>>I have a max character but I'm still fairly new to STO.
>
>My highest-level character (Cosmonaut) is a rear admiral (lower half),
>numeric level 41, I think. I often have this problem (if you want to
>call it a problem) with MMOs - partly because I get sick of the grind,
>partly because I can always be counted on to think of more character
>ideas than the game wants me to have characters, and partly because I
>just prefer the lower-level game.

I'm fine with higher-level ships but the endgame rep system just is no replacement for finishing all the quest missions. They are what makes the game feel like ST after all. I found myself reaching 50 before finishing all the missions, but YMMV.

>
>The last is particularly true of Star Trek Online. At higher
>levels the mix-and-match-your-starship-parts thing (and starship
>combat itself) gets preposterously complicated, and I'm just

I don't mind a little complication, but as I mention elsewhere in the thread, it's hard enough to get high quality weapons that I can't load out my ship the way I like -or- the way it should be according to the theorycrafters. I have to take what I can get. Just finding XII gear, let alone XII greens or blues, has been quite annoying.

>not into that. I also don't like the relentless pressure to trade up
>and go bigger all the time. My characters get attached to their ships
>and resent being forced to switch to new ones every time they get
>promoted, but they have no choice - the missions keep scaling whether
>they do so or not, so they'll eventually just get creamed. Starfleet
>Command is apparently either unaware of or unconcerned about what kind
>of ships its captains are commanding, and will happily assign someone
>who's driving a Miranda-class frigate a job that can only be
>completed by the likes of an Excelsior-class battleship (not
>that Starfleet calls them battleships), evidently on the grounds that
>he should be driving an Excelsior by now and it's his
>own fault for not getting with the program if he isn't. This is...
>not really sound military doctrine, but don't go by me. :)

At the top level there's fleet refits. But of course that requires both joining a fleet AND sinking enough time and resources into it to have the credit to buy them. That means being in the -wrong- ship for a very long time.

>
>It's why Swede's career has sort of dead-ended at level 22; I don't
>like the 20-29 science vessel options, but she can't go back to using
>the ship she had in her teens or everybody will get killed to death.
>It's kind of a downer, is all I'm saying.

Oh, I loathed all the early science vessels. They got much better with the Voyager, whichever class that was, and the Trident class which I loved. Pity I can't take the abilities of the Vesta or Dyson and make them look like the Trident.

>
>I was able to dodge that, kind of, with Cosmonaut, since there's a
>rear admiral-grade ship that can be made to look the same as a
>commander-grade one. Once I got him through his captaincy I was able
>to get one of those and pretend it was the same ship as the old one;
>but by then Problem 1 was so acute that I'd rather lost my appetite
>for playing him anyway.
>
>Mind, I'm not saying the other problem (escalating complexity)
>constitutes bad game design - I'm sure a lot of people enjoy
>the crap out of all that mathy min-max stuff. I'm just not one of
>them. I'd rather pootle around taking on Connie-sized missions
>with a Connie-sized ship, and since one character can only do
>that kind of thing for a finite time, I find myself creating new ones
>so as to keep my gameplay experience in the sweet spot. It's like a
>self-imposed level cap. :)

The inherent problem, of course, is trying to have a game that caters to both types of gamers seamlessly. Many games have tried, and almost none have succeeded.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu