gear don't add anything to you or or ship's appearance, and the ones that do aren't noted to do so in the in-game tooltip, so you have to research the wiki to find them. Also, those gear may look very different on different ships, so it's really hard to predict how they'll look for you without getting the gear first. And if you don't like it, you just wasted all that time/money.
Also, legendaries. Shinies that you can (eventually) obtain in PvE and swap the stats on. Though stat-swapping ascended is a close second after that. Nothing even close to that in convenience on STO. You want a slightly different gear, you shell out the money or farm the things to get it.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2017-03-22 03:34 pm (UTC)Also, while gear isn't race-locked, ships are faction-locked (which is the same as race-locked for the most part). If you bought a Federation ship in the cash shop, it's unlocked on the account for all your Federation PCs. But your Romulan/Klingon faction PCs are SOL and need to buy their own version of that ship ($$$!).
Professions, though, are better balanced than GW2. Of course, the devs have the benefit of having much less to balance given there's only a small group of skills that's actually tied to each profession.
I like Spock. :p
But I still picked engineer class over science because I'm an engineer. Most players tend to pick tactical as their first/main class because pew-pew.
2. There usually turns out to be a set that's determined to be best in slot for a particular role, as determined by the hardcore players who can crunch the numbers. However, whether the gear in question is all affordable is another thing.
2c. Putting power creep on gear isn't all that much better than specs. At least with GW2, you're getting a whole game with the HOT purchase. With STO, while some new gear are available directly from gameplay, the ones that are released alongside new ships (and the new ships themselves which determine what gear and how many you can slot) are cash shop.
To put it in perspective, the Ent-D class which was 50% on sale yesterday cost 1500 zen, which is $15. It comes with a unique console that's part of a set of three. Buying all three ships (and their console set) at normal prices is $65. And then there's the ships that are cash shop AND RNG.
5. For top tier competitive, I guess so. Not that STO is all that serious about the competitive scheme (I don't think there was any expectation of "esports" from day 1).
Honestly, I think the biggest draw of the game is the branding and the fact that Hollywood has no plans to continue the franchise in the prime timeline past ST:Nemesis. People come to see the familiar names (people, voiceovers, planets, races, ships) and play SIMs with them.
Also, if we're talking "challenging content", GW2 is probably better at it than STO. There's more modes of gameplay, and the top tier PvE is harder (high fractals & raids), with various different rewards in each mode. STO has pretty easy general PvE, and harder instanced group dungeon type stuff, and that's it.
6. There's two other things that STO has over GW2, though.
One is the test server, which is open to all users, and let people see patches before they're pushed to live. It gives people a good idea before hand of incoming changes (like the balance patch), and a high level of transparency to the dev activities. It's also supposed to help catch bugs, though there are still a number of bugs that make it past into live (which is why I'm so much more tolerant of GW2 bugs).
The other is the foundry, which is basically player made missions. It's a system that's present in all PWE productions, I think, and it's pretty good. Now, there is a bunch of missions that are just basic farm-mobs for drops instances. But there are also a good number of missions which are people indulging in world building and story telling which are pretty awesome.
7. As for what else GW has over STO, I would have to say the preview/wardrobe/transmutation system. Also the effect of many gear/items on your looks.
In STO, most gear don't add anything to you or or ship's appearance, and the ones that do aren't noted to do so in the in-game tooltip, so you have to research the wiki to find them. Also, those gear may look very different on different ships, so it's really hard to predict how they'll look for you without getting the gear first. And if you don't like it, you just wasted all that time/money.
Also, legendaries. Shinies that you can (eventually) obtain in PvE and swap the stats on. Though stat-swapping ascended is a close second after that. Nothing even close to that in convenience on STO. You want a slightly different gear, you shell out the money or farm the things to get it.