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u/Cola_Convoy HE'S NOT THE CANARY! 1d ago
if you like Star Trek and want a single player friendly game? yes
if you want an engaging MMO with lots of deep endgame content and social systems? no
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u/Farscape55 1d ago
I would be surprised if you got an answer aside from yes on a Reddit dedicated to the game
But yes, it’s been the only game I have played consistently for the last 4 years
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u/PoLaR_XI 1d ago
Play for a day or two and the hook might get you! This game can potentially keep you entertained for quite a while with all the different ships and builds to try out. When you first begin, just enjoy the experience and be curious!
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u/tsukiyomi01 1d ago
Nothing else scratches my Star Trek itch like STO. It has flaws, some of them substantial, but it lets me fly around in an Ambassador class and blow up Borg Cubes while wearing a movie-era uniform. At the end of the day, that outweighs everything else.
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u/Vyzantinist 1d ago
Yes, if you're a Trek fan. Ship combat is fun, but bear in mind it's an MMORPG and not something like Bridge Commander, so it is more arcade-y and casual (until you get into deep endgame/meta stuff where you're looking at numbers, but that really doesn't matter for 90% of the playerbase). Ships are faithfully recreated from the shows, movies, even comics and other games. There are even bespoke ship designs in the game that do not really appear in any other Trek media. So if you want to zoom around in a Hirogen ship or Miranda class, you'll have fun with STO.
As top comment said, remember it's an MMORPG so there is a grind element. You don't need to spend money on the game to become top tier, but it does help speed things along.
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u/GhostofHairyRealm 1d ago
It’s free to play, so no harm in trying it out and deciding for yourself.
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u/FeralTribble 1d ago
It depends what you’re looking for. It’s a fun game to immerse yourself into the surface level of Star Trek.
If you’re expecting a single player saga on the level of something like swtor for example, you may be disappointed.
Still, the only way is to find out for yourself
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u/Palanova 1d ago
If you like any of the Star Trek tv shows or games, than yes, it is worth to play with it, even if you just do all the campaign missions and nothing else.
Also it is free to play, so nothing to lose. If you like the game, and want to spend some money on it, get the "energy credit limit" uplift and some bank slots. It helps greatly in the early stages of the game.
Imho do not buy any T6 ship at the start, level up with the "free" ships and when you reached T5, then maybe, and just then buy your first T6, you will know the game enough at that point to decide what to buy.
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u/RomaruDarkeyes 1d ago
I've only been playing a short while - last 6 months or so - and I've found it a very enjoyable time sink. I've been F2P for everything up to the last week or so, when I was about to hit the EC cap so I dropped a little real cash and paid for the cap increase.
Honestly for what it cost, I've had more than it's worth in entertainment.
Admittedly I am starting to run into a little bit of a wall in terms of content. I've already completed all the missions, and now I'm just grinding the reputation game, and playing the events.
I hear space barbie dressup game is where the endgame tends to end up, and I'm fine with that.
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u/DueScreen7143 1d ago
I think so. I've been off and on for about 10 years now, currently back on on Xbox with a Romulan and a Klingon toon. I also just bought a bunch of Zen.
If I didn't think it was worth playing I wouldn't have started a new toon or wasted actual real world money on free to play game.
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u/crookeymonster1 1d ago
yeah, just don't go in thinking it's got the best gameplay or graphics, but if you are a trekkie, you'll get tons of fun out it
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u/TerixSuldonis 1d ago
I think the game is worth it for the episodes alone tbh. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you will enjoy the episodes. And I’d go so far to say some of them are absolutely better than some of the show episodes. However the mmo aspect is a tad dated, and they will give you a T5 shop at 61, that can take you through the rest of the episodes, but if your looking to take this game seriously in like playing max difficulty content, you’ll likely need a T6 to do it effectively enough. Luckily in that department if your gonna be playing on PC the new campaign will begin soon, and if you can play enough you can earn yourself free T6 ships for playing the events all year.
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u/Leading_Historian299 1d ago
I played for the first time last night. Got through the tutorial missions. Did a couple others. This isn't enough time to have a deep opinion on the game, but I had a blast, and I've been thinking about playing all day.
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u/WaldoTrek Retired the D'Kora for Golden Nagus 1d ago
Yes and if you are going to start playing, I would start now. Event Campaign should start up in Feb and will probably give you some really fantastic stuff.
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u/Medicalknight 1d ago
Absolutely! I love it! I prefer space missions and flying but its very fun and challenging in all the right ways
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u/ultimacunt 1d ago
Once you get past the start up and tutorial it starts to grow on you.
You won't be stuck with the initial ship forever, you get new ships every 10 levels. Level cap is 65. And once you hit that you've only completed about 12% of the game so lots to do afterwards.
There's a lot of moving parts in this game. It's not only ground combat and space combat but it's also sending out duty officer teams and shit like that.
There's events that you can do after lvl 50 that'll get you better equips or upgrade tokens etc to better your person/ship.
I've played for a few weeks now, and I'm enjoying it.
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u/Bielzabutt 1d ago
fuck yeah
I've been playing for over 12 years
I still find joy in training my bridge officers for a new build in a new ship. Going out and testing out the engineering I've put together. Flying and running around in the beautiful world that Roddenberry created.
If you don't love Trek and are not a deep gamer. Why would you even try to play this game?
Gonna go jump in rn.
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u/thisvideoiswrong 16h ago
It is free to try it, so there's that. I can't say it's super exciting to play, but a lot of the writing and voice acting is very good, and the mechanics are pretty deep and fun to explore with calculators and such. I do tend to enjoy playing the spreadsheets more than the game. It does do a very poor job of teaching you those mechanics, however, and it does not generally give out top of the line stuff for free, so you'll definitely get the impression that you ought to be spending a few hundred dollars on it, but that is not necessary.
Note that an exception to that rule of not giving out top of the line stuff is coming up around the end of the month or middle of next, or rather two of them. One is the Anniversary Event which will give a new free Tier 6 ship for completing 20 days of event progress within the 30 day event (generally 15 minutes or less, but there is a 20 hour cooldown timer after earning before you can do it again, many things work on a 20 hour timer like that). The other is the Klingon Recruitment event which will give a known, pretty decent T6 ship with one of the best starship traits in the game for starting a new Klingon Faction character anytime within the three weeks, and then at some point (not necessarily during the event) completing a particular story mission with them. Both of these ships will be available to every character you ever create on your account simultaneously, and can be infinitely dismissed and reclaimed. Plus there are usually daily giveaways of smaller stuff the week before the Anniversary Event.
For starter resources, the STO BETTER site is put together by some of the most knowledgeable people around, who make most of those spreadsheets, and their New and F2P section has great guides on how the different build types work and what you should prioritize for them. Focus on the Energy and Exotic types as a starting point, it's very difficult to do anything else on the Tier 5 ships you get for free, nevermind the lower tier ships you'd get while leveling. There are also complete starter endgame builds on most of those free ships here on reddit, each designed both to be a pretty standard example of its type and to allow you to collect everything you need soon after or even before hitting level 50 and then start grinding out the normal difficulty TFOs or the battlezones to level your reputations and get better stuff.
For the Trident, Luna, and Ha'nom science vessels (plus the level 61 Intrepid and Varanus): my Strict Budget Build series for an exotic damage build, which also includes some basic ground build advice.
For the Sovereign, Vor'cha, and Ha'apax cruisers (for the Emissary and Negh'var drop Tactical Team): the Baby Step Series for a beam energy weapon build.
For the Hegh'ta Bird of Prey: my Quick Looks 1 build for a cannon energy weapon build which takes a lot of inspiration from the Baby Step Series, and can be easily put on the Klingon Recruit ship.
For the Jem'hadar Escort: my Quick Looks 2 build for another cannon energy weapon build.
For the Vo'quv Carrier: my Quick Looks 3 build for a hybrid DEWSci build, a bit odd but the best thing I could do with the ship given the budget.
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u/linuxfit 11h ago
If being a Trekkie is not part of your identity, then no, it's not worth it. If you are a Trekkie and you want to play a Star Trek game, it's the only game in town.
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u/BlueMaxx9 4h ago
I would say yes, if you like the ship combat or the uniforms and aliens in Trek. Not really if you like the exploration, diplomacy, or PvP. The game's strongest points are its space combat (which is very accessible even as a totally F2F player) and what we all call 'space barbie' which is the ability to modify uniforms, character appearance, and even ship appearance to build visual looks for your characters and ships that pull from a huge variety of Trek eras. PvP is probably its weakest point (Sorry PvP lovers, but you know its true.) Ground combat is...just not as satisfying as space combat. It isn't bad, it just isn't the main draw of the game.
The other thing I warn people about is that this is a very combat-heavy game. It does not focus heavily on the peaceful side of the Trek universe as much. Even when you do meet new species and have missions to help people, the main way you interact with the universe is by shooting stuff. The non-combat puzzles that do exist tend to be short, heavily duplicated, and not particularly rewarding for being 'skilled' at them. If you want to meet new species, and negotiate trade deals, this is not that sort of game.
Lastly, I have to say that of all the F2P games I've personally played in the past several years, STO is quite possibly the least punishing and grindy. Especially as you put more time into the game and do some of the special events and recruit events, you can pretty easily get to a place where you can do anything in the game on normal difficulty. There are no quests, raids, or zones that you cannot participate in because you didn't buy the more powerful real-money equipment. The advanced and elite versions of content that do benefit from real-money equipment are the exact same as they are on normal, just with the damage and health numbers turned up on the enemies, and for elite the optional goals are now required. You can experience all of the story and group combat content as an F2P player without spending a dime if you do it on normal difficulty, and you only really 'need' real-money equipment if you feel like cranking up the difficulty on stuff you are already doing or if you want a particular cosmetic.
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u/hivix 4h ago
This game has many bugs. Some of them have not been fixed for a decade and never will be. The new dev team just showed us today that they are as bad as the old one.
This game is heavily P2W and can get very expensive.
The game can be fun but so can others. If you haven't played it yet, it is not worth it.
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u/Responsible-Ad6707 1d ago
Absolutely. Especially if you participate in the usually simple F2P events and such
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u/Late_Election2484 1d ago
I did for 1 year , I liked it but can't recommend. If you got an itch try Everspace or No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen if you can stomach the jump scares at every ... Well , jump.
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u/openthespread 22h ago
Be aware there is a problem for PC with one of the mechanics that lets you convert in game currency to paid for content. The PC dilithium exchange is non functional due to the number of players with huge stacks of dilithium and a 500 cap on transfers. Unfortunately this means there isn’t a way to grind for the better ships from the store. This isn’t an issue if you’re playing on PlayStation or Xbox though be aware there is no crossplay and the PC variant is the original and gets new content first
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u/StarkeRealm 1d ago
Yeah, maybe.
So, two things: It is an older F2P MMO. You can play for free, but you're going to be soft sold constantly. This means the game can get pretty expensive, and, "worth," can take on a new meaning. Your patience is going to be tested against your wallet. So, I'm putting this out there as a fair warning.
That said, no other game on the market does arcade, Star Trek style space combat like STO. Ship combat is a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it. So, as much I said, 'hey, this can get expensive," that can absolutely be worth the price tags, if space combat really clicks for you.
The one caveat on space combat is that the game starts off slowly on that front. So, you'll have time to get used to the controls, before the complexity really starts kicking in. But, yeah, like I said, there's nothing else like it, and it is a lot of fun once you're up to speed.
One other major perk, if you're an existing Star Trek fan, is a lot of series cast members have reprised there characters. Generally, if you're interacting with a character from the shows, they're voiced by the original actor. (There is an exception with Scotty, as he's voiced by James Doohan's son, but that's the only soundalike I can think of off hand.)
So, yeah, maybe. I've kept coming back for 15 years.